saturday's peregrination with g-ster and kenny l.

started the day buying doughnuts for my family's breakfast before i met up with my riding posse for the golden, co trifecta (green mt., red rox, and apex-no figure eight). got a call from alec saying he couldn't make it. sahhhite (read: that's okay). it was going to be long, hard day for me anyway because the three of us were getting miles and saddle time for the beloved firecracker 50. alec probably could've hung with us at green mountain though.
when we all meet up at the rooney road trail head parking, i peeps that grant now owns a 29'er. cool. i was really impressed by the whole 29'er scene at the 18 hours of fruita. he had the racer-x version of the titus line. at green mountain he's off and climbing like a fiend. apparently he's pretty fit. kenny and i are off the back chatting knowing that if we try to match his pace we aren't going to finish the two other trails. green mountain trail volume was full. bikers and hikers in all manner of dress and fitness were out there enjoying the ultra-violet radiation therapy. kenny was killin' it in his all-mountain bike, climbing like he was on a hardtail or something. pretty impressive. he lets it run on the fire road descent. my hardtail capabilities were floored trying to stay in his draft. i wish we had a speedometer. i haven't descended that fast since i owned my specialized fsr xc. at that speed if i had to bail there would've been permanent disfigurement...we even dropped grant at kenny's downhilling speed.
we hit the zorro trail to descend into red rocks. we go over kenny's favorite spot: dakota ridge. not really, he can't stand that part of red rox. we cross the road to actually go into the red rox complex. my chain's really dry at this point (guess that's what i guess for using a dry lube--it's like dry cleaning, go figure) and whenever i have to quickly bail into the small chainring, it comes completely off and i have to dismount to manually put the chain back on. drag. oh, and some freds see us coming and from their rest they get back on their bikes and pedal quickly away. grant sees this and ups the pace and i do too. we catch the last guy and the other guy's caught when we cross the street again. grant's climbing like a fiend again and kenny and i are at our own, slower pace mode. we go up the easy saddle at red rox. on the way down, some dude wants to pass, so we let him. after he passes us i glue up to his wheel and he's really not that fast. grant and i are pacelining behind him nascar-like and we wait for kenny at the fork. at the bottom we hit the head and go on the road to apex park. kenny winds it up on the road and grant and i tuck in behind his slipstream. at apex, since kenny and i know all the technical spots grant dismounts and we slowly catch up to him. he takes off again and waits for us at the first fork. after the enchanted forest exit, i go off the front and lead for a while. i was definitely on the way to being extra crispy finished at this point. i lead it all the way to the fork to chimney gulch and i'm done and out of water to boot. i think grant was just actively resting behind me on that climb. in the enchanted forest my yeti is telling me to do bad things and i let her run. put a nice size gap on g and k and wait for them at the footbridge. from that point on i lead the downhill and with kenny riding my behind we scream down towards heritage square. kenny's bike, i think, tells him to do bad things as well. kenny mentions that on the downhill he notices that i descend like a pinball, and i tell him that i descend like i mogul ski. the bumps control where i go and i steer reactively and generally plan my fall-line 20 to 10 meters when i bike and ski respectively. kenny says he could've descended faster but didn't want to risk going for the pass. there's really no comparison during the descent at apex between a hardtail and a dually. this reminds me of the descents at breckenridge when i was flying and passing all manner of dually's but at the bottom i had to stop and physically stretch my lower back. fun.
on the way back to zorro via red rocks, i cramped on the road in front of the la farge stone quarry. i ate my last triple threat power bar (chocolate, caramel, and peanuts) and voila, the cramps dissipated. incidentally the triple threat gave me a mean case of the number twos. i was last climbing that hellish fire road to go zorro; but once the downhill technical portion came up i blasted that. back in the parking lot we all agreed it was a blast. grant's so hardcore he did another lap at green mountain while kenny and i had a burger and fries at the blue moon eatery in morrison after the wait staff took their sweet time with everybody else (those overworked bastidges!). total ride time: 3H 8 mins. total time: a smidge under 4h.
it's monday and my legs are still done, hence the picture of the fork.

"dare i say, 'training'?"

whoa! what an excellent two days it has been. yesterday was rangeview's high school graduation ceremony at the ritchie center in d.u. very classy job of speaking performed by our principal and a classy choral work of the dude called five for fighting work. 100 years was the name of the song. i don't know if pam arranged it but it was well done. i'm not a big fan of that but it was tolerable if not classy. once the ceremony was finished we (alec, billy, and i) bailed! we went to waterton canyon, with our goal to go to the south platte trailhead and back. didn't happen. once we got onto the motorcross portion, it was felled tree-o-rama. it got old after the fifth bike portage over some pretty cumbersome obstacles; plus, billy had to bail to eat mehican food with his familia.
the climb, once we were on trail 1776, was great! i want to actually train (which at this point is just riding hard) on rides now. so, billy, alec and i gun up the trail in our middle rings. alec pops first because the pace billy and i established was pretty nutrageous. billy's climbing has improved dramatically and i hear him breathing behind me as we climb like richard virenque on epo, so (as with all possessor's of testosterone) i had to climb just a bit out of my comfort zone- vacillating in and out of my lactate threshold (aka lt). we're going pretty steady and he cracks and goes into his own climbing, active rest rhythm. i kinda let off the pace now that i have a gap and kinda go back below lt. before that happened though, on the way up, we notice some freds (poseurs) who were resting when we're climbing. once they spot us, they get on their bikes and crank it uphill. billy and i notice this (and without any communication between us) this inspires us to catch 'em. it's like a shark smelling blood on a wounded animal. ever so slightly we apply more pressure on the pedals and one switchback at a time we eventually crack them. they actually get off their bikes when we pass and they say something friendly; but, the evil dickhead roadie (edr) in me does not acknowledge their penance for their nefarious transgressions. instead we blow by them, rocking the middle ring. billy says some perfunctory biking cliche to them (i think), whereas i conceal my heavy breathing and continue to look up the trail. at lenny's roost (billy's colorful term for this bench at the top), it's me, billy less than a minute back, and alec ('bout a minute and change back). yea alec! he passed the freds and is continuing to improve his skills. the next landmark on the trail is called the abyss (again, it's billy's term). we descend and some of the creek crossings are roaring. i'm such a weenie i don't want to blast some of the crossings because it's above the height of my bottom bracket and will definitely soak my chain (yes i know, i'm a weenie). so i portage my yeti over the water and continue to climb out of the abyss. it's steep and scree-like. fitness will get a hominid over the scree on the bike. we ain't fit; therefore we walk. boo-hoo! did i tell you my shoe's are wet from the creek crossing i decided to cross and my poor toesy-woesy's are cold (boo-hoox2)?
we hit the downed tree-o-rama part and it sucks. so, like my bentley, audi manual used to say, we do the reverse procedure. the descent from lenny's roost is fun. alec get's a head start and we can't catch him. we get close though...alec's using his super-g skiing skills on the descent...
i tell them to not coast on the downhill to get used to spinning a big gear. near the the end, i tell billy i'll lead him out in the sprint. i wind it up, he slingshots past me. a great end to a great day. my right knee is kinda sore from all that spinning. need to buy some glucosamine chondroitin.
billy's gps said we did 20 off-road miles. i'll take it...

Spring has Sprung (about durn time!)

started out the day witnessing my oldest daughter being involved in the denver waldorf school's spring fling. as a first grader, her class did a skit with chanting, coordinated movements and general fun. grandma and grandpa came down too. It was a hot day. I complain about it-the weather-being hot but really it's a respite to all the latest round of freaky, cold weather. Which, by the way, put my health in a tailspin. Last weekend did the 18 hours of Fruita (read Les Miserables) on an 8-person team and every other lap i rode, i swear, the heavens opened up and blasted me with all forms of precipitation: rain, sleet, and even snow. it clogged my sinus and bacteria had an orgy in my nose. needless to say my general practitioner put me on azithromycin and an albuterol inhaler. okay. hot weather...it was nice hanging out. maura and maricel got their faces painted, they hung out with their friends and we saw all the grade levels put on their class "skit". i don't know if y'all are familiar with the rudolf steiner inspired waldorf mantra but one class did a eurythmia thing and it's like a waldorf version of p.e. for most of the rudolf's philosophy i'm coolio with it, but for stuff like eurythmia and a strange fascination with puppet shows, i kinda silently laugh at it. my colleague who's a waldorf grad knows what i'm saying. nonetheless, it was good seeing maricel in her element. running and laughing and interacting in the 1st grade sort of way with her peers, teacher, and the older kids who mentor her class.
after the spring fling i meet my cycling friends at apex park. apex is a bittersweet place for me. when i first moved here, it was bar none my fave mounting biking joint. now, after several years of erosion, there are these super gnarly, sharp-assed, irregular, large pieces of rock that stick out in obtuse angles waiting to shred/taco your tire (or worse, punch a large hole in your body/appendages!). needless to say, it's no longer tops on my list. so the posse this time's billy and his coolio wife: tanya, kevin d. (of moab fame), and alec the not-so-newbie friend and colleague. we change venue due to rain and thunderstorms near our first pick: white ranch. so we split the difference and go apex. at apex the weather's remarkably sunny, warm, and maybe even humid (after the rains). alec and i first show up and alec's rig is sporting a yak(ima) roof rack. he purchased it because he's going on a rocky mountain odyssey this summer and needed more space inside his truck. finally billy et al show up.
the first part's this super baby head strewn single track up to the next baby head strewn single track. billy's climbing possessed and i'm trying to keep up with him. after our first rest we notice alec's climbing like a banshee as well. after all these months we think he physiologically hit a new plateau. tanya is also firing up the hill too. billy definitely has a keeper.
the trail up has a long not-so-steep section. this apparently is where billy decides to accelerate and i try to match his speed. usually, not because i'm rude but because i'm a roadie, i tailgate the dude whoever's in front of me. either a psychological or a true nascar draft keeps me in-line with the leader. we're cranking in the middle ring and i limit the space to two car lengths with not a whole lot more to give if he launches again. after what seemed a long time, he cracked, and i go by him. it's all friendly competition. keeping my speed consistent until the entrance of the enchanted forest, i wait for 'em. at the top it's billy, tanya, alec, and kevin riding tail gunner.
the enchanted forest is named aptly because it's a loamy, twisty, whoop-de-doo infested singletrack with optical illusioned drop-offs. with an occasional baby head and rattlesnake thrown in just to keep things interesting. we do the figure-8 loop and billy and i make the climbs a power workout by keeping it in the middle ring. billy gets to the top first, followed by kev then me. on the way down it's the kevin choo-choo followed by me, then billy. we wait again, then we turn it up on the last downhill, with billy, kevin, and me in that order. billy's descending quicker than usual today with kevin being kevin. fast. i make it a point to not get dropped by any dual suspenioner because it's only alec and i representing the hardtails. this is easier said than done most times (read moab).
waiting at our cars, alec and tanya get back. alec, being true to form, crashes and skins up his right knee. it's officially a ride. this beautiful ride marked the beginning of more beautiful, weather-inspired rides in colorado during the springtime.
later that evening i get a call from alec saying he left his front tire at the trail head parking lot. i tell him that's par for the course of a cyclist. i've known people who ran over their tire; in fact, i lost a tire on the roof rack cruising down a highway on my way to visit jay in nm. so, i tell him it's not uncommon for these types of nonsense to occur every now and again. he's at the lot and unfortunately some lowlife nicked his tire. i lent him my old set of dedicated disc wheels because he was thinking of upgrading to discs anyway. i tell him since he's in the area he should check out morrison for some grub. he and his g-friend francie (sp?) and i eat at the morrison inn for some so-so mehican food. good way to end the day. incidentally, while i was riding, melissa purchased what's on the picture of this particular blog. nice huh? i guess that's what we're taking to lake tahoe later this summer after i do the firecracker 50 in breckenridge. it has turd row seating and sheeyat...that was a pun...
ps. on the way home friday i stopped in angelo's cds to see if they had patty griffin's children running through for melissa's mother's day gift. lo and behold they did. used! shweet, because this is probably one of her best next to her debut album: living with ghosts. and they also had another top ten: tom wait's orphans: brawlers, bawlers & bastards. used baby! if you're not a tom waits fan, shame on you (technically, he cowrites his music with kathleen brennan)! if you want to check him out, first buy the heart of saturday night.

Les Miserables

my condolences to victor hugo's title of his epic tale of boredom (translated to a musical nonetheless), but, in my novella (pronounced nohv-HELLA!), it's not about jean valjean and his redemptive travails in frog-ville. it's about a five foot seven filipino fighting a head cold doing an 18 hour event on an 8-man team in fruita, co during may thunderstorms. weather-dependent events can easily turn south as soon as the weather does likewise. i was hoping for the 60 percent chance that it wouldn't t-storm. it turned out to be 100 percent shizzlely.
on the way out of town, it's snowing cats and dogs by floyd hill all the way until we hit the vail valley. once we hit palisades, it's a torrential downpour. can't see a thing. at the campsite in fruita, kenny and tracey set up their tent at night during the rain. i bring no shelter because i crash in my toyota truck. we learn the batting order that evening and it's: kenny, tophe, marty, scott, locke, me, matt, and erin. it's an all level team. in order of descending skill level (most experienced first) it would be: kenny, me, tophe, locke, erin, matt, scott, and marty. **addendum to post since locke's being a crybaby** okay the new and improved skill level list (click here for official results) has tophe sandwiched between erin and matt (per official lap times); and, if i may add (which i will thank-you): erin (as well as locke) rocks the bike. our team name's the slow spokes not the pedal-files as matt creatively petitioned for.
at midnight kenny's flying to the staging area after setting up tent and his lighting system on his bike. when the gun goes off, kenny explodes off the line, road bike style and is third before the singletrack logjam. nutty. you see all the lights just stop to queue up the singletrack and i see kenny in third firing up the hill. incidentally there's this nonstop drizzle with a stiff wind so it's chilling to the bone. the excitement of this event fails to cancel out the physiological affects of the shitty weather compounded with my head cold my body's trying kick. kenny's going to complete the first three laps in record time. for a guy who skies in the off-season with no cycling, he scorches the lap times. so i sleep 'til my number's called...
when i get up i hear from tophe, who's bike is caked in the nasty fruita mud/sackrete mixture, that the mud's so bad that not only does it accumulate on the bottom bracket clusters to impede rear tire rotation but it also gums up on the fork braces and sliders and rear derailleurs. this causes front brake cables to snap and r. derailleurs to break. the mud is sooo heavy too that people can't even portage their bikes due to the weight. at this point, locke says bump dis and continues to sleep until it's safe to start riding again.
once a rider does his/her laps, it's like a relay. the rider on-course disembarks at the staging area, and the awaiting rider takes off like a shot once his teammate's off the course and the officials are watching. the weather's gray, cold, and not raining when i see locke finish his second lap. i go, and i'm cranking. i try to put it in the big ring whenever possible. there's some standing water. all over the course there's these micro cells of weather that unpredictably dump rain unbeknownst to the rider. so i fire off the first lap sub-30 minutes, at 6 miles/lap. second lap, a micro cell of cloudburst musta happened because everything's drenched and the dirt/clay mixture's like riding on a skating rink. the first third has an off-cambered singletrack, that if you fell downhill, would send you into the reservoir/lake. so i do my flying wallenda impersonation with my inside leg acting as an outrigger to survive this portion of the singlecrack. on the flats the mud's accumulating quicker than my credit card's apr. needless to say, i witness firsthand what tof's talking about. at this point i'm pisssssed! i was so expecting sunny skies and sunscreen; not mud, hellish windchill and a potential mechanical from the accumulation of mud on critical components. i was scheduled to do lap three, but i bailed because i just could not go forward and went to our tent site to tell matt he was up. i then hose off my bike so i can complete the latter portions of the day. note to self: singlespeed rider were cooking due to the simplicity of the ss design. so kenny volunteered his ss to me for my next up. i fire off one of my best times (including multispeed) on kenny's rig. again, though, a micro cell downpours on a portion of the course i'm not on. when i do lap two it's a repeat of my first session. first lap smokin', second lap portaging the bike on the uphills because it's mud-o-rama on me and the singlespeed. incidentally the mud accumulated so fast it ehfed up the chain tensioner so the chain was just skimming off the top of the cog whenever i applied my pistonic motion on the pedals. frustrating and again, completely anticlimactic and depressing. we're three laps down from third, so as the time clicks off the final minutes, it's matt, kenny and me anchoring, sneaking in some precious lap times, before the gun before the gun goes off signaling finito. kenny sets the team record for hot lap w/ a 27:38, he pulls off after lap two, then i go off, bell lap, like a meth user seeing a can of dran-o. i pull a 28:10. almost a hot lap. we finish 5th out of ten teams. still, 3 laps down from third. oh well. now i'm sleep deprived and kenny, tracey, and i commiserate on what a bummer of an event this was all due to inclimate weather. company was great (locke, erin, matt, marty and tophe)! weather was not. met some cool people who are thinking about doing the 24hours of e-rock (elephant rock)-a mostly roadie course. i'm not in. gotsta think about doing the road bike thing now.

NoCal Respite! Part Deux

gem number two: we take the muni over to the marina/fort mason area to make our 7:30 reservations at a very exclusive all-vegetarian, 4 course, price fixed restaurant. we walk out to a pier and i tell melissa some scrub's poaching dungeness crabs; and this peon has the nuts to poach crabs in front of the sign that explains how unlawful it is to poach dungeness crabs. we walk over to the piers at the marina and it's one of the most picturesque walks on a military base i've ever taken (hickam afb in hawaii is unreal). it was real lush with old palm trees and wwII architecture flanking our paths. we even cross a devastatingly green, picture postcard meadow/park to get to our destination which is this blog's, entry's picture. the pier to the furthest right is where the restaurant greens is located. the hostess sits us at the corner of the building where we face the glass wall overlooking golden gate bridge. again we imbibe while waiting for our meal(s) and we are lucky enough to view the sunset over looking the bay with marin county situated on the far right of our golden gate bridge view. amazingX3. ever eaten with a group of people and one person is by far the slowest eater of the bunch? well, melissa and i were those people. sitting and eating in our own little space-time continuum sphere of influence. it's like the commercials where one person's moving real time whereas everybody around him/her is going the speed of light. nobody's trying to kick you out for seating because that's why everyone's here: to leisurely enjoy a majestic, organic meal at a snail's pace. for dessert, here goes...espresso!! and the verdict was.........suck!!!! damn you kenny. so $160 and two hours later, we walk towards our oh so boutiquey hotel, making sure we cross lombard street. the most crooked street in the world. april, i guess, is the low season for sf. it was mostly melissa and i, sometimes holding hands, walking and talking in the evening paralleling lombard. nutty that street is with some rather pricey homes on either side. a bunch of tourists were screaming and hollering in their rental minivan as if they were on a roller coaster ride when they passed our pedestrian selves. we actually make it back to our hotel-walking! boy were we pooped-out and our doggies were hoitin' fo' soitin'. i swear some of the grades on these streets have to be close to 17 percent. in the hotel we crash like alec attempting to storm an erosion barrier on his bike at mt falcon (see blog: riding during the weekday).
sunday. last day, gem number three. on tap's the san francisco museum of modern art aka sfmoma. inside they have a picasso, brice marden, henry wessel et al. exhibits. they have the 30G ipods instead of the star trek tricorders for the audio portion of the exhibit. during the henry wessel floor i see lars ullrich, drummer for metallica and his pregnant wife perusing some photos. wow! lars ullrich. cool. he was sporting a straw hat not even attempting the incognito thing. seemed down to earth, skinny too. time's running out due to our return flight. from here we bail to gem number four: the embarcadero-specifically the ferry building located there. inside we see a boat load of independent artists and entrepreneurs hawking their wares. i notice an organic creamery called cowgirl creamery and an artisan bakery next to each other. so, we order some artisan, made from scratch, herb loaf and go next door to purchase some herb goat cheese and pitted black olives drowned in spiced olive oil for lunch over-looking the bay bridge harbor. a classy and touching way to end a three-day couple's vacation sans kids. man. awesome. melissa rocks. i'm afraid to get on a scale...

NoCal Respite! Part 1

last friday, i rendezvoused with sweet melissa (allman brothers reference) in san francisco. she was attending a national school board association convention, so we decided we needed a vacation without kids to see what it's like to be an adult again with some discretionary funds. we love our kids but it's so consuming that a quick hiatus (however ephemeral) from parenthood is rather refreshing for a relationship worth having.
after school thursday (i also took a personal day, i mean sick day, friday) i bailed as quickly as i could to my father in-law's house so he could take me to the airport. once at the airport the tsa line was so far backed up that it took me 15 mins just to get to the corner were i can see the bordered queue.
once in the air, i started to read, by recommendation from my colleague and friend melissa (not my wife), john nichols' the milagro beanfield war. it's like an anglo's analogy of gabriel marquez. it's otherworldly prose that made me laugh out loud at least once every 20 minutes. simply amazing with great comic touches.
ah yeauh, touchdown in sfo. i feel so adult-like and liberated just walking around with my carry-ons, a backpack and bicycle messenger bag, (the tsa muhfuhs made me surrender my aveda shampoo and aveeno lotion because it exceeded the 3 ounce liquid volume limit--those muhfuhs!!!!) on my way to the airtrain(s) to catch the bart (very similar to the newark airport setup, except i wasn't fearing for my life. ever been to newark, nj at night?). even though i live in hillbilly-ville, it's rather electric moving around a city whose mass transit is quite viable and efficient and the denizens move around with deliberation and in style. so with earbuds in, rocking to my buddy alec's yo-yo ma ipod upload i was ready to meet melissa at the hilton in union square. this will be my third time in san francisco. the first was with my college roommate, grant (where we mt biked mt. tam); the second was with melissa when we first moved to colorado and did a major road trip to visit my other good friend, jay and his wife (in boulder creek), my brother and his family, and melissa's cousin (who lived in emeryville); and now. just like visiting nyc, it's an eye-opening experience. each time and i appreciate it culturally, gastronomically, and megalopolis-ly even more with awe and respect. the bart is america's version of london's underground minus the bowlers (hats). once i meet my sweet melissa we head out to cafe bocce in north beach. we order a bottle of a syrah and something or another blend and proceed to talk, eat, and imbibe at a very leisurely adults-with-wine pace just being under the threshold of gluttony and sobriety. for dessert, i order an espresso. i guess i'm getting spoiled with premium espresso from my dear friend kenny and the way he creates his 5-star espressos at his house with his purist, coffee tastes, but this restaurant didn't even come close to kenny's wee-cup of porter-dark liquid with wee blond, frothy highlights that melt in your mouth with a texture/flavor like a) velvety-smooth motor oil, or b) extra bitter synthetic mobil-one. anyhoo their version suuuucked! damn you kenny! you've made me an espresso elitist (ahh, that's not so bad)! i'm getting blasted and melissa needs to get ready for a 9 a.m. meeting. so we hail a taxi after we walk a bit and check out an independent bookseller called citylights. the smell of books in an intimate, wood-floored, established, intimate location is quite intoxicating (kinda like me after our dinner).
i find it invigorating as well as relaxing to turn on the shower super hot, sit in the tub and let the water hit your body for as long as you can imagine. yeah there's a water shortage and normally i keep my showers under 5 mins (due to us having well water) but sheeyat, i'm on vacation. so that's exactly what i did friday morning... my goal today is to chill in berkeley on the cal campus until dinnertime. for dinner, i'll head back bart-style and meet up with melissa and her ex-colorado colleague joe that night. before i hit berkeley i run into an independent music store called rasputin records not far from the queue to the cable cars and i purchase (used) miles davis' and gil evans' sketches of spain and the flaming lips' soft bulletin (good call alec!) for $4 and $7 respectively. yes, i thought they were a bargain too. in fact, the picture for this blog entry's of rasputin, the russian mystic.
at berkeley i hit the berkeley art museum and pacific film archive. this is owned by cal and is on the campus. it was an extraordinary exhibit. didn't care too much for the archival films but the asian art exhibit was fascinating-especially the han dynasty art. gave me chicken-skin looking at art at least 400 years old by literate, culturally munificent, aspiring, governed, educated people that gave a shi*. saw some original, modern works of art too that was 4 shades better than ite. walked around like a crazed wildebeest around the campus (didn't go up telegraph hill) to check out the student vibe. there's nothing like a college campus to suss the next iteration of adults. future's looking good...i buy the normal touristy stuff at the cal bookstore: a couple of cal shirts and a groovy fitted cal baseball cap...
at dinnertime we hook up with melissa's friend joe who's a federal attorney doing immigration law in the heart of the city. we go to a trendy restaurant called cafe tiramisu. it's like a scene from the sopranos. slicked-back, dark-haired, swarthy goombas were plentiful; but not in a threatening way but in a cool, inviting, euro-dorky, sinatra-playing sort of way. again the food was exceptional whereas the espresso was not! had an enlightening evening with team m plus joe. my time here in san francisco has been so exceptionally surreal at times that i don't believe what i'm witnessing (or eating, or imbibing, or reading, or luxuriating...etc.) walking around, inarguably, the best city in the world.
saturday, the weather's awesome and we check-out of the hilton and walk, luggage in-tow, to our next hotel. melissa describes this as a boutique hotel closeby. sure enough, the lobby has a humongous dream-like, silvery, fireplace (which was lit and roaring-kinda like me after dinner) at the corner of the room where the furniture is plush, steam-cleaned, with eclectic people of all ages occupying its space(s). the name of his badass boutique's called the galleria park hotel. reasonably priced and our room has a slight art deco flair with muted interior walls and a desk for people who need to write. the stereo's an mp3 compatible alarm clock which i plug my ipod into for my tunes. we dump our luggage and explore the western shoreline. we try to walk as far westward as possible before our doggies give out and board the muni (different from the bart, it's deal is the interior of san francisco). we're starving marving and we hit a local, independent restaurant called burmese superstar on recommendation from one of melissa's acquaintences. for those of you who like indian food this place is zagat rated AND they serve chimmay. i've never been to a restaurant that serves chimmay. man (yes alec and grant, chimmay!!)!! what a find and a half me brahs (and most indian restaurants are vegetarian)!!!! have i mentioned that this is turning out to be quite an exceptional trip. melissa in her infinite wisdom peruses an '07 fodor's nocal guide book and picks out some gems. first on the gem-walking-tour is this place called green apple books and records on point lobos. green apple is another independent, new and used book seller with three stories (containing millions of stories, get it?). again their book arsenal is impressive and contains a wide range of books and curios. it's as if twist and shout meets the tattered cover. very hip and decently priced-and this was the book wing. nextdoor was the music annex. i told melissa if there's a place to get used broun fellinis cds, this'd be the place (green apple and san francisco) because the fellinis are from the bay area. the broun fellinis are categorized in jazz and/or acid jazz, sometimes hip/hop sometimes r/b. they have such a visceral, jazzy-jazz, sound it's hard to not be fellini fan. so, i check out the used "b" section and lo and behold the broun fellinis' cd aphrokubic improvisations vol. 9 is telling me to buy her (which i promptly do!). what a great acquisition (because most of their stuff's out of print) on this dream-like vacation. at this point i'm wondering why? kharmically, do i deserve this? i better behave myself even more from this point forward to reap even more benefits. here we go to the cliff house which is in its third reiteration and is a restaurant overlooking the pacific ocean (not the bay). at this point it's windy as all hell. there was a german family out on the overlook with us. their kids were walking backwards at an angle to cancel out the gale forced winds blasting their posteriors. i took the hint and walked backwards too to avoid getting an involuntary mother nature sand facial. the views were spectacular and it was just me and melissa all day enjoying each other's company with an occasional fight just to keep it interesting.

Riding during the Weekday

it's always a treat when you get to ride your mountain bike during the work-week; and, it's a super-deluxe treat when you get to ride with your chums. it's the usual suspects again: hez-billy and alec. we were playing lotto with the forecast today. there was a 30 percent chance of a rain/snow mix after 12 o'clock. leaving aurora, the weather was getting cloudy. by the time we arrived at the east access of mount falcon, it was snoop dog's favorite type of precipitation: drizzle (and ehfing cold to boot!). alec and i were parked at the trailhead parking getting our cold weather gear on when billy finally showed up. by then, the rain was falling more steadily with bigger drops. not good.
once we started to climb, we warmed up real fast. alec is pretty athletic but he's on a major learning curve with his bike (i.e. he's still becoming one with his ride). at the start of falcon there are some pretty daunting erosion barriers in the form of heat-treated-pine-fence-post looking things nailed to the ground with re-bar. some are a couple of inches off the ground, where others are at least a foot or so at the middle. alec has decent chameleon technical skills where if he can see someone clean a technical spot, chances are, he can too. for the high-off-the-ground erosion barriers the best way to hit them (and to stay on the trail because it aint cool being a fred and widening the trail) is at the ends. billy's super clean and he rarely dabs so he and i clean the first third of the barriers and we encourage alec to hit this particular one on the far right. per billy aka mr. clean, the technique to clear these things is: once you get the front wheel over, synchronize your dominant foot-pedal at the 12 o'clock position while the front edge of your rear wheel contacts the barrier, simultaneously. you then finessely downstroke the pedal while moving your dic* forward. okay. here goes alec... front wheel goes up-it's looking good-dominant pedal's situated at the 12 and the rear tire's in place. yup. pedal stroke's coming down, rear wheel initially grabs then while the pedal's at bottom dead center, it doesn't clear the top. all inertia to punch over the top's gone and he goes backward. unfortunately, too, his handle bar greets his gravity aided thoracic cavity. basically he's punched on his breadbasket by his handlebar and the wind's knocked out of him. once he gets his breathing back, we're on the saddle. this is billy's second or third hard ride this season and my fourth. we reach the top-the covered picnic spot-close to 45 minutes (not bad) while alec gets it in a respectable sub-hour time (remember he's a newbie). it's snowing once we hit the top. billy and i talk about our lack of fitness, comment on how non-cyclists can't even understand how this ride in particular can be cathartic/spiritual, how un-fun our inaugural ride at falcon was, and how this is going to be a great jumpstart for the upcoming season while we wait for our intrepid alec.
we head out next for the parmalee trail and it's turning surreal. nobody else is up here, snow's coming down and there's this huge hush when it's falling, and we're enjoying each others company on the bike nonetheless. incredible. after descending parmalee, billy and i decide to make the uphills a power workout by keeping it in the middle ring. we're dying on the first, and on the last one billy passes and i'm gassed. for history's sake we check out the walker family ruins and (to make it more of a sensory overload) some poacher askes us if we russled up any grouse on the way up (wtf?). he looked like the unibomber dressed up like the zodiac killer. things were getting too surreal at this point.
by this time some cloud cover's moved in and i'm freezing. incidentally we're all wearing at least two layers up top, have our leg warmers on, and are sporting the closed, full-finger gloves. there's nothing worse than having cold toes and we're facing the descent now. the descent was glorious, no dabs, no flats and i was feeling one with the yeti. everybody made it down without involuntary soil samples and it was close to nightfall. what a righteous ride. if it snows until saturday, hez billy and i don't care because we rode twice, hard, this week between snowfalls. ah yeauh boi!!!! life is pretty grand at this point and tomorrow's friday...!!!!!!!! have i mentioned today was a good day?