12/08/09- WISH I WERE RIDING IN THE COLD THIS MORNING but instead I'm in the lobby of a hotel in DC. Pretty cool early yesterday morning, taking off from San Jose and seeing all the snow in the hills! Not so cool having to get up at 5:30am for a series of flights that some would say qualify me for IB (Iron Butt) status. From San Jose to Santa Barbara, then up to San Francisco, then down to Los Angeles before heading out to DC. Yeah, the weather messed up my planned itinerary, but would you believe it was actually crazier? You see, I'm on a combined biz trip (visiting Revolution Cycles here in DC to learn a thing or two) and what's called a "mileage run." Somehow I flew a lot more this year than normal, and ended up really close to one of United's higher "elite" levels. Close enough that it made sense to fly a convoluted route back east just to get the miles required to put me over the top.

Mileage runs during the winter aren't the sort of thing to do if you like things to go according to a plan. At least according to your plan! But that's OK, once in a while it's not a bad idea to just throw yourself out there and see where the forces of men & nature take you. Or, more interestingly, how those forces take you to your final destination. Met some interesting people on the planes, and that alone is a milestone for me, because I'm usually not too talkative when I fly.

Hopefully I arrive back home shortly after midnight tonight. If United and the weather cooperate. :)

12/06/09- A SOLID WEEK OF RAIN FORECAST, SO WHERE WAS EVERYBODY TODAY? My son and I did a quick run out to San Gregorio and back via Tunitas, and sure, it was a bit on the cool side, and yes, for a brief period it was also a bit wet, but still surprised at how few other cyclists we saw out there. Where was everybody today?

My son is definitely optimizing his riding skills; he's gotten very good at drafting behind me now, and makes sure I'm run into the ground prior to each designated sprint. I'm thinking he's ready for the Tuesday/Thursday-morning rides during Christmas vacation. He's thinking he'd rather sleep in.

12/04/09- LONG RANGE WEATHER FORECAST MUST BE WRONG! It's just not possible, after all this nice (but cool/cold) weather, that we're heading into 6 straight days of rain, beginning Monday. Time to get out the rain bike and make sure she's all ready to go. I'm thinking I might install permanent fenders this year rather than the shorty versions that come on & off easily; there's no question that the longer fenders give better coverage, keeping spray off the riders behind you (not too much of a problem for me; most are in front) and not dumping so much grit onto your chain. But that first real ride in the rain, probably Thursday, isn't something I'm looking forward to.

12/03/09- SO WHO WAS THAT GUY? One of the main topics on this morning's ride was "Who was that Krishna guy on Tuesday's ride?" We didn't get to know him much; he flew off the front on Kings, on a day when the rest of a very large group were content for a much more moderate pace. Seemed like a nice-enough guy, and apparently does Cyclo Cross racing. But on to today's ride.

Cold & foggy at the start. In fact, it was so foggy that I didn't even bring my camera out and hastily rigged a flashing tail light to my bike. Too bad, since we rode through the fog just a few hundred feet up the hill, so I would have had some great photos. Who rode this morning? Kevin (pilot Kevin), Billy, Karl (who had taken the day off on Tuesday to practice 'Cross skills), Chris, and as usual I'm forgetting a couple others. That's the nice thing about having a camera; I can keep track of who came along. It was generally a well-behaved group, getting rowdy primarily for a few sprints along the way. Kevin and someone else (Billy?) were pushing the pace across the top of Skyline, enough so that I had to dig into my "suitcase of courage" to hang on. But as I learned long ago, it may be hard hanging on, but it's even harder trying to try and catch up after having been dropped!

12/02/09- JUST BACK FROM A FEW HOURS IN LAS VEGAS, a very few, as I took my daughter to see Blue Man Group and rack up a few "needed" miles for airline status. If you see the movie "Up In The Air" and wonder if there are really people like that, people who once in a while fly for no reason whatsoever, and at other times take a deliberately circuitous route to get from A to B... there are. Next week I'll have quite the story to tell you about such things. But that's then, this is now, and in the here & now, riding a bike is what's keeping me going.

12/01/09- WHO ARE ALL THOSE GUYS? No way I can keep track of that many people, especially when I don't get around to the entry until a day later! A crisp clear morning, a nice intro to December, but definitely not the sort of day you expect to see 10+ showing up for the ride! Pretty much all the usuals and then some were present. Notable absences were Karl and Millo but other than that we had 'em all, plus a couple of new guys, only one of whose name I remember, Krishna, a guy who's just too skinny and too fast. Maybe I'll find out more tomorrow, since the Thursday ride is usually just a bit slower than the Tuesday version.

11/29/09- WE WEREN'T THE ONLY ONES OUT ENJOYING THE VIEW TODAY! We couldn't do a very long ride because Kevin had a pile of homework to get done (funny how, 4 days off from school due to Thanksgiving, the homework sits & rots until the final day), but managed to combine a short ride with another homework assignment, this one from his photography class. We were originally going to go up Kings, south on Skyline to Sky Londa, down to LaHonda and up West Alpine, but Kevin was taking a long time to set up for each shot on Kings, putting us way behind schedule. Eventually we settled on doing the usual Tuesday/Thursday ride but tacked on a few extra miles by doing part of the loop afterward.

As you can see in the photo, we weren't the only people out admiring the view on a spectacular day. West side Old LaHonda was downright crowded for a while!

11/27/09- MOST OF THE TURKEYS WERE PROBABLY ON MT. HAMILTON THIS MORNING, where they had a low-key hillclimb series (basically an informal race), plus we got word out to people on our TurkeyDay ride at the last second, so it shouldn't have been too surprising when, aside from myself and my son Kevin, we had just Bob and Claude show up. A bit cool at the start, 42 degrees or so, but warmed up nicely as we climbed up Old LaHonda. By the time we got to Pescadero it was up to 60 degrees, quite comfortable! After a bit of food & drink from the "alternate" bakery/store in Pescadero (the better-known one with the picnic area behind was closed) we headed north on Stage Road to San Gregorio, where Claude left us to head up 84 while Kevin, Bob and I went on to Tunitas. Along the way we came across Alex (?) who had recently emailed me with questions about seeing the Tour de France... small world!

Yet another great day to ride a bike, and gradually work towards getting back in shape after the two weeks off the bike in Australia!

11/25/09- TOMORROW'S TURKEY-DAY RIDE PLANS- My son and I will head out from the usual starting place, Olive Hill & Canada, at 8am, likely heading out to Pescadero and then north to Tunitas and back. Faster folk should plan to leave at 8:20am and you'll likely catch us somewhere on Haskins. Not sure if the Pescadero Bakery will be open or not; their web page doesn't mention anything about Thanksgiving hours, but I do recall when year when they were closed. If so, there's a small market at the gas station at the corner of Stage Road & Pescadero that's always open, but still, I'd bring enough with you that you can survive the ride even if you can't buy food anywhere.

Even at a moderate pace, we should be back around 1pm, in plenty of time for Thanksgiving festivities!

11/24/09- TOO MANY TO COUNT this morning, but I'll start off with John, Karl, George, Eric, Chris, Billy, non-pilot Kevin, and at least one other person faster than me up the hill. At 42 degrees a bit warmer than Tuesday, and as we move away from the time I spent off the bike in Australia, I'm a bit lighter. Both work in my favor, but not enough to overcome the continuous horsepower the others can put out. I mention "continuous" because, over a short distance, I can do rather well. That distance being basically the distance someone could go while holding their breath, a distance that my cold-temp-weakened lungs don't matter. However, this morning it wasn't just my lungs that weren't in the game, but also my heart was running about 5bpm higher than it should have. That often happens at the beginning of a cold, but so far, no further evidence of that being the case.

But the ruminations about my own strength or lack thereof are unimportant against the backdrop of an absolutely stunning morning. It was so clear you could almost believe you could see Hawaii on the horizon. I'm certain that, from the top of either Diablo or Hamilton, Mt. Shasta must have been quite visible. On a day like this, it doesn't matter what shape you're in, you just feel great that you're out there, admiring the surroundings which all too often we take for granted.

11/22/09- FIRST SUNDAY RIDE WITH KEVIN IN THREE WEEKS and we both felt it. Nothing too challenging; up Old LaHonda, down the other side, up West Alpine, down Page Mill then a loop around Los Altos before heading back home. The original plan was to head south on Skyline to Highway 9 and drop down into Saratoga before returning north, but the low clouds & drizzle up on Skyline killed those ideas. And sure, we weren't as fast as we'd normally be, but you don't have to ride fast to enjoy cycling. You just have to ride.

Sadly, because of the overcast, there weren't too many others out riding today. But on the good side, of those who were riding, an outstanding percentage of them were bikes we've sold. It makes me feel good to know that the bikes we sell don't just hang in the garage, waiting for that perfect day, playing second-fiddle to most of life's distractions. It makes me feel like we make a difference, a small dent in the world. Sounds corny, sure, but it's true.

11/19/09- 38 DEGREES IN AUSTRALIA, 37 DEGREES IN WOODSIDE. BUT WHY DOES IT FEEL SO DIFFERENT? Could be that it was 38 degrees Celsius in Australia's Red Center, vs 37 degrees Fahrenheit in Woodside this morning. That 38 degrees in OZ actually translates to 100+ out our way, so this morning's ride, which I'd already assumed would be challenging (having been off the bike for two weeks!), was also a rude awakening to the change in temperatures here since I left.

Not too many out there this mornings; Eric, Mike, Kevin & John at the start, with Karl arriving just a bit late and catching up to us as we started up the hill. Eric was willing to ride at my more-moderate pace, and mentioned to me that, slow as I felt we were going, we were still climbing a lot faster than many. This morning, that was enough. And actually I held up a lot better than I expected, enjoying what was only my 3rd or 4th time out on my new bike and thinking how beautiful it was out there this morning, with the sun casting very strong shadows as we rode the west side of Old LaHonda.

But what's really strange is noticing that only two days separate this entry from the one below, and yet that seems like it was so much longer ago. Partly because of the time change; 11/17 was a nearly-endless day for me, since Australia is on the other side of the International Dateline... we left Melbourne at 1pm 11/17 (Tuesday), flew an hour to Sydney, changed planes and then 14 hours to San Francisco, and landed at 11am 11/17 (Tuesday). Yes, we arrived home before we left Australia!

I would love to go back to Australia again, in November, or maybe even December or January, when it's cold here and warm there. I'd avoid the Red Center, where it might get to 110-115 degrees during their summer, but Brisbane, on Australia's eastern coast... I could spend some time (with a bike) there. And yet I'd still miss our local climbs and the Sunday rides with my son.

11/17/09- LIONS, TIGERS & BEARS? More like Penguins, Koalas, Crocs, Alligators, Wallabies, Kangaroos ("Red" & "Regular"), all sorts of Birds & Lizards, Elephants, yes, a few Tigers, but honestly no Lions, no Bears. We spent a lot of time in planes criss-crossing the lower right corner of Australia plus a long trip to the middle of the country (Uluru/Ayer's Rock), bought a lot of overpriced generic food (the dollar doesn't go very far down under anymore!), tried something called "Ginger Beer" which is actually Ginger Ale, but who knew? Took only public transit to get around, no rental cars (I really didn't feel like learning how to drive on the other side of the road... must resist saying the "wrong" side), learned how the trains work in Sydney & Brisbane, and oh yeah, saw a big ceremony at the Australia Zoo in which Teri, the late Crocodile Hunter's wife (Steve Irwin, the guy who got speared in a freak accident by a stingray) became a citizen of Australia with all sorts of higher-up government folk around.

And I still don't quite get the speech. Actually, I do, it's easy, but anytime you aren't sure of something you assume it's because you don't understand their version of English, but it's actually because, well, you're just a bit confused about something.

And if you thank people for something, they never say "You're welcome." They say "No worries."

I took over a thousand photos (no surprise there!), stayed up late at night organizing things while my wife slept (not much different than my trips to France with my son), watched as everyone slept on planes but me (nothing different there either!), and generally had a great time.

I miss my kids (I was about to reflexively say that I missed my wife, but that wouldn't be right, she's about 5 feet away from me the whole trip!), I miss my bike (11 days off the bike??? That's got to be a record for me), I miss the dog, and I even miss the shop. I see people out on bikes all over the place here, and it reminds me that I've got a job to do back home, getting more people to spend more time having fun cycling.

But it's time to catch a plane, a big plane, for a trip, a long trip, back home. A strange trip in which we leave from Melbourne at 1pm and arrive back in the Bay Area a couple hours before that. Same day, just earlier. And I wonder, can you selectively choose to erase a day you didn't like by flying backward?

It's 9:23am Tuesday in Melbourne, 2:23pm Monday in California. And sad to be leaving Australia.

11/15/09- IT'S SUNDAY HERE, Saturday back home, and time to head to the town of "Beerwah" (only in Australia would a town have a name like that) and a trip to the Steve Irwin Zoo. Film at 11!

11/14/09- PICTURES UP FROM TRIP TO LONE PINE KOALA SANCTUARY but no descriptions yet. This is not a vacation with much free time; like France, I'm working away at things while others sleep. Click here for the photos.

11/13/09- ALL I GOT WAS A ROCK...  There's just no real good way to put this. I traveled 1500 miles in Australia, at great expense, to stay three days at a resort that's a government-sponsored monopoly and thus again, at great expense, to see something people view as mystical and having a palpable presence that you can feel from miles away. Uluru, also known as Ayer's Rock, is indeed an impressive monument out in the middle of nowhere, and it's easy to see why the Aboriginal Peoples of Australia would regard it with such reverence. And the very fact that this is such a place of importance to the original inhabitants of Australia makes it important to me. But from a spiritual perspective, I come away with a greater appreciation for what God has provided me with on this planet when I'm out on a bike ride, and even when those bike rides are in France, they come at less expense than a trip to Ayer's Rock.

But part of the attraction, for those who are into "people watching" (I certainly am), is to figure out what brings other people to The Rock. Some of it is an Australian fascination with anything big. But you quickly discover that the average Australian has never been to The Rock, or even the Outback in general for that matter. They speak of wishing to see it some day, in the same manner that someone who hasn't been to The Grand Canyon might, or, sadly, Disneyland. But of those who do make the pilgrimage (and it truly is a pilgrimage, as there's simply no easy or inexpensive way to get there), you find many who are seeking a connection with "Mother Earth" in the manner that less-modern cultures clearly have, and it's an inescapable fact, facing you everyday you're at Ayer's Rock Resort, that the differences in that regard, between the Aboriginal Peoples of Australia and those coming to their homelands, could simply not be greater. Perhaps that's the point of the photo I chose above, showing Ayer's Rock against a backdrop of a modern solar cell farm.

That "Mother Earth" thing keeps coming back to me, as I think of those I met at Ayer's Rock Resort. Either generic male/female married folk (typically older, on an extended vacation of dramatically greater length than the 10 days I felt comfortable being gone), or individual women, or women traveling in pairs, but no such men. Ayer's Rock seemed to call out more to women than to men, although from a spirituality point, it did not call out to my wife. It did, however, create a strong need for her to go back and learn more about the people and their art and how they were molded by the harsh environment of the Outback.

If I return to Ayer's Rock some day, I'll do it differently. I'd take the long long trip on the Ghan rail line (long because, despite the incredible distances it travels, and despite the fact that most of the line has nothing in the way to slow it down, it cruises along at a leisurely 70-80mph, maybe even a bit slower, compared to the 160mph+ speeds of many rail lines in Europe), and stay at the "inexpensive" ($150/night for a cabin without plumbing) campgrounds. I'd try to avoid the trappings of the resort lifestyle as much as possible and become more connected with the land.

But- here's the thing- when we first arrived at Alice Springs, the major Outback airport about 240 miles from Uluru/Ayer's Rock, and I walked out onto the tarmac of a desert airstrip with brush & tumbleweed for miles around, and 100+ degree temperatures, my very first thought was of my grandparent's ranch in the Sacramento Valley, a little town named Maxwell. And I was thinking gee, what has this place got that Maxwell doesn't? Find a big nearby rock (perhaps the Sutter Buttes?) and create an epic resort around it, steeped in mysticism and history. Why not?

It's taken me until just now to figure out why not. Because somehow, some way, Australia rediscovered its ties to those who came perhaps 40,000 years before it was "discovered" by European explorers. There is a modern Australia that's prevalent, but there are ties to its Aboriginal heritage everywhere you go. Maxwell, California, has no such ties to its earliest inhabitants. In Maxwell, California, the only connections to Native Americans are found on billboards for their Casinos. Native American culture has a difficult, if not impossible time co-existing with modern Euro-American culture, and not just because the newcomers did what they could to clear them out, but also because our society is so assimilative.  The Aboriginal Peoples of Australia were remote enough to escape such assimilation and could maintain their culture and way of life long enough to find a time when Australia's mainstream government and people decided that there was something worth honoring and preserving in a meaningful way.

After writing the paragraphs above, I realize that Uluru/Ayer's Rock has affected me much more than I'd thought, and that I was wrong to think that it should be some moving, mystical experience to be worthwhile. It's brought home to me important lessons about the past, and how differently we view our bond with the land than those who came before us.

I'm not just glad I came to visit Ayer's Rock, I'm fortunate to have done so.

11/11/09- KARL'S RIDE REPORT IN MY ABSENCE- Mike, Hope you are having a great time in Aus.  Meanwhile, this morning Keenan, George, John and Mike Robles headed up the hill via the park per my turn while in the lead.  We gradually upped the pace with Robles and Keenan finally tiring up my increasing difficult to maintain tempo at the front.  When 2 guys whoosh past you suddenly, it kinda takes the wind out of your sails.  George was following my wheel and as we neared the top, I was able to just pass Keenan with Mike still ahead. 

Then it was Mike at the hilltop sprint largely unchallenged. Steve met us there with new guy Jeff?, recruited by Millo, as they both have kids in the same classroom.  I gathered my loins and was able to come around Keenan for the sprint at Skeggs.  After a fairly fast decent into Skylonda, I was able to use Keenan and George for a leadout and narrowly hold off Mike who was concerned about crossing the yellow line, DQ! anyhow, but he just did not have the juice to come by me.  WOLH was another build effort with Mike and Keenan again blowing by a tiring me on the front.  I did my effort and was thinking that maybe I should back off and save myself for Sat. night's CX race.

We are supposed to get some a.m. showers Thur.... all good for Saturday's race, or at least no dust this time.  George is getting stronger by the day, just now punch yet. Mike Robles is on a mission now that he is decided that he is going to race on the road next season...for Alto Velo, so another guy in green!  Ciao,  kbe

11/10/09- STILL MISSING A SUITCASE but had a great day in Sydney anyway. Can't even remember everything we did, but could be the highpoint was the Ferry ride from Circular Quay to Darling Harbor. I knew we had to do a Ferry ride, but it was pretty confusing figuring out which boat was going where. So the heck with it; where could the "wrong" Ferry go that could cause more trouble than an expensive cab fare could fix? So there we were, on Platform 5A, which I thought should be heading out to Darling Harbor, but it didn't really matter, all we needed to do was head out into the bay, in any direction, for some great views of the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House. And as it turned out, it was the right boat anyway!

But one thing you might not want to bother with is the Sydney Tour and "Oz Tour." Or at least dispense with the included "Oz Tour" which is like a really bad version of the old Disneyland piece "American The Beautiful" that they used to play in that round theater in Tomorrowland.

Tomorrow morning we're off to Ayer's Rock! That will be a bit of a departure from Sydney, where it's been in the low-80s and pretty crowded. Should be a lot fewer people in the so-called "Red Center" (Outback), and temps forecast in the upper-90s.

11/09/09- WE'VE SENT YOUR BAGS ON AHEAD SIR... WHERE IS IT YOU'RE STAYING (PART 2)? It's been quite some time since I've had issues with an airline losing my bags, so I guess it was inevitable that it would happen that one time when I break my absolute rule of keeping a day's worth of clothing in a carry-on. But it's not as if I can totally blame the airline...

You see, it's like this. You arrive in Sydney Australia at 8am, after a 14-hour flight through the night where you leave San Francisco at 11pm on a Saturday and arrive in Sydney on a Monday morning. Somehow, Sunday just sorta disappears. But you force yourself to function (sorta) and collect your bags and move through the least-efficient customs & baggage collection I've seen at any airport (I've cleared customs so far in Detroit, Minneapolis, Dulles/DC, Chicago, San Francisco, Geneva, Paris, and maybe some others I've forgotten). And somehow one of the two bags we picked up was the wrong one. Didn't figure that out until we got to the hotel room, I asked Karen (my wife) which bag was mine (you can tell who did the packing) and she said the black one, and I said no it isn't, because the first thing I come across are bras and that's just not the way I roll. Then we look at the tag and ohmygosh, we picked up someone else's bag!!! So we head back on the train to the airport and find the folk who deal with such things, and they're happy to get "Susan's" bag back (whom I'd also emailed since she had an email address on the outside of her luggage... smart move since phones in foreign countries can get strange). But my bag? Nowhere to be found. Yet.

So now I've got a bit different perspective on the "lost bag" bit at airlines. You read in the paper and watch on TV as the media vilifies the airlines over lost luggage, and by gosh, that is a terrible thing! But rarely (perhaps never?) do they point out that, more often than you'd think, it's passengers picking up the wrong bag that causes the problem.  But while I'm willing to accept nearly all of the blame on this one, one also has to consider how odd it is that nobody in customs or anywhere else down the line makes an attempt to make sure that the correct passenger leaves with the correct luggage.

Meantime, we're making do, buying some underwear and a pair of shorts, and planning to buy some cheap souvenir t-shirts to wear. And tonight we did the long walk through "The Rocks" and across the bridge, and got the picture shown above of the Opera House and Darling Harbor.

11/05/09- SOMETIMES IT FEELS GOOD TO FEEL BAD and this morning was one of those times. It had been a week since my last ride, due to my trip to Wisconsin Sunday night through Tuesday, and, as before on such trips, I gained a pound a day. Hate that! Combine too many bacon-wrapped chestnut thingees, too much coffee & Mountain Dew trying to stay up through early morning meetings, and no exercise... well let's just say there are very good reasons I try to keep to my routine!

This morning it was Karl, Kevin (pilot Kevin), John (who came for the first time last Tuesday), Chris & Mike at the start of the ride, meeting up with Steve up on Skyline. We rode through the park with the promise from Karl of an easy pace, and this time, it was truthful! Things stayed pretty civilized until we got up west side Old LaHonda a ways, at which point Kevin, Chris & Mike pushed the pace and split things up. I held on as long as I could, but lost contact about the same time John came up from behind and pushed on ahead.

On the positive side, I'm getting more used to the new bike and was able to start pushing it quite a bit faster downhill. This bike does fly downhill! And on the final sprint, I found out it can dish a ton of punishment to the rear wheel too, as I somehow managed to get to the imaginary finish line first. My guess is that Kevin had gotten far enough towards the front that he effectively blocked the best sprinters in the group; Mike is certainly riding stronger right now, by far, than I am!

And the rest of the day? Going up and down the stairs at the shop, my legs were talking to me, and they weren't saying very nice things. I like that. Makes it feel like you must have accomplished something.

11/03/09- THE RIDE MUST GO ON! And so it does, while I'm in Wisconsin, sitting on my tail for hours on end through business meetings in Wisconsin at Trek. And darn it, even though it's November, it wasn't so cold that you couldn't ride back there. Just didn't have the time. But back home, Karl kept things in order. Here's his report from this-morning's ride-

Mike,
Yes, gorgeous day from the get go, but not warm until on the hill.  I rode up slow with Millo since I was early and tired from the weekend.  Billy, Eric, George!, John and Mike met us by the water tower.  Millo took Skylonda, Mike took WOLH and George took the final, just ahead of me...well I sortta waited for him and thought it would be good for his morale, but he was going along pretty well and I was sure gassed from my 2 attacks on Trip and staying away till the end. 

S'posed to be 80 today, but now I am indoors working.  Hopefully see you Thursdee. Karl

10/31/09- THE REDWOOD CITY STORE HAS GOT THE SPIRIT- WHERE ARE THE PHOTOS FROM LOS ALTOS??? Well OK, it is just the younger staff at RC that got into the act, or with Roger in the picture, maybe the young at heart. A pretty wild day at the store, with people getting ready for yet another 10-day run of nice weather ahead! Northern California has to be one of the great places for cycling, although I suspect you could transplant me just about anywhere and I'd try to make the most of it. In the meantime, we've got bowlers, Russians, pirates, maybe Elvis (John Belushi actually), a 50's girl but she kinda looks more like something out of Mad Men.

Tonight my brother and I fly to Wisconsin on the red-eye; if there were a bunch of us, it would have been fun to dress up as pilots with laptops. On the other hand, one might have trouble getting through security if it looks like you're dressing up as a pilot.

10/29/09- PART#2- THE REGULAR RIDE ENTRY. Cold? Yeah, sure, a Northern California version of "cold." 42 degrees. But what's worse than cold is waking up at 7:05am and it's absolutely totally dark outside! Thankfully, by 7:15 things are getting a bit more attractive outside, and by the time I'm leaving the house (7:32am plus/minus 3.53 seconds) it looks to be a beautiful morning.

No Karl or (pilot) Kevin this morning, but we did have Eric, Billy, other Kevin and Mike, and picked up Steve at the top of the hill. The ride up through the park wasn't all that bad because the other guys were actually taking it easy this morning, not just talking about taking it easy. Still, at 42 degrees, what's easy for them still has me gasping for air like a fish out of water. Ridiculous to think my body, or at least my lungs, crave 60+ degrees, when I enjoy the challenges presented by extreme weather. This morning was hardly extreme though.

The new bike continues to amaze me. It climbs better, descends better, is dramatically smoother and simply doesn't make noise. Other than that weird "torturing a small animal sound" you get from the electronic shifting. Sure wish I had the bike 6 weeks ago before cooler weather set in; would have been fun to see how fast I could have gotten up the hill!

Descending west-side 84, we were joined by Chris, riding one heck of a lot faster than any of us, despite apparently having been off the bike for the past three weeks. Youth is definitely wasted on the young! Fortunately, after catching us he calmed down and became downright civil. All in all, a very enjoyable ride at a very moderate pace. I wonder if there's a connection?

10/29/09- PART#1- MOM HASN'T CALLED OR EMAILED lately so my entries must be pretty boring. She normally keeps up on what I'm doing by reading the almost-daily diary, and I'll confess that, once in a while, I'll bait her by bringing up something here that I know will get a reaction. The terrible things kids do to their parents, even when the kids are 53 years old! What brings this up is that Kevin, my son, has been out of school for a couple days with a bug of some sort (nothing nasty but I'm sure the mere mention of it is going to be alarming to mom/grandma), and as we were taking his temperature I was thinking about the differences between me and "normal" kids, as I was growing up.

It's like this. School wasn't something I typically looked forward to, but it was something that had to be done. But being sick and missing school? I just didn't see the attraction. I never wanted to be sick, and thus I never acted sick. So on those few times I actually was sick, times when most kids would probably think great, no school for me!, I had a little trick. When mom would take my temperature, using one of those old-fashioned mercury thermometers that took three minutes to register, I'd keep the temperature from going too high by taking it out of my mouth when she left the room. Seriously. You just can't do that with these new-fangled digital thermometers.

So yes, I am a little out-of-touch with whatever it is people consider "normal." And there's an amazing consistency, now that I think about it, in how I've viewed resting when sick. My attitude that "resting" when ill is giving a signal to whatever's ailing me that it's party time is nothing new at all. I fully accept that, someday, mortality issues will likely become real and I might have to adapt. But that day is not today, nor will it be tomorrow. It won't be until there is simply no other option.

And if that missive doesn't bring an email from mom, nothing will!  :-)

10/27/09- NEW BIKE, OLD ROADS this morning, as my new Trek Madone 6.9 made its debut on the regular Tuesday/Thursday ride. Wish it had happened a couple months ago, when I had legs & lungs as well! Still, it was a noticeable improvement in just about every way. Just have to figure out how to convert the battery that powers the shifting to power the wheels!

Billy, Kevin, Kevin, Karl, Eric & Mike this morning, along with Steve & Millo up on Skyline. A bit windy & cool but dry (this too shall pass). I had no chance of keeping up on the climb up Kings, but did manage to stay with the lead group when things split up on west-side Old LaHonda. Mike took the final sprint, which otherwise would have likely gone to Kevin, who'd gotten boxed in. Me? It's going to take a few rides to figure out the electric shifting stuff and make sure I'm in the right gear at the right time. But I'll get there!

10/25/09- HOW COULD I HAVE KNOWN? People assume that, because my brother and I run one of the largest Trek road bike shops in the country, that I know just about everything there is to know about a Trek road bike. But today that was proven very, very wrong. Because today I took out my new Madone 6.9 for the first time (it arrived on Friday and was built up on Saturday) and all I can say is, wow, I was caught completely off-guard by the improvements over my prior bike, which I have really enjoyed these past four years and 25,000 miles (would be a few more miles than that except that I have a separate "rain" bike I use during foul weather).

Today the new bike was tested on one of Northern California's more scenic and challenging climbs, Ebbetts Pass & Pacific Grade. This was my son's third outing to the high sierras this season (we had done Sonora Pass just two weeks ago) and figured there weren't going to be too many more opportunities before the passes closed for the winter. Kevin was having his own fun on the ride, proving to dad that he could ride up the steepest grades in his middle chainring (with dad asking, "but why?") while I put my new bike through its paces. What can I say? The darned thing is amazingly comfortable, an area that I really didn't think could be improved much on my prior bike. I was wrong. But the most-surprising thing was how well it climbed & descended, especially the descending part. Another area of marked improvement over a bike I thought did pretty darned well in that department.

So while I should be writing all about the ride, the beauty of Ebbetts Pass, the fall colors, the leaves falling from the trees just as we rode through... what I'm really looking forward to is Tuesday morning's ride on the new bike!

But I have placed photos (no descriptions yet) of the ride up on our Google Picasa page for viewing.

10/22/09- NO, I DIDN'T FALL OFF THE PLANET but a whole lot of things went on all at once, and when I juggle, I tend to drop things. But we'll get to this-morning's ride first. On the cool side, as things will be from now until sometime in, maybe, March? Sad to think just a few weeks ago it was warm enough to not wear leg warmers, and now I've transitioned to my "winter" lungs, which don't work nearly as well as the lungs I use in the spring & summer. I can still sprint, but climbing goes down the toilet. But that doesn't mean I don't enjoy the time I spend on my bike!

This morning we had older Kevin (the pilot), Karl (the Cyclocross King who's won most of the races he's entered this season), Eric (who's coming off a nasty bug of some sort but seemed fine this morning) and Steve, who'd headed up the hill ahead of us a bit. We rode through the park (why?) which does a number on me, but I got most of my legs back by the time we got up to Skyline. More than a bit foggy on the way up, but clear on top, and a very nice cruise up the west side of Old LaHonda, where we picked up younger Kevin and his friend Billy, along with Mike. More soon-

10/20/09- I DO HAVE MEMORIES OF THIS RIDE AFTER ALL! This is written a week late, but the one thing I clearly recall is the final sprint, heading up Albion towards the stop sign at Olive Hill, and going hard at it with Kevin (not pilot Kevin) in a mad sprint with some poor woman out for a walk on the corner, who must have been wondering just what exactly was racing up the hill at her. Kevin won the sprint, by the way.

10/18/09- BIKE RIDE OR SCHOOL PROJECT? No epic ride to the Sierras today; that might be saved for next weekend. Today's ride could be described as... well, sluggish. Not so much in terms of speed but purpose. It's like this- my son's taking a digital photography class in school, so I figured maybe we should bring camera gear and find things to take pictures of. I outfitted both bikes with handlebar bags and brought along the "old" DSLR (a Canon 350) and the newer one I picked up before the trip to France (a Canon 500) and set off to do the trusty Old LaHonda/Pescadero/Tunitas loop. Quite a few stops along the way, as we tried to find things to photograph on a day that really wasn't too favorable for that (pretty gray outside).

Just to change things up a bit, instead of taking Stage Road between Pescadero & San Gregorio, we did Highway 1 instead, which gave us a chance to take some shots along the coast, which also proved relatively uninteresting as there were no real waves to speak of. Still, nice to remember why we always take Stage Road instead. Actually, I'm not sure why we always do; Highway 1 really isn't all that bad!

But getting back to his assignment- he was supposed to get a birds-eye perspective of something, as well as a top-down view. He couldn't figure out what he should be doing; I jokingly suggested he should have taken pictures of the flies on the picnic tables in Pescadero (where he was explaining that flies actually taste with their feet???). And then, as we're beginning to climb Tunitas, I'm thinking how he likes to count the banana slugs on the way up... why not use banana slugs as his subject? And the rest is history.

10/15/09- A BIT LESS WET TODAY and almost too warm! Feels sub-tropical out there with pretty high humidity (it's got to be very high when your glasses fog up and the temps are in the mid-60s), and there was that hurricane-just-blew-through look to some of the roads.

Karl and James B showed up at the start, James B being a former employee who's now a Cat 1 racer. So it's not going to be me throwing down any challenges today! We rode up through the park, which gave me the chance to ride "direct" and meet them at the park entrance, but for some stupid reason I passed on that option. I don't seem to be making the smartest decisions these days! The ride up Kings was fine but just a little bit slippery in parts, in marked contrast to Tuesday's ride in the middle of the big storm. Tire traction is amazingly consistent when it's really dumping!

On the way up I pointed out tire marks from a pair of bikes (wet tire traces in places where you transitioned from wet to dry pavement), noting that Steve & Millo must be ahead, which indeed they were. We joined them at the usual place (near the Skeggs parking lot) and rode incredibly sensibly the rest of the way, mindful of the slippery pavement. Every once in a while this group demonstrates a bit of sensibility. Not much, not often, but when it counts!

10/13/09- WIMPS! The true warriors came out to play today. That would be me... and Millo. First wet day in ages and everybody stayed home, even the normally-hardy commuters we see on Canada as we're getting ready to start. Even the 'Cross riders in our regular group, whom you'd think would see the value in improving their riding skills by having to dodge all manner of debris in the road.

Now some I can understand not wanting to be out there. Take "pilot" Kevin, for example. He just had a birthday, so he's old. Really old now. As in five months older than me. When I get to be that age, I'm sure it will be a struggle to get out of bed!

But that's the funny thing. It wasn't a struggle to get going this morning. I had laid everything out last night, making sure I was prepared for the weather "event" the forecasters have been talking about for days. Big winds and torrential rains! Power outages and mudslides (which means it's house-racing time in the Santa Cruz mountains).

We weren't disappointed. It rained heavily, although initially we missed out on the heavy winds. The ride up Kings was at a sensible pace (thank you, Millo!), and traction was surprisingly good. I had been concerned about what the first rain would do to the roads, especially with all the new tar stripes, but wheel slippage just wasn't an issue. Dodging small branches and rocks was another matter entirely, and it reminded me of the "cone drills" at the velodrome (bicycle track) where you have to zig-zag through a maze to improve your handling skills. As for the heavy winds, we finally found them up on Skyline. We'd actually "heard" them previously, and I even remarked to Millo that I was glad we weren't riding about 40 feet higher, where you could see and hear the winds tormenting the trees. But on Skyline you'd come around a corner and just get blasted, blowing you sideways a bit, even with the ballast that Millo and I pack.

It was a very good introduction to wet-weather riding, since it wasn't too cold (perhaps mid-50s, which almost feels sub-tropical when you're climbing), and it rained hard enough to keep the bikes pretty clean. Of course, my wife wasn't too happy about the trail of wet footprints upon entering the house, and that was after removing my socks. I'm not sure how much total water was in my clothes, but it was a lot.

I'd be lying if I said I was looking forward to my next rain ride, but at least I know I'm ready!

10/11/09- PUNISHMENT OR PLEASURE? SONORA PASS COULD BE EITHER! Today was Kevin's (my son) introduction to a Northern California cycling legend, Sonora Pass. He'd previously dispatched Alpe d'Huez and Ventoux, and managed Bohlman/On Orbit last week without much trouble. But Sonora Pass is in an entirely-different category, or at least in my mind it is. And if there was any climb that might convince Kevin to keep his triple instead of moving to a compact crank, this would be it.

There was also a bit of desperation in getting to the Sierras before the passes closed for winter. Mid-October is always risky, and anyone watching the news lately knows all about the big storm that's supposed to be moving in and washing us into the ocean. Thankfully, we had great weather, better even than forecast (which meant I was carrying about three times as much extra clothing up the hill than needed).

From Dardanelle to the top took just under two hours. Looking at past rides, that's about half an hour slower than the fastest times people have done our ride, and maybe 15 minutes off the best pace I could manage (on a good day). Today, I'm not sure I could have ridden a whole lot faster than Kevin even if I'd wanted to, but I'll blame the handlebar bag that I was hauling four extra water bottles in!

We didn't do the full back side, choosing to descend only to the 8000ft level and then head back. This really wasn't supposed to be a "ride until you drop" event, partly because, if Kevin "dropped" there'd be no way to get back to the car! There's no services, not even water, on the far side of the hill. Plus, this leaves him with a reason to go back, to finish the job. And it gives my wife the mistaken idea that I'm not actually pushing him beyond his limits. Here's a link to some photos from the ride.

10/09/09- IF SOMEONE LAUGHS AT YOUR "EXPENSE" DID IT REALLY COST YOU ANYTHING? I've often suggested that it's not such a bad thing that something you do gives someone the opportunity to laugh. But most feel otherwise; there's that pride thing that implies that giving you a laugh takes something away from me. I've always disagree with that.

Until now. Because I did something really silly-stupid-nonsensical on Thursday's ride. Maybe I was trying to out-do my Tuesday posting, showing that awful photo from my past. But more likely I just had one of those mornings where you put both feet into the same pants leg and/or can't find your glasses because you're already wearing them.

So what did I do? Yeah, we'll get to that in a minute. First I have to mention how many folk I gave a laugh to. There was Karl, and Eric, (no Kevin the pilot, who was flying), Ryan, Robert W (whom I raced with way back in the day and finally showed up after all these years), Billy, Billy's friend Kevin, Steve and oh great, I'm blanking out (but later I am reminded that Chris rode with us). A good group of guys witnessing a fashion faux pas that surpasses all my previous efforts (and some have been pretty good). In my defense, they were my thin-as-a-silk-sheet Nike shorts, made for light weight more than anything else, and the gripper elastic on the leg bands is reversed for somebody's strange sense of style. But I took that sense of style and turned it inside-out. Literally. Yes, I actually had my bib tights inside-out so the pseudo-chamois was against the seat, not me. I don't see the big issue. Wasn't it a passing fad for awhile to wear undergarments outside your outergarments? Didn't Madonna do that? Sigh. I'm just ahead of the times and not appreciated. They laugh now. Just wait. Yes, in all likelihood... they'll be laughing tomorrow as well!

10/07/09- HOW EMBARRASSING IS THAT? So much so that even I, who seems to have no shame in exposing dumb stuff from my past, won't post it here (a promise I've gone back on since first writing this). My wife was going through old photos while trying to toss out some of the garbage that accumulates from living in one place for too long, and there on the kitchen table were my first two drivers licenses. And the photo on that first one... was that really me? Skinny (which is fine), perfectly-straight hair cut perfectly straight across the back (hard to believe this was my version of "short" hair at the time) and lopsided-looking ears.  I wasn't quite 18 yet; everybody else had rushed out to get their drivers license on their 16th birthday, but not me, I was the bike-riding bike-racing weirdo who thought cars were bad (unless they were taking you to a bike race, of course). I finally figured out that you couldn't go out on a date at night on a bike.

One thing I do like on that first drivers license is my weight; 150 lbs. 17 pounds heavier than when I'd started racing a couple years prior, but at 150 I was a lot stronger and could do more than just climb. My next drivers license, 4 years later, shows my weight at 158. I peaked somewhere just over 180 about 10 years ago and have since brought it down to a pretty stable 173. It would be fun to line up all my old drivers licenses, if I could find them, and see when the biggest changes (to my appearance) happened. Or maybe I should just leave some things alone as I'm not sure much good can come from the exercise. :)

10/06/09- BASE LAYER, LONG-FINGERED GLOVES, LEG WARMERS and yes, it was possible that I was going to feel over-dressed, but after Sunday's ride I wasn't taking any chances. Big group this morning, with Ryan, Karl, Eric, Kevin, Billy, other Kevin, Mike, and at the top Millo & Steve. The day will come when I don't just wonder why I don't leave with the earlier group, but actually do it. I can still consistently climb Kings in the mid-27s and peak in the mid-26s a couple times (this morning was not one of those times). But now, it just feels faster, but looking at the times, it actually isn't faster. Somewhere in all this is proof I'm getting older.

At the top of Kings I just kept on going, picking up Millo & Steve at Skegg's (their usual waiting place) and from there we pushed on, trying to stay ahead of the guys behind us. But we did, at my suggestion, cheat. Instead of the mandatory regroup at Sky Londa, we pushed on ahead, with the goal of trying to get to Skyline before they could catch us. Which we almost did! About a mile before the top I'm looking back to see where Millo and Steve were (they'd dropped back slightly) and thought I saw Millo not to far behind. Except that he was gaining fast on me, which shouldn't have been the case, and as he got closer, I realized it wasn't Millo, it was Mike, lead rider of the chase group! I did my best to hang onto his wheel on the section through the trees and fishings up top with him, just ahead of Kevin (older-guy Kevin, soon to be ancient-guy Kevin on Thursday).

By the time we got back down into Woodside and ready for the final sprint I was pretty fried, just not much left to turn the pedals with, and got soundly beat by both... oh darn, now I can't even remember who it was! Right, coming back to me, younger Kevin and Ryan. I was there, but the legs just didn't have it. Maybe Thursday?

10/04/09- BOHLMAN/ON ORBIT PART II was just a little bit more challenging than Part I back on May 3rd (Kevin's first ride up the west bay's nastiest climb). This time, instead of just doing the climb itself, we started from home (in Redwood City) and did the usual run through the foothills to Saratoga, eating lunch at the Big Basin Cafe before heading up the big climb. Big climb? The main part of Bohlman/OnOrbit is a 3 mile climb of about 2000 feet. Consider that King's Mtn is 4.3 miles and climbs only 1600ft and you get the idea.

Today's adventure took 46:31 for the full 4.5 miles from bottom to top (it meanders along a bit both before and after the nasty 3 mile section), compared to 56:53 for his first time, so there's no question he's getting considerably stronger & faster. Whether he's ready to tackle Sonora Pass, that I'm still not sure, and we've only got one weekend left to try.

The original plan for today's ride was to head south to Saratoga (done), up Bohlman/On Orbit (done), across the dirt road for a mile or so that connects with Montevina and then down to Lexington Reservoir (done), up Black to Skyline (painfully done!) then north on Skyline to 84 and back to Redwood City (not quite). We got off to a very late start, and by the time we got up to Skyline the temperature was dropping pretty quickly, so I decided, by the time we got to Saratoga Gap (Skyline & 9) that, at 46 degrees and looking to get worse quickly, it was time to drop back down via 9 and call for reinforcements. So instead of the 70 mile ride I'd planned, it ended at our Los Altos store at about 60 miles and 7100ft of climbing. A tough ride to be sure, but there's something nagging about rides that didn't get completed, basically a DNF asterisk of some sort. But Kevin was in no shape to keep going on Skyline in the cold, and it's probably better that I don't push him too hard to be as stupid as I was at his age!

10/01/09- SEE THOSE FUZZY LITTLE DOTS IN THE PICTURE? That's how it looked in-person as well! This morning was one of those days where I didn't feel truly bad, but I sure wasn't on top of my game, on a day when everyone else's engines were pretty much running on demand. Karl, Eric, no Kevin, no Ryan, but we did have Phil again (who's on his way to Kona), and the other Kevin and Billy. Seems like there was at least one person I'm missing, but maybe it just seemed like there was a huge crowd ahead of me (and nobody behind) for most of the ride.

Surprisingly, Karl didn't even fake the turn at the park, and I held up fine to the park entrance and even slightly beyond. And then either they sped up, or I slowed down, or some mean combination of the two. Perhaps I was caught in some sort of 5th-dimensional vortex? That's happened before. What I can't figure out is why those vortices always position me further behind instead of ahead. Seems like 50% of the time I ought to pop out on the road in front of the other guys, right?

The morning started out even cooler than Tuesday, but you could feel the offshore flow warming things up so that it was pretty nice by the time we finished. Or at least the time I finished, which might have been a day later than the rest of the guys. No rider left behind? Not on this ride, or at least not when it's me! Guess they figure I know my way back (truthfully, we do regroup at three places, the top of Kings, Alice's/4 corners, and the top of west-side Old LaHonda).

09/29/09- CORRECTION TO ENTRY BELOW- It was Ryan who won the final sprint, not Karl! That's what happens when I get dropped so long before the sprint that I can't witness it first-hand. Got to work on that!

09/29/09- WHAT HAPPENED TO SUMMER? I guess it doesn't make too much sense to whine about the weather changing since summer did, in fact, end several days ago. I just didn't realize that "Fall" meant a thermometer in full-dive mode! OK, that's pushing it a bit far; on this morning's ride, the coldest temperature I saw was 50 degrees, but that was enough to justify wearing leg warmers and a base layer!

We had Karl, Eric (forgot to ask him where he's been the last couple of weeks) (but maybe he was there on Thursday when I was in Las Vegas?), but not George, who'd injured himself last week on a Cyclocross-training outing at Arastradero. Karl was merciful this morning and did a quick fake turn up Greer (the route that goes through the park, which is considerably steeper) but then went up the normal, "easy" route. Had he actually gone through the park, I was quite willing to take the normal route and meet them at the park entrance, which presumably I could have gotten to slightly ahead of them.

Did I mention the wind? Yes, not just cool (I'm now feeling a bit wimpy calling 50 degrees "cold" so I'm changing to "cool") but windy! We picked up reinforcements at Skeggs (Steve) and just a bit later Ryan caught up with us (he'd apparently been chasing us; must have arrived a few minutes late). This ride was also unusual in that we were held up for a few minutes by road construction... twice! Once on the west side of 84, on our way to Old LaHonda, and again while descending the east side into Woodside. And then one more time, on my own, coming over Jefferson! Lots of roadwork today.

The sprints? I was only part of one of them, and even that one was questionable as I had to cross over the centerline due to congestion (how much road do three or four guys need???) which results in an automatic DQ. No, that's not quite right, I forgot that I did manage to get past everyone on the 2nd part of the Skeggs sprint. For the finale, Steve, Ryan and Karl rode off the front well ahead, and from what I understand, Karl took it. Makes sense. Karl is very strong at this time of year, since he lives for cyclocross (and just happened to have won his last race on Sunday).

09/27/09- A MUCH-NICER RIDE THAN EXPECTED! Today was the annual Tour for Woodside, a fundraising event for my son's high school (Woodside High). It's nice having a ride that you don't have to drive your car too, so you can do a 100 mile event and not get up at the crack of dawn. Well that's not quite right; since we're still on Daylight Saving Time, it's dark at 6:30am! But better that than 5:30, but a long-shot.

This was a ride that almost didn't come off at all, as Kevin (my son, who I was doing the ride with) was just getting over a nasty cold that kept him out of school on Friday. Fortunately he was feeling better last night, and there was the added incentive that this was, after all, an event put on for his school.

This was Kevin's second 100-miler (his first being a 111-mile ride we did about a month ago) and even though he wasn't up to full speed while getting over the cold, he did very well. Well enough that my legs definitely feel like I've done a hard ride. The course included a trip out Canada with a loop to the Ralston bike path, then up Kings Mtn, south on Skyline to 84, down to LaHonda, over Haskins to Pescadero, then a loop down Cloverdale & Gazos Creek to the coast and back via Bean Hollow. Then north on Stage to Tunitas and back over the hill to Woodside. Making the ride a bit more interesting than usual were the first two rest stops- the one at the Pulgas Water Temple was staffed by Woodside High School seniors (wearing Togas, as you'd normally find staff at a rest stop!) and the Pescadero stop was run by Woodside High School juniors (most or all of whom Kevin knew, which was kinda cool).

Unfortunately, the ride was a bit short to be a true century. Just 96.5 miles! But with the ride to & from, it came to 102 miles, thus qualifying as an honest 100-miler. And at an average speed of 14.5mph with about 8000ft of climbing, it was a pretty respectable effort as well. My guess is that, on my own, I could probably do no better than 16mph on this ride, and maybe not even that. Kevin's getting pretty good at staying on my wheel even at speeds above 20mph, and his climbing continues to improve. My guess is that, by next year, he'll be at my level, and maybe beyond.

09/22/09- NO, THAT WAS NOT FUN. This morning was one of those times when my body just didn't want to work. We had a pretty sizable group; Kevin, Karl, George, Karen, Ryan, Mike R (just back from a TrekTravel trip in France) & Millo & Steve meeting up with us on top of the climb. For some reason I went along with the mob's desire to go through the park; one of these days I'm going to get smart and let them go through the park, and I'll meet them at the upper entrance! But not today. Today I suffered like a dog, watching them ride away from me, just turning the pedals trying to get up the hill. But the nice thing about a morning that starts like that is that it almost never ends like that. By the end of the ride, I felt pretty darned good! We'll see how I do on Sunday's Tour for Woodside Century.

09/20/09- LATE ENTRY on last Sunday's ride. Originally my son and I were supposed to do a pretty tough ride, something around 80 miles, involving a trip over the hill to Pescadero, then north on Stage up towards Half Moon Bay where we'd do Higgins Purssima etc before heading up Tunitas. But Kevin was having a lot of problems breathing on the way up Old LaHonda due to allergies, and actually asked if we could skip the ride to the coast and just head north on Skyline to 92 and back. Uh... no. My theory, which proved correct, was that his allergy issues would fade rapidly as we headed towards the coast. Still, we cut back on the ambitious plans and went straight to San Gregorio on 84, one of my least-favorite roads due to the constant battle with headwinds (and we weren't disappointed in that regard!).

One nice thing about heading towards the coast was that we were gradually heading away from the heat! In fact, as we neared San Gregorio, we were greeted by a cooling fog and temps of about 68 degrees. I was in heaven, while Kevin was complaining about being too cold. We met up with Sal at San Gregorio but Kevin, while starting the climb up Stage (in the direction of Tunitas Creek) wasn't going too fast, in short order he'd decided the only way to get warm was to hammer up the climb, eventually dropping Sal (who, truth be told, was on a fixie, a single-speed bike). At the top Kevin just kept going, rocketing across the bridge before quickly making the right hand turn up Tunitas. Kevin was taking no prisoners now, going along at a pretty good clip on the flats, but it was he performance on the middle, steeper section of Tunitas that really surprised me. In the end he made it from the coast to the top of Tunitas (at Skyline) in just under 50 minutes, knocking several minutes off his previous best time.

Not bad for a ride that started out with him not wanting to go over the hill.

09/18/09- WE OWN THE NIGHT! Sometimes it's just too hot, too uncomfortable to want to get out and ride. Not that it matters for me on a weekday, since I'm at work. But today just seemed like a good time to take advantage of a very nice evening to get out and ride. You know, put on the lights and head for the hills! You have to be a bit selective, because you don't want to be climbing on a busy highway with cars not expecting to see you, which is why I typically choose Old LaHonda for such outings, and tonight it didn't disappoint. Not a single car the entire way up, just a motorcycle coming down, and at a sensible speed.

Kevin (younger Kevin) did pretty well, just over 24 minutes for the climb. It's a bit strange at night, since you can't see your computer so you don't have a good idea of how fast you're actually going, although at night it seems faster than it really is. Maybe because you're worried about things in the dark chasing after you?

With appropriate lighting (very bright flashing tail lights, pointed correctly, and uber-bright NiteRider headlights) and a well-chosen route, it seems pretty safe out there, and in all likelihood you're more visible than you'd be in the daytime, since the flashing lights show up from quite a distance, and the cars are quite puzzled about what's out there. Just one more way to live life a bit more fully by riding a bike. And it got Kevin thinking about pushing his limits even more, asking what it might be like to see how far you could go in 12 hours. If he keeps his riding up, I think he's going to have a killer Lacrosse season this spring!

09/17/09- SOMETIMES KEVIN ISN'T LYING when he says he's going to take it slow on our morning ride. It's not too often; usually he tells us he's tired and probably won't even do the full ride, and then he'll go and pull off a 25 minute ride up the hill. I'm talking about older Kevin, by the way, the airline pilot. You know, the guys we're supposed to trust with our lives. Well this morning he actually did ride slowly up the hill, on his first day back from the big Everest Challenge race this past weekend (a two day affair that climbs 27,000+ feet). And today, taking it a bit easy was fine with me. New-guy Ryan rode on up ahead a bit with Karl, while I stayed in the middle and kept an eye on Kevin, making sure he wasn't having too much trouble back there (after all, being at the back is a place he's not used to being). Eventually we made it to the top where we met up with Steve and then, on cue at Skeggs, we hooked up with our extra motor, Millo, to pull us into Sky Londa. It's fun having Millo up there at Skeggs, circling around, waiting for us to come by. Whoever hits that part first gets the benefit of his efforts, and how can you pass up a deal like that?

The most-surprising thing this morning was the fog. Pretty thick stuff at times, which we climbed out of about halfway up Kings, and then dropped back into on the way down to Woodside at the end of the ride. Considering the heat wave we're starting, it just seemed a bit odd to have so much fog in the morning. On the other hand, at 61 degrees, it wasn't a cold fog. Just fog.

09/15/09- IT'S ALWAYS INTERESTING WHEN SOMEBODY NEW SHOWS UP ON THE RIDE. Initially there's that thing of, well, does anybody know this guy? Have we seen him before, maybe he rode with us last year and we don't remember? But you get past that pretty quickly, ask if he's there for the Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride, and start to check him out a bit and figure if he can climb or not. Oh, yeah, it is almost always a guy. Very few women ever ride with us.

This morning it was Ryan, a nice-enough guy from San Carlos who'd read about our ride for a while and finally showed up. He didn't in any way appear apprehensive, nor did he need to be, as he and, I think, everyone else got up the hill in under 27 minutes this morning. Yes, even me. Of course, I was bringing up the tail end!

Besides new-guy Ryan, we had recent-guy Phil (one of the guys who had the honor of being ticketed for running the stop sign on Skyline last week), Karl, Mark (who shows up once-in-a-blue-moon), George, and Steve who had ridden up a few minutes earlier and met us at the top, as usual. Eric and Kevin were absent, having just ridden the Mt. Everest Challenge event in Southern California and likely not-quite-ready-for-primetime. Karl's in a very good mood these days, now that CycloCross season has started (and I think I heard that he won his first race this past weekend).

And what a difference a day or two makes! This morning was generally warm and very sunny, leaving me a bit overdressed with legwarmers and carrying a light jacket in my seat bag. I'm sure that all cost me an extra couple of minutes on the climb. Yeah, right! But one thing is obvious. The Sunday rides with my son are a very different affair this year than last. No more idling for me; I can feel those rides in my legs now, which means they're doing me good. He's able to climb at about 91% of my max, and that isn't bad at all, and shifts my legs from idle (last year) to hard drive. I'm looking forward to seeing how much better he's able to play Lacrosse this season.

09/14/09- STARTING THE DAY WITH A VAMPIRE is not my idea of a good time. I never would have made it in the pro ranks, where drug testing involves frequently having blood drawn & tested. Testing, no problem, they'd find nothing interesting. It's the part where they actually draw the blood that would be the problem. I don't pass out, but I have had, in the past, a remarkable ability to collapse my blood vessels when nervous. Thankfully, that didn't happen for my life insurance physical this morning. The guy drawing the blood, Robert, a former cyclist who may have actually raced on the Talbot's team back in 1976, during my last year there, did an excellent job. No issues.

My biggest surprise was my blood pressure. I've got a pretty severe case of "White Coat Syndrome" where I spike my blood pressure when tense or nervous, and there are few places I get more tense or nervous than around any place that draws blood. Plus there's some family history of having to manage blood pressure medically, something I've sought to avoid by trying to stay in reasonable shape... which generally works... except in the doctor's office. Well today, at least I got that demon under some degree of control, coming in at 120/78. Nothing most would write home about, but I've been able to spike up above 150 in the past, so it was a significant victory for me. The most-curious thing was the EKG workup. I didn't fail it, but my usual reasonably-low resting pulse rate was somewhere else this morning, probably partly in anticipation of having the blood drawn, and partly due to having to lie down on a very uncomfortable table in a very uncomfortable (for me) position.

At the end of the exam I asked if I could have a copy of the blood work results when done, which he thought a bit curious, and I'm thinking, this guy was a cyclist and doesn't realize I want to know my hematocrit levels???  :-)

09/13/09- A VERY FULL DAY that started with Burt and I helping out with the annual Foster City bike ride, an 11-mile (the "long" ride, they also have a shorter 2-mile event) ride around town. This isn't the sort of ride people show up for with fancy roadbikes or even lightweight hybrids. Instead we see a collection of fairly basic bikes that haven't seen use, or at least a tire pump, in many, many months. I'd estimate that out of maybe 100 bikes, 90+ were in serious need of air, and when you ask if they have a floor pump with a gauge at home, you get some pretty blank stares. Since this has been a repeating theme the past four years, I think it's time to come up with a web page the ride can reference so the participants know a few basics about bike care. But in the meantime, think of that great upper-body workout pumping all those tires!

And then immediately afterward, I drive home, get dressed and my son and I squeeze in a quick 100k ride (the Woodside/San Gregorio/Pescadero loop), having to get back in time so my son and his sister can head off to a Wheezer/Blink 182 concert at Shoreline. It wasn't all that long ago that planning something like that would be a questionable endeavor, but Kevin's at the point now where I can pretty accurately figure out how long it's going to take him to get from point-A to point-B. Average speed was 14.6mph, about 2mph better than the same ride would have been last year.

At the top of Old LaHonda we came across Sal, the super-duper guy who runs our "secret" soda stop on the Sequoia Century for us, and invited him along for the ride. Actually my motives were somewhat evil; I knew we were likely to hit a good headwind on the run to the coast (which we did) and that Sal would provide a good motor at the front (which he did).

09/10/09- LAUGHS ARE FREE, SO WHY ARE WE SO CONCERNED ABOUT SOMEONE HAVING A LAUGH AT OUR EXPENSE? I consider myself fortunate that I don't have a problem when people get to laugh about something I've done. My goodness, if I had to lead such a perfect and well-ordered life that I never did anything that seemed dumb or inappropriate, how could I have any fun? And if doing something dumb once in a while causes someone else to laugh, what's so bad about that? It costs me exactly nothing for someone else to have a good time. Pride? There's a time and a place for pride, but I think it gets in the way of learning. If we worry too much about having to be "right" all the time, we end up trying to defend the indefensible because we're worried that somebody will realize that we're wrong. On the other hand, if you recognize that it's OK to be wrong about something, that it doesn't mean you're a complete idiot if you can recover (recognize that you're wrong) and learn from it, I think you benefit greatly.

What brings this up? My daughter, Becky, was somehow reminded of Britney Spears and wanted to painfully remind me that I took her to a Britney Spears concert way, way, way back in the day, and she claims I enjoyed it. OK, so??? I believe I even had an early diary entry about it (probably titled "Oops, I did it again"). Sure, Britney Spears isn't my kind of music, but I have to admit that her first couple of albums had a few catchy tunes, and if you're laughing while reading this, great! My own personal tastes run to Progressive English Rock (Procol Harum, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Renaissance), a far cry from Britney's PRIAB (pop rock in a bra). But I was there, it may have been my daughter's first rock concert, and maybe she'll never forgive me for the fact that it wasn't her dad who took her to her first baseball game (it was her Uncle Tom), but at least I was there for her that evening at the Shoreline Amphitheater so many years ago.

09/10/09am- DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES are not what you normally think of when it comes to having fun on a bike, but they're not mutually exclusive. This morning saw Karl & Kevin at the start, with Eric resting in preparation for the Mt. Everest Challenge race this weekend (a two-day hillclimb festival with, you guessed it, enough climbing to top Mt. Everest, all 27k feet of it!). Kevin's doing the Everest event as well, and was initially going to just ride up as far as the park, but Karl and I convinced him that no harm would come if he simply rode at an easy pace up the hill (which is true; if you don't overdo it, it's not the miles that might harm you in the days before a big event, but the intensity of the riding). But at the top of Kings Kevin tried to persuade us to do something different (what, after doing this same ride for 30+ years, you want to do something different???) and head north on Skyline to 92 and then back down to Canada Road. Which would be fine except-

-Except for the likelihood that Millo and Steve, who leave a bit earlier up the hill, would be waiting for us on Skyline near Skeggs, and keep waiting... and waiting... and waiting... for a ride that would never show up! That might be the very small downside to having to be reliable because people are depending upon you. But it really is a small downside, especially compared to the much larger upside, which is the motivation on those days when you might think of slacking off but realize there are others depending upon you being out there. That's not a bad thing, it's a good thing. It keeps you going. And this morning, yes, Kevin went his way, Karl & I went the other and in fact we did link up first with Steve and later with Millo. Would they both still be out there now, waiting for us, if we'd gone the other way? :-)

09/08/09- DAY THREE AND YOU START TO FEEL IT! After a hard ride Sunday over Mount Hamilton (both sides) and a fast ride Monday (Old LaHonda and West Alpine), I was wondering how I was going to hold up to the Tuesday edition of the Tues/Thurs ride. Well, the results are in and it wasn't really pretty! Just Karl & George (really? Am I missing somebody?) at the start, meeting up with Millo and Steve up on top. But getting to the top wasn't easy, taking a good 28 minutes but with an effort that felt like it should have been something much faster. On the other hand, I was able to hold onto Karl's wheel on the run from Kings to Skeggs, something I haven't been able to do for some time now. My guess is that he was being kind to me, but I did actually feel like I could match the accelerations on the climb up from Swett Road. That would be the first time in quite a while!

But after that the day went downhill, and not in the good way it does sometimes on a bike. The shop was closed yesterday for Labor Day, so we got two day's worth of issues all piled into one morning... noon... and afternoon. It just didn't stop! Maybe we got them all out of the way so the rest of the week will go easy!

09/07/09- SLOWLY GETTING FASTER? I had a "free ride" today as my son went off in a different direction, so I did a quick run up Old LaHonda, down to LaHonda and back via West Alpine. I'm still trying to figure out where West Alpine fits in the "pain" scale of local climbs. It's not as nasty as Page Mill, but its relatively-exposed nature on the upper part probably makes it a tougher climb than Tunitas. It's also a lot shorter than it seems- something like 7 miles from where you leave Pescadero Road to the top at Skyline. 7 miles just isn't all that long, especially when you have a couple miles of a very slight grade at the beginning, until you reach the infamous "bridge of death."

Let's take a look at West Alpine, by the numbers. From bottom to top, it's 7.36 miles. The first 1.5 miles are an easy, gradual climb from 469ft to 632ft. Not much at all, until you reach the "bridge of death" at the end of this stretch. From there until mile 4.0 you climb to 1571ft, 900+ feet of climbing in  just 2.5 miles. This stretch ends at the stop sign/intersection where, if you turn right, you head down into Portola State Park (a dead end), go left and you head back up to Skyline. The next 2.5 miles takes you to the peak West Alpine elevation of 2377ft, an 800 foot gain. Not as much as the prior part of the climb, primarily because there are a couple of places where it levels off for a bit. And then you've got a bit less than a mile of gradual descent to Page Mill.

I don't know how fast I used to do Alpine back in the day; probably in the low-30s. Today? 43:13, and I was working it. Even passed up a few people, which isn't as often for me as it used to be. My time up Old LaHonda earlier in the ride was 21:50, a far cry from the 16-something I used to do, many years ago. But in both cases, significantly faster times than I'd been riding earlier in the year, and the scale is showing some evidence that carrying a bit less weight up the hills might not be hurting.

Tomorrow morning on the regular Tuesday/Thursday ride? Who knows. My guess is that I'm going to be just a tad bit tired, but who knows what those guys might con me into doing. Give me a good wheel and I'll follow it to the best of my abilities. We'll see soon enough what those abilities are.

09/06/09- WHY DON'T PEOPLE GO DOWN THE BACK SIDE OF MOUNT HAMILTON and make it a real "out and back" instead of just climbing to the summit? Now I know why!

The original plan was to take Kevin up to the Sierras after work on Saturday, but it was such a wildly busy day (which is a good thing, don't get me wrong!) that I just didn't feel up to a 5-hour late-night drive. So instead we looked for something reasonably tough to do locally, and since it's been two years since Kevin's been up Mount Hamilton, I figured why not, and why not make it just a bit tougher than the time before?

Kevin's improved a lot since that first ride up Mount Hamilton, back in July of 2007. Looking at that diary entry, from 7/08/07, his time up the hill, including a couple of rest stops, was 3 hours, 35 minutes with an average speed of 5.4 miles per hour on the climb. Today? 1 hour, 54 minutes, with an average speed of 9.4 miles per hour. Yes, you could say a bit of an improvement!

At the top we raided the coke & food machine (cokes for $1, payable in dry dollar bills or coins, and granola bars for $.50), chatted with two cyclists (one, Gary, a customer of ours) and then headed down the backside. Now I haven't been down the backside since... well, probably 1976 or so, as part of the Mount Hamilton road race. I recall not liking it then, and I had no reason to like it much better this time! It's a steep twisty road that has you riding your brakes the entire time, and making you wonder what got into your brain that made you think it would be fun climbing out of such a hole! It's almost exactly 2000 ft to the "bottom" (the bottom being the bridge across the typically-dry Isabella Creek), where you turn around and go... up. And up. And up. The backside is nothing like the front side, climbing 2000 ft in about 4.25 miles. Almost 500 ft/mile, so you're running roughly a 10% grade which frequently feels a lot worse.

The total ride figures come to just 47 miles and 6900ft of climbing. I won't say that adding the backside was fun, but it certainly made it a ride worthy of a "tough" billing. And sometimes, that's even better than fun!

09/05/09- FUNNIEST CYCLING YOU-TUBE VIDEO EVER? Maybe not, but for anyone who has ever dreamed of being in the Tour de France (or even if you think bike racing is just plain stupid), this one is pretty hilarious.

09/03/09- SOME RECORDS SHOULDN'T BE BROKEN. In this case, the Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride's record of never having an incident involving law enforcement officers. 30 years of doing this ride and never once pulled over. Until today.

The ride started as badly for me, in terms of speed up the hill, as it was good just two days prior. Kevin, Karl, Billy, Eric & Phil, all able to push the pace through the park a whole lot faster than me. At the top we were joined by Millo & Steve, who'd left earlier. They have more sense then me. Climbing just wasn't in the cards today, but I hung in there and managed to take part in a couple of the sprints, after just barely hang onto wheels heading up that grind from Swett Road to the Skeggs parking lot. After that an uneventful run down 84 to west-side Old LaHonda, and a moderate pace towards Skyline for a little bit before Karl, I think it was Karl, it's usually Karl, started pushing the pace there and split things apart. We regrouped at Skyline for the ride back to 84 & down the hill.

It was heading down towards Sky Londa and making that sharp right-hand turn onto 84 that got us into trouble. Because at the end of that sharp left hand turn is a stop sign, and Phil & Billy were pushing it hard through the corner, making little attempt to slow down. This makes some sense; heading down 35 into that intersection you often have cars on your back and little time to slow down without worrying about them plowing into you from behind. Plus, cars coming across 84 from the coast rarely make much of a stop at Skyline, and if you've got no speed, you're at risk again. But the truth is, I haven't got the guts nor skills anymore to go flying through that corner fast enough to attract the attention of a cop. Billy & Phil do & did.

It became clear that the cop was interested only in those two, not the rest of us, as we stood by watching the (very slow) proceeding.  Billy was cooperative and admitted that he'd screwed up, while Phil decided to debate the officer about the earpieces he (Phil) was wearing while riding. The officer could have written Phil up for wearing earpieces in both ears (legally, you can only do so in one), and Phil was very lucky he didn't talk himself into a citation for that as well. Meanwhile, Karl was fuming and asking why tickets were being written when none of us put anyone in danger and not recognizing that this was not the time or place to try and win that argument. While Karl was engaging the officer, I noticed that a red pickup had just blown through that same stop sign, and told Karl that y'know, if not for the arguing, maybe they could be nailing some of the cars too. Another officer had pulled up by then and overheard this, and within a minute nailed a sedan that had done the same thing.

If this had been a case of our guys slowing way way down but not coming to an absolute stop, or even more absurdly, an officer believing we have to put a foot down at a stop sign, I'd be pretty enraged at having been ticketed. But that wasn't what happened. We screwed up. Yes, that intersection isn't as safe for cyclists as it could be, especially if you come to a near-complete stop before trying to merge into 84. But that's not the officer's call, and as we're one of very few cyclists coming through at that time of day, I don't think there's any specific targeting of cyclists involved here. We just screwed up, that's all.

09/01/09- MAKING A COMEBACK! Much to my surprise, this morning's ride went very well. Yesterday, I had sore muscles in places I didn't know I had muscles, probably from Sunday's ride, but possibly from some sort of very minor little bug that nailed both my kids. But my guess is that the soreness was entirely from Sunday's ride. And then last night I didn't sleep terribly well, so I really wasn't expecting to do well on today's ride.

I was surprised.

It was a small group this morning; myself, Karl, George & Eric, with Millo having ridden on ahead several minutes earlier. Karl & George took it upon themselves to pace me up the hill, and despite my feelings that sore muscles and lack of sleep would hold me back, I pulled off a 26:39 on Kings, 7 seconds faster than last week. Not only that, but I was able to chase down Karl a couple times on the latter parts of the ride, where he often tries to ride off the front ahead of the final sprint. By the time that last sprint came about I was pretty much wasted and had nothing left when George came flying by, but I was not disappointed, not in the slightest. For the first time in quite a while, I felt like I was back, that I could do something on my bike. Truthfully, the credit must go to my son, Kevin, who is now riding strongly enough that I come back from riding with him and really feel like I've been riding. That wasn't the case until pretty recently. I'm thinking I have maybe another year before I have to be concerned about him completely running me into the ground and leaving me for dead. That's a day I'm actually looking forward to.

08/30/09- EXTRA CREDIT? It was billed as an easy-paced fun ride to the coast with some folk from the Junior Velodrome program that Kevin (my son) has done in the past. A run up Old LaHonda, down to San Gregorio and back up Tunitas. And maybe it would have been easy if not Matt, a 13-year-old that weighs about as much as a flea and flies uphill! Kevin did another 23-something up Old LaHonda, but Matt was perhaps two minutes faster. Yikes. At least the steeper middle section of Tunitas slowed him down a bit.

And then there was the dash to the coast. Rob, one of the coaches, put the hammer down organized a high-speed train that took several minutes before anyone else had the courage to try a turn at the front.  In the picture you see what looks like a finely-tuned machine, which it was. Kevin, Claire & Matt, all kids from the track program, along with coach Rob and Matt's dad Mike pushing the pace into the fairly-strong wind coming from the coast (the same wind that, thankfully, has brought us much cooler temperatures!).

But a nice 40 mile ride wasn't going to be enough for Kevin, so after a fairly fast run up Tunitas Kevin and I headed south on Skyline to 84, back down to LaHonda and then up West Alpine before returning to Woodside. A respectable 75 miles with about 7800ft of climbing, enough to hopefully keep Kevin in shape until the big Tour for Woodside 100 miler towards the end of September.

08/28/09- SO HOW DID YOUR DAY START? I'll admit to sometimes being a bit disenchanted with how many hours/week I have to work, and wonder if I'll ever have a 5-day workweek instead of 6+. It comes with the territory of owning a business. On the other hand, being able to ride on Tuesday & Thursday mornings, at a time when most would have to be at work, definitely helps offset that. How do you put a price on being able, twice a week, no matter what, to ride some of the most beautiful roads in the world? And that's what I've been able to do, for 30+ years now. Sure, it might not be good to figure out just how many thousands of times I've ridden that loop, and yet each time is different, each time there's something new to be seen.

Part is ritual; Tuesday & Thursday mornings I get up at precisely 7:05am, get dressed in my cycling clothes and then check the view from the kitchen window to see if I'll need leg warmers or a jacket. Make a bottle of Cytomax, unplug the Garmin computer from the USB port on my workstation, put a few dollar bills, Kaiser card, driver's license and credit card into a plastic baggie, and then a quick check of the computer for any emails telling me not to wait for a regular who can't make it (not that it would matter; at 7:45am on the dot we leave). At 7:30am I'm on my front porch getting on my shoes, gloves & helmet and inflating my tires, after a too-quick look to make sure there are no serious cuts & gashes, and at 7:35 I zero out my two bike computers (yes, two, I have both a Garmin and a Trek Incite 9i that has much bigger/easier to read numbers for speed) and head over Jefferson to the start. Within 30 seconds I have a good read from my legs, which either feel good or... not. And a couple minutes later I know if my heart is responding appropriately when I pour on the gas. That's probably the best indicator of how the ride is going to go. On a good day, my heart rate ramps up smoothly, almost on demand, as I push harder on the pedals. Everything in sync. On a not-so-good day, it's difficult to get the heart rate up, or when you do get it up, it doesn't want to come back down when you back off on the gas. That's the ritual.

But the ride up Kings, south on Skyline to 84, down the backside to west-side Old LaHonda, back up to Skyline and down 84 into Woodside... that's never ritual. Anywhere from 3 to 10 people show up for the ride, and how they feel affects the pacing and dynamics. And beyond that, even subtle changes in the weather (temperature, fog, breeze) all combine to make each ride unique. In fact, one of the ironies is that, the more times you do a ride, the more likely you will recognize the subtle things that make each ride different. Heading down 84 towards the coast, for example, you might have a 3mph tail wind if there's an offshore flow, or a 3mph headwind if it's a cooling breeze from the coast. 3mph. Not much. Could even be less than that, and yet it's plain as night & day to the veterans on our ride.

I've said before that the world goes by at just the right speed when you're on a bike. And every time I ride, whether I'm feeling great or not-so-hot, it's still the same. Each ride a unique experience, each ride something you can look back upon and say, well, at least I did something worthwhile today. Today, helping me with yet another unique and wonderful experience, were Billy, Kevin, Karl, Eric, Steve & Millo.

It's time to ride. Find a way to incorporate a few rides each week on a regular schedule, and make that ride a priority in your life. That reliable thing you look forward to, no matter what. It's always there for you, because you decided that's the way it's going to be. Don't overdo it. If you can reliably only get in one ride a week, then come up with a time for that one reliable ride. Don't pretend that you can ride four days a week and then end up missing a couple, and soon, most. Because soon you'll have no time at all for riding because so many things are able to bump it from your schedule. Like the Nike ad says, Just Do It. And then invite some others to join you. Extra motivation on those few days where you think about sleeping in, but then remember that there may be others out there depending on you to help make their day a little bit better too!

08/26/09pm- CHINA GRADE YOUTUBE VIDEO now up. Kevin after his first time up China Grade in the Santa Cruz mountains, home of the original Bridge of Death. Funny story to filming this one. We didn't want to waste too much time, but this guy who was chasing us up the hill (on a road-modified mountain bike) started chatting... and chatting... and chatting... really nice guy, and I didn't want to be rude and tell him we had to shoot a quick piece of video. That plus you feel a bit like a dork shooting the video, and really don't want an audience. So if Kevin seems a bit more composed and relaxed than you'd think after climbing a nasty hill, the 5 minute delay has something to do with it.

08/26/09- DO WE DO THIS? When I'm out shopping or basically having any experience with a business, I'm always looking for things that, in customer mode, go over well with me, and those that don't. Sometimes, we just don't quite get what our customers like and what annoys them, because we're too close to our businesses and spend too much time rationalizing why we have to do things a certain way. Today's interesting experience comes from, of all places, Taco Bell. I ordered a Chalupa, without onions. Well Chalupas don't come with onions, and the clerk (assistant manager, actually) has to make a point of that in a sort of one-upsmanship sort of way. Why? I ordered something without onions, and it doesn't come with onions. You could nicely tell me don't worry, we don't put onions in a Chalupa, but to act like I should know that a Chalupa doesn't come with onions, or that I should learn that, just hit me wrong somehow. Thinking back on it, she was making a point of the fact that she knows more than me, and wanted to make sure I knew that. But why? I wanted something they had, stock on the shelf as it were, no modifications.

In all likelihood the same thing happens from time to time at the bike shop. Hopefully a bit less often, now that I'm aware of it.

08/25/09- IT WAS A VERY LONG TIME COMING, and I probably have Kevin to thank for the fact that it finally did. This morning, I finally got the "27 minute monkey" off my back. My idea of a decent time up Kings is 26-something, and that was pretty easily attainable (OK, not "easily" but at least predictably) by June. But over the last couple of years it hasn't been so... predictable. It would be easy to dismiss it as just getting slower as I get older, but it's more likely tied to an increasing number of Sunday rides done with my son, at slower speeds and shorter distances than I'd do with "the guys." But that was then, this is now. Kevin is capable of long, hard rides now, hard enough that I feel like I've been riding afterward, if you know what I mean. Hard enough that they're actually helping to get me into shape, a turning point that happened sometime in the last couple of months.

And so this morning, with some pacing help from Karl & Billy, I climbed Kings in 26:47. Hardly a stellar time, but something I can live with, something that says I'm in OK shape again.

Joining me on the climb were Billy, Carl, Eric, George and new-guy Phil. I'm leaving at least one person out here, darn. Millo and Steve had ridden on ahead and joined us at the top of Kings. It was one of those San Francisco summer type of mornings, with cooler temps, fog & drizzle, such that I wasn't overdressed with leg warmers and a base layer. New-guy Phil seems plenty strong enough and I look forward to a new wheel to try and hold onto in the future!

08/23/09- WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES. This time last year, Kevin (my son) was doing 100k rides, and getting stronger towards... well, about this time. In fact it was on 8/31/08 that I predicted Kevin would be doing his first 100 miler this summer, which came true two weeks ago. And looking at his times for the local climbs, those have improved by a good 10% since then as well. So it should come as no surprise that our ride out to Boulder Creek (via Redwood Gulch and Highway 9) and back up China Grade on the return wasn't all that tough for him. After all, it was just 88 miles and only 8200ft of climbing. This time, fueled by lots of Cytomax (the new Pomegranate-Berry flavor is great), a coke at the top of Highway 9 on the way out, and a Mountain Dew and Turkey sandwich in Boulder Creek.

Kevin no longer slows down as the miles pile on; in fact, it takes him about an hour or so to really get into the ride (this morning being no exception, as it sounded like he wasn't wanting to get onto the bike at all, complaining about allergies and homework he hadn't gotten around to. It was 10:30 by the time we finally got out the door, and began winding our way through to foothills to Cupertino on the same back roads I used for training 35 years ago. It wasn't until the challenge of Redwood Gulch, with its super-steep pitches, that he really got into the ride. And China Grade, home of the original "Bridge of Death?" Almost easy for him. In case you're unfamiliar with the "Bridge of Death" concept, it has to do with gnarly climbs which often have a creek crossing right at their base.

One helpful discovery was the coke machine at the Saratoga Gap ranger's station (also known as the Saratoga Gap fire station; they're one and the same), on Skyline just north of the intersection with Highway 9. It takes both coins and dollar bills, and costs just a dollar! There's also water available, but today it was a Pepsi that hit the spot.

08/20/09- OUCH, THAT HURT! Yesterday's long walk to work took its toll on my legs, which made the climb through the park that much more painful. Pretty large group this morning, with Billy, Kevin, Karl, Eric, Steve, Mike (who doesn't ride with us very often but is very strong) and an un-named friend of Kevin's (he actually had a name, which I don't recall, but he only rode part of the way up Kings with us).

Truthfully, the hard part through Huddart Park didn't seem as bad as usual, perhaps because this was one of those very rare times when the gate at the entrance off Greer was open for us, so we didn't have to stop and cyclocross through it. There's something about momentum, or maybe just not stopping. I was pretty gassed by the top of Kings, just barely managing to keep Eric in sight, and don't even know what my time was because I'd forgotten to start the clock. Overall a pretty face-paced ride from beginning to end, with a brief interlude of sanity on the west-side 84 descent. 16.5mph average speed, which is a bit more like a Tuesday ride than a Thursday, and I'm feeling it this afternoon as I type!

08/19/09- I THINK I GOT MAD AS HELL AND DECIDED NOT TO TAKE IT ANYMORE this morning. It was the first day of school at Woodside, and my son had my wife DRIVE him to school instead of ride, because it was going to be too inconvenient on the first day to deal with all his bike stuff.  ???!!!  That set me off on the wrong foot; yet one more not-needed trip by car (two actually, since somebody's going to have to pick him up). Instead of punching a whole in a wall, I decided to walk the three miles to work instead of drive. Time usually doesn't allow that, but today it did. Walking is interesting; not something I really enjoy doing (the world goes by at just the right speed on a bike!) but made the most of it. I always have my camera with me, and tried to notice things I normally don't, most of them not bike-related.

But as I neared the shop, I thought hey, why not detour a bit and check out the bike facilities nearby? And the UGLY results are shown in the link below.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ChainReactionBicycles/SequoiaStationWholeFoodsBikeFacilities#

And please, SOMEBODY tell me why a 15 minute car parking space has a GREEN curb. Aren't those short trips for small quick things the most-inefficient-possible use of a car? And the easiest to substitute a bike for? And yet we cater the most-convenient parking for exactly that purpose. I've forwarded this on to our local RCBIKEPED group and hopefully will get some ideas on how to make things better.

08/18/09- I KEPT THE SECRET, BUT IT DIDN'T TAKE LONG FOR EVERYONE TO REALIZE that Todd was out for a good time this morning! Yesterday, Todd had mentioned he was going to do our regular ride one last time before heading back to SoCal for school, and he was going to do it "for time." About 23 minutes worth of time, which would be a pretty fast run up Kings Mtn. One heck of a lot faster than I can manage. Todd and I were hoping that George would get in the game and we'd have a real battle up the hill, not that anyone else would be around to see it in the end.

But George didn't show! We did get Chris, and Kevin (not my son Kevin, who was supposed to ride but decided, big surprise, that he'd rather sleep in on his last day before school), and Steve and Karl. But even Chris wasn't in a playful mood, so Todd, as he took off hard at the bottom of the hill, just kind of rode away from us. In fact, the other guys were taking it downright easy this morning, leaving me hanging off the front (instead of my customary spot off the back). Todd ended up with just over 23 minutes for the climb, while I labored in about 4 minutes later, with Karl close behind. Of course, at the halfway point, Karl wasn't anywhere in sight... not even at the wide open area about a mile and a half from the top. He'd obviously closed a very large gap in a very short period of time. No surprise there!

08/16/09- NOT QUITE THE RIDE I DID LAST SUNDAY, as Todd and I did a relatively-short 55 mile route, heading south through the foothills, up Redwood Gulch (ouch!) & 9, then north on Skyline. Kevin was supposed to come, but didn't feel great this morning. Like I said, a far cry from last Sunday, when Kevin and I rode 111 miles! But I felt fortunate just to be on a bike at all, after Friday night/Saturday morning dealing with what might have been a very bad reaction to scallops. I'd had issues with scallops many years ago, but figured why not try them again, see if whatever it was about them that caused severe nausea (and worse) might have gone away. Perhaps not! Whatever the case, I'm on my feet, better yet, on the bike and not flying anywhere for a while.

08/15/09- GOOD TO BE BACK IN CALIFORNIA! We tend to forget just how good we have it here, but there were plenty of people reminding us last week, when the Senior Olympics games were in town (out on Canada Road actually), bringing in cyclists from all over the country. Amazing to hear them all take about how great the roads are here, and how wide the shoulders and nice the car drivers are.

The trip to TrekWorld in Wisconsin, where we learned about all the latest & greatest in cycling, actually focused just as much on advocacy issues, and featured an afternoon & evening with Jim Oberstar, Chairman of the House Transportation Committee, and cycling's greatest supporter in congress.

08/13/09- KARL'S RIDE REPORT WHILE MIKE'S AWAY IN WISCONSIN EATING BRATS & CHEESE-  Mike,
You missed a perfect temperatured and pleasantly dry morning, through the park, leisurely.  Steve and Milo were awaiting us at the top of Kings and since Keenan, Eric, Billy, Sil and I were all together, it was a gentle non-stop roll on. 

I think it was Billy that got the conversation heading towards politics and religion at which point the riding further slowed.  I tried to get around Billy and Kevin on the right just as Kevin veered into me to avoid an back coming car.  This forced me to exercise my CX skills for a few feet, no physical contact was made.  Further down the road, I was in 2nd wheel behind Eric, only to have Steve come from behind to take the Skylonda sprint handily.

At the Skylonda regroup, I almost rear ended Milo who stopped abruptly after his lens popped out and onto the road, whew that was close and a sharp stop.  After a mostly leisure WOLH climb, I allowed Steve to lead a bit just before the trees, only to crush his dreams of winning the hilltop sprint.  Only 4 of us went on to finish at Olive Hill, with me again coming around Steve for the win.  While the cat is away, the mice can play!

See you next week and I expect a full report of Trek developments,
kbe

08/11/09- MIXED RESULTS FOR KEVIN'S FIRST TUESDAY/THURSDAY RIDE & BREAKFAST- Once every few years, we combine our Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride with breakfast at Alice's Restaurant at Sky Londa. It works out very nicely, ince we pass Alice's twice on our ride, first after descending from Kings to Sky Londa, before heading down to west-side Old LaHonda, and then again after climbing west-side Old LaHonda before descending into Woodside. It takes about 25 minutes to do that part of the ride, so we stop at Alice's, order breakfast, do the loop and then when we're back breakfast is ready! But we had a bit of fun before getting to that part of the ride.

Since "ridership" up (check out the photo on the left, and keep in mind that's after we lost a few who had to leave early) and we're seeing a bit more stratification in terms of climbing abilities, last week I started splitting it up into an A & B group, the B group leaving 6 minutes earlier for the trip up the hill (Kings Mtn, a 1600ft climb in 4.34 miles). I sent Kevin (my son, not older pilot Kevin) on ahead in the B group while I struggled to keep the A guys in sight. Kevin's climbing has improved immensely; I can climb about 1000 meters (just a bit over 3000 ft)/hour, and he's probably now up to 850 or so, maybe just a tad bit more. In theory, he should be getting to the top ahead of me.

And he would have, except that 3/4 of the way up the hill I come across a group of four of our faster guys at the side of the road, and there's Kevin, lying on the ground. Now for most people, seeing their son lying on the ground would seem to be a pretty alarming sight, but with his epilepsy it's just one of those things. One of those preventable things in this case; he hadn't taken his morning meds because this was a "breakfast" ride so Kevin figured he'd take his meds then. Apparently the 16 year old brain hasn't changed much in the 37 years since I had one.

After a few minutes Kevin was fine and back on the bike, and continued the rest of the ride without incident. He would have had a killer time up Kings if not for the unscheduled 5-minute stop!

It was interesting riding with him in our regular group, making sure he understood how pacelines work, that gaps need to be closed, and that you have to make sure, when you go from seated to standing on a climb, or vice versa, that you keep your speed steady and don't drop back into the wheel behind you. The funny thing there is that, as I was explaining this to Kevin, one of the not-completely-regular guys (who shall go nameless here) stood up and lost so much speed on the climb to Skeggs that he just about took me out. This was noticed, humorously, by the guy next to me.

08/09/09- IS KEVIN THE HUMAN BUMBLEBEE? (his first 100 mile ride) The old saying, proved wrong some time ago, is that a Bumblebee can't possibly fly because its wings aren't large enough and don't flap fast enough to provide enough lift for its massive body. Obviously Bumblebees do fly; turns out their wings create some sort of dynamic stall or some-such that explains it all. But what's more-difficult to explain is how Kevin, my 16-year-old son, who's built more like a weight lifter than a typical cyclist, managed to pull off a 111-mile ride today.

It started out with a simple concept- ride until you can't, and then get a sag home. The route was the classic Santa Cruz via the coast and back Highway 9 & Skyline. You know the drill; head out over Old LaHonda, Haskins to Pescadero, Cloverdale to the coast, on to Santa Cruz, up highway 9 and then north on Skyline and down into Woodside. I used to do it frequently, back in the day. Kevin's longest ride so far had been a bit over 80 miles on the Tour de Max a couple years ago, and we thought it might be time to push that just a bit. My guess is that we'd make it up to Skyline and then head down the other side of 9 into Saratoga for the pick-up.

Kevin rode pretty strongly up Old LaHonda, and really didn't have any issues at all all the way out to Davenport, where we ate lunch at the Whale City Bakery, an excellent stop for cyclists. From there it was south into Santa Cruz and up the busy & narrow Highway 9 to our next stop at a Boulder Creek grocery store, since Kevin was desperate for a Mountain Dew. Nothing else would "do" at the moment. Only to find that the two primary grocery stores in town have gone "healthy" and no longer offered such vile things as Coke or Mtn Dew (although curiously one of them sold "Monster" which has got to be about the most-unhealthy drink on the planet!). Thankfully the gas station across the street did the Dew.

For the most part, Kevin was fueled by Cytomax, lots and lots of Cytomax. It was pretty warm so there was strong incentive to keep drinking, and Cytomax just seems to be the most-amazing ride drink I've come across. Drink enough of it and you simply don't get cramps and can generally ride for up to 100k without food, just Cytomax. But sometimes you just want a Coke, or a Mountain Dew. Maybe because it's 95+ degrees out and an ice-cold drink just feels so good in your hand. Whatever the case, that Mountain Dew, and the fun of watching the miles on the computer tick off towards that magic "100" number, kept him going. That and yet another Coke up on Skyline, since the hot dog stand vendor was still there when we arrived!

Skyline itself blew by. Kevin got his second, third or fourth wind up there and started feeling better with each mile. We made one final call to my daughter from Sky Londa, telling her we wouldn't be needing her sag services, and finished with 111.6 miles, about 8500ft of climbing and an average speed of 14.7 mph. Not bad at all for his first 100-mile ride! See his near-end-of-ride youtube interview here.

08/07/09- CHANGE FOR NEXT-TUESDAY'S RIDE! Two changes actually. First, we're getting a bit broader participation in terms of the speed of riders, so we're going to have an "A" and "B" group. Anyone riding up the hill over 30 minutes rides in the "B" group and leaves from Olive Hill & Canada road promptly at 7:39am. The "A" group will leave at 7:45, as usual. This should give enough of a head start that the earlier folk should be able to get to the top of Kings before the faster riders, and if the earlier group is intact at the top, they'll continue on to Sky L'onda without waiting for the fast guys. At a good, steady pace, who knows, they might not be caught until the re-group at Sky L'onda!

The other change, and this will be a one-time-only, is that this Tuesday will be a "breakfast" ride. We're going to pull into Alice's at Sky L'onda, order breakfast, then ride the west-side Old LaHonda loop and return to Alice's, where breakfast should be ready for us! So allow yourself a bit more time than usual, figuring we might not get back to the start until a bit after 10am.

08/06/09- RAIN???!!! Not much choice this morning as to which bike to take; my "rain" bike was still at the shop, still awaiting repairs to the left shift lever that United Airlines managed to destroy. Hard to believe I get up and look out at wet roads. In August. Which isn't entirely unknown; it was August about 35 years ago that a friend of mine and I did a week-long ride through Northern California and Lake Tahoe, and on the first day of the trip, we left in a pouring rain, a dumping that didn't stop until we got to San Francisco. So yes, it can rain in August. It's just not supposed to!

Not many this morning; the usual suspects having considered that it made more sense to wait for a couple hours until the sun came out. At the start it was just myself, Kevin (older pilot Kevin), Colin (whose first ride with us was Tuesday) and Miles, a young first-timer who's pretty new to road bikes but will probably soon be showing us that you don't have to be experienced to climb fast. We took it pretty easy going up the hill, meeting up with Steve and Millo at the top. The roads didn't feel too bad, but I should have known better; the combination of relatively light rain (not enough to wash to crud off) and the accumulation of dirt & oil over the past several months since it had last rained can equal a pretty deadly combination and, in fact, I had my rear wheel slide out from me maybe half a foot or so on the descent to west-side Old LaHonda!

Heading back to Sky L'onda from Old LaHonda I came across an interesting sight. On the opposite side of the road, standing in a driveway, was what at first I thought was a very large deer. But it wasn't a deer, it was a huge goat! And somehow, in that very brief period of time when you're assembling an image, I'm imagining where I've seen something like this before and that it was probably one of those things in a movie where you unexpectedly come across some large animal, perhaps a goat, with glowing red eyes and horns (and yes, this guy had horns) and is a messenger of evil bad things. Thankfully nothing lived up to that vision!

08/04/09- FINALLY FELT GOOD AGAIN! After three days of, well, processing food a bit too quickly, I finally went to sleep last night without a stomach that constantly growled and grumbled, and woke up feeling pretty darned good. A bit weakened, but also a bit lighter. Enough lighter that I got comments about looking leaner than I've been for a while (making me wonder if they thought I looked fat before? Dumb question, I know the answer to that one).

Karl, Eric, Kevin (not pilot Kevin, who's visiting a friend in Colorado), Billy, George & Syl, plus Colin, a first-timer who hadn't been sufficiently scared off by my warnings when he asked about our ride at the shop. Thankfully the guys weren't looking to set any records this morning and rode at a relatively-civil pace, while Colin bettered his previous personal best on Kings by three minutes (getting down to about 31 minutes this morning). At the top we were joined by Steve & Millo, while Kevin & Billy peeled off and headed back home. Something about that work thing, I think.

Beautiful morning, felt warmer than the 55 degrees my computer said up on Skyline. As much as I love riding in France, I'll take the weather here!

08/02/09- IT FINALLY HAPPENED. MY SON RODE ME INTO THE GROUND. With a little bit of help; I've been dealing with a mild stomach issue that's kept me from "processing" food correctly for the past couple of days, so I wasn't on top of my game. Nevertheless, today's moderately-tough ride (Old LaHonda, Pescadero, San Gregorio, Tunitas... you know the ride) had me on the ropes on the upper part of Tunitas when Kevin got his second or third wind and decided to take off. He hammered that upper stretch; I don't recall seeing the speed dip below 13mph and it was usually up around 15-16. 53 minutes, 33 seconds from Highway 1 to the top. Sure, on the steeper middle section of the climb I could have ridden away from him (not easily, but could have) but I was hanging onto that wheel for the last couple of miles. Of course I didn't tell him that at the time; I didn't even suggest that he turn it down a bit if he didn't want to blow up (a good way to not lose face).

I think he's ready for Sonora Pass. Question is, am I?

07/30/09- I'M BACK, AND OBVIOUSLY WAY BEHIND! But I'll begin with this morning's regular Tuesday/Thursday ride, my first in a couple weeks. I was a bit apprehensive since I haven't been on a bike since Saturday (the ride up Ventoux). After a night of very little sleep I found myself surprisingly lively on the bike. It may be because I wasn't riding a bike that would fishtail in the corners; in France, I was pretty heavily weighed down with a seatpost rack carrying a large bag often filled with quite a bit of "spare" water, a backpack with camera gear and a handlebar bag. Getting back on my nice bike with its lighter wheels, nicer frame and none of that extra weight, well it just felt fast!

Karl, Kevin, Eric, Billy, other Kevin all there at the start, where I was told Steve had taken a head start up the hill about 10 minutes earlier. We rode through the park and I didn't protest this time, thinking that it might be fun trying something steep without all the extra baggage. And I was right, it did feel a whole lot better. The other guys hung back a bit, taking it easy, but I just kept going, hoping not to blow up. And, surprisingly, I didn't!

At the top I found Steve waiting and the two of us continued on Skyline, managing to keep the rest of the group away until the mandatory regroup at Sky Londa. From there we had a fairly casual ride the rest of the way. Not a bad homecoming.

07/28/09- UNITED OFFERS US THE BEST-DEAL EVER! And we turned it down.

We began the day waiting, a bit longer than expected, for the AirFrance bus that stops just a couple hundred yards (OK, meters) from our hotel. No problem, I'd allowed enough time in the schedule to deal with traffic delays and the need to get to CDG (the main Paris airport) early enough to deal with the ridiculously-inefficient manner it's operated. And it helped that my minimal status with United gets me into a much-shorter and faster-moving check-in line.

The bad news? As was the case leaving the US, we were being charged $200 per bike (as expected). OK, I knew it was coming, just the way it is. And then she told us our flight was oversold and offered us something no sane person would turn down. Instead of flying out today, take the same flights tomorrow, upgraded to business class (instead of economy), they'd put us up in a hotel, and give us $800 in travel vouchers!!! How could I refuse? Unfortunately, pretty easily. It was 1am back home so I wasn't able to call my wife and ask if it was OK, and I knew that she'd already been wearing out a bit from all the time she'd had to spend at the shop while I was gone. Plus, I tend to stick to the plan. There were reasons for having the plan in the first place, and it was time to come home. Realistically, this was the ultimate lose-lose scenarion. Why? Because if we took United up on their very generous offer, my wife wouldn't have been too happy about our delay getting home. And not taking United up on their very generous offer, she'll insist that we're stupid and should have done so, that it wouldn't have been a problem because things were going fine.

My son wasn't very happy with me, but I have to admit, when we arrived in San Francisco and saw the cooling fog coming over the hills and my daughter waiting for us, I think I made the right decision.

07/27/09- A DAY THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN A HIGHPOINT OF THE TRIP that ended up being wasted. I'd made on-line reservations to do a tour of the Normandy D-Day landing sites run by the Caen Memorial, which entailed a two-hour train ride from Paris. This was a deliberately-added day to our trip just for this reason, something my son really wanted to see. So we arrive in Caen and navigate a not-so-intuitive bus system to get to the Memorial and find... that they have a record of our payment but not a reservation for the tour. ??? I figure this can't be that bad, certainly they can find a way to get us on one of their tour buses. But it takes them 40 minutes to scratch their various heads, wonder how this could have happened, admit that it did (a mistake their computer made) and tell us sorry, we can't be accommodated. I find this pretty unbelievable but there's not much I can do about it, although I make my case that not only have we lost a day but also paid for train tickets out there. It was a classic case of someone just not getting it... I explained we were leaving France the next day, and she kept asking, several times, if we couldn't come back tomorrow, as if you can just call up an airline and tell them to reschedule your flight (which, of course, you can... you pay a $150 change fee per ticket, plus the difference in price between what you paid for your ticket and the current walk-up price, so the total would have come to about $1000 for each of us). In the end they credited us for the train tickets as well, and we did get to spend some time in their very interesting museum, and had an excellent lunch at their restaurant. But it was a real crime that we didn't get to see what we came for. 

07/26/09(pm)- IS THE FINALE IN PARIS WORTH THE EFFORT? Tough call. I think it's something everyone has to experience at least once, but it is so crowded that I'm not convinced anymore that it makes sense to watch the actual race itself on the street. In the future, I think a better plan would be to watch the race from the TV in your hotel room, and then afterward make your way down to the finishing area and try to get close to the podium area and then watch the teams do their lap of honor afterward. Since this would be considerably less-taxing than hanging out all day in the sun, you could then hang out an hour later at the top of the Champ Elysees, at the Arc d Triomphe, and collect autographs from the many riders heading back to their hotels, wearing their backpacks and looking relieved, even relaxed, now that three weeks of racing is over.

07/26/09(am)- ANOTHER TRAVEL DAY as we get up not-that-early (about 7:30am) in Avignon and finish loading up the car, transporting people and stuff to the train station and then set off to find a gas station to fill the rental car's tank. Which, in the area of the Avignon train station, becomes an impossibly-difficult task because the gas stations in the area are all automated, and automated gas stations don't take US-type credit cards! So eventually I find time running out and give up, returning a car with a half-full tank and dreading whatever ridiculous charge that will incur, and board the train to Paris.

The petty-darned-fast train to Paris, that is! I remember that we have our Garmin GPS units with us so I get it out, turn it on and find that we're generally doing about 189 miles per hour. Not bad. In some areas it slows down to 160 or so, but it seems so much slower. Go figure.

The arrival at Paris Gare de Lyon train station was a disaster, because out train ran a few minutes late so we ended up having two trains arriving on adjacent platforms at once. OK, lots and lots of people, but we're generally moving forward. And then everything stops. Dead. What the heck is going on??? Someone senses the frustration and replies, without being asked, that the issue is kids returning from summer camp in Paris and indeed, as we're trying to push forward inch by inch by inch we come across camp counselors at each entrance to our recently-unloaded train, saying good-bye, farewell, hope to see you soon, and whatever else it is that takes an interminable amount of time until you finally check the kid off your list and move on to the next one.

Eventually we get through the mess and walk outside the station, turn left, and voila, we're at our hotel, the Mercure Gare Lyon! Booking this hotel was one of the smarter things I've done, since it basically eliminated a nasty transfer (any transfer with as much "stuff" as we're carrying, including two bikes, is nasty!). The hotel itself is adequate in terms of its condition, a bit run down (stains on the carpet, a fridge that didn't work) but the staff is wonderful and that more than makes up for it. A bunch of really nice decent people, always smiling, happy to help out.

07/25/09- VENTOUX WAS UNREAL, as always. What's it like being way up high on a mountain that stands alone, a mountain where the trees give way to white rock that gives a false appearance of snow permanently capping it, a mountain that threatens to collapse under the weight of many hundreds of thousands of people, more than I've seen even on Alpe d'Huez?

It's got to be one of the most-unreal experiences imaginable. The sun burns, but it's cold at the same time. The ride up is one of relentless steep grade, but when you ride it, you have a choice for how hard, and if or when to stop. What the races go through boggles the mind.

We planted ourselves almost directly across from the Tom Simpson memorial, seen in the left side of this photo. On the right we have the two brothers, Andy & Frank, with Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong firmly attached to their rear wheels. This was the last chance to rearrange the top-3 positions, but nobody cracked. In a couple days I'll have a chance to get pictures up from the various days we were there, including the finale in Paris. For now, it's 1:19am, got another early morning tomorrow, time to try and get some sleep after a shower to get rid of that icky feeling you get from being around too many people smoking. Yes, in France, people still smoke. --Mike--

07/25/09- GIVE ME SOME TIME; GOT A SEVEN IMPOSSIBLE THINGS TO DO BY NOON and it's already 8pm, yikes! But yes, we rode Ventoux, it was awesome, my son did just fine and stayed out of the smallest chainring on his triple (he's trying to convince me that a compact crank will work fine for him, and after today, I'm inclined to believe that might be true). An incredible race, and I managed to keep updated on it via my iPhone and Cyclingnews.com. Yes, it works, even at the top of Ventoux!

07/24/09- ONE OF THOSE BAD TRAVEL DAYS that fortunately ended on a high note! To start off the morning, we had to figure out how to put too much stuff into too small a car. Basically we ended up having to ditch the bike boxes we have put inside our bike bags (extra protection), and even then we had Rick & Jeff, some guys we know whom we encouraged to come and see the TdF, carry the bags to Avignon (where both of our groups were staying).

Getting to Avignon was a series of wrong turns and a rapidly-developing hatred for anything having to do with Grenoble. The roads into and out of and through (are there any that go through?) Grenoble just don't make sense. Maybe it's just me. But I'm sure we added an hour our two for going the wrong direction for a while, and then had another hour tacked on for an unreal traffic jam near the city of Valence.

But we finally did arrive in Avignon, found our hotel (an Ibis this time, one step up from an Etap, but truthfully I don't see a whole lot of difference, certainly not in room size anyway!) and settled quickly in. We're risking everything by having the bikes stay in the car, but there just isn't enough room in the room, and the bikes are pretty filthy after yesterday's ride in the rain. In fact, a pre-ride inspection tonight revealed a slit tire (mine) that had to be replaced, and some embedded glass in Kevin's tire that likely would have caused a puncture had he kept riding on it.

Tomorrow is the big day. I mean BIG day, and not just for the Tour de France. Mont Ventoux overshadows everything. It's bigger than I remember it being. It's HUGE! But by this time tomorrow we should have found a way to tackle it, which primarily involves finding a route that's not yet closed off to cars that gets us close to Bedoin. Crossing my fingers!

07/23/09- DOES SPAIN STILL HAVE A KING? And if so, could his name be anything other than Contador?

We have seen from Alberto Contador an incredible display of what it takes to be the best stage racer in the world. He smashed the efforts of the best time-trial specialists in the world, cementing his almost-certain victory in this year's Tour de France.

He climbs, he time trials, he apparently can do just about anything but a killer sprint. Who knows, maybe that will develop at some point, but for winning the overall title, it generally isn't a requirement.

My son and I started the day with a fairly easy ride from Albertville to Annecy, via the Ugine bike trail (a converted former rail line). It's a nearly-perfect route for cycling except for the double-sided barricades at each street crossing, designed so you can slip a bicycle through but not a car. Trouble is, when you're loaded down with all manner of gear, your bike doesn't handle like a Ferrari, it's closer to how you imagine a dump truck takes corners, so at each of these gates I'm having to squirm my way through while my son just rides through a decent speed. Which means what, exactly? Which means that, when we got into a high-speed paceline, I'm struggling to try and keep up, and eventually get dropped. Yes, I'm dropped, by my son, unable to get up enough speed to get back onto the back of the paceline!

We set up about 3km from the finish line, and kept track of what was going on via emails from Burt, one of our employees who was up at whatever ridiculous hour watching the entire coverage, and updates from cyclingnews.com. Not as easy to do as I'd hoped; the local 3G network was saturated so I kept getting errors until I finally got smart and turned 3G off. Slower data transmission, but at least you get something.

Getting something. Well one of the themes of this trip has been getting rained on, and today was no exception. The first weather reports said it was going to begin to rain at 5pm, then later changed to 1pm. Well we arrived at about 1pm under near-perfect conditions. A few clouds, not too hot, nothing threatening. I think it was about 4pm or so when we felt the first raindrops, and maybe 4:30 or so and it started coming down pretty heavy, complete with thunder and hail. Fortunately we were taking pictures underneath the cover of a tree (partly because we wanted to stay out of the sun as much as possible, since we'd forgotten sunscreen... dumb!). And by the time Lance, the Schleck brothers and Contador came around, things had dried up. So we nixed "Plan B" which would have involved taking the train back from Annecy to Albertville, in favor or riding around the other side of the lake and back down to Albertville.

Plan B probably should not have been shelved. Within 10 minutes it started to rain, and a few minutes later it was dumping hard. Warm rain, fortunately; you could easily pretend you were in Hawaii. We just kept on riding; what else could you do? And in the end, we still got back to our hotel just as the train we would have come in on arrived in Albertville! 62 mile day, with many more stories that what's told here. Lots to do when I get back and have a bit more time!  --Mike--

07/22/09- THE PASS WITH NO NAME? Today wasn't going to be particularly long, but it did have some potential to be particularly hard. The numbers didn't add up; somehow, you figure if it's only 30k from Albertville to Col des Saisies, so how hard can it be? It started out easily enough, on D925, a fairly busy but quite scenic road that heads from Albertville to Beaufort. We decided to take the back-way in, thinking that Tour de France traffic was going to clog up the '218 (the actual climb the 'Tour was using), and from our vantage point way up high, we were right! The difficulty was in getting to that vantage point.

You can see my son Kevin looking at the road info sign at the base of the climb, and wondering just what we're going to be doing. It's a squiggly little road on the map called D123. I'm thinking of it as a Jr. Ventoux. About 10k of climbing at mostly 8.5-10% grade, with a few "easy" stretches at 6-7%. And because it's so darned steep, your speed is pretty darned slow, below that magical 7mph threshold at which flies decide you're something more fun to bother than a cow.

And then the rain. I should know better; I have lots of experience with higher-altitudes bringing unpredictable weather, and today was no exception. The weather report... why did I bother to check? It said such nice things that I left my jacket and leg warmers and long-fingered emergency gloves back at the hotel. Thankfully, I forgot to remove Kevin's waterproof jacket from his seat bag, and he made very good use of it when, about 3/4 of the way up D123, it started to rain. And get a whole lot colder. OK, but we're climbing so it's not that bad, right? Except that D123 overshoots the top of the Col du Saisies, so you have to drop down about 2 kilometers. In the cold rain. A bunch of cyclists were huddled into a small bus stop, but why? It didn't look like it was going to stop anytime soon, might as well get down the hill and get it over with. I looked around for any newspapers to stuff under my jersey (like the pros do to keep warm on the descents) but found nothing; the only thing I had, which I used, was my plastic map case from my handlebar bag. Better than nothing!

The rain delayed our arrival just enough that we caught the very tail end of the caravan passing through as we pulled up, kids waving their big green PMU hands gleefully in our direction. Initially we set out in search of a sporting goods store with warm, dry stuff. Guess it's a good thing we didn't find one, because within an hour it had warmed up substantially and, while the sun hadn't come out, it did stop raining just before the race came through.

No great photos from the race this day; I was more concerned about keeping the camera from getting wet and didn't get a chance to set up very well before they came through. We did accomplish one thing though- after the race went by, we were able to quickly head back to Albertville in time to see the last 45 minutes of the race on TV.

Tomorrow and easy ride to Annecy to see the all-important final time trial! From that I should get some good pictures.

07/21/09- Live from the Tour de France!

Look at the expressions and imagine what's going on in their minds & bodies as they approach the top of today's (Tuesday, July 21st) final climb, the Col du Petite Saint Bernard.

Only Alberto Contador (in yellow) appears to be at peace.

Today my son and I rode from Bourg Saint Maurice to the top of the Col du Petite Saint Bernard, and then down the other side a couple of kilometers to a good viewing point. Along with maybe a hundred thousand others, most by bike, some by car (having arrived a day ahead of time, before the roads were closed) and many, unbelievably, having walked a very long distance.

It's not the bike itself that's so special, it's what you can do with it. It could be taking it to France to ride the same passes as the Tour de France travels, and then watching them do it three times faster. It could be leaving a car in the garage and discovering that commuting to work not only saved a bunch of money, but made you feel a whole lot better to. Maybe it's trying to beat your best time up Old LaHonda.

But for me, today, it was all about a shared experience with my son, in a land where bikes seem to be King. --Mike--

07/20/09- TODAY WAS A GOOD DAY TO BE ON A BIKE! Today we made the trip to Alpe d'Huez, where Kevin got to meet the giant demon that has meant so much to the Tour de France in recent history. A beautiful day for a ride, maybe a bit warm at the floor of the valley but cooling off nicely about halfway up the climb. I had warned Kevin about the initial mile at the bottom, that nasty straight stretch that makes you wonder what you've gotten yourself into. But he quickly developed a rhythm and just got right to it, never stopping, enjoying the sights, passing as many as passed him on the way up. Not a speed demon yet; at 1 hour 32 minutes for the climb, Contador doesn't have to worry. But the important thing is that he had fun. In fact, at one point he turned to me, on a steep pitch, and said something like "It makes no sense, but this is fun!"

Lots of other cyclists out today, as it was a Tour de France "rest" day (no stage). Looked like the Col du Glandon was an especially popular destination, as we parked our car near the base of that climb (in the town of Allemond) and rode into Bourg d'Oison from there. Tomorrow's plans have changed; originally we were going to take the train up the valley to the base of the final big climb of the stage, ride up, watch them near the top (from the other side) and then ride back to the hotel. Trouble is, that would be a 65 mile ride starting at 6pm or so, and we've got another big ride the next morning. New plan is to drive the car up the valley and get as close to Bourg St Maurice (where the race finishes) as possible, then ride up the climb. Shortens the ride to 40 miles or so but gets ride of the unknown factors (we don't know what the 34 miles between our hotel in Albertville and Bourg St Maurice is like) and the potential long ride in the dark.

07/19/09- DIDN'T HEAR BACK FROM EUROPCAR but rented a different car from them anyway. Something about the enemy you know is better than the enemy you don't know. The trick was to find a reasonably-close Europcar location that was actually open for normal business today, and that wasn't easy. Finally found one in Grenoble, about 60 miles away, so we combined a bike & train trip to get there. I came up with a very nice 30 mile ride that kept us almost completely off busy roads, favoring meandering routes through small villages with great views.

Because we had to take care of the car gig, we missed out on what may have been the deciding stage of the 'TdF, the climb up to Verbier, which saw Alberto Contador put the hammer down and ditch everyone, including Lance. Tomorrow is the tour "rest" day, but for us, the plan is to drive back down towards where we rented the car (something a bit silly about that) and ride up Alpe d'Huez. But before doing that, we of course did our mandatory night run through town looking for food and laundromats!

07/18/09- MY DESPERATE PLEA TO EUROPCAR. "I held a valid reservation, #XXXXXXXXX, for picking up a car today (July 18th) in Chambery. My email from Europcar specifies pickup at 4pm today, and the Europcar site said the ofice would be open. Today, when I arrived, desperately needing the car, the office was closed, with a hand-written sign (which I have a picture of) saying they are no longer open Saturdays.

I desperately need a car, the same type, for my trip. What do I need to do to pick up the same car (a Kangoo) or something similar, tomorrow (Sunday)?

This is my first Europcar experience like this. I have recommended many people to Europcar. I *like* Europcar! But what happened here and how does it get fixed?    Thanks- --Mike Jacoubowsky"

07/18/09- LONGEST TRAVEL-DAY YET! But it's not something to brag about. It started with a flight out of SFO at a very reasonable hour (9:05am, and departed on-time, maybe even a minute or two early), but from the time we got to Dulles (IAD/Washington DC) for the flight to Geneva, things began to unravel. Not uncontrollably, at least not at first.

The plane from IAD sat at the gate (with us aboard) for about half an hour while they replaced a "panel" on the underside of the plane, which they stole from another plane. OK fine, but after that half hour we then sat another 45 mintues before we were let loose, due to a huge thunderstorm brewing off the coast, along our flight path. And it's the "flight path" thing I don't get, because this was a relatively-thin thunderstorm, but just happened to occupy the exact place many planes had to be. But why? The Atlantic's a big lake with plenty of room to send planes across. Why are they restricted to such narrow channels?

We got to Geneva about an hour late, 9:05am or so, and had to wait a very long time for them to remove a very large number of bikes from the plane. Yes, we weren't the only ones headed to the French Alps today! Eventually they show up and we get a bit smarter than years past and rent one of those shopping-cart thingees... a very good thing for the very long Trek through the terminal after an interminable delay at the passport inspection. We arrived at the not-well-marked entry to the trains at 9:53am. Our train, the last train we could take and get to the car rental place by noon (when it would close for several hours), leaves at 10:01am. Three different sets of tracks going to three different places and none of them said main Geneva train station, nor was the employee at the top of the stairs very helpful. I figured it out pretty quickly though and we got on just in time.

Now it gets fun. At the main train station we have to negotiate a bunch of stairs and halls and by the way did I tell you we didn't have tickets yet? I put Kevin (my son, who's with me on this trip) in place with the baggage (a lot of baggage thanks to bringing bikes with  us) while I try to buy tickets at the automated machine, with our next train leaving at 10:17. Is it even possible?

No. It's not possible, not in the normal sense. Besides the fact that the machines nearby don't seem to know there's a station in Chambery, it's going to be tight anyway. At this point, you quickly realize that an improvised, hopeful solution is at least as good (or bad) as staying behind, so we ignored the signage that said you can't get past this point without a ticket, smiled to the guy checking the passport (who thankfully did not ask for a ticket!) and rush onto the train, very very shortly before it took off. But not until I had a one-way conversation with one of the conductors who was trying to tell me something about our bikes that I couldn't quite figure out, so I finally just asked, "Voiture por Velos?" and he smiled and waved us in.

With no tickets.

Kevin was more than a bit concerned about this, but I explained that they're not going to stop the train in the middle of nowhere and kick us off, and if they force us off at the next stop, we're still no worse off than we would have been had we stayed behind. And there's always the chance nobody will check for tickets anyway.

Yeah, well, always a chance. In this case another conductor was observed making his way through the car. He didn't look unfriendly, and I was hoping my extremely-limited grasp of French (the language, not the people and the systems, which are actually pretty easy to understand) would help us stumble through with the ESC gambit (exasperated sympathy card, as in it's too much trouble for the conductor or whomever to explain what we did wrong in a language we don't understand). In the end, it turned out that you can, on the regional trains, buy a ticket en-route. It's much more expensive though, and they would rather you didn't do so, and this fine gentleman did spent a bit of time explaining why I should buy my tickets ahead of time and I did my best to try to explain that would have been my preference as well!

OK, so things are working out. All manner of little glitches and we're still on schedule! Amazing. Any one of those glitches could have made a mess of things. So the French rail system, notoriously reliable, for some reason had to delay our train for 10 minutes at the Aix Les Bains station. Don't know why, but did know it was seriously cutting into the narrow margin I had for getting that rental car before they closed until late in the afternoon! The train should have arrived in Chambery at 11:40 but finally got there at 11:50. Ten minutes to get to the car rental place. No possible way to do that with all the bikes & gear in tow, so I left Kevin at the station and ran.

And at the rental car place, found a hand-written sign on the door saying they're no longer open Saturdays at that location. Despite all manner of reservation documentation I have that says I'm supposed to be picking up the car before noon or after 4pm, at that address. And then I discover that I can't remember how to make calls in France on a US phone. Something I'm going to figure out tonight for sure. I thought it was 1+33 (French country code) + phone number. But it's not, nor are variations on the theme. Eventually I gave up and came up with a secondary plan, which involved taking another train, this time to our final destination in Albertville. Another hour and a half waiting for that train, hauling bikes back up another platform, cramming into a car with more baggage and people than it was designed to take.

So we're off to Albertville, finally. No rental car, which at this point isn't a deal-killer, but I'll have to get it figured out pretty soon. And Albertville looks like quite a nice little town! I'm going to like the next six days here. A lot more than the first, since it took an hour and a half to get a cab!!! There is this little taxi stand out front with a phone you pick up that has no dial on it, despite having the taxi company's phone number on top of the booth. So you pick it up and you hear... just a dial tone. Weird. But wait, a couple minutes later, the phone rings, and a light starts flashing! They're calling you back! I had Kevin pick up the phone, since he's had a couple years of French to my zilch, and he gets somebody at the other end of the line saying something, Kevin says something back about wanting a cab and we have two bikes (in sorta French) and they hang up on him!!! This happened twice!!! So I send Kevin into the train station to see if someone there can call a cab for us (which took a very long time for a very friendly person to do for him), and meantime the phone rings again. This time I pick it up, and instead of speaking French I say "Hello" and "Parlais vous Anglais?" to the caller, which seemed to surprise her, she said yes, some (she actually spoke English quite well) and we quickly discover that both of us think we're talking to a taxi company and neither of us are! The weird booth is actually something that rings for the benefit of taxi cabs looking for fares... customers call the number and it rings at the booth, where theoretically taxi cabs hang out. Just not today.

We did get taken care of through the efforts of the woman at the train station and finally arrived at our Etap hotel, where Kevin quickly crashed and I'm still working through the debris of the day. I'll get to sleep sometime this week.

Just not today. :)

It will be with great relief that we can get somewhere under our own power tomorrow. Just got to get up the willpower to put the bikes together.

07/16/09- INTERESTING FINAL RIDE BEFORE FRANCE! At the last minute I got a phone call from my Trek rep, who said the Trek demo truck was on its way to Montana (?) and could make a stop on Thursday morning so our staff could try out some of the new bikes. Well, Thursday morning conflicts with the regular Tuesday/Thursday ride, but why not combine them? So that's what we did, having the Trek demo truck park about half a mile from the start of the ride, where my son and I met up with them and snagged a pair of the 2010 Madones to head up Kings Mtn with. The first time Kevin's ridden with the guys, although we didn't have time to continue on Skyline since we had to return the bikes so others could try them. Still, Kevin was welcomed by the group (a smaller group today, Karl, non-pilot Kevin, Billy & Millo at the top). After switching back to our regular bikes we headed out on Canada to 92 & back, to get close to the 30 miles that a "legit" ride requires.

And a few short hours from now we board a metal cylinder (or two) to take us to France, where I understand they've got this bike race going on that we can go see. More on that soon!

07/14/09- YOU KNOW THAT GUY WITH THE ANNOYINGLY-SQUEAKY BIKE? Yeah, well, that was me on Tuesday's ride. It was time to rescue the rain bike and prepare it for service in France, which meant bringing it down to the shop to clean it up and see what color it was under all the crud. That and check out the tires and decide that it might be acceptable for a rain bike to have big slashes that had been "repaired" with pieces of old tire placed between the tube and tire, but probably not a good idea for reliable transportation. And the drivetrain? You'd have to have x-ray vision to see the individual links. So after a couple hours of TLC including a new chain which I removed every last bit of oil from so I could use a pretty dry lubricant (Rock n Roll "red") to minimize mess getting it into and out of its bag, it was ready to roll.

First thing I noticed was that this bike is heavy. I am so spoiled by my Madone SSL with its carbon wheels. Second thing I noticed? It wasn't shifting very well, and there were birds following me. Uh-oh. I was about a quarter mile up the hill from home, in a rush to get to the ride on time, and discovered that I'd neglected to lube the drivetrain. But hey, got a lot of comments that my bike was clean!

07/12/09- EVER DRIVEN TO A RIDE AND FORGOT SOMETHING IMPORTANT? It has been many, many years since I've ridden up Mt. Umunhum. Today was not supposed to add to that total, but when I discovered, at the base of Mt. Hamilton, that my son had forgotten to bring the water bottles, the plans for riding up and over Mt. Hamilton and then back again changed. On a Sunday, it's not so easy finding bike shops in San Jose! But I hadn't checked out the Trek store on West Capital so we headed out that way, picked up some bottles and Powerbar Endurance drink (they didn't have Cytomax) and set off towards Mt. Umunhum.

You can read more about Mount Umunhum, and why you may not want to do this ride (due to entanglements with locals) here- http://www.summitpost.org/mountain/rock/153994/mount-umunhum.html