So you want to get your feet wet (or dirty) on Mixed Terrain riding. There is a buch of crazy people who do these rides and they all come back raving about how much fun they have riding them so at least part of the hype must be true. Yes, it is true, and losts of fun. We are not crazy mountain bikers nor snobby roadies, just cyclist who enjoy good company and a good day on the bike.

From the perspective of a guy who has never owned a road bike this is what I recommend people when they ask about how to prepare and approach for these rides.

There are two critical aspects, your bike/

These are proposed dates for Mixed Terrain rides (paved/off road in one ride) that Start In San Francisco. The idea is to build up skills and endurance leading to a run of La Ruta Loca Randonnee, a 200k Mixed Terrain epic ride scheduled for July 19th (2008).

The cu

What? why are you setting that alarm so early! The wife was trying to convince me to roll the wake-up time a little more. Even with the extra time I barely made it on time to the start of the March 1/08 SFR 300k. Took to much time to eat something...

This year I've taking an approach of no-training training for the brevets, in other words just ride like I always do, no real plan. During the colder months I was getting a hard time finding motivation to ride. Avoiding the muddy trails not to cause erossion on them kept me glued to the road and  I am not very found of going to often on long pavement-only rides, I need dirt. So to avoid burn-out I deciced to limit my paved riding to a minimum starting somewhere in December. That worked of for the 200k in January, since then I had ridden about 400 miles total I think, not a lot not to little but of those unfortunately only about 100 mies were off road.

After signining in I rode to the start just to hear Rob give the "ok let's go" right when I was getting there. I did not stopped and kept on going and was for first time ever at the head of the group crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. I rode at an easy pace but the group kept getting smaller and smaller when I looked back. Eventually some riders passed me. By the first hill, Camino Alto, I was very hot from having raced thought San Francisco streets to get to the start so I stopped to take the jacket off. Keith and Greg B went by. I never saw them again, they did ride a very fast 300k this time.

A week or so ago JimG had emailed me to ask me if I wanted to get a new Pencam camera, sure why not. I have been using the Pencams for about three years to shoot photos during bike rides. In fact probably 99% of the photos on this website were shoot with one.

I picked up the Pencam X camera and next morning went on a ride on a sunny day. Shoot a bunch of photos during that ride. Came home plug the USB cable that came with the camera into the old Powerbook and bam! iPhoto opens and recognizes the camera, no software installation needed. This is a first for a pencam, they always required third party software (macam) to work on Macs...

Sheldon, a good friend that I never meet.

Just read the sad news. "..Sheldon Brown died of a massive heart attack last night..."

Although I never meet him in person I was always impressed by his tinkering, knowledge AND willingness to share with others. I exchanged emails with him about silly things like ebook readers, obscure bike parts and advice (his) on bicycle parts.

We all are destined to leave but...

I'll miss you Sheldon Encyclopedia Brown.

Carlos

 Fenders and Mudflaps would be appreciated, I sent a message with that subject to the sfrandon list. As per the forecast, rain was a sure thing for the 200k.

I had made a mudflap using some plastic JimG had laying around, restored the waterproofness of my jacket with Granger's Wash-in Waterproofing, sprayed some water proofing stuff on the extra gloves I would be taking, wrapped the bicycle computer and the Pencam in plastic food wrap and even set aside wool socks. All this to make the rain goods happy...