From past experience, I know that a non-responsive heart rate often occurs the day before I come down with something. And guess what? Tonight I’m downing cold-eze, hoping to keep an obvious oncoming cold from getting worse. What’s the deal here? I’ve read nowhere else of evidence that a heart that won’t kick into gear is a leading indicator of getting sick, and yet for me, it’s happened time and time again. Is it just so strange that nobody has given it any thought? I know that, if not for the attention I pay to my heart rate (just one of those things I do, not something that anything good really comes of, just more information to process that might somehow make riding a bike seem more important), I never would have noticed it.

Loneliness is… coming around the bend on Kings and, if you look really hard, you see someone just going around the corner way, way, way up ahead. More than a minute ahead of you.

So as you can imagine, I was bringing up the rear of a moderate-sized group that included the two Kevins (and this time, the younger Kevin is doing pretty well after having had his kidney stent removed yesterday), Karl, Karen, Mark P (whom we haven’t seen in some time), Marcus, George, Todd… and me, way off the back. Just under 29 minutes to the top, but once there, I was able to play with the big dogs for the most part, because there isn’t that much of the ride that requires a high heart rate. Except the upper part of West Old LaHonda, and yeah, I pulled up the rear again.

The funny thing about it is that I’ll feel better riding when I actually feel sick, because I have something tangible to fight against. Much better than just riding slow for apparently no good reason.

It was a beautiful day to ride! Which is always a good excuse for another shot of West Old LaHonda.

Kevin and I needed to get in some miles; it’s less than two months before we head to France and tackle some nasty climbs. Would have been nice to do a Santa Cruz run,

The “big curve” on Haskins

but school work for Kevin meant he had to get back at a reasonable hour, so we set out to do the loop I did April 21st (I think)- Over Old LaHonda to Pescadero, Bean Hollow and south on Highway 1 to Gazos Creek, return to Pescadero via Gazos Creek and Cloverdale. Food. Cokes. Mix more Cytomax.

Up to that point, things went reasonably well. Kevin was running into some pain issues from his kidney (isn’t this getting to be pretty stale news about now?) so he was just barely hanging onto my wheel as we rode into a stiff headwind, but kept it to himself until we were just about ready to leave Pescadero, saying he wanted to pack it in, call home for someone to pick him up.

Fun. I talk him into heading to San Gregorio before calling for the broom wagon (in racing, the broom wagon “sweeps” the back of the race, picking up racers who’ve abandoned), since it would be much easier for someone to come straight over 84 looking for us, rather than have to figure out Stage Road etc. He makes it, painfully, we call from San Gregorio, then head east on 84 for the intercept. I figured La Honda, and sure enough, just past La Honda, the broom wagon appears.

Waaaaay too soon for me to pack it in though! Can’t even believe my wife asked the question. As if she doesn’t know after 34 years? Just 50-something miles by that point, none really hard, it was time for me to finally shake my legs loose, which I did, getting a new personal best for upper section of 84 up to Skyline.

77 miles, “only” 6200ft of climbing, so it didn’t even meet the definition of a “tough” ride (needs 1,000ft of climbing per 10 miles). The original plan had been to head up Los Lobitos Cutoff and Tunitas, which would have been 1000ft more… still not enough! Maybe next weekend…

More soon-    –MIke–

This makes it worth getting up earlier than you would otherwise have to!

Last night Kevin, Becky and I were riding home from the shop after work, and I noticed it was 7:33pm when we left, exactly 12 hours prior to when Kevin and I leave for the Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride. And, sure enough, I check the Garmin and we left at 7:33am. We made better time than normal getting to the start though, since we spotted Andrew from the RC shop just ahead of us, and Kevin of course had to run him down.

Marcus, Kevin, George, Jan, Chris(? a friend of Karl’s who works with him at REI), the other Kevin, Todd… who else? Ah, Ludo joined is for a bit, first time out for him in many months. Brandon had gotten an earlier start and was riding as fast as he could, ahead of us, trying to not get caught until late in the ride. What he didn’t know was that we were riding at a civilized pace (again), and held up a bit first when I waited up for Kevin (son, not the pilot) who wanted to shed his leg warmers at the park entrance up Kings, and then later for George when he tossed his chain.

Kevin (son, not the pilot) had wanted to get in some extra miles by dropping down to LaHonda and heading back up West Alpine, but found no takers today. I couldn’t go with him because it would add over an hour to the ride and not get me back in time for work. Darn, would have been nice! As it was we ran about 11 minutes late at the finish, never really getting into that “fast” groove this morning.

The LaHonda Duck Pond, complete with the basics. Ducks, ducklings & kids!

There are only so many ways you can try and combine our local roads and come up with something different after 40+ years, but I was determined to try. You can see what I came up with below; start by climbing 84 from Woodside, not Kings or Old LaHonda, and then head north on Skyline, not South. Descend Tunitas instead of climbing it, then south on 1 to Stage, then the more-typical run into Pescadero, up & over Haskins, and return via 84 & West Old LaHonda. I figured it would be challenging, and I had figured correctly, especially going alone (Kevin’s still having kidney pain issues).

Warm? Yes, at least until San Gregorio, which was actually fogged in! The run south on Stage was interesting in that you had the sun on one side, fog on the other, a not unpleasant combination, just a bit strange.

I did “goof off” a bit on West Old LaHonda, taking more photos than usual, as seen below-

Widescreen (iPhone Panorama) shot of West Old LaHonda

2013 Trek Domane

TREK Domane 5.2 Road Bike on sale for $3299.99 ($3679.99 on Trek’s website). This is the game-changing bike that has put comfort and high-performance together in an unbeatable package! Read the reviews below, then come in for a test ride.

Here’s a review of the Trek Domane 4.3, and the Domane 6.9 from BikeRadar. Another review of the 6-series Domane, one step up (slightly-lighter frame).  Local bike rental company reviews the Domane 5.2. Bikerumor.com reviews Trek Domane.  Bicycling Magazine on the Domane 5.2 WSD (Women’s, but both men’s & women’s bikes use the same frame)-

Why we ride

It was Tuesday that George got on my case about some of my Strava ride descriptions, basically focusing on the pain and challenges, making it not sound like fun. And that hit me, because my job, seriously, is to make cycling seem like something people want to do, not have to. So today I set out to “have fun” even though it was a Thursday, which meant the tougher route to Skyline, up through the park. It worked! It’s not as if I was very fast heading up the hill (I wasn’t), but that didn’t matter. I was out on a bike, riding with friends, and looking for the little things that make each ride over roads I’ve ridden hundreds of times, a bit different.

Everyone present and accounted for! From left to right, Kevin J, George, Karen, Kevin K, Karl, Eric, Marcus, Andrew, Chris, and JR far right, riding in from the men’s room.

The group stayed together on the climb up Kings, with the exception of Kevin J, who’d had to take a brief stop for relief near Huddart, and I rode a bit behind the main group so I could keep an eye on him and make sure he was doing OK. We came across Brandon, who’d left a few minutes earlier than us, just past the park; he had intentions of trying to hold our pace for a while, but that’s tough to do when you’re carrying a backpack with work clothes on a bike that’s a good deal heavier than the rest of us were riding.

Everyone stayed together the rest of the ride, at a good but not deadly pace. The sort of thing that I could really get used to. And I can especially get used to completely dry roads on descents! No worries about sliding on tar stripes, nor holding back impatient cars behind. Life is good on days like today. There will be many more.

Riders in the rain

Yesterday seemed warmer than expected; the first day of the big cool-down yet it was still pretty darned warm. And with that, really busy at the shop. I can live with that! But last night… talk about what the wind blew in. Let’s get something out in the open. I don’t like wind. It’s unsettling. Keeps me from sleeping ‘cuz there’s so much stuff (pollen) in the air, makes me anxious, that sort of thing. So I wake up with about 3 hours sleep this morning for an “early” ride with Kevin because he’s got a 2pm on-line gaming gig…

But that “early” ride (supposed to leave at 8am) turned into 9am when it turns out that the breakfast rolls needed half an hour in the oven, and that tossed the original idea, riding to the coast via Pescadero, out the window. Sigh. In the end that was probably best, since Kevin’s still in a lot of pain from his kidney stent.

Up the good old reliable Old LaHonda Road to Skyline at a, for Kevin, leisurely 25 minute pace. He wanted to go faster at the start, but towards the end he was hurting and slowing down. Let me be clear; I have no problem adapting to a slower pace.

Down the other side and the rain hit. Not much, not drenching, but enough that I gave the light windbreaker I’d brought to Kevin to stay warm (Dad’s do things like that) and reminded him that next time, he needed to get a bit smarter on seriously-cloudy days and carry one himself. It was at the base of West Old LaHonda that we came across the young woman and her friend in the photo, shivering in the wet & relative-cold. No leg warmers. If you don’t have leg warmers in your cycling closet, get them!

Thankfully it stopped raining shortly and even warmed up for the rest of the ride. The run to the coast was nicer than expected, with an unexpected tailwind quite a bit of the time. After a short stop for a cookie for Kevin at San Gregorio, it was up Stage Road to the coast, again with a tailwind, and really wishing this was a day we were in good shape and going for time because we’d have been pushed up the hill!

The real missed opportunity came on the downhill run to Tunitas on highway one. If I’d thought about it, I would have pushed over the top and gotten some speed on the way down, because way too late I noticed I was doing 43mph and accelerating… but almost at the bottom. I tucked in to see what I could do and watched my speed… 47… 48…49… 49.2, 49.5, 49.6, 49.7, 49.8… c’mon, you can do it… and that’s all she wrote. Two tenths of a mile per hour short of 50. I could have easily gone 55 or better had I tried sooner!

With all the relatively-favorable winds we expected Tunitas to be nasty for the first few miles before the climb, but surprisingly that still wasn’t the case. One thing I know for sure; this would have been a terrible day for a ride south to Santa Cruz!

Kevin passing the “Bridge of Death” on Tunitas

One of the classic Tunitas switchbacks

The climb up Tunitas wasn’t pretty (actually, it was very pretty; it always is!), but we got to the part where it levels off sooner than expected. Somehow we missed the “false” summit that you misread on the climb, thinking you’re closer to the top than you really are. That’s the kind of surprise I like.

In the end we got home a bit earlier than expected, so Kevin got to play his role in the game (which his team lost, which should be an indication he should spend more time cycling and less time in on-line games). Just 44 miles and about 4500ft of climbing, but the future looks good.

This is not what your chain should look like!

“Strongman” Kevin (pilot) during a brief break in the action while George’s flat is repaired

Karl, Karen, Kevin (pilot), Joe, Marcus, George and I’m trying to remember who cut the ride a bit short and headed back down 84 while the rest of us did the west-side Old LaHonda loop? JR was there at the beginning but he was sticking to his regimen of doing intervals, not riding for time, so we saw him for just a short while.

Nice and warm so I was really hoping my lungs would do well today, but didn’t matter, my legs felt like mud. Got to the top in just under 30 minutes, a good two minutes slower than last week, and felt like twice the effort. I never really felt like I was “there” until almost the end of the ride, when I decided to go for and take the final sprint, and shortly thereafter thought this would be a good day to ride to Santa Cruz if not for that work thing that gets in the way. We’ll see what happens next week when I squeeze in that extra Monday ride to keep things loose.

This would be more artistic if the view to the left was a bit more stylish

Different crop, same photo. Try enough times maybe something will come out.

Later on it was time to refuel, so stopped by Peets on the way to work. They’re not super bicycle friendly; no bike rack outside, and nothing to plug the whole in your coffee cup so it doesn’t splash out on you on your way to work. The barista suggested using a second cap and turning it so the hole didn’t line up, and this did in fact work, but only after taking a couple of minutes working to snap the second cap over the first one without collapsing the cup. Why couldn’t she have volunteered a piece of tape to cover the whole? I’ll ask next time.

What’s missing? Mr. Mustard’s hot dog stand, that’s what? 80+ degrees, dying on the climbs and you’re really looking forward to an ice cold coke… and it’s not there. Did I arrive too late?

56 miles should not have been as difficult as it seemed to be! It didn’t start so badly; a nice cruise south through the foothills with a stop at our Los Altos store to use the bathroom and check in on things (they looked busy, which is good!) and from there it was all downhill. Or rather uphill. Uphill being, in this case, Redwood Gulch and Highway 9. I had these fine ideas of trying to do the climbs seated, so I could get some decent video. What stopped me? 80+ degree temps, riding by myself, and there’s no way around it, I just don’t have what it takes anymore when it gets really steep.

But what made it worthwhile was knowing that, once I got to the top, Mr. Mustard’s hot dog stand would be there, with ice cold drinks and, yes, hot dogs. A hot dog has to be one of the worst things you could eat on a ride, but it’s not as bad as you think. The right place at the right time makes the difference.

Tried feeding it dollar bills, even a 10 but it just wasn’t hungry!

What finally got me going was being passed by another cyclist, the only cyclist I saw on all of Skyline. For a (brief) moment I let him go and then thought hey, I don’t have to do that, I’ve got legs, so I chased him down and stayed with him the rest of the way. He did drop me pretty quickly descending 84 into Woodside though.

Overall glad that I got out there, but it will be nice when Kevin’s past his kidney issues and riding with me again. But I remain concerned that my “tough” rides are getting shorter and shorter… what’s next, a 25 mile ride that does me in? Hope not! –Mike–

Theoretically. We should have been able to take trains to places reasonably close to each of the stages, but that plan’s now shot. Here’s what’s in store for the Alps-
This is the most-heavily-affected stage. It’s a two hour drive, in good traffic, from Grenoble to Chorges, and on the day of the TdF, could be a whole lot longer. In all likelihood it could be a totally-jammed road, with time trials being very popular and there being so few roads in the area.

Time Trial, Wednesday, July 17th.The plan will be to drive from Grenoble to Veynes, about 100k and supposedly 90 minutes over very twisty roads. This is the toughest stage to catch, because there are so few roads into the area and it carries huge interest because it could determine the final winner of the TdF. It’s not very long, just 21 miles or so, but all of it up & down.
View Larger Map

The beauty of driving to Veynes instead of Gap is that we’ll be taking a route that virtually nobody else is. Traffic congestion should be minimal, and no problem parking at the Veynes train station.

From Veynes, we catch the 11am train to Embrun, arriving right at noon. We then try to intersect the course somewhere on one of the two main climbs, using local roads whose suitability is in question (but that’s never stopped us before!). For the return we ride 30 miles back to the Veynes train station to pick up our car, sine the last train out of Chorges (at the end of the time trial) leaves at 5:25pm, likely too early by half an hour or so.

Alpe d’Huez, Thursday, July 18th. Traffic isn’t an option for this one, it’s assured. There’s only one route from civilization to the base of Alpe d’Huez, a narrow road that starts in Vizille, about 10 miles out of Grenoble, and climbs relatively-gradually for 20 more miles. It would be nice to ride from Grenoble to Alpe d’Huez, but that would preclude doing anything but going up & back. The route below has us parking about 2 miles short of Bourg d’Oison (the base of the mountain), riding further up the valley and then taking one of the amazing “balcony” roads that intersects the main climb just a bit up from the bottom. Then we ride to the top and descend down the back side, the Col de Serenne, and back to the car where we will be waiting in traffic… forever.

View Larger Map

Passing ShopX on the climb

Sometimes it really doesn’t matter how fast you are, as long as you’re faster than the other guy. That was the case this morning when, on the climb up Kings via Huddart, we came upon and passed the group from ShopX. Never mind that they’d probably already ridden hard this morning, while we were just starting out. All that matters is that we left ShopX (and their former owner, Les) in the dust. Sort of. We did dispatch with Les and the guy he was riding with, while two others who were up ahead a bit pulled off to the side, obviously totally intimidated by us, but I’m sure their story is that they were waiting for Les. Yes, that would have been my story too.

We made it to the upper park entrance in about 9:40 which, for me, is pretty good. I was trying to stay in the saddle no-matter-what and doing a pretty good job of it. Why? To work on different leg muscles and try to get smoother videos. I managed to stay in the mix, as we rode yet again at a fairly civil pace. Who was with us today? Kevin (pilot), Karl, Karen, Eric, Joe (first timer, on his new Trek Domane!), Jan, Todd, Marcus & Mark. New-guy Joe did very very well, and I suspect he’s only going to be getting faster because he’s not only new, but also fairly young. Hate that!

Jan comes face-to-bumper with a car

A small bit of excitement on west-side Old LaHonda when, rounding a bend, Jan found himself coming face-to-bumper with a large truck. Fortunately everyone was going pretty slowly so Jan had plenty of time to get out of the way.

Overall a pretty tough ride, despite Strava giving a “suffer” score of just 91. Maybe Strava downplayed the toughness to make it seem like we were just coasting past as we went by ShopX?

Large group this morning; I think just about everyone was there but my son, who will hopefully be back up and running for Thursday’s ride. Even Andrew from our shop came out to play, with his work clothes carried in a backpack (and he still danced away from me on the climbs). And Millo, where’s he been hiding? We knew he’d been riding with the older slower guys who leave about the time we get back, but he shows up today and he’s flying across Skyline! Training secretly is the only thing I can figure.

Towards the end of the ride, just after turning off Tripp onto Kings, Karl took off, getting quite a lead on us until for some reason I decide to chase him down. Nobody else came with me, not at first anyway, but eventually Kevin (pilot) rides up to assist with the chase, but it was too late, no way could I make a second go at getting back to his wheel. My victory was bridging up to it in the first place.

Riding through the forest on the upper stretch of West Old LaHonda

Classic Tunitas Creek switchback

My son was off doing paintball with friends, the Primavera Century had already filled up, so I was on my own. I needed miles, badly. Last year I’d done the Santa Cruz loop, all 114 miles of it, by mid-February. This year I’ve been tied up with work (yeah, you own a bike shop and your bike riding time is limited by work just like everyone else), my membership on the board of the National Bicycle Dealer’s Association, the usual family stuff. whatever. So what else is new?

But today I was going to get in some miles, a fair number of them, at an easy pace. That was the plan. So I went to mapmyride and put together the ride you see below. The typical “Coastal Classic” but with an extension at the southern end (the Cloverdale/Gazos Creek loop) and a bit tacked on at the north, accessing Tunitas Creek from Los Lobitos Cut-off. 75 miles, about 7500ft of climbing. Tough, but doable.

I didn’t count on coming across a guy named Twain as I pushed through Mountain Home Road in Woodside, near the start of the ride. A guy who rides Old LaHonda in 18:30 or so, vs my 22 on a good day, and kept me company on the way up, severely taxing my pathetic lungs. Nice guy, but just a bit too fast for me, and left to my own devices, I was thinking more in terms of a “relaxing” 25 minute time, now 22:30 and breathless. But I brought it on myself by initially passing him on Mtn Home; he rested on my wheel for a bit, came around, and it was all I could do to hold his wheel. I had my chance for a “relaxing” ride and blew it.

It’s true, the dollar isn’t a strong-enough currency!

I also didn’t count on 5 or 6 hours in bright sun and warm temperatures, something I haven’t seen in quite a while. That, too, took its toll on me. Nor a flat just a couple miles outside Pescadero, caused by a prior casing “patch” using a dollar bill that somehow provided rough-enough edges to eat a hole in a tube. And yes, I’m beginning to wonder why I don’t carry C02 like everyone else, so I can get back on the road more quickly.

Mastadon and Triceratops doing battle outside Pescadero

But in the end, it was the wind that made this an incredibly-tough ride. Nice tailwind most of the way south from Pescadero to Gazos Creek, but I paid for it dearly on the way back. It didn’t take more than a few miles heading north (from Gazos Creek to San Gregorio) before I was thinking, is this even possible?

Add streetcars and it’s 1890 all over again

But there’s this strange thing the past couple years with me and headwinds. They just don’t bother me like they used to. Don’t get me wrong; one of the reasons I’d never consider a cross-country ride is a fear of long straight roads through endless cornfields, battling a headwind for hours, perhaps days on end. That won’t change! But for 10 or 20 miles, I can handle them, keeping up a moderate speed even.

Tailwind down the coast, now the hard part turning onto Gazos Creek

On a related note, I passed two riders during times of heavy headwinds, and suggested they draft off me. For some reason that was a completely-foreign idea to them; they just didn’t get what I was offering.

But it was very nice when I finally got to Los Lobitos Cutoff and only had to deal with climbing. Any concern I wouldn’t have anything left was erased as I found a bit of power in higher gears, and I could “rest” at will, choosing anyplace I liked to ease off for a few seconds before putting more power to the pedals again. Still, it was nice finally getting to the top of Kings and knowing that all of the tough stuff was behind me, leaving a fast descent on Kings (possibly could have been one of my fastest if not for a really-slow-moving MiniCooper I caught up with about 2/3rds of the way down the hill).

Hours later and I still feel like the ride did me in. As I mentioned, the sun was likely a factor, and that’s something I’ll get more used to as the season goes on. The wind was the biggest issue, and a reminder that it would have been nice to have someone else along with me. But that’s OK, this was an opportunity to blow out the cylinders and get things moving again, if possible. And I think it is possible.
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Regarding the bike in general, wow, what a difference in normal setup between my Madone 6.9 H1 and the new Domane. Way shorter top tube on the Domane, and way higher. I compensated as much as I could by installing a slightly-longer stem, inverting it (so it’s as low as it can get) and “slamming” it (just one thin spacer underneath, all the rest on top) and it was still a good 2 or 3 cm higher than I’m used to, and nearly 2cm shorter. What effect does that have? Plenty. I’m sure, given a bit of time, I could get used to it, and in fact, later in the ride, it wasn’t so bad. But until then, it at least gave me the best excuse in a long time for climbing really slowly. You don’t realize how much difference it can make; when you’re used to bars a certain height and move them higher, climbing, particularly when standing, feels markedly different. Overall, making the move from a Madone H1 to a Domane is going to require bumping down one size for the frame and probably adding 3cm (!) to the stem. Good news for someone who feels too stretched out most of the time. It was an excellent exercise and helped me to spot a fit issue today with someone picking up a new bike (Domane 5.2) really fast. Should have done this long ago!

As for the ride, we saw the return of Mark E., along with the usual suspects, Todd, Karl, Karen, Kevin, Jan, and, at the very end, we came across Pilot Kevin returning from a different ride. “Serious” training apparently. Guess I’ll have to look at his Strava account to see what he’s up to! As I mentioned it was a pretty leisurely ride up the hill for me, losing sight of the last person ahead around the half-way point. Got to admit it’s times like those that you’re really looking forward to “topping out” on Skyline, the main part of the climbing behind you, and looking forward to the beautiful views of the coast.

One thing different was that, with the higher handlebars, I found myself in the drops (lower part of the bars) for a while heading down west 84. The others must have thought they were hallucinating, as I’m almost always on the top part of the bar, even descending.

??? I don’t get it. This is three happily-married people (we’ll make that assumption because it’s the safe thing to do), and nobody’s hitting on anybody (which I wouldn’t encourage but is it so bad to wonder if it could ever happen or that you’re so over-the-hill that you don’t catch your wife’s eye much less anyone else’s?). So why is someone who might be 50-something and looks 38 worried about clues to her age? The mysteries of women & men. It’s not so bothersome that I’ll never understand. It’s that it appears I’m not meant to understand.

A quick ride report- typical Tuesday morning group, but atypical pace. Complete lack of testosterone today, enough that I could almost talk riding up Kings. Probably helped that my son wasn’t there, stoking somebody’s desire to go faster. Funny thing about an easier pace though. For some reason you get hungry, almost to the point of bonking, which never occurs on a fast ride. Good to know there are still things to figure out after riding seriously for 40+ years.

The records were in Los Altos, where our Spring Bike Sale numbers were literally twice our prior biggest-day-ever. We feel a bit like Sally Fields when she won the Oscar for Norma Rae and exclaimed “You like me! You really like me!” It’s going to be a tough act to follow, that’s for sure. –Mike–

Our Director of Marketing

Is our marketing going to the dogs? Can’t tell you how many of these bikes we’ve sold the last couple days during our sale, but it’s a lot. One of our neighbors has been tempted, so our dog, Jack, had the idea that the way to get them to “bite” would be through their own dogs. What you see above was dropped on their doorstep tonight. –Mike–

Casual Coyote dropping in on our ride, with Marcus looking on. This guy never broke from a light trot, paying us no attention whatsoever.

To say that a big sale is stressful is an understatement; the Spring TREKFest that we’ve put together has required massive amounts of time, putting together the details, putting out the fires, and dealing with faulty uploads to our sale site (catalog.chainreaction.com). For some reason our ultimate killer deal wasn’t posting at the killer-deal price. It took at least 4 hours figuring it out, mostly done by my brother Steve… so I left the shop last night at 9:45pm, tired and hungry.

OK, Tuesday’s ride first. Big group, everyone seemed to show up. I had thought I might be able to climb more-strongly than normal after Sunday’s successful outing, but that proved not to be the case. Darn.

Today? Nice morning, yet nobody at the start but myself and Kevin! Where was everybody? Todd showed up just as we left, then Karl (who, when running late, rides the first part of the route backward to intercept us) and finally Marcus, at the base of Kings. Marcus and Kevin played off the front, while Karl and Todd were having a pleasant conversation at a relaxed pace at the back. Me? I was doing the usual heavy-breathing thing, hearing Karl & Todd yakking away, while I’m trying to stay out in front of them. Then, up on Skyline, it’s all I can do just to stay on their wheels.

What made the ride special was the Coyote seen casually walking in the opposite direction as we ride up west Old LaHonda. I mean totally casual, as if it was a well-tamed pet dog on a mission and had no interest in us whatsoever.

Meantime the sale continues through Monday. There really are some silly deals in this one, what we call an unsustainable business model. If you’re looking for a really nice bike, this is the time. If you need tires, all folding tires are 20% off and you get two free tubes with each. It’s nuts, but another shop was doing something silly, so we decided to go even-sillier. Now, why is it I’m not getting enough sleep this week?

No matter how our day turned out, it was probably better than this guy’s.

It was a long night, a “Kaiser” night dealing with Kevin’s kidney pain issues, but there’s a chance we’ve got a handle on it, and we’re looking forward to better days ahead. But it wasn’t until 1am that we finally got home, which killed getting out for a ride at a reasonable hour.

What about an unreasonable hour? No problem there, that’s our specialty! So we’re out the door and heading to the coast at 1pm, about the same time most are heading back. It might not have been the worst timing either, since it was a pretty gray day with Skyline fogged in, but by the time we got to the coast it had almost cleared up.

We knew it wasn’t going to be a speed run, since Kevin wasn’t feeling the greatest and he’s missed quite a few miles over the last couple of months. I even told Kevin that before we got to a climb. As if that would matter once we got to Old LaHonda, where I told him, if he really did want to go for it, go for it, just make sure you put a jacket on the second you get to the top so you don’t get cold waiting for me. He ended up not having to wait very long, taking just over 20 minutes while I was right at 22. So much for his hopes of a 19 or even sub-19 time. What was he thinking?

One of the real joys of living here is how quickly you can get away to pretty quiet roads. There were so few cars between Skyline and Pescadero you felt like you owned the road. The only time it felt otherwise was on the run north, where we took Highway 1 along the coast, instead of the more-traditional Stage Road option. Kevin’s choice; for some reason he really doesn’t like Stage Road. And for some reason, I really don’t like the noise of all the cars on Highway 1!

Kevin’s putting everything he has into getting up Tunitas today!

It was on Tunitas that Kevin’s lack of miles showed up, which curiously coincided with me feeling a whole lot better on the steep pitches than I have in a very long time. I had that all-too-unusual (for me) feeling of going faster by just shifting to a higher gear. Yet, while I could have ditched Kevin, I didn’t. I’d pick up speed for a bit, then soft pedal and wait for him. That’s OK, there will be plenty of other times when Kevin and I can have at it on Tunitas.

57 miles, 6100ft of climbing. Nothing like the Nifty Fifty in Berkeley today (54 miles with over 10,000ft of climbing!) but it was the right ride for today.

Knock knock knockin’ on Kevin’s door…

We knew it wasn’t going to be pretty; the weather forecast, for days, had said it was going to rain on Thursday, specifically, Thursday morning. And for days you’re thinking yeah, sure, as if they can get it right this time. But they held to the forecast, and about 4am it started to rain. Nothing that bad really, just wet pavement, light drizzle, light wind.

And for that we get… nobody. Just myself and my son (Kevin), on our rain bikes, heading down Canada Road to the start, expecting to see flashing head & tail lights in the distance. But nothing. Looked for tire tracks in the wet pavement, but saw nothing. In fact, this might have

Nobody home

been a most-remarkable morning in that we saw not a single other cyclist during the entire ride! A check later on Strava confirmed it- everybody stayed home.

Why? We’ve certainly seen a lot worse weather than this, with a number of people out there. My theory is that we’ve gone so long without rain that we’ve become spoiled and have decided to just wait until it’s nicer to ride. Especially on a day like today, where it was wet in the morning and dry later on. Why not just wait it out?

So no Karl, no Karen, no JR, no Todd, no Eric, no (pilot) Kevin. What do we do about it? Look for answers, of course! Kevin (pilot) lives not too far off Skyline so instead of doing the West Old LaHonda loop, we headed down Swett Road and dropped in to see him. Find out why he didn’t show. But alas, he wasn’t there. We figured that might be the case, as he’s on reserve this month, meaning that, at short notice, he could be called on to fly to Shanghai or Miami. That’s what he tells us anyway; we were kinda hoping we’d catch him sleeping in. Long story short, if you don’t show up for our ride, we just might track you down.  –Mike–

This is Why We Ride!

I made it up in just over 28 minutes, and got to admit I was hoping for something just a bit better, but not today. People were up the road ahead of me, and people behind. Well actually, not that many people behind. I really thought there were more, but no, not today. Maybe Thursday. Or not, since it’s supposed to rain. Fun!

But for Kevin and I, it was yet another shortened version, as his kidney continued to act up. Before it did, Kevin took the first sprint (at Skeggs) while I took the second, at Sky Londa. I was looking forward to more, but you could literally see beads of sweat on Kevin’s face that weren’t from his riding, but from the pain. We later found out that the pain isn’t being caused by kidney stones after all, but likely scarring from his prior operation. This is both good & bad news; bad in that he’s been through an awful lot and the prospect of yet another operation isn’t very appealing, especially if it involves a stent (essentially a plastic tube placed in the ureter, causing great pain for a number of weeks until removed. But the good news is that it can be fixed!

Thankfully his pain isn’t constant, and it had eased up enough so that, once back down on Canada Road, it was his idea to take a loop up through Canada College, to give the ride a bit more credibility. He actually wanted to descend Farm Hill and head back to Jefferson via Emerald Hill, which is a wicked-steep climb. Instead I talked him into a big loop through the college, dropping down to Farm Hill and then back up and around and down to Canada Road again. Even with that it was 5 miles shorter than normal, which I’m making up by commuting to work today by bike, something I need to do more of! –Mike–

Cheap $1 tire repair

Just east of San Gregorio

I pushed pretty hard on the lower, flatter part of Tunitas, knowing that was a place I could make up quite a bit of time on him, and eventually caught up just as the main climb started… and right as I found my rear tire going flat. Darn, two flats in a few weeks, this is killing my typical 3,000 miles between flats average! It’s also costing me a lot of money; $5 for the bill I had to reinforce the front tire with last week, but thankfully I had a $1 bill this time.

We did climb Tunitas fairly fast after that, and of course I lost contact with him until it started flattening out again. If he ever learns how to push on the flatter parts, I’m in real trouble! But since I was never any good at that when I was his age, I might have a bit of time.

Now if we can just get rid of those danged kidney stones!

Kevin looking serious, studying things the way you hope a pilot would.

I was so hoping to wake up to dry roads this morning, but guess it wasn’t meant to be. Not raining, but damp. Thankfully not so bad that I couldn’t rationalize riding my Madone instead of my rain bike. Don’t get me wrong; if it’s really dumping out there, it can be fun riding the rain bike. That whole man-against-nature thing. Bring it on. But a light drizzle with damp roads is simpy yucky. It destroys your confidence descending and you can’t see through your fogged-up glasses. But a really nice bike makes up for a lot of it.

Just three of us today; myself, Pilot Kevin and Karen. Kevin (my son) couldn’t make it due to another really bad night with his kidney stone pain, Karen said Karl would rather stay inside when it’s wet, and the rest of the group probably think they were just being sensible. What they missed was one of those rare rides at a sensible pace, so sensible that even I could find the lungs to carry on short conversations while climbing Kings.

Wonder what the Strava “suffer” score might have been? I forgot to wear my heart monitor so I’ll never know, but I suspect it was pretty low. That’s OK. It felt nice not running myself into the ground for a change. –Mike–

I used a blowtorch on the invitation the AARP sent me in the mail last year. I suppose they think sending an email means I’m less-likely to produce on-line vitriol again? They’re wrong. 57 is just a number. 65 will be just a number. 70 will be… well, tell you the truth, 70 does scare me a bit. At some point I’ll wonder if that last ride over Sonora Pass was the last ride over Sonora Pass I’d ever do. At some point I’ll not be thinking about scaling back, but probably actually have to.

I’m not there yet, and I don’t plan to be anytime soon. So don’t talk to me about taking a vacation on a cruise ship (Little-known fact about cruise shops- they’re actually run by aliens seeking to fatten you up for their dinner). Don’t tell me that I’ve worked hard enough all my life that I’ve “earned” some nice quiet time doing nothing.

Breaking news! This just arrived in my email box a day later. Again, I’M NOT DEAD YET!

How much time do I have? I don’t know if I might get stricken some day with something like my father got (a rare blood-born cancer), which took his strength and his life, 25 years ago. Younger than I am now.  But what I do know is that each and every day is an opportunity to do something. Something real. Something more relevant, to me, than a “Senior Citizen” discount at the movies, or a great deal at the Scooter Store. My plan, and remember, there’s always a plan, is to go down screaming and kicking. I literally pray to God that I can execute that plan. –Mike–

Was that the high point of the ride? No, not for me. First, it was great just pretending to be functional after very little sleep last night, courtesy of a call from our alarm company, telling us that something triggered an internal sensor in our Los Altos store. At 2:37am. Love that type of phone call. I told them yes, dispatch the police to check it out, and call me back if there were any problems. No call back so it was probably something that fell over and triggered a motion sensor, but as hard as I tried to be motionless myself, my mind was buzzing and I just couldn’t get to sleep. Hate that. But at 6:55am I sprang into action, woke up Kevin (who’d been up until, ironically, almost 2:30am due to pain from his kidney stones), and half-zombie-like got out and rode.

Nice morning, medium sized group. Jan, Kevin, Kevin, Eric, George, Karen, Karl & Todd. The sun came out, the roads were dry, and I was able to get just under 28 up Kings. The only real issue with the lack of sleep was a bit less awareness of the wheel in front of me, causing me at one point to suddenly put on my brakes so I didn’t go up George’s backside, which in turn got a well-deserved audible response out of Eric behind me.

I’m looking forward to getting some sleep tonight!

The “normal” ride would be a simple coast loop, out to Pescadero, across Stage Road and then back via Tunitas. Done that, probably 100+ times. We needed to do something more today, something that we’d feel in our legs the rest of the day. Over Old LaHonda, out to San Gregorio (a nasty drag into a headwind), south on Stage to Pescadero, then back via Haskins and, for fun, West Alpine.

Stopping to help two women fix a flat on Old LaHonda

I thought about holding Kevin back, telling him we should take it easy up Old LaHonda, but the way he tore up the first couple hundred meters, I realized he was on a mission. But about 1/3rd of the way up I saw him pulled over and yes, my first thought was darn, he had a seizure. Nope. He was being civilized and seeing if two women at the side of the road needed help.

Being me, of course I don’t remember their names, but Kevin tells me the one with the flat was Susan. Very nice people (aren’t most cyclists?) younger than me (isn’t everybody?) but still looking for women on bikes Kevin’s age (Susan and her friend had a bit more “life experience” than the 18-21 year old he’d like).

I pulled a lot of little pieces of glass out of her tire; please, make sure you inspect your tires after a ride and if you see any little cuts at all, let the air out and squeeze the tire so you can make sure there’s no embedded glass. Chances are there’s more, and if it stays in your tire, it will eventually push through and cause a flat.

From there Kevin rocketed on ahead, determined, even though he no longer had a Strava time to shoot for, pushing himself as hard as he could. Go figure. Me? I’d think this was an opportunity to take it easy.

$5 flat fix. Had a $20 but hoped $5 would be enough.

The ride out to the coast was not easy though, pushing against a fair headwind most of the way, and then, a couple miles out from San Gregorio, right when I was getting into a groove and pushing into the wind pretty well, my front tire went flat (looks like the cardboard from a tube box, which I’d used to reinforce a tiny spot where a piece of glass had gone through, actually wore a small hole in the tube). Yes, I admit it, I used one of Kevin’s CO2 cartridges instead of my hand pump! Saved a lot of time. The repair to the tire did cost me $5 though.

Looking towards the south-most climb on Stage Rd

Stage Road, with a slight tailwind, was fun. It was clearly an opportunity to try and post some new best times, which we did, on both the first and second climbs. The fairly-gentle grades work well for me; my breathing won’t keep up on anything over 5%. Glad I had my chance on Stage Road, because that was the only time I could hold my own against Kevin; the subsequent climbs up Haskins and West Alpine were rude formalities, as he established a new personal record on West Alpine 5 minutes better than anything he’d done before (which just happened to be 5 minutes faster than I climbed it today).

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Life goes by at just the right speed on a bike. You don’t notice the smell of breakfast when you drive past a house in a car. You don’t see the snakes in the road that need to be picked up before a car runs over them. You don’t

Kevin admiring girls admiring the view

notice the red-tailed Hawks circling overhead a bit up the road, which might just happen to correspond with another rider on the climb. And you smugly think that those people who drive up to Skyline, to admire the view from the scenic overlook… do they really appreciate it? They’re just looking at it, while those of us on bikes… we’re part of it. But that didn’t stop Kevin from admiring the view of the two young women admiring the view in the photo.

67 miles, just over 6700ft of climbing, and yes my legs hurt when I walk down stairs. It feels “good” to hurt like that. I’m going to get more of that “good” feeling.

Leyla Beban’s “Ghost Bike” relocated away from the intersection

My worst fears imagined; the “investigation” into the tragic death of 14 year old Leyla Beban on November 26, 2012 has decided it was her fault. You can read my original entry on this, written the day afterward, which asks questions and postulated how things might have gone down more-thoroughly than what’s been released by the police department. Or not. I haven’t seen the actual police report, only on-line stories that might not do justice to the Redwood City Police Department.

I’ve gone through the accident in my mind over and over and over. I have a very hard time understanding how the motorist was not responsible for knowing that someone was on his or her right, whether cyclist or pedestrian. And since there’s no right-hand turn lane there, the motorist must assume that anyone on their right side could be going straight, and have the right of way. Alternatively, if Leyla has actually been seen indicating she would be turning right, the motorist shouldn’t be racing her for the intersection. The family has retained an attorney who specializes in bicycle accidents, so this isn’t the end of it.

A bit damp and cool this morning on Skyline

Only one Kevin again today (the pilot’s been missing in action), Karl, Karen, Jan, Todd, Eric & Marcus. The fast folk were Kevin, Todd, Marcus and, later in the ride, Karl. I kept contact up through the park and a bit beyond, but about halfway up Kings the Kevin/Todd/Marcus group rode easily off the front.

It wasn’t cold this morning, at least not by winter/early spring standards, sitting around 39-40 degrees for much of the ride. The damp air made it feel a lot cooler than that though! We’re all definitely looking forward to warmer days ahead.

A success story

On one hand, it’s a great window into what people think, and it keeps you on your toes. At its best, it’s a two-way street, where you can respond to reviews and they respond back. Sometimes you can fix misunderstandings, sometimes you can make things right where you screwed up. I feel really good about that. Believe it or not, I want happy customers. Why a select few think otherwise has been the cause of more than a few sleepless nights over the years.

An (un)deserved rant?

But eventually you discover that some people that have it in for you, no matter what. Like the one on the right. I did my personal best for him, even exploiting my connection with Keith Bontrager to make sure the information I gave was accurate and relevant. Did not matter. Thankfully it was so over-the-top that I couldn’t really feel all that bad about it.

The biggest flaw in Yelp’s review process is that they allow for one-way communication, where someone can vent and you have no opportunity to correspond with them. The “cloak of anonymity” thing that removes credibility from much of the modern world. You can hit & run on a competitor (I’ve seen this first-hand) or trash a business just because you needed a lawnmower part and were annoyed (and didn’t believe) that a bicycle shop didn’t have it.

In my perfect world, when someone trashes a business and the business responds, Yelp should require that the reviewer respond to that business (a response that can remain anonymous) or else the review is removed. There should simply be some sense of accountability. Without that, you actually get people demanding better deals in the store or else threaten to post a Yelp review trashing us. And stores taking advantage by offering deals to people in exchange for high ratings, a practice that you can actually find referenced in some reviews.

We don’t ask for reviews (which is probably dumb, because if you do ask for reviews from good customers, you’re likely to bolster your ratings… but I just feel funny about it) and we actually fired an employee who posted a fake positive review for our store. Seriously. That wasn’t the only thing he did, but it was way up on the list.

And finally there’s Yelp’s own business practices. We signed up for a 6-month campaign, $315/store/month, where you essentially buy a higher placing when someone’s looking for bike shops, and you get a high-rated review moved up to the top. Bad reviews aren’t eliminated, they’re just moved down the page. We told the (very aggressive) Yelp rep that we’d just be doing this for the busy season, end it after 6 months, and then perhaps restart again the following year. 6 months went and the billings continued. Phone calls and emails couldn’t stop them. I finally had to call the bank to have the payments stopped. Crazy!

Could Chain Reaction ever get a 5-Star yelp rating? I don’t think so. Could be that I’m just rationalizing, but as long as we try to be inclusive, and take care of as wide a variety of cyclists as practical, we’re going to have situations where we’re not the ultimate source for, say, fixie parts, or cotter pins for that 34-year-old Firenze in the basement. Our location in Redwood City has a broader range of demographics than most, giving us a much wider clientele than the typical shop gets to deal with. That appeals to my sense of egalitarianism, but gets in the way of becoming a super-specialty-retailer that can give white-glove treatment to everyone coming in the door. Am I trying to rationalize? You bet. But I think I have solid ground to do so. I think, on balance, Chain Reaction has more heart than most. I think my staff does an awesome job. And when we fail, we feel badly, and work to make things right. Hopefully that comes out in my Yelp responses.

In the end, I think consumer review sites like Yelp are a good thing. You get a sense of what the shop’s like, reading both the review and, if it’s there, the reply from the business. I’m just not a fan of the complete anonymity and lack of accountability, which, as I mentioned earlier, could be easily fixed by simply requiring a dialog between reviewer and the business. A dialog that could remain anonymous! But a dialog nevertheless. In my perfect world, of course.  –Mike–

This was a beautiful morning. Happy riders, happy joggers, and, especially, very happy dogs. Maybe Winnie-the-Pooh in his mouth wasn’t so happy?

What’s not to like? The day began on what could have been a bad note, waking up at 6:35am, 20 minutes before the alarm is set to go off. I briefly thought about getting up, but instead thought hey, maybe I can just get back to sleep, and I did. Can’t tell you how it works, but when the alarm did go off at 6:55am, I felt like I must have had an hour or two sleep since waking up. Amazing! So how does that work?. Doesn’t make any sense at all. Just happy that it does.

Also happy that Kevin’s kidney stone pain wasn’t so bad. And really happy that the skies were clear with not a hint of the rain that was supposedly coming in later in the day. Of course, Kevin was happier with his 25-something time than I was with my 28-something, but I was able to keep him in sight for at least the first quarter of the climb. And the funny thing about happiness is that it creates more opportunities to be happy, probably because you’re more confident, and that confidence took me to my first sprint victory at Sky Londa in a while. It was a blast; heading down that final drop, sneaking up on George, Keith and Kevin, then sling-shotting forward off each, passing the last (Kevin) just before the line. Perfect timing, and much-improved confidence on the descent leading into it. They had a good hundred meters or more on me early-on, but it didn’t matter, because I knew I could close that gap.

And the various walkers and joggers in Woodside all seemed happy too. Especially the dog in the photo. What a great day to be out on a bike! Too bad it had to end. –Mike–

Generally you’d access Skywood Way from the “bottom” while climbing up 84 from Woodside towards Sky Londa. Look for the road on the right, pretty much the only road on the right. Make the first left and just follow the non-dead-end options (or, simply choose the steepest option, which is almost always the correct route on any ride!). –Mike–

It was looking like it wasn’t even going to be close to 30 miles; we’d headed up Old LaHonda, down the back side, back up to Skyline and then down the other side of 84 into Woodside, except that, somehow, I convinced Kevin that we should detour back up to Skyline via Skywood Way after following a too-slow car for a mile down the hill. Skywood Way used to be a through-road to Skyline until maybe 30 years ago when they blocked off the Skyline side. No biggie if you’re on a bike, just 20 feet or so that you have to walk your bike. You can see the details in the Strava report below, and, shortly, in a youtube that I’m uploading.

Even though Kevin got more sleep than I did, I was nice and didn’t try to haul him out on the ride. Instead I went through the motions, the same motions I’ve done many hundreds of times before, meet up with Karl, Eric, Nigel and Marcus and head up to Skyline. Since it was a Thursday we went up through the park, and my barely-under-29-minute time was perfectly satisfactory (to me). Nigel actually turned back before getting halfway up the hill, feeling like he just didn’t have it in him today. But for me, well, I just kept going, one foot after the other.

Everything was going nicely until West Old LaHonda, where I got one of my exceptionally-rare flat tires. A flat tire that took longer to take care of than it should have because the first time I inflated it, the removable valve core unscrewed, letting out all the air. No fun! But 10 minutes later we were back on our way.

Just to be clear, given the choice, I’d rather be able to ride with a reasonable amount of sleep than without.

What I didn’t enjoy was waking up to it being dark. Really dark. As in, should daylight saving time really start this early? But it all changes once you get on the bike. You start up the hill past your driveway and it feels… right. The bike feels light. Things are moving. I can do this. That week off the bike didn’t kill me after all.

Large group today; no way to remember everyone, but I’ll do what I can. Kevin, Kevin, Karl, Karen, Nigel, Eric, Marcus, JR, George. Pace up the hill was reasonable for winter; a few guys riding faster up front but nobody trying to kill themselves. I got to the top in about 28:25 or so, faster than I anticipated. My heart rate was also faster than I imagined, running very high for the entire ride, likely an effect of riding without much sleep. Glad I didn’t have any coffee first!

Cool & foggy at the bottom; sunny & warm up top. Just like a typical summer day… in March. This is Why We Ride.

And guess what, he did feel better, once on the bike. Much better. Good enough to ask for permission to play his favorite game on a climb- “Let’s ditch Dad!”. I told him to go for it, since climbing fast was taking his mind off the kidney issue. How fast? Not too fast; he’d been off a bike for the past week too (without a reasonable excuse, except that Dad wasn’t around to get him going on Tuesday & Thursday morning), but just over 20 minutes is still about 2 minutes faster than I can handle.

70 degrees, great day on a bike

Apparently great day for cars too!

Then up on Skyline he asks me what time it is, I ask him why, and he tells me he’s got to be back by 3pm for his on-line video game shoot-’em-up thingee. ??? It’s 2:15pm just south of Old LaHonda; I’d figured on riding south and descending West Alpine then back via 84, but instead it was a quick run back home… but not before navigating through a huge traffic jam at Sky Londa. Some sort of car rally of epic proportion, with sports cars parked everywhere

Taking the Skywood Way bypass

and traffic at a standstill. We first figured maybe we could thread our way through but it looked really bad, and for who-knows how far down the road. So instead I showed Kevin the Skywood Way alternative, a road that used to go through to Skyline just north of Sky Londa, and now blocked off but accessible through a dirt path. We came back to 84 a mile down the road, with no traffic at all. And Kevin almost got back in time for his on-line thingee. Unfortunately he was a “reserve” and they filled in needed positions before he could get on-line.

22 miles instead of 60. 2700ft of climbing instead of 5700. Tuesday morning’s ride is not going to be easy!

We’d been well-prepared, spending all day Tuesday in meetings, meetings, meetings and more meetings. I enjoyed hearing a politician tell us “We all know what to do. We just don’t know how to get re-elected after we’ve done it.” And another that “We are not cyclists. We’re people on bikes.” An important distinction that helps to sell cycling infrastructure.

And then came our day on the ‘Hill.

I’d like to say we came, we lobbied, we conquered. But it wasn’t quite so simple. That wild weather that was supposed to hit DC the same day we would be out on the ‘Hill, asking for consideration of the idea that bikes belong on the street, and that the streets should accommodate all users? We went to bed last night with instructions to go to this website- opm.gov/status when we woke up, and, in a nutshell, it said WASHINGTON DC IS CLOSED FOR BUSINESS. United Airlines concurred, cancelling every single flight out of IAD and DCA airports for the day.

We received phone calls and emails telling us that, although technically the government was shut down, in reality many of the offices would still be open for business, and that our state coordinators would find out who was and who wasn’t for us. At the end of the day it was obvious; those from fair-weather states cancelled, while those from the Midwest were open for business. In our case, Anna Eshoo’s door was locked, Jackie Speier’s office was open but not doing any appointments because they trusted the weather forecast, and Sam Farr (representing my brother Steve’s district in Monterey) was not only open for business but there in-person. My daughter Becky was thrilled that one of their staffers was a fellow Stevenson/UC Santa Cruz student temporarily on loan to DC (through the UC-DC program).

Regarding that terrible weather… it never happened. And even if it had, what difference would it really make, since you can live entirely underground in the area around the Capital?

More soon; it’s past midnight here, one more long day tomorrow before flying home. It’s been a bit different than planned, but I’d still rate it as a successful trip. –Mike–

DC weather for the day we storm the ‘hill.

It’s time for the annual trip to DC to try and convince congress not to kick bikes off the roads. Not really, but it can feel like that sometimes. Tough to say what sort of reception we’re going to have, since it’s all about the budget crisis right now, and trying to keep local grants for worthwhile projects intact is going to be tough. Maybe they’ll take pity on us due to the weather?

It’s going to be tough getting up for an early start tomorrow morning… 6:30am DC time, which will be 3:30am back home. Is that right? Is this even possible? Film at 11.

Why early? Because Kevin had to be back by 10:30am so he could… Play an online video game???!!! Whatever, gave me a chance later to figure out some computer stuff at the shop.

Four is us (myself, Kevin, Todd & Jeff Z) set out from the usual starting place (Olive Hill & Canada) at the usual time (7:45am) for a quick ride up 84, out to San Gregorio and back Tunitas. Kevin headed for home at that point while the rest of us added “the loop” because 41 miles just isn’t respectable enough when thousands, ok maybe hundreds, er how about a handful of people will be checking out your ride on Strava.

It was clear from the start that I was the weakest link, first getting blown off on 84 up to Skyline, then again on Stage, and finally on Tunitas. Did I care? Well, yeah, would have been nice to put up a fight somewhere! But I’ll blame it on the tail end of the plague, that nasty chest cold thing everybody got yet you never saw in the news (while the flu “epidemic” seemed more myth than real).

The hardest part was holding onto wheels on “the loop.” Todd and Jeff Z can (and do) set an extraordinary tempo, so fast that its tough for an accomplished wheel sucker (me) to hang on. I have a huge amount of respect for these guys, who made it obvious that my future depends on bumping up my ride schedule from 3 days per week to 4. This became especially obvious the other evening when I found myself paying too much attention to a late-night add suggesting that their testosterone supplement would get rid of stubborn belly fat. My weight is stable; I can even drop it a bit, but there’s too much above the belt despite the belt itself feeling like it could use a tighter notch. Potentially evidence of muscle loss. Hate that! –Mike–

Winter? Technically maybe! What a great way to start the day.

What more need be said? Just look at that photo! No wonder we had a pretty large group this morning. Karl, Chris (2nd-timer; he’d been on the ride last week when I was in Minneapolis), Marcus, Kevin, Kevin, Andrew, Jan & Eric. Brisk ride up through the park (which has pretty much become mandatory on Thursdays), and I was pretty happy to reach the top in under 30 minutes. A bit over 40 degrees at the start and 60 at the finish. I could get used to this. I will get used to this in a month or so, when this is the norm and not a bit nicer than the season typically provides. –Mike–

The Keys to the Kingdom are held by middle-aged men

Surprisingly, a quick google search doesn’t show this phrase being used in 30 Rock by Jack Donaghy. In fact, that exact phrase doesn’t show up in google at all. Feb 27, 2013, and I’ve coined something that’s both obvious and unique? Wow. No matter how the rest of the day goes, I know I’ve accomplished something!

And “First Contact” could have been very appropriate this morning, when, during the first sprint on the Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride, Kevin, that would be Kevin my son, not the pilot, claimed he didn’t know I was there when he made a move to try and get onto George’s wheel… problem being, I was already on George’s wheel. And how could Kevin not have known I was there when he had to first pass me? Watch the video. You be the judge!

Had this been an actual race, my wife might not have been too happy if instincts had taken over and I had strong-armed Kevin across the road. It’s not as if I don’t know how to “protect” myself in a sprint. Thankfully, I redeemed myself a bit later.

Very nice morning; started out not so cold maybe 40 degrees, and warmed up to 55 by the end. The end of winter is in sight! Karl, Kevin, Kevin, Eric, Todd, George, Karen and, for a little while, Les, the guy who used to own a bike shop or two, but apparently had a better exit strategy than me. Which doesn’t take much, since I have no exit strategy at all! Thankfully this is a business I really enjoy. Not much bad about putting people on bikes.  –Mike–

Allen Lim discussing Life, the Universe & Everything at a surprising industry seminar.

I seem to have a fondness for the Midwest in the winter. Usually Trek (near Madison, Wisconsin) but today I find myself in Minneapolis for Frostbike, a conference/show of extraordinary quality put on by another of our major suppliers, Quality Bicycle Products (QBP). Yesterday was a productive combination of workshops and seminars.

Today it was more workshops and more time looking at cool product, but the real gem came at the end when I attended a talk by Allen Lim, inventor of “Skratch” sports drink. I thought he was going to talk about the sports drink, figuring it would be good to learn about the latest research and whether Cytomax should forever remain my drink of choice (the short answer is yes). But that’s not what was on his mind. He talked about mid-life (40, which seems so young to me now!), and in 2005 trading in a life of continuous change and lack of “balance” for a white picket fence with the love of his life. And you’re thinking this is a happily-ever-after story. Uh… not quite. His wife was raped and left for dead during a trip to Europe, and upon physically recovering, turned to heroin and cocaine. The marriage didn’t survive. OK, why are we hearing this? Because Allen doesn’t believe in white picket fences.

From that story of tragedy he went into sports, specifically cycling. Now keep in mind I’m not so good with names so I really didn’t remember all the connections between Allen Lim and Floyd Landis and Lance Armstrong. But this wasn’t about them either. He did make light of the ridiculous notion that Lance’s downfall was so shocking that it was destroy cycling, mentioning that it wasn’t likely the doping scandal in the Olympics race-walking competition wast going to cause people to stop walking. But then he came to his real message.

“Be uncomfortable and never stop trying to figure it out. But you never will. If anybody tell you you’re supposed to be comfortable they’re just trying to sell you a load of s__t.”

He told a story about Michael Creed, a very talented racer who almost but never did quite make it to the top of the game, going to someone about to quit during a stage race and telling him “I know it hurts. I know you want to stop. But this is the only way.”

His message was that life isn’t supposed to be easy; the human body is designed to suffer, the mind is designed to be challenged. Some will embrace that and accomplish great things; others will choose an easier way and define happiness as finding “balance” in their life. Allen Lim makes one thing clear. He doesn’t believe in “balance.” He believes in pushing the limits for what you choose to do, regardless of the effect on other parts of your life. Or, to paraphrase Nietzsche, That which doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.

As much as I can relate to Michael Creed and Allen Lim’s view of struggle and challenge being a good thing, his extremism on the subject helped me to recognize that it’s not a message that can, or even should, be embraced by all. I can’t let everyone off the hook though; I doubt that game-changing accomplishments will ever come from seeking out the white picket fence lifestyle. –Mike–

That’s a strange concept. I can’t imagine missing out on what lies ahead. I can’t fathom not watching my kids as they grow up and have to shortly start pretending to be responsible (they’re 20 & 25). I can’t imagine the vacations I wouldn’t be taking with my wife.

And I can’t imagine not riding a bike.

The whole mortality thing started hitting a few years ago, when I started to realize my legs will never be as strong as they were before, my eyes not as good, my hearing on the decline. That stuff would truly bother me at times, but getting past today seems to erase most of those fears. I know how strange that must sound, but it’s been a tangible presence for a while.

Until today. Because now I’m on bonus time. More thankful and appreciative of each new day and wanting to make sure, in everything I do, that I make the choice, because it is a choice, to make the world a little bit better place. -Mike-

First flat, descending 84. 37 degrees, raining pretty hard. Not fun!

Just one other silly person at the start, the other Kevin. It’s a bit confusing on a ride in which the only other people are both named Kevin; I decided to call the older guy (the pilot who’s done this ride with me for 20+ years) “Captain” and the other Kevin, the 20 year old whippersnapper who shares my last name and address… well, still trying to figure that one out. It wasn’t a pretty ride by any standard; 33 minutes up Kings tells that story! Not so bad across the top (Skyline) although we did notice the temperature steadily dropping, which isn’t normal. It’s supposed to start out cold and get warmer, not start out cold and get colder.

But nothing too exciting, no drama, until just prior to heading back down 84 “Captain” Kevin notices his rear tire is low and stops to inflate it. We make it about 3/4 of the way down the hill before it’s nearly flat again, so we stop to replace it. In a very cold (about 37 degrees according to my Garmin) and steadily-increasing rain. Cold and wet enough that, after “Captain” Kevin used a CO2 cartridge and placed it on top of his gloves and the old tube on the ground, everything literally froze together. Seriously. And I didn’t get a photo! Darn.

Post-ride coffee not optional today, but required!

We then proceeded down the rest of 84 and got less than half a mile down the road before his tire went flat. Again. This time with a bit of a bang, because during the inflation he’d apparently pushed the valve up into the tire a bit, causing the tube to wrap down underneath and rip. Sigh. At least it was now 41 degrees. 10 minutes later we were off again, no more drama the last few miles, and finally, clearing skies. We were left wondering if it was going to be a beautiful day for riding just as soon as we finished, but fortunately, that didn’t turn out to be the case as the blustery weather continued for most of the day.

It was a very, very good feeling finally getting up over Jefferson, half an hour behind schedule, knowing a hot shower was in my immediate future. One of those hot showers where your gradually-thawing hands become incredibly painful as they finally warm up, and one of those mornings where a Caramel Latte at Peet’s wasn’t optional, it was required.

Could we have skipped this morning and ridden tomorrow, when it will be much nicer, instead? That’s what most people would do, but we’re not most people. When it’s time to ride, it’s time to ride, and you can’t let the world tell you otherwise. That’s just how we roll. We’re stupid that way. Curiously, looking at Strava, very few others were out riding this morning. Wonder why?

Old LaHonda (1300ft)
Haskins Grade (800ft)
Stage Road climbs 1, 2 & 3 (about 400ft each)
Tunitas Creek (2000ft)

Total time on the road runs from 3.75 to 4.5 hours, depending of course on how much time you spend at the Pescadero Bakery! But even though it doesn’t take very long, and it’s not even very far (from my place in Redwood City it’s just 58 miles), it still feels like you’re quite a distance from home as you head out past Loma Mar on your way to the coast.

Today Kevin and I had an earlier start than usual (on the road by 8:30am) because he had to be back in time for a 1pm on-line video game contest of some sort, one of those things where you form teams and go after military objectives, which sounds better than saying you’re trying to kill as many people on the other team as possible. Kevin was a bit concerned that we weren’t going to make it back in time, but y’know, after doing this route so many times, it’s not like I don’t have a handle on it. But there may have been a reason for some of his uncertainty, as this was only his 3rd time back on the back after 17 days off due to a kidney issue and tonsillectomy.

Jerry climbing up Tunitas on a beautiful winter day! We sold him that Trek back in 2003; it’s seen a lot of miles since.

He needn’t have worried. While he wasn’t particularly fast going up Old LaHonda, finishing less than a minute ahead of me (22-something), he held up fine everywhere else. We even skipped the near-mandatory stop at the Pescadero Bakery after checking to make sure we had a few energy bars, just in case. And Tunitas Creek provided the opportunity to chase down some rabbits, including Jerry, a very good customer of ours (seen in the photo). We arrived back home at 12:30, plenty of time for his game.

Taken w/Instagram! Left to right, Kevin, Karl, Kevin, Eric & Jan at the top of Old LaHonda

So instead, I’m thinking I’ll try to use Instagram to record the ride. Yeah, right. Trying to operate an iPhone with a winter glove, holding and pushing the shutter button with just one hand… oh yeah, good luck with that! It works nicely if you’re stopped though, and should work OK with regular gloves. Soon as it gets warmer, maybe on Sunday’s ride, I’ll report back on this.

But what about the ride? A bit warmer, maybe 44 degrees at the start (and you’d be surprised how different 44 feels from, say, 38). Roll call found in the photo on the left. Since it was Thursday it was a run through the park, with Kevin (my son, not the pilot) feeling a whole lot better than Tuesday and pushing the pace for the first third of the ride. I was feeling a bit better too, but instead of trying to keep up with Kevin I chose to make sure there were no issues at the back. Jan is normally stronger than me on the climbs, but he’s spent the last few weeks skiing instead of cycling. No problem, not much of a sacrifice on my part to drop my speed a bit and keep someone company.  –Mike–

Me? I was finally feeling alive, as in legs worked, lungs sorta worked. I waited a couple times for Kevin on the way up, and then again, surprisingly, on Skyline when Todd mentioned to me that Kevin had been blown off the back. He (Kevin) claimed that he doesn’t mind riding alone, but that Dad thing still prefers to keep him in sight and, besides, I try to monitor the back of the ride and keep things together.

I also experimented with Instagram today, trying to take photos while riding. Not so easily done! The combination of winter gloves and trying to use a phone as a camera with one hand doesn’t work too well (especially tough to trip the shutter button in the middle of the phone, while trying to hold it steady). You can see the results on the Strava page.

Be thankful I blurred the very ugly toenails!

Best news of the day was the scale; it’s very rare that I see a sub-170 weight during the winter. Sunday’s ride took off a couple pounds and hopefully they’ll stay off!

Beautiful views from W Alpine

The ride started out like many, ascending Old LaHonda, but instead of heading down the other side, we went south on Skyline before descending West Alpine and admiring the spectacular views of the coast. And then, shortly after the normal turn-off for Portola State Park, it started to get silly. I’ve put together a video of the 10 minute descent into hell, on a twisty single-lane “paved” road that actually leaves you wanting more.

Honor Camp left, Medium Security right

Once at the bottom, we over-shot the normal choice for getting across to Old Haul Road, riding down into a deserted correctional facility, looking, essentially, for a way out. It was there; I even started down the “jeep trail” a bit before deciding it wasn’t it and back-tracking to a gated dirt road that was signed as leading to Portola State Park.

A very long .8 mile later and I was back in familiar territory- Old Haul Road. It wasn’t much different heading north than it had been the preceding week heading south, and once again my high-

My bike on Old Haul Road

performance “road” bike proved its worth in dirt & mud. We had one more opportunity to back track when we came to Towne Fire Road, which signage indicated would end up on the eastern slope of Haskins Grade (Old Haul dumps you off on the west end). That sounded interesting! Unfortunately, after a few hundred meters you plunge down to the creek, which, at that point, is very wide and very cold with no way to cross other than walking through it. So back up we go, soon exiting Old Haul Road at Loma Mar where we rejoined civilization.

The rest of the ride was the basic “coastal classic” heading out to Pescadero (lunch at the bakery, of course!), Stage Road north, then return on Tunitas. At San Gregorio we were flagged by Perry, a

Climbing Tunitas with Perry & Jeff

cyclist who’d had a flat but no way to inflate the spare tube he carries (he had his CO2 cartridge but forgot the head). We got him going and he sped on up ahead… but we caught back up with him again at the Bike Hut on Tunitas, where he’d gotten another flat. This time I assisted him, finding the tiny piece of glass in his tire that would have caused yet another flat, and the three of us rode together up Tunitas, over the top and home.

This was not an easy ride, but it was a lot of fun exploring new territory… and exploring is certainly the appropriate word!

Everyone? Actually, I don’t know that to be the case. The start of the climb up Kings was easy, until I got dropped, and since Marcus showed up, and Kevin (pilot), and Chris, and George… the regular testosterone brigade… who knows what went on up there. But I do know that Todd, Karen and Eric were taking it relatively-easy. Thankfully it was a no-drop pace of Skyline, else I wouldn’t have got the video of my snot-rocket blessing. I didn’t know for sure that it came my way, yet I had the presence of mind to wipe the camera lens right afterward.

Bits and pieces of a ride coming up OLH on their one-way trip to Pescadero

So I set out at 9am on my own, on a ride that would bring me to a road I’d often heard references to but never ridden (not too many local roads I haven’t ridden!), and another that I first rode maybe 44 years ago and have been smart enough not to ride since. I did have an opportunity to choose an alternative; I could have done the Alto Velo ride (and tried to hang on for as long as I could), or maybe bum along with Zack, who I saw heading out for a ride as I rode over Jefferson. But I stuck to the plan. Over Old LaHonda & Haskins to Memorial Park, then across Old Haul Road to Portola State Park, after which I would ascend from the depths back up to Skyline.

It was nice not having to push myself on Old LaHonda, a benefit of the cold I’m getting over, so I cruised up at a 25 minute pace, talking to some of the many, many older guys from Woodside who were doing a one-way to Pescadero, where they had Bloody Mary’s, cars and designated drivers to haul them back home. Even though I don’t drink, there seemed to be a certain civility, almost sensibility to their ride. But, that’s not how I roll, it wasn’t the plan.

The gate for Old Haul Road off Wurr

A relatively-clean bike at the start of Old Haul Road

The climb over Haskins wasn’t too bad; about 11:30 I think, so overall I was doing about an 80% effort. I arrived at Old Haul Road thinking this could work, especially after Zack mentioned it was one of his favorite roads (although he wondered why I was on my nice bike, not my rain bike). I admit it was a bit eerie out there, seeing absolutely nobody for 50 minutes, only very large droppings from very large animals and lots of signs to beware of mountain lions.

Old Haul goes straight, the Bridge trail to Pomponio Rd goes left

Creepy faces on a few trees on Old Haul Road

Old Haul Road can definitely be ridden with standard road bike equipment at the right time of the year, which I rationalized this was, because it had been a month since it had rained. Zack had recommended the short steep parts be done in the saddle to keep your rear wheel from slipping, but I had no problems with that. I can’t do a decent track stand, but steep technical climbs don’t bother me. Go figure. The main issue with Old Haul Road, at least the first time, is that you don’t have a good sense of where you are (how far you’ve gone, how much further to go).

Bike’s a bit dirtier after Old Haul Road!

Turnoff to Portola State Park from Old Haul

I made a point of checking out the various trail heads along the way, but the main choice appears to be taking a bridge across the creek to Pomponio Road (which connects to West Alpine just about the Buffalo ranch) or continuing on what quickly becomes a very slippery clay surface to the park headquarters, and then up the main road. I have no idea which route is tougher; I just know that the route out of Portola State Park from Park Headquarters is not fun!

Thankfully it’s a “stepped” climb, so you get a chance to change gears now & then, but the climb out of Portola State Park is a whole lot steeper than anything on West Alpine… which means that, by the time you get to West Alpine, you’ve been, er, tenderized. There were parts of it that brought back vague memories from so many years ago, but overall it just seemed steep and nasty. I was so thankful seeing the “Trucks use low gears” in the other direction, as I neared West Alpine. Normally, the upper part of West Alpine is nothing to look forward to, but today, it was. Known territory. And just over an hour away from home!

This would be a tough ride even if you were feeling on top of your game. Old Haul Road certainly opens your eyes to the joys of getting a road bike off pavement, but a real CycloCross bike would make it a lot easier. More work getting to the dirt, for sure, but there are an awful lot of nice loops you can do off the beaten track. Here’s a link to the official map for Portola State Park, but keep in mind it doesn’t do a great job of showing the various legal options for exiting Old Haul Road. Could be there are only two, the one I took (shown in the Strava segment) and the one using the Bridge trail.

“CLOSING EARLY FOR MAINTENANCE. Sunday Hours February 3rd 8am to 3pm. Serving Breakfast and Lunch. We appreciate your Business.” Sign on Max’s Café Sunday night, 7pm, day before Superbowl.

I’ve lived in this area my entire life, explored it on bike since I was 11 (46 years), and yet have never ridden Old Haul Road, the former logging road/narrow gauge rail line that runs between Loma Mar (near Pescadero) and Portola State Park. Tomorrow morning I plant to change that!

Not nearly as worried about Old Haul Road, which isn’t paved but supposedly has a very nice road-bikable surface, as I am the hellish climb out of Portola State Park. I think I’ve done that twice; I know the first time was on a Schwinn Varsity when I was maybe 12 or 13, and I remember thinking it best not to ride down into the park too quickly because somehow that would make it harder coming back out. Maybe it wouldn’t have seemed so nastily-steep if the Schwinn Varsity had come with easier gearing (42×28). I believe I rode it again 15-20 years ago, but not really sure.

Film at 11! Actually much earlier than that; should be back from the ride by 2pm or so, plenty of time to watch the SuperBowl.  –Mike–

The Old Dudes heading up through Huddart Park. Except Todd. He’s not old. And Chris. He’s at most medium.

It’s gradually warming up here in Northern California, 41 degree average temp according to my Garmin computer (which I think reads a couple degrees on the low side), up from 37 two days before, 35 or so the week prior, 32 before that… you get the idea. Still, we’re a very long way from dispensing with leg warmers and even full-finger gloves for our morning ride!

Small group today; Kevin (pilot), Chris, Eric, John & Todd. The other Kevin is still feeling the effects of his tonsil removal on Tuesday (I did ask last night if he was riding, and he gave me one of those “What kind of person would ask me that?” looks). Pretty easy ride up through the park, with the pace only picking up to something challenging on Skyline, just prior to the descent, as Chris came to the front and I glued myself to his rear wheel.

Our first encounter with wildlife was the Honda (I think it was a Honda, but it could have been any other generic sub-compact) that was going to make turn into a driveway in front of us. We’ve seen this car before, same time, same place. I remember last week thinking that car was going to turn in front of us and I’m thinking, what part of the car would be the softest, what should I aim for? In fact, it was that car that got me to install a new super-bright flashing bar-type LED light on my front fork, so it would see me coming. But today the car made no attempt to cut us off.

I think it was the squirrel that came next, darting across then back. Hate squirrels. A bit later we saw the deer, reasonable size, towards the beginning of west-side Old LaHonda, followed a mile or so later by a very large & beautiful hawk which flew across the valley to a tree on the other side. He got there a whole lot faster than we did!

We? By this time it was just Eric with me; John had just shown up at the start but didn’t ride up the hill because that wasn’t in his new training program for the day, and Todd & Kevin & Chris had ridden down 84 without doing the west-side Old LaHonda loop due to someplace they had to be. We did come across Keith, the guy who shows us how it’s done and makes disparaging references to the average age of the guys I ride with; turns out he was on a semi-epic 92 miler that put him at over 1000 miles for the month. Impressive! And more believable than the guy from Australia that’s supposedly done over 3200 miles.

“Tuesday Old Dude Ride?” If Keith wasn’t so fast (and some of us weren’t so old?)…

Kings Mtn the hard way (Keith circling back a few times)

Not exactly what I expected to see when I uploaded this morning’s ride! Keith showed up; he’s been elsewhere for some time, but today decided to show us what someone “young” and in-shape could do. For example, on the climb up Kings, he would race off the front, turn around, ride back down the hill to the furthest-back rider, and then race back up past the front. Again. And again. And again. You can see that in his Kings Mtn profile; Kings is a steady climb without any dips on the way up, so each time you see a drop in elevation is a time that Keith turned around and headed back down the hill a ways.

The “Old Dudes Ride” gets ready to roll

OK, about that “Old Dude” remark. Keith’s what, mid-20s? Late-20s maybe? Todd was with us today, and he’s about that age. The rest of us? Um, well, I think Eric’s in his later-40s, Kevin (the pilot) is 57, George is a young mid-50s, John is 60, and I’m not even 57 yet! So like what’s Keith’s point? That he’s riding with guys twice his age or something like that?

OK, I’ll pretend I’m over it now. I already gave the roll call for the ride; only noteworthy person missing was the other Kevin, my son, who was getting his tonsils removed today. What a wimp. They said he could have anything to drink in the 6 or 8 hours prior to surgery… who can’t do a 31 mile ride without water?

Fortunately I felt better than expected once on the bike; wasn’t sure how things were going to go since I was up pretty late last night when I stupidly tried to update my iPhone to IOS 6.2, which “bricked” it. And I’ve got a cold that’s beginning to wear me down a bit, but y’know, as has almost always been the case in the past, a cold doesn’t slow me down much on a bike. And if it doesn’t slow me down, and it doesn’t kill me, then obviously it’s making me stronger!

One noteworthy thing on the ride; since the roads were drying out, I thought it would be fun to try and head down 84 into Woodside pretty fast, and see if I could get close to my best time on Strava for that run. Um… no. Maybe it was fast, but Strava won’t tell me anymore, because someone flagged that segment as “dangerous.” As in, something that some nitwit might want to push too hard to “own” that segment, cut a corner and run into a car, and then his family sues Strava, claiming it wouldn’t have happened if Strava hadn’t made it something to try for. Darn!  –Mike–

When I was 11 years old, I remember having a AAA Bay & River map laid out on the kitchen table, looking at new towns to explore, like Portola Valley, which was out there past Woodside. A year later I’d go to the US Geological Survey center in Menlo Park with my friend Bob Kriesle, to buy maps preparing us for the New World (the mountains between us and the coast), and noticing they had markings for oil wells (oil wells on 84? Who knew?). Every ride was an adventure, not a competition. We’d seek out the tough climbs not for speed, but just to say we’d been there. I had a rack on the back of my bike that we’d carry a couple of quart bottles of Coke for fuel (no water bottles on a Schwinn Varsity). I’m not sure if I’ve found a different path, a type of cycling that’s compatible with who and what I am these days, or if I’ve lost my way. But I do know it’s been a very long time since I’ve crested a hill and had a smile like I saw on the old guy coming over the top of Sand Hill today!

Maybe the day is coming where my time up hills won’t be so important to me, but that day’s not here yet. But I am very aware, and thankful, that there are a great many ways to enjoy cycling.

Until they get Junipero Serra fixed up, you might want to choose a different route. It’s worse than it looks, and it looks pretty bad!

What about my ride? It wasn’t what was planned, that’s for sure. Kevin (my son) and I were going to head out to the coast, but he’s developed another kidney stone, and after waiting it out for too many hours, it was clear he wasn’t going to be riding and I wouldn’t be heading out to the coast. 2:15pm and there’s just not that much daylight left! So I headed out into the foothills, pushing myself pretty hard since I wouldn’t be getting in many miles, and tossed in the “walking” Joaquin loop off Portola Road to make things even tougher. Eventually I ended up at our Los Altos store, and then headed back on a more direct, less adventurous route, partly because I was feeling a bit spent, and partly because I thought it would be shorter. Uh, no, I must have hit every red light on Foothill! That plus the slow riding on the section of Foothill (maybe Junipero Serra when north of Page Mill?) where they’ve torn up the road and have uneven steel plates that you don’t want to ride over. What a mess they’re making of our roads these days.

As spent as I was, I had been inspired seeing that old guy on Sand Hill so instead of the “easy” ride over Jefferson, I took the Godetia “shortcut” to add one more insanely-steep piece of road. In the end, a very nice ride. Wish I could have been out there longer, but I made the best of the time I had.

As someone who flies a fair amount, I enjoy reading about modern aviation. I’ve been intrigued by the new 787 Dreamliner, the ultra-high-tech carbon-fiber wonder-plane that, after years of delays, is finally making it into the skies. Or was, until they were grounded a week or two ago, due to a bunch of minor glitches and one potentially bigger glitch… batteries that might burn or explode. Normally I wouldn’t think much of such issues, because it’s just a battery after all, the plane can still fly without it, and with all the fire control measures in place on a modern plane, nothing’s going to endanger the plane. Right?

Then I read this paragraph-

“Separately, the Seattle Times is reporting that a 787 battery undergoing safety testing in 2006 exploded in a lab run by Securaplane Technologies of Tucson, Arizona. The building housing the lab burned to the ground.”

Wow. That puts things in perspective. It’s one thing to have your electric car catch fire and burn down your garage. A bit of a different issue flying over the ocean. So yes, I think it makes sense that the FAA has grounded the planes until they’ve run down the problem.

I’m still looking forward to flying in the Dreamliner, but while I initially thought the grounding might have been a bit excessive, well, I don’t quite feel that way anymore. Regulatory agencies may have reasons to exist after all. But my big takeaway from all this is that, no matter how challenging I think the problems my business faces, they’re nothing like Boeing’s right now.

So yeah, that’s my excuse, that’s the reason the Kevin, Kevin & Eric rode away from me on Kings, and again on Skyline. Lance was wrong. Easy to say that now. It really is all about the bike! –Mike–

The plan is to leave on Thursday, July 11th, arriving in Geneva the next day, then take a train to Avignon, a couple hours to the south. Saturday I’d like to do a short ride up to Orange and visit one of the best-surviving Roman Amphitheaters and shake the legs loose before the biggest ride of the trip, Mont Ventoux, which takes place on Bastille Day, a the French version of our July 4th. After that we travel to Grenoble where we’ll be positioned for the various stages in the Alps, including the one shown on the map above. The three biggest days for us (“us” being my son and I) will be Ventoux on the 14th, Alpe d’Huez on the 18th, and the Col du Madeleine on the 19th. From Grenoble we should have access to all stages from the Time Trial in Embrun on the 17th to the final road stage in the map above… using a car only for the Alpe d’Huez stage. The secret? Local trains! A concept we’ve proven on several past trips. I would love to dispense with a car entirely, but the Alpe d’Huez stage would be difficult; it’s 50k from Grenoble to the base of Alpe d’Huez, and then another 13k UP! Which actually doesn’t sound that bad…

Today we had Todd, Stu (who hasn’t been with us for quite a while), both Kevins, Eric & John. The two Kevins were the only guys in a hurry to get up Kings, posting 26:20 or so, while the rest of us were a few minutes behind. But even the fast guys were content with a relatively-easy pace the rest of the way, not the norm for the Tuesday version of this ride!

Yes, I was there when Floyd Landis pulled off the Champ Elysees after “winning” the Tour de France in 2006. And I later supported his efforts to prove the tests false. I changed my mind about 9 months later. –Mike–

The real victims of doping in sports. Who are they? Apparently, me!

Got a letter in the mail today from the FBI, yeah, the organization Mulder & Scully work for. They say that I’ve been identified as a victim of a possible crime. They don’t say what the crime was, probably because it’s not politically-correct to tell people they’re stupid. But yes, I did indeed contribute to the Floyd Fairness Fund. I was duped. By a guy who wears baseball caps backward (and I swear, I’ve never even watched a NASCAR race on TV!).

For some context, here’s a link to the web page describing my 2006 Tour de France experience, including the day Floyd flew up the mountain powered by testosterone. And later, when it was revealed Floyd failed a doping control, I wrote this. I was pretty naïve at the time!

07/28/06- CATCHING A DOLPHIN IN A TUNA NET? I was there, I saw both Floyd’s spectacular failure and next-day’s resurrection to claim victory in one of the world’s greatest sporting events.

And now? Everything is eclipsed by allegations of doping, due to a positive test for unusual ratios of two types of testosterone.

So everywhere you go, whether it be network news or talk radio, the story is all about Floyd Landis. Which is fine, it is a huge story. But an even bigger story may be, could be, that Floyd is, in fact, innocent. Caught up in the rabid (and necessary) zeal to catch cheaters.

But what, exactly, am I all riled up about? How about KCBS this morning airing the news conference (in which Landis proclaims his innocence and the steps he’ll go to to prove it), which was followed by not one second about the possibility that he could be speaking the truth, but instead a sports psychologist talking about why athletes cheat. How they deceive themselves etc.  They’re using his protestation of innocence as evidence against him!

Floyd may very well be an innocent dolphin caught by people fishing for tuna. People whose driving ambition to achieve their goal over-rides the possibility that somebody innocent could get caught in the net & killed. Yes, drug usage among top athletes is a severe problem. But this is a story that has more than one angle. Floyd Landis could be guilty, and I’ll feel very betrayed if that’s the case. But his trial & conviction in the media is absurd.

Please, won’t somebody of stature, an athlete, a news reporter, point out that there could be an even-bigger story here- the possibility that we’ve gone too far and caught a dolphin in the net? Instead of repeating the same sound bites over and over and over… talking about how much of a problem there is in professional cycling, that this is evidence they’re getting a handle on it, and that both his heroic comeback and protestation of innocence are proof that he’s guilty?  –Mike–

May 18, 2007, was the day I stopped believing in Floyd Landis. The day Floyd’s friend made a call to Greg LeMond, claiming to be an uncle who had abused him. The phone call was made in Floyd’s presence. Floyd lost every last bit of credibility with me on that day. That was the day I knew Floyd had cheated. I didn’t yet know that everybody cheated. That would take a few more years.

Mastadon Country (actually there’s a family debate over whether it’s a Wooly Mammoth or a Mastadon), just east of Pescadero Road. Why someone would put a giant sculpture of a Mastadon, facing off against another prehistoric creature, in a farm’s field… well, that’s what makes our rides so interesting, seeing things like this!

Click for larger Mastadon image

This was not going to be our typical Sunday ride, where we don’t get out the door until noon. I wanted to see most of the 49er playoff game, and it also gave us the opportunity to ride with Jeff, friend & customer, who normally does his riding while Kevin would be dragging himself out of bed. And I wanted to see first-hand just how fast & fit Jeff really is; his Strava scores have been looking pretty impressive lately.

Steam on West Alpine

We had to put something fairy tough together for Kevin and I, since a bit too much winter weight has been showing up on the scales lately. Up Old LaHonda, out to San Gregorio, south on Stage to Pescadero, up & over Haskins the tougher direction, then Jeff went back the faster route, via 84, while Kevin and I took on West Alpine. 65 miles, about 6700ft of climbing, and, for the middle of winter, really nice weather!

West Alpine is a beautiful climb any time of year!

Jeff proved to be the stronger rider on the climbs today, getting to the top a full minute faster than Kevin, even though Kevin’s posted the fastest Strava times in the past. Me? Another minute or two behind Kevin. I was able to keep up, just barely, on the two Stage Road climbs, but watched them both ride away from me once again on Haskins. It was just myself and Kevin up West Alpine (Jeff having taken the shortcut home), and, nice guy/Dad that I am, when Kevin was in trouble a few times, I waited up. Of course, further up the hill it was Kevin feeling better, and did he wait for me? Not a chance. I asked him tonight about riding up a climb at a “social” pace, and he just looked at me with this quizzical expression and asked “Why?”

Employees watching the Lance interview with Oprah. From 6pm (when the interview began) until closing, it was quiet enough to hear a pin drop.

Hard to say if it was going to be a quiet evening anyway, or if most of our customers were heading home fast to watch Lance being interviewed by Oprah. Maybe we couldn’t wait to hear the USADA (United States Anti-Doping Agency) pronounced “yousada”. Maybe we wanted to hear Lance answer “Yes” to each question regarding whether he used a certain type of doping. Maybe we wanted to see him squirm.

But if we were waiting for something new, some incredible revelation, we didn’t hear it. The most-surprising thing Lance said was that he rode the 2009 & 2010 “comeback” Tours clean, sans doping. Something which flies in the face of what Tygart, head of the USADA, believes to be true, and a statement that quite likely could keep Lance from ever competing again, because it has the appearances of being Lance continuing to lie. He may not be; he may have actually ridden those last two tours clean. Or, he may, by making that claim, be trying to divide and conquer, forcing people to choose sides, hoping that some are willing to believe he did have a change of heart after his 7 tour wins, re-establishing some degree of support again.

It’s tough not to be cynical. Maybe tomorrow night’s conclusion will contain more emotion, more evidence of what Lance actually feels regarding the many years of lies and the many people he sought to destroy when they accused him of doping. –Mike–

Just four of us on this cold morning, myself, Kevin (pilot), Nigel and an increasingly-rare showing by Marcus (the other Kevin, the one not the pilot, had a doctor’s appointment for tonsillitis; supposedly he’ll be getting them removed, but not sure if that happens after they’ve become really really bad or have had a chance to heal). Just barely made it up the hill under 30 minutes; nobody seemed to be in a big rush, and you just don’t go quite so fast when it’s cold. Thankfully no ice on the roads; it’s been a while since the last rain (and supposedly will be a while before we see it again!).

We did take a brief stop on west-side Old LaHonda for Nigel to take a few photos; if he sends them I’ll post them here. Meantime I’ve got to figure out what makes that GoPro camera tick… or what makes it fail, or something, before I decide it’s more trouble than it’s worth. If you have time, sure, you can stop and make sure it’s working fine, but I don’t add any extra padding to my ride calculations… as if I’d want to get up another 5 minutes earlier anyway?

Which brings up something else… the trip to France in July… is it even remotely possible to consider a flight out of SFO at 6am, if it means saving 25,000 award miles for Kevin’s ticket and about $100 on mine? Compared to a flight at a much-more-reasonable time of 8am? How many $$$/minute for sleep? My guess is that anything before 6:30am gets a very high value in my accounting formula! 6:30am is at least close to 7am, which I consider reasonable. 5am is nuts, and for a 6am flight, I’d have to be at the airport by 5am, which means leaving the house at 4:30am, which means getting up at 4am. And in all likelihood I would not have gotten to sleep before 1am, taking care of last-minute details.

Last night’s episode (full episode available here) of The Good Wife (on of my admitted really seriously guilty pleasures… dumb TV that I make a point to watch) had interesting timing, given Lance Armstrong’s upcoming interview with Oprah. Aside from the continuing stories about politics and will they/won’t they get back together etc., there was an amusing centerpiece dealing with the CAS (Committee for Arbitration for Sport). Some pretty severe liberties were taken; for example, I don’t think it likely you can just call them up and schedule an emergency hearing and expect them to show up, but aside from that, they had a great time making a mockery of the process. Question is, how far from the truth were they? Different universe, outlying planet, or nailed it? I’m guessing outlying planet.

Unfortunately there’s no easy way to skip around, so I can’t give you time points to go to like you could if it were a youtube video, but the first relevant segment does start at about 4 minutes. If you try to skip forward, it throws you an advertisement. Guess it’s only fair. 9 minutes in is the first encounter with the CAS.

It’s not a bad episode overall, worth taking a look at.

So clear on the coast that you could see the Farallon Islands!

Finally, a ride that went according to the plan! It was getting a bit frustrating, as the past couple of weeks have seen a number of rides shortened, some for weather, some for Kevin’s epilepsy issues. Nothing should get in the way of a bike ride, y’know? And today, nothing did. Not even the frigidly-cold weather in the forecast, which we got around by doing what we do best… leaving really late and racing the sun. Nobody does this better than my son and I. 40+ years of riding ’round these parts and I can estimate when I’ll be back home for just about any loop possible. I figured we needed to be home by 5 to not run out of sunlight, and we arrived home at 5:02pm. And yes, we did bring lights, just in case.

It was the usual, the “Coastal Classic” it’s often called, heading up Old LaHonda, down the other side, over Haskins to Pescadero, the three bumps on Stage Road heading north, then back up to Skyline on Tunitas and down into Woodside on Kings.

“Lunch” at Pescadero

We left at 12:29pm (isn’t it wonderful that Strava knows everything?), called it a draw at the Loma Mar sprint, split a coke but ate all of a cheesecake ollalieberry muffin (I’m sure it was low-cal) and then headed out for the tough part, those three nasty bumps heading north on Stage. Don’t know why it seems like they’re tougher than Old LaHonda (which, at just under 23 minutes, was pretty slow, even for me), but it seems like they’re just tall enough to be annoying, not tall enough to develop a rhythm on. But today it was worthwhile, the view of the Pacific being so spectacularly clear that you could even see the Farallon Islands!

Corgi on Tunitas

No headwinds, no tailwinds on Tunitas, so no excuse for going slow, and nothing to help us go fast. Which makes sense; we rode “middle” with a time of about 52 minutes to the top (Strava says 53, but I think that’s one of those Strava things where we needed to blow through Skyline and stop on the Kings Mtn side (east), not the Tunitas side (west). That’s my story anyway, and I’m sticking to it. For a bonus, we spotted someone walking a cool Corgi dog just before the climb.

Weather-wise, sure, it was a bit on the cold side at times, although it was up to 42 or so by the time we left and rode through Woodside. Got cool enough descending towards LaHonda to put on our light wind-shell jackets (which Kevin didn’t start with; we got a few hundred meters from the house when I asked if he brought one, and said no, he didn’t need it… I told him sorry, that wasn’t a choice, and later, he was very, very glad to have gone back and gotten that jacket!). By Pescadero we could remove them, as it was up in the mid-50s along the coast, dropping steadily to the upper-30s near the top of Tunitas and all the way down Kings.

It was only 57.5 miles, but quality miles, and felt like a much tougher ride than the New Years Day ride up Mount Hamilton.

Kevin, Kevin, John, Mark & darn, forgetting his name, tall guy, friendly guy, commutes back and forth between here and the UK on a regular basis. Grrr… just can’t pull the name out of my head. Hate that! He was claiming to be out of shape and slow, so the two of us rided up the regular way, while the rest of the guys did the Thursday thing and rode up through the park. Good idea we did it this way, because the two of us just barely made it before Kevin (not the pilot) and Mark came barreling up the hill.

And that was pretty much the end of it for Kevin. He stayed ahead of me for about half a mile, and then faded, fast. He was barely moving at one point, saying that his legs felt awful, probably because his seat height was maybe an inch and a half low. And maybe just not feeling great in general. Whatever the case, we headed back down 84 while the rest of the group did the “real” ride (which includes west-side Old LaHonda).

Regarding Kevin’s new bike, a Foundry cross bike with disc brakes… yes, I’m quite jealous. He doesn’t have to worry that he’s grinding through his rim on long descents, and in general has far better braking power in the wet stuff. If Trek doesn’t come out with something like it soon, I’ll probably get a Foundry myself. It really is a cool bike (and we’ll finally be getting more of them in next week).  –Mike–

• Different perspectives
• The world in black & white/color
• Sunsets
• Authority
• Various snowmen

That aside, it was actually a pretty nice morning to ride. The forecast fog had apparently come and gone (looked to have been everywhere, since most roads were pretty damp), leaving beautiful sunshine (you know, perfect conditions for recording the ride, if my GoPro had worked) and temps around 40. Pleasant! Would have had a pretty decent time up the hill (with a little bit of work I was able to figure out the missing section), but about a quarter mile from the top came across Kevin (My son, not the pilot) recovering from a seizure, so nice guy that I am, I stopped and waited for him. Actually it has little to do with being a nice guy; if Kevin delays getting back on his bike, he’ll get an awful headache, feel terribly lethargic, and just want to go home. Experience has taught us the need to get him back into the swing of things very quickly! This is not something covered in the epilepsy literature, but frankly, very little is.

Nice, tidy group today. Eric, both Kevins, Mark & John. Pretty civilized pace; so civilized even I was able to carry on a conversation at times. A good day to ride. –Mike–

The view from Skyline, just south of Old LaHonda. The coast actually looked pretty nice; everything else was getting fogged in.

But the icky conditions did give Kevin the chance to try out his new Foundry CycloCross bike (yes, we actually do sell something besides Trek… who knew?). We left the house not completely certain of the route; I was favoring staying “low” (in the foothills) but Kevin’s idea of a ride requires that it has to get up to Skyline, or it’s not really a bike ride. We didn’t have time to head “over the hill” and maybe take in West Alpine (it was 2:15pm by the time we left) but we were able to ride up 84 and south through the fog to Page Mill, descend into Los Altos Hills and then back via Portola Valley and Woodside. A very good shakedown cruise for his new bike, whose combination of wider tires and disc brakes should be a big help in more-epic conditions.

This is what 29.4 degrees looks like, Not very impressive!

Now this looks cold, but it’s actually a balmy 32 degrees!

Which is a good thing, because if you thought much about it, 30 degrees really should feel that bad! January 3, maybe just three months since it might have been in the low-60s, maybe 5 months from when it will be that comfy again. When it is that warm, in those wonderful few months between May & October, you just can’t imagine what it will be like again to be riding all bundled up, seeing your breath and watching out for black ice on the road. You actually entertain thoughts of wanting to be someplace else, as if the weather in the winter here is something you should flee from. How spoiled we are! Sanity creeps back in though, sometimes shortly after the shower after getting home, sometimes a few hours later, when you realize how good you feel because you rode, how great the fresh clean air feels against your face when you’re flying through it at 35 miles per hour, and how you’ve managed to keep your winter weight to within just a few pounds of your summer “fighting” weight.

So against that backdrop, you wonder why nobody else showed up for the ride this morning, just myself and Kevin. Are they sensible, or us nuts? On a normal winter morning, we’d have 6-8 people on our ride, and see half a dozen or more others descending Kings as we’re heading up, or cresting the east side of Old LaHonda as we finish the west. But not today. That’s OK, we still had a very nice ride, at a modest pace, with me forcing myself to stay seated the entire time (my normal “style” is to spend at least 25% of the time climbing out of the saddle). Good day for that, although I did find myself walking a bit stiffly when we made an unscheduled stop at Sky Londa so Kevin could use the bathroom.

Turns out there was someone else out on the road this morning; as we hit the top of Old LaHonda we found Millo waiting for us. He’d mistakenly thought it a good idea to leave 15 minutes earlier, to make sure he wouldn’t get dropped off the back on the climbs. Not something he had to have worried about this morning!

Quiet when we arrived, crowded when we left! We were quite surprised by the arrival of a large number of sports cars, filling the parking lot, and then some.

Yet another great day to be out on a bike! Instead of the usual Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride, it was time for the annual cruise up Mt. Hamilton, the Bay Area’s tallest mountain. I’d been looking forward to a more “casual” ride up the hill this time but that didn’t work out when Burt, my designated casual rider partner, let me know he was going up an hour earlier than our 9am starting time. Dang.

Eric leading Kevin through a hairpin.

Closer look. Didn’t realize Eric was so tall!

Lots of people riding up the hill today, including Burt (former CR alumni), Steve L & Milo (former Tuesday/Thursday-morning riders), Eric (regular Tuesday/Thursday-morning rider) and Kelsey (if I’m getting his name right), one of our customers. Steve & Milo left just as we drove up, getting maybe a 10 minute lead on us, which Kevin (my son) decided to eradicate sooner than later. First he dropped Kelsey, then Eric drifted off the back a bit, then Eric caught back on and it was my turn off the back… which remained the case up the final climb to the top.

Milo riding strong!

At one point I’m looking at my heart rate, 163, and thinking it’s going to be tough maintaining this for another 45 minutes or so. I’m hoping that maybe Kevin is close to redline so all I have to do is wait until he blows, so I ask him about his heart rate. Now keep in mind that, at almost 57, my max heart rate, absolute max before she blows, is going to be right around 170. Kevin, who’s just turned 20, has a max of around 200, so I’m expecting him to tell me he’s running at 180 or so. Uh… no. 167. I’m am so about to die and he’s just idling!!!

Very few cars on the way up, and not too many bicycles. Yet. That changed very quickly at the top, when we were joined by a sports car rally of some sort, descending, er, rather, ascending on the parking lot at the top en masse. Apparently, the no-entry sign that cyclists ignored was similarly-ignored by 4-wheeled motorized beasts as well.

We “cooled off” for a bit at the top, literally, as it was 34 degrees (according to a display in the observatory). They didn’t even have the observatory open at first, but when they did, it was questionable whether the surging mass heading for it was because people really had to go, or because they knew it was warm inside. Me? Both were good reasons to pay a visit! Even had a mild altercation with a local inside; there was a bin with a ton of newspapers in it, and I figured SCORE! Something to put in-between my base layer and jersey, to keep me a bit warmer on the way back down. Uh, no. Turns out they were the property of some generic old crotchety guy cleaning out his mailbox, and he wanted them, outdated Christmas ads & all. Pretty funny, actually.

On the way back down we started out together, but when we caught up with Burt at Grants Ranch, I dropped off to ride back the rest of the way with him. I wanted to do at lest part of this ride at a civilized pace! We were back at the start by 12:30, making it a 3.5 hour round trip. Not bad, and would have even had a sorta respectable time on the way up if not for a flat tire on the second climb.