07/03/08- I KNOW
HOW TO BEAT TODD IN A SPRINT. If you saw the movie
"Gladiator", you'll remember that, for the final battle, the bad guy
Roman Emperor stuck a knife into Russell Crowe's side, mortally wounding
him, prior to his entrance into the Coliseum. That way the Emperor could
be certain to win against the undefeated Gladiator (except that, being
Hollywood, the Gladiator wins and kills the Emperor anyway). So that's
what I did to Todd this morning. I paid good money to have some guys
rough him up real bad before our ride, so I could squeak past him at the
Sky Londa sprint. The reality is slightly different; I didn't pay
anybody, but Todd did go out on the infamous "morning" ride prior to
showing up for the Tuesday/Thursday ride, so he'd already been through
the wringer by the time I saw him. My guess is that his tires were
probably low too, because even mortally wounded it's still difficult to
win a sprint against him.And the
climb? Let's just say this was a "high gravity day" (a term coined by
Kevin some years ago).
Karl, Kevin, Eric, Todd, Preben... I
think that's all the guys who were riding ahead of me up the climbs. We
were also joined at the top of West Side Old LaHonda by Bob, who said
he'd been thinking about coming out for our ride sometime and just
happened to be in the wrong, er, I mean, right place at the right time.
Fortunately the group was relatively civilized by that point, and no
huge efforts were made to shed the sheddable prior to the final sprint
(which Todd won by maybe a mile or two; my excuse is that I was boxed in
by Kevin & Karl, but as Kevin pointed out, that must have been my
choice, because everybody knows better than to follow Kevin's
wheel in a sprint).
07/01/08-
FINALLY! It hasn't been an easy year, with hard efforts
up Kings Mtn consistently yielding times in the high-27s (27:45, that
sort of thing). Last year I was repeatedly getting mid-26s around this
time, and it was only a couple years ago I was actually under 26. But
today felt a bit different, and following Karl's relatively-fast leadout
up the first part of the climb, I was able to pull off a 26:57. Funny
thing, that. 26:57 and I'm happy. If it was 27:01, just 4 seconds
slower, I'd be really annoyed.
Karl, Kevin, Eric, Todd, Chris, Karen, George... I think that's all the
witnesses to my incredibly-awesome (not!) climb this morning. It was an
interesting day overall; there was something going on with the group
that I just couldn't figure out. People were a bit antsy; when the pace
would settle down for a bit, you knew it was only temporary. The run
back to the start was hard enough to blow the group apart well ahead of
the final sprint; it's not unusual that the speed picks up to try and
drop the sprinters (that would be me), but today things simply
shattered.
But I'm happy with my ride, and it's the
first time I've been able to say that about one of the
Tuesday/Thursday-morning rides in a while! Don't get me wrong, I really
enjoy riding with these guys. It's just that this ride, due to its
repeatability, allows me to know exactly what shape I'm in, and
sometimes you just don't want to know. On the other hand, it keeps you
honest. Because it's a group, there's almost a responsibility to not let
yourself get too far out of shape. They will make you pay!
My Sunday rides with my son are a
different thing altogether. On those rides, the fact that my strength is
diminishing relative to his is a good thing, not bad. I look forward to
the day where I struggle to keep up with him on a climb. But my
Tuesday/Thursday outings will keep that day at bay for a while longer.
06/29/08- FIRST
DAY BACK ON THE JOB ISN'T ALWAYS EASY
and today was no exception for Kevin, my son, who's been off
 the
bike for over two weeks (he'd been on a school trip to Italy). We designed
a special ride that would be difficult but not impossible. King Mtn,
Skyline, down west 84, up West Alpine, south on Skyline to 84 and back
down into Woodside. About 45 miles, but 45 quality miles! He
probably went out a bit too fast on Kings, such that, by the time we got
to West Alpine, he wasn't exactly having an easy time of things. Still,
I'm sure he'd admit he was having a better day than the motorcyclist we
came upon on 84, with a totally wrecked machine. Thankfully, the
motorcyclist himself looked relatively OK.
46.5 miles, 5300ft of climbing, so it passes
the 100ft/mile test (the generally-accepted definition of a very hilly
ride).
Of course, this time last year Kevin may
have been a bit more motivated, since we were going to France to ride a
couple of the big climbs (Port du Bales and the Aubisque). This year, it's
all about getting in shape for LaCross season at school.
06/26/08- YEAH,
RIGHT, EASY RIDE BECAUSE OF THE SMOKE. The Western States
100, a ridiculous 100-mile running even in the Sierras, had been cancelled
due to the dangers of inhaling too much smoke into your lungs during
exercise. And yes, there was a lot of smoke in the air, as something like
800 fires were burning in Northern California. So I told Kevin, Karen,
Eric & Karl that we should be taking it easy up the hill this morning.
Unfortunately, their idea of easy isn't mine. I was thinking 35
minutes up the hill, a totally casual pace. Instead I found them turning
off at Greer and heading into the lower part of Huddart Park, heading up
the hard way. Sure, it wasn't a flat-out ride by any means, but at 32
minutes for a climb through the park, it wasn't terribly easy either.
I did learn something interesting about body
fat though. Karen, one of Webcor/Alto Velo's ultra-fit elite woman riders,
did
something interesting after taking a drink from her bottle. Instead of
closing the top with her hand, she slammed it against her side. That only
works if you have close to zero body fat; for me, the top would simply
push my skin in, not the top of the bottle!
France. This is the time I normally start
writing about how my training is going for the annual trip t o see the Tour
de France. Not this year. If my son hadn't headed to Italy for two weeks
on a school trip, it's likely we would have headed to France again, like
last year, only this year instead of the Pyrenees I would have taken him
up the Alpe d'Huez and maybe the Galibier. But one trip to Europe is
enough for one kid, and besides, Contador isn't going to be there to
defend his title anyway. Still, it's going to seem very strange, watching
the coverage on TV almost as an academic exercise rather than trying to
figure out how things are going to play out when I'm there.
It's entirely possible I'll head to the
Vuelta (Tour of Spain) in September though. I've never been to Spain, and
it might be time to see some part of the world other than France.
Meantime, I have to pass by the house on Jefferson with the Sunflowers
each Tuesday & Thursday morning (shown here with my son, taken on
Sunday's 6/29 ride), reminding me of what might have been.
06/24/08- CHOOSE
HOPE. If not for the heavy smoke shrouding the Bay Area,
it would have been a perfect morning to ride. Temps in the low-60s, low
humidity, and that rare, wonderful feeling of your tires seemingly glued
to the road while descending. But that smoke, besides making things
smelly and not very pretty, had another interesting effect. I could
actually hear some other guys breathing. Normally, all I can hear while
climbing is the sound of my own lungs, scavenging the air for spare
oxygen, but today I could actually hear Eric as I rode alongside him at
the beginning of the climb.
Let's
see, who'd we have today? Newcomer John (yet another green Alto Velo
jersey), Eric, Todd, George, Karl, Kevin, and a surprise- Preben, who
hadn't ridden with us in probably more than a year! And it's Preben
where I'm forced to choose between hope & despair. Because it was Preben
that I was struggling to catch while climbing Kings Mtn this morning,
finally pulling even at the very top. Of course, at 52, there should
be a few people out there who can climb faster than me. But Preben's...
66, and will be 67 in just a couple months. That's impressive, and just
one of the wonderful things about cycling. Age really isn't much of an
issue. If Preben can ride so well, and he's 15 years older, then maybe
there's still hope for me. 15 years older. From where I sit, that almost
makes him immortal. Think of all the riding I might do in the next 15
years. Amazing. So I could choose to be depressed that someone 15
years older can do a number on me on a climb, but why not focus on the
many great years of riding ahead? Who knows, I might still be able to
ride a bike by the time my kids get out of college!
 06/22/08-
IT'S BEEN TWO YEARS SINCE I'VE RIDDEN THIS FAR and it was
about time. The original plan for today was to do an east bay loop around
Mt. Diablo, including a climb to the top. But the potential for very hot
weather caused Jeff, the guy I was riding with, to suggest something
different. Something actually more challenging, at least for me. A
100-mile ride out to the coast and up Bonny Doon (near Santa Cruz). The
actual route was 98.5 miles, but it came to a 106 mile day for me
including riding to & from the starting point. 9900 feet of climbing (plus
an additional 450 feet getting to & from), so I don't have to be concerned
that I almost did a full century.
Very nice day, thankfully much cooler than
the past few. We headed up over Old LaHonda, then Pescadero, Davenport,
Bonny Doon, Empire Grade, down Jamison Creek, up China Grade, then 9,
north on Skyline to Sky Londa and down 84 back to Woodside. After
the Bonny Doon climb I was wondering if I was going to be able to finish
the ride! But fortunately I was able to keep on going, trying to hang onto
Jeff's wheel (not too successfully on Empire Grade).
We had a nice tailwind on the coast, and
stopped at a wonderful bakery in Davenport that seems to be a hit, for
good reason, with other cyclists. The Whale City Bakery. Great food! And
the last chance for food until... until pretty much forever, with the
route we chose. We did stop at the golf course near China Grade for an ice
tea and some water before the final big climb of the day, and a coke from
the guy who runs the stand at the intersection of 9 & 35.
I'll be posting
more on this ride soon (it's actually up now). Highly recommended for anyone training for the
Death Ride.
06/19/08- WITH
FRIENDS LIKE THESE... "Let's go through the park. It's
easier." Oh yeah, sure, I protested, it's steeper and I'm just not into
steep. "We'll ride easy." And later on I hear from Todd that Karl was
looking back and wondering why, on the steep ramp out of Huddart Park, I
was so far behind.
Small group
today, just Todd, Karl & Kevin. But that was more than enough for me.
This was absolutely positively my least-inspired ride up Kings in years.
Maybe ever. To say I felt "flat" is an understatement. Someone, don't
remember who, even asked if I was going to make it. As if. As if I'd
ever turn tail on a climb after starting up it! I should have known
things were going to go badly when the gate at the bottom of Huddart
Park was closed, forcing us to dismount and walk around it, before
climbing up through the park.
The guys were nice enough to drag me
along the gradual climb and flat section of Skyline; they could have
very easily dropped me without any effort. Feeling like I had to take
advantage where I could, I pulled away on the descent towards Sky Londa
(the one place where my weight isn't a disadvantage) and found myself
further ahead than I'd have thought until... I look back, see where the
other three are, and when I look forward, right in front of me is the
biggest dang deer I've ever seen. Moose-sized. Maybe small Buffalo. OK,
not really, but it was BIG and it was right there in the middle of the
road! I yelled, mostly for the guys behind me, and hoping also to get
the darned thing to MOVE. And move it did, and fortunately without
freaking out and slipping on the roadway. It wasn't really all that
close, but the effect was chilling. From that point on I basically shut
down and took it slow the rest of the way down to Sky Londa.
Sure, I felt a bit better as the ride
went on, mostly because I was thankful I was still there. I can't
explain why I felt so dead this morning; there was no pain, I slept
reasonably well, and didn't eat anything particularly bad the night
before (although I ate too much of what I did eat, which was spaghetti
with sausage that my wife had made; I'm sure sausage isn't the best
thing the night before a ride). We'll see what happens Sunday, when the
plan is to climb Mt. Diablo, one of our Bay Area landmark climbs.
06/17/08- I'M NOT
GOING TO BE LATE WITH THIS ENTRY! Too many times lately
I've been ignoring my duty to update the almost-daily diary (which it
really isn't; generally it's 3-4 times/week), but not today. I've
sequestered myself temporarily in the warehouse where I might get
ignored just long enough to get this done.
Let's see... no Millo this morning (still
supervising construction work at his house; this has been going on for a
while, so it better be quite the castle when it's done) nor Eric. But we
did have Karl, Karen, Kevin, George, other Kevin, Billy & Syl. The other
Kevin, Billy & Syl only went as far as Kings and then disappeared; my
guess is that they're so fast they vaporized. It was a struggle up the
hill, with the slightly-cooler temps ratcheting up the noise level from
my lungs, and I'm still carrying too much weight. Seems like the last
week or so had been pretty bad for me in that regard. It's been so busy
at the shop that I'm not feeling quite balanced and at times like these
I tend to eat too much, and the wrong things besides. And if what I eat
is too salty, I retain water big-time (which I can feel most readily
when I put on my shoes). Thankfully, after Sunday's ride up Page Mill, I
think I got my system recalibrated and I'm heading back to normal.
And sure, people were giving me a bad
time about my outfit this morning, particularly my vintage (at just 10
years old???!!!) TREK/VW jersey, but at least I wasn't wearing my
see-through (in the rear) shorts. Not that it matters, since lately
everyone's been riding in front of me anyway. But for as bad a time as
the guys give me, either for what I'm wearing or the large seatbag I
carry, somehow when someone needs a tool they don't hesitate to ask me
for one. And so it was this morning, when, at the top of Kings, Kevin
needed my multi tool to tighten his loose cleats. Next time he asks what
all I've got in my huge bag, I'll just tell him whatever it takes to fix
chains (which I fixed for him a couple weeks ago on Tunitas) and cleats.
Schedules? Kevin has to work today (he's
a pilot) and asked how we were doing for time when we got to Sky Londa.
8 minutes behind, not all that bad. Yes, this ride does run like
clockwork. Guess it's good that something in my life does!
6/15/08- WHEN
THERE'S NOT MUCH TIME TO RIDE, BUT YOU'VE GOT SOME MAKE-UP RIDING TO DO,
YOU'VE GOT TWO CHOICES. You can either do the "Ugly" ride,
ugly because it's just plain no fun, heading up hills that are better
taken down and vice versa, or you can ride up Page Mill. The ugly ride
wasn't a good option because it looked like some fog had settled in on
that part of Skyline, and y'know, I really don't want to go back to leg
warmers if I don't have to. That leaves... Page Mill!
 Page
Mill is probably the most-difficult of Bay Area climbs, difficult not
because it's consistently steep but because you just can't seem to
establish any sort of rhythm on it, especially the lower section below
Foothill Park. The semi-official timing point is the intersection of
Arastradero & Page Mill, and it's that first couple of miles that work
hard to break your spirit. Once you get past the park, it actually gets a
whole lot steeper, but in a way that you can sink your teeth into. It
feels like you're accomplishing something (which you are; you're going
up!). 2093ft of up, according to my Garmin 705. That compares to 1200ft
for Old LaHonda and 1600ft for Kings Mtn. If you start the ride from the
Tuesday/Thursday ride location (Olive Hill & Canada Road in Woodside), the
total ride comes to 32.2 miles with 3127ft of total climbing. Darn, one of
the tougher rides around and yet it doesn't quite make the "tough ride"
scale of 100ft of climbing/mile. How can that be?
The route runs south on Canada, past
Roberts onto Mountain Home, loop through Portola Valley on Alpine,
Arastradero to Page Mill, up Page Mill, north on Skyline to 84, down 84,
Tripp Road to Kings Mtn, Kings Mtn to Manuella/Albion/Olive Hill and back
to Canada. I'll get the ride posted on Motionbased shortly so you can see
it in detail. Figure it at 30 miles if you start at Roberts in Woodside.
6/12/08- WELL,
NOT REALLY 6/12/08- it's actually three days later (or is
it four?) by the time I'm finally reporting on Thursday's ride. It was
almost like a Tuesday ride, with greater-than-normal attendance, including
two new guys whose name, by now, I've lost track of. Actually, I was
having a hard enough time keeping track of them for even 5 minutes during
the ride, so a few days later and my brain has returned to its normal
state of mush.
Besides the two new guys, we had Karl, new
Kevin (old Kevin was visiting his parents back east), Billy, Eric, Todd,
Syl... and at least one more who I'm forgetting. Pretty much a sure thing
they're all faster than me right now, although thankfully the new guys
aren't quite yet up to speed on the concept of running me into the ground.
6/10/08- SUMMER,
FINALLY! Even though summer doesn't really start for a week
or two, today marked the first time in quite a while that I've been able
to put in two rides in a row without leg warmers or tights. Which also
means that, as the ride goes on, I begin to breathe normally too. Another
indication of summer is the Sunflower growing by the roadside near the top
of Jefferson. Of course, that's also a reminder that the Tour de France is
coming soon, the first one I'll miss in, wh at,
8 years? That's definitely going to seem strange, watching the coverage
and knowing that I'm not heading over to see the end of it. Perhaps it's
time to see the Vuelta (Tour of Spain) in September.
But for today, it's time to ride once again
up Kings Mtn with a small army of guys hand-picked to run me into the
ground. Not really, it just seems that way. Regular old-guy Kevin, newer
younger-guy Kevin (who looks a bit different after having cut his
dreadlocks), Karl, George, Todd, Billy & Eric. Last Sunday's ride up
Tunitas seems to have been a turning point for my climbing, as I worked my
tail off on the upper part and forced myself to stay in the saddle. Today
I found myself able to do more of the same, instead of climbing almost
entirely standing. You build up an entirely different set of muscles that
way, but it seems to be something I can only do once it gets warmer.
I'm not really sure what sort of epic
rides, if any, this summer will bring. I never did ride Sonora Pass last
year, so it would seem like that ought to be on the schedule. We'll see.
Some of it depends upon my son's progress; we've got just a few brief
months to get him into shape for... no, not cycling, but next season's La
Crosse (did I spell that right) at school.
6/08/08- WHO KNEW
44 MILES COULD BE SO HARD? That wasn't the plan as I left
the house this morning. I has a limited amount of time to ride, since this
was one of the Sundays I take Kevin to the track in the afternoon, so I
figured I'd do a quick but not really hard ride out to the coast and back
Tunitas. I started at a relatively-easy pace up Old LaHonda, but around
the halfway mark started pushing it a bit, trying to keep some distance
between myself and an Alto Velo ride that would be retracing my steps a
bit later. Just so you know I'm no longer some sort of demon climber, it
took 23:05 to get to the top (back in the day, it could have been in the
mid-16s).
Lots of riders out today,
many doing the Tour de Cure ride, enjoying nearly-perfect weather. What
would have made it more perfect? Losing that headwind as you ride from
LaHonda out to the coast, that's what! But by then I was beginning to
enjoy the challenge, and wasn't too disappointed when I came across
Kevin's (that's older Kevin) group at the San Gregorio store, heading back
the same way I was. I knew I couldn't stay with them on Tunitas, but still
had a lot of fun trying to keep up with people on the climb (the Tour de
Cure was on Tunitas as well). Halfway up "gruppo Kevin" was stopped at the
side of the road as his chain had failed, so once again the large
multi-took that I carry, in the bag that people give me a bad time about
because it's so big, saved the day.
We are so lucky to live where we
do. The great roads, wonderful weather and large numbers of friendly
people on bikes just can't be beat.
6/06/08- YES, I'M
RUNNING A FEW DAYS BEHIND, AND SITTING A FEW THOUSAND MILES AWAY FROM
HOME and would most certainly rather be there (home) than
here (Madison WI). Not that there weren't solid, super-secret reasons
why I had to make a short-notice trip to Trek, but it's not as if the
weather's all that bad out here and yet the flights are totally messed
up. I'll probably make it home at 12:30am... if I'm lucky!
Meanwhile, oil soared to $139/barrel and
people are thinking wow, that's great for the bike biz! No, it's not. I
could get into a whole lot of reasons why, but in a nutshell, people are
going to be hurting soon, especially people on the east coast this
coming winter, when many won't be able to afford their fuel oil bills
and some will literally freeze. It's not a good situation. Sure, more
people will come to depend upon the lowly bicycle for some of their
trips, and we'll involuntarily start the process towards being a
less-wasteful, more environmentally-conscious country. But it would have
been so much better if the country could have planned ahead for
higher-priced oil. Europe has been doing what they can (primarily
through high taxes on gasoline) to encourage more-efficient consumption
of energy, and it's worked. They're in much better shape than we are,
since anything larger than a compact is rare.
I know, I'm getting perilously-close to
discussing politics again, something a business owner shouldn't be
doing. But dang it, somebody, somewhere, some person with a vision needs
to lead us through this mess, and that vision doesn't seem to be coming
from the folk in the running for President. OK, I'm done for now.
Meanwhile, if there are lights burning in your house that don't need to
be on, turn 'em off. It's time to make a dent in our energy requirements
and show "the man" that we can strike back, that we're not 100%
hopelessly addicted to oil, just 97.3% so.
6/01/08- NOT ALL 64 MILE RIDES ARE CREATED
EQUAL! The Sequoia Century has always been known as one of the
more-challenging local events, whether you ride the 100k or the, in this
case, 112 mile option. Today was no exception, as my son and I rode up
Page Mill, north on Skyline to 84, down 84 to LaHonda, up West Alpine,
then south on Skyline to 9. Normally you'd then head down 9 but we added a
few miles and some more climbing by heading further south on Skyline to
its summit before turning back and re-joining the normal ride. After
descending 9 it was then up & over Pierce & Mt Eden and then the finish
into a headwind on Foothill.
A couple noteworthy items. First, Kevin
(my son)... well, he enjoys descents. A lot. And on the run down to
LaHonda, we merged into a fairly large group of riders, some of whom were
a bit slow for his taste, so he moves to the outside to pass. At about the
same time somebody else from within that group is doing the same thing.
I'm watching this from behind, and it's reasonable to think that Kevin
should have been able to read the intentions of the cyclist who was moving
out as Kevin was trying to pass. In any event, that guy freaked out a bit
(something about how two people can't occupy the same space at the same
time) and then proceeded to head up to Kevin and give him a piece of his
mind. Mid-40s guy maybe, casing on a 15 year old. So I head up and tell
the guy look, he's 15 years old, maybe he should have been able to figure
out what you were about to do, fine, but when you were 15, didn't you do a
few stupid things once in a while? At that the guy laughed and order was
restored to the universe.
Kevin held up very well, although on the
optional run past highway 9, which was supposed to go all the way out to
Bear Creek (about 10 miles) to visit the secret soda stop on the ride (a
feature on the 112 mile route only, which was why we were going to detour
out to it), we decided that the long descent down to Bear Creek might be a
bit more than he'd enjoy when it came to climbing back out of it. A wise
decision, I think. Better that he enjoys cycling than thinks that Dad's
only mission in life is to inflict torture upon him.
But we did have one more "event." Once we
got down to Foothill, facing a strong headwind, it was time for Dad to go
to the front and pull us to the finish as quickly as possible. I hadn't
taxed myself terribly much on the climbs, so I had plenty left in the
tank, and teaching Kevin how to draft at high speeds is something we've
been working on. So off we go, with me pushing the pace as hard as I can
without him coming off (which was a 110% effort on the flat sections, and
maybe 80% on the slight inclines). We actually ended up, unintentionally,
blowing everyone else off the back, which tells me that Kevin's getting
pretty good! But he still needs a bit of work with his technique as,
approaching a stop light, I signaled that we were going to be slowing
down. But Kevin was apparently in the habit of riding just an inch off my
rear wheel (his own admission) and made contact with it approaching the
intersection and went down, fast. Thankfully, just very light bruises and
virtually no damage to the bike, so we were back up & running in no time.
And maybe Kevin won't ride quite so close to my wheel next time!
5/30/08-
INCREDIBLE GIRO D'ITALIA STAGE THIS MORNING, which
you can watch using this link. Just mute the audio on the upper video
window, which will let you listen to the english-language Eurosport audio
from the box below it.
5/29/08-
THE BEGINNING OF THE END, OR THE END OF THE
BEGINNING? That's what I was thinking this morning as I
once more found myself struggling up Kings, not able to hang onto a wheel
for very long and watching the guys ride away from me. Karl, Eric, Billy,
Syl, Kevin... as always, seem like I'm forgetting someone. Still colder
than it should be for this time of year, which means I'm still wearing
tights & a base layer, and my body still thinks it needs to pack in more
food (hibernation mode?). But thinking ahead to this Sunday's Sequoia
Century, where I'll be doing the 100k ride with my son... I'm wondering if
this might be the first ride where he could actually be riding stronger
than me for parts of it. Certainly not on the steeper parts, but he
recovers very quickly and, in the near term, there's this feeling that
he's on his way up. And me?
Truthfully, it's going to be another year
before my son might be ready to join in on one of the
Tuesday/Thursday-morning rides. He's not quite below 30 minutes for Old
LaHonda yet, so he's still quite a ways from the 33 minute limit for our
ride (beyond 33 minutes we run into time problems for those of us who have
to get to work etc). But he will get there, and in the meantime, I
don't think he's going to be doing quite a few 60-70 miles rides, which he
can handle quite easily, and at some point in the future, his first 100
miler. Don't think that will be this year, though. And then there's Sonora
Pass. It would be possible to subject him to just one side of that climb
in the near future, but certainly not both. But why? He's a good kid. What
has he done to deserve even one side of Sonora Pass?
5/27/08- GETTING
TO THIS ENTRY A DAY LATE and remembering why that's not a
good idea... because you don't remember! Geez, just a day ago, and do I
even have a chance of listing who rode? Karl, Kevin, George, Chris, Eric,
Millo, but was there anybody else? I know the climb up Kings was tougher
than usual, as I tried to hang onto Karl's wheel for the first half of the
climb, and noticed that I couldn't even hear him breathing, and wondered
what it must be like, having lungs that make no noise! And I remember
finally being in the right place to take a sprint, and how hard it was
trying to keep Karl in sight on west-side Old LaHonda. So I guess I do
remember a few things, but mostly I know not to let a day go by before
updating the diary!
5/25/08- TAKE A
RIDE ON THE "A" TRAIN! I had just a few hours to get in a
ride this morning, because obviously I had to watch the Giro coverage (Contador
is now wearing the leader's jersey), and had to get back in time to take
my son to the track. So I headed off to the coast via Old LaHonda, and,
heading down the other side, the Alto Velo "A" ride (their faster ride)
caught up with me at the stoplight where the road narrows to just one
lane. Taking the "A" train is definitely the way you want to get to the
coast, especially when there are headwinds (which was the case this
morning). Instead of averaging maybe 20 mph on your own, you're riding
between 25-30 mph the entire way, as an efficient double-paceline keeps
the pace up while not keeping any single rider at the front (where the
work is being done) for very long.
Of course, as soon as the road turned up
(Stage Road at San Gregorio, where it climbs up to meet Highway 1), I
was spit promptly off the back. I don't climb like I used to, that's for
sure, but I still enjoy it. How many people can out-climb me? 20? 50?
1000? In truth, it's probably closer to 3.72 billion or so, but I still
enjoy a good climb!
Tunitas did its best to tax my lungs &
legs, and it felt really good to finally come to that little crest with
about 3 miles to go that tells you the nasty stuff is behind you now.
All in all, a solid 45 mile ride with two major climbs and a bit nicer
weather than forecast.
5/22/08- A GOOD
DAY FOR A SLOWER RIDE.
I don't sleep well when it's windy. Can't tell you why. I just
tend to feel unsettled. And so it was last night, a terribly windy (by
Northern California standards) night, the sort of wind you'd normally
expect with a big storm. But there are no storms, just wind. I even woke
up ten minutes earlier than the alarm clock, and that's something
there's little room for in my life!
And so it was that I arrived not feeling
quite as lively as normal. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the
Pastrami sandwich I had for lunch, or the Jack-In-The-Box burger for
dinner. But fortunately I wasn't the only one less-than-lively, as Kevin
was still getting over a nasty cold. We also had Karl (who was
feeling quite fine) and new-guy "Red" who works with Karl at REI. Red's
not the fastest climber, but he is an opportunist, rather like me. While
Karl & I were battling it out for the Skyline sprint, watching each
other very closely, playing games, Red just cruises by on the outside,
having sat behind us long enough to get a pretty good draft while we
were going at it. Karl and I had a pretty good laugh over it; it won't
likely happen again!
5/20/08- BACK TO
LEGWARMERS AGAIN as things cooled down dramatically from
the weekend. Actually it was rather nice. The fog that shrouded Skyline
as we approached the base of the climb disappeared well ahead of us,
leaving us with yet another beautiful morning to ride. Then again, even
when it rained I looked forward to riding, which seems so unfathomable
now. Not unfathomable that I would enjoy a ride in the rain, but rather
the very concept of rain itself. After a terribly-wet early winter, the
rain simply stopped in its track, a couple months ago, never to be seen
again. Northern California is a place where, for 7 or 8 or 9 months of
the year, it simply doesn't rain.
Let's see... Tuesday's typically the bigger group, and so it was this
morning. Two Kevins, Karl, Eric, Billy, Syl, Todd, George, and Millo
waiting at the top of the climb. A moderate pace that put me between two
groups heading up the hill; no way to get up to the faster guys, and I
really didn't want to get swallowed up by those riding almost casually
behind me. Most noteworthy part of the ride was west-side Old LaHonda,
where things split up a bit and I decided to try to hang on to Karl &
George's wheels, while others dropped off behind. I was reminded of what
I tell my son- that's no matter how hard it is to try and hang onto that
wheel in front of you, it's even more difficult letting yourself fall
back and having to make it on your own.
At this point I don't have any grand
plans for my own riding this year; a trip to France for the 'Tour is
almost completely out of the question (although if the ASO, the outfit
that runs the Tour de France, decided at the last minute to include the
Astana team, you just never know... I could make such a trip on very
short notice if need be!). It's possible that I might head to Spain in
September and see the Vuelta and find out what the "Angrilu" climb is
all about. But for the most part, I've been thinking this is the final
summer to get Kevin (my son Kevin) into shape and maybe, by this time
next year, he might be able to join us on one of our Tuesday/Thursday
rides.
5/18/08- MISSED
IT BY THAT MUCH! Yes, it does sound like something
from the new Get Smart movie. But today, Kevin really did. That's younger
Kevin (my son), whose previous best time up Old LaHonda Road was 33:30
(just last week) and this morning managed 30:11, a mere 12 seconds off of
a 20-something ride up the hill. I'm not sure if it was the great weather
(68-72 degrees and low humidity) or what, but he rode strongly from start
to finish.
We then rode on out to
Pescadero, stopping at the exceptional bakery (cherry turnover for me,
raspberry croissant for Kevin) and then into the wind to San Gregorio via
Stage Road. It actually got a bit cool on the coast, down to 64 degrees,
but y'know, that was just fine with me after the past few uber-hot days! I
began to see some evidence that Kevin ate into his reserves on the Old
LaHonda and Haskins Grade climbs, especially once we hit Tunitas Creek for
the ride over the hill. It probably didn't help that I let him buy a
Gatorade in Pescadero instead of sticking with Cytomax. There's something
about Cytomax that it just plain works. You just ride better when you
drink it, or at least I do, and it seems Kevin does as well.
In the end it was 56 miles and 6500ft of
climbing. A good ride on a beautiful day.
 5/18/08-
WHY I CARRY A CHAIN TOOL WHEN I RIDE.
I've never once had a chain
failure, or even an issue, on my own bike. But several times I've come
across folk stranded on the road due to a mishap that only a chain tool
could fix. Today was one of those days.
At the base of Tunitas Creek my son and I
came across a group of three or four cyclists at the side of the road, and
I asked, as I usually do, if they had what they needed (works much better
than asking if they're OK, because rarely, it seems, will guys admit that
something's beyond their ability to deal with, but they have no issue
admitting that they need something, probably because that implies that
it's in the realm of an act of God that has them stranded).
Well, this guy had somehow managed to do a
number on his rear derailleur and break the replaceable dropout hanger.
His bike wasn't going anywhere, as the chain, without a derailleur
attached, was going to be dragging on the ground if he were to put it on
the smaller chainring so he could get up the grade ahead. That's where the
chain tool came in. I was able to shorten his chain enough to get it onto
a front/rear combination that would allow him to make it up the hill,
which he did. You can click on the photo for a larger image of the
"repair."
Other times I've help people with failed
connector pins (fairly common) and once with a chain that, due to a really
nasty shift, had gotten bent severely and had to have a few links removed.
It's not a bad thing for somebody in a group
to have a chain tool. For what it's worth, the one I use is the Topeak
Hexus (used to be called the Hummer).
5/15/08- CUT IT
JUST A BIT CLOSE THIS MORNING, as I experienced either a
mental malfunction or my alarm clock failed. My wife came into the bedroom
at 7:15am asking quite loudly "Why aren't you up? It's 7:15!" The alarm
clock is set to go off at 7:05, and right after my wife came in it went
off... but when I checked the setting, it was still set for 7:05. No power
failure to explain anything, just the strange possibility that I heard it go
off at 7:05 and hit the snooze button, without remembering doing so.
I still made it out to the start of the ride in
time; it's amazing how much less time it takes to get ready to ride when you
don't have to search for colder-weather gear. And I'd already made my
Cytomax for my bottle the night before, needing only to remove it from the
freezer and defrost it slgihtly under a bit of water.
Snoozing was something I did not get
to do on the ride. Kevin, Karl, Todd, Eric, Billy, Syl, Chris... all far
better at climbing than I am these days. My only goal was to make it up in
something under 28 minutes, and I succeeded by the slimmest of margins (4
seconds).
Being Bike-To-Work day, I dutifully rode my
bike rather than drive a van full of transfers (between our two stores),
which was no problem heading to work, but coming back home? It was still
close to 90 degrees, and with a 400ft climb to my house, not something I was
really looking forward to. Fortunately my son, Kevin, happened to drop by
the shop with my wife, with his bike in the car, and they were trying to
talk me into hitching a ride with them back home. Can't do that on
Bike-To-Work day! But what I did manage to do was convince my son to ride
back up the hill with me. Not completely sure it was a good idea, as, for
the first time ever, I had more than a bit of difficulty keeping up with him
on the climb. Darn kid even sprinted away from me at one point! We'll see
how he does this Sunday, as we head out for a longer ride to the coast.
5/13/08- SO TODAY,
NICEST DAY OF THE YEAR, I'M RIDING MY RAIN BIKE. I didn't
start out the day on the right foot. Just as I was getting ready to go, I
noticed that my brake shoes, the ones that have lasted over two years with
my carbon rims, had suddenly worn down so much that the little plastic
thingee at the base of the brake pad holder, the thing that lets you know
you're just about down to metal, was scraping lightly on the rim. And no
carbon brake shoes were to be had at the house. Which meant going down to
the garage and bringing up the rain bike, fenders and all, on a day that was
as far removed from rain as could possibly be. And putting me a good 15
minutes behind schedule, such that, as I was finally getting ready to go, I
get a call on my cell phone from Kevin K, wondering why I'm not at the start
of the ride.
Adding insult to injury
was the fact that, as I finally started riding, I couldn't get my shoes
clipped into the pedals. Duh. Speedplay cleats don't play well with the SPD
pedals on my rain bike! So back into the house (again) to change shoes, and
finally I'm off. In order to catch up with the guys, I rode up 84 instead of
Kings Mountain, and then back-tracked towards Kings, finding them almost at
the top of Skyline. Climbing 84 from Woodside is one of those things you're
told not to do, because of traffic concerns, but it's really not that bad,
especially if you can get a bit of speed up so you're not caught in a blind
corner with a car coming up behind. But heading north on Skyline from 84...
that's just plain not fun.
Not sure who all was there today; I think
Todd (who didn't do the full ride, heading back down 84 to an early class),
Kevin, Eric, Karen (yes, a woman on the ride, one who can probably ride the
best of us into the ground any time she wished), Karl, Milo...
But life isn't that bad when your
rain bike is a Trek 5900. Riding it today I was thinking yeah, I can see why
this was Lance's favorite bike. Nice all-around machine. Not quite as
responsive as my Madone, but certainly nothing to avoid.
5/11/08- SHORT RIDE
TODAY, too many things to take care of to get in anything
decent, and certainly not enough time to get in a ride at all if I'd taken
Kevin to the Velodrome for the twice-monthly track sessions. So instead it's
just a quick run at 4pm up Old LaHonda and back down 84. Kevin's speed
is gradually coming up; 13.2mph door-to-door. But the best thing is that
he's finally learning how to really suck a wheel. He finally gets it. He now
understands that he can go a heck of a lot faster, and further, with less
effort, if he gets behind someone strong and lets them motorpace him. That's
not to say that he can slack off by sucking wheels, but rather that he can
ride with much-stronger groups than before and get his basic speed up. It's
good for me too, because I can get a lot better workout leading from the
front, knowing that he'll be able to hang on unless I really push it. And
soon, even full-throttle and I won't be able to shake him!
5/08/08- WHY SHOULD
7 SECONDS MAKE A DIFFERENCE? Or, what difference is there,
really, between climbing Kings Mtn in 28-something vs 27:53? Both are pretty
slow times for me, but this year I've been struggling a bit, still not
getting in those solid base miles from "true" 100 mile centuries, vs the 100
kilometer versions I ride with my son. I should be riding up the hill
in 26-something, or should I? Time is somewhat arbitrary, and the enjoyment
of the ride really hasn't lessened any with a bit less speed on the climbs.
Still, after staying in the 28-something range for so long, it did feel good
getting to the top just a little bit faster.
Karl, Kevin, Billy, Syl, Eric. Syl & Eric
departed after climbing Kings, while the rest of us bravely headed into the
mist on Skyline, on what the weatherman promises to be one of the last
almost-cold (45 degrees) days of the year. I won't miss them (the cold days
of winter & spring).
5/6/08- IT FEELS SO
GOOD TO FEEL SO BAD! I wasn't sure how I'd feel this morning,
having missed last Thursday's ride due to illness and not being able to get
in a longer (but relatively slow) ride with my son on Sunday. But it was one
of those rare mornings where the first few turns of the pedal (heading
immediately uphill from my house) felt good, and I made pretty good speed to
the start of the ride. The Tuesday group varies a bit as we go; at the start
we had Kevin, Karl, Chris, George, Jim, Todd... and also Syl, a super-strong
rider we see out on the road quite often, but rarely rides with us. I think
that's it... and we picked up Millo at the top of Kings. He's heading out
earlier than he should; back in the day, we'd catch up to him about 2/3rds
of the way up the hill. Todd, Jim & Chris headed back down 84 instead of
doing the west-side Old LaHonda loop, while Syl apparently headed back down
Kings.
West-side Old LaHonda's getting
interesting lately. A couple weeks ago we had a group of pace deer, and
today? A pace skunk! On the section where it straightens out and opens up,
just before heading into the trees just west of Skyline, we saw something
waddling along in front of us, something who's style of waddling made it
unmistakable, even (thankfully) from a good distance, that it was a skunk.
We slowed down to keep our distance, and he just kept cruising straight
ahead, never looking back at us, at a pretty decent clip (for a skunk). He
finally veered off the road and into a drainage pipe, without ever raising
its tail.
5/04/08 Addendum- We finally got
ahold of Kevin's doctor regarding his foot injury. We didn't have to take
him in; the doctor was able to figure things out quite readily over the
phone, based upon the location of his pain and how he injured it (playing
LaCrosse). In a nutshell, he'd managed to pivot his ankle inward too far,
straining, and possibly tearing slightly, his
anterior talo-fibular
ligament. Which means no more running, no summer LaCrosse season. But
here's yet one more example of why cycling is such a wonderful thing. With
modern clipless pedals, the foot is held laterally rigid, so you can't put
the sort of side forces on the ankle that might keep it from healing. And
Kevin's doctor just happens to be a cyclist, knows that Kevin rides, and
pointed out that this should give him no grief at all while riding (but that
he'd notice it hurting a bit afterward).
5/04/08- SURVIVED
LAST WEEK just barely. I actually missed Thursday morning's
ride, thinking it might not be such a great idea to try and climb Kings
without having eaten for the last 24 hours or so. But a bigger thing to
survive has been our switch to an entirely-new point-of-sale system, which
has actually been going easier than I expected. It was definitely a good
thing to go live on Monday, giving us as many days with the new system as
possible before Saturday.
But at this
exact moment in time, I'd rather not be typing. It's 11:31am, looks really
nice out there, and I was supposed to be riding out to the coast with my
son, but instead we're waiting for a return call from a Doctor, hoping to
get Kevin (my son) in to be seen for a sore ankle he's had for the past two
weeks. An injury from a LaCrosse session that somehow didn't keep him from
playing but today, it's keeping him from riding. Maybe if a typical bike
ride was as down & dirty as LaCrosse, he'd be looking forward to riding with
a bit of pain instead of waiting for a phone call... (which, of course, it
was for me when I was his age; when I raced, if I didn't have 4 good crashes
each year, it was an indication I wasn't riding aggressively enough, but I'm
no so sure I want to face my wife the first time I bring Kevin back from a
ride in that condition).
4/30/08- FLATTENED
LIKE A RUN-OVER PANCAKE is how I felt this morning. I woke up
at 5am feeling wretched, beyond wretched really. The 8:30pm lunch I had last
night, consisting of a seafood salad (which I have to be a bit careful with,
since certain shellfish, especially scallops, react nastily with me) and a
way-too-big piece of Max's Niagra Falls chocolate cake. Normally I don't do
much cake anymore, and would have spread that piece out over 3 days. But I
didn't. I was starved, it was in front of me, and it disappeared. Until
about 5am that is.
I don't think it
was just the food that got to me. The stress of converting our older
point-of-sale system into something newer & better has been immense,
requiring me to figure out how to do things (database conversions) that I
used to do easily some years ago but now tax my brainpower beyond the norm.
Too many nights with too little sleep and visions of inventory errors
dancing through my head. And inventory errors can kill a business.
But it's 1:22pm now and I'm beginning to
feel alive again. Not sure what to eat, but at least I was able to stand
long enough to take a shower and get dressed and start thinking about
getting back into the world again. One thought did occur to me though. Had
this been a ride morning, I don't think I possibly could have made it. That
would have been remarkable.
4/29/08-
EVERYBODY WANTS ON-BOARD THIS TRAIN or so it seemed this
morning, with a group of 10. I'll try to get the names right; Millo, Kevin,
other Kevin, Billy, Eric, Jim, Todd, Karl, George... that plus me makes 10.
Got 'em all! Unless there was anybody hiding. Still a bit cool but not cold,
with lows in the mid-40s. Beautiful variations in color and shape of the
clouds along the coast. Noteworthy animal sighting was on my way to the
start, as a large deer just stood in the middle of Jefferson (on the descent
towards Canada), waiting for me to slow down. He didn't move until I was
very close to him. I asked Karl about the deer's behavior, who said that
maybe it's us that's screwed up, not the deer. After all, what's a "road" to
a deer?
4/27/08- THE
MOST-BEAUTIFUL DAY OF THE YEAR, AND I'M NOT RIDING. It had to
happen like this. What a day, and I was spending it inside, along with Burt,
Dave, Karen, Becky, Dick, Steve, Don & Charlie, who'd all given up a great
day outdoors to work tirelessly putting the final touches on our conversion
from our older point of sale system (which has been with us since 1994) to a
new one. A day full of scanning, scanning, and more scanning of inventory,
and categorizing & making new part numbers for things that didn't scan. Can
you think of anything more fun to do? But they hung in there, and did a
great job. Still a bunch of pieces to pick up on Monday, and still scary to
think we're going to throw a switch and, as they say, "Go Live" with the new
system. But thanks to the efforts people made today, I think it can be done.
I know it can, because they've already done all the hard stuff. Famous last
words, but I guarantee you one thing, the world could come crashing down on
our computers next Sunday but I'll be on a bike anyway. At least for part of
the day!
4/25/08- PERSONAL
TIRADE/POLITICAL STATEMENT of the sort that intelligent
business people don't make because you might alienate good customers. But
I've got to. I'm tired of hearing how "ethanol" is the answer to our gas
crisis. With food prices going upward fast, literally starving people who
are on the borderline of getting by, there's something just plain wrong that
we feel it's a higher priority to grow plants to fuel our cars rather than
feed people. Forget the arguments that it's terribly inefficient to product
gasoline from crops (due to the amount of energy required to produce that
crop in the first place). There's a message we're sending to the world with
ethanol. A message that says it's more important to us to keep using energy
the way we're used to than to have reasonable supplies of food at reasonable
prices.
Long before we had oil at $120/barrel, there
was a concern for our frequently-wasteful habits. Producing too much garbage
(often simply because packaging is out of control), using too much gas &
electricity & water. Ah yes, you can tell, I grew up in the 70s. Some of us
thought planetary destruction due to our errant ways was just around the
corner. That wasn't true; substantial technological progress allowed us to
dramatically improve crop yields, and actually put a dent in pollution. We
even found ways to permanently reduce water consumption with little
hardship.
But today? Today it's hard to convince
somebody that it's wasteful leaving lights on when you're not in the room.
Especially the younger folk just coming out of schools. What's with that?
How much could we do to throttle back the price of oil and food by simply
driving a bit less (maybe riding bikes a bit more?), turning lights off when
we don't need them, thinking about a bit more efficient car next time, and
maybe a government that sets mileage standards that don't call minivans
"light trucks" and thus exempt? Sadly, no politician in his/her right mind
would take up this cause, because it entails a minimal amount of sacrifice,
and asking for that doesn't get people elected. We can do so much better. We
have to.
4/24/08- I
FIGURE WE STARTED RIDING ABOUT 6 HOURS TOO EARLY THIS MORING,
as it hit 41 degrees again up on Skyline (a couple degrees colder though on
Todd's computer), on a day the weather was finally taking a turn for the
better (which means warmer). I certainly function a lot better when it's
warmer, and not just because my lungs can take in air without sounding like
a bad bagpipe. For whatever reason, my body decides it's time to put on some
extra weight during the winter, and it simply doesn't want to start coming
off until things warm up, regardless of the miles I put in on the bike.
Strange.
Todd, Eric, Karl & Billy this morning, with
me still struggling to get much under 29 minutes on the climb up Kings. That
doesn't depress me as much as it might though, as I'm picking up speed a bit
elsewhere. Hey, you take what you can get, and I'm thankful that this 52
year old body doesn't protest much.
Unfortunately, no ride for me this Sunday,
as we'll be doing inventory before throwing the switch on our new
point-of-sale computer system. This has been in the works for some time, and
it will be a great relief to finally throw the switch on it. From what we
can tell, it will greatly simplify the ordering processes, which should
improve our ability to help customers get what they need, when they need it.
Sounds good. We'll see soon enough!
4/22/08- NOPE, THE
NOISE WASN'T MY KNEES, it was a failing cassette on the rear
wheel. Anybody riding with me for the past month or so has noticed my bike
getting louder and louder creaking from the rear, sounding almost like my
bike was about to break in half. So this morning I tried one of the new
Bontrager Aeolus aero carbon wheels and voila, noises gone! Guess it's time
to do a bit of maintenance on my bike!
Nice clear morning, with Eric, Todd, George,
Chris, Billy, Millo, Kevin, Jim(? not sure of his name) joining in the Kings
Mtn carnage. I'm beginning to feel like I have some endurance, but certainly
not speed up the hill. That's OK; it's endurance that gives you the idea you
can actually finish this ride in one piece! Most interesting event was on
the west side of Old LaHonda, where we came across three deer running up the
road in front of us. For quite some distance they ran in front of us, just a
curve ahead, until finally they disappeared. We actually weren't certain
they'd left the road for a bit though, wondering if they might have put some
distance on us and maybe we'd catch up again.
4/20/08- IN THE
TOUR DE FRANCE, IT'S HORSES IN ADJACENT FIELDS THAT ARE SEEN "RACING" THE
RIDERS. IN THE PRIMAVERA CENTURY, it's cows. But in the grand
scheme of things, it seems appropriate.
It was a much nicer day than expected.
Yes, it was still a bit on the cool side, and yes, a bit breezy too. But not
nearly as cold or windy as the forecast... but that forecast did seem to
scare a lot of people away! I've ridden the Primavera Century quite a few
times, and this was, by far, the smallest turnout I've seen. Not helping
matters is the scheduling of the nearby Tierra Bella ride the day before.
And perhaps further dampening the spirit of many who might otherwise ride
such events is the cost, at $45 for same-day registration. Ouch! And I'm
definitely a same-day kind of guy, since I'm never certain until the last
minute of whether my schedule's going to allow me to ride or not.
But I decided I couldn't miss this ride
today, since we're implementing a new point-of-sale system that's eating up
pretty much every waking hour lately and will definitely kill any
possibility of a ride next Sunday. Plus, it was a chance to do a lon ger
ride with my son, and it might have been last year's Primavera that was his
first 100k ride.
We saw many of our customers out on the
road, plus Roger and Burt from our Redwood City store. We started a bit
later than most, actually not getting out on the road until 8:15 (yeah, we
slept in this morning, setting the alarm for 6:45 instead of 6:15am like
last year), but this was a very different Kevin from last year. After
suffering through the first 10 miles or so, his motor got going and he
cruised along at a pretty good clip! His average speed (riding speed, not
including rest stops) was 14.2mph, significantly faster than he's done on
long rides before. A lot of it came from greatly-improved skills at drafting
me, which came in very handy when the headwinds got particularly nasty.
The photo at the right was taken at the last
rest stop, just before the final grind up Polmares. I'd asked Kevin if he
was ready to go, and he said "No Dad, I'm on break." Not in that tired,
mindless sort of way that you get when you're wishing the ride was over but
have one last big hill to climb that you're not looking forward to. This was
more pre-meditated and well thought-out. He actually had a plan. It wasn't
just about survival, the way he'd viewed many rides in the past. That was an
interesting development; an indication that he's taking control of things.
Or maybe I'm making way too much out of a funny off-hand remark!
4/17/08- WARMER
TODAY! I don't honestly recall if I even saw a temp reading
in the 40s this morning; could have been that 50 degrees was as cold as it
got, 11 degrees warmer than Tuesday's ride. Noteworthy was the return of
Karl, who'd been missing in action the past couple weeks after an incident
with a car left him a bit banged up and bikeless. Well, not self-respecting
cyclist could ever truly be bikeless, and Karl's no exception, as he showed
up on his 'cross bike. A bit heavier, a bit slower, but we're describing his
bike, not me.
Karl, Kevin & Todd were
with us this morning, but we weren't the only ones enjoying a nice morning
on Kings Mtn, as we came across two women & a guy about 2/3rds of the way
up. On west-side Old LaHonda we spied another cyclist maybe half a mile
ahead of us, which is unusual. Seeing people now & then on Kings is common
(usually we see people coming down as we're heading up), but it's a very
rare thing to see anyone else on Old LaHonda.
But the best thing lately has been that the
scale is finally beginning to reverse its gradual upward trend that winter
inevitably brings. It doesn't even seem directly related to riding more,
because the miles/week remain fairly constant until May, when it kicks up a
bit. More likely there's just something about colder weather that makes me
want to eat too much, or perhaps the metabolism slows down thinking I need
more insulation. Whatever the case, it's comforting to see that things are
finally heading in the right direction.
4/15/08- TOO DARNED
COLD! Actually, it didn't feel all that cold; if you're
dressed right and riding hard, the 39 degrees up on Skyline really isn't
that bad. Which is an obvious indication that cyclists are nuts. This is
Northern California, after all. And mid-April. Isn't it supposed to be
getting warmer?
Kevin & George started
the ride with me this morning, later joined by Milo and Eric, who'd headed
up the hill a few minutes earlier. They needn't have, as George & Kevin were
taking it pretty easy this morning. Of course, I always assumed they were
just around that last corner behind me, so I kept riding hard, while they
took it easy and discussed the meaning of life or whatever it is you can do
when you're not gassed and have lungs that work in the cold.
I wasn't too sure I'd gotten enough sleep
last night, and did feel a bit tired upon waking up, but the interesting
thing about a first-thing-in-the-morning bike ride is that it somehow
recalibrates you, and the rest of the day you feel great. Had you not ridden
and gotten the same amount of sleep, somehow you would have felt it the rest
of the day. I don't quite understand how that works, but it's one more thing
that makes me thankful that I ride.
4/14/08- SOMEBODY
GETS IT. TONIGHT'S CITY COUNCIL MEETING IN REDWOOD CITY. Below is
my email to someone on the City Council, after the BikePed committee
presentation-
Dear Councilor Pierce:
I'd like to thank you for expressing your beliefs tonight that walking
and bike riding without fearing for your safety are part of what makes a
community a better place to live. I've gone to Washington DC for the past
several years for the annual DC Bike Summit lobbying event, in which we try
to convince legislators of the value of "complete streets" and Safe Routes
to Schools, and so much of it focuses on money & funding, but if there
aren't people who can look at their communities and say "We can do better"
things go nowhere.
I need to get more involved with the BikePed group, and hope the City
Council sees fit to give it some room to grow and become part of a bigger
project to make Redwood City a more livable community. I look at cities like
Davis, Portland & Louisville, and think, could Redwood City ever be like
that? And I've quickly dismissed such thoughts, thinking there was something
special about those places, something that hadn't quite settled in Redwood
City. But perhaps it can.
I was wondering for a while tonight if it could possibly be worth the
wait, having to hash and rehash the Cargill debacle, to get to the BikePed
presentation. It was.
You've got my vote, along with anyone I know in this city, for as long
as you want to be on the council.
4/13/08- HAD A
GREAT RIDE WITH TODD this morning. Not a whole lot of time so
couldn't get into anything too ambitious, so I chose one of those "compact"
rides that delivers a solid punch. Up Old LaHonda, down the west side to 84,
down 84 to LaHonda, then back up West Alpine to Skyline. Beautiful, almost
too-warm day (only because we're not used to warm wea ther
yet) with lots & lots of people out riding. About 42 miles from my house &
back, basically the same ride I did two weeks ago with my son. Surprisingly,
riding time was only an hour shorter. Either I'm getting slower, or my son's
getting faster. Most likely a combination of the two!
One annoying observation. As I was heading back
over Jefferson towards home, a car pulled out in front of me from the street
near the new fire station. I'm almost getting used to this... cars having a
difficult time judging the speed of a cyclist... but this one was more
annoying than most because she cut it a lot closer, not because she
misjudged my speed, but because she wasn't paying attention. Instead, she
was yakking on her cell phone. Seriously. Even after pulling onto Jefferson,
she was driving an annoyingly-slow 21 miles per hour and getting pretty
squirrely, as she tried to drive and talk at the same time (holding the
phone up to her ear, which I could easily see in her rear-view mirror).
I've posted the photo on the right; you can
barely make out the details in the rear-view mirror. I've obscured the
license plate number intentionally. I'm really looking forward to the
implementation of the hands-free requirement for cell phones. There's just
no way that somebody can be driving safely with just one hand, while trying
to keep from dropping a cell phone with the other.
4/10/08- DID YOU
SEE THAT BOBCAT???!!! UH... NO... I WAS TOO BUSY TRYING TO TAKE PICTURES...
and so it goes. You think it's going to be a beautiful morning, clear
morning due to the breezes the day before, so you make sure to bring the
camera.
 And
you're still looking for that ultimate shot on west-side Old LaHonda,
one of the most-beautiful roads in the world (which may show my ignorance of
the world outside of California or France). And so, as I'm fumbling with the
camera with my moderately-thick winter gloves, trying to get a good shot of
the coast, Chris turns back and yells at me, "Did you see that? Did you see
the Bobcat that just ran up the road ahead of us and then down the side?"
Well, uh, no. I was too busy trying to find something interesting to take a
picture of that I missed something really interesting that I could
have take a picture of.
Time to get
back to the basics and do a proper write-up of the Tuesday/Thursday ride,
including the attendance sheet. Kevin (old guy Kevin) (old because he's a
good 4 months or so older than I am), new-guy Kevin, fast-climber Chris, and
Eric. At first it was looking like I'd only be riding up as far as the park
entrance, not because I wasn't feeling well, but because my bike was making
the most-horrible noises imaginable. It's been getting pretty creaky for
quite some time, but time is one of those things I have so little of these
days... so if the choice was to ride my bike or work on it, riding won out.
It's either a failing bottom bracket bearing (quite likely, since I've got
over 20k miles on an FSA Ti version that are known to fail with much less
use), or a neglected cassette mechanism. Either way it was sounding like
something that wasn't going to make it to the top of the hill. But it did.
Noisily, but it did. I wouldn't recommend continuing to ride a bike that
sounded like mine, since there's a pretty substantial risk of something
failing completely, when you'd rather it didn't. Usually that means on the
"wrong" side of the hill.
It was a beautiful day to be out on a bike.
Quite a bit warmer than Tuesday (43 degrees for the low, instead of 39), and
the group wasn't into setting any speed records today. One of those days
where, at the end of the ride, you're ever-so-thankful that you didn't wimp
out, cutting the ride short just so you could avoid some nasty expensive
repair.
4/09/08- YES, I
RODE YESTERDAY, YES, I RODE SLOWLY, AND YES, I'M WAY BEHIND
at just about everything. The big news yesterday was that Trek and Greg
LeMond are parting company, with lawsuits filed by each side. I could say
that things could get ugly, but it looks like they already are. I've put up
my take on this issue on the LeMond page of our website-
http://www.chainreaction.com/lemond.htm.
4/7/08- OH MAN, DID
THAT HURT! 5AM AND I'M IN PAIN! Not at all what I expected
after a very nice ride yesterday up Old LaHonda, over Haskins Grade to
Pescadero, Stage to Tunitas and then back up over the hill. I felt a bit
tired afterward, but nothing hurt. Certainly not like the extremely-rude
pain that woke me up (and kept me up) this morning. My left hip felt like
someone was digging a knife into it. What's with that, I'm thinking? Was it
from overdoing it on the Tunitas climb? It didn't seem like that was the
case. I found a rhythm but don't know that I've ever been able to ride in a
way that damaged me physically. But after a few (painful) hours I figured it
out.
It was the climb up Old LaHonda,
on wet pavement, where my rear wheel slipped several times as I stood on the
pedals (those tar stripes are extremely slippery when wet!). In the process
I managed to hyper-extend my left leg, more than once. I only felt a little
bit of pain at the time, but the damage had been done. Advil helped, but not
quite as much as staying on my feet at the shop. By the end of the day I
could almost walk normally, and certainly wasn't wincing with each step.
4/06/08-
DRIZZLE, GENERALLY ICKY, DO YOU STILL RIDE TO THE COAST? That
was a good question as I headed out from home into a day that seemed to get
darker as it went. By the time I got to the base of Old LaHonda, it was
pretty darned wet, with the tar stripes taking their toll on me, causing my
rear wheel to slip out from under me when I'd stand on the pedals (which I
do often). And I'm thinking, is this really a good day to head out to the
coast? Maybe cut it short and head back up west-side Alpine?
But years of riding has told me two things.
First, it almost always gets better as the day progresses. Patience is
nearly-always rewarded on a bike ride! And second, stick to the plan. There
was a reason you decided on that ride in the first place, and if it was a
good idea then, it's probably still a good idea now. And besides, once you
start backing out of things, who knows where it ends?
This wasn't a group ride, just a day out on
the bike. Not that it matters; inevitably I come across people to ride with
along the way, and today was no exception. Most had been scared off by the
threatening weather, but there were a number of groups out on the coast
side, training for various events, or just out for a good time. At Pescadero
I met up with three guys (whose names, as always, I forget... I even tried
to outsmart myself and do a quick video with them introducing themselves,
and I didn't record it right!) (but I can tell you that two of them were
rheumatologists and one works for a biotech firm). Very nice guys who
happened to ride at just about the right pace too! We admired the views from
Stage Road, and passed a number of other cyclists on our way to the Tunitas
Creek climb.
I was looking forward to climbing Tunitas at
a social pace, and things did start out that way. But of course one of the
three guys decides it's OK to go off the front and ride ahead of the other
two, and since it was a pace that, with a bit of pain, was possible to
maintain... well, of course, that's the pace I had to ride as well. Somehow
my inadequate lungs, weakening legs and steepening grade (is steepening
a legit word?) seemed to combine for a perfect climb. Don't ask me how that
works; I can't figure it out either.
About 3/4 of the way up, we came across
Jesus and Renee, training for the Louisville Ironman race this summer. It
was their first time up Tunitas, and they were fortunate in that I came
across them almost at the end of the steep part. Why fortunate? Because I've
been known to say things like "Don't worry, there's only another 3 miles
like this!" when the grade is the steepest. That's Jesus in front, with
Renee just behind. Renee is way cuter than Jesus, but since Jesus is riding
a Madone 5.5 he picked up in our Los Altos store, he gets star billing in
the photo!
4/5/08- THE MISSING
ENTRIES CONTINUE. The last few weeks haven't been easy, and
the next couple probably won't be much better. Implementing a new
point-of-sale system is difficult enough, but the task was made a whole lot
more difficult on Thursday night when our Internet connection died in the
Los Altos store. That mean staying up pretty late Thursday night, and then
spending all day (and then some) in the Los Altos store on Friday, including
two trips to Frys Electronics to pick up the stuff needed to rig a
semi-temporary Internet service based on Verizon's cellular network. It
actually seems to be working pretty well, although I have yet to figure out
the workings of dynamic IP addresses and how to communicate remotely with
them.
Thursday's ride was a
pleasant diversion from the computer issues at the shop, with Kevin, the
other Kevin, his friend Billy, and Eric showing up. No Karl, who's dealing
with a bizarre bike/car incident at the Canada/Woodside Road intersection
not long after finishing Tuesday's ride. I still don't quite have the
details sorted out, but it appears to involve a car that knocked him off his
bike and then (fortunately after he wasn't on his bike) ran over it. Which
is bad enough, but then the driver decided to drive off. In a miraculous
turn of events that involved one of our other regulars, Milo, driving past
in his car shortly afterward, Karl was able to track down the car that hit
him, and it's likely the drive will wish they hadn't taken off.
4/1/08- FUNNY THAT
SOMEONE 42 YEARS OLD WOULD WRECK THE AGE CURVE on our ride,
but the recent addition of Jim now gives us two youngsters (the other being
Chris, who's in his early-30s). The rest of us? I won't name names, but
we've got Karl & Eric in their later-40s, and Kevin, George, Milo & I
closely-bracketed beween 52 & 54.
It's
still a bit cold for my lungs to work very well; generally, around 55
degrees & up and I'm ok. Seems like Eric's in the same boat, although you
can't hear him from a quarter mile away like you can me. Guess his lungs
suffer in silence. We're all remembering that warm spell of just a couple
weeks ago!
Noteworthy on this-morning's ride was Milo
getting a flat up on Skyline, and that between all of us, nobody had a
full-sized pump, just the small & cool-looking but not-so-functional
"lipstick" variety. But as much as people rarely throttle back to keep
company with those suffering badly on a climb, solidarity is shown with
those who get a flat. Maybe it's that rare opportunity to stop and catch
your breath without any sort of alpha dog thing coming up.
Speaking of Alpha Dogs, towards the end of
the ride, as we retraced the lower part of Kings Mtn. Road, Karl took off,
as he often does, hoping to get a big enough gap that he could hold everyone
off and basically take the final sprint at the end without actually
sprinting. So George looks around and asks if anyone's going to chase him
(after he's gotten one heck of a gap on us), and for some reason I'm
thinking sure, I can go out there and run myself into the ground, but
somebody had better get on my wheel for the ride, which I tell George to do.
But after taking off in pursuit of Karl, I look back and nobody's on my
wheel! It's not as if I caught people off-guard, since I told George I was
going to go, and to get on my wheel. Sigh.
3/30/08- GETTING
TO BE A SUNDAY RITUAL LATELY, doing a quick run up Old
LaHonda, down the other side to LaHonda and then back up West Alpine. Today
was a bit different, riding with my son Kevin again for the first time in a
few weeks. The basic specs? About 42 miles & 4700ft of climbing. Most
noteworthy was that it got danged cold once we got back up onto Skyline. I'd
brought just one extra pair of winter gloves & a jacket, which, as a dad
would do, I gave to my son to wear (when it got to 43 degrees and very
windy). No speed records today, as this was his
get-back-to-the-bike ride after a week with a nasty bug and another week
prior to that spend in Mexico on a church trip. We'll see how he does at the
track (Velodrome) next Sunday.
3/27/08- WHY NO
UPDATES? Ask SBCGlobal.com! I've been having some trouble at
home with our DSL line, lately getting much worse, and finally decided it
was time to do something about it. So I call and ask what options there
might be, and it turns out they've made some upgrades which place a
high-speed more-reliable fiber optic line close to home. Great! So I sign
up, only to find that there could be as much as 10 days between when
then end the old service and start up the new. Yikes!
Meantime we did get in good rides on Tuesday &
Thursday, which I hope to tell you about shortly. --Mike--
 3/23/2008-
72 DEGREES, LOW HUMIDITY AND GREAT ROADS. IT
DOESN'T GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS. This is why you live in the
Bay Area, and this is why you ride a bike.
Easter Sunday afternoon, out for a quick spin
before an early dinner. You've got less than 3 hours, so you've got to go
for quality over quantity. With more time, you'd do the Old LaHonda
/Pescadero /Tunitas loop, but with just 3 hours, you go for Old LaHonda
/LaHonda /West Alpine. Total mileage just over 40, with about 4700ft of
climbing.
It was on the west side of Old LaHonda that
I found someone else admiring the beauty of the day. A young woman stopped
by the side of the road, looking out towards the ocean.
It's a spot I've shown photos of on this website many times before,
usually taken behind the guys I ride with on Tuesday or Thursday mornings.
|
 03/20/2008-
GIVE ME A WHEEL, ANY WHEEL... but not Karl's! Well, after a
week off the bike, due to flying back to Wisconsin for the memorial services
for Trek's co-founder Dick Burke, I couldn't afford to be choosy. And so it
was that, after struggling up Kings Mtn with Kevin, Karl, Eric, the other
Kevin and Billy, I found myself with Karl, off the front of the group a bit,
hanging on to his wheel for dear life. Because, no matter how hard it is to
hang onto a wheel, it's a whole lot harder doing it on your own.
Oh sure, we complained a little bit about the
cold (got down to 41 degrees), but after my escape from the Midwest, it felt
just fine. And even though I was maxed out most of the ride, it still felt
great.
But I am beginning to think about checking
out the workout rooms of the hotels I stay in when I'm on the road. That's a
sign of real desperation, since I really don't have any desire to work out
in a weight room, or run a treadmill, or really do just about any exercise
that isn't on a bike. I don't even like bikes on trainers! But if I do much
traveling in the future, I have to do something. The guys I ride with are
rarely in a mood to cut me any slack!
03/17&18/2008-
SO WHAT DID YOU DO ON YOUR BIRTHDAY? For mine, my brother & I
flew to Wisconsin for a memorial service. Given that I don't really "do"
birthdays, it was no big deal to me, although I did choose the occasion to
have my "annual" beer (although it had actually been two years since my last
"drink"). They get a big kick out of this in Wisconsin, since beer drinking
is a daily, not annual event back there.
There are worse ways to spend a birthday
than spending time with people you haven't seen in a number of years. Decent
p eople
that you somehow got too busy to keep track of over the years. And at Trek
there are a lot of decent people.
But one thing I couldn't quite understand.
The bed in the hotel room (Hyatt Regency in Milwaukee). Comfortable enough,
yes, but what the heck are all those pillows for? Four standard style, two
that look like they belong on the back of a chair, and that weird round one.
Four our return to the airport, I figured we
ought to find some way to use public transportation rather than a cab. I had
my laptop with me (don't I always?) and looked up the options... not many!
If it worked with your schedule you could take Amtrak from downtown to close
to the airport, where a shuttle would take you the rest of the way. But that
would have meant getting there too late or too early (the trains rain about
every three hours). There was, however, a local bus that you could take. We
asked the doorman at the hotel where to catch it, and his exact words, with
an inflection I could never hope to duplicate, was "You want to take the
bus to the airport???"
The bus did go through some of the
more-interesting neighborhoods that might not be found on a typical list of
places for tourists to see, but it only took maybe 10 minutes longer than a
cab, and cost $4 for the two of us, a bit less than the $29 cab fare. And,
of course, there's something to be said for taking public transit rather
than a private cab.
03/16/2008- NO RIDE
TODAY, AND I'M SURE IT WAS A SPECTACULARLY-BEAUTIFUL DAY...
it certainly looked that way as my brother & I flew out of San Francisco on
our way to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to attend services for Dick Burke,
co-founder of Trek Bicycles, who died last week. On the positive side, the
three flight segments went without a hitch, and two of the three were
downright enjoyable. None of that "I'd rather be on a bit than cramped up in
this seat on a plane" sort of thing. The attitude of the Flight Attendants
can make all the difference, and we had a great one on the San
Francisco-Denver segment.
HEARD
IN THE SECURITY LINE- While waiting in the security line at San
Francisco, this is something I couldn't help but overhear. And this is
verbatim. "No mom, I'm not taking you to the hospital, just because
your pacemaker stopped working!" Honest, that's an exact quote. Ouch! So
next time your mom or dad thinks you take them for granted, you can let them
know that things could be worse.
03/13/2008- THAT
RAIN THIS MORNING? YOU CAN THANK MY WIFE FOR IT. That's
right, it's her fault. I told her this would happen when, on Monday, she
tells me it's time to move my rain bike from the house down into the garage.
And so, this morning, I wake up and it's wet outside. Not really rain, just
a heavy drizzle. Enough to scare off everybody but Karl, who managed to
throttle down enough that he didn't just ride off into the distance. Of
course, the last 20 minutes of the ride saw beautiful sunshine, but not
before having to ride 20+ miles in the muck. Given a choice between riding
in the rain and then having a nice rest of the day or vice versa, I'm
probably willing to go for the riding in the rain. An odd choice? Maybe. But
consider the effect that rain has on our business! Tough to sell many Madone
road bikes when it's too wet to test ride.
03/11/2008- IF
ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY, then I'm not in much
danger of being corrupted. It's going to take a while to get back a full
head of steam while climbing, and it's possible I might never get back to
where I was just a year or two ago. That doesn't mean I can't have fun
grinding myself into the ground though! And so that's what I do, each
Tuesday & Thursday morning. If the other guys are taking it easy, then we
all finish at the top of Kings on the same day. Today, George & Eric were
taking it easy. No Kevin (he's off at flying school), no Karl (he missed a
very nice morning) and no Milo (I think he sent an email saying he'd be
somewhere else this week, but not sure). Chris ran a bit late and so caught
up with us out on the west side of Old LaHonda. Beautiful morning, with a
fog layer towards the coast at maybe 500ft, so the tops of the hills just
barely poked through.
On the way down
84 into Woodside we saw something new- a cyclist being motorpaced behind a
small motorcycle up the climb. It looked like "Fast" Freddie Rodriguez, of
Rock & Republic fame.
03/10/2008- HOW TO
RESPOND TO CYCLING TRAGEDY IN CUPERTINO YESTERDAY? I would
much rather write about my ride out to the coast, how beautiful the weather
was, the other cyclists out there enjoying the day, the many customers of
ours I saw along the way. That's what I would like to write about.
And that would be a positive message for the bicycle business. But instead
I'm faced with events that I first heard about immediately before I left for
my ride; the radio had a news report at 11am that one cyclist had been
killed, two seriously injured on Stevens Canyon Road, not far from our Los
Altos store. And this morning, a customer sent me this email-
Mike,
I'm deeply saddened in hearing about the two
cyclists killed in Cupertino yesterday. What a tragedy. Also came upon a
very bad accident on Hwy 35 just north of the Hwy 84 intersection at about
4:00pm. It looked to me like a lady, attempting to make a left turn, hit
two Webcor riders as they were riding into Sky Londa. Do you have any news
on their condition? One guy looked fairly familiar.
I know we take risks every
time we go out but accidents like these make it seem not worth it. Would
appreciate your thoughts as to how we can ride safer and increase awareness
for those motorists which share the roads we ride on. --Howard
He asks reasonable questions. I'm still
trying to find out info on the Skyline incident, but fortunately it doesn't
appear nearly as tragic as the one in which, it's now confirmed, two
cyclists died, plus one seriously injured, after being run into head-on by a
deputy sheriff who may have fallen asleep at the wheel. Below is my reply to
our customer. It's not eloquent, it deals with things in a very direct
manner as far as its effect on the bicycle business, which may seem rather
callous to some. But for now, this is what you get-
Howard: I heard about the
incident on Skyline, near Morse Road, but have found nothing about it in
terms of who was involved or how serious it was. Strange, if it were
Webcor riders, that there's no mention of it on the AltoVelo website. As
for the Cupertino incident, I heard about that one on the radio just as I
was heading out for a ride. There are no easy answers, and there's no
single way to talk about it with all customers. Here's something I posted
to the NBDA (bike dealer) e-list-
========================
"It's
going to be a tough one, convincing many of our customers that cycling is
actually a safe thing to do. Different people need different messages, and
that's what makes it so difficult. For some, they can appreciate the
choice between dying while living or living wile dying. For others, they
need to hear that, statistically, you're pretty darned safe on a bike, and
the media's just doing its job trying to sell advertising by making a huge
deal out of it, much bigger than you'd see from a car accident in which
there were fatalities, which happens every single day. And for yet others,
you need to help them come up with things they can do to make themselves
safer. Choosing different times of day to ride, easier-to-see clothing,
whatever."
========================
We've had customers, a couple
I've known very well, seriously injured or killed while cycling. And every
once in a while I think about it myself, on a personal level, as I leave
the door for a ride and wonder, what if? What if a couple hours ago was
the last time I saw my kids? But in general, I feel as though I'm more in
control of my life when I'm on my bike than when I'm not. That's just me
though. And truthfully, I have far fewer issues with cars when I'm on my
bike than I do when I'm driving. Or even crossing a street on foot. I
never feel like a victim on a bike.
But there are things you can
do, things I do, that make it safer when you're out there. For example,
anytime I'm near an intersection, or think a car might have a problem
knowing I'm there, I make myself larger by standing up on the pedals. And
I'll sometimes try to be where a car is looking for things, which means
positioning yourself in the center of the lane instead of at the edge of
the road, when approaching a dangerous intersection or stretch of road.
Take Skyline, for example. If there's a car a long way back, and you're on
a straight section but will be overtaken on a curve, you want to make
darned sure that car knows you're there. So you move out into the lane
beforehand, just to make sure they see you, before moving back over when
you're in the curve. Lots of little things that anyone can do to make it
safer when they're on the road. But always, always consider that the ONLY
thing that keeps everyone alive is predictable behavior. That's why we
have laws & rules. People are supposed to do things a certain, non-random
way. Stray from that and we're all in trouble.
I'm going to struggle with how to deal with this one
on our website. Probably I need an overall piece of safety. I did have a
similar situation back in 1998 which I wrote about here-
http://www.chainreaction.com/tragedy.htm
Thanks for writing, and
reminding me why it's a good idea to have our lives in order- --Mike--
3/8/2008- GOOD TO
BE BACK! That was one long haul getting back home; finally
got in the front door around 2:45am. The weather in DC was beginning to get
a bit sketchy, but not bad enough to cancel flights... providing those
flights weren't coming in from Ohio or Florida, which were getting hammered.
We tried to get an earlier flight back, but none were available. So, we left
DC on a flight at 9:20pm or so (it was supposed to leave at 8:27) and
managed to make up enough time en-route to easily make the connection in Las
Vegas to our SF flight.
3/4/2008- NO RIDE
FOR ME TODAY, AS I'M OFF TO DC for the annual Washington DC
Bicycle Summit, where about 500 bicycle advocates, shop owners & industry
representatives meet with every single legislator on The Hill on Thursday.
It's quite the big deal, and we actually get a fair amount accomplished.
It's one of those forward-thinking kind of things, where we're trying to
make sure that roads and communities aren't unintentionally (?) designed in
a manner hostile to cyclists. And, of course, we preach the bicycle as the
answer to everything from high energy costs to childhood obesity.
What many cyclists may not realize is the tremendous role local advocates
play. At city council meetings, planning commissions, you name it, there are
often unpaid volunteers doing their part to make sure that the needs of
cyclists are accounted for. Locally, the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition is
an exceptional example of such folk, many of whom will be traveling to DC
with me. And all of whom put me to shame when it comes down to understanding
the legislation and politics involved.
But trust me, between 9:10am PST and 7:29pm
EST, I'll be wishing I had been on a good long bike ride, rather than being
trapped in a metal tube, breathing stale air, hurtling through the air at
500 miles per hour.
 3/2/2008-
JUST ANOTHER BEAUTIFUL DAY TO BE ON A BIKE,
and, finally, an opportunity to ride with my son again. Not any sort of
epic killer ride though; not even enough time for the Pescadero loop (which
means we missed out on the bakery!). But we did get in a ride up Old LaHonda
which, even with his sore legs from LaCross, he managed his own personal
best of under 34 minutes. Considering it wasn't that long ago his times were
40 minutes+, he's going in the right direction! What's not quite so right is
his every weekday 5:30-7:30pm LaCross practice sessions, which kill off any
chance of riding during the week. Worse, he's even beginning to think that
running isn't the most-evil thing in the world.
Because time was tight we did a straight run
out to San Gregorio, where he grabbed a sandwich while I grabbed a ginger
snap cookie, and then up Tunitas Creek. I'm still not sure what's worse,
Tunitas Creek or that stretch of Stage Road from San Gregorio to Highway
One. I vote for Stage Road, simply because it shouldn't seem as bad
as it feels. On Tunitas, the mid-section is just plain steep, period. Never
mind that, as you slog your way up, you're thinking that the Pros might be
flying up at 15-18mph.
2/28/2008- IT FEELS
GREAT TO HURT THIS BAD! This morning I had that feeling I'm
finally turning the corner and have a chance of getting into decent riding
shape. It was dreadful climbing up Kings; the first half I probably went a
bit too hard, and the second half was ugly. Karl, Kevin & Eric were there as
witnesses, and, curiously, Kevin was breathing almost as audibly as I was up
Kings, so much so that Karl wasn't sure who was behind him! But by the time
I got to Skyline is was that "good" sort of wiped-out feeling, and on
west-side Old LaHonda I began to feel like there was hope. Not hope that I
could keep up with Karl & Kevin, but hope that riding beyond my abilities
could become fun again, like it used to, and not just a grind that made you
wish for a slower pace. Yes, I still need a bunch of miles... a lot
of miles... but with the rain gone, and a bit warmer weather, things just
feel right. Too bad I don't get to ride at all next week, when I'm in
Washington DC for the annual bicycle lobbying event.
 2/26/2008-
FINALLY, A BEAUTIFUL DAY! After the
past week or so of rides that would start out dry and then turn ugly halfway
through, this morning reminded me of why we live in California. Bright
sunshine, strong shadows, friendly company (let's see if I can get all the
names- George, Kevin, Kevin, Karl, Eric, Billy, Syl) & great roads. It would
be wonderful if I was in great shape, but since that's not yet the case, at
least everything else is in place. The roads were mostly dry, and there was
that heavenly-look up on Skyline where the sun was filtering through the fog
& the trees. And the best thing about the ride today was that I felt so much
better at the end than I did at the beginning. That's so much better than
feeling the other way around!
2/24/2008- IT WOULD HAVE BEEN EASY NOT TO RIDE
TODAY, and I almost didn't. The rain was coming down in
sheets and the wind was howling in the morning, which somehow seemed
enticing. Obviously a personality defect of some sort. Fortunately, it was
easy to rationalize that, at that exact point in time, I was better off in
church than on a bike ride. Afterward, things settled down a bit, but there
was this dreadful temptation to watch the final stage of the Tour of
California on TV. But after being down &
 out
from some sort of cold bug for more than a week, I knew I had to ride. My
miles were down, my spirits were down, but my bike was waiting for me. I
could lie and say it felt great to get out there, but truthfully, I felt
slow & fat. But by the time I got to an absolutely-empty Canada Road (about
3:15pm) I knew I was doing the right thing. I saw a total of just 6 others
out on the road, despite no rain and light winds. I'd like to say climbing
Old LaHonda felt great, but that would be a lie. I could never quite find a
rhythm, and eventually decided to force myself to stay in the saddle and try
to build up some muscles that haven't been getting much of a workout lately.
But once I got to Skyline everything
changed. I started to feel better, quite a bit better, and instead of
heading straight back to Sky Londa and down 84, I headed over the west side
of Old LaHonda and then back up the other side of 84. And that felt really,
really good. Probably helped by what must have been a strong tail wind. By
the time I got home, it seemed like I was a different person than I was at
the start of the day. Riding my bike does that for me.
2/21/2008- THE
WEATHER FOOLED ONLY ME THIS MORNING! As in, nobody else
showed up. I'd already been warned that just about all the regulars were
going to be doing a ride down to San Luis Obispo this morning, ahead of the
Tour of California. From what I can see of the race, they may not have had a
very pleasant ride. For me, it was just like Tuesday. Pretty dry until I got
up to Skyline, and then the weather moved in. Seems to be a nasty habit
lately. As if I need to head out about 45 minutes earlier, although I'm
sure, if I did that, I'd just end up moving the weather front in ahead of
time as well. Amazing how it's all about me. How I control the
weather!
2/20/2008-
WATCHED THE TOUR OF CALIFORNIA ON MT HAMILTON,
but didn't bring my bike this time. My daughter (Becky, who works in our
Redwood City store) wanted to see the race. We headed up Quimby to catch the
descent on Mt. Hamilton (I figured why not do something different; I'm
always watching the climb, why not see what a descent is like?). She'd
(wisely) brought her bike while I just brought my feet, and found a place
about a mile or so up from Grant Ranch. We figured it must be a really good
place when the lead course Marshall pulled up and told us that we were in a
very dangerous place. Well yeah; that's why we chose that curve! The field
did manage to get through without incident though, and Becky had a great
time watching them fly by. After the main field went through she headed back
down on her bike, but shortly after she started out I'm seeing the big
field just up the hill, racing towards her... she was now solidly in-between
the two groups. Fortunately she figured out that it would be a good idea to
pull off before becoming engulfed by the pack, but not before being cheered
on by many in the crowd. She feel like she had a pretty good day.
2/19/2008- THE
WEATHER FOOLED US ALL THIS MORNING. I was looking forward to
my first post-cold-bug ride and happy to see that the skies, while a bit
gray, weren't appearing to be in any danger of opening up any time soon.
Karl, Kevin, George, Eric & Todd at the start, although Milo had gone up
ahead a few minutes earlier. We were delayed a bit as George tended to a
loose cleat, which apparently gave enough time for Milo to get so far ahead
that we never saw him. Maybe he got home before it got cold & wet... we
certainly didn't. A few drops here & there while climbing Kings, but by the
time we got to the top, it was quite wet, and quite cold. And none of us had
our rain bikes or severe-weather gear. So, we did something we normally just
wouldn't do. We skipped the west-side Old LaHonda loop and headed straight
back down 84. Normally we would have been disgusted with ourselves, but
today, we just wanted to get down off the hill. Hopefully we'll get our acts
together on Thursday.
2/17/2008-
TOUR OF CALIFORNIA COMES TO PALO ALTO!
No big ride for me today, just an easy cruise to Palo Alto with my son
to watch some of the biggest names in cycling contest a whopping 2.1-mile
event. This sort of thing favors the sprinters, since you're talking about a
relatively-short burst of extreme energy. And that's what we saw today, as
the winning times were under 4 minutes, meaning speeds of greater than 30
miles per hour!
 We
spend most of the day towards the "top" of the course, on the "circle" just
before the finish line. Great place to watch the race from, and not nearly
as crowded as one might have thought. I'm sure there will be bogus crowd
estimates of several million, though! But I didn't get to stay for the top
guys, since I got a call from someone I know saying there was an opportunity
to ride in the team car behind Levi, and that's not the sort of thing you
decline. On the other hand, I've been in a team car at the Tour de France
before, so I let my son have the honors, and he definitely enjoyed it. You
can see his view in the photo on the left. I think he was more thrilled that
Eki was driving the car than anything else!
2/16/2008- MASSIVE
PRO BIKE RACER SIGHTINGS ALL OVER! Burt, from our Redwood
City store, emailed that he saw just about every team out on the road this
morning. And my son Kevin called to say that the entire Astana team was
going down Old LaHonda as he was climbing up it a bit later in the day.
Tomorrow's opening Prologue event in Palo Alto should be quite a party!
Meantime, I'm finally getting over that nasty
cold bug. It didn't keep me from riding, but somehow I'm kinda relieved I'm
not doing any hard rides for at least a couple of days. At 140 miles for the
week it wasn't as if I was out killing myself, but I wasn't taking it easy
either. But how could I resist Friday morning's ride with the Slipstream
team?
2/15/2008- THE CALL
COMES IN TO ME- CAN I RIDE WITH THE TEAM? How can I not???
No, not Astana, but our Pearl Izumi rep says that I can go on a light
training ride with the up-and-coming Slipstream Pro team, which is in the
area for the Tour of California. The connection is that Pearl Izumi is a
team sponsor, and we're a large Pearl Izumi dealer. So a bit before 9am this
morning I'm at the Sheraton Hotel in Palo Alto (where it seems all
the teams are staying) and head out on an easy 42-mile ride with such
legendary cyclists as David Millar, Jonathon Vaughters, David Zabriskie,
Danny Pate, Christian VandeVelde and friends.
 They
were an easy-going friendly group, out for a leisurely ride whose importance
was measured in saddle time, not miles or toughness.
You can view
the ride here. Basically three hours in the saddle, so when we got back
and a couple of the guys discovered that our riding time was only 2:45, they
|
