All posts by Mike

Last “real” ride for 10 days… off to Cambodia!

Ride reports (not Tu/Th)

How many photos of West Old LaHonda constitutes too many? Whatever it is, I’m confident, obviously in a self-serving way, that I won’t reach it before I stop taking such pictures.

Chocolate vs Double-Chcolate. Is that even a choice?
It had been just a week since breaking my toe, so Sunday’s ride was a bit of a question mark in terms of how well I’d ride. Kevin and I did the usual; Old LaHonda, Haskins, Pescadero, Tunitas, with a mild twist. Instead of Stage Road, we chose the coast, partly because it would be fun to see the big waves everyone had been talking about, and partly because it shaves about 15 minutes time and Kevin had to catch a train to meet his girlfriend.

The toe starts each ride a bit loud (it lets me know it’s there), but after 10 minutes or so, everything seems pretty much fine. As if riding kind of squishes it back into shape. There’s still a bit of feeling like the shoe’s insole has a rough spot under the toe, but it’s not bothersome. And thankfully the left hand, took a bit of a hit in the accident last week, has been feeling better each day too.

Nothing fast today (story of my life lately?) and no question the colder weather slows me down. That’s something I look forward to in Cambodia; temps will be in the low-90s. I’m sure something in-between Sunday’s mid-40s to low-50s and low-90s might be perfect, but since I don’t have that as a choice, I’ll be happy with what I can get.

It was fun riding the coast instead of Stage, even on the two climbs where Kevin decided to push the pace pretty hard. Even got a couple now-very-rare PRs on Strava! It helps to ride the road less traveled from time to time. Tunitas? Yeah, ride casual. Might have been more motivated if there’d been more cyclists on the road, but despite being a really pretty day, there weren’t many out there. Maybe everyone was watching the football game?

Sex & Drugs & Rock&Roll? I lived the last part anyway…

Personal stuff

What’s more embarrassing than some of the stuff you did in your past? How about seeing all those old people trying to re-live it today! Who are they????!!!

Funny to consider that I was rumored to be one of four graduates of UC Santa Cruz in the 70s who didn’t do drugs or even smoke grass, yet I saw these guys at least a dozen times in 3 years. I’ll never forget the first time hearing “White Punks on Dope” live; the excitement as it rose to its finale, with the Stanford Marching Band on stage even, a woman on trapeze swinging through the air overhead, Fee Waybill with his foot-high platform shoes. It was so… real. Never before or since had I seen an audience get into it so heavily.

It was the age of sex & drugs & rock & roll, although only the rock & roll applied to me. I guess, since I remember the 70s, I really wasn’t part of it. That’s what they say anyway, but I don’t think that’s true.  And how would they know anyway?

I rarely play The Tubes anymore; for that matter, I don’t listen to music in general nearly as much as I ought to. I say that because, whenever I do actually “listen” to music, I really enjoy it. What is it that’s so compelling about TV that you’re worried if you don’t have it on, you’re missing something? Heck, The Tubes even had a song for that- “TV is King.”

I wish I had the girl with the bouncy hair
We’d ride off in a brand new car
Or fly a plane somewhere
Like probably Jamaica
I brush my teeth, shampoo my hair, and shave my face
Apply the necessary aerosol
In the appropriate place
And we’ll spend the night together watching television

I can’t turn off my–television
Don’t really know why–television
TV is king
You’re my everything

Isn’t that the dream? Amazing how little has changed since 1979, when their “Remote Control” album came out. The Tubes arguably invented “punk” rock, and even penned a song a few years later exclaiming “I was a punk before you.” And they were. But in a stylized, artistic & sarcastic manner that appealed on an intellectual level.

The Tubes fit into a special box all their own and didn’t really mesh with my general preference for Progressive English Rock, other than arguably pretentious, overly-intellectualized lyrics. The Tubes were all about making fun of the audience, and themselves.

King Crimson, Procol Harum, early Genesis, Renaissance, Caravan, not the usual stuff people listened to back then. I used to go to a record store in Los Gatos, The Galactic Zoo, to get the import versions of albums because they were supposed to be pressed better and came out two weeks earlier than the US-manufactured records. Musically these groups were much better than The Tubes. But, nothing quite packs the punch of White Punks on Dope.