Fringy, The Zombie, and Paul, left to right.
Only two times since the start of the COVID pandemic have I managed something other than a solo ride and both times were with the same two friends, Fringy and Paul. These two rides were, in fact, the third and fourth in a series, a series I have neglected to post about until now.
Who are Fringy and Paul? In 2001, I started working in the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine as part of the Human Genome Project. Paul was director of the Informatics group and thus my boss. Fringy was a research scientist. (The nickname Fringy comes from his preferred hairstyle.) Paul and Fringy were among the many good friends I made during the three years I was part of that group. 2001 was a long time ago. Fast forward to 2019 when we all found ourselves in California, me in San Carlos, Fringy in Davis, and Paul in Santa Cruz. We decided to get together to chat about science and life and since we were all cyclists, a bike ride seemed a natural way to do that. It was understood that these were low key rides, talking over lunch being at least as important as the ride. Because I live geographically between Fringy and Paul, we decided to meet in my part of California. I was asked to select a flat, interesting ride with a suitable restaurant en route and so hit upon The Bay Trail. In September of 2019 we did our first ride, 18 miles including a detour into Foster City for lunch.
We enjoyed that first ride so much we repeated the exact same ride, having lunch at the exact same restaurant, five months later. We hoped this would become a regular event but little did we know that a pandemic was coming. But, by spring of 2021, we had all managed to get ourselves vaccinated and so it was the perfect time to resume our rides, a perfection spoiled by the Delta variant. We decided to risk it anyway so had our third ride in July of 2021. A few days before the ride, I checked out our old route only to find it closed by construction, so we moved our ride south to another section of The Bay Trail for a 15 mile ride and lunch outdoors (in honor of Delta) in Mountain View.
Since we had become proficient at defying variants, we decided to defy the Omicron variant seven months later. Paul had another event the afternoon of the ride so we all went to him so he could fit in both and the result was a lovely ride through the charming city of Santa Cruz, ably guided by Paul, 14 miles of cycling with lunch at a very snazzy restaurant Paul selected.
Our planned route. We ended up cutting it short by a mile or so, eliminating the out and back to Wilder Ranch on the left side of the map due to time constraints.
Though the shortest of our four ride series, this may have been the most tiring as Santa Cruz is where the mountains meet the sea and the ride was far from flat. As usual, I did a miserable job as a photographer but did catch a photo of the two of them in front of the famous lighthouse at Field State Beach.
You may say, “What a stupid post, these are not serious rides, who cares?” I would beg to differ. I claim this post is precisely what I promised ten years ago when I started this blog. When I restarted cycling thirteen years ago after a twenty nine year hiatus, my reasons for doing so were several. Nostalgia was one. Health was another. The joy of the sport was a third. What I promised for the blog was a chronicle of the journey of an old man returning to cycling, and the rides described in this post are very much part of that and in fact illustrate yet another benefit I derived by restarting cycling back in 2008, a social benefit. The rides described in this post are part of that, they are another way I am enjoying my return to cycling.
