449 km

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,...

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...

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 rid...

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 an...

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 ...

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 locatio...

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...