Ruth classroom meeting was canceled, so Anne reshuffled our other obligations, I took a vacation day, and we went for an essential outdoor exercise ride.

We’ve been doing morning walks, and once in a while switch it up with a 15ish mile loop around town. We haven’t done any regular full rides recently. We’re still holding out hope for the bike trip we planned for June, so we definitely need to train. Today was the day.

In recognition of the shelter in place orders we wanted to roll out from home, rather than driving somewhere. Since many public restrooms are closed, we needed to be sure to get away from civilization in case we needed to water any bushes, ruling out most of the cross bay loops. The natural solution was to head east into the closer hills. We selected Calaveras clockwise.

Max has been asking for Mommy to pull him in his trailer. Since Anne is on a tandem with Ruth, that makes for a very long and heavy bike. Anne agreed for the first part, knowing I would need to take the trailer once we got to the hills.

We biked across town to get to Niles Canyon. Niles Canyon is a lovely road, but it has an intermittent shoulder and sometimes heavy traffic. Fortunately, with most workplaces closed traffic was very light today.

Once in Sunol we paused to adjust jackets and move the trailer to my bike. Then it was time for the big climb of the day, up Calaveras. Coming out of Sunol there were a bunch of big trucks carrying loads of gravel, but that stopped as soon as we got past the aggregate plant just out of town. From then on there was almost no vehicle traffic and just a light scattering of other cyclists.

The climb up Calaveras is not too steep, and broken up with flatter bits and even some short downhill. Most of it is shady forest, with some meadows for variety. The view to the north shows a wide mostly undeveloped valley. The weather was 60s to maybe 70 and cloudy, with some sun. We stopped for lunch most of the way up in a turnout.

Then it was down The Wall, the much steeper approach from the other side. I went ahead, and paused at the bottom, where it turns and gets more local traffic. Anne and Ruth barreled past me, with Ruth laughing uncontrollably. Max and I opened up and followed, with a pickup between us.

Then it was the long flat ride through town back home. Next time, Anne suggested that we turn back at the wall and turn it into an out-and-back. It would be a bit longer, but more interesting as most of the return miles are the interesting Calaveras and Niles Canyon, rather than straight and flat residential and warehouse districts.