Why am I only now learning about riding out near Mt. Tam?

Just back from a great ride on the peninsula from Fairfax to Mt. Tam and back.  40 miles in all with several sustained climbs, moderate temperatures, great views, plenty of other road and mtn. bikers, and very few cars. We like all that.  Here's a link for folks who want to check it out.

Everything about this ride was awesome and it makes me wonder why it's taken 9 years of riding to realize that all these great miles are just over an hour down the highway.  Thanks to NCACers Tara and Capt. Cullen for instigating the ride.  Anno, Jarad, Risotto and a few other soon-to-be NCACers also showed up for the fun.  The ride started in an easy-to-find lot that contained plenty of space and, even better, a drive through coffee stand.  How cool is that?

The coffee stand was such a pleasant surprise that I didn't even mind the 4-mile grinder rising right out of Fairfax less than a mile from the parking lot. Here's a snippet from a post-ride conversation Jarad and Anno had about the climb:
   Jarad: I'm sooo glad we didn't get re-passed by that jogger on the first climb.
   Ann: Yeah, we really showed him.

After a quick, beautiful descent to Alpine Dam there were 2 more miles of steeper climbing up into the fog that only a Sasquatch could love:











Another 1/4 mile down the road and we burst out into the sun, following a ridge that marked the inland border of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.  The Pacific Ocean and, I suppose, Hawaii and Japan are in this picture, but the fog was just a little too thick to see them clearly:

A couple more miles of rolling hills and three more miles of up led us to the end of the road near the top of Mt. Tam and views of the fog covering San Francisco.  I'm sure it's out there somewhere.

All in all, a great day of riding, even better for the fact that, except for the one climb away from the dam, it was almost all downhill back to the car.  It took just under two hours to get to the top of Mt. Tam and just over an hour to get all the way back.  Plus, when I got back I learned that the Iron Springs Pub and Brewery was just across the street and open for business.  I highly recommend the Kolsch.

Chicagoland Trip, Part I: Ninja Monks of Chicago

If it feels like it's been a little quiet on the "Let's raise $40k right now Now NOW!!" front that's because it has - I'm just back from a weeklong visit to Chicago for my sister-in-law's wedding and my nephew's baptism.  I didn't know this would happen when we left CA, but I really appreciated the short break from all of the fundraising mayhem.  The visit was great for everything except for the health of my digestive tract and inner diameter of most of my major blood vessels, but more on that later.

Some of the unexpected trip highlights:
1) The B&B run by the Benedictine Ninja Monks of the Monastery of the Holy Cross - Ann, me, Ann's mom, Ann's sister and her man Joe, Ann's brother, his woman Michelle, and their two kids Erik and Paige all stayed at this quaint B&B that was, I kid you not, run by actual monks at an actual monastery in the middle of Chicago, complete with black robes, vows of silence, Gregorian chant, terce,matins, lauds, the whole nine yards.   Here's a nighttime picture of the outside of the place:

Strictly as a B&B, this place rocked - quiet, clean, convenient, and super comfortable without that creepy, "yeah-there-are-probably-peepholes-all-over-this-place-especially-the-bedroom-and-I-used-to-own-48-cats-can-you-tell" kind of feel you get at some places.  Being in the back of a church and functioning monastery definitely added to the provenance and cool factor of the place.  But the hands down best part about the stay was definitely breakfast.  Every morning at 8am a 'breakfast' plate would magically appear halfway up the stairs.  I write 'breakfast' because the term would only be appropriate in a place like Chicago, the same place that had a football player called 'The Refrigerator.'  Here in California the meal they served us would be called, "myocardial infarction, anyone?" Here's a picture of one morning's feast for 5:

A dozen eggs over medium, sausages, hash browns, grapes, cherries, muffins, and yogurts.  Not pictured are the half gallons of whole milk and orange juice that acompanied the meal.  Oh, and the special gluten-free dish they prepared for Ann each morning.  Including this morning, even though eggs, sausages, and hash browns are already gluten free.  How serious were the meals?  Let's just say that I wasn't able to finish my fair share of two of them - the eggs benedict (hahahahahaha!!!!!) served over toast and an inch-thick slab of fried ham and the bread-and-bacon pudding masquerading as creme brulee french toast.  In my lifetime there have been very few meals that have ever gotten the better of me and to be stuffed two morning in a row was heretofore unheard of.

It occurred to me that, aside from the celibacy thing, these monks would great make husbands - quiet, hospitality-minded, good singers, keep a clean house, and know the value of a quiet weekend at home.  Or maybe the celibacy thing would be a plus?  I don't know about all that.  Oddly, although the monks certainly knew their way around the Fried Breakfast Items food group, they were a bit lacking in the coffee department.  For coffee all we got was the one-gallon red tub of Folger's Regular or the green tub of Folger's decaf.  What's up with that, monks?!?!  But that was okay, because just down the corner from us was highlight #2 of the trip.  Stay tuned!

All Aboard the J Train!

Woo hoo! As promised, here's a picture of the tandem Jerry and I will be riding during next year's NCAC. A member of the Davis Bike Club gave us a really great deal on it once he heard what we were going to be doing with it:

I guess I should also include a picture of Jerry, the other half of the J Train and the guy who'll be riding stoker.  Here's a picture of us on the last day of the 2010 NorCal AIDS Challenge.  I think that's Mindy waving her hand and sprouting out of the top of my head:

For those of you who've never met him, last time I checked Jerry was ranked somewhere in the top 10 of nicest and most generous people in California.  And, ironically, so is Mindy.  I have no idea why I'm in the picture, though.  I have never been able to even break into the top 50.  The best I've ever done was 129th, and that was only after I gave my wheel up to a teammate in the 2009 Winters Road Race and cooked dinner and washed the dishes three times in the same week.

Jerry's been a part of the NCAC since 2007 and has consistently been one of the top, if not THE top, fundraiser for the past three years.  Jerry was too sick from a systemic infection to ride all of his first NCAC and so ended up crewing for three of the four days.  Which was awesome for us because 2007 was the super hot year - the four hottest days of 2007, actually - and we really needed his help out on the road.  He was literally a lifesaver for many cyclists.  Since then Jerry has become an almost-indispensable crewmember.  No joke, he drove over 1000 miles providing SAG (support and gear) for the cyclists in the 2010 NCAC.  I write 'almost' because the crew will have to do without him in 2011 while he's stoking on the J Train.

For those of you who've never done it, stoking on a tandem can really bite.  At its worst, the view never changes, you don't see any of the bumps coming up, you can't look around too much because that throws off the balance of the bike, you never know when the Captain (that's me) is going to be shifting, and you're always pedaling at the Captain's cadence, which is inevitably too fast or too slow.  At its best, the view still never changes.  So we're planning on putting in lots of tandem time between now and then to work out all of the kinks and maximize our chances of still being friends when the ride is all done.

And to help us with that, I'm happy to announce a really cool sponsorship we just received!  Another long-time NCACer has pledged to donate $0.25 for every mile we train on the tandem leading up to the NCAC.  And once we pass 400 training miles she or he will bump it up to $0.50 for every mile.  And to top it all off she's going to donate another $0.10 for every mile of the actual NCAC we complete on the tandem.  How cool is that?!?!

Fundraising Update:
Raised as of 7/10: $2080 or 5.2%
Left to raise: $37920
Click here to donate right now!

Shouldn't there at least be podium girlz?

"I won! I won! I don't have to go to school anymore." -- Eddy Merckx

For the past few decades there's been an organized race ride in Davis that departs at 6pm every Tuesday and Thursday during Daylight Savings Time.  It's a super fast but, thanks to the efforts of Alan Rowland and Dan Shadoan before him, very disciplined and as-safe-as-possible training ride that's become a rite of passage for thousands of racers and wanna be hammerheads.  On any given evening it's not unusual for more than 50 riders, including a handful of pros and former pros, to show up for the 40-mile hammerfest.  The format of the ride is pretty simple: a 15 minute group roll out to warm up and then three high speed sections lasting 12, 5, and 8 miles, respectively, separated by a few minutes of recovery to let everyone catch up before things get savage again.  In the race-y sections it's not unusual to be thundering down the road at over 30mph within inches of the riders in front, behind, and right next to you and then, when the wind's favorable, ramping it up to almost 40mph in the final sprint to the finish line.

My first experience with the ride was back in 2002 but I got torched so badly just getting through the warm up in my first 4 or 5 attempts that I quit going altogether until I started racing regularly in 2007.  And even now, with a couple seasons of racing under my belt, when the speed starts picking up I often feel as if I'm in the middle of a knife fight with nothing more than a moldy Slim Jim and a colorful vocabulary.  To just survive the fast sections I usually have to resort to major amounts of wheel sucking and drafting behind stronger riders while I try not to burn my lungs down to two shriveled bronchial stumps.  And even then, despite all of my attempts to ride as smart as possible, it's a fairly routine experience for me to get spit out the back of the pack faster than last night's Blue Plate Special while the rest of the field fades off into the distance.

So imagine my surprise last night as the group entered the final mile of the 2nd race section and I found myself in great position to contest the sprint.  Not only was I in good position, I was NOT feeling as craptastic as I usually do at this point.  Indeed, I was actually feeling relaxed and like I still had some gas left in the tank.  Even more remarkable, up until then I had decided to not follow my usual strategy of hiding in the pack and riding the draft to the finish line.  Instead, I had done my best to stay in the mix up until that point, taking turns rotating through the front as often as possible and spending energy like it was somebody else's money, for once not worrying about not getting dropped. Usually when I do that I'm cooked and eaten and paid for by the middle of the 2nd fast section.  I don't know what made last night different, but all I could think was: Whose body have I swapped with with and, boy, is he gonna be pissed when he realizes he's got mine! 

Back to the sprint: As the finish line got closer, the group started bunching up as more people surged to the front.  I was squeezed up against the yellow line and halfway to deciding to just roll to the finish without trying for the win when the rider in front of me moved just enough to the right for me to squeeze by.  I hitched up my Big Boy pants, got out of the saddle, and shot the gap to make my move for the line.  Just as I got my legs spun all the way up to speed another rider alongside of me faded left, forcing me to move over the center line to avoid a collision.  I tried to maintain my speed and continue moving left to get out of everyone's way as a consequence of breaking the center line rule but the racer who had been in my draft started yelling, "Go, go, go!!!!" so I picked up the speed again and found that extra 1/2" of space I needed to get back over the yellow line.  And then something totally unexpected happened - it was just me and one other guy gunning for the line with everyone else behind us.  I swear to Dog that it was just like in the movies.  There was no sound except for the rushing of blood and wind in my ears, every pedal stroke lasted a lifetime, and the finish line got foreshortened to infinity until it was just one long white smear fading out to the horizon.  Out of the corner of my eye I could see that my front wheel was crossing his rear wheel, a pedal stroke later and it was passing his rear derailleur, one more turn to pass his bottom bracket, now his fork, and then his front wheel!

I crossed the finish line in first place fully expecting my cell phone to start ringing with a call from France and an urgent request to see if I could get on a 747 to make it to France in time to start the Tour on Saturday.  As the pack regrouped and we rolled to the start of the third sprint, I couldn't understand why everyone else wasn't grinning as big as I was or whooping it up as much as I wanted to right then.  What was the matter with these people?  Didn't they realize I just came as close to winning a real race as I probably ever will in my entire life and all the reincarnations forever after world without end amen?!?!?!  I know that men in the US generally don't show strong emotion but come on people, I just won the second sprint for my first time ever on some random Tue/Thu race ride!  Throw me an F-ing bone already!  And to make matters even worse, I got dropped in the last sprint of the night a full mile from the finish.  And as I rode in with the father of the racer I beat in the second sprint, I tried to be all casual as I mentioned that I went one-two with his son.  His reply was perfect: "Oh, that's nice.  Did you notice his new bike?  It's totally sweet!"

JHC, give me strength!

Fundraising Update:
Raised as of 7/2: $1720 or 4.3%
Left to raise: $38280 or $850.67/wk
Click here to donate right now!

Making use of suffering

Funds raised as of Wed, 6/30: $1210 or 3.025%
Left to raise: $38790 or $862/wk

What a rollercoaster of a week! In the middle of  Friday night I kept myself awake for an hour or so feeling like a total idiot for wanting to raise $40G and telling everyone about it and then yesterday my fundraising total literally doubled over lunchtime.  And then I had an email waiting for me from the gang at Cedaron Medical Inc. saying they would match the first $1000 of donations in October AND an email from one of my friends volunteered to start investigating grants I could apply for.

   Last summer when I was training for and racing in my A races for the season and dealing with being laid off (two weeks early, thanks very much!) from my job, I came across this quote from Swiss philosopher and poet Henri-Frederic Amiel: "You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: Make use of suffering."  [Disclaimer: Beyond what's written about him in the wikiverse, I don't know anything about this guy.  So please forgive me if he happens to be an A1 nutcase who espoused all sorts of hateful junk, in addition to writing something that resonated with me at the time.  I promise to go down to my public library to learn more about him in the next few days.]  At the time it was very comforting to try to turn my frowns upside down and take advantage of the learning and growth opportunities I had in front of me because of all the new sorts of suffering I was going through.  That, and knowing that, in the very grand scheme of things, the suffering I was feeling could have been a lot worse:  Ann and I were a long way from the street even when I was without a job and, after all, I still had the time, health and $$$ to spend gobs of time racing on a couple thousand dollars of rubber, welded steel, and sex appeal.

   So fast forward to June and getting started on this $40,000 fundraising adventure.  If the past week is any indication of what the next 10 months will be like, I'm in store for a whole lot more opportunities to suffer even before I hop onto the new tandem (pictures coming soon, I promise!).  From the sleep-depriving worry of whether or not it's even possible; the wondering for the millionth time, 'why don't they F-ing donate already? Can't they see I'm suffering here?!?!'; the stress of staying organized and on top of the entire campaign while also balancing the other important parts of my life like, oh yeah, my wife, my friends, and my job to the frabjous joy of friends coming through with unexpectedly big donations and offers of assistance, these intense mood swings are tough to handle for someone like me who's still working on identifying and expressing strong emotions.  Even after just one cycle of this up-and-down-and-up I'm feeling like I might like to pull over and have a little barf.  But I guess the good thing is that I'll go through lots more these emotional suffering cycles before I'm done with this project and with each one maybe I'll get a little better at handling it.

Making use of suffering at the top of Cardiac Hill

or

What the end of an LT set looks like

Thank you, Wheelworks! For the $1G and that Felt

Fundraising update: $460 raised; $39540 to go
B3FI: $859.57/wk

  It's a good fundraising day today!  This morning I received the following message from Joe S., the owner of Davis Wheelworks: "Quick reply here...taxiing on airport runway. Will do $1k."  Nevermind the fact that he's probably texting well after the flight attendants told him not to, that '$1k' means he's committed to matching the first $1000 of  donations made until the end of July.  Thank you, Joe!
   For those of you who aren't from Davis or aren't cyclists, out of the 7 bike shops in town, Davis Wheelworks is the most high profile and high end shop in town.  It caters to road cyclists and triathletes looking to put something really fast between their legs.  My relationship with Wheelworks goes back to 2002, when it was owned by Steve Larsen, a Davis native and former pro road cyclist, mountain biker, and triathlete.  I wandered in there in January 2002 not having a clue about what I was looking for.  What a noob I must have looked, dressed in felted Birkenstocks, mismatched socks (socks! with Birkenstocks!), torn Grammicis, and a big UPenn NROTC cotton hoodie.  Steve himself helped me and spent several hours, including two of them past closing time, talking to me seriously about bikes and sending me out on test ride after test ride to find the one that worked best for me. 

  I finally settled on an entry level Felt 75 and that was pretty much all she wrote.  I rode that thing like the devil after I got it, getting in over 6000 miles in my first year of riding.  What I remember most, ironically, was the lack of pain.  My knees have always given me problems when I exercised, but for some reason cycling, for the first three years at least, didn't bother them at all.  I still remember the sense of speed and joy and freedom I felt just hammering my brains out on the road for hour after hour.  Especially after my dad died later that first Winter, it seemed like all I really wanted to do was ride and ride and ride.  I had almost all of my significant cycling firsts on that bike: first ride out to Winters and back, first rides up Cardiac and Cantelow and Mix, first rides up Cardiac and Cantelow and Mix without stopping, first crash on the way down Mix, first ride on the American River Bike Trail, first metric century, first century, first double century, first flat tire (at mile 196 of my first double century!), first Tue/Thu race ride.

  I sold that Felt after about a year of riding on it and Steve sold the shop to Joe S. and moved back up to Bend soon after that.  Awesomely, as far as I know that Felt has been the first road bike for two other people now, including another NorCal AIDS Cycler.  And I still see it around Davis occasionally, going fast between someone else's legs.

$40G's a nice round number

   Okay, I'm all registered for the 2011 NCACycle, the blog is finally up, the tandem is purchased, and there's already some $$$ in my fundraising account (Thanks, you two!)  Let's see...I've raised $125 so far, leaving me $39875 dollars left to raise and...46 weeks to raise it in.  That comes out to an average of $866.85/week between now and next May.  Zoinks!
   Joaquin's Big Fundraising Plan is also starting to come together. So far I've got four different strategies for raising hunks of that $40G - $10G in donations from individuals; $10G in donor matching from local businesses and philanthropists to match the $10G from individuals; $10G in a series of slammin' fundraising events in Winter and Spring 2011; and then the final $10G using some combination of luck, divine intervention, the teeth-and-dimples, and finding out that, yes, it is possible to find the end of a rainbow and, yes, there is a little leprechaun there who wants to share her pot of gold with me. Admittedly, the plan needs a little work, but that's what I've got so far.
  I've got two businesses and an anonymous philanthropist all set for donor matching in the months of June/July, August, and September.  Thanks Davis Wheelworks and CustomerLink!  I'm hopeful that I can find folks to donor match for the other 7 months before the NCACycle.  Also, Beth at B&L Bike Shop is donating a cruiser bike to raffle off to jumpstart the fundraising.  I'm hoping to have a ton of other stuff available to motivate and reward donors along the way. So stay tuned and feel free to donate early, late, and often!
   At this point, there are all sorts of popular sayings that come to mind about long journeys starting with a single step or eating elephants one bite at a time or birds in the hand versus them being in the bush, but right now what comes to my mind is: "WTF were you thinking when you said $40G?!?!?!"  Reminds me of my favorite scene in Cool Hand Luke:

DRAGLINE: Why'd you have to say fifty [eggs]? Why not thirty five or thirty nine?
LUKE: Fifty's a nice round number.

  I'm sure I'll have more to think and write about that over the next year or so as I start whittling away at my goal.  I hope to explore that as well as what it is about bicycle riding, HIV/AIDS advocacy, taking on huge projects, tandem riding, etc. that are so attractive and compelling to me.  And maybe inspire readers to get involved and/or donate by clicking on one of the links at the bottom of the blog. So stay tuned and thanks for reading!