449 km

The climate in the Bay Area has been described by some as boring, and lacking seasons. My initial response to that is a bit more forceful, but really it depends on your level of granularity when looking around you. This last week we've been treated with an intense taste of coming spring, and while the general pattern of how the day plays out is the same from day to day, it's really not the same day to day, not really at all. This past weekend was a long weekend, and a few days before it arrived, the forecast included the 'R' word, but come Friday the forecast was pretty nice. Afternoons were clear, with a hint of being warmer than it had been for months. By Monday, a holiday for most of us, the pattern for the week emerged. Overnight the skies were largely clear, but just before dawn, fog would roll in off the bay and creep it's way up into the Berkeley and Oakland hills. By late morning, clear skies fought back and forced the fog back to the coastline and through ...

When the idea of using the Jittery Jaunt permanent at the basis of a new SF Randonneurs brevet route first began, it was July and the grasses on the hillsides of the Two Rock Valley, and all other valleys were dry, and more brown than anything else. When the idea became fixed and a place on the 2010 calendar was being considered, it was September and the only clouds expected on any horizon were those of the overnight the fog of the marine layer. Some aspects of the route remain regardless of the time of year: headwinds through the Two Rock Valley, a landscape dominated by rollers from Petaluma all the way back to Nicasio. On February 6th, however, the winter rains that had fallen throughout January, and the winter rain that was falling on us as we left Crissy Field had changed and was still changing this route in a number of ways. In order to make route measure up to the 200km standard, the Golden Gate Bridge was only now an intermediate point on the route and not the starting locatio...