September 2007

It has been a fast few days of “coastin’ along” the Central Coast region of California. We did a lot, but did not think of going on-line to read e-mail, blog, etc. Just relaxing on our own for the first three days, then mixing it up with The Wife’s family for the last two.

Wednesday we started with a quick trip to Carmel, some lunch in the sun, then a quick bike ride north to Pacific Grove on the coast side section of the 17-mile drive and then back along the same route. I had been off the bike for two days at that point and it was good to stretch the legs a bit. The weather was gorgeous and clear, with temps running in the high 60’s low 70’s F along the coast. After dinner that night we walked down to the beach in Carmel where there was a large crowd enjoying the nice weather and clear view of the stars and a full or near full moon off to the east.

Thursday we woke up to clear skies but could see the fog bank lingering off-shore. By the time we ate breakfast the coast was engulfed in the gray mass. We drove down the Big Sur coast, in the fog the entire way except for the brief section along the Big Sur river, to the Kirk Creek campground. From there we took the bikes and started up Nacimiento-Ferguson Road into the Santa Lucia range. The road is a great climbing road, with some nice pitches and one long slack section on the middle (from mile 3.66 to 5.75 according to The Wife). The net elevation gain is almost 2600′ in 7.3 miles or about a 6.7% average grade, a nice warmup for the rest of the day. We broke above the fog at about the 1000′ elevation only to find a layer of high clouds. So much for views of the coast!

Just over the crest of the hill we stopped at a USFS fire station to refill water bottles then started the 20 mile trek to Mission San Antonio de Padua. A contrast in climates, the interior was warm with temps in the mid to upper 80’s under clear skies. The first part of the descent is along a (dry) creek through a forest providing some nice shade, but then it was out into open oak savannah with nothing to block the sun and provide relief. About 9 miles past the summit we entered the Hunter-Liggett Military Reservation and had to stop and provide identification to the guard in order to enter. Bet that was not possible for a period 6 years ago! There had been a couple of large grass fires in the area making the landscape look rather stark and bleak. Probably a better place to visit during the spring when everything should be green.

The mission sits near the main part of the Hunter-Liggett army base which has been built for the most part in mission style. It was rather quiet around the mission itself, with only a couple of workers and three cats around while we ate lunch then strolled around looking at the grounds before saddling up for the trip back to the coast. The ride out was a bit of a challenge; The Wife was tired, sore, and dehydrated and I was nauseous, presumably from something I ate for lunch (I suspect oats in the ostensibly whole wheat roll, and since I am allergic to oats …). To make matters worse The Wife got a flat just as we re-entered Forest Service lands from the military base. We persevered, stopping briefly at the summit to put on jackets for the descent into the foggy mist. Total riding for the day was 55.4 miles and the GPS listed it as 5950′ of elevation gain. A lot more rolling in the interior than we anticipated.

Friday was a transition day. We left the Big Sur coast and entered San Luis Obispo County, stopping just south of the Piedras Blanca lighthouse to watch the female and juvenile Elephant seals that had hauled out onto the beach before trekking over to the Hearst Castle visitor center. The visitor center was a stop recommended by The Wife’s parents. I had not visited the Hearst Castle facility since sometime in the early 90’s and the changes are not for the better in my opinion. Much of the space formerly filled with information packed exhibits is now filled with concessions. Sigh! Disappointed with that stop we meandered south to Arroyo Grande to spend time with The Wife’s family.

The main task for the weekend was to help shepherd, coax, coerce, and coach The Wife’s mother on her first metric century, in fact her first ride of over 44 miles. The ride chosen, the Lighthouse Century metric route, is a nice jaunt north from San Luis Obispo to Cambria on California Hwy 1 and then a return using the same route. The weather was excellent; clear skies, temperatures in the mid to high 60’s, and only moderate winds. The Wife and I had planned to do the 100 mile variant but altered our plans to help her mother achieve her goal. So we had a nice, gentle ride with a couple thousand of our closest friends while soaking in some beautiful scenery. What more can you ask? And in the end it was mission accomplished, pretty much on the time schedule we set out in advance.

The drive home to the Bay Area on Sunday was made interesting as we had to play ‘dodge cars’ on US 101 just south of Salinas as too many drivers were paying attention to the Blue Angels performing for the Salinas Air Show instead of the road. Fortunately I was able to avoid all the swerves and instant stops. Perhaps they should consider shutting down 101 as they did when the air shows were at Moffett Field. Now we are home and trying to avoid the thought of tomorrow, when the real world of work once again imposes itself on our lifes. Sigh!

The Wife is taking a one week break between jobs, serendipitously timed with a planned trip to the San Luis Obispo area this weekend to visit her parents and to ride in an organized ride. I am taking some time off to spend with her and we have had a protracted discussion about what to do during the week. We now have a plan.

For some time we have been wanting to do the route of the Big Sur ride, either as the event or as a self-supported tour. There was discussion of doing that loop this week but groans at the thought of doing two 80-95 mile days, with camping gear, back to back then doing a metric century within a day or two afterwards. The Wife does want some rest this week, after all. So we compromised, especially since the agreed upon route takes us towards her parents. We will travel down the coast, starting tomorrow, driving a bit, then riding a loop, then continuing on to the next destination. The one solid commitment for a ride is to cycle from Limekiln State Park up Nacimiento-Ferguson Road to Mission Road, and visit Mission San Antonio de Padua, perhaps the most remote of the California Missions. We are hoping for great weather, similar to what we enjoyed four years ago when we did a tour of the California coast and had awesome views like this moonrise near Lucia.

Saturday we will ride in the Lighthouse Century out of San Luis Obispo, travelling back north along the coast. We had planned to do the 100 mile ride, but The Wife’s mother would like to try doing her first metric century and “has always dreamed” of doing such a ride with her daughter.  So we will take it easy and do one of the metric routes, instead.   That is a bit of good and a bit of bad. Good in that if normal weather patterns prevail we will not have to do that push into headwinds to Piedras Blancas, bad in that we will not get that long push back southward after the turnaround. Hope to have some photos of all this fun next week after we return.

After last week’s set of mechanical issues I was set for some redemption on the track at Hellyer. Low-key races were on the calendar at the track for this afternoon and I was determined to be there ready to roll. My main bicycle maintenance task for this week was to get my Fuji track bike ready and reliable for today.

The main problem I have had with the bike, breaking chains, I attribute to a slightly ovoid chainring. Unfortunately, the crankset that came with the bike uses 130mm BCD rings and getting a replacement chainring in time was not in the cards. 144 mm BCD track rings were in stock, but not 130’s. Then I had an ah-hah moment. I plan on making my commuter a fixed/SS bike, and for that the black 130BCD crank that was on the track bike will be ideal. Last night was part swapping time. The old crankset, and bottom bracket, were removed and set aside to go on the commuter bike.  A replacement crankset, using 144mm BCD rings, and a matching bottom bracket, were installed. Immediately I could tell the difference; no longer did the chain alternately go from too tight to too loose. Everything looked fine, acted fine, and sounded fine, ready to get out and do some racing.

The other problem from last week, a blowout on the rear tire, was remedied earlier in the week with some new rubber. For some additional leverage I replaced the road style bars that came on the bike with a set of SOMA track bars and added red bar tape to add a bit of color to an otherwise monochromatic bike.  Then I called it good.

Then it rained all night. When I got up this morning I was skeptical that the races would be held, but decided to wait a while before making a judgement. I ran out to do the weekly grocery shopping, and it rained the entire time.  So I knew when I got home what I would find in my e-mail INBOX; the message that the races had been cancelled.  Bummer. The bike was all dressed and had no place to go.   This afternoon the rain ceased and it is drying up somewhat.  I just came in from a few laps around our neighborhood on the bike, hitting it hard in some sprints, to see how it rides after the changes.  The weird groans that preceded each of the chain snapping incidents (and scared The Wife, Sabine, and Ryan three weeks ago) are gone.  It seems so pointless to have it so ready and not be able to get out and ride it.  Guess I will put the bike away until early next month since we will be out of town much on next week.

It is time to disassociate myself from the Old Guys Who Get Fat in Winter Racing Team.  Not that the definition no longer fits, just time to do something different.  But what?

Twinkie gave the recruiting pitch for Team Unattached when we were at the Norcal Elite State Track Championships on Sep 8th.  The primary benefits of affiliation with Team Unattached  is that everything can be what you want it to be, you can race as often or as little as you want (no commitments), and you get to choose your own sponsors.   And the non-teammates are pretty nice folks.   The downside is that there are no teammates to work with since by definition members of Team Unattached do not race/work together.  Hmmm, some pros and a con.  The Wife was thinking she will not go that direction as she believes that if Team Unattached adds a member it will become a full-fledged team thus losing its non-identity.  Twinkie assured The Wife that since those on Team Unattached  do not work together it is a non-issue.

The new manager in our small office has tried to recruit me for his team, the ubiquitous green and whites of the south peninsula.  Definitely a substantial organization, but they have a lot of baggage from the actions of a few and I am afraid that if I fly those colors some of my friends may prefer not to ride with me.  Not an assumption on my part, rather basing that on statements from the past.  Even the new manager in the office admits that the team has a bad reputation, but he believes it is somewhat undeserved.  I would hate to lose those friends, so a big concern.

I am a bit of a color agnostic so the actual colors will not be an issue for me as it is for some, e.g., Twinkie and Beth who both say “no pink”.   Of course, it might get to be an issue if I wear a color that clashes with the colors flown by The Wife.  A bit tricky since one never knows when kit redesigns will cause an issue for next year even if this year’s kits from two teams did not clash.

For now I will just muse on things.  Perhaps I can take a page from Arley, who is really unattached but lists his team as ‘Field of Rabbits’ which he says is the old meaning of ‘Arley’.  But the old meanings of both my given and surnames are not all that interesting.  Sigh.

We went to Hellyer for another Saturday morning session, a chance to learn a bit, practice a bit, chat with a few folks. It was great weather, a bit breezy occasionally, but we were loving the 70F temps, much better than some of the days in the 90’s. We ran into a Panda at the front gate, where no one was there to take our money for parking and the machine that is supposed to take in in the absence of human attention was not in the mood to relieve us of our crisp $1 bills, either. A couple swipes of the old ATM card and in we go to the ‘drome.

A contingent of blogworld participants was soon on hand to join us and the Panda; Velo Bella, Olaf, XBunny, Merkeley (with his sweet looking newly built Felt), and Pab. Pab opted for some road ride time since he cannot play on the track, yet, and was off south to Morgan Hill while the rest of us chased our tails in circles. Lots of first timers at the track this week and Mark was doing things in measured fashion, which was good. The Wife got a good rental, for a change, and was enjoying being pain free. All was going well until the second lap of the warmup when my bike made a strange sound so I pulled off track and went and looked things over. Nothing seemed amiss, so I did a chain adjustment and went for a couple of test laps on the apron. All seemed fine, no more strange noises, so I integrated back into the paceline. On the second lap after integration the chain broke just as we came out of turn two. Shyte! I coasted around, picked up the chain, and went back to the infield. A quick check showed all appropriate sized rentals were out, so I quickly fitted a new chain onto my bike. As I was tensioning the new chain it became a bit more clear what was happenning. I would tension the chain, turn the crank and the chain would then be either too loose or too tight. The darned chainring is not round! Current theory is that when it hits the part of the oval with the smaller diameter, the chain become loose enough to partially roll off the ring, gets caught as the chain tightens, and snaps. Workaround for the rest of the day was to overtighten the chain slightly so even at its loose point it is still tight enough.

Back onto the track for a rubber band drill. All went well. Then into two and then three person pursuits off the front. All went fine, again. Final workouts were 5 lap scratch races. I went in the third group and decided I was going to stay with the main pack but not attack until the last lap. As the group started fragmenting on the second lap I worked to stay tucked in at back of the field and not get caught by someone popping. Coming into turn 4 it happened, a loud pop, and I knew this pop was the end of the day for me. A blowout on the rear. I was able to keep it under control, pull onto the apron and stop, but the bead of the tire is shot. In a few minutes I will head out in search of a new chainring and new tires. They will now call me Mr. Mechanical at Hellyer.

More pics to the Gallery later today. I promise. Or tomorrow at the latest.

Update: Pictures are on-line here

My commuter bike is an 80’s era Trek; steel frame, takes punishment, carries the loads.  Been a good bike.  It does have horizontal dropouts and every once in a while I start verbally musing on converting it to a fixed gear.  The Wife, who had a healthy fear of fixes has been opposed.  I think too much of her fixie knowledge comes from when she lived in SF and watched that breed known as the Bicycle Messenger careen around on fixies sans brakes, weaving in and out of that traffic insanity.  She has suggested a single speed, but I would prefer fixed … though I would put on a flip/flop fixed/free hub just to keep the options open.

This morning, for the third time this year I suffered a major case of chain suck on the commuter.   Not sure what is happening.  In all cases I have been approaching a red light, start to coast, and have some serious chain suck that whips the chain around causing all sorts of mischief.  The first two incidents resulted in spokes getting smashed and cut.  Todays seems to have been more benign; only damage from a cursory look is one chain link that has been munged, causing some jumping between cogs on the rear as the munged link skips across.    But it happened at a nasty intersection (Mathilda and Moffett Park Drive in Sunnyvale), momentarily forcing me to stop in a lane during the heavy morning commute.   Once again I am dusting off the proposal; perhaps it is time to ‘get fixed’ for the commute.

The Wife was scheduled to be hiking with friends on Saturday morning, but when it got moved to Sunday she agreed to ride with me from home to Hellyer to watch part of the State track championships. Eighteen miles of suburban/urban ugliness of riding it turns out; more intersections, strip malls, bus stops, and freeway crossings than I care to encounter in a week much less one way of riding. And we knew that we had to do the same going home, or much of the same plus some hills if we looped out far to the west. Oh well, we got to spend a little time socializing with the track set, met Fred who has mentored quad monster Beth, officially introduced ourselves to Twinkie, and chatted around while watching folks go do solo trips around the track. Yep, all we got to watch were the TT races as The Wife had to get home to play school girl for the afternoon and evening as she writes up here final thesis project. Bummer!  Looks like she will be stuck at the old keyboard for much of the weekends for a while.

Most of the ooh and ahhs were for Ben Jacques-Maynes as he ripped up the 4K at a minute and ten per km. Awesome. But there was lots to cheer about, and it was equal opportunity cheering. The efforts of all were acknowledged, each rider in turn was motivated by their competition as well as the general audience. Great show of sportsmanship.

I regret missing the Keirins, especially seeing Beth battle it out with the like of Shelley Olds and Julie Granshaw. But we will see that another day. I regret, also, not getting the 60+cm club together for a photo op; Mary M., Sabine, Beth, and Ms. Chatterbox were all there. We could have done a group measuring session. And last but not least I regret not eating some of Twinkies chocolate cake; I do hope that Beth consumed it for me to feed those quads for the Sunday battles.

The Wife ended her racing season about three weeks ago at Dunnigan Hills. She thought she would end the next weekend at San Ardo, but feeling a bit under the weather she gave that race a pass. Now that she is done for the season it is time for us to think about next year. What changes to make, when to ramp up the training, and lots of other decisions. The Wife had a long season, coming out of the gate on January 1 at the Mt. San Bruno hill climb and keeping it up rather steadily up to the end. She will sit out for a well deserved respite. I, on the other hand, need to ramp up sooner as I will start at Mt. San Bruno this year. And before then I need to return to a good hill climbing weight so it is now time for some caloric deprivation. I love my food, so taking it is smaller dribbles will be painful at best. Sigh.

The Wife thinks my reading list tends towards the snoozer level and to that end she might point to what I am carrying currently on my train commutes - ‘Bicycling & The Law: Your Rights as a Cyclist’ by two time Olympian and former Saturn team member Bob Mionske. Those who have read Mionske’s ‘Legally Speaking’ column in/on VeloNews know the general style. The book is a more encompassing view, using the Uniform Vehicle Code as the general basis for the sections on rights and duties of cyclists on the roads but then pointing out some of the variations from the UVC. When I was reading page 27 on intentional unsafe passing by motorists my mind snapped instantly to Nicasio Valley Road where a line of us were buzzed by just such a motorist on August 12th of this year. I learned that in general in the US the driver committed the torts of assault and battery, the latter coming as the driver did brush one rider. Still slogging through the early sections on the vehicle code. Later in the book there are sections on harrassment, accidents, insurance, theft, warranties, and even airline liabilities when you take your bike on flights. Perhaps not as engaging as ‘The Kite Runner’, but good background for any serious cyclist, especially those involved in cycling advocacy.

It was a fun day at the track, a very Bella day in fact. VB brought a contingent (Ippoc, lil’ Ninja, Natasha, XBunny), with Pab and OV for support. Merkeley and Alicat came down for some fun, too. We did some socializing, some riding, some quad measurements, did a little lunch afterwards, with Marscat joining post-MTB ride. Lots of fun.

My day at the track was shortened by a bit. I did the warmup, 40 laps this time. Then a team pursuit. Next up was whistle jumps. I lined up with VB, lil’ Ninja, and The Wife for this exercise. We started with three standing sprints. Each time we stood my bike creaked, unnerving the ladies a bit. Then onto three sitting sprints. All was fine. Then another set of three standing sprints. I told the ladies I thought the creak was the chain and I would check it as soon as we were done. But on the second standing sprint, about 150m into the sprint, the bike did one big groan then I was spinning free. The chain had broken (see pic) and flown off. Fortunately it landed on the apron, but I was left to coast around for a couple of laps while losing speed so I could stop. Not enough chain left to make it work, so I parked the bike and cheered on the ladies as they raced through the Australian pursuit, with Bella Natasha wreaking havoc on the field.

In the quad measurements I drew a puny 55.5 cm, same as lil’ Ninja who is a few inches shorter. I think I need to eat more cake. No cake at the group lunch, but I did snag a brownie which is almost as good I think. In my defense, I may be a puny quad boy, but who snapped the chain?

I’ll be adding all the photos to my gallery sometime tonight or tomorrow. Lots of shots of folks going round and round.

Update: The photos from this session are now online. Just click here.