My Go-To Rides Must Die!

Left to Right, my son, granddaughter, daughter-in-law, grandson, me, daughter-in-law, and son.

Good news - I just moved much closer to my grandkids! I now live just five doors down from them, easy walking distance. But even though my old house in San Carlos and my new house in Emerald Hills are less than three miles apart, the move did impact my cycling. This is because I have a strong preference for riding "door to door" (as opposed to driving with my bike to the start of a ride) and so when the location of my "door" changes, so do my rides. One complaint I had about my old house was that it was on the side of a hill so it was never possible to do an entirely flat ride and, no matter how tired I was coming home, I always had one last hill with which I would have to contend. This complaint applies much, much more to my new house. My San Carlos house was 145 feet above sea level in contrast to my Emerald Hills house which is 470 feet above sea level. As one subjective example of what that means, it was a minor annoyance to have to bike from the shops and restaurants of downtown San Carlos (33 feet above sea level) to my old house. In contrast, to ride to my new house from that same elevation is a major challenge, approaching impossible on days I am tired. To put this another way, there are some of my bikes which I may never ride again because they lack the very low gears I would need to ride in my new neighborhood. I am struggling to imagine how I might do an easy, recovery ride in my hilly neighborhood; I am considering purchasing rollers for that purpose, definitely a less desirable alternative to riding on the road.

With regards to the title of this post, does my move mean I have to restart defining go-to rides from scratch? Not at all. I can continue to ride my two most important go-to rides, named Alpine and Cañada, with only minor changes. The new rides are about a mile shorter, the start/finish for these rides have moved, and, given my new location, it made sense to make some additional minor route changes. But even though these changes are minor, they are enough that my times and speeds on the new versions of these rides will not be comparable to the old. Those 100+ repeats of the Alpine ride are no longer as relevant or useful as they used to be. The go-to rides that will be most impacted are the flat ones on the east side of the peninsula. Getting to my new house from the west involves significant climbing but can be done without unmanageably steep hills. In contrast, getting to my new house from the east cannot be done without ascending some very steep hills indeed, steep enough that there are some days I cannot get up them at all.

One last consequence of the move, a temporary one: the move itself derailed my training plans. After 66 straight weeks of meeting my 300 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic exercise, I managed to do no cycling at all during the week of my move. Those 66 weeks were a pretty good run and I am sad it is over. However, I am now 6 week into my new run of 300 minutes weeks. Wish me luck!

Biking aside, my new house has many advantages over the old, proximity to the grandkids being the most important. But even in the context of my biking, the move is certainly not all bad. For example, the move provided new opportunities for go-to rides. Shortly after the move, I went on a ride with my son (another advantage to living closer) and he showed me one of his go-to rides, a beautiful if hilly hour long ride that has now become a ride I do weekly.

I have previously described how, between 2005 and 2008 I tried a variety of exercise plans, none of which I stuck with, and how, even when I started cycling in 2008, after six months I dropped that as well. The difference between cycling and everything else was that a year later, in 2010, I restarted; It is not that my cycling never lapses, but that I manage to return to cycling after each lapse. Maintaining my cycling through this latest move is just one more recent iteration of that process. More recently, the wildfires which have become a seasonal plague here in California became the latest disruption. Each day I have to check the air quality to determine if the health benefits of cycling outweigh the harm of inhaling smoke. But this too shall pass (at least until next season.) For now, I will do the best I can with faith that I can resume my regular cycling schedule when conditions make that prudent.