Click on the photo to the right to get the full effect.  An amazing day, with nothing else about it to write about but simply that.

Well, there was the coyote that dashed across the trail in hot pursuit, ears alert, the calm herd of deer by the trail, the 20-30 wild turkeys including fanning toms, the river itself at dramatic springtime flow, and the dense and dramatic clouds that turned my ride from warm to frigid at will.

Add to that the freshly blown trail courtesy of county employees, and you have bicycling paradise.  Having bicycled a bit of SoCal “Class 1″ bike trail this past week with its frequent interruptions, dirt wash-outs and traffic diversions (not to mention the awesome poodle count), I return to the parkway with renewed appreciation for was has to be one of the best bike trails anywhere.

A freshman in college and enrolled in an ecology course taught by master teacher Mark Parrat, I found myself outraged that the Irvine Company had plans to dredge the back bay into a marina/condo development, describing the area as a “dead mud flat.”  In these  pre-social networking days, the hard lifting in ecological conflicts was done by the devoted who would attend planning commission hearings and nag state agencies until the right thing was (occasionally) done.  My camera was pointed at the not-terribly-dead egrets, gulls, sandpipers and great blue herons feeding on the also-not-dead fish fry after hatching in the back bay, still a major fishery for the west coast.

I returned there today to revisit my eco-radicalization after finding online a bike trail serving the perimeter of the bay and UC Irvine while in the area on business (with the bike, of course).  I thought of the grannies, biologists, students, academics, and other activists who opposed the Irvine company, driving the creation of the Upper Newport Bay Preserve in 1975.

I also thought of, and slightly longed for, the angry young man I had been, camera in hand, in awe of the unwillingness of some to see the life I photographed, many years ago.  Slightly less angry now, I remain grateful to those who made the preservation of UNB possible despite phenomenal odds.  The rest of Orange County, CA, stands as testament to the values held by the developers who have had their way with the land, except for Upper Newport Bay, a place now celebrated, and which would only exist in memory and on film but for those heroes in the early 70s.

A dear friend took her life on October 2 this year, a sudden, middle-aged response to childhood sexual abuse.  Life-long pain does awful things to people, and the toll extends far beyond the reaches of the abuser.  Kym was married to another dear friend and colleague of mine, and their lives were full of love and family.  Kym was a social worker for CPS, passionate about the protection of children.  A motorcyclist and geocacher, she cherished being outdoors on days like this one.  She would have loved today.

I set out on my Halloween ride intending to pull together some writing I owe some folks, to let my mind craft what needs to be said as I rode.  Instead, I could only take in the glorious day that Kym would not be.  I thought about the ripples of sadness caused by her early death, her struggles with her demons, demons that would not be silenced by the love of family and friends.

There is a peace that accompanies fall that leads me to favor this season above all others.  For leaves and most bugs there is the peace that accompanies death, for the rest of life there is a gathering in of energy and a renewed appreciation for just how fragile we are on this planet as the air turns colder.  Kym has found the peace that alluded her for a lifetime, taken from her by a criminal who no doubt suffers as well.

Sorry you missed today, Kym.  It was gorgeous, and so were you.

Don’t miss the other resources in the margins of this blog, such as links to great bikes and great bike shops.  Your gear can be as important as your mindset, and it will pay huge dividends to pay close attention to both.

I also knew I was a slave to chemistry… fun or not, I had to cope with the fact that my body had some cardiovascular growing to do, and that didn’t sound fun.  Here’s the deal:  fitness is a question of how well your body can turn oxygen into useful energy.  The more oxygen you can convert into energy, the fitter you are.  The good news is this: regardless of your age, your body can increase its fitness as a result of your efforts.  The bad news is this: you have to give it a reason to do so.  You have to stress it, make your heart pump faster and harder, to engage the chemical machinery and tissue growth required to make you better able to use oxygen and deliver it to muscle tissue.

The word “effort” in our culture has negative connotations.  “To get good grades, you have to put in effort.”  “Politicians must make an effort to avoid corruption.”  I’d like to shift the paradigm a bit here, hence the title of this post.  Sex requires effort, at least good sex does.  It may even require a bit of planning and careful orchestration of circumstances (right, parents?). Bad sex does not encourage a return to the scene, so most of us put a good deal of energy, effort, into making sure the experience is a good one for all parties involved.

Well, the same thing goes for bicycling.  If you do it well and pay attention to details, it will feel good and you will ache for more.  If you ignore the details or assume someone else (a bike builder, for instance) will take care of them for you, it’s not going to work out and you’ll wind up with a two-wheeled paperweight.  So, think of your conditioning regimen as an act of love-making. Just like with sex, a partner can make your bicycling experience far more rewarding, but a partner is not required for a quality experience.  Regard the following list, and keep the metaphor running:

• Decide what kind of bicycling feels good to you, but leave yourself open to an evolving/changing sense of what that is.  Quality bike shops such as The Bicycle Business rent performance bikes for test rides.  If you are tentative about dropping the Big Nickle, a few rentals will help you narrow your interests.  Also, top shops also employ very experienced people who have much wisdom in these things.  However, none of those folks would have guided me to my Madone, so don’t take their word as gospel.  Test various rides, get opinions of other riders, and let your imagination be your guide.
• Find the right setting. Doing it in high traffic areas is not generally satisfying, so find a place to ride where you feel safe and you can pay closer attention to the act of bicycling, to your body’s attempts to communicate its needs to you, and to your surroundings beyond finding the texting driver before he/she finds you.
• Pace yourself. Listen to your body’s attempts to determine what feels good.  If your body says “go faster!”, do that.  If after riding a half mile your body says “I’m pooped!”, give it a rest.  If the inside of your legs feel tight, get off the bike and rest them and gently massage.  Whether bicycling or lovemaking, pushing into some crazy performance ideal ruins the entire experience.  Setting goals in either activity is certainly useful, but it isn’t the goal that determines the joy you will derive.  It is the journey that will determine the quality of your experience, and it is the quality of the journey that will determine whether you want to embark on another.
• Pay attention to your attire. Just yesterday I was riding in 90 degree morning air, passing rider after miserable rider (all men) wearing their favorite cotton weekend t-shirt.  They were red in the face, visibly sweating.  Other riders (those clearly not dismayed by those who sneer at the “spandex crowd”) had prepared themselves with moisture-wicking, highly evaporative synthetic clothing, and were obviously comfy.  Also, you are much more attached to your crotch than you think.  Heavily padded riding shorts may feel odd, but if you are riding more than a couple blocks, they are well worth the effort and weirdness.  I once had someone say, “Oh, you’re one of them,” when she found out I was part of the spandex crowd of bicyclists.  Yep, guilty as charged, and happy with my lot.  120 years ago people were clothed head to toe in cotton or wool from neck to ankle for both cycling and sex.  Let us aspire to more modern expressions of attire in both.
• Hydrate aggressively. This does not mean stop every half hour at a drinking fountain.  This means drink when you are thirsty, and on a bike this will be every few minutes during a moderate workout.  Not only do you sweat it out, you exhale a great deal of your body’s water.  When your throat feels parched, you are dehydrated, and blood will not move to your extremities and muscles as effectively.  If you are not secure about reaching for a water bottle from a rack in your frame (or if you’re vain about frame appearance like I am), invest in a backpack hydration system such as a bike-specific Camelbak.  Narrow, as your back is part of your cooling system, so the more of your back that’s exposed the cooler you’ll stay.  If you don’t hydrate sufficiently, you will cramp sooner, you will feel artificially fatigued, and your recovery period will be far longer.
• Focus on the moment. OK, this sounds kind of new-agey, but it’s for real.  Your life is a collection of experiences, and as humans we seek to repeat those experiences that give us pleasure and we avoid those that don’t, despite our best “adult” intentions.  If you think for half a second about addiction, you’ll get my drift.  As you ride, stay in touch with how you feel, and give yourself permission to stop that which doesn’t feel good.  Do not “push through the pain.”  That’s high school football coach bs, and it is a very destructive orientation.  Especially as you are beginning a conditioning regimen and you are learning how your body responds to exercise, experiment with periods of exertion and rest.  While it feels good to exert, it also feels good to rest.  Over time, your periods of exertion will grow and your rest periods will shrink, but it should all continue to feel good.  In time you’ll find the balance of exertion & rest that works for you, and which feels good over an extended period.
• Check in with your doctor. This is particularly true if you have not exercised for decades, if you have other health issues that would be negatively impacted by sudden exertion, or if you’re at all nervous about beginning exercise.   Older (and not-so-older) riders will feel a bit on the creaky side coming off a period of non-exercise, and  there may be momentary aches and pains as you extend into ranges of motion unfamiliar to your body.  Mostly those little annoyances will pass, but do respond to those that don’t with a little personal TLC.

Such permission I sought from this family, who by their excellent choice of picnic sites, wound up in the middle of one of the better angles on the Fair Oaks trestle bridge. 

When I approached them with my usual apologies, not only were they very okay being in the shot, they voiced concern that I might be in need of some of their chipotle barbecue chicken, it being the dinner hour, after all.  I declined, but only because I was rapidly losing my low-angle sunlight and I had more photo stops to make on this stretch of the river.  With shots taken, I was left much enriched by their warmth and hospitality.  Not only did it make my day, I am reminded of their warmth each time I see this image.

On the other side of the balance was the shot I took of a fifty-ish white guy on his road bike as he approached on the bike path.  As he passed, he muttered in as hostile a tone he could muster at 15 mph, “You don’t have my permission!”  That’s cool, and it’s only remarkable because he stands alone in my memory of hundreds of shots taken for this project.   In every other circumstance I was either waved to, smiled at, nodded to, or ignored.  Mostly ignored.  Frankly, he needn’t have worried, as I didn’t use any shots of obviously unhappy people.  They don’t make for good photos for promoting bicycling, so while I didn’t need his permission to publish the shot of him, he did not receive my permission to pollute this blog or the State Fair photo exhibit with his unhappy mug.  Ugly doesn’t sell.  I may dig it out when I do a piece on “grumpy old men on bikes,” but until I do, his dour visage is safe from publication.

Quite apart from this photo assignment has been the infrastructure of my ride, the ways and means by which it can happen.  Without the ride, there is no blog.  As mentioned before, my wife has joined me in this interest such that our life includes the bicycle, in in a form that gives me enormous pleasure.  She is the true foundation & rebar of my bicycle infrastructure.

Earlier posts have detailed the process of the ’08 Madone 6.9 coming into existence, with its debut last February.  I built this thing up from parts acquired through a number of sources – see those posts – but the combining of parts alone, without the finesse of experience, does not let one of these lovely bikes sing.  I have thrown together kids’ bikes from scrounged parts, and they worked fine.  What I did not understand was that the tolerances of adjustments in bikes designed to go fast with little mass were well beyond the instincts of a newbie.  A half degree on the angle of a derailleur hanger is critical.  Whodathunk?

So meet Brendan:

Brendan, at City Bikes Citrus Heights

Brendan not only did the final tune and handle bar wrap for my Madone, when the bike turned up with an annoying tick coming from the rear wheel, he cheerfully rechecked the tune, finding (and repairing) a very slightly out-of-true hanger.  This photo collection for the state fair could not be complete without due credit.  I already have a link to City Bicycles on this blog, as they have brought me great pleasure and security that someone in this town knows what they’re doing with bikes, and does it cheerfully and with passion in what has to be a very competitive business.  If you know City Bicycles, don’t feel you need to schlep into downtown Sac to get the job done.  Go see Brendan in Citrus Heights, on Greenback just west of Sunrise.

William Pond Park is a centrally-located and attractive watering hole/rest stop/gathering place used by most regulars on the bike trail.

This couple obliged with a repeat of a performance they had enacted spontaneously just moments before:

This WAW recumbent is a work of art in itself… combat-ready: [do you ride it? drive it? fly it?]

The parkway bike trail; a good place for friends…

and yourself; you and two wheels…

Two more images for you.  The first of a critter I complained earlier would not hold still:

"I am invisible!"

Next is an image that, for the life of me, I just do not understand why I like so much.  Is it the explosion of flowers to the crown?  Is it the dashing red pigment?  Something about it just reeks of vitality, so maybe that’s the GeezerWheel connection.  At any rate, if you hurry down to the Parkway prior to our lovely 110 degree weather, you’ll be treated to sights like this one at the foot of the Howe Avenue bridge.

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