A note from the author: there's a trade-off between getting things down quickly and not being detailed enough, and taking a long time and losing accuracy. This account was written 4 whole days after the fact, relying upon the author's unreliable memory. When in doubt, treat this as fiction. Don't hold me on the accuracy of "facts" or dialogue in the following account. Every attempt to be accuate has been made, however. A ride with Grant Petersen Copyright (C) 1994 Piaw Na. All rights reserved. Please do not redistribute without prior permission. (An abbreviated version will appear in rec.bicycles.rides) Wednesday, 23rd March, 1994, 5:00pm I was sitting in Jimmy and Paul's house right after making a ton of phone calls to arrange dinner plans when the phone rang. I picked up the phone... "Hi, may I speak with Piaw please?" "This is he..." "This is Eric House. I'm afraid I can't make it tommorrow, as it's going to rain." "Hm.. Looks fine here.." "Yeah, it actually looks good here too, but once I'm over at my grandparent's place I'm committed, so I'm going to bail." "Does that mean it's cancelled?" "Well, I haven't called Grant yet, but I don't see why you guys can't go on ahead without me..." "Ok... what's his phone #?" Eric gave it to me and I dialed it. "Hello, may I speak with Grant Petersen please?" "This is he..." "Hi, Eric just called me and told me he was going to bail tommorrow since it's going to rain... Do you still want to do it?" "I'm not terribly thrilled about riding that far in the rain.." "I don't think it will actually rain, though..." "Well, let's do it anyway..." "Ok, how about the same place at 6:30?" "I'm usually about 10 minutes late, so let's shoot for that." "Good. I'll be the guy with the red RB-1 with fenders." "I'll be on a yellow RB-1." I spent that night trying to persuade Jimmy and Paul to come along, speaking with a long-lost roommate, and fitfully turning and tossing in my sleeping bag. Paul was easy, since he had two Bridgestones, and Jimmy looked reluctant, but was a fan of "Roads to Ride." The part about having to get up at 5 in the morning looked pretty dubious to him, though. Both of them worried about being left behind, but I assured them that we wouldn't be racing. 5:00am, Wednesday 24th March, 1994. Paul woke me up. I'd had 2 hours of sleep, and it looked cold outside. I felt cold. But hell, I'd gotten up earlier and in colder weather, so that wasn't going to stop me. A hot shower and a bowl of cereal later, things looked better. Jimmy was up and ready to go, and I packed my toolkit, a book (for the BART), and my clothing into my Forester saddle-bag and filled the waterbottle. My '93 RB-1 frame looked as pretty as ever, and the fenders didn't do anything to mar its appearance. The Continental 700x25 tires were pumped up, my Nightsun was ready, and everything looked good. Jimmy prepared Paul's '92 RB-1 with his water bottle, and Paul did the same with his '93 XO-1, which has been modified to have a triple on it. Jimmy was wearing bike shorts, Paul was wearing sweatpants, and both of them were wearing tennis shoes. Very granola. I felt out of place with clipless shoes, a jersey, and leg warmers. The three of us left the house and rode over to BART, and took it to Walnut Creek. It was surprisingly warm, but I kept my jacket on anyway. Walnut Creek was cooler, and we rode the 1.5 miles or so to the corner of Olympic Blvd and Tice Valley Blvd, arriving right at 6:30. The sun was out, lighting up the sky with blue. We could see small fluffy clouds, but it was obvious that the day was going to be pretty. We sat around, chatting about the XO-1 and other stuff. We were all psyched about the ride, as we'd never been in Walnut Creek before. A cyclist came down the hill, stopped at the light, and turned right. "That's not a Bridgestone," said I. "'Sides, he didn't stop." said Paul. 10 minutes later, a yellow RB-1 ridden by someone in a Castelli Bridgestone wool jersey in Danish colors, with wool leg warmers showed up. He rolled straight for us and stopped. I spoke up. "You must be Grant." "Yes." Grant's of average height, medium build, and still looks like his picture in the rear cover of "Roads to Ride." He's got very nice eyes, and was carrying his stuff in a musette. "Hi, I'm Piaw." "What's that?" "Peow! Meow with a P." Everyone gets that wrong. "And I'm Paul." "And I'm Jimmy." "Let's go!" He gestured up Olympic Blvd. And thus it was that Thursday morning saw 4 Bridgestones roll down Olympic Blvd towards Moraga. "What gears you've got there, Grant?" "I don't know..." "It doesn't look like a 23... Is it a straight block?" "Nah.. I wouldn't do that..." "Probably 21, then..." Grant grunted uncommittedly. We talked about Paul's XO-1. "What're these vestigial brake levers for?" I pointed to those apparently useless dummy levers. "Well, the problem with the Moustache's is that you don't have that hand position near the stem. Hence those dummy levers. Sometimes I use them, sometimes I don't. I'd be riding my XO-1 today, but it's been taken apart and it's still apart." I asked him if he's heard about internet-bob. "Yeah, Mark Chandler told me something about it. He's trying to set me up on the internet, actually." "Oh yeah? How do you feel about it?" "I don't know... I'm kinda put-off by it, actually." "Why?" "Because I don't want to be too much of a public figure." "Well, you're talking to the person who set up internet BOB." "Oh?" He laughed. "Yeah Grant," said Jimmy, "You're riding with the Computer Science department today." As Grant pulled ahead to enter a bike path, I noticed his no-tech tool tote tied to his rear seat stay. We rode along at an easy 12mph pace. Houses and hills rose around us as we rode through various residential areas and parks along the rail-road grade. With the winter rains just over recently, the hills were a lush beautiful green, lending the ride a dreamy quality, like we were cycling along a moving matte painting. "Hey, that wool jersey has pretty long sleeves, Grant." "Yeah, you can buy it from BOBCat. But the sleeves will come up short. This is one of about 90 samples that Castelli gave to us before we approved it and had them make it." "And then those had too-short jerseys? Ouch." "Yeah..." Grant told us about the mess with the jerseys and how long it took to get them made. "It's so hard to get them right..." "Are you going to try again?" "Maybe, for BOB. There are so many things I want to make for BOB, though... Hey, I should ask you before I forget... Where did you get that saddlebag holder?" "John Forester." "Hm... It looks like a better design than what I've got." "It's not too bad. I screwed up the hook so it's hanging on only one hook, but it's still pretty sturdy in spite of that. He'll gladly make them for BOB, I'm sure." "Yeah, but John's testified against us before... I'm sure He's seen Carradice's design, since he used to be English, isn't he?" "Yeah. He's actually the son of C. S. Forester." "Who?" "You know, Horatio Hornblower and the rest?" "Really?" "Yep, and when C. S. Forester moved to Berkeley, he took his family with him." "Well, he testified against us in a quick-release wheel case. We won, though." We turned off the bike path, and headed towards Pinehurst. I decided to turn up the speed a bit, and we sped rapidly down the road. Jimmy talked to Grant a bit, and talked about how riding in Berkeley was always hilly, and that "this was pretty flat." "Don't worry," said Grant, "You'll get your hills. In fact, here's one coming right up!" A left turn under some trees and there we were. "We'll have a choice later on between more hills or trails." "I vote for the trails." The land fell away rapidly to our left beneath us. A ravine below us, and you could hear birds singing sometimes. Off in the distance you could see large bodies of water, either the San Pablo Dam or some other lake, and the cool air sharpened our senses and kept us awake. Jimmy seemed really happy with how easily he was climbing on that RB-1. "Yeah, that's my favorite bike," Grant responded, "And the XO-1 too. Whichever of those two bikes I'm on at the time, I always think that's the best one." He broke off and spoke to Paul, "Are you OK there? This is about as steep as it gets, and then there's a downhill, and a little climb that's not as steep as this one." Maynard wrote about Eddy Merckx. About how that man had class. Grant is not missing in that category, and you could tell. He was obviously much faster than we were, but he didn't mind slowing down for us, and happily made life easier for us. Every once in a while, our peace would be punctuated by a car or a series of cars overtaking us. "Why do people do that? This is so much prettier!" "Oh, it's work, turning the pedals too..." "I guess, but this is so much more fun." "Grant, you have the most beautiful commute in the world." "Oh, it's just a normal commute!" "Ha. I'll trade you my 8-mile suburban one for this one..." He laughed as we crested Pinehurst and descended. I took off, taking the turns with a confidence that surprised me, leaning over so hard that for the first time in my life I clipped a pedal while pedalling. It felt so good. My confidence is back! Grant quickly passed me, of course, and I was content to watch him and follow his line. Grant's an excellent cyclist, he knows this road, and it shows in his handling. At the bottom of Pinehurst we turned left onto Redwood. I ran over a traffic bump and worried a bit about my tires. "It'd take a bit of a bigger bump to give you a pinch flat, I think," said Grant. "Yeah, but I've been having pretty bad luck with flats. I get one about every 1000 miles, almost right on the clock." "Sounds like a good reason to get rid of that clock." I laughed. (The '94 Bridgestone Catalog talks about not having a cycle-computer. We know who put that there now...) We got to the trail turnoff and pulled off the road none too soon for me, as I was quite tired of motorvehicles. We stopped past the trailhead to rest, talk, look, chat and pee. The four of us talked about bikes, Japan, the Japanese language, and other common topics that bikies talk about. Jimmy knows Japanese rather well so we had fun talking about those. A couple of mountain bikers rolled up from the trail, and one of them fell right at the gate. "Oops! Didn't have to fall right in front of you guys!" He obviously wasn't happy about falling over near a trail near a bunch of road bikers that were obviously going to do that trail on skinny tires. "The XO-1's built for this commute," Grant said to Paul, "You'll see what I mean. The RB-1, too, since before the XO-1, that's what we were riding around here." "How's BOB doing, by the way?" "It's doing great. The numbers are getting impressive, and that's why we're dropping the membership prices to try to get more members. There's so much we can do with 5,000 BOBs. We might need [I've forgotten the number] square feet for BOB if we continue it after Bridgestone." Jimmy said, "We have that over at GeoWorks..." "Yeah," said Paul, "and they just love bikes." "I can tell what you mean by the way you say `love', there..." said Grant. "Well, the building we work in is always hassling us about bikes." He talked about things he wanted to have made. It wouldn't be fair to Grant or BOB to talk about those things in a public forum, since I don't want to make BOB's product announcements for them. But rest assured that there's incredibly cool stuff that's coming down the pipeline. So if you're currently sitting on the fence about BOB because of Bridgestone, you should get off the fence and send in that $5. "This sounds great, Grant. And I don't think other bike companies can do something similar..." "I suppose Specialized could have their S.O.B., and Merlin can have the M.O.B..." We giggled at that and headed down the trail. If you have a Bridgestone Road Bike or "Hybrid", this trail is going to have you end the day with a big smile on your face. "Just don't crash, guys," said Grant, "If I leave you behind, I'll stop at the logical spots." With that, Grant sped off. His Rb-1 lept up lightly over the trail. I felt obliged to try to follow, and to my surprise it wasn't difficult at all. 2 months of weekend mountain bike rides make this trail seem easy, and I was going on this trail faster than I would be going on a mountain bike. The trail was wide and partially overgrown, with some horse or cow poo on it, but that made the trail interesting, since you tried to avoid those. In some sections it was covered with Eucalyptus balls that are quite slippery. But it was an incredible blast, spinning and speeding along a trail. With things being so dry, you don't even skid around corners. My RB-1 was nice and stable, and behaved nicely over the bumps as I tried to follow Grant's line. And then we upped a hill and up ahead and to the right, was Lake Anthony Chabot. The trees and hills around it reflected off the lake like it was a dark shiny mirror, and we stopped at a fork. "What a blast!" I couldn't help myself. "And to read MTB magazines, you'd think that what we just did was impossible. This is why the RB-1 has clearance for 32c tires..." "What about `Roads to Rides', Grant? Are you going to put this stuff on it?" "Well, it's going out of print, since that publisher's been bad about checks." "That's a pity, since it's the best bicycle book anywhere." "Thanks..." At this point, Jimmy showed up. "`Roads to Ride'?" he said, "That's a great book!" "Thanks!" He talked about some possible plans for the book, since the North Bay version is seriously out of date. (But still worth the money --- I have not seen as good a ride book other than "Roads to Ride South"! Those "loop ride" books are just horrible.) We kept riding. After a slightly tricky descent, Jimmy, who's had little off-road experience, and even less experience on Paul's RB-1 asked for fewer tricky downhills. Grant picked an easier route out, and we kept going. "So how big is Bridgestone?" "About 23..." If Bridgestone wasn't in it's current situation, I wouldn't have written the above, since that's potentially information for their competitors, but things being what they are... "That's small. And who designs the bikes?" "Theoretically, I do. I get everything I want on the Road geometry except for one thing..." "Chainstay length?" "Well, one and a half..." "So what's the other one?" "Bottom bracket height. I'd like to have it lower, but CPSC has a regulation about pedal clearance. I would have been able to get it in next year, since we were going to use clipless pedals with better pedal clearance, and we'd also have 41.5cm chainstays, which together with the horizontal dropouts, would have given you whatever you wanted. You can't get chainstays longer than 41cm on any other racing bike anyway... But that's water under the bridge now anyway." And far far too quickly, we were out of the woods and smack into the city of San Leandro. "No crashes! I'm impressed, guys!" We laughed. None of us were going nearly as fast as Grant was, though I'm sure it wasn't for the lack of trying. "Why San Leandro?" "Bridgestone used to have a different bike company down in Torrance, Southern California. With the mountain bike craze, they decided the new bike company should be in Northern Cal." "But San Leandro?" "I won't try to defend it. But compared to where many other companies are, this place is pretty rural." We rode through city traffic. After the last 20 miles of beauty and quiet, San Leandro seemed so different. "I hate this part of the ride." "I'll trade you Grant..." We rode along... A car gave us a friendly honk as we made a left turn. "I think he liked us," smiled Paul. "Maybe it's because you don't see many Bridgestones here," said Jimmy. We arrived at Bridgestone. Grant opened the door and let us in. Big wide open reception area. Many bikes on display. Many bikes obviously ridden in. "No bikes allowed inside here!", chanted Jimmy sarcastically. The rest of Bridgestone chimed in and joined in the fun. "None of these wacko bikie types, please. Only normal people allowed!" "Don't dirty the carpet..." And so on. We laughed. Grant introduced us to Tad, the president of the company, and Jimmy introduced himself in Japanese. Tad's a really friendly guy, and took us to the kitchen, asked if we wanted anything to drink... Everyone was gracious and friendly. I've been to a Woolworth during their closing sale, when people there are obviously unhappy and impatient with customers. There was no sign of that here. Everyone put up with our questions and with our bikes and our sitting around. It was nice to finally meet people like Ariadne (who wrote the Cuba Gazette article) and Candy (who handles the order line for BOB). People seemed cheerful and bright despite their impending doom. I have nothing but the highest respect for Bridgestone's culture and friendliness. It really is a pity that this will be gone so soon, so fast... Grant came back after changing, and it took us a little double-take before we recognized him again. He looked more like his picture in "Roads to Ride" now. I asked to look at Bridgestone's Japanese catalogue. It was very Japanese, and as glitzy as the Bridgestone USA catalogue is granola. Pretty women, glossy paper, belt-driven bicycles, and silly bike names like "Mud-Rock." (Ask Grant about that last one --- it's a funny story and I can't tell it half as well as he can) Bridgestone showed me an "Eagle Bicycle Catalogue" (an early bicycle catalogue) which he said was the inspiration for the Bridgestone catalogue. It was really good, with instructions on how to ride a bicycle, and so on. Jimmy and Paul signed up to be BOBs on the spot, of course. "I want one," remarked Jimmy, referring to the RB-1. "We'll be selling RB-1/7s and XO-1s through BOBCat next month. (In about 2 weeks) They won't be available through dealers." He gave showed us a list of things that are no longer available through BOBCat. "BOBs are such wonderful people... Look at this: SOLD OUT Silca Pumps (due in next week) Mavic 831 [ or was that 851? ] rear deraileur (non-indexing --- what a surprise!) Campy 1010 dropouts San Marco Saddles (We can get more) You couldn't *give* a non-Ti saddle to a non-BOB." He talked about other stuff that would go on sale on BOBCat shortly. Stuff so good and so unavailable elsewhere that even snobs who wouldn't join BOBs otherwise would join BOB just for the chance to buy it. He showed us '95 colors, talked about what they were going to do... Catalogues, old, new, etc... "BOB Gazette's going to newsprint," said Grant. "That's a pity... The current paper's more keepable..." "Yeah, but it's expensive..." "But a lot of people read my Gazettes..." "Hm... I'll think about it." Grant started giving us stuff. Bridgestone catalogs, BOB Gazettes, a Japanese Bridgestone catalogue he didn't need. "I feel like a vulture," said Paul as he returned some stuff that he and Jimmy could share. Someone asked me about my John Forester bag and bag holder device. I was among people who ride bikes and love bikes, and they had a good eye for detail. Grant drew us a map for us to get to BART, and I promised to send him a printout of all the internet-BOB stuff. "I won't have to reply to it, right?" "No, no..." Grant had showed us the tons of mail he has to reply to earlier. The three of us rode out into the perfect morning. Hungry, but not tired, and certainly psyched up and ready for the rest of the day. "What an incredibly cool guy," said Jimmy. "He didn't even mind going slow for us..." remarked Paul. "What a great ride!" Conclusion If you're ever in the Walnut Creek/Berkeley area, try to get a ride in with Grant and join him on his commute. It will be an unforgettable experience. Grant's everything you think a BOB would be --- gracious, soft-spoken, happy to help, and very experienced. And if you haven't signed up to be a BOB yet, do so. Every new membership makes a difference, and it only cost $5 now. Write down your name, address, and other particulars you might deem necessary (like what you hope to get out of BOB) and send it to: Bridgestones Cycles (U.S.A.), Inc. 15021 Wicks Blvd, San Leandro CA 94577. Or call: 800-328-2453 ext 232. Time to get off that fence! Tell them that internet BOB sent you. This is Piaw Na, BOB #49, signing off from Seattle Washington, March 27th, 1994. Cast of Characters Jimmy Leftkowitz (jimmy@geoworks.com) is a Software Engineer at Geoworks, and is in real life a juggler, unicyclist, speaker of Japanese, Taiko Drummer, and otherwise "Mr. Manual Dexterity." He's got long hair and a beard, and normally rides a heavy Nishiki mountain bike to train for when he has to get up at 5am to ride a Bridgestone RB-1. (This has only happened once) Paul DuBois, (pld@soda.berkeley.edu) is a student at Cal Berkeley, and does things that students do. His hobbies include science fiction and riding his Bridgestone bicycles. He normally does not get up at 5am, either. Eric House, (ehouse@apple.com) is an engineer at Apple computer, and his hobbies include knowing a lot of people in cycling, and getting up at 3am or earlier to ride a bicycle. Among his many other attributes (such as being a darned good writer), he never seems to get tired. He is sponsored in part by Bridgestone Bicycles (U.S.A.). Grant Petersen, (no e-mail address) is the marketing director at Bridgestone. He's a helluva nice guy. What would you expect from the guy who writes all those neat catalogues and designs those nice bikes? Piaw Na, (piaw@cs.washington.edu) is a graduate student at the University of Washington. He's already introduced himself on this list.