Family Circus in SF

You remember those Family Circus maps? For some reason, I do - they always looked something like this, although this is a dystopic parody:



Anyway, sometimes I picture my bike rides in this format (though hopefully without psychotic children running around) and with the magic of the new google bike directions it is easy to plot rides similarly

Without further ado, here's the "long commute" version of my morning ride - stitching together most of the little routes I know in the city. Mostly doesn't suck, which is high praise for an urban ride:



The gist of it is:

- Civic Center BART
- Golden Gate Park Polo Fields to ride around in circles
- Lake Merced to throw a big loop in and break up the monotony
- St.Francis Wood/Foerster/Teresita/Twin Peaks to get my climb on
- Arguello/Presidio to stretch the ride out a bit more
- get thee to work...

Here's a link to the google maps version of the ride if you're interested in any of the parts of the loop

Also apparently people actually follow this blog (sweet! thanks), and I haven't posted a race report in a while. I've been racing though:

- Patterson Pass RR (8th in 35+123),
- Dunnigan Hills RR (10th in P12),
- Suisun Harbor Crits (weak in both 35+123 and P12),
- University RR (24th in P12 but got girled by Katherine Matthis - go Katherine...) and
- Vacaville Crit (18th in P12 but beat all the pros in the race, because...they probably weren't trying very hard on the last lap since a break was away)

So no more cat 1 points, but lots of post fodder, just no time to post yet. Sorry!

If you're voyueristic you can always see results on my USA Cycling results page, though they aren't 100% accurate (e.g. I finished University RR in 24th but they DNP'd me, the bastards!) and they don't contain the minute details of suffering and power meter data that I know you crave.

So I'll try to knock something together about those races, hopefully soon.

Cheers

Kicking Butt and Getting Butt Kicked

Today was an interesting day for me at the Copperopolis Circuit Race.

This event was too far from my house (105 miles or so) but it offered a separate Men's 2 category, which is something I almost never get - I almost always have to race with the Pros and Category 1 riders, and as mentioned previously, I typically get my butt kicked when I do that.

I'm not saying I don't like racing P12 races, I'm just saying that I don't think I am strong enough yet to be a protagonist in those races yet - I'm still just the chorus. I don't think that's surprising either - any of you 4s out there want to race a 234 race? How do you think you'll do? It'll probably hurt...

Contrariwise, oh I love the E2 field by itself. This is racing - I can try breakaways, I can do real tactics, and if it comes down to a sprint I can sprint with these guys. I'll skip to the punchline and say that I got 2nd today, and I'll mention that the guy who beat me also just got enough points that he's upgrading to 1. So I'm basically at the top end of the 2 range in crits at least. Doesn't mean much in P12 races but does make these E2 races fun.

The course was a Zamboni-smooth out-n-back essentially, with rolling hills. The race itself had one prominent strategic feature, that being a 15ish person field, with 4 folks on the same (Sierra Nevada) team, and they were dedicated to making it a field sprint. The other racers kept attacking, but there was always someone willing to chase, and there was always a Sierra Nevada rider marking the break by being in it but not working.

Near the end, I went off on a break attempt with two other folks and a Sierra Nevada rider, but true to form Mr Nevada didn't work. I proceeded to alternate pulling hard and then gapping him off the back of the break to make him work to close the gap. I tried to explain it to my breakmates but it's hard to talk in that situation so they didn't get it and he was basically getting a free ride. That doesn't make for a fast breakaway and sure enough we were pulled back (likely by Hendrik Pohl who apparently only knows one effort level - hard) and we were set up for an all-the-marbles sprint with 2 miles to go.

Sierra Nevada at least lined up a decent lead-out at this point, and I started touching the wind a bit to move on to 5th wheel. This was a downhill tailwind sprint, with a 75m rise at the end of it. I'd timed the sprint the last couple of times through and was set to jump around 225m to go. Unfortunately the Sierra Nevada rider doing the last leadout stint (36mph, nice) moved over when he was done instead of riding straight, sending me towards the cones and making me check up a bit when I should have been pedaling, but more importantly the guy that beat me jumped about 1 second before I did and held it. I rolled it up to 40mph and held my own against him but I never got that gap back.

I'll take 2nd though, my best placing since the Madera Stage Race road stage in the M35+123s. Here's the loot and dorky grin, including that t-shirt - ooo I'm rich





That gives me 3 more cat 1 upgrade points, for a 13 point total (out of 30 needed, in a 12-month window), so I'm still chipping away at the cat 1 upgrade and who knows, I might make it. I might even be ready for it when it happens at this rate!

I hung around for the second race of the day, my loved/hated P12 race, and this one was definitely a learning exercise. I was looking for the workout mostly, and I got that in spades, but what I learned is that a) Rand Miller has some sort of incredible anti-draft vortex immediately behind him, and b) I need to follow someone else's wheel if I'm looking to make it into moves, because Rand's a bit too much for me.

I learned all this in once of those decisive moments where you can either make or break a result - a possible result or no result. We were 10 minutes in, the race had already been pretty active, and after some reshuffling there were a few riders up the road. They were the right mix of teams and it looked set to go, with a 35 second gap already. After a U-turn, Rand accelerated and I thought "this is it - if I'm going to get there, now's the time". We were on a false flat up, into a headwind, and I'll let the annotated data tell the story:




That was a 20W/Kg jump! Then a full sprint, with 60ish minutes left. Damn. I blew up huge on the right side of that graph there - I had to sit up for 10-15 seconds, and after about a half minute when the pack finally came back up to me (yes, it took them twice as long to cover the same distance from the attack, shee-it) I was starting to feel a bit normal again, but ouch.

I'll mention for completeness that Rand made it to the break, then won the race. All I can say is dang.

Crit Century

You know what's awesome on a Saturday? Doing a whole pile of crits. Not one or two, three. Make sure it's hot too. That was the plan this Saturday in lovely (no lie) Novato for the NorCal Crits.

There was some crit action in Watsonville as well - with a really deep field, a tough course, and a 1.5 hour drive from my house. All of those things were not on my menu. What I'm looking for is races where I can be active so I can learn some racing-at-the-front tricks while I get stronger, but I'll be the first to admit it - my fitness isn't quite there enough to trade punches with the full Yahoo and CalGiant squads. I can ride with them, but I can't make them hurt. So off to Novato I go.

Nifty thing about this race, it has a 2/3 field. You know what it's like racing P12 fields all the time? Wake up in the morning, make some coffee but don't drink it. Then have someone you like kick you in the nuts for 60 minutes. It's fun though I swear. Just not as fun as racing 2s and 3s without the P1 folks ;-).

I have a silly quest to upgrade to Category 1 (as you can see in the sidebar), though I have no reason to or use for it, and a 2/3 race is a good place to pick up some points, so I was looking to do well in this race. The course reads like a sprinter's fantasy with a downhill headwind (which kills breaks) and no technical corners (which help breaks). So I sat in like the lousy wheel-suck I am. After a bunch of last-couple-of-laps efforts I won't bore you with, I rolled into the last corner 3rd wheel behind Rainier Schaeffer (I think) while Rainier's Godspeed courier teammate was absolutely drilling it with a fantastic leadout. I jumped after the corner thinking the downhill would make the 200m-to-the-line run doable but - no - I hit 40mph then the headwind sapped the speed and 4 dudes came around, 2 by inches. 5th place. Woe is me, but I have to tell you - it was fantastic to be in the sprint for real. It's been a while and it felt great.

Bonus - they pick the 2s separately, and I'm sure there were more than 11 of us, possibly more than 21, so I got at least 1 elite category 1 upgrade point, and maybe 2.

That was the biggest excitement of the day - the last two races were duds for me but I'm planning on doing The Everest Challenge (29,000' of climbing in two days - awesome) so I need some long, hard workouts and I'm doing the next two races to get them.

The M35-123 was a big fast roll-around with nothing much happening, which is great for me because it allows me to do a nearly Oscar-winning wheelsuck performance involving soft-pedaling, refusing to pull, stealthily taking positions when people aren't paying attention and just generally going fast for free whenever possible. I was lining up on lap 3 to hit the sprint again but fixing my 2/3 race error, when I get that squishy feeling in the rear. Shit! Yep. my rear wheel is going flat. Not all at once - a slow leak, but it's definitely low. No free laps inside 5 laps to go, so my race is done - the tire isn't totally flat but sprinting on 40psi isn't safe. I'm a 110psi dude, 40psi is low enough you can roll a tire if you're not careful, I won't do it. I rolled around and got placed so I didn't get a DNF, but I was disappointed. That's racing.

Next up was the P123. 90 minutes of hot fun. 2 Yahoo riders. A bunch of "other" (myself included there). This race was really active - always someone off the front but I wanted to sprint, not ride a breakaway. I worked to stitch it together a couple times but finally a move of 7 got away, the pack gave up, and now the pack's sprinting for 8th. That's still okay by me, I'm looking for the workout. This sprint I lined up half-assed though and wasn't far enough up in the pack in the last half of the first lap. Maybe 10 deep when I should have been 5th, and the inevitable happened there - two people nearly collided, one locked up his brakes, and I had to touch my brakes to avoid them. If you've never been in a sprint at the end of a bike race, know this: to touch your brakes during the sprint is to lose. It's like putting a parachute out - everyone else shoots ahead of you and you're done. This sounds scary but no fear, we're rank amateurs on bikes wearing nearly no protective equipment and going 32 miles per hour - everything's under control. So I just rolled this in at the end - also a little disappointing but I was in it for the workout, so it's okay.

Riiight at the end of the race, I started to get the starts of cramp twinges. Not full twinges, and definitely not cramps yet - I was still able to throw down huge power but the legs are screaming. That's the workout what I'm looking for.

Final stats - just a touch over 100 miles of crit, averaging around 26mph. Nice.

That's it. 1 for 3 on luck, but that first one was a lot of fun, and I got an upgrade point, maybe two. Plus I got to see that even though I'm not quite P1 caliber yet, I'm still pretty quick on a bike - I'm very strong in a 2/3 field. I'll keep training and learning, and see what I can do about the P1 status.

Cheers!

Pacific Coast Ride to LA Day 4 - Santa Barbara to Altadena

Alright! This is it! One more massive ride living out of a suitcase and I'll be happily back to civilization. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed every day but when you know the end is coming, you fixate on the finish line, right?

So off we go - Santa Barbara to Altadena (a city outside of Los Angeles, near Pasadena, but you have to ride through LA to get there)

One note though - I will admit I felt pretty creaky this morning. Sore and stiff - by the end of yesterday I felt good, but my body's definitely letting me know it's taking a beating. I'm ignoring it.



People say Southern California is all about "car culture", but really all the way from Santa Barbara through Ventura and Oxnard etc, it's all about boats. There must be two boats for every person there were so many boats. And every single one has some sort of punny name or attempt at a joke for a name like "Hey Sailor". Does anyone actually call their boat by those names? "Hey honey, let's take Hey Sailor out for a cruise". Has no panache. You say you want to take the boat out for a cruise, don't you? So what's with the name? Humans are silly.



Gil, I know how important a perfect yard is to you, and I've apparently found the secret sod growing grounds. Oxnard - look 'em up



Amtrak gets a bad rap. Yes, they're late. Get over it. They have huge picture windows in the cars. They have wine and cheese tastings. And they run up and down the coast. Teresa and I have done Oakland to Seattle twice, it was wonderful. I want to do the Southern stretch at some point. This is the Surfliner rolling North, near Malibu.



Hey kids! Let's go the missile park! Yaaayyy! Dad Dad Dad! Can I play on the Bullpup II? Can I? This was a real "Missile Park" (you can play on them!) outside one of the 532 military installations between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles.



I'm trying not to whine about it, but if you haven't noticed in the rest of the pics, the sky is a bit...leaden. The first 86 miles of this ride it was so foggy it was basically light rain. Or heavy mist. I don't know but if you live on the coast you probably have 30 names for the fog-to-downpour spectrum, and on a 1 to 30 scale it was maybe 6. 6 means you are wet but you aren't soaked through, and you have water dripping off your helmet and can't wear your glasses. 5 hours of that. So that's lovely Malibu in the distance, mmm, Califonia dreamin' today

I couldn't take any more gray pictures after that so I put my mini-ipad away and put the hammer down to get 'er done. From mile 86 to 100 or so was still gray (but not wet anymore at least) then I crested the hill between LA and some other part of LA and holy crap it was sunny and gorgeous. Like two cups of coffee, a huge mood booster.

It was also LA rush hour and complete grid lock. Now it's "car culture" time. Poor car people, I passed and repassed the same Ferrari up a 10% grade for 10 minutes, and I was on a sidewalk. He probably wished he'd saved the money and gotten a segway instead, his commute would be quicker. I averaged .4 horsepower and beat him over the hill. Come on cyclists, you love that




One final picture - I don't go on crazy adventures without a stuffed toy I picked up on the first crazy adventure I had (camping trip) called "The Happy Dot". It reminds you to be less serious. It's about a foot wide though, so Teresa made me a mini-Happy Dot to keep the tradition alive, and he cleared the way for me on the ride. Sort of like the "evil eye" thing from Asia, but more positive. He did a good job, because I made it in just fine.



Thanks a bunch for all the comments and contact while I was trekking, I had lots of good mind-wandering time but I wasn't lonely with you guys in mind. Also there was always some point during each day where I'd run low on energy or water or a foot would hurt or something, but I could feel the support vibrating with texts in my pocket. That helped a lot - this was supposed to be fun and that helped keep it that way.

So there it is - I really needed an adventure and I got one. Now for a couple days of R-n-R then back to the real world.

Final stats:
4 days
543 miles
29,912 feet of climbing (yes! 1.03 Mt Everests)
31.5 hours riding
17.2mph average (thank god for tailwinds...)
1 ripped tire+tube, 1 punctured tube (not bad)

Pacific Coast Ride to LA Day 3 - Cambria to Santa Barbara

Day 3 of the trek sees me up-and-at-em very early in lovely Cambria. I wasn't sure how fast I could go, so with a 150 or so miles in the plan for the day, I needed to start around 7am to make sure I got to Santa Barbara before the sun went down.

Anytime you're near the coast in California in the summer, you get this huge fog bank in the evening, settling in overnight. It's in full effect this morning - I couldn't even wear my glasses, and cars had their windshield wipers on. I refer to these mornings as "good complexion mornings".


I rolled through Cayucos and stopped to look at this curious carving of a fisherman carrying a mermaid (I mean, for a coffee shop? I don't get it - it's not a seafood restaurant). Turns out I made the trip! You always want to find an "est" - "The biggest ___" or "The tallest ___" on a road trip, right? This, ladies and gentleman, is the most unique picture ever taken. Or, a picture of it anyway. You're welcome


Quick breakfast in cute San Luis Obispo, then more rolling along - maybe half of the day was like this. I'm a Hudson River School fan - I love looking mountains, so this works for me.


Exactly halfway through the ride today, I got a nice reminder of where I was. I love maps, so I loved this wall


I had a tail wind pushing me along nicely on 80 miles of flat stuff until I came up to this


Top of the toughest climb of the day, great vista opens up on to Lompoc, which must have been the world capital of people-getting-around-on-rascals. I was amused


This is the world's crappiest photo of dolphins but come on people, I saw dolphins! In the wild! I don't do that every day.


Ok you Santa Barbara people with your "it's warm in the evening so often that we have permanent sand volleyball courts set up" lifestyle. I hate you! And it's not because I'm really jealous, no...


Would you believe with 15 miles to go, I get the first flat of the trip? And it's not just a flat, the whole tire was cut. Luckily I was a boy scout. This was bootable (cycling term, you non-geeks) but I had a whole spare tire. I was able to pick up a new spare just 5 miles later at a bike shop in Santa Barbara too, sweet.


Now, I'm not proud. As a cyclist I travel to small towns a lot and I've stayed in every dumpy hotel there is. I'll stay in a Motel 6. And the one I stayed at in Monterey was predictable - it worked, but it wasn't really appealing. But holy crap, look at the Santa Barbara Motel 6. I was shocked enough I took a photo. Very nice.


For those curious how the tan is coming along, I'd say it's progressed from "unfashionable" in the cycling sense almost all the way to "hot". If cycling tans made people fast...


A bit more nerdy chatter about how I'm getting through the ride. 150 miles was long, but honestly it felt okay. In fact, I rode steadily enough for the first 140 miles that by the time I got to that point and I was sure I could make it no matter what I started going full throttle just to see what my body could do after 8+ hours of riding. Surprisingly, quite a bit. Not sure what is actually doing it, but here's today:

2x small non-fat latte (gotta watch the girlish figure)
3x 24oz water
2x 20z gatorade
2x 20oz Dr.Pepper
3x clif bar
1x ham-n-cheese croissant (I have a mean addiction to these)
1x old fashioned salt-n-pepper potato chips
2x electrolyte cocktail (tums for calcium, magnesium pill, potassium pill)

2270 calories in all. My power meter says I burnt 4000. My basal metabolism is 1800. So I'm happily not guilty about polishing a whole pizza post-ride.

That's it. So it's a lot of stuff but not outrageous. Whatever worked, I was happy it worked.

One other note for people interested in something like this, here's the nitty-gritty of the routine:

- 7am wake up, snarf something, kit out, sunscreen, roll out
- surprise, you bike all day
- ok, you stop 3-4 times at convenience stores to buy fluids and snacks
- ride into town 6ish, check in
- immediately eat something
- plug in almost completely drained phone
- order food
- get out rest of chargers and laptop etc
- download power meter data, photos
- get food, start eating
- shower, wash kit, use towel trick (roll kit in towel, wring it) to speed dry, hang it
- eat more
- work remotely, believe it or not, livin' the life...
- organize photos and post em
- use google earth and google maps to write down turn-by-turns on post-it for next day
- fill bottles, tape post it with turns on stem, pack
- 11:30pm (it takes that long), zzzz

I thought there would be time to watch some movies I brought on my laptop or read or something, but not at all. Maybe if there were 80 miles or less a day, but not at 120-150/day.

Pacific Coast Ride to LA Day 2 - Marina to Cambria

Alright then, where were we?

I'm riding to LA, basically because I can. More explanation in a previous post.

This morning found me in partly foggy Marina (just North of Monterey), headed South for an "easy" 115 mile jaunt to Cambria. "Easy" because yesterday was 137 miles, and tomorrow is (gulp) 150 miles. So I'm trying to take it easy today and not push too hard so I've got the goods for tomorrow.

I promised a little bit of gear talk today. One of the things I did both for fun and because it gives a great deal of piece of mind to my lovely, very understanding wife, is that I'm carrying a "GPS beacon". The term "beacon" means "locates itself using GPS, then actively strobes its location out somewhere". Which means if you're watching, you can tell I'm still moving, and not 2-dimensional on the road somewhere.

Specifically, I'm using a Motorola i465 (built-in GPS, runs Java ME apps), and the Instamapper GPS tracker app, on a Boost mobile pre-paid SIM card. If you know me, you know I won't spend money if I a) don't have to or b) am not sure it's worth it. The phone is from Target with a 90-day return policy, the app transmits data in a way Boost mobile doesn't charge for, and Instamapper is free. So the GPS beacon is free for 90 days. Ha.



This is a screenshot from my tracking page, shows the track, pardoning lack of cellular signal on the rugged Hwy 1 route.




More tech stuff - Instamapper let's you export the track in KML, the format Google Earth accepts. So this is the same track, but laid out on the beautiful Google Earth canvas. I used to work in a Geology department and I just love Google Earth. Look at that! It's beautiful. All those tectonics, laid out to see. A California treat.

Alright, so let's hit the road!


The very start of my ride. Gorgeous, I'll take two please.


This was on the way out of town. 4 century plants blooming at once - must be some sort of record. Really I took this for Merritt (my late father in law). He had a few of these suckers, and this made me think of him.


First sight-seeing moment of the day was the famed Bixby Bridge. Isn't it beautiful! Ah, California fog. Next.


I tried not to take too many of these. Was like this all day.



People that drive on Hwy 1: newlyweds (I saw lots of "Just Married" on cars), sports cars (Porsche is winning vs Ferrari by numbers), Harleys (always with a girl on back taking photos except *one* where the girl drove and the guy was on back), cars with surfboards, and a caravan of 5 woodie wagons. The woodie wagons were my favorite.



Yeah.



Right about now, 90 miles into this ride, I was thinking, holy crap this is hilly. I've got 8000ft worth of climbing in, is this ever going to flatten out? Luckily I rolled into smooth ranchland right after that, hallelujah. Heck of a profile though.



On the right of the ranch land, the Elephant Seals frolic. Okay, they just lay there, and they smell a bit fishy, but still, very cool and fun to watch.



Just before my stop for the night in Cambria, I passed by Hearst Castle. Let me be clear, I thought it looked cool, and I'm coming back with a motor, but I was *not* tempted to ride up that hill to get a closer look. I was knackered.

That's it. Absolutely huge day tomorrow, bigger ride than I've ever done, so off to bed for me. Thanks for reading and following along! I've been enjoying the comments here and on Facebook. Encouraging to have some connection while solo on the road like this, and I hope you enjoy the photos.

Pacific Coast Ride to LA Day 1 - Oakland to Monterey

"There comes a time in every man's life when he feels that he must ride from San Francisco to LA". Someone on my team wrote that last year, and something about it struck the romantic wanderlust chord in me. It wasn't my time last year, but I did do a lot of reading about what it would take. Just in case, you know.

This year, all of the sudden, it was that time for me. I needed to ride from SF to LA.

People that don't ride their bikes a lot are probably are either rolling their eyes (because it is admittedly a little nutty) or are more impressed than they should be (because it is a huge ride, but it isn't a moon shot or anything. Heck thousands of people do it every year to raise money for AIDS. Okay, they do it on a big supported ride and I'm doing it solo, but still, not out-of-the-question hard.

What am I thinking?

Basically, one of my closest friends and the best man from my wedding, Stuart Baur almost never takes time off, the 17 years I've known him. Except this year when he emailed me and said "hey, I'm taking 3 weeks off starting late June". So I've got a reason to be there.



I've got a bad habit of blowing up completely and being generally useless in breakaways (just ask...everyone I've been in a break with this season) so I wouldn't mind getting some more riding in to see if I can change that.

I commute to work by bicycle regularly, and go on bike picnics with Teresa, so I've already got all the cyclo-touring gear - just a rack, a briefcase bag that hooks on it, and a backpack that hooks on it.

Plus I've got a pretty telecommute-capable work setup and a ton of vacation myself.

So, what the hell, off I go.

The rest I'll basically tell in pictures, because the leg from Oakland to Monterey was 137 miles, and just cleaning up, eating, getting provisions for tomorrow and making tomorrows route sheet means it's already 11pm and I'm a bit tired for some reason...


This is all you need for a 4-day trip. Well, you need a bike and bags to stuff it in. But this (and my laptop) is all I'm bringing. When you're on a bike you have to travel light and just wash stuff in the sink etc.


If you don't ride a bike a lot, you probably think I look great here. This is me right before setting off, so I'm fully set up. If you do ride a bike, I counted at least 6 specific unfashionable things. Can you find them all?*



This is the route I took - it's oriented facing the coast from the ocean - North is left. The "ACA" (Adventure Cycling Association) Pacific Coast route runs through San Francisco but I live in Oakland. I took the shortest distance path I could work out in order to hook up with the ACA route on Hwy 1 - I met it in Santa Cruz and continued to Monterey from there.


This is the altitude chart (plus some other data) from the ride. My route was definitely not the flat route though - the Peninsula ridge and the Santa Cruz mountains are business time for cyclists.


I didn't take pictures of Oakland, San Leandro, Hayward, Union City etc. but, before I crossed the bay I took this snap of the Fremont wetlands. No one goes there, but it sure is pretty isn't it? Its a park on Marshlands, off Paseo Padre.


I never knew what biking the Dunbarton bridge would be like till I did it. When I mention it is possible I get blank stares sometimes, so I took this picture - this is the bike path on the Dunbarton bridge. 4 feet wide maybe, reasonably clean, big barrier between you and traffic, pretty good view. Bridge is pretty short too. It's a good route


I didn't go to Stanford (I'm a Rice alum) but it is a pretty campus...it's in between the Dunbarton bridge and the Peninsula ridge.


Couldn't wait to snap this pic, mainly because it's the top of Skyline road on the Peninsula. It's around 2700 feet in elevation, from sea level, with a very heavy bike. Downhill from here. Neglected to get a picture of my cousin Nellie, but when I hit Santa Cruz I met up with her at a tiki bar for a quick hello before pushing on. Hi Nellie!


This was the last shot I took - my wife love love loves Steinbeck (for good reason) and her eyes lit up when I mentioned Salinas. So I took a snap of the fields there. This is 100% strawberries. You know what it smells like to stand downwind from a whole field of ripe strawberries? Pure goodness.


Ah, safari clothes. Ok, what's worse, my biking get up, or the safari lounge wear? Don't answer. My wife calls pants that can unzip the legs to become shorts "shants" by the way. Wonder why


This is what's on tap for tomorrow - Marina, through Monterey, then along Hwy 1 forever, ending in Cambria

I talked about the "Why" and the "What" today, I'll try to go into some of the specific gear I chose tomorrow in case anyone else is contemplating really long rides. My stuff is working well so far so it could be useful info.

* unfashionable things in ready-to-go photo: race wheels while touring, route sheet taped to stem, the bike has bags on it for crying out loud, hairy legs, carbon bike while touring, my bike tan is pretty pale. Bonus thing - my kit is 4 years out of date. Bonus bonus thing - hard to see - seat has electrical tape holding it together. Being fashionable in cycling is hard!