The Friday Cyclotouriste

a geo-photoblog chronicling my "excursions velo"

Archive for June, 2009

On the Road……Lagunitas Bike Bridge

without comments

bike_bridge2

Here’s where the bike path on the way to the Pt. Reyes peninsula crosses over Sir Francis Drake Blvd. Most cyclists (at least those on racing bikes and super narrow tires) don’t use this path because there’s a few dirt stretches that are a little rough. On a cyclotouriste or randonneuring bike, it’s no problem to maintain good speed and relative comfort even on the rough stretches.

Geotag Icon Show on map

Written by fridaycyclotouriste

June 23rd, 2009 at 6:27 am

On the Road……More Panoramas Mt. Tam

without comments

tam_pano_2.1

click to enlarge

I couple weeks ago I posted my first panoramic image.  I’m still intrigued by the photomerge feature of Adobe CS3.

Geotag Icon Show on map

Written by fridaycyclotouriste

June 17th, 2009 at 8:43 pm

On the Road……More Panoramas, Ridgecrest to Mt. Tam

without comments

Written by fridaycyclotouriste

June 17th, 2009 at 8:41 pm

On the Road……View from the Peak

without comments

Written by fridaycyclotouriste

June 15th, 2009 at 7:59 am

Posted in FAIRFAX-to-MT. TAM

Tagged with ,

On the Road……View from the Peak

without comments

summit_view_sf

Out of deference to Chief Marin, the defeated Coast Miwok leader, I did not “summit” Mt. Tam (that is, I didn’t walk the final 100 yards up the path to the fire look-out) as legend has it the early Indian inhabitants avoided the peak.

The view is still epic.  This is a cropped section from the full image. Notice downtown San Francisco jutting out into the bay (and the fog trailing in from the west) just above the head of the woman in the yellow parka standing on a newly constructed viewing platform.

Geotag Icon Show on map

Written by fridaycyclotouriste

June 15th, 2009 at 7:47 am

On the Road……Heading Toward the Summit of Mt. Tamalpais

without comments

Here are a few views of Tam as one gets progressively closer to the summit.

From the Meadow Club above Fairfax the peak is visible in the far distance (image one). But following this route it goes out of view (with one or two fleeting exceptions) until the last few miles when the summit is once again in view (as seen in images two and three).

Written by fridaycyclotouriste

June 15th, 2009 at 7:33 am

Posted in FAIRFAX-to-MT. TAM

Tagged with

On the Road……The Seven Sisters

with one comment

Seven-sister_2

Riding toward the summit of Mt. Tam, I struggled to maintain momentum over the series of seven undulating hills, known as “The Seven Sisters” (scroll down to the bottom of this page for more details on the sisters).

Apparently, 90% of all North American car commercials are filmed along this stretch of roadway. I’ve only seen filming once twice.

Geotag Icon Show on map

Written by fridaycyclotouriste

June 15th, 2009 at 7:12 am

On the Road……Heading Toward the Summit of Mt. Tamalpais

without comments

butterfly

This fellow was just hanging out in the middle of the road. I don’t know how I spotted him (I guess I was just looking in the middle of the road.)

Geotag Icon Show on map

Written by fridaycyclotouriste

June 15th, 2009 at 7:06 am

On the Road……Heading Toward the Summit of Mt. Tamalpais

without comments

fern

The ever present Sword fern (Polystichum munitum) — one sign that you’re in a redwood ecosystem or on some north facing slope.

Geotag Icon Show on map

Written by fridaycyclotouriste

June 15th, 2009 at 7:01 am

On the Road……Heading Toward the Summit of Tamalpais

without comments

ebisu-portrait_2

Lots of variation in terrain on the way to the summit — from oak-studded grasslands and chaparral to the misty Douglas fir and Redwood forests around Alpine Lake seen above.

Geotag Icon Show on map

Written by fridaycyclotouriste

June 15th, 2009 at 6:55 am

Route Map……Fairfax-to-Mt. Tamalpais

without comments

Written by fridaycyclotouriste

June 14th, 2009 at 11:26 pm

Ride Report……Summit of Mt. Tam

without comments

view-of-tam_cm

The recent post about Paul De Vivie inspired me to do something I’d never done before: bicycle from my house in Fairfax to the summit of Mt. Tamalpais. (Velocio’s seventh bicycling commandment, or one interpretation thereof, is to never ride without a purpose — see Velosophy.)

So today, I gave myself this purpose.

I left about 12:30pm and returned about 5:30pm. A three hour climb to the summit; half-an-hour at the top; and an hour-and-a-half to ride back. The summit is about 2,500′ in elevation, but starting from Fairfax you gain and give up (and gain again) much more elevation over the 35 mile round trip. Roughly 6,000 feet of total climbing is actually involved.

I carried two water bottles, two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and a few ounces of cheese and salami, which provided for three food stops.

The weather was partly sunny with an occasional breeze, some light rain, and pockets of dense fog. I had wool knickers, a wool tee-shirt, a long-sleeve wool pull-over, a rain jacket, a neckerchief, a baseball cap, and a wool beanie to counter the variable weather.

It’s mid-June but my cycling season is still young and I am not in great cycling shape yet so today —  I suffered. I also forgot to re-fill my water bottles at the summit forcing me to conserve less than half a bottle on the return.

At two points — the steepest section right before the summit and the last major climb on the return — I was assisted by, of all things, a strong tailwind giving me just enough of a boost to get me up and over.

I could not help but wonder if this beneficence was the work of Saint Velocio watching over me.

Written by fridaycyclotouriste

June 13th, 2009 at 7:06 am

On the Road……Road Kill, II

without comments

skunk

A couple weeks ago it was a small fawn (click here for that post) now a skunk.

I placed this guy off the road near a tree and covered him loosely with some sticks. Because the Marin County sky is filled with Turkey Vultures I have hope he will be recycled (if vultures can stand the smell, I don’t know).

And speaking of the often misunderstood vulture, I’m reminded of the final line from poet Lew Welch‘s Song of the Turkey Buzzard: “to keep the highways clean, and bother no being.”

Written by fridaycyclotouriste

June 13th, 2009 at 6:57 am

Posted in FAIRFAX-to-PETALUMA

Tagged with , ,

The Friday Cyclotouriste’s Hall of Fame

without comments

A new Hall of Fame page has been added to The Friday Cyclotouriste. Read about the inaugural members of this elite club.

Paul de Vivie (aka Velocio)

#1 Velocio (aka Paul de Vivie) b. 1853. The spiritual father of cyclotouring.

Read the rest of this entry »

Written by fridaycyclotouriste

June 10th, 2009 at 8:47 am

Posted in BIKING CULTURE

Tagged with ,

On the Road……Nicasio Reservoir

without comments

Written by fridaycyclotouriste

June 8th, 2009 at 7:19 pm

On the Road……Nicasio Valley Rd.

without comments

Written by fridaycyclotouriste

June 8th, 2009 at 8:30 am

On the Road……Nicasio Reservoir

with 2 comments

click to enlarge

click to enlarge

Today’s thunder showers never materialized so I headed out toward Petaluma this afternoon. The image looking east on Nicasio Valley Rd. near the reservoir is made up of 12 vertically composed images stitched together using the “photomerge” tool in Adobe’s Photoshop CS3. The weather, the clouds, the light: it was jaw-droppingly beautiful!

Geotag Icon Show on map

Written by fridaycyclotouriste

June 8th, 2009 at 8:29 am

On the Road……Town of Nicasio

without comments

What’s a trip to Nicasio without an image (or two) of the local church, some cows, and a hint of the baseball diamond in the middle of the town square?

cows_church_2

Geotag Icon Show on map

Written by fridaycyclotouriste

June 8th, 2009 at 8:18 am

Posted in FAIRFAX-to-PETALUMA

Tagged with ,

On the Road……Town of Nicasio

without comments

Written by fridaycyclotouriste

June 8th, 2009 at 8:12 am

Posted in FAIRFAX-to-PETALUMA

Tagged with

On the Road……Spirit Rock’s namesake

with 4 comments

spirit-rock-rock

I think Spirit Rock should bring over a Japanese bonsai master to do some pruning to this Valley Oak. Sacrilege? Perhaps. But once upon a time there was a rock with a small tree. As the tree has grow…well it just seems slightly unbalanced to my eye. Check out the depiction on the upper left of the meditation center’s website which suggests an earlier aesthetic.

Geotag Icon Show on map

Written by fridaycyclotouriste

June 8th, 2009 at 8:02 am

On the Road……Spirit Rock

without comments

Written by fridaycyclotouriste

June 8th, 2009 at 7:34 am