Monthly Archives: January 2011

Not quite the ride planned, but you do what you can

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A wet January day on Skyline

The plan? Kevin and I ride to Pescadero/San Gregorio/Tunitas and back. The usual coastal run. The weather? We knew it was going to be questionable at best, but we’re strong enough, we’re stupid enough, and we’ve got the gear for it. We got going around 9:50am (fairly early for us!) and headed out into a light drizzle, nothing nasty, just enough to make it not much fun. Almost nobody else out on the road; we saw 3 people on Canada, and not a single cyclist heading up or down Old LaHonda! A rare day indeed.

We weren’t burning up the pavement on the climb, but we weren’t slacking either, just a good, steady climb, knowing we had a long ride ahead of us. About 2/3rds of the way up Kevin’s dropped back a bit, and I look back on the last steep corner and he’s heading to the edge of the road and getting off his bike. Unfortunately I know where this is going; he’s had a bit of warning that a seizure is coming on, and the ones where he gets the warnings are the ones that tend to be a bit bigger. This was no exception; he was tensed up for about two minutes before coming out of it. We got back on and continued up the hill, delayed by no more than 5 minutes, but as the rain got heavier & the temps got colder, Kevin had lost his enthusiasm for the Pescadero Bakery so we scaled things back, heading down west-side Old LaHonda but then back up to Skyline and north all the way to 92 and back Canada. Even though significantly shortened (37 miles instead of 58), it still wasn’t easy, with the rain getting pretty heavy up on Skyline, soaking through our gloves, and the temperature holding steady at 45. At one point Kevin said, in a way that could have been mistaken for sarcasm, “This is what we do for fun.” But it wasn’t sarcastic; in our own warped minds, it was fun!

It was fun while it lasted (1K “elite” status on United Airlines)

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What is a 1K? It’s the highest “earned” level on status on United Airlines. It’s not the highest level overall; nothing like the character in “Up in the Air” played by George Clooney. For that, the qualifications aren’t published but it’s obvious you’ve got to be buying a lot of full-fare business & first-class tickets. At United, that status is known as “GS.”

The coveted United 1K card, something I will likely see only once in my life, at least one with my name on it.

For most people, it means they fly too much and spend too much time away from home and too much money on mediocre motels and too much time in security lines. What you get in exchange for all that is the opportunity to board a plane earlier than everyone else (why this is a big thrill I don’t know; people rationalize that they need to get on the plane before the overhead space is filled up), a reasonable chance to get free upgrades into a first class seat when flying domestically and just enough chance to get an upgrade on an international flight that you spend more $$$ than you have to so you can get a qualifying fare, cross your fingers, and discover that you’re #3 on an upgrade list of 40 people (looks good!) but only #1 & #2 made it. You’re also better taken care of when things go wrong, whether due to a mechanical issue or weather.

In 2009, I accidentally flew too much. It wasn’t planned, it just happened. A number of trips back to Trek, the usual trip to DC for the Bike Summit, France in July for the Tour de France, and the biggie… a 15,000 mile round trip to Australia (Karen, my wife, really wanted to hold a Koala Bear. So we’ve got a $6000 picture of her holding a Koala Bear in the living room). Now, it normally takes 100,000 miles to get 1K status, and that’s 100,000 “BIS” (or, Butt in Seat) miles, not credit-card miles, not miles flying on award tickets. But in 2009, the airlines were in the toilet, and United offered something called “DEQM”, or Double Elite Qualifying Miles, where you got credited for two miles for each mile flown in the last quarter of the year, which coincided with the trip to Australia. That put me within 12,000 miles, so a very creative routing for a trip to DC put me over the top (5 flight segments in one direction!). Continue reading →

Day 1 of the “New” Chain Reaction

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Last night my brother Steve and I introduced the first of many changes, some procedural, some physical, that you’ll see at Chain Reaction this year. From the front page of our website-

NOBODY BEATS CHAIN REACTION!

  • Free tune-ups on derailleurs, brakes & wheels for life on all new bike purchases. While you wait!
  • 30 day low-price guarantee on all new bikes!
  • Buy-back program on all new kids bikes!

There are many more reasons to buy from Chain Reaction Bicycles, including discounts on accessories when you buy your bike, our dynamic fit services (we’ll swap out the stem on your road or mountain bike anytime in the first year, not just when you buy the bike), our expert assembly, tremendous inventory and 31 years of doing business so we can honestly say we’ve done business with your parents, with you and your kids. We won’t be undersold, and we’ve never been outclassed. 2011 is going to be a great year for Chain Reaction and our customers!

What does this mean?

Free tune-ups on derailleurs, brakes & wheels for life on all new bike purchases. While you wait! It’s taken us a while to react to the “free tune-ups” being offered by some shops, believing that customers could see through it, especially as we continue to work on many bikes, paid repairs, that customers could have taken back for their “free tune up.” You can read the reviews of work performed by such shops and the truth becomes rapidly apparent, but other shops just saying they did “free tune-ups” was costing us sales. We, on the other hand, have done more “free” work on bikes we’ve sold than any such shop, handling adjustments of brakes, derailleurs and wheels on the spot, at no charge. So instead of defense and trashing other shops (never a good idea), we’re going on the offense and redefining what we do, both in words and procedure. We are confident that we are doing more for you and your bike. Always have, always will. The other guys will no longer win the battle of words though!

30 day low-price guarantee on all new bikes! If you buy a current-model bike from us and you find it in stock locally at a lower price, we will refund you the difference. We will not be undersold!

Buy-back program on all new kids bikes! This one’s pretty cool. We know that kids grow out of bikes, and we know that the bikes we sell are quite a bit better, and quite a bit more expensive, than what you find at a department store. Our bikes will typically survive several kids, while in some cases a kid has a tough time surviving a department store bike! So to make it easy to understand that you get a better bike without having to spend more, we’ll buy the bike back when the kid outgrows it. For up to 3 years, we’ll give a credit of 30% what you paid for it, less the cost of new tires if needed, towards a new bike! Obviously the bike can’t be a pile of rust, but we’ll be reasonable about normal wear & tear.

It’s going to take some time fine-tuning everything, so things will get added to this, things may change slightly, but the intention is obvious. In a bass-ackwards way, we’re backing up our deeds with words.

It’s incredibly self-serving for me to say this, but we’ve always worked hard at being the best-possible place to buy a bike… or anything else. We’ve always made the extra effort to take care of our customers when something wasn’t quite right, we’ve always tried to be as reasonable on pricing as we could, we’ve always acted like anything purchased from us was still “ours” and we were still responsible for it, years later.  But these days, that’s not enough. You have to master social media, you have to train your staff to better understand that people coming into the store aren’t “just looking” (wanting to waste time driving many miles, finding a place to park, just for fun? Don’t think so!), but want a solution to something, and it’s our job to provide that solution.

I think we’ve earned the right to sell you your next bike. Now we’re going to make sure you think so, too. Today, tomorrow, and many years from now.  –Mike–

Asian Chicken Salad… again… Farrels, and other stories about buildings & food. Or is it just 63 songs about Joe?

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Going to Togos next door for my always-the-same lunch, Asian Chicken Salad and a medium drink, is a constant reminder of two things. First, my never-ending battle to keep my weight reasonable and second, that I am comfortable with rituals and routine. This is no surprise to my family; since the beginning of time, I’ve eaten things on my plate one thing at a time. By that I mean, if, say, it’s Thanksgiving and we’ve got Turkey, peas, carrots, salad and a potato dish, I’ll

Observed from Togos, a woman texting from a wheelchair across the street. Was she waiting to be picked up by someone? Downloading the 10 billionth iPhone app? Or just seeing if the outside world was still there?

eat all of one item until it’s gone before moving on to the next. This drives them nuts sometimes. So I have a process for eating. Why is that wrong? Keep in mind that, just because you have a ritual or routine, it doesn’t mean everything is the same. Whether it’s my Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride or getting the same Asian Chicken Salad from Togos, I always look for something new & different. Sometimes that’s a challenge, but I think that’s a function of a stale mind, not lack of the new & interesting. Today it was the woman viewed from across El Camino, texting from a wheelchair. What’s the story?

The other thing my family can’t figure out is why I’m done (eating) so quickly, but to me, eating is something you get out of the way so you can move on to the things that need to get done. Yes, it’s important to spend time with the family, hear about Kevin’s day at school, Becky talking about the new car she wants to get (Honda Civic automatic, why automatic, sticks are so much more fun?), and Karen wonder why all the stuff that needs to get done around the house isn’t getting done. The usual “How did your day go dear?” doesn’t really apply when 3/4th of the family ends up working together. Continue reading →

It started with 4 and just grew from there

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There was certainly no indication at the start of this morning’s ride that it was going to become a larger group with some new guys showing up; just myself, Eric, John and Ludo. No sign of Kevin or Nigel or Karl or any of the other semi-regular guys. Since it was a Thursday (which are nearly always easier than the Tuesday editions), I was fine with riding up through the park which, once again, had the gate at the bottom already open. Even at our “easy” pace I was still a bit winded by the time we got up to Kings, where we found Nigel and Mike (who apparently arrived a few minutes late; if you’re planning to show up for our ride sometime, please note that we leave at precisely 7:45am, not 7:47, not 7:45:30. When my Garmin GPS says it’s 7:45, we’re off!)  I actually couldn’t remember so I had to check the video; yep, so far, so good. On the run across Skyline we added Millo, his friend Jeff and another accomplice whose name I didn’t get. I think that’s the tally for this morning!

Yet another cloudless day with a view stretching all the way to Hawaii. Got to love “winter” in California! Supposedly we could get some rain this Sunday, but I’m thinking not. It just doesn’t feel like it’s ever going to rain again (which, of course, is a really dumb thing to say, given that both February and March be be very wet months).

Contador loses 2010 Tour de France title, banned for 2011, and a sad look at teams gone

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And so it goes. I figured they’d give Contador a token 4 month suspension and take away his 2010 Tour de France victory, but I think he miscalculated and pushed his “innocence” too far. My guess is that he could have cut a deal early on, but went for broke. Maybe he could have skated free if not for the plasticizers they found in his blood (plasticizers being something you pick up from a blood bag during a transfusion, and there are no longer any legally-permissible reasons for transfusions short of one supervised by a doctor for medical conditions that must be documented and demonstrated to be extremely serious).

While looking through links on the New York Times Contador article, I came across  their Tour de France page here.

What’s sad is to go through the links for the various teams (found well down the page, on the right-hand side), many of which are gone. For example-

At least they have a page saying good-bye. Many others simply go 404.

You can’t get there from here/The Completion Backwards Principle

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All these years and that’s probably my first reference to the presumably-long-gone SF-grown “musical” group, The Tubes. In their waning days, they produced an album named “The Completion Backwards Principle.” A fitting description of today’s ride, which we did… backward. Something I’ve thought about doing for some time, but today there was a compelling reason to do so.

Why? Was it because we’ve been doing the exact same thing, twice a week, for way more than 20 years, maybe 30, up to 39 years if you count the rides I did when I used to race? That would make sense, except that this is the always-punctual always-reliable thus always-predictable Tuesday/Thursday-morning 7:45am ride. Up Kings, north on Skyline to 84, down 84 west to west-side Old LaHonda and ride that back up to Skyline, then back down 84 into Woodside. This is what we do.

But not today. Continue reading →

Film at 11

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Nigel, Mike, Kevin & Karl at Sky Londa after heading up 84

You might have noticed there were no photos in today’s ride report, a rarity. That’s because I’m finally coming up with a workable solution for shooting video on our rides, using the Contour HD camera. The problem had been the mounting system; until recently, they only had a helmet mount (probably better for off-road use, as head movements can be distracting) and a bike mount for small-diameter bars. They finally came out with a mount for oversized (which are now the norm) road bars, and I took it for its first test this morning.

Two bike computers and a video camera. Isn't that standard equipment these days?

Still a few bugs in the system; the way I had it set up, it would sometimes hit my left leg when standing, which caused me to knock it out of place a couple of times (not to mention mess with my climbing!). I finally stopped 2/3rds of the way through the ride and re-oriented it to have its body more inward than outward, which did the trick.

No videos to show yet, just the shot at the top of this post, done from a print screen. It’s going to take a while to get the image stabilized and learn how to use Adobe Premiere, but I’ll get there.

Hope you were riding and not watching football!

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It doesn’t get a whole lot nicer than this. Our “winter” weather has been spectacular; on balance, much nicer than what we saw in Fall, when we saw a fair amount of rain. I don’t even remember when it rained last, and while I know we need the water, I can rationalize that we also need to learn to conserve, sooner than later, because there will only be more people in California in the future.

Especially if we have more days like today! It started out at a “chilly” 55 degrees when I left the house, and got as high as 71 on the coast. This was the ride many describe as the “coastal classic”- through Woodside, up Old LaHonda & down the other side, over Haskins

Two cyclists, who happen to be customers of ours, approaching the top of Old LaHonda

Grade to Pescadero, Stage Road to San Gregorio & Tunitas, and back over the hill and down Kings. The plan (and yes, there’s always a plan) was to ride with my son, but he got nailed by that nasty cold that’s going around (and that I’ve somehow managed to avoid, so far). Without Kevin I was able to push myself a bit harder, and I had plenty of reason to do so after missing Thursday’s ride due to a business trip to Wisconsin, which, being Wisconsin, also meant that I was eating stuff I normally wouldn’t be eating, in quantities I wouldn’t normally be stuffing myself with.

The high point of the ride had to be seeing so many of our customers out there on bikes we’ve sold them over the years. They were everywhere! Gives me hope for the future.

I was never riding with anyone else, but I was always coming across others, including

Health food at the Pescadero Bakery. The cherry turnovers are especially good!

Darrio at Pescadero, a customer who cycling has transformed the shape of nearly as much as my son. He claims he used to be pretty hefty, but looking at him, and watching him climb, you’d never believe it.

Heading up Tunitas I really thought I had a decent time going. I knew it wasn’t going to be a record, but I felt like I had a rhythm going, passing quite a few and not having anyone pass me (usually a good sign). But it turns out my 50 minute, 37 seconds from the coast to to the top is slower than a ride I did with my son early last summer. Darn.

OK, so that was the first 57 miles of the day. As soon as I got home it was time to turn around and head out with my wife (Karen) for a short trip through Woodside, about 13

Cruising on Mountain Home Road in Woodside

miles which got my total up to a respectable 70. The temps were still in the mid-60s but for her, that means long-fingered gloves, base layer, leg warmers. But this was one of those times where I wasn’t going to be thinking she was riding too slowly; just heading back up over Jefferson (again) made my legs complain, and by the time I got back, I was wondering how I managed 92 miles last week. But the truth is that there is a huge difference in perceived effort between riding at 85-90% effort and near-100%, and while my time on the climbs this morning doesn’t look like someone doing a 100% effort, you’ll just have to trust me that there wasn’t much more in the tank.  –Mike–

They had fun while I was gone (Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride)

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While I was heading to the airport to catch a flight to arctic regions (Wisconsin), the rest of the guys, and then some, were enjoying yet another spectacular “winter” day in Northern California. Millo brings home the report below-

Hey Mike,

A jaw dropping brilliant beautiful clear day for a ride. January in California is hard to beat!   49 deg when I rolled out the driveway. Spectacular views to the ocean while climbing WOLH. Kevin (pilot), Eric, Nigel, and a bunch of folks who knew Kevin and were giving him a non-stop ribbing about the fact that his friend, Leslie, is moving back to the Bay Area for a while. In your absence the peleton rolled along at a slow and relaxed pace, not getting up to me near the water tank on Skyline until 8:37 – a good 7 minutes off the “normal“ Thursday pace. We redeemed ourselves slightly as we were back at my driveway at 9:35, only 5 minutes off the “normal” slow pace. 

Larry, a friend who usually joins Steve Lubin’s 9:00 ride, headed up at 7:25 because he was worried he’d be spat out the back.  We never even saw him!  Just a few minutes of a head start can be hard to claw back – especially when one dawdles.

 Be safe, Millo