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

"Back in the day" it was common to have a "racing bike", or at least "racing wheels", and a set-up more generally used for training. The idea was the training bike would take more wear & tear, while the racing bike was kept in more refined condition for racing where small efficiency gains were truly important. Examples of tradeoffs include: cost: given a fixed amount of wear & tear or damage risk, it's better to use a cheap part than an expensive one, since the cheap one is easier to replace. Examples of this include wheels, cassettes, and chains: these parts wear out (wheels from rim brakes, drivetrain from normal use) and if the performance gains of expensive stuff aren't important in a particular ride, it makes sense to go with the cheaper parts for these. reliability: lighter parts tend to be less reliable, with less wear life, so even at the same cost (which they're not) it makes sense to stick with more durable stuff if the t...

Day 4 of 2013 MDR began with, for the second day in a row, a feeling I'd left something behind as I sat on my bike in the parking lot. The day before I'd lost my California International Marathon T-shirt, so surely this was just a ghost of that guilt. The day's ride was a challenging one, each of the four segments presenting a particular challenge. The first segment: Strawberry Grade. As part of what is likely the quietest, lowest-traffic section of Highway 1 in the whole state, the road passes strawberry fields around 7 miles south of SLO, then after a brief flat section, there's a climb of a few hundred vertical feet followed by a fast descent. Then it's a challengingly long run into Guadalupe, the first rest stop. I was well positioned when the road turned, third behind the tandem and Kerry, and as soon as the climb began, I went hard. This established a nice gap, and I went over the top alone. But at the bottom of the descent is a traffic light, relative...

Day 3 of the Memorial Day Tour is a traditional recovery day, and while some chose to flaunt that tradition by climbing the challenging west side of Santa Rosa Creek Road, I prefer to embrace it and instead focus on the highlight of the day, the descending contest. We rode south on 1 back to Cambria where we stopped at various places for breakfast. Most stop at a cafe serving the usual breakfast goods, but Kerry, Paul, and I went to Medusa's Real Mexican. Anytime I see "real" in front of "Mexican" I get excited, because really there's no better food in the world. Both Kerry and I skipped over the breakfast menu and went straight to the lunch menu, I getting tacos, she a burrito, while her husband Paul went with some more typically breakfast thing. My tacos really were quite good, perhaps not King City good, but better than the ones I'd had in San Simeon. That made tacos four days in succession (after Burrito Barn in Campbell) and I wasn't close...

Day 2 of any multi-day cycling event like a tour or stage race is always a bit of a gut-check, or more typically an exercise in self-denial, because one is faced with the prospect of a long, difficult day on the bike when what the body expects is a leisurely day of rest or perhaps an easy spin. No rest for the weary, though, we had to reach San Simeon. The route for the day included two key Strava KOMs: Quadbuster and Interlake. I wanted to make good efforts on each. Quadbuster came first, only 9 miles into the day. Leaving the hotel a small group slipped through the tail end of a green light and was away. Unlike the previous day, Mike and Janine's tandem wasn't in that group, so I felt confident we'd catch them. Not long after we turned onto a short bike path and I found myself with a gap off the front of the main bunch. I gave this up when I unclipped at some moderately deep sand part-way through ("keep pedaling!" I heard Janine shout to those followin...

Prelude After missing the coastal route last year, I returned to the inland route the Memorial Day Ride did my last time riding this event, in 2011 . The Memorial Day Ride is a 4 day supported bike tour organized by the brilliant Janine Rood, who somehow manages to not only organize the considerable logistical operation, but ride at the front on a tandem with her husband Mike. She's been at this for 23 years now, and delivers amazing amount of energy to the fun. On Wednesday, I went from work in Mountain View to the Winchester VTA Light Rail stop in Campbell. Then, carrying a heavy duffle bag on my shoulder, I navigated the combination of bike path and bike-unfriendly suburban expressways to the hotel I was sharing with my friend Jeff: the Bristol. It was a nice start, leaving only a short morning ride to the start. Day 1: Los Gatos to King City MDR is half bike tour, half stage race. Each day consists of 4 segments, with 3 rest stops along the way, supported by 2 food v...

For the final stage of this year's Tour of California Cara had scored VIP passes for the finish in Santa Rosa. This was very exciting, and I must say this VIP thing could get addictive. After a leasurely tour of the expo, we headed to the tents for some appetizers, coffee (decaf), and alcoholic drinks for those who prefer them. Peter Sagan heads were a notable trend at this year's ATOC Members of the Champion Systems amateur team were there, since they were sponsored by the law firm which had rented the space. I talked with them about upcoming races and about the developments in the Tour of California, visible on a television in the tent. Participating in that race was the Champion Systems pro team, not sponsored by the law firm, but obviously affiliated. I also asked them about their bikes, which were anonymous Taiwanese frames painted with "Champion Systems". When I needed to use the porta-potty, I didn't need to use the porta-potty. Instead they had...

The Tour of California went from south-to-north this year for the first time this year, ending with a series of three critical-stages in the San Francisco Bay area. This made for the most significant racing in the region since the unfortunately defunct San Francisco Grand Prix. Friday was the time trial in San Jose, a combination of a course used there previously, climbing Willow Springs Road, and ending with the "Metcalf Mauler" : Metcalf Road. Low-Key did Metcalf in 2010 after years of it just missing the final cut due to its relative lack of total climbing. But what it lacks in endurance, it makes up for in intensity. I watched the time trial in short spurts from my cubical, as I had a pressing deadline I had to meet, and it was impressive watching Tejay spin up the climb in his time trial bike to win the stage and consolidate his GC lead. I haven't seen the split times for Metcalf, but there were Strava times . The best of the times posted to Strava was Mancebo...

Yesterday I finally cleaned the Mountain View Bike Boulevard in both directions: not a single navigational fault. That's a non-trivial accomplishment: it's a maze. Most of the "Bike Boulevard" is described in this preliminary report from 2004 . Mountain View has a problem: its streets are generally newer than those of the communities further north, and that's not a good thing. They were designed in the age of the supremacy of the car: wide roads designed for high-speed, high-capacity car traffic. Both the speed and capacity are illusionary: the wide roads intersect at controlled intersections with extremely long light cycles, the long cycles mandated by a combination dedicated left-turn phases and providing pedestrians sufficient time to cross the long distance from curb-to-curb during green. They're a disaster of urban planning. Two major routes, not counting freeways, from Palo Alto to Sunnyvale through Mountain View are Middlefield to the north and C...

I feel a singular attraction to the Berkeley Hills Road Race. With increased attention the past few years to trail running, a road marathon, and double centuries, adding in a few minor injuries which have derailed my progress a few years, and my bike racing experience has been restricted to hillclimbs. But with Roaring Mouse, my team, co-promoting Berkeley Hills with the venerable Berkeley Bike Club, I was planning at being at the race anyway. It was just a matter of selecting a volunteer option compatible with racing. And so I signed up for clean-up, and registered for the 45+ 1-2-3 race. I was nervous going in. As I reported here, the previous Wednesday I did 100 miles, a bit much, but it was a commute ride I'd committed to months before and I didn't want to miss it. That left me three days for recovery. And when I went out for a light shake-down cruise on Saturday, the day before Berkeley Hills, my legs felt okay, and my bike seemed in good condition. On Saturday mo...

I've done 28 SF2G rides this year, commuting from home in San Francisco to work in eastern Mountain View at the Sunnyvale border. This ride typically covers around 43 miles up to 50 if I take a more scenic route. But Wednesday I went super-scenic. I finally did Hamway. Technically Hamway isn't San Francisco to Mountain View, as the real riding starts in Dublin, at the end of the BART line there. Then we rode down to Livermore, stopping first at a small mall where some riders got coffee and/or bagels. Not long after, though, three of us suffered puncture vine flats. One of the riders had a particularly slow fix. We weren't off to a good start towards my goal of getting to work by 1:30 pm, since I'd taken the morning off but not the afternoon. But we finally made it to Livermore and turned onto Mines Road, always a sobering sight. Mileage markers on Mines Road count up from 0 at this junction until they reach the Santa Clara County border at mile 20. Here the ...

I signed up for the Berkeley Hills Road Race. This is probably my favorite road race course. It's a classic: climbs long enough that they aren't completely dominated by anaerobic effort, fast wide-open descents, nice views, proximity to home with easy return via public transit, and most importantly my team, Roaring Mouse, sponsors it. So I signed up for clean-up crew and registed for the race. I hadn't done a road race (just hillclimbs) for a few years. The last road race I did was in fact Berkeley Hills. I races the cat 3 race that year, again unsure of my fitness. The year before I'd been more sure of my fitness and gone off the front from the start. It hadn't been intentional: I'd just followed the lead car up the opening climb and there I was off the front. So I decided to go with it and see what happened. What happened was 1.5 laps later I was caught, chewed up, and spit out the back. So the next year I decided to play it cool. And to my shock i...

Yesterday Cara and I revised our previous plans to watch the Cat's Hill Criterium, passing up on dealing with Caltrain, and instead rode out to watch the Miwok 100. We rode out across the city. I've been feeling tired, a combination of allergies and residual fatigue from the Devil Mountain Double. I had lightweight running shoes stuffed under my jersey in case I wanted to move out onto the trail a bit, but we never really did. We stayed near the Tennessee Valley trail head. The race was scheduled for 100 km but it was shortened to 60 km since the Mt Tamalpais State Park pulled the plug on their access due to a perceived fire threat. Honestly I question this decision. I think the State Park runs with way too low a risk threshold. The Mt Tamalpais Hillclimb has been canceled two times in recent years, the first time because the park refused to issue permits in anticipation of a possible park closure due to state budget cut-backs (the park budget regularly used as a nego...

A month ago I went to 3D Bike Fit . I've known Kevin Bailey for a long time, as well as Alex his partner, back to their days with Bike Nüt in San Francisco. I procrastinated, though, since I'd experimented with fit a long time and I'd been to several professional fitters and didn't think the time investment would be worth it. My schedule most days is super-busy and if I do one thing something else doesn't get done. The problem I have had with most bike fits is they seem strongly biased. I go in, my present fit is assessed, a few tweaks are made, and out I go. This seems strongly biased. Ideally the final fit shouldn't depend on the initial fit. If there's an optimal fit, why should it matter what I've been riding? It's like if I ask you to solve the equation 3x + 6 = 21. There's only one answer with conventional numbers and it's 5 (corrected!). Whether I start with an initial guess of 2 or an initial guess of 42 is irrelevant: I...