I know, gaining again.  Points came from a variety of activities this week.  The Princess was in Las Vegas for a conference so she has running, gym and biking points.  I had biking, hiking, and volleyball points.  The highlights were the weekend rides on Friday- Sunday.  In reverse order:
*    Sunday was a favorite for the year, a Napa Valley loop that included Ink Grade (4.3 miles of 7% average, one mile of the climb is 9%).  A 62 mile loop.  Something we should have learned -- when you start riding in the morning in the Napa Valley the breeze is out of the north.  Of course that is a headwind.  As the day warms, the onshore flow in the SF Bay Area causes a shift in wind direction to the south, usually at a brisk 10-15 mph.  Of course at the finish of the ride we did there is an 18 mile stretch back down the Napa Valley to the south, headwind again of course.  It's predictable and you can almost count on it, so if you want to do a ride with headwind all day, this is it.  The ride up in Pope Valley and over Ink Grade back to Napa Valley was beautiful however, so there was some compensation.  Also it seemed easy compared to Mix Canyon Rd (see below).
*    Saturday was a planned easy day (30 for Princess & 42 for Rock) from Martinez down to San Ramon and lunch at the brew pub.  Little climbing, nice day (a little cool and foggy) -- the Princess stopped early to have coffee.  We met Ralph and Julie at the brew pub for lunch.  Ralph's first outing in 2 weeks since crashing his mountain bike (torn shoulder ligament, sprained ankle, pulled muscles & cuts/bruises).  At least he can walk down the stairs now.
*    Friday - The Princess went to work.  Eric and I discussed where to ride and finally came up with the idea to go up to Vacaville and explore two dead end roads ( one map said there might even be a connecting road between them, but it was dirt).  But it was cold and foggy so we did not hurry to go out and ride.  We planned a noon start, then the Princess called and said she would like to ride too if we could delay the start to 1PM.  We said we were planning an exploring ride up near Vacaville (we warned her ahead of time because we know how much the Princess likes exploring), and she assumed since the ride was near Vacaville that it would be fairly flat.  We met at 1PM and started off.  3 miles of nice flat/rollers to start.  A left turn on Gates Canyon road led to a 3 mile fairly easy uphill climb of about 600 ft to a locked gate/dirt road.  So we turned around and coasted back down.  On to road number 2.  At mile 11 we came to Mix Canyon Rd and turned left again, after 1 mile of slight uphill the grade increased to a stairstepping climb, maybe 7-10% for a few hundred yards then 5% for a few hundred yards, as we followed a small stream/canyon up the hill.  3 miles in was a steep pitch that I estimate at 15% grade for a few hundred yards -- Eric was well in front at this point, I stopped temporarily and when the Princess caught up she said that was enough climbing on this road for her.  According to the signs, the road would only go another 1.5 miles, so I set out after Eric.  0.1 miles later I rounded a corner and was faced with a 20% switchbacking climb (based on both Eric and my altimeter and cyclometer the grade varied from 15-20% over the next 1.4 miles).  After less than 0.5 miles I rounded a corner and delusionally thought it looked flatter, after stopping for a moment to suck in air, I realized it was an illusion because it was still at least a 10% grade where I stopped.  I had to walk sections of this road it was so steep.  I found Eric 0.3 miles from the top (he had started back down) -- he had to walk also -- which proves how steep this hill was.  We had a death grip on the brakes on the way down because of the corners.  We also had to stop twice as the bike rims were really hot and we didn't want to damage a spoke.  We have a new winner for the steepest sustained hill ride we have found.  Maybe next time we will actually be able to ride it the whole way if we are ever foolish enough to even go up it again.  At the conclusion of the 30 mile day we had over 3300 feet of climbing -- a toughness index of 110 for our nice easy ride near Vacaville.

Ed