Bicycle24 - SF Bay Area/Napa in English

I have accidentally edited existing this entry, sorry if I causes any trouble. It should be same contents as before (first few line were manually recovered.

I have written about my last US b usiness trip. I mentioned GPS track data, and finally I got a time to do bit of analyze and learn how to utilize. I took me a while since I just brought GPS day before this trip, and this was my first handy GPS (Garmin eTrex VISTA HCx). I have known web site in Japan which does fairly good job on route information including altitude information:

Such as this. This was longest for a day trip I have done with bicycle so far. Click and drag within altitude box which will show the indicator on map as well as distance, range of altitude and average inclination.

However alpslab only does Japan map, and finally found everytrail web site for other area. This was second trip I made from hotel to office in Menlo Park.
Commuting by bicycle in SF Bay Area at EveryTrail

Map created by EveryTrail:Share GPS tracks
It took me almost one and half hour, it is really nice to have shower in office (US only, we don't have shower in Japan's office). Going into the office I did not had much of the problem. Road are relatevely wide enough and traffic was fine. Comming back had issue with light. I did carried my usual bicycle light with me (one for front and other for tail). But front light (Cateye EL-120) was not bright enough for almost complete dark road (such as part of the central express way), this made me real uncomfortable. I usually ride on well lit road in Japan (except river side cycling road), EL-120 was chosen based on the this fact, and I did not realize silicon valley's road could be this dark.

Overall, I was quite happy with the my bike ride. In many aspect, it was much nicer ride at street than in Japan. Such as Bike lane (which we just started to implement in Japan),

and generally road are much wider (especially on side has enough room for bicycle). And rental bicycle Felt 75 was nice and I don't find place rent such bike in Japan. Rental place bike connection was real handy to me, place and price was about right. However, shop's person could be more kind (could they being busy), I did get anything I need, but I have to ask each item by item.

Now on to the Napa. Whole week was just meeting after meeting, I was really looking forward for the week end at Napa. Since bike shop was open at 10:00, I made sure that I can arrive by the 10:00 at Calistoga on Saturday. I rented car early morning at San Jose airport, head off to Calistoga (I was happy to see rental car was Prius). I went Calistoga Bike Shop to rent bicycle. They let me ride on this Bianchi Eros bike:

which I felt little heavy than Felt 75, but I always wanted try Bianchi. Since I did not know the place from bicycling poing of view, I ask shop's person for begineer's course, and went almost exact course which is:
Napa bicycle trip at EveryTrail

Map created by EveryTrail:Share GPS tracks
I should have stay on silverado trail for while (It was much harder to ride on 29), but I went there to find place to eat my lunch. One mistake I made was shop or vending machines availability. Even in relatevly country side in Japan, finding combinience store or vending machine was quite easy (vending machine which sells you exactly what you want may not :-). But in Napa, this was difficult, and it was relatevly still hot out there. At lunch place, I just happened to brought bottle of drink along with sandwitches. That wasn't enough water, but kept me arrive. And course I took wasn't really for beginner, and I thought I said I am not so interested on mountain. But it tuned out be quite bit of up hill crime, especially middle of Ink Grade road. The total altitude wasn't high as other hill I did in Japan, but this was quite steep. I was really grad that this Bianchi had three gear on front, otherwise I may not make it.

All the photo from my Napa trip:

Novemeber_2007_Napa_Area_Bike_and_Wine

The night I went my faivorite restrant Tuscany, and got quite drunk (but I did not drive to go/back restrant). Next day, I went for usually winary tour. And went different resntrant Cuvee. I did like both restrant very much.

My first time experience with eTrex Vista HCx was mixed. Certainly, I did not know well enough on how to use this new equipment, however it did freezed on few times during the trip. While on the trip, I could not guess what triger the freeze. But now I suspencting battery related. Once I broughted, I immediatly switch battery to eneloop (Sanyo's recharable battery), after using few hours, freeze start happen (or happen often). Right now I making sure, I always use just recharged battery and using type of chemical to reduce register, then it seems to reduce freeze dramatically (for whole day trip with bicycle, only once so far).