March Rivendell Ride

Last Sunday was a blast! A small group met up in Oceanside and rode various portions of PCH, ended up in Dana Point for a turnaround. I was pretty sick earlier that week, but recovered enough to get out there for a portion of it. I met the group at the north end of old PCH, just above Trestles in San Clemente. Then rode through S.C., down to the pier, and along their WONDERFUL beach trail that goes up to North Beach. Dared to cross PCH into the sheltered bike lane which covers 90% of the way to the beach trail in Doheney State Beach.

Fun observations:

• Jim Thill from Minneapolis thought the bike lanes out here were pretty cool. That's good to hear!
• Doheney Beach staff are awesome. They had a marine mammal display out for folks to check out. Everyone liked it!
• Rivendell Bicycle Works List people rock! Getting five people that live between San Diego and Santa Monica and Minneapolis is a bit of logistical nightmare, but soooooo worth it (carbon footprint excluded of course).

If you're in SoCal and interested, follow the Flickr group for future get togethers. Bikes, beer and pizza all in one place!

Watch it, out there!

Virtual friend Ken was just used as a hood ornament...

Damn.

I wonder if it was angry pharmacist that did it?

Leader of the free world (tm)?

http://palinaspresident.com/

It's all in the details...

Handicapping the field

So just in case you haven't been paying attention, the big news is that Mr. Armstrong is back in the mix.

I think that's fine and good, not so much about L.A.'s career, but because it keeps cycling on the front page of the magazines here in the States.

Tarik S. has a great write up on why Lance has a great chance of pulling it off.

In a nutshell, the rest of the competition pretty much sucks.

I kinda' like wheels with 32 spokes...

YIKES! This was making the rounds on the RBW list tonight.

Sorry, wheels should not do that when you hit a pot hole. Pinch flat, sure. Bang up the rim, even bend it really bad, sure. Catastrophic failure, I'm not buying it.

I'm retro-grouchy for a few reasons... avoiding extended stays in the ICU is one of them.

Organic Produce Buyers Club

Now in Redlands: http://organic.meetup.com/100/

Think I may go check it out. The alternative is planting a garden, and you know, that's work and all.

Bike Accident Reporting Tool

Hopefully none of us will ever be involved in an accident, but at some point we may come close to getting hit. There will soon be an online database where accidents, near-accidents and problem areas can be logged. The data will be viewable and searchable.

Bike Portland has more information here.
Keep an eye on their site for more information.

Be safe.