Epilog: 7/12/2008

Finally it can be told!

Shortly before the Ride, on May 21st, I was called in for a colonoscopy at Kaiser which revealed a cancerous mass.  A consultation followed with the surgeon. Dr. Dixon saw no reason I couldn’t go on the Ride (he said his wife had ridden last year) and would schedule surgery after my return. A CT scan also showed the tumor was contained and hadn’t spread. For myself I had no symptoms or any sense of being sick or weak or disabled or special in any way There seemed to be no need to tell anyone except family and a few close friends; in fact it seemed only slightly ironic to be doing the AIDS Ride as a “cancer patient.”

Pre-operative checkup brought up my road rash from my crash, but it appeared to be well-enough healed not to be a problem. The operation went smoothly, I believe (of course I remember nothing of the procedure, only being asked my name and what they were going to do before I lost consciousness—they kept asking me my name for days!) I had somewhat underestimated the extent of the surgery; not just the lump, but my entire ascending colon was removed, but of course if you think about it there wouldn’t have been much sense in reattaching the leftover parts. And Dr. Dixon was able to operate laparoscopically, making only a few tiny incisions. Into the bargain I got a small hernia repaired. I was to be in the hospital maybe a couple of nights while my incisions began to heal and my colon learned to function again. I had visitors and no pain (thanks to a morphine drip I could regulate) and felt drowsy but clear and rational, though I later heard I had been largely incoherent.

In the second night I was unexpectedly moved downstairs into the Transitional Care Unit and there was this trio of nurses trying to roll me on a bed to the elevator and down to Radiation for a CT scan. We never actually crashed into a wall, but they seemed mostly concerned to bring along all the monitors and equipment and hardly seemed to notice me, and I just had to submit to all of it. Of course I was forbidden to stand up or move myself. Turned out there was a blood clot in my lung, a pulmonary embolism which had developed in spite of extensive precautions; they had detected it by monitoring the drop in my blood oxygen; the danger was that it could travel from my lung to my heart and then through the arteries to my brain or worse. So I was suddenly in Hell, in the TCU, on oxygen, with intravenous blood thinners, a nasal tube down my throat (clearing the fluids from my stomach and small intestine was supposed to help my colon recover) and no food and no more morphine, just Vicodin which seemed to give me bad dreams. And the worst was I was unable to sleep; I could close my eyes and relax, but could not manage to drift off, and could only witness time passing, second by second through endless hours of the night. It was like this for five nights (in the first two I was also finding terrible spaces deep within which I struggled to escape: I really doubted if I could survive another night like that). In time the bad dreams (if not the sleep rhythms) improved—Brahms concertos on the IPod my daughter brought me helped a lot—and I believe I must have managed to doze considerably during the days. And the nursing staff seemed to get better as well: care givers who cared, who would talk to me and tell me what was going on and seemed to be glad that I was feeling better. Eventually someone came to insert a PIC line (only one person in the hospital has the qualifications to do it) so they could feed me intravenously. I hadn’t had anything to eat in five days! And almost as soon they removed the nasal tube and my stomach was ready to start on liquids again and then semi-solid food which I found largely unpalatable (Diana brought me won ton from outside). By this time I was ready to get up and take long walks, at first dragging the IV stand and an oxygen bottle, then more freely as more and more equipment was unhooked. They finally released me on Sunday afternoon, after a 10-day stay.

Initial results are excellent: Dr. Dixon removed the whole mass (he said it had grown into the colon wall) and the labs showed the lymph nodes cancer free. I’ll be checking with Oncology in time to see if any follow-up (radiation or chemo) is necessary. I’m enormously impressed with the Kaiser system: I talked with one stupid doctor and another who just seemed to be shining me on, but the rest of the surgical team were great: efficient, responsive, informative. They were on top of the cancer and all over the embolism. The nursing staff, again with a few exceptions (and part of my negative judgment is colored by my bad mood, no doubt) were outstanding. I don’t think I could have been in better hands.

I’ve lost twenty pounds—not the recommended weight-loss program—and can’t wait to see how that helps my climbing! Unfortunately it seems to be mainly muscle mass: my arms and legs, which I’ve been building up for all these years, are skinny again. And I’m going to be on anti-coagulation drugs for several more months, and the doctors think I should stay off the bike because of the danger of a crash. So it’ll be awhile.

Diana decided to postpone her knee replacement until I was safely home again, assuming she could be rescheduled immediately, and found she won’t be able have it done now this summer. If they had only told her. . . But it looks as if she can hold out until November now (she can take pain killers again) and use Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays to get back on her feet.

Yes, there are even a couple of fotos, made with the cell-fone. For now everything is well.

Looking pretty sick Flowers from the ALC Office

The AIDS Ride: SF to LA in Seven Days, 6/01–6/08/2008

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

The Ride: SF to LA in 7 Days.

This is the link to my Ride fotos on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/swedg/collections/72157607790012932/. They’re organized in sets on the right for ALC 7, Days 0–7. Too many to post here. Here’s a nice one, though, by Steven Rood, an LA rider, who caught me on Day 1, as I chugged up the hill on Highway 92. That looks like a smile, but you can almost feel the effort.

Day 1, Climbing Hwy. 92

I’m back! A little bit sore, and still bruised and abraded after my crash on Day 6, but everything is returning to normal as I reflect on this year’s Ride and how to summarize my impressions. On the whole I found it strenuous, much harder than expected or remembered. I struggled on the famous hills, and the distances, especially on the long days 2 and 4, seemed to stretch way beyond the endurable. At the same time, I am convinced I rode stronger than the last two times. My difficulty was probably more due to pushing myself early: I rode hard on Day 1, attacking the “rollers” on the Coast Highway, and passing everyone in sight. Joe Borgonia calls me “competitive;” on Day 2, after cranking it out over ninety miles, I had enough left to charge up a little hill approaching King City, and someone yelled “Showoff!” But I don’t see it that way: usually I just find myself edging up on riders ahead of me until I have to pass in order to have riding room. There’s also the exuberance factor: having spent much of my training time sweeping as a TRL, I enjoyed the opportunity to open it up. And the tailwinds! I hit 49 mph on one downhill and was still coasting as I flew by struggling riders halfway up the other side!

“Quadbuster,” the big hill on Day 3, defeated me this time; I had to stop and catch my breath even before I reached the turnout halfway up, and once more before the top. And the “Evil Twins” on Day 4, though I didn’t stop, were a real struggle. They hadn’t seemed so hard on previous Rides. And Day 5 produced three challenging climbs which I’d just forgotten about, either because they are still unnamed or because they had not been a problem before. (Throughout the Ride I kept having flashes of recognition, but most of the route seemed new and unfamiliar). And endless: by Day 4 I had fallen into a much more conservative (survival) style, content to coast a lot on the flats, pedaling just enough to keep up the momentum. My quads were sore to the touch; I was finding muscles I never knew I had.

The Morro at Morro Bay

Compared to my last time, two years ago, the Ride has grown enormously, and crowding is a real problem. Long lines for meals and showers and porta-potties (they did seem to move along, but required an effort in patience). We kept running into huge clots of riders, at stop signs and signals, and often for no apparent reason. It took fully an hour and a half to get out of Santa Cruz on Monday morning, basically walking our bikes, and the same in Paso Robles and Santa Maria. And I felt very much less a sense of community, rather a huge (and loud) impersonal mass of strangers. It was a good thing to belong to a team (Oakland Yellow Jackets were some 20 strong; we didn’t really ride or hang out together but bumped into each other frequently). There were a number of large teams: the “Funky Monkeys” who seemed to have a different team jersey for each day and even a team sweatshirt for camp. And everywhere we saw “Midnight Radazz,” “Team Bear,” “Team 100,” and others. Of course I tried to engage folks in conversation, in lines and at meals, but hardly made real contact (well yes, I met a nice young man, Tim, from Baltimore who was riding alone; Joe and I exchanged stories with a woman who was a “roadie” for the first time (she was keeping company with her daughter, who was riding), and later kept running into her at traffic control points; and I got to know some of my teammates better, including my tentmate Joe). I think my feeling was probably closer to nostalgia: I felt like an old-timer, a veteran rider looking at all the newbies and missing the old times and how it used to be (and that was only three years ago!) Incidentally, I never encountered Bert Shaw, the 80-year-old from Florida, or Richard from San Fran., the “most ancient” rider at 82.

Teammates

I observed a lot of rude (I thought) and reckless riding, perhaps a function of youth and numbers and impersonality; it seemed for many to be about “getting ahead,” rather than “caring:” racing past lines of other riders at stop signs, passing three abreast, even going out on the highway to get by, though most riders did call out “on your left.” My fall was caused by a rider who cut in too close, descending on the narrow shoulder of the freeway (where passing is supposedly forbidden). Fortunately I had slowed down on this stretch in order to stay behind the riders ahead of me. She was probably emulating behavior she had been witnessing and said later there was another rider passing her on the outside and forcing her over. I was incredibly lucky, suffering only skin abrasions (my jacket was shredded and my helmet, we discovered later, broken); and my bike was okay. She was so upset I had to hold her and comfort her for several minutes. She’s going to buy me an new jacket and pay for my helmet. Amazingly, it was Ron Starkey, my OYJ teammate on the Moto crew, who picked me up and called the sweep van, and Lisa Lestishock, another OYJ on the Medical team, who patched me up at Rest Stop 2, where my Oakland neighbor Josie Chapman was in charge. By another quirk, all the riders were massed here, waiting for the Highway Patrol to open the freeway, and my teammates came by to wish me well. It was almost providential: I felt like a celebrity and among friends. To top it all, Diana was there; she had driven down to meet the Ride at Lompoc (I discovered the pleasure of sleeping in a bed and eating out on the “Princess Plan!”) and was allowed to be my private SAG for the rest of the day (I could have ridden on, but was strongly advised against it). We found a bike store and acquired a new tire and helmet, and I got to rest up for Day 7.

Lisa

Speaking of eating out, camp food was great, served by friendly, encouraging, cheerful roadies (occasionally we got a peek behind the scenes and saw how hard they worked), though chicken and turkey sandwiches for lunch got old soon (and the “Powerade” we were offered to drink was awful), and it was tempting to pass it up for a hamburger & coke on the road. The shower trucks were better than the shower at Motel 6: plenty of pressure and hot water, and ALC even provided big bottles of shampoo! Joe and I enjoyed a walk-in massage on Sunday, wished we had waited till we really needed it later (we were allowed only one for the week), but it was a great service. I also made use of Medical, Bike Tech, Lost and Found services, and of course the Rest Stops, Bike Parking, Gear Trucks, Moto and Sweep crews and many others not seen. I even found foam rollers to stretch out my aching quads. Every conceivable need was met; organization and logistics were amazing. All staffed by volunteers. All we had to do was pedal.

The last day was more celebratory (yes, it involved a sixty-mile ride on the Pacific Coast Highway, along the ocean and over several challenging hills, but my legs were relatively fresh): I discovered I could maintain a speed of 17 mph, but 18 began to feel like pushing it. I linked up with teammates, Joe and David and then Welela and Teri and Ron and Wilma, but then found myself pedaling alone, endlessly, through Malibu while trying not to miss Gladstone’s seafood restaurant on the beach where the OYJ team had a rendezvous for lunch. We were supposed to ride from there together, showing our team jerseys, but got scattered again in the short remaining distance into LA. Diana and I missed the Closing Ceremony; she was finding it too hard to walk in on her aching knees, and I was unable to find my bike until all the activity at the Veterans’ Center died down. We had a reunion and spent the night with my old friends (and sponsors) Bob and Brenda in Santa Monica, and drove home Sunday on Highway 101, retracing much of the bicycle route. Oh, my backup computer wasn’t working, except to record total distance (odometer: 469.5 miles) and speed (max.: 49.1 mph). But the numbers seem really unimportant; I am satisfied with my performance, in spite of setbacks and my inability to ride every mile. I challenged myself and, in large part accomplished what I set out to do. On the fundraising side, donations are still coming in. Thanks to all my many donors, I’ve collected over $3,000 for ALC this time. Somewhat short of my goal, but not shabby at all. Together we raised a total of $11.6 million. Pretty impressive. We’ll see how it goes for next year.

Sports Basement Ride & Party, 5/24/08

These are fotos from today’s ride. Click on the image below to view the whole set.

Sports Basement & Party, 5/24/08

This was Denise’s last training ride and time to celebrate our accomplishments. A large group of riders assembled, many of them familiar in one context or another: Geoff Schneider, indomitable commuter from the City, who was a co-leader, and Kerwin (late) and Matt Martin, also Ron and Wilma Marshall sporting 20th anniversary Oakland Yellow Jackets jerseys (there was a plethora of colorful and unusual cycle wear: see foto set), and Lala and Alex and Jay (with Jen) from our previous ride. Seemed to be a lot of couples present too. Plan was to ride out to San Ramon and back, short and pretty flat, and return to Sports Basement for refreshments and fellowship. I was the last to leave and hustled to catch up, then set out to join the leading group, but when Geoff passed me I wondered who was left back there to sweep, waited for the trailers to come, and discovered it was me! Eventually I followed Élan (who reminded me Diana and I knew her from working at Sur La Table years ago) and we fell farther and farther behind despite making a pretty constant 11 mph. When we reached Peet’s, most of the others were leaving already (Diana, car-sweeping, and our little dog Albert were still there), and Élan and I continued on the back, joined eventually by Troy. Same story at Peet’s in San Ramon: the others were ready to leave when we got there. I lingered over coffee this time with Kerwin and Matt, but we had room to ride fast, we were so far behind, and I got a chance to spin with a tailwind and attack the rollers, and it felt good. Flat tire on Danville Blvd. (Kerwin and Matt came back to encourage me), then over the Iron Horse and Contra Costa Canal trails to Heather Farms Park and the Sports Basement. Denise had arranged a lavish spread: pizza (she had to keep ordering more), and roast beef and the trimmings for sandwiches, and salads, and beer & wine (it was after our ride!); she also had raffle prizes and offered, as a store employee, 20 percent off all purchases we might still need to make for the Ride. Wow! I stocked up on inner tubes and GU gel, couldn’t think of anything else I needed. Well, we made just about 30 miles, and I averaged 13.8 mph and can’t imagine how fast the main group rode. Quite satisfactory. Am I ready to ride? I think I’ve already noted I haven’t done any long distances yet: only a couple in the 50–60 mile range. But I feel stronger and more efficient than in past years and am starting to have a lot of confidence in my training and technique (I’ve just realized the stiffness in my hamstrings is due to my spinning with new muscles). So yes, I think I’ll be all right. The Ride (as I write this) is less than a week away.

As I write this: a rider named Richard has just introduced himself on the Discussion Forum. He is 82 and clearly the oldest rider (called himself “most ancient”), eclipsing Bert Shaw who is “only” 80 this year. Both Richard and Bert are pedaling recumbents. Awesome. I’ll have to introduce myself when I see them on the road. I have a much longer way than I thought to become the oldest rider.

Another Short Ride, 5/20/08

I rode with my friend and Yellow Jacket colleague Midori, from her house down Seminary and out Havenscourt and 66th Avenue to the wetland preserve in M. L. K. Waterfront Park. I haven’t been there in ages; Oakland has been working to restore the Bay wetlands, and it’s a great place to ride and hang out, especially at high tide. A piece of the Bay Trail. We stopped and looked at the water. Then on Doolittle (into the wind) and around Harbor Bay and over the bike bridge to Alameda. We stopped to visit Diana at Edison School. I showed Midori the way up 38th to MacArthur and over to Calaveras to the intersection of Fair Ave. where I left her to ride home alone. The idea was to get in an easy, flat ride; Midori had just finished her interval session on Monterey (I think she said four sets of four minutes: she’s training seriously!) and my hamstrings were still sore and tight, in spite of extensive stretching and the foam roller. Well, it was a good day for spinning, and even the three hills went by easily. 22.26 miles (slightly more than yesterday) @ 10.8 mph. Not bad.

Back on the Bike for a Short, Hilly Ride, 5/19/08

Only 2 fotos (but nice ones if I may say so myself): here are Blaine and Valdez at lunch on Piedmont Ave.

I’ve been off the bike for over a week, unexpectedly, with concert business and medical appointments and just “stuff”: last ride a Saturday ago with Denise’s group. Jumped at the chance to go on a short outing with Blaine and Valdez from Lake Merritt (it was going to be Calaveras, but they had an appointment in Oakland). V. wanted to ride up Mandana, I think because he’d heard it was a challenge, so we did that, and it was steep and hard (I got onto my low gear and couldn’t spin), but not very long. We relaxed on Saint James up through Piedmont; then he wanted to try Leimert (same reason), so we did that, and it was long but somewhat easier. Again it’s hard to say “spinning” but I managed to use my whole leg (on both sides), lifting and moving them through the complete circle, and that seemed to work powerfully. I’m discovering all kinds of new physical techniques! (The other one is making “small” circles with the feet and shins, to give the big muscles a rest; and the main thing is concentrating on doing it smoothly). Valdez even asked how I was able to spin so fast up the hills. It’s hard to explain. Over to Monterey, then up Burdeck and Butters which he knows (he told Blaine he was in for a real climb, but Blaine had no difficulty and pulled ahead on the steep part, while I followed Valdez and indulged in my low gear again). We descended on Joaquin Miller, rode through Montclair and out to Lake Temescal and Rockridge, finally over to Piedmont Ave. to Tropix (a nice Caribbean restaurant) for lunch. I let them wait and watch my bike while I popped into Kaiser Optical Services to get my glasses fixed (this time the screw had come all the way out and got lost!) I left them on the way back to Blaine’s and rode home on MacArthur, another set of hills where I did manage to spin and pick up the pace some. Improved my average, from 7 point something at the top of Butters, to 9.3 mph. for 21.99 miles. Feeling it in my thighs; it was a workout. I think I’ll need at least a couple more rides before I start resting next week. The Ride is less than two weeks away!

Gala Final Concert at Saint Dominic’s, SF, 5/17/08

Some fotos:

St. Dominic’s Catholic Church, San Francisco

Stained Glass

Saint Dominic?

Valdez Rehearsing

Foyer Music by Paolo and friend

Closing Remarks: Blaine, Steve and Valdez

Our Celebrity MCs: Fernando and Greg, with Valdez and Diana

Pianists Davide Verotta and Verna Lim

We had much better attendance this time and a very ambitious program which started to run overtime from the beginning and had to be cut short at the end. I was almost unaware of Davide Verotta, who opened with a Beethoven sonata, and of Sara Klotz who, I think, sang together with her husband (I was in the narthex selling raffle tickets with Diana) and barely noticed Wendy and Andrew who reprised “Suddenly Seymour.” Two performers from the Youth Orchestra: Alex Lee on viola this time (a Brahms Hungarian Dance), and Lily Sham, whom we haven’t heard, a bassoonist! The Lollipop Guild of the SF Gay Men’s Chorus (whom I remembered with delight from the Northbrae opener) didn’t seem all that fresh and exciting this time. It may have been the accoustics in that enormous space. But Carlo sounded great (I hope he’s going to contact my teacher Mark, because I think he has a voice worth developing, but he says he’s buried in his law studies—the singing is of course a sideline). We had a brief conversation concerning the endorsement of same-sex marriage by the Calif. Supreme Court this week (he was studying the opinion); he concurs with my sense that it’s going to be difficult to overturn, even through an amendment initiative, because it reaffirms fundamental guarantees of equal rights. It’s much more than a victory for the gay community (although I can sympathize with the personal reaction: “good, now we can really get married”). It’s a victory for our civil liberties and for Constitutional principles which are hard beset these days by the radical reactionaries. But I digress! Camille Hudson sang powerfully, then Valdez finally had his chance to play his big Liszt piece (“Pensée des Morts”). I have less and less sympathy for Liszt; it all sounds like empty posing to me and lots of virtuoso excess, and much too long. But those qualities impress a lot of people. I will admit V. played with feeling and power, and accuracy, gave the piece a fair chance. After intermission the Schubert duet performed by Valdez and Verna went well. But we started feeling the time pressure; Yolanda Harden who was going to sing a big aria (from Le Cid) went back to her spiritual instead, and Valdez had to forego his second Liszt exhibition. The Lollipop Guild insisted on finishing all three of their scheduled selections (not too cooperative) and also talked for a long time about their mission. The Eusebius Duo (Monika Gruber, violin, and Hillary Nordwell, piano) graciously consented to play only the first movement of the Brahms sonata (Op. 78). Now Brahms! I sometimes think I must be “channeling” him, I feel so in tune with his music.  But this was the musical high point of the evening: beautiful playing of a breathtakingly beautiful piece. What a shame we didn’t get to hear it all! Davide quickly played one of his Debussy Etudes. And I didn’t get to sing at all! Actually this had been anticipated, and I had declared myself (reluctantly) willing to yield if need be. But I had really been looking forward to closing the program and the concert series by joining Valdez in one of “our” numbers from times before. Valdez presented me as an ALC rider and gave me credit again for the idea of a concert series, and that was nice but not quite the same thing. Anyway and all in all, the finale was a big success and Valdez (again) and Blaine deserve enormous applause for organizing it all and bringing it off, with all its little flaws. We’re looking ahead to putting the concerts on the map next year.

Pig Farm–3 Bears Loop, 5/10/08

Pig Farm/3 Bears, 5/10/08

I made a lot of fotos with my new, more powerful Canon camera. Click on the image above to view the whole set. Denise has “upgraded” her rides to Cat. 2 (perhaps because the two ladies last time complained about the unexpected hills?) We greeted two newcomers: Jay and Alex, who I think are also new to the Ride this year. Lala was there, and Kerwin, whom we haven’t seen since fall, showed up too. Diana had agreed again to car-sweep, with the two dogs, Albert and Casey. Denise always does a good warmup, including “dynamic” stretching, which most leaders don’t do (you want to get the body moving and warm before you start “static” pulling on things). We headed out the Contra Costa Canal Trail as before, but didn’t quite find Gregory/Grayson this time, and had to make a lengthy course correction on Pleasant Hill Rd. Then Reliez and Alhambra Valleys up to the top of Pig Farm Hill where Diana met us with snacks. I swept and was surprised to find Kerwin still riding so slowly (climbing is probably still a challenge, even with a 32-tooth gear, but very likely he’s just found his comfort zone). I was a little surprised too at Lala’s relative speed and power as she rode ahead of us; she’s made some progress! I was testing my legs after yesterday’s climbing and was glad to be riding slow on the back. Found the going somewhat harder today, but the hills here are steeper. Top of Pig Farm is still a grind. And Mama Bear (we did the Bears from the “wrong” side) is just a mean, straight up, no excuses climb (it says 7% in my book). I had to pass Kerwin to get some pedaling room, caught up with Lala and felt good just to keep it going to the top. On Papa Bear more of the same, but longer, and then the long descent down to San Pablo Dam Rd. Dropped my chain as I shifted onto the “granny” gear for “Goldilocks” (didn’t even want to try it on the 40!) We rewarded ourselves with a nice lunch in Orinda; the guys took off, and the rest of us took the easy way back for a change, out St. Stephen’s Trail and Mt. Diablo and Olympic Blvds. with a tailwind back to Walnut Creek and the Iron Horse. 35.6 miles at 11.1 mph. Okay!

Woodside–Skyline Loop, 5/9/08

This route turned out a lot shorter than I expected (we didn’t quite reach sixty miles) and Skyline wasn’t nearly as severe as I recalled it from three years ago. I’d been almost set to ride it solo a week ago, wanting to check out some of the climbing we’ll see on Day 1 and also to get in some longer distances, but decided it was much too long and too remote to attempt without a partner (I think I would be less hesitant to do it now, and that’s a plus—need to keep the adventure in cycling!) Anyway I persuaded Valdez to join me and he invited Blaine, who had the day off, and I met them in Newark instead of Union City BART which would have added another 10 miles. I’m sure V. said 8 o’clock (he said he said 8:30) but when I arrived, on time, he was still in nightclothes, thinking about eating breakfast, and Blaine was still showering or dressing, and there I was, waiting for two gay men to get ready to go out(!) and getting increasingly anxious and irritated and worried about getting back before dark; we didn’t start until after 9:15 (”Gee, Valdez, you could have said nine!”) I led again and spun across the flats and over the bridge and waited by the benches (I picked up a quantity of mud, which stuck in my brakes and all over the wheels and frame). Valdez, lagging, announced he had a flat, a slow leak, decided to try to pump it up and ride to the bike store in Palo Alto and have it checked. More delays! At least I got to borrow a rag and wipe down my bike! Up Sand Hill to Manzanita and Mountain Home, a break at Roberts Market; then Valdez insisted on stopping to visit the Pulgas Water Temple. I still don’t know why; it’s been renovated or something.

We stopped to visit the Pulgas Water Temple

Interesting: there’s a park and a cute little classical rotunda with columns (Corinthian: the fancy ones) which commemorates the completion of the aqueduct from Hetch-Hetchy Reservoir (next to Yosemite in the Sierra) where San Fran gets its water. Foto op; pit stop. Another delay! I was seriously thinking about turning around and going back before it got too late. But it got better, cruising out on Cañada Rd. (it always does on the bike), and the distance seemed much shorter and the time still favorable. Do I have to admit Valdez was right? He was just enjoying a day out with his boyfriend. And of course it had become “his” ride instead of mine. Okay.

Well, Highway 92 is unbelievably terrible, a long, fairly steep climb on a very busy road (SUVs, RVs, trucks with trailers), narrow with almost no shoulder. Difficult and dangerous. This is the route for Day 1 on the Ride, and I can’t remember, can’t imagine how ALC gets 2000 riders over it without multiple disasters! Maybe Sunday morning is quieter? A stretch to avoid, I should think, if at all possible. On ALC 4 and 5 we descended (a wonderful downhill) on 92 and met the Coast Highway at Half Moon Bay, but last year, due to highway construction, the route turned left on Skyline, climbed up and up and up to “Skylonda” and La Honda and over to the coast on Hwy. 84. It’s not absolutely clear yet which way we’ll be riding, but many assume it’ll be Skyline again. I thought it would be good to be prepared.

Here is Hwy. 92 as it drops away toward Half Moon Bay

The grade on Skyline is actually fairly gentle, about 5 percent, not steeper than Redwood Road or Fairmont, but it seems to go on forever; in all (I estimated from the map later) we climbed about seven miles to King’s Mountain Rd., where we descended; it’s 12.5 miles to Woodside Road and Hwy. 84. So it was concentrate on climbing easily: regular breathing, back extended, shoulders relaxed, and smooth pedaling. And it went extremely well. It was also beautiful, and I stopped several times to take fotos.

This is actually quite close to the crest. A peaceful bit of redwood grove.

Top of King’s Mountain Road back down to Woodside

Valdez suggested we go down King’s Mountain Rd., and it was a wonderful, long, twisting descent on a very decent surface, all the way back down to Roberts Market. Looked like a challenging climb; lots of cyclists on the way up. But probably as “do”-able as the road we’d just taken. Another road to ride someday on the Peninsula. Lunch stop in Palo Alto, then back through Menlo Park and over the Dumbarton with Valdez in the lead (Blaine and I nearly caught him at the top of the bridge, but let him get away). I “bridged” and drafted behind him crossing the Marshlands and noticed he kept speeding up, trying to drop me(?), and I hung behind him, at twenty mph now, waiting for the right moment to “come around” and sprint past him up the hill to the Nature Center. Competition! But he broke it off before it came to the real test. I guess I can still beat him, but it’s getting harder; he is getting pretty strong. Oh, yeah: average 11.8 mph for 57.5 miles. Over 3500 vertical feet. And we were back by around 4:30. Very satisfactory; and I feel ready for the Ride, even without a hundred-miler under my belt.

Three Shorter Rides, 5/05/08

I have to fill in a few. On Monday (5/5) with Valdez and Joe, over the Dumbarton to Palo Alto and Woodside. Joe had brought his road bike and looked sharp in his Yellow Jackets jersey—he joined the club in order to join our ALC team and ride with us, and he and I are going to be tentmates. Valdez was riding his trophy Trek bike with the flame logos. He and Blaine also want to ride with the Yellow Jackets and tent in our neighborhood. A nice, warmer day after so much miserable chill. I wanted to practice my new technique and rode ahead, spinning pretty easily, and releasing my back & shoulders, across the Marshlands and over the bridge, and it felt great to be turning a high cadence and not grinding it out. After our Starbucks stop Valdez led us through Menlo Park and out the Alameda de las Pulgas. But on Highway 84 I just couldn’t ride behind any more and took off again up the hill. It’s not a killer hill, but challenging enough, a long grade on which I normally plod along, but I started spinning fast and kept it going all the way to the top. Concentrating on relaxing and on smoothing my left foot (it has a little jerk and wobble) and keeping up momentum, but not “efforting.” Well, I was puffing a bit, but felt I could keep going like that a long time. I haven’t handled a real hill like that before, bottom to top without struggle, and it’s like arriving at a new level, and really exciting. At Roberts Market we snacked, met Jay, an ALC rider out on a training ride from the City. They’d given him the day off for Cinco de Mayo! We rode around on Mountain Home, through the woods, and up Portola, and here I had another chance to spin up the hill. Riding down Alpine, I was overtaken on the back by a rider who admired my Japanese Flag jersey (she said she was Japanese). She was wearing the Oakland Oak Tree jersey which I covet of MontanoVelo Sports on Piedmont Ave.  She turned off on her training ride, and we continued down Sand Hill to Palo Alto. Out University after a long lunch, and I went ahead again, into a stiff headwind, spun again across the bike path and over the bridge and kept it going across the Marshlands again. Joe, I guess, had had enough of watching me ride ahead (he had kept Valdez company most of the day) and suddenly appeared right beside me at the top of the hill at the Nature Center, having sprinted all the way from the bridge. He’s such a strong rider; he may even have nipped me at the stop sign! Well, to me this was another breakout day, and dispels the discouragement of my Tunnel Road adventure. I’m satisfied again with my training. 39.5 miles at 13.8. I think I still need to get in some longer rides, and we have a tentative date to ride the Day 1 route on Friday, up the endless hills on Skyline. Here are a few fotos.

Woodside, 5/5/08

On Saturday (5/3) I went to find the Yellow Jackets, a few of whom, according to Kate Pixley’s email, were meeting at the Lake instead of journeying to the City for the official Tiburon Loop. Started out well: I rode from home and practiced spinning and tore out Foothill, etc. averaging 15.6—basically downhill, of course, and no doubt with some wind assist, but not pressing: that’s very satisfactory. No one was there at 9, they may have decided to ride earlier. I decided to do a short solo ride up Tunnel and Skyline, and it started to get tough going up Broadway beside the freeway. This is always a hard hill, and I struggled to the stop sign; then Tunnel itself was unexpectedly challenging. On both of these I think the grade is deceptive, but the climbing was just hard. I slowly caught up with another rider (while whole groups passed us both); he must have seen my ALC pin on my saddle-bag and hailed me; turned out he was training for the Ride too, Dan from Emeryville, an ALC veteran, and we rode together out Skyline to Joaquin Miller, where he turned around to ride back, while I continued down to the Mormon Temple and down Monterey and home. Skyline went better; I was able to spin some, but the climbing was pretty discouraging—Tunnel Rd. is just not that hard. I made just 11.2 mph for 23 miles (big comedown from my fast start) and really didn’t have the energy to extend my ride.

On Wednesday (4/30) it was a short ride out to San Leandro to rehearse with Bob Fowler. Took Bancroft out and back: city streets with lots of traffic, but flat! and practiced my spinning, made 13.8 mph (15.2 outbound) for 17.5 miles. Good rehearsal, by the way: Brahms songs for this Saturday; his 175th birthday next Wednesday.

ALC Concert in Danville, 5/03/08

I want to say something about our most recent event, at Saint Timothy’s Episcopal Church in Danville, which was certainly our most successful so far both in terms of audience support and financially. The church must have undertaken to reach out and urge their members to attend (this really should have been understood all along to be a condition of “sponsorship”); and not only that: it was like a homecoming; we felt we were among friends. Our Emcee for the evening, Jill O’Callahan who is vice-president of Bank of the West there (one of our official sponsors) turned out in fact to be an old colleague and friend of Valdez; she didn’t just announce the performers as the others had done (or failed to do), but kept everyone interested and happy to be there. I should add here that Blaine and Valdez had set up a silent auction for some pretty nice items in the parish hall next door, where the church also provided food and wine, and panels of the AIDS Quilt were also displayed. Unfortunately my fotos are pretty sketchy, attempted under very difficult lighting conditions, but here are a couple:

And that we collaborated again with the Young People’s Symphony who are raising money to travel to an international music festival in New Zealand. By this time it is almost the usual suspects: Carlo and Valdez and Verna and Camille Hudson, joined by Davide Verotta this time and Yolanda Harden (she’s billed as a Wagnerian dramatic soprano, and I keep hoping for something operatic, but she’s done gospel numbers both times: she has a big and impressive voice). Wendy and Andrew again and Gemini Soul (they’re a terrific combo and terribly nice and sincere young guys) had people up and dancing. Bob Fowler and I performed two Brahms songs in honor of the master’s birthday. And kids from the YPSO, Clark Straub, bass (viol, he wasn’t a singer!), and Joyce Park again and Justin Sedor, a cello duo, with Jonathan Davis, a fine pianist.

I don’t know how much money we cleared, but since Valdez and Blaine and I have all already met our minimum for ALC, it was decided to turn over a great deal of it (over $1100 I think) to YPSO. Valdez, of course, was ecstatic: it’s the blossoming of his vision, his first taste of real success in the series. We’ll see how it goes in two weeks at our closer in San Francisco, but he is already committed to doing it again next year, has several venues secured, is talking about producing fundraising concerts for other causes and orgs. I don’t know who else could have done it, inspired all these people and pulled it all together, and he deserves enormous credit for his hard work.