La Route des Vins d'Alsace

For most of the trip, I want to stay as close to the river as possible. From Interlaken to Koblenz in Switzerland I'll be on the Aare River and from then on I'll be on the Rhine. For the vast majority of the trip, there are cities, castles, bridges, etc, along the river so there is no need to stray. For two sections, though, the river itself is quite boring. The section between Basel and Speyer along the French/German border and the later sections in the Netherlands. In both cases, the river has been channeled for barge traffic, which takes away much of the character of the river and the surrounding towns.

Between Basel and Strasbourg, I'm thinking of leaving the river and biking along La Route des Vins d'Alsace or The Alsace Wine Route. The vineyards should be beautiful in the fall and the rolling hills along the edge of the Vosges Mountains will be much more interesting than the Grand Canal d'Alsace (aka The Rhine).

The Wikipedia Page has a bunch of info on the wine and the region.

Germany in Autumn

I'm seriously excited. I picked October for the Germany trip mainly to give myself enough time for training and to avoid the summer crowds. I didn't even think about the trees. A bit of flickr searching, though, shows October to be a pretty ideal time to be on the Rhine. A few pics below as examples:

Rhine near Koblenz
Rhine near Basel

The other thing I've learned is that the average high in Germany in October is 57F. I'm going to need lots of layers.

25 down (14 today) and 9 to go

My goal for today was to test my endurance on the bike. Get out around 8:30 and come back around 7:30 and stay on the saddle for as much of the time in between as possible. The bike worked out great and I felt good all the way through, though I did stop for ice cream a few more times than I had planned. :-)

I'd already knocked off the Downtown and North-side Fire Stations, so today I focused on the East Side and South-East (Evergreen) areas. I ended up getting 14, over about 60 miles and around 5 hours of actual riding, not counting time stopped at lights or inside a cool restaurant eating breakfast/lunch/ice cream. The best part was the climb up to Communications Hill, a strange hill right in the middle of the valley (you pass through the two parts of it on 87 between 85 and Downtown). I was also very impressed with the East Side Farmers' Market at James Lick High School. One of the best ones I've seen and far far better than Willow Glen.

The 9 remaining Fire Stations are all in either Almaden or on the West-side (at least west of Willow Glen). It'll likely take another 40-50 mile ride to finish the list.

Pictures at:

Phanfare

Route:

Livestrong San Jose

Today, I rode the 50 mile course of the Livestrong San Jose event. I've included a map of the course below. It was quite a good route and extremely well run, so it made for a good ride.

There were over 3000 cyclists and the first 10 miles of the course were blocked off from auto traffic. It was quite amazing. I'd originally signed up for the 65 mile course, but I had so much fun racing down the middle of the road, that I forgot to pace myself. My average speed for the first 10 miles was close to 20 miles per hour, which is way over my average and too much for first thing in the morning before breakfast. It was the right call to switch to the 50 mile course, but I probably could have done the 65. I was feeling much better after 40 miles and two rest stops with food than I did after 10 miles with an empty stomach.

Sierra Road

I'd heard about Sierra Road for a long time, at least since the first Tour of California, but I'd never actually tried riding it before. On Sunday, I decided to give it a shot.

I've included a copy of the route below. The road is a bit steeper than Page Mill and basically takes you from the valley to the top of the ridge, at a very similar height to Mission Peak. It is a great road the whole way, much better than Page Mill or Old La Honda. It is mostly exposed, though, so, while it was great on a late summer evening, the peninsula roads would probably be better during the heat of the day.

Very highly recommended.



BTW, the MapMyRide elevation button actually does work now and will give you a reasonably good graph of the elevation gain/loss.

Flat #3

Rode down the Guadalupe River Trail to grab some dinner and then headed north for a short ride. Cut short, though, by my third flat in less than 500 miles. Grrr. This time I found a short thorn/nail in the tire, so at least the cause was obvious. Due to lots of practice, replacing the punctured tube with a spare was no problem.

A heavy duty touring tire (like this) is starting to sound like a good idea.

Misdirection

Ok, that wasn't quite what I had planned.

This morning, my wonderful niece Mira (almost 3) was part of a ballet recital at Skyline High in Oakland. Since I wanted to see her perform and I wanted to get in a good bike ride, I figured I'd just bike to Skyline High. Well, not quite. The Amtrak train between San Jose and Oakland starts about a mile from my house, so I could take the train to the Coliseum stop and then bike from there up to Skyline High. Afterwards, I could drop down the eastern side of the Oakland Hills and do the "3 Bears" ride.

The train/ride up to Skyline went great (and Mira was great!). Afterwards, though, I got a bit lost. Instead of turning towards Moraga/Orinda and the 3 Bears, I accidentally kept heading south, until I popped out in Castro Valley. At that point, I figured my original plans were shot, so I made the best of it and biked down Palomares Road (wonderful ride) to Niles Canyon and then down into Fremont, where I caught the train back to San Jose. Not a bad ride and I was even able to do a bit of wine tasting along Palomares Road.

The total ride was around 40 miles, including the home to train station segment. Map included below: