Hey Folks- I've had this idea since doing a mixed terrain ride down in Manny's home stomping grounds in the Southern East Bay, back in the beginning of June. Manny stopped by the shop where I work the other day to kick my ass into gear about it
Northern East Bay Mixed Terrain Ride: Sunday, October 6th, 9:30am. A ride in the classic Riv style, showing off the best the Oakland, Berkeley, and Richmond hills have to offer. My thought is that we could congregate at a local coffee joint, the Fellini Coffeebar (attached to a restaurant called Pizza Moda), on the corner of University Avenue and Acton St. around 9:00am for coffee and pastries. Fellini is three blocks south of the North Berkeley BART station, and there is ample free parking in the surrounding neighborhood for those that have to drive. Around 9:30 or so we'll swing by the BART station to pick up any latecomers before heading for the hills. My idea for the route is start in the south, heading up the classic East Bay road climb of Tunnel Rd. A good warm-up and great views of the whole Bay Area. From the top of Tunnel we'll hit up the trails in Sibley Volcano park, descending down to the bottom of Fish Ranch Rd. From there, it's more road climbing on Fish Ranch and Grizzly Peak Blvd. to the summit of Grizzly Peak (great views of Mt. Diablo!) and the upper reaches of Tilden Park, before descending on trail down to the aptly named Inspiration Point on Wildcat Canyon Rd. From there it's more trails down through Wildcat Canyon, heading north. Depending on the time and how punchy we're feeling we'll loop back by climbing up to the paved Nimitz Way Trail, which returns us to Inspiration Point, and then back to Berkeley via Wildcat Canyon Rd. and Spruce St. If people are interested there are tons of great options around Berkeley for post-ride refreshment. Truth be told, I haven't taken the time to map this out or calculate mileage or elevation change. The route is probably short on mileage (maybe 30 or 40 something ?) but big on climbing (at least 2000'?), with most of the climbing happening in the first half of the ride. Definitely bring food. Luckily, there are many places along the route to refill on water. There are also many easy spots to bail back to Berkeley or Oakland if you need to cut it short for whatever reason. The route is totally doable on any number of Riv-ish all-rounders. Definitely bring something with low gears for climbing. The off-road portions are mostly fire trail, but can be quite steep and washboarded, so wider tires are definitely recommend. I'll be doing it on my Long Haul Trucker with Alba bars and 700x42 file treads. Please let me know if you're planning to come along so I have a sense of how many to expect and who too look for. -Jeremy Till Berkeley, CA -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
