#@%!*! Hand-Wash Only!		Training Diary: Fremont-Blackhawk-Sunol Loop April 07, 2001 It took a great deal to get myself out of bed for this morning's ride. When I woke up, it was raining pretty hard -- an easy excuse to skip training, for sure. I actually enjoy the occasional rainy ride, but this time my mind was definitely playing games. Most temptation to skip out came from the fear that I'd go through the trouble of taking BART all the way down to Fremont only to find that the group bailed altogether. I was so wrong. About 15 riders showed up, some of whom I recognized from my first group training ride. Of these 15, only 3 had even done an AIDSRide, and most others were less than 2 months into their training season for California AIDSRide. THAT'S dedication! Rain tapered down to showers by the time we rolled out of the Fremont BART station at 9:30 AM. Even if the sun started peeking out once in a while, it was damp and cold. Sweating up the first climb on Palomares Drive in my plastic rain gear quickly heated things up and prepped me for one of the most fun downhill stretches I've ever ridden. By the time we reached the summit, much of the descent road had actually dried up, so I took safe liberty in rocketing down the hill, sustaining speeds close to 50 MPH (80 Kph)... WowWheee! My riding buddy for most of the 68 mile route was a woman named Lisa from Oakland who had just ridden the annual Cinderella Ride in the East Bay a week ago. For someone who strained her knee on that ride, she was certainly jamming and helped keep my pace up on the flats. Our ride leader, Isaac de la Rosa, missed the ride today due to unexpected business travel plans. A super nice guy named Manuel guided us via car through the route instead -- what a great feeling it was to have mobile escort. Thank you, Manuel! Full sun broke out as soon as we stopped midway in Blackhawk for lunch and quickly got warm... then downright hot as we rode miles and miles without tree cover through Livermore... against some serious headwinds. Things got uglier when we started following Highway 84 into Sunol, where traffic was heavy, climbs deceptively tough and the winds pushing us back got even nastier -- even the descents were hard work! The last 15 miles of the route were definitely, though unexpectedly, the most difficult, mostly due to the headwinds. Including rides to and from the starting point, I rode a total of 88 miles today. I came home, ate a disgustingly large bowl of pasta and passed out on the couch.
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