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Alas, no pictures. Time is scarce these days, and I generally have two goals when I ride: go fast & hard, and get my workout. And stopping to take pictures serves neither of these. So I don't have any pictures from last few rides. But they've been great rides.

A co-worker and I turned in a very speedy loop at lunch on Thursday. He pulled most of the way, but I took a couple shifts on the way back into the headwind, and we ended up with an average for the hour just under 19 mph. Not bad.

Saturday afternoon I decided to head for Wildwood, and ended up exploring some of the trails east of the cross along what I guess is the Santa Rosa trail. A fire road runs east from the cross, but quickly narrows into a nice stretch of singletrack. The trail features a couple of options after that, as it splits and rejoins itself a couple of times, forming a stretched out figure-eight. (See the map, it'll make sense.) The trails on the high side, closer to the ridge are more technically challenging, but the low side is no cakewalk either. These were right at my current "sight reading" ability. I dabbed once, and rode both stretches both eastward and westward. Great fun.

That trail meets the grounds of the local YMCA. It's not clear where public trails end and private land begins, so I pedaled delicately through the YMCA property and along some of the trails leading east from there. They're overgrown, not very challenging, and don't seem to go anywhere, as they're hemmed in by the canyon around the Norwegian Grade. So I won't be back.

But it was a great ride overall, and I'll be back to ride that semi-techie stretch of Santa Rosa as time allows.

(Map: "Speedy Lunch Loop")

(Map: "Santa Rosa Trail East")