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

The San Francisco Russian River 300 km brevet was on 28 Feb. It's taken me awhile to do the report, which is, I freely admit, on the long side. I just read another blog post on this same ride which was 6 or 7 sentences long, depending on how you count. For a great report (with photos) of the worker's ride two weeks earlier, see Platty Jo's blog . In any case, here's what I wrote. I wavered going into the 300 km brevet. The theory is the progression of brevet distances is supposed to prepare you for the each one in turn, but ramping from 200 km to 300 km to 400 km to 600 km represents increases of 50%, 33%, and 50%, well in excess of any training plan I've seen. This sort of progression is good for behavioral adaptation more than physical, of boosting your confidence and teaching lessons in pacing, nutrition, hydration, and preparation. For physical adaptations more than this is needed. For example, after a week of recovery from the 200 km, you've got tw...

This ride happened at the end of February so it's taken me quite awhile to post the ride report. I tend to go a bit overboard on ride reports... apologies on that. The first brevet on the schedule was the Pierce Point 200 km . This was a replacement for the Lighthouse 200 km, for which SFR was unable to get a permit this year. I hadn't realized they got permits for brevets, assuming the it was just fair use of the roads and was essentially below the radar for that sort of thing. But they do: parks tend to require them (the right of cyclists to be on the roads for whatever reason carries more strength on local roads), and Pt Reyes National Seashore, being national parkland, would be a hassle. The reason for denial had something to do with a tourist bus not wanting to encounter cyclists on the road. Damn cyclists: getting in the way of "real" nature lovers. But I wasn't disappointed. I'd gone hiking at Pierce Point with Cara, and knew it was spectacula...

The plot thickens... Another day, another ride. This time I made sure to do a static zero test before the ride. I further checked that I had the latest firmware in my Edge units (Mac WebUpdater says I did). I was full of hope that the crank length fix had corrected things. So I set off on a ride to fetch new contact lenses, but where I took "scenic detours" up five significantly steep, significantly painful climbs in San Francisco. For the record: 17th from Market to Twin Peaks (and on to Twin Peaks summit), Sanchez from 17th to 18th, Church from 18th to 21st, 21st from Church to Sanchez (these two are contiguous, but I took a break in between, not initially planning to ride 21st, which is daunting), and finally, just because I felt like I could, the ever-painful 22nd from Vermont to Carolina. No luck. My suspicion now is that the head unit is overriding the crank length setting. Issue is I don't know how to change the crank length in the head units. In the 510 ...

Time for the 20th edition of the MDR "Memorial Day Ride", 4 days from Campbell to San Jose. This year: the coastal route. I may indulge in the Wes-inspired detour up and down Nacamiento Fergusson Road on the Big Sur Day. But let's see. The key right now is getting to the start. So I packed my stuff in the Winter Allaban and will take the train to San Jose, ride from there to an AirBNB in Campbell, then from there it's 1 km to the tour start. Perfect. This will be my first AirBNB experience. It took some work to convince the host I was trustworthy. She prefers repeat-users who have a review history. But it turns out we have a common friend, so I think that helped. Coincidences.... At the ride start, I'll ditch the rear rack and panniers, transfer my stuff to the duffle bag I have in the handlebar bag, and I'll be good to go. The tour is supported, so I don't actually need to bring even the handlebar bag, but I very much look forward to having...

Cara wanted to do a bike tour, so when we were visiting Ely Rodriguez to talk about a handlebar bag, he suggested the Marin Headlands as an excellent destination. The Marin Headlands are just north of San Francisco, across the Golden Gate Bridge, but I immediately embraced the idea. It was a good chance to try out the whole bike touring process: pack stuff on bike, ride to destination, camp out, pack up and leave. The rides themselves would be short, less than 20 miles following the most direct route, but it would provide a good chance to learn what works and what doesn't. On a bike tour, the actual riding is just a part of it, maybe even a minority. This would test the rest. First, I had to reserve the campground. This turned out to be surprisingly easy. Many campgrounds in the SF Bay area need to be booked months in advance, but in March, Haypress campground in the Headlands obviously isn't one of them. I initially tried to get Hawk, which is the most remote campgrou...

I initially posted this at 1:59:26 am PDT on π day, which made me feel slightly clever, but then I felt considerably less clever when I realized I'd mistakingly concluded I had 5 weeks until the Woodside Ramble 50 km, rather than the 4 weeks I actually have. Analysis revised... With only 4 weeks to go until my 50 km race, I'm becoming more and more obsessed with it. After Lake Chabois, I took a week off from running, but helped fill the void with cycling, made even more irresistable by my new bike, the Winter Allaban. Woodside Ramble 50 km, Michigan Bluff photography But with "rest week" over, my body fatigued from the rapid ramp-up in riding volume, it was time to start running again. And that meant Caltrain to work instead of SF2G. For Caltrain, it would be folly to take the Allaban, so I've been riding my "rain bike", a 1989 Trek 1500. That bike needs a new drivetrain, the derailleur and 7-speed cassette both well past their replacement dat...

Continued from last time... After leaving home I took off for the Embarcadero, where there is an extended section of cobblestones along the MUNI rail tracks. I was really looking forward to how the 30 mm nominal, 32 mm measured Strada Bianca tires and high-rake fork took the rough surface compared to my road racing bikes. And, of course, it handled it quite well. But it was still somewhat uncomfortable. No super-plush ride like that Jan Heine likes to brag with his 42 mm by 650B tires on his custom Rene Herse (Boulder Bikes). But I was fine with that. After the cobbles, I came to the Maritime Museum. There's some vestigal tracks here, no longer used, which can cause issues for narrow tires. I rolled over these tracks, even at a relatively oblique angle, without problem. The wider rubber was much more forgiving. Fort Mason was next. This is a short, relatively steep climb which gave a chance to see how it went up. And it passed: the geometry, despite being smaller trail th...