Re: Riding Season Starts May1

On 5/3/2024 11:01 AM, Tom Kunich wrote:

Spring has sprung and it is time to do some serious riding but I have already put in 1200 miles and 41,600 feet of climbing. This despitge most of the moutain roads being closed of often having 40 feet or more of one lane travel and opposing car traffic approaching these sections at 50 mph.
 A common ride is over Norris Canyon where the last tine I tried that I discovered that on a very dangerous curve around it has concrete bariers sgyttubg to down to a single lane unmarked until you actually get to it. lso at the botton of this 18% descent there is a gated connunity who since due to this lane closure the traffic is light so people exiting the gated community no longer stop at their stop sign making this a very dangerous descent where you can look for cars dangerousely exiting or the roadway there which is littered with debris from the car wrecks this has caused.
 This increases the traffic on the parallel Crow Canyon which has a series of turns near the top of the pass and the bike shoulder marking which bikes use has been erased by car travel skidding aroiund these turns qt a dangerous speed. At the very top the road straightens and this is where cyclists usually stop and allow their heart rates to come down from the stress of that route. So while this route is not closed by last year's rains it was never a safe or popular route to begine with.
 Redwood Road hss a five mile section completely blocked off since the road collapsed into the adjoining canyon. At this point there is a dirt siding that is a safe path around this damage but Alameda County has chosen to illegally block bicycle traffic from this 5 mile section. Though they did repair the lower section which also collapsed because it is adjacent to the golf links and we can't have golfers inconvenienced.
 Tomorrow is heavy rain forcast so our Saturday ride is canceled and replaced with a breakfast meeting. Alameda County shows no signs of ever repairing Redwood Road which had multiple collapses when they opened it up to heavy truck traffic. The San Leandro City Coucil also attempted to open Chabot Road up to VERY heavy truck traffic as a dump sight for the 10 year plan to replace all of the old city owned water pipes. But the rains collapsed the roads before they could allow any trucks on it simply from the weight of car traffic. In one spot, since repaired the road had an entire landslide down to Lake Chabot lake level. This was some 400 feet or so.
 Gavin Loathsome has NOT forced any counties to repair the roads byt he continues to raise the gas taxes to "repair the roads" and he continues to give himself and the legislature rainses with the money.
 The public works department has continued to issue building permits on hillside homes and you simply cannot believe the sorts of dangerous locations where homes have been built. Monteclair section of Oakland is an area that is about three blocks deep with a cliff behind it. Of course at the top of this cliff are homes. At least UC Berkeley intervened when there was an attempt made to build houses on the cliff above the sports stadium. Santa Cruz county is as bad as Alameda having issued multiple permits to build houses on the edge of cliffs all over the county.
 So the rains this year haven't done the damage of last year because there is little damage left to do and we could STILL have a late hard rain season yet.which occurred last year. Palomares has several one lane secdions. Niles Canyon has very dangerous road sections on which 60 mph traffic is common while there is no shoulder for bicycles and they have had many deaths due to this without modifying the speed limit or even enforcing the actual 50 mph limit.
 So all in all I have been lucky to get in the amount of miles and climbing I have had this year so far. The most disturbing damage has been to Norris Canyon which county officials allowed to become a thouroughfare despite the fact that the top of Norris Canyon is farmland and the farmers there complained to no result. It is a narrow and dangerous road to begin with and the farmers on the western slopes simply sold out and left and there are illegals now renting those properties and they habitually pull out without even wondering if there is oncomibng traffic. And the eastern side of Norris is the route to Livermore and Altamonte Pass which has had wibdmill companies advertising that they have been expanding for "more green energy" w3hen there IS no place to expand into.
 This entire country is being made fools of by the Liberals and now most Liberals do not even know the definition of Liberal.
 

A perennial problem. A decent ride route or neighborhood gets infested with humans:
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/08/29/too-crowded/
You could ride where there's no traffic but then again the roads are gravel.
--
Andrew Muzi
am@yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971