As has become my custom, for my birthday I went out today and rode my age.

The last couple of years my age didn't seem a particular challenge, so I added mountains. But with the knee feeling tweeky, today just getting out and cruising 46 miles seemed a reasonable bargain. Going slow rather than fast, I was reminded of why I ride.

Up on the Alameda Bridge, the USGS guy who takes care of the river gauge was there, taking river bottom measurements. I told him I log into his gauge ever day on the Internet to see how the river's flowing, and he seemed geniunely pleased. Someone cares! He explained to me how the gizmo works (radar, bounced off the river surface to measure its height), and showed me the device he uses to figure out where the river bottom is (it's constantly changing).

Down in the south valley, a crew was out planting chile.

And somewhere in between I ran into my teammate Sage, and we rode together and chatted. Lovely day.

Tomorrow: MRI.