ALC Day on the ride

phil April 28, 2011

Here are some photos from the the AIDS LifeCycle NorCal day on the ride:

Gathering in Mike’s Bike’s in San Rafael prior to the start

 

 

 

 

Bike parking

 

 

 

I took this picture for two reasons.  1) I thought it’d look cool with the guy kneeling and talking on the phone.  It didn’t turn out as cool as I’d thought.  2) Old school Trek Y-foil road frame.

 

 

 

Riders getting ready to roll out

 

 

 

 

and they’re off.. people were wearing bunny ears for Easter

 

 

 

 

1st rest stop: Nicasio Valley Cheese Company

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

peanut butter and jelly in graham crackers by Pierre foods

 

 

 

 

Ahhh!  got a flat on the Nicasio Valley Rd climb.

 

 

 

 

Not a good bike day for me though I felt fine riding.  Later in the day my rear wheel got pretty messed up from a pothole-filled descent.  Eventually the rim so out of true that it was rubbing against the brake pads.  I had to stop and do a little work on the side of the road.

 

 

 

 

View from Hicks Valley Rd

 

 

 

 

We cut through a more residential part of Petaluma – it was a nice little section of road en route to lunch

 

 

 

 

Lunch at the park.  Turkey + havarti sandwiches from Boudin.

 

We did about 65 miles in all.  I felt a bit tired towards the end was was climbing well otherwise.  It was fun to see a bunch of other riders out (~400 total?)  and to see all of the volunteers for the event.

 

 

 

 

 

 

ALC letterpress card update

phil April 27, 2011


Here’s a little update on the ALC cards:

I bought a bunch of paper from dick blick in berkeley.  I forgot what type I got now, but I got the heaviest printmaking paper that seemed reasonably priced.  Registration can be a bit tough with the quickutz L letterpress.  It didn’t help that the cards aren’t exactly uniform in size – that’s a lesson learned for next time.  If the cards were uniform in size, I would have been able to use the edges to register the print.

 

 

 

 

The Boxcar plates continue to be nice.  I traced this outline of the state of California in Illustrator and added a little SF to LA route.

 

 

 

I took Boxcar’s advice and got a soft rubber brayer.  I bought a 6″ speedball one from dick blick.  I probably needed a slightly larger one for what I’m doing, but the soft rubber makes a huge difference in the uniformity of the ink application.  A wider brayer would have helped even more because I wouldn’t have had to ink the plate in multiple passes.

 

 

 

Here’s the front side of a card that’s registered pretty well.  Next time I’ll try to make better use of the cross-hatching – I think the hatching is one of the fun things about these types of designs.

 

 

 

An outline of the state of  California on the back side of the card

 

 

 

I used one of the elum thank you plates and added my own bicycle icon.

 

I find it absolutely hilarious (and awesome) that the 1 cent USPS stamps are of a tiffany lamp.

 

 

 

 

 

wine country, clif bars and wine at velo vino for the climate ride

phil April 14, 2011

This past Saturday’s ride was very nice.  Very different than my Mt. Diablo ride.   We participated in a fundraising ride for Clif employees riding in the Climate Ride from New York to DC.  Clif sponsored the staging at Velo Vino ( a new wine shop/tasting bar with Clif wines, Luna and Clif cycling apparel, olive oil and snacks, Clif food products, coffee, and soon, food) and of course provided nutrition for the ride – bars, shot blocks, shots, rocs, and so on.  

Long shadows of bikes on bike rack on car

I hadn’t been to St. Helena in quite some time – not since my family came out for a visit maybe two years ago.  Here’s the front Velo Vino sign, pre-landscaping.  This place is super new.

It was an unexpected surprise to see Gary, the Clif founder there to support the ride.  Melissa and Christine talked about the Climate ride and then our route for a bit, then Gary chimed in with a few words.

Lots of nice folks from Clif, Backroads, and Berkeley Ironworks.  Velo Vino is turning that grassy area into a backyard patio as I post.

A long line of cyclists through filtered light.  I expected it to be cold, but it was a bit warmer than expected – just about perfect for cycling.  It was probably about 60 when we started and it got up to maybe 70 during the day.  Sunny all around.  It was fun riding as a part of such a large friendly group.

There was a little bit of a slide on old howell mountain road.

Stopping to regroup at White Cottage Rd.  Gary led the first parts of the ride and, man, is he a strong rider.  The first part of the ride was all climbing.

We were aiming to do the longest of the routes at 63 miles but missed a left turn.  I think we were on Chiles Pope Valley Road at this point.

A beautiful open field

I took a little photo break and got this shot of a few california poppies.

Got this shot of Lake Hennessey while riding.

Riding alongside a rocky cliff.  Not used to this visual.  Pretty cool.

Lunch at Nichelini winery

Quite a lunch spread.  We realized we missed some turns and made it to lunch at mile 35 instead of mile 50.  This was great because there was plenty of food available but I wasn’t able to enjoy most of it because I didn’t want to spoil my stomach for the rest of the ride.

 

I took pictures of peoples parked bikes.  There were a bunch of fun ones.  I had to look this one up – an Albert Eisentraut frame.  He was a local Oakland guy.

 

 

A pink and grey Orbea with what looked like an aluminum/carbon frame

 

Marty’s Rivendell Romulus

 

 

 

Nichelini wine tastings

 

I hadn’t noticed this Surly Cross Check cable hanger before.

A fancy Ti/carbon Serotta

 

Cruising down Sage Canyon Rd.  This guy was pushing it on his Bike Friday.  The descent was so fun that we did it twice.  Actually, we wanted to make up some mileage so we did a little loop back along Chiles Pope Valley Rd, then a climb up Lower Chiles Valley Rd and then headed back down Sage Canyon Rd.

 

We had a bit of a fast paceline on the last few miles back along Silverado Trail rd.

 

 

Velo Vino threw in a wine tasting afterwards to celebrate.

 

Clif cork

 

Torta carnitas from the shop next door.  I didn’t realize I was so hungry until this was in front of me.

 

All in all, I got in 59 miles, which wasn’t too far off from our goal of 63.  The wine and the fast pace got us pretty sleepy.  I think we turned in at 8pm that night.  All in all, a really nice day.

Mount Diablo

phil April 11, 2011

Last weekend, (pardon my 1-week delay) the second part of a back to back ride was up and down Mt. Diablo.  My legs were quite tired from the day before which made it pretty hard to spin the legs around with any sort of force.  Looking back, it was a good reminder that I have zero 2nd day endurance and will have to build that up in order to survive 7 days back to back.

 

It was a pretty day though.

 

 

This photo is from near the base of the hill, just at the start of the climb.  I believe I took it from Mt. Diablo Scenic Blvd.

 

 

 

 

Lots of climbing ahead.  3849ft summit.  I was going pretty slowly at this point and really unhappy with how I was riding.. but my legs just didn’t have any juice.

 

 

 

We finally reached the saddle point where North Gate and South Gate road meet.  We saw a few AIDS LifeCycle riders who were part of the organized ALC ride.  It was pretty inspiring to see people tackle that climb for the first time.  I felt better after a little bit of rest and some calories, but things got tough again as soon as we started climbing.  My annoyance at my body kind of shifted towards anger as I decided that I’d push harder up the second half of the climb to get it over with.  It felt like a race.  I was yelling and cussing at my legs with every pedal stroke to get them to spin.  At one point, I looked to my right (above photo) and thought to myself, “Are you freaking kidding me?”.  Pretty steep pitch.  This was my third time climbing Mt. Diablo and I didn’t remember it being so hard the last two times.  Maybe I was in better shape, or maybe my body just needed a lot more rest.

 

 

 

We finally made it to the top.   It was a pretty day and was popular for motorists as well as cyclists.  At the summit, there was a line of cars about 6 or 7 deep waiting to find a parking space.  As I sat catching my breath, I even saw a bit of an argument when one person took a parking space that someone else had been waiting for.  My girlfriend got us a snickers bar for a celebratory snack since they ran out of ice cream.

 

 

 

View from the summit.  The observation deck was closed due to leaks but the views were still nice.

 

 

 

It was a bit chilly descending from the summit back to the saddle point but I didn’t mind since I enjoy the descents.  My fingers were a little tired from braking though.  We met these two guys riding a greenspeed recumbent tricycle.  Looked like a pretty sweet setup.  They said it was hard to climb but the descents were fast as anything.  I was feeling much better at this point since, of course, the hard part was over.

 

 

 

We took off and headed all the way down to the base.  I waited for a bit to rest, took a picture or two and then WHOOSH, saw the recumbent trike go flying by with one of the guys waving.  I’d love to try one sometime.

 

We rode back to Walnut creek BART and called it a day.  49 miles in all.

 

 

 

Skittles for a post-ride snack

 

I heard news yesterday of a cyclist killed in a hit and run by a Ford F-150 while riding a 600k in Southern California.  Really sad story and the guy was a friend of friends.  It’s sometimes hard to work out in your head that despite having the strength to be able to ride 375 miles in one go, our bodies and lives can be so fragile – and that one person’s mistake or impairment can destroy all of that in a matter of seconds.

 


 

 

 

First April ALC East Bay training ride

phil April 6, 2011

April 2nd was the first training ride that I’ve participated in in a little while.  The weather finally cleared up.  We rode from Actual Cafe in Oakland up Tunnel Rd and then took Grizzly Peak to Golf Course Rd to Shasta and then Wildcat Canyon down to the east side of the hills.   Then, we did a counterclockwise loop of the bears.

 

Here are the photos:

reading the safety speech

 

 

 

Saw a fire from somewhere in Berkeley.  Dark smoke.

 

 

 

Saw members of the Cal Triathlon team at Bear Creek Rd and San Pablo Dam Rd.

 

 

 

Fields of yellow mustard

 

 

 

Cruising through the streets of Berkeley on the way back

 

 

 

 

AIDS LifeCycle cards, the L letterpress Epic, and plates from Boxcar press

phil April 5, 2011

I received the Epic combo kit from Lifestyle Crafts for my birthday and I thought it’d be a cool AIDS LifeCycle fundraising idea to create some custom plates based on my photography.  Designing and creating the artwork took much longer than expected, but I ended up choosing to create something based on this photo that I took from a ride last month:

I decided to create a 2-color print.  I did the color separations in Photoshop and then used Illustrator to create some cross-hatching patterns to give the image a more interesting texture.  It took a long freaking time (I used Illustrator’s live trace.  This was nice, but created a bunch of paths and points.  When I compounded that with the cross hatching swaths, there were even more paths and points.  This made it hard and slow to edit.)

 

Here’s a preview of what I expected things to look like:

 

 

I ordered plates through boxcar press and received them this past week.

The above photo is of one of the plates from Boxcar press.  It’s a flexy plastic material with a bit of hardness to it.  This one is partially inked with the yellow/orange speedball block printing ink that I had purchased.  I was surprised at the resolution that the plates could handle.

 

above:  Brayer, with ink.

 

I tried varying amounts of ink to see what would look better on paper:

 

 

 

 

 

above: blue ink for the second plate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

above: This is what it looks like when you run a plate through the press.  It’s basically some rollers that apply a lot of pressure to the paper and the plate.

 

 

 

above: an unevenly inked blue but still pretty cool

 

 

I didn’t have enough time to play around too much,  but here are some of the prototype cards:

I think I’ll make sure there’s more ink coverage for the next set.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

claremont, centennial, claremont

phil March 28, 2011

I did a short but intense solo training ride on Sunday.  The weather was cold and I thought it’d be a good idea to try some intensity workouts as opposed to just putting in the miles.  I ended up choosing a 32.7 mile ride with 4527 feet of climbing.  I went up Claremont, along Grizzly Peak, down Euclid.  Then I rode up Centennial, took Grizzly Peak to Skyline and went down Tunnel Rd.  Tunnel was full of all kinds of stuff from the 3 weeks of rain.  An entire portion of the road was covered with mud and gravel.  There was debris in a bunch of places, which made for not such a great descent.  Then, I rode back up Claremont and went down Grizzly Peak and Euclid again.  Then I went home and took a nap.

 

I don’t have any photos from this ride as I just wanted to get a training ride in.