Sweet!

In the upper right corner of the blog, I've added a "Wordle" image which takes the text from this page and arranges it into a picture. More prominent words from the blog are mentioned closer to the center, or in larger text. It will also update as the text on the page changes! I'm totally geeking out!

Alright Already!

 OK, so it's been forever since my last post. Sorry. For those interested, on the left is my weight-loss progress. The blue line is a trend line that would get me down to 160 by next January and the gray line is where I'm at. Ahead of schedule! I think I'll celebrate with an apple fritter!

So I've had some pretty cool adventures on my bike, but I only had my GPS charged up for this one. Still, it was pretty eventful. I was late for meeting the B ride, so I decided to jump on with the Spectrum (find out about these rides here). So I jumped into the fray with the Spectrum guys right away at Page Mill Road, no warmup. Big mistake. I was already shelled off the back by the turn on to Arastradero! Yep, I think I got a full half a mile in with the group before I was riding solo. Fortunately, as I was grinding my way up Alpine, I was joined by another Alto Velo rider who also happens to work at Genentech. So we talked racing, Roche, and the cool new clubhouse complete with a gelatto bar on the south campus. We decided to keep going the route that the B ride was taking, so we hit Kings mountain. I got a flat right at the entrance to Huddart park, which you can actually see on the route if you zoom in close enough.

Anyway, at the top of Kings, we parted ways and I went down to Sky Londa. On the way there, I had to stop because the police had shut down the road for a few minutes. The officer was really rude to me, and I was pretty rude back. And we move on...

I joined up with the B ride at Sky Londa, but rather than go down 84 East with them, I decided to go west and really punish myself with a climb up West Alpine. This one's a climb that just NEVER ends. But it was warm, so I couldn't complain too much. On the way up, I met up with a small group that included some Alto Velo riders and Katheryn Curi Mattis, a national champ that rides for the Webcor Pro Team. Yes, she was taking it easy and no, I could not stick to her wheel. 

The Peninsula is really a great place to ride, if for no other reason than you are sure to see some great people on the road. And the terrain and scenery is hard to beat. You just have to know that nothing is for free, and enjoying all that beauty comes at the price of a lot of sweat. I pretty much resembled a giant salt lick in lycra as I humbly limped over the top of West Alpine and made my descent down Page Mill back to my car. 

I'll try to keep the posts a little more frequent. I have a genuinely useful one I'm working on for later this week!