Over to Bishop

I didn’t want to have to drive all the way back to San Jose to get my tire fixed. I knew of a few places in the city which I hadn’t been to nor did I’d know if they would be open on Saturday. KC Engineering came to mind and City Cycle came to me by suggestion. Both of them were closed Friday night so I left email and voicemail hoping they had something that would fit my bike.

KC Engineering opened up a little bit earlier and were closer to where I was staying so I dropped by them first. I was in luck! They had a tire that would fit my bike. There was one person ahead of me so I have to wait a bit for it. The Death Valley group was leaving San Francisco at 8 AM sharp so I was just going to have to run behind. After about 45 minutes the tax had the tire off my bike looking for leaks. There is nothing obvious so they brought out the big bucket of water to drop tire and rim in. It turned out I did have a leak. The leak was coming between the tire and the rim. I never had a leak there before but I guess there’s a first time for everything. I asked a few times if I needed a new tire and they said no. The tire just had to be re-seated and sealed onto the rim as I had plenty of tread left.

At 10 AM I hit the road. I was a full two hours behind everybody else so there wasn’t much hope for catching the group. I wasn’t enthusiastic about going through Yosemite National Park so I figured I’d go Sonora Pass. I made great time to Sonora. We’ll just leave it at that. :-)! They built a very nice Safeway in town that usually makes pretty good sandwiches. It’s become a favorite of mine because the food is good, the prices are reasonable, they have Internet, and I can get exactly what I want for lunch. Today was a meatloaf sandwich! I stopped for gas in Mi-wuk Village. parked at the gas pump was none other than an ultralight aircraft! These things are freaking cool!

About halfway up the pass it looks like some backcountry campers didn’t quite put a campfire out.

Cal Fire was out in full force!

The top of Sonora pass was awesome! The skies were clear, the light was in all the right places, in the fall foliage was in full color!

The wide-angle lens on the camera had some fun effects. It was cool to get very close up to the bike with such a wide angle lens. Some of the lines aren’t quite as they should be but it’s fun to see how much light can get into this lens!

This is actually a single photograph. With the wide-angle lens I was either going to get the tree or the sign straight, but not both. If I moved further away the bending would be less apparent but what fun is that?

Clear open skies! Ain’t it great?

Two riders passed me while I was hiking up to the top of the pass. Being October you could see a lot of dryness in the area and I was lucky enough to capture the riders as they were headed down to lower elevation

For a Saturday afternoon there was just about zero traffic out. If it was only this beautiful in the summer! While the polarizer’s affect is a little strong I love this photo!

The Pickel Valley is warming up to peak color. A few extra days will give this valley astonishingly good looks!

While technical, the ride down Sonora pass is one that is always fun! Shooting into the sun the color version of this photo did not come out well at all. It’s interesting to see how different formats of photos will bring out the friend aspects the color version was a clear toss but the black and white version seems to work!

Just another month or two in these bad boys will be out in force!

Conway Summit was probably one of the hardest photos to get. I came upon this area at 5 o’clock in the evening and the sun was not in the right place at all. I was shooting directly into sunlight. The fall color seemed muted and a little past peak in this area. Conway Summit is just about 8000 feet so I think I was a little late in the day for the sun and late in the year for the color.