Santa Fe Century

This past weekend I took a drive to Santa Fe to do the Santa Fe Century on Sunday with my buddy Kin from bikejournal. This ride was a good training ride for Triple Bypass, since Santa Fe sits around 7000' and the century includes a bit of climbing. I've only done two other centuries before, and the last one was over a year ago, so I definitely need some long rides.

I visited my friend Misty in Los Lunas (south of Albuquerque) the day before I drove to Santa Fe. Misty has a bit of a tortoise collection, so I took a picture of three of her eleven tortoises with her son Reeve looking on.



The next day I drove to Santa Fe, where I hooked up with Kin to see the town (I'd never been there). We went for a short ride on Saturday through the plaza and up historic Canyon road. Kin tried to draft off a few other bikers, but they left him in the dust (or their exhaust)!



Saturday afternoon we picked up our ride packets. We both had registered for the ride early in the year, and I had number 7, while Kin had 11. Team 7-11! When I realized that over 2500 people would be riding, I was pretty pumped up about our numbers. Kin got some good pics of us sporting our "7-11", so maybe I'll post something if he sends me one.

We started the century ride around 0630 on Sunday. It was perfect weather, cool in the morning without a cloud in the sky. Kin is much better than me at taking pics while on the bike.



Sometime not long after taking that picture, Kin said a guy rode past me, glanced my way, saw my number, and took a double take, like "who is SHE?". Made me laugh!

Not far into the ride, I started to realize that the people on this century were much more fit than the cyclists on the rides I usually do. I saw a lot of Triple Bypass jerseys and Enchanted Circle jerseys, and everyone had cut calves and around 7% body fat. Even the ladies! I knew I was way out of my league, and realized I should have been training more rather than sitting on my couch watching hockey and drinking beer for the past month.

Anyway, back to the ride itself. There is a pretty steep hill called "Heartbreak" around mile 39ish. Everyone was talking about it before we got there, and I was kind of pooh-poohing this "hill", but when I got on it, it was a BEAR. As we approached the climb, Kin said "I see suffering!" Some guy riding next to us said "I FEEL suffering!" Tons of people were walking on the shoulder, and others were weaving back and forth all over the road. Kin pranced right up it, and I managed to ride up while wheezing and sucking wind loudly. Fortunately, everyone around me was sucking wind just as noisily! Kin took a pic as I was topping the hill, so if he sends that one, I'll post it as well! After Heartbreak Hill, we found a train of guys hauling ass, and we hopped on for a good ten miles. Unfortunately, between the fast train and the climb, I rather burnt myself out. At the next SAG stop I thought I was going to pass out. I told Kin I'd have to take it easy for the rest of the ride if I was going to finish. Just out of this rest stop we came upon the one solid obstacle of the day.....a mobile home sitting across the road!



The next thirty miles were easy on a flat road with a bit of a tailwind, and we made good time. I was feeling much better at the SAG stop at the end of our eastbound leg. Now we turned north back toward Santa Fe, but this is where the wind hit us. The next forty miles were an absolute slog on an uphill grade through the wind. It was rather disheartening, and at the next two SAG stops you'd see people on the side of the road laying down or looking like they were going to barf. We just kept plugging along. Kin kept busy taking pictures as we rode, and I kept busy looking at my feet and trying not to think about how much my butt hurt. Anyway, after what seemed like hours of pedalling, we finally made it to the finish! Kin bought us a couple of massages at the end, and we went out for some Italian food after the ride. I can't say I felt great through the whole ride, but I finished with some energy, and I know now that I can do a century at altitude. I also know I need to train a lot more if I have a hope of finishing Triple Bypass.

Anyway, it was a great trip all around, a great ride, and great company!

Mt. Lemmon III

Third time's a charm! I finally made it up Mt. Lemmon in Tucson. No time constraints with carpoolers, no sleet and hail, no nothing to stop me from reaching the ever elusive top of that mountain on my bike!

GABA Tucson puts on a yearly supported ride up Mt. Lemmon, and I took the day off to ride. Those folks do an awesome job (somebody there must LOVE food as much as I do) with SAG stops and support. Four stops up the mountain with more great food than I could ever have hoped for on a ride....Cheetos, Olives, cheese and crackers, V8, cinnamon rolls, etc, etc. I think I actually gained weight on this ride even though it was over four hard hours of climbing to get to the top of the mountain. Here's a picture of Brian with two guys on unicycles who rode up the mountain:



And here's Brandi watching as the two unicyclists make it up to ski valley.


After arriving at Ski Valley, I decided to continue up the unmaintained road a ways. There are grades of 15%+ on that road which is in lousy shape. After three quarters of a mile I figured I'd had enough fun and turned around for a harrowing descent riding the brakes while avoiding potholes. According to one GPS, my total climb was about 7500' in 31.7 miles. The scenery was great, the people were awesome, and I'm glad I can finally say I conquered the mountain.

Twisting in the wind. Reader beware of Rant.

April 17, 2008 was a sad day for the pilot group of my former airline (let's call us "west"). It's the day that the pilots of the airline we aquired (who outnumber us almost two to one...we'll call them "east") managed to throw out our union (ALPA, which has represented airline pilots for 75 years) in favor of their own in house union, USAPA (which west calls UCRAPA, USCABA, or U SAP ASSES), whose sole stated purpose is to screw over the west pilots for their gain.

I know my one reader of this blog has said he doesn't know a lot of the background or what I'm talking about when I complain about this state of affairs, so I'll start from the beginning:

In May of '05 I was happily working for a friendly little airline with great people that was making money and growing. That month, out of the blue, our CEO announces that we are aquiring a bankrupt carrier that is a couple weeks from going out of business (funny enough, said bankrupt carrier is from my original hometown). A lot of outside money was gotten together to make the deal work, and a new airline was born of two old ones. The bankrupt carrier's name was kept, since it had been in business for half a century longer and was more well known internationally. My little west carrier, although a major airline, had only been in business for 22 years and wasn't really known outside of the western United States. West brought about 1800 pilots to the new company, and east had around 3000 active pilots with probably 1800 who were laid off.

Anyway, part of any merger is trying to work out labor issues and joining labor groups. I'll only talk about the pilots here.

Pilots of both our airlines were represented by the same union, ALPA. www.alpa.org
ALPA has a merger policy in place to facilitate the merging of two seniority lists. One of the tenents of this policy are that there should be no windfall for one group at the expense of another, and there are other guidelines. ALPA also has a procedure to follow in the case of a merger. First, the two groups will try to negotiate a merged seniority list. If that doesn't work, they will move to mediation. If this fails, they will get an independent arbitrator who will, after days and weeks of hearings and evidence from both sides, come up with a seniority list through "final and binding arbitration".

West figured that east should be stapled to the bottom of our list, since they were going to be walmart greeters in a couple weeks anyway. East figured that since they'd been in business longer, their pilots should rule the list, and their furloughed guys should come back on top of our senior captains. Obviously, east and West were unable to reach an agreement through negotiation or mediation, so the East struck for arbitration. An arbitrator was agreed upon, the sides presented their cases, and in May of '07 the arbitrator's award came out. As expected, neither side got what they wanted. East had their top 500 pilots put on the top of the new list, and from there it was a merge of relative positions. Mid-level captains were of one company were merged with mid-level captains of the other, junior first officers were meshed together as well, and so on and so on. There were about 1800 east pilots who were laid off at the time of the merger, with no hope of coming back, and they were put on the bottom of the list. Over the past three years, they have all been recalled and those who wished to return have gotten flying jobs back with the new company. Anyway, nobody lost their seat, and the solution seemed the only fair way to go. With the seniority squabble over, the West hoped to move forward and negotiate a new contract hand in hand with the east that included better pay and benefits for all.

Little did we know what we were dealing with.

East was livid. They had been shat upon by their management for 20 years, and had hoped to get it all back and more off the backs of the west pilots. When this didn't happen, they went into war mode against the west pilots. I won't discuss the ensuing year, but it included badmouthing the west in the media, refusing to try to negotiate a new joint contract with the west, flipping us off in the east hubs when they saw us, and other rather immature behavior. They were able to keep separate operations with their antics, and due to two other arbitrated decisions, they've been taking all the growth and replacement airplane positions, half of which the west was supposed to get when the two sides merged and got a joint contract. They didn't feel they were getting enough blood out of us, and eventually it came down to them resting their hopes on throwing out our union and hopefully, with the union, throwing out the new seniority list and imposing one of their liking. The USAPA founders made it clear that they were out to screw us. They came out west for one single road show to "talk" to us about their "union", but it was only because the NMB required them to do so before holding a representation election, and USAPA left very quickly without actually answering any questions or concerns of the west pilots.

On April 17th, the NMB representation vote closed. I was an hour into a flight from San Francisco to Philly when the unexpected results came over the wire. USAPA had won the election with 54% of the vote. That meant that about 500 of the east guys had voted to keep ALPA, but it wasn't enough. Immediately, my captain and I felt naked, like we were twisting in the wind. USAPA has no reps for the west pilots. All the safety nets, programs, backing, etc that ALPA had provided for pilots were gone. Don't bust an altitude now, you'll probably get fired. We've been left hanging, just because of the greed and self entitlement attitude of the nastiest group of pilots I've had the "pleasure" to run across. Hotel issues? Tough. Crew meal issues? Too bad, so sad. Company not following the contract? Oh, we don't have a grievance committee anymore.

So what's USAPA's next move? Well, we've been operating under separate contracts since the merger, since we are still two separate groups. West has a much better contract, more pay, more days off, better work rules. East's contract really sucks. USAPA has said that they plan to present management with their lousy contract, with just the tiniest of improvements for the east pilots, along with their version of a seniority list. This would mean a pay cut and cut in work rules for west pilots, all so the eastholes can staple us to the bottom of their seniority list. And USAPA "claims" that it had planned to represent all pilots, east and west. GMAFB.

In the airlines, a SCAB has always been defined as a pilot who would cross a picket line, essentially stabbing his fellow pilot in the back for his own gain. Seems to us that the east group is nothing but a bunch of scab wannabes, stabbing us in the back while they try to get something out of us. Never in a million years did I think that a group of people could be so evil.

So they won a battle. But the war is not over. The war will drag on in the courts and on the tarmac for years to come. Greed and self entitlement and stupidity will be their downfall.

In the meantime, for the first time in 11 years, I'm without ALPA or anyone on my side. I am more pessimistic about my future and my career than I've ever been, and that includes when I got laid off for a couple months after 9/11. Thankfully I have my 1800 brothers and sisters with me, as well as the other airline pilots who can see those scabs for what they are and are supporting our cause.

I realize this isn't humorous, cycling related, or anything similar, but I felt I had to get the whole thing off my chest. Hopefully I'll have something more positive to type about tomorrow so this gets buried.

Mt. Lemmon

Okay, a friend convinced me to copy this write up of a recent ride to my blog since I seem to have abandoned said blog. He's right! I kinda lost interest in talking about my boring self. But I'll reprint this story that I put up on BikeJournal. Maybe it'll respark my interest in blogging. Or not.

Mt. Lemmon ride of April 9!

Brian (BDSDVM) and I decided to ride Mt. Lemmon today as part of our training for TBP. The forecast called for a windy day with temps a little cooler than usual, which was fine with me since I'm not a big fan of the heat. I got to the appointed meeting place a little early and stopped at McD's for a sandwich, where I met an out of town cyclist. He had on shorts and a short sleeve jersey, and asked if I thought it would be enough clothing for him to climb the mountain. I told him he might like to take some arm warmers as it would be a bit cool at the top. Little did I know!
Brian showed up somewhat before 9, and I noticed that he was in shorts and a short sleeve jersey as well. I had arm and leg warmers on. Brian said it would warm up quick as we started our ride, and it did! I don't even think we'd made it to the mountain before I stripped off the arm and leg warmers. At this point Brian remarked that the skies were quite a bit cloudier than he'd expected, but that the forecasters said all the weather would stay a couple hundred miles north in the White Mountains.
We started our climb, and although I was a slow slug, it was a rather pleasant ride:



There was quite a bit of wind, and around mile 6, it started to rain on us. Not a lot of rain, just enough to get our attention. It rained on and off until we were almost to windy point, when a light snow started to fall. We were in good spirits and it wasn't too bad, so we carried on. As we got to windy point, the sun came out and we took a short break.
Just beyond windy point it was very pretty, and I stopped to take some pics:





A mile or two beyond this, the light snow began again. I think it was at this point that Brian turned to me and said "Howard would be proud of us".
We laughed and carried on. It was still not bad out, and as Brian said, "It could be worse". Then it did get worse.....the snow turned to snow/ice pellets. They started sticking to Brian's arm hair, so I took a picture.



We kept on trucking as it got colder and the ice pellets continued to fall. I honestly thought the weather would blow over and it would get sunny again. Several times Brian mentioned that we were crazy. We realized it would be safer to keep going up than to try the full descent at that point back through the weather. Unfortunately, at mile 21, the climb turns into a descent for a few miles, and at this point all those snow pellets had begun to melt on the road, leaving standing water and slush, which managed to find its way into my shoes and all over my back. I looked at my saddle and there was an inch of white stuff sitting there. Brian told me to be very careful on the descent, and then I lost him. I was really freezing at this point since we weren't generating heat climbing anymore, and all my concentration revolved around trying not to kill myself. There was no way I was pulling a camera out to take pics since I was barely able to keep from falling. That was the longest two or three miles I ever rode, and I had to stop twice because I couldn't feel my fingers anymore. So I stopped and put them all in my mouth! I don't really think it helped, and at some point I wondered if there was any heat in my body at all. Sometime around now I started to hear thunder, and meanwhile the snow pellets continued to fall. All I could think about was wiping out on the slippery road and freezing a slow death or getting hit by lightning! I knew Brian wouldn't be able to come back and find me!
Eventually the road turned back uphill, and Brian was waiting for me. He said his hands were so cold that he couldn't use his brakes! When I reached him I told him that I had to get my leg warmers back on (I already had the arm warmers on from Windy Point or somewhere). Poor Brian, with no other clothing at all, held my bike while I looked like a monkey using a tool trying to get these leg warmers on. My legs wouldn't bend and my hands wouldn't work, but eventually I got dressed. We pressed on uphill in the hammering ice, and I was shaking so bad that the bike was wobbling all over the place. Brian mentioned that there was another mile or so of uphill and then another mile of downhill, and I knew that I couldn't handle anymore downhill in those conditions. As we reached the top of that hill, I saw a sign and asked Brian if there was shelter there. He said that there was a bathroom, and I told him that I was stopping there to wait out the weather. Being a good sport, he agreed.
We got under the shelter of the outhouse, and I took a couple of pictures of the white stuff coming down.





Brian was able to get cell service and called his wife to come pick us up. We were both shaking uncontrollably, but settled in for an hour wait.
Not long after that, a pickup truck stopped and a woman jumped out and went into the restroom.


When the lady came out of the restroom, she asked if we'd like a ride to Summerhaven. We were all over that! Loaded our bikes on top of the wood in the back of the truck, and gladly accepted a ride the last two miles to town, where we figured we'd sit in the cafe and wait for Brian's wife.

We ordered food and hot drinks, and were still shaking uncontrollably the entire time we were in the place. A gentleman sitting at another table mentioned that he was heading back down to Tucson in his pickup, and would we like a ride? YES, we would! Brian called his wife to tell her not to come, and our second good samaritan of the day got us loaded up and we proceeded back down the mountain.

As we headed downhill, it was nothing but snow, sleet, and FOG! Here's a pic very near the nice rock formation that I took a picture of on the way up:



Halfway down the mountain, I started to thaw out and feel like I might live to tell this tale. Up until then I wasn't sure. The nice gentleman dropped me off at my car, I loaded up my bike and headed home. I see that Brian made it home from his post on the Mt. Lemmon thread. We both figured that nobody would believe our story, but this is one ride I'll never forget. I've never been so uncomfortable in my life!

I only got 27 miles, but feel like I've been beaten with a two by four! My chest hurts, I assume from uncontrollable shaking, and a couple of my fingertips feel like there are needles imbedded in them, but I'm comfy and well fed at home. Funny thing, there was hardly a cloud in the sky between Tucson and Phoenix! Anyway, we owe so much to a few good people that helped us out, and I have a lot of "paying it forward" to do.
Brian mentioned that I still haven't gotten to the top of Mt. Lemmon yet, so I guess I need to head back down soon to try again! As soon as this memory fades, anyway!

Picacho Century '08

Last year I did my second ever century during this February ride out of Tucson. This year I planned to repeat, riding with BikeJournalists JulieB, EricofAZ and Savagewolf, a temporary Arizonan that I had not met before. EricofAZ wasn't at the ride start at the appointed time, so we took off riding with BDSDVM and his friend Brandy (Brandi?).
Half a mile into the ride, I was pulling up the rear when I heard a rustling sounds in front of me. I watched as Savagewolf pulled a bag of Cheetos (my FAVORITE) out of his jersey pocket and dangled them behind himself! Julie was riding beside him and about fell off her bike laughing.

BDSVM and Brandy (i?) were planning to do the metric, and as we followed them along we missed our turn for the century. At that point we (I) decided that the metric was far enough, and that Julie and I would try for our fastest metric since the guys were pulling at a nice pace. At the first SAG stop I called Eric, who was lost somewhere off the route but said he'd catch up eventually.
The ride was very pleasant, great conversation, nice pace. At the halfway point GABA had sub sandwiches, so we sat and had lunch with Picacho looking very pretty in the background:




After lunch, we were about 2 miles into the return trip when we passed Eric going the other way. He turned around to ride with us, but had been riding hard for 31 miles with no breaks, which wasn't conducive to my fastest metric plans. He told us to carry on, so Savagewolf and I took off. We hooked up with a couple guys and had a paceline of 21-24 mph going into the wind. This is not my usual type or pace of riding, and I started to get lightheaded, wondering how long I could hold on. Thank goodness the last SAG stop appeared! Wolf and I waited for the others, and when they finally showed up, Julie conceded that I would have the fastest metric on Joe's thread. While admitting defeat, she managed to open the bag of Cheetos that Savagewolf had given me! I wrestled the bag off her and managed to get some Cheetos in my mouth before she could get it back.




Brandy (i?) was fighting a cold and feeling ill, so Savagewolf and I took off again while the others took it easy for the rest of the ride. Wolf pretty much pulled me the last 15 miles. My bike computer is screwed up, so I'm using his computer numbers. I was two feet off his tail for almost the whole ride, so it should be accurate! This was by far my fastest metric ever. I really had a great time, pushed myself to ride like I usually don't, and met some great bikejournal people that I hope to ride with again.

On the way back to Phoenix, Julie and I stopped at the "Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Ranch" so I could take some pictures of ostrich legs for a forum thread on bikejournal about showing off calves. Here are the four of us and our hot legs.




Anyway, we pulled up to the big old fenced in area that the ostriches are in. I got out of the car and walked up to the fence with my camera to take pictures of the few ostriches that were hanging out in that area. One ostrich next to the fence lay down on the ground, and I thought that maybe it was posing for me. Next thing I know, another ostrich climbs aboard and those two start going at it! I almost fell over! Afterward, I think the ostrich had designs on Julie.....the two of them were making eyes at each other.



Anyway, great day for a bike ride, and I'm pretty pleased with my time. And I didn't even whine during the ride! Maybe because I couldn't catch my breath.

BowWow

This weekend, BowWow from BikeJournal came to Arizona from Canada for a visit and some biking. He is originally from this area, so it's kind of a homecoming for him. On Friday the 4th, he and JulieB and I took a nice ride to Saguaro Lake from the northeast valley. I just thought the pictures were pretty, so I wanted to post some.

The hair saga

Sometime around Christmas, I decided I was sick (again) of my hair. It's streaky, dry, got some gray, and overall annoying, so I decided to go to a salon and have it colored. I've never had my hair dyed before and sure as heck didn't want to screw it up myself.
Met the stylist and told her I wanted the color to be as close to my roots as possible (plain old ugly brown). She mixed up some potion, applied it, and let me sit a while. While she was putting the paint on my head, she kept saying that my hair wouldn't be red at all, but a nice, warm brown. I had no idea why she kept saying that, when I never asked about red and my hair isn't naturally red. Well, after the hocus pocus, the hair is dried and lo and behold, it's RED! Not bright red or anything, but kind of a dark red. I was sorta shocked, but went home thinking that maybe the lights of the salon made me look different.

Nope, the next morning I woke up with red hair. I decided to keep it and try it out for a while.

Had a trip to Sacramento, where I met up with PansyPalmetto from bikejournal. She is a brassy redheaded cancer survivor (maybe more accurately living WITH cancer), and we did the town and took pictures of our adventures. She said that yes, my hair was definitely red, but it looked like a natural red.

By the time I got home from my trip, I'd seen enough red and called the salon to have it fixed. Went in to a different stylist, and she redid my head. Now it's not quite so red, but it is an incredibly dark color of some sort. Not sure I like it, but I quit! No more hair dye for me!

Fast forward to this evening. In typical mtkitchn fashion, I waited until the last minute to look for something to wear to a fancy restaurant for a New Year's Eve "date". And I'll be damned if everything in my not so extensive clothing collection doesn't clash with this new hair color. I've decided to give up, open a bottle of wine, and hope that the fashion fairy drops by and gives me an outfit before 7pm. Or that I'm too drunk to care what I look like.

Hope you all have a great New Year's Eve and a wonderful '08!