May is National Bike Month

So get on your bad scooter and ride! Or at least check out the League of American Bicyclists.

The League of American Bicyclists is promoting Bike-to-Work Week from May 15-19 and Bike-to-Work Day on Friday, May 19.
As well, you can check out California Bicycle Coalition to find information specific to California. On their site they are promoting Pedal Power.

May 1-2, 2006 is Pedal Power 2006, where statewide bicycle advocates converge in Sacramento for advocacy training, to network with other advocates, and to meet directly with their legislators to discuss bicycle issues. Register today and get more info at calpedalpower.org

Go ride!

Test Embeded Video

Ok folks, please bare with me while I test this little deal out. I'm trying to embed a video clip I uploaded to YouTube into this post. Sorry if it doesn't work and you can't see me acting the fool in this video. If it does work, well luck you, and nice work "me".




Ok, now I'll tell you how lame I was. I hadn't finished the clicking through all the pages at YouTube so I didn't notice the code snippet they had available. So, that's what you'll see above if it works. Please note, I'm saying all this before testing it out so it might not work. If it doesn't I tinker with the code I had previously that didn't work. If that makes any sense to you!?!?!

This Gets My Goat...

A coworker of mine mentioned she and her husband had eaten at La Hacienda in Chico, CA and although the food was excellent and the service was good, they were not happy.

You ask, "how might that be?"

Well, come to find out, when you dine at La Hacienda and pay with a credit card this happens:

You get the bill for your order with food, drinks, tax and a total. You assume that total is what you owe and if you are cool, you throw in an extra 15% as the tip. Well, my coworker's husband happened to be comparing his receipts against his credit card statement and noticed the bill which, was charged at La hacienda, was more than what was stated on the receipt. After some mathematical wizardry, he determined the extra amount was exactly 20%.

This mathematical deduction led him to believe that La Hacienda was applying an additional 20% charge to his card after he had signed the original credit card receipt.

Now, I have not been witness to this myself, so I can't say if this might be the case, but I see no reason for my coworker to misrepresent the occurrence of that day. So, I will have to go down there and see for myself if that might be the case.

I'm currently trying to figure out how I might call them out on the unauthorized over charge on my credit card while still at the restaurant. I'm not sure if this would work, but I foresee eating there, charging the meal, and then making a call to my credit card company directly afterward.

I'm not sure how quickly charges get posted at the credit card company, but I'm hoping it would be fast enough for me to get the info before leaving the restaurant. If I found out they had charged my card without my authorization or without posting this policy they have in plane sight, then I would immediately tell the CC company to stop the charge (not sure if they'd do that) and then cause quite a commotion in the restaurant to make sure everyone there who might pay with a credit card realizes they will be secretly ripped off.

Then a call to the better business bureau would be next followed by a call to the local newspaper.

So, anyone up for going to La Hacienda tonight?

Horner Gets Win in Romandie

I only caught the end on Cycling.tv but I was just in time to see Chris Horner ride away and come across the finish line by himself.

Nice win for Chris as it also gives him the lead in the Tour of Romandie.

Sunday Ride Report...

Ok, I'm sure every Chico cyclist was out on Sunday as it was a great day weather-wise. I decided I'd take it nice and slow and check out the last two hills of the Wildflower.

I had good intentsions of leaving around 9 AM, but that didn't happen. I was pretty busy watching the Liege Bastone Liege race in Belgium. It was a very exciting finish as 8 cyclists came to the line together, one of which was America's Chris Horner. Way to go Chris! I had a chance to meet Chris at the ToC and he was a really nice guy who had lot's of nice stuff to say about his team and teammates.

So, after some seat adjustments and reinstalling the chain from cleaning the bike the night before, I was ready to ride.

I headed up into Butte Creek Canyon to hit Honey Run on my way to Paradise. There were a bunch of groups, both coming and going, in the canyon. It's a pretty popular route leaving Chico. I hooked up with a couple of guys and went up the hill a little with them before one of the guys dropped his buddy and me. It was pretty sad as the guy I ended up with was going slow because he was getting over illness. That doesn't say much about my fitness level.

Once at the top, I cut across Peason Rd over to Pentz and headed toward Spring Valley School where the lunch stop for the Wildflower will be held. Actually, right before the school I turned to head over to Wheelock with the goal of getting over to Coal Mountain Road. Once on Coal Mountain, I made the connection over to Table Mountain. I saw a couple more riders coming in from Oroville way.

Oh, I had taken a bunch of photo of the route and checked out the road. FYI, road is looking good, mostly. There were a few blemishes up on Cherokee Rd because of small landslides. Also, if you're not from around here, you'll find Coal Mountain a little bumpy too. But if you want to see some of the pictures click the Read More link at the bottom of the post.

Ok, so I headed up Cherokee Road. It didn't seem to bad, but I was riding pretty slow. The traffic wasn't too bad either, surprisingly as the wildflowers were just beginning to show themselves and that tends to bring out the lookie-loos, I mean hikers.

The rest of the ride was pretty nondiscript except for the slight headwind but that turned to a tailwind for the last 30 minutes, very nice.

Anyway, check out the pictures by clicking the Read More link or look over at the Flickr badge in the right column of this page to view all the pics I took yesterday.

Happy Day!

Humboldt Road Fixed

I rode up there yesterday and sure enough, the biggest road washout which, I had pictures of in a previous post, was mended. Wildflower riders rejoice!

I should have stopped to take pictures but I was having to good a time. A few other patches up the road from the big one were still not fixed. But I don't think they are on par with the hazzard the large washout created.

Oh, I almost forgot about the screen capture...

The weather for the Wildflower is looking very favorable. Low 80's with a few clouds is what the extended forecast says. I hope it hold but know that the 10 day forecast can go from sun to rain in a matter of days.

186 Mile Commute...

This guys job must be fanstastic because the article says he drives back and forth between Mariposa Ca and San Jose, Ca to the tune of 186 miles.... EACH WAY!

He says he loves his job and his family loves the ranch they live on in Mariposa. If you ask me, no job is worth driving 372 miles a day for, especially with the price of gas. Even with an economical car it's still $25 to $30 a day in gas, not to mention the 7 hours of your life he spends in the car each day.

So, I'm not sure exactly how many days per year a normal American works, but I'd say it's somewhere around 260 days or so. Now if you multiply 260 times 7 that's 1820 hours, nearly an entire extra work year, if you happen to work a 40 hour week. Essentially, this guy is only making about half of what Cisco is paying him when you factor in all the gas and coffee it takes to get to and from work.

In my humble opinion this equals no life at all, unless he only sleeps 4 hours a night.

Hey, at least all this driving allowed for him to win the $10,000 prize, which will just cover his gas costs for the year, I think.

Link to article

The Ride Report...

Great gravy! The sun was out and that made for a glorious ride.

I headed out of town on HWY 32 going east or which ever way it is to Forest Ranch. I needed to ride up hill and figured that long and gradual would be the best choice. I cut over to Humboldt Road to check out the road damage again and found the bad spot as bad as I remember. Worse though, I noticed many other large pot holes which I didn't see last week. It looks like those will be easy to navigate during the Wildflower if those don't get fixed. But running into one of those could take you down if you didn't see it coming. Totally impossible.

Anyway, the views heading toward Forest Ranch were epic. Lots of wildflowers lined the road and everything was green. Once in Forest Ranch, I hit a couple of the local road and then continued up the Butte County Fire Station. Number 25, I think, but I only glanced at it and I was pretty winded by that point. Two hours of going up and it was time to head back to Chico.

I took it mellow going down hill and thought I'd best ride around the park once to get a couple extra miles in. On the way through the park I saw one other rider and followed him back towards One Mile, but he was pulling 23+ an hour and I was having none of that after a couple of miles and backed off.

As I rolled into One Mile what did I behold but a sea of cyclists in their colored spandex glory. I totally forgot it was Wednesday and 6 PM, Fast 50! There must have been 60 riders and I'm happy to say there were quite a few women out there, nice showing.

So, even though I was beat, I figured I roll around with them for 15 or 20 minutes. I think it turned out to be closer to 15 minutes. Things started out with a laugh as we cruised away from Chico and through a section where college students live. The laugh came when some drunk (could have been sober and just stupid!?) student yells, "biking causes impotence!" in a cracking voice.

Things got down to business there after. All of a sudden we're going 25 to 30 MPH and I'm having a blast. Then my 15 minutes were up and we were coming up to where I needed to turn off to get home. Good thing, I would have hung on for dear life for another 10 or 15 and then would have been shot out the back like I was going backwards. Then I'd be out in the fields all alone further from home than I wanted to be.

Once again, I rolled it in easy. My internal speedometer says I did about 55 or so miles in about 3 hours 20 minutes. Not sure on the climbing, probably 2 or 3000 feet, as I think Forest Ranch is about 2000 feet elevation.

Yey for sun and riding!

Easter Turducken

John Madden, you're Thanksgiving Turducken has been one up'ed by by the Easter Turducken. A picture is worth a 1000 words, so I'll save myself the typing. Link to the original here.

Humboldt Rd Washout

Washout? That might be a little over stated. As you see by the pictures, it's not like the whole damn road washed away, but there is some fairly good damage.

I went out to look at this road blemish because I had read some messages about it in a cycling group message board. Folks were concerned that this funky section might foul up the Wildflower Century put on by Chico Velo.

Word is the President of the bike club has a plan for fixing all the road problems prior to the ride on April 30th. I hope the repairs aren't scheduled soon because there is more rain in the forecast and I imagine plenty more water will run off that little ridge across that section of the road.

Either way, as you can see, there is a spot over on the left side (in the above picture) of the road where you should be able to ride across. As for the rest of the road, it was it's normal patch-work goodness with only a few other spots where water was making it's way across the road. At least there wasn't a bunch of glass!

Old Friend...

Yesterday I met up with an old friend from high school who I hadn't seen in maybe 15 years or more. Caveat, it's scary to think I haven't been in high school for 16 years yet still act like a 18 year old, only slightly more responsible.

So, my friend, Anthony Bacigalupi was in town because he works for SBC doing cable work. From what he tells me, when it rains, the issues with the lines hanging from the poles make themselves known.

Anthony and I used to work at the Baskin Robbins over by Diablo Valley College while in high school. Ah, many a good times we had at the BR, making fun ice cream concoctions. We ate our fair share of the stuff too. We worked there about the time Cocktail, featuring Tom Cruise, hit the big screen. So, we would do silly stuff like pretend we were the bartenders at the Baskin Robbins, throwing scoops of ice cream across the store into the shake mixer and spinning stuff around, like they did with the bottles in Cocktail. It kept us busy when we really should have been doing other work.

Anyway, seeing Anthony and remembering back to the fun times we had reminds me that life is fleeting and you typically don't realize how great thing are until the time has passed. If we could only just bottle that stuff up, like orange marmelade, to save for time we become old and tired and need a little something on our toast.

Carpe Diem!

Wednesday Ride

Wednesday it rained pretty good in the AM hours but let up right about 1 or 2 ish, just in time for me to squeeze in a 2+ hour ride.

I rode out through Bidwell Park and over to the airport cutting across HWY 99 at Keefer. I went through Nord on my way to River Road. Yeah, River Road, I should have know better, especially after seeing the river nearly up on the road in many spots. But no, I continued on, past the boat ramps under water, past gwakers at Scotty's looking at the river nipping their single-wides drinking PBR's.

I made it to West Sacramento thinking I could get back into Chico that way as River Road beyond West Sac was closed. But alas, a few hundred meters up West Sac it looked like a flooded rice patty. I ended up turning around and returning the way I came and then back into Chico on HWY 32.

Despite the road issues, I was very happy to be out riding. Think I'll cut out early and try it again today.

Ark For Sale..

I guess all my work on the ark in my sideyard is for not. Today is the first sunny day in (thinks for many moments) 7, 8 , 9 days? I can't even remember. But from the looks of the extended forecast it's not going to last long, though the sun should be back in less than a week. From what I've heard, this is supposedly the last major front of the year. I've got my fingers crossed.

So then, next week begins the two weeks of spring in Chico before summer hits in May. Typical for Chico. There never seems to be a spring, just rain and then summer. I'm looking forward to 100 degree days after all this rain, but I'm sure I'll be crying about that in 8 weeks too.

The Train...

In Paris - Roubaix has fouled things up real good. Here is the quote that ruined my day

There has been a sensational change to the results! Leif Hoste, Vladimir Gussev and Peter van Petegem have *all* been disqualified for going through that level crossing in the last 10 km. That means Tom Boonen is actually second today, with Ballan third. Remarkable!

The day has been officially destroyed for Discovery.

Paris - Roubaix

The Hell of the North!

It's always hell on about 99% of the peleton it seems, but there's always that 1% of riders who thrive under such conditions. With 27 sections of pave, the riders are going to be in for a bumpy ride and many are riding special bikes specifically for this race.

Early on there was a 4 man break but they were caught just before the Arenberg Forrest. But in the forrest, Fabian Cancellara had a good attack that broke up the peleton. When it really started to count the riders at the front were as follows:

Van Petegem, Steegmans (Davitamon), Hincapie, Gussev, Hoste (Discovery), Cancellara, Michaelsen (CSC), Boonen (Quick.Step), Wesemann (T-Mobile), Guesdon, Eisel (FDJ), Flecha (Rabobank), Ballan (Lampre), Portal (Caisse d'Epargne)

It seems like every teams pre-race plan to isolate Tom Boonen has taken place as he was in the front group by himself. The Quickstep team tried to bring back the rest of the peleton as they need to help Boonen, the team leader.

Thor Hushovd, who was many peoples pick to podium had a couple of flats at the wrong times and ended up in the second group, killing just about any chance of him being entering the velodrome in Roubaix with the leaders.

Then Hincapie crashed and his race was over. It looked like the steer tube on the fork broke right below the stem and he was left just holding the handlebars. He crashed pretty hard on his right side, hopefully nothing is broken. What luck! Many had Hincapie as a pick for the podium as well.

Then, to make matters worse for Discovery, Vladimir Gusev went down at 230k, leaving only Hoste in the front group, though Gusev was able to rejoin. Things were looking much better for Boonen at that point.

But then there was an attack put in by Fabian Cancellara and he was able to get a gap which grew to 30 seconds over two chasers. Boonen was caught behind a train with Ballan and Flecha and were upto a minute back.

Cancellara solo'ed in for the victory. He looked very stong all day and it was proven in the end. He now gets to put the cobble trophy on the mantle.

The race for second participants were Gusev , Hoste (Discovery), Van Petegem (Davitamon). The team tactics and track riding technique came into play and it works as Hoste gets 2nd, Van Petegem 3rd, and Gusev 4th.

It's been both a good week and a bad week for Discovery.

Wet Ride or No?

It seems nice enough right now, but will it be this nice by the time I get on my bike?

Best Wishes...

Go out to Saul Raisin who, after a crash in the Circuit de la Sarthe race in France, is in a coma. He is currently in a hospital in Angers, France and has a cerebral edema.

Raisin crashed with 2k to go in Stage 1 as the race entered Saint Mars La Jaille. It was reported, at the time, he broke his left collarbone and had trauma to his to his hip and face as well as lost consciousness for a little while.

Speedy recovery, Saul!

River Otter

This morning as I was waiting for the espresso to come dribbling out of the machine and the milk to warm, I was looking out the kitchen windows at the back yard and what do I spy but a river otter. It was running across the island in the back yard that is surrounded by Commanche Creek.

In the nearly 6 years we've been in the house, we've really never seen the otters except their little ripples they make as they swim up and down the creek. We've seen the left over fish dinners they eat up on the beach on the island and we know kind of where they live on the back side of the property under the bank of the creek, but we've never really seen them as well as I did today.

Reminds me of a tasty ale I had at a friends house brewed by Sacramento Brewing Company called "California River Otter Ale." It was a tasty treat, kind of like seeing the otter in the yard.

More on the Ronde

First viewed at Smither's Blog.

But it originally came from an interview with Tom Boonen over at cyclingnews.com.

In a previous post, I mentioned how Hincapie was pissed/surprised about Hoste attacking at the end of the Ronde. Well, Boonen said it wouldn't have made a difference because he would have laid the smack down on Hincapie instead of Hoste if the roles had be reversed.

Q:Why did Leif Hoste keep working in the escape, knowing that you're faster in the sprint?

TB:What else could he do? If he didn't, he would finish fifth or sixth. Hincapie would also not have won from me, so that's no excuse either. We both had reasons to continue our escape, like we also both had reasons to stop it.

Must be nice to be the new Lion of Flanders!

New Clarks Kicks

So, these are the new Clarks shoes I just got in the mail. Pretty nice. I've always wanted a pair of Clarks but for whatever reason just never made it down to the shoe store to get some. Oh yeah, usually they are $100 + and I'm, um, frugal. So, when I saw this pair at Amazon for $29.99, I had to get them just to test out the well known comfort they provide.

I wasn't disappointed, plus they are just a little more professional looking compared to the Birkenstocks I usually rock out in while at work.



[Posted with hblogger 2.0 & Treo 650]

Ronde van Vlaanderen

Of course Tom Boonen won.

I watched on OLN and it was a great race even though it was fairly obvious Quickstep was the strongest team and for the most part controlled every aspect of the race, while protecting Boonen.

The reason for this post isn't to celebrate Boonen's win, he's already got a whole country to help with that, but to talk about how pissed George Hincapie must be.

He was the team captain for this race and for whatever reason, Leif Hoste attacked on the third to last climb. This would have been ok, I suppose, if it were a team plan, but from the interview with Hincapie after the race, it seems it wasn't planned. If it were planned, Hincapie would have been better placed so that he could also follow giving Discovery much better odds of winning.

The attack by Hoste, basically rendered Hincapie's race for first over. Hincapie was a few riders back when Hoste put in his attack making it near impossible for George to make the jump. To boot, the only other rider that could go with Hoste was Boonen and once Boonen gets a gap, it's game on!

So, potentially, Hincapie was as strong as Hoste and if anything could have done a better sprint in the finale, but we'll never know. After the race Hincapie was quoted as saying

"My legs were great today," Hincapie said after the finish. "Probably better than ever. And I wasn't really able to show that."

I'm fairly sure George was upset that he didn't have a chance to go for the win but being the consummate teammate, gave praise to Hoste for the move and for his second place on the day.

Pardee Party

For once this month, Mother Nature cooperated and we were blessed with a partly cloudy sky, rather then the usual rain. We had been concerned about the weather for April 1st as the night before the skies opened up and brought down very large drops.

Thanks to Paul, he, Mark, and myself spent a couple of hours out in the rain, not riding thank goodness, but sitting in the hot tub schwilling fine ales as preparation for the next days ride, the Pardee Party.

The next morning, we were up at 5 AM to head down the street to a coffee shop in El Dorado Hills to meet up with Greg and consolidate bikes and riders into one vehicle before driving to Ione.

Once in Ione, we pulled into the parking lot which was basically a mud puddle, at the start finish area. After walking over to register, we geared up, assembled the bikes, and headed out. After one last bathroom break, or three.

The Pardee Party consists of a 65 mile course with about 4000 feet of climbing. The climbing really wasn't much and was made up of mostly rollers and a couple of short, slightly steeper hills. In our over exuberance, we went out a bit hard, sans a warm up and had set a 20 MPH average pace. This didn't last long as occasionally each of us would suffer on one of the little rollers before bombing down the other side at 28 MPH. By the first stop the average had dropped below 19 and as the majority of the climbing came later in the day, the average continued to fall.

The course was rather enjoyable as it ran us through the northern foothills of the Sierra Nevada range, past farm lands with horses, cows, and the occasional fox. As well, we passed 3 reservoirs, if I recall correctly. The food at the rest areas was plentiful with a wide selection of both goodies and healthy options. Another fun aspect of this particular ride was the theme; the 50's. The ride was put on by the Sacramento Bike Hikers who's members dressed up in 50's attire, coupled with lots of 50's music at all the stops.

Another nice aspect of the ride is the 1200 rider limit. Surprisingly, there seemed to be large groups on the road though it didn't cause any issues. Thanks goes out to California's finest, the CHP and local police who ran traffic control to keep us as safe as possible.

Our groups ride went off without any incidents and once back at the start finish we celebrated with beer and a meal. Outside the dinner hall, Mumbo Gumbo played to throngs of cyclist as others perused sponsor's tents and the photo guy's pictures.

So, now for the details:

about 66 total miles
4000 feet elevation gain
3:45 ride time
about 17.6 MPH average speed
A good time was had by all!