Tour De SF

It's that time of the year again, i.e., motivated to ride because of Tour De France. And I got a perfect reason for last Sunday: rode from home to SF for the Fillmore Jazz festival, where it's hard to find parking. Years ago I searched for published biking routes between the peninsula and the city. Found one using mainly roads West of 101 through residential and commercial area, which I thought was too busy with traffic and traffic signals. I googled again on Saturday and found a group named SF2G (yup, that G stands for Google) These folks have figured out several different routes and organized rides. The most straightforward one is called Bayway. I usually tried to understand the route as much as I can before I start. Ideally I would upload the route to my Garmin watch beforehand, which doesn't have a map but still helpful enough to find my way as the GPS would warn when I'm off course. The SF2G site only has routes on Strava and non-paying member cannot download them (which is understandable 'coz they need to pay their employees, I assume) Fortunately I found the same Bayway route on MapMyRide (which does allow download of GPX for free members :) Then I converted the GPX to the Garmin TCX format usable by my watch via the great Gpsies with the option of reversing the route (since I start from the peninsula instead of SF)

So, how's the ride? Interesting! The "Bayway" is mostly along 101 (on the East side until Brisbane) with a combination of trails and roads that went through industrial/airport/hotels instead of residential/commercial (until it reached SF) I crossed 101 using Willow Rd and stopped at Facebook for a selfie. Then I rode on the bike trail along the nature preserve area. Got back on the road at the Marsh road junction. Kept going and went pass the yacht club and the houseboats near the RWC Seaport area. Then it's the bike trail I see from 101 all the time. The next milestone is the San Carlos Airport (i.e., the Burger King with a helicopter) and then Oracle. Crossed the bridge which connects the main Oracle campus and their other buildings and got on the trail to Foster City. This was my commuting route years ago so I was somewhat familiar with it and knew the trail went along the coast all the way up to the Coyote point. However, the Bayway took a shortcut using Edgewater Rd which become Mariner Island Rd and rejoined the bike trail near the dog park. Once reached Coyote Point, instead of turning right, kept going (with the golf course on the left) and it reached the airport hotels (I rode this before when I went to the California audio show at Crowne Plaza a few years ago) Then I got on the "famous" McDonnell Rd at SFO to South SF, where they were more airport hotels on Gateway Blvd. The route went through the pharma companies at Oyster Point and the back of some hotels. Finally I rode under 101 to the West side at Brisbane. It's a bit confusing at the end of Tunnel Ave, which joined Bayshore Blvd. Instead of going up, the route actually went down and took a sharp turn up the less busy San Bruno Ave, which was the first climb of the ride. Took a right at Paul Ave (I only saw the sign of Dwight, which was the left part of the same street) and got back on Bayshore. Finally, turned left to Cortland (there's a Lowe's) for another climb and it reached Mission, which is the endpoint (or starting point!) of Bayway but my destination was Fillmore. I rode on Mission for a bit and found it's not really suitable for biking so I turned into Valencia when I got a chance, which was a more biking-appropriate road and the rest was straight-forward.

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Training at Lake Del Valle

It's no secret that my next challenge after riding Gran Fondo in the past years was a sprint triathlon. Thanks to advices from my friend and this blog post (with pictures and routes), I've finally trained in open water.

Swim:
When I entered the Del Valle Park in Livermore, I just followed the sign for swimming. Turned out that's the West beach, which has a roped area watched by lifeguards yet deep enough that I wouldn't touch the ground. I swam for ~50 min there (basically did end-to-end 2 times. Not sure that's enough for the 0.5 mile that I'm preparing for) BTW, I bought a pair of TYR Special Ops Polarized goggles to replace the cheapo Speedo (which I bought for $10 at Sports Authority and used ~ a dozen time. The rim started to fall off after 5 times. Even before that it's leaking like crazy and fogged up in no time. The new goggle had no such problem)

Bike:
I visited this park before and always interested in riding that kinda-steep road in and out of the park (Mines Rd, Del Valle Rd, a Cat-3 and a Cat-4 climb out-and-back) I rode my 9-speed folder with some non-working gears (rather not leave my better bike unattended) from the West beach parking lot. It's tough as expected as I didn't have the largest gear available but I wasn't in a rush. It's fun to watch the folks flying their RC gliders near the summit. After the downhill and exit to the Mines Rd, I watched my GPS and realized I could turn back ~1 mile more so I did that and rode back up the hill again to go back to the parking lot to complete the 12 miles. I guess I'm prepared if the real route has climbs like this.

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Run:
My run started at the "pier" next to the West beach. First, I ran up "north" onto one of the trail along the lake shore. It was rough and steep but I figured I should go harder during training. This round-trip ate up ~1.2 mile and I went "south" from the pier, on paved road this time all the way to the campgrounds at the south tip of the lake and back to make up 3.11 miles. I was 30% slower than running on my usual flat route. Still, it's good training.

This was a really nice environment. I will definitely come back if I race again in the future. Maybe try out the East beach next time.

North Portland (Mt. Tabor, 205, Columbia River, Portland airport)

Portland is the No.1 biking city in USA (according to the Bicycling magazine.) There's no reason NOT to ride! It turned out our Hotel (Rose) offers complimentary bicycle to hotel guests so I took full advantage of it (also included a lock and a helmet!) There was only 1 minor challenge: I have never ridden a beach cruiser with coaster brake only. All of my bikes have hand brakes. I almost rented one like this at Vancouver but decided not to take unnecessary risk when riding with kids. I ended up doing alright with this bike by riding slower and with extra caution. I also brake way in advance, which coincidentally was the advice my son gave me after the ride. He had a lot of experiences with coaster brakes :)

The yellow beach cruiser and the view from the top of Mt. Tabor

Junction of the I-205 bike path and Marine Dr at the bank of Columbia River

Lan Su Garden at Portland Chinatown

As far as finding a good route to ride, I trusted good old MapMyRide: simply searched for routes over 30 mile and pick one from the result. I figured it would be interesting to loop (square) around the city (the Northeast quadrant of it) For those not familiar with the area, there is a river dividing the city to an East side and a West side. Our hotel was on the West side along with the Pioneer Courthouse Square (and the upscale Pioneer Place Mall) There are many bridges connecting the two sides. First, I crossed the Hawthorne bridge and rode along Hawthorne st then Lincoln st which lead to the Mt. Tabor park. Once I was in the park, I took one of the Tabor Drive loop to reach the Summit (it was not that high but it felt like Mt. Diablo on a beach cruiser :P) I exited the park from SE East Tabor Dr to Yamhill St (it was not continuous but have a few breaks instead but not that hard to follow) which eventually led to a T-junction that intersect with the I-205 multi-use path. Turned left there and I basically rode along side the northbound freeway I-205 on a bike path separated from traffic. Again, it is not completely continuous but the signs were clear enough. Eventually I reached the Columbia River (another T-junction that I turned left) I saw many bikes at the junction and realized there was a race going on! I pedaled towards the airport and left the crowd (there was a bike path closer to the river but I rode on the road instead by accident. No car on the road anyway) This was one long and straight stretch with a great view of the river (even saw a few dragon boats practicing!) After passing the Portland airport (PDX) I got back on the road, Marine Dr and then Bridgeton Rd, which has a dead end and one must turn left to get back on the Marine Dr towards the West for a little bit before crossing the freeway (99E) Followed the sign for MLK Blvd (which was the freeway I saw) but it's OK to ride. Turned to N Vancouver Ave and got on the Broadway Bridge and I was back on the West side and ended my ride.
Note: I originally planned to cross another bridge, the Steel Bridge, but I was detoured by a parade. The Steel Bridge seems to have easier access to the Waterbank Park trail on the West side. And instead of riding back to the hotel directly, I stopped at the Portland Saturday Market before I reached the hotel. Good food and good art there.
It's easy to see why the Bicycling magazine picked Portland as No.1. with many bike path separated from traffic. And when you have to ride on the roads, they are actually quite bike friendly. And the signs are pretty good at helping cyclists to find their ways.

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Vancouver (Stanley Park, Canada Place, Lion's Gate bridge, Yaletown)

We saw a lot of cyclist while we drove through Stanley Park in Vancouver the first time so we decided to give it a try the next day. We found out there are many bike rentals near the park on Denman St:

• Spokes Bicycle
• Bayshore Bicycles

We ended up renting from the first one as they seem to have the better bikes: my daughter got a Giant mountain bike while I got a Sedona 24-speed "Comfort" bike

Underneath Granville Bridge

View of Vancouver from Stanley Park

Lions' Gate bridge

Middle of the bridge

I have studied the maps and googled quite a bit the night before but I couldn't find much good info on routes for biking over Lion's Gate bridge. So hopefully this post will be helpful to those interested in riding it. Since we biked for 12-miles in Monterey just one week before and we have more time available this time so we decided to do a 18-mile route, which means in addition to looping around Stanley Park + crossing the Lion's Gate, we tagged on more: to and from Canada place and the bottom of Granville bridge.

Note that the Stanley Park bike path is one-way (counterclockwise) So, once we realized that we missed the "exit" to the Pipeline Rd/Stanley Park Drive (which lead to the entrance to Lion's Gate) there's no turning back. We ended up going all the way to the Second Beach and "exit" to the Bridle Path (unpaved gravel road), which ran across the park, to the Lake Trail. Finally we got back on the Pipeline Rd! Bicycles and cars use the same entrance to the Lion's Gate bridge but bicycles ride on the same sidewalk as pedestrian. Once we reached the end of the bridge, there's an underpass to crossover to the way back. After exiting to the park, we got on the Prospect Point Trail (opposite direction from the Prospect Point), then Bridle Path, Rawlings Trail, and Bridle Path once more to exit to the Second Beach. Then got on the Seaside/Seawall path and rode to underneath the Granville bridge. Then we turned back and exit to the Chilco Street and Alberni Street and got back to the bike rental. To celebrate the ride (and regained the calories burnt), we went to the nearby Dairy Queen :P

Some final notes:

• the signs for the trails inside Stanley Park are quite inadequate. We ran into quite a few junctions with no sign whatsoever and we had to guess. 
• it turned out it was a good thing that we missed the Pipeline Rd exit the first time or else we would not have been able to complete the loop around the park!

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Monterey Bay Coastal Trail

We decided to have a family biking outing on this Memorial holiday. The first challenge came from my daughter: she refused to ride her undersized 18" bike anymore. So her mom got on the Craigslist immediately and we struck a deal within 2 hours. That's probably the only event without delay for the whole day :P After loading up six bikes (yes, including this "new" used 24" bike that the new owner was going to enjoy for the whole day), we drove down to our first stop: Santa Cruz downtown. The traffic was not so bad and it took us about an hour (15 min more than usual?) to get there and park. We're actually not as familiar with the area as we thought since we usually went straight to the Boardwalk and the beach. Just when I was trying to feed the parking meter, the shopkeeper went out from the store near it and stopped us. He pointed out to us the sign and it actually listed Memorial day as one of the free parking day :) Very nice of him! Next, we saw a Walnut Avenue Cafe with a fairly large crowd outside, which was a sign for good food (and also for long wait) and indeed the wait was 45min-1hr. So we headed to the famed Hoffman's Downtown (which I originally found on Yelp) It was on the popular show Restaurant Impossible in 2011 (in which the expert from Food Network helped renovated the place and transformed the business and become the "selling point" of the place) We found the food and service not as bad as the comments said in Yelp. I liked the music played (jazz), the paintings on the wall (some portrayed musicians playing jazz), the board with a flow chart for choosing the right wine, the free scone, the pancake/waffle and most importantly, the short wait (15 min) Then we had a quick post-meal walk around the interesting downtown (heard some live jazz, which is not surprising as jazz is big in Santa Cruz. Kuumbwa Jazz Center, where big names play often, is right there) After another 45 min of driving, we arrived at the starting point of our bike route: the parking lot next to the mall with Sports Authority (and behind Costco, not the one for Costco customer though) on Metz Avenue in Seaside (it's the name of the city which is of course on sea side :P) There is a Target nearby too, which would be a good place to stock up food/water at the last minute.

View of the Pacific Ocean from the Lovers point

The two streets, Metz Avenue and Tioga Ave, actually connects two sections of paved bike path of the Monterey Bay Coastal Trail. At the top of the mini-climb up Tioga, there's the entrance to the paved bike path towards Monterey. This rolling section went along Sand Dunes Dr and ends with a 180-degree turn. It's all flat after this. The path (which intersects with many local streets and need to cross carefully) went past the following landmarks: the Naval Postgraduate School, the Wharf, the Cannery Row, the Aquarium and we ended our ride at the Lovers point (where there were many tall rocks for your Kodak moments) It was 6pm when we got back to the car and the highways were so packed with holiday traffic that it took us 3 hours to reach Cupertino from Seaside :( Still, it could have been worse if we (1) chose to start at the Cannery Row as originally planned. The parking was not free either! We would have started 30 minutes later and needed to add at least that much to the above drive time for the trip back. (2) took Hwy 1 all the way to Santa Cruz and Hwy 17 out of it instead of the short-cut, Soquel San Jose Road, which BTW looks like a fun road biking route.

At the end of the day, it was all about great scenery and fun ride. Mission accomplished!

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Lake Chabot loop

I had a discussion with my son about the relationship between talents and passions while watching F1 on Sunday morning. We all know how talented and passionate those drivers are. They are the best-of-the-best in the world after all. Of course there are people good at doing stuff that they don't care for and that's certainly not a lot of fun. And the last case: no talent but has passion perfectly describe me and biking. By no means I'm good at biking, road or mountain. For many years I try riding as much as I can but confined to flat routes only. A lot of them are paved bike trails. I didn't start riding more challenging roads until several years ago. And I finally bought a real mountain bike 2 years ago and honed my climbing and turning skills at the nearby Arastradero Preserve. (My climbing skill I got from road biking was useful but it takes more to climb mountain biking trails) One of the first trails I wanted to ride was this Lake Chabot loop.
So, why do I have a thing about this route? Check out these pic from 7 years ago (with my old Costco bike!):

The first picture was where I stopped and turned back on the East Shore Trail. The reason was shown in the 2nd picture: it was way too steep for me in 2007 (August 31st to be exact) Fast forward to today, this climb was no longer an issue. (Still, there are other sections that I have to get down and pushed the bike, e.g. parts of the Honker Bay Trail which looks like cracks on a palm. Also, parts of the Logger's loop which I couldn't get any traction on the rear wheel because of loose leaves and tree trunks) The bigger challenge was actually not to get lost.

Here is the map of the route:

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My map showed I did ~18 miles. It would have been about 13 miles without my 3 detours:
- the quail trail
- the logger's loop
- the sections of grass valley trail and Brandon trail after the stone bridge bypass.

I started the ride with the East Shore Trail. When this trail ended, there's a sign about continuing onto Cameroon loop. Just keep going and soon there's a wood bridge.

This was actually taken after I crossed the bridge and turned left immediately, which was the wrong way! I should have continued on until the next junction, then turn left to the Honker Bay Trail, which was along the lake. After the climb that gave me trouble, the trail went through the campground and there was a gate/office with attendants. I mistook an entrance to a trail before the gate as the one for the Brandon trail but in fact it was the quail trail. I won't recommend this detour at all. From my biking experience, you always feel bad after taking a wrong turn downhill because you need to waste more energy to get back up, which was the case here. I got smart after getting back: once I saw the gate, I asked for directions to the Brandon trail :) In less than a mile there was the logger's loop on the left. The loop was ~ one mile detour that I rode counter-clockwise.

Lots of loose, dried leaves and wood sticks on the ground. Not a bad experience but I might skip this loop next time. In less than 2 miles there is a stone bridge, which I chose not to cross as I saw on one book there's a grass valley trail after the gate which I could ride. It was a fun section even though there was water and mud and I got it all over my bike and legs. After 1.5 mile, there's another gate.

Exit the gate and turn back for 1.3 mile on the Brandon trail again. And you will be on Goldenrod trail. This trail has a tricky junction:

Of course I went the wrong way (right) and got into the Lake Chabot Golf course :P Once I got back and turned left. The rest was simple: followed Bass Cove Trail and West Shore Trail along the lake and you will soon see the dam and lots of hiker. And in no time there's the marina!

Biking Bangkok to Angkor Wat

I was chatting with my sister about places to travel while we are still (relatively) young. For some reason Angkor Wat immediately came to my mind (maybe it's because I watched the TV program "Seven Wonders of the Buddhist world" recently) This seems like an interesting biking trip.