TandemHearts

King’s Ridge has been on my list of rides to do for awhile. It’s about a two hour drive north of us and there are no stores for about 40 miles of the route. Those two things made it logistically a little difficult. But everything I had read about the route made it sound wonderful: some tough climbing, some white knuckle descents and gorgeous scenery. When my friend Sarah e-mailed me that her Team in Training group was doing an informal ride up there and a friend would be providing SAG, I knew it was time to tackle King’s Ridge. This would also be my first long ride after having my bike fit done. Because I could not shake my nagging knee problems, I went to professional to see if my bike setup was part of the problem. It was. With some adjustments of less than an inch in various directions, my bike felt great and my knee was happier on the test ride. I knew King’s Ridge Road would be a great test ride with lots of climbing to test the knee and descending to test my nerves. Thumbs up to both.

I like to listen to music. Since I think riding a bicycle with ear plugs in is a sure sign of poor judgement, we have a set of small speakers that we can use with our MP3 player. Unfortunately, the speakers go through batteries pretty quickly. Somebody on the Tandem@hobbes mailing list mentioned that it was possible to build a converter that can power a portable GPS receiver from a dynamo hub. Dynamo hubs are small AC generators built into the front wheel of the bicycle, usually used to power a headlight. We had just added dynamo hubs to our bikes, so I figured we could adapt the idea to power the speakers.

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I commute on the motorcycle every day, rain or shine. In the winter I spend most of the time on the bike in the dark. From that, I’ve noticed that most bikes are hard to see. Riders wear black, non-reflective clothing and ride bikes with usually anemic tail lights. The one bike that stands out is the Honda Goldwing. Goldwings have a tall stack of luggage and every piece has tail lights in it. Inspired by the clear utility of this, I decided to add more tail lights to my bike. I don’t have as much luggage as a Goldwing, but I do have a large top case (AKA trunk). The Givi E-52 is the largest top case Givi makes and is large enough to hold two full face helmets. Unfortunately the optional Givi light kit is not well regarded. Admore Lighting solves this problem with a variety of LED kits for Givi bags. They make a kit for the E-52 that includes 4 sections of LED and can function as supplemental tail lights, brake lights and signal lights.

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On March 1, I rode the San Francisco 300 K Brevet (188 miles). I knew this ride was going to be a stretch for me since I have not ridden more than 63 miles since September. The ride started at the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge at 6 AM. Thom drove me over and took some photos. The start was kind of cold and the bridge was very wet. Riding across the bridge is a cool experience, but every other time I’ve ridden it, it’s been a little crowded and I’ve felt rushed. We rode across the east side of it, so I had a great view of San Francisco Bay. I was hanging back from the bulk of the group, as going around the towers can be a little dicey and I wanted to enjoy the experience. There were no riders or walkers coming at me to navigate around, so I could enjoy the view. The bay was gorgeous. It was still dark but it was pretty clear and I could see lots of lights and the various islands. (more…)

The last photo gallery of the Ridge Trail was all about the climb. The nice thing about climbing is that there is usually a descent to follow. Today, we embrace gravity and show a little bit of the descent.

Just a little reminder about how this looks from the bottom.

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