449 km

The SFR Golden Gate 1000km brevet

2012-01-26T10:04:00.000-08:00

There are 17 slots left on the roster for the first San Francisco Randonneurs Golden Gate 1000km brevet.

The route begins in San Jose and goes east and up and over Mt. Hamilton, past the historic Lick Observatory and toward Livermore via the San Antonio Valley, one of the most beautiful stretches of roadway with next to no development. It is stunning how remote this area feels and yet it is so close to San Jose, Oakland and Livermore. From there the route travels toward the Carquinez Straits where riders cross over to Solano County via the Zampa Bridge. The route continues up Wooden Valley east of the Vaca Mountains and crosses over to Napa Valley via the climb over Mt. George. Riders head north up the Silverado Trail to Calistoga and then on to Cloverdale via a valley route through the Mayacamas_Mountains for an overnight control.

After a rest riders then head west and north on Highway 128, reaching the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the Navaro River and complete an out and back to Fort Bragg. The route continues south on Highway One all the way to Jenner, CA where the Russian River valley leads riders back toward another overnight control in Cloverdale. After another rest, riders then meander through southern Sonoma County and Marin County on their way back to San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge.

To enter, riders must qualify by having completed a full SR series (200, 300, 400, 600km brevets) in 2011 or 2012, or a 1000km or 1200km brevet in 2011 or 2012.

Details are found on the SFR 1000km webpage

Back to the start

2011-09-19T14:38:00.000-07:00

There is wonder and excitement upon experiencing something for the first time. Memories are laid down, and in later years called back up again in the telling of a tale. Even so, approaching something with the benefit of experience, and a measure of focused preparation can often times make the return seem like a new experience itself. I learned this so well this past August when the four year wait concluded and the 17th edition of Paris, Brest et retour was about to begin.

Starting in August of 2007 while still in France, and continuing and building over the next four years I prepared myself in the best way I knew how, and in what ever ways I could for PBP 2011. I left France four years ago struggling a bit to be positive about the experience of PBP 2007, and four years seemed too much like an eternity. In so many ways I had a fantastic experience back then, no doubt about that, but those experiences were also at war with the emotions of having fallen short. True also was the realization that I had made mistakes in my approach to the challenge. Some of those realizations would take a long time to develop however, because I didn't recognize them at the time as mistakes, not for some time anyway.

It is obvious of course that if one wants to successfully complete a long ride, then riding frequently and riding continuously would be part of the preparation. This blog has many write ups of long rides so I won't recount those here. If a short list of the other aspects of preparation for completing PBP is needed, here goes: Learn French, solve nutritional issues, mitigate sleeping issues, learn to be self dependent on the bike. Learning French is obvious, right? The more I could understand signage, directions, conversations, the better off I'd be. I have trouble learning a language because of my difficulty in hearing the language. The more I could hear it though, and learn the cadence, the better I'd understand just what was going on. To address this, I took once-a-week classes at the local Alliance Francaise. This would actually help address an aspect of the last point on the list above, but more about that in later installments. Solving nutritional issues and mitigating sleep issues were both chemically assisted in part, but not entirely. One huge mistake I made in 2007 was in the eating department. Despite the offerings at all the controls, I tried to only eat from the stash I brought with me, thinking that I couldn't tolerate or just didn't like what was offered at the control restaurants. To put a finer point on the nutritional mistake, I approached PBP with no plan there at all. To fix this however, it is a difficult task at best to change one's eating tastes, so the easier way to go is to identify the overlap between what you do like and what is offered, and go for that in a big way.

Sleep is a huge aspect to address when preparing for any brevet 600km or longer. At this point, I pretty much have all the data I need to know that I do better when I start a long brevet shortly after a night's sleep. I went back and forth on the decision to start the 90 hour group or the 84 hour group. My hesitation was largely that I didn't think I was fast enough to finish in 84 hours. The morning start was very attractive, but did I have the speed for this? My decision was finally made to take the 84 hour start *only* because of the morning start. I would have felt better about this choice if I had been riding better all year prior to PBP, but that didn't come to be. July, the final full month for preparation, turned out to be mostly ok, but mixed in that I had plenty of miles, and I had some really good rides where I felt my form really taking shape. I also had at least one clunker of a ride on the double brevet weekend and actually had to DNF on the first day by stopping after 200km at the overnight location instead of doing the full 300km for that day. In the end I put my money on being well rested before the start, remembering the 90 hour evening start in 2007 where napping mid day proved impossible and only frustrated me more than relaxed me.

The final piece of this four part puzzle? Learning to be self dependent. What does this mean? Ah, for me, it meant being more content on my own and never letting the inability to keep up to someone else be discouraging. I've always been able to handle any mechanical issue that might crop up. Flat tires were absolutely no problem, I've fixed those hundreds of times over the many years I've ridden. Through the years I've weeded out certain types of parts and certain practices in maintaining my bike and what remains is well beyond reliable. I know my bikes well and that certainly helps in getting to the finish of a ride. So it is not the physical here, rather it is the mental part of being self dependent. Some riders do well when left to ride a long brevet on their own through the night or into the next day. There are some that even seek that out. I was never one of those riders and always just preferred to be with others. When I tried to ride several different 1200km rides, and found myself dropped and on my own early, it affected me and while I won't say it was a factor in not finishing those rides, it didn't do me any good. Since 2007 though this slowly changed. The old saying is that nothing breeds success like success, and becoming the faster rider in the groups I rode in before bred that success. Now I can simply back off, pace other riders and in the end the rides become better for me when I finish not feeling all trashed.

Of all these aspects to getting ready, it is this last one that played the biggest role, engulfing and overshadowing all the others, and the realization of this was profound.

It didn't look exactly like this from back there

2011-09-16T15:29:00.000-07:00

My point of reference is August, 2007. Going into Paris, Brest, Paris in 2007, I had heard many stories about the experience, but I knew nothing first hand. The experience of PBP 2007 for me was many things, but arching over all those things, what it amounted to was something incomplete. Looking back to 2007, while I learned a great many things from the experience both at the time as well as over time, I could only see PBP 2007 and any Grand Randonnée I attempted in one way: only a start.

A piece of advice I had been given in 2005 was that one way to prepare for PBP might be to complete a domestic 1000 or 1200km brevet. I acted on that advice and set out to ride the Gold Rush Randonnée that year. Result: I abandoned the ride in Oroville, CA, just barely 100 miles into the 750 mile route. I had a splitting headache and a broken rack held together by a substandard bolt and a few days later I was laid out flat with one of the worst bugs I've ever had. 2006 was a missed opportunity as I couldn't manage doing even a 600km owing to a bout of ITBS. 2007, in the end only provided the impetus for this blog, and still no finish in a grand randonnée. 2008 was an off year in all regards. In 2009, my best 600km ever was still far from perfect, but I gave the Gold Rush one more try. In three tries at the 1200km distance I had zero finishes. Like any moderately sane person, I did question whether cycling events of this nature were really what I wanted to do. I didn't have the answer to that and the related question of 'did I have it in me to complete the challenge'.

Time is said to heal all wounds, and time also provides new opportunities. 2010 proved to be a turning point for me as a randonneur. A very slow start to the year only allowed me to gain a lot of momentum, and on my club's Fort Bragg 600km, I had what would begin as a series of the best rides of my randonneuring life. The fulfilling thing about a series is that there is a next installment, and while the 600km that year was a breakthrough for me, it turned out to be a stepping stone for the next breakthrough. The Santa Cruz Randonneurs' Central Coast 1000km was that next breakthrough.

Finally finishing a brevet longer than 600km that itself built on a very successuful 600km earlier in the year gave me what I needed to be confident that I could complete the rides, and confident that this is what I was really interested in after all. Still, the plane flight to Paris in August of this year is not the only thing that got me to PBP 2011.

In early January of this year, I was still riding high on the success and conditioning of the 2010 riding season. The season opening brevet for me was the Santa Rosa Cyclists' Napa 200km and I rode it well, and rode it easy, sticking with a friend for much of the route. I can recall though the exact moment of finishing the brevet, and this funny tickle in my throat that caused a cough I could barely control through the post-ride meal on the Bear Republic Brewery patio with all the other riders. That next day was the start of bad cold, one where I gave up counting how long it lasted once I reached 24 days. I barely made it through the next 200km in February, and had no stamina on the Healdsburg 300km at the end of the month. A much smaller rebound cold in early March didn't stop me from joining about 30 other riders doing the Santa Rosa 300km in an all day rain. Though my bike took some wear and tear in the rough conditions, the ride proved to be a building block in that I finished in good spirits and more importantly in good health.

The next test in the qualification process was the 400km and I was lucky to do that ride on the Worker's Ride which resembled more a team event than a brevet. Carlos, Johh, Gabe, Bryan and I rode the whole event as a group and feeding on that camaraderie, I began to ride back into some of the form I lost in January. Yet one more head cold forced me to miss the Santa Rosa 400km, which I wanted to do in order to achieve a double Super Randonneur series for the year. I was well enough a week later to ride the SFR Fleche event, that wasn't a requirement for PBP qualification, it was a ride I didn't want to miss though. In early May the SFR Fort Bragg 600km came rolling around, which would be the final qualifier though not the final big ride I had planned for training. Alas, a broken saddle 160 miles into the ride caused me to DNF and re-mix all my planned rides.

What sometimes first appears as an impediment can often transform into an opportunity. Such was the case with this abbreviated ride on the SFR 600km. Instead of the SFR 600 and the Davis 600 to cap a double SR series, I signed up for the Santa Rosa 600km. This caused me to have to miss the Davis Double Century for the first time in 12 years, but the way things played out I was beyond pleased with this ride. It wasn't my fastest time and was darn close to my slowest, but in many ways it was without a doubt the funnest 600km I've ridden. I rode with Jason, Michael and Bryan for more than half the ride, spending most of the time just cracking up at the interactions of those three. For the remainder of the return leg, I spent some time with a couple riders finishing up the last hours before dawn and then I pushed through a long solo stretch. One might assume that all the flat tires I suffered on the ride would be viewed as a plague, but the final result was that it delayed me long enough for Peg and Sarah to roll by and with that we rode to finish the route, and again it was the best thing.

June was a funny month in the Bay Area, with rare late spring rainstorms scuttling the Davis Overnight. That month I had barely 60% of my mileage in May and as it turned out the same 60% of the mileage I'd have in July. Needing to keep riding and knowing the best way to do that was in the company of other riders SFR ended up packing the July schedule with several 200 and 300km brevets. During a four week period extending into August, SFR had six brevets: A double brevet weekend, the Davis Overnight rescheduled for July, the Old Cazadero 300km and a new 200km, the Morgan Territory 200k. I managed to ride three of those and worked the rest of them. During this time I was having some really great, though much shorter rides that were shoe-horned into the open gaps of my personal schedule.

Closing out my riding before the trip to France, I rode a permanent with Bryan C. going from Berkeley to Davis, and one last run on a favorite, very local route in the East Bay Hills. As so often is the case, reality turned out to be far short of dreams but while I didn't do all the rides I had hoped to do, and I wasn't as fit as I wanted to be I did see a lot of improvement and progress past the setbacks from early in the year. On top of that, there was a great deal of improvement and progress over the last four years. Saying 'I'm as ready as I'll ever be' might focus too much on what I didn't get done in preparing. It served me much better I think to focus on what I did get done. An eagerness and a calm replaced the nervousness I felt four years before. I was really ready. Or so I thought.

Part 3

The journey is more than the road upon which I traveled

2011-09-08T15:50:00.000-07:00

Shortly after addressing the more urgent unpacking details upon returning from PBP 2011, having found an unanticipated moment of quiet I settled in front of the computer and sifted through the early messages from my fellow travelers, and also quite a number of congratulatory postings from friends who had followed the event electronically. I was not the first to upload my photos from the ride and post them so many of these messages had links to albums or even specific single photos. One such post on a social network contained a photo taken by a then unknown to me photographer, of me on the bike at mid day, with much more than a hint of a smile on my face. It took me several viewings before I could place the image within my memories of any of the 1230 kilometers of the course. With some context now supplied, I set to work trying to recall the circumstances surrounding me at the time, such as what I was thinking when the photo was taken. That really wasn't a hard task at all. Though many kilometers remained before the finish, I knew I was thinking, not at all for the first time, that I would finish. All I needed to do was imagine crossing the finish line, and if I could stop there, a huge smile would form on my face. More often though, I'd just burst out in laughter. Two weeks later, just thinking about that concluding moment, that beep from the recording mat, and that smile is there in an instant.

This photo of me as I near the Tinténiac control on the return route turns out to mean a great deal to me. The meaning is two-fold as well. It is clear (to me at any rate) that the photo captures me absolutely enjoying the moment, and enjoying it as completely as I can. With hindsight from two weeks later, though, I know now what that rider in the photo could not: the best was still to come. Imagine then, enjoying something so thoroughly, and then the experience just gets better.

If you have read the notes that describe this blog, you then know that this was not my first attempt at PBP. In 2007, I fell a long way short of finishing. For the following four years, nearly everything I did cycling related was to prepare for a return to France and to take another shot at Paris, Brest et retour. While falling short of obsessive, my preparation was many faceted, and only grew in determination as the four years passed. I felt I was addressing all the shortcomings of the attempt in 2007. I felt by 2011 I was a better randonneur than in 2007. I believed I knew what I wanted to achieve and I felt I had learned how to achieve that. The second meaning that the photo gives to me though is that despite all my preparation and the strong convictions that gave me, I simply had no real idea what finishing this time would mean to me. Finding out just what finishing did mean to me turned out to be stunning.

In my posts on this blog, I try to move beyond a recitation of riding stats and grocery lists of what I ate. Given that, some of my posts get lengthy and by some standards verbose. Paris, Brest, Paris is just not a one-post-experience, so I plan to deliver the story in segments over time (mostly as I finish them), and this post is then a preface. PBP is also not the sum of the route itself and for me the ride began long before that pre-dawn start on August 22nd and did not end at mid-day on August 25th.

Part two

Up the slope: the SFR Hopland 400km

2011-06-02T14:31:00.000-07:00

Each year, as November becomes December I begin to refine my cycling plans for the coming year. RUSA and ACP brevet calendars are already approved, and the California Triple Crown site has all of the coming year's double centuries listed. Looking back from that point, I could tell why my riding was in fine tune. 2010 had started off slow, but April and May of that year launched me on a run of really enjoyable and successful efforts on the longer brevets in the Super Randonneur series. Riding that wave of good results, I looked out on the coming year and imagined I could complete a double Super Randonneur series in 2011. NorCal brevet clubs listed as many as seven 200km brevets, five 300kms, four 400kms and four more 600kms, all roughly within an hour's drive of my home.

Ah, but it is not as simple as showing up, nor even as simple as planning to show up. The day I completed my first 200km of the year, I knew with little doubt I had caught a head cold after I stopped riding. Little did I know the cold would be so bad that nearly three weeks later I would still be so run down I'd have to miss time at work. I recovered enough to complete my second 200km in early February and managed not to lose much (more) in the way of cycling fitness before the SFR 300km (we'll not talk about actually regaining any fitness during that time). The SFR 300km was harder than expected as a record turnout of over 110 riders faced below-freezing temperatures at the start and a chill through the day. March allowed for a break in the San Francisco Randonneurs schedule, and the double SR plan was to continue with the Santa Rosa 300km put on by the Santa Rosa Cyclists and their RBA Bob Redmond. This was the same course, with minor changes, on which I rode my very first 300km brevet with Christian F., in the company of several other riding friends. On a very windy day back in 2005, we managed to arrive in just under 14 hours. Six years later, the 300km was held a month earlier in March and luck and the weather did not favor us. Despite driving into and out of several downpours on the way up to Healdsburg, I did show up, suit up and ride out with a group slightly diminished in numbers by the bad weather.

With the calendar page now turned to April, I was hoping for both better weather and better cycling form. I got a little of both, more on the weather side of things than the cycling form side of things. Given that, I approached the SFR Hopland 400km worker's ride with a little bit of concern. In the Super Randonneur series the 400km, the third in the series, is where the challenge begins to get steep. For this April 2nd ride, we had seven riders signed up to do the ride and support the main event a week later. Given my results so far, I wasn't sure I could hang on with the group through what was likely to be a 21+ hour ride. I had completed two 400kms in 2010 in under 19 hours, but I knew I no longer had those legs this year.

Bryan, Gabe, Carlos, John, Willy and Gabrielle all waited for me at the Golden Gate Bridge ride start, and spot on 06:00 we began the ride, facing a breeze that would grow stronger through the day. To mitigate the headwind I knew we'd have all the way to Hopland, I also figured the threat of rain that day would disappear by ride's end and happily this proved to be true. Through the early miles our gang of seven would fragment and reform repeatedly until we passed Nicasio on our way toward Bodega. Our groups then coalesced into to two groups, one of five and the other of two riders, with the blessing of the trailing duo that we five could ride ahead at our own pace. White's Hill, west of Fairfax is where the ride begins for me, where the density of population drops considerably and houses, though still present, are harder and harder to see as they are set back further from the roadway with the only evidence they are there being a gravel drive that perforates either the fencing or the woods on the edge of the pavement. Our route this day would take us to Chileno Valley, where I had also ridden my very first ride in Marin, with the Grizzly Peak Cyclists, back in 1992.

North from Nicasio, our route would bisect at least two of the four historical Rancheros which themselves surround Dos Piedras, later known in English as Two Rock, and always known as a prominent and visible feature on the landscape in what is now southern Sonoma County. Though all of the terrain there is beyond scenic, one of the more picturesque portions is on Chileno Valley road, named for the young Chilean husband of the stepdaughter of a Spanish soldier involved in the effort to contain the presence of the Russians, settled at Fort Ross in colonial California. Save the names of paved roads in the area, none of this history is evident to us as John and Bryan, the two strongest riders this day, pull us toward Bodega. The open terrain past Valley Ford allows us to see our other riders, though the terrain's huge rollers is what also splits us up into five groups of one until we finally reach shelter from the wind and relief from the climbing on Bodega Highway where we roll into our first control.

At this point it is still very early in the day, not much past breakfast time really, yet I wanted to have a bowl of chowder at the Bodega Country Store before resuming the ride. (Note: The chowder was fantastic!) While I felt just a bit more than full for a few miles after our stop, the choice proved to be very wise. A larger meal at this point would offset the big chunk of calories about to be burned, because just ahead was Joy Road, a defining feature of this brevet route. Joy Road begins in open fields and ends in a forest of giant redwoods. The climb is brutal, because it is both mentally and physically draining. False summits crush the spirits of riders tricked into thinking they have reached the end of the climb, only to find that a longer, steeper pitch is in their way. This is my third time riding this route, though clearly not my best effort on this climb. Only Carlos, surpisingly, is behind me. I had assumed I'd be DFL on this climb, but I later learned that Carlos had been running a monthly marathon for quite some time and the divided focus meant he was not nearly as fast this season as he was all the previous year. The top of the Joy Road climb does not end abruptly but before you've slowed your breathing you are at full speed, charging downhill and in danger of missing the right turn that takes you rattlingly downhill into Occidental.

The descent into Occidental and the slightly downhill run along Bohemian Highway toward Monte Rio and the Russian River helped us work off the effects of the previous long climb, though we had separated from Carlos at this point. It was his luck, though, as the remaining four of us had a less than brief encounter with the local CHP officer. A stern lecture discussing the emotional effects of his having to 'scrape us off the highway' after our failing to come to a stop that was not complete unless it concluded with a *feet off the pedals and on the ground* motion was delivered, and punctuated with the statement that we were 'now in the system'. The glorious thing about bike rides though is that with just a few miles you can pedal just about anything out of your system, which was largely true for us by the time Carlos had rejoined us and we made our way to the Guerneville Safeway, our next control on the route.

From Guerneville to Healdsburg the scenery is undermined by the higher volume of faster traffic on River Road and then the craptastic pavement surface on Westside road. Even still, it is scenic in the river valley. North of Westside road, our route kept to the west bank of Dry Creek, a tributary of the Russian River. The terrain is rolling in the Dry Creek valley. Our path though was toward Cloverdale and the Alexander Valley so we would not be tracing Dry Creek to it's source on Snow Mountain. Dutcher Creek Road is the kind of road that doesn't have serious hills, yet the multiple climbs are always enough to put a kink in a paceline that had worked smoothly along Dry Creek Road. Instead of fighting this we took the opportunity to 'shift fluids' and reform our paceline at a more moderate pace. Approaching Cloverdale, John won yet another sprint to the city limit sign, relying on the double advantage of stronger legs and the knowledge of where the next city limit sign will be. Though it isn't an official control, we all agreed to stop at the first Mini-mart in town, knowing we had a series of stout climbs ahead on Oat Valley Road (CA 128) and later on Mountain House Road.

The climb away from Cloverdale is shallow at first but in short order follows a serpentine course and of course gets much steeper. A big chunk of elevation gain happens early and serves to make sure you are tired enough that the shallower climbing later will still keep you at a slow pace. Our group spread out here and sorted into three groups. Gabe, Bryan and Carlos were mostly in a group in the lead, and while I kept them in sight I was not close enough to be considered in their group. Remarkably, John was lagging way behind. Once we crested the main part of the climb and approached the turn on to Mountain House road, we all pulled off and waited for John who in just a short time came steaming by not wanting to stop. Sure enough, on the even hillier terrain on Mountain House John was once again leading the group with me tailing off the back. Once or twice I closed the gap only to fall off the back once more when we hit another uphill ramp. The landscape along Mountain House Road could easily be the most gorgeous area on the entire route. The early April new green of the grasses on the hillsides only added to the beauty.

Because of the imposed change to the standard 400km route, we now had a stop for the Hopland control, followed a scant 3 miles later by another stop for an informational control. In the last year or so I had been able to almost completely solve one of the biggest problems I'd face on long brevets: eating, eating enough, eating often. At the Valero mini mart that served as our control in Hopland I shoveled the food down. Two slices of pizza made up most of the meal but that was not the full menu for me. It was great to have an appetite so far into a ride, and better still to be able to satisfy that appetite. Luckily the group did not want to rush off right away (I was not the only one with a full to overflowing plate to finish). Also the ride to the next info control was on a very, very gradual up hill with a tail wind so 'assimilating' the meal was not an uncomfortable ordeal. Later, with the bookkeeping issues completed at the info control we rolled down hill back to our turn on Old River Road which would take us to Highway 101.

The imagined ideal for brevet routes would be scenic landscape on pristine pavement with low traffic. Oddly enough US Route 101, a divided highway with highway speed traffic from Hopland to Cloverdale, nearly meets that ideal. Certainly, it is not as picturesque as Mountain House Road, it's near neighbor to the west. Still, this segment of Highway traverses some very nice countryside, highlighted by Squaw Rock and the Russian River that separates US Route 101 from the rock. The pavement along this 8+ mile segment has always been at least ok, and now it is pretty good shape save for the major earth movement near the aforementioned Squaw Rock. On this day, traffic is light, the wind is at our backs, and the terrain is generally a down hill run. Despite all this, I always appreciate finally exiting the highway and gaining the Geysers Road. Along the Geysers Road, the pavement isn't managed nearly as well as back on 101, and the terrain, somewhat tortured by constant micro-movements of the earth gives us an undulating and often bumpy ride. All this is acceptable due entirely to the increasing strength of the tail wind.

As the Geysers Road approaches the outskirts of Cloverdale, our route begins a short series off west, south, west, south turns. It is there that we learn to appreciate the tailwind we have and no doubt will have for some time. I trust that I am not alone in hoping the tailwind survives the transition from day to night when winds often do cease. The further south we go, the wider the valley opens up for us as we pass through an entirely agricultural landscape. In the fading daylight we make one quick stop short of any towns to take a breather and attend to other business and then we roll on to our habitual SFR 400km non-control stop in Geyserville. Somehow, we run afoul of a curious man 'attending' to the recycling bins at this store when we discard our used containers in the bin he just emptied. We puzzle on this as the group heads out on CA 128 toward Jimtown and Chalk Hill road. It has become full nighttime before we reach the crest of the Chalk Hill climb. The down hill run from the crest is made more of a challenge by the large metal plates placed across the roadway at odd angles, and this only serves to warn us that we are leaving behind wider open spaces and heading toward more residential landscape with each passing mile. From this point on all the way to Petaluma we will pass through small towns with fewer and fewer open land between them. The flat terrain and the tailwind help speed our progress toward the Safeway control in Petaluma.

On a Saturday night, a while after sundown, the usual looks we randonneurs get when we descend upon the 24 hour Safeway store, this time in Petaluma, come from the younger patrons in the store there only to search for the beer aisle. We know they are looking at us because of the extreme effort put into *not* looking at us. I was headed to the rear of the store to find the chocolate milk rack in the big windowed cooler, but before I reached it a shopper walking the opposite way stopped in his tracks and pointed at me across the stacks of Doritos and Pepsi. I imagined several different statements he could have made, all on the 'you are totally nuts' theme, but instead he uttered only three letters: "PBP?" That I was surprised by this is of course understatement, and the ensuing conversation was also of course a highlight of the evening. It turned out our fellow shopper was a double century and brevet rider whose work schedule had forced him off the bike. It was easy to tell that he would have loved to be out riding with us, even at that hour, and he made that clear by escorting us to the check out aisle and paying for our food. Our ride was over 15 hours old so far and this encounter was just a fraction of that time, but it put the remaining hours and miles in a positive context. It just isn't that common when the people we meet show an interest at all in these long distance rides.

The D Street option of departing Petaluma involves two quite noticeable climbs. Though in daytime the terrain and the vistas across that terrain feel open, after nightfall the roadside hills and the scrubby live oak trees close in on us as we make our way past the ranches outside of town. The wind is still in our favor, but various issues cause our group to divide, combine, and divide again in new pairings. We all made the crest of the climb before any of us rolled down toward the Cheese Factory. The impounded waters of Nicasio Creek behind Seeger Dam hide several old ranches, but as we pass by on our way toward Dixon Ridge we don't even see the lights of the remote and exclusive homes near the hill tops north of Nicasio. Once or twice we encounter nocturnal birds hunting prey, and the encounter seems more of one that is felt rather than seen. San Geronimo Valley is the last rural section on our route, with the descent down White's Hill into Fairfax as the demarcation from rural to residential. Fairfax is the first in a chain of towns we'll pass through, and possibly the most lively in the hours just after midnight. On Dixon Ridge, White's Hill and later on the Corte Madera climb I feel my legs coming back. Bryan is still ahead of me on every climb, but the gap is not quite so big. I take this as a sign of some sort of progress after a winter of long and frequent head colds.

The tidal effects on Bothin Marsh in early April are not so severe as during rainier months so our crossing on the bike path toward Sausalito is dry. With no tourist or even local traffic we are able to ride as a pack two and even three wide until we cross the squeaky wooden bridges that span the channeled ebbing and flowing water. There is a small rise on Bridgeway on the route as it reaches Sausalito and on the backside of that rise is our final, though temporary control. The attendant at the 7-11 seems put out that after 2am he doesn't have the store to himself. No matter, he is polite to us as we buy an eclectic array of food items. Bryan, Carlos and I do not have a ride back to SF so we continue on after a moment of rest and complete the extra five miles back to our car or our home in the City.

This is the third time I've ridden this route, and clearly the most fun I've had. I did miss knowing that there were dozens of other riders somewhere on the course, but that didn't distract me from enjoying the ride-long company of an excellent group of riders.

A fine and pleasant misery revisited

2011-03-25T12:38:00.000-07:00

Water is a chemical substance that is vital to life. Without it, humans and all other terrestrial life forms fail. Applied to seeds planted in the ground it promotes growth. How vital is it though to the sub-species of humans known as randonneurs? Is it really necessary to apply water to a randonneur to promote 'growth'? More to the point, on last week's Santa Rosa 300km Brevet, was it necessary to apply so much of the stuff to all the participants?

In 2005, as a freshly minted randonneur, I enjoyed a wonderful run of spring weather when I completed my first SR series. In fact, all those brevets were definitely on the warm side as spring weather goes. Ah, but in 2006, right from the start, things changed. The first brevet of that year was the 200km, and I chose the San Francisco Randonneur's 200km for the first time. To put it mildly, that 200km was wet. Along the way on that ride, I doubted many times that I was doing the right thing by continuing. Each moment of doubt was separated from the next by actual thoughts of 'gee, this is kinda fun. Who'da thunk!' As a still newbie brevet rider though, most of the doubting moments were fed by the knowledge that I was riding by myself most of the time which, forgive me, diluted my confidence. I did learn a lot on that ride, mostly that I could persevere, and if not finish in style, at least I could finish.

What I learned on that 2006 version of the SFR Point Reyes Lighthouse brevet came in darn handy when in 2007 the SFR 300km became a ride that now lives in club lore. The growing body of knowledge regarding riding in the rain alas was not enough later that year when I attempted Paris, Brest Paris 2007. As a club, we in the San Francisco Randonneurs have been dodging rain storms since 2007, and until last year we didn't really have rain on a ride that warranted mention. For that stretch of time, it seemed the rain would abate the night before or arrive the next day, but wouldn't end up soaking the ride or riders.

Ok, so it is now 2011 and I have a few more years of experience, and I'm coming off a pretty good 2010 as far as brevets go. It's a mid March Saturday and I'm driving up to Healdsburg for my 2nd 300km of the year, on my way hopefully to a double SR series and every 5 minutes of the hour plus drive up the weather changes and at one point the rain is so fierce that I have to cut my speed in half due to the downpour. Nevertheless, I checked in to get my brevet card, and set up my bike and in a fit of optimism I stowed my rain jacket and rainmates in my handle bar bag, trusting that the intermission in that day's programmed rain will be a lengthy one. We left the City Hall parking lot in a loosely organized group, with more than a few riders still suiting up, and still others just pulling in to park. A few sprinkles and I still hoped for a break. Alex and I begin to chat but less than a mile from the start he decided to pull off to put on a jacket and I don't see him again for many hours. The first ten miles for me are punctuated with a stop to shift fluids and then another one to put on the rain jacket when the sprinkles just refused to go away and instead got better organized into a rain shower. I finally caught the two groups of riders that had passed me as I was stopped, just as those groups are beginning to fragment. In the end, Kevin S. and Thomas V. arrive at River Road at the same time as I do and we form a loose trio on the trip out to the sea at Jenner, CA. River Road/CA 116 is the usual mine field of sharp rocks fallen from the hillsides of the Russian River valley, and the climb up to Goat Rock State Park from the Highway One bridge over the river is just as slow as I expected it to be. Once at the top Thomas begins to pull away and then Kevin passes me and pulls ahead as we experience a brief gap in the rain.

The first control is at Diekmann's Store in Bodega Bay, and it is dismaying to arrive there just ahead of a group of riders that had started the brevet up to 20 minutes late. They all look fresh, in opposition to how I'm feeling, which is leaden legged and lethargic. Kevin and I rolled out together though I knew that I would shortly be dropped despite Kevin's plan that we should stick together to better work against the wind. I just did not have the legs to keep up with Kevin on the Valley Ford rollers and that last nasty southbound roller before Tomales, CA put Kevin out of sight. Thomas and his friend Sean caught up to me just south of Nick's Cove and I pushed just a bit to hang on with them as we passed through Marshall, CA and picked up Clayton. The terrain along Highway One has been described as the closest around to that which matches PBP terrain: lots of rollers, no seriously big climbs. The advantage that Highway One enjoys though is a near constant view of the Pacific north of Bodega, and of Tomales Bay south of Tomales all the way to Point Reyes Station, CA. I've ridden it many times and in all kinds of weather, yet on this Saturday there is a new element: Frequent casual streams rush across the lanes trying to find the lowest ground. In fact, that is the sound track for the whole day: running, rushing water.

Clayton and I ended up losing Sean and Thomas and made the long arc around the marshy southern end of Tomales Bay and pushed north through Inverness, CA. Mt. Vision's northern flank presents a ridge that must be cleared before Sir Francis Drake Boulevard enters the rumpled, treeless and windy landscape of the Point Reyes peninsula proper. Unlike the SFR Lighthouse 200km, the Santa Rosa 300km route does not go all the way out to the lighthouse. I call it a toss up as to whether that is a good thing or not, as it still goes out most of the way and is still way, way hillier than you think it should be or even is. The SRCC group had enlisted a friendly and really helpful couple that staffed the control and handed out warm cups of cup-o-noodles. That control was the one spot on the route where it seemed the most riders intersected. Clayton and I left together and once again I found my self gapped immediately and trailing behind. I managed to close the gap by the top of the Mt. Vision ridge on the way back, only to be riding alone as Clayton needed to stop for water. I figured he would catch me by Point Reyes but instead I rode solo all the way to Valley Ford before he caught me. I peeled off at the Valley Ford Market to quickly shift fluids, and I could see Clayton way off in the distance as we both tackled different parts of those Valley Ford rollers. The penultimate control on the SR 300km is a repeat visit to Diekmann's Bay Store and Clayton was already there ordering a basket of cottage fries. I felt the need to keep moving in order to stay warm so my visit there was short and this was the last I saw of Clayton on the ride. Once again riding solo with no other riders in sight ahead, I worked my way north past the CalTrans workers dealing with a washout, passing the still arriving heavy machinery on the way.

The run down the hill from Goat Rock State Park to the Russian River was the last free ride I got. Gone was the tail winds I enjoyed heading north (unusual as those winds are for northbound travel on Highway One). Highway 116 and River Road was largely vacant of traffic which I know was the trade off for such bad weather. Full dark had already hit before I made the turn off onto Westside Road, but the darkness there was in stark contrast to what I had on River Road. Westside's uneven and irregular pavement was littered with hundreds of branches and leaves from the overhanging trees which was only one factor that made those last 17 miles such slow going. The only rider I saw since leaving Diekmann's Bay Store back at mile 146 was James C. walking along in the dark just two miles from the finish. James had gotten a flat tire, but his hands were so numb from the day long rain and now dropping temperatures that he decided that walking three miles was better than stopping in the dark to fix his flat. I knew he was staying warmer walking along so with his permission I rode on toward the finish. From having done the route in 2009 with my friend Bruce, I knew where the hotel/finish control was, but not which room. Upon my arrival there I met Cro who was doing circuits of the hotel looking for the control room. He finally went to the front desk oddly located at the back of the building to find out which room it was and naturally it was the first room we passed coming in, but the furthest room from us at that point.

After checking in, returning to my car to get a change of clothing and then taking a hot shower, I had a fit of shivers that lasted about ten minutes. It was nice to finally feel warm once the shivers ended and to hang out and watch the later riders finish. Thinking back a week later and contemplating the ride, I have to say that without a doubt, I was never once miserable on the ride despite nearly 13 hours of rain on a nearly 15 hour ride. I may be stingy with that figure as other riders felt the gaps in the rain lasted much less than an hour over the course of the day. I know that it was my past experience riding in the rain that let me know what I was in for and that I could deal with it if I wanted to. My time of 14:55 (not sure exactly but I know it wasn't 9pm until some time after I checked in) was really not so bad considering the conditions and the day long inability to climb any of the rollers with any verve. I won't go out of my way to ride many hours in the rain, but this ride tells me that I can get through the dark weather and remember better the things I would not have seen or experienced if I had decided not to ride.

Getting back to the point of this blog

2011-03-24T15:18:00.000-07:00

(Photos courtesy of Masayoshi Kobayashi)

In looking back over 'recent' postings to this blog, I noted that while entries became sparse after last summer, on top of that the last entry that had to do with a specific ride was in early October, and the ride it chronicled was a month before that. I began this blog as a way to record and ruminate on my preparation for Paris, Brest, Paris 2011. So before I provide a new entry that recounts my most recent brevet, I might as well at least mention all those brevets I did do but didn't write or comment about.

The cycling year 2010 for me was a very good year. There was room left for it to have been great, but very good is still a lot of progress. High points for 2010 were the longest rides of the year: The Flèche Norcal, the Fort Bragg 600km and the Central Coast 1000km. On all those rides I had a great appetite, and energy through out the ride. Those rides only take me through the first half of the year though. I filled out the rest of the year with mostly 200km brevets and permanents, plus I traveled with Bill Monsen down to Santa Cruz in early September to do the SCR 400km. My cycling year did not end in September though. The San Francisco Randonneurs had the annual Winters 200km which I got to ride with all the other riders for the first time (in the past I've worked the brevet at various controls). Like a dope, I forgot vital cycling equipment and had to miss the November Two Rock 200km, but I filled in November and December with 200km permanents, the latter being the Del Puerto Canyon 200km perm, ridden with a bunch of friends.

Coming off that very good year of 2010, January looked to be a great status check to see just where I'd be starting as I ramped up for PBP in August. For 2011, two other brevet clubs joined SFR in listing January brevets so there were three different 200kms to choose from. I rode the Santa Rosa 200km from Healdsburg to Napa and back on the 15th. That route is one of my favorites for a lot of reasons, and it has some features that ordinarily I'd dislike (it isn't very hilly and after a while flat terrain can cause certain problems). I rode that brevet at the pace of my friend Bruce, who was returning to riding after a long layoff imposed by construction projects. The weather was fantastic, and I felt pretty darn good all day. I didn't feel so darn good the next day, and on the Monday after, a holiday and day off from work, I was spending the day in bed with a head cold. At the time I didn't know that cold would end up lasting the better part of four weeks. Yes, four weeks. Seems that cold was in fashion and lots of unlucky people had a version of it. ugh.

Due to the aforementioned head cold, I missed our inaugural 2011 Lighthouse 200km brevet, run during fantastically wonderful weather with an SFR record crowd of riders. As the three weeks until the Two Rock 200km passed I wondered if I'd be healthy in time, or even healthy again. As it turned out I managed a grand total of one ride of 15 miles that whole span before riding the Two Rock. My time on that ride didn't totally suck, though it should have given what nearly four weeks of no riding should have done for my form. There were then two weeks until the SFR Healdsburg 300km and I got what riding done that I could to prepare for that. The arrival of the date for the 300km brought with it 100 year cold temps and the threat of snow at sea level. I didn't believe it would be that bad, and it didn't snow that weekend. Instead, it was bitterly cold for the Bay Area. We still had a huge crowd of over 100 riders complete the brevet.

Oh, that 300km. The cold sucked the life out of me and even though I had put the first head cold in the rear view mirror and managed some training rides and a couple of mid-week lunch time rides in the hills, I did much worse and had my slowest ever 300km time of nearly 16 hours. I was the last one to Marin Brewing Co. for our traditional late dinner after the 300km and everyone had been there for over an hour by the time I arrived. By Wednesday after the Healdsburg 300km, I had a new head cold but thankfully this one lasted only five or six days. To be sure, you don't recover from nearly four weeks of a head cold in a week or two, and when you get yet another cold things just don't progress at all.

Since the SFR 300km, I've had a few signs of progress finally: a little bit less of a feeling of exhaustion when I complete the climb on a lunch time ride, and a small bit of spark in the legs when riding the flats and getting up out of the saddle. I've noticed some benefits of the resumption of a stretching routine too. Stretching just seemed too onerous when I was dealing with a three week old sore throat and headache and I guess I convinced myself that since I wasn't riding I didn't have to do the stretching. Wrong. One bonus during this recovery was getting back to a Sunday morning hill ride with Bruce M. and Rich. It had been six months since Rich could join us for an early morning Sunday ride in the hills. That was a treat to have him back with us, smiling all the time. Now, though, head colds are not what is keeping me and many of my fellow riders off the bike. Northern California is dealing with quite a lot of rain, and it's not the 30% POP kind. Today's storm had high winds and high rainfall totals and there were rain storms right before and more lined up behind it taking us through the next couple of days with wet weather. No weather window involved here.

2011-01-06T11:36:00.000-08:00

The San Francisco Randonneurs 2011 brevet schedule is online here. Our first event is on January 22nd. If you have interest in riding this event, you might want to hurry. For this ride only, there is a rider limit (due to NPS rules) and while we aren't full yet, we will fill up before the date. Registration can be done online or via paper/mail here. Note too that the calendar below is just the start. We are in the planning stages to add four more events for 2011, two of which will be at the 100km distance (Proposed Populaire dates under discussion are June 25th and October 1st. Check the SFR website soon for exact dates.)

2011 Schedule
Event/Distance	Date	Start Time	Time limit
Point Reyes 200k	Sat, 01/22/2011	7:00 AM	13.5 hours
2 Rock/Valley Ford 200k	Sat, 02/12/2011	7:00 AM	13.5 hours
Russian River 300k	Sat, 02/26/2011	6:00 AM	20 hours
Healdsburg/Hopland 400k	Sat, 04/09/2011	6:00 AM	27 hours
Fleche (360k +)	Thu, 04/21/2011	8:00 AM	24 hours
Ft. Bragg 600k	Sat, 05/07/2011	6:00 AM	40 hours
Davis Night 200k	Sat, 06/04/2011	8:00 PM	13.5 hours
Point Reyes Populaire	Sat, 06/25/2011	8:00 AM	7 hours
Old Caz 300km	Sat, 07/30/2011	5:00 AM	20 hours
TBA 200k	Sat, 08/06/2011	7:00 AM	13.5 hours
Point Reyes Populaire	Sat, 10/01/2011	8:00 AM	7 hours
Winters 200k	Sat, 10/08/2011	7:00 AM	13.5 hours
Del Puerto 200k	Sat, 11/05/2011	8:00 AM	13.5 hours

On being an RBA

2011-01-03T10:53:00.000-08:00

I'm way behind on the postings I intended to make, and further behind on the ones I should be making to this blog. Still, this one is pretty easy to throw up there and is no less meaningful for it's ease in composing.

In late 2007 I applied to become the Regional Brevet Administrator for the San Francisco Randonneurs, replacing Todd Teachout who had served in that role since before 2003. The learning curve, as in most things, was steeper at first, and the 2008 brevet season was a modest success even if it was smaller in comparison to 2007. There often is a big drop off in participation in the year after PBP, and for SFR this was no exception. That plus bad weather for our first two dates kept participation low.

Nevertheless, I was glad to be contributing in a more meaningful way to the sport I loved. 2009 was a big step up, with many more rides listed and new routes added. Participation picked up noticeably, and with successful runs of a 400km, 600km and Fleche, I was pleased at how things turned out.

I enjoyed what I was doing for those first two years, and was glad to contribute at a higher level than before. Still, with another expansion of the schedule, and in the end nearly twice as many riders as the year before, and easily twice the amount of work as before, I remain amazed at just how much fun it was to be the SFR RBA last year.

What makes it so much fun? There isn't just one thing. Seeing all the new faces is a huge thing, and seeing a lot of past riders return is another. Getting the huge amount of positive feedback is both gratifying and flattering. One more thing that makes it such fun is seeing the big burst of volunteering to equal the increase in ridership. It is, to say the least, impossible for one person to carry this off, and SFR has been blessed with a strong core group of volunteers. Having Richard McCaw lead the volunteer organization is great. Having Carlos Duque manage the website and providing counsel is another huge note. Jim G, managing our increasingly active email discussion group, Greg Merritt working tirelessly to refine our cue sheets, Bruce Berg and now Roland Bevan organizing the now annual Fleche event are also vital contributors to both the success of SFR and my enjoyment in being RBA. Joining that list will be Ely Rodriquez as coordinator of a very important event for SFR, our annual populaire.

With all this making 2010 such fun, it's impossible not to look forward in 2011 to what should be just as much fun.

I. Am. Stoked!

The paceline is diminished

2010-11-17T17:00:00.000-08:00

There is a hook that catches us all, and pulls us into randonneuring. It isn't just being on the bike. There are many things that pull me toward riding brevets, and there are many things that have delivered rewards for having joined the paceline. I certainly love pushing myself to complete longer distances, or to overcome a headwind, or to defeat a hilly course in a time I only dreamed of a year or more ago. Of all these things, however, the biggest draw, the surest hook, is the camaraderie I've found between the start and finish controls.

On the 2009 Davis Gold Rush Randonnee, I had been riding alone for a bit more than 50 miles. The water stop at mile 50 was busy in a way that the road leading to it had not been. I wondered where all the riders had been and how it worked that I couldn't gain on them and they could not gain on me. I left the water stop alone and in just a mile or two noticed a rattle that was more than annoying. After fixing a problem that verged on but was not entirely cosmetic (loose mud flap on my fender) a group of riders passed me as I mounted my bike. 'Hey, Rob!' It was Don Mitchell, whom I had met through previous San Francisco Randonneur brevets. I pushed to catch him and we settled into a pace agreeable to both.

Don and I decided to see how far we could go riding together and it took very little discussion. Hearing back from others today, I found my experience was not unique. Don was upbeat, friendly, basically a sunny guy to every rider I've found who spent time on the road with him. The timing on this ride was perfect. Don had passed me just as the sun was setting. Riding through the night with company was the perfect development and Don had ridden much of this leg before and shared the knowledge of what was to come ahead. We tackled Yankee Hill and the Jarbo Gap after leaving the Central Valley and reached the Tobin control as a team. As the sun finally rose we left Tobin headed for Indian Valley and the next control. On the climb up it was becoming clearer that my energy was fading and Don was finding his legs. He kept his pace down so that we reached Taylorsville together and shared a breakfast.

On that ride and on others later when we'd find our selves in the same group, we would talk bikes, and talk bike rides, and talk about future bike events. We just never got to the point of exhausting the bike topic. Today, finding out about his passing and through that tragic news, details about his life off the bike I find that my hunch that he was a kindred spirit was right. I didn't find out earlier that Don was an avid reader, that he was more than just interested in the environment, that he only used his television to watch DVDs.

The manner of Don's passing angers me. It seems such a pointless way to have lost a fellow randonneur, with the further sting of now losing the chance to get to know someone whose outlook and perspective and greater interests could have expanded my own. Being an RBA, one of my tasks is to review all the brevet cards turned in by the riders at the finish control. When ever I do this task, there is a certain joy to it supplied by finding common finish times. I see two or three or six or seven riders all with the same finish time, and I imagine them having ridden many miles together, swapping stories, taking pulls at the head of the paceline, just making the ride easier and better by being there too. In sharing this sad and tragic news today, those stories are being shared. Just like my time riding with Don, I've found that he was a reliable and steady wheel to follow on the SFR 600 back in late May. His fellow finishers also found him to be ideal company, and I imagine they got a boost from his upbeat outlook.

As I said, I'm angered by this. I will try, I will, to not think about how my own character may fall short of his example when a dark mood overtakes me. I did have the good fortune to have shared some time with Don doing something that we both found paid back a reward many times greater than the investment. Good bye Don, bonne route. You made an impression on many, you will be missed greatly by many.

The weather window

2010-11-02T12:22:00.001-07:00

(Note: I started this blog entry nearly two months ago. One thing that makes it ok that I waited to actually finish it, is that well, what I was trying to say is pretty much true for me.)

As I approach two decades of living in the Bay Area, I've seen enough of the change of the seasons to have a working, rough idea of what each season means, and sort of when to expect it to arrive. The transition from summer to fall to winter here is nothing like what I knew back east, and there can be years when you never know if is truly fall or if the fall season happened overnight, and within less than 24 hours summer has morphed into winter. Winter living within the California version of a Mediterranean climate of course means not drastically colder temperatures but still colder temps. More obviously though, there is a greater possibility of rain. Rain is something a Bay Area local just does not think about from sometime in May until sometime late in October. After October of course, rain could show up any time, any day.

Each October I find I need to reacquaint myself with the online sources of weather knowledge. This year, that need came earlier than I anticipated and only partway through October I found forecast rain threatening a long planned bike ride. My adaptation? Fit the rides in where I can. As a result, I've taken to planning more lunch time rides in anticipation of a too wet weekend. Several SF Randonneurs from my club work nearby so I can find riding partners at least half the time when I leave work behind for a slightly longer than one hour trip physically no more than eight miles away, but mentally many leagues away.

In the image above, you can see the Percent Chance of Precipitation spike in the afternoon on that Thursday. On that ride that day I could see the weather changing to the west over the Pacific, and I did manage to get home before the rain began. The lunch time route is barely more than 15 miles, but does include some nice climbing on relatively quiet roads, once it clears the more inhabited areas. Emeryville, where I work is something less than 100' above sea level (probably much closer to 1' than to 100' above sea level). The ride takes me and my companions to roughly 1200'. In October, the more exposed sections of the climb are often hot. Now, in December, those same areas are always chilly. Once the main climbing is over, there is a short run along the ridge line and then a E-Ticket ride down Claremont back to reality. In late November, we had an early cold snap and that descent was often wicked cold. Regular rain now falls and we are more than willing to accept cold instead of rain on the rides.

Now it is late December with a long spell of forecast and actual rain just beginning. I'm still looking for the gaps in the weather, and with luck, another Thursday escape from work at lunch time will have to tide me over for what is expected to be a wet holiday weekend.

Stay dry friends!

The fog does not have feet

2010-10-01T10:58:00.000-07:00

My memory of fog draws mostly on the years spent in the midwest. That memory is strongest when recalling fog that moved and changed with the same speed as flowers following the path of the sun across the day. That memory coincides with the fog of Carl Sandburg which moves stealthily, gracefully as if on cat feet. When I was 10, the Fourth of July involved a display of fireworks held in the field across the street and the event had two parts: the display in the evening of the 4th, followed the next morning by the search through the field for any of the unspent firework fragments that might rain down on the field. We would collect those fragments and then Conrad's dad would light them in the driveway as we watched and waited for something dramatic.

One year on that morning after, a fog thicker than I'd ever seen before covered the field. We could hear the voices of all the other seekers in the field, but we could not see more than 3 feet in any direction. Find one fragment and you would likely find more, so when I finally spotted a piece I dropped to my knees to look through the grass more closely and in doing so found that the fog hung in the air about a foot off the ground. Putting my head sideways to the ground I could see only the feet of all the other kids searching the field. By then I had given up searching the ground and instead followed the progress of the fog as it ever so slowly rose higher off the ground, first to the point where only shins and feet could be seen, then when disembodied legs ran beneath it. By lunchtime the magic and the fog were gone.

Moving to the Bay Area in August of 1992, I was expecting something more to do with fog, knowing that San Francisco has some frequent experience with it. It took me a short bit to realize that the daily cloud cover was the Bay Area's most common form of fog, and I was surprised by the clockwork timing it followed day after day, arriving around 7pm each evening as a tube of fog that would gently collide with the Berkeley Hills, then spread out to fill in all the gaps, and finally burning off at about 10:37am the next morning, just in time for the sun to filter through the tree branches outside my office window with the leaves acting as the aperture for a pinhole camera and project images on the office wall. My supervisor at the time told me about camping at Point Reyes and dealing with a completely different kind of fog, one he described as 'howling'. The fog I knew up till then just didn't howl.

With a lot more years worth of experience with Bay Area fog, I've come to recognize the annual and daily patterns. Fog is more common here on a daily basis in the traditionally understood months of summer, then is less frequent during the Bay Area's version of summer which arrives in September and stays sometimes through October. A summer time ride in Marin county, particularly on Mt. Tam often includes healthy doses of fog. One time a few years back I had the luxury of not one but two rides up Mt. Tam within a week of each other. Both times, the timing was the same as I rode up from Alpine Dam where I'd climb into the fog. The fog would get denser as I rode higher. Eventually, the landscape would be dominated by redwoods, trees that are expert in using fog to it's advantage and largely only source of water during the summer. The redwood trees would collect the moisture from the fog and finally cause localized rain. Exactly 20 pedal strokes from the intersection of Bolinas/Fairfax road and Ridgecrest I rode through a small shower, with rivulets of rainwater streaming down the roadway. Earlier this year, a report was circulated that indicated that each year, the amount of coastal fog was decreasing, threatening the health of coastal redwoods with one more possible effect of climate change. As this particular summer wore on though, it seems that the coastal redwoods would get a one year reprive.

September has morphed into October now, and yet the Bay Area summer has never really taken hold. Fog still has the upper hand and returned a day ago after a short heat spell. When I can get a good night's sleep the night before, I leave the house a little earlier and ride the long way to work. Before the sunrise had slipped later in the morning I did get that good night's sleep and I did that longer ride to work, climbing up Spruce, taking a hard right on to Grizzly Peak Boulevard and headed toward the peak that lends it's name to the road. Before the route leaves the residential portion, I was up into the fog, fog that was as heavy and thick as it gets. All visual input turned grey and indistinct. I recall passing by Centennial Drive and becoming lost in thought, only becoming aware again as I was heading downhill on Claremont. Missing was direct memory of at least a mile of uphill climbing and an equal length segment of some pretty fast and uneven downhill. The 'Wait, how did I get here', totally stunned feeling was profound. Perhaps fog, like the rest of nature, abhors a vacuum and addressed that space between my ears for the duration of those two morning miles.

Down the coast in Santa Cruz, fog is no less of a reality and Summer, true and local versions, has been dominated by it. The September 4th Santa Cruz Randonneurs Monterey Bay 400km gave riders three chances to ride through the fog: morning, afternoon, and late evening. I've always been a rider quick to be covered in perspiration with little effort involved, so much so that I can create little weather systems in the space between my eyes, and my eye glasses. When there is fog outside as well as inside, I'm quickly blinded. On the return from Marina to the finish in Aptos, as we passed by Elkhorn with the slough off to the east, I was loosing more and more visual input. Three or four times I needed to stop and wipe my glasses with a bandanna I kept packed away for just this purpose. Without those stops, perhaps I would have finished under 18 hours, but I admit the rest it provided was welcome.

The terrain on that 400km route didn't provide the opportunity for one of the best fog related experiences I can think of though. Riding up into the hills and mountains in fog is sometimes comforting and eases the work of climbing if you can't see how little progress you are making. That is one of fog's bonuses but the true pay off for me is that moment of riding up and then out of the fog into brilliant sunshine. The summit of Mt. Tam offers this, as does the summits on Diablo and Hamilton, the other major peaks in the Bay Area. On a summertime ride up Mt. Tam once, this played out perfectly. Only the summit itself was free of the fog and a 360 degree view provided the glowing white of the fog layer as a floor contrasted for the most part by the blue sky above, and only interupted on the distant horizon where Mt. Hamilton and the Santa Cruz Mountains poked up in the south, and Diablo poked out to the east. The summit parking lot was deserted save for two cars, and one couple dancing in the open lot in the sunshine, she leading him and showing the moves he should make.

It has been some time since my last posting, and to be sure I've been on the bike a great deal, but this blog had been neglected. I was startled out of that blog writing fog with this message today: "Lets get with it, time to get beyond, 'Beyond 449 KM'. That was some nice writing but it was also some months ago." Paul, I hope this begins to pay off the tab I had been running of late.

Beyond 449km

2010-07-12T11:22:00.002-07:00

In the early 1980s, I did my cycling in Southeastern Michigan. The only club I belonged to was the Tri-County Bicycle Association. My long distance aspirations back then focused on the DALMAC ride, a four day event that ended the summer cycling season. The club one year gave priority for DALMAC applications to club members, so to assure my entry for DALMAC was accepted, I both joined the club and attended the February club meeting. For that meeting that year, a rider from nearby Illinois was brought in as guest speaker. He spoke about how he got started riding ever increasing distances on his bike, and as a boy 'distant' was whatever was beyond the water tower outside of town. Then it became riding far enough that the tower was no longer visible. By the time he appeared as the guest speaker for our club that year, Lon Haldeman had ridden across country several times, once setting the record for shortest elapsed time.

There were no water towers in the town where I spent those years when one should be growing up, but nevertheless there was the concept of going further than before, despite the the lack of visual motivators. During those years in the early 1980s a realy long ride was when I would ride from home in Ann Arbor over to Dexter where the Ann Arbor Bicycle Touring Society would host the 'One Helluva Ride' century, doing the full route, then riding home afterward. For the longest time those 127 miles were the longest rides I'd ever done or thought of doing. It wasn't until, well, decades later that the double century bug bit me, and later still when the disease mutated into an affliction known as randonneuring. Randonneuring offers a stair-step approach to longer distances by organizing brevets of 200, 300, 400 and later 600km in the Super Randonneur series.

Progress seemed stalled for me after finishing my first SR series in 2005. Three tries at going beyond 600km on a brevet came to nothing. In fact, each attempt at at the longer distance fell short of even getting to 600km. In 2005, on the Gold Rush Randonee, I barely made it past 150 kilometers. In 2007, I got further, but still less than 600km. In 2009, all looked good at yet one more attempt at a distance beyond 600km, but alas no, not that time either.

So, what should one think on the eve of yet another try at a ride of 1000km or more? Why would one even want to try such a ride? I can honestly say that I have no idea how to reply to those questions. Even if completing an SR series this year had been a struggle, I would have still signed up for the Santa Cruz Randonneurs' Central Coast 1000km. The SR series though was anything but a struggle, certainly as the season played out. In fact, the longer the distance, the better the experience. Riding the Fleche in April was a joy, the 400km with the Davis Bike Club similarly so, and the 600km with the San Francisco Randonndeurs was probably the best ride over 300 miles I've ever had, by a long shot. As the 1000km approached, I was not thinking of the past, and I was not thinking of the future, but I was thinking of the possible, and what was possible was a great experience.

I had previously met at least a third, possibly more than one half of the riders signed up for the Central Coast 1000km. I began to meet that other half the night before at dinner in downtown San Jose. After Bill and Lois sent us off at 05:30 on that Thursday morning, I settled into a mellow pace and briefly chatted with any rider that would roll up beside me. I kept back from the lead group, knowing I'd never stay there anyway. Once we hit the first prolonged climb on Old La Honda I found a pace not dictated by the pack, and I felt comfortable from then on. I knew a fairly large portion of the entire route from other rides stretching back eight years, but the early miles were all new to me. Stage Road was one such new to me road and I loved it. Inland from the busier California Highway One, it was quiet, with climbs that could no longer be called rollers but were mostly less than a mile long. At the first control in Moss Beach a very large portion of the ride roster was still together as a pack, but a mishap heading south of Half Moon Bay first delayed, and then fragmented the group. One of our riders went down hard and a large group stopped to sort things out. Rescue personnel were on the scene quickly and riders in ones and twos would roll on once it was clear no one else was needed on hand. I was one of the last to leave. On past long brevets I had often been concerned about how I'd fare riding alone. Too often that concern would be corrosive to the point where it would undermine my confidence in finishing. On this ride this concern never materialized, and in it's place was a firm knowledge that if I ever got behind, I could regain the group. There were several miles to cover before we regained Stage Road and I had already begun to catch up to other riders before making the turn of of Highway One, and I caught the main group just past San Gregorio.

Upon reaching Pescadero and the Arcangeli Grocery (artichoke-garlic bread, yum (and I don't like artichokes or garlic!)), I was back on familiar roads and I had also caught back up to Bruce, with whom I had hoped to do most of the ride. It was only later that I realized that through the rest of that first day, I never thought about how many miles I had ridden so far, or more significantly, how much further there was left to the ride. I was free to ride in just that moment. The route through Santa Cruz was one of the most urban sections of the entire ride, and we used that slow section to find lunch at Joe's Pizza and Burgers, eating our meal on the patio overlooking an intersection where it seemed every rider on the brevet had to stop. The enforced slow pace through Santa Cruz and Soquel was welcomed as lunch settled slowly in my belly.

For the next several hours, the route was an entire mixed bag: suburban sections, winding roads through redwoods, flat sections through agricultural fields, and the indistinct terrain on the outskirts of semi-small towns, with none of those sections establishing themselves as the defining terrain. Our small group would grow and contract as we picked up riders, and lost others along the way. Past Hollister, CA 25 became more and more rural just as the late afternoon/early evening light gave texture to the hills on either side of us, and the mountains far in the background. Near the Pinnacles National Monument was our first staffed control, and the stop here served to bunch many of the riders together as the sun set. Midway between this stop and King City I had a momentary low point. I knew too well that it was only momentary, and I knew too that way back in Moss Beach I had stashed a chocolate bar in my handle bar bag. Lastly, I also knew that chocolate can solve many things and what it solved first was the gap that had grown between me and the rest of the pack. Before our first planned stop for significant rest there was a climb from our valley over into the Salinas Valley, with a long downhill into King City as a reward.

Experience on very long rides tells us that before rest comes food, and for us that meant a late night visit to Dennys before checking into the King City control. My second meal of cheeseburger and fries for the day, plus a tall milkshake still didn't erase the caloric deficit I had created to this point, but it had to help. Mike and Todd were already at the Dennys when we arrived, and more riders came in as we left. Even at midnight, the control was active as other riders rolled in as we checked in, got our drop bags and headed to the hotel room to clean up and sleep. Sterling and Lois greeted us, and stamped our cards. Added to the novelty for me of being able to eat huge quantities of food on a long ride was the unique experience of falling dead asleep within minutes of my head hitting an unfamilar pillow. And so ended Day One's 230 miles.

Sleep on long brevets is a luxury, and three hours plus of sleep is a decadent indulgence. Even still, it was dark when we went to sleep and still dark when we left King City that same morning into a disturbing headwind. Plans based on weather, even fairly consistent weather often never match reality. The favored plan for most riders here was to use the northwest tailwind to advantage in getting to King City, then hiding out and sleeping as the wind died toward sunrise. Trouble was the wind never died. Though it was a challenge to quite see it this way at the time, the difficulty the morning winds presented us allowed for stark contrast to the visual and wind aided blessings of the afternoon and evening to come. The morning miles were a time for teamwork, and our group would grow as we made our way to Marina, CA where we'd begin a more southerly trajectory. One fact of topography I had not anticipated but should have, was the transition between the flat miles of the Salinas Valley and the return to the coastal roadways of Central California. Several waves of steep, though thankfully (relatively) short climbs made for a bigger appetite once we reached the Safeway in Carmel. Our group of course grew larger during that rest stop but once past Carmel Highlands it fragmented completely into ever forming combinations of riders.

By late morning, the marine layer of fog had been forced west as the inland areas warmed, and the battle between fog and clear blue skies waged overhead on Highway One. This only added to the drama of an already dramatic coastline, and also had the magic benefit of making us feel faster on the bike as the roadway climbed each rise along the cliffsides north of Big Sur. As we traveled further south though, the magic was revealed to be a steady tailwind. The day to this point was nothing if not a study in contrasts, with the headwind, overcast, and flat, straight miles being traded for near constant climbing and descending under sunny skies as the roadway zig-zagged to follow the irregular coast line. An uncharacteristically straight and flat segment just north of the town of Big Sur gave us one last chance to experience the boost of the tailwinds before we slowed for a mid day rest at the Big Sur Village Pub. Coastal California often has summer weather that leaves you feeling too hot in direct sunlight, but instantly chilled when the sunlight is gone. As we sipped our pints of beer, Gabe, Ken, Bruce and I made shade enough for three make do for the four of us, but once back on the bike and south of Big Sur the fog struggled to reassert itself and our warmth now was only provided by the effort needed to climb 'The Dolly Parton Range' of hills and mountains we encountered next. Our moments in the sun became less frequent, and more short lived and the setting sun only hastened the fog finally gaining the upper hand.

Ragged Point was the last control before we reached San Luis Obispo, and I later agreed it was an aptly named location. We arrived too late to make use of the outdoor concession stand which offered a menu geared more toward peasant food, and we seemed to grubby and smelly to the eyes and nose of the young waiter working the more upscale, indoor restaurant. His manager though was happy to serve us but the whole exchange resulted in a very long stop. Ragged was exactly how I felt as we left just before full dark arrived. Having arrived alone, it was odd that I left then in the midst of a double digit sized pack of riders. As we neared San Simeon Bay, we also neared the 400 mile mark on the ride. The darkness and the accumulated miles all had their affect on each of the riders and while we rode as a group it was not in the style we might have at mid day. I found it much more comfortable to dangle off the back of the group, using my own headlight to light up the pavement rather than using the light from the lamps of others. At one point I let the rider ahead of me know I was stopping and would catch up, and after shifting fluids I had no trouble catching up to the group that had gotten over a mile ahead of me while I stopped. Once past Cayucos the roads we used felt far less remote and streetlights were far more common.

Arriving in San Luis Obispo after midnight, we could not get the full feel of the town. That would have to wait for daylight the next morning. Though tired, I didn't have trouble staying alert and was glad not to have to seek caffeine just to complete the last 20 miles, and this no doubt made it all the easier to be sound asleep the instant after my head hit the pillow at our overnight stop. That sleep was first delayed by downing a plate full of calories at the Denny's down the street from the hotel, then by organizing in preparation for a quick departure the next morning. Fog hid the sun that next morning but it was still complete daylight when we rolled out of town just after 6 a.m. I knew and had ridden our route from SLO to well past Guadalupe. We even copied most of a detour I had made eight years before when we sought a 2nd breakfast in Grover Beach. Ken, Theresa and Kitty stayed a bit longer at their stop but Bruce and I pushed on toward our next control at Casmalia. For the longest time the only other people we saw were those working the fields we passed, until we were passed ourselves by two packs of club riders in pacelines, riding with purpose, tight and fast.

From Casmalia back to Highway One north of Vandenberg we climbed over a ridge and had a sweet run down into a valley. Unfortunately we had to climb back out of that valley to get to Vandenberg, and then travel from ridge to ridge until we dropped down into Lompoc. Doug and Laurie had found the Starbucks outlet before us and were just leaving as Bruce and I arrived. Susan passed by as we tarried there though we would later pass her south of town. From Lompoc the route did a simple out and back along Highway One to the summit of Gaviota Pass. The climb up to the pass was never steep, and seemed nothing like climbing a pass, but our progress was slowed by the ghastly pavement surface. Just how much of a climb it was was made known to us though on the return back to a point just south of Lompoc. Ever since our stop at Joe's in Santa Cruz for lunch 48 hours before, we had not had the chance to see many other riders on the route but this out and back leg gave us the chance to see a dozen riders ahead of us and well over a dozen behind us. Hello's were called out across the road as we passed (and cheers too when we saw Gabe among the riders, Gabe having found a way around some Achilles problems of the night before), but once we made the turn at the end of our two-way section on to Santa Rosa Road, the last riders we saw for the rest of the day were Susan as she passed by in Solvang as we ate lunch, and Mick who we briefly saw ten miles or so before Arroyo Grande. Santa Rosa Road was a joy: scenic, quiet with rolling terrain. I still consider it a highlight of the day and the entire route, but it couldn't hold a candle to Foxen Canyon. Foxen Canyon's steep sections were a challenge, but the tough sections were the longer, less steep sections. Our reward for the climbing, the steep and the less steep, was a ten mile plus downhill out of the viticultural region and into the agricultural region.

Though the sun had set, the fog had not returned as the day played itself out. Still, we needed to stop twice to empty out our bags and layer up against the chill. The route took us around Santa Maria to the East, then into Arroyo Grande from the South East. I had neglected to look at the terrain for the last leg and was surprised at what seemed like an endless climb away from Arroyo Grande. As Bruce and I slowly made our way higher, we called out to each other while continuing a conversation. Out of the darkness from one of the houses we passed in the night a voice called out and asked us how far we had to go that night. Our reply of San Luis Obispo seemed to be taken in stride, and we kept climbing. The clear night sky was over though, and the closer we got to SLO the more we could feel the fog lowering itself onto the landscape. At mile 620, with just two turns left to make before the ride was over I got my first and only mechanical on the ride. Bruce found no other way to react than to laugh at the irony of being so close to being done and having this flat. We had caught up to Mick and were less than a quarter mile away when I got the flat. I really didn't hustle to complete the repair, and probably avoided screwing it up by taking my time. Back on the road we made those last two turns and at 23:32 we rolled into the final checkpoint.

For the full route, we had ~31,000 feet of climbing over 625 miles (including the morning detour for food). A full set of photos can be found here. Thanks to Bill Monsen for the use of his photo of Bruce and myself cooling our heels while a flat tire is repaired in the background.

The 2nd San Francisco Randonneurs Populaire, July 17th, 2010

2010-06-30T14:43:00.000-07:00

The San Francisco Randonneurs would like to invite you to participate in our 2nd Populaire, to be held on July 17th, 2010. This is a free event, though registration is required. The Populaire is intended to introduce riders to the sport of randonneuring. Most of our brevets are 200km in length, but the Populaire, at 115km, is only slightly more than half that length. More information, and a link to the registration form is here: http://sfrandonneurs.org/fall-2010-115k-populaire.htm

Last fall, on our first populaire, we had a great mix of long standing club members and riders brand new to brevet riding. Should be a similar mix this time around too.

Self portrait with stink eye

2010-06-30T11:34:00.001-07:00

This photo is from early on the first day of the Santa Cruz Randonneurs Central Coast 1000km brevet. I'll be making a more extensive entry in a short while, but for the moment I'll summarize the the whole experience with a single word:

Fantastic!!

Next up ...

2010-06-04T12:08:00.000-07:00

It hardly seems like a year has passed, but it has. Time as come round again for the San Francisco Randonneurs overnight 200km brevet to Davis and back. A write up of last year's ride his here. On that ride we had several riders drive up from Southern California just to participate. We had 17 riders then and this year we have about 10 more than that signed up. I'm guessing we'll have about 25 riders this year. Given the attendance on other brevets this year, 25 riders sounds really small. Well, it is, but there are reasons. One is that the brevet starts at 8pm, not 7am. Pretty much all but a couple/few hours of the ride will be done in the dark. That puts people off. That said, though, there is something quite special about riding through the night.

The route and time of day were chosen to not be too much of a physical challenge but to offer great practice time for navigating in the dark but while still fresh and without the looming knowledge that there are so many more miles to go after sun up. I've done 600km brevets that started at 8pm and on this ride it will be nice to know I'm done by 7am.

It's often impossible to re-live any experience, but I'm hoping to have just as much fun on this year's version as I did last year. It was great to ride into sunup with Jaime and Jim, and before then it was a blast to hammer through the darkness and catch that lead group on the flats between Vacaville and Davis.

Braxton was never there

2010-05-27T14:05:00.000-07:00

It may be a form of hell, to have experienced something wonderful and from that point on all efforts to return to that perfect state fall short. If this is true, then I think I've been quite lucky. I've never had that perfect ride, one where everything fell into place as it unfolded before me, where the energy I found ready for use at the beginning of the ride was still there near the end, or where the weather read your mind and provided what you needed: warmth through the night, tailwinds during the day. I've had glimpses of it though, this perfect ride. There were glimpses of it on the recent San Francisco Randonneurs Fort Bragg 600km brevet.

Northern California and the Bay Area in particular have a rainy season that has some predictability. In most years, that rainy season is from November to April. March, and more so April are months when the length of daylight increases and the frequency and even threat of rain decreases. Many years, May is a glorious month when the rain has ceased, some heat has arrived and yet the nightly visit of the marine layer of fog has not established itself. 2010 is simply not one of those usual years. Rain has been a frequent visitor this May, behaving itself perhaps from the view point of cyclists who work M-F and play S-S by making appearances for the most part on workdays only. One wonders though about the element of chance when an unlikely heavy downpour shows up the day after a big ride, as it pretty much did this time.

On Saturday, May 22nd, 58 riders milled around the Strauss statue at the Golden Gate Bridge visitors center waiting for the 06:00 start of SFR's 2010 Fort Bragg 600km brevet. More first time 600km riders were in the mix than in year's past, and 58 riders was as many as any two or even three SFR 600km fields before. With such a long ride ahead, there was a commitment apparent to be ready and leave on time, and as the clock allowed the group left the gardens at the visitor center behind and began crossing the orange vermillion colored bridge. The forecast covering the route had waffled all around and by the evening before the ride had settled on including wind, cold and perhaps rain but on this morning skies were completely clear and the wind calm. There were plenty of riders in our group that know the first 20 miles like the back of their hand, despite the many dozens of turns and street name changes before we clear residential Marin and climb over to rural Marin. On the mostly flat section after Camino Alto and before Fairfax, I catch up to Gabe, Bryan and John and chat with John about last year's version of this ride. I let the group pull away at the top of White's Hill as I tend to some business and then I chase Craig and Lori on their tandem down the hill and toward the redwood forest beyond Lagunitas. Sir Francis Drake Blvd. through the State Park is an exercise in shock therapy from the jarring one endures due to the plentiful potholes. It seems I'm the only one that takes the bike path through the park to get off of the horrible pavement. Data point: I left SFDB just ahead of Craig and Lori, and I return on the far side of the park just as they pass by. It's longer on the path, but oh so much nicer than the roadway.

Bolinas Ridge offers a way to warm up on the climb and also a great view of the beginning of the Point Reyes penninsula. From Olema it is just a couple of rolling miles to the first control in the village of Point Reyes Station. As I pull up to the Palace Market, my first good luck omen appears at my feet: A folded $20 bill. Cool Breeze! Most of the riders head toward the Bovine Bakery, with almost all the others going into the Palace, which is where I go. I had hoped to ride off with John, Gabe and Bryan but they are gone when I come out so I chug the milk, scarf down the banana and stow the chocolate bar for later and roll out of town. This begins a stretch of about 150 miles where the wind picks up and for the most part I ride alone. Having left the Bridge as nearly the last rider, I wasn't counting how many people I passed, and subtracting the number of riders that later passed me so I have no idea where anyone is and where I am among them. That is the seed that grows into a nearly blossoming doubt when I ride through Petaluma and see exactly *zero* other riders at either of the two approved control locations. That is until I spot Kley arriving at the Safeway from the wrong direction. He had passed the turn without knowing it and had to backtrack, but he hadn't seen any riders either. Kley leaves before me and again I ride alone through Penngrove, Santa Rosa and into Healdsburg. I must fully admit to really wondering if I was on the wrong route when I pulled into the Healdsburg Safeway at mile 87 and again find zero riders there. It's not until I bought some soup, soda and chips and settle in outside that any other riders show up, and amazingly I'm ahead of the tandem.

On any windy and/or flat ride, you can prove the existence and presence of a tandem by simply watching the activity of all the other riders at the rest stop as they rush to leave. Such was the case at this Healdsburg control as I joined about six other bikes when Craig and Lori rolled away from the Safeway. And then a funny thing happened. The tandem got dropped before we left town, and after doing a short pull at the front I got dropped too and watched the group sail off into the now stronger headwind. For many miles I could catch a glimpse of them more than a mile ahead when I would top some small rise north of Geyserville. Way off in the distance behind I could see a bike gaining on me, and just at the short left turn to go under Highway 101, a few miles before Cloverdale, Craig and Lori catch me, and I was happy to grab their rear wheel for a little relief from the wind. We all stopped in Cloverdale to stock up before the big climb out of the Alexander Valley and across the mountains of the Elk Range. The climb ahead will take us from just under 400' to an inch or two over 1200'. A great deal of this climb will be shaded and all of it will be protected from the northwest wind and it gives us a chance to chat a little along the climb. I was sure that I would be dropped by the tandem on the climb but instead I kept them just ahead of my front wheel. The thing about riding with a tandem is that if you are climbing with them, then the last you'll see of them is at the crest because you'll never hold their wheel on the downhill. This is of course just what happened as we zipped through Yorkville and enticed another group of riders to join our group. That new pack kept a pace that I just couldn't hold so I pulled off and honked down that chocolate bar I'd picked up about 90 miles back in PRS. I knew it then but much later I'd also be glad that I hadn't pushed on to Boonville for a stop. I would have paid for that in the long run.

Heading northwest on Highway 128 there is a very misleading sign that on this 600km route, it's hard to decide if the deception is in your favor or against it. After a prolonged but not too steep climb riders will pass the famous truck on cheese icon on a road sign that further promises 2 miles of 8% downhill. It may be 8% but it is barely one mile long. While I reserve the right to re-think this, I'll lean toward this deception being in my favor. There will be a long, long flat stretch through Boonville and beyond, and there won't be a two mile climb heading home (not right there anyway) but I did want more of a return on all the work I'd just done.

Ken had made the link to the group of riders that had dropped me earlier, but later he had also fallen off the back and I passed him unseen as I rolled through Boonville, and he then later passed me as I pulled off east of Navarro for a nature break. On each and any ride, energy ebbs and flows and right then Ken's was ebbing ever so slightly and it was easy to catch him. As I passed by he didn't seem interested in grabbing my wheel so I rolled on ahead and pulled into the Dimmick Memorial Grove State Park where SFR has set up a water stop. Bruce, Jack, Tom and Alayne are all there greeting the riders and offering food and drink. Jack has set up a small shrine in memory of Tom Milton. Tom Milton had begun riding with the San Francisco Randonneurs earlier in the year, first with our 200km in January and eventually signing up for another 200km, our 300km, 400km, Fleche and also our 600km. After each ride Tom would send me a thoughtfully worded comment on the ride just completed. Tom was enthused about all the new riders he would see, many of them much younger than we are, many of them not looking exactly like your typical randonneur. We both thought that was great. I had ridden with Tom in late April on the Davis 400km brevet, and one week later, Tom passed away while riding the Devil Mountain Double Century as he climbed up the 'backside' of Mount Hamilton. This ride was held in his memory, and several riders carried his brevet card through out the ride.

After so many miles solo, I preferred to ride with someone so when Ken was ready we rolled off together to do the 54 mile out and back leg to Fort Bragg. Last year the group I was with arrived at Dimmick around 5:20 or so. This year I was a few minutes ahead of that pace. Alas, Ken had a cleat issue he had to deal with and he sent me on ahead instead of having me wait. I recalled last year doing that out and back leg full of energy and able to power up any of the modest climbs. This year not so. The effort of all those solo miles into the wind kept my pace at this point pretty modest. Just shy of Fort Bragg, just as I began to lag Ken pulled by and slowed so I could take his wheel. We rolled up to the Safeway on the south side of town well ahead of sunset.

Fort Bragg, as it's name implies, has miltary roots but those are far in the past. Established in the mid 1850s, it derives it's name from one Braxton Bragg, who it seems never visited the place. Braxton Bragg was a Captain in the US Army, later in his career a General in the Confederacy. He seems to have impressed some with his efficieny, others with his orneriness and others still with his timidity and lack of creativity. Early in his career he so impressed one of his subordinates that said subordinate chose to name this military outpost in Northern California after Bragg. Someone else back east also saw fit to name Fort Bragg, NC after our man as well, and to round out the set, there is a ghost town in Texas which also is named for him. I know nothing of this as I eat a bowl of lukewarm clam chowder in the Safeway control, but as I roll out of town I do wonder about Fort Bragg's past. No riders had arrived while I was in the Safeway until just as I was about to depart. While arriving in town I counted about 8 riders leaving town, and I knew there were about 4 or 5 ahead still at the Safeway. Now leaving town, the stream of arriving rides has increased from a trickle to a mild flow and riders, all in groups pass by northward as the sun sets. The last riders I see have just crested the climb away from the Navarro River where our time on Highway One in Mendocino County begins, and I head off into the Tree Tunnel once again alone.

I'm in luck when I return to Dimmick as there is a fire, hot food, friends to greet me, and a handful of riders with whom I might ride the next leg. Alayne hands me some hot tea, Bruce gives me a warm cup-o-noodles soup and Jack hands me a blanket to use as I sit near the fire. Gabe, Bryan and John arrive about half way through my stay, and others begin to trickle in til we have a crowd at the fire with more riders already sleeping in the tents. Bryan and Gabe have it in mind to sleep a bit so John is left to ride alone. Instead, Michael and I choose to ride with John and around 11:30 we pull out of the campground. John sets a determined pace with Michael and I in tow and we complete the moderately flat stretch to Philo in good time. Outside of Boonville John has a stash of liquids purchased and hid on the way out so we stop to 'shift fluids' and I eat John's only caffeine laced Clif Shot in an effort to stave off the oncoming sleepiness. We roll through a mostly quiet Boonville and begin the climb toward Yorkville. Yorkville itself is at the bottom of a downhill and after the previous climb, we all get chilled now that we are no longer pedaling. On the way up the local road name changes from Anderson Valley Road to Oat Hill Road and as we near the top of the climb where Mountain House Road connects from the north, I have a bit more energy than before. What's left now is a fast and curvy descent into Cloverdale. Once there John decides to make his stay short while Michael and I linger inside where it is warm.

After too much time has passed we decide that there are no longer any excuses for staying. Eric joins us as does Ken and we four set off for Healdsburg, and the next control beyond in Guerneville. Except for a few nature breaks, the route is uneventful. At the Cloverdale control I had made my only food mistake of the ride, when I took Eric's recommendation and had a gas station mini-mart 'pizza pocket'. My stomach rebelled and it was only by the time we had reached River Road that I was beginning to win the battle. Bananas and ginger cookies turned the tide and a pint of chocolate milk sealed the deal and as we rode on past Occidental I felt much better. The last control out on the course had been moved from Marshall to Point Reyes Station. The Marshall Store opens much later in the day so even though the control is 10 miles further, it makes much more sense. Nevertheless, we stopped twice between controls to take care of minor business. Though I just love the Blondies served at the Bovine Bakery, what would serve me better was a bowl of potato salad from the Palace. As we sat out front of the Bovine, the village was filling up with day riders, cyclists who drove out to Fairfax or perhaps a bit further to nearby Nicasio and rode over to PRS. The motor driven day trippers were also beginning to arrive. Our group of four pushed off once more and left the more undulating terrain behind and tackled the series of climbs over Dixon Ridge, White's Hill, Corte Madera and finally the climb up out of Sausalito. Before that last climb though things got quite noisy when my rear fender broke. I'm pretty sure the crack began when I hit a pot hole coming down off White's Hill and the rattling roadway along the way completed the break. Checking to see that I didn't need to remove the fender completely, I caught up to my group and we tackled the remaining climb. Once at the bridge, we put Eric up front. He had done pretty much all of the pulling from Cloverdale on to Fairfax so it was appropriate that he be the first to arrive of our group.

At 13:57 we arrived back at the Strauss Statue at the Golden Gate Bridge. I've done four 600km brevets now (way behind my friend Joseph who has done 10) and until this year never the same route a second time. The SFR 600km is reputed to be the harder of the 600km routes presented by any of the four Northern California brevet clubs. Last year in better weather with company the entire way, I finished in just over 34 hours (34:08). This year, with much colder weather, many miles of headwinds and too many miles ridden solo, I completed the course in 31 hours and 57 minutes. It wasn't the perfect ride (see the above referenced food error) but again there were glimpses of that. Being in the right place at the right time to join up with Michael, Ken and Eric was one of the best things to happen on what was a great ride. Riding the Anderson Valley with John and Michael under a canopy of stars was another blessing.

After my first 600km brevet in 2005, I was hungry for a week, tired for a week, and leg sore for a week. This time, in spite of nearly 180 miles of headwinds, cold temps that do not belong in May, and riding the distance over 2 hours faster than I ever have, well, I feel great. I rode my bike to work the very next day, and really feel great and have felt that way ever since finishing the ride. I can get used to this! Somehow I have to find space for more than ten rides in my 'Top Ten Best Rides'. I'm not leaving this one out.

Photos by Eric, Theresa, and me. Eric's full 600km photo set can be seen here

Thanks so much to Bruce, Tom, Alayne, Jack, Ely, Mark, Mark, Sterling, Heath, Tim, Jason, Gintautas (and kids), Todd, Ken, Scott, Russ, JimG, Richard and Carlos. All of you contributed to making this a great event for the riders.

The voice of the turtle is no longer heard

2010-05-05T08:46:00.000-07:00

The few readers of this blog that I have, and the handful of people that may stumble on to these pages know pretty well that the discussion here is 100% about cycling. I do have other passions, passions that have lasted as long or longer than cycling has for me.

in 1963, across the street from our house on Wedgewood Drive in West Senaca, NY was a large open field. The street was teeming with kids, and we tamed that field with surreptitiously borrowed lawnmowers, rakes and shovels and for summer play we built dugouts on each side of the baseball field with wood scraps we liberated from the building sites near the woods on the far, far side of the open fields. Playing baseball was already an entrenched pursuit for me when my family moved from Western New York to Southeastern Michigan. I kept that pursuit, as well as a fledgling fanaticism for Willie Mays and the Giants, but it was impossible not to become a fan of the Detroit Tigers, the long standing home team in my new home.

In the mid-1960s the neighborhood was packed with families and there was an endless supply of kids who would play baseball every single summer day until well past sundown. On summer nights when I'd return from hours of playing baseball and the Tiger game would be on the radio and Ernie Harwell's voice would be in our kitchen. That voice was a part of summer nights for decades in my parent's house, and when I lived on my own in Ann Arbor, I'd tune in the game every night, and when my evening job would keep me away til 8:30pm, I'd tape record the game as I went for a run, and play the whole tape once I settled in.

After moving to Washington, DC in the late 1980s I went without the broadcasts until we got a car with a pretty good radio and every once in a while I could pick up the broadcast from Detroit. Jon Miller, the announcer in Baltimore (now with the Giants in SF) was a big fan of Ernie and would try to get Ernie to announce an inning while Ernie's partner, Paul Carey did the middle innings on the Tigers broadcast whenever the Tigers played in Baltimore. A move on my part to California in the early 1990s ended any frequent broadcasts I might listen to, though I still followed the team. When the internet was still somewhat new and local radio stations still had control of their radio broadcasts of baseball games, I once again could listen to Ernie on the 'radio' through our home computer. That opportunity ended too soon and the last I heard of Ernie was a recording of his guest appearance on the national broadcast of the 2006 World Series.

I was able to meet Ernie Harwell in person twice, once at a book signing in Ann Arbor, and once more at an autograph day at Tiger Stadium. Both times he easily made me feel comfortable in his presence, and he conveyed a sincere appreciation for my being a fan. He was such a warm and gracious person, and there were and are far too few like him. Now there is one fewer. MLB.com's tribute to Ernie his here. His farewell speech when he was fired by the scum that owned Tigers then is here (Ernie was brought back in 1993 when the team was sold.)

The "post big ride bounce"

2010-04-23T11:25:00.000-07:00

Back in 2002, I was invited to join a group of riders doing a multi-day ride from San Ramon, CA to Malibu, CA. The last day's ride would be the only day when the distance was under 100 miles for the day, and the full ride distance would be 440 miles. That ride was a blast and the first time I had done a multi-day ride in 14 years. On that trip I met a bunch of great people, had a lot great food, got to sit on the beach, drinking a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale while staring out on the Pacific with Morro Rock to the south, and had my socks knocked off by the gorgeous terrain that makes up Big Sur. I came home feeling the wonderful exhaustion that comes from a great trip, and by mid-week after returning to work, I could feel a strength on the bike that was an echo from younger days. That's the post-big-ride bounce, right there. That April ride ended up giving me a boost that lasted through the summer.

In the intervening years, my cycling seasons have been getting progressively fuller, including more miles and more big events. Some of those years have been minimized by respiratory maladies, and other year's I've been luckier, but not entirely lucky on that count. This year, I've had my fair share of colds, plus a little bit more, but mostly the colds have been minor and not as frequent as the worst years. I did have to miss the San Francisco Hopland 400km this year, and as a make up ride, I signed up for the Davis Bike Club's 400km. Earlier in the month I rode a fleche that covered roughly 230 miles. During the Fleche I felt wonderful, and the week after I felt pretty darn good, though I didn't have much chance to make use of that on the bike. Two weeks later came the DBC 400km.

This was the first time I've done any version of the Davis 400km, having done the Santa Rosa 400km as my first 400km, and two different versions of the San Francisco 400km (one of those versions twice). My first 400km remained the fastest one I'd done until this year. I did that first 400km somewhere around 19 hours. And then came the infamous SFR 400km through the Central Valley, in 2006. Ugh. 25-30+mph headwinds for six hours and a finish at 2:15 am. The other SFR 400kms used a different route, challenging in it's own way and finish times were just as late. On the DBC 400km though, there was next to no wind, headwind or otherwise, and far, far less climbing than on the current SFR 400 route, which has somewhere between 13,000 and 14,000 feet of elevation gain.

My friend Charlie gave me a ride up and back to the ride start/finish. His riding partner for the day did not show, so we decided to ride together after the first control. I had a small energy dip early in the ride, but the stop at the first control proved to be just the tonic I needed and from that point on, the ride was a joy all day long. From Davis, the route heads west, then south to Vacaville, then west again to Fairfield before cutting through the Vaca Mountains toward Napa Valley, with a stop in Calistoga, and then looping east and north of Healdsburg on the way toward Lake Sonoma. The return route is very similar, but is more direct on the leg toward Vacaville, and differs on the route between Vacaville and Davis.

This 400km felt so much more like the Fleche events I've done, riding with some of the same people for the full distance, never pushing to the max, leisurely stops at controls. The end result? My fastest time for a 400km, at 18:38 (I did finish toward the back of the pack, when usually I'm smack dab in the middle). This week, I've again felt that post-big-ride bounce, and this morning I finally overcame sloth and took the long way to work. I time the first portion of this route from home to the highest point, as a means of gauging my cycling fitness, and I've kept a record of the times. In looking at this year's chart I can see where I've had a cold coming on or where I'm just getting over one. On today's ride to work, I never pushed hard to the point where I couldn't sustain the pace, and the ride felt effortless compared to the first version back in January of this year.

The wanderings of Oblio's dog

2010-04-09T10:32:00.000-07:00

California has an extensive calendar of double century rides, and it was the double century that first lured me into long distance riding. Doing my first Davis Double Century in 2000, I was thrilled to be riding amongst hundreds of other riders. I still do several doubles a year now, but in 2002 many of my friends were 'graduating' to even longer rides. In 2003, these friends nearly disappeared from club rides with modest 100 mile distances. They were off riding something called 'brevets', basically qualifiers for a ride in Europe called Paris, Brest et retour. This cycling niche was known as randonneuring, based on the french word randonneur (the masculine form of the word for someone that commonly engages in hiking, but applied to cycling in a specific manner). By August, those friends had disappeared completely. They were all off in France doing a single ride of 770 miles, hopefully within the 90 hour time limit. All fall and into winter I heard countless stories of the PBP experience, and I was completely intrigued. In 2004, I decided to test myself as well when I signed up for a rather unique version of randonneuring known as a Flèche.

Flèche is the french word for arrow, and this choice of word to name the event comes into play if you imagine a target, with arrows flying toward the bulls-eye from all directions. The arrows represent the individual routes each Flèche team submits to the organizers, and the target is a central location with a specific meeting time where all the teams end up. The path the arrow follows in this case needs to be at least 360km, and the time of the 'flight' is no more than 24 hours and no less than 23 hours. The whole endeavor is said to derive from the efforts of several friends who on Easter weekend would travel the distance between Paris and St. Etienne, roughly 360 km, in order to meet up with other friends where they would share an Easter breakfast. The current organization of the Flèche has teams made up of riders on between three and five bicycles, and at least three team members need to finish the distance for the team to get credit for completing the ride. The team aspect is of course enormous, and plays heavily in guiding the make up of teams. At minimum, at least one team member knows all the other riders and more commonly, all team members are well acquainted. After all, the team will spend 24 hours in close company as they ride across the day and through the night aiming toward the finish target.

Now well into this posting, no doubt there is curiosity of just what the point is when the entry title mentions somebody's dog. Wondering about the point of this all is quite literally exactly where this tale is going. When a randonneuring club hosts a Flèche there are often enough teams that it is beginning to get difficult discerning one team from the next so the teams adopt names, quite often with the name being some word play on Flèche, or arrow. Aging children that grew up in the 1960s or 1970s may remember a movie by the name of 'The point!' which told the story of Oblio and Obio's faithful dog Arrow, and of course there you now have it.

On April 3rd, my team, known as Obio's dog, left Berkeley, California at 07:15 and over the next 24 hours we would travel through Hercules, Vallejo, Rockville, Fairfield, pass west of Winters and then head toward St. Helena, Calistoga, Healdsburg, Santa Rosa, Petaluma, Nicasio, Fairfax, Corte Madero, Sausalito, finally stopping at Crepes on Cole, south of the panhandle portion of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Our route was 233 miles long, gaining over 10,000' in elevation along the way. When we began, skies were overcast and temperatures were in the mid 40sF. By mid afternoon we had found sunny skies and sunshine fueled warmth had found us. Through the night, haze nearly obscured the moon and stars and temperatures slid into the upper 30s F, but the cold temps were offset by the disappearance of headwinds, a fair enough trade in my book.

Team chemistry, as alluded to above, is very important, and in our case one might wonder if it was alchemy as we ended up with gold. Bruce served as captain, and we used a route he would be riding for the third time. Phil joined us this year for his first ever Flèche, and Carlos and Robbins were riding their second (consecutive) Flèche. This would be my fourth and Bruce's fifth Flèche event. Randonneuring stories often become more compelling when the tale includes overcoming difficult conditions and circumstances. I'm afraid I will have to disappoint the reader on this point. We suffered no mechanicals, and except for a brief period (which certainly felt long to Phil) we all were feeling comfortable and confident of completing the route. As I said, I've done four of these events now, and darned if they just keep getting better each time.

The world is not (a) flat (tire).

2010-03-22T12:21:00.001-07:00

Years ago, I once remarked that a (then) recent spate of flat tires on my bike was remarkable. My feeling was it was beyond odd that I'd be getting so many flat tires in such a short time. My friend Charlie responded that he viewed it as perfectly normal and expected. To him, getting flat tires at more evenly distributed times would be far more remarkable. I must admit that this perspective still leaves me scratching my head. All I know is that I am something less than overjoyed when ever I get a flat, be it the first or the Nth in a string. Flat tires, if you'll permit my slipping into vernacular, suck.

Let me, for emphasis, repeat that. Flat tires suck. They are certain to suck the life out of the moment, out of your momentum, and they can suck the life right out of your ride. How can I be so sure? Well, not that I really needed confirmation of this, but I've had more than what I consider my fair share of flats recently, and I've had them on three different bikes ridden in three different locations in three different circumstances: dry conditions on a commute, wet conditions on a commute using a different route, wet conditions on a brevet, and dry conditions on an entirely different brevet and route. The flats on the brevets have really taken the steam out of those rides, and changing a flat in the rain is only adding insult to injury.

The bad run of flat tires has taken me on a bumpy and circuitous emotional route. I was a bit grumpy but resigned to the reality when I first started getting the flat tires on my commute. Given the route the odds are in favor of getting a flat at some point, and frankly it has been a while. After several of those though, the flat tires on the first brevet really hit me hard. I was already late when I had the first flat, and having to change a totally grimy tire in the rain was hard to take. In short, I was pissed. By the time of the second flat, things had changed and I was back to simply being resigned to the reality of it all. Having caught up to several riders and having had the chance to ride along, chat, eat, etc. made a big difference.

Another flat on a commute had the sting taken out of it by the knowledge that the recent rainy weather had ended, and taking the long way to work always gives me a bit of a lift. On the most recent brevet, the Santa Rosa 200km, I had not one but two flats before the first control, which comes early at mile 10. By this time, I was hardly phased by the second flat, and just set about changing it out and getting back on the road. I had lost 25 minutes very early in the ride so I had little hope of catching anyone. A flat, or even two late in the ride is quite different in that there are always riders behind that you can ride with after fixing your flat. Get one at mile 10 of a 125 mile ride, and there is no choice but to chase, and chase solo.

It will of course tempt fate, but I think my string of flats is ending. So is the rainy season, the end of which is a bit early but not impossibly early. I managed to commute for over a week without a flat, and I got through an entire 200km permanent without flatting as well. We'll see what gives this weekend on the SFR 400km.

The SF-Mill Valley-SF-Healdsburg-SF 300+km brevet

2010-03-02T11:46:00.000-08:00

This is a tale in which luck, both good and bad, plays a major role. At many points a rational person would question 'why do this'? It is at those points however that I would say we are most ill equipped to present a cogent response.

Before I began riding brevets, I never really considered voluntarily riding in the rain, and after I began riding brevets my perspective changed to one where if it had to rain, I really wanted to be well out on the course before the rain began. The reasoning was that at that point I'd have no choice but to finish. In successive years I was given first hand experience testing out that perspective, first on a 200km brevet and later on a 300km brevet. So far as I could tell, it worked well enough to keep as a working perspective. Of the two brevets I've ridden this year, I now can say I have the supplemental experience of starting brevets in the rain and I can toss that old perspective out the window. Turns out each has it's upsides and obvious downsides, and it just doesn't matter. Rain is rain.

On the Thursday before the ride, the number of riders signed up was pushing 130. There is always a lot of wobble with the final total, with some riders dropping out due to real life rearing it's head, and new riders signing up when real life unexpectedly just got out of the way. I promised myself that I'd complete on Thursday as much of the last minute prep work that goes into organizing the brevet as was possible and leave Friday night to preparation for my own ride. That just didn't pan out as planned and if anything I was more harried getting out the door at 4:30 Saturday morning than ever before. Arriving ten minutes behind on my objective I was relieved to see that no riders were waiting for the brevet cards yet, but those ten minutes still took time out from my own preparations. On the way over I had emptied my jersey pockets of everything so I wouldn't be driving with an uncomfortable lump poking the small of my back, and in the process put my wallet in clear view on the dashboard. That was handy when paying the bridge tolls.

As I unloaded my bike and arranged all my gear, I was really disappointed when my Sam Browne Belt and reflective ankle bands were not exactly where I had put them and I spent too much time just looking for them than it should have taken to completely get ready and ride off. Richard was parked right next to me and, bless him, he had an extra belt and sure enough the act of loaning me the belt provoked the discovery of my own gear. The rolled up belt had fallen out of my car and rolled under his car when I was first emptying my gear out. I finally headed over to the ride start and experienced more alarm when other vital items I knew I had packed proved hard to find. We started the pre-ride meeting late and I kept to the 'script', hitting the vital points about routes, road surfaces and what to do at the penultimate control, and with a rushed 'SFR Oath' the crowd left with me tailing behind.

Our Russian River 300km route follows the Lower Marin Bike route, and halfway along this stretch, when I was just catching up to the main pack the thought struck me: you have no wallet you dope! I pulled off the path onto the gravel apron and confirmed my stupidity. No wallet. It was left in plain view on the dashboard, and I had to go back or deal with a broken window and canceling credit cards, atm cards and all manner of fun. Some how my anger at such a stupid move didn't give me extra strength to fly back to the start, and my wheels rolled along as if axle deep in molasses. It was 7:10 by the time I arrived back at the Strauss Statue, and in order to keep the delay from growing, I decided to drive back to Mill Valley to a point just short of where I turned back and resume the ride. In the end I didn't gain much (or keep from losing as much) time by doing this and it only complicated matters later in the day, but from this point on I knew I'd be riding solo while the other 109 riders were off up ahead, with no clear idea of when I'd catch anyone.

My riding seemed off the whole time until I began approaching Samuel Taylor State Park, where I finally found a rhythm. For about 5 minutes. Intermittent rain on the west side of White's Hill kept the roads wet, and wet roads always help you hear the air rushing out of a puncture. I have grime in my hands that three days later I still can't scrub off after changing that flat, and all the while that I was dealing with the repair I was worried about making Tim wait for such a straggler at the secret control. From this point nothing got any worse and traversing the park on terrible pavement was uneventful. The black clouds above were a perfect illustration of my mood, which only by small degrees began to brighten to the point where I could at least notice a rainbow that seemed to arc to the ground just around the next bend in the road. Tim seemed surprised to see me arrive at the control and assumed I was riding sweep. I was pretty far off the back to be riding sweep that day, coming in about 30 minutes behind the last riders. Filling up on water, I took off toward Petaluma into a headwind.

The control in Petaluma is a Safeway store on the east side of town and is reached by traversing town crossing some less than scenic ground punctuated by plenty of stops. As I reached the Safeway, Glenn and Jon were just locking up their bikes getting ready to go inside. I headed straight to the chocolate milk, grabbed a banana and headed for the checkout to get my receipt for the brevet card. The person just ahead of me in line had obviously seen all the other riders during his shopping and remarked that I was a bit behind my riding buddies. I had arrived there at 10:28 which is about an hour and a half behind when I usually get to this point on the route. We chatted a bit, and my usual reluctance to talk to strangers eased quite a bit. I think finding Glenn and Jon at the control and this easy going conversation with another shopper both helped to turn my mood around, even though the headwinds I faced on the next leg tried to undo that progress.

That next leg is a bit of a let down until getting well past Penngrove, and past that point the fast traffic undermines the scenery a bit. Santa Rosa is next on the route and the landscape is almost entirely suburban from there all the way to Healdsburg. Healdsburg is a small town on the Russian River with a pretty downtown, and is nearly surrounded by vineyards. Our crowd of over 100 riders is best handled by the deli at the Safeway and the outside seating at this location really makes for a better than expected break. I've had adequate meals at this control and meals that didn't rest well in my stomach, but the baked potato soup was an inspired and fabulous choice. I broke my two month long rule of no soda and added a bag of salty chips to my lunch. I had arrived feeling completely cooked and Gabe, John and Bryan later remarked that I simply did not look good or happy, but upon leaving the control I felt great. I shared some of the break with Karen, Nattu, Bill, Amy, and a number of other riders who provided great company, and I caught Bill and Amy for the ride on Westside Road through the vineyards heading southwest on the way to River Road. For me, this is where the money part of the ride begins. Traffic largely disappears until River Road and even on that road, the further west we go the more traffic eases until it is nearly gone where we turn south at Jenner.

River Road is not over in a blink, and along that leg I began to hear a ticking sound and really couldn't tell where it was coming from. I stopped and just guessed at checking the rear tire first and sure enough, a wire was clicking on the fender with each revolution. Amazingly, it had not punctured the tire so I rode on, vowing to keep an eye on the tire, and balancing worry it would go soft with amazement at my good luck that it hadn't yet gone soft. I had just passed Clayton on his single speed when I picked up the wire in the tire, and he stopped to offer support. I passed him again once I was rolling. Fifteen miles later when carving the turns and curves on Highway One, the tire began to get soft and Clayton rolled by as I swapped out the tube. I had to admire Clayton's mood. He seemed completely content and enjoying the whole day. Clayton and I both joined the biggest group of riders I had seen all day at the Bodega Bay control.

The route continues south of Bodega Bay along CA Hwy. One, but the roadway leaves the views of the coast and angry surf behind and travels up a canyon and over a series of nasty rollers. To offset the change in terrain, it was here that the cloud cover disappeared in a snap. The chill in the air was hard to miss but the bright sunshine on the green hillsides gave warmth that didn't need to be physical. From Bodega Bay all the way to Marshall, I saw no other riders until the Marshall Store came into view. Mid-day sunshine is a joy of course, but there was something to the quality of the late day sunlight on a late February afternoon. At the Marshall Store, the penultimate control, a bigger crowed than in Bodega Bay went about the tasks at hand, finding or stowing away brevet cards, refilling water bottles, putting on reflective gear or heading inside for a bowl of warm clam chowder as I did. Jonathan was resting and eating while I came in and he told me about two crashes on the nasty train tracks north of Petaluma, which I had completely forgotten about since last year. Jonathan was a little scraped up, but in great spirits and his company at the store was a plus.

The now clear skies allowed for one more visual treat after the sun set as I completed the portion of the route on Highway One. A full moon was rising over Black Mountain as I neared Point Reyes Station and headed toward Nicasio Reservoir. I played leap frog with Karen and Nattu for a short while and then passed Becky and her posse before Nicasio. It was good to be back within and around more riders after pushing alone into the morning headwinds. A brief chat with Veronica as we neared Dixon Ridge let me know that Jason was just up ahead. I could see his tail light and I wondered if he was riding fixed again this day. I couldn't catch him before the top of the climb but Jason and several other riders were waiting at the bottom on Sir Francis Drake. We had now reached the point where the route ahead was a repeat of the morning route, but in reverse. I lost time rooting through my front bag looking for the bag of Clif Shot Blocks I knew were in there and I managed to catch only a few of the riders that had passed me while I was stopped by the time I got to White's Hill. This part of the ride is so ingrained in my memory and reaching this point on any ride that shares these streets never fails to infuse me with a sense of impending completion. It is still 15 miles to the finish from Fairfax, but the ride seems 'over' at this point, even though there are two climbs to be faced in those 15 miles.

A pack of riders seemed to form between Fairfax and San Anselmo, but a traffic light turning red separated Mick, Jason and myself from the rest and we began the climb up Corte Madera while the others caught their breath at the traffic stop behind. Mick stopped to adjust his lighting and Jason and I forged ahead. We waited at the end of the bike path just north of Sausalito for the others to catch up and Jason shared the last of a packet of Clif Shot Blocks and some of his water. We had cooled off too much while waiting for the group that never showed, so Jason and I rolled off once more, pushed up the Sausalito Lateral and found the big red button to call Bridge Security to open the gates for our crossing of the Golden Gate Bridge's East Path. At 21:22 we rolled to a stop at the Visitor Center plaza and found a large crowd of riders, volunteers and friends waiting.

I had been hoping for most of the day to catch up to Bruce, but he had finished ten minutes ahead of me. Greg had been waiting longer, and Sterling had finished his volunteer shift and I had already begun to get the shivers now that I had stopped turning food into heat, so we packed up as quickly as shivering hands would allow and headed toward Mill Valley and my car. I took Greg's bike off the roof of Sterling's car, leaving mine inside and those two drove off to dinner and I got set to do the same. There was one small delay though. Barely a mile away, I came to a stop at a red light, with a cop car to my right. When the light turned green, I left, and immediately the crusier's lights went on. I had no idea why I was being stopped and admitted as much to the officer, who then told me he believed me, but that was no excuse for proceeding straight on a green left arrow. Doh! Oddly enough, the whole tide turned in my favor when the officer asked me if I had been drinking because my eyes were all watery. Normally, that is where a bad situation gets much, much worse. But I had an answer. I explained that I had been on a long bike ride, and still being in bike clothes with a bike in the back of the car supported that story. When asked, I explained how long the ride had been, and the officer seemed impressed. "Mr. Hawks, I'm going to let you go with a warning, but please, please be more careful." I was and have been since that point.

Photos by Greg Merritt and Brian Chun.

Results are here.

Endless repetition or endless variety?

2010-02-18T15:25:00.001-08:00

The climate in the Bay Area has been described by some as boring, and lacking seasons. My initial response to that is a bit more forceful, but really it depends on your level of granularity when looking around you. This last week we've been treated with an intense taste of coming spring, and while the general pattern of how the day plays out is the same from day to day, it's really not the same day to day, not really at all.

This past weekend was a long weekend, and a few days before it arrived, the forecast included the 'R' word, but come Friday the forecast was pretty nice. Afternoons were clear, with a hint of being warmer than it had been for months. By Monday, a holiday for most of us, the pattern for the week emerged. Overnight the skies were largely clear, but just before dawn, fog would roll in off the bay and creep it's way up into the Berkeley and Oakland hills. By late morning, clear skies fought back and forced the fog back to the coastline and through the afternoon the air would warm up nicely.

I took advantage of this pattern by planning a ride with my son and a friend of mine out to Stinson Beach from The City, meeting our respective families for lunch, a little time walking the beach, and then my friend and I rode home, taking a very indirect way back to The City. Tuesday was a day of simple commuting straight to and from work, but Wednesday and Thursday, I took the long way. Each day the night sky would be clear as I went out to get the paper, and during the time it took to complete (or goof up) the sudoku puzzle, the fog would arrive. I'd leave the house just before the sun came up, riding into and out of fog banks. As I climbed up Spruce, I'd clear the fog. Today it took a bit more climbing and the edge of the fog was not nearly as distinct. Yesterday I left the fog behind early on the ride. Both days, I'd ride back into the fog as I came racing down Claremont.

I've been trying to get a grip on the food I consume, and the reasons I consume so much of it, and after whittling down my vices one by one (long way to go still overall), I've managed to cut out a number of really bad food habits. I've managed to replace those with practices I hope will become habits, one of which relies on seasonal food. Around the produce markets near here, it is Satsuma orange time. Boy howdy, I just love those things. They are so easy to peel and so very tasty, and in my mind they are like candy. I crave them and can pop one after the other down the old pie hole. In too short a time though, they will be out of season. Right now, I'm folding this little fruit into as many emerging habits as I can. I've taken to keeping a few of these handy on my desk at work so I can eat them in the morning after my ride into work, and in the evening I take a walk after dinner at a brisk pace, and often end up at the local Natural Grocery store and pick up a few more.

As spring arrives, the source for my all time favorite treat will work it's way north. Right now, the strawberries are coming from near San Diego, but there are a great number of way more local strawberry farms and they will show up regularly at the farmer's markets and grocery stores. I'll find them well into the summer and touching into fall at the markets. Wish me luck as I try to keep to that habit and not retreat backward toward the $.25 sodas in the kitchen at work.

Two Rock Valley 200km

2010-02-12T15:32:00.000-08:00

When the idea of using the Jittery Jaunt permanent at the basis of a new SF Randonneurs brevet route first began, it was July and the grasses on the hillsides of the Two Rock Valley, and all other valleys were dry, and more brown than anything else. When the idea became fixed and a place on the 2010 calendar was being considered, it was September and the only clouds expected on any horizon were those of the overnight the fog of the marine layer. Some aspects of the route remain regardless of the time of year: headwinds through the Two Rock Valley, a landscape dominated by rollers from Petaluma all the way back to Nicasio. On February 6th, however, the winter rains that had fallen throughout January, and the winter rain that was falling on us as we left Crissy Field had changed and was still changing this route in a number of ways.

In order to make route measure up to the 200km standard, the Golden Gate Bridge was only now an intermediate point on the route and not the starting location, as is tradition with the SF Randonneurs core SR series. More than eighty riders gathered in the gloom near Crissy Field to sign in, meet old riding friends, and finish the task of preparing their bike and themselves for the ride ahead, a task just a little bit more complicated owing to the falling rain. When the route was submitted to RUSA for approval, the start location had a nice, large, and mostly unused parking lot where volunteers could work out of the back a station wagon. A few weeks before the brevet, cyclone fencing and a green privacy screen surrounded the lot, and now we were crammed on to the sidewalk underneath Doyle Drive. One wag suggested it looked less like a brevet start control and more like the location for a drug buy. Perhaps, but it served it's purpose for that morning at 07:00 the riders were off.

Unlike other SFR brevets, riders straggled away from the start control, and I was one of the stragglers furthest toward the back. Bruce B. waited for me near the Bridge and we crossed over to Marin as the rain was seemingly deciding whether to fall harder or quit. Going downhill into Sausalito, we passed the first casualties of mechanical issues as two riders bent over the task of replacing a blown inner tube. Bruce and I managed to catch up to a number of riders as we left Sausalito and crossed Bothin Marsh Preserve on our way to the first climb of the ride. While indecision seemed to be the rule for the rain, on my part I finally stopped to put on my rain jacket at the top of the Camino Alto climb. Even a light rain, if consistent, will get one soaked. The trip down hill at this point isn't technical but does offer reason to be alert where driveways and departing cars can surprise a rider rounding a curve at speed.

The trip north through Lower Marin is full of stop signs and traffic lights, turns and traffic and progress can never be quick, so it is with a feeling of some relief that we reach the far city limits of Fairfax, where open country side and White's Hill begin. I managed to put some distance on Bruce so I stopped at the top of the hill to clean my glasses and then descend into the San Geronimo Valley. Passing a few of the rides that passed me when I stopped, I reached the turn on Nicasio Valley Road where Dixon Ridge separates the two valleys. Shortly after the crest, I caught up to Bruce B. and we passed first through Nicasio and then by the Nicasio Reservoir. The climb up the southern flanks of Hicks Mountain separated us again and I rode alone until catching Bruce M. just outside of Petaluma where after a well enjoyed break, the rain began again, though this time falling harder than it had all morning. Bruce M. and I chose the first option for control locations where I bought chocolate milk (proof of a benign and loving creator), salted cashews and AAA batteries, the last item as insurance against a late return to SF. Stopping to find Bruce B. stopped at the Peets, I got behind Bruce M. and left town once again riding solo, though I caught Bruce M. not far outside of town.

Compared to the route from Fairfax to Petaluma, the terrain west of Petaluma has quieted down considerably and is free of the climbs up and out, and dashs down and into the canyons crossed during mid-morning. The rain had stopped and as if only to break up the clearing patter, returned only once and then only shortly on our way to Valley Ford. During the crossing of the Two Rock Valley, I could neither catch the rider who stayed a half mile ahead of me, nor could I be caught by the rider a half mile behind, and this pattern was only broken up when Matthew F. appeared from a cluster of Eucalyptus trees on the north side of the road. Matthew provided a faster wheel to chase and we both did catch that rider ahead, but I had to fall back just after reaching Highway One. There was quite a crowd of riders waiting at the Valley Ford Market so I chose a cup of chowder for lunch along with yet another chocolate milk. Mojo was there at the store but was preparing to leave only as I arrived, but we chatted briefly about all the flat tires we both had on a rainy SFR 300km in 2007.

I had told Bruce B. I'd see him in Valley Ford, but only word of his progress arrived before I left. While the sun shone and warmed those of us in the lee of the Market building, the north side where our bikes were was exposed to the wind and while packing things away I began to get the shivers. I left town then once again on my own, though minutes after and minutes before groups of other riders. We'd pass each other on the way to and through Tomales and chase each other along the always windy leg next to School House Creek. Gabe, John, Bryan, Chris and Ricardo stayed just ahead of me until the climb away from the creek and then I only briefly caught them and had to fall back into chasing mode. Along came Jack and I hung on his wheel as he upped his pace through Marshall where a prolonged flat stretch let us catch our breath before the coastal rollers resumed. Just as we caught Gabe's group once again, Jack slowed and dropped off the back. Thanks to his pull, though I was able to adjust to the faster pace and I chatted with Gabe and John as we neared Pt. Reyes Station. On the worker's ride the week before, I was reminded of the peanut butter blondies at the Bovine Bakery and my monomania for that treat increased as we closed in on town. Fate is often cruel and I could only take one bite before my appetite disappaeared. No matter, I felt pretty good, great if you compare it to my status at this point one week before. Jack hadn't shown up in Pt. Reyes before I left and Gabe's group had found a couch and coffee so they were staying for a bit. I'd no doubt find more riders along the route around the reservoir and back toward Fairfax.

It wasn't until I reached Fairfax though before I caught Dwight and we were joined moments later by Mojo who had stopped to deal with chain issues on White's Hill. Lower Marin again totally screwed with our pace and the many stops caused us to yo-yo rather than ride as a tight group. The climb up Corte Madera toward Camino Alto broke us up completely and I caught Crow waiting at the traffic light in Mill Valley and we rode the bike path back across the marsh by our selves. Crow could really spin on the flats but each incline would drop him back. The climb out of Sausalito toward the Golden Gate Bridge split us up completely. I passed Rita before the tunnel under Highway 101 and found my legs on the mostly empty west side path. The Presidio is undergoing all manner of reconstruction and the old, tried and true path down to Crissy Field was no longer open but I managed to go a block past the old left turn and take McDowell back to Mason and the flat run to the finish.

There was a large crowd of riders still at the finish, some of the very early arrivers and even more that had just finished before me. My time of 9 hours and 28 minutes was much, much better than the week before when it took me 10 hours and 15 minutes, and that time I had to really struggle to finish. I suspect I was already fighting the bug then that later had me in bed all day the Thursday before the Two Rock 200km, but on this day no hint of that cold was lingering. Oh yes, I can live with that. My treat upon finishing was a renewed appetite which allowed me to eat the remaining three quarters of that peanut butter blondie, and yes, it was goooood.

2010 stretches out ahead

2010-01-27T13:15:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite books of all time, one I've read and re-read many times, is David James Duncan's The River Why. The protagonist Gus is certainly a lot younger than I am. In the book, he is less than half my current age. In his youthful zeal, he set out to devise the 'Ideal Schedule', which was to focus his life as much as possible on the one thing he believed he loved to do above all else. Given many years and lots of time during which to contemplate the things I love, like the blind squirrel I've stumbled upon the nut of wisdom called moderation. I know now that I can't focus my life on one thing to the exclusion of all else. For one thing, my body can't handle it, and I have to find things to do during the down time. For another, I have to appear somewhat normal, and do things like hold down a job. And yet ...

And yet, I still can not resist the urge to look ahead to the coming year and first list out the things I want to do on a bike, and begin to commit to some of those things in big ways and small ways. So, what follows is a list with comments on the biking events I want to do this coming year. Not all of the items on the list will happen for me. Some events will conflict with others, some will be dependent on other, prior events and others still will maybe not hold the same appeal later that they do now. We'll have to see how it plays out.

Planned Ride	Date	Distance	Comments
Jittery Jaunt 200km Permanent	1-30-2010	200km (124 mi)	I missed doing the worker's ride for the SFR Lighthouse 200km and I want to keep my R-12 streak going, so instead of doing the worker's ride for the next item below, which would give me February credit, I'm doing this permanent. Like last year, I'm waiting kind of late in the month to get that 200km in. Never learn I guess.
SFR Two Rock Valley Ford 200km	2-6-2010	200km (124 mi)	This route is based on Willy Nevin's Jittery Jaunt course, but differs in that we keep riders off of Sir Francis Drake Blvd as it goes through Samuel Taylor State Park. This is the first time SFR has held this as a brevet.
SFR Russian River 300km	2-27-2010	300km (186 mi)	I missed this ride last year when I caught an ill-timed cold and had to scramble to get a 200km done in February on the last day of the month.
Santa Rosa Cyclists 200km	3-13-2010	200km (124 mi.)	This is one of my favorite brevets. It is a fast course, and how can you beat ending the ride at a brew pub for dinner with the other riders? You can't!
SFR Hopland 400km	3-27-2010	400km (250 mi.)	Go here for my write up of this ride from last year. It was great and I'm looking forward to it once again.
SFR NorCal Fleche 2010	4-3-2010	360 km minimum	This would be my 4th fleche. All three previous were really great experiences, and I rate them in my top ten bike rides all time.
Quack Cyclists Devil Mountain Double	4-24-2010	Volunteer	I've volunteered for this ride at the Mt. Diablo rest stop (the first one) for several years, and want to keep that streak going.
SFR Russian River 200km	4-25-2010	200km (124mi)	SFR has held this ride three times and I've never gotten to ride the whole route with the group so this year I hope there are enough volunteers to allow me to pull it off and ride.
Davis Double Century	5-15-2010	200 miles	I rode this Double for the first time in the year 2000, with Phil Morton. After finishing, I swore I'd never do another double again. Well, 22 double centuries later, this would be my 11th Davis Double in a row.
SFR Fort Bragg 600km	5-22-2010	600 km (378 mi.)	I enjoyed the heck out of this ride in 2009 and I want to ride again, and put into action the things I learned last time out.
Santa Rosa Cyclists 600km	6-5-2010	Volunteer	The Plan is to work the overnight Pope Valley control with fellow RBA Bob Redmond.
SFR Davis Overnight 230 km	6-12-2010	230 km.	I had a blast last year doing this ride and really, really look forward to it again.
Santa Rosa Cyclists Terrible Two	6-19-2010	Volunteer	Whether I ride this, or volunteer depends on if I commit to the next event below.
Santa Cruz Randonneurs 1000km	6-25-2010	1000km (600mi.)	This 1000km is the favorite on the list of potential 1000kms if for no other reasons than it is hosted by Bill and Lois, and it is local.
SFR Point Reyes Populaire	7-17-2010	115im (75 mi.)	It was so great to have so many riders new to brevets show up for this ride, and greater still when they became regulars on our full brevet series.
SCR Moss Beach 200km	7-24-2010	200km (124 mi.)	Finally, finally time to drag my butt down to do a Santa Cruz Randonneurs brevet (other than their Fleche a few years back, which really doesn't count.)
SCR Skyline 200km	8-7-2010	200km (124mi)	I hear this course is a butt kicker.
Unknown 200km Permanent	9-???-2010	200km (124mi)	Gotta keep the streak going!
Quack Cyclists Knoxville Fall Classic	9-25-2010	200 mi.	A lovely route, and one of these days I'll master that course and break 15 hours.
SFR Winters 200km	10-9-2010	200km (124mi)	I've worked this ride the last two years and I really, really want to ride it with the group this year.
Mt. Tam Birthday Ride	10-21-2010	85 mi.	I've done this ride on my birthday for at least 13 years. I've always done this with at least one friend coming along, and lately it's been a whole bunch. The mountain is great mid-week and being off work is great too. Usually, the weather is fabulous but any way it turns out is fine by me.
GPC Del Puerto Canyon	????-2010	106 miles	This is one of my favorite rides. The canyon is just gorgeous, even as things turn brown after a long dry summer.
Unknown 200km Permanent	11-???-2010	200km (124mi)	Gotta keep the streak going!
Unknown 200km Permanent	12-???-2010	200km (124mi)	Gotta keep the streak going!

Ooooof!

2010-01-24T20:47:00.000-08:00

JRA. (AKA Just Riding Along). That was me last Thursday after leaving work. One minute I'm riding along on may way to complete an errand, and the next minute I'm finishing up a close inspection of the pavement on Stanford Ave., just east of Market. This change in status was unplanned, and a huge surprise to me. Right in the middle of this event I do recall thinking "I'm not going to like how this turns out". Sometimes I am just soooo right. I didn't like how it turned out at all.

I know full well that a 53 year old body really doesn't do well in these circumstances, and I did a 10 count before I got up, first making sure that there were no serious alarm bells going off. I was able to sit up, and very shakily stand up, but walking was not going right. One big problem was that there was something on the bottom of my shoe. Turns out that only 99% of my bike was a couple yards away. The other 1% in the form of a pedal and a 2 inch long segment of the right crank arm was still locked to my shoe. I went and sat on the wet curb in the light drizzle and tried to take stock. As soon as I sat down, a man with a very concerned expression came up and asked if I was ok. Best I could say was that I thought I was going to be, eventually.

So my circumstances were these: My crank arm had snapped off clean and I tumbled to my right, taking the bike with me. I think I landed first, flipping the bike over and then I rolled. I have bruises in odd places now, and those places were not the first ones to report in as damaged. As I answered the questions of the gentleman who stopped to help, another driver pulled up with his truck and immediately offered to take me where I needed to go as soon as I knew what that might be. Nothing was broken on my body, and I only had a small cut on my knee. The rest were minor abrasions and bruises, most of which I wouldn't know about until the next morning. I thanked both men for helping out, and then got a lift to the nearest BART station, called my wife to tell her I needed to be picked up, and in 30 minutes I was home.

Judging from the markings, it looks like that crack existed for quite some time. The light area is the portion of the crank that failed thursday, the dark section suggests to me a portion of the crank that was cracked or flawed in the casting from the start. The cranks were vintage Campy NR cranks, with gold anodizing. They had very few miles on them, in terms of a life span of a set of cranks. I estimate between 3,000 and 5,000 miles. There was no visible damage to the cranks so the crack was not begun by some other impact.

I did ride to work the next day, and the ride helped alleviate the soreness and stiffness I felt first thing in the morning. I was sure to ride slowly, turning small gears (on a different bike). Big cogs, and little rings all the way to and from work. I did not get on a bike all weekend, and there was a long time saturday when the rain took a break so I could have slipped a ride in. I've got more rides planned soon so I'll catch up on the mileage.

My bane

2010-01-21T16:54:00.000-08:00

Bane: That which causes ruin or woe. Well, to be sure, it causes me woe, and often. Back in an earlier geologic epoch, when I was in my late 30s, I got a case of bronchitis that my HMO refused at first to accept for what it was. Since that time, I have gotten colds at a rate that seemed unfair, certainly to me. Every few years for a while I would get a cold that stood above all the others in it's intensity and duration. I would be tempting fate no doubt to say that the 100 year respiratory storms that I would suffer more often than once every 100 years have lessened, but I am going to say that. However, I still get more colds than I think a person should get.

There have been some colds memorable if for nothing else than the timing, and the timing usually has ruined a ride that was weeks or months in the planning. I've had colds wreck riding the Terrible Two, The Death Ride, the Gold Rush (twice!), the 2004 version of the San Ramon to Malibu multi day ride, and countless club rides.

Am I unique in this among randonneurs? Are brevet riders, ultra distance cyclists, more prone to respiratory ailments? My guess is no, it's just me, but let me know.

The long way

2010-01-14T21:04:00.000-08:00

It's nothing like Ole Doc Bradford's commute, and while so many, many things here fall far short of Bernard Moitessier's grand voyage (including that I dutifully continued on to my appointed destination instead of rerouting to warmer, sunnier climates), I still refer to this commute route to work as the long way. Last year I managed to take this route 35 times. I live in Richmond, CA, in The Annex neighborhood which is pretty near to the Richmond segment of the Bay Trail. I work in Emeryville, CA in one of the few buildings that hasn't (yet) been completely taken over by an increasingly famous, and ever growing entertainment factory now owned by a company most often represented by a mouse who has a friend that is a dog that talks and has a pet that is a dog that doesn't talk. The straight line that connects these two locales runs pretty much due north and south, and my 'long way' route doesn't use even a block of the path between them.

Many times the night before I've promised myself I'd ride the long way to work in the morning, and when morning comes I either reset the clock for 30 minutes more of sleep, or I linger way too long over the Sudoku puzzle, and I blow my chance to get to work on schedule and also get the extra miles in. When I don't cave into the excuses or the delaying behavior, I always enjoy the trip and always feel pretty good all day. Today was one of those days where I felt good all day long because of taking 'the long way'. Today was the first time this year I took the long way as well. I keep a record of when I've done that ride, and how long it takes me to get from my home, at about 65' above sea level, to the entrance to the Redwood Railway, which is just down hill from the highest point (~1600') on the route. I record the times from home to the Redwood Railway lot (about 9 miles), but I never race the route. My self imposed rule is that I have to ride a pace that I could maintain for more than twice as long as I'm riding that day. It would be a pace for which I could still carry on a conversation if I were to be riding with someone. And yet, it needs to be a purposeful pace. No dawdling, therefore.

Today I left the house in the dark, with clear skies above, and no wind. I caught all the traffic lights on red that I pass, but I only had to wait through a short red phase and never had to unclip. Above Marin Circle, on Los Angeles Ave. I always begin to slow down, it's just one of those inclines that always gets the better of me. Way back behind me I could see the headlight of another bike, but I managed to make the turn on to Spruce and climb all the way to the big loop around Michigan Park before the rider that was really two riders caught me. We exchanged hellos as they passed, and the rider with the lights seemed to lose his form just a little to match his riding partner, the latter rider being much smoother. On the longer straight sections of Grizzly Peak I could still see their tail lights for a while, and my guess was that by the time they reached the top of the climb I was almost a mile behind.

In 2009, my first half dozen trips on the long way would take me around 54 to 56 minutes to get to the Steam Trains lot. By early spring I was pretty regularly taking just under 53 minutes, with only one time over 55 minutes. At the end of April I nearly broke 50 minutes and finally in early May I clocked in at 49:59. I had a slow start to the year in 2009 all around, not just on the 'long way' climb, and my times on this route pretty much matched how I felt I improved on my riding overall. In short the climb on the 'long way' was a pretty good barometer of my riding fitness. Except for one trip with a flat tire both before and after reaching the Steam Trains lot, my times were no higher than 51:37 through June, with the lowest time being 48:19.

I took a bit of a break in July, and picked up in August right where I left off. I can see the slow down in times in September right after my crash and the separate, unrelated trip to the ER. Even with the return to standard time in November, the sun just didn't rise early enough to give me daylight on the last part of the route and I sort of struggled to get my butt on the bike and ride uphill in the dark.

Today, though, I refused to cave into excuses to take the flat route to work. By the time I reached the more serpentine portion of the route where the roadway circumnavigates the many peaks on the ridge, those two riders were probably racing downhill well ahead of me. Once clear of the residential section of Grizzly Peak Blvd. I could see out over the flat lands. In the time it took me to climb up to the ridge, the fog had begun to come in and cover a large portion of Berkeley. I love this when that happens because I can do the climb and get up above the fog which then forms a white blanket that only lets the tallest peaks pop up to be seen. It's still not yet after sunrise, but there is enough light to see my cycle computer and as I cross past the turn into the Steam Train lot the clock turns to 51:00 flat. In the increasing daylight I started downhill. A lot of the visual drama had yet to happen and I had to miss that. Grizzly Peak Blvd. intersects with Fish Ranch Road and Claremont, with Claremont being the route down to work. Claremont has a couple of tight turns up nearer to the top of the hill, and then straightens out a lot for most of it's run down hill. I can easily reach 40mph here and I know there are a number of rough spots, divots in the pavement and uneven patching so I try to focus on the roadway and also spot any cars pulling out. Down at the bottom after a snarl of intersections I pass by the Semifreddis outlet at The Uplands and I check and see that Owen is working there so I stop and say hello. I hadn't seen him for a few months since the Emeryville cafe had to close. Owen is as friendly as ever, and because it's always good to be around friendly people, I make a mental note to take this route a lot more often and to stop in again.

Morning traffic is picking up but the rest of the trip is just fine. Riding predictably, motorists let me blend in with them and we all get where we are going with little hassle or delay. By the time I turn on to 45th, the fog has gotten lower but it isn't at all like the weather on the 'long route' ride the last week of last year three weeks ago. That was pea soup.

It's a good feeling to know that I am not as far into a hole to start the new cycling year as I was last year. I'm five and a half minutes better off. I'm no lighter than last year, but at least I have my riding legs already, and it feels good to know that I could have pushed a wee bit more today and gone faster and yet still stay within the 'no racing' guideline for this test. Cool beans, eh?

Catching up on 2009

2010-01-08T10:41:00.000-08:00

I was listening to some old broadcasts of This American Life recently and in one act of one of the episodes the correspondents from Planet Money (producers of a fabulous piece on the causes of the recession) interview an economic forecaster. Economic forecasting relies heavily on the output from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which issues not a set of results from previous fiscal quarters, but instead a three year series of estimates, each estimate revised since the previous one. In fact, results of what happened economically in this country back in the 1920s is still being revised today! Given that, I really don't feel quite so bad in waiting until January 8th to review my previous riding year.

A lot of people think reflecting on the last year is arbitrary in the segment of time being reviewed. Maybe so. I don't think it is so unreasonable really. Our year is a close but not exact measurement of the length of time it takes to travel once around the sun, one trip through all the seasons of a year. We re-adjust the tally when we have to and slip that re-adjustment into a part of the calendar where someone thought the rest of us might not mind so much. A lot of people, maybe some of the same people, don't think mileage is the best way to assess a riding year but it does provide starting place, and maybe it being a start and not an end to review makes it more palatable. In any case, here is the short form of the Executive Summary of last year: 8701 miles ridden. 8701 miles is not the most I've ridden in a year, nor is it the least, nor is it average. It is more than last year. My goal is to make it less than this year. I must admit something. Like the Bureau of Economic Analysis, I will likely be publishing a revision of that figure. I spent a couple hours last night updating my database, and doing some digging to find all the rides I forgot to record. I know there are some rides that are missing, and I'm pretty sure that what is there is honest and accurate, so the number is likely to go up once I finish searching.

Behind the number, in this case the number 8,701, are many details and memories. As 2008 came to a close and 2009 began, I really was not all that enthused about cycling. I still attempted to do the rides I had always done at that time of year, but without the preparation and foundation work, and as a result I struggled. I've no idea exactly what it was or exactly when it happened, but something fell solidly into place and I woke up from a cycling slumber. I was keen to plan rides again, keen to do them, and keen to photograph them and complete write ups. I followed through on this blog after a long layoff too. My intent was to document my thoughts on and memories of PBP 2007 and my preparation for PBP 2011. I did get a few write ups on the blog, but mainly I was pretty busy doing rides, paperwork for the San Francisco Randonneurs, and preparing for the next ride. Once in a while I would post updates on my progress on the RUSA R-12 award, but lately I sort of missed out on a few entries.

Below, I'll try to give a few thumbnail sketches of some of these rides, and perhaps do better in the near future with updating the blog on time.

Ride	Date	Distance	Comments
SFR Lighthouse 200km	11-07-2009	200km	We had a great turnout of over 60 riders for a late fall brevet. The weather was not so bad, and traffic was light. I rode much of the route with Bruce Berg, until he chose to stop in Point Reyes Station. Wind is always a factor on the Piont, but this trip it really didn't seem to be as troublesome as usual.
Oakland Hills to Willow Park	11-26-2009	60 miles	This was an impromptu Grizzly Peak Cyclists ride and we had a pretty good turnout. I often combine this route with an early start so as to get a longish ride in and still be home by 11am or noon.
Mt. Tam via SF	11-28-2009	75 miles	This route was a repeat of my annual birthday ride. This day though, only Bruce Marchant was riding with me. It was cool most of the day, but it was still worth it to ride. We stopped at Grilly's in Mill Valley and to my surprise, the burrito was much better than other recent meals there. Bikes and burritos. How can you beat that combo.
Del Puerto Canyon	12-05-2009	106 miles	This is one of my favorite routes. While the Central Valley portion can be less fun, once the route hits Del Puerto Canyon road, you realize it is worth the prelude. We had a big turnout for the ride, much larger than normal for this club ride. 18 riders I think. I ended up being the de facto ride leader when someone, no names, forgot their riding shoes at home. I had a lot of trouble keeping up on the flats with a really fast group, but once we hit the hills I managed to catch and pass a few riders. Hot tea at the Junction Cafe braced me for the last 25 miles on Mines where the wind picked up and the temps dropped to the low 40s. More than one rider needed to be picked up at the Junction, which is pretty unusual.
Del Puerto Canyon 200km	12-19-2009	200km	This was my last 200km needed to complete my R-12. A rough storm the week before split the group of 16 that was going to ride together on the 12th, and our group of five did the ride on the 19th, and without the high incidence of flat tires the early group suffered. We had wicked fog on Corral Hollow, low fog in the Valley and sunshine once we approached the big climb on Del Puerto Canyon. The sunshine lasted about 20 miles as we rode into the clouds once again on the Mines Road return. Our group had a nice post ride meal at the ale house in Pleasanton, to cap off a really nice day on the bike shared with a good group of riders.
Mt. Tam Again	12-26-2009	80 miles	A repeat of the previous repeat, this time with Greg Merritt and Todd Teachout. Boy those guys made me work, but I'm happy I got out on this ride. The long weekend coming up for New Years turned out to be remarkably free of any rides I could do. Rain and a bout of poison oak kept me off the bike until January 3rd.

So there you go, a few of the rides that concluded 2009 and totalled 8,701 miles. Unlike last year at this time, I am now pretty excited about the possibilities of the coming year on the bike. I made a resolution that I'd ride more miles in 2010, but the reason behind those more miles was to ride more with riders I've never ridden with, and more with riders I haven't ridden with in way too long, and none of it would come at the expense of equaling the miles I rode with friends in 2009. Here's to 2010.

Blurring the line between gift and giver

2009-12-23T07:46:00.000-08:00

When my son was younger, he seemed perplexed that while he got the whole summer off from school, I still went to work. Wait, what? Did I do that on purpose? I wondered if he thought I just didn't want to stay at home and have fun. "What the heck is up with Tato?" (Years later I now wonder how the prospect and realization of a life with a job with barely three weeks off a year doesn't make him not want to 'grow up', or more to the point secretly scares him silly, but that is a different topic).

A week out from Christmas Day, local schools were holding their last day of classes before the year end holidays and I was in that suspended state of still going to work for several more days before my much shorter holiday began. Our office was undergoing renovation on that Friday, so I was supposed to work from home for the afternoon. In short I view working from home as no treat, so instead, I arranged to take the afternoon off as a community service time (This is the first employer I've had that offers such time off instead of making you take regular vacation, and it is one of several reasons I like this company I work for (I'm in one of those photos in the link, and I'm sure you can guess which one)).

Earlier in the week, there was a request on Grizzly Peak Cyclists email list for club members to go to Verde Elementary School in North Richmond and help out with the dozen or so out of 80 used bikes from the Pleasant Hill Police and Community Center that still needed some work, in particular fixing flat tires. The bikes would later be distributed to 80 lucky students at the school. This seemed the perfect solution to the possibility of a frustrating afternoon trying to work with all the usual tools unavailable, so after exchanging a few email with my fellow club member who posted the request, the visit was set.

Turns out that my club mate is one of the Kindergarten teachers at the school, though I wasn't aware of the link to the school when I responded. Makes sense, but I'm not so sharp a lot of the time. The deal was for me to pick up a couple of inner tubes for smaller wheels and show up at noon at the school. I picked up the tubes on my ride from work over to the school. I live in Richmond, but the school's neighborhood was one I didn't think I had ever been in. (Turns out I had been near there once as the Annie's Annuals nursery on the way to the school and my wife loves that nursery.) I had been advised by someone be careful on my ride over because the area near the school was 'a little shady'. Understanding that this phrase is dependent on perspective, while my own neighborhood isn't a textbook example of prosperous, North Richmond was clearly not doing quite as well. The only discomfort I felt though was in not being familiar with the route, and worrying about missing the turns.

On it's course down from the Richmond Hills, Wildcat Creek is channelized and often disappears from the map as it travels underneath shopping centers, crosses under freeways and other major thoroughfares. The creek has been tamed but not erased by the time it passes by Verde Elementary and a small, humped bridge serves as access to the school. Most vistas present themselves best when clear skies allow for brilliant sunshine, but the school grounds really didn't need that advantage. An expanse of green spread out to the west and disused greenhouses dotted the landscape to the north. I was a few minutes early to meet my contact at the school but the wait was enjoyable as I took in this scene, back dropped by Mt. Tam across the bay, and the blue skies above broken up by cumulus clouds.

My contact arrived and I was introduced as a 'bike expert' to the students I'd be working with. They had a million questions to ask and comments to make: "How many days do you ride?" "Why does your bike only have one gear?", "You are all sweaty!" Even though it's been 30 years since I was a student teacher planning a career in eduction, I remembered that a nine year old hasn't refined the filter between what they think and what they say, and after 53 years, I've worked it out that I'm a person that perspires just thinking about heat, so I didn't mind that observation one bit. I mentally awarded full points for accuracy on the observation, and noted that it was a statement of fact, and not of disgust.

The students that I would work with had been selected by their teachers for the task and it was impossible to miss their excitement at the prospect of getting a bike. Though our goal was to pick a few bikes with flat tires to work on, each student couldn't help having their eyes drawn toward 'their' bike, and yet we were able to cull a few from the herd and roll them outside into the sunshine to work on. It hadn't dawned on me to bring more tools than I normally needed for my commute bike so we had to make do with a pair of channel lock pliers, and choosing between a fourteen inch and six inch crescent wrench. We did have a set of plastic tire levers though so really we had all we needed. By the time that the hour was over, I realized that this really wasn't so much an experience of me giving something, rather I was the recipient. Eight and nine year old attention spans are short, we know this, so it was gratifying to engage in something that really is enjoyable for me but having a bunch of kids I didn't know hanging on my instructions, listening to my advice and really focusing on the task and finally relishing the success of a brand new accomplishment. I've been jaded quite a bit by the 'Holiday' season, and this one hour turned that around and set the stage for the best holiday I've had in years.

Chasing the sinking sun

2009-11-04T13:09:00.000-08:00

California and nearly every other State ended Daylight Savings Time and reverted to Standard time this past weekend. My first chance to be affected by this change came on my commute home from work on Monday. Most of my route is along Bike Boulevards in Emeryville, or on bike or multi-use paths through Berkeley, then along the Bay Trail all the way up to Richmond. On Monday evening, it struck me that by far, most of the riders I saw that evening after the sun had set, had nothing in the way of lighting. I could not believe that so many people has simply forgotten about the time change. I thought I recalled passing ten riders, two of which had any kind of lighting.

Leaving more or less on time in the morning on Tuesday, I had nearly full daylight for my ride which I really appreciated. On the way home, I left after sunset but still somewhat within civil twilight. A mile or two into the ride and it was dark and all that time, lights were more than just a good idea. Again, I encountered riders with no lights at all, so I began to count them. By the end of my ride, ten out of the fourteen riders I passed had no lighting whatsoever and were riding in complete darkness. Of the four with lights, two had those maddening blinking front lights which strike me as being totally useless for seeing your own way, and less than adequate for letting others know where you are (with the light blinking it is difficult at best to judge the distance to the light source). Two riders had useful lighting. Though my route takes me past several places where homeless people live nearby, and also near locations where immigrants wait in hopes of getting day labor, none of the riders I saw were under privileged, under-employed or someone who had fallen through the social safety net.

Of the ten riders I passed with no lights, the last two were worth remarking upon. One fellow thought it worthwhile to yell at me. It is difficult at best to understand what someone passing you in the opposite direction is saying but it struck me that this guy thought I was doing something wrong. The last guy with no lights felt it very much worth his effort to give the stink-eye to the motorist who had quite properly stopped at a stop sign, quite properly signaled his intention to turn right, and was looking at the traffic from all directions before proceeding. WTF?!

I'm wondering why more people don't plunk the money down for even minimal lights. For < $50 you can buy a descent set of small, light, useful lights at REI. Hell, REI will mail them to you if you can't make it to one of their stores, and no doubt dozens of other retailers would do the same. Planet Bike is not the only company making better than adequate bike lighting either. Check out Cateye too, for example. Great company, great customer service. $50 is half of what my deductible was for a visit to the ER last month (for an issue unrelated to cycling), plus the trip to the store to buy the lights took me far less time than the eight hours I spent waiting for all the various treatment I got for that ER visit. On the other side of the coin, if you are a gadget freak, then where have you been? Run wild here. There are tons of lighting systems out there, some that are so bright they'll melt the bumpers of the car stopped at the stop sign ahead of you.

Unless they are all doing it behind my back, no one has been calling a a doofus or dork, or even a dweeb for having lights on my bike at night, or for carrying them around during the daylight. But then, even if they did call me names, wouldn't this say more about them than me?

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

-- Time, from Dark side of the Moon

Countdown to R-12: ten out of twelve down

2009-10-26T13:06:00.000-07:00

For my October 200km I was busy on the day of my club's Winters 200km brevet (I worked the ride instead) but with so many local permanents to choose from, I still had lots of options. I chose the route that started the closest to my home, RUSA Permanent #555. I happen to know quite a bit about this route, including it's genesis. Bruce Berg, the permanent owner based the route largely on a club ride with the Grizzly Peak Cyclists, the Berkeley to Davis route. I've liked this route from the first time I ever rode it with friends from the GPC, and I've always felt it had an element of adventure to it. What adds that element is that the route is not an out and back or a loop route. It's a one way route. Return is almost always by Amtrak, which when the group is big lends an opportunity for everyone to get a chance to talk to other riders that they may not have ridden near all day, or when the group is small a chance to compare notes on the day.

What sets the Berkeley to Davis permanent apart from that favorite club ride are two things: overall distance and terrain. In order to reach the minimum 200km distance an out and back leg was created where riders leave Berkeley and head mostly south to Castro Valley, and then work their way back north reaching a total of 50 miles at a point where the more direct route from Berkeley would be maybe total 10 miles. As for terrain, those extra miles are anything but flat. This changes the ride from 90+ miles to 129 miles and the latter version has 6855' of elevation gain, with 4500+ of that coming in the first 50 miles. The GPC club version of the ride is often listed as an early January century and would attract riders who like the distance but maybe have been less active over the previous month or more. After doing this route a second time (first time was in August) I'm convinced this is no mellow club ride, and under the right conditions, it can be a butt kicker.

On Saturday I met Bruce just before 7am at the original Peets on Vine in Berkeley and after scarfing a fudge brownie we rolled off toward Tunnel Avenue and the first climb of the day. The weather the day before had been very mild and with a forecast high near Davis of 79F we were expecting a pleasant day. So far the morning was proving to be just that: very pleasant. While the whole route save for the very last few miles has become very familiar to me, the first miles of this route are even more familiar. This is my cycling 'back yard'. Once reaching the top of Tunnel Road and Skyline, the route more or less follows the crest of the ridge formed by the East Bay Hills. The route alternates between residential sections and Regional Park land and finally descends toward the watershed for the Upper San Leandro reservoir. A somewhat quick stop at the Peets in Castro Valley to acquire proof of passage and we head back north on Redwood Road making our way toward the San Pablo reservoir where we'll turn northeast, aiming for the Zampa Bridge where we cross the Carquinez Strait.

By the time we've reached Vallejo, all the serious climbing is behind us, and what remains are grades more toward the gentle end of the spectrum. With Vallejo as point A, and Fairfield as point B our route is not the most direct and straight line. The area in between lacks roads and would be a series of canyons to cross. Instead we take the E Ticket ride down Lake Herman Road which culminates with a grand view of Suisun Bay and the Mothball Fleet, and from there we skirt along Interstate 680 with the wetlands that feed into Grizzly Bay on the opposite side of the freeway. The second control on the route is in Cordelia, which largely offers a selection of kwik-marts and fast food outlets. We chose the Burger King for the high calorie to dollar ratio, which comes in handy when riding for 10 hours or more, and because it had seats and tables (something lacking in the kwik-mart). The lunch did not make me feel over full, which often happens on long rides, and I was happy for this.

Even though we had long ago passed a sign announcing the city limits of Fairfield, it was quite a few miles before we were really within the city limits. What we passed before was simply marsh land that was annexed to the city for some unknown reason. The stretch from Cordelia to the outskirts of Vacaville is intermittently rural and suburban, and a good deal of it is cheek-to-jowl with Interstate 80 and as a result, pretty noisy. Pleasants Valley and the turn north bring silence and a rolling terrain with the beginnings of the Vaca Mountains immediately on our left. Bruce had ridden this permanent four weeks before and I had ridden it a bit more than two months before, and for each of us, this time was in milder weather than before. The route takes us across the west, northwest and north edge of Vacaville and quickly we are out in rolling countryside and winds from the north begin to pick up immediately. We no longer have the protection of the Vaca Mountains and our trajectory is more northward than it has been. Our goal was the 3:50pm train if we were having a great day, and the 4:55 train if we were having a good day. Estimating the distance left, the time it would take to cover that distance and the need to acquire receipts before getting train tickets leaves us with little room to play with. The first time I had covered this ground was on the SFR Davis Overnight brevet. On that ride I was trusting to luck that I could eventually catch the lead pack, or at the very least keep their tail lights in view. They had riders among them that knew the route and the area, and I did not. Traveling over that same ground now for the 3rd time this year, I had a lot more confidence in my route finding and it wouldn't be until much later in the day where I would be a little unsure and unfamiliar with the exact turns. The advantage then though would be that if on my own, I could eventually get into Davis with little trouble even if I didn't take the most efficient route. The central valley is extremely flat and Davis and the UC campus there are marked by a tall water tower. Naturally, we did make a wrong turn, heading south instead of north and we added at least two miles to our total that we didn't need to add, and worse, put ourselves about 8-10 more minutes in the hole in trying to make the 4:55 train.

Each of us were now pretty weary and pulling into the wind trying to maintain 17+ mph was draining. With about four miles to go, I began to slump noticeably and for the first time all day I was dangling well of the back of Bruce's rear wheel. I managed to regroup just as we passed under I-80 for the last time, but I could hear what I thought was the train whistle of our departing train. We still pushed on to the train station just in case, but upon arriving there we had it confirmed that we had missed the train by minutes. While we each didn't want to be on a later train, at least we had the opportunity to relax over a dinner that would be much better than what the 'dining car' would serve on Amtrak.

Having completed this ride twice now, it seems to be a 10 hour ride for most of us. We finished in 10 hours, 3 minutes compared to the August time of 10:08. My total mileage for the day once I arrived back home was 139.85 miles. My total climbing including the commute to the start, and back home from the train station was 6900'+.

Just two more to go to the R-12.

Crossing the Two Rock Valley

2009-10-20T08:44:00.000-07:00

It's funny about all the things that can crop up to complicate a seemingly simple plan to ride ride at least one 200km a month for twelve consecutive months. My own plan began before I was aware of it, when in June of this year I realized I had a string of six consecutive months with a 200km brevet completed in each month (Jan-SFR 200km, Feb-SRCC 200km, March-SRCC 300km, April-SFR 400km, May-SFR 600km, June-SFR 230km). An ambitious plan A did not get met, and plan B had to be put into effect. August's 200km permanent came off with out much drama, but then September rolled around.

There were grand plans for high mileage for the month of September, and completing the SFR Russian River 200km was plotted for the 2nd weekend of the month. Not one, but two big obstacles arose to put the kibosh on that plan. On what was to be an easy 95 miler with a handful of fellow SFR riders, an oddly placed car stop in the parking lot near the Peets in Petaluma interrupted my ride in a painful way. The result of my forward progress being so rudely halted was two bruised knees, slightly loose front teeth from the face plant on the car stop, and worst of all, a one inch gash on my elbow that really should have gotten five stitches. I could not see the wound on my elbow and only when I reached home five hours later did I see just how bad the cut was. Using crudely fashioned butterfly stitches I did the best I could with treating the cut and dealt with the sore knees and elbow as they slowly healed. Later that same week, I ended up in the ER at Alta Bates with what later was diagnosed as EE when I could not swallow anything for about fourteen hours. (The condition is totally under control medically, but less under control financially however.)

By the time Sept. 12th rolled around, I was in no shape to complete a 125 mile ride and I spent the day and weekend on the sidelines volunteering at the start and finish of the ride and completing all the paperwork the day after. The next two weekends were already booked, the first doing the Knoxville Double Century and the next one being on-call for work. With zero weekends left open in September, the plan was now to take a day off of work and do a permanent. I chose Willy's Jittery Jaunt for the route, starting at the Marina Safeway, then going to Petaluma, then Valley Ford and then south on Highway One to Point Reyes and then returning to the City for the finish. I originally chose Sept. 29th for date just to allow one last day should the unforseeable crop up. The first segment of the plan, the route, did work but the second did not when I needed to push the ride back a day to the 30th when I had to undergo a follow up procedure that required anesthesia which would fog my head for close to 24 hours.

All the roads on this permanent route are familiar to me but I've only done this collection of roads as a single ride once before, in July. Bruce and I took just under 10 hours to complete the route that day, so I was wondering how I might manage on my own. One of the first tricks to manage was getting my first control receipt given that I had no one to watch my bike and no lock with me. Things could have gone very wrong here but they didn't as I ran inside the Marina Safeway, grabbed a banana and got in a checkout line that had a good view of my bike and wasn't far from the door. At 7:30am I was rolling out of the parking lot and headed toward the Golden Gate Bridge. The route from the Bridge through lower Marin is an entirely familiar one. The distance from Sausalito to Fairfax is roughly 15 miles, and covering it out and back will be 30 miles which leaves roughly 95 miles on any 200km and more on any other brevet for all the other distance for the full route, and yet that 30 mile section will fill up two thirds or more of the cue sheet. Despite all the turns, I've done this section so many times that I can cruise through on auto-pilot and it serves as a warm-up section. The ride really begins on White's Hill just outside of Fairfax where first the stores and businesses, then the houses disappear and the road tilts up toward the notch in the hill.

The route from Fairfax to Petaluma is made up by connecting a series of valleys that tend more toward canyons. The terrain then is influenced by the climbs up to the road cuts that make car travel possible between valleys and canyons separated by these ridges. My pace will alternate between grinding up the inclines and screaming down the backsides. The only prolonged stretch that can be called flat is the mile plus segment through Nicasio. I have trouble remembering the times I arrived at each control the last time I did the route, so I have little idea of my progress versus that last circuit when I arrive at the Peets in Petaluma. One thing I know I improve upon is my time while at each control. I'm not a gregarious person when among people I don't know so I strike up no conversations with the mid-morning crowd of regulars, but I listen to snippets of the conversations around me for the short time before I roll off toward Valley Ford. The bulk of Marin County is very hilly terrain, dominated in large part by Mount Tamalpias, and Sonoma county to the north includes some very rugged and remote terrain. Where northern Marin County meets southern Sonoma County the topography settles down a bit and the terrain is described with terms such as rolling and undulating. This interface between the two counties is very much an agricultural area and dairy farms are plentiful. Unlike the route from Fairfax to Petaluma, the leg to Valley Ford has no steep or prolonged climbs, but what it does have often is a pretty consistent wind that blows west to east. In July with company on this leg I could take a rest and follow the draft of my fellow rider, but this day I'm alone. The wind and in fact the whole day's weather seems pretty much the same as on my ride two months before. The frequency of buildings diminishes as Petaluma falls farther behind and Bodega Avenue ends where I take Valley Ford road to the northwest.

The terrain I seek out when riding tends to be rural, and like so many other places in California, this area is dotted with small communities. I often wonder why some towns grew and others didn't and why some towns even exist at all, but I often don't even notice where villages and towns once were. North of the junction of Bodega Avenue and Valley Ford Road is the village of Two Rock, California. There are no city or village limit signs to sprint for as you approach it, and in fact it is hard to distinguish Two Rock as a village from any other small cluster of farm and ranch buildings I'll pass. At one time, Two Rock was much more of a going concern and served the agricultural community located there. No doubt the much larger town of Petaluma to the east draws all the commerce now and the area was probably already in a commercial and community decline when the US Army located a top secret WWII base there, which in later years was transferred to the Coast Guard. These days, Two Rock largely exists as a Wikipedia entry, a name given to a local church, a searchable location on Google Maps, and the name of a USGS topographical map for the area, and it has been longer still since the topographical feature that lends it's name to the village was ever called Dos Piedros.

Along the way toward Valley Ford I cross into the Stemple Creek watershed, marked at first by the roadside sign near the top of a roller. I'll cross Stemple Creek itself only after visiting Valley Ford first, and when I'm southbound on Highway One where Estero de San Antonio directs the largely coastal Highway One away from the coast. Here though, Stemple Creek is actually out of sight to the south and the nearest watercourse is Americano Creek. The control in Valley Ford is the General Store, a location used on several other brevets as a control and a rest stop on numerous club rides. Stepping outside of my usual introverted character, I chat a bit with the staff in the store and when I mention that the wind was against me on my way into town, I'm told that the wind was pretty fierce the day before. Evidence of that was found in the misalignment of the porta johns out back. The General Store staff had to replace those several times the day before as they drifted eastward as a result of the wind. Southbound toward Tomales is a set of rollers much worse than any of the others in that region, and made worse no doubt by the prevailing winds. There is a payoff ahead and once I make the final run down hill into Tomales and complete the windy run down School House Creek, mentally at least I know I can handle the stretch ahead into Point Reyes Station. Partway between Tomales and Point Reyes is the town of Marshall, a favorite spot of mine and the site of the control on several of the San Francisco Randonneur's brevet routes. This day though I pass through Marshall without stopping and think of my visit to the Bovine Bakery in Point Reyes Station. The bakery is a magnet that draws nearly every cyclist that stops in town to it's door step, and there is no surprise that mine is not the only bike parked out front. A group of three riders, oozing sunshine from every pore are on their way back home after a trip to the Avenue of the Giants. I can easily tell this was a memorable trip for them just in the way they say the name of their destination.

Olema is the next town I pass through, a very small town best known for having once been thought to be the epicenter of the famous 1906 earthquake. Only highly specialized scientific equipment can measure the creep along the fault line while I pass over from the Pacific Plate to the North American Plate and I begin my climb up Bolinas Ridge. The descent down the Ridge is the last of the good pavement for a while and the detour on the bikeway through Samuel Taylor State Park keeps me off the craptastic pavement on Sir Frances Drake boulevard and away from the motorists whose impatience escalates because of that pavement. Lagunitas, then San Geronimo and finally Woodacre form clusters of habititation along the route before the climb up White's hill begins. Westbound the drop from the summit road cut is more or less straight, but east bound it is full of curves. At one time the upper section of roadway had two downhill lanes but those have been re-striped and there is now ample space for cyclists mostly away from the car traffic. Fairfax is busy at this time of day and the slowed pace is welcome for a short bit. I'm back on the leg with constant road name changes and multiple turns and these 15 miles to the Bridge always take longer than I estimate. I arrive at the bridge after the west side bike curfew has ended and most of the bicycling tourists are still on the east side of the bridge, and I relish the nearly empty path.

It is still early enough that rush hour traffic has not yet picked up and the last leg to the Marina Safeway is easily finished. Once again I'm faced with the dilemma of trying to get a receipt while by bike is left unlocked outside, but the risk is minimized by grabbing a chocolate milk in the cooler right at the checkout counter, which saves me from buying a pack of gum I wouldn't eat. Chocolate milk is heaven at this moment. My finish time for the Jittery Jaunt is 8 hours and 45 minutes, and with the ride to BART and then the trip to my house I'll have nearly 140 miles for the day. Just after leaving the Safeway though I run into Willy Nevin at Fort Mason on his way home from work. Pretty symmetrical running into the route owner minutes after finishing his permanent.

The first time did this route I wasn't wowed by it, and normally I don't like to ride long distances totally alone. On long rides I usually start out with riders and finish with others. This ride though turns out to be the longest ride I've ever done completely solo, and I've come to like this route so much that with Willy's permission I've turned this into RUSA brevet route 809 for the San Francisco Randonneurs. I've made one change, somewhat minor, in that the route returns via Nicasio instead of Olema to avoid having riders on the bad pavement in the late afternoon/early evening. We'll run this for the first time in February of 2010.

Too early to plan 2010? Heck no!

2009-10-16T16:01:00.000-07:00

In Northern California, we brevet riders are lucky in that we have four 'local' clubs putting on brevets which gives us lots of options. There are no less than 24 brevets on the tentitive calendar, a sortable table can be seen here as well as the static one below:

Tentative 2010 Northern California Brevet Schedule
Club	Date	Distance	Start Location
San Francisco Randonneurs	1-23-2010	200km	Golden Gate Bridge
	2-6-2010	200km	Golden Gate Bridge
	2-27-2010	300km	Golden Gate Bridge
	3-27-2010	400km	Golden Gate Bridge
	4-3-2010	360km+	Various
	4-25-2010	200km	San Rafael
	5-22-2010	600km	Golden Gate Bridge
	6-12-2010	230km	Rodeo, CA
	7-17-2010	115km	Golden Gate Bridge
	10-09-2010	200km	Rodeo, CA
Santa Cruz Randonneurs	6-25-2010	1000km	San Jose to Oxnard
	7-24-2010	200km	Santa Cruz
	8-7-2010	200km	Santa Cruz
	8-21-2010	300km	Santa Cruz
	9-4-2010	400km	Santa Cruz
	9-25-2010	600km	Santa Cruz
Santa Rosa Cyclists	3-13-2010	200km	Healdsburg
	4-10-2010	300km	Healdsburg
	5-8-2010	400km	Healdsburg
	6-5-2010	600km	Healdsburg
Davis Bike Club	3-6-2010	200km	Davis
	3-20-2010	300km	Davis
	4-17-2010	400km	Davis
	4-30-2010	600km	Davis

There should be something for just about every rider next year, and there is a possibility that there will be more events to add (think at least a Populaire or two). Interesting aspects to the calendar are: a night time 230km, a populaire, a brand new 1000km, a fall SR series which of course includes a 600km, a Sunday 200km for those that can't make Saturday starts.

Progress report

2009-10-13T10:39:00.000-07:00

I began this blog first as a place to record my notes on my attempt on PBP 2007 and going forward as a place to note my progress toward preparation for the 2011 version of Paris, Brest et retour. One milestone on the brevet season would be completing the Super Randonneur series of 200, 300, 400 and 600km brevets. I was able to complete that in late May when I finished the SFR Fort Bragg 600km. Not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, it took me completing the June Davis Nighttime Brevet before I realized I had a string going and another marker of progress was underway: one half of the RUSA R12 award.

HAWKS, Rob | San Francisco Randonneurs | 905030

Cert No.	Type	Km	Date	Organizing Club / ACP Code	Medal
RUSA-P03830	RUSAP	114	10-03-2009	San Francisco Randonneurs / 905030	n/a
278244	ACPB	200	01-24-2009	San Francisco Randonneurs / 905030	N
279233	ACPB	200	02-28-2009	Santa Rosa Cycling Club / 905048	N
285105	ACPB	200	04-26-2009	San Francisco Randonneurs / 905030	N
287506	ACPB	200	06-13-2009	San Francisco Randonneurs / 905030	N
RUSA-T06954	RUSAT	203	07-25-2009	Jittery Jaunt 200km / 249	n/a
pending	RUSAT	203	09-30-2009	Jittery Jaunt 200km / 249	n/a
RUSA-T07045	RUSAT	207	08-15-2009	Berkeley to Davis / 555	n/a
101760	ACPB	300	03-14-2009	Santa Rosa Cycling Club / 905048	N
67678	ACPB	400	04-04-2009	San Francisco Randonneurs / 905030	N
51360	ACPB	600	05-30-2009	San Francisco Randonneurs / 905030	N

Award status: Super Randonneur, RUSA 2624 km

The chart above doesn't tally a September permanent (Willy's Jittery Jaunt), finished with 8 spare hours remaining in September. Heck, I could have nearly dashed off another 200km. I'm planning on also repeating the Berkeley to Davis permanent later this month, then I'll ride the San Francisco Randonneurs' Point Reyes Lighthouse 200km in early November, and probably the Del Puerto Loop, which adds an out and back to one of my favorite Grizzly Peak Cyclists fall rides.

The chart above is also a pretty dry rendering of 2009's cycling events. What it doesn't convey of course is the experience of climbing Highway 128 toward Mountain House road north of Cloverdale in the heat of a Saturday afternoon westbound, and 12 hours later climbing it eastbound into the fog in the early morning, or chasing the taillights of the lead pack in the dark where the Central Valley flatlands transition from the undulations of the Vaca Mountains north of Vacaville. It also can't convey the experience of climbing out of the fog settled in the chilly Nicasio Valley in early April, or the return to the 100F heat on the 2009 version of the Davis Double in May. A chart can't warm you in the same way that sitting around a roaring camp fire in Paul Dimmick park on the return leg of the Fort Bragg 600km, chatting with a handful of your fellow brevet riders can, nor can a tally of miles demonstrate the dual beauty of riding with your son in the Sierra surrounded by granite themed beauty can. We use these charts and photos as triggers for those memories though, and it is a good start.

Early arrival

2009-10-13T08:40:00.002-07:00

The Bay Area pretty much has only two seasons, each with plenty of variations, but it's really just the Rainy Season and the rest of the year. The rainy season by most estimations begins on November 1st and depending on who is defining it, runs through the end of January or sometime in April. Today's storm is therefore just a bit early.

Sometime overnight, the rain from this storm began and we can usually tell the nature of the storm by which window the rain splats against. This storm has wind and rain coming from the south-southeast and it seemed pretty mild then given the weather alerts. I got a late start out the door on my commute to work, and riding though my neighborhood the storm didn't seem all that bad. Lots of twigs and leaves on the roadways, but otherwise not much. However, as I made my way south toward Emeryville, the wind and rain began to intensify. My preferred route takes me along the Bay Trail and around the west side of Golden Gate Fields race track on Flemming Point, where the pavement runs right up to the bay shore. Climbing the hill that connects the two parking lots, I got hit full on with the rising wind and I watched with amusement as the rainwater runoff was pushing fairly large sized gravel down hill.

While there were no other cyclists on the trail, I could tell that car traffic on the adjacent Interstate was a bit higher than usual. Crossing the Berkeley Bike Bridge with the wind rising even more, I got to feel the wind as a tail wind, though only briefly, as I rolled down the east ramp into Aquatic Park. The park is in fairly low laying terrain and with major storms the east side multi-use path is often underwater in several places. Flooding like that often causes egrets, great and little, to congregate and loiter on the grassy areas nearer to the train tracks, and I scared a flock into flight as I made my way south toward Shellmound.

My daily route takes me along one of Emeryville's Bicycle Boulevards, mine being the Horton Street boulevard and all the buildings built in the last decade provide shelter from the wind. Upon arriving at work, that is when the winds really picked up and the sound on the metal roof of our saw-toothed building is amplified, making the storm seem more intense. On my ride in I had a warm shower, dry clothes and a bowl of hot oatmeal to look forward to, and for my ride home I look forward to a hefty tailwind.

2009 Knoxville Fall Classic Double Century

2009-09-23T15:48:00.001-07:00

What happens when a bunch of riders who like to go on really long bike rides gets together and decides to host their own events in order to give back to the cycling community? You get the Quack Cyclists, and their annual Devil Mountain Double (DMD) and Knoxville Fall Classic Double Century (Kx) rides, that's what. Plus, not only do you get two local Bay Area doubles in which to participate, you get two high quality local doubles in which to participate, and life, you will say to your self, hardly gets better.

The DMD is held in mid to late April each year and the Knoxville is held in mid to late September each year, and while the Knoxville is clearly the easier of the two, the Knoxville Double is clearly not easy. I have fallen into the pattern of volunteering each year for the Devil Mountain Double and then riding as a participant in the Knoxville Fall Classic Double Century. This year, I completed my seventh Kx Double and 21st Triple Crown certified double century. My riding companion for the day was finishing his 59th double.

More than any other long ride, the image and impressions set when I first rode the Knoxville in 2002 have stuck with me and continue to shape my expectations for the ride each year. I know going in to the ride that heat will probably be a factor, that I'll see dozens of my riding friends through out the day and that there will be a certain quality to the daylight, especially late in the day on Chiles-Pope Valley Road, that serves as a clue that Autumn is just around the next curve in the road.

My friend Bruce arrived at my house a bit before 4am for the drive up to Peña Adobe, just outside of Vacaville, CA, where the ride starts. Traffic was a non-issue at that hour and our estimate of the drive time was over generous, and as a result we rolled away from the parking lot a full fifteen minutes ahead of schedule (which itself was earlier than any other time I've done the ride, save once). Though we would only find out later, several other friends were leaving at just about the same time. Unlike any ride with a mass start, with no set start time on this ride it's hard to spot other riders you know unless you stumble across them in the dark as you prepare to leave. The darkness would also confuse us as we arrived at, and rode right past, the first turn that would take us around the Lagoon. Lucky for us a SAG vehicle was right behind us and herded us back on the right path. Heading west in the pre-dawn, a noticeable headwind slowed our progress and contributed to breaking up any pace-line that might form among the riders nearby. The early miles on this route would not be picturesque compared to the later terrain, but it is dark and the roads deserted so the riding is just fine. Bruce and I catch up to a pack of half a dozen riders as we turn into a subdivision on our way west through Fairfield. I'm surprised to find the pack larger than I thought when I counted tail-lights from a hundred yards back. I can only speculate that some of the riders can't be bothered by the weight of adequate lights through the full day of riding so they skimp on visibility in the hour before dawn. I've heard a few stories of riders that would bring good lights, and then put them in drop bags at the first rest stop for them to be taken ahead for later use, and then found those lights didn't arrive. I've just settled on getting good lights and keeping them with me all day and the weight has never been an issue.

The first climb of note is Mt. George, on Monticello Road (AKA CA 121). This road climbs up to a ridge top and then skirts the northern side of the approx. 1800' Mt. George, before dropping down into Napa. It's here, every year, on the climb up that the sun begins to rise on my day. On various other versions of the ride, the drop into Napa Valley has brought a variety of weather conditions, from a chilly 39F one year, to dense fog on another. This year, the weather was mild and benign at that point in the day. Bruce and I came across a fellow club member, Dick, wearing his Grizzly Peak Cyclists jersey and Dick hopped on our small pace line and followed our wheel to near the left turn to the first rest stop. At this stop I usually see several riders I know and many of the volunteers are familiar too and this year was no different. Sterling was working the food table and called out a hello, and we ran into Jack who was riding with some other friends that day. I also met Rick and Anna at this stop, riding their 52nd double. At the California Triple Crown awards breakfast the next day they would be added tot he CTC Hall of Fame. I had first met Rick and Anna when the were riding their very first double about seven years before, and had last run into them as they were volunteering for the Susanville Control on the Gold Rush Randonnee. Running into riders who were volunteering and volunteers who were riding this day was pretty much the theme here.

At this early hour traffic in Napa has not yet picked up in spite of it being harvest season for the many vineyards here. That will change in a few hours but by then we will be clear of the climb over Howell Mountain and will have passed through the less traveled back roads that go by the less well known vineyards of Pope Valley. After the tricky descent off of Howell Mountain, the Pope Valley Cross Road gives us a chance to relax and settle into a cadence that is both purposeful and comfortable. The climb up through Pope Canyon is noting at all like the previous climb out of Napa Valley and after cresting a few stair step like climbs we've arrived at the Lake Berryessa rest stop, and here again we meet familiar faces on both sides of the food and water table. We'll see Alfie and Lisa and several others later on at the first rest stop after lunch, but first after topping off here and setting out on the namesake roadway for this ride we have to pass through the lunch stop at Lower Lake and climb Loch Lomond.

Knoxville Road is a road full of vistas, heat, a dozen dry stream crossings, and scents from the warm brush exposed to the sun during the months long dry season, and those scents trigger memories of all the past rides through this remote part of California. There are not so many hunters camped along the roadside this year and later I spotted a sign relaying the prohibition to roadside camping in the preserve we pass through. On the ground, we don't get the clues that maps will later provide and there is no obvious demarcation when we complete the climb through Toll Canyon and begin the climb through Long Canyon. We also won't know as we pass by that the gravel road going off to our left is picturesquely named Devilshead road. I suspect that this knowledge would not have helped us as we hit what is often the hottest portion of the ride, and the charred landscape from a recent fire would not have given us any advantage in completing the climb either. Many times at this very point I could feel the energy draining from my legs and lungs but on this day I feel like I'm holding my own. It is an uncommon thing that I actually drop some riders, catch and pass others and arrive at the water stop more or less mentally intact. As hard as that stretch is, the traverse of Morgan Valley always takes me down a peg or two and while this year Morgan Valley was not easy, it wasn't nearly as hard as other years. A few miles outside of Lower Lake and past Lake County's version of Grizzly Peak I caught up to Tara, a club member and Sean whom I've met on so many double centuries through the years. We form a paceline and I pushed to try to arrive at the Lunch stop before 1pm but miss that goal by three minutes. The lunch stop seems quiet and I wonder if we are late in arriving but Mark, who usually passes me at the Berryessa stop just arrives before Bruce and I depart.

The winter rains over the 2005/2006 winter washed out Big Canyon road which was used by both the Knoxville and the Davis Double Century routes. Big Canyon is a beautiful and quiet link between Middletown and Lower Lake but there are no plans apparently to fix the washout. Where on the DDC the replacement climb up Cobb Mountain comes before lunch, the climb up Cobb from Lower Lake is after lunch on the Knoxville Double, and coupling this with the heat of the day and Loch Lomond is a challenge. Bruce and I began to be passed by several riders as we slowed and stopped for a variety of minor issues we wanted to address before starting the climb. Of the two options, climbing from the Middletown side or the Lower Lake side, the Lower Lake climb up Loch Lomond is by far the easier, but that is not to say it is easy. The lower section includes the steeper parts but joyfully, the incline nearly disappears for the last mile of Loch Lomond before the turn on to CA 175. There is still more climbing to do after that turn and without slowing we ride on toward the summit near Cobb and Hobergs ahead. Tara joins us again along the rollers before the big drop toward Middletown, but we all three get separted on the long descent.

The next rest stop at Detert Reservoir is at mile 130+ where I will meet up again with Alfie, Lisa and several other volunteers. Arriving first, I end up having a pretty long rest and chat with Debra a bit before she leaves. I'm not sure if Tara leaves ahead of us when Bruce and I roll away, but we'll see her later on the course. Years ago the rest stop was at Guenoc Winery and I do miss the air conditioned rest rooms but I didn't miss the climb up to the winery on a dirt and gravel road. Butts Canyon road climbs a bit near the county line but the drop down into Pope Valley is slowed by a rising head wind. My energy level seemed to drop a bit just as we crossed the county line and ebbed further as the road surface worsened. I was looking forward to the long and fast run into the next rest stop as my speed and energy level dropped further. Jack and a friend caught us on Chiles-Pope Valley road and our small group then met up with a few other riders as we finally hit the down hill run. We all spread out again before the rest stop though and came in to the Hennessy rest stop separately. While I had been noticing but managing a slightly queasy stomach all day long, it really hit me here. I had a hot dog as per normal (years ago I was a vegetarian and it was at this rest stop one year where I fell off the veggie wagon and succumbed to the lure of a salty hot dog) and chased it with a soda and some V8, hoping the added saltiness would settle matters. Debra was at this stop when we arrived and she decided to wait for us and ride along rather than alone. The roadway climbs in several places on the early part of this leg and I lagged behind a bit. I decided to add some Endurolytes and some Clif Shot Blocks to the contents of my uneasy stomach, and it turned out to be just the thing. Before we hit the CA 121/128 junction I was feeling better and able to push ahead with a little more verve.

The early morning gains on my usual times to various miles points had completely disappeared, and now I was running a bit behind even my slowest times. Because of the earlier than usual start though, we arrived near the Cardiac climb just after the sun set. I always am just a little concerned about traffic here, as this is where we begin to be on the same side of the road as all the departing boaters leaving Lake Berryessa. As with any cross section, the vast majority of drivers were considerate and a small minority stood in stark contrast to the maturity level that should be required to drive a car or more importantly, a truck. One favor the jerks usually provide is a loud announcement of their presence but alas, one driver felt compelled to honk long and loudly the exact moment before he passed riders. We could hear him honking at riders ahead and out of sight as well and while I reacted by yelling when he passed us in this manner, after a moment or two all that anger passed. Once I spotted the road sign of the truck driving down a wedge of cheese I knew there was a nice long run of mostly down hill riding into the penultimate rest stop at the Pardehsa Store. Debra had gotten ahead and I pushed a bit harder to catch up and we arrived at the rest stop just ahead of Bruce. I had a hankering for chocolate milk for the longest time and this stop afforded me that chance. Forgoing all the food and drink offered by the Quacks out back, I managed to snag the very last bottle in the store, a quart bottle I shared with Bruce. Ah, liquid heaven.

After a fairly short break we all three pushed on for the last 15 miles to the finish. So many times I've ridden this road and so many of them have been in the dark. Though this version of the Knoxville Double would be the longest time for me, this section passed quite quickly. Pleasants Valley Road will have several individual rollers along it's path, but generally the segment of road is higher in the middle miles. We could see a few bike lights behind us though no riders caught or passed us for the last 15 miles. Slowed a little by the slight incline on the first half, we settled into a good pace for the final miles and at last caught a glimpse of headlights on the Interstate off to our left a bit, which is the signal that there is but one mile left on the ride. In spite of the small low spot after the Hennesey rest stop, it was a great day on the bike. The weather never got unbearable, though it tipped into the 90F range. The clear skies for most of the day were great, and of course the company all day long was top notch.

201 miles 16 hours, 25(ish) minutes

Fridays shouldn't be like this

2009-09-18T12:06:00.000-07:00

The day before the Knoxville Double Century, my riding companion for tomorrow wrote an email to let me know he had been in a collision caused by a driver making an illegal move. It brought to mind a similar experience I had a few years back, which I first wrote about here on the Internet Bridgestone Owners Bunch list. Below is the text from that posting to ibob.

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One less MA 2 rim in the world.

Flush with the promise of the impending weekend, Fridays are supposed to start out better. Stuff like this is more suited to the cliche of dismal Monday mornings. What can I expect though, when Thursday didn't really end on a high note. I got a late start out the door under the fog of the coastal marine layer. On San Pablo Avenue the construction crews were redirecting cars on the other side of the road away from the new layer of pavement being laid down. The outside lane on my side had been done a few days before so that was a small plus. The trip through Albany, then Berkeley, Emeryville and West Oakland was uneventful and all was looking quite typical for my ride to work in Alameda. It was as I rode through the warehouse/Port of Oakland area, where that would change.

The East Bay Bicycle Coalition working with many other groups was instrumental in getting not only bike lanes added to 3rd Street and the rebuilt Mandela Boulevard, but it also got those two streets connected when they hadn't been connected before. My favorite part of that route is seeing the road sign that warns that the old street is 'Not a through street'. Someone expertly altered the 't' in Not into a 'w'. The changes in the streets (as well as the sign) were a great plus for my commute route because I had fewer stops, fewer railroad crossings and for those that remained of the latter, they were graded much better (and therefore more safe for me). So I was enjoying the fruits of the labors of local bicycle advocacy groups, cruising along the bike lane on 3rd when my progress was brought to an abrupt halt by the front bumper of a car. The driver of the car had spotted a parking spot on the opposite side of the road and after seeing no cars ahead or behind, executed a U-turn. The trouble was of course that I was there, right in the trajectory of that U-turn.

I've been hit before and sometimes I can recall every moment of the collision (I'm trying to avoid using the word 'accident'), and sometimes I can't. This time though I do recall each instant. A complete U-turn would involve an arc 180 degrees. The driver had completed between 90 and 150 degrees of the turn when his car hit me. I recall the sound of the grill and bumper hitting my bike, in amongst the sound of him braking, me braking, and then after a split second of silence when I was airborne, followed by the sound of me, my bike and various now loose accessories from my bike hitting the ground. Of those various bits and pieces, I traveled the farthest from point of impact. Well, my pump was underneath me but more of me was further from the point of impact than the pump. It's funny to think of being competitive about some aspect of this crash, but there you have it.

Only in TV shows perhaps would the tough guy bounce right up and show no effects. In my case it hurt enough for me to want to close my eyes and grit my teeth for a bit as I lay on the ground, but that eased. I sort of lost track of what vehicles were where and I thought the car moving right next to me was someone just passing by but it was the driver pulling away slowly. I didn't sit up right away, wanting first to make sure that things like arms, legs and what not were as they should be. Having taken stock, I knew that nothing was broken on my body, nothing was bleeding but I thought the driver had 'fled'. The next order of business was to sit up I guessed, so I did that. That worked well enough so I figured I better collect myself, check out my bike, and well, go back to what I was doing which was going to work. Before I could stand up though, the driver showed up. When I thought he was leaving, he had just pulled his car out of the traffic lane and parked beyond the two tractor trailer rigs that were also parked ahead of the collision. The street at this point is completely wide enough for two wide lanes of traffic, full, legal sized bike lanes, and wide parking at the curb on both sides of the street. I could do with out parking to the right of the bike lanes, but that wasn't going to happen when this bike route was planned.

I don't know if I can say that *most* people these days try to blame someone or something else right away when things have gone wrong, but I do think we see too much of that right now. It wouldn't have surprised me then if the first thing the driver said to me was why didn't *I* stop or swerve or something that indicated that I could have prevented the collision or that bikes shouldn't be there on the road. Maybe that is a sad reflection on me or the world around me that I wouldn't have been surprised.

The first words spoken in a situation like this can often determine the path of the rest of the exchange. I only can see this with any clarity now, later, after time has passed but I feel it was important that what the driver said to me were "Are you ok?", then when I asked him if it was he that had hit me he said "Yes. I very am sorry" and then "It was completely my fault". Even though both would dissipate later, I was angry and in pain as this exchange transpired.

On my ride to work I pass by a spot near a hardware/lumber store in Berkeley near the freeway. A great many immigrant workers gather there hoping to get day jobs with the contractors that come to pick up supplies, or even the home owners stopping by to get the things they need to do yard work at their homes. I wonder as I pass them what a life would be like that would make this present circumstance an improvement over the conditions in the place they had left behind. Until I figure out why I was born to parents that had the means to afford better than adequate housing in communities that had better than adequate services and schools, I have to figure it was probably just luck that I now have a college education, a job with benefits that includes better than adequate medical coverage for me and my family.

The driver that had just hit me with his car was luckier than those others hoping to get day jobs. He didn't have to get up at 4am to walk or ride a bike to get a prime spot on the corner to increase his chances of getting a job for one more day. Neither did I. While the driver that hit me was also a recent immigrant though, he could speak enough English to ask me if I was ok and tell me he was sorry for what he did. In the spectrum of personal transportation, his car was a piece of shit, but it ran and he didn't have to walk miles or ride a bus in the early morning hours. In the unlikely event that a hurricane would aim itself toward the Bay Area, he could get in his crappy car and drive to a safer place and live another day. No hurricanes are headed our way and he had a crappy job at the docks, but next Monday and the day after it was still his job, however crappy it was.

As lucky as the driver that hit me was, he wasn't as lucky as I am. I'm going to be sore in places tomorrow, maybe even a little later today. I'm going to be 49 next month and 48 year old bodies don't fly through the air at 18 mph and hit the ground with out being sore later. But I wasn't seriously hurt at all. Both wheels on my bike were tacoed, most likely bent when I was hit and not from hitting the pavement. I'm sure I'll get grief from some that hear what I did next. I'll never know for sure if I was right about this. After totaling up the damage, realizing it was probably nothing greater than two bent wheels, I figured there was little to be gained by calling the police, involving insurance companies, filing claims. I believed the driver when he expressed remorse, and I also think he was truly scared about this collision. In some European countries traffic fines are assessed according to the financial status of the offender. In this case, I think I can be satisfied with the driver being sorry and probably scared and probably a driver that will pay, if maybe only for a little while, more attention to bicyclists on the road.

Through gritted teeth, I told the driver I believed he was sorry, and told him I was probably unhurt. And I told him I was leaving. What more would it cost me to get a check from some insurance company and what might a ticket at best or loss of insurance do or even undo for this driver. I was still pissed enough that a block down the street I yelled F*&K as loud as I could a few times. I had to vent. My front wheel was an 36 hole MA2 and the rear was a wheel built by Rich at Rivendell and was as close to the bullet proof rear commuter wheel as I had ever found. Now they are junk. I walked a few blocks then realized that I would miss the ferry connection that was now my backup route to work, so I opened the QR on my brakes and in spite of both wheels still rubbing on both sides of the calipers, I rode the last 7 or 8 blocks to the ferry landing.

A lot of things can happen to people, even on Friday morning. Some of those things can be bad things. Me, I'm lucky. I got hit by a car while riding to work.

Announcing the first San Francisco Randonneurs Populair Event, October 3, 2009

2009-09-15T10:55:00.000-07:00

The San Francisco Randonneurs will be holding their first Populaire event. Details can be found here

Quite a number of riders don't jump feet first into doing 200km (and longer) rides, but instead build up with a series of shorter rides. The Populaire event is meant to offer a shorter distance ride with all the aspects of a brevet, including brevet cards, controls, mass starts, time limits and the usual reliance on rider self sufficiency for route finding and dealing with pitfalls a rider might face out on the road, such as flat tires and having food and water enough to reach the next control.

As mentioned, this will be SFR's first time holding this event. We expect to learn a lot and use that knowledge for the next time we hold this event in 2010. If you read this and are interested in participating or supporting this event, please send mail to rba@sfrandonneurs.org. Thanks for reading.

Let's go places and eat things!

2009-08-30T19:04:00.000-07:00

One of the bike clubs I belong to, the Grizzly Peak Cyclists, is made up of many riders that simply enjoy food and will plan routes that include, not one, not even just two but sometimes three bakeries. On these rides, I'm reminded of a snippet of a scene from a Three Stooges short subject, called 'False Alarms', where the title of this entry is spoken by one of the characters.

Twenty+ riders attended the TM and M paced versions of the "Santa Cruz Mountains" ride on Sunday, Aug. 23. The route begins at the Park and Ride on Page Mill just off of I-280 with an 8+ mile climb of Page Mill up to Skyline, followed by a twisty descent down Alpine Road. A stop in Pescadero at mile 28 might seem too early on a 100+ mile ride, but the lure of fresh baked artichoke bread at Arcangeli Grocery proves too great to overcome. From Pescadero we rode past Butano State Park on the way to Gazos Creek and Highway One. The next stop is in Davenport at mile 50, where we paused briefly before attempting the climb up Bonny Doon and Ice Cream Grade (the TM route took the coastal route into Santa Cruz). Pescadero and the coast along CA 1 always seem to be living life under the marine layer of fog, but climbing up through the canyon on lower Bonny Doon (a pivotal spot for Levi on this year's Tour of California) the sun always reappears right there on these rides, just in time to add more heat to riders as they clear the trees.

Ice Cream Grade (how can you not like riding a road with this name)isn't all work but does include some climbing, as does Empire Grade until the long fast run into Santa Cruz. Traffic in Downtown Santa Cruz was heavy as usual at that early afternoon hour, however travel through the town was not hectic. Following a climb up Granite Creek and an all too short downhill, we crossed over CA 17 and arrived at Cafe Carlos finding the TM group, which started an hour ahead of the M paced group, finishing up their lunch. Cafe Carlos was a bit understaffed for 15+ hungry riders at 2:45pm but the one waiter rushed to provide us all with food while cashing out the TM group as they left. Cafe Carlos is not to Mexican food as the Arcangeli is to baked bread, but fresh artichoke bread still warm upon purchase is a very high standard. However, the patio setting at Cafe Carlos was perfect with lots of space for our bikes to be kept in sight as we dug into our meals. Despite the food not being spectacular (NB: I was the first one finished and the portion was not tiny), I'd still be perfectly happy to stop there for lunch on a bike ride any time. Post lunch, we began with a modest climb on our way to Mt. Charlie, with it's driveway sized road width, pothole research and development style pavement and twisty, turny meandering path up the mountain, alternatingly punctuated with steep and less steep sections. On the final stretch along Skyline the M group began to overtake some of the TM group. The run down Page Mill was a blast as always, with the 8 mile descent over in a blink.

112 miles, 10,600' of elevation gain, 10 hours 34 minutes, Food breaks: 2, regroups: 5 or more depending on who is counting.

Riding in a postcard

2009-08-10T19:01:00.001-07:00

Many rides are ridden in preparation for some larger event, the date for which is often circled on the calendar in the kitchen. Just as often as those rides that warrant a note written in ink on the calendar, an unplanned or hastily planned ride is the source of just as much enjoyment and sense of accomplishment. I'm lucky in that it is expected that I'll pack a bike when we take our nearly annual camping trip to the Sierra, and this year the bike I brought along was a recently refurbished mid 1980s Scapin. Late in the planning and packing process, my son decided he wanted his bike along too. The car we borrowed had just enough space on the return trip, even though packing was like solving a three dimensional puzzle.

Though we are long overdue to deviate from our traditional three Sierra camping locations, again this year we went to Emerald Bay on Lake Tahoe for several days, with a move mid-trip to Tuolomne Meadows for a short stay, stopping at Grover Hot Springs for a visit to the State Park's heated pools. All three of these locations are on a short list of my favorite places on Earth. If you know how to work it, all three offer some fantastic riding terrain as well.

On the first day at Emerald Bay, my son and I left camp with no fixed destination, at least not one I was aware of, other than a southerly direction. To leave the campground we needed to climb pretty consistently for about a mile to the campground entrance, and from there it's a fun run downhill with Lake Tahoe behind you and Cascade Lake ahead and then a sharp 170 degree turn and some more downhill that takes you toward a series of bicycle paths and signed bicycle routes through South Lake Tahoe toward the busy section of Highway 50. After crossing 50 we ended up in a residential section that was northwest of the airport, which I now knew was where my son wanted to visit. We wandered around in what we thought was the right direction and then asked directions of a local out walking his dogs. After a moment's thought he recalled that there were some trails nearby that would get us toward the airport. While I thought that would take us directly there it turned out to take us only to the east side of the airport property which was fenced off all around, but yet still had open gates. As we rode toward the gates we saw pavement that was not roadway but probably something more than a bike or multi-use path. After about 20 minutes investigation we realized it was an access roadway for airport maintenance vehicles and would not take us anywhere. We followed it north as far as it would go and then spotted a fading trail off to the west that we guessed would take us to a different residential section of South Lake Tahoe, and it did, but not without us having to walk our bikes over some pretty rough trails.

Rolling downhill on CA 89 at 9am on a weekday in the summer is one thing, but climbing back up the switchbacks at noon would be in traffic, but my son did fine. We stopped a few times on the way up but no matter. We had gorgeous views to admire while he caught his breath.

On Tuesday I left camp very early for a much longer and challenging ride than the bike path would provide. Even at that early hour there were other cyclists out on the roads though more would show up as the morning wore on. We've camped at Emerald Bay maybe half a dozen times and many of those trips included a ride between Emerald Bay and Grover Hot Springs in Markleeville on 'moving' day. On this day though my ride would be an out-and-back with the turn-around being the top of Luther Pass. The only way I've ever done this is by taking back roads on the leg between Emerald Bay and Highway 50 at the foot of the climb up to Echo Pass, and then riding CA 89 over the pass. There is no way I could tell someone how to ride that leg without consulting a map but I've never had a map with me when I've done it, trusting to a sense of direction to get me where I was headed. It helps when certain landmarks tower thousands of feet above everything else. On the the short linking stretch of Highway 50 that I rode between the back route and the turn onto CA 89 I passed a road named South Upper Truckee Road, and momentarily wondered where it went. After the right turn onto CA 89, the roadway runs straight for a few miles with a very slight incline. Truckers drive fast along this stretch, gaining momentum that they really hate to lose once the incline increases. In the early hours, there were only the gravel trucks flying by and a mile or so into the real climb, those disappeared too.

Approaching the pass from the north, the grade levels off significantly for the last mile of the climb, so much so that it's hard to say you aren't going downhill already at that point. To the west of the roadway, there is a gorgeous meadow and behind that the mountains that runs to the south toward Carson Pass. I have an older photo of my Scapin propped up against the sign post marking the top of the pass, and with the Scapin newly restored I had to get a new photo. No sooner had I packed up everything pulled from my pockets during the break than other riders began to show up. I chatted a bit with a rider who also turned out to be from the East Bay, and then pushed off down hill back toward Lake Tahoe.

With the turns for the return route pretty fresh in my mind, that section ended quickly and as I approached CA 89 from Fallen Leaf Lake Road I noticed two riders passing by, each looking like dedicated long distance riders. I pushed a bit and caught them before the incline to Cascade Lake began and chatted with them a little to find out where they were headed that day. It seemed pretty apparent to me that they were local riders and I asked them if they got used to the tourist traffic during the summer. We were approaching a section of 89 where there were a number of vista sites, state park land, campgrounds and general tourist destinations so the question of traffic was pretty timely. I was just finishing up my ride and Bob and Christine were just beginning theirs so they were pacing themselves for all the climbing that would occur later on their ride so on the big switchback up to the Eagle Point campground entrance I got ahead of them enough that the idea dawned on me to stop and take a couple photos as they rode by. Once they passed I hopped on my bike and it took a bit to catch back up to them. Even though I passed the entrance to the campground where I started the ride, I wanted to round up my mileage for the day to at least 50 miles (we were going kayaking later so I had to find a way to be happy with just 50 miles. And I was.) so I had decided to ride around Emerald Bay to the D.L. Bliss campground entrance and then return. Traffic picked up quite a bit around the parking areas near Eagle Lake Trailhead and the trail down to Vikingsholm across the road. The 'local' cycling club in the Tahoe region is the Alta Alpina Cycling Club and it sounded as though Bob and Christine were active members of that group. Anyone that has done riding in the area most likely has heard about the annual Tour of the California Alps, which is probably more popularly know as The Death Ride. Alta Alpina was for many years a major part of that ride, and I have many great memories of having done that ride plus they began a new ride this year which a number of my riding friends attended and liked, so Alta Alpina has earned many points with me. It was nice to briefly hook up with local riders, and I came away with a good suggestion for an alternate route up Luther Pass which I am eager to use, hopefully not to far in the future. My destination was back at Eagle Point so once we reached the entrance to D.L. Bliss State Park I turned around, making the circuit around Emerald Bay once more. Just before reaching the entrance to Eagle Point Campground the roadway travels along the crest of a ridge with the Bay on one side and Cascade Lake on the other and the views from here are simply stunning. On a warming, early August morning it was a great place to be on a bike.

On Wednesday morning, we broke camp and drove to Tuolomne Meadows via Markleeville and Grover Hot Springs. The pool at the State Park there is one of my all time favorite places on Earth, so I was looking forward to the stop there. My wife was looking forward to a meal at the Mobil Station in Lee Vining. I'm not kidding about this, and I was looking forward to it as well. This gas station has a huge reputation for the food served at the Whoa Nellie Deli inside the convenience mart on the gas station grounds. Once we finished our meal, we headed up the long climb to Tioga Pass and the entrance to Yosemite Park. The weather was changing fast at this point and everyone walking around near the pass had on jackets, long pants and hats. By the time we reached the campground it was now overcast and overnight the cold front passed through and at 8am we were greeted with what was somewhere between a hail storm and snow showers and temps hovering in the 30s.

All in all a nice but short trip with the good stuff outweighing any of the low points on the trip.

Seven twelfths

2009-07-27T11:30:00.000-07:00

RUSA has a distance award that factors in consistency around the calendar called the R12 award. The criteria riders are required to complete is to ride at least one 200km brevet or permanent route each month. Living in Northern California, I can ride year round making only modest changes to address the weather from roughly mid-November through April. That said, the tail end of 2008 was more of a tail-off in terms of riding. Along about mid January I became re-invigorated riding wise, and I even got to ride the SFR Point Reyes Lighthouse 200km I was organizing. With that 200km, I cobbled together a string of months with at least one 200km brevet:

January 24: SFR Point Reyes LightHouse 200km

February 28: Santa Rosa 200km

March 14: Santa Rosa 300km

April 4: SFR Hopland 400km

April 26: SFR Russian River 200km

May 30: SFR Fort Bragg 600km

June 13: SFR Nighttime Davis 200km

A couple times, I was flirting with the end of the month, just sneaking in the brevet before the calendar page turned. For July, my big ride for the year would serve as the 'at least 200km' distance for that month, but plans went awry. I had company on that point with Bruce B. also needing a 200km, even though he had ridden at least 500 miles of the Gold Rush before being stymied by a case of bronchitis that sent him to the ER in Susanville. First though, we both had to recover from our various respiratory ailments, and only got back on the bikes to complete a very short ride in the Berkeley/Oakland Hills on the 19th which left each of us with the kind of sore legs one usually experiences after a ride six times longer.

With way more date float than is common, we finally settled on doing Willy's Jittery Jaunt (coffee available at control) on Saturday, July 25th. At 7:05am we caught the BART train to the City and rode from Embarcadero to the Marina Safeway and after getting receipts we rolled out of the lot a few minutes after 8am. Willy's route goes first to Petaluma, then takes Bodega and Valley Ford roads north/northwest out to Valley Ford. We paused quite a while in Valley Ford at the VF Market after dealing with the headwinds in the Two Rock Valley and everywhere else on that 19 mile leg. The ever present headwinds in the Keys Creek canyon were a bit stronger but reaching Tomales Bay heading south on Highway One always brings relief. By some quirk the headwinds blowing north east usually become a tailwind blowing southeast along the bay though this time those winds didn't swing completely around in our favor.

Point Reyes Station was our next control and pausing over snacks from the Bovine Bakery, we chatted with a few cyclists who were passing through. The climb up Bolinas Ridge near Olema was a lot easier than I thought and with a short stop to help a cyclist with a mechanical issue on the bike trail in Samuel Taylor Park, we completed the last long segment going back to San Francisco. We managed to cross the bridge early enough that with a final sprint we arrived at the Safeway just under 10 hours total. For the entire route, we recorded just over 7,000' of climbing, a bit more than the advertised 4,500.

With July now in the books, I need to look for a 200km for August!

What is in the works?

2009-07-14T13:35:00.000-07:00

Yes, I admit I'm way behind in posting to this page. A run down of what I 'owe' is not a short list: finish the 2007 PBP write-up, add a write up of the SFR 600km and any missing brevets from the SR series, a Davis Double write up, and summarize my experience on the 2009 GRR. I am at work on all of those, but life intrudes upon writing about life, so there you have it. More soon, I promise.

rob

Something less than 449km

2009-07-12T21:05:00.000-07:00

Oh for three would be one way to look at it. That isn't as accurate or as descriptive as the experience calls for though. Oh for three suggests I came away empty handed for the third time on a 1200km Randonnée and that just isn't so. I came away from the 2009 Gold Rush Randonnée with quite a lot.

July 6th at 6pm on the northern edge of the city of Davis was the date and location for the start of the 2009 Gold Rush Randonnée. By completing the Super Randonneur series this year, I had qualified for the Gold Rush Randonnée, a 1200 km ride in 90 hours or less that traverses the Central Valley and climbs through the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the northeast corner of California at Davis Creek. On July 2nd I left work early, not because I had to go home to prepare for the ride and a week plus away from the office, but instead because I had a full blown cold and felt like crap. I went straight to bed, gulping lots of water and gobbling lots of vitamins, Echinacea, and Sudafed. Friday was a day off of work for the July 4th Holiday but I spent that in bed too. By the end of Friday it seemed a miracle was happening: The cold was fading. Saturday I was up and around, though I was a little sluggish and Sunday I felt I had truly dodged a bullet. By Monday at 1pm I was on the Capitol Corridor train headed for Davis, chatting with Christian, Achim, and Max, all of us eager for our rides to begin. Through this all, I was remarkably calm and still confident, which was a striking difference from 2005 and 2007. In 2005 I had started the Gold Rush but stopped at the first control suffering a splitting headache, an severe upset stomach and a broken rack on my bike. In 2007 my knees eventually objected to 24 hours of cold and rain. This time I was not the least bit nervous, not the least bit intimidated by the goal. I wanted to see a lot more of California and I was fully aware that the ride was not completed by any one of the pedal strokes in the first mile.

The game plan I adopted early on was one of moderation. Don't go out hard and fast. Don't attempt to ride someone else's pace. In 2005, I made the first control in 6 hours, 30 minutes. It seemed then that I spent a lot of the first leg riding too fast, pushing to hard out of fear of being left behind. What I've learned since 2005 was that the fear is unfounded. This year, I made little effort to hang on the back of any pack as we left Davis behind. Less than a mile from the start the last third of the pack was stopped at a stop sign as the rest of the riders rolled on. After traffic cleared I hopped out and started pushing to make contact with the pack ahead. Only a handful of riders went with me and I could also see that I was gaining much faster than I expected. Backing off at that point I could see that a few riders ahead were dangling off the pack. I could almost always count on that happening til night fall so I'd always have a rider in sight ahead.

The outbound course through the Central Valley is not a direct one and is longer than the inbound leg from Oroville back to Davis. Not only did the indirect route provide the extra miles needed to reach the 1200km total, but it also skirted Woodland and kept us on rural roads. Because of this there ended up being three secret controls before we reached Oroville. (Controls are checkpoints on brevets and randonnées where riders acquire proof of passage by way of a stamp at staffed controls, a receipt from a store with a time stamp, or record an answer to a question that can only be acquired by visiting a certain location. A secret control then would be one who's location is a surprise to the rider.) Knowing the course is an advantage that can't be dismissed. Not only did I know the early turns this time, I knew that there was little in the way of topography and in the way of road conditions that I needed to worry about. Setting aside the (needless) worry, I was free to look around more, chat more and in general just enjoy being where I was, riding my bike amidst other riders as the sun set on the day. In 2005, worry about the awful road surface on Cranmore Road, a levee road that I had only heard about but had never seen accounted for using up a certain amount of energy. This time, I was free to direct that energy elsewhere.

With the levee road segment over in much less time than it seemed to take four years back, the route headed toward the water stop at mile 45. I arrived there in the company of several riders, but I made no effort to leave when some of them did, nor wait for the others that took more time. I knew I'd end up riding with someone sooner or later. In my pre-ride bike check I had checked all the bolts holding my fenders on the bike, so it was with no small amount of surprise that I heard a rattle develop on my front fender a mile past the water stop. I was certain that it was the bolt that attached the fender to the front of my front rack, which required removing my front wheel, which would only be accomplished easily by removing my front bag. Addressing a loose bolt took on all the aspects of a weekend plumbing project, save for the multiple trips to the hardware store. Finding that I was wrong about which bolt, reassembling the bike and getting all the gear stowed only took about 10 minutes but also afforded me the opportunity to notice that a beautiful full moon was rising behind me and to the right, a direction I wouldn't have looked if not for the stop. I got out the camera, snapped a few photos and then discovered that the approaching rider was Don, who had ridden several SFR brevets this year.

Hooking up with Don to ride through the night was the best development so far. Though we had ridden several the same brevets but never together, on this ride our respective paces were a comfortable match, as was our thinking of when to stop to refuel and when a stop was over. Don would keep me company for many miles, and when my knowledge of the route switched from actually having ridden it to only having researched it out on Google Maps, Don filled in the gaps gleaned from his having ridden the Davis 600km brevet a few weeks earlier. Don and I each escaped the Gridley Dogs who attacked nearly every rider that passed by that night. Upon reaching the Oroville control at 12:35 (nearly matching the 6:30 ride time from 2005) we heard that we were more fortunate than at least one other rider, who had gotten bitten on the leg. Evading chasing dogs was a skill that I had learned in my younger days riding in Southeastern Michigan. I hadn't had to employ that skill in decades, but appropriately just like riding a bike, I hadn't forgotten how.

Just leaving the parking lot for the Oroville control was getting further than my total progress on the 2005 GRR. Don and I left Oroville after 40 minutes and headed north toward Highway 70 and the first long climb of the Gold Rush up to Jarbo Gap. The traffic consisted entirely of empty logging trucks, which while rushing past us at high speed, did all give us plenty of room as they passed. The west to east climb up to Jarbo Gap is punctuated by a long bridge over the west branch of the Feather River, with three sets of expansion joints. Just after the bridge the roadway climbs yet again as it passes Yankee Hill. East bound, there is relief on the fast downhill after Jarbo Gap, a major impediment to a swift return on the inbound route. Once next to the Feather River itself, the roadway goes up hill but less severely, and progress along this portion of the route is noted by passage of the three tunnels that permit the roadway to be near the river at all. Each tunnel is a bit longer than the previous one. With the canyon walls close in, the only view of the sky was straight above until a meander in the path of the river allowed for a longer glimpse upstream and after four hours of riding since Oroville finally the sky was showing signs of dawn just as the roadbed widened and the Tobin Resort control appeared on the right.

I had been teased with a false story that the Tobin Control was serving chili dogs and it was no small let down to note that the menu was oriented toward breakfast foods. As I ate what I could of a bowl of oatmeal, Christian and Achim arrived. Normally these riders would be way ahead but two flat tires and a complete tire exchange had left them behind nearly all the riders to this point. Don and I left ahead of them as the dawn grew more bright. The incline was seldom steep but always present as we rode further up river. Finally we reached the junction of Highways 70 and 89 and we made our left turn onto CA 89 and the road to Greenville and the Indian Valley. Christian and Achim passed us as Don and I finished up a short rest break and I could tell that Don had the energy to hang on their wheels but he instead dropped back to stay with me on the ride up. Once the route reaches the Indian Valley a right turn would leave you just five miles from Taylorsville where the next control was, but instead we headed left for a tour of the whole valley with a stop in Greenville for the information control. All the riders passing through at this point paused for a rest on the steps out in front of the hardware store, and I managed a two minute sleep before Don decided to push on for Taylorsville. At first, I felt energized by the rest, but quickly that drained away and I dropped way of Don's wheel and slowed to a crawl. I stopped, gulped down some Clif Shot Blocks and pushed on and in a short time I was up to speed again and catching up to Don. The route is largely flat around the perimeter of the valley and all along we had stunning views to distract us.

It was late morning when we reached the Taylorsville control but still time for a second breakfast, one for which I now had a growing appetite, itself a very encouraging sign. In spite of several days of laying around as I nursed my cold before the ride, I did not get additional sleep stored up, and in fact I slept less each night so I went into the ride with a small sleep deficit. I had spotted a back room full of cots at the Grange Hall where the control was and made the decision that I wanted a quick nap. Don's company was great along the way, but my need for a nap precluded riding out with him then. It felt like I had just drifted off when the control worker woke me after my 30 minute limit had passed. Before I left I tried to eat again, but the translated Ukrainian saying 'eyes want, stomach can't' came into play and I left my plate half filled with food. Still, riding away from the control toward Genessee I felt stronger than I had all ride. This was to be my best segment of the ride. Genessee was seven miles down the road from Taylorsville and rumored to have a general store where I had hoed to get a pint of chocolate milk. Once in Genessee I could see that the town was a proverbial wide spot in the road, and the store was closed up tight. I had enough food and liquids with me, so the chocolate milk would only have served as a treat.

Genessee Valley follows the path of Indian Creek, rising from around 3400' feet in Taylorsville to about 3800' where RattleSnake Ravine empties into Genessee Valley and the outbound climb begins in ernest. The route continues to follow Indian Creek as it rises 1000' on it's way up to the earthen dam where the waters of Antelope Lake are impounded. I began to catch up to riders along this stretch, passing a few that had stopped in the shade at roadside, and a few others that were chatting as they climbed. Just as I reached the Dam, two riders caught up to me, one passing and the other dropping back a little. The more direct route to where we would eventually go would have taken us across the dam and in a slighty straighter line toward the highest point on the Gold Rush route, but instead of the south side of the lake, the route took us around the northside to the Boulder Creek work area. This control was pretty quiet when I arrived. The riders there seemed ready to rest and just chat, with no one rushing off to resume the ride. I took the opportunity to stretch out, half in the sunshine, half in shade while I ate a bananna, chips and a soda. After a fairly long layover, I pushed off to resume the climb. Boulder Creek is at roughly 5000' and the top of the GRR would be about another 1000' of climbing. To reach that point, the climbing was not hearly as steep, but in hindsight I might have preferred it if it was. Once the highest spot on the GRR is reached, the roadway flirts with the 6000' elevation mark over and over again. This really seemed to take my mental energy away, and my physical strength seemed to follow right along. I had imagined an immediate and fast descent from the high point, but was instead teased by repeated 200' drops followed by 195' climbs and then, in a huge rush, the roadway dives downward and in nearly a blink, I was rolling into Janesville at 4000'

Riding in what seemed like slow motion, I followed the Janesville cutoff and partway along I ran across a somewhat shabby convenience store where several fellow Gold Rush riders had stopped. At last I had my chocolate milk, lounging in the shade outside, just thinking about reaching Susanville for a proper rest. Not exactly the last one to leave, I did finally roll off to finish the leg. I passed Jeff from Washington, but could not pass the next rider. Jeff tailed off the back a bit while we finally reached the turn onto US 395. The route sheet suggested we look for Johnstonville Road where there would be some helicopters, but we were confused by a similarly named dead end street near an airport hanger. Lacking the reliable GRR route markers on the pavement, we pushed on and finally found our turn where sure enough there were helicopters out in the open. It had been some time since we rode in city terrain, but Susanville traffic was mild and at last we rolled up to the National Guard Armory where the control was located. It was about 5:45pm, nearly 24 hours since we had left Davis, and I was taken aback by only having ridden 254 miles.

In order of priority, I ate a pile of spaghetti, showered and changed, and then headed for a cot for a 90 minute sleep. While stripping down for my shower, I was startled to note how entirely covered with salt my wool t-shirt had become, and signs of the same were found on my riding shorts, which also had some blood from where some chaffing had occurred. No doubt the extra salt deposited on my clothing had encouraged the chaffing. No need to worry about that though as what was done was done, so packing up I left to find a cot. Normally a difficult task to accomplish, sleep came easily and in a blink it seemed my foot was being shaken gently and I was told it was time to get up. In the Armory, I could feel a breeze blowing through and knew it had cooled off quite a bit outside as the day approached the golden hour. Given that data point, I decided on putting on a vest, a second layer of leg warmers and given that my butt was already tender, a second layer of riding shorts.

The route away from the Armory and out of town avoids any major streets for as long as possible and traffic therefore was even lighter than before. North of town the route heads toward Antelope Mountain via a run lengthwise along an escarpment that cuts across your line of sight as you leave town. Still a mile or two away from the serious portion of the climb I decided to stop. My clothing felt too constricting and uncomfortable. I had worn this exact set of clothing on the SFR 600km and it felt wonderful. Then though, I hadn't felt so beaten and worn out. I had to admit it. I had zero stamina, and I was laboring to make even slight progress. I took off a layer of riding shorts which helped a little, and resumed the early part of the climb. Though I could not see it from down below, the climb started at just over 4000' and beyond the notch climbed up to 5400' before leveling off for a period. I had only gotten up a third of the way, maybe 600' of the 1400' of the climb and I was at a crawl. First came thinking about stopping, then came stopping. It didn't help that two riders appeared from below looking like they were climbing effortlessly while I was putting everything I had into just making progress. As they passed the asked me if I was ok and I told them I was turning back. Checking traffic up and down hill, I crossed the road and pointed downhill. What took me half an hour to cover outbound was re-covered in what seemed like five minutes heading back, as I passed riders headed up hill in groups of two or three.

Instead of heading directly back to the control, I felt I needed to eat, and eat something off of the control menu so I headed for the fast food corridor on Susanville's main street and I ended up at a Burger King. The restaurant was essentially empty and at first I thought it was that way because it was closed but once I checked the door I found it unlocked. What ensued was a somewhat strange encounter where the staff didn't seem to notice me standing there at the counter dressed in helmet, reflective gear and cycling clothing. After quite some time the manager came out to take my order, and then promptly forgot it until she later asked if I had been helped. I had to remind her that there was more to the order when she finally gave me my food. A friend later remarked that it gave me a small taste of being homeless and invisible. I was happy enough to sit down to eat, even if I was being ignored by everyone there, as standing up waiting I would experience waves of dizziness. Though the overly salty nature of the food was appealing, I really didn't linger long and soon I was making my way back to the control where I planned to grab a cot and attempt to sleep.

Once back at the Armory, I was bleary eyed enough to not really notice who was there and who wasn't, though I knew I wasn't alone. Tom's wife, working that control and other points on the route realized I probably needed suggestions on what to do next at any given point and got me a cot in a warmer side room where it was also both darker and quieter. I slept like a rock for over 7 hours and woke up around 6:30 am when the pain from a sore throat would let me sleep no longer. I browsed a little at the food table and when asked what I planned to do I offered to stay and help out which was welcomed when it was realized that some of the staffing was thin and riders might show up earlier than expected. Though the rush came much, much later than we were first let to believe, there was still enough to do through the day and during slow moments I sat and watched Le Tour on the the satellite TV one of the volunteers had temporarily moved from their house. That was great! Also through the day I got to re-acquaint myself with a tandem riding couple local to Susanville whom I had first meet a number of years ago when they were riding their very first double century at Davis. Now, they've completed 50 of them. I also got to meet and chat with just a whole bunch of really nice and generous people. It was a day really well spent, and didn't end for me until around 1:30am. Sleep was not so luxurious that night and I only slept about 2 hours total. It was a lot busier over night and a lot noisier. I had some friends working the Alturus control and after calling them I had arranged for a ride all the way home from Susanville, and they arrived around 4am to pick me up. Dan, a Gold Rush finisher in 2005, and his wife made space in their crowded car for me and we left Susanville for the climb up Janesville Grade as the sun rose.

We passed quite a few riders climbing the grade, just reaching the top as my friend Jack arrived there. I passed along news to him of our friend Bruce who had to go to the ER overnight as his ride was stopped short due to bronchitis. It's hard to pick 'the prettiest spot' on the ride, but I'd have to say that the section from Antelope Lake down to Taylorsville is a contender. Passing more riders, we approached the next control after Boulder Creek as the route flattened out a bit and rolled into Indian Valley, following Indian Creek. Just before the edge of town we passed Chris, a rider I had first met on the plane flying to Paris in 2007. As we passed, I thought I could sense that Chris was almost going to flag us down, but I never saw the thumbs down sign so I remained silent and we pulled into the Taylorsville Grange Hall parking to stretch our legs and grab a more proper breakfast. As we got out of the car, Chris rolled up and asked if we knew where the town welder was located, as his frame had cracked under the stress of climbing Janesville Grade. Chris' bike was toast, and I was really doubtful that a welder who probably specialized in repair of farm equipment and snowplows could do the more delicate job of tack welding a cracked bottom bracket. Chris, being just a bit taller than me, rode a slightly bigger bike but not so much bigger that raising the saddle less than an inch wouldn't address almost completely. After some quick measurements, and some nearly quick swapping of pedals, seat and seatpost, we had Chris riding up and down through town testing out the fit on my bike, and then off he went.

On our drive down to the Feather River Valley we rolled into the Tobin Resort where the next control was. We only needed to stop long enough for me to run in and leave a spare tube with the check-in staff so Chris would have the right size tube if misfortune visited him. In a matter of 10 or 20 minutes, we would pass riders that would eventually finish the Gold Rush more than two to three hours apart. The climb on Jarbo Gap, the last climb on the ride will do that, as will the heat that sometimes affects the riders in the Central Valley. With my bike now out on the course, I was being dropped in Davis at the finish instead of at home. Having about 10 hours to wait for Chris to arrive, I pitched in however I could at the finish, making calls, checkingin riders, making sandwiches and cleaning up. In the end, I stayed overnight waiting for the baggage truck to arrive so I could get Bruce's gear and bring it home when Willy dropped me off on his way to Pacifica. Chris did in fact finish, maybe 45 minutes later than he had planned originally. Given that we could not raise the bars to the level of his saddle height, he did have a little discomfort leaning forward more than he is used to, but otherwise I understand my bike did a pretty good job getting Chris to the finish.

I had high expectations a week before the Gold Rush. I had been riding well, and had found a level of confidence that I usually fall short of preparing for other rides. When the cold hit me, I scaled those high hopes back. I still thought I could finish but that's not what happened. I signed up for the ride with the intention of seeing much more of California, and on that count I succeeded. There is more to see, and more for me to accomplish. This will certainly not be my last attempt at a 1200km randonnee. I'm expecting to see many of you in Paris in two years.

Many thanks to Don Bennett for the additional photos of the inside of Tobin Control, the train in the Feather River, and Indian Creek in Genessee Valley. See a whole bunch more photos and video taken by Don on the GRR here.

Here is a better photo of the crack in bottom bracket on Chris' bike. This photo was taken by John Hess, who worked at the Taylorsville control, and elsewhere on the GRR.

Guided by tail lights

2009-06-17T19:41:00.000-07:00

Can it be an SFR brevet if there isn't a threat of rain? Not worry this time, as there was a 20% chance of rain in the form of isolated thundershowers in the forecast for Davis and Vacaville. Like so many other SFR brevets this year and last, the rain never happened on our 230km overnight brevet. Instead however it was mild all night long, and we enjoyed mostly clear skies with little of the drop in temperature that normally comes with that at night.

May is often a busy time of year for many long distance cyclists and June didn't seem to be any less busy. There was a lot of churn on the sign-up list for the 230km overnight brevet with many riders finding they had over booked themselves this weekend. A few days out from the ride, I figured with the attrition we'd end up with 15 riders when nearly 30 had signed up at some point. I was wrong though as 17 riders signed in and rolled out of the Hercules Transit Center at 8pm on June 13th. We had daylight for only a short time and when we reached Vallejo, there was no question we needed all our bike lights on. For me, the route is all preliminary warm up miles until we reach the right hand outbound turn on Lake Herman Road. I first rode Lake Herman Road on the SFR Williams 400km in 2006, and I've enjoyed revisiting that road many times. After a short climb at the beginning which is really an extension of the climb up Columbus, Lake Herman engages in a roller coaster like series of hills as it angles toward Benicia, CA. A left turn onto Lopes after a quick glimpse of the Moth Ball Fleet anchored in the bay and the route hugs a line of hills to the left with the Suisun Slough and Grizzly Bay well off to the right.

The entire pack of riders were largely together until late along Spring Street when first one group made a traffic light and the rest didn't, and then Kitty hit a pot hole and the riders ahead of her didn't see that happen and rolled ahead. I had begun to hang back when I realized the group behind was no longer in sight and Jamie G. from San Diego joined me for the run along Lake Herman and Lopes. Jamie and I could see the lights of a small pack of riders about a half mile ahead on Lopes, but on that road a gap that big is seldom closed. We had nearly caught them once the roadway becomes a boulevard but shortly after that it was time to stop at the first control at the Gold Hill Tower Mart. I pretty much stayed there until all the riders were in, and most of the riders had left. Kitty, Louise, Ken, Bob and Mark formed a group that on other rides would be considered small, but on this ride represented > 33% of the entire ride. As we rode through Cordelia on our way to crossing over Interstate 80, I scoped out places for our return control. The Tower Mart was supposed to serve as control number 2 and number 5, however though not posted anywhere on their doors, the store closes overnight until 6am on Sundays. No matter, as there were plenty of places on course just a few miles ahead and the Arco Quick Mart looked to be the best bet.

Pittman Road, which took us north across Interstate 80, gradually becomes less developed as you pass by Solano College and changes its name to Suisun Valley Road. A right turn toward the east on Rockville takes you further into an agricultural landscape but after too few miles amid the open fields our route again took us into the residential verges of Fairfield, CA along Mankus Corners Road and Waterman Blvd. Our group of six had begun to spread out until the lead riders backed off the pace but later on Lyon Road we spread out again and it was now Kitty, Louise and myself as we closed in on the Vacaville control. For all the times I've been on Pleasants Valley Road, which is one of my favorite Northern California roads, it's funny that more than half of those trips were during darkness.

After three miles on Pleasants Valley we turned east on Foothill road and were quickly in Vacaville and Control #3 on South Orchard. Ten riders were already there and with the arrival of my group there were only four more were out on the road behind. I selected a chocolate milk, paid and upon reaching my bike outside I saw the lead pack departing and on the spur of the moment I decided to hop on my bike and ride off in pursuit. I could see their tail lights a quarter mile ahead and did not need to check my queue sheet for a number of turns as long as I didn't drop too far back. Finally at one of the northbound turns the pack hit an incline and I was able to catch up to Tom H. who was only 50 feet off the back of the pack at that point. Just as quickly as I had caught up, the pack hit a fast descent as Tom and I were still climbing and immediately they were a quarter mile ahead. I had a bit more speed over the low crest and again found myself alone as Tom had drifted back, riding his own chosen pace. The terrain undulated a little here and my view ahead of the tail lights I was chasing became punctuated by each roller we crossed.

After a long northward leg on Timm Road the route turns 90 degrees west and Timm Road takes on a second name. As I watched the pack ahead make the turn and disappear from view I estimated the time it took for me to arrive at that spot and I was less than two minutes behind. Once around the bend myself, I could see that there were two options, each a likely choice but neither afforded a sight line that would show me which road the riders had taken. A quick check of my cue sheet on my handle bar bag and I was headed off on Timm Road once again, after confirming the choice by spotting the signpost across the road. By now I was closer to 3 or 4 or even 5 minutes behind the group ahead and they were definitely out of sight. Without knowing how far behind the next rider was, I decided to see how I felt pushing my own pace just a bit in order to try and catch the lead group. Timm Road ended its run and the road took a turn to the east and became Allendale Road and after a half mile of riding I could see the road go under Interstate 505 a long way ahead, and sure enough I could spot a snarl of red lights going about my pace. The wind was at my back here so I let it push me and riding along, I changed pages on my cue sheet. Ever so slowly I could see I was not just keeping the lights ahead still in sight but they were becoming more distinct.

A couple of glimpses at my route sheet and I had names of the next two turns in memory. It turned out that I hadn't needed to do that as the terrain became completely flat which told me we had cleared any of the rollers nearer to the Vaca Mountains to the north west. The pack ahead would now be easy to keep in sight and had made a turn to the north on Meridian Road. I checked my watch to see how far I was behind. Less than two minutes now and closing fast, as I too made the northward turn.

Finally, one more turn on to Silveyville road which I set up to take with as much speed as I could but also on a trajectory I felt would be clear of gravel. I was now less than a quarter mile behind. Instead of waiting for my present pace to bring me up to the pack I pushed harder to close the gap sooner and finally I was on the back of the group, which was pulled along by Todd, Richard and Tim. I hung toward the back next to Ken J., Carlos and Jim, and pulled out the chocolate milk I had bought back in Vacaville as the group made the final turns which brought us to roads I was much more familiar with. Richard pointed out Putah Creek Road to the left as we passed as the road we'd take later after leaving Davis. I had been on Putah Creek Road just a week before on a day ride to Lake Solano with my son. A five mile east bound run along Russell was completed with the pack of ten riders spread across our lane and after crossing Highway 113 we were in Davis proper with a run up Sycamore to take us to the turn around control at Safeway.

At the Safeway, the group went about the business of refueling and putting on an extra layer in an unhurried manner and just as we were leaving I spotted two extra bikes, belonging to Kitty and Ken who had arrived while we were all inside. Our group of ten slowly warmed up as we headed east along Covell. The route leaving Davis did not overlap the outbound route for about 30 miles, but instead followed the somewhat classic route along Putah Creek which glances off the southern boundary of the Winters city limits. The pack was moving along at a wonderful pace, led by Tim but some of the riders were showing signs of overheating. I was in need of a pee break so I let the other riders know I was going to stop just before the end of Putah Creek road. Everyone else was happy for the break. Jim, Jamie and I decided not to match the pace of before and while those two waited where we first had stopped, I rode with the group to the turn at Pleasants Valley and let them know what we were doing. As I turned back I thought I heard the word 'flat' but wasn't sure as the group pulled out of sight. After a few more minutes of rest, Jim, Jamie and I rolled off only to stop about 500 yards down the road where Tim was working on a flat with Carlos and Richard keeping him company. We found the rest of the group waiting around the next turn and we started out slowly until we three sorted ourselves toward the back of the pack and let the others pull away.

At what felt like a much slower but still deliberate pace, our small group of three was more able to chat as we headed south along Pleasants Valley. I had ridden this road many times on so many rides, all of them pleasant memories. Jim, Jamie and I chatted about bikes, rides and all things related and the 13 miles were over much more quickly than ever. Being nudged up against the foot hills of the Vaca Mountains, we didn't have much in the way of trouble with the southwest wind. Until, that is, we reached Cherry Glen and then Lyon road on the way to Fairfield. The wind slowed us a bit and the road noise from the Interstate made our conversation a little harder to achieve until we reached Hilborn road. The cross winds became more forceful along Abernathy and Suisun Valley Roads and the (now) 'open control' in Cordelia was a stop that came none-too-soon. I was surprised to see all seven riders from the lead group still at the control and we overlapped our stay with theirs for about 15 or more minutes. I took advantage of our longer stay to add a layer of clothing and with a while left before sunrise, we headed south toward Lopes Road.

Louise and Albert had arrived at the control while we were just rolling out and they must have buzzed through that stop because they passed us about where the Tower Mart was and they were moving along at a nice clip. I wondered to myself if they might not be able to catch the lead group. By the time we reached the right turn off Lopes Road and on to Lake Herman Road, we were able to switch off our head lights. Though the generator hub drag is low, we convinced ourselves it was now just that much easier to climb the rollers on our way into Vallejo. The town of Vallejo was quiet and we had Columbus, Spring and Solano Roads all to ourselves and after a brief stop at the left turn onto 5th Street, we were also able to take up the entire lane there due to the complete lack of traffic. After bucking the wind just a few miles back, it was interesting to note that the cross winds on the Zampa Bridge were so much less than the night before when we had been buffeted back and forth. South of the bridge, the little town of Rodeo was stirring as we finished the last few miles of the ride and after one last climb over to Hercules, we would have been able to coast into the finish, if not for the late changing traffic light. Bruce B. was staffing the finish control and greeted us with coffee, juice, bagels, donuts and warm cheer. Most of the early finishers were still there, with the Tim H. led first group finishing at 6:18, Louse and Albert finishing at 6:33 and our group pulling in at 6:52.

143 miles Turnaround in Davis in 4:45 Lots of great conversations along the way, and lots of great company. We had riders come from as far away as San Diego and Los Angeles for the ride, and I think they had a great experience.

For a different perspective on the same ride, see JimG's write up here (and note where I stole the photos for this posting!)

PBP 2007, Part 6: Erosion

2009-04-14T13:47:00.000-07:00

In early 2007, I participated in a number of cycling events, of which the qualifying brevets were only some of those rides. PBP of course was a central discussion topic so many times and at those other rides I met a number of prospective PBP riders. The Grizzly Peak Cyclists, one of the clubs I ride with and an ancestor to the San Francisco Randonneurs, hosts a Tuesday Night Ride series aimed at the faster cyclist wanting to get in a mid-week training ride after work and prepare for the coming California Triple Crown Double Century series. The few times I showed up for those Tuesday Night rides, I had already done my ride for the day (I had plenty of free time from mid-November 2006 to early March 2007 when I was unemployed due to the implosion of my former employer Apelon). It was at one of those Tuesday Night rides that I first met Phil Morris, who had been described to me as a very strong, fast rider. Phil was working himself back into condition after a lengthy cycling layoff, and I was at my peak at the time owing to all the additional hill climbing, and other mileage I had done during all the enforced free time. Phil seemed to struggle to hang on to my wheel at points on that late February ride but when I next rode with Phil in late May on the Davis 600km brevet, the tables had long ago turned and turned completely. Making matters only worse on that 600km, I had been battling a sour stomach for 24 hours and Phil was finding his 2nd wind when we met at the Cloverdale control on the return leg. I left Cloverdale with his group but on the road to Geyeserville I just could not hang on no matter how much they slowed.

Fast forward a few more months to late August on the roads in France, and on the initial kilometers leading away from the Fougeres control Phil rolls up from behind, having erased the gap between our start times. The pouring rain from when I had arrived at the control had now ceased and Phil and I chatted as we put Fougeres behind us. It was wonderful to have someone to chat with, but as the roadway began to slope uphill a bit, Phil began to ease ahead. I told him I hoped to see him further down the road but instead he slowed to stay with me for just a bit. The overcast seemed to have thinned a little and the weak daylight became a little stronger as we had left Fougeres but now with a few kilometers behind us, the cloud cover returned to the same thick and complete grey as before and pockets of drizzle began again as we negotiated a traffic circle where Phil decided to pull off and eat. I guess I wasn't the only one that didn't eat as I should at the controls.

The traffic circles on the PBP route were never hard to negotiate. The only time I encountered traffic actually in the circles was upon approaching Fougeres in heavy rain, but generally the circles were lightly trafficed and covered with the PBP directional signs and as a result easy to handle. The terrain on this segment from the Fougeres control to the next control at Tinteniac was much flatter than what I had covered before noon. This was a mixed blessing though, as the trade off for less climbing brought less varied landscape to see. As well, there were fewer riders to see, and this made a difference, a difference on my mind as well as legs. With out as many cyclists ahead to mentally pace my ride, and with less interesting terrain and fewer of the beautiful and tidy small villages to punctuate the route my pace seemed to slow and trying to increase my speed, calling on reserves that just weren't there gave me a sense of a lack of power. It clearly was a slog at this point.

Somewhere along the route, in a town whose name I can't now place, the rain began to come down hard. The route took a sharp turn to the right and began to climb through town as it passed a small store, the closest I had seen to a 'convenience' type store since leaving Paris. Many riders were slowing pedaling along continuing the climb but there was one rider already stopped at this store. Though it hadn't been long since my last stop, I turned right into the lot and put my bike under the overhang that the front of the building provided and headed inside in search of the saltiest food I could find, while another rider pulled up and parked near my bike. I must have looked pretty well used up as I stood dripping in line at the cashier. The patron in front of me addressed me in English and wondered how I was doing. It was good to speak to someone, anyone, but I could really not hide the fact that I was pretty demoralized at this point. He told me he had done PBP in year's past and wished me well. He knew, he said, that the ride was a challenge even under better conditions than this day. I went outside to eat as much of the bag of chips I bought as I could and scanned the riders going past for someone I knew. There were so many riders going by at this point, and I wondered why that would seem so.

At every low point something always came along to change the mental and physical landscape and on these long, straight and flat roads between towns I began to see riders in Audax events heading in the opposite direction. The first group I saw was approaching an intersection and in the process of calling a brief halt so that their tight formation was unravelling slightly. As earlier on my own ride when the sun had come up, this addition brought a number of new wonderful bikes to gawk at. I saw at least two more groups like this, perhaps in the same event but riding at different paces from the other groups. While they too must have ridden in the rain, that rain had ceased when I spotted their groups but shortly after their passing the rain began once more and the cloud cover was thick enough I lost track of where the sun was and therefore which direction I was headed in. I had put on my Rainlegs once more, but the right leg cover was tormenting me by binding up and then popping loose every three pedal strokes. It is impossible that the Rainlegs would cause this, but I began to feel knee pains starting with the right knee and shortly after both knees. Never seeming to dry out, even though it was no longer as cold as the previous night, the constant dampness was taking its toll on my legs. As I approached a side road crossing, I turned right, off course and headed off a modest distance for a little privacy as I 'offloaded' some fluids. As I slowly returned to the main road I heard a strikingly familiar voice talking non-stop as a pack of riders rolled on by. It was Kitty Goursolle, a rider I knew from so many of the brevets and double centuries around Northern California. I had met Kitty the year before on the SFR Williams 400km, a hideously windy brevet held the year before in March. As usual, Kitty was happy as a clam just rolling along chatting with a bunch of riders. I was no where near ready to roll off at that point, so with some small regret I let them go by without making my presence known. Without being able to spot them ahead, I still knew I was on the right route simply by the never ending clues of spent energy gel tubes sprinkled on the route by previous riders. I never saw anyone using these so I wondered if their use was something unique to the 80 hour riders. It irritated me seeing the otherwise spotless roadside littered with this debris.

The ache in my knees that began at this point would not leave for several days. At times it wasn't really much of an issue, but ultimately it would change my ride and change it completely. A sure sign that you are feeling the effects of limited sleep is when irritation at the smallest things can overwhelm you. Though I didn't know how close I was at this point to the next control, I had a flat tire just a handful of kilometers before Tinteniac. Though the flat was the front wheel, and therefore should have been a bit easier to deal with, I still had to work to keep my irritation from erupting into something else. Getting control of myself, I set to work on fixing the problem as I stood in a grassless triangle formed by intersecting roads. Riders in ones, twos and sometimes more would pass by, and it bothered me that I knew I'd see no one familiar, and that fed a feeling of isolation. Knees beginning to ache, intermittent rain, a flat tire when the roads had been smooth and clean and being alone in a crowd. All these things were like too much rain on a fire scorched hillside. After pumping up the tire my back complained as I straightened up but before I could put the wheel back on the bike a car that had passed came circling around and pulled up beside me. The French couple that got out into the rain didn't speak English but I knew they were simply checking on me and asking if I needed assistance. At low ebb, my psyche needed the boost that came from total strangers checking on my welfare would provide. 'Merci' I replied and I indicated that I was nearly set. They smiled and watched me reassemble everything and roll off down the road with a wave.

Tinteniac is a very small town, and yet it was just hopping with activity. I felt pretty well ragged out by the time I reached the bike parking and it was good to see that the activity was made up of riders as well as specators. That meant I was still in the thick of things. Just as I parked, I spotted Bruce and Dan, and was pretty well surprised to find that I was only a half hour behind them, basically the time of their stay at the control. (I later learned I was an hour and a half behind, not just half an hour.) I could not leave with them and knew they could not stay any longer so after the briefest of conversations, filled mostly of news of which riders we knew that had called it quits already, they rode off. I hurried through the check-in for the control and hurried through the line at the loo, and then knew I needed to slow down and rest while consuming some kind of fuel. The best I could do given what was offered was to drink a bowl of hot cocoa. I nibbled some of my supplies, the appricots and cashews, and ate some of the sandwich I had been carrying since the day before, and after indulging in some people watching I headed off for my bike and a resumption of my ride.

The rest was short, shorter than I wanted and yet it did absolute wonders for me. The terrain after the Tinteniac control changed considerably from long flat roads to one full of huge rollers, climbs that weren't hills really but where I could not coast past and over without some added effort. Before the control I was beginning to be passed by more riders than I passed, but after the control I was catching and passing everyone. I'll never know for certain, but the lack of caution simply because my legs felt better and my energy was up may have in the end sped up the more severe ache in my knees.

The first town after Tinteniac is the town of Becherel and as I approached the town I realized that I was lugging this camera with me, one purchased specifically for this trip, and I wasn't slowing down to take any photos. The shot above that introduces this segment of the story is one of the shots I took entering town along a long, straight, uphill run that aimed directly at the church in the center of town. As with so many of the towns and villages along the route, I was impressed with the neatness of this place, and I imagine it would stand out all the more if only the sun were shining. If only.

End of Part 6

San Francisco Randonneurs - Hopland 400km

2009-04-08T10:51:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a short break from posting segments of my Paris-Brest-Paris report to toss in a ride report from the brevet series that I am riding in 2009. This past Saturday (April 4, 2009), I rode the San Francisco Randonneurs Hopland 400km. This is a route that is relatively new for SFR, having been used only once before in the lead up to PBP in 2007. That year, the brevet started at noon, effectively lengthening (if not doubling) the hours of night-time riding. A small minority of riders preferred the later start, but the majority of riders this year were vocal in their preference for the 6am start. The traditional SFR SR brevet events all start at the Golden Gate Bridge and 41 riders were gathered Saturday morning near the Strauss Statue at the bridge's visitor center, waiting for the start. On different brevets I've made more of an effort to be near the front of the departing pack, but on this day I pretty much let all the riders roll up the ramp ahead of me before I started myself.

The weather forecasts for Saturday published in the week leading up were all so favorable that it hardly seemed like it would be an SFR event. Skies were clear, winds light and temperatures, the further north we went, were expected to be near 70F. Ah, but getting to that northernmost point, and reaching the time of day when it would be the warmest meant travelling through a chilly morning and riding for many hours. Nearer to San Francisco, and therefore the SF Bay, pre-dawn temps were over 40F. Not so just after sunup in the San Geronimo and Nicasio Valleys. The climb over White's Hill after Fairfax, CA largely marks the transition from suburban to rural landscape and on this morning it also marked the transition from 40F, to temperatures that were much lower. Riding down the back side of White's Hill I felt the usual cooling effect as the perspiration generated by the climb up evaporated in the air rushing by as my downhill speed increased. That there was more than an added bite to the cooling was apparent very quickly and frost showing on the roadside grasses gave a clue hard to miss. Bruce Berg announced that his VDO cycle computer was registering the temperature at 31 degrees as we made the turn from Sir Francis Drake Blvd. on to Nicasio Valley road. Nicasio Valley Road got right to business, presenting us with another out of the saddle climb and we didn't much notice the 31F temps for a bit. Until of course we came down the backside of that climb.

Nicasio Valley Road passes by the Nicasio Reservoir at the northern end of the road, but before we even reached the short rise to the Reservoir we were confronted by a blanket of thick fog. This is where the chill really stung. Bruce and I had joined a large group of riders at this point and after pulling the group up toward the reservoir Bruce joined me at the back, behind Tim Houck, John Potis, Bryan Clarkson, Gabe Ehlert and Carlos Duque. As thick and cold as the fog was, our time in it was short-lived and shortly after turning right on the Point Reyes-Petaluma Road for yet one more climb we left the fog behind. I took it easy on this climb, staying near the back of the group and nearing the top while glancing in my mirror I noticed a pretty dramatic view. I told Bruce I would catch up and circled back looking for a good position to take a photo (see the lead photo in this entry above). I took a couple shots and then needed to work pretty hard to make contact with the remnants of the group. The last portion of the climb had finished spreading us out anyway and the downhill run past the Cheese Factory on the way to Hicks Valley only accentuated the gaps. The very first ride I had ever done in Marin County was along these roads, and since 1993 I've ridden out here many times. March and April, even in the dry years bring a gorgeous array of wild flowers along this route, and this year it was more of the same.

The standard route for much shorter, and less challenging rides going from Western Marin to Southern Sonoma county takes riders up the Bohemian Highway. We would make our way eventually to Bohemian, but not without first climbing Joy Road. Joy Road is one of those roadways that is much nicer to climb than to descend with the choice between up and down boiling down to this: Joy Road uphill is steep (some pitches may be 15%) and has a false summit halfway along, and down hill its a nearly five mile run of craptastic pavement. The Hopland 400km route spanning the two counties along here connects several small towns: Valley Ford and Bodega before Joy Road, then Occidental, Monte Rio and Guerneville, after Joy. Our first control was Guerneville and we arrived there shortly after 11am. The Safeway in Guerneville is just off of River Road and off to the one side there is a bike rack and a large planter which seems to attract all the riders as a place to sit while diving into the bags of food they brought out from the store. As Bruce, Tim, Ken Johnson, Carlos and I arrived, there were already quite a few riders there. I had been munching on dried appricots and cashews that I picked up in Valley Ford, and here I added my usual chocolate milk to a V8, banana and some sort of confection from the Starbucks counter. I really should have had more. Too often I cave into the 'I'm not really hungry right now' mindset and I pay for that later. Still, because I had been eating before and had enough to munch on for quite a while, eating small but frequently was working.

River Road is a road that some riders dislike because of the traffic. Along most of it's length, there is ample shoulder but much of that shoulder has rock debris from the hillsides and cliffs on the north side. The rocks are really angular and pretty successful at causing flats if you hit one, as was the case on the Santa Rosa 300km, which also used River Road a few weeks before. This day the traffic was managable and the shoulders largely clear so the run up along the Russian River was they way you like it: uneventful. Sonoma County has some really nice roads, and while Westside Road, which would take us to Healdsburg, has some views of the Alexander Valley that are gorgeous, the road surface often requries your attention. Chris Browder, riding a really nice Della Santa frameset, was pushing our pace a bit and I was struggling to hang on to the back. Chris managed to have more energy than the rest of us all day long, and I recalled that I usually see Chris in the latter miles of double centuries where he comes steaming up from behind always looking fresh and cheerful.

The official route, originally designed for a noon start, takes riders into Healdsburg. This works then but a 6am start has riders in town at around 1pm which seemed unnecessary, with Cloverdale not too far down the road. I expect that the route will stay west of town in future versions of this route, and most riders commenting after the ride seem to agree with that suggested change. West Dry Creek is little better than Westside, pavementwise, but just like Westside, the scenery is fabulous. Except for a little bit of confusion on the right way to leave town, the official route wasn't so bad, and as we crossed under US 101 we cleared 100 miles for the day so far, and we were out just over seven hours total time. This portion of the route is familiar to me as the first few miles of the Santa Rosa 400km and 600km routes, so I knew there were some rollers along Dutcher Creek Road that would spread out the group. Just after we left Dry Creek for the right turn on Dutcher Creek, Bruce and I fell of the back of the group but we could keep them in sight. Ahead, we saw the group pick up another rider that turned out to be Theresa, whom I had first met in the days just before Paris-Brest-Paris in 2007. Theresa was riding very well that day and while I was working on keeping contact with the group, she found the energy to take photos while riding within the pack, a trick I can't seem to pull off well.

Our whole group, which was up to seven riders now, decided to stop with me when I announced I wanted a break in Cloverdale. Like so many other points along the route this day, once we stopped, several other riders showed up as well. Gabe, John and Bryan were one group that stopped, and we saw them at every stop we made all day. They were all riding well that day, keeping a tight group and always smiling as they arrived at each successive stop. I had great company on this, and so many other days, but I still envied Gabe's group's cohesiveness and clear enjoyment of the ride. In Cloverdale, the route picks up CA 128 and after a very brief somewhat flat run, the climbing starts. I had first driven that road many years before and my very first thought then was 'what would this be like riding a bike? Probably tough but still fun.' This was my third time climbing this segment of 128 on a bike, and just as I had thought way back when, this was indeed an equal mix of tough work and fun. Pretty much the fun on this climb though is the anticipation of Mountain House Road. Mountain House from the south begins with a screaming fast descent, interupted by a very short gravel section that can't seem to ever stay paved, and the rest of the length of the road is alternating climbs and descents through what is knock-your-socks-off beautiful scenery. This was scenery I didn't know existed until the 3rd time I had ridden Mountain House, and that was because the first two times on that road it was pitch dark.

Along Mountain House, Bruce and I again dropped off the back of the main group though we could still see them until I decided I just had to stop and take some photos. This too was something I always regretted not doing enough of on rides and if I wasn't improving on the other facets of my total ride experience, at least I was on this count. In looking back at my PicasaWeb albums I found that I had taken a photo on the 2007 Davis 600km in nearly the same spot. This time I think the wildflowers made the difference. All the riders from our pack plus more were waiting at the Hopland Valero station. In 2007 on the 400km, we had arrived there at 11:50 and standing in line for the bathroom we managed to get locked in the store when they closed. It was long before closing time this time though and we gathered up all that looked good to eat and drink and sat in the warmth of the front porch of the store. I had a hankering for a fountain soda drink and got a nice big one to sip as we all chatted and told stories outside. Christian F. arrived toward the end of our break but was quick enough through the store to be ready to leave with us as we headed out.

Hopland marks the northernmost point on the route, but is quite a bit futher than the halfway point for mileage. It is also well beyond the halfway point in elevation gain, which is a good thing as others in our group were showing signs of fatigue. Had we needed to climb back over Mountain House Road, the ride would have been a much tougher one and it is tough as it is, but our route took us along the wide paved shoulder of Highway 101, which for the most part is a down hill run along the Russian River between Hopland and Cloverdale. The wide shoulder on 101 is nicely paved and is separated from the car and truck traffic lanes by a rumble strip. A couple of times I managed to drift onto the rumble strip, and even my Grand Bois tires couldn't soak up that jarring experience. Even though the stretch on 101 is only eight miles long, by seven and a half miles I'm always more than ready to get off on to quieter roads. Before we could get off of 101 though, Ken had his first flat of the day and once rolling again we crossed under 101 after the exit and made our way along the Geysers Road headed back toward River Road. Here the course overlaps a few miles of the end of the morning loop on the Terrible Two. Our group fell into a serious paceline which we kept up until we reached Geyersville. While stopped there Bruce noticed that his wind vest was missing, and slowly it dawned on him that more than just his vest was missing. He had also left behind is fanny pack. No more than 60 seconds after he was preparing to ride back to Hopland, up rode a group of five riders who had taken turns carrying his '12 pound bag'. Bruce, as you can imagine, was escatic. After the excitement of the return of the prodigal fanny pack, we rolled out of town in the late evening light and resumed the paceline work, and kept that routine up for miles until midway along Chalk Hill road where it was then late enough that we needed to put on reflective gear and get our lights ready.

From the point where we reached Windsor, CA, the route would be in suburban areas and the roads would be north-south or east west until we reached the open space between Petluma and the areas south of Santa Rosa/Rohnert Park. Just as we made our turn onto Ludwig for the short leg over to Stoney Point Road, Ken had another flat. As it was for the first flat, I really wasn't too unhappy to have to stop and I took the time to eat a little and rearrange items in my handle bar bag. Once Ken was operational again, we all rolled off for the run into Petaluma.

Our control in Petaluma was the Safeway on McDowell, often used on SFR brevets for this very purpose. Talk among our group was of having hot soup at the Safeway, but alas we arrived too late for that. I ended up roaming around the store several times with nothing striking me as just what I was craving. This is where things sort of fell apart for me on this ride. I didn't eat enough and I didn't eat the right things and moments after our pack left for the final leg to the Bridge I was experiencing nausea. My energy level would ebb and flow and at first I'd be way in front on the climbs and a moment later I'd be struggling to keep up with the tail end. The hills really strung our group out, and I worked to keep the last three riders in sight. I caught them finally once we made the turn onto Nicasio Valley Road, with my stomach settling down enough to find an even pace. The climb up Dixon Ridge, cresting at Cici's Memorial has so often in the past been a momentum killer for me. Even though the last couple of times up that hill haven't been as bad as usual, I had no expectation for what would happen at this point. As the incline increased I was able to keep up with the group and after some shifting around for position, I found myself in the front of our group. I wanted to keep a good pace if for no other reason that to confirm I was getting over the nausea and had found my rhythm again. A moment later I looked back and all three other riders were fading off the back. To say I was surprised by this turn of fortunes is an understatement, and I wanted to ride it out as far as it would go and by the time I reached the crest no one was yet in sight. I cruised down the back side, past the golf courses and under the foot bridge, and finding Sir Frances Drake Blvd. clear I crossed over and stopped for the other riders to keep up. First Bruce, then Kitty showed up and we began to wonder about Anthony until a motorist pulled over and told us our rider was stopped on the side of the road up the hill. Turns out Anthony had merely dropped a chain and he soon joined us.

With the 'leftover' group intact we rode east to clear White's Hill and drop down into Fairfax. Again on White's Hill I was able to climb with comparitive ease and it took some dawdling in Fairfax for the others to catch up. The route sheet for any SFR brevet that begins at the Golden Gate Bridge and heads north will always be dominated by the sheer number of turns and street name changes that cover the last 20 miles of the ride. That section is daunting for out of town riders and their best option is to hook onto the wheel of a local also on the brevet. It is a route I know well, even in the dark though and as our group traveled through the post-midnight streets we began to pick up a few of the stragglers from the earlier fragmentation of our group of 12. Ken Shoemaker and Ken Johnson were with us to make our group temporarily six, until Kitty and Anthony dropped off on the climb up Camino Alto. From this point most of the route back is on a bike trail until we hit Sausalito. Both the trail and the streets in that last Marin town were empty and we could ride at our own pace. The last grunt of a climb is from sea level in downtown Sausalito up to the level of the Golden Gate Bridge. Not huge by any standards but when it is at the end of 250 miles, and it is often windy, it is a significant climb. We crossed on the East Side of the bridge, having to stop twice to trigger the request to open the gates. At last we coasted down the ramp to the Visitor's Center area at the Bridge to find Mark Behning, and Scott and Melissa ready to check us in.

In spite of having a great weather day, weather still played a part with the early morning and post midnight chill. The elevation gain is pretty close to that for the same distance on PBP, and yet this seemed to be a very hilly ride. Certainly, PBP doesn't have a Joy Road type climb or even one like the climb to Mountain House. My time was nearly two hours faster than in 2007, and this was my 2nd fastest 400km, but the funny thing was it was one of Bruce's slowest 400kms. I have no idea how this will relate to how the 600km will go at the end of May, but so far this season, my times are all closer to my best for the distance and for the route, than they are to my worst.

Results for the 400km are posted here: http://sfrandonneurs.org/2009-results.htm#400K

There are links within the results to other photo albums and write ups of the ride, one really good one from the front of the pack posted here.

PBP 2007, Part 5: Daylight, hills and yet more rain

2009-03-26T21:02:00.000-07:00

The town of Villaines-la-Juhel has been a control on Paris, Brest et retour since 1979. The enthusiasm the town exhibits for this event may have been dampened somewhat by the rain, but it was clear to me that PBP was a special event there and special enough that I expect it will be part of PBP for years to come. Climbing out of town on my departure some time around 8am, I had put behind me more than 220 kilometers. The hills on the early part of the course were gradual, but from this point that would be much less the case. Beginning my cycling life in Southeastern Michigan, hills and long climbs became defined a certain way. Moving to Maryland, hills became something a bit more serious as steepness and length both increased, forcing my notion of climbing on a ride to expand. Changing coasts and landing in the Bay Area, the notion of elevation gain for the length of a ride was much more of a factor, and no two 100 mile rides could now be considered equal. Given the many opportunities for sustained climbing though, most of the routes for the qualifiying brevets in Northern California were designed to mimic the elevation gain on PBP so that there were no killer climbs where riders would work for 30 to 40 minutes to reach the crest, but instead there would be a relentless succession of smaller climbs.

Even though the sun had long been up, and my world was more than the short distance ahead that bicycle lights would illuminate, it still felt as if the rain and clouds were limiting what I might otherwise be able to see. Given a rare break from that a few hours after dawn, I finished one of the many short but certainly noticeable climbs and could see a longer way off to the north where the hills gradually rose a little higher, each hill only slightly taller than the one before it. This was one of the very few instances where I could see for some distance, and I noticed that none of the other riders were paying it much attention. The rain had ceased for a short time but these breaks were never long enough to ever begin drying out, and the one-two punch of energy loss due to chill from long soaked riding gear and the now continuous succession of hills made my progress seem like slow motion.

Through out the ride so far I had made an effort to keep eating, but having skipped something more substantial while in Villaines I had reached the point in the ride where I needed to eat more frequently or I would just need to stop. So I stopped and ate. Several times. After the first stop I could feel my energy level spike and I made up ground lost while stopped. The nature of a spike though, is that a drop in energy would follow and another stop would be needed. Some times, I'd see no other riders pass by while I rested, other times many riders would roll by and I'd catch the eye of some riders who made the effort to look away from the spot where they would be after 10 more meters. Those riders would no doubt be checking to see if I was more or less ok, and I was. More or less. Despite the long total of kilometers for this ride, stopping to look around and take in more than the roadway is important, and yet so hard to do. I'm hoping that with more experience at the longer distances, I can overcome the urge to keep rolling which comes from being uncertain I can finish. On this part of the course, as with all of the course, there were many towns and villages to pass through. Here they were spaced between 4 and 12 kilometers apart. Before I reached the next control however the distances between towns would increase to nearly 20 km. As during the night before, one town on this segment stood out in particular. The road surface, shops, homes and garage buildings in Lassay Les Chateaux all seemed to be incredibly well kept and the town affluent. In reading about the town long after returning home, I found out there was a castle or castles there but I never saw them. I do remember a lift in spirits just riding through this beautiful town, and of course the look on the faces of the men and women as I called out a 'Bon jour' as I rode by. They all looked at me as if I were nuts. I knew I couldn't argue the point then or now.

As I approached Gorron about 25 km later on this leg, it seemed a good place and time to stop and rest longer than the time it took to down a Clif Bar. My pockets were a disorganized mess and it was difficult to ride along one handed and sift with the other hand through all the clutter in each pocket, searching for the small bag of cashews I knew was in there, or the appricots that really go well just then. Gorron seemed to be very much different than all the other towns so far, but it may be that our route didn't take us into and really through the town. Gorron seemed much more spread out, and the buildings much more recent. I passed by a supermarché and pulled over and crossed back to the parking lot, stepping over a couple of curbs to do this. The store offered several advantages at the moment: food, a large overhang to escape the rain and lots of space underneath to spread out gear and repack. One reason for stopping was that I was certain I was nearly out of water and would need a refill before reaching Fougers, the next control. Inside the store, the aisles were empty of shoppers and the shelves and displays were mostly full of produce or canned goods, neither of which would help me but I found all I needed, bananas, water and a juice and made my way to the counter. The exchanges at checkout would all entail me looking closely at the register for the total and listening closely for the spoken words that should match that number, and a smile as I would hand over my change. Once outside I began the process of inventorying my gear and beginning to eat. Having bought two liters of bottled water to refill my camelbak, I now found the camelbak full, and I still had one full water bottle and second bottle only half empty. So much for being sure I was nearly out of fluids!

While stopped here, though I had the chance to speak with another rider, a rider from Sweden and like so many other riders from that part of the world, he spoke English as well as his native tongue. Like me, the lure of a well stocked store and a convenient place to get out of the rain was too much of a lure. We spoke about the distance to the next control, and a little about his having ridden PBP in 2003. He left though and I finished my repacking job and followed a few minutes later. The terrain here seemed to be much flatter than what I had crossed recently, but flatter wasn't flat entirely. Instead, it seemed that the roadway was on a very slight incline. Along this section I passed through another small village and on the approach there was a family with a table set with coffee and cups. A rider was stopped there and I really couldn't tell if this stand was set up by a family waiting for their rider. I didn't want to stop, thinking they were there for any rider that came along, and then be wrong. I regret not taking more opportunities to interact. It is my nature both to be too timid to take these opportunities and to regret later caving into that first reaction.

To this day, I really don't have a good sense for how the approach to Fougeres plays out. My memory is of taking a course that would appear to be a spiral into and out of the town, and at one point, the only place where I went off course, I left an (unusually busy) traffic circle too early when the correct course would have had me come 300+ degrees around from my original direction. Of course, at that very moment the rain doubled, then tripled in intensity. On the edge of town I had stopped to eat once more, even knowing I was possibly minutes away from the control, and just let the pouring rain soak me. I wasn't defeated by this, but instead I knew it didn't matter, didn't change anything from an hour ago, or an hour from now. At Fougeres, the layout of the control is such that the dining hall is near the entry way, but the actual control is held in a building that was a bike ride, not a walk, away. I first stopped to figure out where to go and then made my way to the control to present my card. The hall had a feel that suggested to me that the rush had come and gone. Bill Bryant, from Santa Cruz was there and wanting badly to talk to someone I knew I asked him how far behind the crowds I was. I was pretty stunned to find out that the real swell of riders had yet to arrive. Bill had other duties to attend to, and I needed to get something to eat. In the bike lot near the dining hall I found another Dave Yates bike, though not quite like mine. I very much wanted to change out of my sodden clothes, thinking that the change would both warm me up and improve my mindset. With the rain coming down in buckets at the moment, where I was standing was not the place to pull that off. The dining hall had a long covered walkway leading to another building and while that seemed packed with bikes already, I went looking to see if there was space for just one more. There was, at the far end, and I used that space to change and decide if I wanted to eat here or later on the road. While the food lines looked to be 60 minutes long, it was still a bad decision to leave and eat later. This is a bad decision I always seem to repeat, and I should learn, but again, I left without sitting down to a meal using the break in the rain that had appeared as the reason for departing.

(All photos except the one below are from: http://pbpvillaines.free.fr/Pages/Page_Photos/pbp2007web/)

PBP 2007, Part 4: A meager dawn

2009-03-11T13:00:00.000-07:00

More than once, I've found myself cycling at 4:00am, though it is an unaccustomed time for me to be part way through a ride. My first ride through the night was in April of 2004 on the San Francisco Randonneurs Fleche. From that time until PBP 2007, I had ridden through the night only five other times. Though cold temperatures were often a prominent feature of the weather, none of those occasions included rain, and in each of those other experiences I had the luxury of having at least one and often several good friends with me. This situation on PBP, alone in a crowd, riding into and out of several new days put me far enough out of context that I really wasn't thinking so much what time of day it was, or when daybreak might come. Instead, I focused on the moment at hand.

With the passing of many kilometers the tightness of the various packs and the sheer number of other riders had lessened. To be sure, there were always other riders to see ahead and behind, but no longer were we riding two or three abreast. The lighting on my bike stood out even more at this point as I would pass or be passed by other ridrs, and especially so when I used both of the E6 headlights I had mounted. I had heard stories from previous editions of PBP where a rider with especially good lights would often attract a number of other riders, sharing the better visibility. I didn't see this happening nearby me, and I know it was the rain. The rain had all but killed conversations as each rider seemed hyper-focused on just turning the pedals.

My involvement in long distance riding began with the Davis Double Century in 2000. I started well before dawn because the day would be hot, and going the full 200 miles was an uncertain thing. I've done that ride nine times now and on each one, dawn was a significant memory. Davis is in California's Central Valley, and the early morning May sky nearly always features a view of the mountains in the Sierra, backlit by the rising sun. So often the dawn would be a pronounced transition from black, to dark blue, to blue. The first dawn on PBP was nothing like that. There was dark, then less dark, then gloom. I do recall the moment of transition from less dark to gloom though. The terrain was undulating, and I rolled down into a ravine like portion of the landscape and riding up out of it it felt brighter, I could see further ahead, I could see more riders, and see both riders and terrain more distinctly. If nothing else, then, the gloom afforded me the chance to indulge in a favorite pastime while riding long distances: gawk at bicycles and bike gear (something I did before the ride start and again after the finish).

The remaining kilometers ahead before reaching the first control were dwindling now, and though I could now easily see my odometer I remained unsure of how long it might take and how far it really was until I reached Villaines-la-Juhel. Still eager to talk to someone, anyone, it had been hours since I had seen an American rider. On a series of hills, two French riders approached and passed me, both riding Alex Singer bicycles. These are bicycles that I very much admire and I really wanted to converse with their riders. I began by speaking English. "Very nice bicycles!" In return, a very gruff "En français!" with no hint of a "s'il vous plaît" at all. The tone carried the message and slightly stunned, I drifted back. Drifting back was easy at this point as I was tired and felt these riders were a bit stronger than I was and had the advantage of each other's company (though they didn't seem to take full advantage of that by either conversing or by drafting). I mulled it over and struggled to form the most basic of French sentences that would convey that I really liked their bicycles and wanted to talk to them about it. Rather than take offense, I decided to just smile and try again. Increasing speed and catching up to these riders once more, I began "Alex Singer trey ..." I quit at the first harumph. I could have been both stunned and insulted that the rider simply would not look at me or help further a conversation. Instead I did the best thing I could at the moment. On the next hill I dropped those riders and never looked back.

I knew better than to assume that this experience summed up the French. These two riders were in stark contrast to the many villagers and townspeople along the route who cheered on all the riders with a "bon courage" or "bon route", and offered coffee or water, even going so far as to take riders into their homes and feed them. Nevertheless, I made good use of the surge provided by this exchange and soon reached the control. Aha! This was where all the riders had gone. The place seemed mobbed as I first found the long narrow street where ranks of bicycles were parked. It seemed I had to ride forever to find the open racks, but once there I could see many more racks left open for what must be a well expected glut of riders. I rode to the far end of the full racks and then a bit further so I could leave my bike leaning against the railing out of the way. I didn't really trust leaving a wheel in the wooden rack, fearing it would tip over, making a taco of the wheel. Boy, it felt good to get off the bike and walk back to the check-in area where my brevet booklet would get it's first stamp. After getting my stamp and having my card swiped I wandered around taking care of a few things, including scouting out some food and a hot drink. In doing so, I ran into Ken Shoemaker and Theresa Lynch, two riders from back home in California. I also ran into Tim Houck, another rider from back home. By this time though I felt I had spent too much time at the control and should be going and it seemed these riders had just arrived. I made the long walk back to my bike and suited up to leave (that is me in the photo in the yellow jersey, with my back to the photographer, and my bike is beneath the red banner/flag on the right. I think that is Gregg Bleakney I'm talking to.)

Leaving the control I ran into Mark Thomas and Peter McKay, both from Washington, passing them as we left town, and moments later Tim passed me, riding strong enough that I knew I had no chance of keeping up. The energy I had regained resting in the control seemed to flow away and Mark and Peter rolled past me. I wasn't up to the opportunity of riding with people I knew, but the fact of daylight made up for that. Now I was able to see more of all the riders and the countryside all around. Provided of course that the rain would hold off. Ah, but that too didn't hold up after the break at the control.

End of Part 4

PBP 2007, Part 3: Hours til dawn

2009-03-05T12:14:00.000-08:00

By the time I arrived in France for this trip, I had listened to numerous PBP stories, hearing most of them while riding the qualifying brevets that spring. Spending yet more time with other riders in the days leading up to the start, I heard many new stories and it was becoming difficult to arrange the data points I acquired in a geographically correct order. This was especially hard when my grasp of French geography was tenuous at best. I had just ridden through a town larger than most so far, with a well lit and inviting cafe surrounded by cyclists. I saw no one I knew and felt compelled to keep moving, at the same time regretting passing up the stop. The route led through town, and then climbed up away from the center. Was this Mortagne-au-Perche? Wasn't there supposed to be a large church at the top of the hill outside of town? Maybe there was a church atop a hill outside some town somewhere ahead but it wasn't here, not unless the village church was to be found in the middle of the forest. Realizing that I was most likely confusing the details of more than one locale from more than one story, I instead focused on the climb before me. This I felt I could master.

Until this point, I had always been able to see a rider or two, or more often a dozen, ahead of me and could also tell that there were several riders just behind me. While I didn't feel all that strong just at this point, somehow I had outpaced all the other riders nearby as we went uphill from the village center. The darkness in between villages in the open fields was no comparison to the darkness I now found in the forest I was passing through. The light from my headlamp playing on the branches of the trees as they met over the middle of the roadway accentuated the impression of a riding through a tunnel. Lacking much sunlight during the day, this part of the route probably never warmed up much and now the chill helped produce visible exhalations. Without riders I could see ahead of me to confirm I was on the right path, I began to wonder if I was going the right way. There were no turns I could have taken so I must be on the right road, but doubt was gaining hold. A car approached from ahead, and strangely it's mere presence seemed menacing. This was the exact point at which I wished I had a fellow rider from back home to ride with. Instead, I decided to take any chance to talk with another rider that came my way.

The climb up into the forest had separated me from all the other riders nearby, but finally the ride through the forest ended after a long but slightly downhill run, itself followed by one more climb. Unlike the previous climb, this one tended to bunch up the other riders and again I was connected to the pack. The special velos had started in the wave just before the wave I was in, and all along the route up to this point I was catching and passing some of the recumbents and tandems that had a head start. While this was somewhat puzzling, that I should catch those riders on terrain that should really favor them, I didn't dwell on overmuch. Catching up to one of those riders though offered me my first chance to chat. I was paying attention to the jerseys of the riders I would come upon, using that as a clue about what language they might speak. One of the recumbent riders was wearing a familiar jersey, or so I thought so I asked him where he was from. I was right about him being from the U.S., but not at all about him being local to where I came from. He was from the East Coast, not quite as far from Northern California as one could get and still be a fellow countryman. As I matched his speed as we chatted, numerous other riders began to surround us. With more rain falling and it being hours til dawn, our primary effort needed to be directed toward riding in the pack and our brief conversation ended.

Heading into the next village a small pack of riders caught the group I was with and as they passed, I got my first contact with a fellow rider from the Bay Area. Keith Beato, who had started in a later wave, heard me call out and as I sped up a little he slowed down a little to say hello. He had seen no other riders we both knew and I let him know what I knew about who was ahead of me. While I would much rather have ridden with someone I knew, very much so, the fact that Keith had closed the gap between our start times plus the fact that I could tell it was an effort to match his pace meant that I'd be riding alone in a crowd for a while longer. Keith rolled on and I settled back into a pace more likely to allow me to reach Loudeac, the one-third-way point where I had a room waiting and a planned rest.

To arrive at that one-third point, though, there were many kilometers to cover, and many of those still to be ridden in the dark. From this point onward during the remaining night-time riding I was surrounded by other riders. I cared not if those other riders spoke English. Simply the sound of other conversations was good. Finally arriving at Mortange-au-Perche some time after 03:00, I mistook the road-side stand in the town center for the Contrôle ravitaillement (supply control). The rain had eased at this point and was no more than a sprinkle. Many of the riders stopped here and the stand was swarmed by hungry and thirsty riders. I needed the break and I needed water and wanted to get off the bike and buy a bottle. Just getting to the table was a struggle as riders crowded in, shouted out their orders and did what they could to get the attention of the overwhelmed staff behind the tables. Those poor souls were pulled in several directions at once and it took forever for anyone reluctant to be pushy to get their attention. "mai j'ai un peu d'eau s'il vous plaît?" Often, a worker there would turn to get what I ordered and upon turning back the bottle would be grabbed by someone else and money shoved into their hands. I did get my water and spent time just rearranging items in my bag, taking a quick bite to eat as well. Though many riders passed through, pausing or stopping, I didn't recognize anyone.

I finally remounted my bike when the rain began to come down a little harder. Imagine the surprise when I found the official supply control just a kilometer away. The activity seen at the food vendor's stand in the town center was totally absent at the official control. Here, bikes were parked everywhere, hundreds of them, but few riders seemed to be around at all. Those that were seemed to be moving with no great haste. I parked and walked indoors and was a bit lost as to why I was stopping, and my confusion showed to the woman greeting the riders upon their entry. It was warm inside, and riders filled all the tables available. I scanned the crowd and saw no one I knew and in fact saw no one I could identify as a countryman. Some riders were drinking beer, which is something I can do after a ride, but not during. As I'm still in search of the perfect source of energy on a ride, maybe I'll consider this in the future, but right then, it did not appeal to me. After doing one circuit of the hall, I went back outside where it was raining more heavily, got back on my bike and began to pedal just to get some warmth back.

Note: I'd like to thank Ivo Miesen for the use of his photos. Ivo's PBP photo album can be found here: http://fotoalbum.dds.nl/ivo_m/pbp2007

End of Part 3