07/02/09- FIRST RIDE OF JULY and I have to be seriously thinking now about the shape I'm going to France with. I leave on the 17th with my son, which gives me only two remaining Sunday rides plus four Tuesday/Thursday sessions. Not much time, and there's still lots of room for improvement!

HUGE turnout this morning; maybe 12 at the start? No way to get everyone, but at the very least we had Karl, Kevin, Billy, other Kevin, Geoff, Bob, a friend of Bob's whose name I forgot, Todd, Eric, Steve L and who knows who else. About the same time up the hill this morning as Tuesday (well OK, one second slower) but felt a lot worse, probably due to eating pizza the night before. Well, no probably about it. If you've got a ride you want to do really well with the next day, don't eat Pizza the night before.

I felt OK going down 84 towards Old LaHonda, but the operative word there is "down" isn't it? On west-side Old LaHonda,  wisely decided to keep company with Steve L, who was willing to set a more moderate pace than the rest of the guys.

This is where I'd normally talk about the final sprint, but the most-relevant part of the final sprint turned out to be the fact that one of us didn't become road-kill. I would rather not write about scary stuff and cycling; the idea I've always tried to get across is that cycling is a fun thing to do, even the stuff where your heart is trying to pound through your chest or the salt is etching away the surface of your eyes. But today we experienced something not-so-fun-at-all. As we headed back via Tripp and then Kings Mtn Road, we prepared for the left turn onto Manuella that would take us back to the start of the ride. We were still a large group, and as we approached the turn, we "took the lane" to make sure a car didn't try to cut us off, and many of us signaled our intention to make the left turn, across the lane of oncoming traffic. And that's where it gets bad, because some idiot in a black sedan came flying up behind us and drove into the oncoming lane, traveling in our direction, and passed Manuella at exactly the point that Karl would have turned to cross. It's quite possible that Karl's life was saved because one of the guys in our group, Billy, yelled out "DON'T TURN!" The normal stuff, "car back" or just simply "car", wouldn't have done the trick because you're just not expecting a car to be entirely in the wrong lane speeding past you.

30+ years of doing this ride, these roads, and never ever anything quite like what we saw today. Maybe I'll cut Billy a bit more slack for the way he sometimes rides too far out in the lane, annoying drivers behind. Or not; it really serves no purpose to annoy people in cars; we do need to share the road, and we can share the road safely and for the most part we have shared the road safely. And I plan to continue doing so for many years to come.

06/30/09- SLOWLY GETTING FASTER. Sounds a bit strange, but welcome to my life! Don't know if it took that incredibly-hot ride on Sunday to shake up my body and make it decide it was time to get to work or I'm just one of those guys who takes forever to get into in-season shape. Maybe both. Whatever the case, it wasn't as if I was fast up Kings, but at least I wasn't as slow as I've been lately, getting 27:30 (yeah, I know, not much over a year ago I was a full minute faster than that) and able to keep up with the guys most everywhere except the west side of Old LaHonda, where I couldn't quite recover quickly enough after getting some photos to accelerate back into the group. Do they sense a moment of opportunity when I'm taking photos, and intentionally speed up to drop me? I don't think so. Could be that I take photos there so I have an excuse for not trying to hang on!

It was Tuesday so it's normal that it would be faster, with Todd & George & Eric & Karl & Bob & (Ted & Carol & Alice?)... I actually set out ahead after climbing Kings and took some video of the sprint at Sky Londa, predictably won by Todd. Once we got back down into Woodside it was Karl pushing the pace again, this time accelerating several times, but at this point I was determined not to become unglued. In fact when Kevin took off on Manuela it was me who chased him down, even though I knew that would likely kill me for the final sprint (it did). Far as I know, a fun time was had by all.

06/28/09- THIS RIDE WAS KEVIN'S IDEA, NOT MINE! The forecast, predicting the hottest day of the year so far, did not disappoint. The original plan for today's ride was to head out to the coast as early and quickly as possible, seeking cooler temperatures, and ride south to Santa Cruz, and then as far up Highway 9 as practical before calling in the sag wagon. But we found out last night the sag wagon wasn't going to come through, so Kevin suggested a different plan. A self-contained ride (no need to drive anywhere or get picked up) that would climb Page Mill, down Alpine to Pescadero, Stage Road to San Gregorio and then back Tunitas Creek.

You can see the route in the map, and clicking on the map will bring up the detailed ride in Google Maps. A nearly-perfect 100k ride (62 miles) with about 6500 ft of climbing.

Heading up Page Mill it was a pleasant 93-100 degrees, as the rising sun heated up the eastern slopes of the Santa Cruz Mountains. And yes, we went through a lot of Cytomax! I planned for the high temperatures and carried an extra two frozen bottles in a backpack.

Thankfully it was a little cooler on the coast side of the hill, dropping down to the low-80s by the time we got to Haskins Grade, the next climb. We also picked up some help along the way when we ran into Sal, the guy who coordinates and runs our secret soda stop on the Sequoia Century. He provided horsepower as we headed into the light wind trying to keep us from the much-cooler coast.

We'd planned to stop for actual sandwiches at the Pescadero Bakery, but the counter was mobbed (we weren't the only ones seeking the coolness of the coast today!) so we settled for pastries, tasty but probably not the best fuel for cycling. Kevin held up fairly well though, and we made our way across the three "bumps" of Stage Road to Tunitas, where the tree cover helped keep things relatively cool on the climb back up to Skyline, never seeing over 85 degrees or so. The home stretch down Kings and into Woodside was another matter entirely, as temps soared as high as 104 degrees! All in all it was appropriate training for Ventoux in France, where we'll see just a little bit less climbing but quite possibly temperatures just as unfriendly as we saw today. It was also another chance to confirm our ability to keep drinks frozen for many hours using the frozen water bottle wrapped in a couple layers of paper towel and put into a freezer bag.

06/26/09- MUST-READ PIECE BY CHRIS HORNER detailing the reasoning behind his not being on the Astana team going to the Tour de France. It's heart-breaking to read, even though, perhaps especially because, you know how the story ends. Read it here-

06/25/09- TOO MANY TO KEEP STRAIGHT! I don't know who all these guys are anymore. Somewhere past seven or so I lost track. I just know they're all fast! Karl, Kevin, Billy, Kevin, Eric, Todd and some others I'm forgetting. A bit cooler today than Tuesday, with a light wind coming in from the coast, bringing fog up to Skyline. We rode up through the park today, once again demonstrating that the steeper stuff just doesn't work for me like it used to! The guys had to wait quite a while for me at the top.

Oh, but before getting to the top I saw much more of Kevin (pilot Kevin) than I needed to see. Before his 5-week trip to the Pyrenees, he would have watered trees from the side of the road. Today I guess it was euro-style. And we wonder why women don't ride with us very often.

I started feeling a bit more human up on Skyline, once I found wheels to grab, and led everyone down the long descent to Sky Londa, hitting a high-enough speed at the bottom to give a leadout to the guys behind that there was just no way I could recover from. That's OK, that was the plan this morning. I wasn't going to win anyway with Todd there, so I might as well do something a bit different and get Karl & Todd up to speed.

On the return things fractured pretty badly. Normally I make an attempt to keep people together, but this morning that just didn't seem to be in the cards. Karl and I got out ahead of everyone else on the descent into Woodside, and since Karl was taking it fairly easy, I didn't have any issues keeping up. Hitting the bottom with nobody in sight behind, we just kept going. Or, I should say, Karl kept going and I stayed glued to his wheel. I like Karl's wheel; it doesn't move around much and I can predict what he's going to do. I even like the fact that when he stands up to get more speed, he doesn't actually get much more speed but provides one heck of a nice draft behind! My guess is that, when he stands and looks like he wants to accelerate, he's actually just trying to stretch himself out a bit and loosen up. Perhaps the most-important lesson I learned from my coaching way, way, way back in the day was this- if you want to try and get away from the guys behind you, or get a jump in a sprint, do not stand up. Start the acceleration from a seated position and try to stay there as long as possible. The two benefits are that it catches them off-guard (because they're not seeing visible evidence that you're up to something) and you're staying out of the wind.

06/23/09- WHO WERE ALL THOSE GUYS???!!! I wouldn't even know where to start, but there were a lot of people at the beginning of the ride this morning, including Kevin (older, pilot Kevin) just back from 5 weeks in Europe and very fit, Karl, George, Eric, Bob, Billy, other Kevin, Steve, Bob... everybody present and accounted for except my legs. I was looking forward to and dreading the ride this morning, because my legs were definitely feeling yesterday's hard ride in the Sierras. Normally you might think that a ride with my son wouldn't be too tough on me, but the reality is that he's getting stronger and I was carrying a ton of extra water.

Very nice morning with no fog, moderate temps, not even a reason to think about leg warmers. Which makes this, what, only the 2nd or 3rd ride so far this year where that's been the case? About time!

06/22/09- SINCE WE WERE ALREADY IN THE SIERRAS- I decided to do that very rare thing and actually take a day off work and rode with my son.  We spent the night in Cameron Park (at a Quality Inn that listed wireless internet access but that turned out not to be the case, one of the reasons my posts are running so far behind right now!) and set out Monday morning for Sly Park, at the base of Mormon Emigrant Trail, and rode from there to Silver Lake on Highway 88 & back. About 63 miles, 7000ft of climbing, mostly uphill on the way out and mostly downhill on the way back.

This was the highest elevation Kevin's ridden so far, peaking at just over 8000 feet on Highway 88. Kevin did very well on what can only be called an arduous ride, kind of like a never-ending Skyline Boulevard that's twice as wide but fortunately with very, very few cars and some great views. Because there are no services anywhere between the start and turnaround point, I converted my camera backpack into a water carrier, filling it with 4 bottled waters, each wrapped in paper towels and then put into freezer-size baggies with ice around them. A trick I learned in France, and it worked great again! Good thing too, because the first couple hours it was pushing 90 degrees out there.

I've got a bunch of not-yet-narrated photos on our Google Picasa site here. Note Kevin's expression at the turn-around point at the lake. Not a happy camper at that time! He was dreading climbing back out of there and feared the ride back would have as much climbing as the ride up. Fortunately he realized quickly that wasn't going to be the case; it took almost exactly half as long on the return as it did getting out there.

06/21/09- IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES, IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES. FANTASTIC RACING COMES TO CALIFORNIA AGAIN! This time it was the Nevada City Criterium, always a great race to watch as it goes up & down, up & down, up & down... you get the idea, climbing a couple hundred feet per lap, no way to do well in this race by drafting, you gotta pay if you want to play.

And this time it was Lance, Levi & Chris Horner doing the honors of setting the pace and then protecting Lance as he rode to a solo win. Many thousands of spectators (estimated to be about 25,000), and yes, I took pictures, which, for now, you can see on our Google Picasa page here.

06/19/09- CHRIS HORNER, LANCE ARMSTRONG & LEVI LEIPHEIMER COME TO NEVADA CITY THIS SUNDAY! This is something you just gotta do. There won't be that many opportunities to see racing of this caliber on a course this challenging in a spectator-friendly environment.  Here's a report from the local Nevada City newspaper.

It's a relatively-short 3 hour drive from the SF Bay Area, and the first race doesn't start until 1pm. The big guns start at 5pm and go for 90 painful minutes... painful because the course is 3/4 up and 1/4 down.

06/18/09- ALMOST BACK ON SCHEDULE! "Almost" because it's actually 12:14am Friday morning as I type this, so technically I'm a day behind... again. Gosh, I don't even know how many people started the ride this morning; there was a sea of Black & White jerseys from Billy & Kevin's club. One of them was "Bob" (who rode Tuesday), but the rest? I'll have to let someone else tell me someday. Beyond that we had Karl, Eric, and, joining us at the top of the hill, Steve & (after an absence of several weeks) Millo. I was just a spectator, trying to stay within my limits and also within sight of those in front of me. I lost out on both counts, but on the good side, this was the first morning ride in a very long time without leg warmers!!!

At the sprint at the end of the ride I was in a pretty good place, but shut down after the third person with a baby carriage crossed the street in slow motion in front of us. Not seriously, no baby carriages, but a number of joggers, walkers and one woman trying to control a couple of dogs. More than enough for me to put on the brakes and navigate the gauntlet in a non-threatening manner. But I'll be back.

06/17/09- YES, I RODE YESTERDAY, AND YES, IT WAS ANOTHER "LOST" DAY. One of those days where you think you've got a handle on things, but in the end it feels like it's all crashing down around you like plates of glass that you managed to hold up through thick & thin until something became that last straw. Or am I the only person who's had days like that?

But we'll talk about the ride, the ride which is supposed to help me maintain my sanity and get me through such days. And maybe it did, maybe the day could have been even more stressful if I hadn't ridden! But I guess I should have known how the day would end, because of the way it started. Preben, the 67 year old strongman, and this time too strong for my 53 year old body to keep up with. What's wrong with this picture? Maybe I should instead try to figure out what's right with Preben! After all, he owns a business himself, just like me, and somehow finds the time & willpower to stay in extraordinary shape. I should be taking lessons!

So the ride started with Preben, Billy, Bob (friend of Billy's and someone who'd ridden with us a while back), Karl, George, Eric. Basically they all just gradually rode away from me up the hill. Bob held back a little bit, so I at least had some company for a while. The run on Skyline was damp (will we ever see the sun again up there???) but not dangerously so. Steve L joined us at Skeggs, just back from a trip to Ireland with Sean, who's now, what, 78? And had just ridden his umpteenth, annual 200k ride over there. Impressive! These older guys rock; don't let anyone tell you that you can't do "it", whatever "it" is, when you get older. You can. You might do it a bit slower, but you can certainly do it.

Oh, I should mention that Sean, the 78 year old who'd just done the 200k ride in Ireland... he's been going through chemotherapy for cancer, and had even been riding to & from his chemo sessions!

Impressive guy.

06/14/09- EVERY HAD A GOOD IDEA AND WONDER WHY NOBODY'S DONE IT BEFORE? Well, that should have been a warning to me! Should have. But we're talking about me, after all.

The good idea? I needed to get in a good ride with my son and wanted to do something different than the usual heading out to the coast. In fact, the coast was the very last place I wanted to go, because more than anything, I wanted to see the sun. Not fog, not drizzly overcast. I wanted to see and feel the sun. It is June, after all. I think I've earned that, after all the "messy" rides so far this year. So with that in mind, I started thinking about the east bay. Actually, at first I was thinking about doing a ride from some years past, Mormon Emigrant Trail from Pollok Pines to Silver Lake and back. But getting there is a 3 hour drive, and with things as busy as they are at the shop right now, I just didn't feel like driving up after work on Saturday, nor getting up early to drive up Sunday morning.

So what to do. East Bay. Maybe Mt Diablo? No, too difficult trying to come up with a solid 100k ride. But what about the roads east of Livermore, the ones that head out to the Sacramento Valley? There are three of them- Altamont Pass, Patterson Pass, and Corral Hollow. But none of them offer enough miles. How about doing all of them on one ride? Now that's a challenge! But how to string them together in a logical way?

What I came up with was to start in Livermore and first ride east over Patterson Pass (the "easy" direction), then back to the start via Altamont Pass. 22 mile loop. Eat lunch, then head east over Corral Hollow, zig-zag around the outskirts of Tracy to the west side of Patterson Pass and then back over it in the opposite direction from the first loop. 38 miles, "featuring" Patterson Pass the hard way. You can see it here on the Garmin site.

Well y'know, the climbing wasn't so bad, but I have never, ever done a ride in my life with so much brutal headwind! Oh sure, we did get some tailwinds too, but they don't count, do they? I should have known when, on the first loop, we were slowed to a crawl (about 10mph) over Altamont Pass, a very easy grade, by nasty winds. The windmills should have tipped us off. Would they put windmills in places that didn't get heavy winds?

It really wasn't a problem until we got to the zig-zag part of the second loop. There was one stretch, perfectly straight, straight into the wind, West Shulte Road, that seemed to take forever to get through. Forever was actually only 20 minutes, but it seemed more like an hour.

I'll post more info on this ride shortly. In the meantime, if you want to try it, do so early in the day, when the winds are lower!

06/13/09- TOMORROW'S RIDE LINK- An experiment to see if I can link to a complicated Google map. OK, this is odd, it works on any computer I try it on except the Google map application on the iPhone, which was the whole point of the exercise, so I could have a map of the ride on my iPhone. Not that I could get lost, as it's a pretty easy route. Just strange it doesn't seem to work quite right.

If things go according to plan, it will be about 100k starting in Livermore, first heading east over Patterson Pass with a counter-clockwise loop over Altamont Pass and back to the start. Then another, longer loop, again counter-clockwise, over Coral Hollow Road and than west over Patterson Pass. Yes, that's right, both sides of Patterson Pass in one day! Hey, why not, it should be a whole lot easier than doing both sides of Sonora Pass.

06/11/09- EVER HIJACKED SOMEBODY ELSE'S BODY? OK, that does sound a bit strange! This morning I apparently strapped on the wrong heart transmitter so my Garmin Edge 705 super-fancy bike computer wasn't registering my heart rate. But it did pick up Eric's, so as we were cruising up the hill, I was able to monitor Eric's effort, which was actually quite interesting! His peak heart rate isn't too much different from mine (which is depressing, since it means he's not working as hard, since he's a few years younger than I am), but even more interesting is that he's able to relax during the climb and get it down from the peak I saw of 172 or so to 145. For me, a hard, sustained effort will have my lower limit at 160 and max at maybe 174.

Karl, Eric, Billy & non-pilot Kevin this morning, although Billy & non-pilot Kevin turned to head back down Kings shortly before the top. A bit wet & drizzly up on Skyline, but pretty nice by the time we got to west-side Old LaHonda. It was everything I could manage to try and stay on Karl's wheel, and staying on his wheel at all meant that he was taking it relatively easy this morning or being kind to me for some reason. Either way works for me!

06/10/09 PM Edition- YES, THAT WAS ME QUOTED IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL article about the feud between Lance Armstrong & Greg LeMond. The reporter had read some of my ramblings on the 'net on the subject (isn't Google wonderful?) and called me on Tuesday afternoon. We spoke for about 15 minutes or so, but I don't think he got what he was looking for, in terms of something that would sell newspapers (which would have been something from me suggesting that I believed Lance was guilty of doping).

My main message to him (Reed Albergotti) was that there must be a whole lot of journalists who would love to make their mark in the world by being the person who brought Lance down, and the fact that it hasn't happened yet may be an indication that there's not much truth to the stories trying to connect Lance with doping. I also brought up that the timing of these stories each year, just before the Tour de France, was perfect for selling papers and books on the subject.

06/10/09- TUESDAY/THURSDAY ALUMNUS WINS BIG IN SO CAL!
Pasadena, California, June 10, 2009
For Immediate Release:
USC Cyclist Faster Than Cars
Todd Norwood (USC Cycling) emerged victorious in the prestigious Pasadena-Los Angeles Grand Prix early Wednesday morning out pacing his two long time rivals Molly Taylor (USC-Honda) and Sam Dutrow (USC-Toyota) with a well timed attack on the Category 3 Col du El Sereno climb with 4 km to go to arrive alone at the finish on the beautiful Avenue de Alcazar on the USC Health Science Campus.

The day started out as a fairly routine commute, but Norwood saw his opportunity to seize victory with about 1km before the daunting Col du El Sereno. "At that point the traffic looked favorable and I really started to believe I could win today, " commented Norwood after the race. As they approached the climb Norwood accelerated hard along the right side of Huntington while Taylor and Dutrow were slowed slightly by the traffic. At this point Norwood only had a tenuous lead which would shrink as they hit the lower slopes of the Col du El Sereno. As the climb begin it became clear the both Taylor and Dutrow had more horsepower than Norwood and weren't simply going to let the USC rider slip away without a fight. However, Norwood, who is not known for his climbing ability, dug deep into his suitcase of courage and accelerated once again to take the lead from Dutrow as they crested the climb.

Skillfully riding in the descent toward Calle Monterey Norwood began to open up what would be the decisive gap as he was able to make it through the intersection while his competitors we caught at a red light. Norwood rode swiftly along Huntington expanding his lead to 55 seconds before making the sweeping left onto the uncategorized Soto St. climb which would present that last obstacle of the day.

Behind Taylor and Dutrow drove furiously trying to close down the gap to the solo escapee, while Norwood pedaled smoothly up the Soto St. climb. Despite a blazing pace late in the race the efforts Taylor and Dutrow would prove to be too little, too late as they could only pull back 10 seconds of Norwood's lead by the finish at along the Avenue de Alcazar.

After the race Norwood said, "This is a very important win for me. It will rank right up there with the '05 Conference title and the '02 State title. But I need to pay respect to the man who motivated me today--John Henry. This win is in his honor." Neither Taylor nor Dutrow could be reached for comment after the race, however witnesses said they looked visibly dejected upon crossing the finish line.

06/09/09- THE GOOD, THE BAD, & THE UGLY. I was hoping, after Sunday's Sequoia Century (OK, metric century) and how good I was feeling hauling a big group into a headwind on the way out to the coast... I was hoping that maybe I'd feel pretty good this morning! But it just wasn't going to be one of those mornings where the first few turns of the crank heading up & away from my house felt very promising. It took almost a minute longer to get to the start of the ride than normal, but y'know, I wasn't going to complain. Not today. I was there to ride. And that's when it went from bad to ugly, because there, at the start of the ride, was Preben. The 67-year-old climbing nemesis, 14 years older than I am, and yet pretty darned evenly matched on a steeper climb. Oh sure, Eric was there, and Karl, and George, and trying to recall if maybe Billy was there too. But all that really mattered was Preben, one heck of a nice guy, and ready to grind me into the ground on the climb.

Given how I'd felt getting to the start, I had no pretenses of getting a decent time up the hill this morning, and pretty much conceded that I was going to watch Preben ride away from me. But that's not quite how it came down; I was able to keep ahead of him for the first half of the climb and maintained a fairly decent pace. It's that middle, steeper part that gets to me, and that's where he caught up and went on ahead. But I rode better than I felt (if that makes sense) and made it to the top about 10 seconds behind Preben, at 27:26. Still a ways to go to get into the 26-something territory that I feel a need to get to, but my best time so far this year.

After hitting the top I continued on, while the rest regrouped and chatted or whatever it is the really fast guys do that I used to be a part of, while waiting for the slower guys. Some day maybe I'll get to wait for the slower guys again, but for now it's all about plugging away and trying to be a respectable wheel-sucker for the rest of the ride. At least, on the easier grade of west-side Old LaHonda, I have a chance to hold on to the faster guys if they're not really pushing!

06/07/09- GREAT SEQUOIA CENTURY TODAY! OK, actually metric century, 68 miles with about 6900ft of climbing. The local Sequoia Century has always been known for coming up with a challenging but not impossible 100k ride, and this was no exception. Kevin (my son) and Nick, a good friend of his, rode with me on a day that started out fairly nice, got cool and a bit foggy up on Skyline and then spectacular as we headed out to the coast and then up Tunitas on the return.

We saw lots of our customers on their new Madones, and lots of customers on their not-so-new but still wonderful older Treks as well. Heck, we simply saw a lot of our customers out there, period! I've put up some photos from the ride here. No descriptions yet, just photos.

For Kevin, this ride was noteworthy in that it will be one of his last, perhaps the last "metric" century for him. It's time to find a 100 mile ride for him to tackle. That first one won't be easy, and I know how the thought process will go... once he hits 60 miles or so, he's going to be wondering why he's not doing a metric century, which would be over shortly! Been there, done that myself.

06/05/09- YES, I RODE YESTERDAY and sorry to be a day late reporting! It's been a pretty rough week for me, as customers are suddenly discovering that now is when they want to ride and their bike has, well, problems. And so they descend upon the shop in large numbers with the reasonable expectation that that's what we're here for- to keep them on the road! It's just very difficult when it all hits at once, and doesn't help that one of our mechanics has been missing all week due to getting hurt at a BMX event. And today it all kind of came together at once, a veritable avalanche of anything that could go wrong on a customer's bike doing so. Truthfully, we're doing the best we can, and then some.

But back to yesterday's ride. Billy, Syl, Carl & Eric showed up. No sign of Millo, and Kevin (older Kevin) is still bike touring in Spain. I definitely felt better heading up the hill on Tuesday, which seemed a bit strange, since I'd gotten so little sleep the night before that ride. Go figure. But overall it was a bit faster ride, with shorter breaks. Syl headed back down Kings; he's just not into riding fast in a group. I wondered if we'd come across Millo at the Skegg's parking lot but no, no sign of my locomotive on this ride. On west-side Old LaHonda, Karl picked up the pace, with Billy staying with him while I struggled to hold a wheel, any wheel, until it became hopeless. Karl & Billy took off yet again towards the end of the ride, and I was tempted to go after them but since Eric seemed happy not to, who was I to argue?

06/02/09- BEWARE THE OLDER GUYS. THEY CAN ROCK THEIR PARTY, BUT RUIN YOURS! Got up this morning and wondered if I was really going to get out and ride, but why bother even thinking that? After doing this ride so many years, I can probably do it in my sleep, so a bit of a restless night shouldn't have much effect.

Not even sure I remember everyone at the start. George was there, but turned back somewhere along Kings for unknown reasons. We saw Mark who'd just gotten back from a tour in Italy, where he shadowed the Giro d'Italia race for a week and announced his intentions to follow the rest of the big races in the future. Caught up with Geoff part-way up the hill; why he left early I don't know, since he sure had no issues keeping up with the faster guys! Karl was there, and what I'm trying to remember is whether Billy & Kevin were there or not. But the unexpected surprise was Preben, who hasn't been on one of our rides in ages (although we do see him out there fairly often, riding in the other direction when we're up on Skyline).

I can, indeed, climb no matter how little sleep I've had, but, and this may sound a bit strange, suffering just isn't as much fun when you're fatigued. But climb I did, trying to keep up with the faster guys (that would be everyone) as long as I could. George had disappeared off the back fairly early and I simply lost track of him, but one guy I didn't lose track of was Preben. He started out a bit behind but on that steep part in the middle he started clawing his way back up to me, passing me on the open straight section. I just could not keep up. The guy is 67 years old and I could not keep up. I kept him close though, and, as I was going for time, found myself passing him just before the very top. Time, right. 27 minutes 47 seconds is nothing to write home about, roughly a minute off where I should be at this time of year.

And from then on it was just me, Preben & Karl. Strange to start out with so many and end up with so few! Or at least it was the three of us until we got to Sky Londa; then as Karl and I headed down the hill, no more Preben. Not a tough enough ride for him, so he kept heading north on Skyline.

So maybe, 14 years from now, I can be as fast as Preben?

05/31/09- "DAD, DID YOU SEE THE NAKED WOMAN IN THE RIVER?" How can I not start this entry with a line like that from today's ride? With only 7 weeks or so to go (47 days according to my "Days Until" app on the iPhone) before heading to France with my son, there's very little time left to get him into shape. "Shape" in this case meaning the ability to do back-to-back 100km (62 mile) days in hilly terrain, as we follow the Tour de France through the Alps and then south to Ventoux. So today's ride was a variation of the one that got kind of washed out last week- out to San Gregorio, south to Pescadero, over Haskins and up West Alpine to Skyline and back to Redwood City.

We overdressed badly, based upon a weather report that just didn't come true. Instead of a high of 60 with drizzle out near the coast, we saw very little fog (actually, we saw a fair amount of it, but it was fortunately off in the distance) and temps in the mid-60s to mid-70s. Yet we had base layers, leg warmers, jackets & long-fingered gloves in reserve... we were prepared! But by the time we got to the top of Old LaHonda it was time to start taking things off.

Kevin was having a bit of an off day but hung in there. No record times, but it's not always about being fast, it's getting there that matters. The Pescadero Bakery didn't disappoint (does it ever?) but I shouldn't have let Kevin eat quite so much.

Oh, right, the naked woman thing. As we headed east from Pescadero, just past what used to be the Flamingo House, Kevin calls to me, "Dad, did you see the naked woman in the river?" No, as a matter of fact I didn't, but he did, probably a middle-aged hippie leftover (he couldn't tell much because he saw her from the back) skinny-dipping in the creek. Not something to head back for a second look.

In the end it was a hilly 67 miles with 6500 feet of climbing (the climbing statistic will bother Kevin greatly, since the definition of a "tough" ride is 100 ft of climbing per mile, and this just missed). Next Sunday? The annual Sequoia Century! 100k version this year, next year Kevin should be riding the 100 mile.

05/28/09- SOMETIMES THE JOB GETS TO ME. I'm pretty darned lucky, getting to do something as cool as introducing people to the great fun and healthy lifestyle that cycling is all about. Every day our staff is helping to make somebody's life a little bit better. But some days, something happens where you lose focus on the good and can't get your mind off something bad. Last night was one of those times. My brother Steve alerted me to an extremely-negative Yelp review of our business that had just been posted. Somebody who gave us 1 star (out of 5) and ranted and raved about how bad we were because we wouldn't install a crank for him. The situation was that we've got a 1-2 week backlog of bikes in for repair, and it was his expectation that we should be able to slip this one in ahead of the others. He did find a shop willing to do exactly that, but in the meantime felt compelled to trash us. And yes, that's the sort of thing I lose sleep over. I wish I could say I'm beyond that, but I'm not. I wish I could say that there's no merit to his disappointment, but that's not true either. The only thing I can really hold onto is my strong belief that it's unethical to put a non-emergency repair in front of many other people in line ahead of him.

So for that reason I probably got about 4 hours sleep last night, and yet I dutifully arose when the alarm went off at 7:05am (please note that I didn't wake up on my own a minute or two earlier, like I usually do!) and rode off to meet with "my people." And "my people" were there. Older Kevin (well, OK, he's actually the same age I am), middle-Kevin, Billy & Karl. The wrecking crew, taking it easy up the hill while I was just not all there. On the way up we passed a young man & woman riding at a more-reasonable speed, and it was at that point that I was first thinking about "my people" because these really seemed to be more appropriately "my people" this morning! I even briefly thought about dropping out of my group and joining them, but decided against it. But why?

Too bad I was feeling so fuzzy, because my reinforcements, Millo & Steve, were waiting at the usual place (Skegg's Point) but I was in no position to do anything but suck the greatest number of wheels possible. Still, all in all, much better to have been out on a ride, and recalibrated my brain into a more-wakeful state, than to have skipped a ride.

A couple of interesting things on the ride. First, as we were blitzing along the upper (flatter) stretch of west-side Old LaHonda, me sucking older Kevin's wheel for all it's worth, we had to suddenly shut down because there was this little tiny fawn looking very confused, with no mama in sight. Second, as the ride concluded on Albion & Olive Hill, there must have been twenty women out walking. It's been many months since we've seen more than one or two at a time, and then this morning, they're everywhere. That used to be fairly common and we'd been wondering where they all went. Hibernation I guess?

05/26/09- SMALL GROUP TODAY, just myself, Karl, Chris & George. Much nicer weather than I'd expected, leaving me a bit overdressed with leg warmers and base layer. Don't think I saw anything below 58 degrees, and most of the time it was in the mid-60s. A big change from Sunday's ride in the cold drizzle!

As usual the guys toyed with me today, stopping at the park entrance on the way up (to water the plants) and letting me go on ahead, knowing that they were always right around that last corner, just out of sight, chatting away while I'm desperately trying to not be overtaken. Chris eventually shot out of the group and joined me, temporarily, and then headed on past. Chris, at least, has the excuse for being young.

If there was a major disappointment (and there was!) it was trying to stay ahead of the guys on Skyline and hooking up with my reinforcements, Steve & Millo, who head up a bit earlier and position themselves at the Skegg's Point parking lot. I so wanted to see them this morning, but they weren't there. So instead I have to put my head down and try to get to Sky Londa ahead of them, which I did. Of course, when they started picking up the pace on west-side Old LaHonda, I was off the back in a flash! Nevertheless we had a decent overall average speed and got back to the start at 9:18, our earliest time so far this year.

05/24/09- WHY WEAR BIB TIGHTS? Well, I wear them because they're more comfortable. You can stand up, sit down, whatever and they stay in place. But today, Kevin & I saw another reason to wear bib tights when, towards the top of Old LaHonda, we came across a guy who was looking just a bit too much like a plumber on some Saturday Night Live skit. Let's just say we saw too much of this guy.

The original plan was for a near-epic ride, actually suggested by my son. Start out with the usual Pescadero/Tunitas Loop (up Old LaHonda, down the other side of LaHonda, over Haskins to Pescadero, stage road to Tunitas and back). But then tack on a trip south on Skyline to 84, back down 84 to LaHonda and then up West Alpine. But by the time we got to LaHonda (en route to Pescadero), the overcast and drizzle were so thick, and the temperature so darned cold (down around 44) that it just wasn't looking practical to spend much time on the "far" side of the hill. So instead we skipped the first loop out to the coast entirely and headed back up via West Alpine, then down Page Mill (something Kevin had never done before, and I figure it would be a good idea if his first time on a dangerous local descent was under my supervision) but instead of going all the way to the bottom, turned off at Moody so he could see yet another gnarly climb (although inside-out sorta).

Obviously that's not enough, when the plan was to have been an epic ride, so instead of heading home (north) we headed south through the foothills to visit our Los Altos store and have lunch. From there we took a rather convoluted route back, hoping to add in a few more miles as well as a bit more climbing, although Kevin was anything but happy about the rolling "junk" climbs that never add up to much but destroy your rhythm. In the end, it was about 58 miles with 5500 ft of climbing. Not even close to epic, but at least the legs feel like they did something.

05/21/09- WE GAVE THEM TOO MUCH OF A LEAD THIS MORNING. No Karl (still jury duty?), no Kevin (working), but we still had Chris, Eric, Millo, Steve & Billy. It was Millo & Steve who started up early, supposedly just a couple of minutes, but I'm skeptical. We started up the hill at a pretty easy pace, but for some reason I was told at the park that I should go try and catch the guys ahead. Why I was asked this, and why I obliged, I do not know. It was a bit of a high-gravity day, so I wasn't going particularly fast, but did want to make sure I kept my distance from the guys behind, and assumed I'd catch the guys ahead.

Well, I did finally catch them, but not until they'd already reached the top and turned the corner. I hope it was more than just a couple minute lead they had!

Nothing too eventful. Nice morning, tempts between 55 & 62 or so. Dry roads, no fog. Billy decided to run some interference on the descent into the Sky Londa sprint, letting Millo get out front almost, but not quite, too far. It didn't take much to run him down, as he misjudged things and obviously thought I couldn't close the gap. But while that part was easy, the run at the top of west-side Old LaHonda was anything but. Chris took off and I decided to stay on his wheel as long as I could. At speed, it can get a bit dicey on that section, as you're pushing the limit just trying to follow the wheel in front of you, and once in a while find you're taking a line that just doesn't feel too comfortable. The sort of tunnel-vision you develop when you're in wheel-suck mode isn't such a good thing when you're at your limit! But that's today. Maybe in a week or two, I'll be able to follow a fast wheel in style!

05/19/09- NOW THAT WAS FUN! Fun in a slightly masochistic fashion anyway. Karl's still away at Jury duty, so it was up to Kevin, Chris, George and new-guy Geoff (who rides with the wrecking crew on the weekends) to torture me. And that they did, as we headed up through the park, which normally I'd say no, we've done that enough lately, but for some reason this morning I thought hey, why not, after Sunday's ride up Alba and Mt Charlie, who's scared of a couple steep pitches?

Well, that would be me! But I gamely hung in there, and while I was severely outclassed on the climbs, I managed to keep them in sight. In fact, despite running through the park, which adds a couple minutes, I still got up in 29-something. Not the 27-something it might have been three years ago, but not bad.

It's taken a very long time for my body to respond this season, but finally, a little bit of the weight is coming back off and a little bit more speed is coming back on. Warmer weather, and my son improving to the point where my Sunday rides with him are now hard enough to give me a workout, are likely responsible. I'm looking forward to the months ahead!

05/17/09- WHY WE RIDE #36- BECAUSE THERE'S A NEW GENERATION TO TEACH THE JOYS OF CLIMBING! And today's ride had a lot of "joy" to it. It was time to expand Kevin's (that's Kevin in the picture) universe to include roads & hills not in his back yard, so we set off for Scott's Valley and did a 50 mile ride with about 5700 ft of climbing, including the infamous Alba Road out of Ben Lomond and Mountain Charlie, a fun, twisty one-lane road the heads up to Skyline.

This was also the warmest day of the year, running 91 to 97 degrees (in the shade) for most of the ride. I'm sure many were sitting at home wishing they had air conditioning, but we were surprisingly comfortable riding. Yes, we drank a lot, and on the drive over 17 to Scotts Valley, we even hid a cooler, filled with ice & water bottles & Mountain Dew, at the top of the Mtn Charlie climb.

As we were enjoying our secret stash a couple other cyclists rode by who were very appreciative of our offer of ice cold water and Mountain Dew (we'd stashed more than we needed for just ourselves).

Next time you're planning a challenging ride, you might consider a strategically-located secret stash yourself. And definitely include more than you need, so you have something to share with other cyclists that might come by. --Mike--

A bit more info on this ride- I was actually happy that the day turned out as warm as it did, since Kevin will be heading to France with me this July, and plans to ride up Ventoux the day of the race. Ventoux is often very hot, and always very steep. Overall, tougher than the ride we did today, which is why this isn't the end of the series. Sometime between the middle & end of June, the plan is to attack one side (just one) of Sonora Pass. If Kevin can handle that, he can handle Ventoux.

05/14/09- WAS KARL WATCHING THE GIRO THIS MORNING? The cast of irregulars today included Billy, two Kevins, Steve, Millo, Eric, Syl... somebody's missing here. Well, Karl was definitely missing in action this morning, perhaps watching the end of the Giro on the 'net (www.UniversalSports.com). When I left home there were a couple guys off the front with 20k to go or so. I haven't seen the end yet, and am trying to not hear about it until I can get home tonight and finish watching. [Karl later sent an email explaining he had jury duty. Apparently, the Tuesday/Thursday ride is not considered an adequate excuse]

We rode up through the park, at a remarkably-civilized pace, but upon exiting onto Kings, the torture began. The group just kind of hung together and rode about 30 seconds behind me, all the way to the top. It would have been so much easier if a couple of the guys had broken free and flown past me, ending my quest to try and stay ahead and allowing me to kick back a bit. But that's not the way these guys roll.

Billy & Syl headed back down Kings while the rest of us did the normal run, following the grooves in the pavement we've worn over the years, a couple of us many hundreds of times. The Skeggs sprint was taken by younger Kevin (remember, there are at least three Kevins- "older" Kevin who's my age, younger Kevin who's around 30 or so, and my son Kevin who's 16). We picked up Millo and Steve at Skeggs, as usual. They ride up about 8 minutes ahead of us and had arrived there shortly before. Very good conditions for descending, and this was my first time in months where I didn't feel like I was pushing the front end into the corners. Overall a very civilized ride.

05/12/09 PM- I'M NOMINATING MY DAUGHTER FOR "TRAILBLAZER OF THE YEAR" AWARD for her assistance with our gig at Lockheed this morning. I had been asked to do a presentation for them on how to prepare for their upcoming Tour for the Cure diabetes ride. This was a new thing for me; I have no problem talking with people about cycling in the shop, and certainly no issue writing about cycling! But speaking before a group of 30-50 people... that's intimidating. It didn't help that I had left my drivers license at home (I carry my drivers license, a few dollars, Kaiser health card and a credit card in a plastic baggie when I ride, and forgot to put the items back in my wallet afterward). Well it's not so easy getting into a "secure" installation like Lockheed when your only ID with a photo on it is your Costco card! But Becky was thrilled to get an "official" Lockheed visitor badge (with her photo on it) and enjoyed the fact that I'd screwed up and... you get the idea.

The presentation went fine, despite my being a bit nervous and probably repeating myself a bit, but anytime I stumbled much Becky picked up and ran with the ball. Very nicely, in fact. Could very well be that she can handle such gigs all on her own in the future. Now we just have to get her to ride more. Maybe that can be the requirement for actually winning the award?

05/12/09 AM- SLOWLY GETTING BETTER! I wasn't sure how I'd feel this morning, as I've been getting over a short but nasty cold, and a bit nervous about having a lunch gig at Lockheed talking with a group that's going to be doing a Tour for the Cure (Diabetes benefit) ride. But I gamely showed up (as I always do) and found Billy, Kevin, Karl, Chris, Syl & George... nothing even remotely resembling "slow" among them. The fast guys (everybody but me?) were setting a pretty consistent but not deadly pace, so I was able to hang on until just past the hairpin at the halfway point, right where it gets pretty steep prior to the wide-open section. Actually I'm lying, as I had dropped off the pace prior to the park entrance, where they briefly waited for me. Such classy guys!

I was so hoping to get a time in the 27-something range, and missed it by the barest of margins. 28 minutes, 00.37 seconds. And a max heart rate of 177, an indication that I'm willing to run myself into the ground but a bit out of shape, as my max heart rate at faster speeds runs about 174 or so. But the legs are better. For the first sprint the legs had that feeling that you tell them what to do, and they do it. For about 45 seconds anyway; anything longer and they start talking back at me. But for 45 seconds I can make my bike do things. So, great, I'm an overpass specialist?

On the way up Kings we passed Fred K, a customer who'd picked up a Madone from us not too long ago, and on Skyline near Skeggs we came across Steve L, who'd gone up the hill a few minutes ahead of us. No sign of Millo though. Almost no sign. As we cruised past his house on Canada he was exiting his driveway in his car. Hopefully we'll see him on Thursday!

05/10/09- NO TIME TO GET IN A LONG RIDE TODAY but the plan still allowed for a quick ride out to the coast & back before heading to church. The plan was changed a bit though, as I came down with a pretty nasty sore throat/cold (could possibly be allergies too) and when the alarm went off at 7:20 I just didn't feel like getting up. By the time I finally did, I had just enough time for a very hard ride around the "loop" which was, to tell the truth, quite a bit of fun! Saw a lot of people riding bikes we've sold, and it was warm enough not to need leg or arm warmers... hopefully a situation that will continue!

After church it was a quick drive down to the bike track (velodrome) in San Jose, where Kevin (younger Kevin, my son) got in a pretty good workout despite also having a nasty cold. The plan for next week involves doing a "best of" ride through some of the challenging hills in the Santa Cruz mountains, perhaps Alba and Mountain Charlie. Just 67 days to get him in shape for Mont Ventoux in France!

Meantime, things are getting pretty wild at the shop, as the great weather and our sale on Madone road bikes and Fuel EX mountain bikes is bringing in a lot of customers. That's a good thing... better to be stressed because you're busy than bored wondering when the next customer is coming in the door!

05/09/09- HOW TO GET YOUR GIRO FIX- If you've been getting interested in the Giro d'Italia (one of the three "Grand Tours", the others being the Tour de France and the Vuelta/Tour of Spain), it just got a lot easier. You can either watch it live on the 'net at www.UniversalSports.com each day from 8:30-12noon each day (Eastern time, 5:30-9am Pacific) as mentioned earlier.

Or, you may find Universal Sports broadcasting as a digital sub-channel on over-the-air Digital TV. For example, in the SF Bay Area, Universal Sports is on channel 11.3   The schedule can be found here-
http://www.universalsports.com/EPG/tv.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=23000&SPID=13408

Over-the-air they show a delayed broadcast, running from Noon-2pm (9am-11am Pacific), and replayed in the evening at 9 & 11pm (7 & 9pm Pacific). To find out if there's an over-the-air option, check here-  http://www.universalsports.tv/Universal_Sports_on_TV.html

There are also some cable operators carrying Universal Sports as well, but Dishnet/Echostar does not.

05/07/09- WHEEL-SUCKER SUPREME. That's me! I can't overpower the other guys I ride with, certainly not on the climbs, but they put up with me, wait for me at the top, give me a bit of a head start on the Skyline portion and then take off, and if I'm doing OK, I latch on. And today, I latched on. Not enough power to do my share of work at the front, but between Karl, Kevin, Chris, Syl & Steve, there was enough horsepower that things kept going. And always enough in reserve to catch whatever wheel might be accelerating past me, kind of like old times, back in the day, when one of my jobs on the team, in a race, was to close down any gaps that might occur. The warmer weather was inspiring too, with no fog, no dampness on the roads, nothing to darken your spirits, just a night shining sun in the sky, the slightest breeze and wonderful roads to ride. Oh, and it didn't hurt that I'm beginning to get my sprint back again either.

05/05/09- I RIDE IN THE RAIN SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO. Yes, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Makes me sound noble for going out in nature's last fling here in Northern California, possibly the last bit of rain we'll see until October. And of course, timed to perfection... if my ride had been just a couple hours later, I would have avoided it.

Just me this morning; everybody else probably looked at the weather reports and figured hey, I can still ride today, just a bit later, and not get wet. Who needs to get up early and mess up their bike? I did keep an eye out for tire tracks in the wet pavement though, thinking maybe somebody else could be up ahead of me, but no, nobody else out there on the hill but me. In fact, I only saw one other rider out on Canada on my way to the start (normally there are 5 or 6), a lone refugee from the infamous "morning" ride that goes at race pace, starting in Palo Alto at 6:30am.

Of course, I haven't told anybody that I actually caused this rain, by taking my rain bike downstairs into the garage last week (thinking we were done with the rain). That bike is going to need a lot of work before I take it to France; the brake shoes are pretty much down to metal, the chain is coated in so much crud that you can't tell where one link ends and the next begins, and so on. And yet it just keep running, a most amazing display of functionality despite abuse.

And how do you keep yourself company on such a ride? What thoughts motivate you to keep on plugging along? Well for one, it was fairly warm, so you could pretend you were training for a ride in Hawaii, perhaps up Haleakala! And then there's the tale of the scale, knowing that it's crept up a bit these past few months, and that I dare not cut the ride short by skipping the west-side Old LaHonda section. I even thought about facing my issues head-on and considered extending the ride by heading down to LaHonda and then back up West Alpine, but figured I'd get back to the shop too late to get in a much-needed bike order if I did that. Maybe this weekend I can manage a quick pseudo-epic ride before taking Kevin to the Velodrome for his track workout.

05/03/09- BOHLMAN/ON ORBIT. You either love it or you hate it. Well, OK, nobody in their right mind would love a one-way suicidal assault above Saratoga, but truth is, Kevin had a pretty good time with it. Maybe I'd over-played the toughness of the climb, or maybe I underestimated his tenacity and desire to do silly things on a bike, particularly when it comes to steep climbs and his refusal to go into the small chainring on his triple. But as he said, "Dad, I defy the laws of physics!" Or something like that.

It's not like it was the fastest-climb ever up Bohlman/On Orbit, but he kept steadily at it, stopping only at the entrance to the very toughest part, two thirds of the way up, so that he could, finally, and reliably, switch to the small chainring.

It wasn't a long ride; we decided to wait out the rain and that didn't leave a lot left to the day. We drove to the interesection of 85 & Highway 9 (Saratoga Avenue), and rode the few miles as a warm-up to the base. And then it was simply, up, up, up and more up. About 50 minutes of up. About 2000ft of up. And a few sections exceeding 20% of up. Up into the clouds (literally) up!

But I'll let Kevin tell it in his own words, recorded right at the top of the climb.

04/30/09- YOU GOTTA WONDER HOW MUCH I PAID THOSE GUYS. It was perfect. As usual, I'm dragging my slow butt up Kings (this time through the park, the steeper way, by popular demand of the group) and, at the top, instead of stopping and chatting with the guys for a minute, I just keep on going, knowing that it won't be that long before they chase me down. It's interesting when heading south on Skyline from Kings, and you're doing what you can, only instead of the 11mph the guys behind are doing (and you know that's what you're doing because, on a good day, that's what you're doing with them), you're doing maybe 8 or 9mph. But if you actually can keep that up, you've got a chance, because they can't close on you any faster than somebody walking 2 or 3mph. Don't know if I got that point across very well. The idea is that sure, they're faster, but if it's only by a couple mph, you've got a chance.

And this morning I did have a chance, because, as I approached the Skeggs parking lot, yes, I could see them back there, but I also had reinforcements waiting for me! Millo and Steve L had ridden up a bit earlier and were waiting for us to cruise by, and Millo immediately went to the front and did a very strong pull all the way to the beginning of the descent. It was perfect!

Hopefully it was the last of the fairly-cold mornings, although at 41 it wasn't all that bad. Kevin, Karl, Millo, Steve, other Kevin, Billy, I think that's the roll call. We did see Preben (who used to ride with us anytime it was deemed necessary for someone in their mid-60s to show us up) heading in the other direction. But the cool thing about the ride was having those reinforcement in place, at just the right time. Kind of like the way trains have extra helper engines stationed at Reno and Auburn to help them get over the mountain.

04/28/09- "I'M FLYING" read the text message when I got up this morning. Meaning that Kevin had to do that work thing, which once in a while gets in the way of his real life, riding a bike. I texted back, asking that maybe he tip his wings when he flies over us, in the event we can't recognize his plane from the jet fighter tailing him. Oh, right, that was in New York, and it was Air Force One, which is just a wee bit bigger than the MD80 that Kevin flies.

"Flying" was one thing I was not doing up the hill this morning. I decided to start up the hill a bit slower, thinking that maybe I'd do better if I didn't burn myself out on the first part of the climb. Well, doesn't seem to work that way. Karl, George, Eric & Billy had to wait for me a bit at the top, and their patience didn't extend much past that as I couldn't hold on to the pace on Skyline and trailed into Sky Londa a minute later. One the run down to west-side Old LaHonda I did just fine though, perhaps discovering an advantage to being more firmly rooted to the ground than the other guys?

In the end, I contested no sprints at all, because I simply wasn't there to contest them. I never did hear who won the main sprint into Sky Londa, and just barely caught a glimpse of the finale on Albion. But Thursday is another day!

04/27/09- THANKS TO GREG V FOR POINTING OUT WRONG LINK ON EXCELLENT ANDY HAMPSTEN ARTICLE. Fixed now, and it really is a great piece.

04/26/09- "I READ YOUR BLOG!" I still don't know what to make of that. The almost-daily diary (which is actually closer to three times/week) was started before the word "blog" became commonplace. Maybe this is a blog, maybe not, maybe it just doesn't really matter as long as it somehow encourages people to want to ride a bike. And that, for some reason, it does.

Today Kevin (my son) had a track workout at the Velodrome in San Jose, but that really isn't enough of a workout by itself to get Kevin in shape, so we started the day with a quick run up Kings Mtn and back down 84. And it actually was pretty quick, as Kevin got his best time yet for Kings (34:30), a good couple minutes better than what he's done before. He's definitely getting stronger again, and after LaCross season is over, he'll be able to do some after-school rides with friends and really get into shape. With the trip to France being less than three months away now, a trip that will involve several days of back-to-back 100k rides, it's a very good thing that it's all seeming to come together now!

One thing that helped on Kings was a continuous series of rabbits to chase (and, of course, the fear of dogs nipping at your heels). Rabbits are cyclists in front of you, while dogs are other cyclists chasing you down form behind. Catching up with a rabbit is one thing. The really important part of the game is that you have to stay ahead of them after you go past! That means knowing your capabilities and not getting too ambitious, maybe holding a bit in reserve. Kevin's now at the point where he can climb pretty confidently, and he's actually more likely to run into problems passing somebody on the flats.

It was on the return home, over Jefferson, that somebody yelled to me "I read your blog!" I would have slowed down and talked with him except that we were running a bit late and had to immediately head down to the track when we got home.

Beautiful day at the track, with a smaller-than-normal group for the "older" juniors (13-18). Kevin, at 16, was the oldest there. His times showed a little bit of wear & tear from the morning's ride, but not too bad; his 44.7 500 meter time isn't too far off the mark for him (but I'm hoping we can get into the 41-second range by the end of summer). 

04/24/09- EXTRAORDINARY MUST-READ INTERVIEW with Andy Hampsten published here. If you wanted to learn more about the LeMond/Hinault TdF issues without the hype, this looks to be the rest of the story. Fantastic questions, answers and great story-telling.

04/23/09- GOING UP AGAINST THE CLOCK this morning, but not in an attempt to get a better time up the hill. Well sure, that would be nice, but I had to get back in time to head up to the funeral services for my Aunt Judy in Colusa. Fortunately, my domestiques were up to the task! At the start we had Karl & Kevin, meeting up at the top of Kings with Steve L & Millo, who'd left a few minutes earlier. I think pretty soon I'll be in that leaving-earlier group myself, although as warmer weather hits, I should start doing better. Right now, I'm still very much limited by the amount of oxygen my lungs are able to scavenge on cold mornings; the legs aren't the issue.

It was pretty wet up on Skyline, wet enough that I just didn't feel like trying to stay with the fast guys zipping down towards Sky Londa. There was a time when wet roads didn't bother me, and totally-wet roads still don't. But when you've got a road that's damp in places and dry in others, the inconsistent traction messes with my confidence, and when descending, confidence is everything.

We made it to Sky Londa before the cut-off time I'd set for myself (if we were running later than 8:45 I'd head straight down 84 and skip the west-side Old LaHonda loop), and rode a consistent but not brutal pace the rest of the way. I did somehow manage to take the final sprint on Albion, although I'm not really sure how. One of those things where my brain told my legs what to do and, for some reason, the legs actually did as they were told.

The services for Aunt Judy were nice; it's sad that it's only at weddings & funerals that you get back together with people you're related to but rarely cross paths with. My Aunt Judy was from a side of the family that farms rice in the Sacramento Valley, although it seems that the farming legacy is not likely to survive into the future. My Uncle Jack retired from farming a year ago (something I didn't know until today), because it was something that his son was very much a part of with him, and his son had died a couple years ago. It's a very rare thing to see multi-generational businesses these days, and even rarer when you see a father/son relationship where it appears so obvious that each one completes the other. Very decent, hard-working people.

There are two things I'll always remember about my Aunt Judy and Uncle Jack. For Aunt Judy, it was her voice. It was one of those voices that I could always pick out of a crowd, not because it was loud, not because it was commanding, but because it was uniquely hers. But not in an unusual way; you wouldn't hear her voice and think it that different from others, but it somehow was.  And for Uncle Jack, it was his handshake. He's got big, no huge hands, and they must be powered by a cold-fusion reactor to have a grip so strong. So when you shook hands with him, there was just no way of getting around the feeling that your hand was like a hot dog being squeezed by a vise. You'd try different hand placement, knowing how technique is important in getting a strong grip on the other person (as if handshaking were a contest of wills), but it never mattered. There was no way to avoid being crushed by that big, friendly hand. Until today. Today, it was just a handshake, and with that, I knew how much he's lost over the last couple of years.

04/21/09- REMEMBER IN BUTCH CASSIDY when they're being chased literally across two continents, the chasers always just a tad too far off to be recognized but yet you know, inevitably, that they're going to catch up? That's what it was like this morning. Not at first; no, at first, I was left behind in the dust as a large group rocketed up the hill, pausing to wait for me at the park entrance. Let's see, Kevin, George, Karl, Steve, Syl... thankfully the other Kevin and Billy exited before causing too much trouble. At the park I just keep going; if I stop, well, it's that "objects that are in motion tend to stay in motion, and objects that stop..." thing. That usually gives me about 20 seconds on them, which I can use to hold them off until they decide it's time to get to work.

Noteworthy today was the temperature, varying from 70-73 degrees, and the return of Chris! I think work and his recent kid may be taking its toll on him, but I suspect he'll find a way to adapt and be shredding the rest of the gang to pieces shortly. We also had the other Steve with us, along with Millo, both of whom had headed up a bit before us. Smart people, those guys. I ought to be riding with them instead!

04/19/09- 3RD CALAVERAS 100K FOR KEVIN, FIRST FOR MIKEY, plus I don't know how many under the belt for myself and Burt, but we were all out there waving the Chain Reaction flag (jerseys) on a beautiful if slightly-warm day. It was sure nice doing a ride without having to even think of bringing leg warmers or a wind jacket!

About 68 degrees at the start (8:05 or so) in Fremont, gradually warming up to the low-80s as we climbed the much-feared but not-so-bad "wall" at the top of Calaveras. This was the first time that Kevin's really had a fun time on a 100k ride, and I think he's getting close to ready for his first 100 miler. He's gotten a lot better at holding my wheel, and on fairly-flat run the last few miles to Sunol, I was doing my best to keep an eye on Kevin and make sure he could hold the pace, but I didn't notice that we'd burned everyone else off the back. Definitely not the intention, but that one stretch of road is something I both hate and enjoy. Hate because it's pretty flat and into a mild headwind, but enjoy because I'm able to put my head down and get a fair amount of power to the pedals. Wish I could do that on the climbs!

Unfortunately, my Garmin '705 ran out of power as soon as it was turned on (because the USB port I'd plugged it into has apparently failed so it didn't recharge the unit), making it difficult to do direct year-to-year comparisons. But I do know that our average speed was 15.3mph, better than the 14.2 from last year and a whole lot better than the 11.something the first year. I also know that I do a lot better when it's too warm than when it's too cold, although I think the 90 degrees we saw in Palomares Canyon might have been a bit much for Burt. That plus the three vultures (ok, maybe large Hawks) circling around the four of us as we climbed. I joked to Burt that I didn't like the odds... four of us, three vultures, only one of us was getting out of this alive!

Mikey, like many new cyclists, is a bit of a light switch, climbing like a rocket one minute and then off his bike waiting for his legs to come back the next. But the best news for Kevin was not just his speed up the hills (definitely improved), but also no sign of seizures, a relief after a series of small episodes in the prior days.

04/16/09- A LITTLE BIT WARMER, WITH A PROMISE OF SO MUCH MORE TO COME! Hopefully this morning will have been the last ride of the season with temps below 40, with it just barely scraping 39 degrees up on Skyline. A pretty big group at the departure point, although four of them were just passing through, including Billy & Kevin (not older pilot Kevin nor my son Kevin but the middle Kevin... got that?) and a couple of their friends. Most likely they were returning from the "morning" ride, the infamous 6:15am race-pace ride out of Palo Alto. I have a hard enough time showing up for a ride that starts at 7:45am!!!

Riding up the hill were Eric, new-guy customer Eric (these multiple names get me quickly confused!), Syl & Karl. I started up the hill fairly quickly with Karl but faded fast, doing the second part of the climb a whole lot slower than the first. Never could get my heart rate about 163 or so, an indication that the limitation was my breathing, not my legs. Hate that!

Wildlife is beginning to crop up on west-side Old LaHonda; last weekend it was a Bobcat, and today three little jack rabbits. Snake season is just around the corner though (as it warms up), which may spell the end of the happy little rabbits. Meantime I'm looking to the weekend, with temps forecast for the Primavera Century of 85+ degrees!

04/14/09- OK, YOU TELL ME. 36 DEGREES. THIS IS THE MIDDLE OF APRIL??? But the cold really isn't that bad; I can deal with it. You just ride hard enough to stay warm, and that's not a problem on the Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride. But it was really the wind that was the real enemy, because the world is just full of loose stuff ready to be picked up and carried to my nose, throat & eyes. In fact, I think wind deliberately targets me! I'm convinced of it. Those headwinds I fight sometimes? I'm sure they're special, made just for me.

At the start we had Karl (finally back!), Eric (who'd just finished a challenging century in Southern California, part of his preparation for the Everest Challenge event), George and Syl. On the way up the hill we picked up Kevin & his friend Leslie, as well as the amazing Mark, yet again showing up on his modified mountain bike. Fortunately, the amazing Mark started at the top and headed down not-too-far so I didn't have the honor of being passed by him. This time.

While it was 36 degrees it wasn't anywhere near as bad as last Tuesday, when we encountered the expected-yet-unexpected rain. Today it was cold but dry, and it wasn't even necessary to put on my windbreaker to stay warm. I was glad I'd decided to use wool socks though! Nothing to write home about time-wise, as it was a pretty easy ride, just under half an hour. Faster times are ahead, when the weather warms up a bit more!

04/12/09- NICE EASTER RIDE after attending the early-morning service so there'd be enough time between church and dinner to get something in. I rode with my son (Kevin) and another young guy, Mikey, who works for us in our Redwood City store. Since we didn't have too much time we just did a 42 mile ride up Old LaHonda, down the other side to LaHonda, and back via West Alpine. Beautiful day with no need for leg warmers or base layers! Even saw a bobcat out on west-side Old LaHonda, along with a few red-tailed hawks and a few "personal vultures" (the type that follow you, hoping you'll drop dead) while climbing up West Alpine.

Not everybody was having such a good time though, as we came across a couple guys needing to walk up West Alpine, and actually passed a fair number of people today. The route was just slightly shorter than what we'd done on 3/29, and Kevin managed to knock another three minutes off his time for the West Alpine section (just under 55 minutes now). His Old LaHonda time still isn't quite back to where it was last year, hovering in the 28-something area, but we're getting there.

I did "cheat" to get a bit more out of Kevin today. First off, at the top of Old LaHonda he was complaining about one of his knees hurting a bit, so I gave him the option of riding south on Skyline, since that's not so steep, then descending West Alpine and climbing back up 84 (which again isn't too steep). Nothing doing; he doesn't like the climb back up 84, so we stuck to the original route. He was probably hoping that I'd consider shortening the ride, but past experience has shown that his knee pains go away pretty quickly. But for insurance I remembered what I'd read a couple weeks ago about caffeine changing the way your mind registers pain, and had him drink a coke in LaHonda. Definitely seemed to do the trick! Am I an evil dad or what?

04/09/09- I BROUGHT THE RIGHT BIKE, BUT THE REST OF THE GUYS? I guess it's not a formal rule or requirement, but when it's wet out (and if it's a morning I'm riding, it likely is!), fenders make a huge difference in civility. How? Because with fenders, you're not spraying water & road sludge up into the face of the person behind you. So what does Kevin (older-guy Kevin, the pilot, not my son) show up on this morning? His short-wheelbase less-stable time trial bike. Why you'd bring a time trial bike to a ride in wet conditions is beyond me, and caused Millo and I to wonder whether we should be impressed than an airline pilot is so skillful that he can ride a difficult-to-handle bike in less-than-ideal conditions, or be concerned about his judgment.

Millo, Kevin, Eric & Mark on this drizzly morning. Not too cold, but wet enough that I didn't seriously question my choice of bikes. Definitely the rain bike. Unfortunately, it still had the seatpost rack attached to it with all manner of stuff in the bag that I didn't have time to remove, so I climbed the hill carrying probably an extra 7 or 8 pounds. Of course, Mark showed up again on his modified mountain bike, so I probably still had an advantage over him (and yet he rode away from me up the hill... again).

I felt pretty sluggish getting up the hill, and tried not to think of what I was thinking yesterday morning, as I was heading down Kings with my son... that geez, it seemed like an awfully long climb, even when descending... what was it going to be like the next morning? Well this was the next morning, and my worst fears materialized. Not quite, actually. Even though it's long, even though you can dread it beforehand, once you get moving up the hill time passes by pretty quickly.

The amazing thing is that this ended a 5-day period in which I only missed one day of riding! Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday, all on the bike. Next thing I have to do is get Kevin (my son) to do a number of consecutive days riding, before we get to France. Unlike a couple years ago, this coming trip may involve three days of 100k rides in a row. I don't think that's going to be too tough for him though, as he bounces back pretty darned quick.

04/08/09- REVENGE. BUT WHOSE? I don't normally ride on Wednesdays, but since my son is off from school this week, and it appeared there might be a break in the weather, we planned an 8am ride out to the coast and back via Tunitas, with the idea being that I'd be at the shop just a couple hours late on a day we had pretty good staffing levels.

But at 7:15 this morning I was looking out at wet streets and kinda ugly skies, and the view of the hills from my kitchen window? Well, you couldn't see the hills. Not a good sign. So I let Kevin sleep in for another hour in hopes that things would look better, which thankfully was the case. We finally set out at about 9:45 under skies that you wouldn't call friendly, but at least they didn't have that angry feeling I've seen too much of lately!

Kevin got off to a slow start up Old LaHonda, but that seems to be his trademark. He typically doesn't start feeling good until 20 miles or so into a ride, and it was on the run out to the coast from LaHonda where you could tell he was feeling stronger. We took a quick stop at the San Gregorio General Store (which was curiously empty, maybe two people, and nobody at the bar drinking!) where Kevin got a muffin while I passed on food, thinking I'd had enough for breakfast and this was only a 45 mile ride after all. Turns out Kevin was the smarter of us this time, as he felt surprisingly strong going up Tunitas on a day I felt surprisingly weak. Of course, I was on my winterized road bike, with fenders, a seatpost rack, and pack loaded with all manner of emergency cold/wet weather gear, just in case. All he had to drag up the hill was himself! Still, he got from the coast to Skyline in under an hour, probably his best time ever for that. And worse, there's this spot on Jefferson on the way home where we'll often sprint, and unless I really screw up, I should be able to take him. But not today. He just seemed to get stronger and stronger as we got closer to home, and when he took off for the 30mph speed limit sign that marks the finish line, I found it impossible to even stay on his wheel. I'm looking forward to a rematch!

04/07/09- CRUEL JOKE (Conclusion). Basically, I shouldn't have made fun of the weather last night, because this morning there's no question the weather made fun of me. I got up to sunny skies and virtually no wind, and it wasn't even that cold out. I'd brought the rain bike up from the garage but decided no way, it's way too nice out there, I'm riding the nice bike (Trek Madone 5.9 SSL, the one with the wild faux-fighter plane paint job and way-cool carbon fiber wheels... the bike I try to not ride in bad conditions). So I head out the door with moderate-weight clothing, knowing that it could rain because I did look at the weather map before leaving and there was a big bright yellow blob, surrounded by a large mass of green, just off the coast. But that's just it, it was just off the coast. Just like it had been all night long.

George, Mark & Kevin were present at the start, with Kevin somehow having forgotten his helmet so we were going to make a stop at his house off Skyline to pick it up during the ride. And look at that picture! It was bright & sunny out! Shadows! I made the right decision bringing my nice bike. For whatever reason it was a very easy ride up the mountain, just under 31 minutes, very unlike a ride that George shows up for.

It was still dry but slightly threatening on Skyline. We were totally sucked into this one, believing that we were either ahead of the storm, or that the storm was an entirely fictitious entity, the product of weather forecasters who needed something to get people excited about. Or maybe I'm right about the idea that this storm is basically moving north/south without any real westward ambitions. I imagined we'd shortly be out on west-side Old LaHonda, looking across the few miles separating us from the ocean at something very real and very fierce and us just beyond its reach. I truly thought that would be the case.

Well, that should have been the case, but it was not to be. Kevin told us to go on ahead as he took the short detour to his house (and helmet); he'd catch up with us later by riding the west-side Old LaHonda loop in the reverse direction. And then it hit.

I'm not sure it hit us, or we hit it. Maybe we just kinda slid into it. For a moment or two, there was a slight mist in the air. OK, so we're going to get a bit of drizzle. There was still no wind. Nothing. But soon it was coming down, the roads looked as if it had been raining for some time (which couldn't possibly have been the case) and things were just... wrong. Mark turned back to go down Kings Mtn, because he had to warn a girlfriend not to come riding up the hill. Seriously. George had a couple minutes earlier announced his intentions not to ride the west-side Old LaHonda loop and headed down towards Sky L'Onda ahead of me, as I worked to get on a wind breaker (yet one more piece of supposedly-waterproof apparel I own that most certainly isn't after the first 15 minutes or so). Soon I was heading down into the mess alone, having an impossibly-difficult time seeing much of anything due to all the salt pouring into my eyes from the sweat-saturated pads in my helmet (this is a common problem when it hasn't rained for a while... the solution is to always, always bring along a simple cycling cap anytime it might possibly rain, as that will both keep the salt out of your eyes and give you something to keep the worst of the rain away from your face too).

I learned something interesting as I tried to stop several times on the descent to clear my eyes. Did you know that, if you can't see, you can't balance? I had this incredibly-unnerving feeling that I was going to tip over the wrong way when I came to a stop.

I really should have known better. At least to have brought my cycling hat, and obviously I would have been better off with my rain bike. You don't understand how well fenders work in rain until you don't have them, and your front wheel is shoveling a tremendous amount of water onto your feet. I eventually made it to the bottom, where I was able to get up a bit of power to stay warm and have something to do other than stay in whatever fatalistic mode it is you get into when common sense should have you pulling over to see if your cell phone worked. Putting power to the pedals puts you in control of your destiny. I did exert a small amount of influence on my destiny when I didn't even consider doing the west-side Old LaHonda loop. I am often stupid enough to do that (ride that section in pouring rain) but not today.

In the end, this was far from an epic ride. It was the cruel element of planning gone wrong, of my thinking I could outthink the green & yellow blob that was sitting off the coast that made this ride so frustratingly difficult.

04/06/09- EITHER A CRUEL JOKE OR SOMETHING VERY SCARY OUT THERE... 10:37pm Monday evening, looking at the weather forecast. But first I go outside, where it's warm, balmy even, slightly humid, lots of stars out. Earthquake weather. But then you look at the forecast...

Detailed ten-day forecast			°F | °C
Day	Forecast	Description	Precip chance
Today Apr 06 Details	Mostly Cloudy Hi: 77° Lo: 48°	Day: Mostly Cloudy. High 77F. Winds SW at 10 mph. Air Quality: NA, UV Index: 7	0%
		Night: Rain. Low 48F. Winds SE at 5 mph.	40%
Tomorrow Apr 07 Details	T-storms Hi: 55° Lo: 40°	Day: T-storms. High 55F. Winds S at 3 mph. Air Quality: Good, UV Index: 1	80%
		Night: Showers. Low 40F. Light winds.	50%

Absurd. In fact, they say it's here, right now!

Hourly weather forecast								°F | °C
Monday Apr 06
Time	Forecast		Temp	Feels like	Wind	Humidity	Precip chance	UV Index
10 PM		Rain	57°	57°	6 mph SSE	53%	0%	0
11 PM		Rain	56°	56°	6 mph SE	53%	0%	0

But check out this photo of the moon, taken just moments ago (it's now 11:08pm). There are no clouds covering the moon. In fact, there are no clouds anywhere in the sky at all. Just lots of stars, a plane now & then, but no rain. I'm in a severe state of denial at the moment. I mean, even if there is some big storm coming in, how the heck is it going to get here at a walking pace? Check out the wind predictions. 5mph. I can climb Ventoux faster than that! Drops to 3mph tomorrow. Maybe the storm is hiding behind the neighbor's house? Let's think this thing through for a minute. Even if the wind stays at 5mph, it's 25 miles out to the coast, so it would take FIVE HOURS for it to get here. If it's even there at the moment.

Tomorrow morning this post is either going to make me look very stupid or very smart. But since it's a ride morning, I'd put my money on stupid. In general, if you want to know when it's going to rain, bet on Tuesday & Thursday mornings.

04/05/09- IF PAIN IS THE FEELING OF WEAKNESS LEAVING THE BODY, then I must not have much weakness left! Today's ride had to be fairly short & sweet, because I had to get back in time to take my son to a clinic at the Velodrome (bicycle racing track). Turns out I could have stayed out longer and ridden slower, as a sore throat he'd started last night didn't get any better. But what's life without an occasional race against the clock?

The plan (and I usually stick to the plan) was to ride up Old LaHonda, down the other side, and do the clockwise LaHonda / Pescadero / San Gregorio / Tunitas loop. But I came across a neighbor at the top of Old LaHonda who was riding directly out to the coast (to San Gregorio) and then south to Pescadero. There are good reasons not to do that, but we'll get to that shortly. He was determined that that's the ride he was going to do, so I figured sure, why not, might as well have two people facing into the wind instead of one. And that's the reason you don't often want to do the ride in that direction, because you can get a pretty good wind off the coast (and we did). On the other hand, the run south on Stage, a direction not often done, usually seems a bit easier and more fun than the other direction.

Despite the headwinds I still felt OK in Pescadero. Perhaps my later problems came from not fueling up on pastry? Maybe some sort of bodily revolt from passing the bakery and not buying anything? Could be! Whatever, my neighbor and I parted company as he was taking a rather convoluted route home that wouldn't get me back in time for the errand I didn't have to run. His route is one I've not known anyone to do- from Pescadero, he went out to the coast and headed back north to Tunitas and then over the hill. Given that the winds typically blow from the north on the coast, heading into those winds just doesn't have much appeal for me! Especially after battling headwinds out to San Gregorio just a bit earlier.

But the run west over Haskins was ugly. The legs, the "new" left hand, they just didn't feel up to the task. I hate it when I can't attack a hill the way I want to, and have to go into slug-it-out mode until I feel better. Maybe it was the warmer temps that got to me (a high of 82 degrees leaving Pescadero!). But I made it to the top of Haskins and started feeling a lot better as I descended the other side. I'd like to say that climbing 84 from LaHonda was fun, but that would be stretching things a bit. I did finally get into a rhythm though. And, I got home at exactly the time I figured I needed to for the trip to the Velodrome that didn't happen.

04/02/09- UP THROUGH THE PARK AGAIN! But while I complain about the steeper route up through Huddart Park (instead of staying on Kings Mtn for the entire climb), it probably does me more good to spend some time on the really steep stuff now & then. Train your weaknesses, they say.

Syl, Billy, Kevin & Eric (I thought there was one more?) this morning. Still no sign of Karl, who's apparently recuperating from a nasty cold. A bit cooler this morning, with fog visible on Skyline as we prepare to ride up the hill. We're joined by long-time cyclists Ted & Joe as far as the start of the climb; they're faces from my past days as a racer, and generally stay off the mountain, claiming they have to get back earlier than we do. I don't buy it; I think they're just smarter than the rest of us.

It was a nice morning to ride, and I did what I could, when I could, to try and pull at the front. It would have been just one more wonderful day on a bike had I not learned that one of the guys had just lost his job right after Tuesday's ride, a sign that this recession is more personal than any I've experienced before. In fact, if there's a real difference I can put my finger on, it's that this is the first recession I've been through that was obvious at the time. Every other recession was defined after it had already happened.

04/01/09- A DAY LATE (AGAIN) GETTING TO YESTERDAY'S RIDE but the story really wouldn't have been complete until today anyway. A fair number of people on the ride, and I'm definitely not remembering them all. Syl, Kevin, George, Eric, Mark, Steve (?)... Mark was there again on his roadified mountain bike, and again I couldn't keep up with him on the climbs. This despite taking the "easier" route up entirely up Kings, instead of heading through the park.

My weight is still running a couple pounds higher than it should be, and I'm a bit behind in fitness as well. The idea of getting up Kings again in 26-something seems ridiculously-remote, and yet I still believe it's possible. Warmer weather and a few solid weeks of hard rides. But for now 28:31 will have to do. I remember, better than I wish, when I could be sick as a dog and still make it up in less than 30 minutes. But it's not all bad news with the passage of (too much?) time. My endurance is better than it used to be, and I can certainly sprint a lot better than back in the day. And it's just not possible to place a value on the time I've been able to spend with my son on rides and, while he's still a ways off from running me into the ground the way my "friends" (the gang I ride with on Tuesday & Thursday mornings) do, it's a worthwhile trade-off. Cycling is even allowing me to spend more time with my daughter (Becky), who's working at the shop these days (and an expert on Trek's Project One custom bike program).

But getting back to the ride- after climbing Kings, I made the left turn on Skyline instead of hanging out with the guys at the top, and with maybe a minute head start held them off all the way to Sky Londa. I saw them coming, but just put my head down and kept going. That was pretty much the theme of the ride, putting my head down and just keep going. After regrouping we headed down 84 towards west Old LaHonda, but just a bit slow for my taste. And yet I didn't have the power to pull Heading down 84 after our usual regroup towards west Old LaHonda the pace started out a bit slow, but no way could I pull the nearly-two-mile run down the gradual grade. What to do? Simple. Go to the front and pull hard for about a minute, knowing George would jump on my tail, and then pull off, letting George pull the rest of the way.

In the end I got the harder ride I was looking for, averaging 16.2mph and feeling my legs for the rest of the day. In a good way! But I did pay George back today for his work yesterday, when he came into the shop with an impossible-to-remove crank that I managed to get off.

03/29/09- RODE WITH THE WOODSIDE HIGH SCHOOL road bike club today... all two of them! That would be my son Kevin and Mack. There were supposed to be quite a few more; in fact, there was supposed to be an "A" group and a "B" group, the "B" riders going on a much shorter ride. It apparently seemed like a happening thing at Tuesday's bike club meeting, but maybe the great weather scared them all off?

It turned into a very nice ride for the three of us though, heading up Kings Mtn, south on Skyline to 84, down to LaHonda then up West Alpine and a return on Skyline. Mack is one of those zero-fat teenagers who, if he really applied himself to road biking, could probably become an uber-climber. Kevin has to work a bit harder at it, being built more for taking somebody out in a LaCross game than flying up a hill. But Kevin did fine going up Kings, and had an advantage over Mack in that Mack had earlier ridden part of the PenVelo ride and hadn't had that much to eat. I didn't realize that until much later in the ride, after we'd finished the climbing. Otherwise I would have made sure Mack had more than just a part of a pastry I'd picked up in LaHonda (and I was certainly make sure that Kevin was well-fueled and hydrated with Cytomax throughout the ride).

The big surprise was West Alpine, where Kevin more than held his own, including the steeper pitches. We made it from the bottom (where it leaves Pescadero Road) to the top in just over 58 minutes. which is pretty darned good. I can generally do the climb on my own in something less than 45 minutes, and a couple months ago did it in 52, so Kevin's not too far off the mark.

47 miles, 5300ft of climbing, just over 12mph average speed. What's especially encouraging is that Kevin is now doing a bit better than the roughly 2/3rds of my own climbing speed, probably closer to 3/4 or so. The real test is going to come in a few months when, prior to heading to France in July, we'll see how well he holds up to three back-to-back 100k rides.

03/26/09- WHO ARE THESE GUYS? The ones who show up on Tuesday & Thursday mornings for an informal ride that's been going on for what, 29 years now? Same time, same place, slightly-modified route over the years, after it first lengthened many years ago when Chain Reaction switched its opening time from 10am to 11am (we used to just ride to the top of Kings Mtn and back down again), then added the run south on Skyline before dropping into Woodside, and finally, between 10 & 15 years ago, adding in the extra west-side Old LaHonda loop. There's no formal history of the ride prior to the beginning of this website (1996, wow, 12 years ago now!).

OK, so what was my point? Guess it's that we've got a core cast of regulars, which are now a bit different from shown in the photo above, plus people who just show up once in a while and the random visitor from parts elsewhere who's out here on a business trip or vacation. Today we had Dan and Mark, both pretty darned fast, and Mark not realizing how bad he makes the rest of us look when he shows up on an old mountain bike with skinny tires! In addition we had Syl, one of those guys you see out there riding all the time but generally not in groups, and shows up for our ride a few times a year. Plus regulars Karl, Kevin, Eric... seems like I'm leaving somebody out.

Weather was nice, getting only as cool as 43 degrees and perfectly clear for most of the ride. We rode up through the park, with no change from the norm as I had problems on the steeper pitches. Guess the best part about riding through the park is that it can only get easier afterward! Skyline was the usual welcome relief; I can usually hang on to even a fast wheel when it's relatively flat, but as is often the case, the group split up a bit after passing the Skegg's parking lot, with the mandatory regroup at Alice's. Karl was kind this morning and didn't push the pace on west-side Old LaHonda as he & Kevin & Eric discussed plans for a 100 miler on Saturday through the Santa Cruz mountains. Thankfully, it's not something I can even consider, since Saturday is by far the busiest day of the week at the shop.

The odd thing this morning was the complete dismantling of the group on the descent back into Woodside. Somehow Karl, Mark & I got ahead of the others a bit, then some cars apparently got between us and the rest, and we never saw them again. Normally we would have hung around at the bottom to wait, but we were mildly rattled by a car that had harassed us a bit on the way down, and it somehow seemed a good idea to keep on moving. Thinking back on it, that was a mistake; we should have held up for the others. Something to remember for next time.

03/24/09- 43 DEGREES... IT'S WARMING UP! Well not quite yet, but you can feel that it's about to, and seeing the 10-day forecast with no chance of rain feels even better yet. Larger group this morning, with Karl, Kevin, George, Mark, Eric & Billy. I'd like to say that I'm riding faster up the hill but, while that may technically be true, it's a matter of seconds, not the several minutes I need to take off if I want to keep up with the faster guys. At least we're not at race-pace yet, as it's still early in the season.

Public Citizen award goes to Lindsay Crawford, local cycling strongman, former racer extraordinaire, whom we found with a broom at the intersection of Old LaHonda & Skyline, sweeping broken glass off the road!

03/22/09- SHE WAS HOT! Words that I didn't expect to hear from my son, at least not directed towards a cyclist, but that's what I heard this afternoon as we crested Old LaHonda on our way to the coast. I'm not sure what he saw; I just saw a woman in a billowing yellow jacket zipping by on Skyline, but whatever it takes to encourage him to ride is fine by me.

The ride started out interestingly; on Canada Road there were a couple of fast-moving cyclists slowly closing in on us from behind. As we approached the Glenwood stop sign I'm making sure we're off to the right as far as possible, figuring these guys aren't likely to stop, and maybe not even slow down. I figured right, and they flew on by without even a glance at the intersection. Unfortunately for them, someone else was watching for exactly that sort of thing, and within seconds a county sheriff was on their tail and had them pulled over. Can't say that I feel sorry for the cyclists; as I said, they didn't even slow down. This is the same intersection where we saw a tandem fly through a couple months ago, scaring the heck out of a young girl (on a bike, no less) trying to cross the street.

No, it didn't rain, but yikes, what wind! We went straight out to San Gregorio, and the run from LaHonda to the coast was into a very serious headwind. I did what I could to shelter Kevin from the wind, but even so by the time we got to San Gregorio he was pretty wiped out and hoping that I'd show some mercy and let him phone home for a pickup. Truth be told he was pretty sore from a quick run to the snow with some friends Friday night/Saturday afternoon, and there's something about snowboarding that twists your body in ways that I will always maintain aren't good for you. And if it wasn't for the manner in which he made fun of how stiff and sore I was after my last (and only) snowboard outing, I would have been more sympathetic today! But he's a kid, and kids tend to recover pretty quickly. You just have to be patient (at the exact time they wish you weren't). It was a slow slog up Stage Road towards Tunitas Creek, and the bottom of the climb wasn't very pretty, but by the time we got to the steep stuff he was doing pretty darned good.

No records broken today, with an average speed of under 11mph for the 45 mile ride. But given the headwind and Kevin's already-sore body, it wasn't a bad outing.

03/19/08- CAN YOU RIDE FAST WITHOUT BEING FAST? This morning was dry, a welcome relief as it seems the easiest way to determine when it's going to rain is by figuring out when I'm heading out on my bike. Karl, Kevin & Todd at the start of the ride, catching up to Millo about 2/3rds of the way up the hill. Probably the toughest 29 minute climb up that hill in recent memory. It wasn't that many years ago when I could be sick as a dog and still make it up in 30 minutes. Those days are not likely to return!

But despite my slow climb, which on a normal day would correspond to an average speed of 15mph for the entire ride, we kept moving at a decent clip and averaged a bit over 16, so maybe there is hope! The hand continues to improve too, so it no longer feels like something's going to snap under hard front-wheel braking when I hit a bump. I like not having that feeling anymore.

03/17/09- I DIDN'T EXPECT THEM TO BE KIND but I was somewhat surprised. A decent-sized group this morning, expecting, finally, a ride without rain. Let's see, we had Eric, Kevin, Karl, Mark, Todd, George, with Kevin suggesting that he was so slow and tired this morning that we ought to ride through the park on the way up. This has never made much sense to me, as the park route is considerably steeper. The only "nice" thing about it is that there are no obvious "fast" or "slow" times for the climb up the mountain when heading through the park, so in a sense, some of the performance anxiety goes away. But not mine, as it's been over a week since I've been on the Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride, having spent last week in Washington DC at the annual lobbying event.

The rain indeed spared us, but the roads were still quite wet from the heavy overnight fog on Skyline, so much so that I felt quite skittish on the descents. I have a strong preference for roads that are either completely dry or inundated with water; in either case traction is very consistent and predictable. Roads that are simply wet can be nerve wracking, and once you lose your confidence your bike handling skills go out the window. That would be me this morning. Or maybe it was simply a newfound sense of mortality, having just turned 53. Nope, that's not it at all, since I've come to realize I have defined mortality not as a contemplation of death, but rather a fear of no longer being able to do those things I enjoy doing (riding a bike being very high on that list).

But had the roads not been wet, had the skies not begun to clear up, it would not have been nearly as beautiful a morning to be out on a bike.

03/15/09- I'D REALLY LIKE TO RETIRE MY RAIN BIKE FOR THE SEASON but doesn't look like that's going to happen anytime soon! Today it was a 100k ride with my son, the "reverse" Pescadero loop. Up Old LaHonda, down the other side to San Gregorio, south on Stage Road to Pescadero, then back via Haskins Grade to LaHonda, up 84, then west-side Old LaHonda to Skyline and down 84 back into Woodside. The ride started out in a light drizzle, and pretty consistently stayed that way throughout. The sun did come out briefly during lunch in Pescadero before going back into hiding as we climbed up 84.

Truthfully, the ride was only 61.4 miles by the time we reached home, but that was just too close to 100k (62 miles) to pass up, so we did a loop around the block to get the extra mileage. Pretty silly!

03/14/09- ESCAPE FROM DC/HOW WAS YOUR FRIDAY 13th? Our attempt to get an earlier flight on Friday afternoon failed, because somebody had decided to throw themselves in front of a Metro and shut the orange line (which leads towards Dulles) down. On the one hand that person wrecked the plans of many, including a young woman we met who had a 6pm flight out of Dulles that just wasn't going to happen. On the other hand, no matter how badly your day was wrecked by that person, putting things in perspective shows you could be a lot worse off, wondering what it would take to cause someone to want to end their life like that.

We get to Dulles (IAD) in time to be told there are no other flight options to SF other than the one we are booked on for 9:52pm (it's 5pm when we're talking with the ticket agent at the airport). I then ask her what about the flights through Denver or Chicago (and give her some flight numbers). Oh. Well yes, there are some other options, but seating doesn't look good and my daughter isn't a great traveler and would be terrified sitting next to a strange person without Dad around. Sigh. So we're stuck at Dulles, the airport where the moon buggies take you to your terminal. United sends me text messages saying our gate is different from what's showing on the monitors (in an entirely different terminal, actually), so after settling in and eating (not like we don't have a lot of time to kill; no rush to find the right gate!) I ask an agent at one of the gates. She tells me "Oh, you should never believe those text messages we send!" She said this very cheerfully. It was mildly surreal. But she offers to look it up because "The people down there (wherever "down there" is I don't know and didn't ask) have nothing better to do today." No, she says, no gate change.

Eventually the gate does change, to one in a different terminal, but not the one in the text message. I love IAD.

Uneventful long flight, might a bit more passable by Channel 9 (UA broadcasts air traffic control on Channel 9, so you can hear it through your headphones) and a dreadful movie (The Day The Earth Stood Still, a very poor attempt at updating a classic movie).

Fun begins upon arrival at SFO. Takes forever for baggage to arrive, but who doesn't want to hang around an airport at 1am? Then call the car-park company to come out and pick you up, while dealing with a very upset daughter who wonders why I don't just call a cab. Eventually the bus comes out to pick us up, and I pass on trying to explain to my daughter that a cab *might* have gotten us to the car-park a few minutes faster, but they'd be dropping us off at the entrance and we'd get to walk half a mile, with luggage, to our car.

We're using her car, a 1987 Acura that I've always thought to be pretty cool and she thinks "get" (as in ghetto). I asked her a couple weeks ago if she'd gotten it tuned up recently because she said the clutch was slipping a bit, and she said yes. Uh, no. She took it in for an oil change, nothing more. She's the sort of customer who would be told she should be getting her chain changed soon before it wrecks the drivetrain but figures why bother, it's still running, and that would cost money. Money is for cab fares and shoes and coach purses, not maintaining things you already have.

So as she's driving I'm noticing the RPMs aren't quite matching up to the speed when we get to a hill, and she makes up some excuse for driving more slowly than normal, but about 10 miles from home her little car is just barely getting over the little rises on the freeway and we're driving about 40mph and now there's a faint smell of something burning. We exit the offramp for home, just two miles to go! Only at the end of the offramp there's a stop sign, then a left turn up a hill that goes for about half a mile or so. We got 50 feet. That's it. Car is now visibly smoking and we're stuck right underneath the overpass. It's 1:45am. She's stressed to say the least, calls AAA, speaks to a woman who understands stress and does a better job calming her down than I can, and we wait for the tow truck. And wait. And wait. A few phone calls later (did you know they charge by the call?) a tow finally arrives at 2:30am and drops our car (and us) off at a service station in town, about three miles from home.

So at 2:45am I have to force my finger to do something it does NOT want to do. Push the button on my phone to call my wife and ask her to pick us up. The alternative would be walking with luggage 3 miles to home, and that really didn't sound like it could be that much worse than pushing the button to call my wife. ;-) But push it I did and, by 3:30am, we're back home, and maybe asleep sometime past 4. And, of course, up & ready to go when the shop opens at 10am!

So how was YOUR Friday the 13th?

03/13/09 WE CAME, WE LOBBIED, WE CONQUERED?
March 11-13th the League of American Bicyclists held its annual National Bike Summit in Washington DC. This is a very big deal; 550 cycling advocates and industry people (as a bike shop we're "industry") converging on Congress to make the US a more fun, more convenient and safer to ride bicycles. We promoted road projects that keep the needs of cyclists in mind, championed the rights of the cycling commuter, secured funds for recreational trails and supported programs that encourage kids to ride to school. Here's a link to the agenda.

How well we did will be told in the months ahead. The mood in DC was quite different from years past, and not just because a new administration is in power. In many of the offices we visited, they were already up-to-date on our mission and the specific bills which, to some extent, stole some of our thunder! But that's a lot better than pretending we don't exist, or don't have to be paid attention to. We're now a legit force in DC. The mission now is to follow up on the contacts we made and make sure that good talk and intentions actually amounts to something.

Regarding the question about whether we "conquered" or not, the visit with Feinstein's office brought us the nitty-gritty reality of the political world. Her aide explained that they could support one of our bills ("Clean-T", an effort to promote alternatives to fossil fuels for energy) if we could get the author of Clean-T to withdraw a bill on carbon caps & trades that they felt inferior to their own. That's how it works in a finely-tuned long-running powerful machine like Feinstein's. But please, don't let that get in the way of trying to make a difference with a phone call or email or letter to your representative in Congress. They do listen and you do make a difference. --Mike--

03/10/09- THE WORLD DOESN'T STOP IF MIKE DOESN'T SHOW UP- Mike, I thought you were going to start out with us?  [The orginal plan was that I would ride up the hill with the guys and get back in time to make my flight to DC. Unfortunately, the prospect of very bad flying weather in Chicago, where I make my connection, meant that I had to get to the airport a lot earlier than planned to research alternative routings. Fortunately, the weather wasn't so bad and I made it to DC without incident. --Mike--]You missed a pretty cold and possibly the earliest Tues ride in history.  Daylight savings time started earlier this year.  It was dark when I woke up and I heard it was 32'F, frost on the roofs, but no ice on the roads, dry roads that is, so who's complaining, just put on more clothes.

In attendance were, in order of ranking, Kevin, Me, Eric, George and Mark.  Cold temps slowed our legs down regardless of our efforts, but I took the Kings and the first two hotspot sprints.  George prevailed at Skylonda on the outside.  I took off OTF down 84 as the rabbit, but was caught fairly soon.  I purposely made West Olds longer by pushing the pace from the get go, then we all traded attacks towards the top until George again prevailed narrowly at the top.  I am sure that Kevin and George were getting tired of my attacks, but of course they could not resist responding.  I attacked yet again on Tripp Rd, but did not have the juice to sustain much after 30 seconds and was caught before turning off of Kings to Manuella (?), got a chance to rest a bit then hit it again after Chris' scapula turn, only to be caught again, then Kevin led it out closely marked by George, whose wheel I knew to look for.  George finally passed Kevin allowing me to get behind him and then it was a drag to the line, where I narrowly overtook Geo just before we were both forced to brake and turn.  Since you (Mike), was not present, there was no real need to take it out so early, but I just felt combative and wanted the repeat efforts.  I was surely the most combative rider and likely the yellow jersey recipient if there were time bonuses for the hill tops and sprint points.  Kevin was tired from the weekend.  George had raced Menlo Park Crit on Sunday and Eric was likely staying below a heart rate or power threshold.  Me, I was tired from 3 consecutive days of riding and doing my first Penn. Velo ride on Sat. with a big fast group, that was shocking to my system with regards to speed and power outputs on my part.

So, that was it, a cold snappy, sunny, dry day with nice veiws, and no major incidents.  Hot shower, eat and nap!

Have fun in Washington, and thanks for your efforts,
kbe

03/08/09- STICK TO THE PLAN. WHATEVER THE ORIGINAL REASON, IT WAS PROBABLY A GOOD ONE. But that's not what I was thinking at first, after getting to the top of Old LaHonda and seeing a couple women coming up from the other side who were going to be doing a run to the coast but turned back due to cold & drizzle. My plan has been to head up Old LaHonda, down to San Gregorio, south on Stage to Pescadero, over Haskins, up West Alpine to Skyline and then north on Skyline to 84 and back down into Woodside. I thought briefly that maybe the women were smarter than I was, but it didn't take much to rationalize that I was leaving later and maybe it was clearing up by now. So I kept on riding.

About the time I got to the bottom of the other side of Old LaHonda I was questioning leaving my long-fingered gloves at home, as I was putting on my lightweight shell for a bit of warmth. But I pushed on, thinking that if I could just keep up the pressure on the pedals I could stay warm, and hopefully it would be the usual winter pattern of being warmer at the coast. And it was! By the time I got to San Gregorio it was a comfy 63 degrees. Surprisingly, not a single cyclist at the store. Not one! But I had seen quite a few on the way out to San Gregorio, the remnants of today's Alto Velo "A" ride.

On the way to Pescadero I stopped by the field where they do the herding-dog qualification trials and watched for a few minutes as a shaggy Sheepdog just couldn't quite seem to get it right. I did drop in at the Pescadero Bakery to pick up a couple scones, but stuffed them in my bag for later. I didn't seem too hungry today, just desperate to get some miles in!

Haskins Grade certainly hasn't flattened out over the years, nor was West Alpine for that matter, but both have their charm. Well, that's not exactly true. Haskins really doesn't have much charm! But West Alpine, with its narrow twisting road that initially follows a creek before crossing over its bridge of death and the nasty climb that follows... well, it's not quite as pretty as Tunitas, but still a very nice road to climb, especially when it's not too hot.

In the end I'm glad I stuck to the plan. 67 miles, about 6700ft of climbing, 15mph average speed. Would have been nice if it could be a bit faster, but that's not the shape I'm in right now. And the new left hand worked great!

03/06/09- "It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses." Cruising through the hundreds of useless channels Dishnet has to offer (many of those channels having piggy-backed as part of the package required to get VS's coverage of bicycle racing), I came across the movie that epitomizes the absurdity of some of the bike rides I've done. In fact, that's the line I often think about when cycling through a strong storm like last Tuesday. The Blues Brothers. A bit dated, a bit forced, but it works.  Proof of something, just not sure what.

03/05/09- IF THOSE WERE MAGIC MUSHROOMS WE PASSED, they were casting their spell on someone else! This morning was one of those times where you knew, when you took those first couple pedal strokes up and away from your house, that you weren't going to be fast. Hate those mornings! Just Eric and Kevin this morning, under threatening skies but the rains had stopped maybe an hour before the ride, leaving wet roads but dry jerseys. I hoped that I'd start feeling better as I headed up Kings, but the best I could do was to keep Eric and Kevin in sight and be thankful they weren't flooring the accelerator.

The mushrooms I mentioned were in a spot maybe a mile south of Skeggs parking lot, maybe about 20 of them, some pretty darned large! I'd first noticed them on Tuesday as I rode in the driving rain, but it was so hard to see that I wasn't sure they were really mushrooms or I was hallucinating. But today, there they were, clear as day. (Karl sent me a note the following day, mentioning that he'd seen the mushrooms in question and that they were not the kind you should be eating, unless you would like to know what it's like to have your liver die a slow and unstoppable death).

I felt better as we descended towards Sky L'onda and then down to west-side Old LaHonda, and the guys continued to be nice to me, even as we climbed back towards Skyline. Great views this morning as the clouds were breaking up, so I took quite a few pictures (but haven't had a chance to see how they turned out yet). The coast, as they say, was clear! It would have been a perfect climb back up a perfect road if not for Kevin getting a flat, but even that wasn't too bad as we found a nice place in the sun to stop. Sad that the long-range weather report finally looks great, but I won't be around next week to ride! Time to head back to Washington DC for the annual bike summit. Darn. Forecast there is for cold & rain.

03/03/09- TEXT MESSAGE FROM TODD- "My mom wants to know if you went riding this morning. I've got lunch on this. ;-) My assumption is that Todd bet on me riding and wins. Of course I went riding! I was actually a bit disappointed when I got up and the roads were dry, but I wasn't counting on that being the case for long. Riding over the hill (Jefferson) to the start of the ride wasn't easy, not because I'm out of shape but because a very stiff wind was trying to keep me on the wrong side of the hill. I arrived at the start to find Fred, a newcomer who's got a history that goes back to my early days, and George. Nobody else. And a sudden and ominous cessation of wind.

So you remember in Star Wars, when they're in the Death Star trench and the big cannons are firing at their fighters, and all of a sudden the cannons stop and there's this eerie silence? Yeah, it was like that. Only instead of being replaced by bad-guy fighters that were far more deadly than the cannons, we had a couple minutes of quiet followed by... rain. Almost deafening rain. And then even heavier rain. Almost, but not quite to the point of being downright silly rain. Fred and George are intelligent guys and decided they weren't going to go up on top of the mountain (as if you could tell there was a top to the mountain, through all the black clouds) and turned back at the park entrance (we'd actually ridden up through the park instead of the lower part of Kings Mtn, thinking it might be a bit safer with such bad conditions). And me? I gamely rode on ahead, determined to get in my ride.

Climbing Kings wasn't too difficult; you just had to make sure that you avoided the brown (mud) rivers flowing across the road in several places. And of course you could keep relatively warm while climbing too, but in one of my smarter-than-normal moves I made sure I drank Cytomax on a regular basis, even though I didn't feel like it, because I knew I'd have to maintain some horsepower for the entire ride if I was going to keep warm. That idea was a good one!

Almost to the top I came across Millo, who was heading back down the hill (having to get home by 9am). He'd started up a bit earlier than I had, hoping to get to the top at about the same time as the group. Group? Just me! I continued on to the top, where the rain... continued. It really wasn't about to do anything this morning but rain while I was out there! But there are two nice things about heavy, continuous rain. First, the traction is very consistent. Seriously. Riding downhill, through corners, everything just feels fine. Second, your bike comes away pretty clean. It's that drizzly stuff that really makes a mess of things! No drizzly stuff this morning.

The other thing that came to mind up on Skyline was from Calvin & Hobbes. If you remember, Calvin's Dad was into camping trips where it would rain the entire time and he'd be out there at 6am in a canoe catching fish and Calvin and Mom would look at him like he was out of his mind when he'd wake them up at 7am telling them breakfast was ready. Calvin's Dad was into adverse conditions that, as he said, 'build character." Well this morning I was building character. Or maybe I was just asserting character. Sounds better than to say I was just being stupid out riding in the monsoon.

The descent wasn't a lot of fun as it started to get a bit on the cold side, and I have yet to find gloves that don't soak through after an hour or so. Worse, I had to take it easy on the brakes because my rims have become worn so thin from previous rain rides that they're in serious danger of failure (they definitely have to be replaced before Thursday's ride, assuming it will be yet another adventure in the rain, and how could I assume otherwise?). But eventually I get back down into Woodside and "power up" and get warm. All in all, a pretty nice ride. But, I've had enough rain. Seriously. Enough is enough! Let me be tortured by too much sun for a day or two. I'm game! I'll even suffer through temperatures in the mid-70s if I have to. Really!

03/01/09- THE PICTURE TELLS THE STORY. The forecast had been for heavy rain & winds, and I'd gotten a call from Kevin last night wondering if I was really going to ride. I told him I was (why does he even bother asking a question that I've answered the same way so many times before?), but if it was really dumping, he wasn't going to ride. It's not like he needed the miles anyway; he'd done an 80 mile ride yesterday.

So this morning I get up and it doesn't really look that bad out. Kevin calls and says yes, he'll ride, and meet me on the road. It's lightly raining as I head out, and no, that first mile or two didn't feel very good. In fact, neither did any of the (slow) climb up Old LaHonda, where I met up with Kevin who was coming down. At the top we met up with Will & Marcus, who rode with us the rest of the way (out to San Gregorio and then back via Tunitas).

Not many others out on the road today. Nobody at the San Gregorio store (no cyclists that is; I'm sure the usual crowd drinking off their hangovers with Bloody Marys was inside). I'd begun feeling stronger on the way down to San Gregorio, and by the time we got to Tunitas, I felt like my old self. Kevin flatted so we sent Will & Marcus on ahead, and then chased after them as best we could (ok, as best I could; Kevin was having no problem!). I was able to pull pretty hard across the flatter section of Tunitas, but we never did catch Will & Marcus until the very top, where they were waiting for us. They nicely didn't tell us for how long. The descent on Kings is never fun in the wet, and this was no exception. You can see the end result in the photo above; a brand-new brake pad reduced to sludge. I'm really looking forward to the end of rain!

02/26/09- IT FELT SO GOOD TO FEEL SO SPENT! This morning was the first time since... probably since I busted my hand almost two months ago, the first time I've felt like I could really push it a bit on the morning ride. Until today, I'd just felt a bit on the tired side, almost going through the motions getting up the hill, no zip, no real sense, in a way, that I was in control. Maybe it was because I'd been treating the "new" (repaired) hand like it was a piece of glass, and so when I visited the hand surgeon for the final post-op visit yesterday, and she said no problem, do whatever you wish... maybe that's what it took.

Karl, Kevin, Eric and Millo showed up on a cool but not cold morning, with a light drizzle that never really turned into much other than making the roads a bit slippery. Eric was in power training mode, where you pick a wattage (power output) that's about 90% of your threshold and just stay there as much as possible. That made it interesting because I was able to ride alongside him and learn just what it means to maintain the same power through steeper and less steep sections of road. Suffice it to say it's not the way I normally ride!

West-side Old LaHonda was where I discovered that I could call on my legs and suffer a bit. Not too much; Karl, while picking up the pace, was being relatively kind and not trying to blow me off the back (which he easily could have). I don't think he expected me to hang on all the way to Skyline, but then neither did I! Like I said, he was being kind.

On the way down 84 we passed a very long moving van at the side of the road, which we later found out had not been able to negotiate one of the tight corners, backing up traffic for many minutes until he could get it out of the way. We found this out from Millo, who didn't have time for the Old LaHonda loop and had gone straight down 84. Fortunately, as a bike, he was able to get around the mess, and had clear sailing all the way into Woodside (because no cars could get past the truck).

02/24/09- WHY WE RIDE #37- DON'T MISS A DAY! The weatherfolk can say what they want about how we need the rain and how we're in a drought, but truth is, sometimes you just get tired of gray & drizzle (or even real live rain). And that's what makes days like today so memorable.

You go to bed not knowing what you're going to find in the morning, but you're hopeful. The weather report says to expect a day without rain, the first in several, but followed by... more rain. But that's yesterday and tomorrow. This morning, the sun is shining! The roads are still a bit damp, but the air is incredibly clear, and the suns rays shining through the the tress is the stuff of postcards.

It's a ride I do every Tuesday & Thursday morning, no matter what the weather, and I, of all people, understand what it means when they say "Don't miss a day." If it's not the sounds of the noisy creeks after a heavy rain, or spotting a couple of coyotes, or beautiful views of the coast, then it's the friends you're riding with. There's nothing that beats getting out on your bike.

This morning it was George, Eric & Steve, with Millo having ridden on ahead a few minutes before us. Never caught back up to him, but in our defense we were taking it fairly easy and he dropped back down into Woodside instead of taking the west-side Old LaHonda loop.

02/22/09- WE RIDE IN THE RAIN SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO. Normally this would have been the Sunday that Kevin (my son) would be riding at the track, but when it's wet, no track. But just because it's wet doesn't mean you can't ride! Especially when it's not terribly cold, and today's storm featured temps in the 50s, much better than riding in the rain when it's in the low-40s!

The original plan was to say out of the hills, partly because my hand is still recovering and has a difficult time with hard front braking, and partly because Kevin's had some issues with braking on steep descents in the rain. But as we rolled out past Woodside, Kevin said that he really didn't want a boring ride on the flats and would much rather climb up Old LaHonda. So that's what we did, and we were pretty comfortable doing it. The coldest temp we saw was 50, and wind-front tights, a base-layer, decent gloves, booties and a waterproof (plastic) jacket will do quite well in such conditions, even with heavy rain.

What's harder to protect is your bike. I should be absolutely-clear about this- riding in the rain trashes your bike! My guess is that one rain mile is equivalent to perhaps 100 dry. You're going to wear out chains quickly, get lots more flats (and generally get your tires sliced & diced so even if you don't get flats you're still going to have to replace them more frequently), brake shoes might survive as few as 3 or 4 trips down from Skyline and, probably worst of all, extended braking is going to wear your rim's sidewalls down so they can actually explode apart long before they'd normally wear out. One of these days I'm going to produce a web page detailing what you need to ride in the rain, and what you need to do with your bike afterward. Suffice it to say that most of us who ride in the rain have a dedicated "rain" bike just for that.

02/20/09- THAT WAS SOMETHING! Today Burt (from our Redwood City store) and I drove to Solvang to watch the possibly-decisive Time Trial stage of the Tour of California. Wow. I haven't seen so many fans at a bike race since my last trip to France, and even then it could be that Solvang and the Tour of California still might win the battle for most fans.

We did it smart, bringing along a pair of Bike Fridays (really-cool folding bikes that we sell at Chain Reaction) which not only made it a lot easier to get around the course, but also made it no big deal that we had to park literally a couple miles away from the start. I'm going to get photos up soon, but for the meantime you can check out the top of our main page (www.ChainReaction.com) for a shot of Levi in the final mile of the Time Trial.

This was quite the one-day road trip, requiring that we get on the road by 6:30am (have I told you I'm not a morning person) and drive 290 miles south, almost to Santa Barbara... and back! But the drive was pretty easy (guess Burt should be the judge of that though, since he did all the driving), and the race itself was awesome. Levi won, Lance finished in the top-15, and the weather was perfect. Seriously perfect, as in 70 degrees, very slight breeze, low humidity. Great trip. And great contrast to Sunday & Monday's trips to watch the Tour of California up our way, when we got totally soaked and chilled to the bone.

02/19/09- THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS THAN RIDING. I was going to talk about the great ride this morning, and how wonderful it is to be able to see your shadow because the sun's actually out, and how it makes you feel alive. But today I find out that a good customer and friend, Jesse, who's been battling cancer for some time, is having a really tough time right now. The chemo is becoming as life-threatening as the cancer itself. Here I am, complaining about my hand hurting when I'm applying a lot of braking and hit a bump and a pain shoots through it, and worried that I could do something really wrong and possibly undo the work the doctor did putting my hand back together, as if that's really important stuff. Well, it is, to me. But what does it mean that I can focus on such things and think they're important while a friend is engaged in a literal battle for his life?

So today, please, send your kind thoughts and prayers to Jesse. And while you're out riding, consider how much you might be taking for granted, consider how fortunate you are that you can complain about not enough time to ride, complain about the rain, or even have as your biggest concern the idea you might not have a job next month. Jesse would probably give anything to have those as his biggest concerns right now.  --Mike--

02/17/09- WHEN WILL THE RAIN STOP? Hard to imagine what the Tour of California riders face, going to bed each night to the sound of rain, getting up each morning to the sound of rain... some of them with flooded hotels (http://twitter.com/tomdanielson). So maybe I should stop complaining about having to ride in the rain myself, since it's entirely voluntary, and think about the fact that we're (supposedly) at only 80% of normal rainfall, even though it feels like it must be approaching biblical proportions?

After spending the prior two days getting soaked and chilled to the core watching the Tour of California, and that was after driving to the locations, not riding, I just didn't have my heart into a bike ride in the rain. And yet yesterday morning I got told. The original plan for Monday's Tour of California stage was to drive out to the bottom of Tunitas Creek and ride up to the place my son & I would be watching it, race back down after it was passed, drive down to Bonny Doon and repeat the process. But the steady & cold rain I woke up to just didn't put me in the mood to wake up my son & tell him it was time to ride. So instead we drove out to Tunitas Creek, and, on the way up Kings Mountain, from the heated comfort of our car, must have passed between 30-50 real cycling fans, not lightweights like me that day, riding up the hill, prepared to spend 2+ hours in the cold, waiting for the race to come through. At least two were even towing kid trailers!!!

But let's get back to this morning. It's Tuesday, so I ride. That's a given, there are no options, not unless the world has stopped spinning. Well, it was so dark from the ominous clouds that perhaps it had, perhaps we were in some eternal twilight as the earth stopped at exactly the wrong place for Redwood City, California. Somewhere it's shining, somewhere it's warm, but that somewhere was not Redwood City.

Get the rain bike out, hastily reinstall the fenders (which had been removed when I was using that bike while my arm was in a cast), get dressed appropriately and head out into the slop. I got about halfway to the start of the ride when I realized I had forgotten, of all things, my shoe covers! But it didn't seem so cold my toes would fall off, and I figured maybe I could snag a pair up on Skyline by stopping at Kevin's house. Good plan.

Kevin and Millo showed up, and in one of those "It must be meant to be" moments, Kevin revealed that he'd have to stop and change his rear tire because the rubber had completely worn through. So we were going to have to stop at his place anyway!

It was pretty icky riding (tech term for cold & rainy) until the park entrance, where I was able to remove my rain pants. It was fairly slow-going up the hill, but not in an unpleasant way. Nice to see all the creeks running strongly for a change, an admission that, so far we haven't really seen that much rain. Not much sign at Kings & Skyline of the hundreds of people who'd been there the morning before, cheering on their favorite racers.

Skyline was, well, Skyline. The main goal this morning was to keep up enough steam that you didn't get too cold, and the second goal was to try and keep from crashing on the slick 20%+ grade that dropped down to Kevin's house! Especially tough for me, since my new left hand is still well-below normal strength, making hard braking difficult. But it's raining, it's a 20%+ descent, who needs much braking power for that? And for a pair of booties to take the edge off the descent coming down Skyline, I would have walked down that hill if I'd had to!

02/14/09- GETTING READY TO CHASE THE RACE tomorrow morning. Burt from our RC store, my son Kevin, his friend Mack and I will be driving up to Davis to watch things get ready to go and then drive up to the first big climb to try and get photos, then try and short-cut to the next climb, and maybe, possibly, get around the race one final time so we can see the finish in Santa Rosa. Is it possible to do this? I don't know. But you'll find out tomorrow!

02/12/09- ONE STEP AHEAD OF THE STORM? Not really; the weather folk don't seem to get the timing down quite right. The skies looked threatening at times, but only felt a few drops toward the very end of the ride, and I don't think it rained at all afterward. At the beginning it was Kevin and Millo climbing Kings with me, at an exceptionally casual pace. Nice. At the top we found a few orange road repair trucks, apparently intent on doing a bit of patching to the upper parts of Tunitas Creek in advance of the Tour of California this Monday. A little late, and I seriously doubt any patch material will "take" between now & then!

Millo headed back down Kings (had to get back home for kid duty) while Kevin & I enjoyed a crisp but comfortable ride under a sky that was too beautiful to paint, particularly out towards the coast.

02/10/09- 4 WEEKS LATER for my formal re-entry to the Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride today, with a small but enthusiastic group eager to get in a nice ride ahead of the supposed week-long series of storms in the forecast. Karl, George, Shane & Steve today... no Kevin, no Eric (where is Eric?). Cold? I dressed warmly enough so it wasn't too bad. Coldest temp I saw was 34 degrees, but it was an unusually-chilly 36 up on Skyline. No racing up the hill today; I was just happy to ride with the guys (and I should mention I'd have no issues riding with women but few show up!) and finish the climb on the same day.

I couldn't help but think that I'm exactly 4 weeks into the new hand (actually not quite three weeks yet, if you consider the "new" hand began with the operation to insert the screw), and that, if I'd opted not to have the screw, I would have been looking forward to another 4 weeks in a cast. I made the right choice! The hand is working fine, but there are still limits. Hard front braking (and front braking is the only way you'll ever stop quickly) is painful when you hit a bump, and I'm still not sure just how much pressure it can take. So far though, so good.

The photo shows the scene of the accident, which seems both more and less than a month ago. I still play it back in my mind, and there's no doubt that it was just one of those dumb things I should have been able to anticipate. Nobody to blame (except maybe myself). Then again, even if there had been, there's that racer mentality that says that's just the breaks (so to speak). Things happen. And we go on. And on beautiful mornings like today, we go on and can be thankful that we're able to ride before work and enjoy the world around us. Enjoy it in a way that only a bike ride can deliver.

02/09/09- TOUR OF CALIFORNIA PLANS? Of course! I just put my Monday plans up on the main page of the website, but in a nutshell, the idea is to drive out to the base of Tunitas, ride up to the big hairpin at 1170ft to watch them come through, then race back down to the car, try to get to San Gregorio before they close off the road in front of the charging pack and then drive (quickly) to Davenport, 28 miles south, where we unload the bikes and then ride as far up Bonny Doon as we can before encountering the race once again. Of course, the weather could play a part in these plans, and right now it's looking like the Tour of California may actually encounter more-typical February conditions. Wet.

02/08/09- SOMETIMES I PRETEND TO BE REASONABLE, and this morning was one of those times. The original plan had been to do the Pescadero/San Gregorio/Tunitas loop, and start out early enough that we'd miss the rain forecast for the afternoon. So with that in mind Kevin (my son), Burt and I set out at 9am on an extremely gray day. By the time we got to the top of Old LaHonda, it wasn't just gray, it was also beginning to drizzle, and heading down the other side towards LaHonda, it had turned into a light and very cold-feeling rain. Thinking that it might get worse climbing up and over Haskins Grade to Pescadero, we instead headed straight out to San Gregorio and, as has often been the case in the past, it steadily warmed up as we neared the ocean.

A quick bite at the San Gregorio General Store (where, at 11am, a good amount of drinking was already in progress) and then it was off in search of riders from the Pro teams that might be scouting out Tunitas Creek! No such luck, but what we did run into the large clusters of ladybugs that Kevin had found on a previous trip up Tunitas. You can see him holding a small branch covered with them; there were many thousands of them on the ground.

We also re-acquainted ourselves with the low clouds hugging Skyline, leading to a not-very-fun ride in the cold drizzle down Kings. I keep telling myself that Kings isn't the right way to head down from Skyline when conditions aren't good, but once again I did it anyway. Fortunately, it wasn't like a couple months ago when it was raining heavily and Kevin was unable to brake. This time the main issue was that it's uncomfortable for me to apply a lot of brake force with my recently-repaired left hand.

02/05/09- THE BAND, THE CHEERLEADERS, THE BIG GROUP THAT AWAITED MY RETURN TO THE TUESDAY-THURSDAY RIDE THIS MORNING would have been impressive! But that's not the way it worked out. After returning from the land of the ice & snow (Wisconsin) for business meetings, this morning was my first ride up the hill with the new hand. Last time up Kings for me was, let's look at prior entries here... January 13th. Yikes! But this was something I was really looking forward to. The regular ride. Proof that I was whole again. And riding with the usual suspects.

But others had differing ideas. Sure, the forecast had been for rain, and sure, the ground was wet. But that was it, wet. Nothing coming down from the skies, and not terribly cold either. I carefully rode over the hill to the start, testing the new hand on a small descent for the first time (back side of Jefferson). Worked fine. Nevertheless I felt each little bump, mentally, as if it had the ability to rip the bones apart from the screw in my left hand. It's going to take a bit of time getting used to the idea that it's not a piece of glass. I arrived at the start to find... nobody. Could they have left earlier? Maybe, I was 1 minute 14 seconds late, but if they had, I'd likely see tracks where the pavement was still wet. I wasted no time chasing down potential phantom riders, but it appeared I was on my own.

And on my own was an interesting place to be. Would I have wanted others around to see me struggle against a too-high heart rate and too-slow speed going up Kings? Why not, that's normal! But yuck, it's been a long time since anything's caused me to take almost 32 minutes climbing that hill! But what the heck, it was different, and besides, with just me, nobody at the front clearing the way, I got to see a pair of coyotes below the park entrance, apparently not scared off by my breathing.

Once I got to the top I very slowly settled into a more-or-less normal rhythm, and by the time I got to west-side Old LaHonda, I felt like I was once again at home on my bike. Descending is something I will continue to do a bit more slowly than before, mainly because I don't like the feeling I get when I'm squeezing the left lever and hit a bump in the road. But there's no fear of crashing, no nervousness on the bike at all. I'm home. And maybe next Tuesday I'll see the rest of the gang. They'll drop me like a rock; I figure several weeks to get back to reasonable shape. But that's OK. I'm not (too) proud.

02/01/09- NICEST DAY OF THE YEAR AND I'M LOOKING OUT AT SNOW & COLD! Actually, it serves me right. I need to get that photo showing us riding in the snow off the main page of the website; it hardly seems appropriate when the weather is so nice. At least back home. Right now, on the day that could have been the first day I can descend again, now that I've got my new hand, I'm in a Wisconsin hotel room on business with Trek. Sigh. Fortunately, it's dry, so no weather-related delays getting out here, and hopefully none on the way back. Forecast for Tuesday is a high of 17, low of 4, and "windy."

01/29/09- IMAGINE SEEING THIS ON FACEBOOK- I thought maybe it was the lack of caffeine playing tricks on me, but I could have sworn I saw you riding out Alpine Road (between Junipero Serra and 280) this morning with aerobars on the bike. A THURSDAY morning at a time when you should have been midway up Kings. So either (A) it *was* you, (B) I'm crazy, or (C) there is another guy out there in a Chain Reaction jersey with a shark's mouth saddle bag impersonating your riding style.

How do you respond to a scandalous allegation like that? And from someone I thought was a friend? I mean a real friend (Ueyn, a former regular on our morning rides before he moved towards San Jose, got married, got kids, got a job etc), not a facebook friend? Let's say that was me. Let's say that I was unable to do the usual ride up the mountain because I only have one hand that can operate a brake right now, and it's the rear brake at that. In the unlikely event all of those things conspired to cause me to do a relatively-flat ride, what exactly is meant by someone "impersonating" my "riding style?" :>)

Yes, it was me, on my last non-traditional Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride for a while. Tomorrow I get the wrappings removed from my hand and should have full use of it, enough so that I can once again descend with abandon. Actually, descend at any speed! It hasn't been so easy with just one brake, so I've been doing "the loop" and such. Today it was actually pretty nice out there, several degrees warmer than Tuesday, and I was able to get my heart rate up where I wanted. It didn't start out that way; after bidding the guys adieu and heading down Tripp Road, the legs just didn't feel so great. But by the time I got to the Portola Valley city limit sign, I was rolling along pretty darned good.

Sadly, I'll miss my first change to test out the new hand for several days, as I head off to Wisconsin Sunday morning, and don't get back until Tuesday night. Darn!

01/27/09- ICE AN INJURY? YEAH, I DID THAT! This morning it was time to get back on the bike, after 8 days off. Doesn't seem like that much to most people, but for me, it was probably the longest I've been off a bike in 35 years. 8 days.  To most anybody else, it wouldn't be. But bicycling isn't just a business I'm in. It's a hugely-important piece of the puzzle that defines who I am. It was the first sport I could actually do well at (competitive swimming in 3rd & 4th grade doesn't really count and besides, I sucked big-time at freestyle, so during practice laps I got further and further and further behind).

The initial word, in the emergency room the day after the crash, was pretty darned grim. Two months in a cast. Rebellious as always, I found a way during that first week, before meeting with the ortho specialists, to do 50 miles with my splinted hand. A proof-of-concept ride to show that I couldn't be stopped; if I wanted to ride badly enough, I could ride.

Then a week ago today I met with the ortho folk, including Dr. Howsen, the hand specialist who came up with an alternative to long-term casting that would have my hand back to me in no time. How much time is no time? I wasn't really sure until yesterday, when I called and she gave me the OK to ride.

And so it was I got back to the original schedule this morning, up at 7:05am, anxious to discover what I could and could not do. One thing it turned out I still cannot do is to use a floor pump! Just too much pressure on the part of my hand that's been repaired. It might have been OK, but I just couldn't get past that feeling that I might push too hard and feel something pop. Fortunately, I discovered that you can throw your leg over the pump handle and use your weight to push it down. Humiliating? No, desperate!

I made it to the start of the normal Tuesday/Thursday ride on time, where a fairly large group was assembled. No way am I going to remember everyone, but Kevin, Karl, George, Eric, Shane... somebody else too. But I wasn't going to be with them long enough to get things straight- they were going up the hill, but not me. Not today, probably not Thursday. I had to turn left on Tripp Road and watch them move on up the hill, leaving me behind. For a while I felt alone, but pretty soon that was replaced with feeling cold. I mean really cold! As I rode an extended version of the loop through Portola Valley, there was frost everywhere, and soon puddles at the side of the road were covered with ice. And my left hand, all wrapped up, couldn't fit a normal glove so all I had on it was a thin overmitt designed as a wind shell.

Thankfully it began to warm up significantly as I crested Arastradero, and by the time I was climbing Sand Hill it was quite nice. Not too many others out there, maybe most waiting a bit for it to get warmer.

Friday I go in for my follow-up and get the wrappings removed, and by next week I plan to be back on the hill. The only reason I'm avoiding it right now is that I don't feel comfortable putting a lot of pressure on that hand, and hard braking does exactly that. Descending Skyline on just a rear brake simply isn't practical!

01/26/09- THE 'DOC SAYS IT'S TIME! Time to get back on the bike, exactly two weeks after breaking the bone in my hand. No, I won't be riding up the hill, because right now I don't think it would be a good idea to be riding back down the hill, putting a lot of braking pressure on that left hand. So tomorrow the plan is to meet the guys at the start of the ride and go as far as the base of the hill, and then head south, out on the loop. It won't be easy watching them ride up, up & away, but I'm pretty sure it's the right thing to do. Maybe Thursday I'll do the whole ride, but maybe not then either. I'll be seeing the doctor for a follow-up appointment on Friday, but today, on the phone, she said it's OK to do whatever I can, as long as it doesn't hurt. Cool!

01/23/09- UPDATE ON THE HAND. Glad I wrote the 1/21 entry in real time; I don't think I could have captured the sense of disorientation after coming out of anesthesia quite so well otherwise. A few things to note:

• There were no ill effects whatsoever from having eaten rather voraciously shortly after the operation. I suspect some of this is because I wasn't out all that long. Whatever the case, I ate, I drank, and I didn't pay a price for having done so.
   

• Vicodin? Never again. As mentioned previously, I never filled the initial prescription, written by the emergency room Doctor who assumed I either was would shortly be in great pain. Never happened. But I was warned very sternly at the time of the operation to take Vicodin afterward, even if I didn't feel the need, because it was important to "stay ahead" of the pain. So I took a Vicodin, and... yuck. Why would anybody want to feel that way? My head felt like it wasn't wired quite right. I didn't feel pain, but hadn't noticed much beforehand either. I found myself fading in & out while trying to watch Lost on TV. That was two nights ago, and that was my one & only experience with Vicodin. Since then I've only had a couple Advils a couple times a day. Never for pain; there really hasn't been any. But they're probably useful to prevent inflammation.
   

• The hand? It feels like it's fully functional! Bandaged up a bit, but everything works, fingers, thumb, I can type, I can almost write (but the fact that pressure applied a certain way still can cause a bit of discomfort indicates there are some things I shouldn't yet be doing). Hard to believe the difference between how it feels today vs just a few days ago.

Not sure how soon I can return to the bicycle. It feels like I could go back to the aero bars again and do just fine. But it also feels like I could probably be tempted to use it "normally" and run into trouble, like apply too much force braking and possibly undo what the Doctor did to put it back together. I clearly didn't ask enough questions! If it's raining on Sunday, I'll not risk things, just because of the increased likelihood of taking a spill when it's wet. I'm probably better off if it is raining so I'm not tempted! On Monday I'll call and see what the doc says. My post-op Doctor visit isn't until next Friday, and that's just too long to go if it turns out I could be doing a little riding!

01/22/09- MILLO IS DA MAN! While I'm licking my wounds and thinking how great it will be to have my left hand again, and kinda forgetting what it's like to feel whole, Millo was out there in the much this morning, doing what I wish I was doing! Here's the entry he sent in for this morning's ride-

01/21/09- I'M SCREWED! I mean literally. Got the x-rays to prove it.

To my way of thinking, the day started out last night since I was under strict orders to not eat or drink anything from midnight-on. With the revised schedule for the operation on my hand being 1pm instead of the 3pm, I was greatly relieved, because I can't go that long without food & water. All morning I was thinking of coffee (Starbucks Espresso Truffle) and... donuts. I don't normally eat donuts, but today, that's what I was thinking!

So I dutifully arrive at Kaiser just after 11am and report to the 8th floor pre-op, where I'm given one of those wonderful open-back hospital "gowns" with the ties at the back that you're supposed to do by yourself exactly how? Obviously, having just one working hand made it even-more difficult (OK, impossible). I'm already feeling hungry. At 12:45 they wheel me down to the floor the operating rooms are located, and get asked for the 12th time what your name is and why you're there (basically trying to make sure they do the right procedure to the right person).  But I'm waiting and waiting and waiting, and have nothing to read, my iPhone is with the rest of my clothes, and after a while it becomes slow (and hungry) death by boredom. Eventually someone semi-official comes by and tells me there's been a screw-up, their fault, and I could either continue to wait down there or they could bring me back upstairs to a room with a TV, and get my daughter back (who'd left for food & errands, since she thought I was going to be in the operating room for the next couple of hours). Since I had just seen them wheel a woman out to an operating room, with my surgeon's name on her gurney, I'm thinking yes, it's going to be at least two hours, lets go back upstairs.

Good decision. I'm upstairs for another two hours, but at least it's two hours with CNN, my iPhone, and my daughter to keep me company and complain that she, too, is getting very hungry. Probably didn't help that I was reading an on-line NY Times article about food that's really bad for you (but tastes so good!). As I expected, they came for me about 3pm, back on the original schedule. And back downstairs, I was asked a lot of the same questions over and over, and, as before, come across sounding terribly dull because I don't smoke, don't drink, don't do drugs, have no medical conditions other than my winter asthma, haven't had an operation in 35 years (yeah, busted arm, same one, bike accident then too...).

And then I was given a choice. The anesthesiologist asked whether I wanted to be put out completely, or just have a regional done on my left arm, with a mild sedative through the IV. I asked which you come out of faster, and he said it didn't make any difference. I asked which the Doctor would prefer, and no difference again. So I'm thinking OK, why not actually experience the operation, instead of sleep through it? It might be pretty cool to watch my hand being operated on. Plus, it would be a small test to see if I could overcome some of my fear of needles, since this would require another one stuck in my left arm. So sure, let's just numb me up a bit and go for the ride!

Didn't work out that way. The "mild sedative" may have put me into a semi-conscious state, but I don't remember anything. Plus it turns out halfway-through they had to put me completely out anyway, because I was moving around too much.

Next thing I remember are voices and images but nothing seemed to quite line up right. Eventually I could see a clock on the wall that said 4:30, and a feeling that I didn't have a clue as to what was expected of me. Did they want me to wake up quickly? Was I supposed to lie down? Was it normal to be fading in & out a bit? Was the doctor talking to me or some other patient? In the next 15 minutes I got things sorted out in my mind and decided that the only thing that mattered was for me to re-join the world and take matters in my own hands. They found my daughter who came in with my clothes, I got dressed (a bit wobbly) and started thinking about FOOD! They had all manner of warnings about drinking clear fluids, nothing solid, taking it easy etc. Otherwise? Otherwise my system was going to rebel and expel whatever I ate. Which might be true for a normal person, but I'm not normal, and having had no food or water in a very long time... well let's just say that we stopped at a grocery store on the way home and spent a whole lot more on food than needed (always a bad idea to shop for food when hungry!) and in the last hour I've eaten two days worth of food. I'll let you know how that works out.

Meantime, I've got a wrist that's wrapped up a bit but no cast, and a screw (that shows up nicely on the x-ray) and supposedly, in a week, I'm going to be mostly fine again! I have nothing but good things to say about the folk at Kaiser, with the exception of the unknown person or system that had me waiting an extra two hours (but in the grand scheme of things, that two hours doesn't make a huge difference and is eclipsed completely by the quality of care I otherwise received).

01/20/09- ANTICIPATION, an old (ancient?) Carly Simon song, which was probably popular about the time I broke my arm the first time, 35 years ago. Actually pretty close; the song became popular in 1972. Anticipation is definitely the case, as I await tomorrow morning's date with a surgeon's skilled (I hope!) knife. But I feel ridiculously at-ease about it, probably because I have a mission (to get back on my bike as quickly as possible) and mostly because, after meeting with the two doctors at Kaiser involved in my busted thumb, I saw them both as being able not only to understand my wanting to get things going in a way that minimized recovery time, but also seeming look forward to getting it done.

In fact, rather than tell me it was a bad idea to have done a 50 mile ride with one arm in a cast, they were more curious as to how I did it, and didn't see a problem with it. I really can't imagine that this meeting could have possibly gone any better than it did.

So what it comes down to is that, by the end of the day tomorrow, I'll have a pair of screws holding the busted parts of my left thumb in place, and most likely a small cast or even splint for a couple of weeks. There will no doubt be some pain from having my hand cut open, but there's this clarity of vision thing that tells me it's a small sacrifice to make for having a hand that works the way it's supposed to, and a much-reduced risk of arthritis (compared to simply casting it).

Meanwhile, I heard from Karl that there were three on this-morning's ride, including Eric and Kevin. Eric had to abandon early due to a loose crank arm, but Karl & Kevin decided to add a few miles by heading out to the coast and back via Tunitas. The sort of thing I'd love to do once in a while, if I didn't have tight time constraints due to needing to get back to the shop in time to open it up. It's possible that, as things go more smoothly at the shop, I might decide once in a while that the shop can do without me for the first hour or so. Not likely, but it could happen! But first we'll need to get my hand back in order.

01/18/09- SOMETIMES ALL IT TAKES IS A BIKE RIDE. ANY BIKE RIDE. And never was that more the case than today. After the initial news that I could be in a cast and not riding for two months, I wasn't very happy. Two months off a bike? There aren't enough happy pills in the universe to fix that. No amount of rationalization that I could come up with would allow me to survive two months of not riding. And yet I wasn't as upset about it as I should have been. Why not, I wondered? Probably because I suffer from the same thing that Captain Kirk in Star Trek did. When he came upon a test in Star Fleet for which there was no possible way to win (it was designed that way), he re-wrote the test so that he could.

So tell me I'm going to be in a cast for two months and can't ride, and I come back with plans for riding a bike with a cast. They said I wouldn't be able to ride with my arm in whatever it's in right now (one of those molded things that you attach with yards and yards of stretchy stuff), but I'm thinking, OK, I still have fingers to grab something with, but what? Aha. Aero bars! Never used them before, but last night I rebuilt the front end of my rain bike (Trek 5900... pretty nice "rain" bike) and, not knowing if it was going to work or not, set out this morning on a short proof-of-concept ride. The picture shows the view from the front, with the splinted arm resting on the aero bar pad and hand grabbing the front of the bar.

I started on Canada, because that's where everybody with aero bars goes, and gradually got used to them. Took maybe 10 miles or so before I really got the hang of it, and when I did, the darndest thing happened. I discovered that you can develop a heck of a lot of power pulling up on them, even/especially going uphill! I had no problem getting to a pretty high speed, with heart rate, lungs and legs all working near max. This was supreme happiness & joy! I was riding, without broken hand-related pain, at a good clip.

I got to the end of Canada, turned around and decided to make a run south to our Los Altos store, even taking some of the slightly-hilly detours on the way. Spent about an hour there working on a few things before heading home, with the original plan being to stay on Foothill but y'know, after hitting the 4th red light in a row, it was time to hit the twistier, hillier side-routes, aero bars or not. Eventually I came to Junipero Serra & Sand Hill, where it would have been easiest to just stay low, run into Alameda and straight home, but Sand Hill & Woodside were calling me, so the initial 15 mile ride became 38, then 47, and finally just over 50 miles. At that I could call it an unqualified success, much more than a proof-of-concept ride.

So whatever you do, don't tell me I can't ride. I'll modify something to make it possible. Maybe I'll modify a lot of things. But one thing I might not be able to modify will be the picture of me on the wall at Kaiser, with the words "BAD PATIENT" underneath.

01/15/09- MILO'S RIDE REPORT Mike, Sorry to hear that you broke a bone.  Much sadness!  Hope they let you get away with something other than a full cast for 8 weeks.  But hey, it’s your left hand and who really needs to shift to the small chain ring – you should be fine big-ringing Kings…. 

Kevin (pilot), Shane, Syl, Eric, the tattoo guy (Kevin or Billy , I forget which) and me today.  Another stunning spectacular brilliant blue temperate; great-to-be-in-California morning  I headed up the hill 7 minutes early and just barely beat Kevin/Billy to the top.  Leisurely pace along Skyline.  Kevin and I at the front on the descent into Sky Londa.  I lead out and when Kevin came around me were were side by side and in such a ragged lather to beat each other to the sprint line that no one dared come around us.  That’s our new strategy for picking up occasional wins J 

Be well, Millo

From Mike- Obviously there's a continuing and not-fun saga from Tuesday's encounter with the ground. I see an Orthopedist on Tuesday (during Obama's swearing in, which I'd wanted to see, but more important that I get this hand issue behind me!) and find out what the options are. What I've got is called a "Bennett's Fracture" which is very common, so it's not as if I'm in experimental territory. Looks like there are two options, one simple (just a cast and some wiring) and one more involved, with screws & such, which looks to get you back to normal more quickly. In t his case, I'm all for getting screwed!

Meantime, I'm looking at options like aero bars that might allow me to ride with one arm in a cast. Obviously, my picture- taking days while riding are put on hold for a bit!