Three Bears

Today new member Peter from the Easy Bay joined Topher and Doug O for a ride up tunnel, over the three bears and finally up Pinehurst. Tunnel Rd challenged Doug’s confidence and he urged us to continue on without him, but with a gentle and friendly push he stayed with Topher and Peter, ultimately putting in a strong ride from then until the end, but we’ll come back to that in a bit. In the first descent, along Grizzly Peak Blvd, Peter went into a corner blazingly fast and found himself sliding across the road. He was a little shaken and suffered some abrasion, but this was not going to deter him. Peter picked himself up, dusted himself off and rode on. Yay! Peter hung in there through Three Bears, up San Pablo Dam Rd and partly up Pinehurst. At that point he decided to ease off the pace and take a short cut home for needed recovery—don’t overdue it Peter, we want to see you back!

Doug, who was doubting his climbing earlier, now urged Topher to make a route change. On the return, where we originally planned to descend Tunnel Rd the way we came, he suggested we instead head up Grizzly Peak again to descend Claremont, which adds a couple miles and some more ascent. Subtracting some time that we assisted Peter with his injury, Topher and Doug completed the 60 mile 4930 up-feet ride in 4:31. Peter gets credit for keeping that kind of pace too, since he did so until Pinehurst, and on a sore leg even. Brute.