night ride AROUND the foothills

With the approach of daylight savings (yay), SSFTA’s Wednesday night rides are coming to an end, although we should have a few weeks with lights required to complete the Wednesday night hammerhead rides..

Last night was another great ride, with moderate temperatures that didn’t even require armwarmers, unless you’ve lived in Bakersfield longer than eight months. Longer term residents (everyone else) wore sleeves, knee warmers, tights, down jackets; the full winter gamut of cyclingwear.

Not satisfied with the normal serving of trails, President McWhorter, led us on an extended tour through gated communities east of the foothills, where we sampled the bike paths that are being proposed as replacements for the current recreation resources for the construction of The Canyons, a new suburb on the Northeast. In addition to the new bike paths, we also rode an exhilarating fenceline along the Alfred Harrell Highway, some new dirt roads across the Ant Hill oil field, a risky crossing of Kern Canyon Road, finishing with a high cadence effort along Masterson street and Paladino. well, high cadence if you happened to be riding a ss amongst people with gears..

While ready to go, my front rotor took a moment to enjoy the sunset

The group railed past

Not a bad way to spend his 50th birthday

another mesa top regrouping

Marcelle works to the top of a climb

The President holds another cabinet level meeting (notice that I wasn’t included)