Let's Make a Change

Merry Christmas from the Asche Family A few weeks ago my family asked if I was going to write a Christmas letter this year. You may recall that we actually wrote our first family Christmas letter two years ago and I got an earful of responses. Mostly comments like “I can’t believe you would say that” or “I hope you didn’t send a copy to your aunt.” So I shelved the idea. But the family persisted, so here we go. I’ve poured myself a glass of port wine ( Taylor Fladgate ), I’m listening to Christmas music ( Trans-Siberian Orchestra ) and I’m finally ready to give you an account of the past year. First a sip of port…that’s good stuff. So I drew na mes out of a hat, well not actually a hat, a paper cup, to see whose glorious ye ar I w ould recount first. Sherri is the first up and she has had a very good year. Let’s talk traveling – she went to London to see a living queen, to Egypt to see a dead queen, and to Alaska to see a lot of wildlife and some real Americans. ...

Sisyphus was a Cyclist It was hot, dry and smoky on Saturday when I, along with the TnT Death Ride team, returned to the Death Ride for my third consecutive year. The day before, when we drove into Markleeville, you couldn't see the mountains that lined the valley walls where Markleeville lay. Smoke from recent northern California fires seemed to be concentrating right where we were going to ride the next day. When we got out of the car, we were assaulted with 90 degree heat. I had some serious doubts about the next day's ride. I thought the route would be littered with fallen cyclists along the side of the road trying to catch their breaths. I thought to myself, "Why the heck am I doing this?" This is my third year with TnT and here I am again, ready roll my boulder of a body up 15,000 feet of elevation. There must be something mentally wrong with me. Well that wasn't an original thought, I had that question posed to me by a number of friends in the pa...

On Gravel and Gravity Have you ever noticed that the words gravel, gravity, and grave all have the same beginning. This thought crossed my mind as I was rapidly descending Mt. Hamilton last Saturday. I started thinking this as I navigated the endless hairpin turns and noticed that in every blind turn there seemed to be a line of gravel in the middle of the road. It takes a whole lot of concentration and quite a bit of luck to come around a corner, see the gravel and find a line that doesn't take you through the gravel or into the oncoming lane. Nothing quite gets your attention like going around a corner at 25 mph hitting bit of gravel and having your rear wheel hop a inch or two off track. Some people would call it exhilarating I don't. In fact I thought it was downright pee-your-pants scary. Thankfully I made it all the way down the mountain,with my pants unsoiled I might add. This was on one of our more memorable rides. On top of the scary descents, it was 95 degr...

The People Have Spoken Okay, no more talk about the mid-life crisis, the votes are in. I'm not going to tour with Duran Duran, I do not want anything to do with Walt Disney's frozen head, I would very much like to drink tequila on a beach, but instead I'm going to do something ridonkulously hard. I, along with some friends from the Death Ride team, are going to France. Well the France part isn't that hard. I mean as long as you don't tell them you're an ugly American it's not. Not that they won't be able to spot me right off. Anyway, here's the deal. We will be riding 8 days in the Pyrenees from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. The Pyrenees are the mountains on the border between Spain and France. In the Tour de France the Pyrenees are known as the difficult mountains. They're steeper, higher and the weather tends to be hotter. Here's a quote from a professional cyclist Jonathan Vaughters: "The Tourmalet and Hautacam are s...

The Saga Continues So last time I wrote I said I was embarking on my mid-life crisis. I'm sure you've been waiting to hear just what sort of mid-life crisis suggestions have come in so far. Frankly I've been astounded by the number and diversity of suggestions. So without further ado, here are some of the suggestions: - Get a perm and buy a Corvette. - Write a book - Start a tradition of doing something special each year with my kids - Read Ulysses by James Joyce and tell my friends how smart I am - Buy a dog - Hike across the Atlantic - Wrestle with an alligator - Ride a stage of the Tour de France - Quit my job and tour with Duran Duran all summer - Become a roadie - Get a hearing aid implant - Get hair plugs - Buy a 350Z - Drink tequila while sitting on a beach in Costa Rica - Ride my bike to the top of Haleakala - Take an extreme adventure tour to New Zealand - Fire a machine gun from a tripod in Las Vegas - Go to the Super Bowl - Try to relive Hunter S. Thompson...

Hello again everyone, I couldn't believe the response from my last update. Apparently I've become a one man marketing department for my nutrition coach, Kim. I had several inquiries about her services. If anyone wants to contact her I'll happily pass along her email address and number. It's A Big One This week, although I could write about my recent 120 mile ride, I'm going to write about something we all can relate to. I had my birthday last Sunday. It was traumatic. This is a birthday I've been dreading for a long time. Right now you're thinking he must have had one of those birthdays that end in a zero (or zed for the european readers). Actually no. Despite my scale saying otherwise, I can't escape the chronological fact reflected on my drivers license. I turned 49 on Sunday. At this point many of you are saying, "Big Deal" (sarcastically of course) others are saying "I've been there" and still others are saying ...

Enough with the fat already Welcome back to another scintillating update about my adventures in cycling and raising funds to fight cancer. Over the past three years many of you have read my tales of cycling challenges and mishaps. Since many of the folks that read this update do not, will not, and never plan to get on a bicycle they can barely relate to the absurdity of the experiences. Well today I decided to write about an absurd experience that many, if not all of us, can relate to... dieting. For the past three years I've always made it a challenge to lose weight to get in shape to do the Death Ride. You see it's a simple physical fact that the more you weigh, the more work you have to do to get your bulk over 5 mountains. I was always envious of the 150 pound guys that glided by to finish hours ahead of me. Sure I thought about pelting them with the Ding Dongs or Twinkies I happened to be eating at the time, but my mom taught me never to waste food. Heck, I was en...

Back in the Game Well it took me a while to get back on the bike, but with some trepidation and a significant outlay of cash I've completed two rides. I was off the bike for two weeks and wasn't in too much hurry to get back on. Fortunately my son, Rob, came to the rescue. For his birthday he wanted to do something he'd never done before. This is a typical birthday request since the kids were young. Usually we go someplace to see something new. For this birthday he said he wanted to ride his bike to the top of Mt. Diablo with his ol' pop (i.e. me) Well this presented a bit of a dilemma since it was only a little over a week after the crash. Of course, I did the only responsible thing - I said "What time are we rolling?" So two weeks after the crash, on a very cold and windy morning, I donned my trusty Cal cycling jersey, my son wore his Lucky Bicycles jersey, we started our assault on Mt. Diablo. I'm sure the emergency room doctor that treated me ...

Touching the Floor The cycling season started off with a bang this weekend. Well, actually, if you want to simulate the sound of a bike crash, take a drawer full of silverware and drop it on your patio. Then follow that with your favorite exclamation of pain. Professional riders in the Tour de France refer to crashing as "touching the floor". In pretty much every situation, you do not want to touch the floor. I touched the floor this Saturday. And not some casual slip where you lose control and end up in the bushes crash, a genuine smack-into-the-asphalt-end-up-in-the-emergency-room crash. If I were a car, I'd have probably burst into flames. Thankfully, I did not spontaneously combust on impact. We were near the end of our 55 mile ride. I was traveling along a flat road. I was in the bike lane but I wanted to turn left at the upcoming intersection. I had my right hand on the handlebars and I was looking over my left shoulder at the traffic coming from behind...

Third time's a charm It's the middle of winter, all the trees are bare. Well except for the pine trees, that is. So while everyone else is participating in winter activities like snow skiing, staying out of the cold, working on their needlepoint, and going to hockey games, I'm doing - what else - riding my bike. Once again I'm back training with the fine folks at Team in Training for another go at the Death Ride. (For those of you new to my updates, this is my third year of doing the Death Ride with Team in Training. I've done the Death Ride, a 129 mile bike ride that climbs over 5 mountain passes in one day, to raise money to fight blood cancers.) Before I get to this year's quest, let me catch you up since the last update. $4,116 dollars raised, 4,300 miles ridden Last year I made a promise to ride 100 miles for every $100 donated. You contributed $4,116 and by December 31st, I had ridden 4,300 miles. Along the way I climbed over 300,000 feet or over...