When I signed up for the Humboldt Randos 1000k earlier this year, I started looking around for 600k brevets somewhat near the date of the 1000k to serve as training rides. I knew I would be riding the Pinnacles 600k, but that was 3 months away from the 1000k, which seemed long. I quickly found the Willamette Randos Smith River 600k was scheduled for mid June, only a month away from the 1000k. The route seemed based in Eugene, a stop on the Amtrak Coast Starlight route, and I found an interesting lodging option in the International Hostel of Eugene! I contacted the ride organizer, not really kn ..read more

Late March is approaching, it must be time for the Hopland 400k! Time for me to emerge from my solo-perm shell and ride with (eek!) Other Randos! Covid has shaken up so many things in all our lives, and the local rando scene has not been exempt from this situation. Some familiar faces have disappeared, while many new and friendly ones have stepped or pedaled in. It’s nice to sit by and be witness to the churn though sometimes it makes me wonder why I am still here. I guess I must like it or something! For this running of the Hopland 400k, my eighth, I was not able to stay the night before at m ..read more

Sure has been cold and rainy around here! Some have called it incessant. Seems like whenever I have a break in my schedule to ride, mother nature suggests staying indoors. At least, all of this indoor time has enabled me to submit a couple of old perms for conversion to the new RUSA system. There are still several archival ones I’m working on and one new one as well. All of the recent slipouts on my favorite back roads have got me thinking that more options are needed when involved with attempting an R-12. And as far as mixed terrain perms… this year, I’m feeling ok about letting the trails dr ..read more

“Look what I found,” commented my Most Frequent Riding Partner as he stepped across my threshold recently. “In a free box on Fourth Street in Berkeley.” Held out for my appraisal was a black digital Olympus camera. TOUGH, it read on the side. Hm! A new camera for bike rides! Maybe that would get me out on my bike, I thought… Since the rainy December 200k, somehow I hadn’t found the motivation to ride too much. I had planned to ride my Mount Tam to Moscow 300k route in late December, but that was before alltherain came. During and even after alltherain, MFRP and I delighted in clinking our glas ..read more

There is no bad weather, only bad life choices. -anon. As mentioned in my previous post, I had a debilitating attack of laziness on the morning of the Del Puerto 200k, preventing me from attending that ride. Wellll it had been a hard week at work. Perhaps because I did not disclose the cause of my DNS, Rob offered to carry my brevet registration fee to the next brevet which would be the Estero Americano 200k. EA200 offered the possibility of some significant advantages to me. It was scheduled for the third day of December, allowing me to get my December R-12 installment out of the way before h ..read more

Due to an extremely severe case of momentary laziness, I missed SFR’s Del Puerto Canyon ride this November, forcing me to choose a permanent route for my November r-12 installment. DPC is one of SFR’s most popular routes, often the most popular. Del Puerto Canyon Road follows Del Puerto Creek which cuts through the canyon of the same name, and is just one of those very unique places in the bay area’s distant environs. I guess it is in the Diablo Range? Not sure. There aren’t too many peaks in this canyon with significant elevation, but as you ride through you can see the layers of rock emergin ..read more

Crikey! It’s been a long time since my last post. I just noticed that I have put in 8800 km this year in recorded rides, so I guess I have been outside riding a lot–and not inside writing a lot. Generating material for my blog! Haha. 8800k seems like a lot for me, since the past few years have only yielded about 5500k in recorded rides. I don’t usually record my commutes or grocery runs, but do record any touring, brevets, or local riding on my rando or mtb bikes. Unfortunately I did not get it together to do Errandonnee or Coffeeneuring this year, so that’s not in there. So where have I been ..read more

San Francisco Randonneurs Del Puerto Canyon 200k **November 2021 edition**   Amongst the tumbleweeds blowing around on my RUSA member results page there have been few rides logged over the past couple years. A single 200k perm in 2020; a fleche and the beloved Old Caz 300k this year. Still plenty of riding has been enjoyed, just not in a RUSA sanctioned way. Yet I do long for that brevet card with torn, stained, and soggy receipts inside; that tattered, stubbornly unchanging printed cue sheet; that rainbow of my comrades’ reflecto. Absence has made my heart grow fonder for those days, so ..read more

Coronavirus has changed so much of the way we live now. Riding bikes has emerged as a relatively safe way to maintain one’s health and sanity, but massed start group rides like brevets are not a good idea now. I do miss brevets, and after almost 10 years of riding them, the things I love about rando are not even possible to quantify. So I’m glad that the San Francisco Randonneurs came up with the concept of Virtual Rando this year to provide a substitute for our usual Point Reyes Populaire. But something I’ve discovered over the past year is the beauty and richness of life after rando. After i ..read more

Coffeeneuring final ride #7 November 21, 2019 Mileage: 31 miles Beverage: Kombucha brought from home in water bottle Destination: Point San Quentin Beach Sailing on the coat tails of the Richmond-San Rafael bridge opening excitement, Thursday night book club goes to Point San Quentin! Dan discovered a tiny beach just over the bridge on the San Rafael side. There is even a minimal concatenation of residential homes there, just on the eastern border of the prison. This ride happened to coincide with the continued abundance of apples from Dan’s apple tree, resulting in various of Dan’s friends ma ..read more