The Killers. Killer cars. Killers in cars. They were all on my mind.

I was working from home today, but had to meet T-bone for an evening appointment in Santa Clara. We decided to meet at her place of employment in Mountain View. Not wanting to burn the gas or deal with a second car or add to the earth's woes, I decided to ride the Blade.

Murder most asphalt, on my mind	Dying on the Tunitas climb

Logistics and planning were important. I had to prepare an "afterbag" with a change of clothes the night before so that T-bone could take it with her to work. I also had to make sure that I had the timeline down pretty tight. There was no way I could be late, but I also didn't want to get there way too early and spend a couple of hours cramping up in the car waiting for T-bone to get done with work.

I ballparked the distance at about 50 miles and figured I would need four hours to make the journey. T-bone wanted to leave Mountain View by 4:45 p.m., so including time to change and load the bike on the car, I needed to be in Mountain View by 4:30 p.m. Backtracking four hours, that meant a start time of 12:30 p.m. at the absolute latest.

Today's ride was really the confluence of desperation and necessity. I knew it would be tough for me to start my ride so early in the day, but I also knew I could not miss a ride day just because it was inconvenient.

Waking up to dull, gray skies, a chilly breeze, and a whole lot of nothing, I felt a serious bail coming on. Driving would be so much easier and quicker. Fortunately, I had prepped the bike and my CamelBak the night before, so I all I had to do was slurp some tea and get dressed.

Even that was tough, but somehow I did it and was on the road at 12:25 p.m. Immediately, my timeline was in jeopardy, when I discovered that the wind was coming out of the south. Battling an unexpected headwind all the way south along Highway 1 to Tunitas Road, I labored on the pedals, languished even. That's why I pad my timelines though -- to be prepared.

Still struggling with the aftercongestion of my recent cold, I was having trouble with my breathing. My lungs were still pretty full of gunk, so I was coughing a lot and having to take very rapid, shallow breaths. Not ideal.

To my great joy, I sighted a bogie about one-quarter mile ahead of me on Tunitas Road, just before the Lobitos Cut-off. I caught just a glimpse of a red jersey, but because of the road's very tight turns, it was probably another mile before I actually confirmed the earlier sighting.

Soon I caught up and could see by the cut of the rider's gib, that it was a male, in strong shape, older, with top-of-the-line apparel on an older Italian steel frame road bike. Not feeling particularly chatty today, I pedaled past him with a polite hello. He could barely deign to grunt.

Speaking of grunt, this guy was old, like over 60 old! Looked like Gunny Sergeant Tom Highway or the notorious William Munny. Maybe it was Viatcheslav Ekimov. Gray buzzcut with features that could best be described as grizzled. He was sporting a bright red La Boulangère jersey, but no helmet. Ollllld School.

I thought that was going to be the last I saw of him, but I could not have been more wrong.

After putting a couple of hundred yards on him, I decided to fuel before the real heavy climbing started. From one of my jersey pockets, I extracted a ziplock bag containing my long-ride staple: three to five peanut butter sandwiches. That's a single piece of bread with a schmear of peanut butter, folded over. You've got your carbs (bread), protein (peanuts), and sugars (sugar). It's everything a suffering cyclist needs.

Here's a tip for you: if you carry your food in ziplock bags, don't seal the bag! It makes it very difficult to open the bag with bike gloves on while you're riding.

A critical component of this anecdote is that I continued to ride while I was fueling. Adding to today's degree of difficulty, full-finger gloves and cheap ziplock bags with a real bitch of a zipper. After five minutes of struggling to get the zipper open, I finally decided to just tear the bag. With an epileptic, frustrated jerk, I pulled the bag apart. Big mistake.

The violent flailing of my right arm caused a recoil by my left arm, pulling the front wheel of the bike off the 15-degree-angled pavement. My right hand holding the baggie and my left hand holding the handlebars and still moving to the left, I basically pirouetted on my rear wheel and came down facing about 120 degrees back and to my left -- damn near almost facing right back downhill!

While the front wheel was in the air and the bike was rotating back downhill, I was preparing myself for a hard fall on my left side. I got my left foot unclipped, and as the front wheel touched down, I was able to steady myself just enough with my left foot to recover and not go down. Even as my foot was touching down, I was expecting a torn groin or something because the pavement was very wet and slick and you know how stable road shoes are on slick pavement.

As I shoved my heart back down my throat and thanked the trees and the bees that I had been traveling uphill at less than 10 miles per hour, Old School went silently riding by.

I gathered myself for a couple of minutes and then clipped in and began the chase. Chasing is more fun than defending anyway.

After a few minutes I caught up to him again. Hanging back about 15 meters, I tried to decide whether to mark him or go by. Because I had easily passed and dropped him earlier, I chose the latter. Unwise.

I passed him back and did my damnedest to drop the old dude, but he would not go away. I got about 50 meters of separation, but that was it. Many times I redoubled my efforts and tried to break free, but the lungs were weak and my legs were so dead Shirley MacLaine couldn't have gotten them to respond. And uh, Old School was one tough old goat.

At least twice I cracked and thought about giving up and letting him retake me, then trying to hold his wheel until I could catch a second wind. Pride is a painful thing though, and it just wouldn't let me give up, even though it was the tactically smart thing to do.

I was in serious, serious, serious difficulty. Couldn't breathe, legs like cement pilings, stomach cramps, drool pouring out of my gaping mouth into my beard, eyes mere slits -- and then I'd look back and see Old School just dancing away on the pedals like he was reliving his days as a domestique for Jacques Anquetil in the 1962 Tour de France. Motherfucker.

". . . you might feel a slight sting . . . that's priiiiide, fuckin' with ya . . .

Eventually, it dawned on me that Old School was just marking me, and that I was literally pulling him up the hill. Still, I wouldn't let myself do the smart thing and fall back so that he could do some of the work. That's priiiiiide, fuckin' with ya.

When we got to the top shelf of the climb, I clicked up a couple of gears and tried to get some separation. Now it was personal. After doing all the work on the climb, there was no way I was going to let Old School get the KOM points at the top.

I huffed and I puffed, but I just could not get a strong cadence going. I kept at it though, and finally, finally, about two kilometers from the top, I caught a second wind, shifted into my big ring, and started to grind on him. The extra effort extended the lead out to about 150 meters, but had the much more important tactical effect of preventing him from mounting any kind of attack on me -- the same principal that cycling teams use in the finishing meters to thin out the peloton for their sprinters.

Waiting for him at Skyline, I said "nice climb" as he came up, but Old School didn't even acknowledge me. Just turned south on Skyline and rode off. I hope I can climb like that when I'm 60, but I sure hope I'm not that huge of a cock.

I held myself together until Old School was out of earshot, but then let loose with a solid five minutes of asmathic wheezing and grotesque coughing and lougie hawking. I also took a couple of minutes to mentally prepare for the upcoming tricky descent of Kings Mountain Road.

Normally an opportunity for huge speed thrills, today King's Mountain Road presented a slippery downhill 10-foot putt for par. Danger lurked everywhere on the rain-slickened road.

Adding considerably to my apprehension were thoughts of the asshole that intentionally hit a cyclist head-on with his car last September. The story is absolutely horrible, particularly so for roadies, who are essentially at the mercy of every driver's goodwill every time they go for a ride. Here's a particularly disgusting passage.

Witnesses said he hit Peckham head on, throwing the broken body on to the hood, the windshield and shedding it onto the asphalt before speeding at least 800 feet away. There he lost control, and crashed down an embankment into a dry riverbed. Covered with glass, he stumbled out of the old car with a 24-ounce Coors in hand. "I thought I was going to die," he told a CHP officer, according to the probation report. " But I got out of the car like a soldier, cracked a beer and downed it."

The fuck only got 19 years. Nineteen years! If ever there was a candidate for the death penalty this is it, not some 17-year-old kid who gets flustered holding up a liquor store and shoots somebody.

The descent itself was bitter. I was layered to the hilt, but it was very dark and cold on the east-facing descent. Mercifully my soul and fingertips were slightly warmed by occasional patches of blessed sunlight. Not enough though. About half way down I was shivering and my toes were totally numb.

And it was slow, slow, slow. Between my near-miss earlier in the ride and the glistening pavement, I proceeded with extreme caution. Finally, I bottomed out in Woodside and cut over on Whiskey Stage Road to Portola Valley.

At this point, I was going to turn left and take Sand Hill Road down to Foothill Boulevard, but just then, a strong bogie spun past me heading into Portola Valley, so the chase was on! When I caught up to him, I noticed a power meter on his rear hub, so that was all the motivation I needed to stay on his wheel, which I rode all the way to Alpine Road. Most likely I could have passed him, but after my debacle on Tunitas, I decided to let somebody else do the work this time. Thanks for the lift mate.

The Stevens Creek Trail -- Central Expressway overpass

My heavy lifting done for the day, I cruised through Los Altos to Mountain View and picked up the Stevens Creek Trail from Dana Street. After some Seinfeld-like problems locating T-bone in the 10-square mile parking lot that is the Shoreline Business Park, the ride was over.

Fifty-mile rides always feel good, but this one was especially satisfying because I so easily could have bailed and just driven my car over the hill to meet T-bone. Feels good, real good.

The route -- Coastside to Mountain View

Coastal bike path south to Half Moon Bay; Highway 1 south to Tunitas Road; east on Tunitas Road to Skyline Road; across Skyline and east on Kings Mountain Road; east on Woodside Road; south on Whiskey Stage Road; south on Portola Valley Road; east on Alpine Road; south on Foothill Boulevard; east on Springer Road; south on Arroyo Road; east on Mountain View Ave.; south on El Camino; east on Castro Street; south on Dana Street; east on Stevens Creek Trail; north to Shoreline Amphitheater.