|
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Who's up for a rain ride?
From today's entry in my almost-daily diary
(www.ChainReaction.com/diary.htm) 12/30/04- AM I THE ONLY PERSON DISAPPOINTED WHEN IT'S NOT POURING FOR A BIKE RIDE? Once again I was all set for an "epic" ride, and the weather report certainly indicated there'd be no failing this time. Heavy rain & wind from midnight-11am, so my 7:30-10am ride seemed to finally qualify for a real drench & wind-fest. I got everything out the night before (so as not to be stampeding around the house, waking everyone else up as I look for wool socks or whatever) and went to bed, secure in the knowledge that the howling wind and constant rain would be keeping me company in more than just my dreams. But dang, once more foiled again! I wake up not to the sound of wind across my windows or water dripping from the drainspout, but just because it was time to wake up (I do set an alarm clock, but usually find myself waking up a couple minutes before it goes off). And when I open the shutters to look out upon the world, I find it gray, but certainly not scary. Yes, it looks threatening, and yes, there's a light rain falling. Looking west to the hills, there's a small glimmer of hope that imminent doom is jus over the horizon. So I'm hopeful of the worst as I put on wool socks, thermal tights, heavy drylete base layer, long-sleeve jersey, shorts, waterproof pants, waterproof jacket, balaclava, shoes, full neoprene booties, helmet, wind-proof gloves and waterproof glove covers. BRING IT ON! The roads were certainly a mess, and the volume of water coming off the bottom of my front fender made me thankful that I got religion (regarding fenders) a year ago. But it wasn't that cold (about 43 degrees), it wasn't dumping (only mildly sprinkling), and it was only slightly breezy. Kevin was out there, of course, although I don't know if he really quite gets into the laugh-at-the-absurd mentality that makes me want to ride when it's nasty. But it wasn't nasty, and shortly into the ride I found myself removing the waterproof pants (the balaclava had already come off earlier) and glove covers, and we enjoyed a ride over seriously-mucky roads but without any serious challenge from the elements. In all seriousness, I do find I feel more comfortable descending on roads when it's pouring rain, since the traction is more predictable and the oils are washed away. Today there were several times, particularly descending 84 into Woodside, when it felt like your tires just weren't all that well connected to the road. One interesting observation- most cyclists apparently decide the night before whether they're going to ride or not, based on the weather reports. I base this on the fact that, on those mornings when it's really not so bad (but was predicted to be), like this morning, there's absolutely nobody else out there. Yet on mornings when the weather's much worse, I'll see a number of other cyclists out there, if the weather report had been somewhat favorable the night before. AM I READY FOR MOUNT HAMILTON ON SATURDAY? Absolutely. There's little chance of a repeat of last year, when I woke up to rain smashing horizontally against my window in 60mph winds, and wimped out. But, no way am I taking the rain bike. The Iron Pig stays home this time, even if it means a 100% disassembly and rebuild of my 5900. That's just the way it is. --Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles www.ChainReactionBicycles.com |
Ads |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
When and where are you meeting to ride Hamilton.
Mike Jacoubowsky wrote: From today's entry in my almost-daily diary (www.ChainReaction.com/diary.htm) 12/30/04- AM I THE ONLY PERSON DISAPPOINTED WHEN IT'S NOT POURING FOR A BIKE RIDE? Once again I was all set for an "epic" ride, and the weather report certainly indicated there'd be no failing this time. Heavy rain & wind from midnight-11am, so my 7:30-10am ride seemed to finally qualify for a real drench & wind-fest. I got everything out the night before (so as not to be stampeding around the house, waking everyone else up as I look for wool socks or whatever) and went to bed, secure in the knowledge that the howling wind and constant rain would be keeping me company in more than just my dreams. But dang, once more foiled again! I wake up not to the sound of wind across my windows or water dripping from the drainspout, but just because it was time to wake up (I do set an alarm clock, but usually find myself waking up a couple minutes before it goes off). And when I open the shutters to look out upon the world, I find it gray, but certainly not scary. Yes, it looks threatening, and yes, there's a light rain falling. Looking west to the hills, there's a small glimmer of hope that imminent doom is jus over the horizon. So I'm hopeful of the worst as I put on wool socks, thermal tights, heavy drylete base layer, long-sleeve jersey, shorts, waterproof pants, waterproof jacket, balaclava, shoes, full neoprene booties, helmet, wind-proof gloves and waterproof glove covers. BRING IT ON! The roads were certainly a mess, and the volume of water coming off the bottom of my front fender made me thankful that I got religion (regarding fenders) a year ago. But it wasn't that cold (about 43 degrees), it wasn't dumping (only mildly sprinkling), and it was only slightly breezy. Kevin was out there, of course, although I don't know if he really quite gets into the laugh-at-the-absurd mentality that makes me want to ride when it's nasty. But it wasn't nasty, and shortly into the ride I found myself removing the waterproof pants (the balaclava had already come off earlier) and glove covers, and we enjoyed a ride over seriously-mucky roads but without any serious challenge from the elements. In all seriousness, I do find I feel more comfortable descending on roads when it's pouring rain, since the traction is more predictable and the oils are washed away. Today there were several times, particularly descending 84 into Woodside, when it felt like your tires just weren't all that well connected to the road. One interesting observation- most cyclists apparently decide the night before whether they're going to ride or not, based on the weather reports. I base this on the fact that, on those mornings when it's really not so bad (but was predicted to be), like this morning, there's absolutely nobody else out there. Yet on mornings when the weather's much worse, I'll see a number of other cyclists out there, if the weather report had been somewhat favorable the night before. AM I READY FOR MOUNT HAMILTON ON SATURDAY? Absolutely. There's little chance of a repeat of last year, when I woke up to rain smashing horizontally against my window in 60mph winds, and wimped out. But, no way am I taking the rain bike. The Iron Pig stays home this time, even if it means a 100% disassembly and rebuild of my 5900. That's just the way it is. --Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles www.ChainReactionBicycles.com |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
I found the info on the Chain Reaction web site.
|
#4
|
|||
|
|||
When and where are you meeting to ride Hamilton.
If common sense doesn't prevail, we'll start from the intersection of Mt Hamilton Road & Alum Rock at 8:45am. --Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles www.ChainReactionBicycles.com |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
The NAVTEQ map has a dot called "East Foothills" right by the SJ Country
Club. I hope that's where you mean... In article , "Mike Jacoubowsky" wrote: When and where are you meeting to ride Hamilton. If common sense doesn't prevail, we'll start from the intersection of Mt Hamilton Road & Alum Rock at 8:45am. --Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles www.ChainReactionBicycles.com |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
Old Roadie wrote: The NAVTEQ map has a dot called "East Foothills" right by the SJ Country Club. I hope that's where you mean... In article , "Mike Jacoubowsky" wrote: When and where are you meeting to ride Hamilton. If common sense doesn't prevail, we'll start from the intersection of Mt Hamilton Road & Alum Rock at 8:45am. --Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles www.ChainReactionBicycles.com A little south of SJ Country Club. Better starting place is the school on Kirk Ave. You can go to ACTC web site and find a map to it. |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
If common sense doesn't prevail, we'll start from the intersection
of Mt Hamilton Road & Alum Rock at 8:45am. Let's get this more accurately: The ride: http://tinyurl.com/2ebeg The start: http://tinyurl.com/4ttkv At the red cursor. I prefer to park behind the Ocean Market, just off Calaveras road (HWY237) in Milpitas riding south on Piedmont to turn left on Penitencia Cr, turning right on Toyon and left on McKee which takes us to Alum Rock Ave and the base of Mount Hamilton Road (HWY130). Continuing over the mountain to San Antonio Valley and Mines Rd takes us to Livermore, from which we ride to Pleasanton and on to Sunol JCT, from whence we take Calaveras Road back to Milpitas. That's a beautiful 103 mile (7800ft) ride when the temperature is between 60F and 90F. I won't bet on 01 Jan 05. I got in a good ride to the Pacific today and got back just as it started to rain again. You'll notice that this is an ancient map and that only Old Piedmont is shown before the land was subdivided and a grid of streets developed. However, Calaveras Rd is in the upper part of the map and Penitencia Cr at the bottom. The Cursor is on Old Piedmont. http://tinyurl.com/6bwt3 Jobst Brandt |
#9
|
|||
|
|||
Weather outlook be danged, we had a great ride! I'll get photos up later
tonight; got a few projects I have to take care of while it's daylight. But, in a nutshell, it was overcast but never nasty on the climb up, with temps running from 47 to 36 degrees. Everyone spent a fair amount of time inside the (warm!) observatory which, by the way, does tours... even on New Year's Day! So I suppose we could have a ride up there and do an observatory tour as a bonus, such a deal. We did get rain on the descent during the last 8 miles or so, but by that time it was a toasty 45 degrees. Film at 11 (actually, that's about the time I'll be posting the ride on our website; I'll post the URL in a subsequent message). --Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles www.ChainReactionBicycles.com |
#10
|
|||
|
|||
Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:
Weather outlook be danged, we had a great ride! I'll get photos up later tonight; got a few projects I have to take care of while it's daylight. But, in a nutshell, it was overcast but never nasty on the climb up, with temps running from 47 to 36 degrees. Everyone spent a fair amount of time inside the (warm!) observatory which, by the way, does tours... even on New Year's Day! So I suppose we could have a ride up there and do an observatory tour as a bonus, such a deal. We did get rain on the descent during the last 8 miles or so, but by that time it was a toasty 45 degrees. For those in the East Bay, the ride up Diablo was very nice as well. However we were stopped at Juniper Camp (3000' level) by a ranger who indicated the road up was closed due to snow and ice. That was also about the bottom of the cloud layer so there wasn't much likelihood of good views farther up. Stopped at the junction where a club member who opted not to ride was kind enough to meet us with hot chocolate and coffee and then continued down to the sunshine in Danville. |
|
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
54th Birthday Ride | Olebiker | General | 12 | November 17th 04 03:09 AM |
First rain ride of the season | Mike Jacoubowsky/Chain Reaction Bicycles | Rides | 33 | October 22nd 04 12:04 AM |
Hollywood, Music, Record Holders Gun for Chicago | Cycle America/Nat. Bicycle Greenway | Recumbent Biking | 0 | January 26th 04 05:11 PM |
RR: Vermont 50 mile ride and run | slartibartfast | Mountain Biking | 5 | October 1st 03 02:05 AM |
2003 RSVP (post ride ramblings) | William Higley, Sr. | Recumbent Biking | 0 | August 11th 03 02:07 AM |