Jenni Rinker, world-famous member of the KH Factory Team and the IUF Board, is in town from Denmark for a couple of weeks for a wedding, and we had to take her out to show her some of the awesomeness of California. And this time of year, Napa Skyline is about as awesome as it gets, green and inviting, with gorgeous flowers everywhere and still a hint of a cool breeze.
For our second ride of the weekend we headed out to our favorite collection of rocks in Rockville Hills Park, which had been closed because of damage from the heavy rains. It turned out to be a very session-oriented ride; we spent over an hour in the quarry, working on the traverse, the chutes, and a couple of impressive lines from the very top.
We're three weeks from a desert weekend, so it's time to double up on our rides. Saturday we started out with a relatively mellow ride in Joaquin Miller and Redwood. The forecast had been for rain, and things were wet in the early morning, but it started to clear up just as we got on the trail, and turned out to be a beautiful day for riding.
Colin invited us over to his backyard for a MUni ride on Mt. Sutro in SF. It isn't an epic ride, but all MUni is fun, and it's hard to beat for location. (You can walk to beer afterwards.)
Bevan had been telling me about this trail called General Ed for a while, and I finally got a chance to join in on a ride there. We had a good crew, with Campbell, Yu, and Colin joining us on a beautiful day up in the hills. Things were still wet from recent rains but our weather was clear and cold.
On weekends the AC Transit 339 line runs to Chabot Space and Science Center via Fruitvale and Dimond. That happens to be right at the top of prime MUni territory, so Dragon and I hatched a plan to head up there and ride back to my place, taking advantage of the potential energy. It was wet and occasionally raining, so the dilettantes were off the trails.
Our friend John invited us up towards the Central Valley for a ride, and it had been forever since we'd been to Rockville. So we met John, Ashley, and Jason (the new organizer of the Sacramento meet-up) in the middle and hit up one of our favorite parks. Or rather, Rockville hit us.
Turned out I had a little time on New Year's Eve for a ride, so I sent out a quick mail and got two responses, one from Jimbo saying he could ride until 12:30, and one from Bevan saying he could ride starting at 12:30. So for me, bonus ride!
We've done a lot of work with "Bike" East Bay, particularly supporting Pedalfest where we run learn-to-ride workshops and street/trials demos. And that was even before we knew that their new Executive Director, Ginger Jui was a unicyclist! We got her on a uni at this year's event, helped her work on her free-mounting, and she was hooked. I rode around Lake Merritt with her a few weeks back, and this weekend we organized a Family MUni ride.
Of course, we're not just playing basketball. Dragon and I did a big ride, starting at the bottom of Dimond, climbing all the way up to Skyline, and then riding back to my place via Chaparral, Sunset, roads into the back of the cemetery, and then down through the war zone that's the new cemetery construction.
