3 miles is a long way....

when you're running instead of riding....

On Sunday I took the pup out to the Bay Trail for a run.  It was a nice day and to be honest, we all like her just a little more when she's exhausted. She's mellow and cute and doesn't drive us insane jumping all over us.

I didn't bring the GPS but I'm guessing we ran/walked at least a couple of miles.  Well, I think I did a couple miles...with all of her insanity, running here and there and back and forth she probably had at least double that amount.  It's a pretty nice area, the wildflowers are in bloom and we didn't see too many people so I was able to let her off the leash and she was free to go crazy.

Yesterday, my wife had a doctor's appointment so after dropping her off, I took the puppy to the Alameda Creek trail for a run. With life being kind of crazy right now and me feeling fat and lazy about not having time to ride, I figured I had about an hour and could get a good workout in before picking her up.

The Alameda Creek trail goes all the way from the Bay to Niles Canyon which is about 13 miles. The south side of the creek is a paved trail and we've done a bunch of bike rides out there. I've never been on the north side, before since it's all dirt so I decided to give it a try.

We parked and as soon as we left the shelter of the lower parking lot and got up on the trail, I knew the wind was going to be an issue. I'd guess it was blowing at a pretty consistent 20+ mph with gusts that were much higher. The first part of the run is due west, or directly IN to the wind. It was a long 1.5 miles and I felt like I was struggling the entire way.  the pup on the other hand didn't seem at all fazed by it and once off lease proceeded to run ahead, lag behind, sprint to catch up and generally just bounce around like the energizer bunny on crack.

After hitting the mile and a half mark and turning around, life got much easier.  The winds that had fought me the entire first half of the run were now pushing me along nicely. They seemed to energize sasha that much more as well as she continued to sprint around jumping and chasing leaves as they blew down the trail.

Eventually, we made it back to the truck and although I was tired and sweaty, she immediately grabbed the tennis ball I keep in the truck and started batting it around the parking lot.....damn dog wasn't even tired....
When we got home I realized her willingness to play was just a ruse to make me feel old.  She immediately lay down on the floor in the family room and nodded off to sleep.  As the evening went on, I could tell I succeeded in wearing her out.  She was mellow and relaxed preferring to lay on the floor chewing on her bone instead of running through the house like a caffeine riddled psychopath...

It could happen to anyone....

I logged on the to the mountain bike forum this past Monday and saw the headline that gave me pause. "Rider Down"... 

We all know crashing comes with the territory when we ride and I've been intimate with both the pavement and the trail more times that I'd like to admit. This time though, it was someone I knew and the news was bad....really bad. He had been airlifted and was in a coma at the regional hospital.

A buddy I've ridden with several times and seen at the trail as well as various races a lot, had crashed pre-riding the Sea Otter Classic when his front wheel went in to one of the myriad of ruts on a long fast downhill.  Jerry is an extremely strong rider and a tremendous bike handler so it's not like he was a newb that made a dumb move. To be honest, I'm not sure exactly what happened other than he hit a rut, went over the bars and landed on his head.....

For me, crashes usually happen in one of two ways. The first is the kind where you're out of control, know things are going south and actually have time to think of just how much the following events are going to suck.  The one that sticks in my mind is the time I was riding down a fast flowing trail, saw a creek, pulled up too late and knew my attempt at a bunnyhop wasn't going to carry me across.
My rear wheel hit a rock mid-creek. The back of the bike launched up and over my head as I slowly headed face first for the ground.  Luckily I was able to tuck my head, complete the airborn somesault and land flat on my canelback in the middle of the trail.  Thankfully, my rear wheel and my camelback were the only real victims in that case.

The other type of crash is the one where you're grooving along loving life and the next thing you know you're wadded up in a heap wondering what in the hell just happened.  This is pretty much exactly what happened both when I fractured my elbow at Demo and more recently, when I crashed my road bike.  One minute I'm thinking about how awesome the day is, tucking in to a nice fast downhill right hander and the next thing I know, some guy is standing over me saying "dude, you just slid all the way across the road, are you ok?"

There's an old saying that riders fall in to two categories, those that have gone down or those that will go down. all we can hope for is that when it happens, it's not major and it doesn't keep us off the bike for very long.

In Jerry's case, it is major and chances are it will keep him off the bike for a while.  All we can do is continue to pray and hope he comes out of the coma quickly and completely and with no lasting effects.

As we used to say to the moto riders, be safe and keep the rubber side down.....

St Mary's Loop...using the reset button...

I've been trying to do this ride for the last couple of months. Unfortunately, every time I've started out to do it, time has been against me. the first time, I forgot my helmet and half way to the start, I had to turn around and go home to get it. The next time, I and my buddy were both having off days and by the time we got to the decision point we were already way behind schedule.

This time though, Jack and I met at the start on a Saturday morning and with nothing on the calendar for the day except chores, I was in no hurry to get back home.  The morning started out cool, but the climb up Redwood Rd quickly gets the core temperatures up in to the "slightly warmer than comfortable" zone.  This of course leads to a cool descent to the bottom of Pinehurst but by now the temps outside had gotten into the 60s and the sun made for a cool but comfortable ride.  Of course the descent on the backside of Pinehurst is almost comletely in the shade of the redwoods and by the time we turned on to Canyon Rd and towards Moraga, I was ready for a climb.

Today's ride was shaping up differently than most of our group rides. With it jsut being Jack and I and with both of us at similar fitness levels, there was very little stopping and waiting and we ended up pushing each other pretty well for most of the route.

Life lately has been a challenge with my wife's health issues, balancing work and home and trying to maintain some semblance of balance when I'm habitually over committed with the various boards and committees I'm on.  One of the best treatments for the chaos bouncing around in my head is to force myself into the red zone on every hill I can find.  Putting my head down, pushing my heart to try to pump enough blood into oxygen starved muscles and forcing my lungs to expand beyond their normal daily limits allows my brain to check out for a while and focus on nothing more than getting my legs to make circles. 

Invariably, at the top of the climb, as my heart rate and breathing start to return to normal, my brain slowly re-engages and a feeling of well being washes over me.  Scientists say this is caused by the flood of endorphins into your system or the massive influx of serotonin into your brain and they're probably right.  For me though, it's much simpler, it's like hitting the restart button on your computer when it hangs.

Eventually, we made it though Moraga, Lafayette, Alamo and into Danville where we had decided to stop for a snack and coffee.  I really enjoy my coffee, some would say I'm addicted, and that may be true, but evidently I'm not the only cyclist that thinks coffee and riding go well.  As we pulled in to Peet's in Danville,there were so many people walking around in spandex and so many high end bikes, that it looked like a stage of the Tour of California. 

With a mocha freddo, a granola bar and a gel in my belly we began again. The next section along San Ramon Valley Blvd. from Danville to Dublin is good after lunch section. It's not really long and rolls up and down with a good shoulder. 

Where climbing forces me to shut off my brain and check out, long grinds like SRV Blvd alow my legs to check out and my brain to work over some of the crap stored up there.  It's on sections like this where my legs just keep spinning in higher cadence circles that I can work through some of the things at work, come up wiht ideas for the TurningWheels for Kids Foundation or update and clarify my mental to-do list for the upcoming week.

 The really nice part about this section is that it heads mostly north/south as much as I'd love to say my fitness allowed me to maintain the 22-24mph per pace on this section, I'm pretty sure the tailwind had more to do with it than anything.

As is always the case, all good things must end and SRV is followed by Dublin Canyon which is a long, unshaded climb and while it's not brutal in terms of percentage grade, it ALWAYS has a headwind.  Honestly, I don't think I've ever ridden this road when the wind wasn't in my face.

With the last major climb in our back pockets, we enjoyed the steep fast descent to Old Dublin Canyon where thanks to the headwind we had to work all the way back to Ccastro Valley even though it's almost all downhill.

As we rolled up to the truck, unclipped and congratulated each other on our awesomeness I felt good.  A decently long ride with a respectable amount of climbing and we finished strong.  More importantly though, my reset button worked, my brain was no longer hung up and I was ready to face yet another week.

Pescadero for Lunch....

What a week! I almost  bailed on the ride, but decided my mental health required a good flushing and nothing clears the cobwebs like a bit of climbing and suffering on the bike.

It almost went bad right form the start as I waited for everyone to arrive. With 20 minutes still to go, I decided I just had a feeling I'd better check out Jerry's website to make sure I was at the right spot....um...nope!
I assumed we were doing the Pescadero/Tunitas Creek loop when in fact we were doing the Half Moon Bay/Pescadero loop.

Despite the fact that I now needed to hustle over the hill to the Half Moon Bay starting point, I was somewhat relieved to find out Tunitas Creek wasn't going to destroy me today.

I made it to the correct starting point with time to spare ad met up with the gang. As we headed out through Half Moon Bay I was reminded of all the time the girls and I used to spend here when we were first married and had the mobile home over here....thinking of all the great rides I didn't even know existed.

The ride heads through downtown and up Higgins Purisma road. It's not too long before it angles upward and after a nice warm up of ups and downs and as we made a sharp left turn, Leticia made the comment that "now the climb really begins". and boy she wasn't kidding...I tried valiantly to keep up with Bill as he made smooth, easy circles, but it wasn't long before he was a full turn ahead of me then eventually out of my sight.

I concentrated on trying to spin while at the same time trying to keep my heartrate under control as the climb continued through turn after turn until. It wasn't ridiculously steep although I did see 10 and 11% on my garmin more than a couple of times.  Eventually we reached the top and had caught our breath as we waited for the others to catch up. 

The best part of any climb is when it ends and in the same way that dessert always follows dinner, a downhill always follows the climb. And this one was beautiful.

From here it was rolling hills and descents as we worked our way to the coast.  I was still trying to work through some issues from the previous week and putting my head down and powering the pedals is the best way I know how.  As I stood for every climb and hammered on the downhills the rollers the led west worked their magic on both my legs and my psyche.

Eventually we were dumped out onto Hwy 1 and once again I was thankful I hadn't bailed on today's ride.  At one point as a few of us stopped to take pictures, someone made the comment about how blessed we were to have this in our backyard when people come from across the country to ride these roads....I couldn't agree more.

 

As we rolled in to Pescadero and one of my all-time favorite grocery stores, Arcangeli Grocry we realized we were missing Bob and Leticia.  Assuming they had pedaled on without stopping for lunch, the rest of us went in and enjoyed a snack and a drink.

As much as I wanted to nap in the sun right there on the back lawn, everone else was ready to get rolling so we headed out.  Every time I've done the Pescadero loop, whether from the San Mateo side or this time from the Half Moon Bay side, Stage Rd is always one of my least favorite climbs.  I'm sure it has more to do with the fact that we've just spent 30-40 minutes lounging in the sun and stuffing our faces, than it does the elevation gain, but it's still a really tough climb for me.

As with all climbs though, it's followed by a nice downhill before beginning to go up again. This happens again a couple more times before we're dumped back out on Hwy 1 for the slog north.  Hwy 1 is a beautiful ride with the ocean guiding us along on the left, the problem is, it's usually windy in the afternoon and the traffic tends to freak me out a bit.

Amazingly enough, I actually felt pretty good and as we motored north, I could again disappear inside my head and spend some time cleaniing and scrubbing out the garbage that had been piling up there all week.

Eventually, we rolled back into Half Moon Bay and as we loaded up our bikes, used the rest room, enjoyed cold drinks from Jerry's ever-present cooler, Bob and Leticia rolled up.  Turns out they had decided to head firther south to the lighthouse whereas we had turned inland to hit the lunch spot.

I'm not sure how many bonus miles they picked up, my garmin showed a days total of 43 miles with 3470ft of climbing.

Toxic sweat....

Pedaling through the golf course parking lot my brain begins to process what's to come like a kid waiting to tell his dad he wrecked the car....immediately my heart rate ramps up, my legs, though making smooth circles on the flat pavement, twitch in anticipation of the coming climb...

I wasn't going to ride today.  I knew it was going to be hot, I knew I hadn't been riding and, if it wasn't for a pile of stuff bouncing around in my head that I needed to sort through and dispose of, I would have followed my own advice and stayed home with a cold beverage to relieve my stress. But I knew I didn't want that.  I wanted to make circles with my legs and let the suffering of my body wash the dietris out of my head.

The twin posts that mark the entrance to the trailhead greet me.....this is the maginot line...the line between the civilization of smooth black asphalt and the pain of a recently graded, loose, dusty climb in the full sun that will cause me to wish I had found a different vehicle for blowing off steam.

It's really hot.  Although, according to the thermometer, its not as hot as it seems which I can only assume has something to do with my lack of ride time lately. The first part of the ride, the section along the fireroad behind some of the nicer houses in the area and down to the golf course had been a nice warm up. The trail is in the shade, there was a nice breeze and I took it easy, stretching out the taut guitar strings that run up and down my legs where the relaxed flowing muscles are supposed to be.  Inevitably my mind begins to head toward the place I hoped it would go. It loosens up letting thoughts and ideas crash and bump against each other in the hopes of a brainstorm or at least a glimmer of a thought.

As I suffer and make horribly sloppy circles with my lactic acid filled legs sccreaming to stop, the bike weaves and wobbles all over the trail at the slightest incline. My heart pounds mercilessly in my ears like a bass drum at a pep rally and the stinging, salty sweat runs down my forehead and into my eyes blinding me until I can let go of the bars long enough to wipe it out. Still I pedal on....

Work has been insane.  Normal for this time of year although after the last three years who's to say exactly what normal is for the construction industry anymore.  This year though is almost like the "good old days" when we were backed up for weeks and couldn't hire guys fast enough to keep up.  I don't want to complain for fear of jinxing it.  Busy is good.  We want to be busy, we need to be busy, for three years we've been fighting for our lives and the pace now is good.  But will it be good enough? Can we dig fast enough to fill a three year hole that has left us no safety net, no cushion, no other option than to run like crazy in the hopes that we can pull a rabbit out of a hat?

Damn! that really stings. The sweat pours from under my helmet and into my eyes causing me to squint. Everything looks fuzzy and weird as I wipe my eyes time and again only to realize my sunglasses are coated with sweat.  Eventually I reach the top of the golf course climb having pushed much harder than I planned and paying the price.  I pull in to the shade to get my heartrate down, calm my breathing and finally clean my glasses and wipe my forehead.

Eventually I begin again. This next little section is nice.  It's a shaded flat leading to a nice downhill before getting to the rollers that make up the majority of the loop.  Originally I planned on adding in the Redtail trail but the pace up Brandon leaves me unsure if I want to suffer any longer.  The same pace that left me huffing and puffing has also allowed me to reach the place I hoped to be.  My body is tired but not destroyed.  My mind is empty, relaxed, ready to disengage from life and engage fully to the rest of the ride. I flip the lever on my shock with a smile plastered on my face where stress lines lived only a while before.

This is my place.  This is where I come when life is crazy or hard or discouraging.  This is that warm, empty, nothingness that is the ride.  Some days its easy to find this place, a few pedal strokes and I'm on my way.  Other days its a long, hard journey to get here... miles of road, thousands of feet of elevation, hours of saddle time, but its always here. Its always waiting to be found.

The biggest challenge in getting here is making the decision to step away from life long enough to start the journey. It's true the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step...

Sure there are places that will promise to help, promise to relieve me of my burdens.  The bottle invites me in but only leads to time lost to stupor and the results of decisions made while there.  The couch invites me over to rest a while but leaves me with the same challenges only with a couple of hours gone.  The TV offers up some mindless drivel that promises to entertain and fulfill leaving me instead feeling guilty for squandering productive hours and a mind that hasn't been entertained, only turned off.  No, no place delivers like the ride does.

As I finish the loop I pour my guts out on the last climb up the road to the parking lot.  My heart once again pounding in my ears, my breath coming in ragged, gulping gasps, the sweat pours down my head again carrying with it the toxins and poisons from a life lived in this crazy screwed up world. This place where the size of our TV is more important than the depth of our character, where what we wear is looked at more closely than who we are and where our real goal should be not in making a living but in living a life.

A Quick Saturday Ride...

On the last weekend in February, Jer and the gang were planning on doing the Niles, Sunol, Calaveras loop which is a really nice ride. The route includes a few nice climbs, Palomares, Dublin Canyon and Calaveras for a total of just under 60 miles and about 3800ft of climbing.

Since I don't have the time for long all day rides lately, I decided to do a variation of my normal 25 mile loop and hook up with them at the start of theirs for the Palomares climb.  The route from my house to Fremont is completely flat and since I started fairly early there was no wind. This allowed me to make really good time and I actually averaged about 18mph for the first 8 mile segment.

After hooking up with the gang at Niles, we headed out and up Palomares.  It's amazing to me the number of riding areas we have here locally where you feel like you're anywhere but within the city limits.  At this time of the year, Palomares is a tree laden canyon, shrouded in lush green beauty and dripping with cool wet shade.  This is a wonderful environment for climbing and Bob, Leticia, Bill and I chatted easily as the road slipped by beneath us...

There are a couple of short, steep sections and as Bob is always in shape and I'm currently not, in those sections, he kept chatting while I desperately tried to take in enough oxygen to keep the bike moving forward.  Eventually, the incline lessen to the point that I could rejoin the conversation and we moved up and along until eventually reaching the top.

At this point, I had to turn around and head home while they hadn't even finished the first quarter of their ride.  Where the cool shaded climb had been a relief and actually enjoyable, the descent was downright cold.  I'm not sure if it's because I was born and raised in California and expect it to be warm all the time, or just that I don't always think things through, but this morning I had thought about and decided against bringing a jacket.  My thinking was fine for most of the ride and it wasn't until this one section that I really stopped to think about it....it is February after all....I really should have brought a jacket.

 

As much as I enjoy Palomares, I hate Niles canyon the same amount.  Whereaas Palomares is quiet, pretty, and peaceful, Niles canyon is like a super highway with pretty scenery.  The shoulder is narrow, the road is busy and the speed limit is ignored....yeah, it's the worst of road riding all rolled in to one nice busy package.

The upside is, the fear of being run over usually motivates me to some pretty spirited riding and I definitely turned myself inside out trying to get through there.  Eventually, I made it back to Mission Blvd and the long slog back home.  The funny thing about Mission Bl is that no matter when I ride it, morning, afternoon, middle of the day....no matter when, it always feels like there's a headwind.

The other thing about Mission Blvd is that it's actually in pretty good shape. Nice wide shoulder, fairly new and smooth pavement and they keep the shoulder clean of debris....at least from Fremont through Union City and all the way up to the Hayward border....once you get there, things take a turn....for the worse. 

At exactly the point where Mission leaves Union City the smooth pavement stops, the shoulder gets narrow and evidently the City has gotten rid of all it's street sweepers because the amount of glass and debris raises the challenge of the ride to all new levels as I try to maintain my cadence, keep up my speed and play dodge the junk in the road.

Eventually, I turned off of Mission on to Industrial Bl which has the same crummy shoulder conditions, but thnakfully less traffic on a Saturday.  Pulling back in to the house I ended up with 34.5 miles and 1500ft of climbing. Not a huge day, but definitely a nice ride to be able to do in a couple of hours leaving from my doorstep.

Riding with the grandkid...

In keeping with my theme of trying to catch up on recent rides, I came across a couple of photos of my grandson's first "real mountain bike" ride.

He and I ride in the neighborhood pretty regularly but he's always asking me to take him on a "real mountain bike" ride.

Evidently, he's made a distinction between our rides together where I'm in regular shorts and t-shirt and no helmet and my rides where I'm in biking clothes and a helmet.

So, on a Sunday after church while the rest of the family relaxed, he and I loaded up our bikes, our gear, some snacks, and water bottles and headed over to Lake Chabot for a "real mountain bike" ride. 

There's a trail that although it's paved for the first section, follows the lake around to the back where it turns into dirt.  With only a couple of hills, it's a nice fun ride and I was sure there'd be a couple of puddles for us to splash through.

It was actually a nice day for the middle of November and there were quite a few people out on the trail. We played "dodge the walkers" for the first part, but once we crossed the bridge and the trail turned to dirt, we pretty much had it to ourselves.

One thing I found interesting was that I thought he'd be complaining on the uphills and zooming down the downhills....after all, that's what I do on every ride, but it was the opposite.  He did say "my bike is slow going uphill grandpa" (again, I have the same issue, but didn't have the heart to tell him it was our fault not the bike's) but in complete opposite to me, he was careful and tentative on the downhill sections....I'm pretty sure that will change with time and more confidence.

We made a couple of stops to throw rocks in the water, have a snack or sit on a dock and look for fish.  We also made a point of going right through the middle of every puddle we came across and actually found a little "secret" trail that wound through the bottom of a creek.

All in all it was an awesome day and we both really enjoyed our "real mountain bike ride"

Here's a short video of our "Secret Trail"
http://vimeo.com/53978305

caleb mt biking movie1 from Rich Sims on Vimeo.