On Bicycles, and.... what else is there?

I was a bit shocked to see Valverde (Valv-Piti) and his seeming best friend Rodriguez out-climb both Contador and Froome in stage 8 of the Vuelta. Was it that Valverde has raised his game to become a world class sustained climber, but only when racing in the safe confines of Spain? Or was it more that Froome and Contador weren't up to their best, allowing Valverde and Rodriguez to keep up? The obvious check is the VAM: the rate at which they were able to gain altitude. It's roughly correlated to power/mass ratio. In the Armstrong era, it was typical during the Tour for Lance to be significantly over 1700 meters/hour for beyond-category climbs gaining over 1000 vertical meters. On short, punchy climbs riders were over 1800, even 1900. For profile data, all I really used was the official route data from the organizers. These show the climb gains 580 meters in 7.2 km, an average grade of 8.1%. That's fairly steep and fairly short by Tour de France standards, well-sui...

After the 2010 World Mountain Bike Championships, I posted a summary of the bikes which had won elite world championships and Olympic races 2008-2010 . The result: overwhelming superiority of 26-inch hard-tails, with only one exception of the races Christophe Sauser's 2008 world championship on a Specialized Epic dual-suspension. Well, since then "29'ers" have become so popular it's hard to even find high-end 26-inch hard tails in shops in the United States. Even the dual-suspension bikes are switching to "29-inch". There's been a move in Europe towards 27.5-inch "650B" wheels, a size which had previously been associated more with randonneuring, and Ritchey just announced a wheel in that size. So one would expect given the ubiquity of these wheels and their claimed performance advantage that surely the winner of these most important races in the world, racers in which the riders have access to almost any equipment they want, 29'ers...

It's Wednesday and I was thinking of joining the SF2G "dirty Mount San Bruno" ride via the Saddle Loop trail. It's a gorgeous ride. Riding in the dirt is a lot of fun on a road bike, and on a clear day, the early morning the view from the trail is excellent. But I just didn't feel ready. I'm still tired from Saturday. As exhilarating as finishing a double is, they do take their toll. It begins the week before, with the need to taper in to be adequately fresh for the long, hard ride. Then the week after, recovery is absolutely key. I remember long ago riding the Davis Double. It made me feel invincible, as if I could do anything. The next day I joined the Alto Velo "A-ride". People couldn't believe it: i was on the A-ride, smiling and ready to go, having ridden 200 miles the day before! I didn't do the while thing, just the first climb of the ride up Old La Honda, then cut it short and rode home. Unfortunately, even this small dos...

As I was riding the Mt Tam Double, I thought I'd do a very short ride report, as I had little to say. Whoops. The first quarter Life felt surreal as I stepped into the taxi at 3:40 am, setting out for what I knew would be a day of hardship and fatigue. Why was I doing this? Why does anyone do this? It's the quest for the grim isolation of pushing up against physical limits, of suppressing rational self's vocal opposition, remaining distance creeping downward incomprehensively slowly, then alightly more rapidly, accelerating, and finally collapsing into the singularity of the finish. But I enjoyed the 22 mile ride out to San Rafael. Traffic was extremely light as we zipped along, first riding the "green wave" of synchronized signals in San Francisco, then a congestion-free 101. I had him drop me off right off the freeway two miles from the start. There I got out my bike out to effortlessly spin the remaining distance, verifying everything was working. ...

Unlike in past years when the added complexity created confusion, errors, and added load on early-rising volunteers, this year there was a single start for the Mt Tam Double, at 5 am. Riders leaving later were still given credit for the 5 am start. I took the official results , stripped out DNS and DNFs, and sorted by finishing time. Here they are: # Bib last first Start Finish 1 229 Palmeri David 5:00 16:35 2 72 Rehorn Pat 5:00 16:43 3 264 Gould Jeffrey 5:00 16:45 4 184 ramos reve 5:00 16:53 5 292 Pollock Graham 5:00 16:53 6 62 Merrill Peter 5:00 17:15 7 268 Sanders Carl 5:00 17:15 8 266 Connelly Daniel 5:00 17:21 9 16 Lynch Joseph 5:00 17:28 10 179 Thompson Stewart 5:00 17:38 11 230 OConnell Christopher 5:00 17:44 12 213 Ochoa Ramon 5:00 17:46 13 18 Doughton Chuck 5:00 17:47 14 11 Kaneko...

In 2010 I did the Mt Tam Double Century , borrowing friend John 's NiteRider Newt light for the pre-dawn start. My first time doing the double, I'd gone without lights, thinking I could rely on the pace car for guidance. That was a big mistake. The pace car was driven at a constant speed, which on the steeper slopes of Lucas Valley Road, the first climb, put me deeply into the red. With John's light, I was able to ride my own pace on the climb, and it contributed to the ride turning into one of my strongest doubles ever. Afterwards, I decided I wanted one for myself, and I was happy Cara got me one as a birthday gift. But instead of the Newt with its frame-mounted battery and sloppy cables connecting these to the handlebar-mounted LEDs, I went with the newer MiNewt, which has rechargable batteries and LEDs in an encapsulated package. The light was important for my commute from my then-new job in Mountain View on a heavily trafficked road. I got the brighter 250 lumi...

As I write this, on my train to work, it is 8:09 am. That means 24 hours from now I will hopefully be over 3 hours into the Mt Tam Double Century. The Mt Tam Double is one of the best-organized cycling events I've done, and I've done it twice. The last time was 2010, when coming off a strong Terrible Two, I rode well, finishing 12th. The only downer was a Garmin Edge 500 hiccup (corrected with subsequent firmwares) causing the loss of my ride data. This year my preparation isn't so good. In May I hurt my back, leading to discomfort which had me out of training for a month. Were I a pro cyclist, I would have found a way around the pain, but I'm not, and so I instead gave my body and mind a solid block of rest. But it cost me on fitness. Instead of riding Terrible Two or Climb to Kaiser or perhaps the Alta Alpina Challenge, I was doing short commute rides to and from Caltrain. After the back problems subsided, I built up a solid base of miles, many of them comm...