Jim Bradbury

The rain unceasing deluge has made riding a bit of a challenge. This past Wednesday, Ringtail and I attempted to do a Paradise Loop after work to take advantage of a brief clearing in the weather.

We had our Route 66 mindset well in place as we meandered more or less accidentally through Belvedere, took in some spectacular views we’d never seen on our previous 100 times through this route, and discovered a secret passage that transformed  Not a Through Street into a Push Your Bike Up a Steep Hill.

Then we ran into a work crew on Paradise Drive attempting to repair a giant sink hole in the dark. I guess that the scrawled "No Bikes" on the Road Closed sign wasn’t in jest. So our Paradise Loop became a slightly longer than expected Paradise Out-and-Back.

Finally, just about a mile from home, I broke a spoke rather spectacularly. Sounded like I ran over a champagne bottle. Definitely, a "what the heck was that!?" moment. The spoke snapped right in the middle, which I’d never seen happen before. When I showed it to the owner of my local bike shop the next day, he offered that he’d only ever seen one other spoke break like that, and it was on a K-mart bike.  OK. Fortunately, this happened right in front of a pleasantly inebriated Richmond dweller with access to a well-equipped toolbox. He zip-tied the floppy spoke parts well enough for me to limp home through the Park.

By the way, this was not the bike I am planning to take on Route 66.

Next up: one last longish ride to Pt. Reyes tomorrow. Forecast is for showers.

Anurang is panicking, and so would I if I had any sense. Not about riding Route 66 but about packing the Pac Tour bag. I’m going to try tackling that tomorrow. Anyway, Anurang didn’t want to spend more than a few hours riding today so no “longish ride.”

I awoke to the sound of… rain. But by 7:00 it seemed to have stopped, so we (Anurang, Bonnie, and I) met at the Bridge at 8:15 for a spin around southern Marin. First, of course, we practiced eating a big breakfast (a Route 66 core skill) at the excellent Lighthouse Cafe in Sausalito. Then, we headed toward Tiburon, with a detour through Belvedere to show Bonnie the excellent Push-Your-Bike-Up-a-Hill shortcut.

Then we did the Paradise Loop, which is now a Loop again, instead of an Out and Back. We were able to see the sink hole that deterred us last Wednesday night by the light of day, as well.

I spent the rest of the afternoon prepping my Rivendell for Pac Tour: adding aerobars (for comfort, not for aero), putting on a new rear tire, installing a fancy new cyclometer, switching to SPD pedals, lubing the chain, and cleaning and conditioning the saddle.