Tag: cycling

The (Not Quite) Petaluma Loop – 70 mile with 4,000′ elevation

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I  decided to ride with the Western Wheelers (WW), a mid-Peninsula cycling club, and try their Long Distance Training (LDT) ride which meets each Saturday; this time they met at the Marin County Civic Center for a Petaluma ride which would accommodate all cyclists to choose different paces and appropriate distances and elevation gains. You can find all Western Wheeler rides posted here on their Meet-Up calendar. Most of the rides have a route sheet or gpx file posted on Ride With GPS, just look under keywords: Western Wheelers:  http://ridewithgps.com/find. This is convenient because you can download a sync a file into your Garmin and it will give you turn-by-turn directions and will let you know what the elevation profile looks like of your intended route (it’s good to be mentally prepared!).

WW LDT Petaluma 70 mile ride

Unfortunately I didn’t download WW’s pre-made route, as it turns out I didn’t need to because the ride leader decided to do something different, instead of riding up and back to Petaluma (avoiding hills because… well, that wouldn’t be much fun now would it!) our new route would go up Marshall Wall and ride on Shoreline Hwy, along Tomales Bay to Point Reyes Station and back.

WW_LDT_Petaluma elevation

 

 

Intro to Racing (Part 2)

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Meet the Teams ride and Intro to Women’s Racing ended last Sunday. What a blast and inspiration to meet so many women who enjoy riding and having fun on the bike. This is a photo with Gina Kavesh, Team BikeSale.com, as she explains the formation of a double pace line. Team Group Health assists in the demonstration at the Leschi parking lot across the street from Starbucks. Great time & a beautiful counter clockwise ride on the south end of Lake Washington & Mercer Island.

The double paceline formation

The double paceline formation

 

Introduction to Racing

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Bicycling is experiencing a growth in the United States but probably not in the demographic which you’d expect! According to a recent article in The Economist the total numbers of annual bike trips, between 1977 and 2009, more than tripled and more cities want to be known as cycle-friendly communities (IE: Washington, DC, Boulder, CO, Portland, OR) but surprisingly all growth in cycling has come from men between the ages of 25 to 64. Doesn’t this seem surprising? Where are the ladies and children? And there’s even a smaller pool of women in racing. Have you ever wondered why there is no Tour de France for women? It may have something to do with lack of cultivation in the women’s field. I’ve been an active member of the Cascade Bike Club and enjoy the many Free Daily Rides (If you live in the Greater Seattle Area I would strongly recommend you try a ride, it’s a lot of fun and an easy way to make new friends and tour Seattle). Unfortunately there’s not a whole lot of options for women who seek more advance training for bike handling and speed training. I had to look else where.

Gina KaveshI was fortunate enough to find Gina Kavesh, a women’s cycling veteran who promotes women’s racing and held three day Intro to Racing rides this fall. I had the chance to attend two Sundays and learned how it feels to ride in a double pace line and cruise quickly as a pack. It felt exhilarating and a bit dangerous but after the second Sunday riding with these ladies I knew this was the direction for my growth as a cyclist.