Focus. Play.

Coastal View Trail

The Golden Gate park system recently created a new trail -- Coastal View Trail -- connecting Pantoll and Muir Beach -- and believe it or not -- they opened the trail up to mountain bikers.  While the singletrack is not perfect for cycling -- a lot of off-camber turns -- the views are incredible making the ride worth it.  I suspect that when more riders get on this trail -- especially after the winter rains -- the banks on the turns will develop making it better for riding.

I've ridden it twice and keep forgetting my camera -- so I've included some screen shots from Google Earth to give you some perspective of this ride and the views.

I normally ride up the Deer Park fire road starting near Muir Woods and top out near Pantoll.  From there, you just cruise the singletrack on Coastal View trail until it hits Highway 1.  You can see in the screen shots how this new trail criss-crosses the old fire road.  Then you ride a few miles on pavement back to the car.  Check out my route on the MotionBased Viewport below.

Tire Trouble

Some stronger lungs and legs would have helped too.  Steve, Jonas and I were hoping to nail Mr. Toad's Wild Ride on Saturday but I spent the better part of the morning fixing my shreaded bike tire -- 3 hours later and under the heat of the sun, we finally embarked on our ride.

Knowing that Mr. Toad's is a commiting ride, we opted for something shorter right out of the house we stayed in South Lake Tahoe.  We planned to ride up High Meadow Trail to Star Lake Trail to Tahoe Rim Trail down Armstrong Pass Trail.  But after a long suffering haul up the High Meadow Trail, we opted to save the big loop for another day, hang out in a gorgeous meadow, and shoot down a technical signletrack that ran parallel to the High Meadow Trail -- awesome ride with some hiking in spots.  I'm sure the chargers could hit most of the technical sections -- not me.

Get that heart pumpin'

Rode with the MB crew and Sally Edwards, Founder/President of Heart Zones. What a beautiful day after all these rains. It won't be long before the Headlands will be lush green.

Sally performed a fitness test for us, and I determined that my Max Heart Rate is 185. I'm more inspired to start training by heart rate and look forward to integrating heart rate data and analysis with location. Fun stuff lies ahead!!!