A New Year already?

Photo of my sisters and I on Christmas Day...


It's already New Year's Eve. I've spent the last 2 days cleaning out the excess "stuff" we have around the house that has not been touched since we moved in - December of 2000!! yikes! Do you know how many candles you can collect in that time period? And towels? And chach-kie junk? man, the folks at Goodwill just looked at us like, "how could you get rid of all this great stuff?"

Well, we had to get rid of the old chach-kies to make room for the new....

Happy New Year!

The Season starts again...

That's me modeling the oh so beautiful Training Rider Leader BUHC. (That would be a nice term for Butt Ugly Helmet Cover).


The official kick off to the ALC5 Training Ride Season was yesterday, October 30th. I led a 20 mile ride from SF to Mill Valley and back along with 5 other TRL's : Michael, Rowdy, Debra, Shelly and Jon.

It was a beeyootiful day, and we had about 35 to 40 riders with us. Most folks on the ride chose this route wisely, as most had not been on their bikes for longer than this mileage. We had NO mechanical issues, no super duper slow riders, although we did have to remind people that you indeed CAN get a ticket for not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign or stop light!

Once we stopped to regroup at the Coffee Depot in Mill Valley, a few people asked me about clipless pedals, so I got to talk about pedal systems, cleats, why they help, etc...as well as cold weather "accessories" to keep you warm.

I love when folks ask questions because training is what I think I do best.

All in all it was a terrific day, and I really actually am looking forward to the new season, but man I gotta get better at remembering names again!

AIDS Lifecycle 5 poster child...

So I hear that this photo is all over SF and also in the Southbay. My ex-husband even said he saw it in a jamba juice in Los Altos, and I've gotten emails from friends all over town saying they see me in the Muni station every morning on the way to work....(yes that's me front and center!) I guess this sort of "15 minutes of fame" is a good thing. Maybe it will convince average people to come ride the ride this year er, well next year really. But you should start training now, because riding 7 days and a total of almost 600 miles is no easy feat (on the feet or on the butt!)

Bike Against the Odds 2005

A whole bunch of us rode the Breast Cancer Fund's "Bike Against the Odds" ride this past weekend. We rode with my cycling club, the Bay Area Velo Girls, along with a bunch of Velo Boys as well. The route I rode this year was 47 miles with about 4,000 feet of climbing (or so someone said... I don't pay much attention to those details). It was a blast and a chance to raise money for a good cause...

The Big Sur Ride

This past weekend I rode the new bike on the Big Sur Ride. It is a two day ride, leaving from Carmel Valley, traveling down past Big Sur on hwy 1 and over Nacimiento grade into King City. We camped at Fort Hunter Liggett then Sunday headed back to Carmel through the Salinas Valley and the Santa Lucia mountains.

Big Sur is gorgeous country, and it's the scenery that you think of whenever you think of the coast of California. I remember driving down here alot when I used to work for the Nature Company. They had a store in Carmel and I got to come and visit about once a month during the mid 90's. It hasn't changed much, which is a good thing because as you can see it is a spectacular place to visit.

And yes, I actually did ride on the roads you see in the top and middle pictures- the top picture is highway 1 and the second picture is the climb up Nacimiento road from Hwy 1 to Fort Hunter Liggett....

The Synapse

I did it finally! I bought a new bike. It is the Cannondale Synapse, an all carbon bike with a very sweet ride! I took it on its maiden voyage on Sunday- Tour de Tahoe, a 72 mile ride around the Lake. With the exception of my numb toes, which I attributed to the 25 degrees at ride out time, the ride was extremely comfortable! At some point I will take it to Curtis Cramblett for a professional bike fit, but in the meantime it feels really good. And it weighs a whole 17 3/4 lbs, compared to my 23 lb R600 its a whole lot like riding on a feather.

I think I'm over my cycling burnout now...

Solmar Resort, Cabo San Lucas

Mike and I spent a week doing absolutely nothing in Cabo San Lucas. We stayed at the Solmar resort at "Land's End" which is the southernmost tip of Baja. It was great. These pictures are two of the twelve pictures I took all week. It is basically the view from our balcony- the beach and the main building of the resort.

We usually take vacations that are very active- kayaking, hiking, tours, etc. Not this time. This was the first vacation we took where all we did was read books by the pool, and drink two for one happy hour drinks from 3 to 5pm every day, and slept an average of 10 hours a night!

Needless to say it was very relaxing.

Birthdays....

So I've always liked my birthday. It doesn't matter that this was my 43rd, and that I have more wrinkles and age spots than when I was 34- I like my birthday. It's the one time I can coerce 40 people to ride 40 miles up hill and back for a piece of cake!

When I was a kid, my sister Josie would throw these great birthday parties for me. She always had great prizes for pin the tail on the donkey, or twister or whatever. She'd wrap them and attach long strands curling ribbon to them, put them in a box with the ribbon hanging out and if you won one of the games, you got to pull a ribbon and a prize would be attached to the end of it. I always thought that was so cool- its really the only thing I vividly remember about my birthdays. That, and we always got our cake from Aki's bakery in San Jose.

I had my 2nd annual birthday ride on the 27th of August. It was a 38 mile ride to the Cheese Factory and back. This years cake was from Debbie Does Dessert in San Anselmo. Her cakes run a close second to Aki's.

Bike Against the Odds

Each year since they began the ride I have taken part in The Breast Cancer Fund's "Bike Against the Odds" with my cycling club The Velo Girls. There are two fundraising rides I do each year, AIDS Lifecycle and this one. Not only is it a great route (I usually do the 65 mile route, but this year may do less) but it is the one time that I get to actually meet the other members of Velo Girls in person. We are an all women's cycling club based out of the SF Peninsula.

Every year, the Oakland Yellowjackets try to beat us in fundraising and each year they have come in second. Something tells me that this year may be different. I mean their highest fundraiser so far is Ron Marshall, a great guy I met while training for my first AIDS Lifecycle, whose wife is a breast cancer survivor. Since I know a number of Yellowjackets, its fun to tease them in the days up to the ride, to get them to try and raise even more money than VG (if they can)... this year will be no different.

If you want to check us out you can do so by going to The Breast Cancer Fund's "Bike Against the Odds" page and make a donation....the link is:

http://breastcancerfund.kintera.org/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=104407

Imaginary Friends and the magic white chair...

The white chair/imaginary friend magic photo started back in the spring of this year. As a joke, our friend Rowdy took a picture of Shance (the eternal bachelor) in our white chair with his arm around his invisible future partner. Lo and behold, 2 months later Shance really does have a girlfriend, so we made him pose with her for a picture in the white chair. Every one of our single cycling friends now believes that chair has magic powers so a few of them decided to pose in the chair the same way Shance did with his imaginary friend that came to life... heck what's not to believe?

So here is Shance with his imaginary friend, who became Michelle.
Then Donald, Yoichi and Patrick who hope that magic rubs off on them too!

Stay tuned, I'm sure there will be many more "imaginary friend in the white chair" pictures to come.

My Best Friend...

That would be my husband, Mike Brown- but you knew that.

I met Mike at the Towson Town Center mall in Towson Maryland in July of 2000. We were both traveling for work that year. I had been separated- mostly divorced- from my ex husband since '97 and had resigned myself to having this great simple, single life, forever. That decision was reversed on Christmas Eve 2001 when Mike Brown became my husband...

I call him McGyver because he can pretty much make do with any common household item. He can fix anything, likes to stay physically active and is a damn good cook. I think my Gay friends are only my friends because they all like Mike so much... that's ok, I'll take the credit anyhow.

It's nice to have a best friend who knows your mood swings (and man, I have many!), will tell you the truth if your clothes don't look good on you (in the nicest way possible), will listen to you no matter how much you ramble on, and on, and on... tells you he misses you even though he just saw you two hours ago, makes you eat healthy and will refuse to fight with you, recognizing that your only being a bitch because you really just need to eat. :-)

Mike is a Sr. Construction Project Manager with a major retailer located in the SF Bay Area. He travels lots- and I only really see him 4 nights a week... but since we met while traveling, we are used to not being around each other which makes our time together incredibly fun.

I couldn't ask for a better best friend.

Tess- my very first ever friend....

Ok I guess I'll start with the first friend I ever met in my life, that would be my mother Tess. The photo attached is of the two of us in the water on the island of Boracay in the Philippines in January 2004. My mother is 84 years old- yes that means I am a menopause baby- she was 41 years old when I was born. She thought she was going through menopause so she went to see the doctor who said- "menopause? no, you are pregnant!".

My mother can be as annoying as any mother should be. But she is still my friend, and even forgives the fact that I am the only daughter she has that has gone through a divorce and then remarried outside of the Catholic Church- in fact not in a church at all... She is extremely active in all sorts of things, Senior Citizen volunteering, church gatherings, and has friends all over the place that she has met since she immigrated here to the US in 1955. I can only hope to be as energetic when I am 84. She still drives, although only to her little corners of the world- Church, the Sr. Citizen Center, and the grocery store.
She has a couple of local neighbors with whom she "hangs" with and together they are like the Golden Girls.
Being 84 now, she is slowly seeing her old friends pass on and sometimes is attending 3 or 4 funerals a month. It's sort of a bummer for her, but it also makes her realize how much vitality she still has in her even at her age.

I live with my mother 3 nights a week. Since I have to commute to my hometown from Marin each week, its a good excuse to see her and not feel guilty when I don't come home for Thanksgiving, Easter, etc... This also allows her to feel a little more secure, and not have to have a "roomate" 24/7.

We laugh ALOT together, over the dumbest things- I guess that is what keeps us both so young. Not to mention the fact that she makes me watch Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune and Dr. Phil with her each night that I am there. Oh well, its better than having to visit her in some smelly nursing home somewhere...

My mother Tess. Probably my most annoying friend. :-)

Friends...

I decided that I would write a bit about each of my friends, since alot of my life revolves around them mostly... childhood friends, cycling friends, friends of friends- you get what I mean. Many of my friends I've met while training for AIDS Lifecycle over the past 3 years. I'll do a different post on each of them (don't tell!) :-)

You've already met Greg in my last post, but there are a whole bunch more that I'll tell ya about...

Irish Greg

I was looking at these pics of my friend Greg. He has been cycling seriously for not quite a year now. Isn't it amazing how fit he looks in the lower picture (he's the guy on the far right) compared to his "promo" picture? I told him they really needed to give him a new promo picture because he looks nothing like the old Greg- the one who looks like he was storing nuts for the winter.... (he hates it when I say that!)

Greg is running in the San Francisco Marathon this weekend, then riding the Mt. Tam Double Century next Saturday.
You GO Greg!

Rafting on the South Fork of the American River

Each year on the third weekend of July, we meet up with friends for a weekend of rafting on the South Fork of the American River, and do this with River Runners- one of the oldest rafting companies on the river. (click on the title bar for their website).

We have been doing this since 2001 with our friends Ernie, Christian and Linda, and each year we bring a different group of friends with us. This year it was Carl, John, Donald, Yoichi, Shance, Dennis, Patrick and Michelle. Every year Christian and Hannah get a little older (and taller) and we always have Joe Tassinari as our guide. We started doing this when Hannah was eight and now she is eleven. This year our second guide was John Kosnowski... the boys liked him alot! heh heh! I think this will be come an annual trip for most of this years "guests".

Hannah Banana

  People always ask me 

about my step-daughter Hannah, our relationship, and what kind of kid she is. Here are a couple of pics of her-- one of her with her dad, and another posing in a great big hole that she dug with her dad at the beach last year. She is a pretty typical 11 year old- loves music and animals and giggles alot with her friends. We don't see her with great regularity, although when she does come out to visit we have a pretty good time. She is almost as tall as me and is already wearing my shoe size! Heck, pretty soon I'll be able to make her wear my clothes so she doesn't have to bring any with her to visit... (kidding, Hannah). She goes to a private school in Danville, California "The Athenian School" which is a pretty progressive thinking (read: liberal) middle and high school. Although it costs her dad an arm and a leg to send her there, we feel she is getting the best education for this influential time in her life. She's very smart, so I'm glad this school gives her a chance to experience diversity and open mindedness in the world which she might not get in a public school.

A new bike???

So I think I want a new bike (shhh... don't tell my old bike!). On Sunday, Mike and I headed over to Mike's Bikes in Sausalito where I test rode two bikes- the Specialized Roubaix and the Cannondale R5000. Funny, the Roubaix was much lighter but I still liked the handling of the Cannondale. The ride was stiffer and, I dunno- more controllable? The Roubaix is a carbon composite which makes it much lighter but I didn't feel any more comfortable, as people told me I would be, going from aluminum to carbon.

So the dilemma: go with what I know is lighter? or go with what is comfortable? Heck, both of them were waaaay lighter than the Cannondale R600 that I ride now! The nice thing is that they are both about the same price, but the Cannondale had much nicer components and wheels..... decisions, decisions....

Healdsburg Harvest Century (metric)

We rode the Healdsburg Harvest Century on Saturday. This is a great ride, very scenic and well supported. Mike and I arrived at the start at 6:15 for a 6:30 check in and were on the road by 6:45. The day was slated to be in the 90's, temperature wise so we wanted to get an early start to this 60 mile ride. We met EJ (see Friday's post) and Carl and the four of us got on the road at an easy quick pace. We missed our group of friends who were also doing the ride, as they got a later start. But we were able to hook up with them at the end of the ride. (The pics here are stolen from Shance's smug mug page). Mike is getting inspired to ride by watching the Tour each morning or evening.... one can only hope that he will get hooked on cycling and want to continue riding regularly. It's pretty rare that we ride together, this was one of those rare days and we both had a great time!

We finished our ride at about 11:00, just in time to sit under the trees, cool off and of course, eat. About 40 minutes later we saw both Shance and Faisal ride in, and so sat waiting for the rest of the group to ride in as well...

"Ride To Eat"

Lydia, EJ and I rode the Tiburon Loop this morning from my house. I am always amazed (and I'm not the only one) that Lyd can have a conversation all the way up and down a good climb! She says it's her way of getting through the climb, although I think she is a good climber and her "slowness" is all in her head. I do enjoy listening to her stories though, so I won't tell her to stop talking because it helps me up the hill as well. EJ just follows along listening, following our pace and shaking his head in amazement every once in awhile!

We rode the Tib in reverse (I've got to map that route out, turn by turn some day) which brought us to Cafe Acri in Tiburon where we ate breakfast and had coffee and good conversation before heading out to finish the loop. In Corte Madera we said goodbye to EJ who was headed back to the city. Lydia and I stopped at Rulli's in Larkspur for Afogato- gelato with espresso poured over it. It was a flat ride back to my house, but it was a really warm day so the ice cream and caffeine really helped! :-)

Travel Schedule/Rides/Etc

Friday, July 15th: Tiburon Loop 9:30am

Saturday, July 16th: Healdsburg Harvest Century

Friday-Sunday July 22-24: Rafting the American River!

Saturday, August 6th: Marin Century

Saturday, August 13th: Mike's Birthday at Stinson Beach!

Sunday, August 21st: Napa Century

Thursday, August 25th: My Birthday!

Sunday August 28 to Sunday Sept 4th: Yosemite and Tahoe

Ride Report: The Death Ride-Markleeville July 9th

HOO WEEE now I know why they call it the Death Ride!

This was BY FAR, the hardest ride I've ever done.... EVER! Five Mountain passes (I completed 3), with a total of over 16,000 feet of climbing and 127 miles. I was able to complete 3 passes (about 12,000 feet of climbing) and 78 miles in 7 hours of riding time before I missed the cutoff time for completing the last two climbs.... (oh darn....)

Michael and I parked about a 1/2 mile away from Turtle Rock Park in Markleeville ("Home of the Death Ride") and started our ride at 5:45am with a 1/2 mile climb to the park to use the porta potties. That was sort of an indication of what the entire day would be like (climbing and peeing). We had to get up at 3:30am in order to eat, dress and get to the park by 5:30. That was the earliest I've ever had to get up in order to start a ride!! (well, ok day 1 of ALC I had to get up at 3:45).
We stayed at Kirkwood Resort, which was about a 40 minute drive from the start, but the closest place you could get a reservation because anything closer was booked a year in advance!

The first climb was Monitor Pass, Elevation 8,314 ft.- we started from an elevation of 5,501 ft. The climb was long, long, long and grueling but it was a cool morning and there was a water stop halfway up and a rest stop at the top. I made it up in about 2 hours. Then the descent on the other side was long, long, long and fast! I was, however able to recognize both Ben Armstrong and Mark Smith who were both going back up the same road that I was descending. (That's the 2nd climb) I think I hit about 48 mph on that downhill! It was nice and smooth and oh yeah, the roads were closed to motor traffic!

At the bottom of Monitor Pass, it was warming up considerably so I decided that would drop all of my layers-outer jersey, windbreaker, leg warmers- they would deliver them back to Turtle Rock Park for pick up after the ride. The weather report said 78 to 80 degrees for the day and I imagined sweating my way through the rest of the ride.

I hopped back on my bike and headed back up that long, long, long, fast, steep descent which had now become a hellaciously long, long, climb back to the top (climb number two). As I made my way back to the top of the hill, I realized that there were clouds coming our way and soon as we reached the top of Monitor again I thought, I CAN'T BELIEVE IT-- ITS FREAKING FREEZING UP HERE! And I had checked all of my lovely layers in for delivery at the end of the ride.....
Luckily, there were some REI guys there working as bike techs so they were able to hook me up with a windbreaker (luckily I had a credit card on me) and I put it on and FLEW down the front side of the mountain and on toward my third climb of the day- Ebbetts Pass.

Just past the beginning of the climb, the lunch stop had been set up for those folks who where done with their 4 climbs-- I said heck if I don't have a sandwich after all that climbing I'm gonna bonk. So I grabbed 1/2 a turkey sandwich and some pasta salad and set down with George Harrison for a few minutes, who was on his way to his 3rd climb. He was only planning to climb the front side of Monitor, the front side of Ebbets and then the climb up Carson Pass, three climbs- which he completed as well.

I finished my sandwich quickly and was back on the road for the even MORE hellacious climb up Ebbetts Pass (elevation 8,730 feet). Wow, I have never climbed so long (7 miles, I think) and so hard in all of my life! It was amazing that I still noticed how gorgeous the area was, because I was so focused on the steepness and steadiness of the road for sure! Every time you'd turn a corner, there was MORE TO CLIMB. Then you'd get yourself up that part, and it would CONTINUE TO GO UP. What was also hard, was that at the same time I was ascending there were people already descending (they started riding before dawn), and so that made it a little distracting. Pretty soon I was seeing chalk markers on the road that said: 5 kilometers, 4 kilometers, 3 kilometers, 2 kilometers and so on. That made it a bit easier to anticipate the rest of the climb. Soon, I saw a chalk writing that said "sprint!", thinking that this was near the top ( it wasn't), I got out of my seat and started to climb harder and faster. When I got to the top of that, it went on even further. It was sort of funny because I'm sure a few hundred others did the same thing I did and then got just as pissed that it wasn't the top yet!

I remember hearing people talk about climbing this ride. Everyone said the climbing is tough, you have to do it slow and easy and save your energy.... boy that was the truth!

Finally I reached the top of Ebbetts Pass, where Michael was there waiting for me in the COLD COLD wind! I was hoping to be able to descend and do the climb back up (the 4th climb), but Michael said "it's been decided for you- you aren't doing the 4th pass..... the cut off time was about 20 minutes ago." So the Universe wanted me to only climb 3 passes (oh darn....) and I happily agreed. 3 Mountain passes, a total of 78 miles and 12,000 feet of climbing in 7 hours was enough for me!

We headed down the very very fast, steep descent on the front side of Ebbetts, back to Markleeville where we stopped for Dreyer's Ice Cream. YUM! - that ice cream tasted so good, and it was just enough sugar to get us back up one more looong (but not steep) hill to Turtle Rock park where we changed clothes and waited for the rest of our group: Letty, Joe B. and Shance, who did all 5 mtn passes, and Ken who did 4. We were all feeling great- tired of course, but felt great about what we were all able to accomplish!

My thoughts on riding again? Well on Saturday afternoon I thought " no freakin' way"! But when I woke up Sunday morning feeling pretty good, I thought: sure if I get a new, lighter bike and improve my climbing speed by next year, I would shoot for all 5 passes, now that I know what I'm in for!

Blogging for AIDS Lifecycle...

Ok, I've become addicted to blogging ever since the AIDS Lifecycle folks asked me to be a participant blogger in this years AIDS Lifecycle ride. AIDS Lifecycle is a 585 mile (or so) bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles, that raises both money and awareness of the services provided by both the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. If you're an avid cyclist--- this is the best organized and best supported seven day ride (not a race!) you will ever encounter!

So lets see how long it takes me to figure out how this whole blogging thing works....