Isolated in Ione, Pummeled in Plymouth, Foiled in Fiddletown

I'd been searching RideWithGPS.com for a suitable route near Ione. I needed to go to Plymouth to pick up some wine, and I'd always thought Ione looked like it might be a pretty plce to ride. Tricia was off to ride in the Cinderella Classic, so what the heck, I planned a 60 mile solo loop using a map I found on ridewithgps, packed my stuff and headed east.

That's about when the errors started.

1. On arrival I pulled out my cue sheet and a clip then looked for a place to attach it to my bike. Whoops. My Roubaix has hidden cables, so, unlike my Kestrel, I couldn't clip it to a cable where I could see it as I rode. And my speedometer and Garmin take up a lot of handlebar space. If I'd had a clue I could have brought an elastic loop to put around the stem, but, no clue; no elastic. Having a cue sheet that wasn't easy to read would lead to more... issues.

2. I'd looked at so many ridewithgps loops in the area that I didn't notice this one went clockwise, unlike all the others I'd looked at. I started out and never felt like I knew where I was. I had to stop too often to check my cue sheet and eventually managed to turn left instead of right. I traveled about six miles downhill before I figured out I'd erred and needed to turn around and grunt back out.

When after about 30 miles I finally got to Plymouth, I was amazed discover I'd to arrived from the west and not the east. At least, now halfway through my ride, I realized where I was and that I wasn't traveling the direction I'd thought.

The ride from Plymouth to Fiddletown was an uphill delight, though much longer than I expected. I turned on Hale Road like the cue sheet said and eventually was sure I'd made another error. The smooth road turned to crap and eventually I got to a section that served as both a road and a creek. As I contemplated crossing, and wondered how deep it really was and if I was lost, a car — one of the few I'd seen — drove up and stopped. They assured me I was still on Hale and watched me ride across after promising to alert the authorities if they saw me swept away. The water was deep enough that my foot got soaked on my downstroke.



With a soggy sock I climbed up an extended 10%-18% grade, wondering again what I'd gotten myself into. At least it was freakin' beautiful: no cars, green fields filled with yellow flowers, stands of tulips by the road, and forests.  It was a cyclists paradise.

I climbed and climbed and eventually turned downhill and descended on a wonderful road into the town of Volcano.  The cue sheet faked me out for a moment, but eventually I got headed down Sutter Creek Road, the long downhill I was sure had to arrive eventually.

3. The route snaked me, rather cleverly, through some back streets in Sutter and I avoided the traffic in the town. The cue sheet slipped me onto the Griffinet Rd/Sutter Ione Highway and told me to turn left on CA 124. When I got to an unmarked intersection I turned onto what looked like a 124ish highway and rode a long way before some friendly broke-down motorcyclists informed me I was on Hwy 49 going the wrong way. I made a turn and eventually headed back to Ione on Hwy 88 which, having a very narrow shoulder and a ton of cars, is not a good route for bikes.

Eventually I made it back to my car, having turned 60 miles into 72. I think I learned:
1. I need a device to hold a cue sheet.
2. Carry an actual map, and not just a cue sheet.
3. Look a bit harder at the route before I leave.
4. Take LanceOldStrong and make him navigate as he is actually good at it.

Side note: In two April days I have more road bike miles than I did all of rain-soaked March.

At last, a day with no rain, and a bike ride!

The famed Lance Oldstrong plotted a custom outing, and took Tricia and I on a 72 mile, 5500 feet of climbing ride that started in Fairfield, took in a piece of the Knoxville Double route, tossed in a climb up Cantelow and a taste Mix Canyon. It was my first real ride in a while. What with all the rain, and catching a cold, I haven't been out on the weekend. I've just been commuting.

The weather was cool to cold. The sky spit on us just a bit at as we kitted up, but only enough to encourage us to wear our rain jackets. We were glad we did, just for the warmth. The lack of rain today and the stunning green hills and rushing water in the creeks we rode past made the ride beautiful. And, best of all, I felt pretty darn good for having had a layoff for a bit.

I keep telling Dan he could start a touring service. He'd be darn good at it!




UPDATE: Here's a Ride with GPS map. Should I keep doing this, or does sticking them in the post slow the connection speed too much?

Drying bicycle clothes and shoes

I keep reading “tips” on the best way to dry rain-soaked cycling clothes and shoes. Many say “Stuff newspaper in your shoes." That's just a plain ol’ bad idea. Stuffing newspaper in may absorb a bit of moisture, but mostly it traps the moisture inside where you don't want it.

The trick isn't newspaper, or even heat; it's airflow. What you want is a lot of air moving past your your soaked items and carrying the wetness away.

I bought a very small — just a few inches tall — electric fan at a hardware store. It was less than $10.00. It's cute (like that matters) and doesn't make much noise. Even with fenders and a rain jacket, and sometimes rain pants,  on a really rainy day my cycling stuff can get pretty wet on the way to work. Just aiming this fan at my shoes and socks is enough that, when I'm ready to go home, my stuff is dry. Just the blow-past wind aimed in the general direction of my outer wear drys it off as well.

It’s works well enough that I have another tiny fan at home too. Aiming it at soggy shoes drys them out overnight.

Next time someone suggests newspaper in your shoes, feel free to roll your eyes and just move along, secure in your new superior dampness-fighting knowledge.

My bike books

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Montana, Idaho and Oregon, 2010

By Curtis Corlew

I've been making books about our trips for a few years now. The first was of "The Gates," Cristo's 2005 art installation in New York. I've also made them for our Oregon Coast ride, our Washington bike tour and now, our 2010 Cycle Montana, Idaho and Oregon summer. Even though I like to think I'm a digital guy, there is just nothing like having a physical book out on the table. And, like I tell my photo students, no one is ever going to go through an attic and discover an interesting shoe box full of pixels. Hopefully, the embedded link will work and you'll be able to flip through the pages here. You can even click that little four-headed arrow and get a full screen view. Just in case it doesn't work, here's a link: Montana book

I've created books using Kodak Gallery, Snapfish, Qoop, MyPublisher and Blurb. Several use a web interface, and some use a downloadable program you run locally. After messing with them all, I like Blurb the best. Mostly because their program does away with a slow web interface, and works pretty well. It's no InDesign, but it's easy to use.

This book covers our Cycle Montana ride with Adventure Cycling (which we loved. I can't say enough good things about them) as well as our stop in Idaho and our Crater Lake ride. It's the largest book I've done at about 11 x 14 inches. I'm happy with the reproduction and so far it looks like we spelled all the words right.

My other Blurb book: One Thousand Miles, and a Little Bit More
I had so much fun making the Montana book I decided to make another one commemorating the quest for the California Triple Crown jersey undertaken by Lance Oldstrong and myself in 2010. I used recycled blog posts, screen captures from BikeForums.net posts, photos and "liberated" ride reports. After all, this may well be my pinnacle of cycling achievement, so a book seemed somewhat reasonable. It will give me something to reminisce over as I sit on the porch with my mint julep.

I made two, and gave one to Lance Oldstrong. My trick totally worked. At first he had no idea it was about him, he thought I'd just found a book about the Triple Crown. It was fun watching it dawn on him that he was in it.

If you ride, make photos, or take vacations, I strongly encourage you to consider making your own book with any of these services. It's just plain ol' cool to have a physical memory, and in making the book you get to relive all the fun you had.

Art in Antioch, part 2

I'd promised myself I'd create a series of entries about the public art the Antioch area that I ride my bike past. This is entry number two, so I have a long way to go before I can really call it a series.

"The Drop" by Barbara Grygutis is a 35-foot tall stainless steel piece just outside the Antioch Water Park across from Deer Vally High School on Lone Tree. I'd seen it at a distance and thought "OK, another nice safe piece of metal. At least it isn't a guy on a horse." But up close it starts to be a lot more fun. It really is monumental — it needs to be to visually compete with the nearby traffic lights. The reflected glare of the sun makes the surface shimmer in a fascinating way. The surface isn't solid, but you can't really see through it either. The curves are graceful, even though it feels overly "thick" to me. I enjoyed it more when I stopped thinking of it as a drop.  It's really it bit too weighty, massive and stable to conjure up "drop." Instead, just appreciating it for what it is, made it a lot more satisfying.

That's my Roubaix in the foreground, just for scale, and because this is a bicycle blog.

Photos between the rain

I wasn't feeling strong today, so I decided to make lemonade from my lemony self. Instead of a training ride, our ride would be a photo ride. The sun and clouds between the storms were just beautiful so I took advantage and actually stopped the bike to make a few photos. Between the green hills, blue skies the majestic white clouds and the snow on Mt. Diablo it was a photolicious day.

Coach Troy is mean to me

I have a solo day off, so of course it's raining. Raining hard. I'll bike commute in the rain, but the idea of going for a rain-ride just for fun seems like, well, not fun.

But I have a trainer, and it seemed like the proper day to fire it up. How long could that take?

• Find Tricia's spare wheel with the old tire on it
• Pump it up
• Replace the inner tube that was bad
• Pump up again
• Take Tricia's bike off the trainer
• Take trainer skewer off Tricia's bike and put the old wheel
• Remove my wheel, mount wheel on bike
• Find heart rate strap
• Look up how to turn off GPS on Garmin 305
• Realize there is no magnet on the rear wheel. Find. Attach.
• Find my "trainer bibs" (unraveling elastic too ugly for road use)
• Set up Coach Troy video on laptop
• Start
• Realize that I need to find that terry cloth drip catcher. Stop.
• Start again

In just a few minutes I remembered why I hadn't been on the trainer much. Riding outside is fun. There are downhills, vistas and views and wind and all sorts of nice things. The trainer is just pain.

I "worked" a Coach Troy video. At least I tried. I assume when he says "Big Ring, 16 tooth" he really means "Big ring, 24 tooth" and when he shouts "120 RPM" he really means "115, and not for very long." Coach Troy shouts a lot, and I can tell he's disappointed in my effort. All the people in the video are amazing. He introduces them with short bios, like: "This is Karen. She's an internationally ranked triathlete, a champion mountain biker, personal trainer, doctor, and in her spare time brokered a peace pact between the Crips and Bloods in LA." These are not my peoples. Coach Troy doesn't seem to understand, or care. He just keeps shouting impossible demands. "SPIN SPIN SPIN 50000 RPM!!!!"

About the only thing I bet I do as well as these folks: Sweat. Holy smokes. I drenched my sweat band and clothes, the "drip catcher" and a towel. I weigh considerably less than when I started.

I was toast in no time. There just aren't enough — or any — downhills. Oh well. Now I have to clean up this mess.

Back on the saddle, again

I got a ton positive comments after my last whinny post. I also got a few well deserved HTFUs. Lorri Lee pointed out that, if I quit riding "who would take sexy photos of Trish on her bike?", so when Tricia dragged my complaining self out for a ride on Sunday I made sure to bring the camera. Here she is on our beautiful California winter day, rolling along Empire Mine Road. Thirty miles, and a few choice words from my philosopher-friends did a lot to improve my perspective.

David Lowe-Rogstad helpfully pointed out "Rule #10 my friend. Rule #10." Tomas Ovalle chimed in with "I like rule # 5!" Thank you, gentlemen.

Pete, Joel, Chris, Jonathan, Laura, Veronia, Scott and Steve all sent some positive and hopeful words for me, and Mariel pointed out I was so old I should happy to be doing anything. At least that's what I think she said.

I think I learned not to post right after being disappointed.

Plus, I wasn't as far off pace as I feared. I was just so tired I was doing really bad math. So, plans for giving it another shot are in the works.

And hey, it's Valentines Day, so the whole world looks a bit brighter, even though it's raining.

Life is tough, and then you die

I ride my bike. Kind of. After completing five double centuries last year I was starting to think of myself as a cyclist. Apparently that's not the case.

The Devil Mountain Double Century has a couple of time cut offs. It's roughly 20,000 feet of climbing and 200 miles. There's a time cutoff at around mile 90. You need to be there 8 hours after the start or you can't go on. With my pals Dan and Steve, I decided to ride that first 90 miles to see if I could hit the cut off time. Kind of a test run for the "DMD." Starting in San Ramon, we rode to the Mt.  Diablo  Summit, through Clayton and over Morgan Territory Road. The route continues out to Livermore and over Patterson Pass.

I failed miserably. I did  6700+ feet of climbing and 63 miles in at such a slow pace — 11.3 mph average,  5:53:31 total time — that I bailed in Livermore and didn't even attempt Patterson Pass. I'd never have made it to the cutoff point in just two more hours.

It's got me rethinking this whole cycling thing. This isn't even a race, it's just a bike ride, and I can't even go fast enough to have a chance to finish. And it isn't even that fast.

Maybe I've deluded myself into thinking I could ride, or maybe I just have a faulty memory and think I used to be able to, like that old line "The older I get the faster I was."

In any event, today was a wake up call. Or maybe a go-to-sleep call. It's time to take stock and admit this whole cycling thing just isn't working out well. I've got a summer cycling tour planned, and I hope to be able to struggle through that, but after that, it's time to hang up the cleats, read more books, drink more beer and just take it easy.

Here's all my fail data, in all it's ugliness.

Superbowl Winter in California

BigBossMan on Bikeforums.net Norcal hosted a Superbowl ride and party. The ride was a California Delight. It took us through a bunch of suburbs, but in the end we climbed up the delightful Bollinger Canyon Rd. This week the rest of the country is in snow. We've had fog lately, but Sunday was about as perfect as a day can be. Condolences to the rest of the world.

Bonus photo by Steve

The right clothing for the weather

I wasn't the fastest, or the coolest, or the thinnest on Saturday's 85 mile ride. I went out, guided by LanceOldStrong and his sidekick Steve, to climb Patterson Pass and Mines Road. It was a bit ambitious to think I could just roll out that distance with about 6000 feet of climbing in January. I suffered as I grunted slowly up the hills I thought would never end. I had more than a few "Why do I think this is fun?" moments.

But I did absolutely nail one aspect of the ride: I dressed perfectly. I almost never hear roadies talk about it, but I've seen fellow cycling commuters do a fist pump when they get their clothing perfect on a cold day. As someone who does both, I find I'm quite pleased with my own bad self on the days I manage to pick just the right clothing. It doesn't always happen. I've been caught out too cold, or overdressed and melting. But the delight of picking the perfect kit for the weather, for cheating mother nature, is rewarding.

I knew the ride would start in cold dense fog, then we'd climb into at least partial sun. I knew the climbing would create heat, and the descents would be cool, if not cold. I thought about what I'd wear way too much, but in the end I got it just right and rode — at least temperature wise — very comfortably.

Obsessive clothing details:
I wore a "buff" under mt helmet. What a great invention! I used an Under Armour baselayer under a long sleeve Champion Systems Tech Fleece jersey.

For the early morning fog and for descents I wore a Pearl Izumi Barrier Jacket. If there is one useful piece of information in this post, it's this jacket. It's somewhat windproof, and it's often just the extra layer I need. And it is so very small and light it stuffs into a jersey pocket and almost disappears. I highly recommend this jacket!

Tricia is a wool glove fan, so I listened to her and wore wool glove liners under my new Descente cycling gloves.

I have new Oakley Jawbone sunglasses with vented, yellow lenses that worked perfectly. (Review to come soon.)

I went with regular bibs, but covered my legs with Voler leg warmers. and finished off with wool socks under Performance toe warmers.

Now if I can just get the engine functionality even close to the clothing functionality I might almost be a cyclist.

Curtis and LanceOldStrong in the fog. All Photos by Steve Monroe

How clean is clean, and does it matter?

On a ride with LanceOldStrong I looked over at his cassette and was amazed, if not stunned, to see how clean it was. Given the recent weather here anything short of filthy would have been an accomplishment, but this drivetrain went far beyond that. It was sparkly.

I'd been meaning to clean up my bikes, and my plans to put on a new chain pretty much mandated I at least clean the cassette. Inspired by OldStrong and using the "Anything worth doing is worth over doing" approach I ended up not only installing my chain and scrubbing the cassette, but cleaning the crud-encrusted disaster drivetrains on my commuter bike and Tricia's commuter bike as well.

What a mess. There is just no easy way to do it. I popped the bikes on my cheap wobbley stand and used several brushes, Orange Peel solvent, a plastic chain cleaner device, the garden hose, a ton of rags and a special cassette brush. Even with all that, there's no way, short of taking off the cranks, to really clean between the chainrings.

The worst of it was around the derailleur pulleys on the commuters. It was amazing they still shifted at all. Naturally, that area is really hard to get to and requires a toothbrush.

I am now covered with black gunk. My clothes may never recover, and my hands will be stained for days.

But the bikes are clean, and my cassette shines like a diamond in the sun, so it was worth it, right?

Morro Bay and journalism, with Apple and bikes

Tricia and I went to the Journalism Association of Community Colleges winter conference in Morro Bay. During a workshop Kurt from Apple demonstrated podcast tools for education and journalism. It was very cool. He handed out Macs and iPods so we could try making our own. Since I'd managed to sneak out with Tricia for a quick 25 mile ride during lunch I made my podcast about her.

Mt Diablo, with fog sans water bottles

Classic.
"Where are the water bottles?"
"I left the bag on the table so you could add the Cilff bars you wanted."
"I thought you had them."
"Well, I thought you had them."

And that's how it was when we started setting up the bikes in Walnut Creek's Los Lomas High School parking lot. We'd bailed on a 10 a.m. start due to amazingly thick and cold fog, and went to Barnes and Noble instead (if you know Druple, call me, mail me, save me.) Our 11 a.m. start wasn't much warmer, and we had one old ride freebie bottle we'd left in the car. I bought another when we got to Danville.

The ride up started in pretty cold fog, but around 1000 feet the day because glorious. It was downright warm. We shed jackets, arm warmers, gloves, and we're still almost too hot as the sun warmed our thawing selves. What a difference. And what a delight to look down on a Diablo Valley full of cotton-candy fog.

From the junction we zoomed down until we hit a wall of that dark, cold stuff again. Our decent went from rocket like to cautious as the visibility dropped to not-so-much.

By the time we got to Walnut Creek again the sky was blue and beautiful, and stayed that way until we drove into the gray curtain of East County. A cold, and warm, then hot, then cold, then really cold, then just right time was had by all.

Year end mileage and goals

Bottom line: 7477 total miles
Fixed gear/SS 326
Commuter 2484
Kestrel 1520
Roubaix 3146 (road bike total 4666)

I managed to reach my major goal: Five double centuries (Solvang, Hemet, Davis, Knoxville, Bass Lake)
I also had some other big events, including a tour in Montana and the Mendocino Monster century. I also turned my odometer over on the commuter bike at 10,000 miles.

In the upcoming year I don't plan on trying anything like five doubles, but do hope to do one. I have several out-of-state bicycle adventures planned, and with any luck will even get to touch down in Canada for a short ride.

Contra Costa Underground Railroad

While almost everyone is familiar with the Underground Railroad on the east coast, few are aware of the very different kind of underground railroad in Contra Costa County.
Originally started as a simple way to avoid building rail lines over the steep hills of Contra Costa, these rail tunnels were later used during World War II to make the transport of munitions around and near Port Chicago harder to track by on-ground spies. There were even adapted during the cold war to move nuclear weapons in and out of the Concord Navel Weapons Station.

After years of being strictly off-limits to non-military personnel, with the closing of the Weapons Station and the general thawing of the cold war, the extensive tunnel network is being eyed as a possible bicycle transportation solution to the increasingly crowded highways in the area.

We were allowed to ride about 15 miles of the recently repurposed rail tunnels with East Bay Regional Parks representatives last week. Though the tunnels are very dark (more lights are planned for installation), and many remnants of their past linger in the shadows, in general they do indeed make wonderful bicycle routes.

These bike route tunnels address three of the most common concerns that non-cyclists have: Hills, cars and weather. In the tunnels there are no hills — they were build for train cars and are essentially flat. There are no cars and, perhaps best of all this winter, no rain.

Our ride went well, and we look forward to the official opening of a proposed more than 40 miles of underground bike trails in the county.

Secret Walnut Creek route, with Bears!

I was just getting ready to drive to Walnut Creek to drop off some papers when LanceOldStrong called proposing we ride before the rain came. I haven't been feeling great lately, but said "OK."

I'm glad I did. It was a cool overcast day, but our ride up Pig Farm Hill and two of the Three Bears was delightful. But the best part by far was LanceOldStrong's weird route through the west side of Walnut Creek. I grew up there, and didn't realize it was possible to get from Lafayette near Pleasant Hill Road to Larkey Park by climbing through neighborhoods and taking bike/hiking neighborhood cut throughs. It was just weird. And highly vertical. You couldn't do it in a car, but following trail-blazer OldStrong it was possible. Apparently he Google-maps and street-views obsessively to find these unlikely routes with semi-secret paths and steep hills.

However he does it, it sure was a fun 40 miles with 2700 feet of climbing, even with the rain at the end.


Secret route through Walnut Creek. Click for larger version and don't tell anyone!


Click for much larger version


Test for embedding Ride with GPS map here.

Christmas lights ride 2010

Antioch's Delta Pedalers hosted a Christmas lights ride. I'm not a big fan of Christmas, or it's associated lights, but this was really fun. We joined almost 30 people on a swing past some of the more outlandish displays in town. Apparently the latest one-upmanship is to have a low-power FM radio station connected with your display to broadcast Christmas tunes.

Our group included many Christmas-light covered bikes (Yep, guilty. Tricia and I both hung battery lights on rides) and even a rolling, lighted Christmas tree on a Burly trailer.

We had a car honk at us and the driver shout "Merry Christmas!" which isn't what I'm used to hearing. It was a pleasant change.

As we rolled down the street Tricia pointed out that, with out bike lights and blinkies, LED lights and Christmas tree, we were our own Christmas extravaganza. She was right. We really did look pretty cool, in a weird sort of way.

Delta Ride, Jersey unveiling

To steal a line from LanceOldStrong...
Recipe for a great ride in the Delta:
5 friends, 50 mi, 300 ft of total climb, 2 ferry rides, 1 nice lunch, about 6 cars total. A great day.

Maybe we weren't supposed to ride everywhere we actually rode, but no guts no glory, so we went ahead.
Not that there was a lot of glory on this ride. It was pretty darn relaxed.

We started at Brandon Island and somehow managed to sneak through the delta region on back roads up to Walnut Grove where we had a way-to0-large lunch. We crossed bridges, rode on levee roads, and never once saw the sun.

We took a detour to check out the Grand Island Mansion, which seemed like a great place to publicly unveil LannceOldStrong's and my own 1000 mile club five-double-century jerseys. We'd been waiting and they finally arrived. Now I need to drop a few pounds so I can wear it closer to home.

Eventually we made to Rio Vista, crossed Rio Vista Bridge and ended up back where we started.

Page 28 girls

London newspapers may have tacky "page 2 girls" but the 2011 Adventure Cycling catalog has classy page 28 girls women. Yep, Tricia made their annual tours catalog again. They apparently recognize a good model when they see one. I wasn't left out either. There's a nice pull quote from me on page 2 (no photo, so I am not a page 2 boy) that reads "Signed up. Sent money. Waiting for 2011 like a kid waiting for Christmas!"