Defeat at Old La Honda

So that’s how it went… I rode the usual Alpine uphill, having given a little too much on Foothill to swerve around the morning traffic. Stopped at the bottom of the hill, after having passed four guys from Phoenix Tech. After they started (and another one, and another one), I jumped on and tried to go as fast as I could. Man, I made it up 880ft (ascent), and then somehow the steam went out of me. Continue reading

Another Flat

Trying to ride home yesterday after a long pause (due to nothing but laziness and good excuses!) I found myself with a flat and no tools. How stupid is that? That’s how I found out that I average 18 mph on the way home on the bike, and just 3.6 mph walking… 🙂

Only the Paranoids Survive (Andy Grove)

That’s one book that came with high praise! Only the Paranoids Survive is the kind of book you have to have read to be able to keep up with everyone else that constantly talks about it. And like any required reading, I was a little uncomfortable with this one, trying to fend it off and push it away as long as I could. The first chapter than did it for me. Continue reading

Eureka!

I finally got to implement combined graphs in Perl. In the end, it was real simple, and it was mostly fighting with GD::Graph that held me up. The new graphs have a few implementation changes that I found really important: 1. The scale of x and y coordinates is constant, so that you can compare two graphs directly. Right now, if you do a mostly flat ride, it looks like a mountain climb no matter what. Continue reading

Alto Velo Again

Saturday, and for some mysterious reason no desire to ride. Maybe it’s the broken espresso machine, maybe it was the ton of chocolate I ate yesterday, freshly spurred by a visit to Albertson’s. Still, I made it all the way to Canada. Turned around at the intersection where they usually stop traffic on Sundays, because it was turning greyish after that. I was out at the same time as the Alto Velo B ride. Continue reading

Tired

Tiredness overcame me yesterday. It was a long day, and I got out of the office only after 7:30. While I had started on the path of doing an extra circle riding home on Monday, Tuesday saw me barely crossing the traffic light on Foothill to get home just in time to feast on a ton of chocolate. Interesting how work can work that way! Monday was intense, and Tuesday even worse – and as a consequence, my energy level sinks…

Still Tired from Yesterday

I managed to go all the way to the end of Canada and back. I started out late, thinking I would barely be able to make it to Woodside, but then I saw someone I vaguely recalled from work, got curious and followed him to the end of Canada. I think he’s a colleague, but I wouldn’t know how to tell. The ride was a Sunday ride, barely made it either way, although the averages are not as bad as they should have been. Continue reading

Finished Log

Finally I integrated the log generation with htmltree – now this is really a totally Marco tool, who else will want to do anything with a training log? I was thinking of changing my way and packaging up the special handlers – images and training – so that they can be added later as packages, instead of being bloat to the main app…

Mega Ride

Today I went with two collegues of mine for a long ride. I started from here, rode the hour or so to Woodside, and joined the two. From there we did an Old La Honda, then down to 84, left of Alpine, down on Page Mill, finally to Woodside and back. All in all four hours. The two guys are really wonderful to ride with. They may not think the same of me, but they need to get in a few good rides until they meet a bunch of their friends in France. Continue reading

The Fiercest Wind

Riding home was a pure bitch! The wind was very strong and wore me out on Manila. I got to the intersection totally exhausted…