Month: January 2013

As with last week Her Highness, Princess Bob, was full of positive energy this morning.  I fear he may be a “morning person”.  I, as some can attest, am not.  We did a bit of stretching, and then usual review of the route.  Bob mentioned an option for “extra badass points” and I was feeling a need for a challenge.  Or my brain wasn’t fully awake.  Either way, I was thinking “why not?”.  Then the usual safety speech and we were off.  

The interesting thing about the first part of the route is that it basically took me back home – or within 500 feet of it anyway.  This was good for me to do, since I’ve been thinking about starting to ride to these rides anyway.  The effort of putting the bike on the truck and whatnot isn’t worth saving a little bit of riding.  We’ll see how I’m feeling about it next weekend.  As the rides get longer I’m not sure the extra 5 miles might be necessary.  Also the group was moving VERY fast to start with – 15+ mph on the straights.  

However that speed was not to last, and the climbing started.  I’m not a climber…yet.  We did a few familiar hills and eventually ended up at Robert’s Market.  As I was coming up to Robert’s Market I heard a honk behind me and it was Tom.  I pulled in to the parking lot and said hi to him.  He commented we were fast – I had to explain that we weren’t stopping here.  I was mistaken and thought we’d end up at the *other* Robert’s Market but I was wrong.  He was at the right Robert’s Market – we were going to be looping back around to it. 

A quick hug and I was off.  Shortly I came to Alpine Road – the slight detour that Bob was offering as some extra climbing.  As I was starting up Chris Thomas was coming back down because he is a super fast badass.  (I need to stop comparing myself to him – it only makes me feel lame.)  It turns out, however, that it wasn’t a mile up to the top.  It was 2.5 miles.  Fortunately it was a gentle and very beautiful climb.  It was hard, but nothing insanely steep.  It wasn’t as much fun on the way down because of the windy and damp road.  No insane speeds were achieved.

Thankfully after all that effort lunch was next up.  Bob made a sensible choice of a turkey avocado BLT.  I saw a southwest tri-tip sandwich on the menu and had to get that.  It was tasty.  I almost succumbed to a monster Rice Krispy treat they had there but I was able to leave it behind.  I tried to eat quickly (but not too quickly) so that I wouldn’t hold up the sweeps.

While I did leave with the sweeps I wasn’t with them too long.  We soon caught up to a few people and while I would have loved to ride with them I felt the need to keep pushing.  The post-lunch part of this ride was basically a repeat of my first ride of the year and I was hoping it was going to go better.  As always the quarry in Los Altos was…creepy.  After a bit I caught up to some other ride leaders who I was with for the rest of the day.  We even caught up to Bob which was nice because he’s a very strong rider.

All in all I was happy with my performance on Sunday.  Strava gave me 15 trophies which was nice.  But more importantly I feel like I’ve made progress since the start of the year.  85 miles this weekend and many more to go.  I’m hoping that by training hard the ride won’t be too bad.  Now I just have to keep at it.

The weather reports had been looking pretty good.  But when I got out of the apartment at a bit past 9 to ride over things were decidedly wet.  I checked Facebook to see if the ride had been cancelled knowing that it was unlikely.  I decided to ride over to the starting point anyway – if it was miserable then I didn’t have to go on the ride.  I got to the meeting point with my glasses nicely smeared with rain and feeling quite soggy.  However there was blue sky off to the north which was our direction of travel, so things were looking good.  By the time the stretching and safety speech was over it wasn’t quite raining.

The ride started out going up and over Shoreline.  A bunch of folks missed the turn at Charleston but they caught up soon enough.  We rode past the old SGI headquarters (and it will ALWAYS BE SGI HQ, Googlers) and then turned north.  The rest of the ride to the bridge at this point was kinda boring for me.  I dunno, I just didn’t get excited until we got to the bridge itself.

I don’t know why I was excited to get to the bridge – it was pretty simple.  Up and over.  However the road on the other side of the bridge was this super bumpy pavement.  My hands started to feel odd from the vibrations.  I know the bike has a lot of “vertical compliance” but there’s only so much isolation it can do.  (I’m still waiting for my COBL GOBL-R.)  It was so buzzy I wondered if something was going to fall off the bike.  Fortunately that segment was short, and then we quickly came to the first rest stop.  I tried not to waste too much time – a quick trip to the loo, some Shot Blocks, and I was back on the bike.

The next segment seemed pretty short to lunch – only another 10 miles or so. But it also seemed like we had some false flats – it was a bit of an effort.  Although I had stopped only about 10+ish miles back I was ready for lunch.  Unlike my last longer training ride I didn’t skip eating this time and got some Subway for the first time in a long time.  I’m guessing it won’t be the last of this training season.  I had a nice chocolate Cliff Shot for dessert and got on with the ride.

I was a bit worried that the segment from RS2 to the end was 22-ish miles (I think) – a fair distance to go without stopping. But it actually went pretty easy.  It was flat and the winds weren’t too bad.  We went past a landfill that was nice and stinky, and then through Alviso which was kind of an interesting place.   There was a fair bit of time on a nice bike trail that eventually ended in a park…and the park had restrooms.  Yay!  (I never try to pass up a well placed restroom.)  Eventually we were right by the office and went home the “scary” way – on Moffet Park Drive.  (If I ride to work I usually cut out that part by cutting through Lockheed).  Then it was back to downtown Mtn. View via a route that was not what *I* would do, but still got the job done. But it worked.  50+ miles done, a nice 13.8mph average (according to Garmin), and another training day in the books.

It so happens that my friend Bob runs a training ride series out of Sunnvyale that he’s named Awesome Ahead.  The first time I went riding with Bob he dragged my butt up Edgewood (which is a nice climb) and led me on what ended up being my longest ride to date.  So if Bob’s going to run a training series then I’m gonna have to check that out.  The fact that my friends Jim, Wendy, and Per are gonna be there is more extra bonus.

But no, that wasn’t enough, so I brought a friend.  Ryan had been a co-worker and eventually boss (briefly) at Inktomi.  He rides, and hadn’t ridden with me since I started riding, so I threw out the idea to him that he should come out for this training ride and he took me up on it.  A good idea, because the day was…wait for it…awesome.

One nice thing – the meeting spot is about 10 minutes away by car.  (I’ll start riding there, I think.)  So I was able to roll out of bed at 7:30 and be on the road at 9 with plenty of time to spare.  After some stretching Bob ran down the route and then we had the mandatory safety speech.  (I think by the end of the season I will be able to recite it from memory.)  Things were warm enough that I ditched the arms of my jacket (yay for convertible clothing!) before we even left.  

The ride going out to Mt. Eden was nice.  I rode Foothill Expressway for the first time.  A good thing to know it’s there – doing “laps” on Foothill would be a good way to get some intervals done.  The ride to the bottom of the climb was a bit odd, though.  I’m used to “false flats” – sections of road where you think you’re going flat but you’re actually slightly climbing.  (This becomes obvious on a bike because you’re sweating and only going 12mph.)  This one was rather odd because it didn’t just look flat, but looked like we were going downhill.  Bizzare!

The we started the climb.  It was actually not that bad.  I never ran out of breath, and didn’t get to my 170bpm “oh crap” heartrate.  Oh, and did I mention the spectacular views?  I had no idea that little park was back in there.  Easy riding distance from home and all of a sudden you feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere. Most excellent.

The climb wasn’t enough for some people – Bob, Wendy, and Per all did it twice.  Wendy said she “didn’t get it right the first time”.  They got extra badass points.  I suppose I could have done it twice – but after Rheem and Happy Valley yesterday I was good on the climbing.

Also on the way up this guy yelled at me from his car.  I was innocently pedaling along and I heard “Hey, pedal faster!” I looked over and it was Tom.  That was so cute!  And then he was waiting for me at the top of the hill.  He got to meet Ryan and we chatted a bit to relax after the climb.  Then it was back on the bikes for the descent which was much longer than the climb.  (Which, of course, means I will need to come back and try the route from the other direction.)

At the bottom of the hill I was greeted with deja vu – we were at the same shopping complex as last weekend!  Our one rest stop on this ride was the same as the second rest stop from my ride last Saturday.  I did my “usual”, grabbed some water and fruit, and then ended up being the last guy out of the stop, practically.  (I need to work on staying focused at rest stops.)  

On the ride back we hit EVERY FREAKING RED LIGHT, and so of course quickly lost touch with the main group.  Fortunately I was on familiar ground, and literally rode by where I live.  We finally made it back to our starting point and there was Tom waiting for me again.  Awww.  I loaded the bike back up and made it home fast enough to bother with stretching (yay foam roller and yoga strap) and have a recovery mocha shake.

There were two “named” climbs this time – Rheem Boulevard and Happy Valley Road.  Rheem was very steep – I reached that point where I had to “cross-train” (a.k.a. walk) a little bit.  If a climb gets too steep it becomes a matter of protecting my knees, not actually cardio fitness.  Happy Valley was longer, but less steep so I handled it better.  I didn’t have to get off the bike, at least.  And oh yeah, Camino Diablo had a bit of a climb on it, but the walk they roll in the East Bay they didn’t think it was worth mentioning. 

It was a good call – I got to meet my cyclist rep, see some good friends, ride my bike, and eat some French toast.  What could be better?