Bloggin'......

Mountain Biking Wilder Ranch State Park

A few of the guys and I got together this weekend to mountain bike Wilder Ranch State Park, which is just north of Santa Cruz, off Hwy 1. I didn't fare as well as I had hoped, and that is putting it lightly. I brought my new bike, the red Specialized Stumpjumper hardtail bike, to test ride in the forests of the park, and in retrospect, I don't think that was such a good idea to break in a new bike on such a ride. I've ridden through the park a few times in the past, so it wasn't that I was unfamiliar with the trails. But something didn't feel right.

We met at Greg's house in Santa Clara to load all the bikes and drove on down to Santa Cruz. With one last equipment check in the parking lot, we headed off to the hills. We started at sea level, and climbed to our hearts content. We were pooped, about 200ft up.... dang! It was a bit chilly in the morning, but overall, the park is a great technical park to ride your bike in, or even to just hike.

My new bike held up pretty well, so what ended up happening was pretty much my fault. We had spent most of the day riding technical trails and deep swithcbacks that accummulated at the top of the mountain. Once there, it is a 3 mile downhill run back to the parking lot and this is where things can get real fast and crazy! Greg got a good jump on me and we've always kind of pushed each other towards our limits. He got maybe a quarter mile ahead of me, when I decided to shift into high gear and chase him down.

The funny thing was, I could feel the chain tension up, a sort of switching on the afterburners, and I caught him in a matter of minutes. I got so close, I could read the letters on his jersey. And then, the road started to turn twitchy! My fault was I didn't have time the night before to switch tires on the bike and I had actually been running on offroad slicks all day. I hadn't found a suitable set of tires for my new bike yet, so these slicks were a temporary solution since I had them in stock at home. But just at that moment, the trail broke right and I slammed on the brakes too late. The bike threw into sharp angle, and I could feel the oncoming rush that I wasn't going to pull off the turn.

The sand under the tires started to crunch and scratch, and then, first went the rear tire, the bike had unweighted itself. Next was the hit to the ground, when body, bike and ground meet, going 30mph! It was a long, painfull slide and I was still clipped in when I landed in the thick brush. I didn't know what I was doing when I was trying unbuckle and climb out of the brush at the same time. I tried to roll to one side, but I couldn't get the bike off! It seemed like an eternity, until I unclipped from the pedals and crawled out, just as the rest of the guys caught up and saw what happened. I'll say this, though, later on that night all the girls gave me plenty of attention and pity. HAHA-Ouch! ;P

Oh, and Happy Holloween!

Happenings

My good college roommate back at UCLA is in town this week and we were able to get together for dinner at El Burrow Mexican Restuarant in San Jose. We all got to catch up about life and happenings, and things in general. Oh yeah, Happy Birthday, Jason, even though it was two weeks ago and you never answer your phone..... punk.

San Francisco in the afternoon

On some days, I absolutely miss living in a big city. Living in the country really has it's benifits from time to time, such as being away from the hustle, bustle of daily life, humming motors, blaring sirens, and such, but in a city setting, I love the constant closeness of people, shops, and interesting happenings. My "get away" is getting away to the city. Ironic isn't it?

Shopping in Berkeley

I spent the day shopping for a Mountain Bike front suspension fork and ended up on some back alley in Berkeley. I ended up getting a 2003 Manitou Black Super 100/120 front suspension fork. It feels like a big fork, but we weighed it in the bike shop and it was ony 3.5 lbs. Very light. It started raining just as I was about to leave, so it turned into a perfect time to spend the day in the ole' workshop.

Through the hills

One last spin (30 miles) throuh the hills in the PT Cruiser before it goes back. 8:30 in the morning

PT Cruiser

I am without my car today, as I had to take my car into the shop for some maintenance issues. I rented a Chrysler PT Cruiser for the day to get me back and forth between the office, but mainly because I was curious about the car.

I got to drive it for most of the day, and I think I'm ready to give my own car review. Buy one if you hate yourself, and have low self-esteem. I never really understood why the PT Cruiser was such a popular car, but the car felt pretty underpowered and lost any appeal as a "hot rod" the more I drove it. There was a little pop in the acceleration, but the car would lose any momentum gained from any standing stops just as fast. The interior was fairly basic, but I found the radio controls to be very messy. I could not change the radio without taking my eyes off the road and the single disk CD slot is not illuminated. I think I could look past these issues if the car simply had a direction in its design, if it was geared towards performance enthusiasts (with a more powerful engine) or if it was meant more for comfort and convienience (with better ergonomic intuitive controls).

Hoepfully, I'll get my car back soon. =P

Mugs

Mugs on the desk in my cubicle when I'm actually in the office. Too bad I don't have mugs from my other previous comapnies, though I think three mugs is more than enough for the occaisional coffee drink or tea. I am more down since the kitchen is out of green tea and all that is left is some really bad Lipton tea bags. ....argh!

Project Bike, part 3

fin. I've finally finished building up my new mountain bike, only I would like to get a new suspension fork when the time becomes right and the ol' wallet starts to heal. I've learned a lot in building up my own bike, not all parts are created equal and some parts are just plain ludicris. Hopefully, I can hit the trails and open road, soon. Cheers and happy trails! =)

Cindy and Allen's Wedding

The actual wedding was held at the Dunsmuir Historical Estate in Oakland, but my day started much earlier than that. For the record, the ladies actually started at 6AM to start doing their hair and makeup, so I will not complain much more, since I didn't start until a little past 9AM. Ok, I started off even later than that, but in my rush, I got to my meeting place right on time. My first task of the day was to pick up lunch for the wedding party, as the actual wedding cermony was not to start until 2:30 in the afternoon. I met and picked up my friend Wing-Chi from her hotel, and proceeded to Downtown Oakland. .....and which the fun began!

I was not too familiar with Oakland, and Wing-chi was from Vancouver, so I definitely knew I was going to be in trouble when I missed my intended freeway exit and then got lost off the next exit. In all, we snaked all the way from the Berkeley-Oakland border back down to Oakland Chinatown, through all the local backroads, streets, and alleys, finally reaching our destination. At least Wing-Chi was nice, and passed it off as all Americans drove like I did. If so, I believe we're all in trouble.

Here are some candid pictures from throughout the day.

Pre-Ceremony

Wedding Party Photos

Wedding Ceremony

Pre-Dinner Clowning Around

Dinner reception at Yank Sing Chinese Restuarant

Unfortunately, this was where my camera battery started to die. So I do not have very many pictures from dinner. Suffice it to say the lobster was excellent. However, this does not mean the end of the fun. Guess who "had a little too much drink" and started to drool in his rented tuxedo, and had everybody take pictures with him?

The lovely bride, minus all the hair clips and 10 pounds of bobby pins

Rehearsals for the Big Day

Weekend Weddings. My friends Allen and Cindy are getting married this weekend and I am the co-wedding coordinator, along with one of Cindy's best friends from high school, Susan . What does it mean? I still have yet to figure it out, but we spent the evening rehearsing the ceremony, performed several walk throughs, and played with the ducks that found their way back behind our chairs. I played with the ducks mostly.

We did go to have dinner, afterwards, at Il Pescatore Italian Restuarant in Oakalnd's Jack London Square. It was my first time eating in Jack London Square, and suffice it to say, I still got lost trying to find the restuarant with my GPS. The food was excellent and I absolutely recommend it.

Tomorrrow looks like it is going to be a beautiful day!

Project Bike, part 2

So two more small boxes arrived for me yesterday to help complete my new bike. The bike is really starting to come together now and is starting to look ridable. It is amazingly light when I pick it up off the stand.

A funny story first though: I had an idea how to install a headset but I didn't necessarily have the tools to install one. A headset is a set of bearings that hold the front fork of a bike to the frame, so that the fork can turn freely. In order to install the cups of the bearings, you need a "headset press", a uniquely specific tool that is hardly worth buying.

My first thought was to simply pound it in with a rubber mallet. A bad idea, since I did not want to damage my shiny new headset. I was at an impasse. I scurried around my workshop and came up with a new idea: I could create my own press with a big bolt and a big stack of washers, or so I thought! After an hour of fidgeting with it, the headset went in crooked! I tried to restack the washers but ended up just giving the headset a few good whacks with the rubber mallet. It straightened out, and I pressed the cups in more carefully with the bolt again, and the bearings were in. I was set to go! Minus the extra hour it took to straighten the headset.

Afterwards, everything else just bolted together. Fork, stem, handlebars, deraileurs, and brakes. ......and all on a work night!

Goodies in this round:
2004 Cane Creek S2 Headset
2002 Shimano XT Mega9 Shifter/Brake lever set
2004 Shimano LX Front Deraileur and XTR Rear Deraileur
2004 Avid Single Digit 7 Brakes
2004 Avid StraightJacket Brake and Shifter Cables
2004 Sette Vector Straight Handlebar and Sette Venn Mountain Stem

.... I was on a budget on some items, but this bike will still be fairly aggressive trail bike when I finish. =P

The Blues

I think I've been pretty disappointed, lately. My latest involves my Canon S50 camera, I think it is starting to fail. It does not seem to focus as readily as it used to and a lot of my shots have been coming out blurry, as of late. Even still shots. Granted the camera has been all over the world, I've dropped it, kicked it, landed on it, sat on it, lost it, found it, and most importanly, taken pictures with it. There was one time I did an inverted barrel roll off a ski jump in Vail (not intentional, of course)(the barrel roll, anyway), and landed squarely on my back, right where the camera was tucked inside my Camelbak. It was indestructable, or so it seemed.

I wonder if there is any way I can get it serviced. If any one has any ideas, I'd love to hear them. I wonder if I could ever be paid to be a product tester. I think I could do very well....

Mountain Biking El Corte Madera Creek

Over the weekend, some friends and I went mountain biking at Skeggs Point, which is a part of the El Corte Madera Creek Open Space Preserve in Woodside.

I definitely had much more fun here in this park than I did a few weeks ago in the Soquel Demonstration Forest. We started at one of the marked trailheads, and proceded to climb up a few hills before we dropped into several nice downhill single track trails. We looped around a few trails, before we got lost, but only for a slight moment. And not any of my fault. =P We covered a little more than 10 miles in about 5 hours, give or take. A pretty enjoyable day, especially being able to appreciate the outdoors. Cheers!

Bike Project, part 1

As I mentioned in an entry before, I've started building up a new mountain bike. People have asked me before what is the big deal between buying a bicycle from Costco, or even heaven forbid Toys'R'Us, and a more expensive one from a major Bike shop. I'd answer that it depends on situation, if for riding on a street to get from your home to the grocery store, any bike will do. But one of the more liberating feelings on a more expensive mountain bike is the "go anywhere" feeling. In general, more expensive bikes tend to be much lighter, stronger, and smoother bicycles, or more conventionally, "you get what you pay for."

Parts so far:
1997 Specialized Stumpjumper M2 frame
2003 Shimano XT Hubs/DTSwiss 15G spokes/Bontrager Voliant rims
2004 Raceface Evolve crankset w/SRX bottom bracket
2004 Shimano XT Cassette and XTR Chain

Lots of other goodies on the way....