Annadel tour

Great long and tough ride in Annadel State Park, during which I think I covered most of the trail system.

I was originally planning Steve Wolf’s Long A$$ Loop and wanted to do a strong solo training ride. I took off early in the morning and tried to maintain a fast pace – a bit too fast perhaps because I think I blew myself up the first part of the ride, trying to maintain an average of 9 mph (which I couldn’t). The initial fire road may have been an easy climb, but ascending South Burma required a lot more.

Going down Lawndale was a lot of fun, climbing Schultz wasn’t too bad but I did sidetrack a bit trying to find my way to Ridge trail – I ended up climbing a tough and rocky unmarked trail for half a mile or so (that I mistook for the beginning of Ridge), only to have to descend it again once I was sure I was heading the wrong way – did have an interesting snake encounter on this section though.

Ridge then was very flowy and I think my favorite part of the ride: you can charge really hard, there are plenty of curves and the short climbing sections offer some variation – maybe I’m getting mellow but I’m starting to like this kind of trail and descent better than a long steep technical downhill. Though the latter can still be a blast, as I experienced going down South and North Burma a bit later (I’m conveniently not mentioning the short but brutal climbing section at the beginning of South Burma in this direction).

Later I got to Rough ‘n Go, always a heap of fun, but all too soon I found myself climbing a fire road again: Canyon trail. And here I blew myself really up, as I was trying to race/keep up with some fresh guys – 175 bpm during these fifteen minutes of suffering took its toll. I was wasted at this point and couldn’t bring myself to doing Ridge then Schultz and Lawndale all by myself again – so I went up Marsh and cut back to South Burma – Steve’s loop will be for another time. At the bottom of South Burma I helped out a guy with a flat but without a pump, thinking I’ve been quite lucky myself with flats lately – bad thinking, as a bit later, on Cobblestone I had a pincher myself.

After all a great ride in one of my favorite mountain bike destinations in the Bay Area – it was nice to ride in early spring, with everything green and lots and lots of wildlife: lazy gopher snakes blocking trails, loads of small lizards, wild turkeys, a bunch of jackrabbits and of course deer, turkey vultures and various birds I couldn’t identify.

As for my training: the E100 will be roughly equivalent to doing this ride three times, but at altitude – ouch! Still some homework to do…