This is from ad for a Mexican newspaper. More uses of the image of Bush from around the world here.

Posted by andrew at 02:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

These have got to be the coolest stamps ever. (Picture below the fold)

Posted by andrew at 04:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My first ride with the Yellowjackets was the 40+ mile Arlington Avenue loop.

There were about 100 riders ready to go at Lake Merritt around 8am. I handed in my membership application and check (30 dollar annual fee) and saddled up. Riders went out in three waves, Advanced, Intermediate and Beginner (roughly). I went with the middle group and it was a good choice. We didn't see the advanced guys again. They must have been hauling ass.

The route heads north, goes about a block past my house and heads up into the Berkeley hills by way of Arlington Avenue which I had ridden early in the week. This time, it seemed tougher. Maybe it was just the pressure of riding with the group and staying at someone else's pace rather than my own. We rested at the stop where I had turned around on the earlier ride and waited for everyone to catch up and catch their breath.

The sun was coming out, but there was still a chill in the air. I was glad for the sleeves. When the group reformed, we headed down the hill. One word describes the descent: Steepness. I was thankful we didn't climb up that, but the descent was harrowing. I hit my personal best top speed at 32 MPH on the winding road down to Highway 80. We took a right and headed north to San Pablo and took another break at a gas station at about the 20 mile mark.

That's where I started talking to David and Maurizio, a couple who are in training for the AIDS Lifecycle. The Lifecycle is a seven day ride from SF to LA. I'd love to do it, but I can't take the days off. I'm not sure if I could raise the $2500 needed to participate either. That's more than 10 times what I had to raise for the Tour de Cure. Anyway, perhaps another year.

David had full tattoo sleeves on both arms so I was bit taken aback when he told me was a minister. I was speechless and felt like an idiot. It's hard for an avowed atheist to talk to a man of the cloth and not feel a little awkward. I told him I was a born-again atheist and he said he was too, which made me like him right away.

The sun was now out in full force. I put my sleeves away and lathered on the sunblock. The group ride sort of broke up at the gas station. Many riders needed a longer break, so David, Maurizio and I hit San Pablo Dam Road together. San Pablo Dam Road is long, mostly uphill street to Orinda, but the climb is very gradual and it's no problem to make Orinda. There's a nice bike path on the side which allows you to ride side by side, which is great for chatting.

In Orinda, the road kicks up past Highway 24 and into the hills towards Moraga. Maurizio and David pulled off the road at some nursery to take a break and I continue through the stiff headwind that made me fell like I was riding through molasses. Of course, at this point, 30 miles in, I was starting to feel a little fatigued.

I didn't bring the route map with me. I figured I'd be riding along with the group and wouldn't need it. I was right up to point and that point was on the way to Moraga. I was following some riders, but it turned out they weren't in the Yellowjackets. Then I found myself in a place that looked like the middle of nowhere wtih no other riders around me. I thought I must have gone to far, missed a turn off. I really didn't know, but I was bummed. I pulled out my phone which has Google Maps on it, but I couldn't get the map to download. I waited 10 minutes. Right when I was about to turn around and try to find my way over the hills back to Oakland, a slew of club riders swept by me. Such a relief.

Back on the bike, I caught up with this group and followed them to the next rest stop, another gas station, this time in downtown Moraga. I was spent, go I grabbed a Cliff Bar, but that wasn't enough so I sucked down a Java Monster.

I needed it, because right after lunch, we hit Pinehurt (AKA Painhurst), a 4 mile climb up to the Skyline ridge that would lead us back down to Lake Merriitt. 4 miles uphill at and ever increasing grade is painful. I was sucking wind by the time I got to the top, but I made it. Felt really good. There was a group of about 10 riders, the elite of the intermediate group that gathered at the top for the descent back down to Oakland.

Sheppard Canyon is super steep. The descent is harrowing because it's full of hairpin turns and the road quality isn't that great. But there were no accidents, just white knuckles and cramping hands from hammering on the breaks. The Canyon drops down into Montclair where we pick up Park and then Trestle Glenn and then Lake Shore and then once around the lake and then we're done.

Miles 43.97
Ride Time 3:20:36
MPH 13.1
Max Speed 32

Here's the ride profile (the first climb is Arlington and the one at the end is Pinehurst):

NEXT WEEK: Lake Sonoma

Posted by andrew at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's official. I'm now a Yellowjacket I've been wanting to the join the Oakland cycling club for a while, ever since I bought my road bike, but have put it off for many reasons, mostly lethargy and, well, the ski season. The ski season is over, the sun is shinning and I need people to ride with to get me out on the road consistently, so I plunked down my 30 bikes and I'm now a member of the club.

The group is much different than I thought. In my warped mind, cycling is a very homogenous sport, but not with the Yellowjackets. It's a very diverse group. Young and old, although mostly older than me. Men and women, although mostly men. Black and white. Straight and gay. Skilled and novice.

The group rides at 8am every Saturday with courses designed for all levels. Most of the rides leave from Lake Merritt in Oakland (about 2 miles from my place), but there are also routes that start from BART stations around the Bay Area and some that require a little drive, like next weekend's roll around Sonoma. Here's the ride calendar on the club's impressively up to date website.

Posted by andrew at 08:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Giro kicked off today with the always Interesting Team Time Trial (TTT). It works like this. All the riders from the team (in the Giro, there are 8 per) leave the starting gate at the same time. The ride together in a long line for 26 kilometers. The clock is stopped when the 5th rider from the team crosses the finish line. The fastest team wins the TTT and each individual member gets the same time as the team. Interesting, no?

So while it's hard to win with the Giro with the Team Time Trial, one could easily lose it. Say, for example, you're a strong rider on poor team, you could find yourself minutes behind the other contenders on stronger teams. It's hard to make up that kind of time, even over 3 weeks of racing.

There are two American teams in the Giro this (up from the normal 0), High Road and Slipstream/Chipotle. Both are solid teams. High Road has been racking up victories all over the world and Slipsteam has the national time trial champs of USA, Canada and England, David Zabriskie, David Millar and Ryder Hesjedal respectively. They had just come off a TTT win at Road Atlanta in the Tour of Georgia.

Slipsteam went off early and posted a fast time. Favored teams like CSC and Astana finished behond and the end the of the day, Slipsteam's time held up and they won the stage. Better yet, because American rider Christian Vande Velde actually crossed the finish line first, he was leading the race and would don the Maglia Rosa, a first for an American in 20 years!

I'm not going to write about every stage in the Giro, since I know not too many people are interested, but it's great to see American cycling on the rise.

On a side note, Team Slipsteam/Chipotle uses Flickr to host their image and here's a link to the Giro d'Italia Set.

Posted by andrew at 04:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I looked into the Giro coverage on Versus and decided their "weekend only" coverage wasn't going to be enough for me, so I called Comcast and ordered the Italian RAI TV channel which is covering the race every day. It's live coverage, but it hardly matters since I have to DVR it anyway. And the announcers, well, they all speak Italian. While very passionate and interesting to listen to, they are less than instructive. Again, no matter, I'm watching for the racing. Though I will miss the insightful commentary of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin, I'm happy to have some Giro to come home to every night for the next three weeks.

Posted by andrew at 11:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by andrew at 10:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've been watching the Tour de France for years, first on ESPN and now on OLN/Versus, but I've never seen the Giro d'Italia, the first of the season's 3 grand tours (Giro, TdF, Veulta d'Espana) that take place over 3 weeks. That will end this weekend, when Versus will start broadcasting the Giro's first stage this coming Saturday.

I've been watching the Versus Cyclysm Sundays all season. It's been really amazing to see some of the races that I first encounted back when I worked at CNN covering them. At the time, my exposure was limited to Reuters copy and pictures and the occasional video highlight feed from Europe. This season I've see the Paris-Nice, Milan-San Remo, Paris Roubaix, Tour de Flanders, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Criterium International and the Tour of Romandie. It's one thing to read about these races, but the see the hard men of the Peloton doing battle on the hilly cobblestone streets of Northern France or Belgium is simply unbelievable. I expect no less from the Giro.

This year's Giro starts in Palermo and works is way up the Italian Peninsula and finishes in Milan three weeks later. You can see the stages on the route map. The course is very mountainous. Here's a shot of the Passo Pordoi which features in Stage 15.

The race comes early enough in the spring that sometimes the riders hit blizzards. There's the famous race back in 1988 which was won by Andy Hampsten, the first and only time an American has worn the Maglia Rosa at the finish(unlike the Tour de France where the race leader wears yellow, the leader at the giro wears a pink jersey). Hampsten surged through a huge snowfall over the Gavia pass and although he lost the stage to Dutchman Erik Breukink, he took the lead and never looked back.

I'll be watching the coverage (from my DVR, of course), and I hope you will too. It should be amazing.

Posted by andrew at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Love this. Since we know, sadly, that this election will not be decided on anything resembling issues, but instead on personality and themedia "Freak Show", McCain will have to be marginalized as too old and out of touch to be president. Unlike the smears propogated against Democratic candidates over the last 2 decades, these traits happen to true. Just ask Bill Maher.

Posted by andrew at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Now that daylight savings time is here and there's a few hours of sunlight after I return home form work, I want to started getting some rides in before sunset. Yesterday was my first ride. I wasn't exactly sure where I was going, I just knew I wanted to get 15 miles in. That's a short ride, but long enough to get a good sweat going and the blood flowing. It would probably take an hour or so.

I headed out of the house and went through Berkeley along California Ave. When I hit Albany I started heading up into the winding hills. I'm not a climber. I know I have to shed about 15 pounds if I'm ever going to get a point where 'm comfortable dragging myself up some of the steeper hills without getting winded. It's not that I'm fat or out of shape. I'm just not built for cycling (right now).

The hills around the Albany are steep and curvy and I was sucking wind by the time I hit the flats just before Solano. There's only a short rest before I hit Arlington Ave, but then it's just up and up. The view of the bay and the Golden Gate are wicked. The houses, multimillion dollar homes. i stopped at Club View Drive where Arlington starts to descend into, I actually don't know where, El Sobrante maybe? I'll find out, but not on this day.

I stopped to have a drink and catch my breath. There were a couple of home up on the block. The first for a million three seemed like a bargain next to the one selling for 6 and half million. Insane.

I turned around and headed down the hill. This is is the part I should enjoy, but the speed scares me shitless. The bike weighs so little and there's nothing but the thineset layer of lycra and polyester between me and massive road rash/broken bones. It freaks me out. So instead of an exhilirating descent down the mountain I just conquered, it becomes a white-knuckled, paranoid, brake-pumping fright show. The top of my back seizes up and my hands start to cramp. That's got to change. Hopefully when I get more comfortable on the bike, it will.

So I wanted 15 miles and I got 14.78 at an average of 12.1 MPH over an hour and 12 minutes and 10 seconds. I topped out at 28 MPH (I need to get that up into the high 30s) with a cadence of 54.

Posted by andrew at 05:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So the Tour de Cure went off without a hitch, I'm happy to say. I had a great time. Made the 50 miles (or so - the route was actually only 47 miles and change) without any trouble. Hard to beat cycling through Napa with friends, meeting new people all while raising money for the American Diabetes Association.

It was an early start. I was up at 530 to get everything ready and left at 645 for the hour drive up to Yountville in Napa. It was foggy and cold, which didn't make me too happy, but it would burn of eventually, so no big deal, right?

I met up with Zach and got myself registered (bib number 803 in case you're scoring at home). There were riders everywhere getting ready for various rides - 100, 50, 25 and 10. Bikes were stacked up all over places. Lots of tents for sponsors, lunch, ADA, vendors, first aid, etc. Crazy scene.

I picked up my Schwab jersey at our corporate tent. We were joined up by Becky, also on Team Schwab, and we hit the road just after 8am. As soon as we got up to speed, it was freezing. I had picked up some "sleeves" and was damn glad I did because they kept my arms nice an toasty. Otherwise I probably would have been miserable.

We rolled through the quaint, upscale towns of Yountville and St. Helena, mindful of the stop signs as we'd been warned that the local constables were looking to nail riders. Nothing better to do. Lots of early morning strollers out for breakfast before they headed out for a day of wine tasting. Not exactly hard core felons. Probably a few restraining orders between them, but not much else

There were rest stops every 12-15 miles or so which was really nice. Got to take a break, get off the bike and fuel up. At the first stop it was still overcast and cold.

After around 25 miles or so of heading north, we hung a right and passed by one of my favorite wineries, Clos Pegase just after the second rest stop. The sun came out and it was just spectacular. Plus we were off the main road and away from most of the traffic. Perfect.

After a brief jaunt to the east, we headed back south to Yountville and into the teeth of the wind. I fought the wind up and down rolling hills past sprawling vineyards and wineries. The hills were small, but I did hit 30 MPH cranking down one of them. By the time we hit the final rest stop at around the 35 mile mark, I really needed a break. I had been hydrating more than I needed and really had to take a leak.

The rest stop was more like a social event with all the riders doing the 25 miler decamping for peanut butter and bananas on bagels, pretzels, sports drinks and bars, oranges and bananas. The sun was out. Everyone was happy to almost be done, not because it wasn't fun. It was. Just looking forward to the sense of accomplishment.

The last 15 miles (or so) was actually really easy for me. I was passed by a group of 4 riders and hooked on the end of their train and tagged along at 21 MPH for most of the way, leaving my riding mates in the dust.

I decided to wait up for them towards the end so we could hit the finish line together. I finished the 47.54 course in 3 hours 4 minutes and 10 seconds at an average speed of 15.4 MPH with a cadence of 59. Not bad. Would have like to have to gone 50, but I can't control the course.

Lunch was brisket sandwiches, beans and ceasar salad. Not exactly Napa fare, but I didn't care I needed the calories. I stuck around for the team photo, then headed out of Dodge and crashed for the rest of the day on my couch, totally spent.

Tour de Cure photos on Flickr:

• Mine
• Everyones

Posted by andrew at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's about time to hit the sack. I need all the rest I can muster before my big ride tomorrow. I have to get up around 5:30am. That will give me about an hour to get my shit together and another hour for the ride up to Yountville in Napa. Check in is at 745 and there's a rolling start. I'll hitting the road with Team Schwab around 8am. I expect to get the 50 miles done in about 4 hours at roughly 12.5 MPH, but I really don't know since I have no clue what the route is like or what my fellow riders are going to want to do. I'll be in no rush. The weather is supposed to be great and we'll be riding through the heart of California wine country. Should be spectacular. I'm going to take a camera and try take some pics.

It's not late to donate. I've already reached my fundraising goal, but if you want to support and the American Diabetes Association, you can do it here.

Posted by andrew at 10:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I finally picked up a computer for my bike. After much searching, I settled on the Blackburn Delphi 4.0. It's a pretty slick piece of machinery. The thing weighs about an ounce. It's singularly unique, sculptured in design, hand-crafted in Switzerland and water-resistant to three atmospheres. It tells time simultaneously in Monte Carlo, Beverly Hills, London, Paris, Rome and Gstaad. More importantly, I get speed, cadence, time, average speed and even altitude if I can figure out how to set the altimeter.

It was a monumental nightmare to get my bike wired up. The instructions were for shit, which is problematic, because it's amazingly complicated. First I had to get the battery in and that was no easy chore. Then I had to mount the magnet on the front spoke and the wireless transmitter on the front fork. The cadence magnet has to be mounted on the left crank with the cadence sensor on the left chain stay. Then I had to run a wire under the bottom bracket and along the down tube and mount the actual computer on the handle bars, which, of course, I did backwards the first time because I'm an idiot.

The first ride out, I wasn't getting any readings and after 30 minutes of wrestling with the thing, I was almost ready to give up. The problem was that the magnets were too far apart from the sensors. Both sets of magnets and sensor have to be between 1 and 3mm apart, which is a little tricky with fat fingers like mine. I moved everything closer together, and bingo, I started to get data. Very cool.

The sun was setting, but I needed to get out on the bike to test it out. Here's the deal on my first recorded ride. I rode from my place up Adeline & Shattuck towards the Berkeley campus, up to Elmwood and back down Alcatraz to my house. The total mileage was 5.54 which I managed in 25 minutes and 30 seconds at an average speed of 12.9 MPH. My cadence was 54 and I hit a top speed of 28 MPH cranking down Alcatraz. Short ride, but it was fun and I needed to stretch my legs before my first 50 miler tomorrow.

Posted by andrew at 10:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by andrew at 03:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just bought this picture from a talented artist I found while surfing on the web. I'm not really one for buying original art, but this one just speaks to me in volumes.

Posted by andrew at 04:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I think Mak and Fil would love one of these and, more importanly, it would look great in my apartment. More information here:

• James Owen Design
• Dexigner

I can't seem to find any place online to buy them. I just emailed the designer, James Owen. I'm curious if he'll get back to me.

Posted by andrew at 03:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)