Recon ride NORCAL

Today I spent a lot of my day working with the US Coast Guard so I decided that it would be quite late and long to drive home.  So maybe it was a perfect opportunity to start some recon of some of the northern sections of the Bay Ridge Trail.  The northern area is the part that seems to have the biggest gaps of non-dedicated or non existent trails.  It's also going to be the tail end of our ride since we decided to go counter clockwise starting near Novato, CA Marin county.

I decided to traverse from Helen Putnam County park in Petaluma on the West Entrance and go through Petaluma and up Sonoma Mountain to the easy to figure out the connector to Jack London State park.  

This was a nice ride, Helen Putnam was super dry the wheat grass was waving in the wind, golden and crispy sounding under my wheels.

  The trails were very dry clay and signs of previous water runoff left filled small rideable ruts in the clay.  The views east or west were beautiful Petaluma has some of my favorite hill country anywhere.

 As I descended into a neighborhood on the east side of the park I asked people if there were trail options into Petaluma but no one could offer an option.  The ride into Petaluma was so nice, old historic neighborhoods leading to the quaint downtown where I stopped at Bici bike shop.  Standing there I saw at least 6 young people all wearing NorCal High School MTB league shirts, reminder the first guy to do what I'm calling the Bubba Ride is the Director of the NICA High School MTB league, so it was cool to see.  These guys helped me find city trails Lynch Creek trail,

to get across town to Sonoma Mountain.  No one offered legal ideas for getting from the base of Sonoma Mountain over to Jack London park so I took some ideas and hit the road.

After Lynch Creek I reached the East side of Petaluma

, there I took Sonoma Mountain road, a road people said was a hellish climb but rideable road

.  This was NO JOKE, the climb was very scenic but I found myself zig zagging in parts

.  I did clean the whole climb though.  Once at the top the road ended quite close to the park

, separated by private property and "ideas" furnished by locals.  At that point my time had run out, if I rode longer I wouldn't get back on time to get my car out of the park lot.

All in all a great bit of recon and connection of trails, locals were great and weather was awesome!

More to come

Serge

What a great day for Bubba Ride

So today I reconnected with a previous sponsor Infinit Nutrition.  If you don't know this product or have wondered whether your nutrition is correct, these guys have a solution for you with Cistom Blends to meet your specific body weight, sweat loss, mineral needs and event specificity.

I spoke briefly with the "Chief powder maker" Michael Folan and mentioned that while on the mend i had not asked for their support while I was nursing my knee.  Now that I'm feeling better and taking on the Bubba Ride, Michael didn't even bat an eye and continued his support of my events.  I've been an Infinit fan and user of their product for almost 5 years now.

So Infinit is our official Nutritional sponsor for this awesome endeavor and I am super grateful!!  I feel less worried now in the world of self supported ultra endurance sports with their products.

Thanks INFINIT NUTRITION

22 days?

22 days to ride until Sergio and I begin our epic adventure and our ride for "Bubba" on the Bayride Trail in San Francisco area.  For my remaining time until then in the midwest I will be completing the Chequamegon 100 off-road race in Wisconsin.  It has been a nasty beatdown for me in the Chequamegon National Forest the last three years.  The following weekend I am completing the Lutsen 99er on the North Shore of Lake Superior with some climbs matching those to the mountain races (- elevation).  I haven't done this race before, but that is what I've been told.   
I finish my racing with a road ride on the 4th.  That one is a quick 50 miles with a lot less climbing then the previous endeavors.  
Considering how out of shape and tired I am after recently finishing the school-year, I should have my hands full the next few weeks.  
The "Bubba-ride 2013" on the Bayridge Trail in California will be a new and epic adventure.   Hundreds of miles unsupported on a landscape that I'm unfamiliar with is what I'll be dealing with.  Thankfully Sergio will be hopefully not too far ahead.  He is well-versed with endurance athletics, survival, electronics, and several other random skills that will come in handy during such a grueling adventure.  I'm just hoping not to slow him down too much.  
Well... enough bantering,  time to ride 50 miles of beautiful Minnesota gravel.

Tuma's ride setup

Robert sent a photo of his ride, looks lean and light!  

I need to get mine finalized soon.

Any Bay Area folks have ideas on weather and bike camping ideas?

Serge

It's time to focus

So I've got my business off the ground, Liz is handling it with our partner Jon and a great staff.  I can now refocus on the other events at hand.

I recently received a pack of promo material for Livestrong to use for an event.  I also spoke with my partners in the Humboldt Bay Tourism Center and I will be opening our doors and bar to a benefit party.  I am hoping we can do this on or about the first week of July maybe 1st or 2nd.  I hope to offer some small incentives to donate to our cause, I need to get some people on board to help me make this happen.

If anyone has any good ideas, donations as incentives for cash donations or maybe we do an auction... 

Robert has also been swamped as a teacher and coach but will be able to focus some more this month.  I am hoping I can introduce everyone to Robert and of course Tom via Skype or FaceTime during this event.  He will light everyone up!!

Well for now I'll keep training, eating well, sleeping less and doing general preparations.  The Bay Ridge Trail organization will be providing me with some mapping tools, the Bike is getting a small facelift, I will purchase a Spot Tracker for online tracking of our progress.

I'm getting excited and nervous!!!

Serge