Thought I'd cross-post this event to the forums here to see if any locals are interested. I'm planning on doing a run through the Calaveras Reservoir. The route is a lot of fun, with great views of the bay area and windy and twisty roads.

Only rules for the event are to use common sense, be respectful of other drives and enjoy yourself. There will potentially be cyclists on the road as well, so use caution on Calaveras road as it does become 1.5 lanes. Looking forward to meeting people in person. I'll be bringing out my gray/black Mini Clubman S.

.: START LOCATION
(PARK ON CYPRESS, 10:30AM)
Starbucks
367 Cypress Drive
Milpitas, CA 95035

.: END LOCATION
Ocean Supermarket
2 South Park Victoria Drive
Milpitas, CA 95035

.: REGROUP LOCATION
(1) Start Location
(2) Calaveres Road / Oakridge Rd Interesction (Dirt Lot)
(2) End Location

Route overview (~48 MILES): http://goo.gl/maps/L9DaO

.: LUNCH LOCATION
Freebird World Burrito
The Alameda,
San Jose, CA

Here is some more information about the Reservoir. http://www.ebparks.org/parks/sunol#activities. Please drive safe and feel free to repost or share this event with others. The more people show up, the merrier.

.: LOCATION PHOTOS

 

Nice.

You sure the StarBux lot is large? Doesn't seem like it on Google Street View.

 

Parking on the culdesac of Cypress should be plenty of space. I can post a photo to clarify that.

 

Oh okay. If not, we could always raid the Cisco parking lot across the street.

 

I didn't even notice the Cisco lot.. it's massive. Looks like we can take over Cypress road and spill over to Cisco lot if needed.

 

Nice, I haven't done a MINI run there since the old MINI Mavericks days!
I've ridden it more often though. In fact, I will be doing so on April 27th for the Primavera Century... the Wall is hard to do on a fixed gear, but otherwise, great loop...

 

Hope you can make it for the drive. I may sign up for the Century myself, I only know of the loop because I did a Low Key Hill Climb in Sunol last year.

You must be a strong rider to be able to handle a century on a fixie, changing gears makes things much easier.

 

Are you going to cross post at VWVortex again? Those guys were pretty cool.

 

The Wall fixed?!?! What gearing are you running?

Back to the original post, run sounds like fun, just have to be careful of all the cyclists out there on weekends.

 

Hopefully going on a Sunday in the late afternoon should have less cyclists on the road. We got pretty lucky with Boulder Creek during the last run. I expected to see more cyclists but there were only a few on the road.

Also I cross posted this a few places, so there should be a diverse crowd.

 

I ride road, mountain and fixed but in recent years have done most of my riding fixed, even many of my formerly road routes. There's a limit on the climbing, obviously, as the lower you gear, the worse it will be on the flats and especially the descents. On the bike I most often use for these rides, a Cinelli X MASH, I usually run a 72 inch gear (I play with 77 but it gets really tough in the hills) ; I haven't yet been up say Alpine Dam fixed, but I've made it about half way up Mt Tam the other side before I ran out of juice on that attempt. I do take it up to Four Corners on a regular basis, which is half of the pain of getting up Tam. Not yet though. As for the Wall, let me clarify, in two attempts, I have yet to make it up the Wall. get about a third to half way before I blow up. If I do a century on a fixed gear I'll tend to use a climbing gear on the other side of the hub... but both times I hit the Wall it was the early part of the course and I didn't feel like gearing down, so it was hopeless. Last time was on the 77 inch gear. Nope! This year I'll probably flip the wheel and give it a go. I think I'll have a 60 or so on the other side.

That's climbing. As far as riding long courses like centuries, I just find that with enough day to day saddle time, I"m strong enough or rather have enough spinning endurance, to do the longer routes. A buddy and I did Aids Lifecycle a few years ago fixed, and that was obviously a week of centuries, give or take on a given day, and with proper feeding/drinking, I loved it. I'm not going to say it was as easy as on a road bike. It was brutal. But it was possible. Now, is it rationale? That's another thing entirely. I've been riding for so long that the challenge becomes the fun part, so I started riding fixed just for a change of pace and fell in love with the mechanical simplicity of it. But I'm no beast. I know a guy who does DOUBLE CENTURIES fixed. I can't even imagine.

If you do Primavera let me know, and we'll look out for each other!

 

@3rdrail: whoa, you've got good taste as I ride a Cinelli Mash as well ;-) I normally ride 48x17 (~74 GI). Definitely love riding fixed as long as I can keep up and/or complete the course. The Wall is pretty steep, so I don't know if I could make it on that gearing. I rode up Henry Coe the other week and that was definitely slow and painful. Not sure if I'm going to do Primavera (especially fixed), but would be cool to get together and ride sometime.

 

Kreative: shoot me a PM, where are you in the bay area?

Yeah, I'm not optimistic about getting up the wall this year ether. Last year it was the last 200 yards or so that stalled me out. But the rest of the century was fine. I really love the challenge and frankly, I just simply enjoy riding fixed more than I do road bikes. That said, when I DO take the road bike out, it's fun to take advantage of it's strengths too, as I'm not used to having all those options like gearing and coasting and downhill etc so everything old is new again, ha.

Which CXM to you ride? I started with the two-toned gray first year frame, before they were calling them Bolts. I ordered the second gen green/white variant on day three of Aids Lifecycle, hatching the plan to arrive in LA, and swap out frames, selling off the first frame that got me down there, and riding a new frame thereafter for fun. That's the one I still ride, though I must admit, despite not being a Rapha guy, I VERY nearly went for the new Vigorelli in matte gray/pink.

My road bike is also Cinelli: a dark orange Xperience that was hard to find.

Man, sorry about the thread hijack, Clubman44...

 

yeah, sorry for the hijack clubby44, but i do hope to make it to the run on 4/7. =)

 

Hope to be there too.
Slightly dicier as I'm planning to sell the Clubman S, and it MAY be gone by then. But if I can, I will!

 

Bring the replacement car if you don't have the Clubman.

Sounds like we should setup a bike get-together as well. I'm not that familiar with the routes in East Bay and usually just do the normal routes through Skyline (Highway 9, Boulder Creek, PageMill, Canada, Highway 84, Tunitas Creek, West Alpine, Pescadaro) so I would be up for trying some new routes.

And speaking of bikes, you guys might appreciate the Zipp 2001 I have. It's my commuting bike since it doesn't fit all that well. Let me know if you guys want to do a ride though, I can bring my road bike out.

 

Club, that's a sharp bike. I've never ridden those frames before.

I do the majority of my riding in Marin. I live on the edge of Mt. Tam, and prior to that, when living in the city, I was always riding north because I liked to do loops that I could do from my doorstep rather than drive out. So I'm fairly unfamiliar with the east bay as well, except for the courses of the charity rides I do. And I'm sort of a go-with-it rider: I don't memorize the course particularly, just file it under 'BRUTALITY TO FOLLOW'

We should definitely set something up in the next few months, either down there or up here.

As for Calaveras, the sticky issue will be what will be available. If I still have the Clubman (likely, takes time to sell) I'll try to bring it out. If I sold it and am in a dinky long-term rental, probably not. And my CM wont arrive until early May, earliest. We'll see!

 

@Clubby44: That's a slick bike, and I was interested in your bikes from a previous post with your old wheels on your wall.

I do most of my riding in the South Bay, and have been out to the East Bay only through Calaveras to Palomaras. I am down to get together for a ride although I'm not much of a climber so only if you guys don't mind waiting for me ;-)

 

I want to go but my car is leaking oil from the turbo
I can hangout but have to bring my other car dodge neon
My girlfriend has errands to do so no picture

 

Feel free to join us with the Neon as well. Hopefully you can get the Mini back on the road for the next run.

 

Forecast says it's going to rain... :/

 

Clear. High of 66F. Winds from the West at 5 to 20 mph.

Which forecast are you looking at (look at Sunol, CA)? I wouldn't put too much faith in the extended weather forecasts either.

 

Yeah, extended weather forecasts are usually terribad.

 

I guess it depends on the website. Shows 0 percent chance of rain on the site I'm looking on http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/...milpitas%2C+ca. I'm still betting on a clear weekend, but we'll see if this storm makes it out of the area in time.

 

Yeah. I have my fingers crossed to have the same weather as we did at Boulder Creek. It was perfect that day.