Biking in Briones (MCV)

We went on a little bike ride today. It was really fabulous. I put a map of it on the blog, but if you click the link, you can also go see the interactive map that shows you the elevation profile too (it's a toggle on the bottom edge of the interactive map). It was about 50k and included a few climbs that, for me the weekend warrior and out of bike shape from the winter, was pretty tough. I was pooped at the end and had a pretty hard time with the headwind (pretty much all the way along Pablo Dam Road). So we left from home and missed Castro ranch road, ended up in Pinole and had to double back to get to the Orinda BART station to take us back to the WC. The first climb we did: Pig Farm Hill was a good grind but we stopped at the top to look around and for me to savour our achievement before bombing down the other side. The second climb up Pablo Dam Road was the perfect pitch that we had to grind a bit, but didn't feel like we were ripping our legs off, which after nearly 40k of riding, would have sucked! The scenery up in Briones is really beautiful: dun coloured grass with dark green oaks in the rills and valleys. It's so incredible to think that we are surrounded by a city of several million people, but within 5k of our house we're in ranch and conservation land. I gotta say, there are so many pluses to living out here. We saw quite a few other riders out but since we started out pretty late today, I think the biking rush was over. The cars in general were really courteous and a lot of the busy roads had really wide bike lanes or shoulders so all in all it's a great area to ride. Tomorrow it's back to work, but a day like today makes it all worth while!