Prologue Time Trial - Tour of California

On Sunday I headed over to Stanford to watch the Prologue stage of the Tour of California. The streets were blocked off from University Avenue all the way down Palm Drive to the Oval. Due to the gorgeous weather, there was a fabulous turnout, but I was able to find a good spot to snap some photos. The rider's themselves were world class - Switzerland's Fabian Cancellara won the 3km time trial in a blistering 3:51:211 (see the stage recap). My favorite pictures are below:

Moody Road

For my bike ride today, I headed south on Foothill Expressway to El Monte Road and then Moody road. After making the turn into Moody, I actually turned off onto Altamount, and rode that up about 500 feet before thinking that I had gone the wrong way and turned around. That little detour was tiresome, but when I went down the hill I was able to get up to 39mph, the fastest speed in recent memory.

As for the ride up Moody, it's pretty easy. Low grade climbing, if you could even call it that, for the first few miles, and then finally a pretty steep uphill for a mile. You then get dumped off on Page Mill, which I took down at a fairly fast pace and then rode back home.

All in all:

The Route

27.06 miles
14.6 average mph
39.0 max speed
842.0 calories burned
1:51:07 time


View Larger Map

King's Mountain -> OLH

With Wilmot gone, today I went on the longest bike ride I've ever been on. Starting from my home in East Palo Alto, I made my way on Sand Hill and climbed Kings Mountain Road to Skyline. Kings Mountain was pretty grueling, since it was all uphill, taking me almost an hour to climb. The ride between Skyline and OLH was awesome though, allowing me to reach up to 35mph as I flew down the road. By the time I had gone down OLH and hit Alpine, I was pretty tired, never having ridden this far. Luckily, the route back was flat and easy, allowing me to hit (almost) 40miles on a single ride.

Stats:
39.97 miles
13.4 average mph
35.2 max mph
1343.9 calories burned
2:58:22 time

The route

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=&saddr=2265+Pulgas+Ave,+Palo+Alto,+CA+94303&daddr=Garden+St+%4037.466880,+-122.134630+to:37.462255,-122.134495+to:University+Ave+%4037.443620,+-122.163910+to:Alma+St+%4037.446590,+-122.170720+to:Sand+Hill+Rd+%4037.442420,+-122.173910+to:Sand+Hill+Rd+%4037.412320,+-122.240230+to:Skyline+Blvd+%4037.417420,+-122.318560+to:Old+La+Honda+Rd+%4037.386020,+-122.248620+to:Alpine+Rd,+Portola+Valley,+CA+to:Campus+Dr+W+%4037.429160,+-122.180580+to:palm+drive,+stanford,+ca+to:Donohoe+St+%4037.462490,+-122.134670+to:Garden+St+%4037.466930,+-122.130720+to:2265+Pulgas+Ave,+Palo+Alto,+CA+94303&mrcr=1,2&mrsp=2&sz=14&mra=dpe&sll=37.464163,-122.132263&sspn=0.053888,0.078106&ie=UTF8&ll=37.402346,-122.206421&spn=0.215731,0.312424&z=12&om=1

OLH -> Skyline -> Page Mill

Wilmot and I rode from Arastradero up Old La Honda, and on Skyline to Page Mill. According to Google maps, the route is 23.4 miles, which took us over 2 hours, since I'm slow as hell on the uphills. Going down Page Mill was exhilarating and a bit scary; at one point I saw that I was going 36mph! I wore my brakes down a whole bunch on that downhill. This is a map of the route.



View Larger Map

Biking to Work

I biked to work for the first time today. According to Google maps, the route is about 5.85 miles each way. It's a pretty decent route, because there are bike lanes alongside East Bayshore, Garcia Road, Amphitheater Parkway, and Shoreline Boulevard. And the route is flat, so there are no hills to slow me down.

Also, there is a shower on the first floor of my building, so after getting to the office, I was able to shower before starting work. And there are towels, shampoo, and body wash I can use.

I'm really starting to enjoy the perks of working here.

Two interesting cycling articles

Since I have an interest in road cycling, I thought I'd share two interesting articles published by the NYTimes:

1) The Bicycling Paradox: Fit Doesn't Have to be Thin

- The jist of the article is that unlike running, where thin, strong people are the best, even people who are overweight can be decent cyclists. Much of this has to do with how the body sits on the bike, and how your center of gravity can allow you to still be powerful on a cycle. I guess I can relate somewhat to all of this, since I am by no means and thin, and seem to do a lot better on a bicycle than running.
2) A New French Revolution's Creed: Let Them Ride Bikes

- Interesting - Paris is allowing for cheap rentals of bikes to get around various sections of the city. It's a great idea and should hopefully help significantly reduce CO2 emissions in the city. I wonder if anything like this would work in the US, however. Off the top of my head, SF would be too difficult because of all the hills, NY would suck because there's really no bike lanes and the Metro/buses/taxis seem to be good enough. Maybe Chicago. LA is too spread out. How about Las Vegas? Doubtful. Anyway, I'd be interested in seeing another article about how this program works out in a year.

Road Biking!

So I made the jump and bought a road bike.


The Off Ramp was having a close-out on their 2006 Giant bikes, so I ended up getting an OCR-3 for only $1199.99 (MSRP: 1850). While not a top of the line bike or a well-known road bike brand like Specialized or Bianchi, the bike is certainly light with an excellent carbon frame and has the quality Shimano 105 shifters. It's taken some time to get used to clipping into my pedals and out, as well as getting the hang of shifting while still keeping up a pretty fast pace, but I've gone out riding the past week and it's been great.

Here are two popular trails I've gone on thus far:

Old La Honda seems to be an infamous climb for local bikers. It's a 3.3 mile climb to the top, gaining 1290 feet in the process. Really fast bikers can make it up in under 20 minutes (the record is around 15 minutes). I've ridden it once and my time was 30+ minutes. Anyway, the route I then took was to La Honda (Highway 84). Riding that highway downhill was thrilling - you go 30+ MPH, faster than cars. Guess I need to do this route more to work on climbing.


Rode this route today - La Canada is relatively flat and pretty darn fast if you can keep up a good clip. We did 26 miles in 2 hours. Could definitely improve on that time, but nothing to be ashamed of to start with.

Road biking is fun! I highly recommend it.

Mountain Biking

One hobby that I have recently picked up has been mountain biking. For the past year, I have progressed from a newbie that could barely bike up a hill to an enthusiast that enjoys speeding downhill with a used, full suspension bike that will one day break with the way I treat it.

Here are a 3 of my favorite trails in the Bay Area:.

- Arastradero Nature Preserve
This place is just a 15 minute bike ride from Stanford, making it the ideal place to go for a quick ride. The trail is pretty easy as well, with wide roads and mostly gradual climbs. There are a few switchbacks and steep slopes to make it more exciting, but if you're in shape, you can fly through the whole trail in less than 30 minutes. There are also a few jumps as well for you to fool around on.

- El Corte de Madera
Not for the faint of heart. I've ridden this trail one way only - bombing down a very steep, rocky downhill and then spending an hour or so climbing back up to the top where we started. Although the downhill is the best I've ever experienced, the climb up really isn't that much fun. This is definitely a trail for skilled riders, so don't go here unless you can conquer the other two trails listed here.

- Saratoga Gap
This trail edges out El Corte de Madera due to the wide variety of trails (mostly some great xc, really big hills and downhills, and a great view of the ocean from the top). It takes about 2 hours and is definitely an intermediate hill, with some really quick cross-country singletracks where tree branches and rocks sneak up on you. But, once you get use to the trail, you can really fly through it. Riding this trail today inspired me to share what I felt about these three trails.

In the future, I hope to take my camera with me when I go biking, and not only shoot some pictures of the scenery, but perhaps my friends shooting down some of these trails. And if you're looking for a hobby, definitely consider mountain biking. It's a great workout and a great way to see some beautiful sites wherever you live.