Joy ride.

Recently, my cycling buddy Paul invited me on a road ride with a few of his cohorts. The plan was to meet near Stanford University in Palo Alto, then ride the Portola Valley Loop before ascending Old La Honda to Skyline Boulevard. I accepted, somewhat nervously because I typically ride alone and am a bit uncertain about meeting new people. In hindsight, I had nothing to be nervous about, because as I discovered once again, the bike is the great equalizer of men.

Paul is manager of SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, a United States Department of Energy lab run by Stanford University. His boss, Nobel Prize-winning physicist and avid cyclist Steve Chu, was in town for the weekend, and wanted to ride. My bike shop, The Bicycle Outfitter, has two loaner bikes in Dr. Chu’s size, so a 54cm Trek Madone was provided for hizonner. The former Stanford professor owns a Shimano-equipped Colnago C40, which he keeps at his Bethesda, Maryland home.

Photo: Alex Wong/Getty

We congregated at Dr. Chu’s stepson Andrew’s place near a small school. The other riders rolled onto the driveway in waves; one gentleman was riding a lugged steel bike he built himself many years ago, while another was riding a Colnago C40. Paul was riding his prized Trek 5900 in Discovery Channel livery from 2005, I was astride my Gaansari Van Cleve, and Andrew’s ancient Guerciotti would’ve won the prize for high mileage and adventure if it could talk.

Our final riding partner rolled up as we were rolling out toward campus. John had a custom Seven titanium and carbon bike from Palo Alto Bicycles with older Shimano components and a Bicycle Outfitter bottle in his seat-tube cage. He was decked out in a Discovery Channel kit, and was happy to see everyone. The affable Missouri native and über venture capitalist, a member of the exclusive Champions Club, spun along with the small peloton as we chased Chu through Stanford’s campus, his old stomping grounds before Barack Obama recruited the St. Louis native to lead the Department of Energy in 2009.

Once on Foothill Expressway, we rolled along two-by-two at a conversational pace that would’ve made Michael Barry proud. The sun was out, the sky was blue, and the conditions were perfect for saddle time on roads once ridden by Cadel Evans, Christian Vande Velde, Eric Heiden and thousands of weekend warriors. Our small group was the perfect size for me to rotate through and get to know everyone, which heightened my enjoyment and laid waste to my nervousness.

The warm December weather attracted hundreds of cyclists that day, providing an ideal setting for the busy men in our group, who usually ride early in the day when it’s closer to 40 degrees than the 60 or so we were enjoying. Andrew commutes to his part-time job in Sunnyvale when not managing the household, John gets out in Woodside most mornings, Paul commutes to SLAC from Mountain View, Steve is usually surrounded by Secret Service agents and driven to his Washington, DC office each morning (much to his chagrin), and I steal a 16-mile jaunt through the Los Altos hills before work each day.

We cruised up Alpine, turned right at Portola Valley Road, and then swung left onto Old La Honda. Andrew and I were swapping stories, and as usuall
y happens in my story-telling life, his questions led to another fun bike history anecdote, and we were pedaling ahead of the others before we realized we needed to roll back to stay with the group.

Turns out Steve and Paul were talking shop, and John was choosing a slower pace for the climb. Andrew and I rolled gently ahead, reaching Skyline after 3-1/2 miles or so of climbing. We regrouped at the top, with a plan to head north on Skyline before descending down 84 to Woodside Bakery for a short coffee and treat break.

As we turned right off Skyline, Steve stuck out his right foot, which was three cleat screws shy of the standard four on his Speedplay clipless setup. We stopped by the roadside and provided a Philips screwdriver for hizzoner to transfer one cleat screw from his left to his right, balancing the tension and allowing us to proceed down the mountain. We asked Steve if he missed having Secret Service detail trailing him on bike rides, and he said he relished being solo like his pre-Secretary days, when he and others would ride to the coast every Sunday.

Once we regrouped at the bakery (Paul and John had descended Old La Honda and beat us to Woodside), we were one group of several dozen riders who overwhelmed the sleepy town’s tiny bakery. We found two empty benches, where Paul and I talked bikes, and the others talked about solar energy and other top-secret smarty-pants stuff that went completely over my head.

Once back on the road, we chose Whiskey Hill to cut through to Sand Hill Road, the storied avenue of the financial venture capitalist giants, before slicing through Stanford and arriving at Andrew’s house. A few blocks away, John asked what my plans were for Christmas, and I talked about visiting my new nephew in Echo Park outside Los Angeles. We talked a little bit about music, specifically U2 (he serves on Bono’s One Campaign board), and I mentioned that Apple CEO Tim Cook is an avid cyclist. John wasn’t aware of this, and mentioned he was having dinner with Steve Jobs’ successor that night and would talk bikes. According to Paul, Doerr and Jobs were very close. Doerr hosted President Obama at his Woodside home back in February, a high-tech gathering of the giants of Silicon Valley industry, the president flanked by Jobs to his left and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to his right.

Looking back on last Saturday, I was reminded once again how the bicycle is the great leveler of egos among non racers, especially when it’s a social ride ridden at a conversational pace. Steve Chu and John Doerr, two of the most influential men in their fields, rarely spoke on their mobile phones or checked email. It was refreshing to spend time with men from high places who turned out to be no different than anyone else out for a joy ride.