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#8536
11-29-2022, 10:54 PM
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Sic transit civitatem. Been loving nighttime city rides - school is nearing a fever pitch so my mileage is down for now.
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#8539
12-03-2022, 12:14 PM
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Out on the Bingham to beat the storm this morning. Up Peaked Hill, down to Menemsha (not a car in the lot at the beach, it's pretty gusty out), over to Quansoo, and up to Cedar Tree Neck. Paved, unpaved, double track, and single track.
On the little twisty trails at Quansoo I keep expecting to see elves and hobbits.
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#8540
12-03-2022, 02:43 PM
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Montezuma Hills in Northern CA
This past week I was out in California visiting relatives in the central valley, so I planned a few rides and used a bike borrowed from my daughter to get in some end of season miles and explore some new areas. One of those was the Montezuma Hills in the delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers just northeast of Contra Costa County. It’s about as close to the middle of nowhere that you can get in this heavily populated area of the state. It’s a slightly otherworldly place, with hardly any trees, scattered small ranches, and on this day lots of sunshine. At this time of the year the pale grass was all dead, and there was barely any green to be seen as I pedaled through the wide-open fields. But the strangest ingredient to this ride was the Solano Wind Project, covering the hills with literally hundreds of giant power-generating windmills, each several hundred feet high, taking advantage of the ceaseless winds that blow from the ocean through this gap in the mountains. It’s the same reason the Air Force has a base just to the north, where giant transport planes can catch the boost as they take off. Each single windmill is truly massive, and when you put so many together it looks like some sort of alien invasion! Occasionally the road would get close enough to one that I could stop and hear the slow, deep WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH as the blades slowly turned. It was a reminder that there is almost no place too desolate to be truly useless for the profit of man. After 35 miles, I pedaled back into the small delta town of Rio vista where I was parked and headed back toward Sacramento. It was a great ride and truly different from the everyday winter landscape back here in upstate New York. Plus on the way back to Sacramento I finally ended up exactly where I knew I would eventually go to if I keep buying bike parts–on Poverty Road! (All photos shot with my Panasonic Lumix ZS200 or iPhone 13 Pro.)
__________________
--- __0 __0 __0 ----_-\<,_ -\<, _(_)(_)/_(_)/ (_) A thing of beauty is a joy forever--Keats
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#8541
12-03-2022, 02:48 PM
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Davis to Putah Creek and back in Cali
For my second “new roads” ride while I was in California, I rode from Davis west out past the small town of Winters and to Putah Creek Park and back. Davis is one of the most cycling friendly towns in America, with bike lanes everywhere, neighborhoods designed around integrated bike trails, and cycling infrastructure as it should be–made so you can actually do everyday things by getting there by bike. Unfortunately, this also means there are hordes of UC Davis students on every kind of wheeled vehicle imaginable, riding or scooting every which way, and for the most part paying no heed to any kind of traffic rules. So I got out of town as fast as I could! Once out of town west I was almost alone of the paved trail that goes five miles toward the coastal range mountains. My first landmark was the graffiti-covered Stevenson bridge over Putah Creek, and it was fun to stop to get photos and marvel at the creative artwork. It was refreshing to find that the vast majority contained no signs of the obscenity that usually accompanies such exhibits. Shortly after that I encountered Winters resident Max, who was riding his son’s ebike home after dropping his car for some repair work in Davis. We rode together to Steady Eddie’s coffee house in Winters and spent the next hour gabbing about cycling and life in general. My 52-mile ride thus turned into a 38-mile ride, but it was worth it to make a new friend! Then I headed on west to Putah Creek Park, where I stopped to rest, then headed back east to Davis. The weather was exemplary, 60 degrees and sunny with a gentle breeze, and this late in the year, the “golden hour” of low angle sun for photos lasted for most of my ride back. A great day! (All photos shot with my Panasonic Lumix ZS200 and iPhone 13 Pro.)
__________________
--- __0 __0 __0 ----_-\<,_ -\<, _(_)(_)/_(_)/ (_) A thing of beauty is a joy forever--Keats
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#8543
12-03-2022, 04:12 PM
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One of the great things about California is that, even in the biggest crush of its population centers, unpopulated places are not too far away.
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#8545
12-04-2022, 11:41 AM
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#8546
12-04-2022, 05:02 PM
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Cool late fall day, 35 degrees, popped in some toe warmers and was comfy. No one out today, the most active in the 'hood were the beavers. As SPP mentioned, back roads were a little tacky.
pic 1.jpg pond.jpg beav1.jpg beav3.jpg
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#8547
12-04-2022, 05:34 PM
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Started off the day with a road ride and then off to the single track on the SB100. Cold, but manageable with the right gear!
    Sent from my SM-S127DL using Tapatalk
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#8548
12-04-2022, 05:59 PM
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Quote:
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#8549
12-04-2022, 08:40 PM
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Linear Mode
