Before reading this, here's a little background. I've been trying to get my friends to join me on a weekly bike ride with varying degrees of success. I would send out weekly emails trying to convince people to come out and join me and resorted to different tactics. I went as far as to create an imaginary friend that I named Cornelius. I figured that if I acted as pathetic as possible, people would feel sorry for me and come out and ride with me out of guilt alone. It didn't work. Only when I threatened to stop spamming everyone with pathetic emails about my adventures with my imaginary cycling buddy, did I get any sort of response. I've decided to move all future updates to my blog so as not to bloat everyone's inbox. Now that you know the story, here is the latest update. Before you continue reading, please note that I officially have psychological problems from this endeavor.

The thunderstorm put a bit of a delay on the ride but did not cancel it. By about 12:30 PM, it was sunny enough to go out and ride. It was me and my imaginary friend Cornelius as it is most of the time. Cornelius was pretty quiet. He normally is a pretty chatty imaginary person. It was still a little cold at 12:30 but after checking the weather forecast on my phone, I decided to leave my sweatshirt at home. I usually end up taking it off after the first couple of miles anyway. This time I regretted not bringing it. I'm riding on Bollinger Canyon Road toward Alcosta Blvd and reach Mt. Cornelius and start my descent. It's a very steep hill and riding down it, I can easily hit speeds of over 35MPH. I worked up a little bit of a sweat on the first mile or so before and coming down that hill at that kind of speed with nothing but shorts and a t-shirt on, I started to shiver. All this is done while weaving through people walking along the sidewalk. Unfortunately, since they expanded that section of Bollinger Canyon Rd, they sacrificed the bike lane making me have to ride on the sidewalk.

I get to the bottom of the hill and Cornelius is giving me a hard time for complaining about the cold. He says that I'll warm up once we get on the trail. Riding along the sidewalk is probably more dangerous than riding on the street especially when you are riding the opposite way of traffic. As you ride along the sidewalk and come to an intersection, there are cars pulling out trying to make a right turn at the red light. Any smart driver will look to both the left and the right before pulling out but most people are only concerned about the traffic coming and finding an opportunity to pull out and make their turn. They are not concerned at all with any pedestrians or cyclists that actually have a green light to cross. If you're a pedestrian, you can easily stop when you see a car coming out. If you have 10 feet, that is plenty of space to stop if all you are doing is walking. Now if you're on a bike riding at 15-20 MPH and you have pedals that you clip into, you're screwed if a car pulls out in front of you and you only have 10 feet to try to stop. Panic stops are not good if you've got pedals that you clip into. You have a few tenths of a second to unclip before you fall on your face. I have learned from a few near misses to unclip one foot and be prepared to brake hard prior to any intersection. There are 3 intersections from the bottom of Mt. Cornelius to the trail. I had a green light at all three and a car nearly crushed me at all three intersections.

On to the trail I went. I wanted to get my bike adjusted over at the bike shop in Dublin so I road in that direction. Most of the trail is slightly downhill in that direction which makes for an easy and pretty fast ride. Since my bike needed adjusting, I wasn't able to get the front derailer to switch to the larger gear giving me more speed. I found myself maxing out very often. I couldn't move my legs fast enough to get any more speed. Cornelius takes off and doesn't wait for me but he was right, I did warm up while riding on the trail.

Since Cornelius was riding way to fast for me to keep up, I made a new friend along the trail. I decided to name him, Onesiphorus. He's not in as good of physical condition as Cornelius so he stayed back with me. Onesiphorus will be my excuse to be lazy and not ride too hard. If you haven't t noticed yet, I have a biblical theme with my imaginary friends. I'm going with names that sound as ridiculous and possible. Theophilus and Forntunatus and Achaicus are all possible names for the next imaginary friend. Let's hope it doesn't get to that point. Seriously someone needs to come ride with me before this really gets out of hand. I really was so bored that I had a conversation out loud with Onesiphorus on the trail. I'm starting to freak myself out.

I arrive at the bike shop and ask them for a front derailer adjustment and the bike mechanic says I will have to leave the bike there and pick it up by the end of the day. I had the rear derailer adjusted there a few weeks ago and they did it right away in about 10 minutes. I explain to him that I rode my bike there and can't really leave it. He asks one of the other guys there if he can do it for me and he agrees. I tell him that I'm going to get something to eat from Chipotle next door and will be back in 20-30 minutes. I was tempted to use the new Chipotle ordering app that I downloaded on my iPhone but decided it wasn't worth experimenting with just yet. It's not like there was a huge line to wait in before ordering.

I got the usual barbacoa burrito and surprisingly it had very little flavor. I got it with pinto beans instead of black beans but I don't think that would have made that big of a difference. I sit down and take my sweet time eating my burrito. Cornelius and Onesiphous didn't eat and I didn't bother to ask them if they wanted anything this time. I've learned my lesson.

As I leave Chipotle, I notice that the Home Depot Expo that was once across the parking lot is now a Spirit Halloween store. It seems to me that every store that closes ends up turning into a Spirit Halloween store for the months of September and October.



I go to the bike shop and pick up my bike. I pay the $15 at the register for the adjustment and hop on my bike to test it out in the parking lot. Absolutely nothing has changed. I still can't up shift to the bigger sprocket. I bring the bike right back in and the manager quickly asks me what's wrong. I explain to him that I still can't change gears on my front derailer. He tests it out and sees what I was talking about. I told him that all that probably needs to be done is to adjust the tension on the cable. He takes it back to the mechanic and it turns out that he adjusted the rear derailer instead and didn't touch the front. He starts working on the front derailer and after a few minutes he says to the manager, "I think I found out what the problem is with the shifter." The manager walks over and so do I and I see cables sticking out of my shifter. I'm about to blow up but I hold back. If they even think of trying to blame me for that they are in for a fight. My bike is all messed up from the looks of things and it was in better shape before I ever brought it in. It turns out that the cables that were sticking out were from the lining of the housing for the cable and not the cable itself. The manager makes up some story that it was probably a defect from the factory and blah blah blah. I just nod and bite my tongue waiting for him to tell me that he is going to have to charge me a ludicrous amount of money to repair the damage. I personally think it was caused by the mechanic as he was hammering the shifter trying to get it to change gears. The manager tells the mechanic to put on a new cable and housing and doesn't tell me that it's going to be an additional charge. He finishes and give me the bike. I notice that the didn't use the same color cable housing so now I have one cable housing that is dark gray while the others are all light gray. Whatever, I don't want to complain. I just want to get back on my bike and ride. I get in the parking lot and test it out. I up shift and the chain falls off! I have to get off the bike and pull the chain back on getting grease all over my hands. The guy didn't bother to adjust the upper stop so the derailer now goes too far out and pulls the chain off the crank completely. I know how to fix it so I'll deal with it when I get home. All I need is a screw driver to adjust the upper level stop. At least now I can get the higher gear.

I cruise around Dublin trying to find some new trails for about an hour and a half and get bored and start heading back home. I try to find the shortest way back to the Iron Horse trail and come to Dublin High School. I know there is a bridge that crosses the creek at the back of the school and connects to the trail. I ride around the school trying to find the break in the fence to get to the bridge. There is a football practice going on which reminds me that the first regular season game for the 49ers is tomorrow. I stop and pull out my phone and set my DVR to record the game before I forget. I finally find the opening in the fence to get to the trail.

I decide to challenge myself and ride as fast as I possibly can back to Bollinger which is about 3 miles away. I make it to Bollinger in what feels like 5 minutes but is probably more like 12 minutes. Mt. Cornelius is next and I don't have the energy to take it on just yet. I decide to head over to my sister's house which around the corner and hang out there with her and my nieces and nephew for a little while. The kids see that I have my bike and all they want to do is go riding. I'm still out of breath but they insist on taking a ride around the neighborhood. My nephew doesn't like riding his Diego 2 wheeler and prefers his big wheel style tricycle. The problem with the tricycle is that it's much slower than his sister's bike and it take a lot more energy on his part to just keep up. After 3 minutes, he is really tired and wants to head back. I tell me niece that we all have to stay together even though she wants to continue and we walk back to their house. We go inside and my niece goes on the computer to playhouse Disney and my nephew and other niece watch TV. Suddenly they all decide that they want hot dogs while my sister is cleaning the car. I make them all hot dogs and in a few minutes, I am beginning to fall asleep on the couch. I wake myself up and decide that it's time to go before I really fall asleep. My nephew gives me permission to leave and it's time to take on Mt. Cornelius.

I've managed to get up Mt. Cornelius a few times before so just making it to the top isn't an accomplishment anymore. It's time to start going for speed. I set my gear and psych myself up. Cornelius has his iPod on so he hasn't been much for conversation the whole day. (Apparently there are imaginary iPods.) It doesn't matter at this point because I suspect that I will be so out of breath that I won't be able to talk anyway. About half way up, the sweat starts building on my brow. I can't take either of my hands off the handle bars or else I will lose too much of my momentum and it'll be too hard to build it back up. My only recourse is to shake my head like a dog and try to get the sweat off me before it runs into my eyes. People walking along the same path probably think I'm totally insane and they are probably right. I'm riding up an huge hill with my two imaginary friends and shaking my head and growling and grunting. I make it to the top and coast almost the entire way back home.  I got home and collapsed on the couch.