TandemHearts

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The Central Coast Double is a great ride, very well supported and with gorgeous scenery. I, however, went into this ride nervous about whether or not I could complete it. At the beginning of January I wasn’t sure I even wanted to do any doubles this year. But as the weather warmed up and the rains ceased, I began to feel the urge to do something insane again. Yet I did not feel like I had trained with enough hills and distance this year. Most of my rides have been one or the other, not both. I did not even start seriously training until March. I knew I had a good fitness base, but still…The Triple Crown website gives this ride an Extremely Hard rating. At 209.7 miles, it is the longest single day of riding I have ever attempted. I counted twenty- two climbs in the very compressed elevation profile on the ride’s website. I’m pretty certain that many of the rollers were not included in that profile. (more…)

Spring has come to California! The hills are green, the flowers are beginning to bloom and sleeveless jersey season has begun! Get out your sunscreen.

Sonoma Mountain is a nice little climb, about an hour drive from us. After the ride, we reconned in the car another climb and did our good deed for the day. We stopped to give a tube and lend our pump to another cyclist who had a flat. He had already used up his spare tube. There is a reason we carry two tubes with us when we ride.

Click on the pictures to link to the gallery.

For weeks we’ve felt like the kid in Breaking Away – “The Italians are Coming! The Italians are coming!” Actually, the best in world are coming. The Amgen Tour of California is a week long stage race from San Francisco to Redondo Beach. Several big European teams have come to enjoy the fine California weather with a few domestic teams. We went to Santa Rosa for the finish of Stage One, but the big day for us was Stage Two. Stage Two included Sierra Road, a brutal 10% grade (with a few sections even steeper) for 3.6 miles. Thom did it in 43 minutes with 10 pounds of camera gear on the bike. The pros did it in about 15 minutes.