Recreational Cycling

On Thanksgiving day I turned a year older, and when we returned home today there was mail to remind me not only that I am getting older but that I have retirement options with various pensions effects. Sigh. In the years BW (Before Wife) I spent the anniversary of my birth doing long rides, meditating, being self-indulgent; all the good introvert activities. Now I spend time with her and her family, being ’sociable’, getting reminded that the calendar has flipped another year.

To compensate for all the socializing of Thursday we decided to get a bit ‘dirty’ on Friday. One of our occasional rides on our visits to the San Luis Obispo area is to ride out towards Lopez Lake then turn up Hi Mountain Road. Hi Mountain is a serene little country road that slowly climbs past horse ranches, farms, and even an Italianate Villa. About 6-7 miles past the turn-off from Lopez Lake the road pavement ends and a dirt Forest Service road begins. Usually we turn around at that point and return from whence we came, never wandering down that dirt path. But this time we decided to do the dirt, planning on riding the whole shebang to the small town of Pozo, home to the well known Pozo Saloon, a 9 or so mile trek on a dirt road of variable quality with numerous creek crossings. We went, we rode, we gave up. About 3-4 miles down the dirt track conditions had deteriorated to the point that we decided that going further on 700cx23 racing tires was probably not a great idea. So we reversed course. On the way back towards town we compensated with a few more miles through the local wine and horse country before heading towards lunch and some afternoon relaxation.

The Wife, who has never been fond of dirt riding, wanted some more. But not a lot, just a bit more for the weekend. Her choice for Saturday was to ride from home base in Arroyo Grande, through the mobs of tourists and shoppers to San Luis Obispo, then up Prefumo Canyon Rd. to the summit, cross a mile or so of dirt connector. descend down See Canyon, then loop back through SLO and return to Arroyo Grande. Great weather, outstanding views of Morro Bay, and lots of fun were found on the ride, along with one nasty piece of glass that got wedged into my rear tire. The Wife was whooping it up and actually enjoyed the dirt riding; now she wants to find some more. Perhaps next trip we need to take bikes with bigger tires so we can spend more time on the unpaved stuff. I think the inner ‘dirty girl’ is emerging!

A few years ago I read an article, I forget where, which said something to the effect that there was no such thing as a road bike or a mountain bike, there was just bike. The point being, do not get hung up on having a specialized bike for each purpose, rather just use the bike you have at the moment to fill your needs. Of course there are limitations to this philosophy, e.g., I would hate to slog through a boulder strewn mudhole of a trail on a carbon fiber bike with 20mm wide tires, but to a degree any bike can fill a range of purposes.

A corollary to the statement above is that there is just cyclist, not road cyclist, not mountain cyclist, not commute cyclist, etc. I am a cyclist. I ride on roads, I ride on dirt (a little less, perhaps), I ride on the track, I ride for recreation, I tour on a bike, I commute on a bike, and I use a bike as a transport mechanism for cargo as well as myself. There are too many labels to apply, but just one will do: cyclist.

As a cyclist, I ride where I have to ride to accomplish whatever task is appropriate. Most of the time I want to get from point A to point D, and the route chosen is bound to a large extent by those two points, the origin and the destination. I do not choose points A and D because of the type of route that connects them; point A is where I am and point D is where I want to go, and the route is then chosen to connect the dots as effectivley as possible.

The current issue of Momentum has an article on riding in cities based upon a limited survey done by a researcher in Vancouver, BC. The article hints that city planners and cycling advocates should work towards implementing the preferences from this limited study, bike-only paths and multi-use paths (MUPs), rather than focusing on accommodations in the current road infrastructure. The problem with that type of focus, towards paths, is that until the path network is more or less as dense as the current road network the use of such paths becomes a route-centric view of cycling rather than an origin and destination centric view. In other words, my trip now goes from point B to point C because a path exists, even though I really want to get from A to D. How do I get from A to B and then from C to D? How much longer is the A-B, B-C, C-D combination then a more direct road-based trip from A-D? Factor into this discussion the fact that MUPs are among the most dangerous places to cycle, so if the objective is safe carriage then we are really talking of bicycle specific accommodations (paths) if the objective is to create a ’safe environment’ to foster cycling rather than the illusion of one. Creating an origin-destination centric network of such paths seems to be a rather daunting, and expensive, task. So I have to ask, can we afford to insist on separate accommodations, fighting for scarce resources to create a limited network of routes that do not get us from our origins to our destination just so we can be separated from other traffic? Or do we accommodate, learn the skills necessary to share the roads, teach others those skills, lobby to get better driver education and testing, and work to foster a better environment with the resources currently available? I am a cyclist, and my answer is I want to get from point A to point D and I will choose the path that accomplishes the goal today. See you on the road, trail, track, or path, whichever is close and available at the moment.

When I worked at SJSU my walk to my office took me past a huge Gingko tree near the corner of 4th St and San Carlos, or more correctly a huge female Gingko tree. In the fall the rather rancid smell of the gingko fruit permeated the area. It is a rather foul smelling fruit, yet there were many folks there harvesting the ‘low lying fruit’ on a daily basis. A co-worker and I would banter around ideas to describe the odor; we finally got stuck between ’sour owl shit’ and ‘putrid cat vomit’.

I complained a few weeks ago that there was no feel of fall this year. Today I have to retract that comment. The wife and I headed out for a leisurely ride, first heading west into the Los Altos Hills then south to Saratoga and back. On our way to the Los Altos Hills we routed ourselves down Calderon in Mt. View and across El Camino Real (ECR) where the road becomes Phyllis. Between ECR and Barbara on Phyllis there are a number of Gingkos, all in various stages of becoming bright yellow. Most of these Gingkos are male, but a few are female so we got to experience the odor of the Gingko fruit. Very much a fall experience.

There was a bit of fall along much of the route. Along the creek in Stevens Canyon, the vines on Mt. Eden, along Hwy. 9 going back to Saratoga. It is good to have some autumnal experience, makes the now short days a bit more palatable.

On a fine late October day a few years back my best friend and I made our way to Walnut Creek then rode up North Gate Road and Summit Road to the top of Mt. Diablo. The rains had started a couple of weeks earlier so there was plenty of fresh green vegetation, the weather was great, and the ride memorable in a number of ways. Perhaps the most memorable is that when we descended down the mountain that day my best friend had taken on the additional title of fiancee.

Since that day we have celebrated the last weekend of October by climbing Mt. Diablo; we have gone up both North Gate and South Gate, done a loop including both connected via roads through the pricey ‘burbs below the west flank of the mountain, and a circumnavigation of the mountain after climbing to the summit. This year The Wife had said we could skip the ritual and I was willing to honor that request.

Our friend Erika had never climbed Diablo, one of the few roads in the Bay Area she has not ridden, and was wanting company for a ride to the summit. Her and I had been talking of doing the ride this autumn, but various travels schedules had been in the way through September and most of October. Saturday of last week would have been workable, as The Wife was at the Surf City CX clinic, but I was not up to it and no planning had taken place. We finally put a stake in the ground and decided on this weekend, and The Wife decided to join in the fun. This morning we met, not too early, in Danville and did a nice, peaceful ride up South Gate and Summit to the top. Since The Wife has been suffering with back pain, and Erika with knee issues, we agreed to take it easy and just enjoy the trip. It was a spectacular day, with beautiful weather, courteous drivers, and lots of friendly cyclists. Most friendly as a club group whom we leapfrogged most of the way; I had ridden with a couple of members and had inquired about membership which they claimed was open but since all the members were of a particular ethnic group I doubt if my application would be accepted. Nevertheless, they were enthusiastic and the front part of the group was cheering from the upper parking lot as I wove my way through the remainder of the club as I sprinted that last couple hundred meters, the steep part, to the top. They stayed and cheered the rest of their group, Erika, and The Wife, plus a couple of more anonymous riders as they made their way up that last killer section. Great attitude and camaraderie!

Erika has now done her summit of Diablo, The Wife and I had yet another ‘anniversary’ ride to the top, and for today we had a lot of new friends. What more could we ask?

Update:  Additional pics are here.

The weekend is over, and at the end I feel weak. The calorie deficit is taking its toll.

Saturday The Wife and rode a 50 mile loop of the resevoirs south of San Jose. I did fine, but that is comparative. We did not push too hard as she started feeling the effects of caloric deficiting mid-ride so I never got to the point where I was feeling the effects … at least during the ride. Afterwards the legs were dead, dead, dead. Sunday we heaped injury onto insult by riding over to Stanford for the 40th birthday bash of our friend Josh. Besides the ride, an easy 25 miles, I ran some of the laps of the Stanford track (backwards, to video record the event), and walked a few additional. The Wife thinks that as an Elite Klutz that running backwards was not a wise call; my retort: nothin’ happened, did it? May take a few days for the legs to forgive me for those transgressions. We did not make it to Candlestick point for the CX race, as The Wife booked us for a visit to friends who live on Stanford campus. Too much socializin’!

Some observations from the out and abouts:

• There are a lot more acorns than normal this year, and they are bigger than normal. First started noticing this a month ago when we rode across Nacimiento-Ferguson road to Mission San Antonio de Padua. Once we were on the Hunter-Liggett military reservation, where the environment was mostly oak-grassland, every time the road passed near an oak tree the road surface was littered with a thick layer of crushed and whole acorns. Saw a bunch more this weekend as we road through the areas with oaks.
• Not so much color this year. We saw a few trees changing, but much less than past year.
• The rain storms of the past month have a nice carpet of green sprouting. Love it on the hills and valleys, not so much on our side yard. Looking forward to the ‘golden rolling hills of California’ (apologies to Kate Wolf) transitioning to a nice emerald green.
• Tried Alicat’s suggestion of 1/4 tsp Lite Salt in a water bottle. Electrolyte balance was good, the ‘you are backpacking and using halide tablets to purify water’ taste was not so good. Need to see if there is a non-iodized Lite Salt.

I did get some butternet squash ravioli made, and some of it consumed. But it was a bit painful. As soon as I started making the pasta, a bushing split in the drive mechanism of my pasta roller so it would not work. So I was forced to roll my pasta the old fashioned way, with a wooden rolling pin on the countertop. Time consuming, but it worked. And the results were very tasty. There were actually two batches: one with a sqash, riccota cheese, and garlic mixture, the other with a squash, marscapone, molasses mixture. More variants later, once I get the pasta roller fixed.

I am a bit of a map geek. Or rather I am a bit of a geophysical information geek. Since I was a wee tyke I have collected maps and sundry related items. I even started a course in cartography in my early college days, but then the infamous “Greetings” letter came from my Uncle Sam and I was shipped off to exotic places before I got too far into those studies. Never got back to the academic realm of map making, but I did have a lot of practical experience using maps in those days.

On the geek equipment front I acquired a handheld GPS units once they became relatively affordable and small enough to mount on the handlebars. I use it frequently, with downloable ‘map’ sets that provide a lot of functionality. Stranded under an overhang in Pisa during a horrendous thunderstorm and I wanted to know how to find the train station so I can get back to our room in Lucca so I queried the GPS and it showed me two relatively close to where we were standing. Riding into Bolzano for the first time, a quick query helped me locate the Museum of Anthropology then another helped me find a hotel. Cool stuff.

Beyond planning rides, we often use maps, GPS data, and other GIS sources to analyze rides after the fact. It gets a bit tricky, what with sampling errors, incorrect data, and such, but occasionally it is useful. Sometimes the data just hints at possibilities; when I was injured in a suspected hit and run in 2002, one curious piece of data was the GPS interval showing a max speed of 45MPH near the site I was found. That was either a major error in the data, or I got drop kicked by something going faster than the 35MPH limit. As a mis-matched couple, The Wife being a non-climber and I more of one, there are ongoing discussions about hills we climb. For example:

her: that was a gruesome climb, had to be at least a 15% grade.

me: naw, not more than 10% max.

And back and forth it goes until we sit down with maps, software, etc. and get some reasonable, independent estimate of the grade in question. Old days it would have been a map wheel on a USGS topo map then some mental calculations (or a slide rule), with all the attendant problems of sampling error for the map wheel over short distances, interpolation error reading the topo map, etc. These days it is all software driven, either from mapping programs or using data collected by the GPS unit. And for the record, the truth in most debates is usually in the middle: The Wife tends to overestimate, I tend to underestimate.

So far there have been no debates on the gradient of our climb up Nacimiento-Ferguson road from Highway 1 last week. Easy to calculate the average grade for the climb from Hwy 1 to the summit; right around 2600′ of climbing in 7.3 road miles so 6.7% average. But we knew there were spots where the grade was a bit steeper, and some more slack spots. But nothing to tweak the usual gradient arguments. The recorded GPS data from that ride is pretty clean; had good satellite coverage, no major weather events, etc. so a lot of relatively good data. A quick look at the elevation profile shows that in the interior the barometric pressure rose slightly so equivalent ‘peaks’ are higher when we rode in the morning than in the afternoon but interestingly the summit and Hwy 1 elevations are relatively equal coming and going.

I have used GPSVisualizer to produce maps from GPS data for a few years now, e.g. the route of our honeymoon tour. A relatively new feature is slope (i.e., gradient) analysis of a GPS track. They do have one slight problem with this part of the analysis: they labeled the Y axis as degrees of slope, but I am quite certain that we never hit a 24% slope [a 13.5 degree grade is 24.0%; for the mathematicians, the conversion is 100*tan(slope-angle)]. The 13.5 seems more reasonable if I assume it is a percent gradient number. Overall, the graph looks like a pleasant, but challenging, climb. A few tougher spots, some slack spots, lots of ups and downs. Now I need to run a few of my older GPS tracks through this analysis. The map geek lives!

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.

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.

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.