today the weather in the south bay was perfect. all day it was sunny, but hazy with a cool breeze, so in the afternoon taka and i decided to get on our bikes. she’s been pretty good with getting ready for the rosarito ride, going to spin class at least twice a week. i on the other hand haven’t really been on my bike at all save for a few short rides around town.

we pretty much just cruised our hood, enjoying the day and trying out new bike parts more than really training. i recently swapped out taka’s double crankset on her road bike (this will be the first event she rides the road bike) for a tripple so that she can make it over el tigre in a bail-out gear if she has to. my smallest gear combo is a 39 in front and a 26 (1.5:1) in back, and there are parts of that hill that i need to get out of the saddle for, so now she can go as low as 30/26 (1.15:1) if she finds the need to. i’m still getting used to my speedplay light action pedals that i installed earlier this year, and finding the perfect adjustment for my 2008 giro atmos that replaced my old atmos that had the usps color scheme that i was getting tired of.

we’ll probably get in at least one or two good rides before the actual event, but after tomorrow, there’ll only be two weekends left to get ready for it. i’m planning on just cruising (and maybe even ride my mountain bike if i finish it in time) take some pictures along the way and just enjoy the final rosarito to ensenada tour.

on september 27th, the sandiego association that has put on the rosarito to ensenada bike ride for almost 30 years, will host it’s final event. tourism in baja california has been way down in the year, and according to the company’s website, the last event only brought 5000 riders, which was their “financial break-even point.” while the decline in participants has been steady for the last 5 years, increased drug cartel activity in the region, coupled with new passport requirements for 2008 made for a very small event in april, leading to this final ride next month.

i had missed the last 2 events being busy with nothing in particular, but i’m pretty exicited to do it one last time. taka’s going to ride it for the 3rd time, having done it once with me on a tandem, and then another time all on her own. the ride can be pretty grueling — with some f’d up hills — but the weather and scenery is always pleasant, and the feeling of accomplishment (and beers and tacos) when you finish always make the effort and the trip worth it.

so far it’s me+taka, costin+lauren, al and ben, so if anyone else is interested in coming along, either for the ride or just to hang out, lemme know, i’m not gonna be asking about it next year.

i’ve only been on my bike a couple times this year, but i finally got a real ride in on saturday morning. i’m close enough to palos verdes now, that i can just ride there instead of having to pack up my bike and drive to the area, so i met up with a co-worker and we did a 25 mile ride up and around the palos verdes hills. the weather was still a bit cooler than i like to ride in, but i’m picky and have sensitive ears. my knee has been giving me a lot of trouble lately, especially on bike rides, and my new speedplay pedals only seemed to help so much. i’ve got another doctor’s appointment today and if it turns out i do need to have surgery, i’ll prolly wait until after summer since i don’t want to be laid out and gimpy during the best part of the year.

i’ve been having random knee troubles for the last couple of years, and with bicycling weather around the corner, i decided to switch to the knee-friendly speedplay pedals. the speedplays have 15 degrees of non-centering float, so my leg can spin naturally, and not confine my knee’s movement to a particular track. since the float takes place in the cleat and not in the pedal like traditional clipless pedals, these speedplays are very light (shaved 105 grams by switching from look fqv’s) and small.

steph, thanks for the giftcard ;)

damn, the weather was nice today. i went down to my mom’s place to wash my car (i had washed it just last week, but there was some weird rain mid-week that made my car look like hell), and get the integra ready to sell. anyone want a slightly used 1995 acura? only 193k miles!

later on, al met up with me in long beach and we did a bike ride to shoreline village. my bike doesn’t fit in my car anymore, so i rode taka’s bike since it was still down there. it was a pretty easy and lazy ride but it was nice to be back on it. we had lunch down at the village and then rode back home. it actually got a bit cold around 3pm, but it was good to get out and enjoy a socal winter day.

ross, dave, his girlfriend alice, and me and the wife took a leisurely ride down to the queen mary on saturday morning. we didn’t make it far before we were hungry, so we ate at the yard house and ross and i threw back a few “black and blue” (a mix of guiness and hef) beers so the rest of the ride was a bit of a blur.

sunny and 84F in november. you gotta love socal.

taking pictures while riding is a bit precarious.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kentomatic/sets/72157602920925426/

after 6 months of me trying to freak out dave and eric that the ‘el tigre’ hill would be the scariest ride ever, we all sailed over it no problem, and finished together in 3:26, my second best time.

the trip was a lot of fun. me, eric, dave, and his buddy ross piled into eric’s car and even though we hit some fucked up traffic coming back, it was some pretty good ‘n funny bro time. and next year passports are going to be required, so the border’s only gonna be more insane.

as usual, we ate tons of tacos, drank gallons of beer, lowballed street vendors and threw bottles at the tranny hookers. i also seemed to have my shirt off more than usual.

check out all the pics, but be forewarned, there’s a lot of gay porn:

http://public.fotki.com/b…daride/

before my my bike ride yesterday, i was a bit hungry so i looked in the fridge and saw some girl scout-like fudge cookies. i even conciously thought, “hmm, sugar + caffeine = fast kent” well, that might’ve been true, and i was feeling fine, until i got down to the beach and had a swig of gatorade. my stomach almost immediately cramped up completely and i could barely breathe. if i stretched it out, it’d feel ok for a couple minutes, but then just cramp up again. dave had come up from hb, so i didn’t wanna bail on him and i did pretty much the whole ride, but towards the end before we did the final loop, he even called me out and said we should prolly head back ’cause i wasn’t looking right, and dave’s not one to let me off the hook unless he knows i really need it.

so i cruised back home and by the time i got in my door i could barely move. i laid down, ate a banana (potassium), popped some rolaids (calcium and magnesium) and drank copious amounts of water and i was feeling better about 30 minutes later. anyway, that’s a food combo you wanna stay away from. taka said the same thing happens when you eat tempura and watermelon together, so stay away from that one too.

since i don’t have nearly enough bikes already, i decided to build up a new mountain bike. it’s really a return to my roots, as it used to be my passion before i ever sat on a road bike. i never really had any high-end gear when i was younger, but back then it didn’t seem to matter much.

and now that i’ve got the road bikes pretty much covered (i have 3 of them sitting in my front room!), i bought a haro v4 frame, and am gonna build up a relatively light and strong cross-country mountain bike. i’m probably going to go all shimano lx components since i don’t want this to be too expensive, and i have lots of random parts from old bikes that i’ll probably set this up with. stay tuned for the build.