I rode my bike up to the top of Park Blvd. for the first time – almost exactly three miles, most of it uphill. A most rewarding trip! My practice of late has been to get lost in the hills of Piedmont or Oakland, then whip out my iPhone, open up the Map app, and look for a way home. I was heading toward Moraga Avenue, but I happened upon a farmers’ market and immediately spotted my friend Helen, who was buying a stalk of brussels sprouts. She’s going to take it home and paint a picture of it (we share a love of depicting produce, she with her watercolors and I with my camera). I wandered around the market, bought a few items, and then took off down La Salle Avenue, first climbing for another quarter of a mile or so and then zooming down and down and down. A zig and a zag and then I was on Mandana Blvd., zooming the rest of the way down to Lake Shore Avenue. From there, half a mile and a modest climb up Haddon Hill to my home. In all, about seven miles of vigorous exercise and the beauty of my home town.
The ride up Park Blvd. is significant because it’s an elevation change of a couple hundred feet – an excellent workout. My fitness trainer lives even higher up in the Oakland hills, way up near Joaquin Miller Park; my eventual goal is to be able to ride all the way to her house.