Ann had another inaugural bike ride today. She said she wanted to go biking somewhere where she had not been before. At the same time I am trying to get in some climbing to help prepare for the Everest Challenge on the 22nd and 23rd. I therefore suggested we drive down to San Juan Batistia and climb up Fremont Peak. I am glad she agreed so we loaded up the tandem and headed down there.

Fremont Peak is a rather difficult climb, but Ann is such a good climber that we didn’t have any problems. We did use the lowest gear on our tandem at one point, but probably didn’t need to since we were spinning rather fast. The climb is over 2,500 feet up, in 11 miles.

At the top Ann checked out the area.

The sign Ann was looking at showed the history of Fremont Peak. It seems it was called Gavilan Peak in the early Spanish times. I guess Gavilan means “hawk” in Spanish. It was later named after Capt. John Charles Fremont. That is so funny, because my mother once told me that they initially planned to name me John Charles Kelsch.

I then had the bright idea of using the self timer on the camera to capture us together riding on the tandem. I only had 10 seconds after pressing the shutter, but that didn’t give me enough time to run over, straddle the tandem, have Ann clip in, and than me to clip my one foot in and start off. I guess we will need to practice that one.

After being at the top for a short while we headed back down the hill. The upper part is windy and steep so I had to do a lot of braking, but the lower portion is more straight and the grade such that you can let it rip. We took the speed up to 35 mph on some stretches. I am not sure Ann has gone that fast on a bike before. I have the GPS on the back so she can see how fast we are going. For some reason it turned off for awhile and Ann thought maybe I had made that happen so she could not see our speed!

At the bottom we enjoyed a sandwich at the Windmill Market. I knew from past experience that the sandwiches were so large you want to share one, so that is what we did. I really like their turkey and cranberry sandwich, so that is what we ordered. It was getting a bit cool, so we sat in the sun outside the market to eat out sandwich, then headed back home.

Tonight I added in the few photos I took and created a new event in iPhoto.

Categories: Cycling
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