All posts by Mike

It’s been nuts. That’s pretty much it. Just nuts. And I need to feel grateful about it.

Personal stuff, Shop news
Hopefully our “new look” will be gone shortly!

I’m still riding, still doing the Tuesday & Thursday-morning rides, still riding to work, still doing the Sunday ride. But the rides home from work are long and slow and it’s a struggle to get up the hill. The shower I’d normally look forward to at the end, I feel like I need by maybe 4pm while still at work. And what’s worst, things have been so exhausting that I’ve not have the time or desire to engage in my primary stress-relieving coping mechanism, which is what you see here. Writing.

Things are simply crazy at the shop. Off the charts crazy. The phone never stops ringing. Line one, line two, line three all at the same time. We’ve set up a recording that is never turned off; if we can’t get to the phone by the 4th ring, you hear a message saying we’re too busy to get to the phone, that our priority has to be to the sometimes-long line of customers waiting outside our door to come in and get something for their bike. Or ask if we have a kid’s bike, a hybrid, or a mountain bike… and if it’s under $1500, we have to tell them the answer is no. If they need significant repairs to their bike, we tell them it’s going to be six weeks. We have no acceptable answers,

And yet. And yet they just keep coming. From opening (11am weekdays) until our now-earlier closing time of 5:30pm, it is hard to even find a chance to get to the bathroom, much less eat. And for me, even talking through a mask is exasperating as I rapidly run out of breath.

And then there’s the boarded-up front of the shop, a precaution we took during the Black Lives Matter protest, a precaution that turned out to not be necessary because the local protest was peaceful, as had been planned. Redwood City didn’t attract the outside looters that hit Oakland and Emeryville and Walnut Creek.

And yet. I am one of the fortunate ones. Our shop, our employees, are among the fortunate. Because we have been able to keep busy during the Covid-19 lockdown. We’ve been considered essential, and from the people coming through our doors (or trying to), we have reason to believe it’s true. I have to keep that in mind when it seems like each day brings more moving pieces than the day before.

Going forward, it’s possible we might steal something from the French playbook, and consider closing for an hour during the day, so staff can get a chance to eat and catch up on things like phone calls to customers letting them know their bikes are ready.

France. That’s another thing. The Tour de France moved from its usual July dates to September. Trying to guess when Covid-19 might become a minor issue and allow some semblance of normalcy. So guess what. When times are abnormal, what do we most seek? The normal. The routine. And so, yes, Kevin (my son) and I have booked tickets to see the final week of the Tour de France, again, the usual gig. Air fare got really cheap for a short amount of time, so what the heck. And if things go south, the fare can be used for any other flights without penalty. The hotels and apartments we’ll use require no deposit and can be cancelled just days ahead of time. No real downside.

So that’s where things are. I need, I desperately need, to keep my mind on the positive, how grateful I am that Covid-19 hasn’t destroyed my livelihood, like it has so many others. It hasn’t negatively affected the lives of anyone in my family or friends. I just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep on going until normalcy returns. –Mike–

Riding/Working/TdF Planning

Personal stuff, Ride reports (not Tu/Th), Tdf trip planning, Tues/Thurs 7:45am ride

Where do I start. No write ups for Tuesday’s or Thursday’s rides. Nothing really eventful; still riding stronger than Kevin (not the pilot), and that’s likely to continue because he didn’t ride at all today (Sunday), leaving me to do a solo effort. Up Old LaHonda at a pretty good clip, 22:08 according to Strava. Leaving me to wonder where those 9 seconds were lost! Best recent historical time was back in September when I clocked a 22:04, so even 5 seconds faster would have been nice. Still, pretty good speed on the climb, especially on the first half. Then headed south on Skyline, something I rarely do, then down Page Mill, looped out to our former store location in Los Altos (still vacant after 2.5 years!!!) then back via Sand Hill and Woodside. Just 48 miles but felt pretty good and was able to keep the watts up later in the ride.

Work. Oh. My. Gosh. I need to be so grateful that we have work, that we’re allowed to be open, which is so much better than many can say. But the stress of working through the day non-stop, no time for lunch, phone ringing every two minutes instead of once every 6, lines outside the door many times during the day… it gets to you. And the masks. I have a pretty nasty lung condition which I’ve compensated for by breathing more often than most. Specifically my lungs clear CO2 at 28% efficiency of a normal person, but, because my lungs have been trained to breathe more often, I can still climb a hill on a bike. Just… loudly. But the masks. Wow. I get out of breath just talking to someone on the phone! Climbing stairs? Yikes. Thinking I’ve got another year of this ahead of me is scary.

And then there’s the shop move. Getting the new location ready has been a Covid-19-enhanced nightmare. Few things are going right, but somehow it’s all going to magically pull together and we’ll be wondering why we didn’t make this move years ago.

So sometimes I start feeling a bit helpless, hopeless, and generally down. Because what’s to look forward to? That’s what keeps me going. Something to look forward to. So, I bit the bullet. Despite the questions about how Covid-19 is going to play out, I’ve made arrangements to see the Tour de France again. The rescheduled Tour de France, which will run from August 31st to September 20, nearly two months later than normal. Found some very inexpensive air fares, but seriously don’t know if United is going to keep flying nearly-empty planes or cancel a lot of them, potentially making it difficult to get to where we need to be, when we need to be there. But I need hope, so I’ve got everything blocked out, hotels in Grenoble (7 nights), Mulhouse (2 nights) and Paris (1 night). No idea what the ‘Tour might be doing to keep things from getting too crowded, but we’ve generally not had much trouble finding a not-too-crowded spot on the big climbs. The finale in Paris? I have no idea how they could control crowd density, if they allow spectators at all.

And will the local trains be running? I hope so, because I’d really rather not rent a car, and I’ve mapped out an itinerary that allows us great access using the combination of local trains and our bikes. The 2020 TdF route at first looked downright hostile to fans, in terms of seeing many of the stages, due to long distances between some of them. But it really does look like I’ve got it figured out. One of those brief moments of clarity where it all came together.

Except, of course, that it could all come apart, if the trains aren’t running, or they decide to exclude fans entirely. But the worst-case scenario is that we’ll be able to ride some of the best cycling roads in the world, on our own. Life could be worse.