We drove up to Donner Lake on Saturday night for a day of cross country skiing on Sunday.  We were very, very lucky with the weather since it hadn’t snowed in weeks and things were looking bleak, but we got 8 inches of snow Saturday night and had a perfect day of skiing.  I chose to skate while Claire, Greg, and Cheri strided.  Here is a link to my skating.

The next morning, Monday,  Claire and I got up at 4:30 in the morning and drove back to Sonoma County for A1’s birthday ride.  Aaron had chosen a loop over Sweetwater and up to the top of Mill Creek Road and back.  It ended up being around 52 miles long with plenty of climbing.  We started the ride with 8 people and ended up climbing Mill Creek with 6 people.   For those of you who haven’t climbed Mill Creek, it is a dead end road that climbs up around 10 miles from Westside Road outside of Healdsburg.  For the most part the climb is pretty gradual until the final mile or so.  This part is referred  to as “The Ladder” and pitches upwards at over 20% for most of it.  I had only been to the top once before, and most of the others hadn’t been up there before.  It was definitely a grunt at the end.

So, I had an impromptu day off on Thursday and decided to do the Grasshopper loop on my single bike.  After having a great breakfast with Claire at Howard Station in Occidental, I took off at exactly 10:00 for my ride.  My main focus was to not push myself to much so that I would have plenty left over for the climb up Willow Creek at the end, and the 15 mile ride home after that.

Well, the plan worked perfect until the final climb up Willow Creek where I decided that I wanted to try to meet a finishing goal.  What a weird concept, the entire ride I’m not worried about my time, and then with 10 miles to go, I pick an arbitrary time and make it a do or die situation to beat that time.  Anyway, my arbitrary time was 3 hours and 45 minutes, and I beat it by 15 seconds.  Hurray, I think.  I was in a world of hurt on that final climb.  For most of the ride I had been keeping my heart rate under 160, but for the final climb I was hitting almost 190.  To make a long story short, I felt much better than I expected I would and the ride home afterwards wasn’t even that bad.  And no cramping!!!

Here is a link to my loop.  The first lap is the Grasshoppper loop and the second lap is the ride home afterwards.  I did end up with enough energy to make some taco pizza for dinner, which I thought was great, but Claire wasn’t quite as excited about it.

Oh, yea, I almost forgot.  Claire and I went up to Annadel on Wednesday and I got to ride my new Cannondale single speed 29’er.  It was a beautiful evening and we saw plenty of other folks up in the park enjoying the park.  Here is a picture of Claire riding off into the sunset.

We raced the Grasshopper this last Saturday.  There were 7 Hubsters out there at the start out of 245 racers.  That means that we made up almost 3% of the field.  Quite a showing.  Lets see if I can remember everyone.  From left to right…Claire, Handsome Jeff, Troy, Melinda, A1, Chaz, and Eric the Fireman.  Here is a link to the loop.  Claire and I were on a tandem as well as A1 and Melinda.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with this race, it is considered a “cross” race since about a quarter of it is on dirt.  It ended up being just a little over 50 miles long and had 5000 feet of climbing.

This year the race started out by heading up Coleman Valley Road.  There is nothing like a race that starts with a 10 yard warm-up before turning up a 15% grade and climbing around a 1000 feet.  Needless to say, we were separated from most of the solo bikes by the time we started heading down Willow Creek Road.  We had plenty of encouragement from the solo riders as we were heading up the climb.

By the time we hit the coast and started heading back inland for the rest of the race, the pack of racers had thinned out.  The solo Hubsters were up ahead somewhere, but the two tandems were sticking together.  We worked together like a finely oiled machine on the flats and ate up the climbs like a thinly sliced piece of chocolate cake.

The final climb up Willow Creek was a doozy with plenty of cramping going on.  Claire, much to my dismay, decided that we needed to stay on the bike for the “two sisters”, which are a couple of very steep pitches on Willow Creek that leave plenty of riders lying on their sides or walking.  We cleaned them.

We finished in fine spirits at the top of the climb and then coasted into Occidental after having to fix a front flat on our tandem.

Claire and I rushed home, showered, and then met some friends for a night out in San Fran.  We didn’t get home until almost 2 in the morning after seeing the Old 97’s in concert.  Needless to say, we were a little tired the next day at the shop.

Well, this Monday’s ride was terrific.  It was the first time this year that we got to ride in shorts and short sleeve jerseys.  It was a great group.  The ride turned out to be 55 miles and we averaged right around 18 mph.  This was one of our last rides before we race the Grasshopper this coming Saturday.  Claire and I will be on our Ibis tandem and Aaron and Melinda will be on their Cannondale RT1000.  They have it set up REALLY cool with 26″ wheels for off-road and 700c wheels for the road.

“Snow” at the top of Joy Road

A little trail maintenance.

Jimmy Neutron

Knackered Jim

Well, A1 and Jimmy Neutron joined me on my favorite loop. We were expecting heavy rain and cold temperatures, but much to our dismay, it didn’t actually rain hard until we hit Duncan Road. A1 must have had a good breakfast because he was riding quite strong. There were plenty of fallen trees in Willow Creek Park to climb over, and the last one was almost our undoing as we came around a corner a little fast before realizing that a tree was across the trail. We each, in turn, came to skidding halts only a couple of inches away from it.

Melinda in her new Hub Jersey

We had a great Monday Classic ride last week with just enough mud to keep Melinda happy. We parked in Graton and rode from there. Claire and I were on our Burley tandem, A1 and Melinda were on their C-dale tandem, Jim, Mike H., Eric the Fireman, Don, Paul and Michelle rounded out the group. Some folks were a little worried about how muddy Willow Creek Road might be, but as Claire put it, “it will just be a little tacky.” It was a first for Melinda, and she loved it.

I am sorry that I haven’t posted in so long. It is not for lack of great bike rides. We have been going out every Monday for “classic Monday” rides. This was Claire’s idea and it has been great. We have been sharing many of our old favorites with some of the young people who work at the shop. Claire and I have been on our tandem along with A1 and his wife, while Jimmy Neutron has been on his single. We have also had some others along from time to time. We have done nine or ten so far. I will post some of the routes later on.

– Posted by Chaz

We packed the bus up Sunday after work and took off for a night of camping in Santa Cruz at New Brighton State Beach.  Jimmy Neutron, A1, Melinda (A1’s wife), Claire, and I all piled into the Hub Bus and hoped for the best.  The next morning, after a breakfast of pancakes, we headed out on the Eureka Canyon loop.  A1 and Melinda were on their Cannondale tandem, Jim on his cross bike, and Claire and I were on our trusty Burley tandem.  The day before it had rained, but the weather was perfect for our ride.  Jim took off on the climb up Eureka Canyon, and when we met him at the top he had a huge smile on his face and was very excited about how great the climb felt.  It is a pretty gentle climb that goes on for around 10 or 12 miles.  After riding the ridge for a while, we got to drop back down to Santa Cruz We all agreed that the ride down Old San Jose Road was one of the best descents we had ever done.  After a quick stop at Pleasure Pizza for a couple of slices we headed home.

Claire has decided that we should be doing a classic ride every Monday.  Last week it was Pope Valley/Ink Grade, this week was the Eureka Canyon Loop, and I can’t remember what comes next.  It is fun taking the employees out and showing them some of the loops we have been doing for years and years.

Well, we got out for some rides on our “days off”.  First on Monday, the day the shop is closed, after going in for six hours to try to catch up on things and place some big parts orders, Claire and I got out to Annadel for a nice little ride.  I rode my 1FG up RoughGo, which seemed a lot harder than it used to be.  Either I am getting older or the trail is getting bumpier.

On Tuesday, another day off, we spent about three hours in the morning putting together our big bike order with Giant.  After that we packed up our tandem and drove to Windsor where we parked and went out on a nice 40 miler.  The weather was perfect, and we stopped at the Jim Town store for some chocolate pudding and a couple of Bubble Ups.

On Wednesday, I got up with the great idea of riding over the geysers.  It has been quite a while since I have been out that way, and I was anticipating a good ride.  I figured 60 miles or so, Claire thought a little longer.  Anyway, it turned out to be 85 miles with a good headwind from Cloverdale home, which was the last 25 miles.  I had run out of water after going over the geysers, but wasn’t worried since I was riding through Cloverdale.  I only had enough money for a bottle of water OR a bag of potato chips, so I just drank out of a hose and enjoyed the potato chips.  Needless to say, I was knackered by the time I got home, but it was a good knackered.