Thursday, May 7, 2009

skyline 5/7/09

ride report:

as usual, i arrived at peet's long after 6:30, quickly turned around as no surprise riders were present. i saw no sign of trinh in the park and figured he was probably ahead of me, and got on some random dude's wheel instead. this was great, since i ride ridiculously slow if i'm alone with no one pushing me. i did my best trying to maintain a conversation at > 170 bpm as we rode down great highway. as expected, i was dropped as soon as the climbs started and i continued alone, hoping that trinh was behind me after all and that he'd catch up. it was beautiful in sf but summer has started in daly city so you could barely see the taillights of cars 100 feet ahead through the fog. the junction of skyline/280 is always a favorite, but crossing two lanes of traffic coming from the freeway is even better when the traffic is completely hidden in fog. i guess if i was an ostrich that would mean there was no traffic. usually the fog clears up before the awesome descent, but that did not happen. dammit! that meant i didn't dare to go at 40 mph. and i like going at 40 mph. fortunately the fog magically went away at the second part. whee! so i got my 40 mph after all.

SCT was uneventful, boring, and trinhless.

canada was uneventful, boring, and spaceless.

whiskey hill rd, however, was eventful. i heard this PSSSCH sound from my front tire. uh-oh! since my previous tire was so awesome and i never got any flats, and thus no practice, i'm pretty slow at fixing flats. but once i was done, i was going to roll away and... saw that the rear tire had a flat too! what was this, some kind of tandem flat?! well, unfortunately i had only brought one spare tube and i don't even own a patch kit or a saddle bag (scrotum, as i hear they're called). so i had to wait around until someone could help me. two guys came by and i got a patch from them, and continued on to sand hill road.

sand hill road was uneventful.

junipero serra, however, was also eventful. the patch came loose and again i had to wait until someone could help me. a fine gentleman gave me his spare tube and, severely delayed, i was finally on my way again. three flats! usually i go on bike rides when i'm frustrated but what if it's the bike ride that's frustrating? then what do you do? get drunk? i'm in b43 if anyone wants to bring me a beer. for once, palo alto being uneventful was a good thing. i may now hold the record for slowest skyline: total time from peet's to slice was 04:02:23.

-Lina

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