Dear Diary... (current entries) and past Diary entries from

11/09/00-11/31/01 Endless Tues/Thur morning ride ramblings, visit to TREK & LeMond factory, first ride up Diablo, Sonora Pass, French laundry lesson
01/01/02-07/15/02
Endless Tues/Thur morning ride ramblings, riding in the snow, Gary Klein visit, Millennium Crows, Spooky Old Tree
07/18/02-07/31/02
Incredible trip to the 2002 Tour de France
08/01/02-12/31/02
Endless Tues/Thur morning ride ramblings, 2nd 2002 trip to France, winning Lance-signed frameset, 5th-Annual TurkeyTrot ride, riding in the rain
01/01/03-03/31/03 Yet more ramblings about the regular Tues/Thur ride, Mr. J visits Washington DC
04/01/03-08/28/03
You take the guy with the gun, I'll handle the guy with the Gatorade!
09/03/03-12/31/03
My dinner with Zap, 75000 mile TREK OCLV, meeting Graham Watson

                            TOUR DE FRANCE 2003 TRIP, 2004
04/01/03-08/28/03 Endless Tues/Thur morning ride ramblings, Fast older guys, Sequoia Double-Metric, Grizzly Peak Century
09/03/03-12/31/03 Endless Tues/Thur morning ride ramblings
01/01/04-07/31/04 Endless Tues/Thur morning ride ramblings

07/31/04-12/31/04 Endless Tues/Thur morning ride ramblings
01/01/05-07/01/05 Endless Tues/Thur morning ride ramblings
07/01/05-12/31/05 Endless Tues/Thur morning ride ramblings plus Tour de France ride-a-long in Team Car
11/22/06-07/16/06
07/28/06-12/28/06 Endless Tues/Thur morning ride ramblings, Sonora Pass, caught in a snowstorm
01/01/07-06/30/07 Endless Tues/Thur morning ride ramblings
07/02/07-12/31/07 Endless Tues/Thur morning ride ramblings
01/01/08-05/30/08 Endless Tues/Thur morning ride ramblings
06/01/06-12/31/08 Endless Tues/Thur morning ride ramblings
01/01/09-12/31/09 Endless Tues/Thur morning ride ramblings
THE DAY MOUNT HAMILTON ALMOST BLEW AWAY (with us on it)

TUESDAY/THURSDAY KINGS MOUNTAIN RIDE

Every Tuesday & Thursday morning, rain or shine, 7:45am at Olive Hill & Canada Road in Woodside. 26 miles, back by 9:25-9:40pm (a bit later when it rains). Hills, sprints & great roads. If you can make it up Kings in 30 minutes or less, try it!


The Tuesday/Thursday ride is now on YouTube! Broken up into three separate segments, about 10 minutes each. Filmed by Millo on 1/30/07
The regular cast of characters on the Tuesday/Thursday rides includes
Kevin the first regular on our ride, and the most regular regular. Has too much time to ride!
Karl (aka "Fast Karl"), super-nice-guy road racer who can really charge on the flats
Chris, one of the younger guys who thinks he can climb and sprint. He can.
(Karl now with is own page here, Karl's Korner)(but not updated in ages...)
Eric, who likes to torture me up Kings by riding just a bit ahead or behind me, waiting for me to blow up.
John, relative newcomer, another 50ish youngster who can climb way too fast.
Millo
, who complains that he's old & slow but somehow always there in the sprints.
George, always out on Tuesdays, nice guy, too fast on the climbs

 

01/01/04-08/01/04 DIARY ENTRIES BELOW-

08/01/04- BACK HOME AGAIN, AND BACK ON THE BIKE! 
Arrived back from France about 10pm Friday, with little opportunity to recover before heading into work Saturday morning.  Or was it really Saturday about 8pm or so?  Even today (Sunday), I'm still feeling a bit out of sorts, although I'm convinced that much of that was from 8 days (yes, eight!) off the bike.  My last ride
in France was on the Col de Faucille a week ago Friday, after which I joined up with my family in Besancon & Paris for a couple days of race-watching followed by 11,293 metro & monument steps (always designed, it seems for people with shorter legs/stride distance than me).

The scale told the story when I got back; that last week off the bike cost me about 7-8 pounds.  Ouch!  So this afternoon I decided that, no matter how bad I felt (and I still felt pretty bad), I was going out on a slow, easy ride.  Something to make sure my legs still turn before hitting the usual ride on Tuesday morning.

Of course, me, on a bike, and "easy"... they don't usually go together.  Instead of doing the loop through Portola Valley, well... Old LaHonda was calling to me.  OK, so I figure I'll do an easy ride up the hill, maybe 25-28 minutes or so. But it doesn't work out that way.  No more than 50 feet into the hill and I'm already calculating what I can sustain over the long haul, and in no time my heart rate (which had been extraordinarily sluggish on the ride into Woodside) kicks up into high gear (168-178bpm).  On my way up I run into a nice guy named Neil, who's wearing a Chain Reaction jersey and, it turns out, was also in France for the TDF!  22:19 from bottom to top, considerably better than I expected.  It is so good to be back on the bike.  It's also so good to not have airports be part of my life!  But France?  Yes, I miss France.  Just wish it was 3 or 4 hours away, instead of 11-15.

YOU'RE ON THE WRONG PAGE!  I'm in France now, watching that guy in the Yellow Jersey.  Film at 11, but why wait?  Check out what I'm finally posting after several days in Internet Hell.  Curiously, Cycling Heaven and Internet Hell were exactly the same place!

07/17/04- DIARY NOW MOVES TO ChainReaction.com/tdf.htm for the duration of my rip to France (until 7/31/04).  Who said I wouldn't have anything to do, waiting four hours at the airport for my flight?  I'm finally getting things caught up for the latest TDF part of the website!  I should also mention how wonderful it is that I have a staff that can take care of things while I'm gone (and hope I didn't leave too many loose ends all over the place).

07/17/04- 10:52am HAPPY & EMBARRASSED & HAPPY & TIRED
but mostly happy!  At the very last second, just as my wife is making the turn off the freeway into the airport and has to know whether we're going to the domestic or international terminal, my direct flight to Paris comes through!  The alternative wasn't terrible, just not as fun flying from San Francisco to Chicago and then to Paris, on a 757/767 combo.  The direct flight on a 777 is definitely preferred though.  So what's embarrassing?  Well, I'm sitting here in the First Class lounge at SFO... yeah, it worked out weird with my miles program, but the difference between coach and first was only 20k miles (80k vs 100k) and it seemed like this might be an opportunity where the difference made it worthwhile.

But it is kinda scary and intimidating, as you go through opaque glass doors into this strange other world, where there are people who check to see if you're on their list and tell you what a wonderful place this is and how they've goot food & drinks downstairs (I think she could tell I'm a rookie) (actually, I'd meant to get a haircut, maybe I'm looking more like a Wookie!).  But somehow I'm suffering through it, $9.99/day wireless T-Mobile connection and all.

BUT HOW ABOUT LANCE???!!! 
The past two days have ended any speculation as to whether Lance was in charge or not.  Did you see this morning's carnage?  Tyler out, Heras crashes, Mayo nearly out... will there be any drama left by the time I get there in a couple of days???

THE END OF TODAY'S STAGE
it was obvious Lance was in charge, as he's heading towards the line with Ivan Basso but, maybe 100 meters from the finish, he sits up a bit, straightens & zips up his jersey (so he'll look good for the cameras at the finishing line) and races past Basso to take the stage.  As soon as you saw him zip up the jersey, you knew.  It's what every solo stage winner is taught to do... to look good as you cross the line.  But I don't ever recall seeing somebody do that in a 2-up situation.

07/17/04 1:08am WHY AM I STILL UP, INSTEAD OF GETTING SOME SLEEP SO I CAN WATCH THE TOUR DE FRANCE MEGA-STAGE IN THE MORNING?  
'Cuz I'm on old with United Airlines, hoping that my waitlisted flight to France goes through.  Not a huge deal if it doesn't, but it would be nice to have the direct flight option that goes out a bit later in the day.  Unfortunately, I don't have "status" with the airline, so even though there remain available seats, they're hoping to sell them to somebody, or offer a killer deal to the sort of person who flies a million miles with them, instead of offering them to somebody who gets most of his miles through credit-card use.

07/16/04- A DAY LATE AGAIN
getting the diary updated after a ride, but things remain pretty hectic as I prepare to leave for France.  Thursday morning's farewell ride took place on the most beautiful morning we've seen in some time, with the fog finally giving way to moderate temps (65 on Skyline) and dry roads.  Those foggy mornings have made Skyline as wet as if it had been raining, with the notable result of a large amount of water spilling out of my bottom bracket as I gave my bike a mini-overhaul prior to the trip.

Steve, a semi-regular, showed up this morning, along with Mark, one of my cycling friends from the way-way-way back days (as in mid-70s) who's just now rediscovering how wonderful cycling is.  Doesn't hurt that he's skipped a few generations of bike equipment all at once, going from his old Bob Jackson to a modern TREK OCLV.  I suspect he'll
be killing me again in the hills soon, just like the good old days!

07/13/04- NOBODY/EVERYBODY?
  I get to the start of the Tues/Thursday morning ride and nobody's there!  Sure, a bit of fog up on top of the hill, but didn't seem like enough to scare everyone away.  But shortly Andrea shows up, and then we spot Brian who drops in to say hello, but won't be riding with us since he's on his way to work.  Since it was just myself & Andrea, and she'd never been up the back way through the park, I introduced her to the scenic detour on the way up.  Shortly after hitting King's we were joined by Ueyn, who'd already been up the hill once and was heading back down to meet us.  Now this may seem strange, but even though I've ridden up Kings many thousands of times, I've never done it twice in one day.

We also came across a few other cyclists climbing up the hill, and many more heading down.  Guess that most of them are simply more morning-type-people than I am!  For me, it's enough of a struggle to get up at 7:05am so I'm out the door about 7:30.  Those people who start the Death Ride at 5:30am?  I'll never be one of them!


07/11/04- RIDING IN A SPECIAL PLACE, so special that you have to sign up maybe 6 months in advance.  And on a mountain bike, no less.  That's how I spent my Sunday morning, riding in the Crystal Springs Watershed.  Berry Stevens, local mountain bike advocate & rider, had been trying to get me out there for a while and things finally worked out.  Was it worth it?  Check out the photos and see for yourself!  Pillarcitos Lake, the backside of Crystal Springs Dam, stunning views of Pacifica & the SF Airport, and a type of quietness that makes it seem like you're much further away from civilization than our really are.  One more reason why this is one of the best places on earth to ride a bike.

07/08/04- BIG GROUP THIS MORNING
with a couple of new faces.  Kevin & Pete & Brad, along with newcomers Andrea (who will be riding in the Tour of Hope later this year) and Patrick, who's recently moved back into the area from Atlanta.  I let Brad & Kevin play at the front while I kept an eye on things elsewhere.  Most noteworthy event was a white pickup that refused to pass on on the way down the west side of 84, and then stopped to give Kevin a bad time near the turnoff for Old LaHonda.  I don't think it would have been possible for us to have ridden any closer to the edge of the road than we were, but it might have been difficult for him to get by a group of six riders.

07/06/04- IS IT REAL YET?  FINALLY, AT 26:25, I THINK IT IS. 
It's been a long, difficult preparation this year, as I get ready to head to France on the 17th.  July is typically our busiest month of the year at the shop, so there's a lot to get straightened out there before I leave (thankfully, I have a great staff that's doing a wonderful job keeping things going the way they ought to).  But the bike riding has been different than years past.  I'm stronger on longer rides, but on climbs I haven't had quite the speed I used to, which has been a bit frustrating.  A month or two ago I finally got under 27 minutes heading up King's, but only by a second, so it hardly counted.

It didn't help that I spent a good deal of time Sunday dealing with a sick computer instead of riding, so it was with a bit of uncertaintly that I approached this morning's ride.  But first, turn on the TV and watch the live coverage of the TDF on OLN... which was such an exciting stage (especially for being flat) that it was hard to leave!  However, it did seem to get me psyched up a bit, and from the very first pedal stroke it just felt really good being back on the bike.  Kevin, Brian & Todd were with me (3 guys in Chain Reaction jerseys, including mine), with Todd & I setting an initially-torrid pace up the hill.  I knew I couldn't keep it up, I knew I'd just blow up & die, or maybe pull over at the park entrance.  I slowed down, but I didn't implode (surprisingly) My time seemed pretty decent at the park, so I decided this was it, let's make the best of it.  Todd hung in there for quite awhile but eventually succumbed (he'd been ill over the weekend), while Kevin clawed his way up form behind and passed me on the steep part just before it widens.  But I didn't care (ok, a small lie), my time was still looking promising, provided I could just keep going.  In the end I finished at 26:25, my best time in a year or so.  I just may be ready for France after all.

07/01/04- IT MIGHT AS WELL HAVE BEEN RAINING
at times this morning; the fog and drizzle on Skyline made for quite a mess, and it actually got down to 49 degrees.  Ah yes, summer on the SF Peninsula!  Kevin & Pete rode up the hill with me, and for a short time I was thinking I could charge up at a strong pace and hold Kevin off.  Don't know where I get ideas like that, but I eventually got to the top in 27:45, maybe a minute behind Kevin.  Pete was at most a minute behind me; I can only hope that I'm doing so well at 58.  Of course, he'd just gotten back from a bicycle tour in France, hitting up many of the climbs that the TDF will shortly be riding!

06/29/04- NOT EVERYBODY LIES, JUST KEVIN.
Well, maybe that's just a bit harsh, but Kevin proclaimed that he was feeling beat and would be riding very slowly up the hill this morning. So I'm thinkin' OK, good time to head up through the park and join King's Mtn at the park entrance.  It's a bit steeper but kinda fun, especially if the pace isn't too nasty.  Somehow it seemed like Kevin had a miraculous recovery though; maybe it was the added presence of Brad, who'd won the cat-5 event this past weekend at the Pescadero road race?  Whatever the case, what I figured might be a 35-minute ride up the hill ends up being a bit under 30, including the extra run through the park.  Why does Kevin figure I should ever believe him???

06/28/04- WHO WOULD WANT TO DO THAT?  
Ride the Race Across America, that is!  In this case, that would be Billy Innes, our combo receiving/service tech, who just finished the event as part of a 4-man relay team that not only took first place, but set a new course record.  And this just days after coming in 2nd at the National Road Race championship. Very impressive, especially when you hear what goes into an event like this (for example, they ride in two-man sets, each guy doing about 20 minutes and then the next guy goes, maintaining a very good pace as they literally race across the country!).

06/27/04
- SONORA PASS HAS A BITE!
 The annual Sonora Pass ride, which is almost always on the last Sunday of June, took place today with Jeff (whom I've ridden a number of centuries with, and is one of our reps) and Todd (one of our employees who ought to know better!).  The weather started out quite nicely, as predicted by the weather service.  High of 81 degrees forecast for Dardanelle; it was about 71 when we left shortly before 10am.  It got as high as 90 or so on the back side, but... once again, we learned how quickly things can change at altitude.  Nothing nearly as nasty as the 'Y2K debacle, but it still gave us a run for our money as it began to rain, hail and snow as we approached the top on our return!  Fortunately, it didn't get icy-cold, but it did drop to the low-50s, and the entire descent from the summit to Dardanelle was quite wet.

In the photo above (from left to right) is Jeff, Mike, Todd & Crazy Larry (a recumbent rider whom we've come across before on the same weekend in a prior year; he uses Sonora Pass as his tune-up for the Markleeville Death Ride).  The phone on the right shows Jeff making his way up from the east side, as well as the peppered-with-hail roadway.

If you're silly enough to want to try Sonora Pass, a word of advice on the weather- earlier in the day is nearly always better.  Thunderstorms (and weather in general) tend to arrive early afternoon.  If you can arrange to be on the downhill side by 1:30 or so, you're usually OK.

06/24/04- A NICE, CIVILIZED RIDE
this morning, or at least it began that way, as I started up the hill with Steve, the only person who showed up at Olive Hill & Canada.  Well, almost.  About halfway up the hill Brad caught up with us, and somewhere just beyond that Kevin rode down from the top to meet us.  A bit warmer today, with much less fog (and, thankfully, no logging trucks likes Tuesday!).  As we began the ascent up Old LaHonda's west side, the three of them stopped to remove their jackets, leaving me to slowly cruise on ahead a bit while waiting.  But then I thought, why not just keep going, and see how long before they put on some speed and catch up.  Bad idea.  The worst thing about being out in front is imagining that they're charging after you, even (or especially) when they aren't.  By the time I got to Skyline I'd put about 2 minutes on them; my concern that they were just around the corner wasn't justified... they were having a good time while I was burning out my lungs.  Someday I'll learn...

06/23/04- MORE ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOR? 
I'd forgotten to mention something about last Sunday's ride.  As Bruno, Dick & I were heading north on Canada Road, we came across a couple groups of people with flats, and, of course, we asked if they had what they needed.  No problem, they were under control. 

A mile or two later
we came across two older guys looking like they were having some trouble with a mountain bike (easy guess, since they had it upside-down while they were trying to fix something). Yes, they replied they could definitely use some help; they were dealing with a broken chain.  Fortunately, My handy-dandy Topeak Hummer multi-tool has a built-in chain tool, so in a few minutes I had them back out on the road (would have been sooner, but I didn't think about taking off my prescription non-bifocal Oakleys, which made it difficult to make sure the chain pin was centered).

The question that comes to my mind is this- how many other cyclists passed them by, not asking if they needed any assistance (they said they'd been trying to fix it for some time)?  Would it have been different if they'd had nice road bikes instead of lower-end mountain bikes?  Are we, in general, so absorbed in our own goals, our own pursuit of a good time, and perhaps our own idea of what makes a "real" cyclist, that we rationalize it's OK to just cruise on past somebody who isn't one of us?

The world usually won't end if arrive back at home 10 minutes later than planned (and besides, why are you carrying that cell phone anyway if not to keep one little part of the world from coming apart at the seams?). 

06/23/04- TOUR DE FRANCE ROUTE DETAILS RELEASED.
  For those traveling to France to see the TDF, the official tour website, www.LeTour.fr, has now posted complete route details & time information.  This, along with the relevant Michelin maps, are essential for anybody planning on watching the TDF.

06/22/04- GLOBAL WARMING?  SOMEBODY'S HEAD IS IN A FOG! 
That would be my head, along with Ueyn, Steve, Donald, Kevin, Bruno & Todd.  Did I leave anybody out?  We had a big group today, heading bravely up the hill, leaving the sun & warmth behind in favor of the cold & damp.  By the time we got to the top, it was thick enough that I was very glad to have brought my flashing tail light.  And guess I needed that light, since my legs weren't lighting any fires this morning; the first half of King's went fine, but after that I ran out of steam, finishing the climb in 27:28.  Bruno, riding stateside for the last time before leaving for France (he's going to be helping with TREK Travel tours during the TDF), was no more than half a minute behind, and Todd about half a minute ahead.

The combination of very poor visibility (perhaps 50 feet at times) plus a whole lot of logging trucks on Skyline, convinced us that it wasn't wise to do our normal route, which would head south to 84 and then loop the west side of Old LaHonda.  So we headed down Tunitas to Star Hill, and then down, down, down to the bottom of Native Sons Road.  The Spooky Old Tree is still there, but the Leopard that hangs out in the tree further down the road is no more.

06/20/04- JUST CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF WEST ALPINE!  
Spent my last Sunday as a reasonable person by doing a nice 54-mile cruise, starting out by intercepting a ride Dick & Bruno (from our Redwood City store), who were heading north on Canada, up 92, south on Skyline to Sky L'onda, and then down the west side of 84.  Dick & Bruno then headed back via Old LaHonda, while I rode on to LaHonda and then back via West Alpine.  They missed the best part of the ride, and I don't just mean the steep climb up West Alpine!

Traffic down 84 was amazingly light; so light that I took a deer and its young doe quite by surprise.  The mother deer stood up at attention, and the doe quickly went to mom, trying almost to merge into her.  It was the sort of thing that happens only at that perfect speed that you observe the world by when you're on a bike.

A bit later, climbing up West Alpine, I came across a pair of guys from France, Richard & Frankie.  Very nice guys, but Frankie's way too strong.  The guy's cruising up the mountain on an inexpensive hybrid with a suspension fork, doing a whole lot more work than I am, but in no danger of slowing anyone down... he was moving!  That's Richard on the left, Frankie on the right (or perhaps it should be Richard a gauche, Frankie a droit).

Oh, about this being my last Sunday as a reasonable person-
supposedly I'll be doing Sonora Pass next Sunday.  That pretty much defines unreasonable behavior.

06/18/04- CHAIN REACTION'S BILLY INNES 2ND PLACE AT ELITE NATIONALS!
  Have your bike worked on by a Rockstar... Billy's one of our expert service technicians (VeloNews called him a "mechanic"... how gauche!) and had a breakthrough ride at the National Championships a couple days ago.  Billy's not the kind of guy you can use as a rabbit to chase on a climb, 'cuz you're not going to see him again once you hit the first curve in the road.  Congratulations to Billy on a great ride!

06/17/04- OF SUNFLOWERS, FAST YOUNG GUYS & MALE
MENOPAUSE.  A lot to cover today!  It started out with the realization that the sunflowers that have made an appearance at the top of Jefferson (in Redwood City) could mean something both ominous & special; check out the Velonews article on Sunflowers and their relationship to the Tour de France.  Could it mean that a great race is coming to town?  Could "The Englishman" be responsible?  Read the article and find out!

Fast young guys? 
No, I'm not reminiscing my youth, but talking about guys like Brad, who showed up on our ride this morning.  I don't think he took more than a few breaths going up the hill at our pace (just under 30 minutes), as he'd ridden at nearly 24 minutes flat with Kevin two days earlier.  Am I jealous?  No, I'm happy that I enjoy riding a bike every bit as much now as I did 30 years ago, maybe more.  Definitely more than 10 years ago, for sure. 

Things are changing, no question.  I'm not as fast at climbing, but I last a whole lot longer than I used to (heavens, this is sounding like a Cialis commercial!  For climbs longer than 4 hours, I may require medical attention...).  I have a tenacious ability to hang onto the wheel in front of me if need be (in other words, I don't feel guilty about drafting to save strength), and I can definitely "motor" better on the flats than I used to.  Plus, I'm far less wasted at the end of a century than I used to be.  Life is good.

But what about the male menopause thing?
  On Tuesday, I was suffering a bit from an apparent minor flu bug (minor sore throat, mild headache that would come and go, and mild joint pain that showed up mostly in the knees.  Turns out Kevin had felt exact same way, and a few other experienced cyclists (ok, guys past their mid-40s) as well.  My theory?  An alien race beamed something nasty into our atmosphere, bringing an early onset to male menopause (if there is such a thing but hey, I'm becoming a believer) to anyone past, say, 47, who happened to be out riding.  As they say, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

06/15/04- KILLER-SQUIRREL CROSSING REPLACED BY COYOTE? 
Todd, Brad, Kevin & Bruno (yes, that's right, our Redwood City service manager showed up this morning!) in attendance, with Brad & Kevin blasting up the hill at breakneck speed; I lost sight of them by the first hairpin.  Todd was a bit more civilized, and Bruno, getting used to riding on the road for the first time in a while, was just a bit behind.  I was still in testing mode, carrying the handlebar bag with camera, so I have no doubt that without those extra two pounds I would have been up there with the front-runners.  Yes, that's right, somehow those two pounds make the difference, never mind the extra 10 pounds I carry that serve no useful purpose other than to allow me to last a bit longer if I were a "survivor" cast member.

I'd thought Bruno's moderate pace was an attempt to be social until he blasted ahead for a nearly-uncontested sprint on Skyline.  Nearly uncontested because everyone was riding pretty casually and enjoying the nice morning, at least until I noticed Bruno with about a couple bike length lead on me, accelerating away.  Couldn't let that happen!  Couldn't really stop it, either.

About midway on the descent to Sky L'Onda, we came across a Coyote darting across the road, at precisely the same place that Killer Squirrels have previously attacked us.  This guy crossed just a couple feet in front of Todd, as if he was playing a game of chicken with us.  Strange. 

This was to be a breakfast-at-Alice's ride, although Bruno & Kevin had to head back, but we did pick up Donald (from our Redwood City store), who'd intercepted us by riding up 84.  I'd recommend the french toast over the pancakes, by the way.

06/13/04- FIRST TEST-RUN OF NEW EQUIPMENT
before the trip to France next month.  Since I've been playing stay-away Dad for the last several Sundays (off at centuries or doing silly rides like the one up Bohlman a couple weeks ago), I decided to stay local and do a quick morning ride, getting back in time for church and seeing what the family looked like.  Kevin and Long Bob rode with me this morning, as we headed north on Canada, up 92, then south on Skyline to 84, finishing up with the west side Old LaHonda loop before heading back home.  My new Topeak mini handlebar bag looks like it will work a lot better than what I used last year!

06/11/04- A DAY LATE, FOR NO GOOD REASON
sort of.  Thursday morning's ride was a bit of a surprise, as five others showed up, none of them the usual suspects.  I was holding off on reporting the events until somebody could get an email to me listing everyone's names, but since that hasn't happened yet, let me just say that Harry's early-morning group found a way to get in a later ride (we usually see them returning just as we're starting out) and head up the hill with me.  Nice morning, but pretty wet up on Skyline (from fog condensing in the tree branches).  Most notable thing was the descent down 84 into Woodside, as we were following a fairly large truck that wanted to move quite a bit faster than the small toyota in front of it.  Reminded me of the old movie Duel, in which a faceless trucker is trying to run down a defenseless Dennis Weaver (whose car is faster than the truck, but of course breaks down).

06/10/04- IT MAY NOT BE TOO LATE TO BOOK A TRIP TO THE TDF!
 Here's the scoop- right about now is the deadline for people to make their final payments on trips they reserved many months ago.  Sometimes things don't work out, so right now is when last-minute opportunities exist.  That's what worked out for me last year, and it can work out for you, too.  Just cruise through the various companies listed below and see what might be available.  As of 6/10/04, Graham Baxter suddenly had a number of highly-desirable openings... and that's just one example.  What about airfare?  Figure on about $1100 from the West Coast, slightly lower if you live to the East.

06/08/04- PAIN IS WEAKNESS LEAVING THE BODY. 
OK, which one of my customers told me he'd read that?  This morning's ride up King's Mtn wasn't terribly pleasant... at first.  Felt like I hadn't gotten enough sleep (strange, since I had), and my body just didn't feel like riding over Jefferson to the start of the ride.  Ueyn & Kevin showed up to torment me as I struggled up Kings in what I thought would be a 35 minute time, but somehow managed 29:17.  But things got better as I went, so by the time I was up on Skyline, I was actually feeling pretty good.  Maybe pain is weakness leaving the body!  By the time I finished the ride I felt like I'd restarted the day on a much-better note.  This cycling thing is good.

One thing to consider after my next century-
I have a feeling I'd do a whole lot better if I did an easy ride the day following, just to keep the legs loose.  My guess is that, if I did a really hard ride and then stayed off the bike for several days, complete rig
ormortis would set in!

0
6/06/04- WHAT A RIDE!  I've put up a page for today's Sequoia Double Metric that I rode, with the usual heavy download of photos.  But this was more than just something I rode; this time, we also created a special "soda stop" at the top of the nastiest climb, with 564 cans of Coke, Mtn Dew, Pepsi, Sierra Mist etc., along with 300 pounds of ice.  Many thanks go to Sal Contreras for making this happen.

06/05/04- WATCH THIS SPACE. 
Tomorrow morning is the Sequoia Century, my biggest ride so far this year (200k), and one that really doesn't look all that bad... not on paper anyway.  It says 10,000 feet of climbing, but doesn't look like it.  Watch me eat those words not-too-many-hours-from-now!

06/03/04- SOMETIMES YOU JUST DON'T FEEL VERY FAST
and, the funny thing about this world, when you don't feel fast, you often aren't.  Fortunately nobody else showed up on the ride this morning, although it's always possible that would have gotten me going.  There's no way around it, a great deal of your performance comes from psychological/mental factors.  I might also try to blame it on some new equipment I've installed on my bike; after last Sunday's debacle on Bohlman (where I ran out of gears), I finally broke down and installed an FSA "compact" (50/34) crankset on my bike.  It's going to take a bit of time getting used to, particularly on rides I do all the time, as all the gears are in different places now... it felt quite odd going up King's Mtn.  I guess after riding up it a few thousand times with the same gearing, you kinda get used to certain things!

Hopefully the new crank will prove its worth on Sunday for the Sequoia Double Metric century, although I doubt there will be anything close to the steepness of Bohlman!

06/01/04- OW, THAT HURTS!  
What, hearing from others who read my web account of Sunday's ride, when I actually had to get off the bike for five hundredths of a mile (trying to make it seem really insignificant, can you tell?) on Bohlman and walk?  Or the bee sting on the top of my head while riding up the west side of Old LaHonda this morning?  Yeah, the bee sting was pretty inconsequential!  Wasn't even sure I'd been stung until I took off my helmet and brushed something out of my hair and saw a small black bumblebee fall to the ground.  The good thing about where it got me was that it was in that area where... well, let's just say I get a bit of sunburn there.  Of course, if there'd been more hair, the bee probably couldn't have gotten to me in the first place!

No, what stung most
was having Sal come into the store this afternoon, giving me a bad time about my wimpy ride Sunday, when I didn't even go over to the other side of the hill and cross the BOD (Bridge of Death), like I did when I rode a similar ride with him a couple years ago.

05/30/04-
Woodside/Saratoga/Bohlman-OnOrbit/Black Mtn/Skyline 70 miles, 7,339 feet of climbing. Sometimes you need to prove something to yourself.  This was one of those rides.  It started out nicely enough, with an easy cruise along the backroads between Woodside and Cupertino, then headed west to Saratoga.  At that point, you've either got low-enough gears or you should turn around & go home... the Bohlman/On Orbit climb is the stuff of local legend.

Of course it can't end with just one nasty climb, so after a mile or so cruise on a dirt road across the top of the ridge, we dropped very quickly to Lexington Reservoir, paralleled it for about a hundred yards and then it's up up up again, this time on Black Mtn Road.  Not quite as knee-breaking as Bohlman (very little is!), but still with extended sections at 10%.  Finally we're up at Skyline, about 5 miles south of Highway 9.  The nastiest part of your climbing is now done; of the 70 miles we rode, the climbing is largely compressed into a mere 17.  The beginning of a web page for this ride are now up.


05/27/04- DID MY SHOES SHRINK
or my feet grow?  Strange thing this morning, as I put on my cycling shoes and noticed them fitting much more tightly than normal.  My theory?  My wife & I had our final French class last night, and, as it ended late, she stopped by Jack in the Box to pick up some tacos & a chicken club thingee, both of which were heavily loaded with salt.  I'm figuring I retained water due to the excess salt in my system.

Nice ride this morning, swollen feet or not (actually, they seemed to be back to normal within an hour of riding).  Steve & ...Pete(?) showed up, with Steve getting ever-faster up the hill, now climbing King's in 29 minutes flat. I was feeling kinda flat myself, but still managed to climb King's Mtn interval-style, trying to maximize my workout.  A relatively civilized pace, even on Old LaHonda, where it was just myself and Steve (Pete...gosh, I hope that's his name, not sure... well the guy who we think is named Pete had to head back down 84 to get to work, instead of doing the extra Old LaHonda mini-loop).

05/26/04- FRANCE DRAWING NEARER BY THE DAY.
 There's a certain tangibility to my trip to France this July, especially today.  It was the day of my final adult-school French class, as well as the day I had to send the balance of money owed to Graham Baxter for the trip I'm doing.  And just two days ago I made the train reservations for my family to meet up with me for the time trial in Bescancon.

There's also a certain urgency about getting in shape before I go, especially considering that I'll be spending several days atop Alp D'Huez (meaning that whatever rides I do may very well end with a climb up the mountain... thank goodness it stays light until almost 10pm in that part of France!).  I've also got to get the camera-bag-on-bike thing figured out quickly; the flimsy one I used last year wasn't quite up to the task, yet I don't want to go to anything too heavy.  Seems like there's always something!

05/25/04- HARDER?  EASIER?  
Some days you just can't tell.  This morning I started up the hill with Kevin & Ueyn, and was briefly joined by Nicole (who was on her way to work but figured she'd ride with us as far as the park entrance).  Ueyn wasn't feeling too good so he dropped off a bit further up the hill, while I rode at an alternating slow/fast pace.  Didn't feel that great myself, until I noticed, on the Skyline sprint up the hill towards the Skegg's parking lot, that things started getting easier as I increased my speed.  Strange, but whatever caused it, I'll take some more!

05/23/04-
ALTO VELO TRAINING RIDE THIS MORNING. I was talked into doing the Alto Velo Sunday morning ride for the first time today, and was rather pleasantly surprised.  Despite its rather large size (somewhere between 40-60 riders I'd guess) it was a very courteous group on the road, always aware of cars, riding single-file whenever needed, and actually stopping at stop signs & lights.

I'm not aware of who organizes and leads the rides (there were one or two people who seemed to be in charge), but they should be commended for how things went.  The ride even re-grouped at four different places (the top of King's, Sky L'onda, La Honda and the top of West Alpine/Skyline).

Could the ride have been more enjoyable?  Absolutely... I could have been in better shape!  It's been many years since I've done that sort of ride, and it takes a bit to get used to being in the bottom third of the group (in terms of climbing) rather than one of the guys at the front.  It also takes a bit of getting used to others casually yakking away while you're gasping for breath.  But it was also a lot of fun.  Something I could get used to if I had the time.


05/20/04- EASY RIDE TODAY 'CUZ WE SKIPPED KING'S MTN? 
You'd think that, wouldn't you?  But only if you leave out a couple things, like Steve showing up, who's quite fast on flatter sections, or the fact that we headed up the east side of Alpine, over Joaquim's ultra-nasty grade, and then finished things up by taking a detour off Tripp road by heading up Summit Springs, then down Entrance Way to reconnect with King's.  2385ft of climbing, vs about 3210 on our regular ride, but climbing King's we don't come close to the 10%+ grades on Joaquim and Summit Springs.

05/18/04- CLOSE ENOUGH?  
That magic (for me) 27-minute barrier.  You know, the one where, if you get under it, you figure you're moving pretty good up the hill (King's Mtn, of course!), but if you're slower, well, you need to improve?  Yeah, that barrier.  Well, does it count if your time is 26:59?  For today at least, the answer is yes.

Using my Ciclomaster HAC-4 computer, we can reconstruct the ride and attempt to extract the truth.  Well, OK, the truth is that it's pretty silly to make a big deal out of an out-of-shape 48-year-old riding up the same hill for about the three-thousandth time!

Ueyn & Kevin showed up, fortunately neither one feeling their oats quite as much as last week (when they posted times pretty close to 25 minutes flat).  I started the charge up the hill, leading, as usual, up to the first timing point (the big house on the left with the big reflecting pool and a large iron gate).  I didn't feel too bad there, so I kept pushing on, ending up with one of my better times to the first hairpin (where it crosses the creek).  Ueyn had dropped back slightly, with Kevin in-between, and I was both happy enough with my time and concerned about a pretty high heartrate (at 175, about 10 higher than what I'd normally be able to maintain) that I backed off slightly... but noticed that continuing to push the pace seemed plausible.  So push I did, picking up a lot of speed on the run-in to the park entrance, where I held up about 40 seconds for the others to catch up.  Looking back on it, I should have probably kept going, but I really didn't think I could maintain such a high heart rate for so long.  Turns out I was wrong; once I got going again, my heart rate never went below 170 and stayed centered around 175.

At the second-to-last timing point (the road marker on the left, just past the archery range hairpin), I was at almost exactly 23 minutes.  That's both depressing and exciting, because if I'm feeling very good, I can clear that last section to the top in almost exactly 4 minutes.  The problem is that you really don't feel like you've got much left at that point, so there's an overwhelming urge to say hey, no possible way to pull it off, might as well cut back just a bit and get a mid-27 minute time.  But not today.  I hit the last timing point (the water tower on the left) exactly 2 minutes later, right on target.  Ouch, that last part was nasty!  But somehow I cleared the spot where the stop sign used to be, at 26:59.  Nothing to spare, not on the stopwatch, nor the lungs.  Of course, this didn't leave me much for the rest of the ride either, so I pretty much sat tight on Ueyn's wheel across the top of Skyline (something I'm definitely not too proud to do!).  Fortunately, I recovered a bit for the ride up the west side of Old LaHonda.

So is there hope for the old man?  Probably depends upon my willingness to not go after Almond M&Ms when I find them around the house!  I'm still heavier than I'd like to be, but, so far, have also felt stronger on longer rides.  Just not quite as fast up the hill as I'd be if I got serious and shed some pounds.

05/16
/04- MUCH-NEEDED RIDE THIS MORNING as I met up with Brian, Todd, Kevin and a couple of Kevin's friends for a ride north on Canada, over 92 to Half Moon Bay, a quick cruise inland on Higgins-Purissima, followed by Los Lobitos cut-off and a quick stop at San Gregorio.  I was intent on riding up the west side of Alpine Road, so I took Brian in tow and did a bit longer ride than the rest of the guys, who returned home straight over 84.

05/13/04- AM I RUNNING OUT OF TIME?
  Sometimes I wonder about people who have these incredibly-detailed long-range training programs,
taking them from, say, entry-level biking to their first real century (100 miler).  Is it really necessary?  You can't just go out on a bike and ride?  But then I think hey, who am I kidding, being a guy who can't bring himself to ride up King's Mtn without making sure to set the timer at the bottom?

The reality is that I am running out of time; in just two months I'll be back in France, riding on many of the same roads as the Tour de France, trying to get as many mountains and miles into each day as possible.  Am I really in shape for that?  How does my shape this year compare to last year?  I wish I knew the answers!  Intuitively, I'm not as fast as I was last year, but it seems like I can go further.  I guess I'll know the truth on the first Sunday in June, when I ride the Sequoia double metric.

Just myself and Steve on the ride this morning, with Steve setting a steady pace up the hill while I goofed off a bit doing some intervals.  Not intervals as much as proving to myself that certain sections of the hill can be run at a certain speed, and heck, if you can string a bunch of those sections together at once, you might be able to climb the whole hill pretty darned fast!

05/11/04- 25:08 UP THE HILL THIS MORNING. 
No, not me, that was Ueyn!  Not that I was there to see it either, as I struggled in at 27:48, barely finishing on the same day.  Y'know, I have no problem holding off Kevin & Ueyn... for about 3 minutes.  On a good day, maybe all the way up to the park entrance.  But today, with Ueyn & Kevin being "on" and me feeling sluggish & heavy... hopefully, Ueyn can do even better for the Mt. Hamilton bike race coming up shortly.

05/06/07- ANYTHING BUT FRIENDLY RIDE THIS MORNING
(ok, actually it was quite friendly, but also painful).  Kevin, Pete & Steve showed up and I'm thinking hey, maybe if we go through the park (and connect to Kings at the park entrance about one-third of the way up) we can take it a bit easier.  No way.  As soon as we passed through the gates on Greer and hit the climb, things picked up.  Kevin was having an "on" day, and I was doing my best to hang "on" to his wheel.  We hit the top at about 29 and a half minutes (not great, but not bad for having come up through the park), and then it was Steve's turn to try and do a number on me at the Skegg's parking lot sprint.  Somehow I held him off, but he made me pay for it a bit later, as he & Kevin took off on the climb up the west side of Old LaHonda.  With Steve setting the pace, I was thinking to myself that, strategically, I was blowing it badly... if I ride from the front, he doesn't get these cocky ideas that he can blitz up the steeper parts of the climb.

05/04/04- NICE, FRIENDLY RIDE THIS MORNING
with everyone (that would be me, Kevin, Ueyn & Ted) all riding at a civilized pace up King's Mtn. And, being the first Tuesday of the month, it was a breakfast ride as well, stopping in at Alice's Restaurant (at the corner of Skyline & 84) before heading back down the hill.

05/02/04- GREAT GRIZZLY PEAK CENTURY TODAY!
Thank goodness I rode the Wildflower Century last week, so I was better able to handle the warm (up to 93 degree) temperatures on a much hillier ride.  Saw a lot of our customers there, with everyone giving high marks for a fun (but challenging) course, clear route markings and great food.  I rode with Kevin (one of our Tuesday/Thursday regulars), Jeff (who rode the Wildflower with me last week) and Ron, a longtime friend who's trying to get ready for the DeathRide.  I also spent some time on the road with Nicole, an endurance fiend who wants to do the Furnace Creek 508 (yes, that means 508 miles!) and Jamie, another Death Rider customer of ours.  Oh, right, don't forget Lori on her new Project One Trek she recently picked up from us, along with her husband Jim.  Dang, plus another guy who just finished his first month on a Trek 5200 he got from us, but whose name I don't recall (OK, he just emailed me, it's Carl).

04/29/04- WITH SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH I REMOVED THE TREE THAT HAD FALLEN ACROSS THE ROAD...
yeah, right, more on that later.  Fresh blood on the ride this morning as Pete showed up to join Kevin, Ueyn & Steve on the regular Tues/Thurs ride up the hill.  Kevin got away pretty quickly, and even on the lower section, where I usually burn a pretty fast pace (and then burn out right about the park entrance), I couldn't keep up.  I eventually made it to the top of the hill 27:40 after the start, with Kevin clearing the top just under 27.  On the run south on Skyline, I heard something snap on my bike, but couldn't detect anything nasty, so I just kept going... narrowly avoiding a 6' length of 2x6 lying in the roadway. 

About five miles later I noticed that my HAC4 computer was missing... it had broken off where it mounts to the bar!  So, on a morning where I didn't feel either fast or strong (but more-or-less competent), I rode back north on Skyline (instead of heading down 84), looking for the pieces of my computer.  As I rode past the 2x6 er, I mean, the fallen tree, I wondered why I hadn't stopped and removed it earlier.  Of course, the absurdity of the moment is that I wasn't stopping then, either!  Common sense prevailed though; I circled back and removed the lumber from the road and, within moments, Kevin had spotted my computer, just a bit further ahead.  Who knows, if we hadn't slowed down to remove the board, maybe we wouldn't have spotted my computer?

04/27/04- ARE BICYCLES SO OBVIOUS, SO PERFECT, THAT INTELLIGENT LIFE ELSEWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE WOULD INEVITABLY CREATE THEM?
  That's what I was thinking on the back side of Old LaHonda today, as Ueyn, Brad & Todd were riding me into the ground.  Brad & Todd are serious bad news; too young, too fast & out of control.  Actually, the last part's not true, Brad & Todd are both good guys, and remind me a bit of when I was 17 (although neither has hair as long as mine was, which is probably a good thing).

The legs were a bit sore today, leaving me to watch as Ueyn, Brad & Todd rode away at the start of the King's Mtn. climb.  Eventually allergies got the best of Ueyn, so I struggled past to a time of 27:30, maybe a couple days behind Brad & Todd.

04/26/04- RODE THE WILDFLOWER CENTURY YESTERDAY,
but only took about 200 photos... of which
maybe 6 or 7 came out really nice.  Nevertheless, I put up maybe 30 of them on a new page, one of our typically-nasty downloads until I go through and get ride of a bunch of them.  Right now I've just got photos and am working on getting the text up.

Overall a really nice ride.  A bit on the warm side (low of 62, high of 93), and the flat 35 miles or so at the end I could do without, but a lot of nice people, great food and good roads.  The heat hit me fairly hard, probably a bit worse than normal as I was coming off of a cold, but I feel a whole lot better prepared now for Grizzly Peak next Sunday.

I saw quite a few of our customers out there, including David H, cutting the wind for me on the final run back into Chico.  Sucking wheels (drafting) on this ride isn't a crime, it's a requirement if you want to survive!

04/24/04-
"Hey Mike, how did you like the view from Old La Honda west this morning? Not a cloud in sight, and a deep blue ribbon of ocean contrasting with the light blue of the sky. The grasses looked greener, too." From a fellow cyclist posting in a newsgroup this morning, to which I replied-

It *was* really nice, and very green.  I even anticipated that and brought my camera but... Kevin & Steve weren't cooperating.  I was trying to keep them in check right as you go around that corner with the world's greatest view (and it certainly was!) and had no time to get the camera out. Probably wouldn't have mattered because it was still fairly cool (maybe 48 degrees) and the lens would have fogged up pretty bad from the temp change between jersey pocket and open air.


An exceptionally-nice morning to be out on a bike.  A bit cool, to be sure, but completely dry (unlike Tuesday), and a good chance to practice my new-found aero downhill technique.  It's rather fun, getting "aero" enough on the bike that others, even drafting, can't hang onto my wheel.  Too bad I couldn't have figured this one out years ago, when I was racing!  Or maybe I did and have forgotten during the intervening years.  As we headed back through Woodside we picked up Sean (on the left, Steve in the middle and Kevin on the right of the photo), the 73-year-old who still rides up King's Mtn under 34 minutes.  I don't know if that's encouraging or depressing!

04/20/04- NON-CYCLISTS ARE MISSING OUT BIG.
  You should probably feel sorry for them.  I was thinking this today as Kevin & I were on the return leg of our Tuesday/Thursday ride, heading up the west side of Old LaHonda.  The world passes by at exactly the right speed when you're on a bike. 

You see that mountain off in the distance?  If you're on foot, it could be a day (or two) away.  By car, and you miss most of the little things that define what makes a region unique... the smells, the sounds of nearby creeks, the birds & deer that (usually) move on just before you get there.  The so-called Bay Area Microclimates that you get to experience in real time.  The changes in topography, as gentle hills give way to steep climbs & twisty descents.  The unique perspective on even subtle breezes, which cycling dramatically enhances your sensitivity to. 

Just two hours on my bike and I've experienced what most people spend an entire vacation looking for (and often don't find), and there's no "travel time" wasted getting there.  No plane trip, no long car drive.  You just head out your front door, get on your bike and ride.  Lance is wrong.  It's all about the bike!  Nothing else even comes close.

04/18/04- I'M A PARTICIPANT, NOT A SPECTATOR. 
That's what I came away from the Sea Otter Classic with today.  Instead of riding the Primavera Century, I figured I'd do the Wildflower next weekend and drag my two kids down to Monterey to see what a really big cycling event looked like.  With the added bonus of a trip afterward to the Monterey Aquarium, they seemed to think it was the makings of a pretty decent day, and actually enjoyed themselves.  In fact, after seeing the various age-group categories for kids, they both profess to wanting to actually ride some of the events themselves next year!  I'm not holding my breath on that one, but it does illustrate my point- some of us are participants, not spectators.  Watching isn't as much fun as being part of something.

04/15/04- SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE? 
Heading up King's Mtn this morning with Kevin & Ueyn, I rounded the second corner above the park entrance and come across maybe 10 huge Ravens, randomly scattered about the road in front of me.  Have you ever really looked at one of those birds?  I mean really checked them out?  Like how they are as likely to hop out of the way as fly, and how, in order to get up into the air, they literally crouch down way low and jump into the air?  I'm telling you, quite truthfully, I don't remember seeing large numbers of such huge birds even ten years ago.  What does it mean?

Don't look for me on the Primavera Century this weekend, as I'll be taking the kids to watch some of the Sea Otter races on Sunday.  But, new for me, I'll be riding the Wildflower Century in Chico the following weekend.  A bit different from what I usually ride, as it's not too hilly, but it ought to be nice riding someplace new.  And the following week will be Grizzly Peak, a much hillier ride that's not to be missed!  Great food, fun route (including a brief drop into "the hood" in Oakland, an interesting run past the refineries in Martinez, and a great view of the new bridge across the Crockett/Martinez straights).

04/13/04- ACTUALLY, IT ALL HAS TO START WITH SUNDAY
(Easter).  I'd originally planned to ride Sunday morning, before the 11am church service, but my family vetoed that by insisting on going to the 9:30 service.  No way to ride afterward, because guests were coming over around 1pm (not that that really mattered since, according to my wife, I spent far more time watching the Paris Roubaix race coverage on OLN than I did interacting with relatives.  Who, me?).  So a day of over-eating & watching TV, and no riding.

Monday? 
Monday can be summed up simply.  I forgot to wear my belt, but my pants seemed to be in no danger of falling down.  Hate that.  Plus, from Sunday evening through Monday, my hamstrings were saying they didn't like me.  They missed being stretched out, and hurt.  Yes, it can hurt more not to ride than it does to climb a nasty hill.

Which brings us to Tuesday
(today!) I had the rare opportunity to test-ride a new prototype road bike on the regular Tuesday/Thursday morning ride and, as Donald (one of our employees) would say, "It's all good."  I could tell you more about the bike, but I'd have to track you down via your IP address and silence you so you couldn't tell anybody else.  Actually, I'm free to talk about it after Thursday, when it's officially unveiled at the Sea Otter bike event in Monterey.

But what I can tell you about is a fun ride.  I'd approached it with a bit of fear & trepidation due to the lack of riding and over-indulgence on Sunday, but I actually felt really good.  Kevin & Brian joined me up the hill, taking a slight detour from the norm by heading down Greer and up through Huddart Park, catching King's about one-third of the way up.  I saw two deer on the way up, possibly the same two from Thursday's ride (the one where I was so gassed that I didn't even notice them until they nearly hit me).

Since Brian had been enticed by the possibility of stopping for breakfast at Alice's (a restaurant at the corner of Skyline & 84), we stopped there prior to doing the Old LaHonda section, ordered breakfast, and had it waiting for us on our return 20 minutes later.  Life is good!  And the belt?  It's back on, and cinched up to its second-tightest section.  I could go to the tightest notch, but why brag?  Yeah, right.  I might want to breathe.

04/08/04- GETTING THERE,
slowly.  Actually, I'm probably at about the same place I'd normally be at this time of the year; I'll have to go back through past diary entries to check. Started out way too fast this morning, trying to keep up with Brad & Kevin, and ended up pretty slow on the middle part of Kings.  Final time was 27:20 for me, but Kevin was at 25:10 and Brad another 20 seconds or so ahead of him.  Ueyn was taking it a bit easier, having come off a pretty tough week in which he placed 1st & 2nd in a couple of collegiate events (he rides for Stanford).  The high-point of the climb was probably Ueyn yelling at me about the deer at the side of the road, just a bit below the Huddart Park entrance.  I was so far gone I didn't even notice them until I'd passed them, heard Ueyn yelling and looked back.  Those deer, looking at me, must have wondered why the phrase is about deer having that "caught in the headlights" appearance!

Also saw Jamie, one of our customers, cranking at a really good pace up the hill.  Always nice to see your customers out there enjoying a ride.  Unfortunately, I wasn't in a position to carry on a conversation, with my lungs working double-overtime.

OK, just checked last-year's diary entries
and it wasn't until June that I was climbing King's in the low 27s to mid-26s.  We'll see how things progress this year!  It is somewhat comforting knowing that I can still improve a lot faster than age might try to slow me down.  Or maybe it should be depressing, given the implication that I must not have been in the best of shape to start with?  Nah, I'll go with enjoying the belief that, at 48, I could get progressively faster & stronger than I am now for a good many years to come!

04/06/04-
WHAT DO CARS REALLY THINK? So on this morning's regular King's Mtn road ride, we're heading fast down Skyline towards Sky L'onda, with Todd in front of a rather large tank truck of some kind.  I guess he (the cyclist) wasn't feeling super-fast this morning, so he decided to ride towards the edge of the road to allow the guy to pass him.

Well, of course the tank truck passes him... on a blind corner, going well into the other lane!  What an idiot.  About five seconds later and it would have been blammo, as a car came by.

Todd probably should have taken the lane, to keep the guy from passing in a dangerous area.  Which brings me to this- When we're heading up the hill, which has many blind corners, I routinely give hand signals to hold cars back (keep them from passing) when I can see ahead and there's a car heading down.  Likewise I'll give hand signals to cars coming down the hill, telling them to slow down, when there's a car coming up from behind us.

So I'm thinking, are the car drivers actually appreciative of this, or totally clueless and think that we're just in their way?  Not that it would matter, as it's the prudent thing to do, as, in my opinion, if something we can do while riding makes the world just a bit better or safer place, we ought to do it.


OK, roll call. 
Me, Todd, Brad & Kevin on the ride this morning.  Cold (got down as low as 40 degrees) but fortunately the fog burned off before we got to the top.  Brad & Todd raced on ahead, while I finished Kings in 27:45.  Kevin wasn't feeling great and was a bit behind, but, as usual, he gets stronger as the ride goes on.

04/04/04- 31 MINUTES UP KINGS & FEELING GOOD ABOUT IT!  
Huh who what?  Normally I'd be pretty disappointed if I couldn't get up Kings in under 30 minutes, under 27 if I was really trying.  But today I did something a bit different, just for kicks.  After doing the Bicycle Sunday thing with the family, I headed back towards Woodside and up King's Mtn.  Go for it or take it easy?  Or maybe something entirely different?  Different, of course!  I decided to keep my heart rate below 160, no exceptions.  That's not quite as easy as it sounds.  You need to really get in tune with how your body reacts... for example, you learn how much lag time there is between kicking it up a notch or two and when you see the heart rate pick up.  And you discover how much "upward momentum" your heart rate has, once it gets going.  The trick is to make sure that you don't cross the line and there were several times I was looking at 159 on the heartwatch and trying to force it back down.  Despite several close calls, I finished the ride without once hitting 160, staying pretty darned close (while climbing) to a target of 155.  (I should point out that I'd normally be climbing Kings at a heart rate of 160-175 or so, which means exactly what for a 48 year old?  I dunno, but it's what I do when I'm pushing as hard as I can).

04/03/04- HARVEST OF SHAME: WHAT PRICE BEAUTY? 
This is one of the most fascinating pieces on the Tour de France I've come across; thanks to Ueyn for pointing it out to me.  Very significant, particularly the date it was written.  Quite timely. (If it doesn't pull up, I've archived it here)

04/01/04- SOMETIMES SLOWER IS HARDER
, and someday I'll figure out why.  Just myself and Steve on the hill this morning, enjoying a very nice but cool morning (low of 46 degrees, which helped justify the tights I wore because my lighter-weight leg warmers were still in the laundry).  So why is is at least as difficult, maybe more so, to ride up King's Mtn in 32 minutes instead of 28?  What is it that makes for greater efficiency very near your best-possible speed, and then a dramatic drop-off (where further reductions in speed are not met with further reductions in effort)?  I was thinking I was imagining this until I realized that, while my heartrate was somewhat lower, I still couldn't carry on a conversation very well.

One grip about riding with Steve or Kevin-
they're too small!  It's not like they're all that short or anything, both being pretty average height (which means what, 5'9" or something?).  But there's no denying it's a whole lot easier drafting off a big guy like Ueyn, and I'm sure Steve & Kevin have a pretty easy time drafting off me.  It's just not fair; us bigger guys are at quite a disadvantage!

I started looking at the Century schedule for the next couple of months
, which I'd assumed would have me riding the Primavera in mid-April, Grizzly Peak in early May, and the Sequoia in early June (followed up, as usual, with a ride up Sonora Pass on the last Sunday in June).  But there are two other options for the Primavera date; the Sea Otter Century in the Monterey area, and the Wildflower up in Chico.  I've ridden Primavera several times, and have done most of the roads around Monterey, but Chico would be new territory.  A definite possibility!

03/30/04- NOT MANY TUESDAYS LIKE THIS ONE! 
Everybody knows we ride up the hill (King's Mtn) on Tuesdays & Thursdays, pretty much no-matter-what.  Over the past 20+ years, we've maybe made exceptions 4 or 5 times that I can remember (but probably a few more).  But today?  I knew something wasn't quite right when Kevin was there at the start; he lives up on top of Skyline and usually meets us on the way up.  And he tells Ueyn & I in no uncertain terms that he's not going up the hill, that today was going to be a "recovery" day and he was going to "spin."  Right, this from a guy who's probably more overtrained than anybody I know, and today he gets religion.  We badger him a bit, but no way, he's not riding up to Skyline (even claiming it was wet & nasty up there, as if that's ever stopped us before!).

So we relent and head south on Mtn Home (where I do a quick 15-second check of his cadence and discover his idea of "spinning" is 64 rpm), out through Portola Valley and then up Alpine until it becomes dirt.  Then we turned around and headed back the way we came, passing through our starting point with too-few miles under our belts, so we escort Kevin back to his car at Canada & 92.  All total about 37 miles, a good 6 miles more than our normal loop, but without any nasty climbs.  Still, I got in a good workout on Canada, fighting the wind as we headed north.

The funny things is that Thursday Kevin's going to ride me into the ground on regular trip up King's, and feel absolutely no remorse for doing so.  One of these days...

03/28/04- NOT REALLY AN UGLY RIDE
, even though I rode the same loop as described in my 01/18/04 entry.  It's never fun (or at least never has been for me) climbing Skyline from 92 and heading south, but since it allowed me to first ride with the family out on Canada for Bicycle Sunday, it didn't seem so bad.

Heading up 92 should be more annoying that it is, with the very heavy traffic moving at high speed right next to you.  Why this doesn't bother me, I don't know.  Maybe it's because it never occurs to me that I shouldn't be there?  Rarely on a road bike do I ever feel that I should be someplace else (although I've distinctly had that feeling looking down on a gnarly descent I'm supposed to ride on a mountain bike...).  On the other hand, it's possible that I don't mind the climb up 92 because it seems a whole lot less endless than the section from 92 to Kings Mtn on Skyline!

But even Skyline wasn't so bad this time, as I came across a few other cyclists on the way up, including Julio, a guy from SF, that I rode with about 10 miles on Skyline.  Everything was going along so nicely until... until just before the Skegg's Point Scenic Overlook (just south of King's Mtn), where we got blasted by an obnoxious car from behind, and we were both about as far in the gutter as you could possibly get.  Not knowing what sort of yahoo was behind, we just stayed there at the edge of the road, waiting for somebody to yell something as they past.  We wished.  Instead we were passed by an SUV.  No biggie.  Except that the SUV was pulling this huge, empty boat trailer, with wheels that must have extended about a foot beyond the width of the car.  The trouble is that you have no point of reference for those wheels that are coming at you, as even the trailer is so much narrower... and then, with mere inches (if that) to spare, the wheels roll past.  If you'd even wobbled slightly you'd be toast, and the driver most certainly didn't wait for a safe time to pass.  I thought about getting a picture of the car & trailer as it passed, but felt rattled enough that I figured it best just to calm down and get back to the business of riding my bike.

It's hard to believe it's even legal to have something that's both that wide as well as so much wider than the vehicle that's pulling it.

03/25/04- WE ONLY HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT ASTEROIDS
falling from the sky; birds should be so lucky!  This morning Kevin, Steve & I are cruising up the west side of Old LaHonda when all of a sudden there's a bit of a commotion off to our right and then a hawk flies low across the road, right in front of our wheels... with a blue Stellar Jay grasped by its talons.  It's pretty amazing to witness the workings of Nature in real time, and you find yourself looking up into the sky, wondering if there's something up there that's about to scoop you up!  We take our day-to-day existence for granted; perhaps that Stellar Jay did as well.

This morning was my first ride in leg warmers in quite some time, with the temps reaching down to a still-comfortable 48 degrees.  Since I had been in Wisconsin on Monday & Tuesday (meetings at TREK), I hadn't been on my bike in a while, you worry about how you'll feel, you dread that first big climb, but you just start turning the pedals over, one revolution at a time, and in a short while everything is as it should be.  Life is good on a bike.  No, life is great on a bike!

03/21/04- BICYCLE SUNDAY IN DANGER OF BEING SHUT DOWN,
say it ain't so!  I'd heard this from a customer the other day, so it seemed like a good idea to get the family out there and see what the scoop was.  Like many things, it all comes down to money, and in this case, Bicycle Sunday is funded by the County of San Mateo's Environmental Services Agency.  Or, to put it in more familiar terms, the Parks & Recreation department.

There's no need to write the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors and point out how many people make use of Bicycle Sunday... at least not yet.  But it could come down to that soon.  Immediate plans are to close some county parks two days/week, including Edgewood Park.  Stopping Bicycle Sunday could apparently happen without any warning whatsoever, but we'll see that it doesn't happen without the county knowing how people feel about it!

By the way, Tuesday, March 23rd, I won't be out on King's Mtn in the morning. 
Kevin & who knows who else might be though, so don't hesitate to show up... even if you're alone, it's still supposed to be a very nice morning to ride.  I'll be in Wisconsin at TREK, attending some product meetings, and getting back very very late that night. 

03/18/04- IT COULD START GETTING REALLY FUN AGAIN!  
We had Steve, Ted & Kevin riding this morning, on another beautiful March morning, with temps from 59-72 degrees. How long can weather like this last???  Long enough that everyone seems to be spending more time on the bike, as everybody came in under 30 minutes, including Steve, who hadn't ridden that fast up Kings in a number of years.  And I got to have a bit of fun again, doing a few intervals at the bottom, then a few more on the upper-half of the hill.  It's tough though; takes a bit of time to recover, during which others catch back up and you have to try to keep from falling over dead and watch them ride on ahead.  And then, even as you pull ahead, you're never really sure how much is left in their legs, and you expect them to blow past at any moment.

And then there's the west side of Old LaHondaYou start out civilized enough, but you know that both Kevin & Steve are going to push hard on the "return" section, as you head back up on the east side of the valley.  All you can do is push the pace from the front and hope that they don't have the strength to blow past you, because once either one of them is in the lead, it's all over.  If you can get enough of a gap before you enter the forested section at the top, you've got a chance; otherwise, Kevin & Steve will grind you into the ground as they fight to the death through the narrow, twisty final mile at the end.  But today I somehow managed to gap Kevin, with only Steve to duke it out with.  I hoped that maybe we could ride at a civilized pace, but if I let up even slightly, he'd start pulling alongside rather than sit on my wheel, looking for an opportunity to go to the front.  So we kept pushing, hard, all the way to the very end (including that last nasty 10-15% grade just before it hits Skyline).  Ouch!  There seems to be no shortage of testosterone in our final tri, despite the fact that the youngest of us is now 48.  If this is what we do for fun...

03/17/04- A DAY LATE REPORTING
on yesterday's ride up the hill (the shop has been incredibly busy); Ueyn, Kevin, Ted and somebody else we caught up with on the way up... all enjoying yet another un-March-like day, with temps from 62-74 degrees.  Didn't make use any faster though!  Kevin was claiming he was beat and, for the first time in ages, wasn't lying.  So we kept to a moderate pace, not that it would have mattered much, as my legs didn't feel like they wanted to do much.  Ueyn though... watch out for that guy.  Fresh off a victory in a Cat-4 race this past weekend (he's not going to be Cat-4 much longer), he was pulling us along at very high speed across the top (the flatter section on Skyline between Skeggs and the descent towards Sky L'onda). 

03/14/04- WHO THOUGHT YOU'D BE OVERHEATING IN MARCH?
That's what I was saying to a couple of riders I passed on my way up Old LaHonda this afternoon.  I started out around 2:15 this afternoon, and for the first time in quite a while didn't pack a light windbreaker in my seat bag.  72-80 degrees as I climbed Old LaHonda, descended the other side to LaHonda, and then up West Alpine to Skyline.

I wasn't feeling particularly strong at the beginning of the ride, nor did I feel too hot in the middle.  But the pedals were turning, the miles were clicking by, and the nasty part of West Alpine, which starts 1.6 miles from where you turn onto it from Pescadero road... well, it was still nasty, but I found that comfortable state where you can keep up a reasonable speed indefinitely.  Unfortunately, that reasonable speed was only about 7.5 miles per hour!  I even noted mentally that that's about the speed I climb most of Sonora Pass, and wondered how I can possibly get strong enough to do it again... and then I remembered that even Lance and Jan Ullrich take a long time to get into top shape, and Sonora Pass remains a good three months away.


03/12/04- TOUR OF THE UNKNOWN VALLEY WEB PAGE is finished!  Lots of photos, as usual. This ride should absolutely be on your must-ride list for next year.  I am so glad I decided to ride the event this year.  The weather certainly cooperated, but a very busy schedule, including spending the prior five days in Washington DC, threatened to derail me.  Threatened, but didn't stop me, probably because I excel in doing the unreasonable on a bike (which usually means riding in torrential rain).

I took over 250 photos during the ride, with this being one of those rare rides where the camera just couldn't do the scenery justice.

03/11/04- LEGWARMERS OR NOT? 
You sure don't want to wear leg warmers, with weather as nice as we've been having, but still it's about 55 degrees when I start out, and one thing I've always been careful with are my knees.  I've never had serious knee problems (unlike many, if not most of those I raced with back in the day), and I'm convinced that keeping them from getting too cold is definitely helpful.  Kevin, Brian, Steve & Harry showed up this morning, one of the biggest groups in some time.  Kevin wasted no time burning tracks up the hill, with me on his wheel as far as the park entrance.  From there he was moving at a good, consistent pace while I continued to work on short bursts of high speed, then dropping back to the others.  I felt much better than Tuesday (when my legs were feeling a bit heavy after Sunday's century).

03/09/04- BACK TO FAMILIAR TERRITORY
as I rode up King's this morning with Ueyn & Ted.  I'd like to say it felt great, but Sunday's century did take a bit out of the legs.  It felt like I could ride forever at three-quarters speed, but that's not an option; I've got to get back in time to eat & shower (the customers especially prefer the shower part of the routine), so there's not much time for anything more than my usual 30.9 miles.  Still, I have to be appreciative of the fact that I rode a century this early in the season, and that it was, overall, relatively easy.  Things are looking up already!

03/07/04- RODE THE "TOUR OF THE UNKNOWN VALLEY"
today, and survived!  Why wouldn't I?  Well, first it's a bit early in the year for a 100-mile ride (my first century is usually the Primavera in late April).  Second, it comes immediately after my trip to DC, and I was still feeling pretty, ok extremely tired on Saturday.  Third, it's got quite a bit of really choppy pavement, and I flatted about 60 miles into it.  Yes, me, the guy who never gets a flat.  The ride was exactly what the doctor ordered; I feel so much better than I did yesterday!  I'll have a story and pictures up in a few days.

03/06/04- JUST OFF THE PLANE
and home around midnight.  7.5 hours is a long time on a 737; I didn't know you could fly one of those little guys from one side of the country to the other (Baltimore to San Jose).  It's 1am California time, but 4am in DC... I think I'll just sleep all next week to catch up.

03/05/04- DC BIKE SUMMIT A BIG SUCCESS
as I wrangle with some personal demons and everything turns out much better than I could have possibly hoped for.  Trying to make the world a better place for cycling is a pretty tall order, but it's got to be done.  What's it like meeting "on the Hill" in Washington DC with legislators?  The best way I can sum up my six meetings today is that it's like having six "first dates" all in one day.  Yes, it's that exhilarating, exhausting and full of a mix of both fear & excitement.  Not something I would do for my day job!  And of course, instead of sleeping, I've been putting up photos & stories on it.

03/01/04- I WON'T BE RIDING THIS TUESDAY & THURSDAY MORNING
as I'll be in Washington, DC, for the annual Bike Summit lobbying effort.  What are 300-500 cycling advocates and business owners trying to do?  The major issues are Safe Routes to Schools and Routine Accommodation.  Safe Routes to Schools is an attempt to get kids to walk & ride to school again, something that 61% of them did a short time ago, but the figures are now down around 10%.  The effects on health, not to mention the crowded & dangerous roads around schools, are obvious.  Routine Accommodation simply means that, as new roads & interchanges are designed, the needs of cyclists & pedestrians are taken in to consideration.  You can read more about these efforts on the Leagues of American Bicyclists website.

02/29/04- SOMETIMES WOMEN DO FAKE IT. 
Kim, the woman on the right in the photo, was claiming she was too out-of-shape (from not riding for a week) to head up the hill.  Kim lies (thus faking being out-of-shape); she most definitely doesn't show the effects of winter hibernation.  I, on the other hand, have a difficult time convincing my body that it will stay warm without an extra layer of fat.

I had a choice between doing an "ugly" or "fun" ride today, and chose fun.  Up Old LaHonda, down the other side, and back 84.  The fact that I was doing 18-19mph coming up 84 from the coast side had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the wind coming from that direction.  Oh, I didn't mean to say that.  Nah, I meant that there wasn't the usual stiff headwind riding up towards Skyline!  Lots of people out there enjoying a weekend day without rain (thank goodness), including quite a few on bikes I've sold.  Fortunately they were all working well.

02/26/04- WHAT'S WRONG WITH US? 
After a nice & wet ride with Kevin this morning, I'm returning home via Canada Road and notice a road bike tube lying in the path that runs next to the road.  Apparently somebody had had a flat and, instead of taking the tube home, just left it there in the middle of the path... something to reinforce to everyone who comes across it that cyclists are a lower life form that should, at best, be tolerated.

Aside from that, just myself and Kevin on the ride, with only one other cyclist out there on the road.  Seems like most riders avoid rain, wind, cold & fog.  What's with that?  And we came across our first Killer Squirrel in some time, this one as we headed down 84 towards Old LaHonda.  Darned thing darted out towards Kevin's front wheel, quickly stopped, retreated a bit and was preparing to make a run as Kevin passed, not noticing that I was mere inches behind.  It's really unbelievable how quickly a squirrel can act, react, then act again.

02/25/04- NO IRON DEFICIENCY LATELY! 
Which is really unfortunate.  Yesterday the Iron Pig (my "rain bike" aka '73 Cinelli retro-racer) headed out into the muck.  Lots & lots of muck!  Met up with Kevin at the bottom of Kings, quickly overheating on the way up as the rain stopped and it really wasn't all that cold.  Not going too fast but did spot a rabbit (rider ahead) on the lower part of the hill, and we passed up on our way up to the park entrance, where I got rid of the rain pants and Kevin watered a tree.  Funny thing though.  That rabbit, who wasn't too fast on the bottom part of the hill, was nowhere to be seen once we got going again!

The morning just got nicer and nicer as we rode, so much nicer that just about the time we finished would have been the perfect time to get out on a ride!  But that's not really true; the perfect time to ride is any time you can, weather be danged!

02/22/04- TWENTY FIVE YEARS.
  It seems so long ago, and yet so recent.  Twenty five years ago "Breaking Away", a movie about a confused teen who took to bicycling, got me thinking that somebody had been following me around with a camera a couple years earlier (this feeling would be repeated later when "30 Something" aired).

What brings this up is AMCs (American Movie Classics) weekend of films that won Best Picture at the Academy Awards.  Just as I was trying to figure out whether to get out and ride in the drizzle, I noticed Breaking Away was on.  Darn, such conflict!  A movie that inspires you to ride shouldn't be allowed to be on when you ought to be out riding!  If you need help remembering the film, you can check out some of the more memorable lines on this pageLike the exchange below, that's been uttered countless times since, when people get served something strange at a restaurant ("I-tey" refers to Italian)-


Dad: What is this?
Mom: It's sauteed zucchini.
Dad: It's I-tey food. I don't want no I-tey food.
Mom: It's not. I got it at the A&P. It's like... squash.
Dad: I know I-tey food when I hear it! It's all them "eenie" foods... zucchini... and linguini... and fettuccine. I want some American food, dammit! I want French fries!

Actually, there were some significant differences between myself and Dave Stoller.  Dave rode a Masi, while I raced a Cinelli (which is presently my rain bike, aka "The Iron Pig").  When you owned a Cinelli you thought a Masi was a distance second-best, and the Masi owners, of course, thought Cinellis were overweight pieces of wrought iron.  And I never shaved my legs (despite that being the norm among successful bike racers then and now).  My Grandfather would have been the ideal person to play Dave Stoller's dad, while mine, a sports writer, simply wondered why his long-haired son would take to something as obscure and weird as cycling instead of something normal like football or track.

02/19/04- CYCLING VS BACK PAIN- A PERSONAL STORY.
After getting back from the snow last night, I could barely get out of bed.  In fact, my wife even remarked that she thought I slept like a rock because I didn't move at all (not realizing that the reason I didn't move was because any movement at all caused me to wince in pain!).  Nevertheless I manage to drag myself (almost literally) out of bed when the alarm went off, make my Cytomax, down two Advils (rare for me, I usually don't even take one) and throw a leg over my bike to see what would happen.  And the usual happened.  One foot down, then the next, and I'm heading up the hill towards the start of the ride, feeling better with each subsequent pedal stroke.

Go figure.  A guy who can't even come close to touching his toes, does no stretching exercises whatsoever, and just feels great once on a bike.  "Stretching" is something I do while riding; I know of nothing that stretches you (or at least me) out better than standing up on the pedals and moving around on a bike.

Someday I'm sure I'll get out there and actually feel worse, but for now I'm just thankful that a bike ride makes me feel so good.  And of course I needed to feel good this morning, with Kevin, Steve and speed-demon Brad out there with me on the hill.  I played around on Kings a bit, letting Steve and Brad duke it out for time, and got into my own on the Skyline sprint (near Skegg's) and a bit later on Old LaHonda.  I was really expecting that I'd just be dragging myself through the motions, but perhaps my body was reacting to the joys of waking up and riding a bike instead of putting on boots and a snowboard.  If it wasn't that, it should have been!

02/18/04- NOTE TO SELF- NO MORE SKIING OR SNOWBOARDING.  EVER.
  Kids had a good time, but Dad?  You'd think that anything that starts out with something as fun as installing chains is sending its ominous signals clearly enough, and yet you still go ahead and sign up for Snowboard lessons 'cuz that's what the kids are doing.  I mean, what else are you going to do, read a book and drink coffee while seated in a nice, warm cafeteria?  But I had to find out why Snowboarding is so popular with my kids, and now I know.  It's because it kills adults!  I can ride endlessly in great comfort on my bike, yet a couple hours on a Snowboard (or, should I say, attached to one) and I've got a lower back that feels like something's been ripped out of its side.  It will be interesting to see how tomorrow morning's ride goes!

02/17/04- IT MUST HAVE BEEN THE WIND
.  Yeah, that's my story for why I felt so sluggish up the hill this morning!  More later; heading out the door to take the kids up to the snow.

02/14/04- MY WIFE WONDERED IF SOMETHING WAS WRONG TODAY
when I gave her a call from the Los Altos store, letting her know I was going to be a bit late getting home.  She had assumed that my afternoon ride was going to head up into the hills, and literally thought that maybe I wasn't feeling well since I didn't end up on Skyline!  Well, hard as it may be to believe, I don't only ride in the hills.  Sometimes it's fun to keep the speed up by riding flatter routes, so I headed out on The Loop, making my way south via Alpine, Arastradero, Robleda... the original plan had been to simply do the larger version of The Loop, but I was making pretty good time so I went a bit further and dropped in at our Los Altos store.

I brought along the camera and took lots of photos, but the nastily-overcast day caused exposure problems so I doubt you'll see many on the website.  However, quite a few cyclists took notice that I was getting photos (not too often you see somebody riding at high speed with one hand on the bar and the other holding a camera), and the people in the photo asked what I was taking pictures for.  I told them about the website, and figured I'd better get at least one photo with their group up! 

Took about an hour and ten minutes getting down there the "fun" way (riding through the foothills), and 50 minutes back via Foothill/Junipero Serra/Alameda (where I seemed to hit all the lights).  A very pleasant 36 miles, made a bit more fun by the threatening skies which never came to anything).

02/12/04- 37 DEGREES OUT, YET COMFORTABLE YESTERDAY.  WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME?  
It is a bit odd when you think about it; at the start of the ride it's usually around 38-40 degrees this time of year, dropping to maybe 35-37 degrees just prior to the climb up Kings.  On the way up the hill it warms to a toasty 45 or so, maybe even hitting 47!  No jacket required, and if you were wearing one, it comes off at the entrance to Huddart Park.  By the time you hit the top it's cooled off to 42, and the run along Skyline typically sees an even 40 degrees this time of year, pretty much the entire distance from Kings to Sky L'Onda.

As you head west down 84 you get your first real chill, as the small lake you pass on the right puts a bit of moisture into the air (up to this point the air has been wonderfully dry).  Maybe 42 here, and stays that way until you make the turn onto Old LaHonda, where things gradually warm up to, say, 46.  Once at Skyline again it drops back a few degrees, with just a touch of chill when you once more hit the Sky L'Onda before descending back into Woodside.

What does one wear for rides like that? 
In my case, standard bike shorts, Nike/USPS thermal tights, a Hind long-sleeve base layer, standard jersey, long-fingered gloves (conventional ones like the TREK windstoppers are fine unless you're going to be riding a lot below 35, then you go for the lobster-claw type) and don't forget the Kucharik neoprene toe warmers that slip over the front of the shoes!

Steve & Ueyn (first time for Ueyn in a while!) on the ride, enjoying the last really nice piece of weather in that remarkable 5-day stretch.  Not quite as crystal-clear as the prior days, but still a great time to be out on a bike.  Apparently we weren't the only ones thinking that, as the shop's been mobbed with people buying bikes lately.  Life could be worse!

02/10/04- KEVIN THE LIGHTSWITCH
showed up this morning, along with Steve.  Lightswitch?  That refers to Kevin's erratic pace this morning; one minute he was dropping us, then later he'd be off the back, then later he'd be dropping us again.  No problem for me, as I've come to enjoy a less steady pace while climbing, preferring instead to do intervals.  Apparently seeking to have the final word, Kevin talked Steve & I into continuing north on Skyline instead of descending down 84 at the end of the ride, adding another 900 feet of climbing and an opportunity to ride us into the ground after having fallen behind earlier on Old LaHonda.

It's still cold in the mornings, dropping as low as 34 today and running about 40 up on Skyline.  What's amazing is how comfortable you can be on a bike at 40 degrees, while everyone else is getting out of bed and complaining how cold it is in their 60-degree houses before the heat's kicked on.

02/08/04 addendum- LECTURE TIME. 
On the way back on Sunday's ride Todd got a flat, so we're stopped at the side of the road, replacing the tube and inflating it with one of those fun mini-pumps... probably a good 15 minutes or so, with maybe 30-40 other cyclists passing by.

Not one asked if we needed anything.  Weird.  Are we so self-absorbed in whatever we're doing that we no longer ask if somebody might need anything? (True enough that we were OK, but there's no way anybody riding past can know that for sure without asking).

9 times out of 10, when you pass somebody who's stopped at the side of the road and doing something with their bike (or just looking a bit out of place), they're OK.  But there's always that chance that somebody might have discovered that their spare tube doesn't hold air, or their pump isn't working, or maybe they can't figure out how to get the wheel back in and knocked out a brake shoe.

Of course, lots of people won't say they need help even when they do, especially guys, so when I pass somebody at the side of the road, I don't ask if they "need help" but instead "Do you have what you need?"  It's truly amazing how many more people will say something like "Yeah, if you've got a spare tube that would be great" but ask them if they need help and they'll almost always say no.

It doesn't hurt to look after other cyclists on the road.  Someday you just might need help yourself.



02/08/04- IT'S ONLY 2:40pm, THERE'S STILL TIME TO RIDE TODAY!  
I'd hate to think anyone in Northern California was missing such a beautiful day to ride.  This was the scene this morning on West Alpine, climbing towards Skyline with the ocean in the background.  Bruno (in the photo) & Todd & I enjoyed a very pleasant 40 mile cruise, getting back early enough to not have too many issues with the rest of the family.  It just doesn't get any better than the time you spend on a bike.

02/05/04- SINGAPORE IT AIN'T,
but it was a whole lot nicer than most rides lately!  The joke about Singapore is for the benefit of Brian K who would show up for our morning rides once in a while when the weather was nice, but after spending many months in Singapore, his blood now apparently stops moving when it gets below 70 degrees.  He threatens to show up now & then, but I don't expect to see him until Spring.

Well, it got to as low as 39 degrees this morning as we approached King's Mtn, but it felt like it was much warmer!  None of that dampness in the air, the ground was dry, and I had the good company of both Kevin and Steve L riding up the hill with me.  Felt pretty good too, maybe because I was back on my TREK 5900 instead of the Iron Pig?  Made it up the hill under 30 minutes, even after stopping once for Kevin to, um, water some plants, and then again to wait a bit for Steve at the clearing about 2/3rds of the way up the hill. 

02/03/04- WHY DOES SHE BOTHER ASKING? 
It never fails. Every time it's raining outside on a Tuesday or Thursday, my wife asks "You're not going out riding in that, are you?"  And every time the answer is the same.  I always ride on Tuesday & Thursday mornings, rain or shine.  It's just something you gotta do, because otherwise, where do you draw the line?  How much rain does it take?  What if the roads are wet?  What if you're just not feeling like riding and looking for an excuse?  I'm not suggesting everybody should be stupid like me and trash their bike in the rain, mind you... my point is that it's a behavioral pattern that you'd think my wife would have figured out by now.

Just me & Kevin out there in the muck this morning.  Not too bad at the start, just a light rain and mild temps.  Up on Skyline it dropped to 40 degrees so it's not like you'd want to be hanging around for awhile, but if you're dressed appropriately, it's not a problem.  Would I rather that it was 65 degrees and I didn't need rain pants and a sauna-producing rain jacket?  Good possibility!

Most noteworthy part of the ride was on the west side of Old LaHonda.  It had begun to clear up a bit when we descended the west side of 84 so we got rid of the rain jackets just before hitting Old LaHonda.  I guess that was seen as an invitation to the clouds, as it shortly started dumping.  Really dumping.  The sort of thing where it's not the rain you notice nearly as much as the noise it makes.

02/01/04- SUPERBOWL COMMERCIALS
are the main reason for watching the game, but so far (just past half-time) one has to wonder why companies spent $2.4million for so many lame ones.  So far just four decent ones, three of them from Budweiser (the Ref who's been trained to take abuse from his wife, the Donkey that gets the job with the Clydesdale team and the explosively-farting horse that ignites the women's hair), and the Staples supply-manager one where employees try to bribe the guy with pastries in exchange for office products.  Commercials that don't make the grade are those from Microsoft, Gillette and Monster.  Commercials that should be banned outright-  the ones for movies and TV shows.  Somewhere in the middle are the Pepsi commercials; weak, but not painful to watch.  Thank goodness Budweiser's here to save the day!

Just found the ad link for downloading Superbowl commercials!

01/31/04- NEW FORMAT FOR BIKE "GATEWAY" PAGE
that I've been working on for a while.  Obviously, Chain Reaction Bicycles is a commercial enterprise and, while it's great fun writing about my cycling experiences, we also have to sell product to stay in business!  But it's never been easy for me to figure out how to organize things so someone who doesn't already know what type of bike they want doesn't get too confused.  So... I'm turning things upside-down a bit and, instead of featuring product first, I'm designing a page that shows people doing various rides and the types of bikes that might be appropriate.

01/29/04- ICK ICK! 
Another very foggy, messy ride for Kevin & me.  While not as wet as Tuesday's ride, it surpassed it in ickiness as I got my first flat in over 5,000 miles while climbing King's Mtn.  Kevin was gradually pulling away from me as I noticed my front tire was acting like a suspension fork, and the fog must have dampened the sound of me yelling "flat!" as he rode on ahead.  In the 15 minutes I spent going over the tire, patching the tube and inflating (240 strokes with a Blackburn Air Stik equals almost exactly 100psi on a 22mm Conti tire, by the way), Kevin managed to finish the climb and then head back down to where I was, right as I got going again.

I was running about a 28 minute pace up the hill prior to the flat, but that kinda killed the mood and I assumed I rode at a not-so-fast pace the rest of the way.  Not so, apparently, as the computer gave an average speed of 15.8mph.

01/27/04- ICK.  
Light rain, fog, wet & messy roads, a day made for the Iron Pig.  Just Kevin brave enough to face the elements with me this morning, taking it easy up the hill in about 32 minutes.  Not too cold at 44-50 degrees, very little wind, really not all that bad.  Except.  Except that Kevin doesn't have fenders on his bike, so drafting off him is an exercise in tasting road grime flung up by his rear wheel.  He can sit right behind me, however, making things quite unfair!  There was a time I didn't see the point to fenders (that time was actually just a month or so ago!), but now I'm a fan.  Those SKS "Blade" fenders, the ones that go on & off your bike in a minute or two and actually work... they're way cool.

01/22/04- WHAT A DIFFERENCE A COUPLE OF DAYS MAKES!
 Cold, yes, but clear & dry and with legs that felt like they wanted to go places.  Todd & Kevin showed up... well, Kevin was there, but not sure if he actually showed up, as his legs did not want to go places.  That's a unique change of pace, as it's usually my legs that have such problems (but I force them on anyway).  Todd & I goofed off a bit climbing the hill, waiting up for Kevin at several places (like I said, this was a unique experience for me!).  The Skyline run was easy and felt far warmer than the 41 degrees indicated.  Todd had to turn down 84 to make it back in time for a final at school, while Kevin & I did the west-side Old LaHonda loop.  A very nice day to be out on a bike (even though it was a very dirty bike after the 01/20/04 ride!).

01/20/04- I RIDE IN THE RAIN & MUCK SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO. 
I think I've got it figured out.  There's a finite amount of water on the planet so, when I'm out there in the crud (like I was this morning), it leaves less for everyone else!  Pretty messy ride this morning, so it wasn't too surprising that nobody else showed up.  The most interesting part was up on Skyline, when I noticed the places where the telephone & power lines criss-cross the road.  Never seen them before, but they were a bit more obvious today as the fog & clouds hung above the road maybe 15 feet in parts, so all you saw was the middle of the wires (between the poles) hanging down towards you.  The ends & the poles?  Completely invisible.  Pea soup up there this morning, but, as I mentioned, most of it was just a bit off the road (thankfully, since otherwise no way care would have seen me!).

Also noteworthy was a shapeless person.  What's a shapeless person?  Someone wearing so much in the way of jackets & scarves & pants, trying to stay warm, that you have no idea what's underneath.  What a wimp; when I came across the shapeless person, it was a near-tropical 45 degrees and nearly dry!  Now, if she'd (yeah, I could tell that much, probably from the scarf) been up on Skyline, where it was 40 degrees and raining...

01/18/04- THE UGLY BIKE RIDE
is taking on appearances of becoming a regular Sunday afternoon tradition.  Yesterday I rode the normal Tuesday/Thursday morning loop essentially backward, going down the west side of Old LaHonda, back up 84 to Skyline, and then that dreaded piece of road heading north on Skyline towards Kings Mtn (the very same road that is so fun in the opposite direction).  Even got an email from BrianK who spotted me going up 84 and he was going the proper way (down).  But truth is, it's a very pleasant run heading down the west side of Old LaHonda, and the ride back up to Sky L'Onda is actually rather fun, as the grade is mild enough you can keep up a fair amount of speed.

It's that piece from Sky L'Onda to King's Mtn that's so tough, and yet it's a whole 15 minutes of time from bottom to top... how bad can that be?  Surely not as bad as one fears, and the fact that it's feared at all makes it an ideal candidate for a UBR (Ugly Bike Ride).  Perhaps I'll start including that extra piece in my normal Tuesday/Thursday morning ride, just to show how tough (or stupid) I am.  The main problem with doing so is that you then descend Kings Mtn, which really isn't as much fun as 84.

01/15/04- BACK TO THE BIKE
, thank goodness!  Harry, one of the guys who usually rides at 6am, showed up for the start of our ride, along with Steve and Kevin.  Very wet & foggy out, not so bad that I had to take the Iron Pig, but bad enough to put the Race Blade fenders on the 5900.  Those fenders are so cool!  I never understood about fenders; now, I do.  We rode up through the park, everyone agreeing to take it relatively easy, and, for the first time in memory, everybody did.  A nice ride at a conversational pace.  Nobody even tried to get away on the west side of Old LaHonda.  First time for everything!

01/13/04- SO WHO RODE THIS MORNING? 
I definitely felt guilty, as I was driving over Jefferson instead of riding my bike, although the pea-soup fog didn't look like it would have been much fun (or safe) to ride in.  But the TREK product meeting was definitely worthwhile, and it was good to find so many dealers in agreement on so many things.  What sort of things?  Colors & graphics, seat choices, how long & high for the stems, all sorts of things that most people would think pretty mundane & boring, but will often make the difference between a bike that someone would want to ride and one that just gathers dust on the sales floor.

PUT UP A NEW PAGE
last night on the "Passing the torch" photo now seen on the main page of this website.  I had quite a few people asking where the picture came from and if there were any higher-resolution versions available, so instead of answering a whole lot of separate emails, it made sense to put together a page about it.

01/12/04- I WON'T BE RIDING UP THE HILL TOMORROW (TUESDAY) MORNING,
as TREK has scheduled a product meeting for local dealers at 9am.  Hopefully Ueyn or Kevin will be there, and tell me what a great morning it was to ride!  I might try to sneak in a make-up ride on Wednesday.

01/11/04-
SERVING UP... ONE UGLY RIDE!   I'd been "feeling fat" lately; colder weather does that to me.  Your optional Sunday ride starts to look doubtful as you just don't feel like getting on a bike is what you really want to do!  But fortunately, about the time you realize that's happening, you know the solution.  Whether you feel like it or not, you must get out on a ride.  And it can't just be a normal fun ride... you have to do something ugly.

Think of it as therapy.  Something to bring your system back to reality.  Something to shock you out of the doldrums.  It's risky, of course, as you could always come away from it thinking that maybe, just maybe, there's something more to the world than riding a bike.  Or it could remind you that the worst time spent on a bike is better that the best time you could have doing any number of other things that might occupy a Sunday afternoon.

So at 1:30 I left for one of my least-favorite rides.  North on Canada to 92, up 92 and then south on Skyline.  I don't know what it is that makes riding south on Skyline from 92 so unpleasant, but it seems like one of those grades that's a lot worse than it must actually be... one of those hills that goes on and on and on, with lots of long straight stretches that never seem to end, and one that seems impossible to judge where you are relative to the end of the climbing.  Maybe it's just me?  But maybe that makes it even more relevant in terms of being an exercise in exorcism!  I even got to use one of my techniques described on our hill-climbing page, the one where, no matter what, you know it's all over within a certain amount of time.  And it was!

Almost exactly one-half hour after heading south from the intersection of 92 & Skyline I found myself at King's Mtn Road, with a steadily-accelerating pace and an entirely new outlook on life.  The run down to Sky L'onda was fun, and I carried more speed down the west side of 84 than I expected.  Even the first half of the west side of Old LaHonda moved along pretty nicely, and by the time I got home, 38 miles and just over two hours after I'd left, I was feeling really, really, really good.

It could have been so different.  It could have been a day off the bike, a day spent eating too much and not accomplishing a whole lot, rationalizing that it's ok to relax on my only day off each week.  It's scary to think how close I came to that, and how much better I feel right now than I would have had I not ridden.

Addendum- "DO YOU HAVE WHAT YOU NEED?"
I've learned not to ask "Is everything OK" when you come across a cyclist at the edge of the road.  Doesn't matter whether they're fixing a flat or some other mechanical problem, they'll almost always tell you they're fine.  So I asked this guy who was fixing a flat on Canada if he had what he needed.  He started to see yes, then asked if I had a tire lever (which I did, so I stopped to help).  Almost guaranteed that, had I asked if everything was OK, he would have replied yes... even though he could really use a tire lever.

01/09/04- THE AMAZING WOMEN OF SILICON VALLEY-
no, not the women running HP or whatever, but rather those like Marlene & Kim & LaNae who somehow manage to hold down jobs, raise kids and ride challengers into the ground.  This comes up after Thursday's ride up King's, when Kevin & I came across Kim (a 3-kid +job cycling wonderwoman) and Lorraine near the top of the hill.  I was too out-of-breath to carry on a conversation and was in single-speed mode (meaning that I either rode at the speed I was going or would probably fall apart; not quite sure how that works, but sometimes, especially when you're not feeling well, you find there's this narrow range of speed which, if you stay within it, you'll do fine... but the slightest change in effort in either direction and things just don't go right).  Kevin gamely rode with them, wasting precious oxygen (that I didn't have) on a conversation.

Kevin, Ueyn & Steve rode with me, or at least on the same route.  I'm still getting over a cold and just haven't felt all that great; I even called Kevin the night before to let him know I'd be there, but I'd be slow.  Woke up with a mild headache, not a good sign!  But the legs moved, the pedals turned, and the lungs worked hard to get air past whatever goopy stuff lined them, and I managed to get up the hill quite a bit faster than I thought, at just under 29 minutes.  On the west side of Old LaHonda, I pushed the pace a little (a very little!), with the unintended effect of "launching" Kevin up the hill.  Ouch!  Why can't I just hang at the back and watch?  Actually, that's where I usually end up... I just seem to get things moving early on so people can later run me into the ground.  This is what I do for fun?

01/07/04- QUITE A FEW EMAILS
about the 01/04/04 entry with my wine commentary.  Think I touched a nerve or two!  Maybe I shouldn't be quite so honest.

YESTERDAY'S RIDE UP KING'S
found me not feeling on top of my game, as I was still struggling to find a way to get oxygen past all the yucky stuff in my lungs (got that nasty cold that's been going around; fortunately, it didn't last long).  I didn't even try to ride fast up the hill, taking about 33 minutes.  Kevin & Ueyn were out there, but unfortunately both Ueyn & I had places we had to get to so we were unable to do the most fun part of the ride, the loop down 84 and up the west side of Old LaHonda.  Tomorrow will be another day! But from the look of the stuff heading over Skyline right now (4:45pm in our Redwood City store, where the front windows afford an excellent view of the hills), it might be we again.  And cold.  I think my next business venture is going to be heated handlebar tape.

01/04/04- SO MAYBE A BIT OF SUGAR MIGHT MAKE IT TASTE BETTER? 
Cytomax?  Nope.  Tried, once again, to gain an appreciation for a bit of wine with dinner.  A St. Clement 1999 Cabernet Sauvignon.  Maybe it's the wrong thing to go with roast beef?  Or maybe some people just have a difficult time appreciating some of the finer things in life.  Oh, in case you think the part about adding sugar was a joke, I did actually put some in my wife's glass.  Didn't work.  We're hopeless.  Hope it helps to keep sinks unclogged (and hope the friends who gave it to us don't read this!).

But I did get out on a small ride this morning
, one that was supposed to be quite a bit longer.  I arranged to meet up with Kevin for a morning ride, probably out to the coast, but somehow we missed connections in Woodside.  Probably not such a bad thing, as I had quite the nasty head cold, and it was 33 degrees out.  Did I mention that it was 33 degrees out?  And this time, lots of ice!  Several places on King's Mtn. where traction was hopeful but not assured.  Normally I would have ridden quite a bit further, but the super-duper winter gloves I was testing out, which had soaked through in the first hour of Friday's ride, still hadn't dried out and were causing me more than a small amount of grief as I shifted or used my brakes.  Rest assured that when I recommend a product, it's because it actually works.

01/02/04- THE BIKE COMPUTER TELLS THE TALE
or at least it would if you could read it!  Since yesterday's ride was scrubbed due to weather, Kevin & I decided we were going to get out today, almost no-matter-what.  Besides, the weather folk said it was supposed to be halfway decent this morning, right?  So I talk Todd (from the shop) into riding as well and, with SKS Blade fenders mounted to my 5900, set out in search of fun!  But instead of just wet roads, we got rain... the non-stop kind that makes for a memorable ride.  But not memorable enough apparently, as the toasty mid-40s that greeted us on King's Mtn turned to 38 degrees as we descended Tunitas towards Swett Road.  That's 38 degrees and heavy rain!

Just as we topped that hellishly-steep stretch that takes you towards King's Mtn. Elementary School, at the sub-tropical temp of 36 degrees (shown in the photo, not that you'll have any better chance of reading it than I did, with my totally fogged-out and flooded Oakleys obscuring my vision), a bona-fide hailstorm let loose.  It was at this point that Todd made me aware that he didn't have waterproof gloves and was having a difficult time modulating his brakes, with his frozen hands capable of either full-on or off braking, nothing in between.  Not the safest way to descend back to Woodside.  Fortunately, we were a short distance from Kevin's house, so he offered Todd his gloves.  Unfortunately, Todd has really large hands.  So, in one of those very rare instances of common sense making an appearance on one of our rides, Kevin offers to drive us back down the hill on his way to work.

Overall, I'm figuring it's a ride we get at least some credit for doing, until
I get home and, in the SJ Mercury News, there's an article about six cyclists who braved the elements and climbed Mt. Diablo New Year's Morning.  Cyclists riding up Mt. Diablo at the same time I'm looking out the window and saying there's no way I'm riding in that mess. 
Made me feel about this small!

01/01/04- I'M NOT THAT BRAVE! 
Mt. Hamilton is a wash-out, possibly literally, as I sit here listening to the wind blow against the windows, and notice my fish pond is about to overflow from all the rain.  If any brave souls do make it up the hill, I'd love to hear about it.  And if you want to know why today would not be a good day to ride South, check out the Bay Area wind page!  Odds are we'll have a wimpy make-up ride tomorrow morning, on the usual Tuesday/Thursday route (but on a Friday!).

next-earlier diary entries...
 

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