I don’t plan to make a habit of this, but I would like to say that I think Language Log has thoroughly worn out its/their welcome on entries that solely constitute being peeved by people being peeved about (various things) about language. It’s still moderately interesting when they explore the history and usage of the […]
Monthly Archives: August 2008
Saturday ride #8: Coastal ride
Due to exhaustion I am lacking in my usual verbosity. Therefore, mostly you get statistics, nouns, and adjectives. DST: 50.5 mi (my computer reported 55 but that is not correct, and I don’t know why — I’m thinking a detector in Palo Alto) AVS: 11.8 (…oy) MXS: ~32 (84 descent) Ride time: 4:36 Total elevation […]
“Looming”/chase instinct as a cause of fear among cyclists?
I was riding to downtown Sunnyvale today and got passed by a couple cars while sharing a lane. Absolutely nothing notable about it from a traffic standpoint, except that for several of them I was checking my rearview mirror as they came up and I found that I had an instinctive fear as they approached, […]
On any given day, where would you rather be?
The radio was on this morning in the shuttle, playing various things, including a traffic report. It was almost like it was calculated: 101-S is a complete mess in two different places, as is 237. Aren’t you glad you’ve been on the train? But of course, on any given day, you might rather be on […]
Wednesday brisk ride: Foothill commute
Back when I was planning my mileage for training, I decided that for some of the weekday rides with higher mileage, I would try doing my commute on Foothill rather than Bryant. It increases the hilliness and the mileage substantially. I went for that option this morning and was pleasantly surprised by it. After you […]
Tour de San Mateo
Much unlike the Tour de Menlo, today’s Tour de San Mateo was a ride thrown around as a concept by another member of SVBC a while back: just a small tour of the interesting bits of San Mateo. I was instantly in, since I used to live in San Mateo and am quite fond of […]
Climbing and the ethics of posting ride routes
I entered the route for Tour de Menlo 2008 into my Bikely routes, but I haven’t published it as public because I’m not sure whether that’s polite. The route creators presumably put some work into creating the route (and they did a good job), and maybe don’t want other rides to borrow it wholesale. Update: […]
Ride report: Berkeley! Grizzly Peak!
This morning I went up to Berkeley to ride with my friends/team members up there, J & C (you guys let me know if you want full names or initials on the blog). We had planned to do a 38-mile route up Grizzly Peak that I found on Bikely (Downtown Berkeley – Grizzly Peak – […]
Two things that are fantastic
I’ve had kind of a crazy week — maybe kind of a crazy month, really — and two things this week were particularly fantastic: Dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes from Ella Bella Farm These tomatoes are expensive compared to most of the heirlooms and organic tomatoes at the Menlo Park Farmer’s Market — they cost I […]
Do they even know it’s uphill?
As I have recorded here before, I am a poor climber. Even in the lowest gear of my triple-crank road bike, I find nearby hills like Edgewood and Arastradero challenging to climb, and have to use my leg strength (such as it is), rather than cadence, to ascend the hill. I have been trying not […]