Monthly Archives: October 2011

Fallen trees, downed motorcycles, flat tires… wow, what a great ride!

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The last “long” Sunday to ride, with daylight saving time ending soon… would have been nice to head to the Sierras for a last shot at Sonora Pass, but that wasn’t in the cards (too long a drive after a typically-busy Saturday at the shop). That meant one (last?) Santa Cruz loop, what’s become “the usual” 115-mile ride.

But this ride was a bit more “eventful” than most, starting with a treek that had fallen across Pescadero road within a minute or two prior to our arrival (we were the first ones on the scene, along with a couple of motorcyclists on the other side), plus two flat tires (both Kevin’s) (that’s Kevin my son, not the pilot), plus a downed motorcycle (descending 84, just a corner ahead of us).

Nobody was getting through on Pescadero Road this morning!

Very nice day; a bit cool in the morning (needed leg warmers but jacket not required) and passed quite a few costumed cyclists on Old LaHonda. Winds were, thankfully, “normal” which meant tailwinds on the coast to Santa Cruz. Fog burned off completely by the time we got to Davenport, our usual lunch stop, and from there temps were generally in the mid-70s. Can’t get much better than that!

16.2 mph average speed, a substantial improvement from the 13.8s or so that Kevin used to post for longer rides. Also noteworthy was a lack of either seizures or double vision, two too-frequent issues arising from his epilepsy. I’m looking forward to a day when a lack of seizures isn’t noteworthy.

 

OK, it was “officially” cold this morning!

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What does it take to be “officially” cold? Any temp in the 30s. And this morning I saw as low as 37.3 degrees, so I deem that it is now, October 27th, the beginning of the end (of Indian Summer and days when you could reliably dispense with leg warmers and base layers and long-fingered gloves).

Not too many at the start of this morning’s ride; just myself, Kevin, “Pilot” Kevin, Eric & Jon. On the way we picked up Jim & Marcus. Nice ride up through the park (it was on Greer at the bottom that I saw the 37.3 degree temp) and a moderate pace up Kings. I hung onto Jon & Marcus’s wheels until I figured it would be a good idea to drop back and see how Kevin (actually both Kevins) was/were doing. Kevin (not the pilot) seemed to be doing fine until one of his spots where things often go wrong, with about a quarter mile to go, and wrong again they went. This time, instead of a seizure, it was extreme double-vision (wasn’t that a Foreigner song?) that caused him to hit the deck kinda hard, and it just wasn’t clearing up quickly like usual. Jim lives up on the hill and called his wife (Kelly) who offered to drive Kevin home. Normally I’d turn down the offer, not just because I wouldn’t want to impose, but also because Kevin usually comes out of this sort of thing pretty quickly. This morning? Different story. I am very thankful for their kind generosity.

There are going to be some changes to Kevin’s participation in the Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride in the future. We’re going to put him on a relatively-leisurely 32-minute pace and start out a few minutes ahead of the rest, hoping the easier initial pace will keep his issues at bay. I’ve also killed plans for an end-of-season run at the Sierras; it wouldn’t be a good thing to be on the “wrong” side of Sonora Pass if he ran into issues! What’s not ruled out are the typical 110-mile Sunday loops to Santa Cruz. Long hard rides don’t cause issues like shorter intense efforts.

Obviously we’ve got to get this kid fixed! –Mike–

36 years at this, and it’s still personal (true confession time?)

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It’s hard, as a business owner, to stay upbeat and focus on the positive sometimes. There are so many things that go right but what you hear about, what you spend a lot of time doing during the day, and sometimes losing sleep over at night, are those things that go wrong. Today is one of those days.

I spent untold hours trying to put together a reasonable email advertising a sale we’re having, trying to make it somewhat interesting, knowing of course that I’m pretty severely graphically-challenged so I can spend hours at it and it’s still not going to look pretty. To say that is a drain on me is an understatement; I can type all day long and be reasonably coherent and pleased with the results, but it’s rare that, when I finally hit the “send” key and it goes out to 5,238 people, I’m not thinking I could have done better, that many will regard it as yet another piece of spam in the inbox (despite the fact that they are our customers or signed up on-line for our emails). Continue reading →

No Jacket Required? Maybe last week!

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I didn’t even pause to consider going without legwarmers and a base layer this morning; it’s late October and while it’s still super-nice later in the day, there’s a definite chill in the air when the alarm clock goes off at 6:57am.

Mid-sized group this morning, with Eric, Karl, Karen, Zack, George, Kevin (the pilot), and a new guy whose name I don’t recall that’s a terror on the morning ride, that 6am ride for crazies who don’t realize that’s when you’re supposed to sleep.

I felt a lot better than I had any right to, having been up later than normal last night due to problems with one of my printers (had to print out some visa photos for an upcoming trip to China, and for some reason, my lips kept coming out green… thinking about it, the printer’s getting on in years, so it may be time for retirement). So I had that working against me, and the first pretty cool morning of the year, down to 44 degrees at one part! At least it was a much-nicer 48 in Woodside.

It would have been one of the faster rides if not for Kevin (my son, not the pilot) and his continuing issues with seizures and double-vision. Will be nice when we can finally get that figured out, but in the meantime he continue to improve his group-riding skills and really looks forward to getting out with the guys (and girl).

Caltrain+BART+Bike = Mt Diablo, 80 miles, 6400ft of climbing= great ride, but oh my has the Dumbarton bike path deteriorated!

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An odd ride, eh? Starts and ends in different places. Ah, the things you can pull off if you’re not tied down to a car!

We’ve got some decent transit in the bay area, so why not use it? Not really fast transit; you have to go to France for that. But you can put together a good East Bay ride by riding to your nearest CalTrain, connect to BART at the Millbrae Station, and arrive in Walnut Creek ready to go! We left the house at 8:17am, just enough time to pick up coffee and breakfast at Starbucks before catching the 8:41am train, which connects to the 9:21am BART, which arrives in Walnut Creek at 10:30am. Could you drive there faster? Sure. About 1 hour 10 minutes; 1 hour 30 including the stop for Starbucks, so maybe 45 minutes faster by car. But then you’ve got a car that you have to get back to, limiting your riding choices. If you do an out (by transit) and back (by bike), you can effectively increase your radius from 50 miles to 75 or more! Which is obviously what we did.

It was pretty nice out there; close to hot, but not quite. The climb up Mt. Diablo was between 73 & 80 degrees and was surprisingly easy. We stopped once on the way up to help a guy with a flat (new bike and he wasn’t too familiar with it, plus he was using the tubeless road clinchers, something I don’t think is quite ready for prime time). Tried to save a snake but unfortunately got to watch a car drive right over it. Lots of road stain from previously run-over snakes & tarantulas, much more than I’ve seen elsewhere. The road surface is fantastic, far better than Mt. Hamilton.

Interesting thing about the top of Mt. Diablo today. It was just exactly the right temperature to make you a bit too comfortable. You felt like you could sit down and read a book for a couple hours, chat with people, whatever. Seemed like a nice place to hang out. That’s not usually what goes on on a bike ride!

The ride back down was uneventful but slow (slow mostly because the park has radar-enforced speed limits of 15 to 25 miles per hour), after which came an unexciting cruise through Blackhawk and the backside of Dublin. I’d been concerned there might not be many places to eat on this ride, and maybe 15 years ago that would have been true, but things are pretty built up now and it was no problem finding a Subway near Camino Tassajara & Blackhawk Road.

Palomares Canyon was as challenging as ever, and also the finale as far as anything really fun on the ride. After that it was city roads with traffic through Fremont, which was actually a whole lot better than what followed- the Dumbarton Bridge lead in, the bridge itself, and the Bayfront bike path on the other side. Talk about crumbling infrastructure! The road leading up to the bridge is both grainy and choppy, and the bridge? Yikes, unbelievable amount of glass and other tire-biting debris, so much that I had to boot my tire midspan after I noticed an irregularity when I ran my (gloved) hand over it, making sure I hadn’t picked up glass.

And the other side? If this is what I go to DC to lobby for, I’ve got to change my thinking. They’d recently cut down the grasses and weeds along the path, and not bothered to sweep it. Crud everywhere. And the part where you have to cross the street at the former Sun Microsystems location (now Facebook)? Glass so bad in the bike section that you have to lift your bike over it. And when you get to Marsh Road and have to use the push button to get across, just try and find where they hid it in the shrubs! In my opinion, the Dumbarton Bridge bike path is a disaster, something not suitable for road bikes unless you’re willing to risk destruction of expensive high-quality tires.

Not every Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride is the same

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So much for the gorgeous weather; this morning, it was dark when I got up and foggy when we left. Foggy enough that I made sure our tail lights were working and foggy enough that my Oakleys were completely, er, fogged.

Smaller group so maybe I can name the players. Myself, Kevin (my son, not the pilot), Chris, Eric, Mike, Millo (picked up later on Skyline), Todd and at least one other. No photos from the ride to help me out either; I’d left the video camera at the shop. Heck, I didn’t even have my garmin computer with me this morning, so I tried out Strava’s iPhone app again.

We rode straight up instead of through the Park, with the faster guys setting a pretty tough pace initially, slowing down just enough for me to keep them in sight as I closed in on the park entrance. Kevin was not too far behind me, and I could have exploited my advantage at that point but instead dropped back to ride with him the rest of the way up the hill, hoping to keep his pace moderate enough to avoid a seizure. Meantime Eric and Mike were gradually catching up to us, or at least I thought it was Eric and Mike; turned out, when we got to the top, we were waiting only for Eric. Mike never showed up, and Eric hadn’t seen him for some time. Fearing that he might have had a flat (or worse) Eric and I went back down the hill in search of him, sending the rest of the guys on ahead.

We never did find Mike (we later found out that he’d simply been tired from a ride the previous day and decided to head for home early), but Eric and I met back up with the group by heading all the way down Kings, back up 84 and south on Skyline to intercept. I said something to Eric about how far we’d go before we regrouped with the rest and he said, since it was 9:02am, it should be any moment… and poof, on command, there they were. I was impressed. Eric is even more-punctual and precise on timings than I am!

Nice ride back down the hill, but no final sprint on Albion as they’ve cut trenches across the road in three places! Yikes. Wonder if they were repaired by the time the noon ride came through?

Film. It doesn’t fade quite as quickly as some of the memories. Sometimes not quickly enough!

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This embarassing moment brought to you by Fred K, longtime customer, good guy, part of the racing scene in the way-way-way-wayback days, this time catching me at the Redwood City Criterium in 1975. That’s me at the front right, long hair, beaky nose, thinking about… what exactly? I certainly wasn’t worried about my weight back then (133 pounds at 6′) and my future was, well, I was 18 back then, junior college on the horizon I guess. Wish I could remember the names of these guys. Lots of familiar faces.

If you didn’t record the ride, did it really happen?

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No leg warmers, no base layers, no jacket required. Gotta like it! Too many to mention this morning but most of the usual suspects showed up. Relatively-tame on the climb, although I dropped off a bit with Kevin, hoping that a slightly-more-moderate pace might help keep his seizures at bay (he had none this ride, only some double-vision which is caused by his meds from time to time).

OK, getting to the issue of whether something actually happened if you didn’t record it. I’m hooked on technology; I carry an iPhone4s, Garmin 800 GPS computer, Trek Node 1 computer, Contour Roam video camera and often a separate Fuji EX200r camera as well. But what do you do with all that information? Why Strava it, of course. Uploading your rides to Strava you can compete against yourself and anybody else who has ever done any particular segment of your ride. That’s right, Strava automatically times you, starting & stopping at the relevant points as determined by your GPS unit (whether iPhone or Adroid or Garmin).

Check out the page I’ve put up for “Club” Chain Reaction. Quite a few of my Sunday 60-110 milers, along with a couple of the Tuesday/Thursday-morning rides. You might find something in there that looks a bit different than you’ve done before and give it a try. Or you might want to compare your own times to those of others… many, many, many others. It really is addictive.

And there’s another site you can upload your rides to, and have good deeds come from it. Plus3Network (that link will show you my Mt. Hamilton ride) gives credit to various charitable organization for each mile you ride, with the money coming from Sponsors like us, and going to the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition or Team in Training.

I’m hooked. Chances are you will be too. Both +3 and Strava offer free iPhone apps (probably Android too) that make it easy. Keep in mind elevation data won’t be as accurate; the iPhone overestimated the climbing on Sunday’s Mt. Hamilton loop by about 500ft, which is pretty typical of units that don’t have a barometer built in (like the Garmin 500 & 800).

A ride we’re glad we did, scratched off the list, but no need to do again soon (Mt Hamilton loop)

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I’m 55 years old, been riding seriously since I was, what, 11? And in all that time I’ve never ridden the Mount Hamilton loop. Between 97 & 105 miles depending upon route options, and heads from Livermore (or elsewhere; obviously you can start wherever you wish), over Calaveras and down towards the bay, then up Mount Hamilton, down the other side & finally north on Mines Road. to Livermore.

I’ve ridden up Mount Hamilton many, many times, and sometimes down the back side to the bridge over the creek and then head back up. And I’ve ridden Calaveras and every other piece of this ride at one time or another. I’ve even ridden over Mount Hamilton and on to Livermore, in the Mount Hamilton Road Race, but that was many, many, many years ago. Long enough that I retained dim memories of the backside not being much fun.

Today, Kevin and I decided to test those memories. Besides, as I’ve written before, Kevin likes to try new rides, something that becomes increasingly difficult over time. His first choice was to head to the Sierras and do Sonora Pass, but it’s been busy enough at the shop on Saturdays that I really haven’t felt like a long drive in the dark after work.

We started the ride in Livermore instead of someplace a bit closer because I was concerned about having to continue riding much further after Mines Road. I remembered the main reason I didn’t enjoy the backside- that long run down the valley towards Livermore, punctuated here & there by annoying “junk” climbs (not long enough to really get a rhythm yet incredibly efficient at sapping your strength and making you feel like you’ve spent too much time out in the sun) but, worst of all, steady headwinds that make you fight your way downhill.

The first 25 miles or so went by easily enough, but it did feel a bit weird hitting the base of Mount Hamilton nicely warmed up rather than at the very start of a ride. We stopped at the top for the mandatory coke (remember, crisp $1 bills only, anything soggy from a back pocket won’t work) before heading down the back side.

If you haven’t been down the back (east) side of Mount Hamilton, it’s just like the front (west) side, only a lot steeper. So very bumpy, gravel here & there, and not really a very fun descent. But the climb back up is both challenging and fun, making the descent worthwhile to try someday. But we weren’t coming back up; our car was in Livermore and Mines Road was standing in our way.

The small rises between the bottom on the east side and San Antonio Junction weren’t as bad as I had remembered, but still, by the time we got to the Junction, it felt like we had already put in a tough 100 miles, not 65, and we had another 30 to go. But fueled up with a cookie and coke from the Junction bar, we felt ready to go!

Or not. That last 30 miles was one of the toughest of my life, battling the two remaining (and significant) climbs along with the headwind. Kevin was pretty much cooked by the time we finished the final climb, so it was my job for about 22 miles to just go to the front and fight the wind all the way back to the car. Ouch. The first dozen miles were the worst, because they paint mile markers in huge numbers on the road, and between 22 and 10, it felt pretty discouraging. Somehow I kept it up though, towing Kevin back to the car, both of us more exhausted than anytime in recent memory.

My recommendation? Do this loop if you want a challenge, but if you’re looking for “fun” look someplace else. Or find out what time of year you have tailwinds heading towards Livermore rather than headwinds.