Summer Solstice Century

Thanks to a few friends who accompanied me, I did my first imperial century yesterday - in fact the total was 103 miles (167 km). We had one of the best days you could ask for to do it - sunny, not too hot though, low winds, quiet roads. Wow! Being the longest day of the year, it seemed fitting to do my longest ride thus far in my cycling life. I was thinking that we might want to make it the first annual, however the date doesn't fall on the weekend every year. Maybe we'll all have to take a vacation day if it falls on a weekday? ;) Sometimes life seems to revolve around the bike. I don't mind though - there are worse things. So I've just been resting and recovering. Need to stretch more. The only real sore spots are the usual ones that I get once I clock more than 100 km on the bike: the shoulders and neck. I wish I had unlimited massage benefits. Mine are already run out. Sigh.

New Tunes for Now

I added most of the new CP ablum (just came out today) in a new playlist there on the right today so you can listen to it for a while. I LOVE IT!!! Hope you do too! I've seen them live a few times and they always make it worth the time and money. I love brit pop rock. We can thank my folks for bringing me up on the Beatles.

A few SF Photos

Happy to be home... thought I'd share some snaps that I liked from my trip. I also got into this Buddhabar music on the flight home - man, those new entertainment systems that they've installed on the airplanes now are so cool!!!

Golden Gate, Chinatown, and Cable Cars

Holy crow! My quads certainly made use of the strength training I did in the off-season today! More riding. This time I went downtown to the financial district, onto the Embarcadero (where all the piers begin) and took the bike lane down into the Fisherman's Wharf area, then on to Crissy Field, and up to the Golden Gate bridge, where I proceeded to ride across. It's a bit challenging, what with all of the pedestrian and inexperienced cyclist traffic, but I just reminded myself that I was on a leisurely ride and would want to stop for photo-ops anyway. No rush. That's exactly what I did. It was fun. I wasn't up for a long ride today, as I'd hoped to do. My legs maybe could have done it (not sure though, as the hills are pretty big on the other side of the bridge and I didn't have the right gears to do really hard hills), but my head wasn't in it. Nor was my saddle area. Should have brought my own saddle. Won't make that mistake again. Frankly, now that I've got a bike box, I likely won't travel without my own bike if I can help it again. One thing I learned with all of the steep hills here is that you really can't be truly confident riding someone else's bike. I made the best of it though and really did get some good exercise. Woke the body up from it's conference sleep, and I saw a lot of nice stuff that you don't see if you aren't on a bike.

After returning the bike I cabbed it back to the hotel so I could shower, change, and do some other interesting things. First thing I did was to walk down the street about 3 blocks away - Grant Street: Chinatown. It's the largest Chinatown in the world I think. I just happened upon a tea shop I'd found on-line before I left and was SO excited!!! Picked up some totally amazing stuff there. They were so helpful and professional. I got to taste some teas that I was looking at before buying them. Super fun!

On the other side of Chinatown is North Beach - little Italy. I hadn't really eaten much all day (another reason the long ride did not work out) and I seemed to have mindlessly wandered into a little place called Caffe Greco. I'm posting all of these links because these are places I would go back to and would recommend, so take note. :) I had a veggie panini and it hit the spot and didn't hurt the wallet. The guys there were really sweet. Well, as I said, everyone seems to be pretty darn sweet to me here. At any rate, I really stumbled upon a nice spot - the locals were all hangin' out here and stopping in for coffee and tiramisu.

After leaving there I decided I was close enough to walk to the crookedest street in the US (although this fact seems to be doubtful): Lombard Street. Not sure if this is correct either (and unfortunately I didn't take my garmin with me), but apparently it's a 27% grade. I climbed not only the street itself, but the almost as steep road to get to it (if it's 27%, then I'd hazard a guess that the road I had to walk 3 blocks up to get to it was between 20-25%). Once at the top I hopped on the Hyde-Powell cable car and took my first San Francisco cable car ride. I took a bunch of photos so I'll torture you with them later. That was fun. And again, all the people on the cable car were super nice and this other tourist showed me where to take a good shot of the people hanging off our car. When I got off the cable car at my stop I thanked the back end driver (there are two guys on the car - seems the one at the back is in charge of the back brakes - I asked him) and I hopped off and they all waved goodbye to me as they started to roll again.

Riding SF, etc.

Another crazy warm, beautiful day in SF. I wore sunscreen today. :) A bit of a rush this morning: up, shower, pancake breakfast (in anticipation of my bike ride today), packed up and reorganized, hopped into a cab, moved over to my accommodations for this evening and tomorrow. Super lucky: my room was ready! Got settled, changed into my cycling gear, reorganized again. Sheesh! Met Pip, the resident greeter here at the inn. Hopped into a cab to get to the bike rental shop. Picked up my bike. On my way. One of the pedals wasn't working and I couldn't get clipped in - not to mention that I took my mtb shoes so I could get off and walk around more easily, plus for some reason I didn't want to take my good shoes just in case. Who knows why I got that idea in my head, but whatever. At any rate, I think it's been 3 years since I last used those shoes and cleat system so I was rusty at finding where the cleat is to clip in AND the pedal wasn't working. Turned around, back to the shop. New pedals. On my way again. The ride could have been better if: I didn't feel like a sack of potatoes for the first hour (due to a lack of real physical activity for the past several days), and if I'd eaten more - I forgot/didn't have time/was too rushed to eat lunch. Scarfed down a luna bar but the hills were too challenging for an empty stomach. I needed food. Got lost many, many times, but once on Chestnut Street I found an abundance of little spots to grab something and ate a pita - at nearly 3:30 PM! Found my way back to the route. Rode it for a while. Was actually on track but then decided to cut it short at that point. Over 2 hours already and wanted to get back and shower and I had a couple of things I wanted to do before stores closed, etc, etc.

Tonight I went down to a bike shop that was supposed to sell Sheila Moon wear but I found they didn't. They had a lot of cool bikes though. I chatted with the guy there and he told me a route across the bridge that he said is way nicer than what I was going to do tomorrow. So if I can manage not to get myself lost again I'll try it out.

The people here are super nice. All the cabbies chat with you. And on the road other cyclists on the OTHER side of the road yell hi at me. ??? This happened several times. And I'm not riding the Colnago (I left her at home), so it can't be that. I'm just riding the plain old Giant rental. It's actually a decent bike, but I hope I don't regret not bringing my own saddle. Wasn't the most comfortable. Anyway... back to the cabbies. So in one of the cabs today the guy pointed out these two ladies walking up the road together wearing matching outfits with big, bright pink hats. He told me: "Those are the twins. I didn't know they were still alive." So I asked him about them. He said they are famous, so I googled them when I got back tonight. Here you go: Brown Twins. I saw them! Cool eh?? Too bad I was in a cab - could've taken their photo.

The Rock

Ahhh. Finally got some down time and started to see the city. This afternoon two of my colleagues and I went to Alcatraz. That was pretty cool. Did the audio tour thing. Learned quite a bit about it. It was first built as a military fort. It was a federal penitentiary from 1934-1963. Then in 1969 several Native American tribes occupied the island. I'm not totally sure of the whole history behind that, nor how long they stayed there. At any rate, today it's designated as a National Park. We learned about the couple of different prison escape attempts. I guess there were a few that actually did escape at one time and to this day nobody knows what happened - if they drowned or really got away. I took a bunch of photos and will post some when I get home.

It's really warm here - quite above normal. When we went out to the Rock today I hadn't thought to put sunscreen on, so guess who's a bit sunburned? It's so silly - I've got a pretty decent base with the cycling over the past 2 months, and yet, a few hours without sunscreen and my fair skin turns red. Geez! I did bring the stuff, so tomorrow when I go out on the bike I will most certainly be lathering myself in it. Well, trying my best to stay on EST, so I gotta hit the hay! More touring tomorrow. Can't wait to do it on two wheels. This body doesn't like walking so much - it hurts (feet, hip, knee - ouch!).

Conference Stuff

Conferences are funny, in that there can be lots of neat things going on in the exhibit hall. I'm not a big fan of the exhibit hall, actually. In March when I was in Chicago I mostly avoided it, but sometimes I get drawn in. Last fall at the CCS congress at one booth they had hired some guys who were trying to sell a medical device that measured your arterial resistance and with that information they were estimating your "arterial age" - i.e. how stiff are your arteries, further i.e. how healthy are you? I was 26 years old. :) I'm not chronologically 26, so of course I was happy. I told the guy I'd see him next year, when I'd be 25. Ha-ha!! Today I decided, after attending a lecture given by the president of the ADA, to go to one of the many booths that were measuring HbA1c. Unless you are diabetic, or suspected to be at risk for it, this is not a routine test, so I've never had it done before. Also, I should say that at the booth they are obviously not drawing blood and doing a typical test - this was a prick of my finger and a 5 minute analysis in a machine so it won't be quite as accurate, but it's fun nonetheless. Mine was 5.0% - bang on healthy-normal (just to give you an idea - the physicians I know have a hard time getting their diabetic patients' A1c down to 7%). I love the analytical tests at these things. I'm such a Science nerd sometimes.

Anyway... I've had a chance to see a bit more of SF. The weather here so far has been fantastic, although I think we're riding on that heat wave most of the rest of the continent is enjoying (or not?). I miss my bike though. I'm looking forward to later in the week when the congress is over and I can go out on a rental. :) More later...

The City By The Bay

Good morning! I've been up for a little bit here trying to figure out what I'm going to do in the wee hours - it's only 7 AM on the west coast here. I'm in San Francisco! This is my first visit to SF. So far what I've seen is very beautiful. It's a very clean city. I saw the street cleaner going by just a few minutes ago. Most of the city buses run on electric cables and there are lots of street cars. Yes, I saw - and heard - the SF cable car from the TV commercials of our youth. In fact, my room looks out on one of the lines and when I got up this morning I opened my doors and looked out to see one going by. I'm staying at a really swank place right down on the water in a part of the city called The Embarcadero. Driving in from the airport, you can really see how the city is all hills and housing developments are all built into the hills. The buildings downtown here are very nice. I haven't seen much yet. The vast majority of my day yesterday was spent on the airplane and when I got here I was fried. I am here for a conference too, so I won't be out touring around quite yet, I have work to do. But I've taken a couple of days for myself before I leave so I can get acquainted with the place. For now I'm going to go work out at the gym, get some breakfast and head to the convention.

Slacker...

Sorry for not posting in a little while! Just a little busy. However, tune in over the weekend and into next week and I hope to have some good stuff for you on my travels.

For now I've been keepin' it in the big ring and trying to balance work with the bike.