Rue the Day

After I retired, it was easy to lose track of what day it is. Why would I even need to worry about it? Unless I am going to Costco, where Saturdays are horrific, all the days are pretty much the same.

When Jenn and I ride together, we mostly utilize the "real" bike trails, the ones that have been here for decades: Lake Natoma, American River, Folsom South Canal. These are established trails and the social contract between user groups is mostly understood and adhered to.

But occasionally we ride the bike trails to the east that meander through the neighborhoods of Folsom. These are nice trails that offer a change of scenery and some elevation gain as you skirt the foothills, but you have to piece them together a bit to form a ride.

We have developed a 25 mile route that we like, which we did earlier today.

These neighborhood trail segments are primarily used by residents walking or jogging. There are dogs. And strollers. And occasionally small children running amok. And these residents often exhibit an attitude that suggests they believe the trails belong to them, not cyclists. Because of this we never ride to the east on weekends. It's a zoo.

Today I unknowingly made a trip to the zoo.

It's Veterans Day. Surprisingly, I actually knew this fact, but I did not connect the holiday to how it would affect our ride.

There were a lot of people out enjoying the day off, and like us, they probably knew it was one of the last sunny, warm days before the storm door opens. I think there were even more people out than there would be on a typical Saturday. This makes sense, because Wednesday mornings are wide open. There is no football to watch, kids sports, church, etc.

I mention all this not because we have never seen crowded trails before. Nor have we not experienced negative vibes before. But yesterday was a unique combination of those two things.

I think we are friendly people. We say hello as much as possible. Follow the rules (which are clearly painted on the trail, folks!). Give people space. Ride slower in these areas. Wave to the kids.

Today much of this good will fell on deaf ears. Many hellos were met with grim-faced, silent death stares. I saw a couple women visibly sigh in frustration because they had to pull their dogs out of my lane. A couple men walked right on the center line, defiant in their posture, daring, perhaps even hoping, I would say something.

But there were nice, happy people too. Without thinking about it, my mind was tabulating votes as the interactions happened. And the results are in . . .

It may be foolish to base any conclusions off of one bike ride, but I am going to anyway: It seems like there are a lot of angry white people right now.

This area, especially where we were riding, is predominately white. I understand that this fact skews my polling numbers. Still, the black family said hello. The Latino families said hello. The older Asian couples we see often smiled and waved like always. The big bearded dudes with rifles on their T-shirts did not.

I know this situation will fade in time. It always does. But the election is still fresh in people's minds, the emotions still raw, and a certain segment of our society lost big time. Get over it. We all lose from time to time. It works that way by design. The men and women we are celebrating today fought for it.

The pendulum definitely swung a bit the other way. Hopefully it will rest someday in the middle and we can go back to saying hello to our neighbors. Even the ones on bikes wearing funny clothes.

Later.

The Doors II

We completed another renovation over the summer, and once again I tackled the cabinet doors. This is a (somewhat) easy way to upgrade a room without replacing cabinets. You may remember I performed the same task for a renovation last year.

This time around the job would be a bit more involved because I would make matching doors for three bathrooms also. Another difference was this renovation was for a rental property we were keeping rather than a flip, so I wanted the doors to be higher quality. Once again I used MDF, but I purchased it at Hughes Hardwoods. Their product is much denser, smoother and a joy to work with. I won't buy MDF from the box stores ever again. Also, the guys at Hughes are great.

I took a lot of measurements and got to work. In almost every case I increased the size of the door over the old one. I think this is more aesthetically pleasing and it helps cover up any imperfections in the old cabinets.

I don't remember the total door count, but it was a lot. I made them in batches so Jennifer could paint them while I worked on the next batch.

Eventually we finished and it was time to start hanging.

Kitchen before and after:

We removed the uppers to open up the room.

Half bath:

Mater bath:

Full bath:

Once again we both learned a lot and improved our workmanship, not only on the cabinets, but in every job we tackled (and there were many). Another successful renovation.

Later.

Bay Tripper

I am seriously running out of ways to title Monterey posts.

We went to Monterey for a few days. It was our first visit since March. The intervals between visits have been much longer the last few years due to real estate activities. We have completed a number of renovations, and these are time consuming tasks. Quite frankly we deserved more than a few days in Monterey, but it would have to do for now.

We rolled into town on Tuesday at around 3:30 p.m. After checking in and unpacking, we walked to Peter B's for dinner.

We had a nice meal and watched the Kings get dismantled by the Spurs.

The next morning we secured our coffee and walked along the water. I tried out the Leica LUX app I downloaded for my iPhone. It is supposed to mimic the look of various Leica lenses, both new and old. The app also gives you full manual control of aperture, shutter speed, ISO, white balance, etc.

I chose a black and white film filter and started shooting.

I like the look and it was undoubtedly more fun to fiddle with settings like a real camera. And I definitely prefer it over the overprocessed and oversaturated, AI-driven "photos" the iPhone produces.

We rode the bay trail later in the morning. The detours are still in place due to the bus route project and the camp ground being built in Fort Ord Dunes State Park. Going into the dunes is the best part of that ride, so that was a bummer.

That evening we ate at the Alvarado Street Brewery. The food was great and my beer was fantastic.

The next morning we rode into Fort Ord. This is my favorite place to ride in Monterey, but the trail closures/detours do make it a little tougher to get there on safe roads.

Our last few trips into Fort Ord included the climb up to Laguna Seca. We enjoy this route, but the ride back down to Monterey via South Boundary Road does have some traffic and with that comes a little stress. Instead, I mapped out a loop within Fort Ord so we could return to Monterey on the bike trail.

It was a nice, peaceful 27-mile ride with a moderate 1600 feet of climbing.

It was at this point my Leica app stopped working. Apparently you are limited to a handful of pictures as a free preview before the monthly fee of $6.99 kicks in. I enjoyed the experience enough that I may consider a subscription in the future, but for now we return to our regularly scheduled programming in fake iPhone color.

Yuck.

You may have heard about the high sea levels along the coast of California. There are a number of reasons for this, which you can read about elsewhere, but we definitely noticed it in Monterey. The surf was always much closer to us.

Typically we see a whole lot of beach in front of Monterey Beach Station, a popular wedding spot near Municipal Wharf 2. These two pictures from the web show the normal expanse of sand.

You can see the water way off in the distance in front of the building.

And here's what it looked like after our ride Thursday:

Not much room for a wedding. The sandbars on either side of the building are a recent addition to the normally flat beach.

After a shower and some lunch we took a long walk to Pacific Grove. Monterey was about as quiet as we've ever seen it. This is Cannery Row at 3 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon.

Part of it is the time of year, of course, but the economy is definitely playing a role. It's obvious some of the businesses are struggling. The wonderful French bakery we discovered a couple trips ago, the one I was eager to visit on our first morning, closed permanently sometime between visits. Although we had only recently found it, the Paris Bakery had been a local fixture for over 40 years.

In addition to the lack of people, there was also a lack of wildlife, which contributed to the weird vibe. There were no sea lions to be found and very few sea birds. The silence was eerie.

We made out way out to Pacific Grove through town, browsed in a few shops, then walked back to Monterey along the water.

Another thing we noticed was the clarity of the water. It was unbelievably clear.

This is another phenomenon being reported up and down the state. I looked it up and unfortunately, it isn't a good thing.

El Niño is causing Kelvin waves, which are massive, slow-moving underwater pulses of warm water that travel along the equator from west to east. In addition to contributing to the high sea level, these waves also push cold water deeper and raise temperatures near the surface. Without the normal upwelling of deeper cold water, the nutrients don't come to the surface. This is the food plankton depend on. And without plankton, the water is clearer and the food chain is broken: No bait fish, and no birds or marine mammals that depend on those fish.

Luckily, this is a somewhat normal outcome for El Niño years, and the environment recovers in subsequent years. However, this El Niño is unprecedented. Time will tell.

The next morning we packed up and headed home. It was a shorter trip that we are used to, but it was still good to get away.

Later.

Wolverine Update

When I traded for the Wolverine way back in January, it was in dire need of a new chain. Since I intended on swapping out the entire drivetrain and shifters to some new 11-speed SRAM I have tucked away in The Archives, I didn't want to invest in a Shimano chain that would be short-lived. The desire for a drivetrain change was because at first, jumping back and forth between STI and the Double Tap on my other bike was very frustrating. However, the human brain is pretty adaptable, and eventually it made the connection that the orange bike equals STI. I might miss one shift at the beginning of a ride, on either bike, but then I would lock in. No problem.

The other thing that happened was I kind of liked shifting with STI again. When I first moved to SRAM almost eight years ago, I thought it was superior. Perhaps it was the novelty, or a new take on shifting, or the fact that my Dura Ace shifters were very old that swayed me. Who knows. Now that I am using both, I am not so sure.

At any rate, I decided the STI would live on for a while longer. I replaced the shitty KMC chain and E-Thirteen cassette with an Ultegra chain and a Deore 11-42 cassette.

Afterwards she ran a lot smoother, as new parts tend to help with. The drivetrain was a bit noisy on the first ride, but I know this is simply a Shimano quirk. It goes away. By the time the third ride rolled around, my bike was smooth and virtually silent.

There are people who will tell you any old chain will work fine with a Shimano cassette. Sure, I guess it will work. It just won't work as well. To assume that a group of Shimano engineers aren't designing their own cassette-chain interface to work better than any other combination is asinine. All those ramps and slots, the short teeth and twisted teeth, are working in conjunction with the specific shape of the chain. But go ahead and get that cheap chain off of Amazon and tell everyone it works better than Shimano. You do you.

At any rate, the Shimano versus SRAM battle will rage on in my garage. Currently Shimano is winning 5-3. Jenn's single speed looks on with mild indifference, the Switzerland in this drivetrain war.

In the end, difference is good. I have a number of bikes because after over 40 years of this, jumping back and forth between bikes keeps things fresh. In much the same way, bouncing back and forth between STI and Double Tap also keeps things interesting. Vive la différence!

Later.

T6

Over the years I managed to convince a few businesses that I was worthy of some financial and/or equipment support. Sponsorship is nice, especially for a mostly mediocre racer who occasionally did well.

In May of 2007, I received an email from a new company looking for riders to wear their gear. I have no idea why I was chosen or how they found me. After a short back-an-forth email interview, I was welcomed to Twin Six.

It was kind of cool having a bio on the website.

Unfortunately the clothing didn't show up until late July when most of my racing was over. I was only able to wear my gear in two 2007 races. The first was the Whiskeytown 9 to 5:

And then a Sac cyclocross race in the fall:

In 2008 I had big plans for a full race schedule, starting with the TBF racing series. I raced the first one on January 20:

And I broke my wrist about 15 minutes after this picture was taken.

When I was invited back to T6 for the 2008 season, I told them I had just broken my wrist, but I would be ready to race later in the season.

They ghosted me. No "sorry to hear that" or "maybe next year" or anything. Just silence.

Even for a lowly weekend warrior, that is the harsh reality of sports. I was just a body, a vessel to wrap their clothing in for exposure. I was a temporarily broken toy, and quickly thrown away.

I still have a T6 jersey but I don't wear it much because it's terribly uncomfortable. The material is weird, and the collar is abnormally tall so the zipper digs into my throat. The company still exists, so I guess they managed to find some success without me.

Later.

Life and the Inevitability of Death

My mom died after a battle with cancer on this date 10 years ago, only five days from her 68th birthday. As time goes on it becomes easier, but anniversaries tend to bring our feelings back to the surface. Today I really miss her. Today I can allow myself to be sad.

Truthfully, it feels more like 20 years. So many good things have happened to my family since then, and I really wish she could have witnessed it all.

She was a teen mom, barely 19 years old when I was born. I have obviously aged ten years since she passed, so I am now only nine years younger than her when she died. And it makes you think: How much longer do I have? Hopefully more than nine years.

As humans age, most of us tend to place more value on time, specifically the time we have left. I am no different. I won't be going to extremes like some of the tech bro billionaires with their longevity obsessions, but it makes sense to make better choices regarding what I put into my body. My choices are not always great.

I started riding when I was a skinny teenager and for the most part I have stayed that way for well over 40 years. I can eat pretty much whatever I want, especially now in retirement, and not have to worry about weight because I ride a lot. But I need to worry at least a little.

I don't want my sons to be writing the "I miss my dad" post for many, many years.

Later.

Midterm

We are at the midpoint of the year and I am at 3,271 miles. At this pace I would eclipse my annual personal best by about 300 miles.

This month I rode 670 miles, which was a personal best for the month of June (since I started tracking miles in 1995).

June has generally been a low mileage month for one reason or another. Back when I was a working stiff, I participated in our office May is Bike Month mileage competition. This often resulted in low mileage totals in June. Some examples:

It was difficult to put up big mileage numbers back then. Not only was I working full time, there were other responsibilities like yardwork, coaching baseball, etc. How I managed to ride 825 miles in 2014 I will never know.

When June came I was usually sick of riding and I had to catch up on tasks that were neglected during May. I also got sick a few times. Getting up at 3:30 a.m. to ride 40 miles to work will eventually wear you down.

These days it's very easy to ride five or six hundred miles every month and get plenty of rest. Retirement ain't so bad.

Later.