I had planned to get up early and do a longish bike ride today, but I was not sleeping well as it was then the light and sound show (lightning and thunder) started in earnest just before 4AM and that was all she wrote for my night of sleep. As I sat around trying to get motivated our friend Erika called to plan a ride, then as I was getting things together to go out she called back to ask for a change to a hike since it was raining at her place, and rationalized it on the basis of us both needing to work on bone density. We met up with another of her friends for a nice, but brisk, trek up Windy Hill from Portola Valley then looping back down. A very pleasant day, and something I should do more often. Now I need to get out tomorrow, and then possibly help to arrange for The Wife to get a spare tire since she had to use her’s today after getting a blowout early on her first day of her tour. Anyone going to Port Angeles area who can carry a 700×32 tire and deliver it to her?

For those not keeping up, I took a spill at Hellyer Velodrome on Wednesday night, leaving a fair amount of skin behind (nose, upper lip, both knees, both elbows), getting a fair bit of bruising (right ribs, shoulder, and knee), and breaking the end of the right femur. The femur has a hip screw (large screw into the ball of the femur), two plates, and several additional screws that were added on Thursday. I am one messed up guy.

The biggest thanks has to go to The Wife who has been doing yeoman’s duty helping out under what are, for her, difficult circumstances. She has such a tenderness to her heart and soul that it is hard for her to help me at times since helping causes some momentary pain. She fights through and has been solid in doing what she can, and more, to help me get around for now and repair so i can become independent again. I can tell how hard it is, and sometimes my pain may come across as grumpiness, but I can assure her that I appreciate all she does and I am working to keep my comments to myself. Thanks sweetie!! I can never repay in full, but I will work on that debt later.

Also a big thanks to those who helped at Hellyer and assisted in getting us to the hospital. I was pretty much out of it; I remember the start of the race (BxC points race) and I remember someone telling me to wait for the ambulance, but other than that my memory banks are blank until such time I was in the CT machine at Regional Medical Center being scraped along the wall of the device by incompetent techs.   Major thanks to Rick Adams, and to Michael and Sabine who helped to gather my stuff and get it to the Toaster along with the newlyweds Erika and Linda who continued to help transporting the Toaster to the hospital for the wife, learning my full legal name in the process.

A big thanks to the staff of Regional Medical Center who worked fast to get humpty-dumpty together to the point that I was able to go home about 64 hours post accident. And to the dozens of folks whose calls, e-mails, and blog posts have conveyed good wishes.

And a special thank you to the friends who have taken some of the burden off The Wife by offerering to plan, prepare, and drop off meals to keep us nourished, thereby relieving The Wife of that extra task

If I do not get a chance to extend the thanks in person, know that I want to and I greatly appreciate the tasks of the many.

It was a great ride! Santa Rosa Creek Canyon was spectacular in late fall glory, as were the upper reaches of Old Creek Canyon. The oaks were resplendent, having shed much of their bumper crop of acorns. We wove by orange groves, wound past pastures, spent a short bit of time along the coast, and sailed through avocado orchards. We eschewed the standard energy bars for delectable treats from a bakery in Cambria, and enjoyed the scenery and company. The weather cooperated for the most part with beautiful blue skies, temperatures warm enough, and even the wind demons moderated to a degree. At the end of the ride we had a nice time sitting around and talking over wine and tasty snacks. A hearty thanks to hosts Merkeley and Alicat, who even gave us a good recommendation for a fine Zinfandel (Turley “Dusi”) to pick up at the winery on the way out. More photos are in the gallery here.

After the bike build ‘xtravaganza a group of us walked a few blocks to Gordon Biersch for lunch. I am trying to comprehend how 6 of the 8 folks that went out to lunch could go to GB and not order beer; pure sacrilege! I’ll give The Wife a bit of break on that count as she did manage to sip down a fair amount of my glass of Winterbock when she thought I was not looking.   Tomorrow I will pay for that beer with some extra efforts on a ride … I promise.

We arrived at Coyote Point as the Men’s B race was starting. We had hoped to cheer on Jenny in the Women’s C, but then we found it started at 9:30 AM and decided our cheering would be in spirit, not in person. As soon as we arrived at ‘the point’ we grabbed a place to sit and ate our lunch while watching the happenings around us, our attempt to refuel and lighten my load. It was then time to move around and to say howdy to a few friends. We checked in with Mason, Kim (aka Kimmy Gibbler), Jen, Yvonne, and a few others as the Women’s A, B, and Master’s groups were gathering. And then Michiko rolled up, looking remarkably refreshed for someone who rode La Ruta not that long ago. We said a few howdies, then rolled down to a good vantage point to cheer and watch as the women started doing battle on the course. Lots of cheering in what seemed like an all too short race (easy for me to say from the sideline). A few goodbyes, then another suburban roll as we tried to race the setting sun on our trip home. The sun won, but we had our (generator powered) lights to help us find the way … and keep the drivers informed of our presence.

I was a bit lax on the camera thing, but there are a few pictures here; Michiko, of Team Unattached (yeah, TU!) seems to be the most common subject and she groaned when she learned these would be on-line. At least she got a buck for her efforts on Sunday!

By Sunday I was ready to get back on a bike. Fortunately we had made plans to meet Alicat and Merkeley Bike in Gilroy for some riding. The Wife had been tasked with developing a route, and she had decided on a couple of loops into the hills on opposite sides of the valley. Gilroy Hot Springs was the first loop, and the weather from town around the loop was perfect: clear, temperatures in the low 60’s Fahrenheit, moderate winds. The ride to the hills as mellow, punctuated with the smell of the pepper trees lining the roads. Only issue I had on that loop was trying to keep pace with Merkeley up the hill with only about a half a lung of respiratory capacity due to the effects of the virus. Amazingly, for a such a great morning we encountered only one other rider on that loop, a guy from Morgan Hill who was doing the loop counter-clockwise, like us, then going back around clockwise to get the double dose.

The second loop was across the valley and to the north, a trip around Chesbro and Uvas reservoirs, or more correctly the damned up areas that will be reservoirs when it finally rains. We had to do ride through a bunch of flat, semi-rural area to get to that loop, traversing a good chunk of Gilroy, San Martin, and part of Morgan Hill on the way. As we approached Chesbro reservoir the weather shifted, the skies became overcast, the temperatures dropped a tad, and the wind picked up a little. It felt as if it would or could rain at any moment, and indeed one section of Uvas Road seemed to have been under a recent little rain shower. With a number of golden-yellow trees, the weather, and some lingering wood smoke near some of the residences it was feeling very autumnal.

It was a great ride; nice scenery, pleasant weather, fantastic company. Only sour note was the tire slice flat Merkeley suffered in the last couple miles as we traversed Gilroy suburbia on our way back to the cars. We were glad that The Wife had selected a meeting point near a restaurant (was it really coincidence) so we could refuel before driving back north to home. Now I need to finish shaking this cold and get back out for more rides like that!

A few more photos from the ride are here.

As I sit here avoiding social contact due to the nascent cold I have moved my blogroll off to blogrolling.com.  A bit of tweaking CSS, PHP, and other stuff to get it right.  My apologies if it looks a bit funky as I try to massage it into submission.

I am about to convert my commuter bike to a fixie, or fixie/SS.  The Wife is apparently not thrilled with this decision.  Me thinks her mental picture of fixie rider is the messenger types she dealt with when she lived in San Francisco.  I will convert, to get away from all the maintenance hassles, chain suck, etc. of the derailleured version of the bike, but need to be sensitive to her fears and assure/convince her that fixie !=  messenger and, more importantly, fixie != death.

Thursday is usually either city commission meeting night or yoga-then-taqueria-with-the-ladies night.   Think tonight will be yoga-at-home-then-under-a-warm-blanket night.  Time to crack into the extensive collection of yoga DVD’s.

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.

Guess in the remainder of the time I will work on some landscaping, take a long, slow bike ride with my sweetie, and try out my new ravioli mold (hopefully easier than handcutting all the little buggers), probably with some form of butternut squash ravioli, or maybe some with mushrooms (I love mushrooms), or artichokes.  Lots of possibilities!  Probably should put the lights on The Wife’s winter commuter bike, too.

Love having so little time pressure on the weekend for a change.