By now you have come to understand that Camino Alto - the 1.1 mile, 400 foot climb between Larkspur and Mill Valley - is both my nemesis and my best friend. I battle Camino Alto every day, often twice a day on my regular commute route. Heading into work, at mile five, it is the first effort that gets me warmed up. And heading home, at mile 17, it is the beast that prevents me from seeing my kids more quickly.
So speaking of kids, I enjoy riding bikes with mine quite a bit. We have done the Skoot bike thing, graduated to training wheels, and I am working on getting my son onto two wheels. But my buddy Mark has taken riding bikes with his son (almost 5 years old) to a whole new level. Mark rides a trail-a-bike with his son, Grant, all over Marin. Their normal routes include round trips from their home in Ross to Sausalito (for coffee and hot chocolate). Or even a one-way trip to Stinson Beach. Mighty aggressive. It goes without saying that Mark is incredibly strong on the bike and regularly blows my doors off when we ride together. Mark does not do the Strava thing for his own rides, but he did set up a Strava account for Grant to track the rides that they do together on the trail-a-bike.
So Monday morning, after a leisurely commute to work, I get a text from Mark. "BTW, Grant beat your time up Camino Alto yesterday". I looked and he was right. My previous northbound record on Camino Alto was 7 minutes and 9 seconds. Grant (and Mark) did it in 7.03. As I mentioned above, I don't usually go that hard on Camino Alto, as I only ride it following a 22 mile commute to work, a full work day and 17 miles home in typically horrific wind. But Mark's text send me on a mission. That entire day at work, I obsessed about how I was going to attack the hill. On the ride home, I bumped into my buddy Scotty who is one of the top climbers in all of Marin County. He holds tons of Strava KOMs and is regularly at the top pf all my friends' segments. Scott giggled at my predicament of breaking my PR, but it also added a level of competition to our generally slow and boring ride home.
Scott set the strategy that we should hit the bottom of the hill hard, keep our momentum at a high cadence through the Scott Valley spike, then shift into the big ring and hammer to the summit. Scott would leisurely stay 10-20 feet in front of me to give me a pace and a target (and I refused to draft off of him to gain an advantage. Our strategy worked well up to the spike. But my gears did not cooperate when I tried to shift to the big ring. I spent about 15 seconds having shifted my big ring, but the gears did not move over. I up-shifted my little ring, back and forth maybe ten times, to try and pull the chain in the big ring. Finally, the gears went and I was in teh big ring. But I had lost a lot of momentum and was also stuck in a very high gear. As we approached the summit, I knew that we had cut significant time off of 7 minutes, but I was not certain how much. But when I got home, I was more than pleased with my new PR of 6.03, carving more than a minute from my old time.
Pleased, that is, until Wednesday morning ... It seems that StravaMo, having seen that I set a new PR on Monday afternoon, set his sights on my time on his ride home on Tuesday. And when I got online on Wednesday morning, StravaMo had beat my time on Camino Alto by one freaking second, 6.02. So, of course, I was on another mission on Wednesday afternoon. Using the same strategy as Monday afternoon, I gave the hill everything I had. Luckily, I did not have the the big ring issues that I did on Monday. And upon reaching the top, I truly had nothing left in the tank. The data does not lie ... 5 minutes 58 seconds!! Take that, Mo. I'll be ready when you come at me again,
This big body is built for powerful sprints on the flats and maybe 20 second bursts up hills. Going 100% for six minutes is simply too much work for the FatGuy. Anyone want to challenge me in the flats?
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Mixing it up on the Mountain Bike
I bought a 29er in January and I have been on the bike a
total of seven times since its purchase.
Of the seven rides, one was a disastrous tour of Tamarancho – where I
spent 50 minutes of a two hour ride on my face.
Another was a Bike Skills class where I fell probably 40 of the 60
passes over a single switchback (I have been meaning to post something about
this class). Needless to say, I am not
much of a mountain biker. Still, I love
the fire trails and getting outside for a spin.
And I need to get the dollar cost per ride of this bike down into a more
reasonable range.
 |
| Yup, that's 5.40 in the morning |
I’ve been begging my buddy, Busta, to take me out and show
me the ropes. I am wildly envious of the
random mountain bike rides that I see him take– China Camp, Tamorancho night
rides, Pine Mountain, etc. But somehow
Busta never calls or lets me know about his rides. I usually give him grief afterwards. And he makes some lame excuse like, “I was
with clients” or “This was a group ride where I wasn’t in charge”. Out of the blue, however, I got a text from
Busta on Saturday afternoon suggesting a 6.45am ride, route undetermined. There was no way that I was turning him down. Only three problems … 1) Busta was hosting a birthday
party for his daughter at 11am on Sunday and he had to be home in plenty of
time, 2) prior to the ride invitation, I promised Amy that she could go for a run
before the party and 3) I was sleeping with the kids in the tent in the
backyard on Saturday night. Through a
dozen texts between Busta, Amy and myself, we solved the problem and the ride
was confirmed – 1) 6am departure would give Busta plenty of time to get a ride
in and get back, 2) Amy could run at 9am, as soon as we got back and 3) I would
wake up in the tent at 5.15am and get the kids into their own beds before I
left the house. Phew …
 |
| Morning fog rolling over Phoenix Lake |
 |
| Busta ... Specialized enduro racer meets the Keebler elf |
I was quickly informed that we will not be riding up Tam,
but rather to the top of Bald Hill. I
knew from San Anselmo lore that Bald Hill is one of the steepest climbs that we
have to offer, so I was instantly intimidated.
Jay and Busta did their typical climbing special as I was quickly left
behind. I was having troubles shifting
as the chain kept skipping on the cassette.
About ten minutes in, as the pitch tripled, I shifted to middle ring to
hammer out a steep section (remember, contrary to the low gear spin that I was
practicing). On pedal number two of my
hammer session, my chain let out a creak and a pop Without knowing exactly what had happened, my
right foot flew out of the clip and I luckily caught myself from falling. But then my left foot kept pedaling during
the near-fall and rotated the right crank back into my calf. I looked down to see a sweet, six inch gash
in my calf. The pedal hit hard enough to
bruise the muscle but not with enough force to break the skin. So all the bleeding was contained within my
calf. So that was cool. Better yet, though, I realized that my chain
had snapped and my ride was probably done for the day. I whistled up to my pals who were resting
comfortably at a break in the hill, probably wondering what the hell was wrong
with the fat guy. They both came down
and, to my surprise, Busta had a chain breaker tool and Jay actually knew how
to use it. After only a few minutes,
they had removed the dead chain link and put the chain back on the bike, albeit
a little too short to properly function in the lowest of gears. But, thankfully, the ride could go on.
As I continued to struggle with traction up the hill in my middle ring, Jay stayed back with me to “see what you (sic) are doing wrong”. After only a few minutes, after I spun-out my rear wheel and teetered over for the fifth time, Jay had the answer. With Yoda-like counsel he says, “You have the fitness to get up these hills. In road biking, power is critical on the climbs. On a mountain bike, traction is the most important thing going uphill. It is amazing how little effort is required to keep the bikes momentum. Just get in your lowest gear, stay seated, point your chin at the handle bars and keep pedaling.” Jay picked me up, pushed me to get the bike started and, as he suggested, I pedaled up the steepest part of Bald Hill with little trouble. I was going 2.2 miles per hour, but I was riding rather than walking. The pleasure was doubled as we looked up the hill and saw Busta teeter over fifty yards ahead, still attached to his bike, with his wheels pointing up towards the sky. Good times.
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| East Peak Tam from the top of Bald Hill |
Friday, June 22, 2012
Friday MoMiles - East Peak Tam
Another epic MoMiles Friday in the books. We opted for the Fairfax BoFax, Alpine,
Ridgecrest, Seven Sisters, Pan Toll, Mill Valley route today. It was only StravaMo and me on the journey … which
is awesome for me as Mo doesn’t have any other jack rabbits to fly ahead with
and me having to give chase. With almost
5,000 feet of climbing ahead of us, Mo had to choose either slugging it slow
with me, or riding at his normal pace and riding alone. Thankfully, Mo had lots on his mind and we
rode together. Amazing thing about that
is that Mo literally talked the entire ride.
While I was struggling to get my breath, Mo happily chatted about his
recent trip to Chile and work and bikes and all sorts of other things. I mustered up a “Yeah” and an “Uh huh” every
once in a while. But generally, this was
Mo’s therapy session. Just a time to
clear his mind and have me agree with everything that he says. And some set of lungs he has. He can talk and ride up hills without ever
getting out of breath. Great fitness,
Mo.
 |
| StravaMo on Alpine Dam |
Despite the climbing, I really do love this route. The views are incredible and the hills never
get so steep that I can’t sit down and just grind. The climbing this morning was made even
easier by a dense layer of fog almost the entire way. For me, if I cannot see the top of the hill,
I am generally content to just sit in low gear and spin. And so spin I did the entire way up, just
pedaling and nodding as Mo chatted away.
 |
| West Peak (the golf ball) taken from the famous 'Two Rocks' |
Upon reaching our destination of Tam East Peak, Mo decided
to ride his bike around this two-foot wide walking path neighboring a 1,000
foot drop down the mountain. I was
loathe to follow him, but I could not let Mo do this lap alone. Turns out that this path makes a complete lap,
about a half mile, all the way around East Peak. We couldn’t see much because of the fog, but
I can imagine that the views are epic from here on a nice day.
 |
| You can make out the trail along the left side of this picture. This would be a great place to bring someone that you were trying to 'get rid of' in a hiking accident. Just saying ... |
As nice as the ride up the hill was, the descent was less
than pleasant. We dropped at 25+ miles
per hour through 47 degree temperatures.
On the road, underneath every tree was a wet spot where the condensation
had accumulated in the branches and then dropped to the ground. Then, after about 500 feet of the 2,300 foot
drop, the fog turned to mist and then to rain.
By the time that we got to Pan Toll, the fog was thick enough to grab
and the ground was completely soaked.
This made for a tricky descent as to not lose traction in the
corners. By Pan Toll, we were aslso completely
soaked. Mo brought his plastics, but I
was stuck in only a long sleeve shirt and vest.
I almost went vest-less but thought that I would rather be hot than
cold. Lucky. We did have a great conversation with the
ranger who was working at Pan Toll. She
was considering buying a bike and Mo and I gave her some buying tips. What an amazing job to be a Park Ranger,
enjoying the nature on a 12 hour shift.
 |
| East Peak Tam, the tippy top. I didn't bring the cyclocross so we left the last 100 feet for another day. |
I neglected to mention that, on about sister 5 of 7, we
passed a former work colleague of mine, Harris, going the opposite direction
down the hill. He starts in San
Francisco, so that made some sense.
Funnily, however, we passed him a second time as we descended into Mill
Valley (and he was climbing up). I sent
Harris an email letting him know that there are lots of ways to get off Tam and
back to the City without climbing back up to Four Corners. That guy is a stud and a glutton for
punishment.
 |
| Kinda cool shot ... A rainbow inside a fog bank. The colors were muted by the fog to make it look like a grey rainbow. |
The data for this morning is another great collection of miles
and elevation. 44.1 miles and 4,846 feet
of climbing. Per the website, I burned
about 2,412 calories which was immediately offset with a half meat pie and a
full order of Hot and Sour Beef at Henry’s Hunan today at lunch. Not a bad way to start the day. My work is done, and I am headed home. Have a good weekend, all.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Mixing it up
Ride four of four this week called for a mix-up of the
normal grind. Rather than do the Shady
Lane thing, I decided to set some PRs on a new route. I rode down Sir Francis Drake Boulevard from
the Hub to Bon Aire. It was early enough
that the car traffic was minimal. I
cooled it from SFD to Eliseo, timed the light (no, I didn’t run it) and
hammered on the Eliseo flats. I wanted
to do my reverse Ferry commute up Col de Bon Aire versus down. Unlike the commute
home from the Ferry, the CdBA is a bit more gradual heading west where it is
straight up for 25 seconds heading east.
I made it up pretty strong and continued in high gears all the way to
the docks. I am happy to report that on
my first try of this route, I am in 9th place on the overall. If I shave 11 seconds off my 4.05 time, I
will be in 4th place (this is doable), but the top three times are
3.23, 3.24 and 3.31. That will require a
bit more preparation and a tail wind.
I bonked again on the Meadowsweets climb. That bastard is deceptively long and gradual. The grade averages only 2.5% over 1.1 miles,
but the entire elevation of 150 feet comes over 0.3 miles, right in the middle
of the route. After my effort up
Meadowsweets, I didn’t have it in me to keep up the work on Horse Hill. Damn you, StravaMo, I will get you one of
these days.
The rest of the route was back to normal along the bike
trail and beyond. Of course, there was a
strong headwind the entire route today.
I don’t really understand the correlation, but it was 90+ degrees on the
ride home yesterday which always equates to fog and wind the morning
after. Any meteorologists care to chime
in?
I had fun this morning taking a slightly different path to
work – even though it added almost two miles extra. Two miles is nothing compared to the MoMiles
Friday routes, but it keeps me fired up.
More to come.
Monday, June 11, 2012
I am a complete and utter failure
With my wife and kids gone for the whole week, I decided that
it would be a reasonable objective to try to ride to and from work every
day - ten commute legs. I set this goal in my head about a
month ago, immediately upon my wife informing me of her pending trip to Bako to
visit her parents. My previous record
for weekly riding was seven total legs (five in and two home). I could have gone for eight legs but it felt like
a cop out. If I ever was going to have
the opportunity to do all ten legs, this would be the week.
And, sadly, I did not keep this goal in mind with the
thought of having two glorious weekend days to myself, to do anything that I so
chose. In advertising my bachelorhood to
every person that I knew (in search of debauchery and other benefits of being temporarily wifeless and childless), I was blessed to spend Friday, Saturday and Sunday
nights with friends, and Friday,
Saturday and Sunday mornings on my bike.
A panoply beers, sangria, hamburgers, hot dogs and nachos combined with
150 miles and 11,000 feet of climbing on the bike made for a rough day of work
today, Monday. I felt a little slow this
morning on the ride in, but nothing to complain about. But by 3pm today, I was having a hard time
lifting my legs to rest them on my desk.
Upon getting dressed to ride home, I already had significant
doubts about making my goal of ten commute legs. I walked out of my building and headed to the
garage to get my bike. I hopped onto my
bike and pedaled up Sansome Street. By the time I got to the Embarcadero, my
temperature gauge read 92.4 degrees and the wind was blowing me backwards. This only further fortified my sentiment of not spending another hour and a half in doubting my judgement. Rather than fight the urge, I happily gave in
and took the tailwind down the Embarcadero to the Ferry Building where the
beautiful 4.25pm boat was waiting for me to be the last one to board. Not for one second of the 35 minute ferry
home did I regret my choice to bail on ‘ten legs’. I am hopeful that this lack of a commute will
empower me to make nine or eight or even seven commutes.
In recognition of my failure, I am heading out to Marinitas
to fuel up for tomorrow’s ride in. But I
take this collapse very seriously. I
will drown myself in, maybe, a pitcher of margaritas, a bowl of chorizo and
queso and a bucket of chips and tomatillo salsa. Woe is me.
Friday, June 8, 2012
Friday MoMiles - Stinson
This morning did not disappoint for a ridiculous MoMiles “commute”. As usual, the starting point was Corte Madera
Peets at 5.15am (which means a 4.50am from my house). Ominously, my cell phone was blowing up in my
backpack as I was riding to the start.
Typically, any communication the-morning-of is a sign of bad things to
come. Only flakes or changes of plans
happen within 15 minutes of the scheduled departure time. Luckily, today we had only a minor
augmentation and a bit of good news.
There was some construction on the freeway (StravaMo drives – not rides
- to Peets … what a wuss) so StravaMo went one more off ramp in the right
direction to meet us. More
interestingly, StravaMo, being his typical friendly self, met a guy on vacation
from Arkansas looking for a bike ride.
StravaMo convinced this guy, Skyler, to join us for the MoMiles
adventure. By 5.19am, Skyler, Bryan and
headed off to meet Mo.
 |
| Sunrise over Four Corners, Mill Valley |
Without getting into too much detail, this Skyler fellow is a bit of an interesting story. It seems that young Skyler is on a 4+ month vacation with his wife (sounds awesome so far), staying in their truck camper the entire way (um … less optimal). He is/was “self-employed” and at a place with work that he could get a way for a while. And his wife “did the corporate thing” and didn’t really like it so she quit. There’s certainly more to this story, but I did not get it all. I am guessing that he is either Bill Clinton’s Press Secretary or an heir to the WalMart fortune. Either way, he is a good guy and a strong cyclist. Skyler brought both his mountain bike and road bike on the trip. And his wife brought her Cyclocross (that’s a good woman). Despite his Arkansas twang, you could tell that he was from out of town because he rode a standard double set-up versus the compact. This just made him stand the entire route and beat me up every hill by about 30%. And, by the way, leave it to Strava Mo to a) meet and chat up some random dude at a park and b) convince him to join us on a ‘casual morning ride’. Well done, Sir.
 |
| The Seven Sisters |
 |
| Bolinas Lagoon Lagoon from the Seven Sisters |
Bryan, Skyler and Mo were waiting for me at the Ridgecrest
intersection. I had no clue that I was
heading in this direction, but I had been there before as part of the Alpine
Dam loop to Seven Sisters. As I rode up,
I realized that my climbing was not done yet.
The sisters lay ahead before the Mill Valley descent. Are you kidding me? Another four miles and 600 feet? Bryan and Skyler bailed back to Marin while StravaMo
and I headed off and up. I don’t
remember much of the sisters except for the concept that I lost track, unable
to count as to which of the seven I was on and when.
 |
| 1,500 feet up looking over West Marin and the Pacific Ocean |
Fast forward to Mill Valley and the Bike Trail and Alexander
and Fort Mason. I looked down at my
Garmin and noticed that my total altitude for the ride was in the 4,800
range. Of course, I could not get to
work after four hours of climbing and not cross 5,000 feet. So Mo and I made a conscious effort to hit a
few extra San Francisco Hills on the way to the Embarcadero. We rolled from Northpoint up Stockton Street
passed my first apartment in San Francisco (what up Dorwin!!) and continued up
Lombard to near the base of Coit Tower.
When my altimeter read 5,035 feet, I was satisfied and we rolled to the
office. After my shower and breakfast, I
downloaded to Strava my morning’s effort. And, as karma can do to you sometimes, the
heavens spoke … 55.7 miles, 13.6 mph pace and FOUR THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED NINETY
NINE feet of climbing. Are you shitting
me?!? One foot? I could have picked my bike up over my head
in a triumphant celebration to cross the 5k barrier?!? This was doubly insulting as my century a few
weeks back came in at 99.1 freaking miles.
I don’t know what I have done to anger the Strava/Garmin gods. But I
am certainly not on their approved list.
Bastards!
Thanks for dragging me around, Mo!
Thursday, June 7, 2012
The Black Mamba
Completing the loop on my broken bike, all I can say is that
Performance Bikes went above and beyond to rectify the situation.
As a refresher, my old bike experienced a fatal malfunction
on 5/14/2012, a snapped chain stay. I
texted the shop with pictures that afternoon, and dropped the bike off at the
shop the following day. The Manager of
the shop, John, assured me that he would take care of the situation (just like
he assured me that my weight was no issue with the carbon bike that I
originally bought). He offered me an
upgrade to a better frame with a better carbon (I didn’t know that were grades
of carbon) and he would transfer all my components, wheels, etc off of the old
bike. Within a week, on 5/21/2012, my
new frame had arrived from the manufacturer.
But we had a new problem … it seems that the new frame has a different
bottom-bracket than the old bike. So
John had to order a new bottom-bracket and crank set. Another week, 5/29/2012, and the new parts
arrived. I swung by the shop on 5/31/2012
to check on the build progress. The new
frame was hanging on the rack and my old bike was in pieces on the ground. And the next day, 6/1/2012, I received the
call that the bike was ready to be picked up.
Some bike porn specifications for you aficionados out there
(of which I am not one):
The old frame:
The new frame:
As you can see, the new frame does not have all the fancy green lettering
that shows on the website. It is matte
black on black, kinda stealthy. It goes perfectly
with my fluorescent yellow bike jersey that I wear in the dark mornings.
 |
| There she is, The Stealthy Steed. This shot also gives you a glimpse into my ADD when it comes to the organization of my work bench at home in the garage. |
From what I have been told, said in my best Phil Liggett
accent, “This frame was on the podium at the last Giro de BlahBlahBlah.” I’m pretty certain that the frame did not
have a FatGuy on top of it when it crossed the finish line. That said, the frame alone retails for more
than I paid for the entire Scattante. I
surely cannot complain. New frame, new
crankset to full 105 gruppo and a tune-up, all for $30 -the cost of some
spacers and new cabling. Pretty sweet.
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