All posts by Mike

Feels so good to make the legs hurt so bad!

Tues/Thurs 7:45am ride

Nice ride this morning! 5 of us, with both Kevins along with JR & Marcus. Pilot Kevin is still getting over something nasty so I waited for him at the clearing on Kings, while JR rode on ahead. Way ahead were younger Kevin and Marcus.

The most-interesting part of the ride, for me, was the climb from Swett Road up to the plateau before the Skegg’s parking lot. I went pretty hard for some reason, with younger Kevin on my tail. About halfway up he pulled even with me, but instead of giving up, I just went that much harder and somehow pulled off the uphill sprint. I wanted to create a Strava segment for it, titled “20 seconds of pain”, but Strava won’t let you create a segment shorter than a minute. Darn!

Fuzzy highly-enlarged photo showing the work being done on West Old LaHonda

Pilot Kevin peeled off for home before reaching Sky Londa (Marcus had left us before that). Now the decision- what to do about the West Old LaHonda loop, since it can’t be done as a “loop” anymore with the construction going on. Last week we did an out-and-back from the bottom, so today we rode the upper half. We didn’t actually head all the way down though; we stopped at the scenic viewpoint to check out the construction from up above, and then retraced our route back to Sky Londa. Along the way we met up with a couple guys from London who’d found their way up Old LaHonda and were wondering where they might find a good place for breakfast. Well, just a mile or two away from Alice’s, is that really a question????

The real surprise, for me, was heading home back over Jefferson. My legs still felt a bit cooked from my “20 seconds of pain” effort, but Kevin was pushing really hard up Jefferson. I thought for a bit, nah, let him go, but why? Why not see how long I can hold the wheel? I was actually riding behind JR, who fell off the pace about half-way up, giving me an opportunity to say well, that’s it, time to watch Kevin ride away. Instead I went around JR and rode up to Kevin’s wheel, hanging on all the way over the top and ending up with my 2nd-best Strava time for that segment. I really didn’t think I had that left in my legs.

And yes, the rest of the day, my legs were talking to me.  Talking in a language I haven’t heard in quite some time. “We hurt, why did you do this to us? Can you do it again?”

Said good-bye to Los Altos today…

Personal stuff, Ride reports (not Tu/Th), Shop news
Our Los Altos store after the last customer, 24 years after the first customer, has left and the front door locked for the last time.

It was a day in three parts, and definitely didn’t save the “best” for last.

It began with Kevin and I providing ride support for the annual Foster City Community bike ride, like we’ve done the past quite-a-few-years. Basically it involves inflating a whole lot of flat tires. I mean tons of ’em. As if nobody has a pump with a gauge at home, even though everyone claims they do. We bring a bunch of floor pumps, but nobody seems to know how to use them, even though they claim they have one. So yeah, we get quite a workout! Actually this year Kevin seemed to have gotten a bit smarter about things and was often putting bikes in the stand to take care of some adjustments, leaving me to pump the tires. Kid’s getting smarter!

Get home about 11:30, get dressed and go out for a quick ride ‘cuz Kevin’s got a train to catch at 3:20 to see a girlfriend near Berkeley. Has to be something short & pretty hard, just like last week. I’m really missing a longer ride!!! Next week, Pescadero or bust. Today it was Old LaHonda, West Old LaHonda (yes, you can squeeze past the barriers when they’re not working on weekends), then back up to Skyline, north all the way to 92 and back via Canada. A surprisingly-tough ride with Kevin pushing the pace most of the way.

And then Becky, Karen (my wife) and I headed down to the Los Altos store for its final hour. More like 90 minutes, as it stayed pretty busy for a while. I figured they could use the help and it wouldn’t seem right not being there for the end. It was a bit emotional at times, with regular customers coming in to say good-bye, and Amy, former store manager, flying in from New York, a complete (and emotional) surprise for my brother Steve. One of the staff (CJ) set up a grill after everything was over and served burgers as we discussed the good times and the… actually, just the good times. Many to remember. Some will be heading up to Redwood City after we get the remaining inventory moved up.

The total remaining inventory of socks after we closed down the Los Altos store. Wonder what was so wrong with these last 5 pair?

And tonight, it’s been all about running down the various places people would find information about the Los Altos store and making sure things were updated to show it’s no longer in operation. That’s an emotional thing in itself, and something I want to get out of the way quickly not just so customers don’t head down there thinking they can buy a bike, but also because it’s a bit painful and I’d rather not have to do it down the road. Just get it over with.

So yeah, kind of a big day, with many more still to come, as we have to make room to absorb what’s left. Have to admit we did much better on the closeout apparel than I thought we would.