San Francisco to Marin Headlands

Needing to fight the unemployment blues, today Heather and I went mountain biking in Marin via San Francisco.

We rode right out of the garage and down to the local BART station. We popped out in the heart of San Francisco.

Our route as seen from the Golden Gate.

After crossing the bridge we climbed steeply into the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Its nice to lose all the traffic and tourists.

The trails where mountain biking was born.

Did I mention I saw Gary Fisher on the Golden Gate?

The ocean was beautiful from this hilltop!

Mission accomplished. We're down at the beach.

All we have to do now is get back up the hill and coast into San Fran for a relaxed diner. Great day.

Ashland

A good day at school...

After school we hit up Ashland's dirt-jump park.

Then I rode 18 miles to Medford on an awesome bike path.

Back to Ashland for some more bike jumping. On the ride home we found the skate park and rode out the daylight.

Remedy 9 Demo

The trails here are sick. I demoed a new Trek Remedy 9 for a run down the hill. The $4,700 bike has over 6" of front and rear suspension.

I have a race lining up for August 10th north of the Bay. The Howell Mountain Challenge is a rolling 10mile loop with 2 laps.


Back to school...

UBI pics

courtesy of the UBI website.

United Bicycle Institute: Ashland, OR

United Bicycle Institute

bikes, bikes, bikes, bikes, lunch, bikes, bikes-
then bike riding and talking about bikes.

Everything is going well, and I'm almost half through.
The trails here are sick and I will have pics...

Briones...

Another dreamy day hanging out in the East Bay Parks.

Tomorrow I'm off for Ashland-

Mount Diablo: Take 2

[I approached from the right side of pic, the West face: source WikiCommons]

Today was my idea of perfect. At the end of 6 hours of rigorous and gorgeous trail riding I can kick-back without the bike monkey on my back.

Mount Diablo is most well known for the amazing view from the top. On a clear day one can see the huge San Francisco bay, islands off-shore to the West, Yosemite East, and tons of Bay-area cityscape.

[Frog's Pond in remote region below the S. face of summit]

The weather was sunny 60's with a cool ocean breeze. I saw less wildlife since I was keeping a good pace, but managed to run a turkey off the road and watch a coyote pester prairie dogs.

[A natural rock slide used by kids at "Rock City"]

I didn't keep track of mileage, my heart rate, or GPS coordinates. I estimate that I climbed around 7,000' since the peak is nearly 4,000 and I went over a ridge at 3,300' and down into the foothills on the opposite side before ascending to the summit(which involved pushing my bike up steep lose rock).

To get to Diablo S.P. and back I rode 25miles? on wonderful bike paths (path= totally separate from road) leaving right from Heather's family's house. It's like a little Portland :-)

It was a rush to see so many new beautiful sights and panoramas at such fast speeds. I went home and watched the Stanly Cup Playoffs while eating a chimichanga, a sope, and sipping a soda. Bliss.