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03/30/03- YOU SHOULD NEVER BE IN SUCH A
HURRY or so focused on your ride that
 you can't
pick up a snake in the middle of the road. Yet I almost did
exactly that as I was heading up Tunitas Creek this afternoon, getting
in a quick and wonderful ride out to the coast. Saw quite a few
of our customers out enjoying a spectacular day; temps ranged from 66
to 80 degrees. Can't get much better than that, especially for
me, since the only riding I usually get to do is in the mornings, when
I have to wear leg warmers and multiple layers on top.
But getting back to the snake, I saw it there in the middle of the
road, on the bottom (flat) part of Tunitas Creek. Even rode
right past it, because, well... yeah, guess I was a bit too focused on
my ride. Got about a hundred yards up the road before I realized
I had to go back, find it and get it away from the road. Saw
another one a bit further up, but afraid a couple car tires had seen
it as well.
Overall a great ride, going up Old LaHonda, down the other side to San
Gregorio (via 84), north to Tunitas and up to Skyline and down Kings
Mtn. Got to admit it did feel like more than just 40 miles
though!
03/28/03- FIRST LIZARD DAY! Some
have groundhogs, we have lizards. When the lizards first come
out and sit in the sun, you know warm days are ahead. A very
good sign.
03/27/03- NASTY COLD; DO YOU REST OR
RIDE? You ride, of course! What better way to
tell a cold that it's not welcome to party in your body? Doesn't
make it much fun trudging up the hill though, but fortunately I had a
good reason to take it easy on the first part, as I'd made a date with
a customer to listen to some noises she said were coming from her
bike, and what better place to hear them than on the first third of
the climb? Turned out to be normal chain rumble, but nice to
have Nicole for company for at least a bit of the ride, as nobody else
showed up (Ueyn, as you can red below, is in Atlanta, and Kevin's
really roughing it, having to windsurf in Maui).
As usual, I was feeling better and better the further I got into the
ride. By the time I got to Old LaHonda, the world seemed like a
pretty friendly place again, and came across four cyclists (including
Steve L, who rode with us fairly regularly a couple months ago)
heading in the opposite direction. Riding really does cure
everything. Unless you're a squirrel. Don't know why, but
I saw a number of dead squirrels on the road, most underneath power
lines that they'd apparently fallen off of.
03/26/03- FROM OUR EMBEDDED CYCLIST IN
ATLANTA "Please don't torture me by writing about how
wonderful the riding is in CA right now in your online diary! I'm
stuck in Atlanta for the week at a conference and my only bike is a
horrible exercise bike in the hotel's fitness center. The seat is at
least 12 inches wide, the pedals have had their straps removed, and
the room is small and stuffy without any view! I don't know how anyone
thinks riding a seat that wide can be possible. I have to perch myself
off the front of it just barely sitting on it in order for my thighs
to clear it while pedaling. The only way to sit on it and pedal is if
you have it 3 inches too low. You really need to tell the industry to
stop selling equipment with this stuff on it.
I can't wait to get back and hop on the Lemond! See you Tuesday. -Ueyn"
03/25/03- FRESH MEAT! That
headline can mean only one thing- a new rider on the Tuesday/Thursday
morning King's Mtn ride. Nice guy named Evan from Stanford, who
rode with myself and Kevin up the hill. Nice day, much warmer
than the weatherfolk had led me to believe, as it started out at 50
degrees and finished at 58.
03/21/03- THIS FIRST FULL DAY OF SPRING
has been nearly picture-postcard perfect, and has
certainly brought people in for new bikes! Sorry if you had
thought I was a totally altruistic person with no concern for the
boring drudgeries of having to make money to pay bills & staff and
keep my kids clothed & fed and maintain the illusion for my wife that
the kitchen will someday get remodeled.
I SHOULDN'T MENTION ANYTHING ABOUT THE WAR IN IRAQ (bad for business)
but was anyone else fascinated by those images from the reporter
traveling through the desert and coming across the Bedouin camp with
the herd of maybe 50 goats? Nothing but light-brown landscape as
far as the eye could see, just shifting sands. It was as if we
were watching pictures from another world and, in fact, it reminded me
very much of seeing the live video of Neil Armstrong taking the first
steps on the moon. Iraq isn't just a foreign country, it's a
different world for most of us. Those Bedouins exist without
electricity, have no newspapers to read, no roads to ride bicycles.
Just their herd of goats and some sort of magical knowledge of where
to find water & food.
03/20/03- FIRST DAY OF SPRING!
Even though this has been a warmer-than-usual winter, it's still nice
to have longer, warmer days in the forecast. Sure, the Iron Pig
(my rain bike) is likely to get lonely. but there's always the chance
of a surprise rainstorm to bring it out of the garage. In the
meantime, had a nice ride today with Kevin. Nice because he was
a bit beat up from a hard day of windsurfing yesterday, plus a
swimming workout this morning. We rode up King's and then down
Swett Road all the way to the end (which is at one of several gates to
Neil Young's very large estate on the coast).
03/18/03- SOME MESSAGES AREN'T
WELL-HIDDEN as I discovered on this morning's ride.
Kevin & Ueyn showed up, with Kevin insisting that we abandon the
normal dogleg of Old LaHonda in favor of checking out someone's
statement carved into the hillside down Bear Gulch Road. If
you're having trouble finding it in the photo, it's the slashed circle
with "WAR" in the middle, found on the hillside in the upper-right
corner.
But that's not all that made this ride interesting. How
often do you get the chance to be up close and personal with Neil
Young? We did... if we'd been heading down Bear Gulch any
faster, we would have been his hood ornament! At the gate at the
end of Bear Gulch we saw a truck drive through, with the license plate
"MIX MSTR." Dummy me, I thought it was a construction guy.
About 3pm I was telling Dick in our RC store about the ride, and it
suddenly came to me that "MIX MSTR" is probably a well-known studio
audio mixer. Duh!
I also have to say it was one of the most beautiful days to come
along in ages. Reading my entries from last night, with my fears
about how cold and windy it was going to be, seem very childish in
retrospect. The low was about 42 degrees, and it warmed up to 55
by the end. Very light breeze, clear skies and good company.
It doesn't get much better.
03/17/03- IT'S GOING TO BE COLD TOMORROW
MORNING! Not epic cold or anything like that, but perhaps
worse, maybe that sort of bone-chilling cold you get when there's a
fair amount of wind and a damp feel to the air. Even sitting
here tonight at home, with a thermostat that says it's 68 degrees, it
feels cold. I've been so spoiled this whole winter by
very dry air and warmer-than-normal temperatures in the morning that
I've become even more of a weather-wimp than usual! But
how much of this drivel is just because I don't want to put on a coat
and take out the garbage cans tonight?
IT'S LIKE WATCHING A TRAIN WRECK. Confession
is good for the soul? Maybe. But should I really mention
that I was watching "Married by America?" It really is like
watching a train wreck. You know it's bad, terrible stuff, but
you can't take your eyes off of it. Of course, I can always
blame it on my wife. I was watching the last part of the
east-coast ABC Nightline feed (Dishnet, which also brings you OLN's
fantastic cycling coverage!), the last five minutes of which overlaps
the beginning of "Married." I could have kept watching Nightline
(and not missed "And we'll be back with some final thoughts" from Ted
Koppel) but no, I let her change the channel. Yeah, her fault.
03/15/03- ROUGH DAY AT THE OFFICE
would be an understatement! Saturdays are always pretty wild,
but they usually don't start at 6:15am with a call from the alarm
company, letting me know they have a power failure indication.
OK, big deal, try and go back to sleep, and presumably the power will
be back before we open, and I'll just have to reset some computers.
Uh-uh. At 10am (opening time) our customers are there for us,
but our power isn't. PG&E said there were 1147 customers without
power, and they were going to be sending out a crew shortly.
Shortly? It had already been out for almost 4 hours! But
not something to get mad at the woman at PG&E over, since she
personally hasn't done anything to deserve it, just doing her job.
At about 11:50am the power comes back on, but the computers? It
took me another two hours to get our front counter computers running
so I could print receipts for customers, and required jury-rigging an
older computer that we'd removed from the system two years ago.
The power problems also took out a hard drive on the main office
computer. All in all, I was running behind, dodging bullets,
from before opening until closing. Thankfully my wife & kids
were elsewhere, so I was able to spend another three hours during the
evening, getting things more-or-less back together. Not
everything about running a bike shop is glamorous & fun!
03/14/03- MY WIFE MADE FREEDOM TOAST FOR
BREAKFAST THIS MORNING...NOT! It was French
Toast, just like there are French Fries etc. It's potentially
bad business to discuss politics here, but things have gotten out of
hand. Yes, there are problems with our current relationship with
the French, regardless of how you feel about war in Iraq.
Problems on both sides, as politicians seek to polarize issues in the
name of patriotism. But for people to see France as un
ungrateful nation that should recognize that we saved their butts in
WWII and thus they should be eternally grateful to us misses one other
small piece of history...something I didn't know about until my recent
trip to Washington DC, when I came across this park, directly across
from the White House (one of the most important pieces of real estate
in the country, I'd dare say), named Lafayette Square.
It seems this General Lafayette, a (gasp!) Frenchman, was a pivotal
part of securing victory in the battle of Yorktown during the American
Revolution. If you're not up on American History, the Battle of
Yorktown is generally regarded as the battle that won the war for the
upstart colonists (that would be us). George Washington himself
was quite enamored with their (the French) efforts, and the
cooperation between our two forces was well beyond the norm of two
allies against a common foe (ironically, England).
There is a far deeper relationship between France and the US, based
upon a shared history, than meets the casual eye. The extent to
which this motivates actions (vs strategic military & economic
self-interest) will help determine how friendly a world we live in.
PS: Keep in mind that, no matter how you feel about France at
the moment, it was Tony Blair's British ancestors who burned down the
White House and Capitol buildings in 1812. Somewhere along the
lines we managed the forgive them.
03/13/03- A DRY RUN this
morning, as the storm that everyone (ok, just the weatherfolk on TV)
was talking about never happened. A bit breezy, and a bit wet on
the coast side (from the fog), but overall just another nice morning
to be out on a bike. Couldn't do the Old LaHonda section today,
since Kevin had to leave a bit early for work; he's a pilot and had to
get back in time for a flight out to Austin. Said he had to have
time to get a shower and get dressed etc., but it's not like it's
going to take him too long to pick out something to wear... it's not
like airline pilots wear anything terribly original!
03/11/03- SHOULD HAVE BROUGHT THE CAMERA!
I faced my morning ride with no small amount of fear,
as I hadn't ridden for a week. Fortunately, things went better
than I'd thought they would, although I noticed my heart rate ran
about 8-10 beats higher than normal. It probably went quite a
bit higher when, heading down Skyline towards Sky Londa, we (myself
and Kevin) came across flares and emergency vehicles in one of the
corners. I yelled a warning to Kevin, a good thing since he was
descending in tri-mode, head looking down at the ground and not ahead.
The excitement was from a two-trailer gravel truck that had overturned
one of its trailers in the corner, dumping its load of gravel and
blocking the entire road. Definitely would have been a fun time
to have the camera.
Beautiful morning, much better weather than in Washington DC.
In fact, as we were climbing the back (West) side of Old LaHonda, we
came across a young lady who was lying in a grassy field, enjoying the
view of the coast, bike at her side.
03/10/03- BACK HOME ONCE AGAIN
and ready to ride tomorrow morning! I'm working on a page
describing all that went on while I was back in Washington DC, working
with the Bike Summit. But a few things can't wait for
that-
My "first date" scenario when, half an hour prior to my one-on-one
meeting with an aide to Tom Lantos, I notice in a bathroom mirror that
I've got a zit on my forehead
Government snipers (Secret Service in uniform) on the steps of the
Capital as well as the roof of the White House. These
guys were out in plain site with very gnarly weapons at hand.
The FDR Memorial, definitely the most impressive of all, possibly
made better by seeing it at night
03/05/03- THURSDAY MORNING IS THE BIG
DAY. We have "group" (our California lobbying
contingent,
all 21 of us) meetings with Senator Boxer and Feinsteins staffs
(possibly the senators as well, but not too likely) and then, at
2:30pm, I get a private meeting with Tom Lantos office. I'm
apparently the only one from his district and, since I'm one of the
big guns (they think that business people get more weight here than
mere advocates, and there are limited numbers of us here) I go it
alone. Wish me luck. There's a lot of info I'm
supposed to memorize and convey. Definitely a bit scary and
definitely a totally-new experience for me. Don't think I've
even been properly introduced to a city council person prior to this.
In the photo on the right you can see a small piece of our
California lobbying contingent, with our assignments being handed out
and studied. Dreadfully serious business this!
We're made to feel this is a pivotal moment for cycling,
and our efforts tomorrow will determine the future. For some
this is old hat; they've been here before. But the rest of us?
I can't speak for them, but for me, it's more than just a little bit
scary, and I'm very glad we get to go as a group to see Boxer and
Feinstein first.
YOU'RE NOT A REAL BIKE SHOP UNLESS YOU SELL ELVIS DOLLS
or so I learned today from Martha E, owner of a shop in
Kentucky. She wasn't talking about her own shop but rather her
competition down the road, which sells, besides bicycles, lawn mowers
and Elvis dolls. There are some truly wonderful bicycle
retailers out there, and one of the best things about my trip to
Washington DC is getting to put faces on so many people whom I've
previously only known through emails.
BUT MY HEAD IS SPINNING from all the jargon and info they've
thrown at us today. I understand way more about how the
government does (and doesn't) work, now that I've sat through a
variety of meetings with
 various
government department chiefs and almost-chiefs, people who appear to
do little more than go from one meeting to another, speaking in an
almost impenetrable jargon, hoping you're too intimidated to ask
obvious questions, because it would make you look dumb. SO WHO'S
YOUR FRIEND, THE AASHTO OR THE STTP? The guy in the photo is
a high-up from the STPP. That's how everything's referred to...
STPP. But what is it? He's in a panel with a lawyer
representing the AASHTO and another guy from the Fed transportation
department, and they seem to be in a lovefest with each other, while
the STTP guy has serious issues with them. But they all speak
the same jargon, they all seek to blur distinctions between reality
and whatever passes for that in DC. Well, STTP stands for
Surface Transportation Policy Project. Still thinking it's part
of the government, I ask him after the meeting who pays the bills.
Turns out it's a private research foundation that gets grants.
And the AASHTO appears to be a quasi-governmental organization
representing the 50 state DOTs (Department of Transportation).
How can you possibly evaluate information if you're not properly
introduced to the players?
03/04/03- MOST DEFINITELY NOT IN
KANSAS ANYMORE!
The final leg of my journey to Washington DC, from Minneapolis
to Reagan International (when did we start naming things after people
who were still alive?) has an added little twist. The last
30-minutes of the flight require all passengers to be bound and
gagged, due to federal restrictions that went into effect post 9/11.
OK, not bound and gagged, but they give you many, many warnings that,
with 30 minutes to go, everyone must be in their seats, buckled up, or
the pilot will divert to another airport. As long as
everyone cooperates, looks like we'll be landing in DC right on time
at 10pm, maybe even a bit earlier. By the way, if you haven't
flown for a while, things are just a bit different now. On
Northwest, there is no in-flight entertainment of any kind, and food?
Somebody's going to make a killing selling high-quality bag lunches &
dinners in airports! Amazes me that it hasn't already happened
but, even in Minneapolis, one of the better airports I've been to as
far as food options, they still don't serve things in a plane-friendly
sort of way (meaning stuff that's packaged to be easily eaten on a
plane, and take up minimal space). Note to wife & kids,
who are flying out Friday night for a couple days of sight-seeing with
me- recommend something other than the Pizza Hut mini-pizzas next to
Gate C4. Way too smelly, probably not something other passengers
appreciate. The Taco place directly across from the gate looks
like a better choice.
I'M TRADING THIS FOR DC??? A little bit cool,
41-44 degrees in Woodside and on the climb, but warmed up nicely to
the low-50s on the return. As is often the case, a stunning view
of the coast while climbing the far side of Old LaHonda. Ueyn &
Kevin there to torture me this morning (I wasn't feeling too hot,
didn't get much sleep as I was up late preparing for my trip to DC
today). But if all goes well, I ride with the congressional bike
caucus on Friday. Of course, really foul weather could
rule that out, but at the moment, Friday looks like not that bad a
day, with highs around 50 degrees or so.
03/02/03- BEAUTIFUL DAY, BUT NO
BIG RIDE, as I spent the morning at my son's Little
League practice
 (horror of
horrors, I got to help out behind the plate, and I never understood
the point of moving toward dangerous objects moving at high speed) but
did take him out later in the day on his first Grand Tour, from
Redwood City to Woodside and back. Made it a big event by
packing a lunch and having a picnic on the new benches they've
installed on Albion near Manuella. Actually they're the stumps
of Eucalyptus trees they've recently cut down, but they're perfect for
10-year-olds in the middle of their first big ride! So
maybe I didn't have a big ride today, but it certainly was for my son.
Maybe that made this particular slow, 10-mile ride pretty big for Dad
as well.
02/27/03- INTERESTING VISION
as I descended 84 from Sky Londa and came to the
intersection at the bottom, where Portola Road comes in, and cars
sometimes make a left turn in front of you while you're traveling at
high speed. For a moment it appeared a propane tanker was about
to do just that, and I had this bizarre vision of me slamming into it
with an apocalyptic fireball the result. Dick (our Redwood City
sales manager) thinks I've been watching too many movies... the likely
result would have more likely been a dented front grill, maybe a
broken headlight if I did any real damage (to the truck; I'm sure I
would have been pretty messed up).
have been pretty messed up).
Just me this morning, despite clearing skies and mostly dry roads.
First solo ride in quite some time, but that's not such a bad thing
now and then. You see and think about different things than when
you're riding with others, and it's a good thing to learn how to
motivate yourself on your own (there aren't always rabbits to chase in
front of you, and dogs nipping at you from behind!).
DC BICYCLE SUMMIT NEXT WEEK, so I'll be missing Thursday's
ride. Arranged a flight late enough on Tuesday that I could make
that one though! If you want to learn about what I, and a lot of
other dealers will be doing, you can check it out at
BikesBelong.org.
Basically, we're trying to pry some highway funding away from the
freeways and into bike programs, particularly something called Safe
Routes to Schools, an attempt to try and get kids riding bikes to
school like in the good old days, instead of being driven by Mom or
Dad and creating huge traffic jams every morning & afternoon.
Wish us luck!
02/26/03- APOLOGY NOT NEEDED, BUT
ACCEPTED. Gary Fisher called this morning; he'd
read my diary piece from 10/07/02 in which I somewhat clumsily
mentioned a time (nearly 30 years ago) when he had "threatened me with
great bodily harm" on the phone, as a result of an article I had
written in Competitive Cycling that didn't put his team in the
best-possible light. He'd actually threatened to kill me, and
that, of course, was over the top enough that you really don't take it
all that seriously, just as it wasn't intended by Gary in a serious
way (he was upset, but not that upset!). Anyway, he calls up
this morning, brings it up because he'd spotted it on the website, and
wanted to apologize for that ancient remark. A genuine
apology; it clearly bothered him that he'd said something like that.
Gary's one of the good guys.
02/25/03- THE IRON PIG RIDES AGAIN!
Which really isn't anything to get too excited about;
it means the roads were wet this morning so I rode the old steel
Cinelli on our regular Tues/Thurs ride. Wet but not raining, so
it surprised me that almost nobody else was out on the road today,
just myself and Kevin. Started up Kings kinda slow, with my rear
wheel slipping out every time I hit a tar stripe (think I got one and
a half rotations on one and almost ate it!), and about two minutes
into the climb my left thumb hung perilously over the stop switch on
my computer, ready to erase any evidence of what was sure to be a 34
minute ride up the hill. But I just couldn't do it. And
when I was still under 10 minutes at the park entrance, I started to
think that perhaps all is not lost, maybe, just maybe, it would be
possible to get the Iron Pig up the hill in under 30 minutes.
Kevin was definitely feeling better than me today, with his
heartrate sitting at 150 while I was struggling to keep up (no fancy
computer on the Iron Pig, but I'd guess it was around 160-162).
He rode off the front just past the halfway point, but not too far off
the front, never out of sight. The time to the archery range
(final steep hairpin under the powerlines) was 25:45; if I'm riding
really fast, it's exactly four minutes from there to the top.
Today I wasn't riding fast, but definitely riding determined... after
all, it was on this same bike, maybe 28 years ago, that I climbed
Kings in 21:15. What to do. Give up because your muscles
can't take anymore, or find a way to make it happen? You go for
it, of course. Those quads have just been sittin' there, not
doing any real work, so you push them for all you've got, making it to
the top in 29:58. Wow, talk about posers. I just spent two
paragraphs describing a relatively-slow ride as if it were some
record-breaking event. So does my thumb now hover over the
delete key, erasing this embarrassing drivel, or the send key, putting
it on the website? If you're reading this, you know the answer!
02/23/03- GREAT RIDE up
Page Mill today. Had a limited time to get a lot done, but
managed to
 squeeze
in a quick ride up Page Mill and then hook up with my 10-year-old for
our now-weekly run down Canada Road's Bicycle Sunday. From Olive
Hill & Canada Road (the start of our regular Tues/Thur ride), it was a
32 mile ride, heading out through Woodside, Portola Valley,
Arastradero, up Page Mill, north on Skyline, then down 84 to Tripp,
Kings Mtn, Manuella and back to the start at Canada.
You can click on the HAC4 printout on the left and see a profile of
the elevations, heart rate, speed and power output (or lack thereof!).
Page Mill is definitely one of the more impressive-looking hills when
it's charted out, and it feels that way when you're climbing it!
Since I was going for a high overall speed (to get back in time to
ride Bicycle Sunday, as I'd mentioned), I held back just a bit on the
climb, in favor of pushing myself everywhere else. At least
that's my story and I'm sticking to it; the 8.2 mile climb (from
Arastradero to the top) took 47.44 with an average speed of 10.4mph.
By the way, saw lots of our customers out there riding today!
Fortunately, one of them wasn't the guy that went through the stop
sign on Canada Road at full speed, with several cars in the vicinity
witnessing the event and thinking that much less of the next cyclist
they come across.
FRYS HORROR STORY DELUXE! Had a motherboard/CPU combo
they'd sold me, and the CPU, upon installation, fried. Literally.
Guess what? They guarantee the motherboard, the defective one that
fried the CPU, but they take no returns on CPUs whatsoever. Quoted me
their policies, didn't matter that it was all of their equipment that
caused it, didn't matter that we spend well over $10k/year there on
equipment. A truly remarkable experience that's going to end up
costing them a whole lot more than an $89 motherboard/CPU is worth.
I explained, very calmly the first three or four times (to
different levels of management) how it was their motherboard that
fried their CPU, and they didn't even try to tell me that I might have
done something wrong. The only thing they did was say it's not their
policy to replace a CPU that's been installed. Period. The
closest equivalent I can think of would be replacing a customer's
defective tire (fortunately a rare thing) but refusing to replace the
tube that it destroyed. I keep telling myself that it's a good thing
to be on the other side of the counter like this, to recognize what
goes on when people hide behind policy etc and ignore the reality of
what actually happened.
STRANGE EMAIL this morning, printed here in its entirety-
"Hi,
have you ever questioned why there is a lot of anti americanism
despite the stirling efforts your country makes to do the right thing.
Look at your diary and see how others see you. Happy with
your -personal- attitude to citizens of countries where you are a
guest? Enough said?"
No signature, and relatively-anonymous (an AOL address that
Google doesn't turn anything up on ). Not sure where this
person's coming from, as readers of this diary know that my primary
"personal attitude" is one of making fun of myself, not others, and
I've certainly devoted significant space to the unthinking manner in
which many trash things that are different overseas. Guess
sometimes you can't take the "Ugly" prefix out of the traveling
"American." I have my faults, and I'm sure I can do better, but
dang, I do try.
02/20/03- "I KNOW NOW WHY YOU CRY."
I'm back to my old self, seeing just about everything in life
as having been part of a movie at some time. I'm stretching this
one just a bit though (it's from Terminator 2, by the way, with the
Terminator, early in the movie, asking "Why do you cry?" and then
later coming to understand). But what I've learned is "I know
now why you get flats." This morning, it was just Kevin and I,
boldly going where we've gone hundreds of times before. Only
when we got to the top of Kings, Kevin tried to talk me into heading
north instead of south (eliminating the Old LaHonda dogleg). I
resisted, since that would cut off a bunch of miles and a fun climb,
so he suggested heading north on Skyline to the dam, then down Crystal
Springs Road and back up over Polhemus to Canada, via the bike trail
that parallels 92.
Yuck! It's somewhat nice until you get to Polhemus, where
you're first confronted with UP (ugly pavement). You know the
stuff, hasn't been repaved since the war (take your pick of which
one), and little bits of gravel and glass in abundance. And it
doesn't get any better after you make the turn onto the bike trail,
which is as much tar stripe as asphalt (and I'm sure somebody thinks
we should appreciate that they bother to repair it at all). But it was
fun to break things up a bit and ride some roads I literally hadn't
been on in 20 years. It also reminded me why I stopped riding
those roads!
Hibernate mode=off I had a bit of a tough time for a
month or so, as the mornings got a bit colder and my body went into
hibernate mode. What's hibernate mode? It's terrible,
that's what it is. You feel sluggish, and if you eat four ounces
of ice cream, it magically adds a full pound to your weight. And
when you bend over, you almost hear a "plop" noise as a roll of skin
pops over your belt. It's so bad that it discourages you from
riding, because you just don't feel all that great out there.
But you can beat it. You have to beat it. But how?
You'd think that simply riding more might be the answer, but it's not
enough. I had to take drastic action. How drastic?
No more potato chips or cookies in my lunch. Well, they're in
my lunch, but I don't eat them. And learning that, just
because you could eat more, doesn't mean you should. And it
worked. Got rid of four pounds in about a week, and even though
it's only four pounds out of 185, it made a huge difference. And
who knows, if I keep this up for a while I might get down to what I
ought to weigh someday (170 would be nice, be 175 is probably more
realistic). We'll see. But just having talked about it
here helps to provide some motivation.
02/18/03- A CLEAN CHAIN MAKES FOR A
HAPPIER RIDER! I was hoping to get a chance the other
day to really clean up my poor 5900 which, even though it isn't my
"rain" bike, has been seeing a bit of cruddy stuff lately.
Things have been too busy at the shop to do much to it, but I did
manage to get the chain cleaned and boy, what a difference that made!
So much quieter heading up King's Mtn today (with Ueyn). You'd
swear that it was noticeably easier climbing with a clean chain, but
of course the differences must be largely psychological. But who
cares? Good thing I checked the bike over, since I discovered
that my rear tire had completely worn through to the casing in several
places.
02/16/03- BICYCLE SUNDAY AGAIN
but this time we came across a fan club of one of our Los Altos
employees! I was out doing the family thing with my wife & son
(my daughter was in a driver's ed class, more on that another time,
but figure you've got another half year or so that you're safe) and
about the time we got to the turnaround point at Canada & 92 we came
across a small group that was working on one of their bikes
(derailleur wouldn't shift). Didn't take long to fix (a piece of
cable housing had slipped out of place) but somehow they figured I
worked at Chain Reaction (could have been the Chain Reaction jersey?)
and it turned out that Amy, from our Los Altos store, had sold one the
LeMond Zurich one of them was riding. Very nice people.
My bike, by the way, is a mess. Please take better care of
your bike than I do! For most people it's not a big deal, but my
bikes tend to suffer a bit because they get ridden on Tuesday &
Thursday mornings regardless of weather. I keep saying that I'll
bring it down to the shop and get it cleaned up. I keep saying
that, one of these days, I'll replace the DuraAce bottom bracket with
an Ultegra, whose cartrdige bearings hold up better to abusive
conditions. One of these days.
02/13/03- WAS HE TESTING US,
wondering, after reading about our Tuesday/Thursday morning rides
on our website, if we really do ride when it's raining and everyone
sensible is either sleeping in or riding on a trainer? Yes, we
had some fresh blood on the ride today, nice guy named Ed to accompany
Kevin and I up the hill. More Kevin's speed than mine I'm
afraid, but who knows, if I keep away from potato chips and cookies at
lunch, I just might get back to some pretty decent times up the hill
myself! But getting back to the ride, yes, it was very wet, that
kind of slimy wet that keeps your brakes from working, and, while
hardly a deluge, the sky was definitely falling on us. Worst
thing about it was that it was the first really rainy ride in some
time for all of us, so while riding on Skyline each of us was fighting
to see through salt-stung eyes (salt that had been accumulating over
previous rides and now liberated by the rain coming through our
helmets). It was just a bit too mucky and wet to do the Old
LaHonda appendage, so we wimped out and headed directly back down 84
to Woodside.
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED FOR THE REDWOOD CITY STAGE OF THE SEA OTTER CLASSIC!
Follow the link to our page on the biggest bike race to hit the SF
Peninsula, and contact information for how you can be involved.
02/11/03- IS IT A GUY THING?
Pretty nice ride this morning. I'm finally feeling a bit
better, probably because I had a good ride on Sunday, so I didn't have
to worry so much about getting dropped on the climbs. In fact,
we pushed a pretty good pace on the gradual descent down 84 towards
Old LaHonda, with Ueyn and I trading off the pace, and Kevin sitting
in. Finished with a nice, almost conversational pace up the back
side of Old LaHonda (where we're usually pushing the pace, sometimes
nastily so). Normally that would be the end of things, but not
this morning. Kevin peeled off to go home as we descended 84
towards Woodside, and when Ueyn & I hit Le Petite Paris Roubaix (Tripp
Road), well, it must have been a testosterone thing. I was
pushing pretty hard, and Ueyn, instead of sitting behind, pulls
alongside. Normally I'd bow to his superior conditioning and sit
on his wheel, but not this time. He pushed, I pushed. He
pushed some more, I pushed harder. Kinda fun doing that on Tripp
Road, as the bumpy surface literally feels smoother the faster you go.
But how much faster can you go? Not much! I'm about ready
to blow but, miraculously, Ueyn blows first. Could I have gone another
200 meters? 100? 50? Or was I within milliseconds of
tossing in the towel? I'll never tell!
02/09/03- YOU DIDN'T RIDE TODAY???
Can't think of too many good reasons not to. How
much better can a dead-of-winter day get than this? Temps mostly
in the mid-60s, the very slightest breeze (perfect amount; just enough
to feel good when it's at your back, not so much that you're cursing
it when it's in your face) and wonderfully clear. Took the
family out on Bicycle Sunday at first (I ride out to it at speed while
they drive there) and found that putting a computer on my
10-year-old's bike was a very wise move... his average speed this time
was 11mph, quite a bit faster than last time! After hanging onto
his wheel for dear life for those 8 miles, I was off to...
...Old La Honda! Only now it was my turn to feel the
burn, and that I did. Instead of trying to go for the
fastest-possible time, I decided to try standing the entire way,
seeing if I could attempt to ride the way I used to. Um, that
would be 25 years and 45 pounds ago. Answer? Well, I had
to sit for maybe 2 minutes, so not too bad on that score, but at 23
minutes time, I'm a whole lot faster these days on the saddle, not
standing up! Did keep my heartrate up though, and reminded me to
not breathe sync'd to the pedal stroke (taking longer, deeper
breathe sync'd to the pedal stroke (taking longer, deeper breaths is
worth about 5 beats/minute). Also caught up with some nice guys
who'd stopped for a kid's cookie/lemondade stand halfway up the hill
(that's them in the photo taken right at the top).
02/06/03- WHY IS IT
that it seems to take nearly as much effort to ride at 90% max
speed up a hill as it does at 100%? This morning it was just me
& Kevin (guess nobody else wanted to be out when it's 33 degrees?),
and Kevin just really wasn't himself. The good part of that is
that it means I'll have company up the hill, instead of watching his
rear wheel steadily move away. The bad news? Seems like
you have to really ratchet things down a bit in order to make it much
easier. In other words, it seems to take nearly as much effort
to get up the hill in 33 minutes as it does 29. Now, if I really
kick it down to maybe 35 or 36 minutes, then you're approaching
zero-effort territory. But slight reductions in speed
seem only to cause you to feel inefficient, with the heart monitor
telling the tale. A 29 minute time will see my heartrate at 169
for most of the ride up the hill, while a bit slower (34 minutes) and
it drops only to 162 or so. But go to a 36 minute time and it
might be around 140.
No, I don't know what it means either!
02/04/03- BLUE TOES
for the first time this morning. It wasn't really all
that cold at 35F, but still 2 degrees lower than the previous record
for the year. Overall this has been a very warm winter;
typically we would have seen at least a couple days below freezing by
now, and usually one in the upper-20s. It's also confession
time. I got up this morning and really didn't want to ride.
But it's because I really needed to ride. The scale told the
ugly tale; 4 lbs extra in just the past 5 days. How did it get
there? Let's see... cheesy garlic bread at the Fish Market,
chocolate cake for my sister's birthday, no riding on Sunday, and one
of those binges last night where you start eating just a few
honey-roasted peanuts but find it hard to stop. I felt and even
looked noticeably heavier.
So that's why I needed to ride. And yes, it was ugly at first.
But as we (myself, Ueyn, Kevin and Steve) got further into the ride I
started to feel better, although certainly not fast or fit.
Definitely enjoyable though, after I got past being bothered about
lack of raw speed or power (as if those are things I'd normally have
at my disposal!) and began the descent from Skegg's towards Sky Londa.
I own that section of road these days, at least if it's dry.
Don't know how it happened, but I've developed a great amount of
confidence on that descent.
And now, several hours after the ride, I can't imagine not having
ridden. I feel so much better than I have for the last couple of
days, as I've now (hopefully) moved my body out of hibernation mode
and into one that favors more riding and less pigging out.
02/01/03- WILD, WILD, WILD DAY! Tempered
somewhat by what happened this morning (see below), I nevertheless
have to admit that nearly everyone came out of the woodwork today to
buy a bike, something we haven't seen in a number of months.
Lots of new riders out on the road (yeah!), as well as some upgrading.
Hopefully I'll get a chance to ride tomorrow myself!
02/01/03- WAS LOOKING FORWARD TO A
NICE DAY AND LOTS OF BIKE SALES but the space
shuttle disaster kind of made that seem almost selfish and irrelevant.
It's just not a whole lot of fun when you wake up, turn on your
computer and see a graphic and headline that you assume must be a
reference to the Challenger explosion some years ago, but you read
down a bit and no, this is today, this was maybe one-half hour
earlier. The disbelief dissolves slowly, because you want so
badly to stick with your assumption that it could not have happened,
you're mis-reading it, its from the past. But it's there, it's
real, and you can do nothing more than call to your wife to turn on
the TV. That's always an ominous thing to say. "Turn on
the TV." No reference to channel, because it will be everywhere.
That can only mean something bad has happened.
01/30/03- OLD FRIEND, OLDER FRIEND
on this morning's ride. Kevin, whose been doing the
Tuesday/Thursday rides for a number of years, and Steve, a member of
my old racing club,
Pedali Alpini, from the 70s. Nice morning, not too
cold. Rode up through the park, connecting with King's Mtn up a
bit higher. I used to think we did that once in a while just to
make the ride more interesting, but now I'll fess up the real reasons.
First, it reduces the likelihood of an all-out speed run up the hill,
since we don't have baseline times that include the run through the
park. But the second reason? It gives you another
half-mile or so of flat road before beginning the climb!
01/28/03 pm- THERE ARE NO PIGS IN FRANCE.
I was at a Shimano seminar tonight with Bruno, our French
service manager, and for some reason, before the meeting started (and
probably because we were eating dinner) I remarked that I saw no pigs
in France. Why is this relevant? Because you cannot escape
France without encountering a few things repeatedly, such as Chicken,
Ham, Wine & Cheese. In my travels I came across a region where
there were endless Chicken ranches, and I had seen plenty of cows &
vineyards. But no pigs anywhere. And yet Jambon (ham) is a
required element in most any sandwich.
Bruno thinks it strange that I come up with these odd things out
of the blue, but admits as well that he's seen no pigs in France.
Wild boars in Corsica, but no pigs in France.
01/28/03 am- CYCLING MAKES THE WORLD A
BETTER PLACE.
At least it seems that way once you get on a bike and ride. Take
this ast it seems that way once you get on a bike and ride. Take
this morning, for example. I was a bit tired last night, and
sometimes, I have to admit, I don't really look forward to getting up
shortly after the sun comes up and riding when it's in the low 40s.
And then in the morning you wake up, look out the window, and it's
just a bit dreary as the fog hasn't quite burned up. Nothing to
contradict the feeling from the night before. But you go through
the drill, get dressed, make your Cytomax, start the recording mode on
your HAC4 computer/heartwatch and off you go. You're never
really sure how those first few pedal strokes up the hill outside the
door are going to feel, but on a good day, you're about 8 minutes from
the
start of the ride (at Canada & Olive Hill) and on the very worst
day, maybe 10. Most days you're in the middle.
Today was closer towards a good day for that first part, and I
arrived a bit early for the start. Ueyn showed up first,
followed by Peter. Uh-oh. Peter's not quite as fast, so a
sane person would think great, you can take it a bit easier. But
it's well-established that sanity is in question for myself, and
possibly Ueyn as well. The fact that somebody a bit slower shows
up means just one thing- intervals. Start up Kings at a moderate
speed and then choose a target, some place to ride to at full-on pace.
We started with the first hairpin (where it crosses the creek), then
Peter caught up and we and tackled the next, finishing at the Huddart
Park entrance. That took quite a bit out of us, and we were
content to not go for another until the clearing (1.34 miles to the
top on the highway markers). I was about finished by now.
But of course, one final fling at the top, at which I was no longer
contesting the outcome as Ueyn raced on ahead.
But what about cycling making the world a better place? That
comes from the feeling you get up on Skyline, on top of the world as
it were, as you're rolling along at high speed among beautiful
Redwoods and the sun's rays streaking through like you'd see in a
painting that looked like they exaggerated the effect.
And that wonderful mildly-twisty descent into Sky L'onda, followed by
a quick cruise down the west side of 84 to its intersection with Old
LaHonda. At this time of day you can count the cars you've
encountered so far on maybe a couple of hands, and Old LaHonda is one
of those gems where you inevitably find yourself thinking "This is why
we pay the big bucks to live here!" And while you're thinking
it, someone else on the ride is actually saying it. Happens all
the time.
So I'll continue to wonder, the night before and maybe while I'm
getting ready in the morning, when I would get up early, when it's
cold outside and everyone else is trying to figure out how high to
kick up the heat in their house, why I would want to do it. But,
almost without exception, you come back thinking you had a great time,
what could possibly be better, too bad you couldn't be out there all
day. How many things can you think of that have you saying that,
and how many of them are as good for you as riding a bike? It
just doesn't get any better.
01/27/03- SHIMANO RECALL ON SPD-SL CLEATS
now on our website. We had a bunch of emails from people who'd
heard about the recall and didn't know if they had the good cleats or
bad, so we took a photo showing both, making it easy to figure out.
01/26/03- SEA OTTER CLASSIC
profile now on-line; rode it today with my HAC4 bike computer and
downloaded the charts to our website. Riding it fast is way, way
tougher than taking it easy. Duh. But that's less obvious
than it sounds. When I rode it last week, I brought the camera
and took lots of photos, so I wasn't riding all that fast (difficult
to do when you're riding with one hand on the bar, the other holding a
camera). But today I wanted to get accurate readings, which
generally means riding straight through at speed.
The difference is that, when you hit the base of a steep climb and
you're already winded, you go into oxygen debt very quickly and those
steep parts seem a whole lot nastier! So I've changed my tune
about how tough a course it's going to be.
Also rode another
Bicycle Sunday with the wife & kids. Saw lots of our
customers out there, and even some employees (Brian Q from our service
department and Roxanne from sales, both in our Redwood City location).
Lots of our bikes out on the road too. Not exactly a warm-up to
my riding the Sea Otter course immediately afterward, but it did leave
me wanting to do some harder riding!
01/23/02- ROADS A BIT WET, BUT NO RAIN,
so I get to take out the 5900 and leave the rain bike at home.
Yipee! Some people will tell you that the bike doesn't make that
big a difference in how fast you can ride, but my experience is
otherwise. Switching from my Cinelli to the 5900 is worth at
least three minutes on King's Mtn Road, and it seems like even more.
Unfortunately, even the greatest bike in the world can't do much for
you when, after a couple of hard intervals up King's Mtn, you find you
can't get your pulse rate back down below 170 or so, no matter how
much you slow down and try to take it easy. So for the first
part of the climb, up to the park entrance, I was riding very, very
strong. The upper two-thirds? I was just hanging on,
watching Kevin ride off the front, suffering to a time of exactly 29
minutes to the top.
It wasn't until we got about halfway up the west side of Old La
Honda that I finally started feeling really good again, and maintained
a strong pace the rest of the way to Skyline. Now if only
the roads could have been a bit drier on the descents!
Just me & Kevin today. Saw Kim, a local "VeloGirl"
(all-women cycling club) riding with a friend on Olive Hill in the
opposite direction, along with Peter, who'd been out riding very early
and was just finishing up.
01/22/03-
DEATHRIDE REGISTRATION STORIES now up on our website.
We've maintained a DeathRide mailing list for a couple of years, where
we send out info to people on whatever we've learned about the
upcoming (or past) event. Registration is always wild, since
they have far more people who want to ride than they have space for.
As a result they've done various lottery schemes in the past, but this
year it's a how-quickly-can-your-computer-connect-to-our-computer
contest. Anyway, we've posted people's experiences so far, in
order to help those trying to get into the ride.
Want to learn more about the DeathRide? Visit the
official site, as well as a
page on our website with info.
01/21/03- IT'S RAINING AGAIN,
as the old Supertramp song goes. Four of us tackled the elements
today; myself, Ueyn, Kevin and Peter (the cyclist formerly known as
Terry. Not really, but for some reason I keep calling him
Terry!). Peter and I had our rain bikes out (although he'd
remind you that mine is not a "proper" rain bike because I don't have
fenders, er, mudguards) while Kevin & Ueyn were out there thrashing
their everyday road machines. It was hardly an epic rainstorm;
no wind to speak of, and the rain was never all that hard, just
constant. However, Skyline didn't seem like the safest place for
bikes, so instead of heading south as we usually do, Kevin suggested
West, down Tunitas and out Star Hill to the place where Star Hill and
Native Sons spit off. Nice little change of pace, especially
with that terribly-remote yet so-close-to-home feel you get on Star
Hill. Someone thought they heard banjos coming from the woods,
but fortunately no squealing pigs.
PS: Ueyn's getting too fast. He entered the Fremont
training criterium on Sunday and won the race! Won't be much
longer before he treats our morning ride as a warm up. Oh right,
he already is... he came into the shop later today, mentioning that
he'd gone out for another ride in the afternoon.
01/19/03- RODE THE REDWOOD CITY SEA OTTER
COURSE TODAY and found it both fun and a bit less
difficult than I'd thought it would be. The racers are going to
be flying up those hills! Sure, there's quite a bit of elevation gain
each lap, but there no single steady steep climb to bog them down.
Instead, it's a series of steps, with some very fast sections
in-between.
We've got a detailed map up so you can ride the course yourself!
If people are interested, we might schedule a pre-race event, riding
the course the Sunday prior to the race (which would make it April
6th).
Shameless commercial plug- We've heavily discounted all
remaining TREK Hilo Tri-specific bikes. How much? Half of what
their advertised price was! Which means not quite half of what
our regular price was (virtually all of our bikes are priced below the
advertised retail price, which is the price TREK lists for magazine
ads & reviews).
01/16/03- MUCH BETTER TODAY
as I get back onto my regular cycling routine. Kevin and
Ueyn showed up for this morning's ride; Kevin, unfortunately, was also
feeling much better today than Tuesday! Nevertheless we rode up
through Huddart Park (via Greer Road), bypassing the bottom part of
King's Mtn. Why? Because it wrecks the timing points, so
we can take it easy. Right. Easy for a little bit, but
sooner or later testosterone rears its ugly face. Kevin and Ueyn made
it to the top about 30 seconds ahead of me, after which we started the
gradual climb up towards Skeggs Point. Funny thing though.
While I wasn't feeling all that great, once we finished the Skeggs
Point sprint, I just kept going. I was actually feeling pretty
darned good! That's the cool thing about cycling. If you
don't feel particularly good at some point, just give yourself a bit
of time, and you may very well surprise yourself as everything falls
into sync.
It was a bit cooler today, as low as 37 degrees... but more than
anything that coolness reminded me that it's been a much warmer winter
than usual. Not one day of frost yet, for example.
Normally, we'd have had at least a couple days in the lower-30s,
perhaps even upper-20s by now.
01/14/03- BEEN A FEW DAYS
since I've updated things here. Probably because I'm
embarrassed by the fact that I spent most of Sunday in front of the
TV, watching two football games, instead of getting out on a ride.
Especially after having missed the prior Thursday ride, as detailed in
the 1/9 entry below. So, this morning, I was feeling A:) great
to be back on a bike, but B:) feeling a bit like a slug.
Fortunately, Ueyn didn't show up, but Peter did, and brought his
touring bike with full rain gear. Great, that'll slow anybody
down! And no Kevin. No, wait, we get a bit up the hill and
there's Kevin coming down to meet us, and looking, well, just not very
good. He's got some sort of little bug, but did that stop him
from swimming first? Of course not!
I did bring the camera though, and got some photos of the section
on King's where the cars run off the edge.
01/13/03-
MARK APRIL 9TH ON YOUR CALENDAR! There's a big bike
race coming to town (that would be Redwood City), courtesy of Rick
Sutton/Galeforce Promotions. They've convinced the Redwood City
City Council to hold the first road stage of the Sea Otter Classic on
a 9-mile loop in the hills! The bottom of the loop will be
Alameda, the top the Cross, Edgewood at the north and almost to
Woodside Road at the south. Pretty insane course, with rolling
closures. My brother and I were at the Council meeting to lend
support (along with Roxanne from our Redwood City store and her
husband Dick), but it almost didn't seem necessary. Rick's got a
great relationship with many of the council members (went to school
together, that sort of thing), and the city's Redevelopment Agency,
which would be funding part of the race, was ecstatic. More info
to come!
01/09/03-
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO STOP ME?
Apparently a call from the manager of our Redwood City building, at
7:15am calling me to say that the power's out and I need to come down
to reset some circuit breakers. Hey, it's raining out, I forgot to
bring my rain bike back from the shop the other day, what the heck.
Only when I get to the shop he's realized that the power's out all
over the area, no reason for me to reset breakers 'cuz there's no
power coming into the building! Grrr.
01/08/03- FREE TIRE REPAIR CLINIC
this coming Wednesday, January 15th, 6pm in our Redwood City
store.
More info on our tire repair page. See you there!
01/07/03- SPARKS FLY WHEN WE RIDE!
Literally. Just Ueyn & I on the ride this morning, one of
those high-gravity days, made worse by the knowledge that it's 38
degrees when we have to ride, while others will be enjoying the
upper-60s forecast later in the day! But that wasn't the memorable
part of the ride. We're heading up King's Mountain, along the
straight-ish section following the creek (prior to the first hairpin),
and an old white car messes up on the shallow inside curve, dumping
its right-side wheels into the drainage ditch at the edge of the
pavement. Yes, sparks were literally flying all over! The scary
thing is that this is the
exact same spot a cyclist was killed several years ago, when a
car's right-side wheels went into that ditch and then the driver
over-corrected, careening across the road and taking out the cyclist.
This is most definitely a dangerous piece of road.
01/05/03-
BICYCLE SUNDAY is a great way to get the
non-cycling members of your family out on a bike,
 especially
on a beautiful day like today! 66-74 degrees, light breeze, what more
could you ask? My 10-year-old got his first experience with a road
bike (a 24" wheel model that, unfortunately, is no longer made) and
even got to pass a few people! It didn't exactly get my heart
rate going though, or at least nothing like the 49er game later in the
day.
01/04/03- THINGS ARE GETTING BETTER AND
THERE'S NO WAY TO STOP IT! So what would put me in
such a cheery mood? The inexorable law of nature that causes each and
every day to get just a little bit longer. Since December 21st you
can enjoy the fact that every single say is just a bit brighter than
the day before. Don't ask me why Winter starts on the shortest
day of the year, and every day gets longer from there on. Seems like
the shortest day ought to be in the middle of Winter, don't you
think? But that's just not the way it is. Get out and ride,
life is good!
01/02/03- THREE DAYS IN A ROW, I COULD GET
USED TO THIS. Did the regular Tues morning ride, then
the Mt. Hamilton ride on New Year's Day, and finished off with the
regular Thursday morning ride. It's probably been four months since
I've been on the bike three days in a row. Kevin, Ueyn & James (a
former employee who now lives in Japan but was over for the holidays),
with Kevin showing the effects of a hard ride on the coast the day
before. Met up with Rachel, someone we haven't seen on the hill
before, about a third of the way up; Kevin performed the social duties
while Ueyn, James & myself grunted our way to the top. Nice day, 53
degrees up top, not too much water on the road. Would have been
perfect until...
...Until we got behind a car spilling large amounts of fuel going
down 84 towards Woodside. I actually started to gag, the fumes were
so bad. This was a textbook demonstration of why some of those
corners are so dangerous; cars spilling fuel out of their gas tanks in
the corners, laying it right on top of whatever moisture might be on
the road, which prevents it from being absorbed. Yuck! We pulled off
for a bit to give the car some distance, but even so I could still
smell it the whole way down.
01/01/03- GREAT DAY FOR CLIMBING MT HAMILTON!
Saw quite a few people there who'd read about
 it
on the website, why weren't you there? The weather couldn't
have been nicer, running in the low-to-mid 50s for the whole ride, and
beautiful views of the Sierras, Monterey and areas north.
This was the first year in a long time that I didn't work very
hard getting up the hill, choosing instead to ride with an assortment
of people on the way up at a more conversational pace (something I
rarely get a chance to do on our Tuesday/Thursday morning rides). I
also noted something else... it literally took me longer riding back
down the hill than my fastest time climbing it.
Later that afternoon, my wife was mentioning to the kids how she
remembers following me in a car the final time I rode the Mt. Hamilton
Road Race (which would have been back in 1978 or so?), and how I had
to stop on the way up because I got sick and threw up. Her point,
which she thought was reasonable, was that I should have just dropped
out of the race (instead of forcing myself to the finish, where I was
fourth from last across the line). I explained that I didn't ever
drop out of races because, after all, where do you draw the line? The
fear being that once you start dropping out of races, you might make
it a habit. The kids had an answer for that one. You drop out of the
race when you throw up. Got to admit they made some sense.
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