I was in San Francisco on non-biking related business. But I am still happy that I was able to get a couple rides in with a good friend of mine.
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| Cameron the Trail Master |
I was eager to show Cameron my "Berlin legs." No, that's not some sort of strange innuendo about the shape of my thighs, but I suppose they are still kinda sexy. The point is that Cameron taught me a lot about mountain biking when we went to school together in Colorado. He used to crush me going up hills and then tear down the mountains while I braked and braced for a catastrophe at every pebble. But now after biking over 100 miles a week for the past year I wanted to show him my adherence to the axiom, "Foolish is the student who does not surpass the master."
The first thing that I immediately noticed about biking around Marin is that the elevation profile is pretty much the exact opposite of Berlin's. I think I gain a total of about 20m (~50ft) on my standard 13km (8 mile) ride to work every day. In the first 10 miles of these rides in the Bay Area I gained around 550m (1815ft). Yes, 2 orders of magnitude. Which was a good reminder for me because from Berlin I was under the impression that the world was flat.
But my winter P90x training and biking really paid off. I felt like I cruised up the hills and even felt up for another round each time.
The scenery is gorgeous. The two rides we did on consecutive weekends were:
Each one offered both spectacular views of San Francisco and the Bay Area to one side, and the Atlantic ocean on the other. For me, the highlight of riding Mount Tamalpais and around the Muir woods was the fog bank. As you can see at around the 1:25 time mark, the temperature plummets rapidly. That's only because the GPS unit take a little time to realize what's happening, but I assure you that the drop in temperature from 22C to 14C was instantaneous.
The reason is that the fog forms inside the hills/valleys but doesn't quite come up to the tops of the hills. This is also why there is a line where the redwoods simply stop growing - this is because they require a lot of moisture and thrive in places where they have access to things like fog. As we rode along the ridge we could see the fog creeping around directly below us, like flying in an airplane above the weather. At one point the trail took us straight down into the valley which is where we were envelopped instantly in the fog and the coldness that went with it. This was also a great portion of the ride to be charging down the hill with the view around us obscured by whisps of white.
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| Biked and then had to walk the rest of the way to the top of Eldridge. Nice Bay Area view behind whatever weirdo stepped in front of this photo. |
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| We were pretty happy to have biked up and around the mountains that you see behind us in this photo |
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| Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the road we road on around the Muir Woods is pretty much exactly on the San Andreas fault. This is what happens when you put a road at the epicenter of an earthquake zone. |
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| On the hill looking down as the fog rolled in, just before we descended into it. |
The data for these rides was captured by Cameron's device on his bike.
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