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Two rocks, no waiting

Photos courtesy of Patrick In the gentle landscape between the growing town of Petaluma and the coastline, there is a small, and perhaps mostly forgotten community named Two Rock, CA . Two Rock never became a commercial center, never became the western seat of finance, and in fact the road doesn't even widen as you pass through. Most people can travel along the highway here and never realize they've passed through a town, and never even notice the three rock outcroppings that gives Two Rock it's oddly singular name. An oft quoted American author once commented on the attributes of cycling and the resulting understanding of the true contours of the landscape, and should you be riding west on Petaluma-Valley Ford road in the early months of any year, you'll have time to look around at the rolling green hillsides and wonder what it must have been like 100 or 200 years ago, and if this is where the photo for the Windows XP desktop was taken. (No, but darn close .) Each...

Braxton was never there

It may be a form of hell, to have experienced something wonderful and from that point on all efforts to return to that perfect state fall short. If this is true, then I think I've been quite lucky. I've never had that perfect ride, one where everything fell into place as it unfolded before me, where the energy I found ready for use at the beginning of the ride was still there near the end, or where the weather read your mind and provided what you needed: warmth through the night, tailwinds during the day. I've had glimpses of it though, this perfect ride. There were glimpses of it on the recent San Francisco Randonneurs Fort Bragg 600km brevet. Northern California and the Bay Area in particular have a rainy season that has some predictability. In most years, that rainy season is from November to April. March, and more so April are months when the length of daylight increases and the frequency and even threat of rain decreases. Many years, May is a glorious month when the ...