In the past 7 years since I bought my motorcycle I’ve covered a lot of road. About 45,000 miles worth. There’s a lot of places I love to go again and again because the rides are just so mesmerizing. Today I wanted to go somewhere I hadn’t been yet though. As I was looking on the map, I noticed a small lake waaaaay up in the Sierra’s called Lake Thomas Edison. It looked pretty cool, it had a paved road, and it was close enough to go there and back in one day, so I entered it into the GPS and took off on my adventure.

To get to Edison you have to go through Shaver and past Huntington lake, both places I’ve been to many times. The ride up was nice a cool, with little traffic. A perfect ride. So I get up to the turn off to go to Edison and the road narrows down to a small two laner that begins to wind up into the mountains. No big deal, I’ve ridden a ton of mountain roads and this was expected.

After a while (I’m not sure how many miles because it’s hard to judge on these slow winding roads ) the road narrows to a single lane. Now this is not a huge deal, but still it makes you a little nervous because these are mountain roads which means there are no shoulders so it makes passing other cars kind of difficult. I’m getting worried.

A few miles later, the road degenerates into something that can only be loosely described as a road. It was more like a trail that somebody just poured some quick-crete over. This road was BAD! Barely the width of an economy car, the road snaked through the mountains, up and down, back and forth. Long portions of it were walled on the right with solid granite and dropping off to my left into oblivion. No guard rails here. Just about 8 feet of patchy, sandy concrete to ride on and one wrong move would take me into the abyss. This was some scary stuff.

The worst part of riding a horrible road is just not knowing what’s ahead. Will the road end all together? Will it turn to dirt? if it gets too bad how will I turn around? On top of that, it was such a treacherous pass that I couldn’t get the bike above 10 miles an hour for most of the 15 or 20 miles. So it literally took me FOREVER to get to the end.

I was determined to get to the lake though, even though a bike like mine should have NEVER been on that road. But I focused, and eventually I got there. The trip back was a little easier. Amazing how that little bit of familiarity helps with the nerves. The traffic was way busier though with people heading out to camp and fish, so it was really hard passing cars on that tiny road. I finally made it out to the main road after an hour or so and it felt so good to be on wide, smooth concrete again. I stopped in Shaver for a few beers and some relaxation and then headed the rest of the way home.

Quite an adventure. Check out the pictures here.

Today I rode my first sanctioned ride; The Millerton Metric. 71 miles, 3500 feet of climbing. Sound tough? It was extremely tough. But it’s really part of a much larger ride called the Climb to Kaiser which apparently is one of the 10 hardest rides around. But let’s not talk about that.

The ride started off well, we got on the road at 6am for a 23 mile jaunt through town and into the foothills to the infamous first climb of the day: Wildcat Grade. It also happened to be the place where I got my first flat tire of the day. Luckily the group that organizes this ride is VERY organized and a dude pulled up in a pickup with a bike stand, tools, and plenty of tubes. It took him about 5 minutes to fix me up and get me back on the road. These guys are awesome! So with a new tire it was time to climb Wildcat. Wildcat is only 3.5 miles long but is extremely steep. I knew it would be the most difficult climb of the day for me. But I managed to get up it and stopped at the summit for the first rest stop.

After a brief rest, it’s 3.5 miles down the back of Wildcat at speeds of around 40Mph. It’s amazing how much more fun it is to go downhill than it is coming up! We had heard some bad news though about a rider who had a cow run out into the road so we were a little cautious. Apparently he hit the cow pretty hard and broke his collar bone. Cycling is dangerous! I had a little scare with a farm animal myself, dodging a rooster who was goofing off in the road. After that though, it was mostly smooth sailing until the turn to head up Burrough Valley road.

This is where I got my next flat. I was trailing Doug and we noticed a clicking sound coming from his wheel. I came up behind him and saw something sticking out of his tire. We stopped to take a closer look and realized it was a safety pin! It was at that point I realized my back tire was going flat again, so we were both going to need to do a change. We had the equipment to do the job but lucky for us, a support vehicle came buy with spare tubes and a real pump. We spent 15 minutes fixing the bikes and then went on to kill the long grinding climb to the next rest stop.

At the stop we ran into our buddy Roderick from church who was working the stop. He’s a great dude and it was cool seeing a familiar face. We rested and chatted a bit and then headed out.

From there the route goes up to Hwy 168, over to Prather an then down to Millerton lake. At this point we were started to feel the burn and Dave was cramping up. We made it to the Millerton rest stop to power up, but it was now 100° and we were really starting to feel fatigued. With only 13 miles to go though, we weren’t about to quit.

We started the decent to the city and honestly, this is where the ride got extremely tough. The heat was becoming unbearable and every little climb felt like a mountain. Once I reached the city, I was thanking God for flat ground but even then it was a chore to pedal. My legs just didn’t have anything left, the heat was draining me of my energy, and to top it off, I was up against a headwind. It honestly felt like I was just letting the weight of my legs push the pedals down because I could not muster enough of my own strength to really crank hard.

We finally pulled up to the finish line 6 hours and 15 minutes after beginning our trek. This was over an hour faster than we had planned for ourselves and that felt really good, especially with the long rests we had at the rest stops.

Final thoughts? I am stoked. 8 weeks after I bought my first bike, I managed to complete a 71 miler. I am very pleased with how we did and now we have a benchmark for next year. It’s been an outstanding time of training and fellowship and I’m really glad I took on this hobby.

So now I’m just kicking it with a cheeseburger and a beer. No more dieting today, it’s time to celebrate!

The big day for me anyway. I’m riding the Millerton Metric which is a 70 mile ride through the Sierra foothills outside of Fresno/Clovis. It’s actually part of a longer, more strenous ride called the Climb to Kaiser, which is about 150 miles and features some insane climbing. But hey, you gotta walk before you can run.

I bought my bike just over 8 weeks ago. Before that I had not ridden a bicycle in years and had never ridden any sort of distance. I bought it to exercise and immediately I discovered many people I knew were avid bicyclists. My buddy Dave, who plays percussion at church, invited me to ride with him and some friends who were training for the Millerton Metric and so I started riding with them every Saturday.

Though I enjoyed riding, I decided I needed a goal to reach for. It’s not enough for me to do something just for kicks. So I set a goal of riding a 100 mile ride within 60 days. The Millerton Metric fell into that timeframe and is roughly 100 kilometers…. heck, that’s close enough right? So I decided that would be my goal.

So tomorrow is the day! I’m excited and worried all at once. I’m worried about having to stop on the hill climbs. In training I’ve just not had enough strength to get up those hills in one go. But hey, I’m 41 years old and I’ve only been riding for 8 weeks. My goal tomorrow is to finish, and do it in a reasonable amount of time. If I can do that, I’ll be a happy man.

Say a prayer for Doug, Dave and I.

Today was a pretty busy news day. Two icons of the entertainment world Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson have passed today.

Whenever celebrities die it’s a big deal. The news goes crazy, people talk in the office, and these days Twitter and Facebook go nuts with activity. Everyone wants to know what happened and be the first to share any new sliver of news.

What also happens though, is people get pissed off about the attention these events get. As I was following the data stream out there on the intertubes, I noticed several rude comments from strangers, but more surprising, from some Christian friends, that implied that following such stories is a waste of time and we shouldn’t be making a big deal about them. One person started throwing out stats on AIDS deaths as if dying from AIDS is somehow more noble than dying in other ways. One conversation regarding a child dying in a car accident today elicited a response from another who said “i’m glad that you have something worthwhile to pray about now, not Michael Jackson”. Wow. The callousness of these statements, especially those from Christians, amazes me.

Here’s the deal; Yeah our culture makes a big deal about celebrities. And that’s wrong. It’s wrong to put people on a pedestal and worship them for simply making use of the gifts only God has allowed them to use. But I don’t think it’s wrong to mourn their deaths.

The fact is that celebrities are artists. They are people with God given talents who create music, and movies, and pictures and stories that touch people in meaningful ways. Yes it’s sad that thousands die of AIDS daily, their deaths should not be trivialized. But honestly, none of them wrote the song that I was listening to during my first dance, or the movie I took my first date to, or the book that sparked my young imagination. This is why artists hold a place in our hearts.

Why then is it unacceptable for people to be saddened at the loss of a Farrah or Michael? Their work has touched millions of people. Who are we do minimize their deaths because we don’t like their art or because they were imperfect people? We are all imperfect people in God’s eyes.

We are told not to worship idols in the Bible, but we are also told to have compassion for others. If anything, these deaths should serve as a reminder of our mortality and all of our need for a savior.

Well, today was the last major chance to ride before next weekends metric century. We decided to push it a little harder today. We took off up Auberry Road to the casino and pushed our way up the first hill of Sky Harbor road. This is a brutal hill for me. Not very long, less than half a mile, but very steep. I’ve failed to climb it in one go several times, but not today. Today I rode to the top without stopping! Yeah that feels good.

From there we rode down through Friant, crossed over the river, up the long climb of Rd 206 and around to the west side of Millerton Lake. We turned on Millerton road and climbed to the high point of that road which is also extremely steep. At the top, we turned around and finished the loop back to the church.

It was a really good ride today. A little over 2 hours and a lot of climbing. Next week, the Millerton Metric! Am I ready? I kinda don’t think so. I could use another few months to train, but I set this goal and I’m going to do it no matter how much it hurts.

Wish me luck!

A week or so ago my counterpart over in our marketing department sends me an email and says we have a bunch of free tickets to a concert by a guy named Andre Rieu. “Andre Who?” you ask? Yeah, exactly. So I looked him up and he’s a violinist/conductor/whatever and he plays all around the world with his orchestra in tow and apparently he’s a pretty big deal. So I figured, what the heck, I’m always open for something new and interesting, so I grabbed a few tickets and my wife and I went last night.

Now I’ve never been to any type of orchestra or opera or anything of that sort. My only conception of this type of show is what I’ve seen in movies, so I fully expected this really stuffy atmosphere with a snotty, arrogant conductor leading a bunch of snooty musicians through some really boring music. That’s a pretty bleak outlook isn’t it? In fact, my buddy called me as we were walking in and invited us to have a beer and cigar across town, and as I was looking at the predominantly over-60 crowd, I nearly took him up on it. But we were there and we went in anyway.

What I experienced was actually one of the most thoroughly entertaining shows I have ever been to. Honestly, I’m still blown away. Andre Rieu is not some snooty conductor, he’s actually incredibly funny and works the crowd extremely well. He’s a guy who seems to honestly love playing music for people, and completely lacks the arrogance that so many musicians at his level have. His orchestra has 50 pieces and because of the way his show is designed, they aren’t just sitting there playing like robots, but they are actually rocking out and playing to the crowd.

The music was widely varied. Rieu played all sorts of pieces and I was surprised at how many I recognized. The musicianship was of course impeccable and honestly it would have been killer just to sit and listen to such great people play, but what really made the show dynamite was the stuff happening around the music. Often times throughout the show, there were sight gags going on, related to the music. For instance, he introduced a spanish bull fighting piece and told a “random” lady in the audience to be careful because she was wearing red. Then during the piece, two guys in a bull suit, complete with smoke coming from the nostrils, romp through the crowd and end up chasing the lady in red out through the back doors. It was very clever, and pretty funny.

At other times the musicians would interact with each other during the music depending on the theme of the piece. One guy pretending to get sick into another musicians tuba, another lady downing a glass of champagne and acting drunk through the rest of the song, it was just really, really clever and entertaining. Far more than just a music recital, it was a full on theatrical production.

I think my favorite parts though were the two pieces that each featured a female opera singer. I’d always envisioned opera singers as fat girls with viking horns singing some crazy songs in Italian or something. The girls were not fat! They did sing in Italian, but also in English, and I was blown away at the clarity and beauty of their voices. The incredible range these women have, and the control over thier voices was mind blowing. It was definitely the best part of the evening for me. in fact, I think I’d like to go see a full on opera at some point now.

I can’t say enough about Andre Rieu, and the experience reminds me that it’s important to stay open minded, and be willing to be exposed to new things in life or risk missing out on some really fantastic experiences.

Here’s a link to Andre’s website where you can check out some YouTube videos and such.

http://www.andrerieu.com/

This is an issue we touched upon the other night at our Bible study. It’s kind of interesting because though we are all seasoned musicians playing music at church, I don’t think there’s any of us that really dig popular Christian music. Why? Well, because it mostly sucks.

Now let’s distinguish between worship music and popular Christian music. Worship music is what you hear at church. It’s written to glorify God, encourage us, and lift our spirits. This is good stuff, and I really enjoy playing it. Popular Christian music is the stuff you hear on Christian radio. It’s designed to sell records to people of the Christian faith.

The problem with popular Christian music is that it’s so cookie cutter and so generic. I signed up to take surveys for the local Christian music station and they sent me my first one today. As I was listening to the songs and rating them, I discovered that with the exception of 3 or 4 songs out of about 50, they all sounded EXACTLY the same. It’s like there’s a sucky music factory out there in the middle of the bible belt stamping out these horrifically simple and uninteresting songs. Honestly, most of them sound like something on the Disney channel, or in a soft drink commercial, or hear around a campfire.

It’s unfortunate because there’s so many creative people out there, but for some reason they feel like they have to mimic everyone else rather than do something off the wall. And the record companies are so bent on profits that they aren’t willing to take chances cultivating new and interesting artists. There’s a certain amount of bias though from Christians themselves. A lot of people think “Christian” means a certain style of music, rather than music having a certain lyrical content. All this combined makes for music that too often is somber and moody and boring.

Why can’t Christians rock? And not that goofy corporate version of rock, I mean really rock! I want AC/DC with clean lyrics. I want Metallica with a positive message. I want Slipknot with a Christian worldview.

Fortunately there are a few heavy bands with a Christian worldview hitting the scene, but what’s really interesting, is that it’s the secular world that’s embracing them, while Christian radio shuns them. Odd. Here’s a few heavy bands that I enjoy. If there’s anyone out there that knows of some other good ones, post them in the comments.

P.O.D.

Pillar

Project 86

As I Lay Dying

Red

Kutless

Do you ever pray out loud? To God? Like in front of other people? I didn’t think so. Most people I know don’t and never have. Let’s face it, it’s just something people don’t do. It’s scary right? I mean, having a heart to heart with the Almighty Creator in front of other people? No way man. That’s too much like a speech. Everyone’s going to be judging your prayer and then they’re gonna talk about how lame it was behind your back. And what if you don’t follow the proper prayer protocol or you commit a horrific breach of prayer etiquette? Public prayer is messy business man. It’s not for me. Ask my friends, I’m the guy that NEVER, EVER prays in front of people.

Well tonight I was forced to pray. No my bible study group didn’t hold me down and force me to pray and our group leader didn’t put me on the spot or anything. No, it was all God’s fault. We’re doing a study on what it means to be an artist in the church and this week’s study was on insecurity. As I’m going through the chapter it just struck me that I have really no insecurity whatsoever about playing drums. It doesn’t matter what the crowd size is, or what music we’re playing, it’s all good. No butterflies, no worries. And really that just comes from playing in front of large crowds of people several times a week for over 20 years. After a while you get confident in your abilities and it becomes comfortable. And so as I started to wonder how this chapter applies to me it suddenly struck me that this whole public prayer thing is an area that I constantly agonize over. See God’s sneaky like that.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that when God gives you a challenge that scares the crap out of you, it’s really an opportunity to grow into something better. And so you either take Him up on it, or you kick yourself forever for being a wussy. So I sucked it up and prayed. Out loud. Now I’m not bragging here, I’ll be honest. I took the easiest prayer request. Short and sweet baby. But I gotta say I was as nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. (Ok, I totally stole that saying from this website)

The good thing is, nobody chuckled at my lame attempt at prayer. Nobody said anything afterward. In fact, it was like nobody noticed that the no-prayer-guy prayed, even though I’m pretty sure my voice was a little wobbly, I might have prayed for something somebody else already prayed for, and I think I totally cut somebody else short in my nervousness. But it was all good.

The reason I’m even sharing this is because I think it’s important to share one’s fears and insecurities so we can laugh about them and move on. We all have our quirks. I have people tell me all the time how they can’t believe I can get up in front of 600 or so people in a church service and play like I do. And I’m thinking in my head… yeah, but I’m scared crapless of saying a simple prayer in front of four of my closest friends! Heck, I know a fully grown man who’s afraid of clowns! But the point is that no matter what we do, whether we’re playing the drums or praying or whatever… we should do it for God and God only. He doesn’t care if we aren’t the greatest drummer or the greatest public speaker. But He does care that we’re serving Him, pushing out of our comfort zone and most of all, growing in our faith.

I feel like I grew a tiny little bit today.

Ok, today’s ride was a bruiser! 46 miles with over 2500 feet of climbing. This is our final long ride before the Millerton Metric in two weeks.

It was just so rough today though. Wildcat stumped me, but the rest of the course went pretty well. The climbs were strenuous but I made them (with the exception of WildCat) without stopping. We got some great downhills runs too, at one point getting up to 36 Mph! That’s smoking for a bicycle in my opinion. When you’re on wheels that are 3/4 of an inch wide it feels like you’re doing 100.

I gotta say I am in so much pain right now though from just the mileage. It honestly feels like a truck ran over my legs.

It doesn’t help that I took a spill today too. I couldn’t get a foot out of the clips fast enough and ended up eating concrete. So I have a nice swollen bruise on my leg with some good abrasions. Then I went and played drums tonight which didn’t help.

Right now all I want is a cold beer and then I’m hitting the sheets.

Today Doug and I were the only ones riding and our first plan was to head to Prather and back. However, we have a huge ride in 3 weeks that has some wicked climbs in it, and so I’ve been wanting to get prepared for that. We decided instead to head to Millerton Store and then check out Sky Harbor road.

This is one brutal road. I’ve only been riding bicycles for 6 weeks and I think I’m just not giving myself enough time to acclimate. This road kicked my butt today.

As you turn onto Sky Harbor it heads straight up for about 3/4 of a mile at up to a 20% grade according to MapMyRide.com. Then it drops down and meanders around before climbing again. This one is longer, about 2.5 miles and every bit as steep in places. It’s a killer. We ended up stopping at the top of the second hill because we felt if we went down to the end, we’d never get back up it without killing ourselves.

It was a brutal day. Not really distance wise, but those climbs just have my legs and butt burning. Next weekend we’re doing a long ride to get a feel for what the Millerton Metric will be like. We’ll do 55 miles or so, should be interesting.

One other cool thing. Dave brought me a jersey on thursday and though it fits just a hair tight around my “love handle” area *blush*, I think it looks pretty good. But I have to give my team mates crap. They’ve been calling this thing the “cheese jersey” because it says Formaggio Capellini on it. Formaggio is a producer of all sorts of italian foods, including cheese, but capellini is pasta. So it should really be called the “pasta jersey”. Oh well.

CORRECTION: Well, isn’t the internet wonderful? After doing a little research I discovered that formaggio, while being the name of several businesses, is also the italian word for cheese. So the jersey, is in fact the “cheese jersey”. Actually, it’s the cheese and pasta jersey, but now I’m just being picky.