Rapha Festive 500 - Day 1

The holidays have arrived. In order to please my significant other, I opted to do this challenge in 4 separate rides, none of which fall on Christmas day, or any weekend days. I was also allotted only two days where I can come back after 4pm. Does this scenario sound familiar to anyone? I was under a strict regimen, a vacation schedule set forth by the warden of the house. Pleasing my bicycle and my girlfriend was not going to be easy.

I needed to find a lengthy ride. Living in the SF bay area, a bridge ride away from all of the open road and climbing a cyclist could only dream of, this wasn't a challenge. I had one day picked up this slip of paper from the Rapha store in SF - perfect! I can do two of these, and two of my usual paradise routes.

I had 106 miles to complete with a some climbing. The day started out with my routine bike check, filling of water bottles, a hearty breakfast, and a rollout in low 40* weather. Three miles in, I hear an all too familiar sound, followed by bumpy feedback in the saddle. "It's ok," I thought. I'll step off onto this curb, right after the fire hydrant, and take care of the flat.

My coveted Rapha Giro shoes, tainted with some behemoth dog poop as I step off my bike to take care of my flat. What the hell kind of dog/horse lays behind something of this magnitude? I check my jersey only to realize I don't have anything to fix this problem with. No wipes, no simple green, no innertubes, nothing. I left my tire changing gear at home! *facepalm*.

This was turning out to be an awful day. I scraped the remaining poop off onto a palm tree in front of AT&T park, and caught a cab to Sports Basement. There, a very overzealous but friendly bike mechanic fixed my rig for free (even repairing my rear derailleur and brake tension, when all I wanted was a tube change), and I was sent off with a saddlebag and a few CO2 canisters, a head, innertube, and tire levers. I was set for the day, but it was already 10:10am with less than 7 hours of daylight remaining, and 103 miles and 7700ft of elevation to climb. I'm still going to give it a shot.

After crossing the bridge and going my usual route up and past Corte Madera, I veered away from the Paradise Valley detour and continued on to White's hill.

View from the top of White's Hill.

Stopped at the Cheese Factory to grab a quick bite to eat.

Said hello to some cows. At this point I realized I was wasting entirely too much time stopping to snap photos for this blog, and moved onto find Mt. Tam.

An amazing aerodynamic bush I saw while cruising towards Mt. Tam after Marshall wall.

Ascending Mt. Tam, the trees began drowning out the sun.

Towards the top of Mt. Tam, I felt no regret. It was an enjoyable ride whether I could descend or not.

During the seven sisters, I saw an epic sunset.

The ride ended at just over 90 miles. I had to take a cab down the mountain as I did not want to descend without a light. I'd have 2 more hours of daylight if I didn't lose time to stepping in some mammoth excrement and got a flat tire. Consider this an exploratory ride, as I would complete this ride five days later, after some serious holiday indulgence, with many hours of daylight to spare. I learned a lot from this route and especially am thankful for the friends I've met through cycling. More to follow about my other rides, which weren't quite as eventful and went as planned!