Finally...Amgen Tour of California (ATOC) Prologue 2008

I think I started drafting this blog entry over a month ago...  But, never got around to finishing it.  I guess I've been busy being lame.

On Sunday February 17th, we traveled from San Francisco down to Palo Alto to see the Prologue (opening time trial) of the ATOC.  We had it all planned out before we left San Diego: Saturday, take the BART from the airport and use our feet and taxis to get around.  Sunday, take the 10am CALTRAIN to Palo Alto and a later train back to San Francisco.  Monday, rent a car to head north to see Stage 1.  

The first mission on Sunday was to find the "Blue Bottle Cafe."  I read about this place on the internet.  The title of the article was "A $17,000 cup of coffee."  This cafe bought a siphon machine from Japan, which is supposedly one of the purest ways to brew a cup of coffee (it brews a single batch) and extracts the truest flavors of the beans.  

We set out on foot once again from our hotel to 66 Mint St. in San Fran.  We found the Blue Bottle Cafe, but not because it had any signs outside!

We promptly went inside to weigh our options.  I decided on a "siphon" cup of coffee for $10.  I made sure to ask the cashier about putting cream and sugar in this coffee.  Not recommended and frowned upon.  That wasn't the exact response, but we got the hint.  I figure it's kind of like going to Mortons or Ruth Chris Steakhouse and asking for A1; it's a no-no.  

This is how they made the coffee.

The hot water is sucked up into the cylinder with the coffee and then somehow (magic and trickery of course) it comes back down into the sphere.  

It makes enough for 2 cups.  Yummy!  To be honest, this was not my favorite cup of coffee.   I've got to go back to my old stand-by, Peets.  My love affair with Peets started when I lived in Monterey when I had a cup that my stats professor was offering after our final exam.  Love at first sip.  I started out on the Italian Blend, went to Major Dickason's for the longest time, now I'm back and forth between Major and Arabian Mocha-Java.  It's what I look forward to every morning.

The schedule worked out to perfection.  We hoofed it pretty quickly to the train station and got in with about 3 minutes to spare.  Once we got to Palo Alto the mission was to just check things out.  This wasn't like the Tour de France where you have to get in one spot and stay there for hours to save your place.  So we wondered around and saw some of the team buses and riders warming up.  I really wanted to see the Slipstream-Chipotle guys.  Cezanne is still on the fence about me getting and wearing their kit.  Anyway, the just got picked up for the Tour de France, so that is huge for them.  Below is Christina Van de Velde from the U.S.  He and Dave Zabriskie transferred to Slipstream-Chipotle from CSC.  

David Millar below, from Scotland.  He's transferred from Saunier-Duval (spelling?).  These guys need to lose some weight!  

One of the guys warming up on the Prologue course.  It was really short, 2.1 miles I think.

The start times.  This is such an exciting picture, it doesn't get any better than this! :)

Dave Zabriskie warming up below.  I can't tell if he's on an airline flight or warming up for a time trial.  He's changing his iPod tunes (from Whitney to Celine I'm sure) and just took off his light blocking/airline sleeping eye cover which you can see in the picture.

Dave warming up and mustache man (Steven Cozza) in the background.  Cozza's TT suit was a little insane, as I'm sure most of them are.  It was really see-through from what we could see and we could mainly see the buttock area.  Dave did not have that issue.  I guess his American Time Trial champ kit is a little thicker.  How do these guys sit on the tip of the saddle like that?  Maybe because they get paid to.

Cezanne and I with Thomas Voeckler.  I forget if it was the 2004 or 2005 Tour de France where he wore the yellow jersey.  He was really nice.  He just rolled up on his bike, sat there by himself, and watched the riders come by one by one.  I asked him if he was going to be in yellow this year and he said he tries every time.

Fabian Cancellara tearing up the Prologue below.  This guy is an absolute beast.  He's been incredible so far this year and I think is the guy to beat at Paris-Roubaix.  He one buy a large margin for such a short course.  He crushed the TdF Prologue last year.  He almost caught up to the motorcycles around one of the turns.

And Fabian one the Prologue and after Levi rode we hoped on the train back to San Francisco.  Me listening to my tunes, switching from Whitney to Celine of course.  I sometimes pretend my nano is a phone and Cezanne hates it.  Maybe because I bug her about getting an iPhone.

My Favorite Tour of California picture

He used to be known to me only as "mustache man."  I will now refer to him as Steven Cozza. 

Saturday Fun Day

Cezanne and I had a fun day on Saturday.  

The schedule went a little something like this: 1) Chris goes on bike ride/Cezanne goes to the gym and gets her nails done, 2) we try out lunch at a place we've never eaten before, 3) a visit to the Scripps Aquarium, 4) chair massages at "So Relax," 5) we get mochas at Chuao Chocolate Cafe, 6) we watch the Notebook.  The only thing that would have made the day better would be to add in a hike, a Dave Matthews concert, and watching the Notebook 3 more times.  The last part was a joke. 

Everything was a success except for the massage for me.  Holy geez, my upper back is really sore.  I've had about 5 massages my entire life and I never wanted any of them to be over, until this one came along.  It was painful, it was excruciating.  I don't think I'm a wimp, but this was insane.  Not that there's anything wrong with it, but they don't speak english that well, so I didn't try to let him know what he was doing was killing.  That's my fault though.

Anyway, my upper back is sore to the touch today (the slightest touch).  I'm pretty sure that's not what I was looking for.

Got to snap a picture of the "Giant Squid."

The infamous sea cucumber.

The view of La Jolla Cove from the aquarium.  It was actually really windy on Saturday.  Last night we heard thunder for the first time in a LONG time.  I think I've only heard thunder once or twice in my 2.5 years in San Diego.  It was strong/loud enough to set off a bunch of car alarms at 3am.

New Ride Shades have arrived

After much contemplation, checking at the NEX, heartache, going back and forth, stress, lost sleep, getting Cezanne's advice, emotional breakdowns, hours of sobbing, I picked my new cycling sunglasses.  Okay, there was some going back and forth and getting Cezanne's advice, but none of the other stuff.  It was a little bit of a difficult decision.  I decided to check into 3 brands of sunglasses to replace my 3 year old Specialized San Remos.  I liked my Specialized, but they would fog up just looking at them.  

I looked at Giro, Rudy Project, and Oakley.  Giro is new into the sunglasses market, but apparently after decades making cycling helmets, they had a good idea of how heads were shaped and how to make the sunglasses work with the helmet straps and retention system.  They nailed that, but I don't think they studied the nose very much.  When I tried on the Giro's, they covered my forehead more than my eyes.  It was comical and received my and Cezanne's disapproval.  The Rudy Project sportmask was pretty nice.  Out of the 3, it was the most aesthetically pleasing, fitting the shape/width of my head the best and the best style of lens (for me).  I didn't like the nose piece, it was plastic instead of rubber.  The glasses seemed really flimsy, but I'm sure they are sturdy, and they were really light.  The Oakley's seemed to be the best all around although I wasn't crazy about them.  

Deciding to get the Oakley Radar with Path shaped lenses was only half the battle.  Then came picking out the color frame and lens.  It was between the white frame with blue iridium lens and the LiveStrong edition.  I guess I was a little nervous about being too flashy with the white and how looking out of the blue iridium would be.  On Oakley's website they had a simulation of what it would look like and I didn't like it.  I thought my highlighter yellow shoes are flashy enough, and I have a close and personal (very personal) connection with LiveStrong, so that's what I went with.  I'm definitely happy with the choice, road with them for the first time yesterday and they were perfect.  What makes it better is that I've seen Big George Hincapie wearing them in Tirreno-Adriatico.  

What made yesterday's ride even better was riding up Torrey Pines hill and getting passed by a skinny and in-shape older cyclist.  He was probably around 55.  I was cruising at 11mph and I hopped on his wheel and rolled at 13mph the whole way up with my heart rate right at 179-180 the whole way.  We kicked it up to 15mph at the top.  I had to thank him for the pull.  It felt good to open it up.   Funny how you can push it harder when you have some motivation/competition.

I have to put this blog link I received in an email on here.  I read about this on the news.  Recently, the Berkeley City Council passed a statement indicating that Marine Corps recruiting stations are "not welcome in the city, and if recruiters want to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders."  I love how people who harp on free speech and everybody's right to be equal and do as they chose can be so totally and utterly the antithesis of that.  What is great is that on the back of the USAA magazine I just received is a profile of the reporter in the video at the below link.  He used to be a Marine helicopter pilot and is now a correspondent on the John Stewart Daily Show.  Being a former Marine, it makes the story so much funnier, especially his "venting" away from the guy he's interviewing in one part of the video.

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2008/03/semper-fi-berserkely/

Orange County Duathlon

Mr. Bono loves to lay in the sun.  He has the weekend all figured out.  On Saturdays and Sundays he knows that it's the weekend, and if it's sunny out, he'll stand by the sliding glass door blinds waiting for you to open them up.  This comes second to breakfast of course.

I signed up as part of a relay team for the Orange County Duathlon a few months ago.  My buddy Ricardo said he was doing it and suggested I sign up too.  I'm not much of a runner, so I recruited Mike Francis for that part.  The Navy had it's say in the whole situation and unfortunately Ricardo couldn't do the race (he signed up to do all the legs himself).  Francis and I aren't in peak shape yet, evidenced by the fact that the top finisher in the male 60-64 age group beat us by a couple of minutes.  We finished in about 1 hour and 50 minutes, complete with the transitions.  Francis was the type of guy at the Academy who could roll out of bed 5 minutes before the PRT, having not done much prep, and would crush the test, finishing in the mid 8 minute area for the 1.5 mile run and maxing the push-ups and sit-ups.  I was always the person maxing the push-ups and sit-ups, then doing the run in 10:20, about 10 seconds before the cut-off, then I would puke.  There was even a time I puked on the way to the finish line.  Nice!  Anyway, bottom line is that we had a fun time doing the OC Duathlon which consisted of a 5k run, 40k bike, and another 5k run.  Cezanne and I got up at 4:15am this morning to leave around 5:10am since the event was about 70 miles north of La Jolla.  The day started off pretty chilly (for SoCal) at around 47 degrees F.  The 40k (wound up being about 22 miles, not 25 miles) was pretty hilly, but on really nice roads (Santiago Canyon).  For about half the route you could see the burnt out hillsides on either side of the road, which is an unfortunate reality of living in Southern California.  Below is me taking off on the start of the ride.  We had our timing chip on an ankle bracelet on our left foot which Mike and I had to switch off between each segment.

Cycling is an interesting sport.  There are times when you'll blow by someone who "looks" the part, complete with high end triathlon bike, nice aero position, lean, etc. and then there are times when the slightly heavier person on a old beater of a road bike will pass you.  I think I started off a little too hard, passing a bunch of people, but then settled into a groove.  I was frustrated that my heart rate monitor wasn't working.  One of my favorite things to do on the ride is the check out other bikes.  I've got a nice road bike (the frame is the same that Lance used to win the Tour de France), but as with anything, after about 3 years, I'm starting to want something updated.  There were a lot of nice triathlon bikes out there as well as a lot of road bikes.  Below is me after I finished riding, handed the timing chip off to Mike, and racked my bike.  I wound up averaging 19.9 mph over the 22 mile course.  I was personally happy with that given that most of my 30-50 mile training rides I'm averaging about 17.5 alone and 18.8 in the Saturday group ride I do.  Of course, after the fact, I thought I could have pushed it a little harder.  

Below is Mike cranking it up to pass someone in the last 30 yards of his second run.  The guy in white got some motivation and turned on the burners after Mike passed him.  Mike, of course, is wearing his native "Pittsburgh Steelers" shirt.

Mike was wearing a "Navy" t-shirt under his Steelers shirt and we were approached by a couple of Naval Academy graduates after the race, Damon Dixon, '95 and Gary Leaman (sorry Gary, I think you said '78), both living in the San Diego area.  They both scored really well in their age group.  I'm sure it's the same way with other colleges, but it always seems like you'll find 1 or 2 Naval Academy grads doing something, somewhere.  It's really a great network.

Sunday ride to Torrey Pines

Instead of going on a 2 hour ride by myself, I thought that it would be more enjoyable for Cezanne and I to ride our "Townies" from our place to Torrey Pines to hike around a little bit. She only rang her bell a few times, which is better than a bunch of times.

I stepped on the gas and got a little separation in this next pic. Cezanne thinks that her strengths are sprinting and climbing. I told her those typically don't go together, at least for professional cyclists.



We locked our bikes up by the Torrey Pines golf course.


I think we probably have over 100 pictures of this exact same angle of us. Go go gadget arms!


What an ugly trail on an ugly day... :)


We made it down to the beach from the top.


Now on to the serious stuff. The blue tires on the bike. I can't believe how dirty they got after one ride. I guess it's kind of like white handlebar tape. The next thing I want to work on is getting rid of a few of those spacers....then what to do with the tax return....Cervelo SLC or R3 frame? Pipe dream?