Judy, Patty, and I completed the Tour de Tahoe, a scenic 72 mile ride around Lake Tahoe. The ride was well organized and well supported and even though Patty had a slew of mechanical problems (3 flat tires!), we all had a lot of fun.

After our ride, we met up with Ryan, Connie, Emilia, and Kelly for a couple days of bouldering. None of us were in very good climbing shape, but the weather, company, and just being outdoors made for a great time.

Ryan has a more detailed trip report on his and Connie’s site. Here are the pics and vids I compiled (a mix of pics/vids from my camera as well as those from Connie/Ryan). I’m aware of a funky formatting issue with some of the larger/wider videos (the “next” arrow ends up overlapping the video), but won’t have time to fix it for a while.

Judy and I rode our first Century today. Well, actually it wasn’t a real Century (100 mi), but a Metric Century. Still at 100K (~60 mi), it’s a decent ride. The Marin Century is a popular annual ride with a good variety of grades and terrain. We went through redwood forests, cruised along flat grasslands, huffed and puffed up some nice climbs, and enjoyed some fun descents. A more detailed description can be found at the ride’s official website.

One of the nice things about doing a ride like this is that it is supported which means that there are several rest stops where you can stop and get food and water. Without the support, we’d likely have to carry much more stuff, probably in a Camelbak-type backpack, which would have made the ride far less enjoyable. I need to drink a lot and replenish electrolytes during long rides so a supported ride like this is great for me.

The weather was beautiful and we had a great time. Other than the two flat tires I got (bad luck I guess), the day was a lot of fun. When I’m road biking, I often get in a rhythm and don’t want to stop. As a result, I didn’t get as many pics as I would have liked. Still, I was able to get a few which you can check out here.

Humboldt has been on our list of places to visit for some time, but for some reason we just never got around to going. From what we had read about Moonstone Beach (which is in Humboldt County), it just seemed like a really awesome place to boulder. After all, how many places can you boulder right on the beach with an ocean view?

We weren’t disappointed. The bouldering, while relatively easy, was really fun. We also did a nice ride through the redwood forest along the Avenue of the Giants in Humboldt Redwoods State Park. The original plan was to ride the Comptche Loop in Mendocino on our way back, but those plans didn’t quite pan out. I was, however, able to ride a really nice stretch of Hwy 1 on our last day. We’ll have to save Comptche Loop for another trip; there’s so much to do in Mendocino that we’ll definitely head back sometime.

Here are the pics and vids from the trip.

Well, this 4th of July weekend turned out to have a strong road biking theme to it. Not only was the Tour de France kicked off on Saturday, but there were plenty of road biking activities around here as well. Our friend Dave from San Diego is training for a trip that he will be departing on in a week or so. He’s flying to France where he and a group will be riding several of the same routes as the Tour de France (not at the same time of course), and will have front row seats at the finish line in Paris when the race ends.

Dave was up in the area this weekend for a wedding so we decided to do some rides. On Saturday we did the Old La Honda/Tunitas Creek ride, a 40-mile loop with two fairly big climbs, the first one up Old La Honda road and the second, much more gruelling, one up Tunitas Creek Rd. Climbing up Tunitas Creek made me really glad I had a triple chain ring. Although he grumbled a bit, Dave made it all the way up Tunitas Creek with the double chain ring on his old clunker bike. Way to go Dave! After the Tunitas Creek climb, there was a long and windy downhill back to Woodside. While car traffic was reasonably sparse, it was still a bit unnerving because of the many blind corners. We made it OK, but were glad when the downhill was over.

The next day we felt surprisingly good so we decided to do another ride. I took Dave out on Foothill Expressway where we did a 30-mile out-and-back. This ride was much easier as it is mostly flat, but it was still a good workout.

And on Tuesday, the 4th of July, Judy finally got around to buying a road bike. The bike model was more or less decided beforehand so it was just a matter of finding the right size and haggling on price. Judy ended up buying the Specialized Ruby Comp (shown above), basically the women’s specific version of my bike, the Roubaix Comp. I’ve got to say though that I like the looks of her bike a bit better. Even though the bike wasn’t on sale, I was able to talk them down quite a bit in price so Judy ended up getting a pretty good deal. Her bike fitting is next Saturday and we plan to go on our first road bike ride right after the fitting.

Here are the specs of Judy’s new bike, saved as PDFs from Specialized website: The Ruby Story, Features, Tech Specs, and Geometry.

One of my co-workers offered some suggestions on which route to take. From our house on Seale, I just took Middlefield to Ellis which goes under the 101. From there, it’s on to Manila, then Moffet Park Dr, and then the bike path that parallels the northside of the 237. All in all, pretty straightforward, and most of the route has a nice wide shoulder.

Total round-trip was about 25 miles. A good way to not only get some exercise, but to sock it to OPEC. Granted, it’s a pretty small sock, but hey, it’s something. I’m definitely going to take advantage of the nice weather and bike to work on a regular basis through the summer.

I was finally able to pick up my Roubaix today. Mike’s Bikes sold quite a few bikes during the sale in which I bought my bike so it took a while for them to take delivery and build my bike. The bike was actually ready on Sunday, but they like to do a bike fitting when you pick up your bike, and for some odd reason, they don’t do fittings on the weekends. Say huh? Anyhow, today was the earliest weekday I could make it into the store for my fitting.

With a new bike, I obviously wanted to get on it and ride as soon as possible. Judy was working late and suggested that I ride up north to San Carlos so we could have dinner at Thai Time, probably her favorite Thai restaurant in the Bay Area (her favorite remains Thai House in San Diego). It sounded like a good plan so that’s what I did.

I quickly installed the bike computer I had bought earlier and just took El Camino Real straight up from Palo Alto to San Carlos. Somewhat to my surprise, the cars didn’t bother me much. Actually, what bothered me more were the poor road conditions through Redwood City. It made me glad I got the full carbon frame. Oh, and I was also happy I had those Zertz inserts, assuming they actually do anything and aren’t just a marketing gimmick.

It was a short ride (just under 8 miles), but pretty fun. Road bikes are so much quicker and more agile feeling than mountain bikes. So far I’m liking my bike and am planning on riding to work later in the week. I snapped this pic for posterity’s sake. Hey Eugenio, how ’bout dem bad ass pedals? I know you’re jealous!

HIGHLY CRITICAL UPDATE!!!: Gene is apparently so enamored with my awesome pedals that he insisted that I publish his ringing endorsement of the use of Egg-Beater pedals on road bikes. So that’s what I’m doing. After all, who am I to argue with the great Eugenio?

I’m not sure why he’s decked out the way he is considering summer’s right around the corner, but again, who am I to argue with the great Eugenio?

Here’s Eugenio’s special endorsement.

Hee hee hee, I do kill myself sometimes.

I’ve had my sights set on getting a road bike for some time now. Not only are there lots of great places to road bike in Northern California, but I also wanted to start biking to work (at least once a week for the duration of daylight savings). My plan was to buy a bike as soon as spring rolled around. Unfortunately, Mother Nature and schedule commitments prohibited me from doing any test rides – we’ve had a lot of rain recently and when it wasn’t raining, I always seemed to have some other prior engagement.

Both the weather and my schedule finally cooperated this weekend, and I was able to test ride a bunch of bikes. My top choices had been narrowed down to two Specialized bikes: the Allez and the Roubaix. I’m really fond of Specialized bikes (both my mountain bikes have been Specialized) and the local bike shop (Mike’s Bikes in Palo Alto), whom I like and is really close, is a big Specialized dealer. While living in Belmont, I had checked out Treks and Kleins at a local shop whom I also really liked (Chain Reaction in Redwood City), but that shop was now a bit farther than desired after our move to Palo Alto.

The Allez is more of a race/competition oriented bike and thus has a more aggressive riding position (meaning that your back is more bent/hunched over). The Roubaix, while still performance oriented, has a more relaxed/upright riding position and a slightly longer wheelbase for better stability. Coming from a mountain biking background, I found the Roubaix geometry to be much more comfortable. The longer the ride, the more pronounced this difference in comfort is likely to be. Since I have no plans to race and plan to ride primarily for exercise, fun, and transportation, comfort took precedence over performance. I decided that the Roubaix was the better choice for me.

Of course, within the Roubaix line itself there are various models. The lowest end uses an aluminum frame with carbon forks, seatstays, and seatpost. Carbon is lighter than aluminum, but its use in this case is primarily to provide damping to minimize the feel of small bumps and road vibration. The mid to upper end Roubaix bikes have full carbon frames which further reduce road vibration as well as weight. I said ‘what the hell’ and decided to spend a little more for the Roubaix Comp with its full carbon frame and better components.

Oh, yeah, there was also the issue of whether to get a Triple or a Double (referring to the number of rings in the front). According to a certain Drew Poynot, a wild roadie fanatic in San Diego, “triple chainrings are for old men with bad knees and girls who can’t stomp on the pedals.” While that may be true (in addition to slightly more problematic shifting which Drew also pointed out), it seems like the industry is moving to triple chainrings, at least in the case of low to mid-end bikes. In fact, Mike’s Bikes didn’t even carry any of the Roubaix Comp Doubles. I guess there’s just too many old men and girly girls buying bikes these days. Anyhow, I was comfortable getting a triple because I lack the bionic quads of steel that people like Drew and Lance possess.

I’m not ecstatic about the red and black color scheme (although it is slowly growing on me), but hey, what can you do? I decided not to buy the floor sample that I test rode and opted instead to get a brand new bike ordered and assembled. Of course, this had nothing to do with the bunny-hop tests I performed on my test ride. It’s quite amazing how much higher you can get with a bike that’s 10+ lb lighter! J.K. Although my credit card’s been charged, I won’t actually get my bike for another week or two. I’m eagerly looking forward to it!

Thanks to Dhun, Drew, and Palumbo-Head for all the road bike buying advice!

Update: For posterity’s sake (actually, this will be very useful if I ever decide to sell the bike), here are the specs of my new bike. Saved as PDFs from Specialized website: The Roubaix Story, Features, Tech Specs, and Geometry.