Bike Day!

I decided that since Tim and I hadn't gone for any nice road bike rides in a while, we were going to go for a long ride this weekend. We always seem to go snowboarding or backpacking or mountain biking or hiking and I really miss going for a good long road bike ride. It's harder now since we're in a city; if we want to go for a ride, we have to bike over mountains and go for at least 25 miles or tolerate being stopped by a stop sign or a red light every 50 feet or so. It's not that we don't want to bike 25 miles, but when half of that is uphill, it ends up taking more time than we have. It's not fair to Navi that I show up at home after being at work all day, run her for 15 minutes, and then disappear for a few more hours while I go traipse around on my bike. She deserves better than that.

So, it was time for a lazy weekend with lots of walks for the doggy, and one nice long bike ride. We decided we'd bike up the mountain to Tilden. I unknowingly made the whole ride a good bit harder by suggesting we bike along the ridge after reaching Tilden on Grizzly Peak Road until we reached some road with a name that I couldn't remember that had a fun long downhill. I thought Grizzly Peak Road was a rolling hill kind of road but I really should have realized that since it was called Grizzly Peak Road, it meant you climbed uphill until you reached grizzly peak. So off we went, and we biked up...and up....and up...and up...until we reached a destination a lot higher than I had expected. We'd climbed 1700 feet! It's nothing compared to our trek across the country, but it was nice and satisfying. I love how when you bike up the mountain you have incredible views of the entire bay area. There was fog over the mountains in Marin, and through a little haze you could see San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge. You could see all of Oakland and all of the millions and millions of little houses everywhere. It always amazes me because I can see where I live, and the island close to where I work, and I'm always kind of amazed that I bike along the shore that whole way. It doesn't seem quite so long when I bike it, but when I look at it from the top of the ridge I'm always a little amazed.

Then there was the fun downhill! Downhills here are always really amazing because they feel so well earned. I had wanted to bike down a different road, but this downhill was much steeper and whizzing down at breakneck speeds was quite exhilarating. Then we pedaled across Berkeley and got back home, where I finished up from where Pam and I started yesterday (and failed) with making a ginger and vanilla bean creme brulee. The resulting creme brulee came out kind of grainy. I did my research online and that means you baked it too fast or too long. So I will try again, because I LOVED the creme brulee I had at my sisters wedding, and I WILL perfect my ability to make creme brulees. :)