Category Archives: Uncategorized

Great day for riding (as long as you’re not Fabian Cancellara)

Ride reports (not Tu/Th), Uncategorized

It wasn’t the easiest way to start the day, watching Fabian Cancellara, cyclist extraordinaire and riding Trek’s new Domane bike at the Tour of Flanders, crash and break his collarbone.

But for the rest of us, today was the first day without a threat of rain for a while, and after yesterday’s on-again off-again downpours, a wonderful surprise. Kevin (my son, not the pilot) and I headed out for the default moderately-hard ride, the one you do when you’re too lazy to come up with something imaginative so you fall back on the dependable. Woodside/Old LaHonda/Pescadero/Tunitas. I can’t even imagine how many times I’ve done that ride.

Predictably, Kevin was a whole lot stronger than me going up Old LaHonda; my time was 22-something and he was 19-something (his fastest time yet, while for me… sigh). From there it was off to the coast, accompanied by some pretty stiff headwinds that tend to favor my strengths over Kevins’. I was able to hold my own on Haskins (just barely, but I didn’t let him know that) and by the time we got to Stage, I could have put him in serious trouble if I was that kind of dad.

Heading up the final stretch of Stage Road north of San Gregorio, we found ourselves chasing a tandem that was doing pretty darned good (tandems typically bog down on steeper climbs); we didnt’ catch up to it until the foot of the Tunitas Creek climb. From a distance I was able to make out a style of riding that made me think it could be Tom Ritchey, which turned out to be the case. No wonder that tandem could move!

We also ran into a chicken crossing. First time for everything! (And then later a turkey… in a car.)

Shortly after that someone caught up to us from behind and rode past us pretty quickly. I cautioned Kevin that we should ride a reasonable pace, but while I was willing to concede ground slowly, Kevin suddenly rocketed past first me, then the other guy, and flew up the hill. Hmm. It was just minutes ago that Kevin wasn’t riding that strongly, so I went into “Levi” (Leipheimer) mode and rode at my max sustainable pace, gradually clawing my way back to and then past Kevin. I made sure to keep him in sight though; the plan wasn’t to ride him into the ground and ditch him.

Despite the wind, a great day to be out on a bike. And I’d say that even if I wasn’t relieved to see I still have a few advantages I can exploit over Kevin.

Don Draper in Mad Men has it right

Tues/Thurs 7:45am ride, Uncategorized
A big group this morning, probably waiting about 5 minutes for my arrival at the top of Kings. I've got work to do!

If this is what 56 feels like, I can’t wait to be 57! I’d like to say it was fun this morning, but that’s not quite the right adjective. “Fun” lost out as a description in so many ways, beginning with a mistaken weather report that said rain from 7am-on (it’s 1:30pm presently and rain has yet to make an appearance) so we rode our heavier, slower, less “fun” rain bikes… in my case, my 5900, which is a pretty nice machine, except that I’ve got tires on it that are suited for uber-nasty conditions but feel like you’re riding through sand. It also wasn’t much “fun” when you round the corner to view the first big hairpin going up Kings (at the halfway point), looking forward to seeing how far ahead the rest of the riders are… but there are none in sight. Hate that! It means that I’m already over a minute down from the next-slowest rider on the climb.

It’s at moments like these that you start searching for an appropriate tune in your head, something that matches both your pace and your predicament. Sadly, I could not recall enough of the lyrics from Procol Harum’s “About to Die” to carry the tune. Maybe I should have gone for ELP’s “Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends…” Or, if things were really dire, Procol Harum’s “Still There’ll Be More” (warning: the lyrics are a bit, er, harsh).

It’s funny too when you’re looking at the elapsed time and thinking, well, I’m still at this point on the climb and they just finished. Actually, even though there remained 4 or 5 minutes to go when that thought hit me, it was encouraging. Not that much further to go! I started thinking about how you feel better as you get into the ride, and if I could survive to west-side Old LaHonda I’d be feeling pretty good! And to the extent that simply surviving that far was an accomplishment, I was feeling better. And at the end of the ride, I felt a lot better than I would have had I not ridden.

But note to self: I’m not going to let myself get so out of shape and gain so much weight next time I’m off the bike for 10 days!

Oh, the Don Draper remark? In the recent season opening episode, a surprise birthday party is thrown for Don, whom we discover doesn’t do birthdays. I can relate to that. But a surprise birthday party at only 40 years old, as if that’s a big thing? I had one at 50, and got to admit my wife did a pretty impressive job with it, but it didn’t change my mind about birthdays in general. Judge me by what I can do, not how old I am. That thinking might change as I get older and even slower.  –Mike–