Epic. April 6, 2009
Posted by postalblue in Cycling, San Francisco.Tags: 200 miles, Cycling, mission cycling
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The word may be overused in the cycling community, but that’s how I feel about this past week. I don’t know how many of you follow my normal twitter or my ride-only twitter, so for the rest of you, here’s the recap:
- Monday – 18 mile headlands loop.
- Tuesday – 5 mile run.
- Wednesday – 40 mile paradise loop.
- Thursday – 24 mile headlands repeats (2,700 feet of climbing).
- Friday – OFF
- Saturday – 87 mile Pt. Reyes, Stinson, Panoramic loop.
- Sunday – 40 mile paradise loop, 18 mile easy spin.
The totals: 230 miles, 14,970 feet of climbing, 13,500 calories.
Highlights:
- Logging my fastest ever solo average into Tiburon on Wednesday, then topping that with a nasty paceline on Saturday’s fake recovery ride.
- The burn of my third trip up to the top of the headlands on Thursday morning.
- Attacking on White’s Grade, then attacking again halfway up the second roller on the way to Nicasio – then time-trialing at 28 miles per hour the whole way to the rest stop.
- Burritos in Dolores Park after Saturday’s ride.
- Lunch with Sara at Trieste on Sunday – a table away from Bob Roll.
- Collapsing from total exhaustion at 10 PM last night.
Awesome.
Worth the wait! January 31, 2009
Posted by postalblue in Cycling, San Francisco.1 comment so far
After two road-trip-filled weekends, I was really looking forward to this morning’s ride. I love Saturday group rides. Mission Cycling is a great bunch – I don’t think any of this city’s other clubs can truly compare.
I was still a bit wary of my knee when I got to the bridge this morning, so I opted to take the ‘flatter route’ when the group split up after passing through Sausalito. As it turns out, the knee wasn’t much of an issue: I think I scaled Camino Alto faster than ever before. I’ve definitely lost some fitness over the past few weekends, but my speed is still there in shorter bursts.
Thataway!
The best thing about today’s ride was the weather. This place (San Francisco) is phenomenal. I drove four hours last week and found myself 10,000 feet high on a snowy peak, and today it was in the mid-sixties and sunny in the bay area.
Road to nowhere?
A few of us took it easy out to Fairfax and then put the hammer down back around into Tiburon. From Tiburon, we cruised back to Sausalito. I decided to tack a short detour up to the top of the headlands on for good measure… bringing me back to my apartment with an adequate sixty miles on my odometer. Good stuff!
It was a truly gorgeous day.
I’m leaving on Monday for a two-week business trip to Dublin, Ireland. Ordinarily, I’d be mega-excited… but when we’re having weather like this in January, how can I look forward to ten days of drizzle?! (I know, I know… what a difficult life I lead!)
Spokes, not slopes January 26, 2009
Posted by postalblue in San Francisco, Sports.Tags: Cycling, knee injury, skiing
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Last week: two good rides (40 and 35 miles, respectively) and three good runs (5, 5 and 3 miles respectively) before hitting the road on Friday night for South Lake Tahoe, California. I’ve never been a skier and this weekend I figured out I probably never will be.
Ever since that nasty, near-death bike crash I had a few years ago – the one that I definitely shouldn’t have walked away from – I’ve been a very, very cautious descender. It takes me a long time to grow comfortable enough with a hill to be able to let off the brakes. Turns out that same fear translates directly over into skiing. It might be even worse, actually: I feel more in control on a bike than on skis – at least on a bike, I know how to stop!
Despite the embarrassing wipe-outs, I was having a good time. No, I never graduated from that green circle run that I started with at the beginning of the day – but I never figured out how to steer, either. Maybe next time I’ll take lessons.
It was all fun until one particularly nasty crash that wrenched my knee the wrong way and left me gasping in pain for at least fifteen minutes. I was laying in the snow and all I could think about was, “My MCL is torn. I’m going to be on crutches for four months.”
Thankfully, I overreacted.
It was one hell of a painful tweak, but it’s starting to feel better already. Let’s call it a bad strain or a sprain (I never know the difference). I’m going to take it easy for a few days – and maybe try for a ride on Wednesday? – in hopes that I spring back faster than expected.
Alpine Dam October 18, 2008
Posted by postalblue in Cycling, Life, San Francisco.Tags: alpine dam, Cycling, flat tires, mission cycling, mt. tam
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Today’s ride began with a series of unfortunate events. On the way to the bridge, one of the Mission riders was pulled over by a polic officer in Golden Gate Park… and ticketed for running a stop sign. Then, as we were crossing the bridge itself, I noticed a funny sound eminating from my bike. I looked down and immediately noticed my rear wheel had flatted. Fantastic. Five miles out and we’ve already had two mishaps.
It’s a good thing I was riding with a bunch of really great people, because it would have taken me hours to change that damn tube. (I am a terrible tube-changer.) Tina (affectionately known by the club as ‘the Colonel’) provided me with the most emasculating rescue of all time: she changed my tire in record time and we were back on the road.
The first twenty miles of the ride were easy; we were rolling along between eighteen and twenty-one miles per hour. It was a very conversational pace. We pit-stopped at a coffee shop in Fairfax before tackling the climbs; almost twenty miles straight up. Alpine Dam begins with a steady, comfortable climb at around 7% for close to six miles before descending a bit down to the dam itself, at which point the road turns back uphill for another four or five miles of nasty, steep switchbackery.
We regrouped at the top of the climb and I was pleased to find myself cresting the hill somewhere between the first bunch (the psychos) and the second (the sub-psychos). Not bad for someone from the pan-flats of Ohio!
Next was a stretch of road called the Seven Sisters. They are actually a series of rather fierce rollers – I’m not sure if there are actually seven distinct hills, but the segment was brutal. Tina explained it well: “From this side, we call these rollers the ‘Seven Bitches’, but from the other we call it… ‘heaven’.”
Above the clouds: Mike on the Mt. Tam descent.
We arrived at the ranger station four miles below the top of Mt. Tam and we were greeted with an unpleasant surprise: fresh gravel had recently been laid down on the long, windy downhill to the entrance to the park. I’m not a very confident descender and what skills I have are immediately obliterated when you factor gravel into the equation. Couple that with my potentially-compromised rear tire and I wasn’t really down for… well, going down.
Fortunately, we made it all the way down – all the way back to Sausalito – and then back over the Golden Gate Bridge. Tina and Mike guided me through San Francisco (I’ll have to figure out this ‘wiggle’ some day) and to one of the club’s favorite post-ride hangouts: the Burger Joint. We all bought some grub, scrounged up a few beers and kicked back in a local park. Nothing beats the post-ride social hour!
Nothing beats a post-ride recovery beer.
Now I’m back in my apartment… and I feel pretty good. That was a hard ride, but I rode well. There’s always room for improvement, but I will get there! Hmm.
What’s for dinner?
Material Possessions August 10, 2008
Posted by postalblue in Cycling, San Francisco.add a comment
I have a ton of stuff to beg, borrow or buy before my move to San Francisco. It’s really quite daunting. I need everything from shower curtains to spatulas, shelving to screwdrivers. Allow me to focus on the most interesting items on that list right now: bike gear.
Gearing up is probably the most fun part of cycling outside of actually riding. That said, I’m trying to make the most of this opportunity.
The Facts: San Francisco can be chilly, but it’ll never drop below 50 degrees. It can rain a bunch in the winter months, but that’s about the worst I’m going to get. Oh, and it will be windy as hell 24/7. San Francisco and the surrounding lands are also incredibly hilly. I was driving around out here last week and drove up a road that averaged 6% over 15 miles. That’s kind of intense.
More Facts: I am going to be living smack in the middle of the city and working not far from there. I want to commute by bike to work every day of the year. I’m not even bringing a car, so driving is not an option.
So… here’s what I need:
- Waterproof and/or water-resistant jackets. Not only for rainy weather, but for chilly mornings, too. I have some how put together an arsenal of them and may return one. I’ve got a rather heavy Performance Transformer, a mid-weight Sugoi Zap and an ultralight Pearl Izumi Optic. They are all spiffy.
- Long-sleeved jerseys. I have one of these, but I’d like another.
- A trainer. There are going to be some days where it’s either A) too dark to get a good ride in or B) too rainy. For this reason, I wouldn’t mind killing an hour on a stationary bike. Along with a trainer comes: a sweat guard and a trainer mat.
- A commuter pack. Based on some of the reviews I’ve read, I have my eye on one of the Chrome roll-top bags. They look pretty freakin’ cool and they’re 100% waterproof.
- A commuter bike. I haven’t decided which way to go with this yet. It’ll depend on how hilly my route to work is, but I’d really like to get a fixie/single-speed just so I can be hip and ‘with it’. Also, my commuter bike needs to have [detachable] fenders. Leaning toward an ‘09 Specialized Langster at the moment.
- I may need pedals for the new bike. Or better yet, new pedals for the old bike. I’ll take the existing pedals and shift ‘em down.
- New cycling shoes would be nice. My Nike Poggio III’s have always been just a little bit too big. Don’t get me wrong: they kick ass. I doubt I’ll be able to afford another set of carbon-soled shoes.
- A bike rack of some kind. I need to keep all of my bikes in my studio apartment, so I need to find myself a vertical solution for my bike-storage problem. Only have one bike now, but the stables are about to expand significantly as I add my commuter, a ‘real’ road bike… and maybe a TT bike in the Spring.
- Tools and a pump. Also, spare tubes and CO2. But I just went to Performance and bought all of that crap. Cost me a fortune. Sigh.
- Lights. I won a $20 set of semi-decent lights from Bicycling Magazine last year. Now I get to use them! I doubt I’ll upgrade, as I think the streets in the city will be fairly well-lit… I just hope other drivers can see me. Another thing: they are so heavy. So many graaammmmssss. Ugh.
- Flat-resistant tires. See my previous post. I want to commute on something reliable. Specialized makes a set of good, beaded tires that boast a reflective band along the side. That might not be a bad investment.
- This hat. Just ’cause.
- A clear lens for my M-Frame. I want to have something in front of my eyes in the the dark and the rain, and I don’t always want it to be tinted.
- And finally (for the moment): gloves. I haven’t ridden with cycling gloves all season (except when there was snow on the ground) and I have no idea where my thin summer gloves are now. So… guess I gotta get a new one!
