Tom's Round Valley Ride

Northern Approach to Round Valley Reservoir 

7 June 2014

Tom led us back to my favorite puddle today.  I think I haven't fully recovered from last week's folly, because I didn't have the energy I ought to have had.  Or I didn't get enough sleep last night.  Or both.

I drove to the ride start, and before I even opened the door I found out that people had been taking bets on whether I'd drive or ride to Griggstown from home.  "You have a reputation," Cheryl informed me.

Great.

None Little of it is true.

Anyway, today was the perfect day to visit the reservoir.  Jim, Avtar, and I inadvertently trespassed at the top of the northern approach, when we pulled into the end of a road that is usually fenced off.  We were politely shooed away by a park ranger who wanted to close the fence, but not before we took a few pictures.

I try and try and try, and fail and fail and fail, to capture the size of the berm at the reservoir's southern end.

At the boat launch I took a quick video:

On Stanton Mountain Road I could see the Dr. Seuss trees on Sidney Road:

Peacock's is being slowly torn down.

We sat in the shade and ate snacks, because that's what one does when one gets to Peacock's before climbing Lindbergh.

The rusty metal of the collapsed roof looks like fire through the broken window:

To add to my fatigue and sore butt (a pair of shorts died on last week's ride, leaving a welt behind on my behind as a parting gift), Miss Piggy decided that two weeks away from Hart's is long enough.  The new front shifter cable, pre-stretched before installation, stretched some more, beyond what I could fix on the fly with the barrel adjuster.  For a while I couldn't get into the big ring, but I fiddled around while pedaling and fixed that. In the middle ring, though, the derailleur was grinding on the chain two thirds of the way down the rear cogs. With the setup I have, I expect grinding at the edges, but not in the middle.  After the ride, Jim was kind enough to take a look.  Marc had a small stand, so we propped the rear wheel up and played with the barrel adjuster.  Jim figured out that we'd have to pull the cable tighter, something that shouldn't be done in a parking lot after a hilly 58.

I think Piggy is dialed in for about two weeks each year.  This is not one of them. I'm starting to use up my sense of humor; now I'm just getting annoyed.  On the other hand, my back never hurts when Miss Piggy takes me up the hills, no matter how much two-handed shifting I have to do.

*****

I have some miscellaneous cell phone photos to share.

This is what Burnaby looks like when I'm lying on the bedroom floor to stretch after a long ride:

A heavy storm blew from the west through campus on Tuesday afternoon.  This is what my office window looked like half an hour after the rain had stopped:

There were more showers overnight, but things had dried up enough in the morning for me to sit on my sittin' rock in the back yard, drink my coffee, and take pictures of wet hostas.