burn the turkey

Well, I didn't have turkey, but I did a big, long turkey-burner ride today -- five hours and a decent bit of climbing. Three of my teammates and I planned to ride the Nicasio Loop from SF. Two of them had sudden, convenient excuses this morning (like who really goes to Best Buy at 4:30am to get a laptop). So Jen Jordan and I had an incredible ride together.

I'm having cold issues. I know, all summer I had heat issues but now I'm having cold issues. The reality of it is that I'm having sweating issues. I've never had this problem in the past, so I'm puzzled. I'm sweating so much that my hair is dripping and my clothes are soaked within the first 30 minutes of a ride, no matter how hard I ride, even if it's fricking-freezing out (like it was this morning).

We stopped at the new bike shop in Ross called Breaking Away Bicycles. Cool shop, owned by a woman named Donna Doran (she's cool, too). I needed more clothes, or so I thought, and Donna's got a HUGE selection of women's clothing. I finally settled on a Sheila Moon cap and that seemed to do the trick. Kills me to pay retail, but I'm happy to support a new little locally-owned shop.

Still cold, we decided to stop again in Fairfax at the Coffee Roastery for a little hot toddy. There was a singer/guitarist performing so we drank our coffee, Jen ate a muffin, and generally warmed up. It worked, because when we got back on the bikes we were both comfy and warm. I know, two stops in 20 miles, but it was cold and we made up for it in the next 30 miles without any stops.

We headed out to Nicasio and then to Pt. Reyes-Petaluma Road. Jen had never ridden this far into Marin, so it was cool to show her how to get to various places. We headed south through Samuel P. Taylor Park and hooked up with a group of six racer-guys in blue (Squadra Ovest and Metromint). We sat on until they turned to go to the restroom. I could tell it's fall. First, they were all chatting like a group of girls. Second, they stopped to pee. Mellow, fall miles, right?

The guys caught back up with us on Sir Francis Drake and we sat on again until White's Hill, where I knew I'd blow if I tried to hang -- too many hilly miles in my legs the past two days. So Jen and I rolled back to Fairfax to refill our bottles and use the restroom.

As we were leaving Fairfax, we hooked up with Josh Snead who happens to work at the bike shop we visited this morning. Josh and I had never talked, but I recognized him and said hello. We chatted about cross and Barb and the crazy blog community -- funny how blogs expand our circle of friends, eh?

Back up over Camino Alto, through the maze of touists and crazy drivers we call Sausalito, up that stinker climb out of Sausalito, and then through the obstacle course of tourists on the bridge and we rolled back to Sports Basement where we'd begun our epic ride -- 5 hours and 70-some miles in the bag.

Long live long rides!