February 2007

It has been rather rainy for the past week, and it has been getting rather cold the past couple of days.  Last night I came home with temperatures in the 40’s (Fahrenheit) but knew that it was well below freezing at the top of the local mountains.  This morning on the way to work I noticed a light dusting on the tips of the highest parts of the Santa Cruz mountains to the west, and a much lower snow level on the peaks in the Diablo range to the east.  All that white, with the sun shining here in the lowlands, makes me want to go out and ride up the hills to the snowline.  Ahh, but the duties of the job that pays my salary call and I am stuck indoors.  Sigh!

The Amgen Tour of California has just ended, the second year for the event.  There are a lot of positives, but I think it could be better.  Here is a mind dump of some of my thoughts:

• The tour has ‘presence’, i.e., it draws large enough crowds to show that there is interest in cycling and cycle racing in the area
• To date, there is no indication that the organizers have used or intend to use this ‘presence’ to press for better cycling conditions in the state; a wasted opportunity in my mind. On Tuesday, 20 February 2007, the Governor was on the podium proclaiming California as better for cycling than France.  The promoters should be pressing him to make that true by pushing for education/testing of drivers, funding for bicycle programs/facilities, better enforcement of existing laws, passage of AB60, repeal of SB1233, reintroduction and passage of AB1408, etc.
• They need a mountain top finish!!  Every non-TT stage in the first two years has been a bunch sprint to the finish.  This year three riders got to the line mere seconds in front of the field after getting a large lead on the climb of Sierra Road.  Ten+ miles of flats after each climb guarantees that there will be little field separation.  All the separation in the field the past two years has come from the TT’s.  Let’s make it more interesting, and throw in a mountain top finish next year.
• The main TT needs to be longer.  Less than 15 miles on a relatively flat course leads to little separation among major contenders.
• More of the state needs to be covered.  So far it has been a race from SF to LA.   Expand it a bit, get more of the state involved.
• The non-Pro Tour teams seem to be fodder for the Pro Tour guys.  Two Pro Tour teams dominated this year, shutting out most of the rest of the field.  Wished there was some way to level the field a bit, give the Slipstream, Jelly Belly, and so forth teams more of a chance.

I think I will write to the organizers and pass on my ideas.  Definitely going to write the ‘Guv’ and tell him to get more involved in fixing some of the problems.

Yesterday was a beautiful day, and I was stuck indoors. I had hoped that the clear weather would hold and I could do a long ride today. When I woke up the skies were grey and threatening, the weather forecast calling for rain later in the afternoon. I decided to try for a moderate length ride, one at lower elevations due to the ominous skies. Temperatures were cool, hovering near the 50 degree fahrenheit mark, and the hills to the east are capped in white. But as I rode southward I found a lot of signs of spring. Fruit trees were in bloom, jonquils were blooming, and most notably I had my first major hay-fever attack of the year; at times I had to stop because I was sneezing too much to maintain control and ride. The skies, the occasional cold showers, the snow on the hills all say winter, but my sinuses say spring.

Four years ago I moved the downtube shifters on my 1988 Trek to the bar ends using Dia-Tech pods
purchased from Rivendell Bicycle Works. I had a touring bike with bar-end shifters, so there was an argument of having similar technologies across bikes. And the Trek was supposed to do double duty as a ride from my significant other when she was visiting, and she is uncomfortable with downtube shifters. In the ensuing four years the bar end shifters have worked well, overall, but the environment has changed. One big change is that the significant other is now my wife and there is no need to have a bike for her at my place since we now have our place. Another change is that my touring bike now has downtube shifters, a change made to make it easier to pack for travel. The final change is my new commute which most of the time includes a train ride. Many days, after exiting the train I find that the bike does a quick ‘auto shift’, sometimes both on the chainrings and the rear cluster. The issue seems to be related to ohter cyclists bumping the bar end shifters as they load and unload their bikes. I had been considering a return to downtube shifting on that bike, and last night the change was made. I knew I would have to do some work on the shifters soon as the ferrule (metal) at the barrel adjuster end of the cable housing for the left shifter had split and was cutting into the housing. Last night, as soon as I got home from work, I peeled off the bar tape, cut off the shifter cables, removed the shifters from the bar end pods, dug out the original curved washers for the downtube bosses, and restored the shifters to their original condition. Tiem to go out for a trial ride, hoping the days of auto shifting after a leg on the train are behind me.

Today the Tour of California stage ended in front of the state capitol in Sacramento.  It was an obvious political decision by the sponsors: get the state government involved in the event.  And sure enough, there were politicians galore in the crowd highlighted by none other than the Governator (who still cannot pronounce California), Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Herr Governor got himself involved in the ceremonies and made a bit of a speech claiming that California was better for cycling than France.  I am wondering what he meant; if he meant scenery then the statement is debatable.  If he meant the conditions of the roads or cooperation by the motoring public, or almost any other measure of what it takes to be a great place for cycling then he is flat out wrong.  Interestingly, fixing the problems I see with cycling in California are the responsibility of (drum roll please): the Gov and his executive branch.  He is over DMV, which needs to do more to educate and test drivers.  He is over CalTrans which needs to do more to fix the roads.  He is over the Highway Patrol which needs to do more to enforce the laws and less to muddie the waters when the legislature tries to modernize the vehicle code.  I am calling the Governor out:  step up to the plate Arnie, and let’s start the work towards making your statement of today become true.

The calendar says winter, but today the weather says late spring. We drove to my in-law’s place in southern San Luis Obispo County this morning, a 4 hour trek on 101. We opted for a daytime drive, since we knew Friday night holiday get-away traffic would be horrendous. We arrived in the SLO area at lunch time, so we downed some small sandwiches before donning bike gear and heading out into a brilliant sunlit day. Air temp when we started was about 83 degrees fahrenheit, definitely a bit warmish for mid-February. My mother-in-law joined my wife and I for the first ten miles as we headed up onto the ‘Mesa’ and wandered down towards the town of Nipomo. Just outside of Nipomo my mother-in-law decided to head back towards her home, leaving my wife and I to find our own way. We turned west and found our way the California Hwy 1, then turned south. A couple of miles later we crossed into Santa Barbara County and the town of Guadalupe. I was a bit saddened as we cycled through Guadalupe; there used to be some nice mosaic fronts on some of the stores in the downtown area, which we stopped and photographed while on our California coast tour in October 2003. In December 2003 there was a major earthquake northwest of Paso Robles, and the tremors caused a great deal of damage to the mosaics and a lot of the old buildings in the Guadalupe downtown. It had been over a year since our last visit to the town and now there is no overt indication of the earthquake damage, but there are no mosaic storefronts either. A pity. Another memory of this leg of our 2003 tour was the British couple, Richard and Rachel, who we met near Oceano and rode together through most of the section from Guadalupe to the Harris Grade near Lompoc.

We did not make the Harris Grade today, though I kept teasing my wife that we should go to either Lompoc or Solvang. We did make a close approach to Lompoc; we turned back north just before reaching the Orcutt grade southeast of the city of Santa Maria, the city made famous as the site of the Michael Jackson molestation trial. The northerly leg back to Guadalupe was into a fairly stiff headwind. At one point I was hearing a click-click-click sound, and I investigated it turned out to be my front mudflap which was oriented horizontally due to the wind and was catching my toes on both feet as I pedaled. Just south of Guadalupe a big rig passed far too closely; I ditched into the rough dirt to the right of the roadway, my wife fought to stay on the pavement and not be sucked into the slipstream. Another example of why we need metrics to determine safe passing distances and law enforcement to crack down and enforce the metrics. We had one more incident as we rode on the ‘mesa’ towards the towns of southern San Luis Obispo county; a pickup truck turning left onto Hwy 1 to head north made the turn wide into us, forcing us to swing further right. It was an obvious purposeful move as he squealed his tires and sent us the 1 finger salute as he straightened out and proceeded north. Unfortunately we did not get a license plate as we were too busy evading this anti-social driver.

As we pulled up to the in-law’s place the temperatures had started to cool, slightly. It was down into the low-70’s as daylight started to fade and the first twinges of spring fever start to set in.

I hate getting flat tires.  They take away from the flow and enjoyment of riding.  In 2001 I had a stretch late in the year where I had at least one flat on every ride.  On December 24th of that year, after fixing YAF (yet another flat) I vowed to do something.  Something involved switching tire brands/models and throwing away the tires I had on the bikes at that time.  I then had a 19 month run without a flat, which proved the point that good tires are worth the money.  Since that incredible run I have had just a few flats each year.  In 2006 I had 4, I believe, and two of those were on the rear wheel of my commuter bike; while fixing the second of those I found that I had worn the rear tire to to cords so I changed tires and had no more flats on that bike for the rest of the year.

Today I had two flats, both on the rear tire of my commuter bike and both while on a short shopping trip.  It was raining, I was pulling my Burley Nomad trailer, and all was rather well except for the two flats.  Dealing with rear flats is always more of a pain, but add rain and an attached trailer it was not fun at all.  After getting home I did a thorough tire inspection; there was one small spot where the tire was worn to the threads, but that was not the locations where the punctures occurred.  I have swapped in a new rear tire and  am ready to go for another long stint without any flats.

The weather forecast is a bit bleak; rain today, rain tomorrow, rain the next day, and the next and the next …  And the forecast has apparently frightened a few commuters off their bikes.  I caught the 8:37 northbound train from Mountain View this morning.  In the past when I have rode this particular train from this particular station there are have been 10-12 bicyclists boarding and usually 15-20 bikes already on the train.  This morning there were 6 bicyclists boarding and when we climbed up into the bike car we found an empty, cavernous space:  0 bicycles/bicyclists already on board.  Only a few more bicyclists, total, boarded at the next few stations.  Since it was not raining this morning I suspect it was the thought of commuting home in the rain that deterred a bunch of the normal commute crowd.

Soon after boarding I noted a conductor giving my bike a thorough inspection.  It turned out he is a bicyclist and bicycle collector, with 12 overall in his ’stable’ of bikes.  My bike attracted his attention for two reasons:  I have a generator hub driving my lights, and I have a really nice looking honey brown Brooks B-17 saddle on the bike.  The conductor and I spent much of my trip northward discussing bicycles, esp. classic steel bikes.  An interesting fellow.

Commuting on the train is a bit of a social experiment.   The process of loading and unloading bikes, which are stacked up to 4 deep,  works best if they are arranged in Last-In-First-Out (LIFO) queues; in other words, the last bike loaded in each stack will be the first unloaded.  If the bikes are not in LIFO queues then there is a bike shuffle process at one or more stops, which usually adds more chaos further down the line as someone moves the bike blocking theirs into some other nearby stack without ensuring that the new stack is arranged in LIFO order.   I usually try to be one of the first on the train when I board as I tend to go a lot further than the average commuter so I want to ensure I get arranged in a stack prior to the average commuter that boards at the same station.  For the entire queue arrangement process to work one needs to know the destination of each bike; the train authority (CalTrain) ‘requires’ all bikes to have destination tags, something denoting the destination.  As one loads their bike one reviews the destination tags of bikes in the various stacks, chooses a stack where the outer bike will be deboarding at a station that is the same or after the commuters own stop, arranges the bike in the stack and uses a bungee cord to secure the bike in the stack.  On the typical bike car there is room for 8 stacks, 4 on each side.

This morning I boarded, as usual, and found that 7 of the 8 stacks had bikes with destination stations before the one at which I would deboard.  The lone bike in the 8th stack was a mystery:  4 destination tags, all to various stations before the one at which I would deboard.  I was musing on which bike to move when a woman watching me  from the rear of the car told me that the bike with 4 tags was hers, and that she was going to Burlingame which happens to be past my destination.  Viola!  I started to arrange my bike next to hers, but apparently not to her satisfaction.  She started telling me exactly how she wanted my bike arranged next to hers, and ‘corrected’ ever error she perceived in my placement.  It was not that I was not being careful; I was being very careful.  It was not as if she had a high zoot expensive bike; it was a 4-7 year old low-end aluminum frame Trek with the left shifter pushed inward about 30 degrees, the bar tape all tattered, various political stickers pasted on the tubing, and overall in sorry shape.  And once my bike was loaded she continued to watch it carefully and constantly …. for 20 plus minutes as we travelled northward.  When I reached my destination she craned to watch my every move as I pulled my bike away from hers.  Some folks are just a bit too paranoid or obsessive or ????