Exploring in the Back Yard - Soda Springs Road

Our local area is very blessed with the vast amount of terrain for on- and off-road biking. Over the past couple of months with the intensity low on my training radar I've done a few rides that normally I wouldn't have tried previously. Not sure as to the specific reason why I wouldn't have done these rides as part of my normal training, but it's probably because I've felt less in a rut around riding and more carefree about where my bike ends up taking me. That's a good thing and something I need to do more to counterbalance the demands of training and the impending slew of interval work I see on the horizon.

I recently decided to explore Soda Springs Road. The low-key'ers did this climb a few weeks ago and though I missed it, I felt I should at least make the effort to give the climb a go. What really prompted me to get my rear up to this climb was the announcement that the Los Gatos Creek Trail had reopened the upper part of the trail across the front of the dam. No more nasty climbing on the gravel road (I actually never did it, but it was a deterrence). I came down it plenty, but never found a reason to be joyous about climbing it. With the change in the trail in place, I figured it was worth heading up to Soda Springs.

The sign at the bottom is harmless and gives no real indication of what was in store. As the climb began I was surprised at how this road meandered up through the canyon. For some reason I thought I'd end up with a nice few of the back side of Mt. Umunhum as I climbed but that wasn't the case. I did keep getting views of the trails in the Sierra Azul area where folks typically mountain bike.






I'm not going to go into too much detail, but I captured some interesting things along the climb that caught my interest. The autumn colors in the leaves on the vines aren't done justice by the iPhone camera, but they were ablaze in vibrant fall hues.






As you climb higher the road narrows and leaves just enough room for a cyclist and a single vehicle. This is probably one of my favorite pictures on the climb because it gives you a real sense of what the climb entails. Pretty steady 8% grade the whole way up. You just have to find that happy gear and mash out your feel-good cadence. Mine happened to be at at nice tempo pace on the day I took these pictures. I came back a week later and went a bit faster (sub-threshold) and shaved off three plus minutes from my previous time up the climb.

Higher up on the hill you come across less people and more outstanding views. There was some local valley haze in the area and it wasn't completely clear; the following week at the top it was much cooler and clear. I could see all the way to Mt. Tam, SF, Oakland and the foothills up near Sonoma and Napa Valleys.

I'm still surprised at myself for not making the effort to get up to this excellent climb sooner. From my house it's roughly a 1.5 hour ride to the top. Not bad considering that I'm only having to really deal with cars for the first twenty minutes of this ride from the house over to the LG trail head. Once you get up around Lexington and the climb the volume of cars is very low.

On the way home I decided to hop over and give Montevina a climb. I've cut across the dirt trail numerous times to descend Bohlman, but given my adventurous bent, I decided to stick to the dirt trail (on the road bike...25mm tires mind you) and descend into Los Gatos. Of course I took it easy on the descent because coming home in several pieces is not an option. Overall it was fun to explore some new parts of the hills and open myself to new adventures in the dirt descent.

Hello off season & low-tensity

The last month and a half since my last race has been nice. Mellow rides, great scenery (thanks Granfondo!) and plenty of time to not ride hard. In fact, it's been nice to ride the same roads I hammer on during intervals and have time to view the surroundings. Amazing the amount of things you take for granted when all the blood goes to your legs and lungs and not your eyes and brain.

So if I come across you on a ride this fall/winter I'm not likely to try and follow. I'm liking this pace and so is my waistline (down 9 pounds...watch out climbers).

Interbike, Part III - Pictures

Been busy lately and totally forgot to get these posted. So here are some highlights of mine from Interbike:





I don't know who the Garmin rider is on the left, but Christian Vande Velde is pretty recognizable. These guys, plus Dave Zabriskie, just happened to be signing autographs at the Vittoria/3T booth.










Dave didn't want to emphasize the height difference so he decided to stand on his chair for the picture. You can't tell from this picture but DZ's shoulders are probably narrower than his waist; no wonder he's fast on his TT bike.







Lunch courtesy of Clif Bar...espresso from this guy.




























The Ouch guys were hanging out at the Kuota booth. John Murphy (US Crit Champ), Rory Sutherland and Floyd Landis were all interested in the Metrigear product.










Hung out with Bob Parlee for a few minutes. He actually remembered when the order for my frame came through his shop almost two years ago. Bob was kind enough to spend time listening to my feedback on his frame and what I'd do differently with my next Parlee frame.

Levi's Granfondo Carbon Clincher Failure on Meyers Grade

This past weekend I participated in Levi's Granfondo and had a wonderful time. Amazing roads, people, support and weather for a terrific ride that took me through parts of California that I would otherwise not have ever seen.

One of the sights I thought I'd never see was my beloved Edge Composite 68 carbon clinchers fail under me while riding. These have been a bomb-proof wheel set since day one. 20/24 spokes, WI hub up front, Powertap in the rear with CX-Ray spokes. An absolute dream. My 88kg's have had nothing but great times on these wheels.

I've learned with these wheels that under heaving braking on steep descents you must exhibit caution. You can't ride the brakes and just think you'll be fine when you get to the bottom. I learned this on a very short and steep 20% descent last fall when I had a latex tube blow out. Yes, I was on the brakes the whole way down and should have known better, but thankfully no harm was done to the wheel or myself. Lesson learned, at least I thought...

Some of the descents of the Granfondo were pretty steep and around blind corners. With being unfamiliar with the roads, I made sure I was cautious. Cautious, but also considerate of the fact that I didn't want to overheat the brakes. I didn't experience any problems over the first 60 miles. The rims weren't squealing nor were the rims overheating.

This all changed as I descended down Meyers Grade Road (photo from http://www.steephill.tv's route preview). The day of the 'fondo was just as perfect as this picture.

The descent was made a bit more technical from the 20+mph wind blowing from off the ocean to the right. The signs at the top warn riders that you're about to descend an 18% grade and caution is required. As had been the norm for the descents up until this point, I made sure I descended safely and with the goal of keeping all equipment in tact. To put this is relation to other riders, I was descending just as fast as others with the exception of a former MTB pro who kept bombing past me on descents (I would then pass him on climbs).

Toward the bottom third of this descent I felt a very bad pulsation in the front brake lever. I looked down at the front wheel to see if there was something wrong but there wasn't anything visibly bad. But it was scary to see the fork flexing back and forth under braking; it probably was oscillating at least an inch when I had the front brake applied heavily.

I got to the bottom of the descent and my teammate pulled over a few seconds later to see how I was doing. I spun the front wheel and it got stuck. It wasn't clear to me what happened. I opened the brakes up to let the wheel spin more freely. At this point I saw the issue. Initially it looked like the sidewall of my Rubino Pro had bulged out and was rubbing the break pads (yellow Swiss Stop). But to my surprise it actually was a deformity of the braking area of the rim! I had somehow managed to melt the carbon.


I was able to limp back through the rest of the ride, but took it very slow on corners and was only able to use about 10% of the braking power from the front. When I got home I took the tire off the wheel and noticed the damage was much worse. I thought only one side of the rim had melted. Come to find out it was on both sides. In the picture you'll see how each side of the clincher flares out.

Thankfully I kept the rubber down, but I'll be on the phone with Edge to discuss the details around the failure and what we can do going forward.

Interbike, Part II

Now fully armed with Metrigear stuff, I had to figure out how to tackle the convention floor layout. Pretty simple to just walk the aisles so that's what I just did. First up was the Euro area of the show. Strained conversations were the norm here. I got the sense that a few of the interested people at some of the booths were having a hard time trying to get through the language barrier of the foreigners.

For me this happened at the Acros booth. This is a German company that has some pretty light weight gear. Yup, a homegrown competitor to the other weight-weenie company Tune. They displayed a sub-700g wheelset made from their hubs and some new prototype AX Lightness rims. I asked about the hub weight, but this was lost in translation. I never got the answer. Most of the other Euro stuff were things I had already seen from the interweb postings from Eurobike.

Continuing my assault on the aisles, I soon found myself approaching the Vittoria/3T/Selle San Marco booth. And to my surprise there were some Garmin riders signing autographs. I'm typically not an autograph/rider groupie, but I couldn't pass up see these guys in person. First up was Christian Vande Velde, then some other random Garmin guy who I couldn't identify, and then Dave Z. All of them were cool, but I was most interested in DZ partly from my own twisted fascination with TT's and his complete domestic dominance of this discipline. I had a photo taken with him, but he didn't want to look short, so he stood up on his chair to even things out a little bit.

And here's DZ's secret weapon to being fast. His shoulders are so narrow that he probably could have been birthed from his mother at his current side and she probably wouldn't have needed an epidural at all. This dude is narrow, plain and simple.

Along the way I'd get folks asking me what Metrigear was all about, so I'd hand them the literature, show them my Speedplay pedal and direct them to the booth. I started to hit the wall and came across the Fizik booth. Some neat stuff there, but best of all was the espresso vendor. I downed a double and kept on working.

I eventually came across some other regionally focused vendors. First up where the Asian companies. These all felt cheap and inexpensive. I felt like I was walking through rows and rows of copy-cat designs and rip offs. I was happy to move on and find I was soon halfway across the world and surrounded by the Italians. All the Italian vendors had a certain air about them...like they were the holders of cycling's holy grail (not sure what that may be, but the Italians probably have it...maybe it's called the World Champion rainbow jersey). Besides the class of the Italians, I really appreciated their attention to detail; very refreshing and a nice change from some of the in-your-face displays from other parts of the floor. I was surprised by the number of clothing vendors from Italy. A ton of vendors showing fabrics and clothing components. Neat stuff if you're a chamios geek.

On the way out of the Italion stallions, I passed through the Kuota booth. Go figure, more pros! John Murphy (US Crit champ), Rory Sutherland and Floyd Landis were just chilling at a table with nobody around. I saddled up and asked for a poster, and given the lack of action, and probably because there weren't any pretty girls around, they decided to strike up a conversation with me and ask what brought me to Interbike. We probably talked for five minutes and there were all pretty excited about a pedal-based powermeter. Nice guys.

A quick check of the clock revealed it was 1:30pm. The espresso was wearing off and I needed nutrition. I headed back to the Metrigear booth and met up with Alan. We headed over to grab lunch. Since he had been on the floor the day before he gave me the rundown of what transpired the day before and some booths I had missed that I needed to head back to and look at in more detail.

On the way back I wanted to hit up Pearl Izumi and find out what was new with some of the aero shoe covers. We had to cut through Shimano. Yes, I know. A Campy guy like me walking through the Shimano booth. It was damn tough. To make it worse, George Hincapie was signing autographs. I pushed aside the Campy voices in my head and had George sign a poster for me. However, the picture Alan took with my iPhone didn't turn out at all. Oh well. And if George is "big", then I'd hate to see the rest of the peloton. He's not that big, just normal size.

Wow, so who else did I bump into? Well, Lennard Zinn (VeloNews technical editor and tall guy frame builder) asked me where the Metrigear booth was located. And yes, he's not as tall as he claims too. It's like high school again when you hear about athletes from opposing teams (or frame-building editors) seeming to be larger than life, and then when you see them in person there's a different perspective you walk away with. Trust me, I played against a lot of 6'7" guys in high school who were barely pushing 6'4".

By this time the day was winding down. I hit up the espresso guy again and swung by the Bell/Easton booth. An old Stanford teammate of mine is the business manager for their helmet business. He was in the middle of a conversation with some former US mountain bike pro champ, but when he saw me he quickly excused himself. We caught up and later I told this story to the rep at the Prologo saddles booth. He said that my buddy was probably all too eager to get out of the conversation with the bike rider because the rider was most likely only talking about themself.

With sore legs I went back to the booth and meandered through Rotor and Selle San Marco. Rotor is coming out with their Q-rings for the Zipp cranks (which will suit my road bike just nicely thank you). Selle San Marco just came out and updated the Regal saddle at Eurobike. They've shaved 150 grams off the saddle and have retained the shape. Finally, a nice big saddle without a significant weight penalty. I asked the rep if I could buy one, but he had to keep it around until the show ended.

This led to a moment of enlightenment. Some of these vendors are willing to wheel and deal with their goods on Friday. As the show closes down, they're looking for ways to reduce the amount of product they need to ship out. So with that in mind I took Mandi over from the Metrigear booth, made introductions between her and the San Marco guy, and gave them both instructions on the saddle make/model/color I wanted. Mandi, I owe you!

Wow, is reading this exhausting? Yeah, probably. Just like being on your feet all day at the show. More reads to come in Part III and pictures.

Interbike, Part I

Over the past year I've been covertly planning to make it down to the 2010 Interbike show. For years I've scoured the web to see photos of what was coming out from different vendors. So now with some careful planning and deft product development of some friends I executed my plans. So what's so covert about going to Interbike? Nothing really except I was going in support of a friend who's bringing out the equivalent of sliced bread to the power meter crowd. More on that later...

Day trips to Vegas aren't a regular occurrence for me. Heck, prior to heading to Vegas for my ten year wedding anniversary back in April, I hadn't been back to Sin City since spring break 1994. Lots can change in a fifteen year absence, but now I'm heading back only a few months and it actually will seem more "normal" of a city than when I was overwhelmed during the spring.

No major hiccups on the flight, except I learned a valuable lesson at the Vegas airport. I tried to be sly and pick up a taxi on the wrong side of the airport. The airport officials quickly guided me to the right "line" on the other side of the building. After getting into my cab, I asked why none of the taxi's weren't even giving me the time of day on the other side of the airport. Apparently it's a $100 fine for them to pick up people on that side of the terminal. Ok, my bad...I forgot that I needed to queue up with two hundred other people and wait in line (I think some Brit might be running the airport since their love of queue's is high).

Upon arrival to the Sands Convention Center I found the reg desk and promptly was greeted by Velopromo people. Not really, but when I think "reg", I think Velopromo. However, the man helping me could have fit in just perfectly with the Velopromo folks.

I'm going to turn the clock back here about eight years and tell you a little side story that will help you understand what I was about to face. Before Lisa and I decided to have kids, we made sure to take a nice trip to Europe. Since I had spent some time around London and knew the town well enough, I wanted to expose her to Harrod's. We spent about five hours there (including lunch) and at one point Lisa had one of the paralysis moments of shopping. Just too much overload of what to buy. We fondly refer to this as our "Harrod's" moment.

So back to Interbike. I see the open door to the convention floor and briskly walk through. WHAM! I'm being hit from all sides with "Harrod's" moments! I am so utterly completely overwhelmed by everything that I found myself standing still for about a minute. Soaking in all the biking goodness was such a nice feeling. With that over I quickly got oriented and found my way over to the Metrigear booth.

A quick change of shirts soon found me in the black Metrigear t-shirt. Armed with a handful of marketing literature, I decided to walk up and down the aisle to get the word out for Metrigear. Of course along the way I saw some pretty cool things...but we'll get to those in the next blog posting.

More to come...

Chico Crit Race Report

Place High-teens
Category: 35+ Masters 3/4
Race: Chico Downtown Criterium
Team Mates: Steven, Jonathan, Bruce
Field Size: 40+
Conditions: Hot and windy

After racing in the Henleyville RR the day before, it was nice to hang out in Chico the rest of Saturday and enjoy the town. After a fun dinner with Steven and Jonathan at a local Thai restaurant and a good night of sleep, I was ready for a hot day of racing. My racing didn't start until 2pm. Nothing like a lazy morning in Chico to get things started (and a plug for Cafe Coda...best breakfast spot in town).

I set the family up under the shade in the plaza near the start/finish line. Lots of other racers were doing the same thing and it was a great atmosphere for racing. After some brief time on the trainer, I did a few laps on the course. One corner had the nastiest rain drain I had ever seen. It must have sunk a good two feet! If you cut that corner you\'d be launched off your bike into the exit of the corner from the apex. Definitely a line that nobody tried to take willingly in the race.

The race started off fast and stayed that way. A couple of laps into the race the first prime was called (two deep). I was in the top 5 coming into the next to last corner and so I put in a hard dig to get to the last corner first. With that successfully accomplished I was able to nab the prime. A quick glance back and I had a gap, so we all know what that means ;)

I kept the gas on and probably did about 3 laps out by my lonesome self. I know was hurting and I was hoping my teammates were helping me back with the pack (Steven must have been hurting because in his oxygen-depleted race report he completely forgot I had rolled off the front solo). As I started to eventually slow, a Chico Corsa rider bridged across. He was pushing a big gear and I was having trouble sticking on his wheel.

A few laps later another guy made it across. I was cross-eyed at this point due to the heat of the afternoon, the solo effort and the dead legs from the road race the day before. I held on for a few more laps, but I ended up popping off the back. In retrospect I should have sat out a few pulls, but logic is defied when the door of the pain cave is closed and everything around you turns dark.

I slowly drifted back to the pack and saw that the rest of the SJBC crew had been shelled. There were some Chico guys on the front keeping the pace reasonable. Every now and then guys would try to push the pace, but there wasn't any great amount of teamwork between teams to pull the break back.

With about three laps to go I put in another hard dig to bridge up to three guys off the front of the pack. However, they pretty much gave up their effort as I rolled past them. So once again here I am in no-man's land. This lasted only another lap and a half before I was tracked back down. I surfed the back of the pack as the final two laps were ridden at a fast pace. I was happy to cross the line and be done.

In retrospect I probably could have, and should have ridden a bit differently in the break. As noted by Steven in our post-race chat, it's sometimes not until you\'re in the pressure of the moment that these opportunities of learning present themselves on the bike. This is not something you learn on a training ride or at our Tuesday night rides. It's what you do the next time this happens that defines whether or not you've learned from your past experiences.

As my final race of 2009 I can say I've learned a ton this season and can't wait to see how 2010 plays out.