alpine dam

met up with justin, joseph, kevin, and naveen today for alpine dam.  it was probably the windiest ride I’ve ever done, there was a constant 15-20mph westward wind the entire time.  I still had a great time, just had to watch descents and the pillars on the bridge.

as I understand it, joseph is the founder of house of commons, a brand base around premium street wear and other boutique items.  he’ll be starting a small cycling team in 2011, which kevin will be a part of.  joseph is cat3 and the others are cat4.  they’ve got the speed to back it up!

good ride guys, hopefully we can ride again soon!

this is how far we made it.  we got to the top of the first climb into alpine dam from the fairfax side, and I turned around to wait up from justin when I heard a huge POP!  my heart sunk.  a flat.  we pulled off and took a closer look at the tire.  it was gashed from the sidewall to almost the middle of the tire.  must’ve been a sharp rock, F*CKING ROCKS.  COME ON.

justin busted out a clif bar wrapper, and we put it in the tire from the inside, held with a bit of rubber cement.  swapped tubes, and put the wheel back on.  we figured it’d be risky riding the rest of the ride with a tire running on about 50psi, held together with a wrapper and some glue.  so we hobbled it all the way down, back into fairfax.  climbed and descended camino alto, home bound.  and just after we beat all the hard parts of the ride, with only flat riding out to sausalito left, it blew out a second time.

we had just pulled onto the sidewalk from the gas station at the corner, and my rear went flat.  there’s justin making the call for a pickup.  out of tubes, energy, and out of fight.

wasn’t our day, I guess.  big, big thanks to justin and maggie, my saviors!  time to crush hard next week to make up for this mess.

justin and I hit up alpine dam today.  the weather was a bit cooler than usual, which was surprising…but we still had a great time.  justin brought out his point and shoot camera today, and snapped some super crisp shots overlooking alpine dam and 7 sisters.  here’s one of them:

I would’ve posted the other ones, but he turned off the ability for people to save the images off his flickr.  so this one is a screenshot of the photo in the album (see the full one on his flickr).

we had clear descents today, a surprise since usually there are cars we catch up to.  well, actually I take that back.  on the final descent on highway 1 towards mill valley, we got behind 3 cars that were just crawling down the hill.  hauled ass through to mill valley, I think justin said 30mph flatland.  he was hustling hard on the flats and climbs today.  what a G.

and thus ends another successful bike week.  hoping to get the supersix built within the month, more parts will be on order this week to finalize the build.

seems like forever since I headed out with justin to do alpine dam.  it was a bit foggy/misty all the way through, but at the dam, it was quiet, sunny, and warm.

you know how I know it’s sunday?

- the “hey, we’re into riding, so let’s get some sick carbon bikes, but only ride them on sunday with each other” 2 man group: we were out of alpine dam already, riding along ridgecrest, approaching 7 sisters, spotted 2 guys riding side-by-side.  one on a colnago c50 (or something) and the other on a wilier cento uno.  let me preface this by saying my feet were rather uncomfortable the entire ride, but I suffered through it.  I definitely wasn’t suppose to go for a 3 hour ride only 2 days after getting drastically improved insoles.  in fact, I shouldn’t have ridden that far for a couple weeks at least.  but who’s going to follow those rules anyway, I GOTTA RIDE!  okay, back to the situation.  I call out to them, “on your left!”.  no movement.  I’m a bit puzzled at this point.  it’s foggy, misting, and the ground is slick.  the road is clear ahead, so I cut into the opposite lane, and pass them, but as I do my rear tire slips on the double yellow line.  and their response is, “hope you don’t fall in front of us”.  oh…I won’t.

justin catches up to me, and I look back to see the colnago and wilier on his ass.  not cool.  I wait up, let them all pass, and then get on the back of the train, the wilier is in front of me.  we cruise along the rollers, and then hit one of the short climbs.  justin is up front, and I’m still in the back.  the 2 guys are shifting all sloppy, big ringing it, tons of sounds coming from their drivetrains.  I felt bad for their bikes, and passed them both.  as I came next to them, I said, “gee, I hope I don’t slip!”.  har har.  I think the colnago jumped after me, but I’m not sure since I never looked back.  I heard someone huffing and puffing along behind me…but after a couple rollers, I heard nothing.  and then I looked back and saw nothing.  there was a pull out up ahead on the road, so i headed in, and waited up for justin.  didn’t see the other guys behind him, so I figured justin ditched them.  ATTA BOY!

I will say this though, through all the uncomfortable foot pain, and near cramp-attacks, the insoles have made a world of difference in my pedal stroke and power output.  granted, I’ve only had them for a short time, but the way my feet feel against the sole is so proper.  there are no more hot-spots, or collapsed arches.  once I’m completely used to the feeling of the insoles, I’m sure hours on the saddle will feel like eating cake.  and who doesn’t like cake.  mmm.

- F%^&ING SUNDAY DRIVERS (or drivers that are just not paying attention to what’s going on): after descending down highway 1 into mill valley, there’s T intersection with 2 lanes.  the right lane, obviously goes right, which is where justin and I were heading to get back to sausalito.  I was in the right lane when I heard justin yell out, “DOM, WATCH OUT!” (or maybe not exactly that, but something close to it).  I was still in the lane, about to make the right turn, not sure why he called out.  then I saw a black bmw e46 coupe coming towards me from the left.  the lady driving was completely oblivious to what was going on, and I swung to the right just as her side view mirror was at my handlebars.  justin proceeded to call her out, and she drove past us, angrily, as if we were the ones merging incorrectly.  how can you just merge into the right lane, without signalling, without even checking if someone was there.  dangerous drivers.

- tourists, lots and lots of tourists.  “oh hey, let me ride in the middle, or to the left, on the bridge while cyclists are coming towards me, going the opposite way.  this makes sense to me.  I want to take a picture of the awesome view I see while I’m riding.  holding the camera in one hand, and steering with the other hand is the best way to operate a bicycle while getting hit with 20mph winds from the west.  this insures that any gust of air that takes me by surprise will not end up being a near head-on collision with another cyclist.”  use your BRAIN PEOPLE. COME ON.

thank goodness I’m home.  my legs ache, the type of aching that says, “YEP, you’re pedaling correctly now.”

snapped a picture on the way back from alpine dam.  not too many cyclists out today, but lots of cars on the way back.  roughly 3 sections of road that converged into 1 lane with a construction crossing guard, the stop and go pace slayed me.  then on the bridge, tons of tourists that apparently didn’t speak english or use their ears for listening.  “on your left!”, “excuse me!”, and “watch out!” were heavily used.  felt invisible…no one moved, people would span the entire width of the path.  why is the city so packed with people?  I have no idea.

at least I got my ride in.  now, to find food.

my phone flipped out again, so thank justin for the photo – THX JUSTIN!  I met up with him at the bridge at 9am, and surprisingly we both turned corners at the same time and started the ride without even pausing for a second.  a rare occurrence if you’ve ever met anyone at the bridge to ride.  anyway, we headed out and the weather on the bridge was cold and windy.  the san francisco marathon was also today, but none of the roads we took were closed or crowded.  I kept an eye out for my brother’s roommate, ash, who was running it today – 26mi, running? BRUTAL.

we started the trek up to alpine dam.  I wanted to keep a quick cadence to conserve energy for the climb out of the dam as well as 7 sisters.  we had the road to ourselves for most of the climb, but caught up to 2 people wearing matching florescent jackets riding side by side.  I yelled out, “on your left!” multiple times and the guy nearest to the middle of the lane refused to move.  at this point I was getting frustrated.  F#$%ING MOVE.  what’s you’re reasoning? you want to continue to ride side by side next to your female friend, blocking the entire lane? there are cyclist behind you that want to pass.  he ended up trying hard for a second to lose me, and failed.  I finally passed him, and turned up the speed to stay away.  the last thing I want on the final decent into the dam is a guy that doesn’t let anyone pass even if they’re going faster than him.

we got to the dam, and I swear I took a picture…my phone has been acting up a lot lately, but I can’t afford to buy anything else because of that cannondale supersix.  priorities…anyway, we stopped for a bit, and dozens of riders passed us.  wasn’t sweating it too much, since it was climbing all the way out of the dam, and not descending.  an older guy rolled up to us and asked if I had a 5mm allen wrench in my multi-tool.  he was riding a carbon bianchi with the works: super record 11, campagnolo neutron ultras, deda stem and bars, and look pedals.  apparently his headset was rattling on the descent from ridgecrest down to the dam.  either way, we chatted for a second about the ergonomics of the shifters.  all internal cables kept the bike’s lines clean.  nice talking to you, GUY!

climbing out of the dam was interesting, to say the least.  I caught up to 3 people riding in a line, the guy in the back didn’t seem to be with the 2 guys we was following so closely up the hill.  I proceeded to pass them, saying ‘hi’ as I rode by.  the bald, tall guy in the back sprung up, and got behind me.  he started puffing and breathing away, and I honestly wanted to drop him just because he became annoying.  can’t you breathe any more…quietly?  it’s messing with my cadence, sorry bud.  I picked up the pace in the sharp corners that peel upwards.  it’s a bit hard to explain via text, but if you’ve done the ride from the dam out to ridgecrest, you know what I mean.  at points, the gradient is increased, but only for a short turn.  that’s where I was placing my attacks.  after a couple of those turns, he made a loud sigh of exhaustion and fell off (as far as I know).  I kept the heat on, determined to get to those 2 florescent people.  they just got to the top when I came up behind them to take a breather while I waited up for justin.  bald tall guy looked at me as he came to the top a couple minutes later, and turned down bolinas-fairfax towards highway 1.  maybe it was to avoid me.  or maybe he lived out there.  who knows.

the rest of the ride was pretty quiet, until we got a little ways past 4 corners and a silver corolla packed with crap decided to pass me on the decent.  we hadn’t gotten to the last stop sign before it merged into highway 1.  I was a bit angry about that for a couple reasons – 1: there’s a hairpin turn at the bottom of this hill, we can all see it, and everyone knows I’m going to have to brake more because you passed me.  2: after that stop sign, you’ll be braking all the way down the mountain, no one wants to deal with that. 3: it’s sunday, CHILL OUT – you don’t have to pass me going 50mph, hurling down a hill towards a hairpin.  and yes, he did jam his brakes before the hairpin, and I had to brake more so I wouldn’t run into him.  the was a white van and then the corolla at the stop sign, waiting impatiently for cars to pass.  at this point, I was feeling even more impatient, and found a pocket where the van didn’t go, and cross-traffic wasn’t close to the intersection.  I went for it, and what do you know, not 1 car in front of me on the entire descent.  one of the fastest times I’ve ever made down highway 1 towards mill valley.

then we had some riders behind us coming through sausalito.  the same 2 guys that had the bald guy following them.  justin asked if I wanted a lead-out through sausalito to slingshot me towards the climb out.  why would anyone ever turn that down?  so we were jetting along the coast and I started the climb without anyone even close to me.  I smashed up the hill.  spotted ryan from roaring mouse heading down as I was coming up, SUP.  justin and I split at the end of the bridge, I took marina/crissy home.  on my way out, I saw the same 2 guys, AGAIN, heading my way.  one of the guys riding turned around, saw me, and said, “that was some good riding back there!” we chatted for a second, and I split off from them.

lots to talk about today, must be a sunday thing.  I’m hoping my phone camera saves pictures in the future.

big thanks to justin for coming out today and making the ride lots of fun.  and for the “race across the sky” bluray.  I think I’ll throw it on right now.

no, that’s not a UFO at the top left of the picture.  it’s my finger, blocking out the glare from the sun (OUR AAARROWS WILL BLOCK OUT THE SUN – 300).  nothing like getting away from the real world for a second to hit up my favorite ride.  must’ve been a combination of the weather and what I ate or something, but yesterday I felt like absolute trash.  my pedaling was all wacky and I couldn’t get into a comfortable cadence for a majority of the ride.  either way, I had a good time seeing the wilderness and getting soaked on ridgecrest.  it was pretty much raining there was so much condensation on the trees.  my legs were frozen from the cold wind off the coast.  and then I got blocked by cars descending 1 into mill valley.  but at least my front pads didn’t squeal (WEE WEE WEE, all the way HOME!)

I don’t think I’ll be going for super long rides anymore, not until my custom insoles come in.  I think that’s part of the uncomfortable feeling on the bike.  either way, I still hope to stay around 230mi, weekly.  I believe the insoles should be coming in early august, so that’ll be good.  as a side note, my cannondale supersix was shipped out today, 6 days after I sent payment.  not in a rush to get it anyway, since I still want deda componentry to tie it all together.  and I’ve been pondering a lot about a spokey, heavy training wheelset:

- dura-ace 7900 hubs – to match the groupset, plus, they’re offered in 36h.

- mavic open pro rims, 36h – reliable machined braking surface, strong, stiff.  unless I find some awesome ambrosio ones on ebay or something.

- sapim double butted spokes – or straight gauge? I’m sure double butted would be better, they’d flex because of the thinner mid-section, not break.

- continental gatorskins – think, all weather, super durable, heavy tires!