wrx in Marin

Marin Part II:

As you may recall, I brought the WRX to LIC to diagnose because the third cylinder was misfiring. You should also remember that I rode up to Novato to pick it up. Car was ready to go when I arrived.

Had they fixed the problem? Maybe. They assured me that my motor was perfect and that the problem was definitively electrical related. They swapped the coil 1 and 3 to see if a faulty coil was causing the misfire. In the process, they discovered that both cylinder 1 and 3 spark plugs, which were replaced by SpeedElement 8 months/1500miles ago,  were only hand tight. After tightening the plugs and swapping the coils, the CEL cleared and the problem went away. LIC was fairly confident that the plugs were the root of the problem so I picked up the car to drive home. If the CEL returns with a cylinder 1 misfire, we will know who to blame.

On the way back to SF, I snapped a few photos of the WRX. I haven’t taken pictures of my car in a long time!

But drive it much either. Driving your car, seeing it reflect off other cars and buildings really makes me want to more buy wheels for it.

Looking at the car also makes me want to lower it more too. I have a new set of coilovers with rear camber plates s hopefully there will be more lowness to come.

Give me back my front lip!

Ok time to go home.

Marin = good riding

I rode up to Novato a few weeks ago to pickup my WRX from LIC Motorsports and get a taste of some Marin riding. I had a sprint workout in San Mateo earlier that morning so in the interest of time, I took Caltrain from Millbrae to SF.

I planned to ride with Phil, but he wasn’t feeling great. So after stopping by his place, I headed toward the bridge solo. I  wasn’t that feeling fresh either after the sprinting so I was thankful that the wind (and traffic) wasn’t too strong on the bridge.

After riding through Sausalito, I got on this nice path that leads you right to Mt.Tamalpais. I’ll have to check out Mt. Tam sometime. Lots of cyclists were out riding: roadies, mountain bikers, and tourists on hybrids.

I passed by some body of water. Was it a lake, reservoir, or part of the bay? I had no idea because I kept getting lost. I checked my iPhone approximately three thousand times during the ride.

Following the water, I made a left turn and came across this nice stretch of road. The twisty and nicely paved road made me think of touge… except this was closer to a hill than a mountain.

Touge with bike lanes!

On the way back, I checked out the hills near the North end of the Golden Gate Bridge.

It looked like such awesome riding… I wish I had time to explore more.

This is how much higher I was compared to the bridge. and there was plenty more elevation to gain.

The view was great too.

We are spoiled by all the good road riding on the Penninsula, but there definitely is some good riding to be had North of San Francisco. Here is the route.

I’ll have to check out Mt. Tam sometime.