It started last night actually; Kevin changed out his front tire, which had been heavily damaged in Sunday’s ride on the dirt part of Monte Bello, and it’s not like he hasn’t changed tires before. But this morning, after topping them off, we hear a “pop” sound in the garage, and look around, trying to figure out which of many bikes just blew a tire (first suspecting it was either of our bikes, but they both seemed to be holding air just fine). OK, must have been the hybrid which had a totally-flat tire, never mind, as Kevin pointed out, the other tire was flat too. So we set off, with Kevin noticing as we approached an intersection that his brake was making quite a bit of noise. We go on a bit further before I decide we’d better stop and take a look. Yep. Front tire lifting up off the rim, due to a tube pinch. And not just an ordinary tube pinch; this one had torn a hole in the tube and then the tire settled back on top of it, sealing off the hole! First time for everything.

Kevin and I had the world to ourselves this morning

Unfortunately, the 10 minutes it took to change out the tube meant we were 8 minutes late to the start of the ride, and this ride starts punctually, with or without me. Or at least I assume it does; I haven’t missed more than a handful of rides over the last 30 years, but today was one of them. What to do? Ride the route backward to find them, of course! Not such a bad thing doing something entirely different for a change, and the run up 84 to Skyline was actually fun, especially since the relatively-shallow grade is well suited for my (lack of) style these days, allowing me to actually put Kevin in a bit of difficulty. This even continued as we headed north on Skyline to our inevitable intercept.

Except that we never did intercept anyone from the ride. We passed the first sprint point, just north of Sky Londa, about 4 minutes earlier than we normally would (coming from the other direction), so there was no question we’d connect sometime during the 10+ minutes it would take to climb up to Skeggs. Thinking that perhaps they’d headed down the other side to one of the dead-end roads (Native Sons or Star Hill) we headed down Swett and, upon reaching Star Hill, looked for any bike tracks in the damp pavement, but none were to be seen. We continue on, riding the section of Tunitas from Star Hill to Skyline at a pretty fast clip, and then down Kings into Woodside and back home.

Hopefully I’ll get some emails letting me know if anyone did, or didn’t, show up… and where they did, or did not, ride. In the meantime, we had a pretty good ride on our own, and one of those times where I was feeling pretty darned good… a good feeling to have, with just over a month to go before heading over to France. –Mike–

Roberta Gonzalez on a ladder?

It all starts with the weather forecast the night before; normally not a big deal but this time I had paused the TV for a few minutes so I could leave the room, and coming back to it, was amused by the frozen moment in time it displayed. Apparently, Roberta Gonzalez on Channel 5 uses a ladder during the forecast. Who knew?

6:55am the next morning my radio alarm goes off… pretty quietly. Don’t need much; my body is so used to Tuesday & Thursday mornings that it just knows when it’s time to get up earlier-than-normal and ride. Head out the hall, call the dog and have him wake up Kevin. Silly routine, that. Kevin’s door is shut but not latched, so Jack (the dog) can barrel down the hallway and jump up at it, kicking it open. Yes, I do make sure it’s not latched, because I have a feeling it’s a pretty expensive vet bill for a dog with two broken front legs. One of these days I’ll have to record Jack jumping on the door.

Not too many this morning; Kevin (not the pilot), Karen, Eric, Jan & Todd. We rode up through the park which, for the first time in a while, had the lower gate open (so no cyclocross barrier-crossing practice). Kevin and Todd rode on ahead, while Eric and Karen were behind, gradually creeping back up to me. It was inevitable that they catch and pass me, although, for a short while, I had hope. I did manage to get, according to Strava, my personal best time up through the park. At least for the past couple of years anyway; back in the day, I would have gone up a whole lot faster! For the Kings climb, not so good though. 29:01 which, while mildly OK for a time that includes going up through the park, is very frustrating due to those 2 extra seconds that make all the difference in the world. 28:59 seems so much faster than 29:01. At least a minute faster anyway.

Karen fixing a flat tire on Skyline

We made the decision to see if Old LaHonda might be open and all of us might have enjoyed our first Tuesday/Thursday Old LaHonda outing in two months if not for a flat tire on the descent into Sky Londa. Flat tires are extremely unusual on this ride, partly because we all take pretty good care of our equipment, and partly because we know the roads so well. The extra 12 minutes for Karen’s flat required her, Todd and Eric to head straight back down into Woodside, while Kevin, Jan and I enjoyed got to check out the new pavement on Old LaHonda. Let’s just say it’s not quite ready for prime-time, gluing sand and small pebbles to your tires and giving you that feeling you’re riding on a road paved with double-sided sticky tape. Passable, yes. Enjoyable? Worth it for the views, but I’d give it a week or two!

It’s taken a while but the weather’s getting nicer and my legs are getting stronger. Probably no longer than any other year, and for someone to complain about winter & early spring in California is a bit absurd, but there it is. I really do like warmer weather.

What I don’t like is wind. Not so much because it’s not fun riding in it; truthfully, I’ve gotten a whole lot better putting my head down and pushing forward into a nasty headwind. You just gotta do what you gotta do and get the job done. What I don’t like about wind is the effect is has on the bicycle business. Wind simply scares away customers! Not cold, not even rain can always be counted on to keep people out of the store. But wind? It’s the most-reliable thing I’ve found to keep things quiet. Hate that!

But it’s this time of year that I’m finally able to consistently get 27-something times up Kings (just barely!), and, hopefully, I’m on my way to 26-something in late July or early August.

We're thinking if we all peer intently enough at the stuck chain, it will give up and fix itself. Or something like that.

Not just the normal through-the-park ride this morning, but a run down the “middle fork” of dead-end Skyline roads (Star Hill/Swett), since west-side Old LaHonda is still closed on weekdays (we know; we rode by on Tuesday to check).

We were heading back up at a pretty good clip until Nigel had a nasty case of jammed chain, bringing him to a quick halt and giving the opportunity for our full complement of bike & tech-savvy guys a chance to feel pretty stupid and helpless as we first tried to pry it out (failed), next thought about cutting the chain (which we quickly realized still would have left the jammed part… jammed), then remove the crank (failed again) and finally remove both chainrings (success!).

The worst part was that this ate up a bunch of time, requiring us to head back via Tunitas and down Kings. Well, it was pretty cold up top (46 degrees) so Karl, Nigel, Kevin & Jan decided that the best way to get warmed up would be to really punch it on that gradual climb back up to Skyline. Ouch. I dropped off the back for a bit but gradually clawed my way back towards the leaders. Despite what seemed like a pretty good run up there, Strava, as usual, shows “There are no accomplishments for this ride.”

Check out the "speed" line (blue) to see how long we were stopped

But there could have been accomplishments! I just checked the downloaded data, and found, for this segment, that subtracting the time we spent stopped for Nigel’s chain mess, we would have had one heck of a great time! If you can believe the data, some of us would have come close to a new Strava record for that segment. How? My total time for that segment was 33:57, but we had stopped for about 16 minutes, 38 seconds. That leaves just over 17 minutes actual riding time. Not bad!

I’m not riding all that badly; 27:50 for the climb up Kings, for mid-May, isn’t atypical for me. Everybody else though? They’re definitely going faster. Today we had Karl, Karen, Eric, Marcus, Kevin (not the pilot), Todd & Jon, and it didn’t take long for me to completely lose sight of them. I thought that maybe Kevin (my son) would be riding a bit slower, since he’d missed several rides last week due to a kidney issue resurfacing (his epilepsy meds like to create kidney stones), but no, he made it up the hill in a “clean” 26 minutes (meaning 26 flat, not 26:59). Of course I wasn’t there to see it, but Strava seems to confirm his claim.

Strava. I could post the Strava thingee here, but at the bottom it would say “There are no accomplishments on this ride.” Strava, you could learn a thing or two about salesmanship! Why not just come out and say it? “You suck!” And why am I so addicted to the darned thing?

Overall I’m looking at numbers for my rides that really aren’t that bad. What’s changed is Kevin, who, at this time last year, had yet to get under 30 minutes up Kings, and two months later was at 26:30, and this past month has hit 25:30. I’m still better on the flats, and I’m still better if the ride is long enough (over 60 miles).

But what will happen in France? I’ll tell you one thing, it won’t be me carrying all the extra stuff up the hills this time!

Pretty amazing feat today by Patrick, our Redwood City service manager. By carefully studying the map of “energizer stations” available on the Peninsula for Bike to Work day, he managed to score swag from 15 of them! The toughest part was getting an early start on the day, since the stations closed at 9am.

Makes my morning ride seem insignificant, although any time I can do Kings through the park in less than 29 minutes I’m pretty happy (and tired!).

I’ve mentioned in past entries that sometimes I don’t look forward to getting up early to go climb Kings with people who are going to finish a day earlier than me, and how sometimes the first half of the climb I’m wondering just what the heck I’m doing.

Today was not one of those times. Thank goodness for that silly 100-mile perfectly-flat ride on Sunday! It made me appreciate again just how special it is to climb a mountain, to be on top of the world looking out at the bay on one side, the coast on the other. Flying downhill, speed limited by my nerves and not my legs. It felt good. Really good.

Karl, Karen,Todd, George & Marcus this morning; neither of the Kevins (don’t know where the pilot’s excuse was, maybe work, but my son has suddenly developed some sort nasty kidney pains again, requiring a visit to Kaiser for testing and pain meds). What a beautiful morning it was… warm enough that, for the first time this season, I could do the morning ride without leg warmers! No record time up Kings (28-something) but I felt OK, and our alternate route down Tunitas to the “plateau” and return via Swett was actually fun, especially since Karl and George were being kind to me (Karen, Todd and Marcus had turned back at Star Hill to get back earlier).

Hard to believe that just two weeks earlier it was wet & 40 degrees up on top. This weather is a change I like! And mountains… another change I like. Never would have appreciated them as much if not for that 100 mile flat ride two days earlier.