May Already?

For some reason Blogger doesn't like my browser (or my browser doesn't like blogger) so I haven't been able to update for awhile... I finally decided to use someone elses computer. That and my recent sinus infection is my excuse for the delay in blogging.

Lesseee...what has happened recently.

Go Greenbelt! ride took place April 23-29th. What an awesome Ride! It is a very well supported organized week long ride around the greenbelt of the Bay Area. I would suggest this ride as an alternative to AIDS Lifecycle for anyone who wants a change one year. I, of course have decided to do both rides this year, meaning I am taking two weeks off work to ride. Not a bad gig. I was able to raise over $2,000 for Go Greenbelt this year, but hitting up all of my cycling friends for donations. With their help, I think I was in the top 3 or 4 for fundraising. I will find out for sure next month when we have our "reunion and prizes" party.

Go Greenbelt was a much much smaller group of experienced cyclists (45 of us). The mileage each day was anywhere from 60 to 80 miles each day. The route, however was nowhere close to easy, with mega climbs up to Mt Hamilton and Mt. Tam as well as a little known road between Sonoma and Napa County called "Spring Mountain". Man that was a tough climb, but well worth the crazy downhill! The best thing about Go Greenbelt is that we are helping Greenbelt Alliance in its quest to prevent Urban Sprawl. The route took us through many areas (Morgan Hill, Brentwood) where the creeeping of residential developments into agricultural or open space areas is clearly evident... and sad.

May 6th Mike and I rode the metric centry route of the Wine Country Century. It was a beautiful weekend to ride, the weather was not too hot and the colors of the valley were amazing! We started our 62 mile ride at 7am and ended at 1pm. What's funny is that we had to actually slow down our pace, or we would have gotten in at about 11am (with lunch at 9am)! We took lots of pictures and met lots of nice riders who we pacelined with and generally enjoyed chatting with.

Unfortunately, that afternoon triggered a nasty hay fever spell for me. This eventually progressed into a full blown Sinus Infection for about 2 weeks which pretty much kept me off the bike and kept me inside the house. I finally got to my Doc who happily gave me an antibiotic so that I could get back on the road this weekend... Last weekend I missed a two day ride The Jonathan Pon Ride, which was sponsored by the Positive Pedalers. I felt a little better the 2nd day of that ride, so I drove up to give support and "go rider" shouts to those on the road that I passed.

This weekend it's supposed to rain (figures), and I am slated to lead a 90ish miler from SF to the Marshall "wall" and back. I am actually happy it may rain, I think it may knock all the bad pollen out of the air and leave me some good air to inhale for awhile. I'm pretty used to riding in the rain anyway, so at least riding it in 65 degree weather will be better than some of the temps I rode in back in March!

See you on the road... AID Lifecycle is only 16 days away!

April already?

Wow, I hadn't realized that I haven't updated this blog for awhile until someone pointed it out to me this weekend. I forget that other riders read these things too, not just my Donors!

Let's see... although the weather has been horrible for the past month, I have been able to get quite a few rides in anyway. Of course, this usually means that I start out the ride with dry gear and by the time I'm done I'm pretty wet. What I find is that as long as my core (torso) is able to stay warm and dry, I'm usually in pretty good shape and pretty good spirits too.

Gloomy weather just makes me (and everyone, I'm finding) CRANKY. Add to that the pressure of my upcoming multi-day ride, Go Greenbelt on April 23-29th and worrying about rain that week, and I am just pretty stir crazy. I can't even worry about ALC 5 at this point because I've just got to get through the week long ride known as the Go Greenbelt Ride.

I went out and bought some waterproof socks and gloves, made by Sealskinz. I will ride with them on this Friday and see how water tight they actually are. I can ride in wet gear, but once my feet get wet and cold it's all over. Having water slosh around in your shoes as you pedal is no fun!

About 2 weeks ago, I put the idea out to a huge group of AIDS Lifecycle riders, that we should all wear this jersey on Day 4 because Day 4 is the day we do Evil Twins:



So far about 20+ people have ordered so this should be a fun "Day Four" on ALC 5. You can order it in Men's or Women's sizes at Team Estrogen's website: http://www.teamestrogen.com/products.asp?pID=19995
If you are an ALC rider reading this, join us! Can't wait to see what 2700 people look like wearing the same jersey! LOL!

I emailed customer service at Team Estrogen to tell them I had suggested this and this is what they wrote back to me:

"Wow, thanks for sending us so many customers! We're glad you wrote because
for the past week we've been trying to figure out why there was such a high
demand and also why everyone purchasing the South Park jerseys were from
California! Now we know! :)"

Anyhow, I'm all about looking like a team. And I like the obnoxiousness of it all....

Why I am a Training Ride Leader....

Every training ride season since I began riding and training for AIDS Lifecycle, there are always a couple of training rides that bring me back to the memories of the year when I myself began training for the Ride in 2003.

I remember buying the bike, spending the whole weekend studying it to figure out how it worked, riding with my husband up and down the street and falling. I had been falling so many times that I had at least 12 band-aids on my legs and knees by the time Monday came. My pedals were set too tight so that I had a hard time un-clipping from them- I mean I had the weakest ankles you could imagine anyway so that twisting motion of getting out was really difficult!

I also remember climbing a really small hill (not small at the time to me) and having my gears in the wrong place and nothing I could do would make the pedaling easier, and even when I did click the correct lever to make it easier, two minutes later I couldn't remember what it was that I clicked....it was soo frustrating. The fact that I couldn't breathe whenever I went up hill made it even harder, and it was pure hell but I was determined to get it right.

Yesterday's ride in Hollister brought me back to that year and its memories again, and made me realize again the reason that I decided to become a Ride Leader and why I like it so much....

Carmen came out to ride with us yesterday ( at some point I'm sure she's gonna read this blog so I hope she doesn't mind that I'm writing about her). It was her first ride with an official ALC training ride, her first "group ride" ever. I sensed the overwhelming nervousness from her when she approached me at let me know that she was still learning her bike and that she had fallen alot and thus far had said to herself that if she couldn't get the hang of it she was giving up.
I looked her straight in the eye and said- "falling is not a reason to quit. We all fall. We still all fall even after years of riding. Its sort of inevitable..." and she looked at me like "yeah right", and said "okay."

Two minutes later, my friend Scott who was also on the ride with us, demonstrated that fact by rolling to a stop while admiring someones bike, forgetting to unclip and falling right in front of Carmen.

Thanks for confirming my statement, Scott.

For the next 20 miles, I rode with Carmen up and down some pretty hilly roads in Hollister. Mostly I rode behind her so I could look to see what gear she was in, then call out "cllck your right big lever" or "right small lever" or "keep pedaling!" or "use the momentum of the downhill to get up the next uphil!". She was obviously very determined because she listened intently to what I said and was able to finally figure out what levers did what. Climbing hills where a little hard for her just because she was not used to it, but she would absolutely not stop to walk her bike up the hill if she felt she could keep pedaling. She reminded me of me, three years ago, absolutely determined not to be defeated... except I indeed stopped at just about every hill that was too hard. I guess I was not as hard headed as Carmen is!

Its rides like these that make me happy about being a ride leader. When I can help in making someone succeed and they end up enjoying their ride and training, I feel pretty damn good.

She asked me, as most newbies do, how long I'd been riding, how many ALC rides I had done, what else I did to train besides riding my bike, etc. We talked about different centuries she had heard of, and when I told her I had done most of them she was astounded... 100 miles in one day ? Wow. I thought back to my first conversatin with someone when they told me they had ridden 100 miles in one day and how I thought it would never be possible for me to do that! 100 miles? It would take me at least 15 hours if not more!!

So I am living proof (as are many many more of the Training Ride Leaders) that you can accomplish riding 585 miles in 7 days. That you can ride 100 miles in one day, heck even 200 miles if you're THAT determined, that you will make great life long friends when you go through this with them. But sheer determination will not be enough to do it, you must ride and ride and ride. And if you fall, you get up and ride and ride and ride some more. And when you fall and tear your cycling tights, you stitch them up and ride again, then tell people the story of why it tore in the first place. And when that scrape bleeds through your leg warmers don't worry, spandex makes a great tourniquet and the blood washes out in the wash.

And if you need my help, just ask but don't stop riding!

Come Ride in Hollister!!!

This Saturday I'll be co-leading a ride in Hollister, home of Pinnacles National Monument. Although we won't be riding the rock formations of the park, we will be riding in some pretty nice out of the way places in San Benito County. I'm sure the wild flowers are starting to bloom, and hey its someplace different to ride so why not? Rick Warren, Kathleen Jones and I will meet you all for a little 40 miler... this is Rick's hometown so I'm sure that he'd be thrilled if you came out to see it!

Meet time is 10am and ride out time is 10:30, so that gives you all time to get down to the South South Bay. Come on out, its supposed to only be partly cloudy (the only day without rain this week!), and heck you know even if it does rain when we get there, we'll just have to go eat and get to know each other better!

Come on over! Can't wait to finally meet you!

Renegade Ride, Napa

Saturday we did our "sort of monthly" Renegade ride in Napa, up the Silverado Trail through Calistoga and St. Helena to Taylors Refresher, then back to the Silverado Trail and south to Napa. About 20 people showed up to ride at 9. I think I had my best time yet up the Silverado Trail (28 miles) in about an hour and fifteen minutes. My computer said I averaged 17mph, which felt about right because I was starving by the time we hit Taylors!

What's nice about Renegade rides is that although we all start out at the same time, its everyone's "own" ride. By that I mean no one has expectation about others waiting for them, (or waiting on them!) and its a time for everyone to focus on their own training. Since most of the riders out Saturday were TRL's, it was a good feeling for all of them to have no one to worry about except themselves, it was our own training day... there's the normal concern about your friends, but its different than when you are officially leading and can't leave until the last person is accounted for.

The weather was beyoootiful, definitely shorts and short sleeve jerseys. We had one newbie with us, and one roadie and several "non ALC" riders in our group of 20, all out to enjoy the day. It was Super Duper!

89 Degrees to 49 Degrees

Brrrrr.... only 6 days ago I was in 89 degree weather. Today it did not warm up past 49.

I had a Tiburon Loop ride scheduled as an official ride this morning. The sky looked fine at 8am so I drove out to the Sports Basement in the Presidio to meet up with 8 other folks. When I got there, it was cold but no rain in sight. Makoto, Jennifer, Bruce, Joe, Jodi, John Y, Donald, John F. and I rode out from the SB parking lot at 9:05 and headed for the bridge. Once in Sausalito, the rain started to sprinkle and by the time we were on Bridgeway it was coming down lightly, but steadily. Looking ahead to the north, you could tell it was not going to get any nicer, so we stopped and officially canceled the ride. Luckily, we stopped at Cafe Trieste- yum- for coffee and a croissant and to wait out the rain. Makoto and Jen decided they'd ride back to the SB (and go to work, I guess) so the rest of us warmed up and ate.

John Y. decided since he had actually parked in Larkspur he'd ride over to his car, so he left us. Jodi, Donald, John, Joe, Bruce and I braved the cold cold raindrops and headed back to the bridge where we decided if the ride was gonna be cut short, at least we could get some climbing in. So, once at the top of bridgeway, we took a right turn and followed the signs toward Ft. Baker. The climb from the waterfront back up to the bridge is a doozy, but without traffic so it was worth the workout.

Once at the north end of the bridge, we did a cyclocross move and carried our bikes down the stairs, rode across the path and carried our bikes back up stairs on the other side. From there it was smooth sailing across the bridge and back to SB. A whopping 12 mile ride for the day but some good hill climbing in for good measure.

Every February I say this..." when will it stop raining so I can get some training in???"....

Tour de Palm Springs

This past Saturday, I rode my first century of 2006, the Tour de Palm Springs. This annual ride is a fundraiser for about 50 different charities in Palm Springs and one of the biggest cycling events in California. I ride it each year because it is usually in early February, right about the time I'm getting really sick of riding in the cold damp weather of Northern California. This year the temperature in Palm Springs during the day was in the mid eighties, topping out at about 90 degrees right around 3pm. This was the first year I actually got in before dark, with my actual riding time about 6 hours and 40 minutes. Not bad, considering I even stopped to help two people with flats. Oh yeah, and I got my biker tan back.

Organized Rides/Centuries I'm shooting to do this year:

Solvang, 3/11
Cinderella Century (metric century, girls only!) 3/25
Tierra Bella 4/8
Go Greenbelt 4/23 thru 4/29
Wine Country Century 5/6
AIDS Lifecycle June 4-10
The Deathride: Tour of the California Alps July 8

can't think much past July for any more....

Renegade Rides

Often enough I lead "official" training rides for AIDS Lifecycle on the weekends. Every once in awhile I decide that I just wanna ride.... no stretching, no safety speech, no rules.... well pretty much anyway. This past Saturday was one of those days.

Nine of us met up at 10am (after the rain had passed), and rode out to the Cheese Factory, climbed Wilson Hill, rode through Chileno Valley to the town of Petaluma where we ate lunch at the Apple Box Cafe. We then headed back up 'D' streeet (aka Red Hill) back to the Cheese Factory, through Nicasio back to my house. 58 miles, all hills in February. Not bad considering we we've been riding pretty average 40 mile routes for the past month. It was a great day- a bit windy but that made it more of a workout of course.

Our next "Renegade" Ride is Saturday Feb 25th in Napa Valley.... I was gonna post this as an official ride, but didn't hear back from a co-lead (Dave Kim... where are you?) so we're renegading it with a stop at Taylors Refresher for lunch! Let me know if you wanna join in.

Go Greenbelt Bike Ride

So call me crazy. In addition to riding AIDS Lifecycle 5 this year, I am also riding another week long ride April 23-29th. Its called the Go Greenbelt Bike Tour. Go Greenbelt supports the Greenbelt Alliance in it's mission to protect the region's Greenbelt in an effort to prevent "Urban Sprawl".

Greenbelt Alliance is the Bay Area's leading land conservation and urban planning non-profit. Think of the out of the way local country places you have been cycling-- These are all of the types of places that the Greenbelt Alliance is working to set aside to protect, while still helping to revitalize the regions downtowns by directing new growth within existing cities instead of out in the Greenbelt. As a native of the Bay Area (I grew up in East San Jose), seeing all of the changes to our landscape in the last 30 years or so, I felt it an important cause to support, and hey if it involves a bike ride- you know I'm all over it!

Here's the info: http://www.greenbelt.org/get involved/events/go_overview.html

Feel free to sponsor me today! (Nothing like being a little direct, eh?)

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.