Huh, I guess a cycling trip to Italy and Spain should be enough motivation to write another quick CyclingSalvation.com blog entry here. Traveling through life at my typical "Father 🐢 Tortuga" speed, I'm writing this blog after being back home for 10 days. My trip included 7 days riding riding with Cinghiale Cycling Tours around Italy's Cilento region and Vallo di Diano National Park accompanied by ex-pro Andy Hampsten, his wife Elaine, a local SDBC cycling buddy, ​ and several others. After that Cilento cycling tour and a couple days of walking tours around Naples, I caught a Vueling flight to Barcelona to get a fast train to Girona for a couple more days of riding. Girona is what many American cyclists consider pro cycling's training "Mecca" and a favorite bike tour destination. The Italian tour was the latest of several awesome cycling tours I've ridden in Italy, but the Girona stop has been left unchecked on my bucket list for many years. Both of these great escapes went perfectly for me (I'll accept a failed Garmin GPS in exchange for NOT being one of the 5 people who crashed in Italy). 

One of our sleeping accommodations in Cilento was a very impressive "agriturismo" (combining "agriculture" and "tourism" for a large, farm-home vacation destination) in the countryside with sheep right outside the door, and the other was a nice hotel in Marina di Camerota on the Mediterranean coast. Andy Hampsten—along with his wife Elaine and old friend Enrico Caracciolo—put a great deal of homework into planning this inaugural "south of Naples" tour. Enrico is a native of Napoli and has written books about cycling in Italy (in both Italian and English). I've been out two of Andy's tours near their home in Tuscany. After three Cinghiale tours, I can understand why some of Andy & Elaine's guests have been on over 15 (!) of their tours. 

Several of the riders on the Italian tour asked me where my next cycling tour was going to be. I didn't have an answer, other than to mention my short stay in Girona right after Italy. I guess these people do a big bike tour every year. I don't think that way, but I've gone to a lot of great places to ride over the decades. My "fixed income" as a retiree and our annual family trips can put a slight damper on my big bike tour plans, but I'm blessed to have been riding a bike in so many places in the USA & Europe. Girona was the last of my "must do" bucket list bike tours, but I still visualize myself riding during the summer in the Swiss Alps and Canada's Banff National Park someday soon. (Now that I'm in my 60s, I realize that "soon" needs to be part of my planning for anything.) I just want to make sure my lovely wife will want to join me in my future destinations, because missing her for almost 3 weeks was the only imperfect part of this long vacation. 

​Girona—like Cilento—was perfect. I rented an apartment with a large, private outdoor patio at Hotel Nord 1901 in the central part of the "old" downtown. As it turns out, that apartment was literally right above the bike shop called The Service Course where I hired a bike rental and tour guides. The Service Course, a nearby cycling-centric coffee shop called La Fabrica Girona, and another café called Espresso Mafia are all operated by another cycling couple. In this case, it's ex-pro and Canadian national champion Christian Meier and his wife Amber. They and their personal tour guides are all super-friendly. On my last night in town, as I'm waling down the street, I hear someone call out, "Hey Dan!" It was Amber, who actually remember my name from our brief talk at La Fabrica. The drivers are amazingly polite and friendly, too. As a pedestrian you'll also notice how patient the drivers are with "obstructions" on foot and bike wheels. American drivers could learn so much from these people.

It's over 80°F outside my door here in La Jolla in LATE OCTOBER, so I'm very happy to say there's still some lovely summer riding to be had here in SoCal! I'm reminded again of how GOOD we have it here. I need to ride a very long way to get to roads that are as lightly-traveled [by cars & trucks] as the farm roads right outside Girona are, but as long as none of our highly-distracted drivers hit me or pull right in front of me, I'm quite happy where I am.

🚴 Enjoy the ride!

What a wild & spectacular summer. All kinds of summer fun was had by all without an excessive (or sufficient?) amount of biking. 

• Our oldest child married his college sweetheart at the Montalvo Arts Center in May. Several attendees said it was the most beautiful and romantic wedding they had ever been to, and I had to agree...even comparing it to my own wedding (sorry, honey!).
• July and a UCLA grant brought our younger daughter to Houston for six weeks. I had never been outside the airport there so I had to visit. She took me to Galveston for a day of fun.
• With an event like the Crater Lake Century on deck, I had to get some training in. I had signed up for the event in 2018, but the wildfires in California and Oregon turned that into a really bad idea. This year: No fires along the way and quite possibly the best weather ever. (My wife took advantage of my disappearance by going to visit her high school friends in Chicago during my trip.) I highly recommend this ride if you like a long, beautiful climb. It was fantastic, and the road trip up & back was an interesting camping/hotel journey through the 🔥 hot central valley of California. 
• Our middle child enjoys her job in LA while her  boyfriend takes a new job at Apple in the Bay Area. The separation is bound to be very challenging as she decides what she's going to do in the coming months. 

Now, back at home in San Diego, I'm trying to get a few good training days in every week to get ready for another trip with Andy Hampsten's Cinghiale Cycling Tours, this time we'll explore Cilento, the area surrounding Naples. This will be a "3-piggy" tour, one piggy more challenging (on a 4-piggy scale) than tours I've done with Andy, Elaine, and my local riding buddy Marc Lee in the past. Here in San Diego Marc and I only see each other during the local SDBC club rides, for which I'm a fairly regular leader, as noted in this write-up on their Facebook page: 
https://www.facebook.com/sandiegobicycleclub/posts/10157930808622214 
On the roads of Italy, we'll have tons of time to talk about everything under the sun, which Marc is pretty good at. 

Cycling writer Dan Wouri @dwuori tweeted today, "TTTs are the CSPAN of cycling." I actually LIKE the team time trials because they really show how well the whole team works together under conditions that can always be improved with team practice. The only thing I do NOT like is how a weaker team can put a would-be GC contender out of the running. But that goes with the sport. 
(Continued below.)

Well, if there's a general feeling out there that TTTs are boring, then we should all have spent our TV sports time watching the USA women's team win their 4th consecutive World Cup today. There's more excitement in just the first few minutes of this World Cup video than there is in an hour of TTT coverage. 

Can you imagine if American cyclists—both the men and women—were as strong in their sport as these amazing women are? We'd be back in the Lance Armstrong era, but without the doping. Soccer is a huge sport worldwide, which makes the rising call for fair pay to these women a welcomed chorus. 

Today's Barrio Logan Grand Prix—now San Diego County's ONLY criterium—brought us some great local racing today. The weather was perfect and the racers put on a great show, not the least of which was the amazing breakaway by SDBC/Spinergy racer Esther Walker, who lapped the field, then dropped them AGAIN to win the women's pro/1/2/3 race in a solo breakaway. 

This annual event is produced by San Diego Bicycle Club "SDBC," the largest bicycle club in San Diego County. Ralph Elliott's familiar "radio voice" narration of the races was as good as ever, but Ralph no longer organizes the race. That was done this year by SDBC member, racer and volunteer superman Graham Johnson. He said the race practically runs itself, but that's his modesty showing. There's a lot to pull together to make this race happen. Fortunately, there are a lot of awesome, unselfish volunteers organized by a committee fielded by the bike club. This was the 23rd edition of this great race. 

The sad part of the day for me when it was announced that there were ZERO racers in the Junior Women 17-18 category. As Ralph mentioned, even the men's 17-18 race used to field almost five times as many racers than it does now. What is happening to bike racing in America? Cycling is such a healthy endeavor that can help you stay younger and healthier into your golden years...even beyond age 95, as San Diego's legendary cyclist Gordy Shields demonstrated.

We were pleased to host the Wildlife Generation Pro Cycling Team at the men's pro/1/2 race today. With their whole team there, they had the strength and coordination to snatch the top three podium spots, with Rahsaan Bahati taking 4th place. 

There are about 9 other things I should really be focused on, but hey, it's Friday. It's time to wind down and relax before SDBC's Saturday club ride tomorrow. We're going to have a film crew there tomorrow to help Spinergy (and me) pull together 30-second PSA that will apparently find its way into up to a hundred time slots on Cox Cable between now and the Barrio Logan Grand Prix "BLGP" on April 27th. 

Q: So where does the "sharing & caring" title come from?
A: My intentions here.
I want to share 2 nice resources for cyclists and bike racing fans that came up today.

1. This video from Park Tool is the best, most comprehensive video I've ever seen on how to change a tire/tube on a bike. Even if you think you know it all, there's a pretty good chance you'll pick up a new little trick from these guys.
2. This professional bike race schedule on VeloNews.com was shared by a friend today. It has a great, comprehensive list of pro bike races this year and how to view them if you live in the USA. 

As long as you're here, I'll share one more thing. This highlights one of the benefits of riding outdoors. We get to see a lot of stuff that we'd never normally see if we stuck to walking and driving. The photo below is of an insanely amazing house being built on the bluffs above the ocean in the northern part of La Jolla. This is not a photo that shows off the house, but shows how it's perched above the Pacific Ocean. I took this picture on February 28th of this year, with construction underway, as it has been for several years now. The sides are almost all glass...massive, curved glass. It's located at 9030 La Jolla Shores Lane, just off of heavily-traveled La Jolla Shores Drive, which weaves through the campus of UCSD. Stop by and take a look. This is La Jolla's affordable housing at its best. It was listed for $10.5M in 2008, finally sold for $6.55M in 2009. The owners, the Stedmans from Texas, have plowed a pile of money into the construction ($15M+?) but it is a magnificent thing of beauty. I'm sure it's within your budget if they decide to sell. Check out this drone video of it under construction 3 years ago. 

I'm stoked! I just added a "puddle-jumper" flight (from Naples to Barcelona) to an already amazing bicycling tour plan this coming fall. I have the best possible guide riding with me through the Cilento area of Italy. A local San Diego cycling friend is joining me for that part of my journey. But now that I'll be flying home via Barcelona (which I've been to quite a few times for business), I need to get my "Costa Brava" segment squared away. Girona has been on my bucket list, primarily because of how much I've heard about American pro cyclists using that area for their early season training. It would be cool to ride with one of those former pros.

Apparently ex-pro Marty Jemison knows a lot about Girona and offers bike tours, but I removed him from my list of pros that I want to ride with after I read this article in VeloNews about him sucker-punching someone who was calling him out for his doping history. I wish all pro cyclists had the fortitude to resist the doping temptation. Some great racers like Andy Hampsten and Phil Gaimon managed to do pretty darn well without resorting to blood transfusions and illegal drugs. Just the same, I'm pretty forgiving of a lot of pros who have doped...especially when they're super-nice guys like George Hincapie. But when a doper ruins other people's lives (like Lance Armstrong did) or randomly punches people (like Marty did) in defense of doping accusations, I back WAY away. Life's too short to spend any time—much less a whole bike tour—with those sort of people. 

I hope Girona will dazzle me the way Italy has time and again. The interesting thing about riding in the dry, coastal areas of Spain (I rode along the Costa Blanca during the 2016 Vuelta a España) is that they can seem so much like California. With a growing appreciation for our need to reduce our CO₂ emissions, I'm thinking harder about my far-off cycling destinations. I live in a great cycling destination. Check out the photo below from my ride earlier today. Why kill a bunch of coral just to see the same scenery elsewhere? For me—in future years—the answer is going to be to "get out of the cold," which means I'll be planning my rides in the Southern Hemisphere in during our local winter. I've had enough of this cold weather, even if it's "balmy" by my old Chicago standards.

I'll report back on what guides, hotels and equipment I find to help make my one, 4-day visit to Girona a  success. I know some people who have ridden there, too, so it's data-collection and hotel booking time. If you happen to read this and have suggestions, let me know. 

I didn't really have any cycling "goals" this year other than completing the Belgian Waffle Ride in northern San Diego County. That was achieved in the first half of the year. ➤ Then Strava took over, egging me on to show some "results" as often as I could for myself and my small audience on Strava. ➤ Then another local Strava user mentioned that he was going for 5,000 miles before the end of the year. That was late November. I looked at my YTD mileage and figured I could reach 5,000 too, despite upcoming family time and travel. ➤ Then—just yesterday, as I was checking to see exactly how many miles I needed to ride to ride today to hit my "goal" before the end of the year tonight—I also noticed I was within spitting distance (1,600 feet) of achieving another round number... 300,000 vertical feet of climbing. It's not quite outer space (which starts at about another 27,000 feet higher than that), but it's a nice new "goal" for this morning, which also had possible (50% chance) rain in the forecast. 

So yes, I got my butt out there and achieved both of these nice round numbers by 10:30 this morning. Not bad for the old fart Father Tortuga. 

This blog entry presents a taste of the Cycling Curmudgeon™ style of writing pervasive in my older blog at LaJollaVelo.com. I'm older and grumpier now, so I don't think I've lost my touch in that area. I'll briefly present guidelines for new and experienced fans of cycling, then share my experiences—related to these two guidelines—that make me yell out loud at my TV or computer...because, of course, the amount of spectator yelling is the ultimate measure of how exciting any sport really is. I know several experienced cyclists who have been bike racing fans for years who still break these rules, so I'm not too concerned that I'm sharing something you already know. 

Let's start with the spoiler. This is the act of sharing information about any show or event that others do NOT want to know yet. Some people are living real lives in real time that may require the recording and LATER viewing of a show or event. This is especially common in the cycling world because most of the events occur in Europe on European time. So when we Americans go out for a club ride in the morning, those of us who do not suffer from insomnia or extreme obsession with the sport have not yet seen that day's race.

​To make things worse, there are so many new ways for people to spoil the surprise for everyone else: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and for cyclists...Strava. Strava tracks our mileage for us and adds a "social" aspect to tracking and sharing runs and rides, allowing you to comment within your day's ride narrative about that "awesome victory by Peter Sagan" that morning, for example. In a face-to-face situation, I can politely tell the person who's about to share the day's race result to STFU. Unfortunately, on Strava or Twitter, I've read the result before I can stop. I can't unread it. That's when the "yelling out loud" starts....cursing at the phone/computer and my friend who just ruined the surprise "awesome sprint" finish to a race that I would have MUCH rather watched without already knowing who won.

Now you know rule #1: Don't talk about race results of the day on social media. And if you're "live"  with your friends on the road or at the coffee shop, start your exciting monologue about the day's race with the question, "Have you all seen today's race?" and LISTEN to the answers. If your buddies haven't seen the race, just stop at something like, "Check it out...it was great."

Moving on to rule #2... If you're lucky enough to be at a live bike race, give the athletes some room to do their jobs, even if the course marshals or Gendarmes aren't forcing you to step back. You're going to underestimate the riders' speed, and you don't necessarily know which part of the road they will want to ride on. Getting in the way or having your camera strap catch their handlebars can cause a terrible crash. So why not get off the road (Rule #2) and watch from the curb? The riders are sure to stay off the curb unless one of the witless members of the motorcade bumps them off the road. The photo above and this article from Richard Williams of the Guardian help illustrate this rule. As you can guess, my loudest yelling at the TV comes when there's an awesome sprint ("go! go! go!"), a horrible crash ("oh no!"), or a herd of selfish, idiotic fans that feel like they have to be part of the race by getting further and further into the road ("get out of the way!), sometimes rationalizing this stupid idea by claiming some other moron on the road was blocking their view. (Tip: Tell that other moron to get TF off the road.)

Two rules should be plenty for my rudimentary blog for people with short attention spans about being a good cycling spectator. But for sh*ts & giggles I'll also mention Rule #3 because—as we've seen from the results of the 2016 presidential election—people are stupid and selfish. Rule #3 reads as follows: "Do not bring smoke bombs to bike races." WTF? Do we really need to say that? Yes. Thankfully some of the race organizers are banning them, but just like the 3-foot law (aka the "Three Feet for Safety Act") in California, you might never actually see it enforced. Well here we go...I'm yelling at the idiots waving smoke bombs on my TV again  ("shove that god**m thing up your a**!"). Ah, what a great sport. ∎

🔥 Change of plans: I'm definitely NOT driving all the way up to the Crater Lake Century, which is still slated to take place on August 18, 2018. This was going to be my first big road trip since Katie and I took our underutilized (but awesome) Sprinter cargo van on a camping & cycling journey through Nevada and Utah in 2010. That's a long time to go between multi-state road trips, so my sadness and disappointment feel pretty profound at the moment. I shall limit my whining about this predicament because the reason for the cancellation of this trip—at least in its original form—is that California and Oregon are on fire. Firefighters are risking their lives, some people are losing their lives, and many people are losing their homes to these blazes. 

When the fires initially broke out, I thought I would shift my focus from cycling to relief efforts along the way. But the Red Cross refused my application to volunteer because my home address is too far from where they need help. I've also canceled my lame ($0 raised) goFundMe campaign intended to supplement my own contributions to help assist fire victims. Now, instead of hands-on volunteering and direct relief fund distribution, I'm reverting to our usual means of helping: making a donation, which I encourage everyone to do. The Red Cross will direct the funds exactly to where you want them to go.
✚ American Red Cross 

The smoke in Oregon at the site of the planned "century" ride is just the icing on the disaster-cake of a trip this was starting to look like. My northbound route to Oregon, mostly using coastal California Highway 101, has a couple fires near/around it (Mendocino Complex). And my southbound return path along Interstate 5 with a planned detour to Sequoia National Park has its own set of fires still burning, as shown on the fire incident map below. Maybe August 2018 is not the best time for a big road trip? Sometimes I have a hard time giving things up, and this is no exception. I'm looking for a compromise—finding new places to ride that aren't covered in smoke—but we'll still have to play this by ear.

Meanwhile, back home on the ranch, we're still in the thick of a Caribbean-style hot & humid weather pattern that is so unlike the California weather I once knew. The LOW barely got below 80°F last night, but as they say, "It's not the heat, it's the humidity." OK, no whining about this or the "running toilet issue" one of our tenants brought up yesterday. (I  do wish our tenants were at least as handy as I am.) 
Right. Repeat after me, "I'm all about gratitude." I'm alive and well. My family is alive and well. Our house is not burning, and I installed a mini-split air conditioner (yes, on my very own!) a couple years ago so Katie and I slept comfortably last night. I hope you did, too. 
​🍀

Earlier this year, a friend visiting from Colorado to enjoy the Belgian Waffle Ride with me mentioned that the Crater Lake Century is on his bucket list but he couldn't do it this year because of a schedule conflict. After seeing Crater Lake several times from commercial flights overhead, I've wanted to get there to see it up close, so I added that ride to my list. Now that I've retired and turning 60 this year, I don't delay my bucket list items. Whether or not you share lanes with distracted and irrational drivers, you never know when your number is up, so why wait?

Sometimes my timing isn't so good. Like when I asked my wife to marry me. Bad timing, wrong approach. But hey, we're still together, married, happy and in love almost 42 years after our first date on August 19, 1976. 

Well, it looks like my timing on "which year to ride the Crater Lake Century" could not be worse. I got an email a few days ago from Zach Gilmour (the ride organizer and owner of Zach's Bikes) explaining how the ride could potentially be canceled due to fire hazards and air quality. For me, it's not just the fires near Crater Lake that are a factor. You see, I'm DRIVING up there (leaving San Diego on the 13th) and planning to do some rides along the way. I plan to take a somewhat coastal route on the way there, then an inland path on the way back. And guess what...there are quite a few fires along the way, all in various stages of growth or containment. As I type this, the Mendocino Complex fire has just become the second-largest in California history. The Carr/Redding fire has destroyed so much and killed so many, but the air might be clear enough for me to stick to my camping plans in areas like Shasta Lake because it's already 45% contained and I'm not going to be in that area until August 19th.  

Suffice to say I'm rethinking my ride plans. I have limited time (need to be in Santa Barbara for a family wedding by the 24th), but I have resources. I have money, a big-ass Sprinter cargo van, and plans to go near some pretty devastated areas. My heart compels me to look into ways I might be able to directly help victims of the fires. Most people have insurance, but most people also have totally inadequate savings to help them through tough times, like when they're waiting for the insurance company to shell out some money. Maybe a stranger showing up in their burned-out neighborhood with food, drinks, and a little cash to help them through the day might be a sight for sore, smoke-singed eyes? I don't know. I like to leave a positive emotional footprint, and that's more important than how many miles I ride on this trip. We'll see how this unfolds.