Recording Album 3 at Expression in San Fran

Just sitting in the Alan Parsons Studio at Ex'pression College recording Too Much Fiction's third album.

We have most of the basic backing tracks recorded and are recording the vocals and bass. And hopefully we will get some of the guitar solos and overdubs done.

Album 2 was mastered last week and should be out in the next few weeks.. also available at http://www.toomuchfiction.com/

Rock on!

:)

The big Move Weekend - and a trip to Napa

So this was the big move weekend.


Jason and I loaded the truck on Friday evening at my place ( jason tripped while dragging the fridge and hurt his ankle) but otherwise all went smoothly. On Saturday morning, Dan and Neil from Reliable Movin helped us to drag Lisa's really heavy f urniture down the three flights of stairs from her appartment. Thanks goodness for their help! Unloading was prettty smooth and painless ( the advantage of a single storey house:)


We did a bunch of organizing and setting up of beds on Saturday evening and Sunday morning... and then decided that we had had enough of moving... so we packed up the bikes and headed to Napa.


We had fabulous weather - topping out at about 80F as we rode up the Silverado trail up to Yountville and then to St Helena.

Along the way we kept our eye out for possible wedding reception venues - and we check out the Silverado resort, the Harvest Inn and a few others. Lovely views and lots of beautiful wineries.

The Tour of Napa Valley event was going on so we saw lots of riders heading the other way on Silverado Trail

We drove back past Lake Berryessa, and through Winters to avoid any big traffic jams associated with the Indy races at Infineon Raceway.

Attached area few pictures of the Napa ride... house pictures to follow once we get some semblance of organization to the chaos :)

Have a great week

Mount Diablo Climb

Busy times with moving and all so not that much time to write and advise on our latest rides but let me at least catch up on the climb of Mount Diablo in Alamo/ Danville CA.

Lisa and I did the climb on Aug 7th with a 9:30 am start and beautiful weather - not windy, not too warm.

Mt Diabolo climb about to 3849 ft in about 11.5 miles with a brief respite a few miles in through the Rock City area. This works out to an average of about 6%. This actually makes it a climb worthy of the Tour de France. By comparison a few of the legendary climbs in the tour are:

Col de Tourmalet (east) - ~4100' in 10.7 miles
Port de Bales ~3990' in 12 miles
Col de la Colombiere ~3750' in 10.5 miles
etc

Of course we were not racing - nor did we do Mt D after 100 miles or racing :) but we like to think of it as a significant climb.

We started with 5 or 6 miles of flat riding or gently climbing 1% or so to warm up and then we started the main climb. We purposely controlled out tempo to keep our heart rates below our Lactate Threshold (166-8 bpm for both of us) Lisa has been riding more than I so her heart rate was consistently about 10 bpm less than mine - but I only went over my Threshold on the last 200meter climb ( which exceeds 15 or 16%)

The climbs were busy with lots of folks testing themselves on road and mountain bikes. There was also a Vespa club that scaled the mountain on their scooters.. dressed in leathers. It was hard not to smile and imagine them congratulating each other when they reached the top:)

We did not stop at the Junction but rolled right on through reaching the top in about 1:45 with out a break and feeling pretty good.

The trip down with 11.5 miles of downhill was fun as usual.

We are thinking of organizing a group ride up Mt D in the fall for our cycling friends interested in the challenge... stay tuned:)

Regards

R & L

Vuelta Puerto Rico Revisited

Lisa just received the photographs made by Kip Pierson ( http://www.kippiersonphotography.com/) during the 2010 Vuelta.

These shots - unlike the ones I took give some outsider's unique viewpoints...

We are registered to do it again at the end of January 2011 ( and hope to be in better condition for the climbs and the pace so that we can hang with the 18 mph avg group on all three days this time :)

Enjoy the pictures

R