Weekend Ride Roundup

Okay, I usually do about a hundred miles of riding on the weekends, at least it feels like a hundred miles, but the Sunday ride just did not hold up its bookend of the bargain.  Saturday is supposed to be anywhere from 60 to 80 miles (60 if there's climbing up to 80 if the route is flat).  Hey, I'm ambitious, but 80 miles of climbing is no good for riding alone.  I learned my lesson after falling down a mountain, hurting my shoulder, and riding another 30 miles home with just one hand on the handlebars.

But this weekend was lamer than I would have liked.  As you may have read earlier, I'm getting my buddy Warren back up to speed so he can do the metric century at Tour de Palm Springs.  So, I told him we were going to do a 40 mile ride since we did a 30 mile ride the week before.  But I lied!  His odometer's battery went out, so right now, he's "trusting" me for ride information.  I planned a 50 mile ride that was a "gentle" rolling course along the San Gabriel foothills.  Since that mileage is little low for me these days, I compensated by gearing up and doing a strength-building ride (bigger gear, slower cadence, more resistance, ouchie on the hamstrings).  Unfortunately, even though there is no climbing, per se, on a rolling course, there will still be small hills that are pretty steep.  Here's the steepest one on Sierra Madre in Azusa:

 

 

That's the view from the top.  And after a short breather, here's another view of the top:

 

 

Can you see that red dot in the middle of the picture?  Yes, that's Warren, looking all relaxed, chatting on his cell phone.  Well, he wasn't looking that well-rested, but he was talking on his phone.  Sometimes our boss gets obsessed with something and he just won't let it go.  Anyway, that gave Warren some extra motivation to punish that hill.

Our goal was the cafe Coffeeberry in La Verne.

 

Here's the front entrance.

 

This place is right across the street from the University of La Verne, which is a small Christian College, so there's usually students and staff going into this place, but not early on a Saturday morning.

 

Where is everybody?

 

Duh, sleeping, like normal people, instead of crazy people, like Warren and me.  Well, after realizing that, all we can do is comfort ourselves with cafe fare: some kind of espresso drink and a croissant.

 

Hmm, frothy!

 

After consuming the, er, consumeables, it was time to head back, but Warren didn't want to face "The Wall" in Glendora, so I told him that I had a flat way back, but also reminded him of one of my favorite sayings about riding and hills: You've always got to pay the piper.  That means, if you go downhill and you are ending where you started, at some point, somewhere, you will have to go uphill.  So, my "flat" route back was really just a more gradual ascent back to Pasadena.  (Oh, a little aside here: the San Gabriel Valley really packs in the little towns tight.  To get to La Verne in only 25 miles, we went through Pasadena, Sierra Madre, Arcadia, Monrovia, Duarte, Azusa, Glendora, and San Dimas.  Including La Verne, that's 9 cities.  On the way back, it was La Verne, San Dimas, Glendora, Azusa, Irwindale, Duarte, Monrovia, Arcadia, and Pasadena.  Another 9 cities, but 10 cities for the entire 50 miles.  Yeesh.)

So, 50 miles on Saturday wasn't that bad, because of the strength-building.  But on Sunday, I got more miles going to the start of our Sunday Ride, than I did on the Ride itself.  Let me give you a hint for riding in small groups: always buy long stem tubes.  I don't care if your rims are short or medium, but somebody's going to be riding "aero" rims, and if you guys have a lot of flats on the road, you are screwed.  Long stem tubes are like Type O Negative blood: everybody can use them.  Well, one of us had a flat at the beginning of the ride, from yesterday, so she had to change the tube before the beginning of the ride, which made us start late.  Then, 5 miles into the ride, the tube went flat again.  I thought, "This is ridiculous.  How can you have 4 flats in less than 24 hours."  I saw her check the inside of the tire before replacing the tube and I didn't see any debris rattling around in there, so what was going on?  I checked the valve and it seemed loose, so maybe that was the culprit.  We pumped it up and it was holding, but then I realized that I was hearing a sssss coming from somewhere on the tire.  I checked a gash and it was shiny inside: a piece of glass was embedded in the tire causing all the flats.  Grr!  I had to pop the glass out like it was a zit!  But we had no more long stem tubes.  So, quickly, the small group of riders got their first patch kit clinic.  I was thinking, "Okay, we're going to be on the road in 5 minutes now, then I can get all this frustration out of my legs and on to the pavement."  Denied!  As I was pulling the pump off of the stem, I pulled the valve with me, and worse, the valve got stuck inside the seal of my little pump.  Ride over, call SAG, have fun driving back and forth to pick up the bikes, see you at the bakery, and I'll be eating comfort food.  8 miles to the start, 5 miles to Gold's Gym to say hi to a friend, 5 miles back to South Pasadena.  I got 18 miles at least, but our group got either 10 or 5.  Guh!

Well, sometimes rides get washed out.  On New Year's Eve Day, a small group of us were supposed to have a 50 mile ride, and then the rain that ruined the Rose Parade came on and washed us out.  Stuff like this happens every once in a while.  But come on!  (Sigh)  Let's just say I'm looking forward to my daily rides this coming week.