Thursday, June 26, 2008

Briefly

From SF Spring 2008


A quick update from this end...

I've been spending a bit more time on the bike lately. I took that promise to myself seriously when I got back from Europe. Being over there and riding quite a bit, I realized I needed biking to be more of a frequent thing for me in my everyday life. I mean, outside of the commuting.

So, once or twice a week I've been going on longer rides. A nice one I did recently was the Paradise Loop, out from SF, across the GG Bridge, down into Sausalito and northeast to Tiburon. The Paradise Loop brings you out to the tip of the Tiburon Peninsula and around its perimeter. It's about a 40 mile ride round trip, quite scenic, and pretty low car traffic. I also go on rides out to the Marin Headlands some mornings before work. In fact, tomorrow might be one of those mornings. It's a great way to start the day.

Last weekend, my spinning instructor Michael invited me to ride with him. At first, we were thinking of going up Diablo in the East Bay but it just so happened that there was a race up the mountain that day. So, we opted for Marin instead (pretty much a crowd favorite). He took Chris and I on a ride neither of us had ever done, climbing up and down several "hills", across Alpine Dam, and up onto the ridge overlooking Stinson Beach (also know as the Seven Sisters - seven mini-peaks up on the ridge). All in all, I think we rode 50-55 miles, but we took most of the morning and the early afternoon and enjoyed the amazing scenery. At the top of the ridge you could actually see, on top of the normal haze of sea air, a layer of brown smoke coming from the many forest fires that seem to have developed recently. It's been incredibly dry; the hills were browner than they should be this early in the summer. It's my understanding that June is typically much damper than it has been, and this year we find ourselves in a drought and with air quality issues.

Nonetheless, the ride was still really enjoyable. As you can tell:




Here's a bonus photo from a month or so ago when we went camping mid-week in Tennessee Valley (also in Marin).