Monday, October 8, 2012

Climate Ride!

I had the opportunity to participate in the Climate Ride so I took it.  I did this with a lot of trepidation because, frankly, California is very hilly and I have never been successful in developing hill legs.  I know what those of you not in SF are thinking, "but SF is hilly -- don't you bike over hills all the time."  I used to think this too before I moved here.  Actually, you never really have to climb any big hills here -- there are bike routes to get you around them.  But I had a month to train, so I decided to try.  Every week I put between 150-200 miles on my bike.  And I bought a new bike, which was quickly stolen the week before Climate Ride!  So I had to buy another new bike.  Scottie 2 really did a great job.

We started in Eureka and biked to SF.  The third day you could do a 100 miles if you wanted (3 of which were a loop to make it 100 miles), which I did not, so I only biked 54 miles that day (so 320-43 miles for the week) and then the last night in camp I twisted my ankle and it was a bad sprain.  So I didn't really bike much the last day either (so 320-43-30=247 miles for the week).

Still despite the hills and the ankle, it was a great week. 

On the bus up to Fortuna to start the ride, we stopped at the Solar Living Institute.  It is an interesting facility. They have these old cars by the side of the road where they are encouraging the plant life to take over...

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We got to Fortuna rather early, so Ann and I decided to walk along the river.

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Day 1 of riding was beautiful.

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Team's first flat of the day -- just 3 miles in and the culprit was a paper staple:

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But a nice place to stop:

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We biked down the Avenue of the Giants in Humbolt Redwoods State Park. So incredibly beautiful and I obviously need to explore this area more.

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Day 2-5 later...

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