got out again today and kicked my own ass. these days all that means is 2:45 on the bike in the hot part of the day.
i did break a spoke and get a flat descending where there was nary a spot o shade to be found. that certainly didn't help as the "up shannon, down priest rock" ride would have pretty much kicked my ass anyway.
it was still a good ride. when i finally got off the mountain and back into town i stopped at seven eleven for more drinks and a snack. went to the ice box for a snickers ice cream bar and found a snickers ice cream fudge sandwich (the "bread" was a fabulous fudge cake). damn that hit the spot after melting in the sun and dirt...
fwiw the spoke broke on my front wheel - which is an 18 spoke white industriles LTA hub laced to a velocity fusion rim with sapim CXRay spokes. hardly a trail riding wheel for a nearly 200 lb rider. and i've done mountain bike races on it where, at the finish line, they'd ask if i was in the clydesdale class.
obviously i've abused that wheel for well over a year - probably two or more. wasn't meant to take such abuse but it did. honestly it's a testament to the wheel and the builder: Dave Thomas.
interesting thing is it broke at the nipple. i think i'll just throw on one of the spares he sent with the wheel and true it right up.
going to take a break tomorrow and try to ride in on monday...
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Friday, August 11, 2006
yay for me, met this week's (modest) goal of riding to work two days. baby steps my friends, baby steps...
granted, i was able to meet it by riding thursday and friday (today) but hell, it's still two days.
today i figured i'd take a route other than foothill just to mix things up. heard a guy on the train in the bike car talking about how far south middlefield went so i looked it up on this fancy vta/google map mashup and decided i'd take san tomas to central which turns into alma - then bop over to middlefield and right into downtown redwood city.
should have stayed with foothill my friends...
on san tomas expressway i caught up with an older french guy on a carbon look with dura ace. he was motoring right along so i sat on for a bit. didn't even know i was there. eventually he notices so i take a turn on the front. we come to a stop light so i stop and he's hanging way back going slow. all of a sudden he flies by me charging through the red light as there are still two more cars in the protected left turn lane coming the opposite direction. lucky for him the first one was making a u turn so he did not get splattered like a grape all over the expressway...
when i get on central there's some guy that came out of who knows where behind me, trying to catch up. feeling a bit edgy i do my best to get rid of him before he can sit on. i'm riding pretty hard and just hammering myself up the occasional rollers - just to discourage him.
it was working too until i got stopped by a fucking light... he rolled up and mentioned i was setting a blistering pace. told him i'm just trying to get rid of my beer belly (so i can drink more beer). nice guy - been working at tellme.com for a couple of years - right next to where i used to work at friendster...
he suggested i get off central soon and get over to either foothill or middlefield so, of course, i go to middlefield.
what a piece of shit lame excuse for a road with a "bike lane." sure, the latter parts through menlo park were pretty nice but it was capped on both ends by crap ass crap of a road... foothill it is for me friends.
one last thing: as i neared redwood city i was just too hungry with no reasonable food at work so i stopped at burger king, ordered three items from the value menu and rolled off, eating them on the road. as my coworker said it was like a "feed zone" in a race - except the food was super crappy and it didn't come in a cute little bag. it sure hit the spot: rodeo cheeseburger, coke and a slice of "dutch" apple pie. dutch my ass - throwing some crumbly stuff on top of a slice of microwaved apple pie doesn't make it dutch in my mind...
granted, i was able to meet it by riding thursday and friday (today) but hell, it's still two days.
today i figured i'd take a route other than foothill just to mix things up. heard a guy on the train in the bike car talking about how far south middlefield went so i looked it up on this fancy vta/google map mashup and decided i'd take san tomas to central which turns into alma - then bop over to middlefield and right into downtown redwood city.
should have stayed with foothill my friends...
on san tomas expressway i caught up with an older french guy on a carbon look with dura ace. he was motoring right along so i sat on for a bit. didn't even know i was there. eventually he notices so i take a turn on the front. we come to a stop light so i stop and he's hanging way back going slow. all of a sudden he flies by me charging through the red light as there are still two more cars in the protected left turn lane coming the opposite direction. lucky for him the first one was making a u turn so he did not get splattered like a grape all over the expressway...
when i get on central there's some guy that came out of who knows where behind me, trying to catch up. feeling a bit edgy i do my best to get rid of him before he can sit on. i'm riding pretty hard and just hammering myself up the occasional rollers - just to discourage him.
it was working too until i got stopped by a fucking light... he rolled up and mentioned i was setting a blistering pace. told him i'm just trying to get rid of my beer belly (so i can drink more beer). nice guy - been working at tellme.com for a couple of years - right next to where i used to work at friendster...
he suggested i get off central soon and get over to either foothill or middlefield so, of course, i go to middlefield.
what a piece of shit lame excuse for a road with a "bike lane." sure, the latter parts through menlo park were pretty nice but it was capped on both ends by crap ass crap of a road... foothill it is for me friends.
one last thing: as i neared redwood city i was just too hungry with no reasonable food at work so i stopped at burger king, ordered three items from the value menu and rolled off, eating them on the road. as my coworker said it was like a "feed zone" in a race - except the food was super crappy and it didn't come in a cute little bag. it sure hit the spot: rodeo cheeseburger, coke and a slice of "dutch" apple pie. dutch my ass - throwing some crumbly stuff on top of a slice of microwaved apple pie doesn't make it dutch in my mind...
Thursday, August 10, 2006
well, didn't ride until today but hell, there's one more day left in the week so it's technically possible that i still get two ride to work days in this week.
my belly is grown much faster than my muscles.... have to remind myself that the whole "ride to eat" thing requires riding first and eating second. doesn't work if you just eat, eat, eat regardless of your riding smart guy ;-)
on my ride in to work today i was thinking that really, it's probably 3 hours of hard riding for every single day of indulgent eating. i'm nowhere near that ratio now but it's good to at least think of the numbers - even if i have no plan to try to limit myself based on that ratio...
today some older guy rolled up on me at a stoplight on foothill. he was nice enough - chatty. not uncommon really but generally people shut the fuck up and ride once the light turns green. not this guy, no. he wanted to chit-chat about all kinds of random crap while going 8 fucking miles an hour. hurts my ass to ride that slow for crying out loud... eventually i was like "i'm going to get back on it" and motioned forward - then just started to put the hammer down a bit.
funny thing was he could hang fairly well for an older guy. i'm in no great shape but i still know i can hammer reasonably well for a short period on the flats or rollers (one of the few advantages of being a bigger guy). well, after every stop he just tended back toward his "sunday jaunt" pace - but would stay on the back if i sped up.
oh, one more thing. i was in my occasional white trash drinking mode last night. for me that means i yearn for a forty to drink on the couch. preferably a magnum 40 if i can get my hands on one. i topped it off with a corona later in the night (helped two neighbors work on their bikes and that was my pay) and woke up with a bit of a noggin ache.
still felt pretty good really. my legs burned a bit under pressure but nothing too bad. i think i'm currently all about getting back in shape AND not taking stereotypically good care of my body. fuck convention i say :-D
my belly is grown much faster than my muscles.... have to remind myself that the whole "ride to eat" thing requires riding first and eating second. doesn't work if you just eat, eat, eat regardless of your riding smart guy ;-)
on my ride in to work today i was thinking that really, it's probably 3 hours of hard riding for every single day of indulgent eating. i'm nowhere near that ratio now but it's good to at least think of the numbers - even if i have no plan to try to limit myself based on that ratio...
today some older guy rolled up on me at a stoplight on foothill. he was nice enough - chatty. not uncommon really but generally people shut the fuck up and ride once the light turns green. not this guy, no. he wanted to chit-chat about all kinds of random crap while going 8 fucking miles an hour. hurts my ass to ride that slow for crying out loud... eventually i was like "i'm going to get back on it" and motioned forward - then just started to put the hammer down a bit.
funny thing was he could hang fairly well for an older guy. i'm in no great shape but i still know i can hammer reasonably well for a short period on the flats or rollers (one of the few advantages of being a bigger guy). well, after every stop he just tended back toward his "sunday jaunt" pace - but would stay on the back if i sped up.
oh, one more thing. i was in my occasional white trash drinking mode last night. for me that means i yearn for a forty to drink on the couch. preferably a magnum 40 if i can get my hands on one. i topped it off with a corona later in the night (helped two neighbors work on their bikes and that was my pay) and woke up with a bit of a noggin ache.
still felt pretty good really. my legs burned a bit under pressure but nothing too bad. i think i'm currently all about getting back in shape AND not taking stereotypically good care of my body. fuck convention i say :-D
Sunday, August 06, 2006
finally got back on the bike today.
you know, the simple truth these days is i'm having a really hard time being consistent riding. it's not like i don't get the opportunity to ride more, i just choose to do other things (and sometimes feel a bit lazy).
today was a pretty nice ride really. started out like last weekend's ride but finished differently. took almaden, blossom hill, camden, hicks, kennedy, shannon and up the shannon fire road. last weekend i turned around near the top at the first super steep section.
today i rode up that first section and, when i made it to the second (much, much longer) steep section, got off. when i'm in this bad of shape (the mid-day summer heat probably didn't help) getting to my limit and pushing through it just feels like total crap. when i'm in good shape i can push through at my limit for quite a while.
but instead of turning back i just walked that last super steep section. i'm not sure i could ever ride it on my cross bike, even with a 34-29. i remember having a hard time most times on my mountain bike even in great shape...
anyway, walked to the top and rode on the ridge a bit. saw the priest rock trail and said fuck it, i'll ride down to lexington and back home down bascom/curtner. it was much, much nicer than riding back down shannon fire road. seems they graded that trail in the last year. not nearly as rocky and loose as it used to be - so descending on the cross bike was just fine.
my hands and forearms were a bit stronger after last weekend's descent of shannon fire road - where they burned like the devil and almost caused me to stop for a rest before i bailed from a lack of brakes or an inability to hold the damn bars :-D
the whole time i was scheming how to get some ice cold water for free in los gatos. decided i'd just walk right in the burger place by the park and add some ice and water from the soda machine. added some ice to my second bottle with cytocrack too.
that water was ice-fucking cold in a minute and tasted so damn good. drank a bit too much too quickly actually.
anyway, pretty good ride considering the size of my belly and the lack of form. my goal this week is to ride to work two days. every other day was my ultimate goal but i'm scaling that goal back a bit :-)
you know, the simple truth these days is i'm having a really hard time being consistent riding. it's not like i don't get the opportunity to ride more, i just choose to do other things (and sometimes feel a bit lazy).
today was a pretty nice ride really. started out like last weekend's ride but finished differently. took almaden, blossom hill, camden, hicks, kennedy, shannon and up the shannon fire road. last weekend i turned around near the top at the first super steep section.
today i rode up that first section and, when i made it to the second (much, much longer) steep section, got off. when i'm in this bad of shape (the mid-day summer heat probably didn't help) getting to my limit and pushing through it just feels like total crap. when i'm in good shape i can push through at my limit for quite a while.
but instead of turning back i just walked that last super steep section. i'm not sure i could ever ride it on my cross bike, even with a 34-29. i remember having a hard time most times on my mountain bike even in great shape...
anyway, walked to the top and rode on the ridge a bit. saw the priest rock trail and said fuck it, i'll ride down to lexington and back home down bascom/curtner. it was much, much nicer than riding back down shannon fire road. seems they graded that trail in the last year. not nearly as rocky and loose as it used to be - so descending on the cross bike was just fine.
my hands and forearms were a bit stronger after last weekend's descent of shannon fire road - where they burned like the devil and almost caused me to stop for a rest before i bailed from a lack of brakes or an inability to hold the damn bars :-D
the whole time i was scheming how to get some ice cold water for free in los gatos. decided i'd just walk right in the burger place by the park and add some ice and water from the soda machine. added some ice to my second bottle with cytocrack too.
that water was ice-fucking cold in a minute and tasted so damn good. drank a bit too much too quickly actually.
anyway, pretty good ride considering the size of my belly and the lack of form. my goal this week is to ride to work two days. every other day was my ultimate goal but i'm scaling that goal back a bit :-)
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Planned on riding in to work today and actually made it happen! (Pats himself on the back)
Baby steps...
First week at the new job at Renkoo so now my ride to work is a bit shorter (used to go to San Mateo now it's Redwood City). Still, it's about 1:45 at a good pace which, in my current condition, is a decent little ride.
Felt pretty good and was able to push fairly hard. It helps that I really didn't want to be late for the weekly 10 a.m. company meeting.
Considering I'm taking the kid to school tomorrow AND will be watching him in the afternoon I don't think there's a chance in hell I'll ride tomorrow. Probably going to try to ride to work again on Thursday.
Baby steps...
First week at the new job at Renkoo so now my ride to work is a bit shorter (used to go to San Mateo now it's Redwood City). Still, it's about 1:45 at a good pace which, in my current condition, is a decent little ride.
Felt pretty good and was able to push fairly hard. It helps that I really didn't want to be late for the weekly 10 a.m. company meeting.
Considering I'm taking the kid to school tomorrow AND will be watching him in the afternoon I don't think there's a chance in hell I'll ride tomorrow. Probably going to try to ride to work again on Thursday.
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