Ride report: Beginner’s bike ride with Sports Basement Sunnyvale

The guys at Sunnyvale Sports Basement (on Lawrence & Kern) host a weekly beginners ride on Sundays at 9am. My buddy Shen works at the shop and had invited me to join them for weeks now, and this time I finally was able to convince myself to crawl out of bed in the morning to give it a try. I haven’t ridden in weeks, and was anxious about whether I could even keep up. After all, the pace of these shop rides can vary quite a bit, and the last thing I wanted was to have forced myself to wake up, have gotten my gear ready, driven to the shop, and then get dropped from the ride.

I got to the shop about five minutes to 9, and was greeted by the encouraging sight of maybe 2-3 other fellow cyclists either unpacking their bikes from their cars, or stretching out by the shop entrance. After getting my bike and helmet ready, I walk over to the table by the entrance and sign what I believed to be a disclaimer/waiver form (at the end of the ride, I find out that this was simply a check-in form to track the number of rides completed: 20 completed rides earns you a free Sports Basement cycling jersey. What a nice (and generous) bit of extra motivation to get the weekend warriors coming out!). I hang out in front of the shop awkwardly, waiting for the ride to start. A gentleman comes out of Sports Basement and announces he’d be leading the ride; my buddy Shen comes out shortly after to say hello to the group and tells me that, unfortunately for him, the shop’s super busy that day and he’s needed on the sales floor. By then, a group of 8 or so riders have gathered and at about a quarter after 9, we start riding out.

This was my first time on the ride and although I had some general idea of where we were riding, I did not know the exact route. Somehow, we were to go from Sunnyvale Sports Basement to Mt Eden Rd out in Saratoga. Because the route is the same each week, the ride leader entrusted some of the regulars to lead the ride while he performed sweeper duty off the back. The pace was fairly friendly, in the high teens/low 20s, though some gaps did form due to missed traffic lights, etc. This was my first time riding in a pack in what must have been years, and I felt great riding inside a peloton. The weather was nice, sunny but not-yet toasty, and I recall thinking “What a nice day to be out on the saddle today.” Before long, a group of three of us were out in front. A gentleman who might have been a triathlete did most of the work early on, and I took over pace setting duties once we hit the final long straightaway (southbound Foothill Expressway towards Mt Eden Rd.).

Even though this was a “no-drop” beginners ride, the front of the pack was bound to be an exciting place. I semi-time-trialed my way down Foothill from Homestead to McClellan, with two others on my wheel. Once we hit the first blip on Stevens Canyon Rd (past Cupertino Cyclery/McClellan) the other two riders surged past me, as I had anticipated. the young-looking skinny guy went off the front effortlessly, while I was able to stick onto the wheel of the triathlete. That little blip stung briefly but it did not hurt too bad, and I was able to bridge the skinny guy and eventually paced the trio from Montebello Rd to where Stevens Canyon Rd meets Mt Eden Rd. From there on, it was a race to the fence at the top of Mt Eden, a .7-mile climb averaging around 6%.

Being a bigger guy, I knew this albeit small climb was going to hurt. The skinny guy took off in front and I never saw him again until the top. I was passed by two other riders not in our group, and finally, near the second-to-last turn, the triathlete caught up to my wheel. Honestly, I cannot recall whether he overtook me or if I was able to hold him off, but eventually the three of us regrouped at the top and waited for the rest of the pack. The triathlete and the skinny guy would later go off on their own adventure while the rest of the group would head back the same way we came back towards Sunnyvale Sports Basement.

The trip back to the shop was fun and fast, aided by a net elevation loss and perhaps a slight tailwind. I had a lot of fun chasing the ride leader and one of the regulars, Matt. By then, the sun was hanging directly above us and we were getting quite toasty. Once back at the shop, we hung around a little while, taking advantage of the beverages waiting for us in front of the shop, and I went inside to say hi/bye to Shen before I headed home. Overall, I had a great time with the guys at Sunnyvale Sports Basement, and I thought the ride was a perfect re-introduction back into group riding. I look forward to riding with them again, maybe on a more regular basis, and see if I can earn myself a jersey.

Ride info: Mount Eden out-and-back, Sunnyvale Sports Basement, Sundays @ 9am.

Strava link

Picture of my steed, just for fun:

On a side note, this was the first time I had ridden the GT Ti roadie in some time. I recently built up some new wheels (Kinlin XC279, Sapim DB spokes, Bitex hubs) and this was the first ride on them. Not sure what I can say about them, other than they performed as I would expect them to: rolled smooth, stiff during sprints/climbs, pretty light (mid 1500 gs), but perhaps not as aerodynamic as some of the deep dish carbon wheels that others rode on this ride.