I have a course where I do interval training on the bike and have kept track of some of the past training. We were headed out on the tandem for a ride today and Anne said she could not be gone too long. That was the clue to do a speed workout so we rode the tandem and did the same interval training I have done before on my single bike. I was anxious to see how the times would be on the tandem. The intervals consist of four segments of 7 minutes, at maximum speed, followed by about 3.5 minutes of recovery.

It turns out we did very well, averaging 22.2 mph for the 4 sections and I was able to get my heart rate up to 167-171 on each of the legs. Anne took her heart rate up to 154. We were back home in no time and still had a good workout.

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Jeff and family left this morning and Sara and family left yesterday. We were not sure how to deal with the sudden silence in the home. On top of that we have had a difficult time getting in enough exercise, both with the visitors and also the foul weather we have been experiencing.

It was raining all night and raining when we got up. But the rain seemed to slow so we decided to try to get in a bike ride. But the forecast was rain all day so we felt it best to put on full rain gear, including rain jacket, rain pants and booties.

We were just about to get on the bike when the rain started to come down very heavy again. Hum … maybe we should wait awhile. After about 10 minutes it seemed to stop so we headed out. We were not sure how far we would go and had to make the decision at each point, depending on the rain.

We ended up going all around the reservoir for a 32 mile ride. We skipped stopping for lunch in Morgan Hill, feeling it was best to ride while it was not raining. We did get some rain during the route, but not too bad. We are sure it was because we wore all this rain gear that it didn’t rain. But it did keep us warm and comfortable.

When we got home we watched our recording of today’s stage of the Tour of California. Wow, those riders had a lot worse weather than we did, even though they were less than 50 miles away from us. But the pro tour goes on schedule and can not wait for a break in the weather like we did.

There is the big pro golf tournament in Montery this week. They have been cancelling it due to the weather. But unlike golfers, cyclists ain’t fraid of no ghosts.

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After several days of cloudy weather and periods of rain, it was nice to see the sun shining this morning. What a great day to go out on the tandem. But a quick check of the temperature showed 38 degrees. As often hap pens in this part of California, clear skies mean cold mornings since there is not that overcast condition to hold in the heat during the nighttime.

We waited until nearly 11 am for the temperature to go up and finally made our way out for a 40 mile ride. The sun felt great but the temperatures never did warm up much. We stopped to take a picture at the same place we had stopped just one week ago when it was in the 70′s. The above shows the comparison. Still it was a very pretty day with the wondrous clouds hanging low in the sky.

We stopped at Erik’s Deli on the way home to share a sandwich. I had collected 10 stamps so I was going to get a free sandwich. Hum, maybe there is such thing as a free lunch after all. Well not quite because the Government always is there to collect money at every turn. Seems you need to still pay sales tax on the full price. I should have known that there is really no such thing as a free lunch. But still we had a wonderful day.

We stopped on the way home to get a few more pictures but realized that no pictures could do justice to the great view of the green grass and beautiful clouds.

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After what seemed like weeks of cooler weather, we finally had a beautiful day today. We decided to join a club ride that went up Quimby and Mt. Hamilton. Quimby is a very steep hill, with grades up to 20% and an average grade of 13% for the upper section.We had never attempted this climb before on the tandem. It took us a bit under 43 minutes to make the climb.

We took it slow and made it up to the top without any undue difficulty. After reaching the summit we descended down the backside of Quimby until we reached the road up Mt. Hamilton. We biked another 12 miles to the Lick Observatory, which is at 4,100 feet elevation. It was sunny and reasonably warm up there, even at that altitude..

After eating a sandwich we had brought along, we headed back down to the valley. We decided to not go back down Quimby because of the steep grade and instead went further down Mt. Hamilton road to the Clayton road, which we took to the valley floor. The little rain we have been receiving has been just enough to turn the hills green.

It was about 47 miles of cycling and 5,700 feet of climbing by the time we reached the car. This chart shows the profile of the entire ride and how high my heart rate went as we were doing the first climb up Quimby (click to enlarge).

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Fall usually means cooler temperatures and changing colors of the leaves. But this is California and fall here is often like summer elsewhere. It was a lazy day today and I did not want to do to much because I am racing tomorrow up Henry Coe. A nice bike ride around the reservoir seemed about right. We decided to take single bikes instead of the tandem. That allowed me to take a few pictures, and video along the way.

The weather was wonderful, sunny in the mid 80′s. It makes us wonder why we would want to live anywhere else. We started up Mantelli, which is a short, but steep climbing.

Then it was around the reservoir. The water level is way down, so we are headed for a drought if we don’t get more rain this winter.

As we often do, we stopped for lunch at a Deli on the way.

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