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Showing posts from June, 2008
On Gravel and Gravity Have you ever noticed that the words gravel, gravity, and grave all have the same beginning. This thought crossed my mind as I was rapidly descending Mt. Hamilton last Saturday. I started thinking this as I navigated the endless hairpin turns and noticed that in every blind turn there seemed to be a line of gravel in the middle of the road. It takes a whole lot of concentration and quite a bit of luck to come around a corner, see the gravel and find a line that doesn't take you through the gravel or into the oncoming lane. Nothing quite gets your attention like going around a corner at 25 mph hitting bit of gravel and having your rear wheel hop a inch or two off track. Some people would call it exhilarating I don't. In fact I thought it was downright pee-your-pants scary. Thankfully I made it all the way down the mountain,with my pants unsoiled I might add. This was on one of our more memorable rides. On top of the scary descents, it was 95 degr
The People Have Spoken Okay, no more talk about the mid-life crisis, the votes are in. I'm not going to tour with Duran Duran, I do not want anything to do with Walt Disney's frozen head, I would very much like to drink tequila on a beach, but instead I'm going to do something ridonkulously hard. I, along with some friends from the Death Ride team, are going to France. Well the France part isn't that hard. I mean as long as you don't tell them you're an ugly American it's not. Not that they won't be able to spot me right off. Anyway, here's the deal. We will be riding 8 days in the Pyrenees from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. The Pyrenees are the mountains on the border between Spain and France. In the Tour de France the Pyrenees are known as the difficult mountains. They're steeper, higher and the weather tends to be hotter. Here's a quote from a professional cyclist Jonathan Vaughters: "The Tourmalet and Hautacam are s