9.5 hours of honest work, then 20 seconds of play

•June 4, 2010 • 2 Comments

"After"

Neighbor Peter A. needed some garden clean-up, and I needed some cash. The rainy spring has made everyone’s garden over-lush, with thick damp piles of the winter leaf build-up.   I said I’d be over at eight a.m. Ouch.
I got there on time, well fed, but brought no lunch. This will matter at the end of the day.

I didn’t stop until my dirt-encrusted wristwatch said 5:30. I’d begun a in drizzle, and finished in bright sun. It felt like the entire year’s weather spectrum played out over my stooped form in that wonderful garden.

Hundreds of snipping movements,  thousands of bare-handed yanking–to the point of blisters on my pointer fingers. I lost a tool and had to plow through sacks of leaves to find it again. Later, I lost a glove, and luckily found it-it was Peter’s.  Lost for a second time the same tool ( a weeding awl, or something)   Then: found a tool (claw headed cultivator)  that Peter or his wife lost last year in the ivy.  Must develop a method not to lose stuff. A Placement Protocol, or a simple “method”.

Methodical. This is a word that resonates the way “Everest” does to hiking enthusiasts.  The unattainable, unknowable pinnacle. The place where Charlie’s got a permanent little hut, right on top of Mount Methodical.

Right. So I raked, chopped, snipped, stepped back and was appalled. Resumed. Decided that the gardener is an artist, and she gets to decide that a neat, topiary-like rounded hedge is too formal for this excellent hillside abode with its gasp inducing view of Mount Tam. No, things need to look more natural here.  Under all the azalea shrubs, a hundred baby live oaks sprouted this winter. I pulled them up ruthlessly.

An orange cat looked on half interested. Flirted with me.

One thing about my personality is: flitting about, never completely finishing a task. If there were a surveillance camera in that garden, the watcher would definitely wonder what the hell I was doing bouncing between raking, weeding, clipping, etc. When twas time to actually sweep up the mess, I nearly couldn’t do it; I hate when fun things are over.

This might be a clue into my personality. Must mull.

Then rolled home, after I really did sweep up, and said goodbye to the lonely cat.
Arrived home too tired to make food. Guzzled a quart of (found) chocomilk, which fully reconstituted me, enough to check out the ‘Gold Sprints’ (or is it Goal sprints?) down in San Rafael. Even had a chapeau-rhone (Josh Thayer) to accompany me on the unremarkable, boring and very dangerous 3 miler to San Rafael. Today’s paper told of a mad motorist who purposely mowed down four separate cyclists…he wanted to kill cyclists in San Francisco. Luckily none died, but two are in critical condition.

Ugh.
At the venue (Mike’s Bikes) we got to wait about half an hour for the door to open. Reminded me of clubbing. Something I’ve never done, but I know that the line was half the fun, right?
Josh explained how the lawsuit at Craigslist, where he’s one of the upper level heavies, no, really. Not bragging, just the facts, anyway it’s apparently a crusade (political) on teh part of the Calif. Attorney General, to seem like he’s getting Something done. And since yes, there is such thing as child porn, and Craigslist is on the internet, the two have coincided (and Craig pursues the full extent of the law, every day sez Josh)…anyway the lawsuit is an unavoidable fact of being in a business big enough to garner the attention of the world. So all the resources, time and talent of that company is being drained triple time. They may decide that life is too short to mess with lawsuits, and sell the company.

This is of course just my speculation.
Ah the gold sprint– A fundraiser for MCBC: straddled a strange bike with tiny handlbar, get strapped in. Talked a shy-ish racer named Caitlin to try. We demo’d. Big fun, and my legs are toast.  Rode  home in a blissful sort of haze. Maybe I will spin madly for 20 seconds more often.

It felt like Actual Work.

Can’t Touch This

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If This Is Women’s Cycling, Include Me Out

•May 30, 2010 • 9 Comments

BIKE HUGGER  ( Dave Schloss? Byron?) wrote today,  asked for my comments. But since you have to join up and sign in an’ all, I decided to just answer here. If answer is the correct term for dreaming up a thoughtful reply to  the industry-financed DVD called “Cyclepassion”.

There’s plenty of discussion going on, possibly precipitated by a particularly pornesque portrayal of top(less) pedalinas– April, Heather– undressing for the cameraman/viewer. I am a fan of these ultrafast women.  Watching the winners in Durango receive tattoos that night reminded me of a peep show: Heather Irmiger was gorgeous (but scary drunk) in her  shimmering white wig ,  surrounded with a hundred camera-toting admirers.sswc-2009-heather-irmiger-tattoo

“Manwhile”, few were taking notice of the male winner’s tattouage.

Perhaps some day there’ll be porn parity– we’ll  see the top men doing precisely the same thing–stripping for the camera, offering their  beauty  up for inspection.  This will happen when homosexuality doesn’t register a blip on the market value of the athlete, AND when the football players paychecks plummet.

I sent the link out to the Old Bat sisterhood for feedback.

Denver Wombat Amy Lewis wrote to me: 
ugh–your polkadot tights have a thread reaching all the way to pornified vamping for the same old tired male gaze? Gag, i hope not.

I am surprised to think that the wacky tights could be construed as ‘sexy’ in the same way the Paula Pezzo cleavage and chamoisbeaver shots are. When I want to be sexy I disappear and come back muddy.

There was that one time I finished the Rockhopper sans jersey. It was simply to help the announcer recognize me.  In 1984, there seemed to be no one checking race numbers against rosters to announce finishers by name. Really. For the record, my future husband Charlie was the first rider across the line that day, I was  second person in.

The pro men did an extra four miles, so we  weren’t the ‘real’ winners, just the first back to the keg.
I will wrestle with the topic of sexual sports rhetoric in my upcoming book Fabulous Me, A Hagiography. Due out er…soon. No. Not really. Late.

About 15 years late.

But here’s a comic  –attempting to throw some light on problems encounterd  when women enter the bike shop.  I conceived this strip 17 years ago, and commissioned Mudflap ‘zinestress Greta Snider to draw it  for a hundred bucks . 

I can’t recall if it got published anywhere but Wombat News. I doubt it. It’s based on the true life-trials of Harriet Hayes of Boise Idaho. She wanted a Merlin. The kid in the store wouldn’t sell it to her. This seems unthinkable now, but back then he wanted to “save her money” by steering her to a cheapo cruiser.

Byron has other threads in his blog, one entitled

Women as Outcasts In Cycling Industry

( so-called women specific design vs simply well-designed bikes for a variety of body proportions…) and here he points out that the industry blames the women who complain about their treatment in bike stores: It’s Women’s Fault–“they should do more research before going into a shop and then ask the right questions” opines someone from one of the big three manufacturers.

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Kings Ridge With Keith & Co

•May 16, 2010 • 1 Comment

stumbling fence

Gentle rider,

May I get extra credit for dragging myself out of a hot,  fragrant  bath, and instead of crawling up into bed opting to write a blog?

I caught a car ride with Lewis Peterson, the  ever- ready ride who greeted me with: I’m riding with a celebrity!!! For perhaps the first time ever, someone beat me to the punch.

Normally I open with : you’re in the presence of greatness, by the way.  A dubious opening move, which, if it were chess, would no doubt end up in the death of the queen. But queens never die, right?).  At some point this charade of Greatness is going to wear thin. Unless of course I actually produce something of palpable value that will re-purchase some fresh renown.
I am counting on John Pedersen or SeeKay to let me know when this happens.  The “wear thin” part, not the “valuable contribution” part .
What, I passed the point of no return ?

May I ruminate on Fame?
I say yes, because half the riders in the “Unshaven Posse” (sorry CK) were hatched in the San Fernando Valley, a known hotbed of Fame Cultivation.

A lot of ‘contributors’ there, too, esp in the entertainment department. I won’t elaborate because these folks probably HATE being Famous–at their level, it interferes with their lives.   Right, Jackson?

We were early for the meet-up with the Retrovians. Lewis rode his 1980 Ritchey road bike, a lugless, fillet-brazed masterpiece in shiny red paint. Everyone else had…oh,  conveyances with two wheels of equal size.

Oh, shit, why don’t I notice bikes?

Paula Smith had something newish…and raved about her grippy slightly pudgy road tires.
Our goal: a 70 mile, 7000 foot elevation epic beginning in Monte Rio and looping counterclockwise through what is called the Big Brushy on my Sonoma County road map.

Sonoma is a cyclist’s promised land.
No traffic (yet).

Low pop. density/ insufficient water for development?

Could it be the bone-strengthening potholed roads? The local paper ran a story about how cyclists are at risk of osteoporosis because of not enough pounding. They must not be testing Sonoma County guys like Art Read and Nick Farac.

There was one unsightly, unfinished hacienda up there.   Plopped in the weeds, impossible to ignore, it was the kind of corner-cutting heap that only tasteless almost-rich folks who run out of money throw up on a ridge–no other houses for miles– then walk away from. The kind of place, were it awarded to me (this is the cocky racerette who is full of herself speaking here)  as a prize for winning the Amgen Tour of California (us cocky racerettes are convinced that such a thing may come to pass in the 22nd century), I would demolish. After allowing scavengers to pick through the salvage but I swear this place was made with the cheapest windows, the cheapest stucco, even the cheapest metal railing for the wrap-around porch.  Then I’d go downslope (away from the road) and help CC to dig in a west facing burrow with triple-pane (do those exist?) windows on the one open side.

Ah but I dig-ress again!

We began at eleven, six riders of varying ability and uniform stokedness. Paula  the artist, her husba,retrovian racer Keith Howell, their optho-pal Daniel Rich, and Jesse Goodman, who is one of the original Retrovian campers.

Within an hour, we were being passed by slightly fitter guys, all older than me. My competitive juices kicked in (as Talia Lempert puts it, I Let The Bulldog Out)and  I chased . I caught. I conquered!

OK, they were all standing around, taking pictures, so maybe the Bulldog was barking up the wrong tree.

Only one pissed off ranch trucker passed by, middle finger aloft. All but Lewis had been standing around in the middle of the road, and he coolly commented: “He’s not flipping ME off”.

The thin layer of cheap asphalt crackled–like pedaling over matzoh.

You can't completely pave paradise

On the first real descent (1.5 hours into the ride),  the newly installed front brake pads howled so bad I was terrified. I had to ride alone, because terrified Jacquie–the hell with the celebrity buffoon–is a squirrelly Jacquie.   Halfway down the rhythmic Skagg’s descent out of  the Indian reservation,  I put my foot down. Tired of the decibels, I crawled into a creek culvert to scoop up  mud. Slathered the fine stuff on both sides of the rim and…Banshee be gone!   Earlier, at the  first cattle grate, my left foot pulled out of the mechanism and I got a good scare (no crash). I was chastened the rest of the ride, and rode like a polite old lady.

Chasing people down a hill is for kids,  anyway. And pros with contracts.
It was great to be in and out of the saddle, snapping photos, trading banter. No rush. (I beg your pardon?) (Hint: already established alpha dog status).

Age cannot take those things away.
Every mile was new to me despite having done the loop at least 4 times in the last fifteen years. It’s hard to memorize every turn in the road, and how it’s resolved…So I had that Brand New Ride feeling.

(Proof of Alzheimers? )Lew’s done it 20 times, and gracefully anticipates every bend in the road. In fact, he probably has put a groove in the pavement all the way around…

Plantation was even more beautiful than ever…buildings getting fussed into like-new shape.

The running,   stumbling, laying flat, downright tipsy fences that accompanied us in the 72 miler  are the iconic symbol of the ride.

Keith and I babbled about Life Being But A Dream when you’re on this good of a ride….Here he is with his bride Paula Smith:

AND! If you’d like to know how the ride really went by a non-insane person named Daniel Rich, here’s his very astute summary:

Today’s ride was epic. We rode 70 plus miles with 7500 feet or so of
climbing. The terrain was rural Sonoma County at its best. Redwood forests,high meadows, coastal mountains, the ocean, wildflowers galore…This is truly a rider’s paradise. Today’s flowers included wild yellow and purple iris, golden poppies, lupin, chinese lanterns, red columbine, and  rhododendron.

Started the morning in Monte Rio on the Russian river with Keith, Paula,
Louis, Jesse, and Jackie. Sadly, I am the slow poke in this group. All the
riders are strong. Jackie was a professional racer when she was younger.[WAS??? Ahem…still am.  I will never quit racing until I am pried off the bike–JP]
This ride in some ways was more strenuous than the 117 miler I took 2 weeks ago. We were blessed with a cool, but not windy day.

From Monte Rio we rode along Moscow rode and then crossed the river and went up Austin Creek road through beautiful rural redwood forest and river canyon to Cazadero. The climbing began as we ascended on King’s Ridge Road.
This is one of the most spectacular places on earth, and is quite remote.
There are no services or water. The climbing was strenuous, but beautiful as we summited at 1600 feet, and then rolled up and down on the ridge. We went through meadows, forest, wildflowers, and had incredible vistas of untouched (ed: not quite untouched) rural coastal mountain lands. We then descended fast on Tin Barn and eventually Skaggs Creek road through coastal redwood forest rich with fernsand running streams to the coast at Stewarts Point. We had a spot of lunch there. Fortunately, what wind there was would be at our back. We then went down Highway 1 south to Kruse Rhododendron State Park.
The wild rhododendrons were in bloom at this time of year, and it was
gorgeous. That gravel road climbed without mercy for miles, culminating in about a 15% grade. It was tricky not to spin the rear wheel. I
was happy to be riding on the Armadillos. Turned on Seaview road,
which also rolled like a sawtooth and summited at about 1600 feet. Then the
screaming downhill down Meyers grade to the ocean. Some pitches were 18%. [Ed: Pssst! You forgot to mention our pilgrimmage to TR ranch!]
Once again on route 1,  we went south to Jenner at the mouth of the Russian
River, and turned east  on river road and eventually Moscow road to Monte Rio.

I am gassed. But it was riding at its finest.

No photos. I was too busy riding.

Daniel

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Audrey Hepburn is cyclechic

•May 11, 2010 • Leave a Comment


Audrey Hepburn,1957

Originally uploaded by carltonreid

Audrey,
can you come back and show American women how it’s all done with style?

Oh, there  you are…on your second lap around–you’ve come back as Swami (long bunch of syllables). The hip swami, who gave away all her stuff 3 years ago, car, possessions and her pooch.
“Hey, I can’t help it if my dog returned!” Swami grins as we ride along, me balancing a five gallon bucket on my left, while fishing for camera (in an overstuffed messynger bag) on the right. I really wanted to capture Swami en roulante.

Swams, I am late in this post, so sorry to have not popped you in here the moment I got home…..

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Bright Spark Grounds Out: Conrad is No More

•May 7, 2010 • 22 Comments

Conrad the river rat in NYC ready to self-launch

Conrad! Peel me an orange!

I just got word this morning that Rad-Sri-Baba-Mechanical-Pir-O-Mahatma- I-LooZy-ISECKE-I-Findee-Hari-Krishna-Rizbumpomoloid–Vitamin-C-Ascorbate-Kickstand-Dass died alone in his garret. He was found two days after falling off his chair.  Gravity, time and Mother Earth herself finally won the lifelong debate Conrad conducted about how to be Eternal.
As it happens, he was in the middle of re-packaging another year’s worth of Life Extension Mix.

With Conrad, you didn’t really win an argument, you just hoped he’d get tired of ‘debating’. But that never happened.

We met in 1983. He  came to my very first bicycle parts swap up in S.F.  Ever since then he’s been member of Wacky Jacquie’s Elective Phamily.

Eccentric,  Aspie-brilliant and impossibly  slow-talking, Conrad challenged me. I needed a half hour to slow my tommy-gun speech style in order to accommodate his slow-mo conversation. He chose his words carefully. Nevertheless,  I ‘d find myself carrying him up the hill of communication because then I’d get there faster.

It wasn’t long before Conrad helped in Charlie’s shop (there are about a dozen guys who claimed they apprenticed with CC but only two actually did: Scot Nicol and Conrad). Conrad was the only person Charlie trusted for servicing his bikes. He got it fastidiously right–who cares if it took forever? Conrad’s clients were people that didn’t mind paying an hourly wage to a fellow like this, and got good value for their $500 tune-ups.

What’s with the long name? you may  ask.

It was a constantly evolving verbal co-creation of Charlie and Conrad during the time Conrad worked here. Probably seeded by Charlie ‘s obsessive habit of fiddling with words and names.

Isecke is his family name.
“Ice-ekky” didn’t suit him…so it became OHO: “Optimal Health Optimists”. A club of one whose central belief was that if you did everything right, you could extend life. He hoovered up Life Extension Mix by the  ton. We called it ‘Life Extinction Mix”.

Without a doubt, the symmetry of the name OHO pleased him enormously. Not just forward backward, but up, down, and inside out. OHO is orthogonally perfect.

Rigorously pursuing one panacea after another,  he mainlined (joke alert) vitamin C by the gram, the last couple years it was vitamin D.  He expected to live a hundred and sixty years. It was just a matter of cracking the dietary code….He even found an M.D. that would let him operate (without anaesthetic of course)  the  hernia that had bothered him for months. He didn’t believe in hospitals or western medicine. Or eastern. His was the Conradical Code. But the doctor proved to be useful as a back-up. Within two minutes Conrad handed the scalpel over before passing out.

The “Rad-Shri”Baba Mechanical business:

Rad=hey, the dude’s radical, to the bone.  Sri= the a guru of  Mechanical Things. (And the  low-rent lifestyle. I doubt he ever paid more than two hundred dollars per month in rent in the last twenty five years.  He never had heat or a bathroom.  He was as happy as a clam  just crouching over a hole for a year or two, then covering that one up, then “fertilizing” a new spot. Need I tell  you the vegetables from his garden were pretty impressive? Hello County of Marin? You’ll never find those deposits, heh heh.)

Then the “I Loozy-Isecke-I Findee” abbreviates one of the worst days in his life. He was at Aquatic Park on Earth Day around  1986 and the usual environmental mob was there.    Standing over his  highly customized Cunningham lying in the grass at his feet he became engrossed in conversation–and (two hours later, probably) when he looked down, the bike wasn’t there.

We were astonished when, through incredible diligence,  he managed to recover it.  A detailed drawing of his bike listing all the distinguishing features was plastered all over the Bay Area and put it in every bike shop. He might have even offered a reward. Miraculously, the bike came back.

We tried similar tactics when Charlie’s personal bike was stolen from that ‘museum’ exhibit at United Airlines terminal, but I digress and no luck).

Wanna know what those features  were?

a)an insanely wide gear ratio that actually worked with index shifting

b)racks

c) kickstand, lights, and an Amish triangular reflector

Then, risbumpomiloid came from R.S.B.M.P.O.M.I. get it? (See long name above). Here at Taj Mahovel we sing that name out loud, in unison. In later years Conrad prefered either O Wise One, Conradical or Colonel Radish.
He was a staunch advocate of the recumbent cycler’s order. A consummate mechanic, but so obsessive that a client  might end up with a four hundred dollar bicycle overhaul. Wealthier folk unblinkingly retained him as their personal mechanic;  there is no one who can match his combination of  expertise and deftness of (grimy) hand.

He told stories that enthralled me during a (suddenly very short) 9- hour trip (in his ToyOHOta CorOHOlla) to the Las Vegas Bike Dealer’s Show.  All I had to do was ask, and I got:   disquisitions about the IRS,  past jobs, nutrition,  and cannibal philosophy. Conrad was a card-carrying member of an anthrophagous cult. “If someone died, we’d distract the authorities long enough to saw a limb off, to carry back to the Cannibal Clubhouse, so everyone could return him or her to life’s big recycling bin”.  Adding a new level of meaning to the word “membership”.

In the mid-60’s he had got in on the porn craze. First as an actor, then–since the productions were so crappy– as a director! Let your mind boggle.

Impecunious but brazen, he once stowed away on a cruise ship and sailed halfway around the world for free.   He moved up and down the different decks all day, then burrow under a pile of poolside deck pads to sleep. Lived on candy from the gift shop since he knew he couldn’t pass the strict sartorial rules for dinner. As he put it: “It was a British company…and their manners were so impeccable that, rather than outright accusing me of not being on the passenger list, the steward invited me to the weekly swim match…adding ” by the way , which room are you staying in, so we can mark you down? “.

The jig was up.

Belowdecks, he was allowed his freedom among the sweaty guys with the long oars or whoever hangs in the engine room. But when they transferred him to an American boat he was locked in the brig, then dumped in a Hawaiian jail. I believe he had to come up with a little dough to get out, not sure, though.
His excessive (to me desirably excessive) tidyness was the result of having grown up on a very cramped little  boat on the Hudson. Four kids, two adults.
I wish I had a good modern picture of him, but all mine feature him with a toothbrush in his mouth, savagely attacking dental caries (about three decades too late, alas, just like Charlie). He was a fixture at CC & my 8-8-88  wedding…

mealtime on the houseboat--con's the redhead on the right. Nearest the viewer.

Conrad came from an amazing family of leftist peaceniks,  the third of four–read this story.

My last visits were weekly grocery drop-offs (which he dismissed, but I left the bags there for him to eat in secret, cuz he really was starving).  His standards were very high; stuff had to be organic. And yet: he had about two year’s worth of canned whole chickens (I never heard of such a thing before I met him), which were of course not organic, they were purchased in the 1950’s. Mackerel by the case lined up on the shelves.

Stickers pasted (neatly) on every vertical surface. I shall make a flicker catalogue some day..

Sayonara, old friend. No more fretting about that ruined hip of yours, or World War III. I’m pretty sure you’ll be bumping into my hero Carla Zilbersmith on your way to eternity.

Continue reading ‘Bright Spark Grounds Out: Conrad is No More’

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Wabbit in a snow storm, 1972

•May 2, 2010 • 3 Comments

Photo purloined from my friend's archive. I'm the one in red socks

Camp Connell, CA. Kathy and her kid brother Eric and I made a snow sculpture at their family’s cabin.

I have so few childhood pictures—it’s a treat to see the mini-me.

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The Urge to Break Away

•April 26, 2010 • 7 Comments
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Dressed for success

Yesterday I awoke in a strange bed, a tacky hotel bed.

If I’m not waking up under flannel sheets warmed by my 300-watt Ectomorph,  to a chorus of birdsong, pickup truck engines, and howling dogs, I require a minute.

I’m in a hotel. In Davis, California.

Oh, right–the Gran Dopening festivities at the Hollow Fame.

Whose bike is that,  leaning against the TV?

The grand fondo!

I make out  the name: “Roubaix”.

Relaxed geometry.

Extravagant carbon fiber frame and handlebars.

Her alarming weight: negative three pounds.

Can she hold up to rough play?
WORDINESS ALERT:  This is the unedited story of a one-night stand  which morphed into something else.

A sick need. A distraction.  Or true love.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Saturday I was with Peter Rich in Davis to celebrate a new brick an’ mortar home for The US Bicycling Hall of Fame, which had been looking for a permanent home, possibly not in New Jersey where it was created.

Dawn Wylong spoke into a  hilariously flatulent microphone, cut the ribbon (butyl of course) and served the cake.

George Mount, Old Neverend and Cheri Elliott the BMX child star,  as well as all the directors of the board were there. I whispered to mayor Ruth Asmundsen (who doesn’t ride a bike–yet!) that I would be her Personal Coach.

Then we broke for lunch, fanning  out across the square. I landed at “Burgers and Fries” with Peter and Jan Johnson, Peter Rich and Smilin’ George Mount. They blabbed, I listened. Really.  I automatically finished everyone’s left over fries. All those fries landed on a juicy cheeseburger, which was drowning in an India Pale Ale of unknown parentage –do I really care what kind? No.  I pretend to. One small problem: to hold it all I should have been born with two stomachs. I was glad my fine trousers had an elastic waistband.

Outside, a  50-foot cherry red Specialized Schleppmobile pulled into view, and  circled the block in search of a space (in downtown Davis? Dream on!)

Out in the town park, after the farmer’s market closed down, a much bigger event  was warming up.

One that no one had told me about.

Since I  had five hours to kill before the hall of fame “reception”,  I stretched out on the grass and learned about the  Breaking Away From Cancer Amgen SPecialized Pacific Sports GranFondo. Mega hills, at least three of them, plus full support, aid stations, and even friendly police. The spiel was delivered each half hour and by late afternoon I realized I needed to do that ride. It sounded like a lot of fun, and besides, I had to work off lunch (sound of numbers crunching):  eight hours in the saddle.

Yes,  you can categorize me with People Who Sometimes Ride For Incredibly Stupid Reasons.
Little hurdles: I didn’t have a bike, helmet or shoes to go with the ambition that I could ride 115 miles on a whim.

Over at the cherry red Specialtruck,  Chris and Patrick cheerfully  kitted me with the drooliest Roubaix,  tossing in helmet and shoes when it was clear that my go-go boots wouldn’t do.

I called Charlie to say  that I was going to do “some ride” the next day (why tell him I was going to do a century, sorry a ‘fondo’? He’d question my good sense). I told Peter I’d ‘find a way back to Marin’ when I arrived halfway across the state, in Santa Rosa.

There’s a sort of retardation where you can’t think things through because the possibilities/combos/ scenarios are endless –to a mind like mine–and inevitably they work out OK.  Rather than committing any one thing,  chance’s myriad options roll around  like shipdeck cannons,  banging and sliding, conjugating–each one as plausible as…tail lights on a dinosaur.

Small wonder I was worthless at chess as a child, eh?

I rolled around the very quiet streets of Davis, testing the interesting new shoes with Shimano step-in cleats. How different it was on the fourth of July 1981, that  forgettable five month blemish on my career when I raced criteriums.  Thousands of cyclists in town, marshalls and haybale monitors, announcers, music. Palpable excitement. Temperatures in the nineties and climbing.

Today was different,  it being full-on springtime, and me being full-on fogey.
Kids, take it from me: aging may not be for sissies, but if you’re willing to just roll along with time’s punches, things get better and better.  Well, it is more true if you discover cycling in your fifties. I discovered it at nine, and became scary-strong, so I can never be that fast. But luckily, like someone with dementia, whatever speed I’m going feels fast to me. I still think I’m a supershero.

We all do.

In our heart of hearts, we’re Eddy Merckx in the Ardennes forest.

Ah, reality. At  the start,  I found a couple of kiwifruit sitting on a park bench. Bonus breakfast! Yesterday’s lunch was still quite ‘there’; I didn’t need a proper breakfast.

My kit:

a) dark brown wool hand-tailored, silk-lined men’s jacket from the 1930’s. A Brooks Bros. longsleeve pinpoint oxford button down shirt under the jacket, and a base layer of cotton teeshirt. My secret weapon for a hot day. Cotton! Good ol’ clammy, damp, air-conditiony cotton. Works like a charm. But when/if the sun goes down…danger.

How many fashion crimes so far? Let me continue.

b) white tea gloves, fingers chewed off

c) silk/cotton pinstripe black pants, beige cotton socks not quite long enough to contain the pants hem.

d) a handkerchief around my right leg to keep the right pant leg from entraining in the chainring. It is unprofessional to suffer a sartorial mishap.  Uh, sorry…I wrecked your bike  when the pants got caught in the chain and stopped me cold.

These thoughts trouble me before epic rides,  or  when I’m on a borrowed (=unknown) bike.

TWO variables, you have to square the fear/excitement.

800 excitable riders stood  listening (hey, they were billing it as a race…people don’t listen at a century but woe to the non-listener at the starting line of a race!) The announcer welcomed us to the ‘Breaking Away From Cancer” race–and I felt a stab of something…I can’t say what..but  a feeling for all these people,touched if not whalloped by cancer.

I decided to ride in honor of me (as opposed to just Burning Off Flab).
I coulda been felled back in 2000 when Charlie’s partners were relieving him of the business he founded and I was knock-knock-knocking on cancer ‘s  door.

The first fifteen miles were flat, but as we reached the dam at Lake Berryessa I realized I had no idea how to shift my SRAM shifters–single lever..I’ve always had bar-end (1950’s technology) shifters, and no amount of calm explanation from the guy next to me that had almost the same brakes–except his had TWO levers as well as the brake lever (think of it: three levers per hand…the mind writhes). I finally got it: push inboard lightly to shift into mashy gear, and push more emphatically to get it into an easier gear.

Many asked why I was dressed so funny.
“I’m a professional biker.  Don’t I  look professional?”
It was funny to be on a new bike, with utterly novel features…somehow the absence of weight didn’t register, except that I was never breathing hard as I glided (seated) past all these people in matching outfits.

The sky was blue, the air was cool.

The sun sparkled through the wildflowers. The aforementioned jacket eventually wound up tied around my waist.

Why not rely on  sunscream?
Dude, nanoparticles and cosme-ceuticals are today’s asbestos/DDT .

Even if you don’t buy  ’em, they come in like atomic ball bearings of doom, from someone else’s skin, or your new clothing. Being The Greatest Country On Earth (for big business) , manufacturers aren’t required to share doubt-inducing, inconvenient facts.

A bunch of (very old, used) clothing is less carcinogenic. Yes, I admit my skin was pink all day long under those layers, but that’s normal blood cooling strategy… I didn’t suffer.

The funny screw-on shoes were mega comfy. That is huge news. Only the last ten miles did my feet have to do push-ups to ward off dead foot disease.

I met (roughly) a dozen people–Gaby, Todd, Fred, Gerry, Don,  uh…and the rest–

Some I just I rode with, others I couldn’t resist coaching’: “the helmet’s on upside down, by the way”

Other topics: “Yes, I’m comfortable in these clothes”  or:  “I’m not usually this fast,  but I  stole this bike…”.

Over and over again, I’d find myself getting dropped (just a little surge would do it) and rather than respond, I held my pace until the next gang came along. Hence, I went my pace nearly all the time, with pack-protection much of the time. I even got to ‘race’ Gerry E, a long-ago friend, for the finish.

115 miles, starting in Davis, on the right.

Posted in Alice B. Toeclips, heinous name dropping, Ride
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Lever Links. All hand made by Charlie and his trained metal termites!

•April 23, 2010 • 1 Comment

CC is hard at work creating tiny precision parts for a handful of patrons that have been carefully screened for agreeability.
Every day; eight hours of metal machinng…and sometimes added hours ordering metal from a catalogue..
It’s difficult for me to truly appreciate how much work goes into the simple act of ordering two pages worth of metal stock from a catalogue that resembles both the Bible and the local phone book.
So much IN IT!!
And the ‘shopping list’ is usually two or three pages… Each lever link has about a dozen…

Posted in Charlie Cunningham
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Alone at the top, on soon-to-be-extinct trail

•April 20, 2010 • 1 Comment


Alone at the top

Originally uploaded by wombatbiker

Above Fairfax, CC catches his breath while I snap a few flower shots….within minutes I’d be witnessing his first crash in a decade…CC doesn’t usually tip over…I just laughed and kept going. My gloating was karmically repaid with a pinch flat…
Upon inspection, the tire was an ultra light one that perhaps ought not be on the rear tire. Both Charlie and I had legs of jelly on this ride.
Pollen made it hard to feel strong…we were dosed, and dozed as soon as we stretched out in the (tick-filled) grass.

“What does she mean, ‘extinct’?” you might ask.

The tiny, sinous flower-lined wiggle that constitutes the  route to the ridge has been designated (with neon flags all over the place) as a future “multi-use” trail” by Marin Co. OSD (I think that’s the correct agency). Our mole told us about the impending changes.

We’ve already been deeply chagrined in the last five years by the grant-funded assault on the tiny frog-pond waterfalls in a (once) hidden gem known as Little Carson Valley.

Biker-hatin’ MMWD constructed bridges, fences, signage and ‘improved’ trails that attract tenfold the number of visitors (with the aid of  outdoorsman Tom Stienstra who reports on all the lost crannies in the Bay Area) and their dogs into the habitat. Oh, and they have volunteers who sit there each day during frog fornication season to make sure the newly-created horde stay a respectful distance.
I used to hide out at the falls for entire days, with not a soul coming past. Tempting to go today–it’s raining.
Face it…change is inevitable, and if you can pay a horde to dig a six-foot wide trail that suits ‘multi-use’ (as if every single user–horse, hiker and biker had to pass one another simultaneously) with free funding, why, it’s employment.

And employment is what it’s all about.

Posted in Charlie Cunningham, media, Ride, Trees, Uncategorized
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One Hidden Gem, One Porcine Prize

•April 12, 2010 • 2 Comments

Golden Piggy--highest award for mini-documentary

Every year Fairfax hosts a mini-documentary challenge. The contestants are asked to make a movie–4 minutes in length (not coincidentally the typical length of a pitch for a film)–ina 48 hour period, usually the last weekend in March.

Kids enter, and grown ups. Pros and amateurs.

Neighbor Karl V. asked me to help him interview people concerning possible change  in our neighborhood school.  He’s been to no meetings (neither had I at that point) but wanted to film some opinions.   I was not sure what his was, but I know that the current school– Fairfax San Anselmo Children’s Center–should remain at the bucolic Deer Park site, and a fancier school built somewhere else (assuming there really is a population explosion going on in Marin).

Just so you know:  FXSACC is more than a school…they have men’s programs, parenting workshops, they feed the kids three meals, have an infirmary so parents can work even if the child is (mildly) ill…it’s a life saver for families who make less than X dollars a year. Competition for the hundred-plus slots is intense…and luckily for us, there happen to be incredible public elementary schools sprinkled throughout the county…

The Deer Park location hasn’t been a neighborhood  elementary for over 40 years because Marin’s kid population plummeted in the seventies. It had morphed into a prize winning daycare/school, as well as Fairfax’s biggest hiking, cycling and dogwalking trailhead. Complete with loads of parking since the school isn’t open on the weekend.

So locals are content with the protected, diverse population who enjoy the children’s center  (which buses some the kids in from around Ross Valley and beyond, sparing more hideous traffic). But now they’ve been branded “NIMBY”…which is ironic, since NIMBY (not in my back yard) is usually leveled at homeowners who are concerned about “property  values”, and can’t allow half way houses, or bike paths, tunnels, etc… in their back yard.
We cyclists learned that when we proposed  a “demonstration trail”  in the late 1980’s, one where bikers and hikers would share the trail and prove conclusively that there is no problem, no friction between two different flavors of outdoorspeople .

They nixed it in the cascades, at Deer Park, at Sunnyside, all over Marin.
There was just no place where anyone wanted “all the traffic that shared trail would bring”…but deep down, the truth was if there really is no problem, then Open Space and  Municipal Strict Dict might have to be cycle access on narrow  trails…which is not going to happen.

The real irony is that if a great school is yanked out, and a new one put in (in the middle of a fiscal meltdown, this seems unbrainy) those under-served kids will lose a two generation legacy.

I think.
Or: the school board sold off their school land (like in San Anselmo) never forseeing a few extra kids coming along in the future.

Like Karl, I’d been to no school board meetings, and  yet I’d already heard  some debate.  I needed to learn more…and   agreed to interview people I knew, some who work at the school itself.

Ethel and Stan Seiderman founded FSACC  almost forty years ago,  in time to weather the ‘tax relief’ (=gutting social programs) of the 1980’s.   The school has always been a quiet neighbor at the end of Porteous Avenue here in Fairfax.

Thousands of hikers and cyclists, dog people and aerobic pogo-sticker enthusiasts gather  under the  Valley oaks. The parking lot is known for Olympic-size pot holes that aid in the traffic calming…

One skirts the shaded school buildings,  to emerge in a bright star-thistle meadow. Then it’s through the back  gate into the  Strict Woods (MMWD).

Mid day Saturday, after filming about half a dozen people, I learned that neighborhood activist Trevor Hughs had a film brewing in the back of HIS head.

When I told him about the contest (make a movie in 48 hours between Fri eve. and Sun. evening on the  last weekend in March) he said he’d move his production up and enter the contest.

“But now you have only 28 hours remaining” I warned him. “I’m available if I can be of help”.

Trev’s a retired doctor, on-fire community activist. He knows the situation in all its complexity, having  been to 25 school board meetings (which are themselves quite the little circus).

Says he  “this is what we must bequeath to our children’s children”  (namely, keeping the non-profit kid center there on that particular sylvan spot, rather than evicting them and building a massive modern primary school for more affluent families).

He sprang into action, and gave me a role in his production.

Karl’s movie, “The Truth About Deer Park” wrapped with the invaluable editing skills of Jason Baker, and will probably go on You Tube… my footage was not used in that one, alas….

Trevor’s film, entitled “Our Hidden Gem” has a few of my still photographs of kids playing,  is honestly Kevin Cate’s opus…was completed in time, and submitted among a dozen others. They would be judged and shown two weeks later.

In the afterglow of a dozen great little flicks, I sat between Kevin the (professional) videographer and Ethel Seiderman, the doyenne of Marin County’s  progressive educators, while prize after prize was awarded to the many wonderful films about Fairfax’s unique population of dogs, shadows, pranksters, stoners, teens….our great town.

I’ve seldom been surer of a job well executed, but hopes were dashed as each documentary team gathered their prize (of ice cream, dinner-for-two, citations, etc)…until  only one award remained.

“The golden piggy” went to Trev, Kev and one barely-had-anything-to-do-with-it-wombat.

Posted in heinous name dropping, Jacquie Phelan, movies

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