We did about a 2 1/2 hour ride out and back to the end of Redwood Retreat Road in the hills West of Gilroy. I did an extra half an hour by taking the long way to the start of the ride in southwest Morgan Hill. I took my Sirrus upright and practiced standing pedaling a lot. I’ve mentioned previously that I enjoy doing that, it’s like “running on air“. But on this ride, I did more of it uphill which is more challenging so it … [Read more...]

When I went hiking last Saturday, I ran into some friends I hadn’t seen since pre-Covid. We compared notes on how we did during that time. Some had not done as well as others, including one person who had gotten rather sedentary and was noticeably slower than the last time we hiked together. As I’ve discussed previously, I’m a big fan of making fitness fun. But I’ve noticed some peoples’ programs can be more fragile … [Read more...]

One of my local meetup groups was doing a hike in Coyote Open Valley Space so I rode my bike there to meet them. I took my Sirrus upright and did a lot of stand-up pedaling. We went on a four-mile hike and I took the long way home to help work off the Thanksgiving feast. At the start, the hills a a glorious green now At our first regroup, a nice vista point Lots of great views on this loop Coyote valley looking southeast, Morgan Hill … [Read more...]

I did a three-hour ride today, and for the majority of it, I wanted to stay at a heart rate of 120, which is a brisk aerobic pace for me. I discovered my gps watch has “alerts” you can set, one of which is a heart rate range, so I set that for 116-122, and it beeped!! at me whenever I went higher or lower. This was helpful, I didn’t have to keep glancing at the watch to spot-check my heart rate. It turns out if my level of … [Read more...]

My Tuesday group ride was mostly in the rural area to the Southeast of Morgan Hill and down towards Gilroy. We did some nice cruising on the flat part before heading into the east foothills. There are some upscale homes with large lots in that area, and one of the owners has a camel named Aladdin. He’s mostly a (very large) pet, although he tries to earn his keep by mowing the grass. He’s quite a handsome fellow, with beautiful … [Read more...]

Yesterday I rode my upright bike (no electric assist) with my local bike group. We went up into the hills west of town on a beautiful late fall day. I was “feeling my oats” so kept up with the faster folks in the front, and it felt great. Going over the hill on Sycamore Road, about to drop into Paradise Valley The vines are reaching their peak fall colors More of Paradise Valley Chesbro Reservoir Rancho Canada Del Oro … [Read more...]

From People for Bikes: “SRAM generously offered to match our $5,000 donation to Silver Stallion Bicycle & Coffee Works if we can get 200 riders to ride 100 miles by the end of the month. That’s 100 miles total, not all at once. Silver Stallion is a small nonprofit bicycle recyclery based in Gallup, NM, serving Dinétah (the Navajo Nation) and the surrounding communities with a mission to empower and develop youth and young adult … [Read more...]

I guess I didn’t have enough bionic body parts with artificial hips and heart valve, and screws attaching my rotator cuff. I just found out I need cataract surgery, so now the natural lenses in my corneas will be replaced by artificial ones. An optometrist had noticed what he thought was the beginning of a cataract in my right eye about 3 years ago. It must have progressed since then, as well as one forming in my left eye: in a recent visit … [Read more...]

My recumbent has pretty fat tires (45 mm/1.75″ in the rear, 38 mm/1.5″ in the front) and does surprisingly well on poor pavement or off-road. I certainly wouldn’t use it for a mountain bike, but it is equivalent to an upright “gravel bike”. I tried it out on some gravel and flat off-road as well as poor pavement today and it did fine. Today’s schedule called for easy day for the legs, hard day for the upper … [Read more...]

I had previously put an electric-assist kit on my Trek hybrid, which I enjoyed for a couple of years. Then it kept working its way loose. This was a “mid-drive” kit, with the motor located where the cranks are. I could tell it was in danger of damaging my bike frame, so I took it off. I was able to reuse the battery from that kit and get an electric-assist rear wheel kit for my recumbent. A downside of a rear-wheel kit is that you … [Read more...]

My Recumbent Group (Bay Area Recumbent Cyclist, AKA the BARC-O-loungers) rode from the Curtner light rail station in San Jose to a more rural trail, the Los Alamitos Creek trail, in South San Jose, and back. I rode 20 miles from my house to the start, did their 20-mile ride, then home, for a very pleasant 60-mile day. It was a challenge to get to the start, the first 16 miles were on quiet streets with good bike lanes, but the last 4 could have … [Read more...]

I’ve done a lot more reading on the science behind intermittent fasting in general and time-restricted eating in particular, and the evidence of the health benefits is sound, including reduced insulin resistance (which leads to overall metabolic health), improved triglycerides, and improved cholesterol [1,2,3]. Ref 4 is a great review article on the topic, for which full access is available here. The “metabolic switch” the … [Read more...]

This is a meetup group of pretty serious hikers I used to go with. This was my first time back with them since the pandemic. We did an 8 mile plus hike with close to 1500 feet of elevation gain in Santa Teresa park. The hike started at the Bernal-Gulnac-Joice Ranch entrance to the park. We hiked from there up and over to the main parking lot, then continued on the rocky ridge trail to Coyote peak, then looped back to the start. It was a great … [Read more...]

I’ve spent the last month experimenting with time-restricted eating, which I discussed here. It has gone well. I’d say the major benefit for me has been that once you get in the groove, it makes it easier to avoid compulsions to eat unhealthy food. I got on a schedule of eating lunch at about noon, and finishing dinner no later than six, so my “window” of eating was six hours. I found I was not hungry and didn’t … [Read more...]

There is a great restaurant at a local golf course to which my local bike group likes to ride. We especially like going on the first Tuesday of the month which is “Taco Tuesday”, where they serve their version of street tacos for only $2 each. We rode through the hills west of Morgan Hill, then over to the Coyote creek bike path and onto the restaurant. It was cloudy and threatening to rain most of the way but we lucked out and it was … [Read more...]

I thought it was appropriate to hike Mummy mountain on Halloween so that’s what I did with some friends yesterday. This is a small mountain accessed from the trailhead at the Mendoza Ranch entrance of Harvey Bear County Park. A great way to work off some overindulgence from the party we had yesterday. We had a great day for it. It was very foggy when I first got up at 7 AM but had cleared by 9:15 when we started hiking. The air felt fresh … [Read more...]

My group started out near San Juan Bautista, a town 25 miles South, so I carpooled with a friend with a van who could fit both of our bikes. We did an out and back, climbing San Juan Grade and dropping down onto the Monterey Bay Side, then out Old stage road which ends at the start of the De Anza trail, an off-road route back to San Juan Bautista. That would have been a good choice if it hadn’t rained so much this past weekend. I’ll … [Read more...]

The view from the top of Diana Road on the East side. I love how there’s so many tress it’s hard to tell there’s a town of population more than 40,000 between here and El Toro across the way I’m glad to be able to say this for the first time in many months. Yesterday I went for a ride in between rainstorms. I love how clear the sky gets. The picture is my reward after a tough climb up Diana. Today the second storm hit … [Read more...]

I went with my local group yesterday. It was supposed to be about a 30 mile outing but with had to go with plan B because a powerline was down, blocking one of the roads, and the alternate route was longer. This added about 15 miles. I did not mind as it was a beautiful day for it. We ended up going out and back on Croy road, west of Morgan Hill, where I used to live. The road ends at Uvas Canyon county park. Then it was back downtown for lunch. … [Read more...]

I went with my Bay Area Recumbent Cyclist Meetup Friends For an outing on the east side of San Francisco Bay starting in Emeryville. It was a fascinating ride, mostly on bike paths near the bay, with some beautiful scenery but also passing through more industrial areas. The first part started on a jetty out into the bay in Emeryville, then was actually parallel to a busy freeway with thankfully and concrete barrier separating us from it. Then we … [Read more...]