what a great ride

with some downsides. i was dozing through the obstacle course and hit the great granddaddy of potholes. fack. no obvious damage, but that's the second time i've hit it and it's not good.

apparently, today is the "Tour For Woodside". There were hundreds of people participating in what, to me, appeared to be an incredible number of routes. I was dying to pull up to someone and ask them if they were Touring For Woodside because it had run out of tax dollars, but I restrained myself.

At the corner of woodside and canada, there was a douchebag standing in the crosswalk shouting at cyclists to "honor the stopsign". i laughed at him. as always I was well past him by the time I thought of a biting retort.

coming down sandhill some jerks failed to observe etiquette. i was stopped for a red light, and they pulled in ahead of me. now, i've only figured out by watching that you're not supposed to do that. that was the first time i've seen it happen. so i let them have a nice head start off the light, up the hill, and once they got out of their saddles, i showed them how to climb a hill.

i did a similar thing to an "on your left"-er. now there's nothing at all wrong with "on your left"-ing, in fact, it's a courtesy. but it always wakes me up out of my stupor and challenges me to keep up, draft, or pass. i keep on saying it but i keep on thinking it: my hill training is making me stronger on hills. i am still easily blown away, but if i get "on your left"-ed right before a hill, i'll frequently be the one to the top first, especially if it's a hill that i know.

speaking of hills i know, i decided to explore a little today. i took alpine up from santa cruz to portola, instead of my usual route of the other way around. i had been fearing alpine all week because of how fast i descend -- it must be steep, right? wrong! it's super easy, way way easier than the opposite route. as i rolled easily to the top, i was cheered on by some girl who thought i was with the Tour. heh.

then, on the final descent just before whisky hill, i glanced at my speedometer and saw i was moving 38.5! Holy crap! A record! And I wasn't even in an aero position, and i was coasting. Wow.

So I decided to take Junipero Serra out and also explore Arastradero. I did. After I got to the end of it (it was also plenty easy, with only one memorable hill, which I will get to in a moment. if you watched me you'd think it was tough, but I was pretty beat this morning, and vowed to have an easy ride. i failed, as usual.) i went back up alpine for another lap. this time i got down in the drops and pedaled down the fast spot, but i only got to 39. huh.

now, about that hill. it's a little steep (though nothing to worry about) and i was huffing-and-puffing my way up it, and this woman, whom i had seen wandering around lost in her car on the lower part of arastradero, honks at me from behind then pulls up in front of me, across my path, and pulls over. it was obvious she was going to ask me for directions.

now, the first thing that struck me was that here i was climbing a hill, and she decides that she's so jeekee important that i'm going to hit "pause" on my effort-generator, pull over in the middle of a hill, and tell her that i have no fucking clue where her rich-ass friend lives and no, this isn't Milpitas.

She could have, had she given half a thought to what I was doing, pulled over another 30 feet up at the top of the hill. my vehicle is human powered, and my gas is, so to speak, my ass. i felt slightly bad as i ignored her "scoos me!" and pedaled on up past her.

now if you think that's rude of me, you may be right. maybe i am rude on the bike, but i think overall my karma is at least neutral. just an hour prior i pulled over and gave directions to two cyclists who wanted to know where alpine ended up. this was before i'd gone up it yet, and i told them (heh) it was "uphill all the way", which, geographically speaking, is strictly true. but it is the sort of climb to sneeze at.

i also offered assistance to two cyclists, one of whom actually needed it but was already well taken care of by the SAG van. i offered anyhow, because it's now my policy.

I also shook my fist angrily at a motorist, in sympathy for some newb-bikers (on the Tour) who were the victim of said motorist's entirely unjustified (seriously, they were both in the bike lane, wtf?) angry honking. screw you, jerkwad, it's people like you that keep people away from the sport.

on canada, i saw a group of people walking with a nice golden retriever. i looked back and saw that in his mouth, his jaws stretched to their limit, he held an enormous pine cone. he sure looked happy but i dunno how he'll be able to open his mouth wider to drop it.

i saw a "sheriff" at a stop sign, trying to entice cyclists to stop by offering them cups of dubious liquid. i think the guy standing next to him was the same jerkoff that shouted at the canada/woodside intersection. can't be sure, though.

weather included plenty of strong crosswinds, bleh.