bykenut

I'm aiming for my 1000th on May 22nd. Scary. No special reason for that date other than it fits into my schedule. Kinda interesting using Boulter's cool Bay Area Leaders webpage when you graph the find projections for me, Boulter, Motorbug, and Workerofwood on the same graph for the next 3 months. The graph puts me at the end of May for 1000. Then it's neck and neck for boulter, motorbug, and workerofwood in mid to early July.

None of the organized bicycle rides I've been on in Northern California (and I've been on a lot of them) use Dan Henry's. Don't know why. Most of the rides here just use plain, color coded arrows. The Primavera is a one day bicycle tour and is not part of a circuit.

I just had to laugh when I saw the photo for this post! The cache is question is on the route of the Primavera Century, an organized bicycle ride in the California Bay Area, which starts and ends in Fremont. On these organized bicycle rides, directional arrows are spray painted on the road at various intersections to help the bicyclists find their way on the route. Arrows are also color coded according to the various routes, in this case, 100 mile, 100 km, and 70 km. Since the name of the ride is the Primavera, P's with arrows are used to mark the course. The person who was spray painting the route arrows was just having fun since I'm guessing this mark is painted (and the cache is) at the top of a big climb and is made to put a big smile on a bunch of bicyclist's faces. Well now I know where to look for the cache when I do the Primavera ride this Sunday!

I got my cleat covers from a local bike shop, but I you can also get them from Colorado Cyclist http://www.coloradocyclist.com They are made by Kool Kovers, item KLXMXQ1.

I'm a roadie and bike to about 25% of the caches I hunt. Sometimes I want to get miles in and end up caching in lycra and cleated cycling shoes (and use cleat covers so I can sort of walk and scale short cliffs). Other times I'll drive my bike near a cluster of caches and bike with tennis shoes. I've been known to find caches in the middle of organized and club rides. Many times I find caching on a bike easier than in a car, as I don't have to find a parking spot and can ride almost right up to the cache location. When the entrance to the trail leading to a cache is not obvious, searching for it with a bike seems much easier than finding a spot to make a u-turn with my cachemobile. Also when caches are clustered together, it's much easier than to drive, park, cache, drive, park, cache, etc.

FYI - I've found Jeffrey Chan and will reunite him with his GPSr tonight. Amazing the information one can glean about someone from the waypoints that are stored on their GPSr.

Found him! Amazing the amount of clues one can find about someone with the waypoints stored in their GPSr!

I did find his home coordinates, being a good geocacher (plus he had his address written on his GPSr), so I did attempt to drive it to his door. Unfortunately it was an apartment complex and he didn't include his apartment number in his address. Also his coordinates for home pointed to the parking lot next door to his complex.

I found Jeffrey Chan's GPSr by Rocky Cache in South San Jose last night and would like to get his GPSr back to him. Jeffrey, if you are reading this, please contact me. If anyone reading this knows Jeffrey or his geocaching name, please let me know so I can contact him. Thanks!

I'm trying to contact Jeffrey Chan in San Jose, CA. I found his GPSr by Rocky Cache in South San Jose last night and would like to get his GPSr back to him. Jeffrey, if you are reading this, please contact me. If anyone reading this knows Jeffrey or his geocaching name, please let me know. Thanks!

I'm a roadie, thus do about a quarter of my caches on my road bike. I find caching on a bicycle especially useful for areas where urban caches are spaced fairly close together. Much easier to bike from cache to cache than drive, park, and walk to caches only a mile or two away from each other. Also easier to check out the entry points to some cache locations. Even though I'm on a road bike, I do hunt caches that require a short off road hike to the cache location. Since I use hard to walk in cleated shoes, I bring along cleat covers or light weight shoes with me to do the hike in. When the brush gets too thick to haul the bike with me, I normally just leave it (and mark the spot with my GPSr) and hike the rest of the way in. I do have a very expensive bike, but I normally only leave it within a few hundred feet of the cache site. Most likely no one else (other than another cacher) will be coming through that area anyway, so I don't worry about it too much. If I'm in an area where I do worry about theft, I use a lightweight cable lock

I have a dog themed cache in San Jose, CA called Doggie Cache and is located near a dog park. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=26691 A couple of other dog themed caches I know about in the area are: Catchin' Katie's Cache http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=7492 Sam's Stash http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=6230 I cache with my dog about a quarter of the time. Since I'm a woman and cache alone frequently, I feel safer having a dog with me while I'm off in the woods searching for a cache. My dog also makes a great decoy when hunting for urban caches (though she may be pulling in the opposite direction than where I want to search). There's been a couple of times when my dog has walked right up to a cache. The funniest time was when we were searching in the snow with coordinates that were 100' off. After a while of searching, we decided to head back to the car and look around for the cache on our way. Shortly after that, my dog walks right up to the cache and looks at me to say "there's the cache, let's go home now!"

Wow - I noticed that you're from Richmond, VA. I'll be doing a bicycle tour in Virginia and will be spending a few days in Richmond at about the same time you will be visiting here! Unfortunately the only transportation I'll have in Richmond will be my feet and taxis, so I will only be able to find a couple of the virtual caches in the area. Anyway, a couple of caches just south of San Francisco that I think you may be interested in are: Men of Stone http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=44955 As Seen From the Sky http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=49962

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=ac160583-f085-43a3-99fc-41308a9ff212 in the San Francisco Bay Area has been around for over 2 years and has over 200 logs.

Looking at the stats on the caches I've placed, the trend I see is: - Regular sized caches near easy freeway access in the Peninsula are the most popular - Multi's are the least popular - Caches placed not near easy freeway access or in way down South San Jose are mainly found by cachers who live in the area Name, Start Date, Total, Avg/Day, Avg/Wk Catch Some Air (reg) 01/16/03, 30, 1.25, 8.75, plundered after a month Fruit Cocktail (reg) 06/23/02, 124, 0.37, 2.61 Former Ford Assembly Plant (micro) 03/10/03, 27, 0.33, 2.28 Pony Loom (virt) 09/20/02, 65, 0.26, 1.79 Emma's Park (micro) 11/17/02, 35, 0.18, 1.25 La Colina (reg) 11/20/02, 33, 0.17, 1.20 I-5 Fast Food Oasis (micro) 02/02/03, 19, 0.16, 1.12 Doggie Cache (reg) 06/23/02, 52, 0.15, 1.06 Golden Oaks (reg) 06/08/02, 50, 0.14, 0.98 Movies, Railroads, and History (multi) 07/27/02, 39, 0.13, 0.88 Bicycle Primes (reg) 07/14/02, 38, 0.12, 0.83 Cat's Hill (multi) 11/03/02, 24, 0.11, 0.80 Treasure Chest (reg) 02/23/03, 10, 0.10, 0.7 [This message was edited by bykenut on June 25, 2003 at 11:09 AM.]

Anyone going to the Great Western Bicycle Rally (GWBR) in Palo Robles over the Memorial Day Weekend and interested in spending a day bicycling for caches in the area? Looks like there are about a dozen caches in the Paso Robles and Atascadero area that can be easily ridden to on a road bike.

I just placed a new cache right off I-5 near Lodi: I-5 Fast Food Oasis http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=53083

I've been wearing Thorlos for years for hiking and walking and highly recommend them. I have seen them in Sportsmart and other stores that sell hiking and walking shoes, but not in stores like WalMart. If you are ever in the Statesville, NC area, there is a Thorlos Factory Outlet there with great deals on irregulars and poor selling colors and sizes. I was able to get some purple hiking socks there for $2.50 a pair!

Sorry to hear about Fizzy's poached cache box. I just got back from vacation and caching in North Carolina and noticed that some of the cachers had cable locked their ammo cache boxes to trees and had wondered why. Now I know. Maybe this is something that we might have to do here too.

All of my caches are bikeable using a road bike, like Marty mentioned. My caches in San Jose can be reached using a combination of CalTrain and the VTA Light Rail Train system. Once you get to the area of my San Jose caches, there are many others in the area that are road bikeable, like all of those along the Coyote Creek Trail, like George mentioned. The Coyote Creek Trail goes all the way down to Morgan Hill, where a bunch more of bikeable caches await you. Also from San Jose CalTrain, you can ride to Campbell to Los Gatos along the Los Gatos Creek Trail where there are many caches along the trail as well as in the Campbell and Los Gatos areas. My one cache in Sunnyvale can be reached by CalTrain. There are also many other bikeable caches nearby on the Pennisula as well. I have one cache in Fremont that can be reached via BART and the Alameda Creek Trail. Near the trail are also several more road bikeable caches. Many of the caches in the Pleasanton / Livermore area are road bikeable and can be easily reached via BART. There are so many caches in close proximity in Pleasanton that I found that using a bike is easier to get around (provided riding in traffic doesn't bother you) than moving your car and parking every couple of miles. If you (or anyone else) need bike routing info for reaching caches in the areas I've mentioned above, feel free to contact me. bykenut

Sharon

How about: - first 100 found alone - first 100 found with fellow cachers and friends and here's one that would take a lot of traveling and organization: - first 100 geocaching picnics I'm planning on reaching my first 100 finds (overall) this weekend in Sacramento with my brother. Was great meeting you at the picnic this past weekend, Marty!

How about: - first 100 found alone - first 100 found with fellow cachers and friends and here's one that would take a lot of traveling and organization: - first 100 geocaching picnics I'm planning on reaching my first 100 finds (overall) this weekend in Sacramento with my brother. Was great meeting you at the picnic this past weekend, Marty!

Great idea! Being a cyclist, I have thought, and told a few friends, that when I die, I would like a bicycle ride planned along one of my favorite cycling routes and to have my ashes scattered along the way. Now that I am a geocacher too, I like the idea of adding geocaching too.

Great article! Inquiring minds want to know though - how it came about that the San Jose Mercury decided to do an article on geocaching? Also, did Mike, the reporter, go geocaching with Team Dralasites?