2026 Primavera Century

Date: April 19, 2026

This was my first organized ride, and first ever (imperial) century. The longest ride I had done before this was just over a metric century spread out over a day. I signed up several months before after being convinced it was the right distance to do by Lawrence, a friend I run with.

I had tried to ride my bike at least once a week, with a few longer rides in the months between signing up and the event day. I’m lucky to live near such nice biking hills and routes along the peninsula to get the climbing and mileage in. My priority was to get longer days in the saddle to prepare my butt for the soreness and the fatigue of climbing toward the end of an already long ride. I had a low enough set of gears that I could always just spin my way up hills.

The day before the ride I joined Lawrence’s usual group of riders for a shake out ride up to Skyline along the peninsula. I’m not sure I knew what I got myself; the ride ended up being one of the toughest ones I had done in awhile. We climbed King’s mountain road to Skyline, then down Skyline and La Honda Road and then back up Old La Honda and down La Honda again. I just spun on the uphills and caught back up with everyone in the re-groups at the top of climbs. My legs were okay afterwards but I did nearly run out of fuel by the end; I only carried one fig bar and I was ravenous when driving home. Hopefully this would not impact my century the next day.

Climbing King's Mountain Road

The next day I met Lawrence at Ohlone College to pick up our rider info and then we headed out right around 7AM.

Some notes from the actual ride:

• The weather was close to perfect, a little warm in the afternoon but when riding it wasn’t an issue. Good thing this ride wasn’t a weekend earlier when the Tierra Bella happened since it rained then.

Starting up Niles Canyon

• Palomares Road was a decent climb but not too bad in the cool shade of the morning. The descent from the top was beautiful; I could just let it rip.

At the top of the Palomares climb

First stop

• Altamont pass in the afternoon sun kinda sucked; it was never excessively steep but we’ve been riding for awhile and going uphill slowly with no breeze required some mental fortitude. Lawrence zoomed up and then came back down a little to me to add some more climbing. Crossing the bridge making the top of the pass was a great relief, and the downhill was nice.

Climbing Altamont

Lunch!

• Thanks to Lawrence for pulling a bit from Pleasanton to Niles, keeping me accountable to the pace and not letting up

Llamas!

• Climbing Calaveras North to South was a fun time with the nice grade

Calaveras Reservoir.

• At the Niles rest stop they only had spicy pickle juice, and while it was still good to prevent the cramps, I think it just a little too spicy for the moment
• The popsicle at the last stop after Calaveras was exactly what I needed
• One last hill at East Warren was surprisingly steep, one last punch in the rollers back to Ohlone College

I once again want to thank Lawrence for being a good (? 😅) influence on me, getting me to sign up for the full century to push myself and riding with me, and to all my friends who joined me on previous rides and rode the shorter route.