All posts by Mike

I wouldn’t have chased this truck down to draft it on west 84 right?

Tues/Thurs 7:45am ride

Solo ride this morning with Kevin in Spain and Kevin in Disneyland? Boy, talk about rejection! But turned out I wouldn’t be alone, at least not for the main event, as Karen showed up, her first time back, on our ride, since her brain aneurysm (and yes, I had to look up how to spell that) a couple months ago. And it was climbing Kings, by herself, when the aneurysm did it’s thing. Not too far up, just past the sharp left hand corner with the big tree laid across the right-hand side. We were riding semi-casual, which meant I could actually get a few words in here & there every few breaths. We compared notes; how much weight she lost (4.5 pounds) vs me (11 pounds) when we each had our serious cycling, er, outages (for me, when I cracked my pelvis in two places, for her, obviously, the brain thing). How leg warmers that used to be tight are now loose. How the weight you lose is in all the wrong places (although, overall, I needed to lose that weight… my climbing improved significantly, albeit only for a year or so, when that weight came off).

Cold? Yes, winter is coming. I had to wear my coldest-weather gloves for the first time, even though the low was just 42.7 I think? And windy! I was comfortable, but definitely ride better when it’s warmer. Still, it felt a lot better being out there than not. And it was a good reminder that, the day you might decide to sit one out, because you’re feeling tired and nobody else is going to be out there, right? That’s the day someone else shows up. You’re not just riding for yourself; there is an obligation to keep the ride going, keep the faith.

Thankfully, it’s supposed to start warming up again over the next few days, up to 80 on Saturday before plunging to 68 and… a chance of rain???!!!… on Sunday. And of course I work on Saturday and ride on Sunday. My rain bike isn’t even in usable shape right now. Guess I’d better get on that. Was thinking I might avoid rain all the way up to my (non cycling) trip to Greece at the end of the month, and maybe face it on the return?

My booster shot earlier in the week gave no boost

Ride reports (not Tu/Th)

There’s been a lot going on. You wouldn’t know it from the almost-daily diary, since there haven’t been many entries lately. Lots of decisions at the shop, figuring out what to do when bikes finally do start arriving, during the winter, when sales will slow down and our situation will reverse from having empty racks with tons of customers to figuring out where to put all the bikes that Trek will finally be sending us. Because you just know we’ll get tons of them when we don’t need them, and they’ll be different models than people are looking for, and in the wrong sizes. Just how it works, right?

But we’ll make it work, unlike my legs and lungs which really haven’t made the transition to slightly colder weather. Tuesday morning I have to motivate myself to ride likely solo, as Kevin and his sister are goofing off in Disneyland for a few days, a well-deserved time away from the craziness of the shop. And me, at the end of the month I head with Karen (my wife) to Greece, where we’ll be doing a Greek Island Cruise on Norwegian Cruise Lines. Something I swore I’d never do, even though it’s been on her bucket list. I’ve always regarded cruise ships as virus factories, designed to spread nasty things like norovirus. So how ironic that it takes Covid-19 to get me on a cruise ship. My thinking is that they’re going overboard (bad thing to say about a ship?) keeping things clean, requiring masks, new air filtration systems and everyone, passengers and crew, has to be fully vaccinated. With all that, it would seem this is probably the best time for a cruise. Hope I’m right! Not all cruises are alike; MSC, sailing out of the UK, didn’t have vaccination requirements, didn’t enforce masks, and what do you know, they had a severe Covid outbreak on one of their ships and two deaths.

Today’s ride? Not the usual. Just ride over Old LaHonda and out 84 to the coast, then back Tunitas Creek. Pretty short, 43 miles or so (kinda crazy how close the ocean actually is). Very nice day; started out with leg warmers that came off at the base of Old LaHonda and never went back on. Solo trip, got passed by more people than I passed. Hate that, but better get used to it as it’s going to happen with increasing frequency as I get older.

And about that getting older thing. It’s great that I don’t look that old, but if I did, then at least others would be more impressed with my climbing right? Cuz nobody’s actually older than me (65) out there, right? Those guys who look 75… they’re not really that old, right?