Tag Archives: bicycle

Big group on the Tuesday ride

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Big group at Old LaHonda & Skyline. Left to right, Kevin J, Mike (not me), Kevin S, Chris, Eric, George, Karen, Todd, Marcus, Mike (not me again) & Karl. Missing (turned off earlier) is Jim.

So now I go to bed the night before the Tuesday/Thursday ride wondering how badly I’m going to get beat up… by my son. I knew this was coming, but I didn’t realize how rapidly he would progress. It was only a couple months ago (literally) that Kevin finally broke 30 minutes up Kings and could actually ride with our group without holding us up. And now, he can squeeze off a 26-something time more reliably than I can.

But today I never got to find out how badly he might beat me. Maybe a quarter mile before the start of the climb, one of my two computers came off the handlebar, without me noticing, but Karl let me know he’d seen if fly off and hit the side of the road. OK… I briefly considered whether it was worth sacrificing the climb for a computer… maybe it would still be there when I got back… but it might be tough figuring out exactly where it had landed later, so I watched the others head on up the hill while I made a u-turn and retrieved the computer. Did anyone offer to stay behind and ride up with me? Er, no, but Chris was a late arrival and was coming up behind, trying to catch the group. Yeah, sure, I can just have Chris pace me back up the hill. Right. For about 100 meters or so, and then he vanished. Poof. Gone. Didn’t see him again until the top of the hill.

Eventually I did catch up to Kevin, Todd & Karl. Yes, Karl, who’s recovering nicely from his latest collarbone/clavicle issue. They had been soft-pedaling for a while, actually having conversations, while my lungs are searching for every available atom of oxygen (I was going to say “molecule of air” but is air a molecule? Apparently yes.) I was dying; probably 27:20 or so, a lot of time to be thinking about everybody else already well ahead of me, riding faster, finishing soon.

Very big group this morning. 12 at least, given that there are 11 in the photo plus me, and there might have been one guy who turned off before then (yes, there was one more, Jim I think). A bit foggy at the top, fairly cool, and just damp enough to give me the creeps descending (Kevin doesn’t seem to have such trouble, but then Kevin doesn’t have the years of experience descending that I have, some of those descents ending up on my side instead of my wheels).

For the final sprint it was all Chris. Kevin wasn’t anywhere in sight; obviously, it’s time I get him back to sprinting again (since maybe emphasizing sprinting will slow him down on the climbs).

First pre-France test of Bike Fridays

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It was meant to be a longer ride, but that wasn’t the fault of our Bike Fridays. The plan was initially Woodside, Old LaHonda, Pescadero, loop down to Gazos Creek and back to Pescadero, north on Stage and back via Tunitas. Due to the warm weather we decided to drop the Gazos Creek section, but more pruning was soon to come.

Since we were on our Bike Fridays and not our lighter-weight and more-responsive Trek carbon bikes, I knew we’d be climbing Old LaHonda a bit slower than Kevin’s recent and rapidly-improving times, but the presence of large numbers of rabbits (cyclists ahead of us) and the fear of being passed by dogs (cyclists behind) was propelling Kevin strongly; so strongly in fact that, at the half-way point, he was slightly ahead of his best time ever (23:24). But literally within 20 feet of the top he had one of his more-significant seizures, causing great concern among the many cyclists who traditionally assemble at the top of the climb. I let them know he’d be fine in just a couple of minutes, but it’s got to be an odd thing for someone not familiar with epilepsy to see a cyclist struggle to get off his bike and then stagger around a bit before collapsing to the ground. Me? Old stuff. I know he’ll be fine shortly, and just make sure he gets laid gently on the ground (although today I couldn’t get to him in time).

Kevin sitting in the window at the San Gregorio General Store, talking with Dario (friend & customer)

Riders approaching Highway 1 on Stage Road, just north of San Gregorio

Within a couple of minutes he was mostly fine, but had lost his desire to keep going. I knew this was temporary so we moved on, but by the time we got to La Honda I decided we’d alter the ride a bit more and drop the Pescadero loop in favor of a slightly-shorter Los Lobitos addition. Given a bit more time (and, ironically, a bit of climbing), Kevin would have been fine with the original plan, and in fact by San Gregorio he was feeling very good.

Heading north on Highway 1

Kevin on the easy part of Los Lobitos; looking across the ravine you can see the hard part.

We fueled up with a Coke and Clif Bar and then set out to tame Stage Road, Los Lobitos and Tunitas Creek. While it had been getting quite toasty on the bay side of the mountain (and in the picture showing riders climbing Stage Road, you can see it’s rather heat-hazy up on Skyline in the distance), it was a very comfortable mid-70s on the coast. Dario, a customer we came across at San Gregorio General Store, rode with us as far as Los Lobitos and then continued on to Half Moon Bay (where he’d be eating lunch before turning back and doing Higgins Purissima and then Tunitas). Los Lobitos is one of those roads that starts out deceptively-easy and fun, and then turns into a pretty nasty, steep climb that winds around and eventually connects with Tunitas a few miles in from the coast.

The "other side" of Los Lobitos, seen in the prior photo

By this time Kevin was back to his old self again, riding strongly on the steepest sections and taking advantage of his superior lungs. Hearing Dad’s lungs noisily trying to snag spare oxygen seems to make him climb even faster. That’s OK, I still have more power in my legs; I just have to use them wisely, knowing that a sustained effort is going to put me into oxygen debt that I won’t quickly recover from.

Los Lobitos was the one piece of road we saw no other cyclists on. Actually, we did come across one cyclists, riding in the opposite direction, but no rabbits, no dogs.

Kevin riding up Tunitas Creek, clearly working it hard

Tunitas Creek? Same as it ever was. Steep, creek still running (surprisingly strongly), and today, so many cyclists on it you’d think there was an organized ride going on. Kevin kept a strong pace the whole way up the hill, clearly enjoying the fact that his current level of fitness allows him to pass so many others on the climbs these days. We did adopt a mellower pace on the flatter section up on top.

If we’d known how hot it was going to get as we descended back into Woodside, we might have spent more time on the coast! By the time we got home we felt like we’d had a far tougher ride than the 46 miles indicated, but the ride’s main mission, proving that the Bike Fridays were ready to tackle France in less than two weeks, was accomplished. The time I spent Saturday getting it set up identically to my Madone paid off very well. Now if I could just fix Kevin’s epilepsy as easily as I can deal with bike problems. –Mike–

 

A ride just a bit more “eventful” than necessary

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Kevin (my son, not the pilot) is now out of school so today was his first “summer” Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride. OK, it’s not actually summer, and OK, it’s not actually even feeling like normal spring weather either, with overcast skies and cooler temps. But it’s dry, and lately, that counts for something. We headed out a few minutes early, to give Kevin a head start up the hill, so the faster guys (and girl) would have a rabbit to catch. And for a while, we were doing a pretty good rabbit imitation, with Kevin starting out slowly but working up to a pretty good speed by the time we got to the park entrance.

In fact, once past the park, it was looking like this was finally going to be the ride that Kevin could get the 30 minute monkey off his back (his previous best being about 30 minutes, 40 seconds). Things were looking really good until just past the half-way hairpin. I hear Kevin call out “Seizure!” and look back to see him quickly coming to a stop. At this point you’ve got about 8 seconds before he becomes… I don’t want to say useless, but unable to do anything. There’s a drill for this- I tell him to get off the bike and lie on the ground. Which he quickly did, before losing consciousness for about a minute and a half, attracting attention from a car heading up the hill and a cyclist coming down, both of whom I had to explain that this is not something to worry about, it’s a “normal” thing in our abnormal world. Within 4 minutes of his seizure we were back on our way up the hill, and heading up fast enough that only two of the faster guys (Marcus & John) were able to pass us, if I’m recalling correctly, and we were able to hold off at least one person we saw behind (Eric) as Kevin quickly came back up to speed.

It’s comforting to know that his seizures don’t have to cut the ride short or even have a negative effect on his performance, but it would be even-more-comforting to not have them at all.

Kevin holding onto the "train" for dear life on West-Side Old LaHonda

Kevin holding onto the "train" for dear life on West-Side Old LaHonda

At the regroup at the top we had, let’s see, Marcus, John, Eric, Karen, Darryl (whom we haven’t seen in a very long time!), Karl… seems like there were more? We had a reasonable pace until things started breaking up a bit on West-side Old LaHonda (often the case), where I told Kevin to stay on Karl’s wheel, which he dutifully did until the steeper part just before the forest. That’s when the wheels came off, but not completely, as I paced him through the forest and back up to Skyline, not that far behind the fast guys at the front. But the fun was yet to come.

Heading down 84 into Woodside, Kevin and I held back a bit from the fast pace at the front; I’m not sure if Kevin’s getting a bit more cautious about descending after his non-seizure-related crash that tore up his knee back in September, or because he’s concerned about the possibility of an ill-timed seizure, but I’m not going to push him to go faster downhill (I’m sure once we get to France he’ll once again get competitive with the locals and be flying down faster than I’d like!). But today it turned out to be a good thing to be a bit behind, as coming around one corner we saw two of our riders (John & Karen) on the ground and a car across the road. Actually, Karen was already up by the time we got there, and John wasn’t that bad off as I helped him to his feet (just a bloody knee).

The car had been coming up the road and turned into a driveway on the opposite side, right at one of the corners, giving us no warning whatsoever. She (the driver) should feel fortunate we were bikes and not a car; anytime she’s making that turn she’s playing a percentage game, making an assumption that it won’t be at the exact time that someone’s coming down the hill. At least this time is was primarily damage to John’s bike and not much to his body (or Karen’s) despite having slid on the pavement in an attempt to avoid hitting the car.

I’m now left to wonder if paranoid people should be riding routinely with video cameras, recording what’s going on around them. Rather 1984-ish to say the least!  –Mike–

 

“Clean Air Vehicle” that runs on gas? I don’t think so!

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This is a "Clean Air Vehicle?" It runs on gas, it requires large amounts of asphalt for parking, and it encourages driving for errands. Maybe "cleaner" than some alternatives, but cannot compare to a bicycle. Your bike is a true "Clean Air Vehicle."

Hybrid cars. Some people love to hate them, mostly for how they’re driven (if only they’d get rid of that meter telling them how, if they roll through the stop signs and drive like Grandma they’ll get 53 miles per gallon instead of 48). OK, so they have one thing in common with bikes, but getting stuck behind two of them today and having that orange sticker staring me in the face that says “Clean Air Vehicle” while they’re burning gas running errands to the shopping center… I’m sorry but that’s just too much.

A “Clean Air Vehicle” shouldn’t burn gas! It probably shouldn’t even run on electricity. The only true “Clean Air Vehicles” are those self-propelled. Your bicycle is a true “Clean Air Vehicle.”

Besides the recreational/fitness aspects of cycling, you truly can use a bike to avoid driving. Today, I did a run to the bank before heading to the shop, and how much gas did I use? Exactly zero. How many square feet of asphalt were required for me to park my bike? Exactly zero. The air would be a whole lot cleaner if there were more bicycles used for shorter trips and fewer “Clean Air Vehicles.” It’s time for some truth in advertising. Or maybe a new advertising campaign for Chain Reaction!

Trains & bikes, no planes, no automobiles as we took on Mount Hamilton

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The last mile up Mount Hamilton, with an over-the-top soundtrack.

It’s Sunday, you need to get in something tough, and it’s tough to get in something tough without heading out to the coast. But how many variants of a ride to the coast can you do before it starts getting a bit repetitive? This coming from the guy who’s done the same loop every single Tuesday & Thursday morning for the past 30+ years, by the way. Kevin likes variety, while I like consistency and dedication. But looking out the window this morning and seeing the heavy marine layer still hugging the coastal hills, I was thinking maybe it’s time to head east, away from the clouds. Trouble is, it’s not so easy to head east on a bike; you’ve got the bay in the way, or a really long boring ride around it if you want to get anywhere decent. Or you drive, but I’ve really been trying to avoid that car thing lately. What to do.

Simple. Ride to the train station, take CalTrain to San Jose, ride up Mount Hamilton & return. Not much different from last Wednesday’s run up Sierra Road to see the Tour of California come through. So that’s what Kevin and I did, leaving the house at 10:50 to catch the 11:07 train (which ran 20 minutes late due to track work), got off in San Jose, hit every single red light you could possibly hit and had a very nice ride up Mount Hamilton. Nothing super fast; just under two hours, but Kevin’s not yet up to speed, and this was a very good opportunity for him to see where he was with the France trip coming up in less than two months.

I took a lot of video on the way up; still working out the kinks on that, figuring out how things work, how to get the least camera jitter, but what I really need to work on is the post-ride editing. Adding music is key to an interesting video, and clearly what I need to do is lay down the music track and then edit the video around it. Or I could ride with music playing and try to set the tempo accordingly, but that’s probably not so practical.

Eventually I’d like to set up a bunch of rides that can be easily accessed via public transportation (trains), so you can leave your car at home. Key to that will be identifying train stations that are close to places we like to ride, and hours that particular train system allows bikes. CalTrain allows bike on all trains, but BART is much more restrictive, keeping you off them during commute hours. That still leaves weekends! Using a combination of CalTrain, BART and the Capitol Corridor lines, we’ve probably got access to a pretty wide area.

Tell us about your commute. It may inspire others to Go By Bike!

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I’m putting together a page that will inspire people to consider commuting by bike, or just getting around in general on a bike instead of driving. So many of the trips taken by car are short (under 3 miles) and don’t require hauling 50 pound bags of dog food, and yet we don’t think twice about grabbing the car keys and driving. Time to “Think Different” as Apple would say! So please, respond to this with your bike commute story, and I’ll see what I can do to organize things and inspire others. Thanks- –Mike–

Can you drive that fast on Skyline? Apparently not.

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Just 4 of us this morning with Karl, Eric and Marcus heading with me up through the park. Tuesday’s routing is rigid; we absolutely positively will not go through the park on Tuesdays. But Thursdays I’m willing to let the mob decide, and the mob often goes for the back route through Huddart Park.

Nobody was setting any records this morning, although I’m sure Marcus is capable if he desired. I just stayed on his wheel as long as I could and then adopted the more-sensible pace set by Eric.

But the main event had nothing to do with us this morning. Shortly after Skeggs (just after Marcus had left us for home), I hear something coming up from behind, yell out “car” and move to the far-right (I should point out that my normal positioning on a quiet road is not the far-right edge of the road, because you’re not as visible from a distance as you are when you’re in the lane, but I always move over before the car arrives). The time between me yelling “car” and its arrival was incredibly short, because this guy was going incredibly fast. So fast that, when Karl picked the pace up a bit, I jokingly asked him if he was going to try and catch the guy. So fast that I was thinking at the time, can you really drive this section that fast?

The answer is no. Just past the bend in the road we came across the busted remains of a black BMW, upside-down, maybe reduced in height by a third or so as the roof had collapsed a bit. We really didn’t know what we were going to find inside, but didn’t think much of it as we approached the car, figuring that we might be the only people around for a while and whatever needed to be done quickly, had to be done by us. I tried calling but my cell phone didn’t work (neither did someone else’s Verizon; eventually a local resident drove through with what looked like a Sprint PTT (push to talk) phone that did work. Eric went down the road a bit to try his phone there, and stop incoming traffic. We also stopped a car and asked they head down to Sky Londa and notify the fire department. And checked out the condition of the car and the occupant, concerned about the possibility of a fire, in which case we’d have to throw caution to the wind and get that guy out of there, injuries notwithstanding.

As it turned out, there were no leaking fluids, no smell of gas, just some wisps of “smoke” coming from the remnants of 6 blown airbags. The guy was semi-alert but likely cold, and we had nothing to put over him. No obvious external injuries, but someone going from 80+mph to zero in the blink of an eye is obviously going to be busted up a bit. We worked on getting the doors open, which seemed like an impossible task, given the extent of crumpling to the car, but surprisingly, they eventually sprung free. Beyond that, there wasn’t much we could do other than stop traffic and wait for the paramedics, while keeping an eye on the guy’s condition in case anyone asked.

After what seemed like forever, a fire truck, and then an EMT unit arrived, followed later by the requisite string of sheriff’s and CHPs flying up the hill as we rode back down into Woodside, a bit more sedately than normal, a bit rattled, and with fewer miles under our legs because we skipped the west-side Old LaHonda section. For some reason we just didn’t feel like doing it today, plus we were running pretty late. But whatever the inconvenience to us, we were having a far better day than the guy in the black BMW.

At 55, I’m scared to death that, if I slow down, I’ll never get back up to speed again!

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George, Karl, Leslie (pilot-Kevin’s friend), Kevin, Eric, John, Millo, Marcus, Karen… that might be everybody, or I might be missing someone. What wasn’t missed was a day that turned out so much nicer than expected! I put on the long-fingered gloves but really didn’t need to; it probably started around 54 degrees and was up to 64 by the time I got back home a couple hours later. No complaints!

Since it was a Tuesday I knew it would be a bit harder than the Thursday version of our ride, but hard is really what you make of it yourself. Starting up Kings I’m now making sure to not set the pace at the beginning, since people complain that I go hard and then blow up. Not sure how that’s a whole lot different than what I’m doing now… waiting for Marcus and John and Karl to pass by, and then hanging onto their wheels for dear life until… I blow up! The end result is the same; no way can I maintain a torrid pace all the way up the hill. Yet. Working on that one! And I think my new life as a bike commuter is helping out in that regard, since my 15 minute ride home includes a stiff climb at the end, and no matter how tough the day has been, no matter how tired or hungry I am, I still punch it as hard as I can.

Once we get to the park I get a chance to rest for a minute or two, and then continue up the hill at a bit more moderate pace. It’s still tough seeing the fast guys head on up ahead though, and I’ll still try to get back up to them at least once, an effort that pretty much destroys me. As usual. But today at least I got in two hard sprints, with George

This is what tells me I've got it- when you see someone looking back at you. If it's a drag race, there's no point. The only reason to look back would be if you are thinking about cutting someone off (tactics) or shutting down if you don't like your chances.

pushing things each time. Looking at the video I shot during the ride, I saw something that I key on during the sprint, without thinking about it… George pulls ahead, takes a quick glance back and then takes off. It’s that glance that tells me I’ve got it. If you’re serious about a sprint and it’s going to be an all-out drag race, there’s nothing to be gained by looking back, unless you’re thinking about backing down, and if that’s in your mind, you’ve lost already. In George’s case, I think he’s just curious and wants to know where he is vs myself or Karl. If it were a tactical sprint, knowing exactly where the other guys are makes sense, but for either the Skegg’s or Sky Londa sprints, the tactics are played out well before the actual sprint (while you establish your position… basically, whose wheel to sit on).

The most-interesting part of the ride for me wasn’t a sprint though. George and Karl had gotten out ahead on the 84 descent into Woodside, with me in that no-man’s land between them and a few some distance behind. Normally I’d be inclined to wait for those behind if there was much of a gap to the front guys, but today? Today I wanted to see if I could run George & Karl down, in particular on the Tripp Road section where I normally run out of gas and am happy to sit on someone’s wheel. But today I managed to bridge the gap to them, after which Karl promptly attacked, leaving me behind. Good tactic on Karl’s part, since it took me completely out of the final sprint.

This is what I do for fun. Or is it, This is what I do for fun? To tell you the truth, at 55, I’m scared to death that, if I slow down, I’ll never get back up to speed again! –Mike–

The Tuesday-morning ride is coming up to speed, plus “Who are those guys?”

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We had some visitors from The City this morning; three guys who had taken the train down, arrived in Redwood City at 7:18am and quickly headed up over Jefferson to join us. And, bad as I am, I can only remember one guy’s name- “Space.” Eric might be able to give me the other two. Either all or some were Google employees, and yes, it would be nice if I were a better ride host and would carry on conversations with the new folk but I’m still feeling fortunate to finish the climb up Kings on the same day as the rest of the group!

Actually, I’m doing a bit better than that. While I had told myself I was not going to follow the first fast wheel up the hill, and I intentionally let Karl get a good gap on me at the bottom, it doesn’t seem to matter. I see that wheel in front of me and claim it as if it were my own bike’s 3rd wheel. Karl started out at a reasonable pace but then gradually increased it, such that the first timing point, the house on the right with a reflecting pool that we used to be able to see 20 years ago before, was fast but not blazingly-so, but the second timing point, the hairpin over the creek, came at about 5:33, about 25 seconds faster than normal. I held pretty tightly until we were close to the park entrance, where we (myself, George, Karl & Marcus) dutifully waited for the rest to catch up. I’ll admit to a bit of disappointment that the wait was relatively short, but the good news is that Eric’s making a comeback, knocking two minutes off last week’s time to the top.


(The video above shows us descending Highway 84 into Woodside)

Regarding disappointments though, I’ll admit I was not at the top of my game for the sprints. Had I gone full-tactical and slowed down ahead of the sprint into Sky Londa, things might have gone differently, but it’s fun to just curl up into a ball and see how fast you can descend, never mind that it takes a bit to get yourself out of that ball and feel like turning the pedals again. Plus you’ve got a string of people on your tail, ready to slingshot in front of you at just the right moment.

Hopefully the three Google guys will read today’s report and leave a comment here. And hopefully they won’t think our group anti-social because of my lack of banter while riding. They did seem like very nice guys.

This ride marked the official start of the faster riding season, finishing at 9:22 (the Tuesday ride typically finishing in-season between 9:18 and 9:22am, while Thursday’s ride is typically 5 minutes slower). It didn’t feel like a take-no-prisoners event, so maybe there’s hope for me. –Mike–

Was that the last of the rain? Maybe? Please?

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Easter Sunday. The plan (as always, there’s a plan) was to head out fairly early so Kevin (my son, not the pilot) and I could get in a good hard ride and get back in time for the traditional early Easter Sunday dinner (2:30pm for the usual honey-baked Ham, a scalloped-potato dish, string beans with sliced almonds, the usual holiday fare) and then later on head to a 5pm church service run by Pastor Ben, one of our customers and all-around good guy.

The ride was supposed to be up & over Old LaHonda to the coast, Stage Road south to Pescadero, over Haskins and then up West Alpine and return north on Skyline. A reasonably-ambitious ride that would require us to get out on the road by 8:30am or so, certainly no later than 9. 8:30 wasn’t going to happen; it was raining lightly but with a promise of clearing soon. 9:30 and it was still wet out, too wet for my nice bike. We finally hit the road at 10:30, with the pavement having been dried by some fairly stiff winds, and a modified itinerary consisting of climbing Kings, south on Skyline to 84, down to LaHonda and back via West Alpine. A perfectly-reasonable ride, except that we didn’t count on the equivalent of heavy rain and relative-cold (49 degrees) up on top, with the appearance of more of the same if we were to head further west.

By the time we got to Sky Londa we were cold and totally soaked through, not having planned for anything more than light rain, so we rode down 84 back into Woodside, at which point Kevin was thinking we were simply heading back home. Er, no. We needed to get some miles under our butts and generate some heat to dry out our clothes! Fortunately, about halfway down to Woodside the skies dried out, making this a reasonable plan. From the bottom we turned right and headed out to Portola Valley, looped through Los Altos, and then returned via Sand Hill. In the end it was just 46 miles, but much harder than you’d think due to some very stiff headwinds most of the way back. Total climbing was about 4300ft, more than I thought, but it was pushing forward through the headwinds that has my legs feeling like I rode!

Oh, should mention one really good thing was that this was the first Sunday ride in several weeks where Kevin hasn’t had even a minor seizure. His combination of meds has been changing, and hopefully we’re finally seeing things stabilize. That would be a very good thing, especially since the trip to France to see the ‘Tour and ride the big mountains is less than 90 days away!