August 2007

The Wife is ready for some more relaxed times on the bikes. We usually like to take one long cycling tour each year, but circumstances have gotten in the way the past couple of years. When touring we go at a nice, easy pace and know when to pull in and call it a day. No need to push ourselves past our limits. Besides longer multi-day tours we used to take short, two or three day trips around the Bay Area. ‘Used to’ is the operative phrase. Have not done it much since the infamous drenchings of 2004. The following two tours caused The Wife to enjoin me to not plan any more of these trips:

• Valentines/President’s Day trip to Napa valley. We left with the weather forecast calling for a storm coming in the following week. We discussed cancelling/altering, but went ahead with plans for a bike trip. We monitored the weather forecasts all day Saturday and Sunday, weather folks kept moving up arrival time of the storm, but still we were supposed to be home long before the anticipated arrival. Then, early Monday morning the skies opened. We ended up riding to the ferry terminal in Vallejo in rain that was falling at rates up to 2″/hour. The Wife did not like it, not at all.
• Fall trip to Santa Cruz area. Again, we left with a forecast for rain after the weekend. We no sooner got settled on the Santa Cruz side when the skies opened. We waited out the brunt of the storm, returning on Sunday in light drizzle and heavy overcast.

In between these two trips we had a nice trip to Half Moon Bay for a wedding (see photo). Among items I carried in the panniers was a nice wool suit and dress shoes. Definitely a bit different than your usual tour. Despite the pleasant experience, the bad experiences shut down the planning of other short tours in the area for the past three years.

I am hoping that with some down time from training and racing that we can once again plan a nice, easy weekend cycle tour in the area. I have a few options I am mulling over, but no firm plan of action .. yet.

In the meantime, the only planned ride at this time is the Lighthouse Century out of San Luis Obispo. We have done this before, a pleasant ride along the central coast that we can combine with a visit to The Wife’s parents. The mother-in-law wants to try the metric version of that ride, so I got her a registration this week. If the weather cooperates could be a lot of fun.

Early in the season The Wife wanted to participate in the Pinole Team Time Trial, but was having difficulty getting a partner to form the team for the race. The first person who agreed to partner with The Wife decided to bail, and a backup was back and forth on the commitment. I agreed that if her partner fell through I would join her in the coed category. The woman who was on the fence came through, and I sat that weekend out. We have discussed the possibility of doing the race in 2008 as a coed team, but nothing firm, yet. To date, we have raced together only in ‘city line’ sprints, nothing formal.

Saturday we missed a golden opportunity to race with and against one another, though we did not find out until way too late. We were at San Ardo where The Wife was supposed to race in the W4’s and I was planning on another day of being the logistics and support person. But The Wife was not feeling the race, a bit under the weather, so she joined me in supporting her team, and a few others. When working the feed zone we ran into Flandria who had dropped out … from a combined W30+/M Ultra-Geezer field! The Wife can race 30+, I am an Ultra Geezer, so if we had known we could have done the dueling spouse thing in the bigger arena of the race. Too bad we had missed that they were combining; would have been fun.

In the absence of trying to outrun The Wife on the bike I used my time to say howdy to a few blogsters and other friends, pass some bottles of the good stuff in the feed zone, and get to the finish line to cheer on a few racers. Kudos to 1st time racer Linsey who sprinted out a win in the W4 field with a leadout from 2nd time racer and teammate Mason who finished fifth. Congrats to Alicat who took second in the W3 field. I had been hoping to see an Alicat/Doc Kim fight to the finish in that race, but Doc Kim was nowhere in sight as the field came to the line; we found her a few minutes later as she came in, the victim of a flat. Bummer, as she looked strong as she came through after each of the first two laps.

We may wander up to SF to watch folks duke it out in the Giro. Otherwise, other than the track we are taking a cool down period. We had nixed Mt. Everest Challenge already for this year, perhaps next year. I will ramp up in a few weeks so I can meet the obligation I made to race Mt. San Bruno climb on Jan. 1.

Update: In my post-weekend sleep-deprived state I neglected to congratulate Lorri. She ran three sessions of the Tri-Flo/Velo Girls development program this year, and in the three races there were two first place finishes and a fifth place. Awesome!

In the not too distant past highway projects were initiated with the primary goal of moving motorized vehicular traffic from point A to point B as quickly as possible without much thought about the impacts on neighborhoods or other forms of transport. In some places that still happens today. Over the past thirty some odd years two such projects have created a triangle of isolation in northern Santa Clara county, a triangle some have called the ‘Golden Triangle’ while others have dubbed it the ‘Bermuda Triangle’.

It all started with the conversion of US Highway 101 in the area from a highway to a freeway. Some roads that had crossed the highway were blocked on both sides of the now freeway. In the late 80’s and early 90’s California Highway 237 was converted from a highway to a freeway. Again, some roads were blocked on both sides, a precious few got under/overpass connectivity, and even fewer still got access ramps to the freeways. The roads with access ramps to these freeways, all generally north-south roads, became de facto expressways, carrying volumes of motorized vehicles at usually high speeds to the freeways. Sidewalks and/or bicycle lanes along these corridors were afterthoughts at best, often left out or neglected as the goal of traffic engineers was to move maximum numbers of autos in the shortest period of time. Automobile LoS (Level of Service) was king. The upshot of this was that alternative modes of transport in this area became difficult to impossible. And the neighborhoods caught in this triangle became isolated to a degree; the only sane way out, or so most think, is in an automobile and even then it is often a harrowing experience trying to enter heavy traffic in a 45MPH zone when actual average speeds are often much, much higher. Forget about the poor guy in the wheelchair, like the one I saw trying to go south on Mathilda over the 101 overpass a while back. He risks his life to get to the south side of the freeway where all the services are located, then will have to do another ‘Frogger’ expedition to return home.

Some relief now looks to be in sight. Sunnyvale plans on building two bridges, one over California 237 and the other over US 101, both aligned with Borregas Ave.  Borregas was a major north-south corridor through the area in the pre-freeway era and now mostly a quiet neighborhood street south of 237 and a corridor of light industry north of 237. The bridges will be built to move pedestrians and cyclists and skaters and all sorts of non-motorized transport across the great dividing lines we call freeways. The grades will be gentle, all ADA compliant with nothing greater than 5%. Curves will be broad and wide so that tandems and trailers can use the bridges easily. And construction should start this fall, I hope. After a delay for federal review, a delay reportedly caused by heightened oversite in the wake of the “Big Dig” fiasco, the project went to bid last month, three bids were received, and while they exceeded engineer estimates they are within budget and after due diligence review the City Council will be asked to approve a contract sometime in the next few weeks. The only ‘negative’ news is that the desired ‘fancy fencing’ that had been planned would cost about $2.3M extra so plain old ‘projectile’ chain link will be used instead. I was thinking how nice the bridges would be as I crossed US 101 at Fair Oaks last night, with the shoulder disappearing near the top of the overpass then finding a constant line of cars exiting from the freeway into a new right-hand lane that I would have to ease into at the bottom.   It will be so much nicer when I can just cruise up Borregas and cross on a bridge without exhausted commuters in cars jockeying for space, without having to deal with 4 or 6 lanes of exhaust spewing traffic doing 40, 50, 60 MPH.   I plan on being one of the first over the bridges, and plan on pulling the trailer, just because it will be possible.

A new issue of Momentum, the ‘Magazine for Self-Propelled People’, was in yesterday’s mail stack. We had some fun during breakfast this morning reviewing the ‘Field Guide to Vancouver Cyclists’. We recognize quite a few and can identify with parts of some classifications. Only question is, should ‘Messengers’ be a subspecies of ‘Fixie Riders’?

Our friend Josh puts together an annual ride of friends from the Presidio in SF to Pt. Reyes Station and return, and Sunday Aug. 12th was the chosen date for this year. We gathered at the Sports Basement parking lot for an alleged 7:30A start, delayed while Erika did some early morning shopping for Sidi’s since she had left hers in Menlo Park. Lucky we were starting from a sports store that opens at 8:00A on a Sunday! Thirteen of us rolled out at the start, two attempted to join mid-stream, and one bailed partway (Fairfax); quite a crowd. Another interesting stat for the ride: 8 of the 13 starters are in the ‘legal’ field (6 attorneys, 1 paralegal, 1 legal recruiter).

The ‘bad’ for this trip:

• Some psychopath in an off-white older Ford pickup played a game of ‘how close can I get to the cyclists’ on Nicasio Valley Rd. Most of us he cleared by about 3-6″, one woman he got a bit closer and grazed her gloved hand with the bed of the truck.
• The two folks trying to join in the middle, riding with one of the starters who had waited for them in Nicasio, did the dreaded wheel overlap on Petaluma-Pt Reyes Rd. The one in the rear flipped, without serious injury. Not so lucky for the guy who had silently attached himself to the rear of the line; initial report was probable broken clavicle and probable separated shoulder.
• Too much stopping and waiting for others. What should have taken no more than 5 hours of ride time, 6 of clock time, absorbed 9 hours of our day on the clock.
• Three, count them, three flats among 13 riders and all three were all on my bike (1 rear, 2 front). I hate flats!

The ‘good’:

• Got to spend some time with friends we have not seen much lately.
• Despite riding sweep most of the ride, I got to get out and contest a couple of hill climbs. Had not had any good hill climbs in a while. Chris gave me a run up Camino Alto before taking the final sprint to the top. On Sir Francis Drake out of Olema it wasn’t a contest. Even though the legs were tired, it felt good to do some good fast tempo hill climbing!
• Spectacular weather, gorgeous views. From Sausalito on the way back you probably could have picked out individual bodies along the SF waterfront. Sorry there are no images to share; even with 13 folks there were no cameras present so the pics are all embedded in the memory chips of our brains.

Now it is time to get The Wife rested and ready for Dunigan Hills this coming weekend. And to find a 15T track cog for the new bike. And a replacement tire for the front with the nice sidewall gash.

This evening we ended a ride with friends in the parking lot of the Sports Basement in SF. We stepped into the store to get some tubes to replace those I shredded on the ride, and walked out with a basic track bike. And I had to throw down less than 4 bills to make it happen. Guess this commits me to doing a few trips to Hellyer in the not too distant future.

Our friends Ann Marie and Braden are moving to the east coast so I suggested we needed to do a ride with them before they flew off into the sunrise. So today we got together with a few more of there friends for a nice little ride from Fremont to Berkeley with the goal of catching lunch in Berkeley then riding BART back to Fremont. A ride from and into my past lives. I lived for 15 years in Fremont, spent a few more in a life before that as a Bezerkely denizen. So this was a ride back to some of my roots.

The route from Fremont to Castro Valley was … hmm, boring. Mission Blvd had been chosen for most of that. Blech! Palomares Canyon would have been nicer, but then there is that dreaded elevation factor. In Castro Valley we caught Redwood Rd., which we followed to Pinehurst then to Skyline, so we did do a bit of climbing. This was the pleasant part of the ride; quiet, gentle, just turning the pedals and enjoying the scenery. Ann Marie has not been riding much lately so she was riding sweep for a part. Somewhere on Skyline her husband drifted back for a check and told her she had earned a hot dog. Hot dog? It has been well over a score of years since I frequented Berkeley, but the mention of the hot dog led me to question the lunch plans. Yes, ‘Top Dog’ is still in Berkeley and that is where the planned lunch stop was to take place. Deja vu. Back in my far past we would often trip over to ‘Top Dog’ for a quick bratwurst or kielbasa. I think the last time I had a ‘Top Dog’ was 1983, when I returned to visit Berkeley, had lunch at Top Dog, then caught a double feature of ‘Flashdance’ and ‘Risky Business’.

Due to some sore joints on a couple of riders (not the eldest!) we altered the planned route a bit, dropping down to Tunnel Rd. and coming in on the south end of Berkeley rather than using Grizzly Peak around to the north side. Near the Caldecott tunnel we passed Mintie Panda and her Mr Man going the opposite way, probably a bit surprised to see the south peninsula contingent coming out of the Oakland hills. It was a strange trip into town; so many things were familiar but so much has changed. The biggest constant was all the crazy traffic, pedestrian and car, which we added to when Braden decided to lead us the wrong way onto Durant, a one way street. So much easier than circling the block, or so the excuse went. We made the requisite stop at ‘Top Dog’ where I unashamedly downed two brats. It was then more craziness with Braden missing another couple of turns leading us to BART while trying to avoid riding on Shattuck.

A genteel ride, a bit crazy at times, but definitely a time warp for me. Nice warmup for the 70 or so mile social ride with another group of friends tomorrow, this time into Marin county. Good to be with friends, a bit strange to travel into one’s past.

I got roughly 4 hours of poor quality sleep last night.  About the same the night before.  Less the night before that.   Probably been a week since I had a decent night of sleep.  Damn hay fever has kicked in, wakes me up in the middle of the night, then I am up fighting it for and hour or two or the rest of the night.  Current bouts have proven unfazed by the standard meds.  Dang, I need some sleep.

Any young lad or their parents watching this morning’s news will know which sport the lad should choose. The sport where one can ‘juice’ on steroids, amphetamines, and whatever, lie to a grand jury, let their ‘friends’ sit in prison to hide their perjury, and then get a day named in their honor by The City. And their efforts will be lauded by the same sportscasters who opine that cycling has no credibility because drug testing catches a few cyclists who cheat, testing that is all but non-existent in the sport the lad should choose.

It is 22 miles from home to the office, or vice-versa. The normal commute day is ride to the train station, CalTrain to San Mateo, ride to the office, then the reverse to get home. Once in a while I do the full 22 miles on the homeward end. I had not done the morning commute the full distance, mostly due to the fact that there are no shower facilities at the office and I have compassion for my co-workers. Since today was forecast to be cool and foggy I decided to do the front-end commute to the office this morning, taking it a bit easy so that in combination with the cool air I would not be too funky when I arrived for the work day. Things went more or less as planned, though the headwinds from Menlo Park north had me working a bit harder than scripted.

So I am ready for that easy commute home, using CalTrain for most of the garbage miles. The office is halfway between Hillsdale station and San Mateo, and which way I head is usually dependent on when I can get out relative to Baby Bullets on the schedule. If I can get out on time it is south to Hillsdale for the 5:38 bullet to Mountain View; later and it is north to San Mateo for the 5:57 bullet to Sunnyvale (we live more or less between the MV and Sunnyvale stations, so either works). Tonight I got out on time for the earlier train and did a fast ride over to Delaware, south across 25th and through the Bay Meadows parking lot to Hillsdale station. I crossed over to the west side of the station to wait the 8 minutes or so for the train. A couple of minutes before it was due I could hear its horn when the signals at the station started ringing, a sign that the northbound bullet is coming through. As the northbound train came through the station I could see the southbound train coming across 25th Ave … then both trains came to a halt just south of 25th. Not a good sign I thought to myself. Then I see someone moving along the east side of the northbound train, hear its horn blowing and it starts up and rolls north across 25th then comes to a stop again. Shyte! Then the sirens start blaring, from every direction it seems. Police cars, fire trucks, ambulances, all seen racing north towards the crossing. I knew it was bad, and that train traffic would be halted for a while. And the fact that the northbound train had moved told me that the southbound train was the one involved, so southbound trains would be held up much longer; much, much longer.

This is where as a cycle commuter I have an advantage. I felt sorry for those who had no other form of transport at hand and were to be left to wait until police allowed CalTrain to start moving the trains again. I put my helmet on and started for the ramp down on the east side of the station when a young lady approached and asked if I was riding home. Affirmative, I say. She asked which way I was going and I point south, which she took as a wise-ass response. A few more questions and it was obvious she too wanted to ride home rather than wait for what could be hours for the train. But she has lived in the area for less than a year and is not all that familiar or comfortable with the route to Mountain View where she lives. So I invite her to join me and we had a nice pleasant ride south. It turns out she did join the club to which The Wife belongs shortly after moving to the area, used to be an MTB racer but has converted to being a roadie, and is in the same job field as the wife. I had not planned on riding home tonight, but given the circumstances it worked out for the better. Glad I had my own ‘wheels’. Tomorrow I will commiserate with my co-worker Kurt who catches the 6:07 train from Hayward Park, has no other form of tranport, and has no family in the area. I suspect he had to sit at the train station for hours before he could get home tonight.

Update:  Yikes, my co-worker Kurt took a taxi home … from San Mateo to Sunnyvale.  Hate to think what that cost!  So glad I had the bike.