11/27/09 – Bike Crash on Way Home from Work:(
Good morning friends,
Yesterday marks the first time I’ve taken a fall on my road bike. Mountain biking? That happens fairly frequently due to the uneven terrain, rock gardens, roots and just plain old tricky handling. But road biking? Usually, one can see everything that comes into your path from quite a ways away. Yesterday, however, was not the case!
The thing that everyone who has experienced an accident says, including my friend and XX1090 teammate, Alex Hamlow, is that when it happens, it comes out of nowhere, almost in a flash, and next thing you know, you’re on the ground assessing the damage. If you remember correctly, Alex has experienced a number of crashes throughout his excellent cycling career, but experienced a bad crash when his front tire blew out while he was flying down Palomar Mountain and was brought to the nearby emergency room with a broken collarbone.
I was on my way home from work in Downtown San Diego, just passing the 32nd Street Naval Base and heading south towards the Marina in Chula Vista when I grabbed my waterbottle and took my hands off the handlebars to stretch my lower back. I was thinking about what I wanted to eat for dinner with my wife. Earlier in the morning, I mentioned to Becky that I wanted Vietnamese food for dinner and, as many cyclists do, we obsess over what we’re having for dinner during our rides. Laying off the handlebars to stretch my back wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. It was something I did every so often, but this time was the wrong time to let go of my handlebars!
All of a sudden, a pothole came out of nowhere and I went flying over the handlebars at 16 mph! Next thing I know, I slammed down on the asphalt and my bike went flying into some nearby brush. After bouncing off the ground, I found myself skidding across the street on my left shoulder and head until I came to a stop.
As curiously humorous as it is, all I could think about was, “Is my bike okay?” I got my sorry butt off the ground and limped over to my bike to assess the damage. Luckily, no damage, just a couple of scuffs and a front wheel that needs a minor truing. Things could’ve been worse, as carbon bikes are a tricky material. Unlike aluminum, titanium or especially steel, carbon fiber is more brittle and though extremely lightweight is also prone to “hairline fractures” and could be dangerous to ride on after a crash. Luckily for me, it wasn’t that bad of a crash and the Bailey is fine!
After my assessment of the bike, I made an assessment of my injuries. Starting from my head, I took a look at my helmet, checked my skull,
face, neck and went down the line. While my left shoulder and hip were absolutely burning from skidding on the street, I knew nothing was broken as I had full mobility of all of my joints including my hip and shoulder. The majority of my bleeding was coming from my hands as I used them to break my fall and had pretty good sized cuts on my hands and my left hand was pretty swollen.
I tried to get back on my bike and ride for another couple feet until I decided to call it a day and called my wife to come and pick me up. Becky was amazing, getting me in the car, the bike in the trunk and helped me with my cuts and road rash after I got out of the shower.
Needless to say, I never got my Vietnamese food, thanks to my stupidity!
So, word of advice for the day, don’t take both of your hands off your handlebars unless you’re certain there’s no holes or bumps on the road and immediately put your hands (or at least one hand) back on the bars. In addition, never take your eyes off the road, as you never know what’s on the road in front of you. Basically stated, use common sense when riding and don’t be a moron like me!
See you in a couple weeks when I get back in the saddle!
-BB
11/11 through 11/14/09 – Lion’s Valley and Laguna/Cuyamaca Rides!
Good afternoon friends,
Today has left me ill from the effects of the change of weather, germies spread from the sick kids at my wife’s work, a ride in 40 degree weather, and probably just plain old exhaustion. Slept about 6 hours today, but still feel pretty sluggish. And NO, it’s not the Swine Flu:)
Last week was a fun week with some great rides. On Wednesday, since many of us “govies” (Government Employees), had the day off for Veteran’s Day, we decided to take on the Lion’s Valley Ride in the Jamul area. This is a 45 mile loop and is an extension of the Honey Springs Ride where we take off from the Eastlake area, head east on Otay Lakes towards Jamul, make a right up the grueling climb of Honey Springs Road, then turn off to Lion’s Valley towards the Filippi’s at the top of the hill and loop back around again. 
Wednesday’s ride had Cardio-freak turned road biker Mark Estrada, Pat Moneda in his first road ride back from hiatus due to hardcore studying for an Engineering exam, and 
Mr. Alpe d’Huez himself, Ben Herrera joining in for the fun.
One of the best parts about Wednesday’s rides was the Lion’s Valley portion, where after a couple of rollers through the Jamul area, we got to take on some wicked downhill descents where we reached speeds of over 45 mph!
Now, here’s a lesson for the day for all of you readers from highly experienced road and mountain bikers to newbies just enjoying the weekend rides — ALWAYS MONITOR YOUR EQUIPMENT BEFORE RIDING AND IF ANYTHING NEEDS REPLACING, REPLACE IMMEDIATELY. So you might wonder what happened that sparked this issue?
On a part of the descent through Lion’s Valley where the switchbacks have you leaning as much as a 45 degree angle through some of the turns, I was leaning heavy into one of the left turns when I heard a loud POP and my right foot came flying off the pedal at 30 mph kicking my chain off! My buddy Pat behind me said he froze as my whole bike wobbled as I had to regain my balance with oncoming traffic flying by on the other side of this two lane road. What was the problem? I had a worn down cleat for my Look Keo pedals that needed replacing, but stupid me, I decided that I could switch the left cleat to the right foot and vice versa and buy myself “one more ride” before heading to the bike shop to pick up replacement cleats. When I pulled off to a safe spot on the road, I examined the cleat and the entire front portion of the cleat broke off. So, essentially, I could only pull up on my left pedal for the rest of the 15 miles of riding we had to do to finish up the ride. Not so much fun.
On Saturday morning, Pat, Ben and I ventured out for a 50 mile ride through the Laguna/Cuyamaca area. This ride went through portions of the previous QMDC – Pine Valley training ride that we did a couple of months ago. Tons of climbing. This was a brutal ride, but absolutely beautiful as it went though the mountains of Laguna and Cuyamaca leaving you with some breathtaking views that one normally doesn’t see on rides through the North County.
Saturday’s ride was completely different from the Pine Valley ride not only on the route that we took (we didn’t go through Cleveland National Forest), but was drastically different in terms of weather. Prior to the Pine Valley ride, all of the riders were given notice to hydrate, hydrate, hydrate throughout the week because of the high temperatures on this ride due to the sweltering heat that the valley portions had awaiting us. Saturday? Completely the opposite. When we
started the ride, it was about 40 degrees and was completely miserable. Armwarmers, knee warmers, high socks, Nike dri-fit underneath the jersey and wind vest were no match for these conditions.
Oh yeah? And remember how I hate wearing gloves on road rides? The Laguna/Cuyamaca ride was definitely my breaking point. Which brings us to the second tip for the day:
DON’T BE A MORON: Because of the fact that on the coldest of cold days on the Qualcomm Million Dollar Challenge when our brave Qualcomm riders and Challenged Athletes rode through the mountains of Big Sur, I shed my gloves off after the first five minutes of climbing, I made the idiotic decision that I never have to bring my gloves on any of the rides from here on out. WRONG. After the first descent of Saturday’s ride, my fingers weren’t only numb, but I could hardly clinch my hands on my brake levers making it not only hard, but painful to use my hands because they were frozen. Luckily for me, I have a great support crew, and my buddy Ben, the surly veteran he is, had an extra pair of gloves that he gave me only after my hardheaded will was broken and gave in to using gloves. It turned out that I had to wear them for the entire ride just to defrost my frozen fingers!
Overall, we had a great day. The cleats were replaced and we had an awesome time climbing through some great ascents up Cuyamaca and through the Pine Valley area and also got to enjoy some fun descents on the way back around. The winds were also quite a factor around Lake Cuyamaca and we definitely had to stay close through portions of the ride where we felt like we were pedaling a 19 mph pace, but were only going 12! After the ride, we were all happy to pack up, and jump back into Pat’s truck where we could enjoy the heater on our way back home.
NUTS AND BOLTS:
As a quick update to some other things off the bike, my wife and I celebrated our 2nd year wedding anniversary on 11/9/09 and we had a great time as we headed out to Mister A’s in downtown for a delicious lunch followed by a gondola ride through the Coronado Cays for a lovely day!
Last week I had a chance to check out an awesome movie that is only playing at select theaters at select times and documents the amazing feat for your hero and mine, Lance Armstrong who recently won what is perhaps the most grueling mountain bike ride in North America that takes place every year called the Leadville 100 – RACE ACROSS THE SKY. If you get a chance, definitely check this one out. It was so worth my $12.50 for a ticket and $15 for popcorn and a soda! Check it out at www.raceacrossthesky.com
One last thing, if you didn’t notice from the pics from the Laguna Ride, the Bailey got a facelift last week as the new Ksryrium ES wheelset came in! Not only are they gorgeous with their shiny red anodized hubs and single red spoke, but they’re absolutely “zippy” on the road as well. Maybe it’s the close to half pound difference in weight from my previous wheelset, or the shaved portions on the rims between each spoke, but these wheels made for some fun climbing on Saturday. I’m just happy the missus wrote it off as “YOUR ANNIVERSARY PRESENT” and didn’t give me too much grief for a new wheelset:)
Have a great week everybody and its back to bed for this guy.
-BB
11-6 through 11-7-09 – Around My Neck of the Woods
Good evening friends!
This weekend has been a blast for riding. While it was awesome to get in a bunch of great rides up around the North County for the Qualcomm Million Dollar Challenge training rides, there’s something comforting to revisit my favorite rides close to home. On Friday, I had a chance to ride out with one of my favorite riding partners, my cousin Eugene Brillo. Friday’s ride took us to Eastlake and started us on a fun 40 miler from the Trek Store in Eastlake all the way to Jamul and into the mouth of the dragon, a 2500 foot climb up Honey Springs.
Here’s a bit of history about the Honey Springs ride. This ride, for a very long time, was THE ride that I absolutely hated with a passion. For years, every time I took on this ride with my riding buds, it destroyed me. What’s more, is that because I couldn’t hang on the wheel with my buds, I constantly found myself emptying my tank just to catch up with them on the 15 miles of flats to get to the start of the climb only to be completely drained to the point of puking by the time the climb actually started. For this reason, I avoided doing this ride at all costs.
But this has been a great year. With a stranglehold on my diet, exercise at a priority, 6 
months of excellent training and coaching from the QMDC, wonderful experience at hitting some of the hardest climbs that not only San Diego, but California has to offer, and 40 lbs of weight lost, I’ve gained a newfound love for climbing and was excited to see how I’d do against this formidable Honey Springs opponent.
Here’s what I always enjoy about riding with Eugene. He and I took on cycling together over 5 years ago and we never looked back. In fact, he loved it so much, he got a job at Performance Bike, where he still works today. In fact, while we both started out with mountain riding, he was the one who took the plunge into road biking and eventually got me into it. Something great about Eugene is there is absolutely no quit in him. He’s a stud rider and has an unending willingness to push himself through an entire ride. Flats, climbs and descents, he gives 100% all of the time and doesn’t hold back at all. While a piece of it is due to the “Brillo” never say die attitude, it’s also based on the fact that while we treat each other like brothers, we’re also fierce competitors, which always makes for a great ride.
So how did I do against Honey Springs today? I pushed myself to the red zone and kept a 12 mph average riding up to the top! What a difference a year makes:)
This morning, I had an excellent adventure planned. I had a chance to give the Bailey a rest and heed the calling (more like incessant mocking) from my Gary Fisher Hi Fi, and went out for a mountain bike ride! This morning took me to pay a visit to one of my best riding buds, Patrick Moneda, where he and I, along with buds Art, Ben and Mike, had a chance to venture out into the wilderness and take on the Rockhouse Ride at Mount Miguel. For the geographically challenged, like yours truly, this ride takes place in and around the outskirts of the Sweetwater Reserve area and headed towards the Eastlake canyon areas.
We started today’s ride at 630 this morning, pretty early for a ride, but as weekends usually go, especially riding with fathers and husbands, we have to start early so we can all get home to take care of our “honey do’s” from the wives, watch the kids, or even catch our favorite college football games. The crazy part of the Rockhouse ride is that it starts the climb about 30 feet after you get onto the trail. The beginning of the ride is completely unforgiving. It’s a vicious climb that stretches through switchbacks for a good 45 minutes until you reach the summit. Furthermore, with the thick coating of fog all around the mountains today, you could hardly see what’s ahead, so with every switchback and every technical climb, it almost seemed never ending!
We all had our tough moments and had to get off our bikes to “hike a bike” some of the trickier sections or due to the fact that on an incline, it’s so frickin’ hard to get back on the bike, especially when you’re sucking wind!
One thing that I’ve learned from this ride, is that I’m a pretty awful mountain biker:) After sitting on my road bike for months and months with only a mountain ride here and there, its so hard to get back in the swing of getting all of the balance, technical aspects and just plain old bike handling confidence that comes from practice. The cardio? Nothing wrong with that, so every time I had to get off my bike, I made sure to sling the bike over my shoulder “cyclocross style” and run my sorry butt up the hills until I could find a flat spot to get back on the dang thing!
Riding with those guys was a lot of fun. This was a first for me to ride with Art and Mike. Art was our seasoned vet who was a sure-footed billy goat climbing up Rockhouse today. He’s a stud rider who has awesome bike handling skills. Mike is a workhorse, and on his Santa Cruz Heckler, he powered his way up the mountain today, with a great big smile on his face when he got to the top.
Ben is another great rider. He may not be the fastest, but he’s got skills and the dude’s cardio is amazing. If you want to know about some of the greater climbs he has in his resume, he’s done the Alpe d’Huez. Wowee Zowee. Pat’s another one. A super technical rider, Pat’s a student of the game and when it comes to either road riding or mountain biking, he’s got great balance and form. Today was a rough day for him based on a riding hiatus due to an engineering exam he’s spent the last couple months studying for. But there’s no quit in him, he pushes himself to his limits every time, all the time, and once he gets his cardio back, he’ll be back to his top form — on either of his beautiful steeds (his 14 lb Colnago road bike or his insane S-Works mountain bike).
At the top of Rockhouse, there was this massive pile of rocks waiting for us with a sign that said “DANGER, ROCKS AND WALL MAY FALL WITHOUT WARNING.” Yikes! Also up there is an actual rock house, a rock walled maze that looks like a house without a roof. We all got off our bikes, took in some food and water, smiled at our great accomplishment of reaching the top and took on the Rockhouse rite of passage — placing a rock on the the rock mountain, before getting back on our bikes for some killer downhilling.
That’s the best part about mountain biking; for every long, grueling and punishing climb, we always get
rewarded with some amazing downhilling where we get to fly down the singletracks, fearlessly fishtailing around all of the switchbacks and sweet turns. For this guy, I had a fun time flying head over handlebars when I completely overshot a turn and rolled into some bushes! But as it always goes, you have to get up and run to your bike as fast as you can so no one sees that you just ate it:)
All in all, this weekend has been an awesome two days of riding. With my wedding anniversary approaching, I’m gonna take a few days off to spend with the wonderful wife. Two years of a happiness and many more to come!
-BB
11/3/09 – The Bailey gets new shoes!
Good afternoon friends,
Thanks again for all of your support throughout these great experiences — from the Tour de Cure for the American Diabetes Association to the America’s Finest City Half Marathon to the Qualcomm Million Dollar Challenge, including all of the great training rides from June through October 2009, the fundraising for the Challenged Athletes Foundation, and the Scott & BR Cycling Contest. Without your help and unending support, I would’ve never had the opportunity to be a part of all these great events.
With that said, cycling offseason paves new avenues for training, and I will continue to train, whether it be cycling or running to keep up the level of fitness that I’ve gained from the QMDC. What the cycling offseason also does, is provide us cyclists with a good opportunity to take care of our bikes, making sure everything is working and also upgrade anything that’s been pounded on over the hundreds of miles we’ve put on them.
While there a number of ways you can score great deals to pick up great items for your bike, whether it be going to your local bike shop and checking out their deals, browsing online at a number of great sites like “probikekit.com” or “nashbar.com”, or even checking out the deals on craigslist, there is a great event that only comes twice a year and it’s the SD Velodrome Swap Meet at the San Diego Velodrome just off Pershing in the Balboa Park area. If you have a chance, come out this Sunday from 0800-1200 for some great deals on everything from wheelsets, frames, components, saddles, helmets, accessories and clothing! It’s about $5 to get in and I guarantee you’ll walk away with some great items. Heck, if you’ve got some bike stuff to sell, you can certainly do that there as well. The bike swap meet is just one of those beautiful biproducts of cycling — where one person wants to upgrade, another wants to pick up his/her used stuff and at the same time, the person who wanted to upgrade in the first place, gets cash towards their new upgrade. It’s a vicious cycle that we cyclists do.
With that said, I’ve been searching for a new wheelset for the Bailey and I’ve located it in Great Neck, NY of all places at a bike shop called “Brickwell Cycling”. After much research and debate over what kind of wheelset I wanted to upgrade to (after checking out Spinergy, Reynolds, Flash Point, HED, Bontrager and Mavic), I’ve decided to go with the Mavic Ksyrium ES wheelset, for its bomb-proof durability, feathery weight for climbing, and easy maintenance.
This will be a big upgrade from my current wheelset, and I’m excited to see what these babies can do. My current wheelset is a 2003 Mavic Ksyrium wheelset with over 5,000 miles on them as I was the third owner of the wheels after my cousin Eugene purchased them from the bike swap meet a couple years ago and used them prior to handing them over to me.
As the new wheelset arrives in about seven to ten business days, I’ll be sure to post some pics of the Bailey’s new shoes once I’ve installed them. 1600+ grams from my previous clunker wheelset to 1400 grams for the new wheelset will shed almost a half pound from the Bailey! Someone is super amped and that someone is this guy!
Until then, keep riding, keep smiling and always remember to set goals for yourself – whether it be at work, at home, in the gym, or on the road. Goals keep us focused, goals make us stronger!
-BB