I was feeling so good yesterday that I went on another bike ride, this one perhaps biting off more than I should have, going all the way from our house on Grizzly Peak to the Berkeley Marina, and back, 13.7 miles, which isn’t much distance, but, with 867.6 feet of elevation gain on the way back, is a lot for a guy who has been on a bike five times in the past year-plus.
The route (you can see it here) was down Spruce Street
to Virginia, then down to the bike overcrossing on I-80 (where right in the middle of the span a woman was practicing meditation while the freeway traffic rumbled underneath, a meditation challenge!),
then through the Marina to the farthest point, with a splendid view.
The challenging part was getting back up Spruce Street hill. The elevation profile looks pretty daunting.
In fairness to me, given how little I’ve worked out and ridden in the past year, it wasn’t as bad as I expected. There were stretches south of Marin where the grade was just too much and I had to walk, but once past Marin I only got off one time (well two if you count the big, big rise right before Grizzly Peak flattens out just before our block).
And Hoo-Ray, the beast returned me safe, sound, and sweaty.
Humor me folks on this one post, I can’t tell you how great it was to be out there rolling again, feeling good, exerting. Here’s hoping it keeps up this way for a long long time.
Categories: Blogging