I.Am.Crazy.

Thursday, 22 May

This is Ski to Sea weekend. Excitement in the air everywhere in Whatcom County. After six years on the fastest overall women's team, I passed the baton (hair scrunchy, or chip band, in this case) to an FRM teammate--and got another one doing the mtn bike leg for the same team, Boundary Bay Brewery. Those ladies are going to rock and roll all the way to the finish line. I'm not sure I'll miss sitting on the trainer in the annual 45-degree drizzle at the DOT station on Mt. Baker for me on Sunday morning. But I will miss the adrenaline that's so thick up there on race day you can inhale it.

My race plans for the weekend include instead a little time trial outside Vancouver, WA. It's tiny: just 12 of us signed up so far. But it's a brand new event, and it's always nice to support the efforts of someone who starts up a new bike race. I'll take the camera but not the laptop, so it might take a while to get a race report up. Cross your fingers for good weather for us!

And while I'm down south, I'm going to go buy a tandem for a friend who'll be racing at Ski to Sea. I think he found it on Craigs List, and I have a rendezvous with the seller at a Starbucks in NE Portland. How cool to see another household get a tandem. But we really will have to get this one to its new owner in a timely fashion because I'm not ready for two tandems living in our living room!

Hood gossip

Monday, 19 May

Okay, I try not to gossip toooo much on my blog, but I suppose that's what everybody reads blogs for. So here are some things I learned at Hood:

Do not hang on to the side of a car for, like, 10K to get paced back up to a group if you flat. Officials apparently hang out in the woods to keep you honest--or penalized.

The most famous bike racer at this stage race modified her TT bike between the prologue and the TT so that it failed the pre-race test with the bike jig designed by officials here in Washington (your bike had to pass muster before you could start). As a result, she was about 90 seconds late starting her TT while her bars were raised to meet UCI standards. She finished in second place, about 15 seconds behind the stage winner.

At least one woman reported a pretty "boring" race without much action on the long road stage on Saturday. She really missed the interminable climbs on forest service roads of the true Wy'East course.

I have not spent so much time in a long time among so many women who made me feel fat.

If you get an invitation for an exciting, new, challenging opportunity, should you accept or should you be realistic and realize that your life might not have room for more challenges?

New TT course coming at Cascade.

More tidbits as I think of them.

Hood finish

Monday, 19 May

Let's see, where was I when life got so busy there was no time to visit the internet? Oh yeah, Saturday, the "queen stage" of the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic, a.k.a. the Wy'East Road Race, rerouted this year because of an uncooperative snow pack. Start for all categories but pro men was in the town of Dufur. As soon as we got there, they announced a 30-minute delay in the start times (the pros started somewhere else, and they had to get past Dufur before the slower categories could start). So we all sat around a high school parking lot in the blazing sun for longer than anyone should ever have to do. They did finally get the race on the road at 11:35.

There were two feed zones on Saturday, one at 25 miles, the second at 50 miles; the finish was at about 75 miles. Sitting in the first feed zone was as close to sitting under a broiler as I ever need to come. No shade, no trees, and, remarkably, no wind. Great views of Jefferson, Hood, and Adams. The pros get their bottles for drinking from their team cars in the race caravan, so when they come through the feed zone, they grab as much "neutral" water as they can in order to have a shower on the bike. End result? Not enough neutral water for the races behind them that don't have team cars for the riders to feed from. OTB guys in the masters race were told "no more water." Fortunately, there was a mini mart about 3 miles up the road, and someone got there, bought out their water supply, and passed the bottles up so no one shriveled up into so much sweaty dust.

Getting to the second feed zone involved passing two race categories strung out along the road. Much time spent driving on the left side of a double yellow line. :) This feed zone was equally flat, but at higher elevation and in a forest, so it was pretty pleasant for the sit-and-wait experience. Guys were absolutely desperate when they came through, you could literally see it in their eyes. Unfortunately, there were at least two crashes, one of them caused by a mishandled musette. Both riders hopped back on and kept racing. The team I was feeding was waaaaaay spread out by this point, so I was one of the last cars to leave.

Shortly after the second feed, the race turned onto highway 26, the major route from Bend to Mt. Hood. There's a huge, temporary, digital DOT sign that says SNOW ZONE: CARRY CHAINS OR TRACTION TIRES. Um, yeah, on bikes. We did eventually see tons of snow beside the road but none ON the road. Little shade on this leg up to Mt. Hood Meadows, lots of "detonated" riders barely able to turn the pedals. I offered up water from the car but guys were too delirious. One of them told me refusing a bottle at 5K to the finish was one of his dumber moves in the race.

What do you do for a rider who crosses the finish line who can't even stand up with his bike, can't open his mouth to drink, can't lean back to lie on the ground? Stomachs cramped up as did calves and quads. It was like trying to bring riders back to enough life to get them into a car. It was a long, slow process.

After all that, the stage race ended Sunday with a crit in downtown Hood River. Since there are no flat roads in Hood River, it's quite a technical course and the vultures hang out at the bottom of the downhill hairpin waiting for crashes. There were pretty good crowds on hand and only a few crashes. We did not stick around for the pro men's race but cheered on our local favorites in the women's race.

I got up early on Sunday to go for a short ride. My ride partner had some local knowledge, so we drove to Lyle and rode up the Klickitat River drainage, up a steep climb out of the river canyon, and then 10 miles of sweet descending back to Lyle. I'll add a picture soon from the top of the climb. I think we saw 4 cars in 30 miles. I understand the Klickitat is normally a clear river, but yesterday it was the color of chocolate milk because of the rapid snow melt. And the water was high enough to be bringing down lots of trees and branches.

One of my favorite thing about stage races--either racing or supporting riders--is getting to know new people and getting to know others better. I am really thankful for all the opportunities that came up at this race to do just that. And in case you ever wondered about even your slightest good deed going unnoticed, I was floored on Saturday when a woman in the feed zone walked up to me and said "I know you. You gave me a bottle of ice-cold water in the circuit race at Cascade last year. You were my savior." I sure didn't recognize her, and wasn't wearing the same team jersey as I did at Cascade, but obviously those 20 ounces of water were pretty memorable. To mix the bumper sticker metaphors: random acts of kindness help us all wag more and bark less.

Hotter Hood

Friday, 16 May

Happy Birthday, NateDawg!

Quick report. High temp observed today: 99 degrees. Water in my bottles got to a temperature warmer than some hotel showers. I rode from Hood River east to the Discovery Center outside The Dalles where the TT started. Chatted with a few folks I know officiating and neutral supporting along the course. Talked with the photographers who were all congregated near the top of the big climb, where the view back down the course shows this great hairpin. You hardly realize it's there when you're riding.

I was still riding backward on the course when the pro men started. Kinda funny. Some guys had disk wheels, other had deep-rimmed carbon wheels. But some guys had wheels that were no more aero than my training wheels, and one guy was just resting his hands on his cables--not even any clip-on aero bars. And one pro-team guy had a rear wheel with a cassette that was at least as rattly as the one on my disk wheel. What are his team mechanics and sponsors for?

I checked in at the start with a few of the women in the race, letting them know that the nuclear winds were definitely not blowing up on the top of the course today. Then Miranda joined me and we rode tomorrow's route for the pro men to the town of Dufur, where all the other categories start the Big Road Stage at Hood. We missed a turn and came across this relic. We also found lots of orchards and vineyards--along with grazing cattle and sheep and plowed fields on amazingly steep hillsides. And, like, 2 cars in 50 miles.

The hotel ISP apparently doesn't like my email account because I can't get it to load any messages. There are 108 of them in my inbox, but I don't know what they are. I guess ignorance is bliss and makes for a better vacation!

Hot Hood

Friday, 16 May

Yesterday was the first road stage at Mt. Hood. An absolutely beautiful day. Okay, maybe too beautiful by the end. But still glorious. I was helping with registration/packet pick up for the OBRA races, so I was in Parkdale at 6:00 a.m. The park was beautiful with tall trees. It's fun to feel the race anticipation build as stuff gets set up and riders start to roll in, sometimes bleary eyed. Here's the start of the masters field.

Then it was off to the feed zone. Not a great place to hand up water bottles because it's the only FLAT spot on the course. The first time the riders came through, they were flying so fast almost nobody got a feed. By the second pass, they'd figured it out and slowed down a bit. The cool part of this spot is that it's bracketed by Mt. Hood on one end and Mt. Adams on the other.


After the boys were done and decramped and watered and fed and back at the ranch, I headed out for my ride. I followed the race's TT course out to The Dalles and then did a little loop out there. Well, I did part of the loop. It's 18 miles. It was headwind from the start and I was going a whopping 12 mph. 6 miles later I was still doing 12 mph (and this is the downhill/flat part of the loop) and I realized I wouldn't be home before dark. So I turned around...and was promptly doing 22. :)

It's truly an amazing TT course. This was the first time I'd ever ridden it when the winds were anywhere close to calm, and I realized that you could do the whole thing without touching the brakes. I guess on previous attempts, I've had to use the brakes to keep from blowing across or off the road. The views, again, are amazing. This pic is looking west back toward Hood River from the top of the climb (yeah, there's climb in this TT--net elevation gain is something like 2000 feet in 16 miles).


Out on the loop out of The Dalles, I saw a beautiful pheasant and a coyote. And then going up the TT climb on my way home, I stopped for some deer crossing the road. I think this one would've stood there all night, just watching me fumble for my camera in my pocket.

Thursday was the coolest day of the weekend. On my first pass through The Dalles, the bank thermometers said 94 degrees. By the time I returned at about 6 p.m., they were down to 90. Today I'm venturing out in the direction of Saturday's epic road stage. Rolling hills as far as the eye can see, and of course no shade from the blazing sun. And no cell service, so I can't call for a taxi to get home!

Howdy from Hood River

Wednesday, 14 May

OBRA racing at the Mt. Hood stage race (that means fields other than the UCI women's race and pro-1 men's race) starts tomorrow morning, so we spent this morning on the road. It was grey and misty when we left Seattle and sunny and warm and, of course, windy when we got to Hood River. We headed out for a spin on part of the TT course. The first part of our ride (the last part of the TT) follows the Old Columbia River Highway. It's now closed to motor vehicles and has beautiful smooth asphalt. And some spectacular views of the gorge.

One of the special features of this TT is the Mosier tunnel. This view is from the bottom. The tunnel at the top is the traditional dark, vaulted train tunnel, but the pavement is perfectly smooth and there are no water drips inside. It segues into this colonnade. Speeds are pretty fast through this section and it's a wee bit technical.

One thing riders surely will NOT notice when they race on this course are the wildflowers blooming everywhere. The lupine are out in full glory all along the road and trail, and the California poppies add their cheerful color here and there. Scads more flowers I don't know the names of.

Tomorrow's stage is the Cooper Spur circuit. It's either uphill or downhill. Temps are supposed to be in the upper 80s, so I might be useful in the feed zone. And then I want to ride out to The Dalles and around the Wasco 75 course. Headwind ALL the way back, though....

Cross-training

Tuesday, 13 May

Cross-training might be a good idea when it involves going to the gym in the middle of winter and taxing muscle groups you cannot tax on the bike because the weather is malicious and the bike will whimper if you roll it out of the garage (to say nothing of the rider).

But this springtime cross-training with a lawn mower is tough. Last night I mowed our entire yard (usually I do it in two parts). Big deal, you say? My (eco friendly) push mower requires, well, pushing. A lot of pushing. And grass is not the majority population in my lawn. Moss and weeds make up a substantial portion of the green. (I'm secretly striving for--and am not far from--the latest NW eco trend: a "moss lawn.") Moss is thick and lush right now and just loves to suck in and strangle the wheels and blades on my mower. My cross-training activity bore more resemblances to lunges with a mower than to trimming a putting green.

The end result of last night's workout, a.k.a. lawn mowing, is that my legs are tireder today than they were at any time after Saturday's 60-mile Ravensdale-Cumberland road race. I think I am going to have to devise a post-mow recovery program to stretch the affected muscle groups.

Speaking of Saturday's race, it was more fun than I expected going in. For one thing, the forecasted rain did not materialize. For another, "the wall" had to be removed from the race course due to poor road conditions. I wonder how many cyclists were out there secretly dropping large boulders on the roadway in the weeks leading up to the race to avoid 0.15 miles at 20%. The finish climb was short and flat if you just rode up it, but relentless and painful at the end of the race. One of the things I learned in this race is where Cumberland, WA is. I was solo off the front for a couple of miles, which is a better opportunity for sightseeing than riding in the pack. And I just happened to notice the signs on the shops when I passed through Cumberland. I'm not sure it can boast a wide spot in the road, but there is an intersection.

The toughest part of the race was watching the cat 3s try to race. Because of smallish field sizes, the cat 3 women (supposed to be raced separately at this event) and the cat 1-2 women were combined in one race but scored separately. You can imagine the difficulty. A cat 3 attacks. Nobody chases her down: the cat 1-2s don't care too much, and the cat 3s know that a cat 1-2 driven pack will eventually catch her. We spent a lot of time watching women dangle and die. I think the cat 3s gained some confidence, though. They saw that cat 1-2s don't eat each other alive out there, and they learned one of our dark secrets: toward the end of the race, when it's clear nobody's going to get away, nobody wants to work, so the speed falls. And falls. How much 15 mph can you take? She who loses patience first sacrifices her legs to jump-start the pack. Ah well, in this case, her legs weren't going to fly up that finish hill anyway. But her teammate's did!

Growin'

Friday, 9 May

Nothing like a warmish Friday evening to go for a stroll through the west 40 with a beer in hand to check out the crops (that's 40 square feet, in my case, not 40 acres). I just got the potatoes and tomatoes in, the leaves on the grape vines have popped out, and the first batch of peas are coming along. The rhubarb, though, is unreal...and yummy.

Another women's race series

Thursday, 8 May

The Oregon Bicycle Racing Association is pleased to announce the inaugural Norman Babcock Cat 4 Women's Series. Named in honor of Norman Babcock, a strong supporter of women's cycling who recently passed away from cancer, the goal of the series is to encourage women cyclists to try racing. In conjunction with the Monday Night Portland International Raceway women's intro clinics and women's clinics throughout the state, the series will provide an opportunity for Cat 4 women to try out their racing skills.

Promoters have agreed to run separate Cat 4 women's fields at the Swan Island Criterium (Portland, June 8), Salem Fairview Circuit Race (Salem, June 29), High Desert Road Race (Bend, August 3), Mary's Peak Hillclimb (Corvallis, August 16), and Eugene Celebration Stage Race (Eugene, August 30-September 1). "This is a great opportunity to increase grass roots participation in women's racing," says Kenji Sugahara, Executive Director of OBRA. "We are working closely with many sponsors and promoters to create an exciting and supportive environment for women's cycling." With a wide variety of races, the series will give women with different strengths a chance to compete for the top prize, a bike frame from the title sponsor, Veloforma, a Portland-based manufacturer of carbon bicycles.

For more information, contact Kenji Sugahara at kenji@obra.org.

Longbranch

Wednesday, 7 May

The state road race championship on Sunday was funny in a bunch of ways. Three stand out.

First, last week was chaotic for me at work. And I worked 12 hours on Saturday. Come Sunday morning, I wasn't really feeling too peppy, mentally or physically. But the sun was shining, so I figured I'd hang in the pack for the first half-lap until we got to the hills and then have a couple of nice easy laps on my own to enjoy the warm sunshine and the smell of tide flats. So much for that plan. Yeah, I got dropped on the first hill but caught back on. On the second hill (there were two climbs in each of our five 10.5-mile laps) I was behind someone who dropped her chain at the bottom so had more chasing to do....on a hill. Repeat that scenario each lap until the fourth, when on the second climb my legs absolutely imploded in pain and forward motion seemed to cease. But STILL I got back on to the front group (which was 8 riders by this time). I could see the writing on the wall, though, so I took a long pull at the start of the last lap and made only a half-hearted effort to catch back on after the first hill. And then I had a nice little solo ride in the warm sunshine to the finish line.

Second, I was comparing notes with a rider in another field after the race, and we made the same observation about cyclocross riders. Come to the steep hills on this course, and they were all about flailing their bikes. The thing that made it sooooo striking in my race was Jen, who spins as comfortably on her bike on a 15% climb as she probably does sitting on her trainer at home with a HR of about 80. She rode up those climbs rock solid, super smooth and steady while more than one or two others were all choppy and jittery around her. I tried to stay on her wheel just because the image was so much more soothing.

The third funny thing was what happened when one rider had a mechanical halfway through the race. Understand that there were about 4 riders each from Teams A, B, and C, plus about 5 of us who had no teammates (several of these had been dropped by this point in the race). A Team A rider gets a mechanical and has to stop to try to fix it. Team A obviously is going to try to keep the pace slow. Well, Team B also joined in that effort ("it wouldn't look good to attack now"). Team C did not do much all day to dictate the race or its pace. So we rode along at 14 mph for a good 5 miles until the rider with the afflicted bike caught back on. In the end, the faulty bike part failed completely and the rider DNFed. Furthermore, the woman who won the race (who was not part of Team A, B, or C) said this nice little rest in the middle of the race played perfectly to her strengths (or, rather, helped her overcome her weakness). Of course, at the time she was agitated and wishing she had teammates in the race so she could drive the pace. It was an odd little incident for midway through a state championship race.

[OBRA Chat] Norman Babcock, rest in peace

Norman died yesterday. We are all better off for knowing him. He will be greatly missed.

Candi Murray
Assistant Director
Oregon Bicycle Racing Association

Frozen oatmeal

Friday, 2 May

Browsing my local Trader Joe's last night, I discovered another new idea in food engineering: frozen, cooked oatmeal. Seriously. So now I can buy quick, regular, old fashioned, and organic rolled oats, plus instant and frozen. Of course, there's also REAL oatmeal, which is, you know, the oat off the stalk instead of some steel cut, machined wonder out of the food industry. This stuff comes to us from Ireland (yeah, the U.S. imports grain from Ireland). If you've ever bought real oatmeal, you know you have to cook it for 30 minutes. And if you've ever eaten the real thing, the rest of those oatmeal choices taste like so much processed food. But the Trader Joe's discovery has made me wonder if I can invest 30 minutes, make a huge pot of really scrumptious oatmeal, and then freeze it in single portion sizes to thaw and reheat in the microwave. An experiment awaits!

Hats

Tuesday, 29 April

Just in case you thought I wasn't making hats any more, here are 3 of my latest. These are for a coworker whose baby shower is next week.

Art?

Tuesday, 29 April

Is it art? A prank? A new kind of nest for birds? squirrels? racoons? "It" is a traffic cone, but there's not much traffic up there except the aforementioned wildlife. The gardners must know it's there so perhaps they're conspirators. It will be all but invisible when the trees leaf out. It's at least 30 feet off the ground, so it'll take some work (or a fat racoon) to bring it down.

Random DRVTT thoughts

Sunday, 27 April

Happy Birthday, Jamie!

It was sunny and almost hot when we left Maupin this afternoon--and cool and rainy when we got home. Back to reality.

Here are some observations that struck me today:

A stoker is really shortchanged in an uphill TT. The captain gets to watch the drama of the race unfold before him. Mine occasionally mumbled things about guys making moves or passing people back. Me, well, the words CO.MOTION CYCLES on the boom tube are only exciting for so long (sorry, Dwan). Mostly I got to watch the snot dry on my arm warmers.

Today's course was 47 miles, slightly longer on the way out than the way back. Last year it was brutal. This year was not so painful, although we were slightly slower (a lot less wind). The first 4 miles are pretty steep, then gradual big ring climbing, then 4 steeper miles again before the turn. We FLEW down the first part of the hill on the way back. I distinctly heard the words "yee" and "haw" come from the guy in front of me. We did not pedal for at least 3 nonstop miles--we were waaaay spun out in the 56x12. We passed riders on single bikes like they were walking. For the 23.x miles of the return, we averaged 30 mph. And there are a couple of short climbs on the way back and really gnarly twisty, grab-the-brakes turns in the last few miles to the finish line. We were 6th overall in the final GC. It's kinda funny how many people don't like getting beat by a tandem in a hilly race. :)

We took only one water bottle (between us) on this trip. Observation when we got home: "hey, there's only one bottle to wash this time" (instead of the usual 8).

I am pretty self-satisfied that I set a goal for myself in this race and I managed to accomplish it. The goal was not to backseat drive, as in, "eeeeek, you're going too fast for this turn." I heeded Kenny's words in stage one and just watched the middle of my bars on the two descents. I totally missed the bends and was surprised to look up and see that we were already in the run-out at the bottom. Stage two wasn't a problem because it was all uphill, but we had to go back down those 8 miles. Fortunately, with a couple of tight exceptions at the bottom, it was wide open. I had been dreading the last 3 miles of stage 3 for a long time because it's steep and the corners are really tight. And you can't look at the bars when you need to know which way to lean on the bike. But I did not verbalize my panic and did not freeze up, even when we PASSED riders while diving into a couple of the hairpins.

There are spectacular views of Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood, Mt. Jefferson, and Mt. Washington from Bakeoven Road. I highly recommend you race out of Maupin sometime just for the privilege of picking out all the peaks.

And my but they have big moths in Maupin. This one was about as big as my fist!

More DRVTT

Saturday, 26 April

In the field of 60+ riders at this race, skill and experience levels sure run the gamut. We have some really fast racers--including a former world hour record holder--and some not-so-fast folks who are racing for the first time. We (I'm racing tandem here) were the 24th bike to start the 40K TT this morning, and the first one to cross the line. (We probably passed $75,000 in bikes on the course!) We ended up with the 5th fastest time for that stage. This afternoon's 8-mile hillclimb (1600') was a bit more challenging for us--and for others. It's kind of demoralizing when the guy who started 2 minutes behind you passes before you're 2 miles into the race. We slipped to 7th in GC but increased our gap over the other 2 tandems in the race.

Some mean comments about other riders. Many clearly do not know how to pin a number: right side? right side up? A lot of 'em started the 40K TT with 2 full water bottles. Now, I know hydration is important, but you're adding whole minutes to your time if you reach for your bottles enough times to finish 2. And if you paid all that money for the aero bars on your bike, why don't you use them? Don't ride the flat headwind parts of the course on your hoods. Don't come into the flat finish holding onto your brake hoods. Then, of course, sometimes you think things along these lines and get put into your place. I couldn't help but notice one guy rolling into the finish who looked like he REALLY needed a bike fit. And then I realized who it was: he's a recent RAAM winner, so obviously his position works for him.

Last year the view at the top of the hillclimb was stunning. You could see at least 7 major peaks in the Washington and Oregon Cascades. But today was hazy and you could barely even make out Mt. Hood. Still, the hills are beautiful shades of green and gold and pink. A local explained to me tonight that the pink tint comes from the red heads on the new grass. It adds only a very subtle shading overall.

Tomorrow is 47 miles out and back. The first 4 miles are steep and twisty, and then the road straightens out and the gradient moderates. But it's still pretty much 23.5 miles of climbing and 23.5 miles of descending into cross/headwinds. Last year it was savagely hard. It just wasn't any easier after the turnaround. And then there's those gnarly tight turns at the end. And it's racing all the way, so there's not so much looking around to admire the scenery. But on the way home, we may drive the newly substituted segment for the big road stage for the Mt. Hood CC. Locals say it'll be 40? 50? miles of very gradual headwind climbing before the last climb to the finish. Not nearly as epicly (epically?) nice as last year's route. But then riding in snow wouldn't be so nice either.

DRVTT

Saturday, 26 April

Two hours from the start of the Deschutes River Valley TT stage race. It's sunny and clear here in Maupin--and neither warm nor windy...yet. Stage One is a 40K TT with 1200' of climbing (and descending). The views of Mt. Hood and the Deschutes River should be glorious, except for those of us stoking, who won't see much at all!

Snow

Sunday, 20 April

Back at the beginning of March, when we had 3 consecutive Saturdays of dry weather at Mason Lake, I thought "we are going to pay for this." Little did I know. North Shore was cancelled at the end of the month due to snow. April started with a cold and rainy wet Willamette but then, oh, then it was tantalizingly glorious 80-degree sunshine at Kings Valley (or Volunteer Park, if you think in circles). But for this, the third weekend of the month, it was back to the snow routine. I kid you not. Significant snowfall in Seattle (OK, in the north parts) on 18 April. Still around on 19 April. Today, 20 April, I rode north to Snohomish and encountered roads with snow right up to the fog line on the shoulder. One woman (out to pick up her Sunday paper in her bedroom slippers and pajamas) told me "you shouldn't be out in this!"

The funny thing about riding in snow in April (folks in Bend know this well, I'm sure) is that the air is cold off the snow but the sun has warmed up a lot since the regular snow season in Seattle (November-January). You're inhaling cold air but your back is overheating from sunshine on 5 layers of clothes, and inside your rain jacket (which you need because you keep riding through snow/freezing rain showers) it's that proverbial sauna. I was lucky today to never get drenched, which made staying warm a whole lot easier. [Note to self: Remove condensation from viewfinder before using a camera phone that's been in a jersey pocket.]

While the bike rider copes with the weather challenges day by day, the farmer sees the longer-term progression. In the process of shuttling my pots planted with peas indoors (to avoid the snow) and back outdoors (to soak up the sun), I noticed that the rhubarb was far enough along to harvest. So, to culminate this snowy weekend, we ate the first produce from the garden for 2008: rhubarb crumble. I've pulled the last of a carrot crop in cold November weather, but picking rhubarb on a snowy April weekend was a new experience!

Mr. Pop Lolly

Friday, 18 April

There is a sad, wonderful article in a recent issue of the Eugene Register-Guard about an amazing man in the Northwest cycling community. Norman Babcock is a special contributor to, and sustainer of, women's racing in Oregon.

I first remember Norman, in his capacity as an official, for his willingness to listen to my woes about some injustice or other in the (pro-1-2-3-4) women's field at the Tour of Willamette stage race. He would always hear me out, ask questions in his calm fashion, and promise to see what he could do. He would bring me back to equilibrium (from either the ranting or near-crying end of the spectrum) before I dared to go whine to the lady in the red Jeep Cherokee (she drives a Mini now).

When I started racing tandem, Norm greatly increased my sensitivity to the concerns of the non-riding partners of my male tandem captains and explained that some (many?) women think that riding tandem is just too close and personal for husbands to do with anyone but their wives.

One spring, I wanted to take a long lonely ride outside Eugene, past Wolf Creek to the Clay Creek/Vincent Creek/Smith River loop, but I worried about loonies in the woods and other hazards to women riding alone (those are utterly empty roads, no cell phones, nuthin' but trees). I sought Norman's advice on whether I would be "safe." I knew he would be cautious in his answer but respect anyone's desire to ride a bike in a wonderful space. (He worried more that my bike would fail than about my personal safety.)

At some prologue at Skinner Butte in Eugene, he told me about his experience leading a Team in Training for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. He said it was the most rewarding thing he had ever done in cycling, better than any race. He took a bunch of non-athletes and trained, encouraged, and cajoled them into riding an epic distance they never thought possible. He made them athletes. That was before the Poplollies, or maybe it was a dry run for the Poplollies.

I remember too that Eugene Celebration stage race where the Poplollies debuted. As the Register-Guard story says, he and Kori had pretty much made a women's cycling team from scratch. Without the Poplollies--without Norman--there probably would not have been a women's race. The Poplollies were indefatigable. They had so much enthusiasm they were (to borrow a Veloforma rider's recent term for someone else) "giddy." It is good for jaded, cynical veterans like me to have some giddiness at a race. It is good for racing to get new teams. And it is good for our cycling community to have been blessed with all of Norman's many contributions.

I thought that as I got older, the "fabric of my life" was supposed to become richer and fuller. Instead, it seems to be getting holes that used to be filled by the people who have made me what I am.

Trippin'

Sunday, 13 April

The Kings Valley Road Race is one of (arguably) two classic one-day races in Oregon. It's a beautiful course that truly has something for everyone, and it's an Oregon Cup race so there are usually big, competitive fields. This year was even better than that.

SEVENTY women (cats 1-4) started the race. Equally noteworthy was the fact that the weather was soooooo nice that I didn't even put on arm warmers. (And this race is about 20 miles from where we raced past snow less than a week ago!) It took a while to get over feeling naked with all that breeze on my bare legs and arms. But no complaints. And it was a chance to eradicate those tan lines from the bottom of knee warmers and the tops of booties, which look oh-so-strange in shorts or a skirt.

SEVENTY women in 4 categories have a rather wide range of abilities and skills. At least 10 women dropped their chains at various points on the course, there were probably 6-8 very close (wobble into each other, slide around, stay upright) calls, and eventually one crash. On one roller, I was riding on the left edge of the field, and the woman next to me pulled left to go around a rider who was drifting backward on the hill. When she realized she was going to ride right into me, she tried to push herself off me and shoved me 3/4 of the way across the left lane on the road. After repeated dire threats at the start about the fate of anyone who crossed anything yellow for any reason during the race, I waiting for the follow official to come alongside and tell me my race was over. But either he wasn't there or he saw what happened, and I continued racing (sans one bar end cap).

It was great to see 4 teams really working as teams in the race, although if you knew the riders involved, you could anticipate the strategies. The perfect weather held, it didn't get horrifically windy on the exposed sections, and my result wasn't disgraceful.

A couple of asides. Probably in the interest of hyping the tradition of this race (and its regal name), the promoters post a list of past winners of the men's 1-2 and women's 1-2-3 categories at registration (for personal reasons, I think this is cool). This year they went all out and rented enough port-a-potties to label each one with the name of a previous men's winner. Thankfully, previous women winners were spared this fate. :) And showing that habits die hard, lots of riders started with arm warmers or knee warmers just because it was hard to realize that it could be warm enough not to need them. My favorite accessory spotted in my race was a pair of pink socks (I think) being used as shoe covers; Laurel looked for all the world like she was out racing in pink bedroom slippers!

So, after you get up at 4:15 a.m., drive 4.5 hours, and race 58 miles, what do you do next? Since we were Portland-bound, we stopped at the outlet mall at Woodburn. (This is, like, a once-every-two-years experience for me.) One clerk actually told me, "This great weather is really good for shopping, don't you think?" Well, I think rain is better for shopping because there are too many other things to do when it's sunny, but I didn't argue. The parking lot was jammed, traffic coming the other direction was backed up on the freeway for a mile before the exit, and it was crazy. But I saved a lot of money. :) It says something that I spent more money on a pair of winter knickers for riding my bike than I did on a dress for an upcoming evening work function.

We enjoyed gracious accommodations with friends in Milwaukie on Saturday night and then headed east to the Beautiful Estacada Time Trial this morning. It really is beautiful. The road is along the Estacada river, which is down in a gorge. Except for a few divets in the pavement from rock falls, the pavement is great. It's not flat but the only hill is the last kilometer to the finish. I had not checked my previous time on this course in 2006 so had no idea what to expect. At my finish, I felt like I had ridden hard and had a good race, so what more could you hope for? Turns out I had beaten my previous time by 11 seconds--and had the fastest women's time of the day.

I only say this about a one or two races each year (next up: Elkhorn), but you really should do both of these races. Part of what makes Kings Valley great is that it's not perfectly suited to anyone. Yeah, as one Washington rider pointed out, the course itself is not as hard as TST. But the race is as hard as the riders make it, and there are a lot of riders that events like TST don't draw. Kings Valley is mid-spectrum: definitely not flat, but no epic climbs--just enough hills to split fields and pop riders off the back. And you should do Estacada because it's a beautiful course and it's so much fun to ride on a TT bike and there are frogs along the way to cheer you on.

Dalai Lama's unpeace

Friday, 11 April

It's kind of ironic. The Dalai Lama is in Seattle for nearly a week to spread his message of peace and compassion. That's all good, and I'm glad he's here. But this morning he is speaking about 1/3 of a mile from my office, and unpeace prevails. There are at least 2 helicopters circling, and I'm guessing they're military/security because they don't seem to conform to any noise standard (except loud). The Secret Service is buzzing around in its black SUVs on footpaths without much thought for pedestrians. A coworker of mine (from Israel) was about to call the police because of the unsafe and erratic behavior of one of those SUVs. I guess there's peace, and then there's peace and quiet.

PR fun

Wednesday, 9 April

Last night was the first installment of women's racing at Pacific Raceways for 2008. Last year it poured rain for the entire 30 minutes of the first night; this year it poured before we got there and the temp was all of 40 degrees, but it didn't rain on the race.

We had a great crowd of women, a lot of them really intent on racing hard. Too hard, in fact, for my legs that were still tired from Willamette. I was ready for the totally newbie beginner pace--but none of them showed up. After the women's race, I hopped in the men's races but kept getting popped in strange places. I made it up the hill in the 1-2-3 pack which was pretty odd considering the other groups dropped me on the flats. The fields were small last night; I guess not too many others like racing in cold and wet conditions either!

Given the disaster that befell my race bike on the way home from Willamette, I was racing last night on our "spare" bike, which has not been off my trainer for at least two years (it did get a new rear tire for the event). The gears were not what you'd call smooth, and the wider, deeper bars were just weird. The replacement part for the race bike is on its way, so I guess I will use Saturday's race to "road test" the unfortunate frame.

I had a hard time getting my mind around starting up the PR habit again; it's a huge time sink, and sitting in traffic is not my idea of a good time. But in spite of getting wet and cold and dropped, on the way home I had come to terms with the prospect of doing it at least every other week.

Willamette 4

Monday, 7 April

The last stage at Willamette was the (in)famous Wolf Creek course. No embellishments, just the short, simple loop. A short hard climb that shed a few folks out the back, a hairpin at the bottom of a quick descent that sent more than one rider off the road yesterday, then a 4-mile climb, 2-mile descent (more guys offroading), 5 miles of false flat (with a tailwind yesterday), 2 miles of descent, 10 miles of flat headwind, 1-mile climb, 1 mile flat, and a 1K climb to the finish at the King Estate Winery. It played out about like I expected; I came off the front group in the steeper section at the bottom of the long climb, reeled in a couple, solo to the second descent, hopped on the Miranda train for the headwind section but got popped after 4-5 miles, and then soloed to the finish. I was second on GC going into the stage and it was not too likely that I was going to take time out of the woman in first or that the women behind me would make up time on me. So I'm not sure if I was highly motivated to ride super hard in the last 10 miles.

We had a few really heavy showers in the race, but we also had sunshine. I think the masters field got hailed on. King Estate Winery has this great sort of glass gazebo space that they let us use for bike races; I've never appreciated it in the summer, but yesterday it was great to have somewhere indoors to wait before and after the race. In the summer, there's been wine tasting, ice cream, and other things to sample post-race. Yesterday there was coffee, and I think they did a booming business. They also sold out of all the cookies they had.

It was a good race. The promoters (hats off to Mike and Sal) didn't try to be too fancy or do too much in their first year, but their planning has already included ways to improve and expand for 2009. When the race guide first came out, I was disappointed by the short distances of the road races. But in each case, the distances were appropriate for the courses and the time of year. Friday's road stage was truly epic because of the weather. Sunday's road stage wasn't epic, but there was plenty of climbing for the climbers and plenty of flat for the nonclimbers who like to try to chase back on. Both road stages had indoor spaces for riders to use before and after the race. You should plan to go next year!!

Note to self: There's a reason for TWO mechanisms to secure the bike on the roof rack: one to hold down each end of the bike. Leave one undone, and the bike will try to fly at 65 mph. :( At first we thought the bike had flown off the car but an eternity (60 seconds?) later realized it was still attached but not where it ought to be. The fork had stayed tight in the skewer while the rear wheel had twisted the bike sideways. One shifter is totaled, there's some lovely chainring damage to the car, and the chainring itself doesn't look so good:

Willamette 3A & 3B

Saturday, 5 April

The only stage on today's calendar at the Willamette Stage Race was the crit. And the women's event was shortened from 60 minutes to 45. So what to do with the whole day before the 4:00 start time? Go for a training ride, of course.

The first 20 miles were absolutely perfect for spinning the legs out from yesterday's road race: flat with a pretty stiff tailwind. I struggled to stay in the small chain ring to make sure I was really spinning, especially with two guys in front of me who eventually shifted up onto their big rings. We went up and over Gap Road into Brownsville. The plan was to continue east and then south on Marcola Road and then back along the McKenzie River into Springfield, but from Brownsville you could see that the clouds were below the hilltops (and just above the snowline!) out Marcola way, so I turned back and retraced my steps and let the boys venture into the storm. Not the best decision. Once I got back over the "pass" on Gap Road, it was rain and headwind all the way back to town. The kind of headwind you get out in the flat, wide open Willamette Valley. It takes a long time to go 20 miles when you're only going 12 mph. My argument against going out Marcola Road was that I didn't want to get drenched again after yesterday, but I got pretty drenched out there on my own, trying not to tax my legs too much (who was I kidding?!). Turns out the boys had a nice sheltered ride on Marcola Ride, through the hills, and then a tailwind all the way along the river. Sigh. 55 miles, 3.5 hours. Another round of wet clothes strewn around the hotel room.

I did stop once in the middle of that 12 mph stretch. Funny that rain and wind don't show up at all in pictures. It was fun to watch the lambs today. The littlest ones were too skittish to stand still for a photo.

Stage 3B wasn't nearly so interesting, at least not from my perspective. From the start line of the crit, you went up a slight uphill drag for about 200-250 meters, did a 180 around a planter in the middle of the street, back down toward the finish but then took a right turn, up a short hill, left, down a short hill, left, one flat block, left, another flat block, and you were at the start/finish. The uphill/downhill/flat section was pretty bumpy pavement. Oh, and it rained most of the time. Give me a TT--any TT--any day instead of this.

The best part of the day--the sweetest part, at least--was our visit to the Sweet Life patisserie. It's really a good thing I don't live in Eugene, or I'd be there way too often. Raspberry Rhapsody was the indulgence of choice tonight--chocolate cake with chocolate filling and raspberry reduction and chocolate icing on top. Oh my! I don't think 55 miles was enough to, ahem, outweigh that decadence. :)

Tomorrow's stage starts at the King Estate Winery, out Siuslaw River Road, over Wolf Creek, and back along Territorial. The cat 1-2 men have to do two laps, but the rest of us are done in 42 miles. The cold wet weather is supposed to continue. Stay tuned.

Willamette 2

Friday, 4/4

Classic Willamette conditions today. Biggest question: how many clothes can I wear? The forecast was for "showers" in the afternoon, but by 8:30 it was pouring. True, there were occasional sunbreaks, but mostly it just poured. It was 42 degrees when we passed through the last town on our way to the start. Like I said, classic Willamette.

We did a 43-mile road race today. Somewhere around 3500 feet of climbing, most of it in 2 climbs in the second half of the stage. It was windy, which is never fun for me. I hung on without too much agony on the first climb--up the "twisties" to the turn off to Marys Peak. Think of the curves on the east side of Mercer Island at about 8%. Pretty nice climbing. The descent off that climb was where we were supposed to hit 50 mph, but there was a stiff headwind and pouring rain and potholes, so nobody was flying too fast. And soon we were all freezing cold. We finally got to Alsea, where we turned off the "highway," and everyone was trying to figure out how much farther we had to go and when the finishing 10-mile climb was going to start. I must have blinked or had a senior moment, because one second I was riding along in the middle of the pack, watching the riders at the front, and the next second the race was totally blown apart and there were gaps everywhere. Oh yeah, and the road surface was really really rough and it was like trying to accelerate on those 28 mm tires on my rain bike (no, training on them didn't do me much good in the race). I finally got into a group with 2 other women. The "climb" had a lot of descending, and after one long false flat section where I motored along in my big ring, we were within 15 seconds of the front group. But the last 5K was steeper, and someone attacked, and poof, there we were on our own again. This climb reminded me of Dooley Mountain at Elkhorn, but with more trees and rain. From the finish at the top, it was an 8-mile ride back to the start; they promised it was all downhill, but it definitely was not. The injustice of the day was that the sun was shining and the roads were dry when I got back to my car. Microclimates of the coast range, I suppose.

I think this would be a beautiful ride on a nice day. That highway through the coast range is scenic, Alsea is supposed to be a gorgeous setting, and the last climb featured a stretch along a river (a la Smith River at ye olde Tour of Willamette) under overhanging trees. But I didn't see much today except wet pavement. I did notice the patch of snow along the road at the turn off for Marys Peak. I had hoped to convince myself to drive over there after the race and ride up the road to the gate or the snowline, but with snow on the highway at the very bottom of that climb, it seemed unlikely that I'd get more than a mile or two up the hill. So I bailed on the extracurricular riding today. Wimp. I did get to a yarn store though. :)

Willamette 1

Thursday, 3 April

Welcome to the Willamette Stage Race. Now really, for the first day of a stage race, you couldn't ask for much more. It was warm and sunny (no arm or knee warmers warm). It was a cute little TT prologue: 6.6K of butter smooth farm roads, a bunch of bends that were a whole lot different when you hit them hot at race speed instead of warm-up speed, pretty much dead flat, wind dying down. Dinner was Laughing Planet (peanut sauce in a burrito--mmmmmm goood), followed by the post-prandial stroll to the Sweet Life. Balmy evening. What could be better? The race results. :)

Tomorrow is a different story. A 43-mile stage that apparently is nothing but uphill (the finish is 8 miles of screaming descent from the start). Snow along the road at the top of the climbs. Chance of showers. Hoping for the best. There's a new powerhouse women's team in Portland and it will be interesting to see how these riders work together.

See the light

Wednesday, 2 April

People, people, you just don't need to ride on the bike trail with all your headlights on when the sun is above the horizon and there's not a cloud in the sky. Think about it. That wasted light carries a price. Either you are sucking the life out of batteries that are imminently bound for a landfill where they will spew toxins into the soil and water table and eventually into the fish you eat. Or, thinking yourself to be quite "green," you are unnecessarily sapping the energy out of your rechargeable batteries so that you can rush home and plug them in for a refill, thereby enlarging your carbon footprint.

Most of the time you don't need a headlight on the trail for at least 30 minutes before sunrise and 30 minutes after sunset. In twilight conditions, you can see just fine--unless you shine a massively bright light source in one spot, and then your eyes cannot adjust to your surroundings outside the beam of light.

Be nice, be green, get a clue.

Best of times

No April Fools

What a (well-deserved) smile !!

Foolish bloggery

April Fools Day

No, no jokes here. Not much exciting content either. But there's sunshine outside my window!

March sure did go out like a lion this year. Well, maybe more like a raging snow leopard. I can't remember ever seeing 4 days of snow at the end of March in Seattle. Work on Thursday was distracted because of it, Saturday's race was cancelled because of it, Sunday's ride route was altered because of it. Yesterday it was just plain torrential rain on my ride, so my nice toasty winter commuting jacket was still soggy when I left this morning. I had to scramble to find something else to keep me warm in the 32-degree fog.

Racing has been, well, weird. I have almost nothing but rants about Independence Valley so I've been keeping those to myself. It's a great course, the race is well promoted, and the weather was beautiful, but some other issues.....well, grrrr is about all I can say. Coming up next is what passes for vacation in my household: a four-day stage race. And the indulgent kind, too, with just one stage per day. Sounds like O.A.D. is planning some extracurricular miles to make sure we come home tired and overtrained. I'm planning visits to a couple of yarn shops I don't see very often. Also in sight on the April calendar is a tandem stage race, which is just a bucket of painful fun and a chance to check out the final road stage for Mt. Hood, which is under about 20 feet of snow right now.

Hats have been the small variety. Seems the Garage guys are on a roll (oh, really bad pun there, sorry), getting their wives pregnant in the off season. One of my teammates too. I'll bet you didn't know that the color choices in baby yarn are pretty dull. If you don't know a baby's sex, well, there's yellow and lavendar and icky mint green. If you choose something besides baby yarn, it's probably not as soft. I picked up some shocking neon pink yarn in Dublin last November, so I think I'll break that out for the next baby girl. I did have a request for one that was neon green, and that was fun.

The backyard farm is slow on the upswing this year, but the rhubarb is well along, the raspberries are starting to leaf out, and the blueberries are showing signs of life. The parsley that flattened itself against the ground for warmth all winter is perking up. The peas I planted on St. Patrick's Day, though, haven't done much in all this sub-40 weather we've had.

Oh, Argentius, you ask about my musical compositions and my day job. If I told you the latter, you'd never send me an email message again, and my recording career ended back in my college days, which were eons ago. Bike racing pushed my music performance out of my schedule, and crashing on my face a couple of years ago didn't do much to help it either.

Okay, the sun is shining. It must be time to go....to work.

Done

Tuesday, 25 March

About two months ago, I was asked to take on a freelance book project. Nothing makes me agree to a ridiculous amount of work like flattery, so I said sure. I don't know what waking moments I thought I was going to squeeze it into, what with a "real" job and training and WSBA stuff. But, hallelujah, I finished it (I think) today. All that's left is to send in my invoice. :) The downside has been that sitting at the dining room table in front of the laptop and piles of paper is not a good weight control program.

So, it's time to catch up on my blogging.

New career? A while back I got a real, first-class letter addressed to me by name from Hill Top Records in Hollywood. They want to consider my compositions for "arranging, recording and distribution." They want to be my "first big break in the music industry." A cynical coworker pointed out that they left out the page that says how much to make out my check for. I still have the letter, but all my recent compositions lately are very unmusical.

Google redux. The tech staff at work reminded me that Google's astronomical consumption of electricity comes from climate control for all its servers and not for, well, googling. So, since the AC runs whether I'm googling or not, I guess I don't have to be conservative in internet searches. Someone in the industry did raise the question, though, of why the heck they put server farms in the toasty climate of Hermiston, OR, where they probably have to have air conditioners to keep the air conditioners from overheating in the summer.

On the green theme. I can now compost at work! Lest you wonder what output I'm paid to generate, let me explain that it's just like food waste in your yard waste bin. It means the leftovers from my apples, oranges, and bananas don't go in the landfill. The only drawback is that I have to accumulate the compostables in my office and carry them over to the next building. Fortunately, it takes a lot to draw weird looks where I work, so my public display of decomposables so far hasn't generated much attention. Just have to remember to empty it before I go on vacation....

The calendar says it's spring. The fashion calendar (post-Easter) says I can now wear white, open-toed shoes. Too bad the weather doesn't cooperate. Those peas I planted last week aren't going to rot in the ground, they're going to freeze. My annual countdown to the reopening of the North Cascades Highway has begun (May 1 is the due date), but there's new snow up there, which can't help the snowblower crew.

The experimental cat 3 women's race series is off and running (note to self: must update those points!), to both praise and criticism. My month of training races is done; April holds two stage races and a "spring classic." Maybe with the book project behind me, I'll be able to get training miles in that aren't just laps on the Burke Gilman Trail.

IVRR

Easter


Yesterday was the Independence Valley Road Race. Erik and Dawn (and TGH) have done a great job of developing this race into a local spring classic. It's a beautiful course with the proverbial "something for everyone." After my race in the morning, I rode a lap backward in the afternoon, taking pictures along the way. Going that direction gives great views of Mt. Rainier in the long valley between the two climbs. And in case you don't think the course is hard enough, ask the promoter to reverse the race direction--those climbs are lots longer going the opposite way!

There were only a few flats yesterday and no crashes. More than 400 riders--including some from faraway places, such as Portland and Ohio and South Africa and Jamaica.

I wonder how many of those 400 were loony like me and went out for three hours in the rain this Easter morning. We sure didn't see anyone between here and Snohomish!

Afterthought: You know, that barn and my bike racing these days seem to have a lot in common.....

How Irish are you?

St. Patrick's Day

Irishness pervades my household down to the smallest everyday detail.

Stop go stop go equals stop

Sunday, 16 March

IMHO there are a couple of things that need to be fixed at the Banana Belt race at Hagg Lake. One is the road. There are several places where the road is sinking with drops of 3-4 inches running across the road. There are other places where the asphalt is missing, resulting in significant potholes. If you hit any of these landmines wrong, you could wreck a wheel...or worse. It impacts the racing when a pack has to funnel through a safe zone that's the 12 inches closest to the centerline on a descent. And it's just not safe.

The other thing that needs to be fixed is the race scheduling. For the second time in two weeks, the cat 1-2-3 women's race was neutralized three times in a four-lap (44-mile) race. That, too, impacts racing (the last time today was in the last 3K of the race). Try as they might promise, officials never do justice to a break when a race gets neutralized. And all those people who have popped off the back have a great opportunity to catch back on when their race is suddenly (and I mean suddenly--we nearly crashed into the lead car today when it whipped in front of our pack at 8 mph when we were probably cruising along at 20+) reduced to a crawl. Either there are too many categories on the course at one time, or the promoter hasn't given any thought to start order...or both. Is it really rocket science to calculate that cat 1-2-3 women are likely to catch cat 4 women started 5 minutes ahead of them?

Maybe I'm just whining because I had a bad race. But after a hard day at Mason Lake on Saturday, my legs were not really that eager to have speeds yo-yo as we got neutralized and "released" while the cat 1-2 men passed us in bits and pieces. My rubber band snapped, and I had a nice 1.5-lap ride around the lake with a couple other women. I thought I was nearly last, but I was 24th out of 36 starters, so that's as good--or as bad--as yesterday's result of 6th out of 9? starters.

I see in the paper today that there's a new book out called The Art of Racing in the Rain. The title was a timely reminder of last year's weather at the Independence Valley road race, which is coming up next Saturday. The description of the book, however, seems to have nothing to do with what you and I might think.

Venus and Mars

Sunday, 9 March

Do you know anything about planetary alignment? Did you know that Venus and Mars were on a collision course yesterday, going circles around Mason Lake, WA? This, apparently, is what you get when you combine masters' and women's races around here. If the frustration levels hadn't been so alarmingly high on both planets, it would've been entertaining. It just showed that different people have different ideas of what makes bike racing; I think in this case it was decades of experience vs. only years of experience, not Mars vs. Venus.

To escape the course that always engenders (sorry, bad pun) bickering, I headed south to race today. There's also a 3-week series in Oregon going on, doing laps around another lake about an hour west of Portland. The cat 1-2 women there get to race with the....cat 3 women. And they're not scored separately, so they can/have to race together. It was good. The only flat road on the entire course is about 300 meters across the top of a dam. It was interesting to contrast the savvy and smarts of women in the two pelotons. Teamwork goes to WA; pure smarts and savvy go to OR (although no team had more than 2 riders in the OR race). Funniest comment in the race: "you're the one who rides 400 miles a week, right?" (I really will have to be careful what I say here.) And it was great to race with Alice again! On the last lap, going down The (Down)Hill on the course, she sat up, both hands off the bars, and pulled out her water bottle. And hers was still the steadiest wheel in the pack.

Then, to start training for stage races, my local tandem partner and I followed our individual road races in the morning with a tandem road race in the afternoon. On lap 1, the group was pretty slow on the climbs, and the guy with the controls on our bike was choosing huge gears, and I thought my legs would never get to the end of the race. But they loosened up. The next-to-the-last time up The (Up)Hill on the course, there were just two bikes, and we started worrying that the race was going to come down to a sprint (it's a downhill finish, so it would've been a scream). But the tactician on the bike (stokers don't do anything except pedal and whine) worked over the other pair, and we'd dropped them about 3 miles later. We TTed to the finish solo.

It was nice to finish all three races this weekend, and to finish them with a win!

Icebreaker TT

Thursday, 6 March

David Longdon has posted video of about the first 40 riders starting the Icebreaker TT last Sunday. If you want to check your position, or assess your relative speed off the line, or laugh at someone, or just listen to the sound of all those disk wheels going by, you'll find the link here:

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/velocity/

No, don't worry, he cut out the 25-second dead time between riders.

Mason Lake 1

Saturday, 1 March

Nice day at Mason Lake. 44 cat 4 women, 17 cat 3 women, 12 cat 1-2 women. Plus one cat 1 who raced with cat 1-2 men. 74 women out of a total 343 riders = 22% of all racers. Nice.

I really have just one burning question from race day, though: Why does the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge have porta-potties? Can I park on the shoulder and jump over the jersey barrier to make a "rest stop"? They seem to be semi-permanent because they are lashed down. Are they for pedestrians who can't walk that far without a nature call? How come transportation dollars didn't pay for these on the I-90 bridge? Is this what the tolls pay for? They don't even match the bridge paint color scheme.

Boggledy bits

Thursday, 28 February

Thanks to Miss Chris for the link to a great article in Harper's about Google's use of electricity:

http://www.harpers.org/media/slideshow/annot/2008-03/index.html

You might think your next search for a knitting pattern or cookie recipe or directions on how to glue a tubular is free, but it comes at a price if you watch the bottom line on your taxes and electric bill or if you're concerned about the impact of exponentially increasing use of energy. Enough energy to run Tacoma goes into one server farm in Hood River. And Microsoft and Yahoo will be moving in soon as gluttonous neighbors, thanks to our cheap electricity rates here in the Pacific Northwest. A good thing that might come of this? I don't know if the "farmers" employed there are like the "techies" in Redmond, but maybe this will mean a bigger customer base for Dave's bike shop?

And, on the subject of things that boggle the mind if you think too much about them, local stud Kristi Berg is training for her annual assault on the Columbia Tower. Here's the snippet from the latest CycleU newsletter:

Big Climb for a Cure: Coach Kristi is Back with a Vengeance!
Please help in my efforts to raise as much money as I can for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. On March 16th I am going to participate in the 2008 Big Climb for a Cure. I will run 69 floors, 1311 stairs, up the Columbia Tower in Seattle. I have done this now for several years, and last year I became ill and was not able to participate so I am back with a vengeance this year to better my fastest time and raise more money then ever before. Please help by donating here. Your donations will go to help find a cure for Leukemia and Lynphoma. I will send out an update after the event to let you all know how I did! Thank you so much for your support.
Kristi BergUSAC Cycling Coach & ACE Personal Trainer

Let's all step up (oh, that's an awful pun--sorry!) and help Kristi and her great cause. You think your training regimen is tough? She's figured out she can go faster if she only hits every other step. Kristi is super tough, but her legs aren't what you'd call super long, so her plan is to PULL herself up 1311 stairs. You go girl!!

Frostbit

Sunday, 24 February

[My sanitized race report can be found after the Chilly Hilly report here: http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/velocity/archives/132590.asp. What follows is a little more blog-like. Some overlap, though.]

Funny thing about good weather. You get to a time trial, it's dry and the wind is calm and you think, "these are ideal conditions for a time trial." Wrong! They are ideal conditions for the rider's psyche but not for the rider's time against the clock. The Frostbite Time Trial in Lowell in 2007 was a wet, windy, cold, and miserable affair. Today it was dry and calm with a promise of sunshine. My time this year was more than a minute slower than last year! No water on the road to decrease rolling resistance; no wind to push that disk wheel on its merry way. Don't get me wrong: it didn't feel harder--I thought I'd had a great race. But there was nothing to work harder against and nothing to work with you. And maybe cold, wet, and miserable is a subconscious motivator to finish that little bit sooner?

The only thing marring today's event was one of those "that's bike racing" episodes. Due to some miscommunication, the course marshals didn't figure out where the turnaround was until about 40-50 riders had turned around. I was rider #3 to start and rider #1 to the turn. I didn't remember that the WSBA had a "200M to turnaround" sign, but there it was, presumably 200M from the turnaround. But no cone to be seen in the yellow line, no marshals. Ah wait, there's a cone on the shoulder, just waiting for someone to move it to the middle of the road--right where it had been when we prerode the course. And it must be right because just past it there are signs on the opposite side of the road for oncoming traffic. So I turned AT the cone if not AROUND the cone. O.A.D. was right behind me so I yelled at him to turn at the cone. One teammate behind him as well as one of my former tandem captains made the turn, but another teammate right behind kept going on to Snohomish ("what sign?"). On the way back, I was amused to see three marshals standing at ANOTHER cone by the side of the road in the middle of the course (they weren't there on my way out, but O.A.D said he saw their car pull in after I went by). They must have been totally puzzled by riders coming from the wrong direction and not turning at their orange cone!

The bottom line is that it's the rider's responsibility to know the course. Usually I am on the wrong side of that line (i.e., screwed and/or lost), but local knowledge and previous experience sure helped me out today. It was pretty cool to see a promoter respond without getting hysterical or panicked. I think most people (there were 200 folks in the race) didn't even know the problem had happened. Watch for this event to get even better in 2009!

Google warming

Friday, 22 February

Did you ever think about the carbon footprint of your last Google search?

Consider this from the latest issue of Sierra: "Google is hunting for cheap renewable energy....The Internet powerhouse is investing millions in solar, wind, and geothermal technology, with the aim of generating a gigawatt of renewable energy that is cheaper than coal. A gigawatt is enough to power a city the size of San Francisco or three of Google's energy-sucking data centers."

Google is usually pretty silent on the subject of those "energy-sucking data centers"--where they are, how much energy they suck, how many there are. But if just one takes the power of one-third of San Francisco, well, in unproprietary layman's terms, that's a lot of electricity.

Giga- is a prefix meaning one billion, a 1 followed by 9 zeroes. A googol is equal to a 1 followed by 100 zeroes. I hadn't realized that Google's name is an apt reference to the amount of electricity it consumes.

So, what's the carbon offset for my next Google search: Geelong Tour?

Overtrained?

Wednesday, 20 February

The best definition of overtrained is underrecovered. Since I am currently working 3 jobs (one of them full time) and doing the usual household chores (laundry, grocery shopping, etc.), I figured my week of mega miles would put me way over the line of fatigue. After all, I don't just sit around in my jammies after doing all those miles. But, hmmmm, no. (I'll let you know if I wake up with the flu tomorrow.)

So, from one Wednesday night TT through the next in the last week, I rode over 400 miles. Some easy, some hard, some climbing, some barely hanging on, but still 400 miles. Rain bike, race bike, tandem. Never did my resting heart rate budge above its normal 42-44 bpm range at night. My weight did not change (bummer). I do not hate my bike (or the saddle).

And some interesting numbers from the CompuTrainer TT tonight, for whatever they're worth. I got my HR higher than it's been all winter at CycleU (except for the time when they thought it got up to 221). I had my third fastest time of the winter (out of 11 races). Average watts and max watts were middling, which I swear are subject to calibration anyway.

Whatever overtrained is, those 400 miles weren't it. Don't think for a minute, though, that I don't get to rest now! And then the fun begins. I'm thinking smack talk about some early races, but I'm afraid to say it because I might jinx us all. Stay tuned!

Random observations

Presidents Day

I rode to Snoqualmie Falls today, which turned out to be an 85-mile ride, which was farther than I thought it was going to be. This was my second big-miles weekend of the winter; it's gone like this:

• Thursday: 30 miles
• Friday: 81 miles
• Saturday: 62 miles
• Sunday: 97 miles (tandem)
• Monday: 85 miles

If all I do for the next 2 days is commute to work on my bike, that'll be a 375-mile week with 10K indoor time trials on either end. Then it's just taper to the start of the race season, then it's weekly building of the racing miles: first race weekend = one race, second race weekend = two races, third race weekend = three races. This is my chance to see if some sort of periodization other than chance (although that's all this is) is more effective than randomly riding my bike.

Okay, the observations.

Many times have I ridden to Snoqualmie Falls, complete with the little detour on Fish Hatchery Road on the way up. Never before have I seen the airport on that road. I almost drove my bike into the ditch when I saw the plane and the runway.

The ride up to the falls is still the same nice gentle climb with gobs of winter grit on the shoulder. But the traffic on the way down 202 back to Fall City just plain sucks. This ride will not become part of my regular ride pattern; I think the only way to do this climb is to go on up Snoqualmie Ridge and out to North Bend. I had thought about going on to Issaquah, but that's lots more ugly-traffic miles; I opted for the quiet roads of Beaver Lake, with only a few on East Lake Samm before getting back on bike trail.

I saw a triple on the Sammamish River Trail. Not a tandem with a tag-along attachment, but a genuine triple bike with three adults on board. Cool. I also saw a ton of people without helmets. About the hundredth such underequipped person was a young woman with two kids in a trailer without a helmet between them. As I went by, I could not help but say, "You all need some helmets!" The response was not quite what I expected. She said, "Wha??" Maybe this is evolution in action.

A lot of new team kits out and about this weekend, too. They signal what I already know: the race season is here. One of my teammates won the cat 4 women's race at Cherry Pie yesterday. She was so eager to get her first race over with that she drove all the way to Corvallis for the thrill. Nice work, Daisy!

Smile contagion

Thursday, 14 February

more Valentine's bloggery

The last hat I made went to a little boy for his first birthday. I had made him baby hats, but I thought being one was a sign for a boy's hat, not a baby's hat. But the hat is nothing. The kid's smile is, I hope, enough to make everyone else smile too. Some of the sweetest things have no sugar.

O sappy day

Valentine's Day

For something different, I started today by taking the long way to work (an alternative to a morning run). It was simply gorgeous. Most of this ride is on the bike trail along Lake Washington, looking southeast the whole way. I got to watch the sunrise develop into a shocking shade of red (suitable for Valentine's Day), Lake Washington was like glass, and Mt. Rainier with its cloud cap was perched at the end of lake like a deity on its throne (rightfully so). I even heard the birds singing in the trees. Truly a beautiful start to the day.

Now this for my one and only (the rest of you can go read something else):

My bike is red
the hand-me-down one I got from you, that is
Your bike is blue
the brand new one, sitting on the couch
I'm still so glad
glad, adj.: experiencing pleasure, joy, or delight : made happy
I fell in love with you.
blame it all on Lisdoonvarna!

Funny fauna day

Saturday, 9 February

Nice riding today. Over 50 degrees. Sunny. Six hours. But the first hour was marked by some funny fauna observations.

At the bottom of Hollywood Hill, a car rolls up next to me. Two guys in tuxes want to know where Redmond High School is. I have no clue but can at least point them toward Redmond. Tuxes? At 9 a.m. on Saturday?

Over the backside of Hollywood, my peripheral vision picks up on three walkers in the road. I get a little closer and realize it's a man out walking his llamas. In a Woodinville subdivision. Maybe he hires them out as grazers to mow (and fertilize) lawns?

And then down at Cottage Lake, there was a flock of pink flamingos back in the bushes. I didn't for a minute think I was in Florida or (better) at Lake Manyara, and these were the flightless kind (seeing how they're stuck in the ground by metal stakes), but I did do a double-take.

After that it was just the usual herons and hawks, with frogs and chipmunks for background noise. I love riding my bike!

Ready or not

Friday, 8 February

Just like spring is around the corner whether you see it coming or not, so too is the bike racing season. Yesterday I mailed (yeah, old school) my entries (single, tandem) for the Frostbite TT, and this weekend is the last one free of "mandatory" team events or racing until (checking calendar....) mid-April? I've got four tandem dates already, and that's only between now and mid-March. :)

Mason Lake World Championships will be an entirely different women's race this year: the creation of a separate cat 3 race pushes the rest of us "elite women" into the masters men's race. That might not have much impact on the end result, but it will surely change the nature of the beast on the road for the women. No more lollygagging when the "right" break detaches itself from the pack. Well, the boys do that too, but 5 mph faster. After much hoopla all winter about all the women teammates I've got, at Mason Lake at least the ones I'm gonna see are men.

Hmmm, maybe it's time to give that race bike a spin on something besides a CompuTrainer? I'm giddy already..... :)

Spring !!

Monday, 4 February
(one of those mathematical dates: 04 x 02 = 08)

In case you're a resident of somewhere like Bickleton and you think winter is never going to end, there's proof to the contrary right outside my front door. The tulips and daffodils are already several inches above ground and:

lily of the valley is starting to bloom,

daphne is just about to open up and release its glorious fragrance,

and witch hazel is in full bloom.

Women's racing in WA gets national attention

Monday, 4 February

USA Cycling shines its spotlight on the WSBA as its Local Association of the month with a feature on the cat 3 and cat 4 women's series we've got going this year.

https://www.usacycling.org/la/

We're not quite trailblazers (the East Coast and California already have lots of women's category racing), but we're not too backward out here in this little corner of the boondocks. :)