CP2 Update

I finished building Jennifer's Velo Orange Neutrino. It came out really well.

Due to current Archive shortages, the orange grips and pink pedals are merely functional placeholders for eventual black replacements.

I used the Jones loop bars with a 2.5 inch rise. Because Jones.

Due to the smaller wheel diameter lowering the effective gearing, a bigger chainring is necessary to compensate. This is a Cues crank with a 42 tooth chainring. Most people are using square taper cranks for mini velo builds, but I can't stand them. The quiet, creak-free two-piece crank is one of my favorite cycling innovations.

A 10-speed Deore XT 11-36 cassette is mated to a Zee derailleur for shifting duties. You can see the Zee derailleur has a very short cage, which is crucial for such a small wheel diameter. More gear range would have been nice, but a modern 12-speed derailleur would be dragging on the ground.

The Sun Ringle Duroc wheels are solid and modular, and they came with almost every cassette body and axle configuration one could need . . . except the one I needed. The pictured wheel on their website had an HG cassette, which was the one I needed, but the wheels showed up with Micro Spline and XD freehubs. After harassing Hayes with a few e-mails, they sent me an HG body.

Although the wheels are tubeless ready (coming pre-taped with valves and sealant included), 20" tubeless tires are still rare. I couldn't find any that met my needs. I went with non-tubeless Maxxis Grifters because I have had good luck with Maxxis overall. I had a heck of a time getting them seated, but once I did they held air like a champ. So far I haven't seen any sealant seepage through the sidewalls, which can happen with non-tubeless tires.

Typically you see mini velo builds with a huge stack of spacers under the stem; this is something I find aesthetically abhorrent. I used a Velo Orange Cigne stem as a much more elegant solution. The bars may even be a little high, but Jenn always has the option of using Jones bars with no rise.

My first test ride was eye opening. I expected something completely different, but it simply feels like a bike, albeit one with quicker steering. The acceleration is amazing. If you don't look down to see the tiny wheel, or the huge stem, it all feels very normal.

Jenn registered much the same reaction.

My frame is tucked safely away in the attic, where it will stay for a while. We are neck deep in a renovation, and I have little time, money or inclination right now. When I do get around to the build, it will look something like this:

Later.

System of a Down

Before we moved to Folsom, we lived at the top of a hill in Shingle Springs. The view was nice, but every ride from that house ended with a tough climb. After 20 years, that grew tiresome. A typical elevation profile looked like this:

Here things are pretty flat for the most part, but we can climb some hills depending on the direction we choose. Today we rode east on a route I've been fine tuning, and now we have perfected the elusive ride that front-loads all the climbing and ends with a long descent.

Except for the short climb at the end, from the lake back up to our house, it's a whole lot of downhill for the last 40 minutes. It may seem like a small thing, but after around 4000 rides that ended with a tough climb, it's quite a treat to coast into home.

Later.

The End

At the end of the 1988 racing season I was at a crossroads. For three years I had focused my life on mountain bike racing, and I didn't have a whole lot to show for it. I was drained, disenchanted, destitute and my knees hurt. It didn't have to be that way.

In late 1987 I met a guy named Don McElfresh. We worked together at Frank's Bicycle Lane in Roseville, and we quickly became friends and training partners. Don was a very good Category 1 road racer, and he greatly influenced my training for the '88 season. At the time Steve and I had conflicting work schedules, so our riding time together was more limited than it was before. And when you start riding with a road racer, you need a road bike.

I had already purchased a beautiful orange Colnago from my manager Tony shortly after I started working at Frank's, but even back in 1987 it was considered old (I think it was a 1974 model). Don convinced me I needed something new.

I bought the Faggin and before I knew it I was spending far more time on a road bike than my mountain bike.

When Don and I first started riding together, I thought it would make me faster. He was powerful, and just staying on his wheel in flat terrain was nearly impossible at first. It was only on climbs where I could hold my own. Even going downhill it was very difficult to stay with him because he had such a huge engine. In fact, my all-time max speed record of 60.5 miles per hour was sitting behind Don on a descent into the American River Canyon. We didn't wear helmets in those days, either.

Emulating him was a huge mistake. I figured a guy getting numerous top-5 placings in big Pro/1/2 road races knew what he was doing. He did not. I realize now that Don was simply very gifted and did well despite his horrible diet and terrible training habits. Even back then we knew Don rode too much. The guy just loved to ride his bike. In hindsight, given my current understanding of training practices, I know he rode WAY too much.

We did some long rides, man. Sometimes we rode from Citrus Heights to French Meadows and back, which was 150 miles. Other times we would ride in the foothills for 6-8 hours. He knew all the quiet back roads in the region and some days it felt like we rode every single one of them.

On weekdays when we worked at the bike shop, it wasn't uncommon for us to ride before work and again after work. I remember a number of occasions when we rode over 100 miles between the two rides in one day.

For Don there was some justification for doing these long rides. Many of his races were 90-120 miles, so he needed that big base to train his body to still be firing at the end of those long races. However, I was a mountain bike racer. My races were usually around 25 miles. I needed to go really fast for a couple hours, and that's it. There was really no reason to go on a 12-hour slog up to French Meadows and climb 15,000 feet. I would have been much better served by riding 2-3 hours with some intermittent speed work. This is exactly what Steven and I were doing on our typical mountain bike rides in 1986 and 1987.

And I needed a little rest.

I just didn't rest that year. I was young and stupid and I thought that more training was better. I know without any doubt it was by far the highest mileage year of my life. I didn't start documenting annual mileage until 1995, so I don't have data from the big racing years from 1986 to 1988. But I do know I cracked 6,000 miles in 2024 for the first time since I started keeping track. I arrived at that number by doing lots of rides in the 25 to 30 mile range, and almost all of them were on a mountain bike. In 1988 we were doing lots of rides in the 60-90 mile range on road bikes. I believe I rode over 12,000 miles in 1988.

When races came around, I was terrible. Although I was in the best shape of my life in many respects, I wasn't fine tuned for mountain bike racing, and I was probably suffering from fatigue and nutritional deficiencies. On most training rides I felt great, so I didn't understand why I wasn't seeing results. The self doubt creeped in. I started coming to terms with not being good enough. I wanted to be a professional racer, but I wasn't even cracking the top ten as an expert.

As I alluded to in the first sentence, I finished the season at a crossroads. I felt internal pressure to succeed at racing, and plenty of external pressure to move on. I was 21 years old, poor and undereducated. I saw the disappointment in my parents' faces whenever the subject of my future came up.

In November of 1988 Don and I went to the Interbike trade show in Reno. All the big bike and component manufacturers and distributers were there showing the latest and greatest equipment. We were supposed to be representing Frank's Bicycle Lane, our employer, but we had other ideas.

Don produced a polished racing resume and cover letter (which I still have) to pass out to prospective sponsors, and he encouraged me to do the same. Don's was an impressive collection of top-5 finishes in many races—three whole pages of them. Mine was half a page of mediocrity.

(This is a 1993 edit I used to help get a "sponsorship" from Dean/Adventure Mountain Bikes.)

I can't find my cover letter, but it was equally pathetic. Each time I handed one to somebody at a booth, they would scan it and try desperately to say something kind or encouraging. A lot of them weren't very good at hiding a smirk.

The phone never rang. In that silence the message was loud and clear: "You are not very good."

I quit racing.

While the year was pretty horrible from a racing standpoint, 1988 still produced many great memories. Don and I had an absolute blast working at the bike shop (when Frank wasn't around) and I did some absolutely epic road rides. Some of the ones Steve, Don and I all did together will forever be some of my favorites. (One particular French Meadows ride deserves its own post.)

It was also a year that caused so much regret as I grew older. I still wonder even to this day what might have been if I had a mentor or coach who really understood what I needed at that time to achieve success. I'll never know.

Later.

Little Pink Velos for You and Me

I finally accumulated the parts to start building Jennifer's Velo Orange Neutrino mini velo.

It's very early in the experiment, obviously, but I can't help but feel one step closer to riding in Mexico again.

Later.

the Crash: Part 2

At the time of the crash, I was a busy guy. If there were such a thing as a three-ended candle, I would be burning it at all three ends.

After a brutal first semester in college carrying 18 units, I was now in my second semester carrying a slightly more manageable 16. I was also working full-time as the night manager at Round Table Pizza. On top of that, I was trying to ride as much as possible to prepare for the upcoming mountain bike racing season.

We raced around ten times in 1985 and had a blast, but this was during and after my senior year of high school, and up to that point it was only for fun. I intended to race a little in 1986, but I wasn't that serious about it. I was focused on school first, making some money, and riding when I could. Steve and Doug, however, were going to take it up a notch.

They had both just started the process of having custom frames made by Ibis. I was envious, of course, but I was fairly happy with the Fisher Montare I had purchased late in 1985. It would work fine for my limited racing aspirations, and it was a major upgrade from the Ross I had raced the previous year.

Then I crashed my car.

The path I had been on, the one that seemed so very clear the previous day, had now muddied up considerably. Being a responsible adult and working hard towards some unseen life goal somewhere on the distant horizon now felt very different. Working too hard had nearly killed me. I wondered what the point was. My path suddenly had multiple forks jutting off in all directions.

Steve and Doug visited me the day after my accident and told me about the ordering process for their custom frames. They were excited in a way that nothing in my life had been giving me. Suddenly the fog cleared and my life came into focus: I was going to be a bike racer.

I called Ibis and talked to Scot Nicol, and he described the process and sent me a fit sheet. When it arrived I took all my measurements and filled out the short questionnaire. I made it clear this was a bike purely for racing and racing only. I even had them remove all the eyelets on the dropouts just to emphasize that this would be a sleek racing thoroughbred that would never have a rack or fenders bolted to it like some lowly pack mule. I went to a local autobody shop and picked out a Dupont Imron color—a metallic purple. I threw the fit sheet and a check for $300 in an envelope and mailed it off.

In a matter of weeks a pretty purple killing machine arrived, and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

In the meantime, I was gathering the parts to build the most perfect racing machine possible given a relatively low budget. There were boutique parts out there that may have been better—WTB roller cams versus the Suntour version I was using, for example—but it was all very solid equipment at the time.

Was I a bit detail oriented at 18 years of age? Maybe.

Even at 18 years of age I was a fairly seasoned mechanic, having built many BMX bikes from the frame up. I already knew enough to buy my own hubs, spokes and rims to build my own wheels. I got them pretty close to the finished product, and my local bike shop fine tuned the spoke tension for ten bucks each.

It all added up to produce my favorite racing bike of all time and the one I had the most success on. Unfortunately, I would get less then two seasons out of the frame before it broke.

I went back to school around 10 days after my accident, and obviously I had fallen far behind. My heart was no longer in it, and within days I dropped out of college entirely. My candle suddenly had only two ends, and the racing end now burned with the fire of a thousand suns. I eagerly looked forward to the first race of season with a new focus. Being a responsible adult would have to wait. I was now officially a bike racer.

Later.

The Crash: Part 1

Thirty-nine years ago today I woke up early on a cold Friday morning feeling very tired. I worked late the previous night closing up at Round Table Pizza, and I had arrived home well after midnight. At 6:15 the next morning I walked out to my car and climbed in. After starting the car, I pulled the two levers that opened the primitive heater vents, then noticed the radio was off. I attempted to turn it on, but it was dead. I suspected the fuse had blown again. Replacing fuses was a common occurrence if you owned an old Volkswagen. I cussed a little because I didn't have time to fix it. I often wonder where I would be today if I had taken five minutes to replace that fuse.

I made the drive in silence without the music that normally pumped me up for class. I arrived at Sierra College in time for my 7:00 accounting class. After a long week of suboptimal sleep, I promptly dozed off as the instructor droned on about debits and credits. The same thing happened the next period in English. I also took a snooze in Trig class.

At 10:00 I was free and on my way home. I looked forward to getting a little sleep before heading back to Round Table where I would be manning a huge oven; its two conveyor belts would be spitting out pizzas non-stop for hours and hours during the coming Friday night onslaught.

I turned right from Rocklin Road onto Sierra College Boulevard and climbed the hill up to the plateau that overlooked the valley. Up top there was a long straightaway followed by a curve to the left. This is where I fell asleep.

Everyone has pivotal point or two in their past when the direction of their life changes abruptly. This was definitely one of mine.

Without the music I was accustomed to, I had drifted off, ushered into slumber in much same way my parents had done when I was a baby. Legend has it when they were unable to get me to sleep, a ride around the block in our blue bug always did the trick.

I woke up as I left the roadway when the road curved. The jolt when the car bumped down the shoulder brought me back from slumber land, and I saw in front of me a barbed wire fence running along the road.

It's funny how our brains work in those situations. This all happened in a split second, but I distinctly remember thinking about how mad my dad would be if I hit the fence. I yanked the wheel hard to the left and felt the tires biting into the soil. I barely avoided the fence and briefly ran parallel to the road before climbing back up the slanted shoulder. As I entered the roadway the sliding tires grabbed the asphalt and suddenly I was on two wheels.

Again, it seemed like I was perched precariously on my passenger side wheels forever, long enough that I tried to work through the physics of what to do. Right or left? Unfortunately I was still a couple semesters from taking a physics class. I turned the wheel to the left and the car flipped.

The sounds will forever haunt me: the screeching of metal scraping on asphalt; the silences when the car was airborne; the loud, crashing impacts as the car slammed back down to earth; the weird and difficult to describe "doink" sound as my head struck the road; the tinkle of broken glass; the tap-tap-tap of blood dripping on my jeans when I finally came to rest.

The car rolled over and over, the sky repeatedly trading places with the ground. Towards the end of the cartwheeling, the front end caught in the dirt on the other side of the road. The car flipped one more time end-over-end, ultimately coming to rest back on its wheels. I unbuckled my seatbelt and somehow opened the smashed driver door. I exited the car and tried to look around as blood poured over my face. I didn't see anyone around who could help, so I started walking back toward the college.

Before I took maybe 20 steps, someone grabbed me from behind and tackled me to the ground. I couldn't see him well, but he yelled, "Stay down!" So I did.

He quickly returned with a black bag. I had wiped enough blood from my eyes to see he was an older cop. I looked into his eyes and he looked terrified. Up until that point I wasn't in any pain, so I thought I was okay, but this cop's eyes told a completely different story. Yet, I felt strangely at peace. I began wondering if this was how it felt before you die.

He put a large dressing pad on the top of my head and wrapped it down tightly with gauze tape, going under my chin and all around my head. He again told me to stay down and ran back to his car. I peeked up to see it was a Highway Patrol cruiser. He called in on his radio and reported a single car rollover, one victim, massive head trauma. "Fuck," I said out loud. My head was clearing, the pain kicking in, and I finally grasped the seriousness of the situation.

The officer talked with me as we waited for the ambulance, and I felt eerily focused and clear-headed. The more I talked, the more the cop seemed to relax. His eyes softened and I felt like he might believe I was going to live.

The paramedics showed up and knelt down beside me. "How you doin' buddy?" one asked. I looked at the three guys gathered around me and they all had the same mustache. I ignored the question and asked, "What's with the mustache? Is that a requirement?" The cop and the paramedics looked at each other quizzically before bursting into laughter, and it took the stress level down another notch. Without realizing it, I was trying to comfort the cop.

They strapped me to a board and taped my head in place. The bandage around my head and under my jaw was so tight, I couldn't open my mouth. I was having a difficult time breathing through my nose and it felt like I was drowning. Thankfully they put an oxygen mask on me once I was locked into place in the ambulance.

I was completely immobile for the long drive to my hospital in Sacramento. It felt like hours. I'm not sure why my arms were strapped down like a serial killer. I kept taking deep draws of oxygen in an effort to control my breathing. I felt the panic creeping ever so close to the surface.

Once at Kaiser they assessed the damage. I had scraped off the top of my head, torn my left ear, damaged my neck and sustained a serious concussion.

Cleaning up my head wound wasn't much fun, at least for me. The nurse happily hummed her way through it like she was Mary Poppins. My head was a mess of dried blood, matted hair, gravel and glass. The nurse placed me on a gurney with my head at the very edge and started irrigating the wound with a clear liquid that burned like hell. She then scrubbed as gently as she could. Then irrigated again. The process repeated over and over until she was satisfied with the results—about 10 songs worth.

At some point during the clean-up my parents had arrived. As the nurse finished up they came to my side and they were white as ghosts. I can only imagine what the trip to the hospital was like for them when so little information was provided: a phone call, a brief report, and a long drive while hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.

At that point I had been very busy almost dying for most of the day, and I told the nurse I had to pee. My dad and the nurse got me to my feet and made sure I was okay to walk. I made my way to the restroom and the nurse told me not to look at the wound under the bandage. This was very sound advice that I did not heed. Once inside, I immediately lifted the bandage, seeing in the mirror what looked like raw hamburger where my scalp used to be. My hair was gone, and all that remained was a huge scrape with jagged cuts and gouges missing. I blacked out briefly and had to catch myself using the sink. I completely forgot to pee and went back to the ER in shock.

From there I was taken into surgery where a nice Japanese doctor pieced my ear back together. A nurse told me he was the best plastic surgeon in Northern California. He did a wonderful job and I am forever grateful. To prevent getting cauliflower ear, he placed a butterfly catheter in my ear to drain the blood. A large test tube collected the blood and stayed taped to my head for a week. It was a huge hit at the dinner table. I think my mom and dad both lost weight that week.

By that night I was released and resting at home. The next morning, my dad changed the dressing for the first time, as directed, and we both almost passed out—he from the sight, I from the pain.

On Saturday evening the phone rang. My mom answered and listened. Her eyebrows raised and she said, "Yes, he's right here."

I took the receiver and a man introduced himself as the officer who was first on the scene. He asked how I was doing, and I described my injuries. He told me he really thought I was dying, confirming my suspicions. "All I saw was hair and blood. So much blood." He revealed that he saw the whole accident happen from a distance, and that I had rolled at least five times. Maybe six. I thanked him for being there and for taking the time to call.

On Sunday we learned where the car was being stored and went to collect my belongings. After the accident I told my dad the car wasn't in bad shape. "We can totally fix it," I said. Once I saw the car again the reality of what happened hit me hard.

We obviously weren't fixing the car. It was smashed up, the wheels folded under, and most of the windows were gone.

I couldn't believe how much blood there was. It was even splattered on the outside of the car.

In the days after the accident I would make a decision that would forever change my life's trajectory. More on that in "Part 2" of this story. Don't worry, I will finally get to the point of all this, and it's definitely cycling related.

Note: I suppose it would have been more impactful to wait a year and write about the 40th anniversary of this accident, but I don't like to be predictable. Also, the number 39 is awesome.

My childhood love for Dave Parker is the reason I called my left-handed son "The Cobra" in his baseball days.

Tune in tomorrow for the rest of the story.

Later.

Bad to the Bone

As I mentioned before, I am slowly clearing out The Archive. As time goes on, the bike parts in my collection have less and less meaning to me. They are just pieces of metal sitting in boxes.

That said, these parts may still have interesting stories to tell.

In 1986 a kid named John Tomac decided to switch from pro BMX racing to mountain bikes. By midseason he was placing in the races I was attending (3rd place pro at the Rumpstomper in August), and by late season he was winning major races. His ascent into our consciousness was meteoric.

I have a magazine from December of 1986 and Tomac is nowhere to be seen. Endorsements at that point were dominated by Ned Overend and Joe Murray. In an October 1987 magazine, not quite a year later, there are four ads featuring John Tomac.

Although he and I were the same age, it was easy to look up to him. He brought a style and swagger to our fledgling sport that was hard to ignore. And he was already at the peak of the mountain I was trying to scale. I was only 19 years old and dreaming of one day being a professional myself.

Our cycling clothing up to that point was pretty boring, so when I saw the AXO gear, I really liked it.

And before long I was wearing the jersey and gloves.

It didn't make me any faster, but hot damn I looked good.

When he signed the deal with Tioga, suddenly a part nobody really cared about became a thing: The stem.

It was just a stem, but I needed it. Had to have it. I wanted to be bad to the bone.

I bought one and used it. It didn't make me any faster, but hot damn my bike looked good.

For a long time it was one of the "untouchable" parts in my collection because of the connections to the racing days and the culture of the time, but things change. I sold it the other day on Craigslist for a paltry $15, and another piece of my history is gone. I could have auctioned it on eBay and made more, but that's too much hassle for me at this point.

I actually made the decal using letters from some other sticker. You can see the "T" is two pieces. So custom.

Anyway, that's the story.

Later.

Moving On

I was born and raised in the Sacramento area, and I am still here today, but for most of my adult life my emotional home has been in Incline Village, Nevada. Home is where the heart is. And right now my heart is aching just a little.

I could make a case for Incline Village being the greatest place on earth for a cyclist to have a home base. Obviously that's a bold statement, but greatness is personal and subjective. For me, the combination of riding opportunities, scenery and vibe is second to none.

View from the Rim Trail: Marlette Lake foreground, Lake Tahoe background.

My introduction to the area was the Great Flume Race in 1985. It was my first race at elevation and it killed me, but the riding was incredible. The Flume Trail was unlike anything I had experienced to that point. It sparked something inside me.

Anyone have some oxygen?

Shortly after that race—in a completely unrelated move—my dad, uncle and four friends chipped in and bought a condo together in nearby Incline Village. I now had an opportunity to explore the area. And it was so, so good. I vowed that one day I would own my own place in Incline.

For years it would be our home base for rides and Tahoe-area races. Good times.

I have so many blurry selfies from film camera days . . .

When Jennifer and I met we began going up there together.

The year 2000 or so on the first of many bikes I would build for her.

Happy guy.

Fast forward to 2011. The country was in the middle of a mortgage crisis, and we saw the opportunity to achieve my dream. We made an offer on a foreclosure property in Incline and got it. You can read about that here if you care. It's not lost on me how lucky we are. The situation was terrible for so many families who lost their homes, and that crisis is the only reason we could pull this off.

At first the condo ownership was great. We spent a lot of time up there, and I was living my dream. Paying a second mortgage was tough at times, but we offset it a little bit by renting it out to friends and acquaintances.

A couple years later in 2013, a couple things changed. One, we were finding it difficult to find time to go to Tahoe due to all the sports.

Basketball, February 2013.

Baseball, June 2013

Cross Country, September 2013

Baseball, October 2013

I have zero regrets about the sports. Our baseball journey with my son is one of the highlights of my life, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

The other change that happened that year was our HOA outlawing vacation rentals. This killed our meager revenue stream. In October 2013, unable to use it much and with no ability to make part-time income, we decided to rent the condo full-time. It has been rented out full-time ever since, but that era comes to a close in a few weeks.

A few years ago, our original plan was to start using the condo for ourselves again, with a target date right around now. I can't begin to express how excited I was for this to happen. Then the fires came.

The Caldor Fire came perilously close to Lake Tahoe, and it was only a shift in winds that saved South Lake Tahoe.

Lake Tahoe faced a new reality. Up to that point no fire had crossed the peak of the Sierras. The relative safety we thought the bowl of Lake Tahoe provided had been shattered.

More fires came in the years since. They were larger. They burned hotter. They burned faster. We were mostly powerless to stop them. Many people still do not believe in climate change. But you know who does? Insurance actuaries.

Three years later the Tahoe Basin is suffering from an insurance crisis. Premiums are skyrocketing and for condo owners, HOA fees are doing the same. My insurance went up 43% and my HOA only 37% because I was one of the lucky ones. My HOA is now $604 a month, but other area HOAs are well over $900.

This situation is eerily similar to the one we fled in Shingle Springs. By moving to Folsom we saved about $6000 a year for homeowners insurance, and that was a couple years ago. We have friends and neighbors who are now paying in excess of $10k per year and will have difficulty selling their properties if something doesn't change.

For these reasons we feel like it would be best to get out of the Tahoe market while we can. Our tenants vacate at the end of the month, and on March 1 we will start the renovation process with the goal of getting the condo on the market as quickly as possible.

It's a painful decision, but the right one. Our hope is to find another place with the same kind of magic Incline Village provided for so many years.

Later.

Waiting

It’s hot. Africa hot. An eerie silence has descended upon my neighborhood. From my perspective on the front porch, not a single person is in view as far as I can see. The yards are all empty, the windows all closed, the shades all drawn. My schoolmates and I are all home from school now, and yet the streets that are normally the venue for afternoon baseball are strangely empty, the striking players refusing to play in these conditions. It will be a few hours yet before the other kids will venture out, waiting for the oppressive heat to wane. A long, crowded commute on a hot school bus has left us instead craving a tall glass of something cold and sweet and a cool place in front of the TV. But I will watch no television today, for I am in my mother’s doghouse again. I will have to sit out here on the porch for a while and serve my sentence. It seems that I alone will brave the harsh elements of this early June day.

But I am alone only in the human sense.

The magpies, normally annoyingly vociferous, are silent, taking refuge on the lush, green grass under the two black walnut trees in my front yard. They cast a wary eye towards the porch as they wait for the cool of evening to resume their normal routine. Their banana yellow beaks agape, they pant in a futile attempt to cool down. My dog Chuck, the object of the magpies’ anxiety, lies off to my side, panting also. The Labrador retriever was a gift from my parents on my fourth birthday. Three years old now, Chuck is experiencing his hottest summer yet. His black coat surely was not designed for the extreme heat of the Sacramento Valley. For the birds on the lawn he has no interest: a bird dog with no will to hunt the teasing magpies who surely haunt his dreams. Today these natural adversaries have a common enemy in the heat, much like the lions and cheetahs and zebras and gazelles of the Serengeti Plains. They lie disinterested in each other, side by side under the searing sun, waiting for nightfall to hunt and be hunted.

With dark brown, sorrowful eyes, Chuck pleads to me for help but there is little I can do. My mom won’t let him enter her house—a sterile, bright white, dirt-free environment that has certain areas where even I am not allowed to go. Dogs are dirty, she says. I have already hosed Chuck down once in an effort to cool him off, but the relief was short lived.

When the heat becomes unbearable, I turn on the hose once again and he allows me to wet his thick, black fur. Taking turns, we lap the cold, rubbery water from the hose. Relieved again for the time being, a goofy smile stretches across his muzzle and I giggle as we play in the soothing water. Sufficiently cooled off, we then return to our accustomed positions on the porch, having consumed so much water we can barely move. We both just stare out into the rising heat. There is not much else to do but wait it out.

The insects have also fallen silent. The cicadas, usually filling the summer air with their shrill song, have given up for the day. Likewise, the katydids and crickets have lost their voices. The only sound is the distant drone of Interstate 80, which runs right behind my house. Even the record-setting heat of this summer day does not slow the highway traffic. Like a purring cat that never wakes, there is a perpetual din that remains constant, day and night. The sound is a natural part of my environment, like the wind hissing through the trees or the rain pattering on the roof. But only on a very still and quiet day like today do I notice that the freeway is even there.

My house sits atop a hill, making our yard slope steeply towards the street. From the front porch the walkway in front of me drops off out of sight as it makes its way to the shimmering road. It is as if I am sitting on a dock watching ships sail over the horizon and disappear. To the left of the walkway, along the side of the garage, drooping bottlebrush bushes drip their red, prickly flowers toward the ground. The honey bees and the big, fat bumble bees that frequent these plants are nowhere to be seen. Red lava rock, as hot as it has been since its volcanic birth, covers the ground around the bushes. To my right I check the chrysanthemums, also floating in a river of red lava, for signs of life. The butterflies—Monarchs, Tiger Swallowtails, Cabbage, and Buckeyes—are gone too. However, I notice that there are tiny yellow crab spiders in some of the blooms, waiting motionless for an insect meal that will not come today. Above the mums, geraniums flourish in a planter box built just below the living room window. I stay away from them though because, unlike most people, I think they smell like dirty socks.

Our well-manicured grass is difficult to mow because of the slope. My dad says that I will be big enough to mow it myself soon. The slope of the yard does provide some benefits though. My driveway has become the favorite place for the neighborhood boys to race their Hot Wheels. We carefully set up the long tracks and race them all the way from the garage to the gutter. Lately I have been winning because my dad showed me how to put sewing machine oil on the axles to make the cars go faster.

The two walnut trees create a canopy that lets little sunlight filter through to the turf. Around the trees, a circle of stones protects the delicate daisies caressing the trunks. Like huge, six-foot hay bales, bunches of pampas grass run along the side fence. The blades are long, narrow, and razor sharp like swords. My father planted them as a deterrent to burglars but for the most part they only cut the neighborhood kids and devour our wayward baseballs. And anyway, Chuck would never let a burglar get over the fence.

The garage of our house looks like an old brown barn from a Midwestern farm. Its broad, angular roof ends on either side with eaves that hang down very low. A seven-year-old like me can easily run beneath them, but adults must duck or walk around. Over the large front door, decorative woodwork mimics the doors of a hay loft.

Over the slope of the lawn I can see the street. Images from some far-off, distant place dance and shiver in the silver heat that rises from the asphalt like fleeing spirits. Walking home from the bus stop an hour or so ago, the road a black skillet, I felt the heat biting me through my leather sandals. I tried to hop as I walked in an effort to keep my feet off the ground as long as possible, like the lizard I saw on television that alternately raised two of its feet above the fiery desert sand to keep them cool. But for me, it didn’t work. I resorted to walking in the gutter, where a small stream of warm but refreshing water flowed, even though I knew that my mom would probably get mad at me for soaking my good sandals. And I was right. So here I sit on the front porch with my dog, both banished from the house, waiting for my sandals to dry.

I find it a little hard to breathe, the heat like a mighty python constricting my chest. The air is dry, still and tasteless. Dead. No breeze to carry fragrance, no moisture to enhance it. I look over to Chuck and see that he is already dry again. Scooting over next to him I draw a deep breath. A dry dog, like a dry summer day, has no smell.

Sweat forms tiny pools at the base of each blonde hair on my arm. I sit and watch until the pools grow large and overflow their pores, generating small streams that flow down to the lake forming in valley of my elbow.

Even though the sun falls lower toward the horizon, this is the hottest part of the day. As the shadow from the front porch overhang creeps forward towards the street, the first signs of life appear before me. A trail of ants strings across the walkway, following the shadow of the overhang, noticeably avoiding the sun. I drop a small stone in their path and they become confused for a short time. But they quickly find their way around it and resume the serious business of being ants.

The magpies are still sitting under the tree, waiting. This is the first time that I have ever been this close to them. Normally they are very timid. My dad says this is because they are quite intelligent. His friend had one when they were kids and he taught it to talk. Dad says that you have to split their tongues with a razor blade to form a fork in order for them to speak. I have always wondered what it would be like to have one for a pet but I’m sure my mom wouldn’t let me have one. Birds are dirty, she would say.

I hear the doorknob click and turn around to see my mom opening the front door. “Are your sandals dry yet, kiddo?” she asks.

“Yep.”

“Okay, you can come in now.”

“Can Chuck come?” I ask.

“No honey, he’s filthy.”

“Hmm. Okay, I’ll just stay out here for a while then.”

With a frown and a shake of her head, my mother closes the door. Chuck and I stare out into the rising heat. We’re just going to wait it out.

Derailed

Before any long vacation I typically do some spring cleaning and sell things for pocket money. It usually doesn't amount to that much, maybe enough for a meal or a T-shirt, but it's not really about the money. Vacation is simply motivation to get rid of stuff.

One time many years ago, right before Jennifer and I went to Mexico, I sat and ripped our entire music collection, which was around 300 CDs. We then sold the CDs to the now defunct Dimple Records back when CDs had value. We had quite a few pesos for fun money.

Most of the time, however, I sell bike parts. Being a lifelong cyclist, and a hoarder, meant I had a substantial collection of parts in The Archive. Until recently, The Archive was vast and deep, but when we moved to Folsom I didn't have the space to hoard anymore.

Last year before we went to Cabo I had a five dollar sale on Craigslist featuring derailleurs, shifters, cassettes, pedals, stems, handlebars and various other parts. Everything was in great shape and as you can imagine, business was good. The beauty of selling things cheap is it seems to limit interactions with weirdos, scammers and negotiators. Everyone showed up with cash and was happy with their near-new parts.

In a couple weeks we are going to Cabo San Lucas again, but this year The Archive is looking a little thin. What remains are the parts I will still use and really old crap with a very limited audience. Last year the front derailleurs weren't a huge seller for obvious reasons—the front derailleur has gone the way of rim brakes and friction shifting. I think I sold maybe three or four of them. I looked at what was left and decided a "grab bag" package deal was the way to go.

I listed 14 front derailleurs and various adapters and shims for 20 bucks. Even at that seemingly low price it took almost a week before I got a bite.

It doesn't seem like all that long ago when I was using front derailleurs. I personally never had a real problem with them—on the trail or setting them up—but once I tried a modern single-ring system I knew I was never going back.

Now the house is completely free of front derailleurs, and a little bit of history is gone from The Archive forever.

Later.

2024 Year In Review

I can't recall ever doing a year in review post, but there's a first time for everything.

In January we spent nine days in Cabo San Lucas.

After Cabo we resumed our normal lives for a bit. We rode bikes:

Had a beer or two:

And hung out with grumpy old friends:

In March Spencer and I went to spring training in Scottsdale for five days to take in some baseball. The first night wasn't so great.

But after that it was blue skies.

We even played a little catch ourselves.

Back home, we finished off spring training with an exhibition game between the San Francisco Giants and Sacramento River Cats.

In April it started warming up, and the scenery turned from brown to green.

Through April and much of May we stayed home, worked on home projects, and got some rides in.

Late May came and we decided we deserved a trip to the coast.

In June we took a day trip to Tahoe:

In July Jennifer and I went to Pomona to look for an apartment for Spencer, who would be attending Cal Poly Pomona.

We watched the Mariners destroy the Angels.

From Pomona we drove to Tucson to help my dad and stepmom move into their new house.

I drove a big truck.

Bought some Geico insurance.

We went back to Pomona again on the drive back from Tucson to nail down the apartment lease. I missed nine riding days and still managed to ride over 500 miles in July.

In August we made two separate trips to Pomona, the first to take possession of the apartment and build furniture:

And find the local breweries.

We were deep within enemy territory.

The sofa box made a fine temporary TV stand.

The second Pomona visit was to move Spencer in (and build more furniture):

He has strenuous hiking right across the street from his apartment.

In October we again went to Pomona for a few days just to visit.

Much of November was dedicated to a huge home improvement project, but we carved out some time for Monterey:

In December we came super close to buying this:

But ultimately decided on this:

I grew tired of the gloomy weather, but a vacation to a warmer, sunnier destination is only a few weeks away. I think I can make it.

Overall it was a very good year. I can't complain.

Later.