Mellow mixed terrain metric century with some good people and beer? Yes please!

I rode Jesse Marsh’s SF – Millbrae via Tunitas Creek Road permanent populaire for the first time last Friday as my last chance January effort towards the P-12. It’s a 104k (64.6 mi) ride described as a “point-to-point route from San Francisco to Millbrae. San Francisco to Half Moon Bay via Highway 1 and the new Tom Lantos Tunnel, over the coastal mountains on Tunitas Creek Road to Woodside, back to Millbrae BART via Canada and Crystal Springs Roads. Offered year-round.”

Highlights for me included shredding hard from start to The Bike Hut, where I ended up spending almost an hour chatting with the manager, Jay. Tunitas Creek was obviously rad, as was Kings Mountain Rd. The few miles through the burbs at the end were a bit meh, but understandably necessary for the route to end at BART. But once I was in Milbrae, I figured, why not just ride all the way home? And if riding all the way home, why not crash that hot tub along the Bay that I’ve seen so many times but never got in? So that I did:

I had a wonderful day in the saddle and in the bubbles, no doubt, but as I discussed in this post, it would’ve been way awesome to have ridden and soaked with friends. Steelhead is also on the route, in addition to another good hot tub at El Rancho Inn, so the moral of the story is that we need to ride this populaire together. I should also mention that the hot tub on The Bay has BBQ grills we could use as well. . . .

All this is to say that I want to start a First Fridays Populaire club. Here’s what I’m tentatively thinking:
Every First Friday we ride a permanent populaire (there are over 30 owned by SF Randonneur members)
7am departure from SF
Casual, steady pace of approx. 13mph rolling with most stops taking no longer than 10 minutes
Beer/food/hanging out at the end

Who’s in? Would anybody be up for doing this ride on March 7? If so, email dasbikesf [at] GGEEEEEMMMMAAAAIIILLL by Feb. 23 so I can organize our paperwork as a group. Please note that YOU MUST BE A REGISTERED RUSA MEMBER TO RIDE. I would be happy to help show a new randonneur the ropes, but please let me know if you are new to randonneuring beforehand so we can have a brief chat about it.

How’d I forget to add this in sooner?!

Behind the Mike’s Bikes on the path! Thanks to Carlos for sharing!  I gotta check this thing out this weekend on my way to Inverness!

2011 was the year in which I completed my first randonnée.
2012 was the year for me to really get into randonneuring and achieve the R-12 award.
2013 was the year that started out as me wanting to achieve the Super Randonneur award, but those plans were derailed by my greater desire to hang out with my friends on a double century weekend.

2014 started out with a permanent amongst friends. Jesse talked about how he’s not really into doing solo 200k rides anymore and by the end of the ride I agreed with him. To me, solo 200ks can be good for long, lonely ruminations at best, and boring slogfests with nobody to commiserate with at worst. If it hadn’t been for the guys on the ride, I would’ve never been chased off of the old Devil’s Slide route by a bulldozer. I wouldn’t have had anybody with whom to share a Mighty Pint float (Guinness with a shot of espresso and a scoop of ice cream) 85 miles into the ride, right before the biggest climb of the day. I’d have had nobody to share artichoke bread with and it would’ve been a lonely Caltrain ride home. I wouldn’t have learned about the hill avoidance method of riding home from 22nd St. Caltrain by just riding one block east before going north! And who would’ve taken that awesome picture of my crotch on the Mary Avenue Bridge? I often think about the challenges of farting while remaining in the saddle, but with nobody to help me process those thoughts I wouldn’t be able to fully develop my theory of saddle farts.

RUSA awards are great and solo 200ks can be fun, but I’m realizing that 9+ hours of bicycling to me is no longer a solo endeavor.  I’m gonna give some populaires a try this year, as I think the shorter distances will lend themselves more to impromptu solo, selfish shred sessions (as well as cruises with the rando friends). 2014 will be the year of the P-12 and group 200ks. Moving forward alone can be fun for short stints, but I’d rather we move forward together.

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This Saturday
12pm-5pm
Hopefully they’ll have the kegerator by then!

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