1-year Anniversary Weekend and a long ride

Cezanne and I decided to get out of La Jolla for our 1-year anniversary weekend. We love La Jolla and there is plenty to do and plenty of great places to eat, but we thought it would be a nice break to get a change of scenery.

Cezanne tried "priceline" and we got a room at the Hyatt in Newport Beach. We drove up the coast, drove and walked around Newport Beach (Balboa Island) and Laguna Beach, and ate a couple of really good meals. Laguna Beach was really nice. It reminded us of Carmel a little bit.


We relaxed, we got massages, we watched the U.S. Open...it was perfect. The only thing to make it more perfect would be to involve cycling some how...

Same picture as above, except we got out of the way.


I knew I needed to get in a long ride this weekend if I was going to complete the LiveStrong Challenge 100-mile ride in July in a good state. So, I decided to ride back from Newport Beach to La Jolla. The total distance was just shy of 75 miles.

I have my Garmin 705, so I thought I would use it's navigation capability, but this wound up making me more frustrated. First, in Garmin's User Manual, it says to create a new course on www.garminconnect.com or through the Garmin Training Center (free software).

For the life of me I couldn't figure out how to do that! I emailed Garmin, but knew they wouldn't get back to me before we left for Newport Beach, so I did some more research.

I found a forum where someone suggested creating a course in bikeroutetoaster.com and then transferring it onto the Garmin. I did that and it worked!

So, I set out around 7:45am on Sunday to head back to La Jolla. Cezanne stayed back to catch a little more sleep then drive back. The GPS worked great and was beeping and displaying which way I needed to turn and the road name when I was coming up on the turn. It even estimated my time until the turn based on my speed.

Unfortunately, it didn't work perfectly. It said I was off course at one point then tried to recalculate and it froze for about 3 minutes. I thought I was going to lose all the data from the riding I had just done. I managed to somehow turn off the navigation and everything worked fine after that.

On my way down I happened to meet up with 5-6 guys riding down to Encinitas for some pizza and beers and then taking the train back. It would up perfect for me since it was my first time working through Old Highway 101 and Camp Pendleton.

They were some serious cyclists. There were 2 Cervelo SLC-SLs, an R3-SL, a few all carbon seats (no padding). They were "serious" because they had the fitness to go along with the bikes. I guess one of the guys was a former pro and the owner of Laguna Beach Cyclery, Patrick Fetzer?

He's the one sporting the dreads in the below picture.

What was funny is that a few of these guys came into the ride having done 140 miles the day before.

They helped keep the pace high. I wound up averaging 19.1mph for the first 68 miles. I wanted to ride for about 4 and a half hours, but the high pace meant that I was getting home too soon. So I climbed Torrey Pines 3 times to burn the extra time, first on the inside then twice on the outside.

Torrey Pines is not crazy steep or long, but it's a nice hill to train on, mostly 6%, a few spots of 7% for about a mile and a half. The inside is steep in the beginning, 11-12% (thank you Garmin 705), but then levels out at the top.


Stats for my ride: 80.57 miles, 4 hours 27 minutes, 4,869 calories burned, Avg Heart rate: 141 bpm, Max Heart rate: 172 bpm, 4,176 feet climbed.

Oh yeah, I got an email back from Garmin (quick turn-around) and it said they were working on those features and that I could "create" a course by selecting a course I've already done and then send it to the device.

My comments to Garmin would be (1) don't put something in the User's Manual if it's not true and (2) sending a course you've already ridden to your device isn't "creating" a course and kind of defeats the purpose because that doesn't help you when you REALLY need to know where you're going, like where you've NEVER ridden before!

Longest ride of the year for me, new bike computer

This past weekend I decided that I would ride the July 13th LiveStrong Challenge Ride in San Jose, CA. I've done a LiveStrong Ride for the past 2 years and I wasn't disappointed. They were great experiences and for a great cause, one close to my heart and my...

I've been riding more this year than most, but nothing over 50 miles and I realized I need to get some more miles in these legs. So after my normal club ride of about 48 miles I turned back around and headed out for another 24 miles.

What is cool is that I got a new cycling computer. I wound up getting the Garmin 705 with the credit I had with Trek for my frame. As you can see from the picture below, it's a little bigger than I expected, but man does it collect a lot of data! It even records how much slower you go with the computer attached because of the drag.


The GPS does it's work and when the data is uploaded it shows the route you just road. And it also does it with great detail. I can see where I took wide turns to avoid traffic and if your route includes a double-back, you can clearly see what side of the road you were on.

Cezanne actually loves the GPS. Now she says she can see EXACTLY where I was for 4 hours on a Saturday afternoon...


So, that's the actual computer below with the data from the ride. What's cool is that it puts heart rate, GPS, elevation, ascent & descent, speed, cadence, grade (when riding), distance, potentially power (with another device), all in one package.

With the profile the device keeps on record of my weight (165 lbs) and my gender (don't know if the weight of the bike they asked for is in this calculation) it calculated that I burned 4,152 calories on my Saturday ride. It's also cool to see I climbed 3,984 ft and that most of Torrey Pines hill is 6% with a couple of spots of 7%.

So, I rode for 72.13 miles and for 4 hours and 17 minutes.


There it is on the bike. It's a quick detachment off the mount and over to the computer to download. It's big and taking a little getting used to, but it's not the size of the laptop fortunately!

Good eats...

Tonight I found my new favorite (homemade and healthy) meal. I didn't feel like heating up any pasta sauce, so I decided to cut up a ripe tomato and ripe avocado (I do live in California) and used it to top my whole wheat pasta (my Mom is cringing, but I love whole wheat pasta).

Hmmm....good! And I felt good after eating it and was full. The meal was complete with a chicken breast and a cup of tea.


Breakfast is probably my favorite meal. There's just something about the morning and having a relaxing breakfast. It may be the coffee. I love coffee in general, but have a special affinity for Peets (introduced to me by my Business School stats professor).

I often joke with Cezanne that I just want to go to bed, so I can wake up and it be time for coffee (pay no attention to the fact that I'm saying this at 7 or 8pm sometimes). I guess I just want that coffee, but can't have it until the morning.

Cezanne would agree (and readily point out) that I love a "leisurely" breakfast. She blames that fact on the reason why I get up at 5:40am and leave the house for work at 7:20am. What! Where does the time go?

Shave, Shower, Androgel application, make coffee and breakfast (simple and quick), and then eat breakfast and watch Mike & Mike or the Local News or CNN, then the first 10-15 minutes of the today show and a quick email check.

Anyway, below is my breakfast 80% of the time. It's actually more like 95%. The other 4.5% of the time I make strawberry & banana buckwheat pancakes and the other .5% of the time we have breakfast out.

My 95% breakfast is Kashi Go Lean Cereal with strawberries & bananas and 2% milk, one slice of Milton's whole wheat & whole grain bread (toasted) with Trader Joe's crunchy peanut butter and raspberry preserves, and 2 cups of Peets (Arabian Mocha-Java or Major Dickasons) Coffee.

Between the cereal, the slice of bread, and the peanut butter, that's 18 grams of fiber! I forgot to put in the "where the time goes" section the 2 trips to the bathroom. With that thought, I hope you can still enjoy your breakfast.

A great Chaplain and a rainy couple of days

I went to my first retirement ceremony on Thursday. It couldn't have been for a better person. Chaplain Petruska is a Catholic priest and a Navy Captain. He soon will take off the Navy uniform, but continue being a Catholic priest.

I had the privilege of having an office right across from his for over a year. Chaplain Petruska was also stationed at the Naval Academy while I was a student there. The retirement ceremony was beautiful and the weather held out, although it was a little windy. I'll miss his quick whit and sarcasm when I leave the San Diego area. His Bishop has agreed to let him stay in San Diego instead of returning to his home parish in Pennsylvania.


The weather on Thursday held out for the retirement, but not later on. It forced me to stay inside on the trainer instead of riding outside. You can see the dogs hanging out and the remotes within reach from the bike. I made it through our local news, Access Hollywood, and Wheel of Fortune.


On Friday it rained again and we were able to see this beautiful rainbow right outside our condo.

I made my first Saturday SDBC (San Diego Bicycle Club) ride in about 5 weeks. I got the heart rate up to 183 at one point, but didn't push it too much otherwise. I decided to skip "stud loop" since this was my first weekend back in a while. I put in a good 45 miles and 2 hours 24 minutes of riding time. It rained a little on the ride, but wasn't too bad.

The new frame has arrived and been built

First off, I need to officially say goodbye to the 2005 Madone 5.9SL frame. You've been good to me. You were an odd (expensive) choice for my first road bike. Thanks for the memories.

Hello 2008 Cervelo R3 frame. I was literally scared when I saw online at UPS.com that they had "delivered" the frame. I knew it was either sitting outside my door or was on the patio. Luckily it was on the patio. We've got great UPS delivery guys (quick story below). I left a note saying if no one was home at the time of delivery, but they were in the area after 5:30pm, please stop by again. Well, I guess they decided to just take that note in place of my signature!

One day the UPS driver left a note on the door saying that a delivery was attempted and to sign the note if we agreed to waive the signature. A few minutes later I saw the UPS driver and asked him if I could get my package now. He said that he wasn't the driver that left the note, but he called the driver who did and he agreed to swing back by! Good stuff.


The UPS driver knows that we have 2 dogs, so take a look in the middle of the photo below to look what he left. Good people.


I was so excited to get the new frame that I wore it around for a couple of days... More like 2 minutes so I could snap this photo. JW made Cezanne and I laugh pretty darn hard with this blog post: http://jwbender.blogspot.com/2008/05/chris-this-is-for-you.html


2.02 lbs, my bike rack had no problem holding it. I, however, had trouble doing curls with it.


From about 2 lbs to about 15 and a half. Like magic!


After the first ride. I can't get enough, it's lighter, it accelerates better (stiffer bottom bracket), it's more comfy (vertically compliant), I have more seatpost showing and less spacers. All good stuff.

Another Tour of California post...3 months after the fact

Another May 7th and another year older. 31 big ones...

I finally got the blog about the Prologue of the 2008 Tour of California out a few entries ago, but now I want to dump some images from Stage 1.

We started out the day with a scone and a coffee and a view down Lombard Street, the "curviest" street in the world! Speed limit is 5mph on this section of Lombard.

Cezanne and I worked our way across the Golden Gate Bridge. I kept accidentally referring to it as the "Bay" Bridge and I'm not sure why.



After admiring the view of the Golden Gate and the city of San Francisco, we headed to the start of Stage 1 in Sausalito. We just drove around to get a feel for it, but we stuck with our original plan to go to the only climb of the day, the Category 3 Coleman Valley Road climb. We took 101 then some back roads to get there. The roads were very windy and narrow and full of cyclists biking up the back side of Coleman Valley Road to watch the stage. It was really cool.

We parked off in the grass on the side of the road and then walked to our spot. This is the view of the valley, with the Pacific ocean in the background.

We set up camp about 400 meters below the KOM climb. People had written a bunch of stuff with chalk, including "GEORGE" below.

We had gotten word from some of the race officials that a solo break-away had stuck with about a 10 minute lead on the peleton. Everybody was eager to see the lone figure come around the bend. I think the guy in the blue cape with the big hair in the pic below is "Big Hair Superfan."

And Jacskon Stewart from BMC was the solo break-away. Apparently he made a move partly because he is a Santa Rosa, CA resident and that was the finishing city. The peleton scooped him up before that though. He seemed to be struggling a little bit. Sweet ride and sweet team kit. The BMC team is lucky to be kitted out in Assos clothing since BMC bought Assos. I don't know if BMC is sponsored by Nike, but Jackson is wearing the shoes Lance used to wear. Because I'm such an expert on bicycle fit (read a lot of sarcasm in this one), one thing I would suggest to Mr. Stewart is to bring his saddle down about 2cm.


After Jackson passed we all wondered when the peleton would be swooping around the corner...

The peleton is an interesting phenomenon. It's nice to see on a hill so you get a little more viewing time. It reminds me of a swarm of bees. You can barely see them below, just rounding the corner.


Here is the peleton getting closer. Levi is one of the riders on the front.


A couple of guys jumped towards the top to get some of the rest of the KOM points. Jens Voigt, Mr. Breakaway, went chasing one of the guys who jumped.


I think that is Robert Gesink for Rabobank on the left below. He was the one guy who hung with Levi on Sierra Road. On the right is Chris Horner (with his usual smile) and George Hincapie on the other side of him.


Oscar Freire and Fabian Cancellara. I don't know about those sunglasses Fabian, but you can do whatever you want. He's wearing the yellow leader's jersey since he won the Prologue.

I think that is Karsten Kroon for Team CSC below. He is one of the very few CSC riders who use a Cervelo R3 for all of the races (not just the slightly off road and bumpy ones). To the right of the picture is Tom Boonen.


Despite being a little chilly while we waited to see the riders, we really enjoyed watching the stage. Cezanne was a total trooper. She said she had fun and I believe her! We decided to have dinner back down in Sausalito. We flew out that night from San Francisco. Seeing the prologue and Stage 1 were awesome. I encourage anyone with a slight interest to go take a look. These cyclists are amazing athletes.

Saddle Testing...we have a winner

I'm always impressed by Competitive Cyclist. They consistently provide the most detailed reviews of products and have a great "zoom" feature so you can see the goods up close.

They have a demo program for bikes, wheels and saddles. Each one allows you to put some or all of the cost of the demo towards the purchase of the product.

I decided to order the saddle demo to see if there was something out there that I would prefer to my Cedesius. I don't have any issues with my saddle, it's really light and really comfy, but I was curious.

The saddles (11 of them) came in a hard plastic case, 5 on the top layer (1 missing below because it was on my bike)...


and 6 on the bottom.


Some of the saddles got a full test ride, others just got 5-10 minutes while on my trainer. That was the simpler way to get to the 2-3 that I thought fit me the best.

And the winner was...

The Selle Italia SLR Gel Flow.


It did the best job of keeping the pressure on my sit bones and off of my perineum. It is flatter than the standard, and lighter, SLR, which is why it worked well.

If for some reason I grew tired of my current saddle, the SLR Gel Flow would be the one I would pick, but my Cedesius is still the champ. It doesn't have a cut-out, but it does have a groove.

Now, if I could only decide on a Soloist Carbon or an R3...