Tag Archives: cycling

Foxy’s Fall Century – 2026

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Foxy’s Fall Century is my annual bike ride. I say this with equal parts of sarcasm and regret. Years ago I rode regularly or at least enough to consider myself a recreational cyclist and to maintain a level of fitness that comes from cycling.

Dan and I bought a tandem when we were first married forty years ago, and we rode it in several (or a few?) Double Century rides. Now it’s the annual Foxy’s when we ride it. We always get remarks that are similar to what I would expect if I still had my gold ’67 Camero with the black stripe across the front. Here’s a photo from 1973.

Dan got the tandem out a couple of days before the ride and pumped up the tires. A couple hours later one of the tubes exploded he bought new heavy duty tubes. We took the bike out on our training ride the afternoon before the ride. The goal was to make sure the gears and the brakes were all working. Everything seemed fine. We got to within about 20 feet of our driveway and one of the tubes went flat. It turns out that the valve stem was faulty. So Dan replaced that tire and the other one as well.

Chris got here from Boise on Friday night because he was going to ride with us. Dan and Chris went out in the morning to load the bike. The white truck wouldn’t start. This was the same truck on which we had just replaced the radiator because it failed not far from home. At least we’re lucky these episodes aren’t happening far out on the road. They loaded everything into the green truck–the one that had failed us big time on the road a couple of years ago and now won’t make another road trip, at least not with me in it.

That truck made it to Davis safely and we checked in. This is the map of the metric century since we’re not doing the full century and the climbing it involves. For perspective our farm is right about where the “D” in Seventh-Day is in this map. That’s why it was easy for Chris to leave the course and go home for forgotten water bottles, meeting us as we got to the rest stop.

Leaving Davis with the sun low in the sky. Since this is a tandem I can take a few photos along the way.

This is not my normal view because I’m really looking right at Dan’s back and can see off to the side. The phone could see this view if I held it up.

Here’s the view behind me.

Dan told Chris that if he wanted didn’t want to be bored while we took so much time getting up the hill on Gibson Canyon he could go ahead to find Cantelow Road, turn off the course and ride to the top to get a good hill work-out. He went ahead and met up with us later at Rest Stop #2.

Rest Stop with 20 miles to go back to Davis.

Riding through the orchards east of Winters. This is the view I’d see if I could make my eyes go wide-angle.

This is Stevenson Bridge, locally known as the Graffiti Bridge, connecting Yolo and Solano Counties over Putah Creek. It is over 100 years old, had been closed since May for retrofitting, and just reopened a week ago. The Solano County website reports, “The bridge is a rare example of a reinforced concrete through tied arch in California and is the oldest bridge of this type in California and possibly the United States. Often referred to as “Graffiti Bridge,” it is also the only bridge of its type that will remain from its era.”

The bridge connects popular cycling routes west of Davis. After crossing the bridge we were only eight miles from Davis where we had lunch and then came home

We are so glad that Chris made the trek from Boise to share this event with us!

Foxy’s Fall Century 2025

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We have been riding the Foxy’s Fall Century for several years. I just looked back through blog posts to see if I could figure out when we started. In Foxy’s Fall Century 2015 I referred to this being a revival of a ride we used to do so I don’t know when we rode it the first time. Same bike. Same truck. The only other reference I found to Foxy’s is to a blog post about the three-year anniversary of the accident that could have changed all our lives. That post ends with a photo similar to many of these in today’s post. See that post on my website blog if you want to go off track and find out details of that accident and recovery.

Red tandem bike leaning on green truck.

Here is the tandem we bought when we were first married. We get a lot of comments. “Cool bike” “Beautiful bike”, etc. I’m not sure if people comment in the same way as car enthusiasts would comment on a ’67 Camero (which I had in college). In other words, this is an old bike as cycling trends go.

We did some good rides on this in the old days.

This is the only kind of photo I can get while we’re riding. The sun is low when we start so that’s the view–big bike, small people.

This is about 40 minutes later riding south. Those hills should be familiar from west-facing photos from our farm. We weren’t that far from home.

At the rest stop at Lake Solano near Winters. I took this photo because Dan’s brother texted while we were stopped there.

About 15 miles from Davis. This is the view I have while we are riding. Actually this is distorted. The phone photo would have shown only the green backpack canteen but I expanded the view a bit.

I held the phone above my head for this view.

Ride over. Back at the truck.

I feel fine, but maybe next year I’ll try to get a few miles in before the day of the ride.

November Adventure – Ironman Arizona – part 2

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In the last post I described the swim portion of the Ironman and saw Chris leaving for the bike portion. That was about 8:25.

Katie, Kirby, and Kasen found us after walking from their hotel.

The bike route went from downtown about 18 miles east. (At least hat’s what I calculate from the total of 112 miles.) The cyclists turned around at that point and came back here and did that loop three times. Notice the hill in the background and the unicorn along the fence to the right.

I don’t know if people wear costumes to provide amusement to the competitors, so they can be spotted by their athlete, or because it’s warmer inside a big balloon.

Just down from that hill in the earlier photo and still in sight of the bike course there was a clearing. Kasen had chosen to pack a football for his entertainment. Katie, Meryl, and Kirby were talked into playing catch.

About two hours into the bike portion Chris showed up here for the end of the first loop. The streets had been blocked so there is a lane for bikes and a lane for car traffic going west.

It was just bikes going east. They made a tight turn-around. When we were watching for Chris we looked for a white helmet, white jersey with the blue patches on the chest, red socks, and the red tape on one knee.

We had six hours to wait from the beginning to end of the bike portion. We wandered some. This was written on the back of one of the signs at the Ironman Village. One of our family slogans is “Move faster.” Chris has give us his own words of advice: “Don’t get off the bike.” “Forward is a pace.”

It was time to climb the hill…because it was there. There was a sign that labels it Hayden Butte Preserve and the Leonard Monti Trail. It is also known as “A” Mountain for the 60-foot gold A painted on part of it that we did not see from our view.

There is quite a view from the top. The street to the left in this photo is where there is one lane of traffic and one lane for the cyclists.

Walking down the mountain back to the course. The white bridge over the river (dammed to be more of a lake here) will be part of the marathon course.

After the third out and back loop the cyclists rode into the transition area where volunteers took the bikes as they dismounted.

A change of shoes to start the marathon. Now we needed to watch for a red cap.

Only 26 miles to go.

There were felt pens and paper at a table in the Ironman village. During the six hours we waited for Chris to finish the bike course the kids made signs.

To be continued again…

Foxy’s Fall Century

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There aren’t many photos here and it doesn’t relate to sheep or weaving, but for me this is a blog-worthy event. I used to ride a bike a lot. I rode regularly enough that I could ride in the Davis Double Century (200 miles in a day), finish before dark, and feel good the next day. I rode that ride a few times on my single bike and another three or four on the tandem with my husband. But that was a long time ago. After two back surgeries I decided that the bent over position wasn’t the best for me (although the back problems did not relate to cycling–probably more to running) and I was raising kids and working in our dairy, so I gave up the long distance stuff.  The first of those surgeries was 20 years ago and I haven’t seriously ridden a bike since, although I ride a mountain bike short distances and my poor old road bike has been relegated to the inside trainer.

Dan continues to ride and in the spirit of togetherness I decided to do one of our regular (from the old days) century rides that is in October. I planned to train all year. Didn’t happen. I rode the trainer a few times in September and then had dental surgery which set me back. Fortunately we had signed up for the 100 km and not the 100 miles and fortunately we were using the tandem. I didn’t get a free ride, but it wasn’t as hard as if I had been on my single bike.IMG_6848Our bike needed new tires and tubes, new pedals and one seat (because parts had been used for other bikes) and a major clean-up.IMG_6926Here’s the route. Surprise! In the past the 100 mile went into the hills but the 100 km stayed in the flats (more boring, but easier, unless there was a north wind). This year the 100 km had some climbing too as shown  at the bottom right of the map.IMG_6845Eating cookies at the first rest stop. We never used to stop at the first one, but in this case decided that we would take a break. Besides we paid for this ride so we should eat something.IMG_6843 (1)Notice the gray clouds. When is the last time it rained in California? We sure need the rain so I won’t complain. We didn’t get too much on the ride and most of our cycling in the rain was in the last third of the ride. IMG_6846Leaving the lunch stop. We really weren’t hungry so ate a few grapes and kept going.Desmond-1839There were a couple of professional photographers along the route and photos could be downloaded for free. If we’re going to do more of this we might need to get matching gear. I was wearing red and white on top but needed the blue vest because of the weather. And the shoes don’t match but I’m still using the cycling shoes that were my father-in-law’s hand-me-downs. They work if I wear thick enough socks.IMG_6849  That’s not a tan. That’s road grime. 

The ride took us about 4 hours including the stops so we were home by 1:00. Chocolate milk was waiting. It was a good ride and maybe I’ll do this again. It would be easy if I could just do a ride every now and then and not have to train in between.