Lake Merritt–Alameda Loop: More Than a Ride, 11/10/07

Click on the image to view the whole fotoset. These were taken in the parking lot at the start. Seemed like a nice group with a lot of the usual suspects: Blaine and Valdez of course (it was his ride); leaders Rick and Dan Krantz and Diana and Kat Z. Uziell of the Yellow Jackets, who is also a TRL. Paolo, who hasn’t re-certified yet, and Stu and Ed and Susan also a Yellow Jacket. Several others (friends of Rick) whose names I don’t remember. After preliminaries we set out on a gray and threatening day. Cat. 2 pace. Lakeshore Drive has a terrible surface, ruts and potholes and rough stretches: continuous, unavoidable pounding which had me thinking–prophetically?–”Roubaix.” (In case you don’t remember, Paris-Roubaix is a famous race in France which is run over a course consisting largely of cobblestones which take a severe toll on men and machines). We took special care at stops (and even at the 5th Ave./Embarcadero intersection where we don’t have a stop, and sure enough, some jerk cut us off anyway and gave me the finger to boot) and tracks. And then, on The Embarcadero, my wheel failed again: another broken spoke. Nothing to do but limp along to Alameda Bicycle, who couldn’t do anything (they had a wheel but no Campy hub body, and wouldn’t have time to switch it over even if they had one). We talked a long time with the owner, Gene Oh, and somehow the idea of a new bicycle came up (Diana said it: she thinks I’m having too many problems with my old Bianchi), and suddenly we are ordering a new carbon Roubaix (!) and Diana is making a downpayment: the bike will be built up to ride on Friday. Gene drove us back to the Lake. I guess we still have a chance to change our mind. Call it a test-ride? To do it right I should be test-riding a lot of bikes. But what if I love it? We’ll see.

The other riders we never saw again; I talked to Valdez on the fone as they were crossing the Blue Bridge. We think they had a good, easy ride and got back before the rain. Diana and I made 5.2 miles.

Robek’s Smoothie Ride, 11/03/07

Only a handful of pics: click to view the set.

Valdez’ ride, a Cat.1 from Union City BART station. We had a lot of riders, I think 23 in all, so we pressed Mary Vencill into service as a guest leader to help Valdez and Diana and me. Bob Katz was also there for a pinch. After stretching and the safety speech we set out for Coyote Hills Regional Park. A handful of newcomers to ALC but as usual no Cat. 1 riders, so the ride soon split with a fast group riding ahead. At the park Valdez challenged everyone to ride up “Nike Hill.” I am still limiting myself to slow, easy spinning and think this is appropriate for just about everybody at this time, but they make up their own minds. So everyone except me and Diana and Lala rode off up the hill. When we got to the Nature Center, I found I had a broken spoke. Ksyrium wheel has bladed aluminum spokes under high tension, and the wheel was so far out of true that, even with the brake completely released, it was unrideable. I walked my bike out to the main road while Diana rode back to get the car; we joined the group briefly at Robek’s and drove home. I’m pretty upset about my wheel, the “new” one, which I had built up for me last year. And my bike had just been tuned and the wheels trued. This is the second (actually third!) time it has failed, evidently due to improper spoke tension. But I can’t pin responsibility on anyone, and I don’t remember any pothole or other jolt which would make it my fault. There is now a flat spot in the rim which can’t be corrected and makes it difficult to true the wheel properly. I’m going to ride on and see how it goes, but it looks as if I’m going to have to replace it again soon. Bummer.