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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 M OVES 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
Pa ss 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 gro up
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
rigormortis would set in!
06/06/04-
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 LaHonda. You
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 page. Like 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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