Indian Valley Century and Calpine Ride Report

What a great weekend to ride! Three days of fantastic riding, great company, and amazing scenery. I couldn't have asked for anything better.

On Friday, the boyfriend got off of work early, so we decided to go on a 57-mile ride on the American River Trails. After that, we showered and got everything ready to go up to Calpine to our friend Dave's.

Saturday was the Indian Valley Century. What an great ride! It was windy and cold, but it was fantastic. I got some elevation training in, which is great since I haven't done much of it for the Death Ride. We started out at 3,500 feet at climbed up to 5,000 feet or so up to Lake Antelope, which is where the mile century sent us to. I was still wearing FOUR layers on top and full-fingered gloves, but after the descent, I went down to 2 layers, though I was still wearing full-fingered gloves.

Here are some pictures from the ride:

The view we got on a lot of the ride.

Gorgeous roads.

On the climb to Lake Antelope.

In this picture is Randy's (the boyfriend) ear, me sticking my tongue out, Dave to the right, and Randy's dad- Ron- behind me.

On Sunday, Randy and I went and explored around the area. We got quite a bit of elevation going on in Calpine, so we took advantage of it. The warm-up was a bit harder for me since it started on a one-mile climb, but I was able to keep it at a steady 8/9 mph pace, which for my warm-up is pretty fast, but it felt great. My breathing was deeper, but I expected that since I'm not used to any sort of elevation.

After a little more climbing, we descended into Graeagle.

We then went on into Portola via Highway 70 where we thought we were going to get killed since cars didn't seem to be too bike conscious, but we survived. Oddly enough, we bumped into another Team Revolutions teammate going the opposite direction. Randy was in his Sea Otter kit and I was wearing my CSUS kit, but I still yelled out, "HEY TEAM REV!!!" and said hello to him.

After Portola, we took a right to go into Calpine, which was another 13 miles.

Over all, it was a fantastic weekend. I hope to go back very soon, and I think I'll be going back next year to do this century again. The people are extremely friendly and there is hardly any traffic. I recommend this ride to anyone who wants a little bit of change in their riding!