Introduction
Last Sunday, for the second year in a row, I rode the
Grizzly Peak [metric] Century with my daughter Alexa. (Why not the full century? Because I’m trying to promote the metric
system in this country.) Read on for a
description mainly of the food, but also the jinx—high, low, and otherwise—we got
up to.
Short version
We met up with my EBVC teammate Craig and his wife
Susanne. The weather was perfect. The food was plentiful and yummy. There were cool bandanas but no yellow socks
this year. Alexa rode like a boss (especially
when she Froomed us on Pinehurst) and covered the entire ~120 kilometers—including
almost 2,000 meters of climbing—with her customary flair and panache.
(Wondering what the verb “Froome” means?
You’ll have to read the full report.)
Full version
Note that I don’t say “long” version. “Long” in the context of anything written
carries a distinctly negative connotation.
This report is “full” like “full-figured.” But it’s certainly not long—I have just half
an hour to write it so you’re practically done already.
Breakfast was the smear of jam Alexa left on a spoon. My breakfast usually consists of my younger
daughter’s bread crusts, but she wasn’t home.
I hadn’t ridden with Craig for like six months, even though
he’s normally one of my best training buds.
That’s because this spring I decided, in lieu of my normal regimen, to
ride less and get fat. But I e-mailed Craig
the night before and sure enough, he and his wife Susanne were registered for
GPC, so we made plans to meet up.
Teenagers take a really long time at everything (except
sleeping). So Alexa and I were too late
to meet Craig and Susanne. Fortunately,
fate was on our side and Craig got a puncture like 20 meters into his ride,
giving me the chance to a) sync up with him anyway, and b) further promote the
metric system via this report.
Here are the Alberts at the start, along with Susanne’s
shadow. Note my lack of arm warmers and
leg warmers … that’s how nice the weather was.
This marks the first time I have ever
rocked fewer biking garments than Craig.
Alexa got a new bike last summer, with a double (albeit
compact) crank instead of a triple, so she’s forced to climb a bit faster, regardless of how much energy she
ought to be saving. But in fact she
climbs much faster, beyond what her gearing demands. At the base of the steep, winding part of Pinehurst, she stunned us all by suddenly yelling, “I am awaited at the gates of
Valhalla! Witness me!” and then launching a brutal attack.
Well, okay, I embellished that a bit. (She hasn’t yet seen Mad Max – Fury Road.) What actually happened is that she
Froomed us. That is, she was riding so
well she accidentally dropped us without even realizing it, like Chris Froome always does. I don’t think she noticed until she
got to the top. I had to speed up a bit
to keep her in sight so I could stop my lap timer … I’m pretty sure she got a
new PR by a large margin. Her pace
probably wasn’t very wise, so early in a long ride—particularly since this was
only her second road ride of the year—but then, her prefrontal cortex is still under
construction. At least she’s not doing truly
dangerous stuff like so many teens do, like stealing cars, snorting Drain-O, playing
mind-altering video games, and texting 24x7.
At the first rest stop we tucked in to the famous GPC
home-baked snacks. In this photo Alexa
does her best Vanna White impression, though her expression seems to be saying,
“Did you really just give me a second plate of goodies for my very own?” (No, they were mine!)
So that’s poppy seed cake, peanut butter cookies, ginger
snaps, pound cake, zucchini bread, oatmeal cookies, and coffee cake. There might have been some other stuff but I
ate it too fast to notice. Could there
have been a home-baked aspirin loaf?
Possibly, if such a thing exists.
Next on the docket was a brisk descent of Wildcat Canyon, a
trip through San Pablo, Pinole, etc. and on to the very heart of the ride,
which is the oil refinery. Here’s the requisite
glamour shot … note how Craig’s head appears to be steaming.
We threaded along the newly restored Planet of the Apes road
near Crocket, with a new diversion along an isthmus (?) past the C&H sugar
plant, which (according to my handy GPC bandanna) was built in 1906 and processes
all the cane grown in Hawaii, which is about 700,000 tons per year. If my math is correct that’s 1.4 trillion
pounds, which is particularly scary when you think of how rare sugar is
compared to corn syrup these days.
Should I talk a bit about beet sugar?
Naw, let’s move on. Here’s Alexa
rolling past the dueling bridges of the Carquinez Strait.
We hit the second rest stop, ate a bunch more stuff, and let
our legs get all stiff so we could have maximum difficulty on the next section
of the route: the famous, ruthless
McEwen Road, named for pro sprinter Robbie McEwen, who compared this climb to
having his spleen crushed in a giant mortar and pestle. (Okay, I made that up … I don’t know where it
gets its name.)
Craig and Susanne like to play word games to distract
themselves from the pain of this climb, and were gracious enough to include
us. The standard game is naming world
cities, going sequentially through the alphabet (e.g., Austin, Berlin, Copenhagen,
Detroit…), but we decided to mix it up and try something new. Craig suggested profanities based on the
alphabet (asshole, bastard, etc.) but I nixed that since I’m supposed to be a
parent. We decided on non-profane
derogatory statements by alphabet. I
started: “Angry is how I feel toward you
right now, Craig.” Susanne had B, and of
course that’s not very difficult (“bad” being a perfectly obvious choice) but
she just couldn’t bring herself to say anything mean to anybody. So this game didn’t last very long, though
McEwen seemed to.
This year I didn’t forget to warn Alexa about the Pig Farm
climb, though I’m sure she remembered it from last year anyway. It was nice and green. Here we are, having a good laugh, perhaps
about how I talk too much and ought to be told to shut up.
Not surprisingly, Mama Bear was a mother. The weather was now officially too hot for
Alexa. Plus, her neck was getting sore
because she always rides on the hoods.
It’s just how she rolls. Seems to
work, anyway, and nobody could ever deny that she has better form on (and off)
the bike than Chris Froome. Would she
complain if she had a mechanical problem and I took that moment to attack? No.
She might ask me to fix her bike later, but then that’s what dads are
for, at least in traditional patriarchal households.
As we rolled down the hill toward the final fueling station,
and I mentioned my intention to stop for water there, Susanne said, “Do not, my
friends, become addicted to water. It
will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence!” I’m paraphrasing here. For some reason she doesn’t like to stop at
that last rest stop, so she rides on ahead and Craig fills a couple bottles,
then hammers to catch up. So here are the
three of us, with Alexa clearly thinking, “OMG, are we really doing another stupid photo-op?”
We drank a couple ice-cold Juice Squeezes (70% real juice,
with the other 30% being, well, whatever makes it the right color and flavor),
had some more cookies, and hit out for the final stretch to the finish.
Along San Pablo Dam Road, Alexa seemed a bit frustrated and
expressed the teen equivalent of “Are we there yet?” (I can’t remember the
wording but the tone was unmistakable).
She’s a fine athlete but with the mountain biking she’s been focusing on,
her longest ride this year has been around three hours and this was over five hours in,
so I can’t blame her. I decided she just
needed a bit of encouragement, and I’d planned for this: I whipped out a can of silver spray paint,
sprayed it all over her mouth, and declared, “You will ride eternal, shiny and
chrome.” Alexa, delighted, cried out ,
“Am I awaited?”
(All of the above was communicated nonverbally, of course,
and there wasn’t actually any paint, though I did remember to bring lip
sunblock this year.)
At the finish, Craig and Susanne had saved us a spot at a
shady table. Well, at least they didn’t
put a jacket or backpack down and tell us those spots were reserved for
somebody else. Fortunately that still
mainly happens at the movies, though some dickwad did that on Bart during rush
hour the other day, causing me to fantasize about holding his face against the
electric third rail—but I digress.
The food was excellent, as usual. Barbecued chicken; nude red potatoes; grilled
onions, squash, peppers, and eggplant; jeweled rice; plenty of Acme baguette
slices. The guy working the bread
station was so impressed with Alexa—that is, her rare combination of youth,
lack of tattoos, lack of piercings, and willingness to be seen in public with
her father—that he invited us to swing by after lunch for some free bread to
take home. We got like six baguettes and
a sweet batard, which were hard to carry back to the car but then that’s a
great problem to have.
All in all, another glorious day of biking. (I wish I could tell you what we had for
dinner, but the sad fact is, I just don’t remember. At this rate, next year’s report may be just
a paragraph or two!)
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