The long training begins, back on my old turf (Tierra Bella in Gilroy, CA)

I started my organized rides back in 2001 with ACTC's Tierra Bella ride.  The first one I did back then was the metric century, 62 miles.  In case you don't know my history, I had a heart attack and double bypass in September 1999 and decided to take up cycling to get some aerobic fitness. I set a few goals, such as riding my bike 420 miles across Nevada (OATBRAN) in five days, so I was training up for doing long multiday rides. 

Since that early metric century, I've done this ride at least a dozen times and did many of my personal rides south from Los Gatos.

No pictures for this one.  It was just a day to enjoy the ride, as well as me not having the idea of blogging this for others fully in my grasp yet.  

The high points of this were:

• Riding up Gilroy Hot Springs road, which is a nice climb and country roads.  I even did this ride for MS back in 2015
• Riding by Chesbro and Uvas reservoirs.  It was wonderful to see them overfull from all the rain.  The last time I rode by here was at the height of the drought. Back then in 2014 you could see the bottom of the reservoir, as it had gone completely dry.  I didn't take pictures on this ride, but will on the next one.

Here's a map of the route from my GPS bike computer.  

All told, 78 miles and 3600 feet vertical. Not too bad for the major start of the year.