Biking King Ridge Road in beautiful Sonoma County

Three weeks ago I missed riding in Levi Leipheimer’s Gran Fondo because I had stupid class. I mean, I like class, especially Negotiations, but it sure does get in the way of having a life.

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So Mike Ferrara, a friend from work who did the Gran Fondo but didn’t finish due to a broken chain, and I rode King Ridge Road.

We didn’t do the 100+ mile loop from Santa Rosa, we drove out to Duncans Mills and saved ourselves 40 miles of boring flat stuff. We started early.

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5000ft of elevation in 50 miles, two whopper hills and a bunch of rolly stuff. We chose the right direction to do the ride: some of the downhills were pretty close to straight down.

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I tried to convince Mike that we should turn around and ride it again backwards, but he’s a gigantic wuss and a bit of a realist.

Here’s the loop. It was truly an amazing ride. Incredible views, no traffic (except for hwy 1 and 116), and two nice climbs. Apparently Levi himself rides this several times a week.


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Here’s the elevation map from Mike’s computer:

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Some other stats:
Exercise duration: 4:10:24.5
Exercise distance: 49.3 mi
Average speed: 11.8 mph
Maximum speed: 41.8 mph
Minimum temperature: 48 F
Average temperature: 61 F
Maximum temperature: 73 F
Minimum altitude: 45 ft
Average altitude: 805 ft
Maximum altitude: 1705 ft
Ascent: 4700 ft

Descending towards Highway 1 was amazing. The coast was beautiful and unseasonably warm. You can see little pockets of salt-water mist over the rocky coves.

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Sitch Family Thanksgiving in Ottawa

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The Sitch clan returned to Ottawa for a long weekend Thanksgiving at home. Ben + Allison drove up from Toronto, Joe flew in from Calgary (H couldn’t attend, bummer), and Sara and I flew in from SF. Ottawa’s miserable summer broke for this one glorious weekend.

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The trip was perfect: morning 10k runs, a Gatineau leaf-viewing expedition, several hundred hands of bridge, Kettleman’s bagels, a home-made turkey dinner, some incredible wine, NY steaks over a wood charcoal BBQ, and a miserable game of risk. Note to Sara and Ben: the box calls it “The Game of World Domination”, not “The Game of Global Compromise (After Will is Dominated)”.

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Amelia walks 60 miles in the San Francisco 3-day Breast Cancer Walk

After a grueling 3-day 60-mile walk, Sara’s sister Amelia is convinced that their ancestors were nomadic. No foot bandages, no shin splits, no tendonitis, Amelia powered through the walk without breaking a sweat. Okay, I made that last part up. She sweat a lot. Kinda stinky too.

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Sara and I were the photographers and mobile support unit for the team of four: RJ the parrot, Amelia, Sara, and Amanda.

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Every time we met it was like a long-lost reunion. Lots of hugging. I guess walking for a long time kinda addles the brain.

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There were more than 1500 walkers who raised almost $4M for Breast Cancer research. Fantastic weather for walking: no fog, no rain, not too hot. October in SF is the best time of year.

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Motorcycling in the Wienerwald

I had an unexpected free day during a business trip to Vienna, and rather than working (which I do enough on the weekends), I rented a motorcycle and explored the Wienerwald, the “Vienna Woods” at the top end of the Alps.

It’s a lovely rural area with all of the beautiful mountain scenery you would expect from Austria. Rolling green hills, soaring rocky peaks, stone castles, tiny towns, and small narrow twisty roads. Perfect! With road elevations below 3000ft and unseasonably warm weather, I didn’t have to worry about snow.

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It was a little bit of a mission to find a motorcycle to rent in Vienna, but with some help from friend and colleague Michael, we located a nearby motorcycle store called BikeCity. This is when the fun started! They were happy to rent me a ZX6R (100 euros), but they didn’t have a jacket, gloves, pants, or boots to rent. I called every store in the city. No gear rental. Everyone referred me to another rental store, which unfortunately went out of business in the summer.

I knew it would be cold and possibly a little rainy in the mountains, so I posted a plea for help on a motorcycle message board. Most thought I was having fun at their expense, and others suggested I was a poor planner (guilty!), but a few kind souls offered some advice and suggestions. I ran down all the leads, unsuccessfully, but a young Austrian named Chris took pity on me and offered me his gear for the day.

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We met for drinks and I managed to squeeze into his jacket and boots, even though Chris is 30lbs skinnier than I am. He even drove me back/forth from the motorcycle store the next day! I couldn’t believe I was so fortunate to meet someone so kind and friendly. Hopefully one day I can repay the favour and we can ride together in California or somewhere else.

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I rode a ZX6R Ninja, a high-revving sportbike with a redline above 16,000rpm. Funnily enough, Chris crashed this bike just a few months earlier. Bad Chris! My Speed Triple 1050 is totally different: gobs of wheelie-torque, a 9000rpm redline, and an upright riding position, so it was fun to ride something different. The ZX6R really didn’t make much power below 10krpm, so I found myself constantly flipping between the gears to keep the bike moving. The scream of an inline on the boil is pure magic. The seating position was fun for the first four hours, and not so much after that.

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I rode regional “B” roads: B17 south, B11 West, B18 South West, B21 West, B71 North West, B25 North, B28 East, B39 East, and then reconnected to the A1/B1 freeway back into Vienna. Here’s a google maps route:


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Some comments:

There are speed cameras everywhere near Vienna. They’re gray boxes on either side of the road. They were very difficult to spot, so I always tried to ride with traffic and was careful whenever anyone slowed down for no apparent reason. There aren’t very many outside of Vienna, and only in towns. I hope that’s true, I’m not completely sure. I didn’t see them if they were out there. I didn’t see any police cars on the B roads.

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At the junction of B27 and the road from Gutenstein is a restaurant called Kalte Kuchl, or “Cold Kitchen”. It’s been around for 500 years, and is now a scenic motorcycle hangout. Chris recommended I get the topfenstrudel with some hot chocolate, it was incredible.

If you hear a funny pinging noise, it’s sand or gravel being thrown up from the front tire, and if you’re turning at a high rate of speed you will very shortly lose traction and start sliding the front. Fun!

The 30km of B71 was awesome, starting from Mariazell and going all the way North West to Polzburg. Perfect smooth roads, beautiful mountain scenery, no traffic, only a few villages with slow zones. B39 was good too.

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Boots two or three sizes too small will keep your feet warm and safe, but you won’t be walking in them by the end of the day. More like hobbling.

The ZX6R hits 220kph in the top of fourth, and still has two more gears! I wouldn’t know this directly because I always drove at the speed limit, but I imagine this would burn a lot of gas.

There are very few gas stations in the middle of the ride. I only got 130km before the low-fuel light came on. If you then keep the bike in 6th gear and keep the revs below 4krpm (and turn the engine off and ghost-ride downhill!) you can make it another 25km. Apologies to the rider who passed me while I was slowly riding uphill, and who I zoomed by in full tuck ’stealth mode’ on the way back down the other side.

I was happy I only had jeans on. The temptation to drag knee was overwhelming. I kept thinking to myself “don’t be a squid, don’t be a squid”. It didn’t work, but no knee pucks were a strong motivating factor!

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1/3 done! My fourth quarter (first year) at UC Davis’ Bay Area Working Professional MBA program

It’s now September, which means I’ve finished my fourth quarter – and my first year – at the UC Davis weekend MBA program. It’s been incredibly interesting and rewarding, and also a lot of fun, but let me tell you how much I’ve enjoyed a full month off!

During the Summer 2009 quarter I took two classes: Forecasting and Managerial Research Methods, and Product Management. Neither course was well aligned with the course title, they should have been called Regression Statistics and Product Marketing Management. Actually, that’s a recurring theme for the courses we’ve taken so far, the official title is often not what the instructors informally call the course, and doesn’t at all match the material taught.

MGB 203B: Forecasting and Mangerial Research Methods with Rahman Azari

Official course description: Introduces modern and practical statistical methods for managerial decision-making. Topics include regression analysis, time series analysis and forecasting, design and analysis of experiments in managerial research and contingency table analysis. Applications of these methods include marketing, finance, accounting, production, operations, and public policy. Case studies and examples of computer-aided analysis are provided to illustrate various applications.

The real course description: Regression analysis. More regression analysis. Not much time-series stuff, and very few applications or practical examples. Two stats projects on, yes, regression.

The professor: Rahman has the best intentions; I think he truly cares about his students. He’s a really nice guy, and he wants everyone to do well and succeed, but I honestly don’t think he’s an effective teacher. He uses an overhead projector. Seriously! The midterm and final are all hand-written. Come on! This is an MBA course. Everyone has a laptop. We’re all going to be using computers for the rest of our careers. We will never be in a meeting where laptops aren’t allowed and there’s a sudden need to bang out a regression analysis.

We all asked for a computer-centric course on day one, when he asked for feedback and we realized it was going to be pencils and calculators. No avail. I’m guessing this is the way he’s always taught and he’s not motivated to change. It’s a shame, because we didn’t spend ANY class time focusing on what we’re going to do in the ‘real world’: Excel’s regression analysis tools.

I think this course material could really be interesting. How cool would it be to analyze a ton of data and select the best site for a new shopping centre? What about analyzing baseball statistics and figuring out if the performance of players during the ’steroid era’ was really so different? I mean, math doesn’t have to be totally boring and impractical. Unfortunately that’s what this course turned out to be.

The book was the same as for Bill Ellis’ 203A course: it still sucked. Maybe I’m becoming numb to the suck, but it didn’t bother me as much.

Another nit to pick: Rahman introduced some material that was on the midterm a few minutes before the midterm. No kidding. He then proceeded to walk us all through the problem, gave us all extra time, and spent almost 10 minutes of our test time talking to the class. I couldn’t believe it. I eventually asked him to give us a break and let us do the test without interruption. That’s probably rude, but it’s the way I felt. He didn’t introduce new material on the final, but he did do a lot of yakking mid-test, and he did extend the time of the test (which we all needed, because it was quite long).

Ok, that’s it. I won’t go into the horrible hand-written analysis of the mathematical proofs for certain regression tests, or the inconsistent grading of the projects. I feel bad because Rahman is such a nice guy who obviously cares about us. This has been my least-favourite class so far. Most of the other students I’ve talked to have similar opinions. I don’t think his teacher review forms contained many positive comments.

The grade: I got an A. I give the instructor and the class a C-, saved from a D only by the two semi-interesting projects which needed Excel.

Now, on to better things:

MGB 293A: Product Management with Britta Foster

Official course description: The course is designed to provide an in-depth understanding of the requirements, issues, and tools involved in marketing existing products/services. The major topic areas covered include: The product management system, market planning, and control. Unifying and integrating marketing concepts from the core and the marketing electives (through the use of a marketing simulation).

The real course description: Accurate as stated above! Lots of product marketing stuff. Positioning, segmentation, strategy, tactics, etc. Big team project with three in-class presentations and ~60 powerpoint slides as a final deliverable. Case studies. Lots of work, but worthwhile.

The professor: Britta is great. She has 10 years of experience as Director of Marketing for Foster Farms, and I guess she liked it so much she married one of the Fosters. She has a lot of practical ‘product warfare’ examples, and was very familiar with all of the topics and material we covered.

Bobby, Evelina, and I joined three upper-year students, Tara, Anthony, and Jamaal, for our group project. We chose to assume the role of strategists for Trojan Condoms, and our project focused on the Chinese re-introduction of Trojan as an ultra-premium brand and the new launch of a low-cost (but highly reliable) brand we called “Safe Love Condoms”.

I think we made our project more challenging than it needed to be, but I can unequivocally state that I loved it. We continually revised our plan during four in-class presentations, building strategies that we thought would work in China, eventually focusing on attaching our low-cost brand to rural factory migrants.

In addition to the project, we also read six cases and prepared three written analyses. The cases were interesting and relevant, but pretty formulaic. I think everyone in the class came to the same conclusions, there wasn’t much (any?) disagreement about what the subject companies should do. I wonder if some cases are more open ended? I don’t like finding “the answer”. There’s no such thing!

Britta and the class content were quite similar to Jenni and the material presented just one quarter ealier in MGB204. Britta and Jenni both have cute names with i’s that should be dotted with little hearts. They both have 10yrs experience as marketers in the consumer goods space. Britta did a better job: the material was more structured, the grading scheme was more transparent, and the grading wasn’t “relative”.

The grade: I got an A. I give Britta and the class an A+.

Fall 2009:
After four glorious weeks off, everything kicks off again in October. Our friend group is splitting up. Brad is moving up near UC Davis and is switching to either the day program or the weekend David program. Half of the clique is taking classes starting on Sept 25th, me and a few others (Jillian and maybe Erika) start on October 2nd. That’s kinda sad, but I know our core group will keep in touch, there’s still seven more quarters to go!

For the first time the classes will be one per day, so I’ll be taking Marketing Strategies – hopefully not a third SWOT/strategy/positioning/segmentation marketing course, this one looks like a decision-making course – all day on Friday, and Negotiation in Organizations (yeah!!!) all day on Saturday.