Over the river and through the vineyards

I did two training rides this weekend with the Jill B Nimble group. First, the Sacramento "jills" went for a ride along the Sacramento River to the South of my house. We started at my house at 7:30 -- or we attempted to start at 7:30. One of our cyclist's bike was not functioning when she got there. Could have been several reasons for it, but I'm guessing it had something to do with taking it to REI's bike shop 'mechanics.' I couldn't figure out why the brake wasn't functioning, so I decided to give her my bike (after I'd lowered the seat). That meant I was riding my fixed gear for 20 miles. Not so bad -- good training, good cadence monitoring, and a fun ride all around. Just harder to speed up and slow down when trying to check in on riders.

I think we're finding out as a group that riding is a lot more fun and that we're a lot better at it than we thought we would be.
One of the group said she isn't in shape and couldn't go any faster -- I asked her to keep up a 15mph pace for a mile and a half or so and jumped in behind her. I clocked her at a steady 18mph the whole way. I think she's a closet speed-racer.

We did a 20-mile out and back, with a little speed at the end. We've got some hill training ahead of us -- woo hoo.
Vanessa says, after I take her picture, "You're taking pictures?? I'm glad I wore my outfit today." She has a new "skort" and jersey.


After that ride, I hopped in my car (with my road bike) and drove to Calistoga to meet the coaches of the Santa Rosa Jill B Nimble team and map out a route that the teams will do together. It was a gorgeous day, if bit windy. The ride was amazing -- not a really hard route, but it will be 50 miles of rolling hills.

And this is the view:
















[That photo didn't come out well because I was trying to maintain my pace. So it goes.]
We met a group of three guys who were on a 5-day bike tour. One of the women got their email addresses because she was inspired to do some touring next summer. They were pretty neat guys -- from Minneapolis Minnesota (they started their trip in Oakland, CA, just in case you were about to fall for the same line I did -- "You started in Minnesota?!?" Right.) -- not necessarily prepared for all the climbing they were doing, but they had great bikes.

Two of them had Surly frames -- one said he built his bike up from the frame. Two of them had Brooks saddles. I was a little envious. They were spending the night at Harbin Hot Springs and continuing on to Santa Rosa and Sebastopol and then the coast. More envy!

We finished up our ride -- quite a headwind for a while, and I was getting tired, so the pace heading back was not quite what it was going out -- and changed the route a little to make it as palatable as possible -- we're going to have to make our groups cross highway 29 twice. But we'll also be out there early in the morning so traffic won't be so bad. I'm really excited to ride this route again. But first, we have this weekend of riding and then it's labor day already, and we're going to ride from West Sac to Davis for the Farmer's Market and back.

(Stay tuned for whale stories and photos -- just haven't had a chance to upload yet.)