Training Ride 8/20: Berkeley Hills

Another evening ride, part of the Arthritis Foundation's training schedule.  Tonight, it was just me and Mary, the ride leader.  Mary is recovering from a mild knee injury, so we kept the mileage down.  We left from the usual site at Peet's Coffee at College and Alcatraz.  From there, we wound through the Rockridge streets to arrive at Tunnel Road.  The section where the bike lane moves to the left of the highway 13 traffic can be a bit dicey to negotiate, but tonight one of the cars made room for me.  A cyclist behind the wheel? 

We made the left turn and headed up Old Tunnel Road.  At the top, we kept on rolling up Grizzly Peak Blvd.  There was a lot of fog blowing around and condensation was dripping off the trees.  We made a stop at the steam trains parking lot to put on more layers and turn on our lights.  I was so happy to have packed the full-fingered gloves as well as arm and leg warmers.  We had a quick chat with a couple of mountain bikers, also putting on layers, about when the old Berkeley Bowl supermarket opened.  When was that?

We returned to the road and then headed down Golf Club Road by the Tilden park golf course to get over to Wildcat Drive.  We continued down to San Pablo Dam Road and went east to the Orinda BART station. My hands were freezing after so much descending.

We rode BART back one stop to Rockridge.  From there I rode my bike back to the car a few blocks away.  I warmed up a little on BART, but by the time we were back in Oakland my fingers were numb again.  I was envisioning having a cup of hot chocolate when I got home. 

Only in the Bay Area could it be so cold in August.

A foggy night in Berkeley.  It was blowing in in drifts.  This picture doesn't do it justice.

Stats:
19.82 miles
2,257 feet of elevation gain