Category: Cycling

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The Bike

I have not been on the bike a lot this year, and it shows. I’m heavier and slower. Mostly, I feel “c’est la vie.” I was in great shape by the end of last summer and able to ride about as long as I wanted and as hard as I wanted. Or so it seems from nine months’ distance.

But still. I went out for a ride today with one of my local riding friends. The “classic” start to a ride from my house involves going up into the hills and a street called Grizzly Peak Boulevard; riding that way involves a long, sharp hairpin if you took a look at a map. About a mile north, up the side of the north-south ridge that rises east of Berkeley and then at the top you double back close to but not quite at the top of the ridge. After another couple miles you hit the city limit and cross, oddly, into a piece of Oakland that lies just above the upper hillside reaches of the University of California campus. It’s all open land up there: eucalyptus groves and grass and brush. The road winds up the upper slopes of what on the local U.S. Geological Survey maps is labeled Frowning Ridge. The view down across Berkeley to the bay, San Francisco and the Golden Gate beyond, is still transfixing a good 30 years after I first saw it. The road tops out at about 1,700 feet above sea level — nearly 1,600 feet above my house, and about six and a half miles above sea level. It’s an amazing climb to have right out my front door–long and never really steep, with one of the best vistas in the state.

After you hit the top, the road immediately starts down. You’re headed south, so the logical destination, if you’re going anywhere, is the network of roads that leads into the Oakland Hills; then maybe further south and east through more hills and open country. Today, we rode down to an over-stripmalled suburb called Castro Valley, got a cup of coffee and a scone, then got on our bikes and rode back to Berkeley. Great day out, though unseasonable, if we really do have any seasons around here. We were in the mid-90s the week before last, and that’s sort of freakishly hot around here. Today, at midmorning, it was 48 up in the hills, and it stayed in the low 50s virtually the entire time we were on the bikes.

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Rewrite: An Editing Tale

It’s like this: a trusted reader went over that bike piece and pointed out a few things about it. I was reluctant to acknowledge the reader’s points, but eventually saw their merit. The new version of the piece has a lot in common with the first, but has jettisoned a lot of what I’ll call random rhapsodizing. I liked the rhapsodizing. I just found it didn’t work the way I thought it did. The rewrite: It’s after the jump.

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Today in History, and Why I Ride

[Reposted, slightly altered, after being killed]

Fifty-five years ago, Mom and Dad were married (I wasn’t far behind). Today, Dad had surgery on his second broken hip in six months (the good news is that he’s doing well and that he doesn’t have another hip to break). Tonight, Mars is in conjunction with the moon. Looking out from our front porch with 10-power binoculars, Mars is just to the left of the moon as it declines in the west, and the moon’s craters are beautifully visible.

But the principal news of this evening: I wrote a little piece on cycling for a friend’s newsletter. Without further ado, here”s the text:

Until Next Time

One year, growing up in the recently paved over prairies and peat bogs south of Chicago, I got a birthday bicycle. Someone may have thought I was too old for training wheels; maybe I was that someone. I learned to ride that bike, a red J.C. Higgins with fenders and big tires, through pure dumb gravity-assisted trial and error. I fell down a lot. After a couple of weeks of coaching and cajoling from my dad and mom and other adults on the block, I had wobbled around and toppled over so many times that both sides of the leather-like seat had been worn down to metal.

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Unexplored Territory

I mentioned the other day my friend Pete, who’s training for both the Boston Marathon next month and for the an Ironman-distance triathlon in June, is visitiing down here from his new hometown of Portland (the one in Oregon). The other day we did a ride that’s become a favorite of mine, from Berkeley up to Davis; then we got on the train for the ride back.

Today I went down to meet Pete at his folks’ house in southern San Jose. It is unknown territory for me in terms of cycling. I’ve ridden on Mount Hamilton a few times, and a few times in the Santa Cruz mountains, but San Jose has been mostly a big, incomprehensible sprawl (for non-Bay Areans: it’s the biggest city in the region, with about 1 million people; and unlike San Francisco, which is dense for a West Coast city, it is spread all over. San Francisco’s population is about 750,000 with an area of about 50 square miles; San Jose has 1 million people in roughly 175 square miles (Chicago has 2.9 million in 227 square miles; New York 8 million in about 330 square miles. So yes, San Jose is spread out).

I got a tiny bit of that San Jose tangle sorted out today. We headed south out of town, with a side trip (and climb) up to a county park; we noodled west and south through some low hills and then started up a road toward Uvas County Park that Pete had never ridden before. The road was narrow and ascended along a creek from open oak hills into redwood canyons–a transition that I think of as typical for the Santa Cruz Mountains. As the road narrowed, the creek gorge became deeper and the redwood stands taller and denser. After four or five miles we approached an archway that proclaimed we had reached Sveadal. In Swedish, Svea is sort of the personification of the motherland, something like Britannia or Columbia (though not rising to the level of Japan’s Amaterasu, who is a full-on goddess); in Norwegian, dal means valley, and I’ll bet it’s the same for the Swedes. Sveadal–which I’d call Svea’s Glen more than Svea’s Valley from the appearance of it–is owned by the Swedish-American Patriotic League of the San Francisco Bay Area, which has owned it for nearly a century. They have one big do their each year: a midsummer’s party. Lots of fun, you bet.

It had been sort of a funny, cool, windy, mostly overcast day, but the sun came after we continued from Sveadal up to the entrance to the county park. We sat and talked for a while, then headed back. Pete said this was the kind of ride he really liked–it involved some real exploring, the kind you wouldn’t get to walking and the kind that would lose its flavor if you drove. “I don’t ever want riding to be just training,” he said. I agree, though at the same time I’m aware of all the countryside I’ve ridden through without really seeing it.

We were about 25 miles from his parents’ house at this point, so we rode back down the hill, decided against any further southward exploration, and road through the headwinds home. One added bonus: two golden eagles flew up from the side of Calero Reservoir just as I passed. I only paid attention because I spotted a guy with a camera watching them, and they’re easy to mistake for turkey vultures from a quick glance. But these were eagles, right by the side of the road.

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Get On and Go

My friend Pete is down from Portland visiting his folks in San Jose. We had talked about taking a couple long rides while he’s here because this is a break week for me and he’s in training for an Ironman-length triathlon in June. The only problem: Between one thing and another, I haven’t been riding a whole lot for the last several months. So we didn’t wind up planning a ride until yesterday, when I suggested one of my favorite and not overly demanding longer rides: up to Davis from Berkeley, then back down here on the train. I had some trepidation because I haven’t spent more than a couple hours at a time in the saddle since late last year, and the riding I’ve done hasn’t been frequent. But we started out on the ride this morning, and even though I was sorer than I usually am from that ride, and I could tell I didn’t have much in my legs, it was a great ride. Beautiful day, too. It warmed up to about 70 while were on the road, and after having to battle some headwinds the first half of the ride, we enjoyed a pretty nice tailwind much of the second half.

Back here after the train ride, we had dinner and talked for a couple hours. Then Pete drove back down to San Jose. The plan now is for more riding Thursday.

Getting ready to shut down for the day, I took a look at the New York Times front page. There’s an absorbing story about Davis Phinney, the great American road racer of the 1980s and early ’90s, and his family. His wife is Connie Carpenter, one of the greatest U.S. women athletes ever. They have a 17-year-old son, Tyler, who has become a force in the world of track cycling and time trialing; the kid’s got a great shot at the Olympics. Meantime, Davis Phinney is suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

“… He fights his stiffening body just to roll over in bed because of the ravages of Parkinson’s disease, an incurable neurological disorder that attacks a body’s mobility. He leans on his son, his daughter and his wife, Connie Carpenter, a two-sport Olympian. They help butter his bread, button his shirts and open his pill bottles.”

Reading this piece reminded me once again how easy it is to take our health and abilities for granted, and how special it is to be able to climb on a bike and go.

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Where Do You Hurt?

A friend emailed me that Randonneurs USA, the organizing group for cyclists who do long, nutty rides of the type I’ve been trying for the last several years, is conducting a survey of riders who went to Paris-Brest-Paris this summer. PBP is not the longest or nuttiest of the rides, but it’s long and nutty enough (750-plus miles) and it’s older than any of them, including that big French tour race thing they do every July. I realized a sort of cycling dream by finishing PBP in 2003; I went back this year — it’s a quadrennial event — and succumbed to a sore Achilles tendon (and, yes, soggy morale after a prolonged ride in the rain).

Anyway, the survey includes a question on physical problems that riders might have experienced during PBP. The list itself says more than I ever could about the nuttiness rampant in this kind of event. Without further comment, here’s the litany of possible symptoms, ailments, and physical breakdowns from the survey:

numbness or tingling in fingers

numbness or tingling in toes

hot foot

swollen feet

Carpal Tunnel wrist issues

loss of toenail(s)

saddle sores

arm or shoulder weakness

Achilles tendon issues

Shermer neck (inability to hold head up)

disorientation or dizziness

visions or hallucinations

respiration issues

inability to swallow

headaches

leg cramps

digestive issues (nausea, vomiting)

falling asleep on the bike

acid reflux

hypothermia

mouth sores

genital injury

blurred vision

None

Other

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Cycling Medals and Loose Screws

Rando500Rando500A

I’m more than willing to concede that I might occasionally have a screw come loose. I always have an ear out for the telltale rattle.

But what does that have to do with the picture above (click for larger images)? We’ll get to that.

What is depicted there, in all its dimly lit, slightly blurred, slow-shutter-speed glory, is a Randonneur 5000 medal. My name is engraved on it, meaning I earned it.

What is it? It’s the reward one gets for completing a series of long bike rides in randonneur mode.

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Today’s Ride

Today’s ride: A “classic” loop route, from Yountville, just north of Napa, up the east side of the valley and across the hills at a low point, then up to a couple little valleys to the east, then back west over the hills at a much higher point, then a plunge back to the east side of the Napa Valley and back to Yountville. Cool-ish weather the last couple of days tricked me into wearing a long-sleeve jersey. It wasn’t needed. The weather was warm and sunny from beginning to end.

The companions today: a writer and a carpenter in their later 50s and an electrical engineer who is 71. Yeah — 71. I was shocked, as he looked to be of an age with all of us 50-somethings. He was pretty strong and fast, too. Not to tempt the fates or furies, but f that’s what’s waiting for me in 18 years, I’ll be fine with it.

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Floyd Again

It’s not a surprise that Floyd Landis has filed an appeal of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s verdict against him. I’m prompted to remember what his mother said when that case went against him: something to the effect that she didn’t think it was worth appealing, but Floyd being Floyd — and seeing that he still insisted on his innocence — how could he not appeal?

Now the case goes to the oddly named Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland, and the word is that its ruling — which will be the final, final, final legal verdict in the matter — will come down early next year.

In the meantime, Tour de France officials will appear in Madrid on Monday to bestow their event’s much besmirched champion’s jersey on Oscar Pereiro, who finished second to Landis in 2006. I just love picturing what happens if the Swiss court rules in Landis’s favor. Will there be a ceremony to retrieve the jersey from Pereiro and give it back to Floyd? (Of course not. In the unlikely event he wins his Swiss appeal, Landis will probably have to sue the Amaury Sports Organization, the Tour company, to get the championship back. Which reminds me of hearing Pete Dexter, the former newspaper columnist and fine novelist, asked about why he hadn’t sued David Milch, the creator of HBO’s “Deadwood,” for what Dexter felt was theft from his much earlier novel of the same name. “You know, if you do that, that’s what you do. That becomes your job. You’re someone who sues.” Not that I’m without sympathy for Floyd, but he looks like he’s got a new job.)

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PBP: The Recap (Part Deux)

Weeks ago, I started an account and left off when I got to discussing my strategy, which was no strategy at all: ride and see what happens. That’s an easy enough place to take up the thread:

Neutralized: At the start, riding hard is really out of the question. First, there’s the big pack of riders that you don’t want to tangle with; then, for the first 15 kilometers, a pace car leads the starting pack through the suburban streets leading out into the farms and pastureland to the west. In race parlance, the start is neutralized, so no one goes too crazy. That was good, because the way we all bunched up whenever anyone slowed was a little alarming. By the time we were turned loose to ride at whatever pace we pleased, our pack had strung itself out enough that I wasn’t worried too much about crowding and safety.

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