Is it raining yet?

On Friday it was raining. Wait does that give justice enough to the rain. It was pouring. The sky was dropping absurd amounts of water. The streets were filled with that water. Perhaps it was not a good day to ride a bicycle. Or was it? The proper clothing was the only way to go. Sickness is not an option for cyclists. A cyclist can not even fake being sick to miss school because that would mean that one would not be able to ride their bike after school! Maybe the rain was needed. The creeks had been relatively low for this time of year. Even Lake Nicasio was at the lowest limits that I had seen in a while. It was looking more like a field than a lake. Why did it have to come today though? I guess it was just meant to be. Saturday I was planning on riding Skagg's with my Team Swift Elite teammates. It would have been awesome. Alas, six hours in this weather was not an option, even for a bunch of fools like us.

I got home from school around 1, but I pouted over the rain for a few hours before I became hardcore enough to put on my clothes and jump into it. As I got dressed it was only drizzling and that angered me. If i was going to ride in this junk I wanted a hurricane. This needed to be epic. Of course I was going to go ride the mountain bike, it was way to nasty for the road, what with the gray skies, fogged windows and crazy drivers. The trail was the place for me. Heck, is anyone else crazy enough to go ride on the trail today? No, can't be anyone that stupid. The trails would be all mine.

I headed out the door and jumped upon my MTB beast. Now it was storming. That is what I am talking about. I let out a scream for a joy (or insanity?) and wheelied that bad boy out the driveway. I was well equipped and ready to roll. I was even sweating I was so perfectly warm.

I stole my dads waterproof gloves. They are amazing. Seriously, they are absolutely unbelievabele. I think that they are for kayaking or something, but no water, well extremely few amounts seeped into my gloves during my two hours of riding through an absolute perfect storm.

I got to the neighborhoods near the trail entrance and the streets were flooded. I had to follows cars through the water. They would part the water for me and I would race through the streets before I got engulfed. I made it to the dirt, my kingdom. Not a soul for miles. I felt good today. I was cruising through the thick mud. The rain pounding. Drops pounding on my rain jacket. I was thundering through the forest. It was a good day to climb. Climb I did. Ten miles of climbing to the top of Mount Tam. The trail was a river. Then as I neared the top of the mountain another man descended past me. He looked exactly like me. All dressed up in an ugly bike rain jacket and massive amounts of lycra. We are like ugly ballerinas. Well as I saw this guy in the distance he was laughing, and he continued to toss out that laughter all the way down the trail as he passed me. Was he laughing for joy? (I think that he was hypothermic or something!) Oh well, I felt great as I cruised up the trail. I passed through multiple waterfalls crossing the river that I was riding through. It was getting windy. It was ridiculously foggy. Could I see that tree 10 feet away. Nope. I caromed my way to the top. Oops, not much time left to get back down this mountain. Oh, no worries, I can get down this mountain in probably five minutes.

Have you ever tried descending through a river? Wow, it is not easy. One may in fact say that it is difficult. Did I mention that every corner of Tam looks exactly the same when it is ridiculously foggy. I think that it was harder descending then climbing. One might even claim that it was scary.

I reached the bottom and had to follow some more cars through the flooding. I thought that the one that I was following was going to die as I heard the engine sputter in the water. Luckily, it made it through, and so did I.

The best part of the ride was while I was navigating my way through one of these flooded streets. There were two boys of five years in their full on yellow rain gear standing with their mother and dog. As they spotted me they yelled to their mom "That kid is riding a bike!"

I continued home and I ended up on a street that was closed with a banner blocking my side. Oh, this couldn't be much of a problem after what I have been through. I rode about 500 ft before I saw the biggest puddle of my life. The street could no longer be considered a road, it was river. The water was gushing across the hillside on one side and into the river on the other side. It was at least as deep as my wheels. I turned back and managed to pull into my home before it was too dark. Another adventure in the books.

I am that kid riding a bike.

tb

One of the many sweet waterfalls on Mount Tam

Some Fundraising

During October and November, my main focus was on school, although I was still riding and going to the gym. Along with all of this, I spent four successive weekends attending fundraiser rides. The fund raising season began with the Tour of Marin half century. This ride was on Sunday, Oct. 21st, and came the day after I had done a full century in Davis with my dad and his UC Davis cycling team friends. This ride supports a private school in Marin, and was well attended by local pros, and local riders. Coach Laura was able to get the school to make a contribution to Team Swift, as well as get free entry to the event for the elite team swift riders. The ride went from Corte Madera through Fairfax and around Lake Nicasio (which is a training ride I do weekly).

Levi was gracious enough to take a pic with all of us

The next weekend was the Team Swift ‘Ride with Champions in Santa Rosa. This year the event was attended by several member of the BMC pro cycling team (including Scott Nydam, Mike Sayers, Nathan Miller and team director Gavin Chilocot) as well as former Team Swift rider Steven Cozza (now a Team Slipstream pro). Following us on the fifty mile ride were the BMC team cars, each with a team mechanic and doctor. It was definitely the best supported fall training ride that I’ve ever done. Along all these great pros, were maybe forty swifties, many parents, and a variety of sponsors, community members and team supporters. Team Swift’s national champion, Ashlyn Gerber came all the way from Florida to attend the ride.
After the ride we had some great lunch, socialized and had the team raffle. Everyone was able to walk away with something from the raffle, thanks to many generous contributions from our sponsors.

Steve Cozza and I

Coach Laura Charameda and National Champ Ashlyn Gerber

Ryan and I tearing it up on the front

Getting some advice from BMC director Gavin Chilcott

The first weekend of November was the first annual Tamaranch 1000, a fundraiser for my Drake HS mt. bike team. Our goal was to ride a combined 1000 miles around our local trails. Parents made and brought food and riders rode from 8am-4pm. Some riders had to leave for soccer games, and other commitments. I was taking the SAT’s in the morning, but still came in the afternoon and rode four laps of the course. We were very successful and raised a total of $13,000. Thanks to some very generous friends and family, I was able to bring in $700 for the team.

Finally, on November 10th, was the NorCal High School Mt. Bike Leagues annual fundraiser dinner and auction. We got to socialize for a while, have a nice dinner, and listen to Bob Roll tell some stories. Bob Roll is the man.

Thanks to everyone for their support of me and my programs in 2007. I am hoping and training for an even better '08.

tb

New Years Day Epic Ride

Well I finally found some time and energy to write so here goes nothing. The Elite team decided to have a ride on New Years day and it was going to be epic, but I didn’t know it would be this epic. I went to my grandparents for the holidays though and was not sure if I would be able to make it. I convinced my parents to wake up early and drive back so that I could ride and they finally surrendered. We had to wake up at 6:30 after staying up till 12, so that was tough, but luckily I got to sleep in the car.

We were the first to arrive at Coach Laura’s house and I got ready. Soon enough Steve Cozza, Ryan and Ethan showed up. We got dressed and sung happy birthday to Ethan and then yelled at him when he decided that he needed to change his tire.

We headed out towards Calistoga Road and met up with Gavin Chilcott, Rich Sangalli and a group of guys from the Dewars Team. We went to the top of Spring Mountain and the others turned back while my father, Laura, Steve, Ethan, Ryan and I continued on. We continued over Howell Mt. and I found some sweet goggles on the side of the road. I wore them for about a mile before I discarded them for my trusty Specialized sunglasses and we began a sweet descent down Ink Grade. We got stuck behind a car, but luckily or maybe unluckily she let us go.

I took off with Ryan on my wheel and we continued to burn up the road for about 4 miles. At one point I looked back and asked him where everyone was, I thought that we must have missed a turn. We continued to cruise until we hit a left hand turn and bang, I was on the floor in a second. I hit some gravel and ended up rolling onto the pavement while Ryan went over his bars behind me. I got up slowly hoping that I had not cracked my frame. I had a bunch of holes in my clothes, but everything felt alright; well at least nothing was broken on me or my bike. I knew that I had a lot of road rash, but I did not feel like looking at it until the end. After some minor bike repairs with the help of Steve and my dad we headed off. We still had about 3 hours to go so it was going to be a battle.

We loosened up and then found ourselves setting a good tempo into Middletown. We stopped at a grocery store and I had to walk around with the back of my shorts torn open. We ate an awesome sandwich and guzzled down some coke and then headed back to the races. We had the opportunity to head up Western Mine Road which is a dirt climb for about 3 miles. The last time I had gone up this climb it had been 105 degrees and the road was dusty and slick and I had bonked like no other. Today I was riding for redemption and I took off with a steady pace and the dirt was pristine. I don’t think that it could have been any better and Steve, Ryan and I cruised up it together.

We got to the top and then there was a long descent down Ida Clayton Road. It was time to get back on the horse and forget about my crash that had happened an hour or so ago. I followed Steve and had some fun. The views were incredible of Mount St. Helena and it seemed that we could see forever.

We finished the last climb of the day along Franz Valley and I still felt decent which was good. We even pushed the pace at the very end of the ride and I was thinking to myself “We could have just gone easy, why are we doing this now!” It felt great to finish the ride with all I had left though, like a race. I rolled into Coach Laura’s lot with my wheel going flat. Now it was time to clean all that road rash. OUCH, cleaning it was worse than riding for 3 hours with it. I learned today that it is not worth it to push the limit on descents in training. Road rash is not fun, but I was super lucky that nothing worse happened.