ChrisCowan.us
I'm just your average 30 something white geeky male who want's to be cool... but it's hard when you drive a minivan!
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Why can't my browsers keep from crashing. It's not like the internet was created yesterday!
Random thoughts... and my third and final post for the day.
Yes... I know I haven't posted this much in a long long time. Here is some random thoughts that have been going through my head for a while:
One of the new games I play when riding is trying to guess what profession somone is when they drive dangerously fast. I say "he must be a brain surgon in a hurry to an emergency operation." or "she must be in labor and is in a hurry to get to the hospital." But most of the time I think brain surgeon... Funny thing is, there are a lot of brain surgeon who drive crappy late model Honda Civics.
I've been running a lot of red lights on my bike lately. All of them are lights that I'm stuck at and there isn't any cars around or lights that I know are not calibrated for bikes.
Fritz linked to me in one of his posts today... I was like "Hey that's my name! Cool!"
A friend today told me that his bus driver honked at me yesterday. I guess he was pissed that I was riding too far to the left. I've grown immune to honking that I didn't even notice.
and finally if you find yourself saying "Too Much Information" you should stop reading here...
I've found a way to conserve toilet paper for men, trim the hair around your anus. That's right after having the shits for a couple of days I decided to try and trim the hair around my anus (with my beard trimmer) and now I only have to wipe 3 times as opposed to the 7 - 10 times before the trimming. It itched for a few days after I did it but the benefits out weigh the minor discomfort. So do yourself and the environment a favor and give it a trim. When it comes to being green every little bit helps!
Riding while sick... do or don't?
I caught a cold about a week ago from my kids. It started out as a runny nose and sore throat and then quickly seem to clear up three days later. So on Sunday I took it easy and went riding with a friend who is just getting started. I don't think my heart rate got above 130 bpm the entire ride. Which I think pissed him off since I was talking his ear off up all the hills. After dropping him off a the car (at the VA Hospital parking lot) I decided to take Page Mill to Altamont down to Moody and back to Sunnyvale. My original plan was to climb up to the top of Page Mill and ride home except it was a 1,000º outside and I realized that I just didn't have it in me. On Tuesday moring instead of climbing OLH I decided to ride up Page Mill to the top, I will not be defeated! ... I'm rambling.
Back to the riding while sick stuff, Tuesday night I start getting another sore throat that lasted into yesterday. This morning I woke up at 5 am to go ride OLH and I was feeling so crappy that I decided to skip it and sleep in. Normally when I decided to skip a ride and sleep in I get about 15 mins more of sleep and get up and go anyways. Today I was sound asleep till 7:30 am, which is just another sign to me that I'm really really sick. So here is my delema, should I attempt to ride tomorrow (sick)?
On one hand I feel like I should just grow a pair and ride through the sickness. On the other hand I feel like I've been doing some pretty tough rides lately and I really need to give my body a chance to rest and recover from being sick. I think I read somewhere that you can take up to a week off from riding before you start to loose your aerobic fitness. I think I will just wake up tomorrow at 5 am and see if I'm motivated enough to get out of bed.
Side note: I've been getting pretty annoyed by MotionBased.com lately so I decided to create my own GPS ride log website. Here is a screen shot of what I've got so far...
I'm have a few minor things finish then I'm going to put it live on my site. If you have a Garmin compatible device and your interested in helping me beta test this sucker send me an email at me (at) chriscowan.us. Once I'm finished I will send you a user account. If I don't send you an account for a few weeks just be patient. It might take me a couple more weeks to get things wrapped up since I have a day job, kids, and a wife (plus I still have to find time to ride).
Ride Report (belated): Mount Hamilton!
So I've been meaning to post this ride report since last week but I kept getting busy with work and stuff around the house. Here you go a belated ride report (I even left it unchanged):
Yesterday I decided to ride up Mt. Hamilton starting from my apartment in Sunnyvale. It looked pretty dreary out ...
I passed through miles and miles of suburban sprawl...
I meet up with a local rider who rides Mt. Hamilton once a week. I kept up with him for several miles but decided to lower my pace a bit since I was looking for a more leisurely ride and wanted to make sure I had something left for the ride home. If you consciously decided to slow down is that still getting dropped? (here he is waving goodbye)
I started my slow accent to the top...
passed some more homes of the upper .01 percent of society...
still more climbing...
and because this was a solo mission I had to take a panda shot...
I kept getting higher and higher...
I finally arrived at the top!
saw some amazing sights...
took a break an relished in the view...
I'm planning on riding up this 6 times when I'm 65 too!
an now for the long ride home...
It's amazing what you miss when your focused on climbing...
not everyone had a good day...
including me...
Unfortunately my flat tire kit didn't save the day, the extra tube I had was too big and I only had 1 CO2 cartridge which malfunctioned. Public Service Announcement: check your flat kit to make sure you have everything you need, including a real pump. Thankfully I caught the flat next to a VTA station.
It took me 2 hours to ride the VTA which would have taken me 30 minutes on the bike (with a headwind).
