Gluten-free-ness

Monday, 29 June

Since my husband embarked on his gluten-curtailed diet at the beginning of March, I have only hesitantly worked my way into the realm of GF baking. Most recipes call for weird things that I can't find in my supermarket or that cost $12 per pound. I got muffins and brownies dialed in, and I think my GF waffles are better than the white-flour original, but didn't venture any further afield. Bob's Red Mill makes a lot of great GF baking mixes, but I am not a mix person and like to bake from scratch. Since Bob's also offers a huge line of GF flours and other baking products, it was just a matter of time before my GF pantry had enough options.

Last week I got an urge to bake again. First up was strawberry shortcake. Yes, fresh local strawberries are mighty tasty on their own, but who doesn't like shortcake? This recipe was a 100% success on first try, straight from a Google search, and incredibly simple.

Next up was raspberry chocolate shortcake. This was pretty much brownies with vanilla yogurt and raspberries on top. It disappeared before I got the camera out.

Irish soda bread is a versatile quick bread. It's great for toast at breakfast or with cheese any time of day. But the "real" recipe is just wheat flour and soda and buttermilk. In Ireland, they have a coarse-ground flour that's much coarser than anything you can buy here, so I puzzled over what GF product might provide a similar texture. I ended up using a lot of coarse-ground oatmeal (a couple of quick pulses in the blender). For a fuller flavor, I added buckwheat (which is not really wheat and is GF). I also used corn flour and soy flour to round out the flavors. It all worked well, but next time I will back off on the buckwheat--it has a pretty strong flavor. And maybe a drop of molasses will help give some depth to the buckwheat flavor? And I might try adding some steel cut oats for more texture. Maybe I can get the Irish Heritage Club to make a gluten-free division in its soda bread competition next St. Patrick's Day?

Finally, I tackled buttermilk pancakes. I think I used 5 different flours in these. Again, I used too much buckwheat, and next time I'll substitute some ground oats. When the batter was the right texture for buttermilk pancakes (lumpy), the pancakes were too dry. But I added a little more buttermilk and they were great. No pictures, but pancakes are pancakes. :)

Post-pancakes, we went on a 75-mile tandem ride. Melinda was in the group, and I remember her moaning one morning before a ride years ago that she had made pancakes for breakfast and was regretting it because they were "gut busters." Not so with GF pancakes. If you've ever had a feeling of being way too full after eating something with white wheat flour, I encourage you to try a gluten-free alternative. Even if you're not gluten intolerant or celiac, I'm pretty sure you'll notice a (happy) difference. You can eat lots :) and still not have that lead weight feeling in your stomach!

How to stoke a tandem

Monday, 29 June

We had a perfect little spin on Saturday: Newhalem to Mazama and back over the North Cascades Highway. I got a handicap by dropping my husband off in Marblemount, making his ride over the pass 15 miles longer than mine. This time he got to Mazama just 5 minutes after I did (I stopped to take too many wildflower pictures!).

Two cycling clubs were having big outings on this same route, so there were lots of cyclists on the road. They all spent too long at sag stops, and I passed the last ones at Easy Pass. Mick passed a tandem in Newhalem on his ride east and noted at the time that the stoker was not paying attention to the task at hand (riding a bike) while the captain toiled away on the front. After our leisurely refueling stop in Mazama, we headed back west--and saw most of those folks coming down from Washington Pass. We encountered that same tandem about 3 miles west of the summit of the pass, climbing at a pace that could not have been greater than 5 mph. The stoker, as they would say in Ireland, had not a bother on her; the captain looked absolutely wrecked, as if he had been towing a car all that way. Her attitude seemed to be "honey, why are we going so slow?" while he did not look like he could pedal the bike another 10 feet.

I got all my training on how to be a tandem stoker from tandem captains. This woman was apparently taught by another stoker, one who must've thought that stokers were ornaments, just there for show and maybe to provide verbal support ("nice effort, way to go, looking strong"). Lots of people tease stokers for not doing any work and getting a free ride, but I have honestly never figured out how to ride that way. If you want to go fast, you have to pedal hard. If the road goes uphill, you have to pedal harder. Is it really possible to sit in the stoker compartment and do your nails or knit a hat?

We took our tandem out on Sunday, and there were a few climbs where I was tempted to try out this different approach to stoking. But I could not do it. Partly because I wanted to get home sooner rather than later, partly because I want to ride the tandem again, but partly because it would just seem wrong. Apparently I need to go to stoker school and get brainwashed. But then I would have to find new captains because nobody I ride with now would have me back under those terms!

June-uary indeed

Monday, 22 June

Another successful Elkhorn Classic has come and gone. They're different every year, but Baker City always rolls out the red carpet and gives us a warm welcome, and Ernie and so many with OBRA do a marvelous job in putting on the production that is a stage race.

There were a lot of transitioning riders in this year's women's peloton. Okay, there were just plain A LOT of women riders this year. Some were getting back to racing after injury or illness, some had to sit out the race due to illness or obligations (thanks, Judy!), some were rethinking their commitment to competitive cycling, and some were racing for the first time. It was so good to see anxieties overcome and confidence regained.

Stage 1 was different this year because of the direction of the wind. I am usually hating life by the last 25 miles (it's a 75-mile road race), but there was a tailwind for most of the last 40 miles, including up The Climb and over all the "rollers" that are usually brutal. There was an early pee stop and then a short shower (the men's fields got more rain) around the first feed zone, and it was kind of eerie to race between windmills when the sky behind the white towers and blades was stormy black. We rode past a field of mint, which smelled fantastic. It was a good race, no heat exhaustion or dehydration. Wind is my friend when it's behind me!

Stage 2 was a different TT course for 2009. They took out all the hills. It was okay except for an awkward, contorted, contrived finish. This year we finished on Main Street, which involved two 90-degree turns in the last quarter-mile. The problem was getting us set up for those last two corners through a busy intersection. I'm not used to having to pick out a race chute between orange cones in the middle of the road with a sharpish bend after 11 oxygen-deprived miles. I don't care how many people are waving and pointing and trying to direct you along the course, it suddenly becomes a different event.

Stage 3 was a crit. Dry. Uneventful. Loads of primes.

Stage 4 was the anomaly this year. It was 45 degrees and raining in town at race time. The stage is 105 miles and finishes up an 8-mile climb. It was snowing at the finish when we were supposed to start. While everyone realized it would not be snowing still after we finished 105 miles, the fear was for riders who got hypothermic (or nearly) somewhere out on the course. It's one BIG loop, and while there are road signs pointing to some far-off towns, the course does not ride through anything you might call a town. No coffee shops, certainly. Nowhere to warm up and wait while you hope for a ride if you decide to DNF. So. With very short notice, the start times were delayed 30 minutes and the course was changed to "the short way" to the top of said climb--same Dooley Mountain, but climbing up the side closer to town. 10 miles of flat road, 8 miles of climbing. In the cold rain--and most of the cycling clothes you had brought with you.

Much to my surprise, there was no distinguishing the end of the neutral start. We continued to roll out the flat road. The pace picked up a little, there were a couple of faster stretches, but it was all just a nice warm up and never single file. Eventually we made the left turn, started the climb, and still the pace was social. So "social," in fact, that we had a little deja vu with some surge-and-brake issues we battled on Friday. One woman's frustrated reaction was to swear. Then she realized you're not supposed to do that in a bike race (lest you might get DQed) and she apologized profusely. That was pretty funny because we all shared her sentiments. Finally Alice took off at the front of the group and the race was on. The group just kind of dispersed. I followed the other Landshark in the peloton for a long time and let Molly do the work of making a gap between dropped riders trying to take up the whole road. Eventually Molly fell back and I just kept riding a steady tempo. At one point I had a train of about 6 riders behind me. Some of them fell back and a few passed me. The 3K sign came sooner than I expected, and the finish was pretty fast after that. The rain eased up on the climb, and since the climb is not steep, it was really a nice little race.

The pro-1-2 men started 10? 15? minutes after the women did, and I was very (pleasantly) surprised that we finished before they caught us, especially given the easy spin nature of our ride out of town. The finish line was barely controlled chaos, because the officials couldn't see riders' numbers buried under 19 layers of clothing (pin your numbers to the outer layer, people!), because it seemed that every third rider had a personal support vehicle that had driven to the top (where parking is minimal), and because riders were milling around. But that kind of barely controlled chaos is pretty fun. My husband started 45 minutes after I did, so I stood there in my wet clothes, drinking hot chai, wrapped in a blanket, huddled under a tent, until he came through. Then we climbed in a truck (thanks, Claire!) for the ride back to the start and a hot shower and another breakfast. Good times. :)

Adventure no. 2

Tuesday, 9 June

Last weekend was the second round in my adventure travels this summer. And the adventuring part didn't even involve my bike. I took the train from Seattle to Bingen, which is across the Columbia River from Hood River, OR, site of the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic. The only time train travel makes the news is when it's disrupted and passengers are diverted to buses. My only expectation about this trip was that I would eventually get to Bingen.

The adventure started with a bus ride from the end of my street. It's a route I never take because it goes downtown (where I never go). I think the Kingdome was still standing the last time I was at the King Street Station, but I managed to find it. Have you ever noticed that it's impossible to tell where the "front" of that building is or where the front door is?

My train ticket said I had a "reserved" seat, but that's not the same thing as a specific seat. So I had to stand in line for a rather elaborate ritual of getting an assigned seat before the train arrived from parts north (it starts in Bellingham and goes to Eugene). When I got on the train, my assigned seat had already been given out to a rider from Bellingham. This was not a good sign, but I managed to find an open seat (next to a very chatty man from Bellingham from whom I learned much about senior services in Whatcom and San Juan counties), and the train left on time. Completely uneventful ride after that. I did not venture to the lounge car to sample the food--I have awful memories of train food from a trip to Montana ages ago. I read a little, dozed a little, and people watched a lot. The train itself is pretty quiet, but there were some noisy parties of two and four that kept the chat level up. The women in front of me were griping bitterly about going on bike rides where people ride too fast and couldn't possibly enjoy the scenery they were riding through.

I had a two-hour layover in Portland, so I got to venture out into the Pearl. Found a nice coffee/chocolate shop, tried not to drool on the goods in the Pendleton home store, and almost walked over to the yarn shop.

The train from Portland to Bingen was altogether different. It's the Empire Builder and goes to Chicago. Most of the folks had checked their luggage and were loaded down with bags of snack food and bottled water. Mmmm, two or three days of sitting in a train seat and eating granola bars. But the cars on this train are bigger, and passenger seating is on the "upper deck" so the view is even better. Since the train follows the Columbia from Vancouver to Bingen, I made sure I got a window seat on the view side. And a great view it was. Mt. Hood peeked out, and we saw a bunch of kiteboarders as we got into the Gorge. But I was definitely ready to get off in Bingen.

The rest of the weekend was filled with water bottles, feed zones, watching for poison oak, and two short but fun and scenic rides on my bike (which got to Hood River by car, not train). The weather was cooler than expected but there were some spectacular views of Mt. Hood on Saturday.

Small engine repair

Monday, 1 June

Saturday was the OBRA masters road race. Old biddies like me (and ones a lot younger than me too) got to race two laps (32 miles) on a hilly course just across the river from Longview. It was a perfect afternoon for a bike race, maybe a touch warm but that was just conditioning for the hotter races ahead this summer.

Since there were three age groups racing together in my race, I wrote the numbers of those in my age group on my arm before the start so I could keep tabs on them. The course goes up and down a bunch early on, but we stayed together. About miles 4-7 are mostly up and finish with the second most significant climb on the course. That's where a pair of riders (one in my age group) split the race to bits. Two of us managed to stay with them and two more caught back on. So we were a group of six for the descending portion of the course, and we worked well in a paceline to keep the speed up. Unfortunately, the last two to get on got popped for good on a roller about two miles from the end of the lap.

The 16-mile loop finishes up a 1K climb that's nice and twisty and not severely steep. About halfway up, I realized I was not exactly holding on to the wheel in front of me and before I knew it, they had a gap. Blah. I figure I should bury myself and work on closing the gap, but they are driving it up there and all I can do is keep the gap constant. Blah. 16 miles to go. Three ahead, two immediately behind, the rest who knows where. TT time!

The first mile of this course has stunning views of Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Adams, but I promise I did not see them during the race. The three ahead were in sight and I was trying to at least hold the gap constant. Up and down, twist, turn, and they're out of sight simply because you can't see very far. Somewhere out there where I'm trying to pretend that I'm motoring along and holding off the riders behind, I pass a sign at the end of a driveway that says "small engine repair." This is exactly what I need! Clearly I do not have a large engine, and clearly it needs some tuning up so that it can reach higher RPMs and thus have better acceleration. I make a mental note to consult the yellow pages when I get home and see what can be done.

I knew I would lose time on a group through the downhill stretch, even more when I realized how much of a headwind there was. Pedal, pedal, pedal. This is where I figured out that this entire race was going to take me less time than the climb at training camp from the John Day River at Clarno up to Hamilton. That climb had been hard work too, so a little mental self-flagellation convinced me to keep the pressure on and try to hold off the field behind.

Somewhere around about mile 2 or 3 of my second lap, I realized that the official for the race was following me. At one point, she went up the road to check on the front group, but she came back and followed me. So long as she was right there, I figured there were no riders close behind her or she would've pulled over to let them pass. I also figured she wasn't giving me any time splits to the riders behind in order to keep a fire lit under me. :) After the race, she told me I was the "first chase group" (a kinder phrase than "last one to get dropped") and hence that's who she was following.

There's a flat straight bit of road before the final climb, and I couldn't see anyone behind me. There was a photographer just after the road tilted up, and when I asked he said he couldn't see anyone either. I didn't exactly soft pedal the finishing climb, but at least I didn't have to try to hold off a closing stampede. So I finished 4th overall, 2nd in my age group. I don't think the order of finish would've been much different if we had just done 16 miles. Turns out the break of three was probably the biggest group on the road--the field behind was shattered into onesies and twosies with huge time gaps between.

Since 32 miles seemed a bit short for a day's effort, I rode the loop backward after the race. Funny how the pitch of a road looks so much different going the opposite direction. And how you see so much more when you're not oxygen deprived with race blinders on!

812

Sunday, 24 May

Yesterday was the Lewis and Clark 12/24 hour time trial, which starts and finishes in Hockinson, WA. It features miles along some beautiful scenic rivers (including the Columbia) and the best in-your-face view of Mt. St. Helens I know. The Gorge winds were a nice tailwind (ahhhhh) but that meant headwind on a long stretch through Cougar. Since last year I'd managed to forget how many tough little hills there are, in addition to the main climb over Old Man Pass. The day was sunny but not hot--perfect! The field size at this race had tripled since last year, its first year in existence, so it wasn't quite so lonesome out there. In addition to a detailed cue sheet, all the turns were marked on the road.

Highlights? The view of St. Helens. The Washougal River Road. The dogwoods blooming on the Old Man Pass climb. The vanload of teenage girls that passed me screaming every positive thing they could think of. The fantastic support from the race organizer, his volunteer crew, other riders, and the support crew for those other riders. Have you ever had folks do the wave for you as you ride by? Coming one step closer to successfully managing the mental and physical aspects of riding for 12 hours (still working on the feet).

After the big loop of 140 miles, you fill up the rest of your 12 hours with laps on a 9.6-mile circuit that is mostly not flat. I did 5 of those plus 2 miles. I was pretty spunkless when I started my short laps. After switching my "nutrition" to coke and tortilla chips, I got perkier. No, I'm not advocating junk food for long rides. But I realized that most every other day of the week, I get tired and hungry sometime after 4 pm and my body is just programmed that way. Whether I eat in that period or not, I feel better after that time has passed. Yesterday was no exception. I had taken pretty good care of myself up to that point and was able to "just" pedal through it. But it makes for a tough mental battle.

This morning, the winner of the 24-hour race asked me how many miles I had ridden in the last 10 days. I had to get out a calculator to tote them up when I got home. 812. And I worked every day last week! The riders who do 24-hour races and more don't quite understand why I don't take on something bigger than these piddly little 12-hour TTs. I can't quite tear myself away from dinner at dinnertime and bed at bedtime....

This is such a fun race, and thanks to Glenn for thinking it up and putting it on!

Camping

Tuesday, 19 May

It's been a few years since I last did a training camp, and the bar was a little higher this time: bigger hills, bigger miles, better roads. I shan't bore you with an inch-by-inch description of the 500 miles I rode in 4 days--we mostly followed the route of the 2009 Race Across Oregon (we had to detour around a couple of roads still under snow). But here are some of my favorite things about this "camping" experience, in no particular order:

The wildflowers. Some I recognized, many I did not. Some were fragrant enough to smell on the bike. Yellows, blues, white, and red. I have research to do to find out their names, including the tall weed I came to think of as Oregon saguaro because of its shape.

The mountains. We were looking at these all the time, not riding in them. The most stunning views were around Antelope and Shaniko; you could see every peak in the Cascade range from Mt. Bachelor to Mt. Rainier--all at once, from the same spot. The mountains look different across the central Oregon plateau than they do from the west side; somehow the eastern plateau is like a pedestal that sets up each peak with no foothills to distract the eye.

The camaraderie. We were a small group of riders, each with different goals and expectations. One was training for the Trans Portugal MTB race. Two were training for the first part of RAAM, which is the Race Across the West. One was from Houston and learning how to ride up (and down!) real hills. Sometimes I got to ride with another person or two (thank you, Mick, for riding with me through the nuclear gorge winds), much times by myself. It is interesting how rapport builds through shared suffering and shared enjoyment.

The learning about myself. How I can come back from the depths of the black mental abyss caused by trying to ride in gorge winds. What hurts the most after 150 miles on the bike--and the better corollary: how much does NOT hurt after 150 miles! Finding the legs to get in a boys' TTT paceline after 75 or 100 miles. Discovering that, outside Seattle, I am a coffee snob (and an addict who needs her tasty morning caffeine).

The riding and the roads. After the first day, the riding was exactly what I had hoped for. Seemingly endless but not-same miles through beautiful, changing terrain. Virtually empty roads. The feeling of being a tiny speck in a huge expanse without feeling lost. In a few places, the chip seal was not the best friend, but for the most part the roads were smooth, sans potholes. Bits and pieces of the route were familiar from the old Columbia Plateau stage race, and it was interesting to ride some of those backward ("I thought this was flat!").

Seeing the difference between central and eastern Oregon. We weren't far enough south of the Columbia to be in Bend's high desert country, and the creased hills of central Oregon were still green--but with scant foliage. Eastern Oregon has trees and more compact hills. Before we went to camp, I looked at a map and realized how close we would come to La Grande. And when we reached the first false summit of Battle Mountain, it looked like La Grande. Welcome to eastern Oregon.

Isolation. Two miles out of The Dalles, we lost cell phone coverage for 4 days. No laptop, no internet. No news (OK, there was a TV one night, but basketball and baseball aren't my idea of "news"), no phone. I did not miss any of them. At all.

Franklin Hill. In the first stage of Columbia Plateau, the cat 1-2 men did an extra section that none of the other categories rode. I knew there was a climb, and this weekend I got to ride that climb. OMG. It's one of those where you can pick out stretches of the road on the mountain above you. It must be a 5-mile climb. Wunderbar. I think I smiled all the way up. It's a climb that would shatter any race, but you can see the world around you every inch of the way as you climb higher and higher.

The climb from Clarno toward Antelope out of the John Day drainage. The rider from Houston told us afterward that this was an 11-mile climb. Same idea as Franklin Hill--you could see parts of the road winding around hilltops above you, in and out of sight. The view this time was east toward the Blue Mountains. The trees were scrubby junipers, so no shade (good thing we were there at 9 a.m.) but nothing to block your unlimited horizons. This climb is going to be incredibly difficult at RAO. Most riders will do it in the dark, and they will not be able to see the top, however far away it is.

Fossil. This small town wasn't any "better" or more interesting than the others we passed through or stayed in, but it was familiar from Columbia Plateau. Same mercantile, same Shamrock--but we did not have to sleep in a tent on the lumpy football field! And the route out of town on Sunday morning was a gentle little 4-mile climb through a picturesque valley. Fossil still reminds me of Ireland in many ways because of the green, grassy hills and occasional trees.

A successful training camp, me thinks, with challenges both mental and physical, time to relax and socialize and share impressions, many opportunities to learn, and fantastic, supportive, inspirational fellow campers.

Just race

Mothers Day

I wanna do a race that's just a bike race. Not part of a series or an omnium or the Washington Cup. I'm tired of races where nobody's racing for that event but for some grander prize. Last week it was a two-race omnium. Nobody on Sunday knew anything about the prize list for that day's race, they could only focus on who had how many points in the omnium and who was most likely to win the trip to Minnesota. Thanks to the strangeness induced by the omnium format, another rider said that race featured "the most negative racing" she had seen in a while.

Yesterday's race at Ravensdale was part of the Washington Cup series and it featured some of the dumbest racing I've seen in a while. It was all about securing more WA Cup points and not about racing the best race on the day. Sure, it's great for team tactics, until the wrong teammate is up the road in a break. I watched someone chase down a break, but then stop her chase 25 feet from the break and sit up and no one else closed the gap or countered. Huh? It was weird racing all day, and once the right split occurred, the "pack" had to work harder at not catching the break than the break could organize itself to work to pull away from the pack.

It seems we get no races for the sake of racing. Good road races are all part of the Washington Cup, so good racing goes out the window for the sake of making sure the right riders get more points. The LWV series is just that, a series, so by race #2, it won't be about racing but about manipulating the racing. I guess there's a reason that no one says road races or crits are the races of truth.

Eight hundred ?

Thursday, 7 May

This morning's Seattle Times says "the average American now spends 800 minutes a month talking on the phone." That's more than 13 hours. These average Americans can't find time to exercise, or mentor kids, or cook more nutritious meals, or volunteer to help clean up a local park, or get enough sleep. Wow.

Propriety quandary

Wednesday, 6 May

Those "massacred" in my workplace on Monday were given yesterday to stay at home and figure out how to cope with the bad news, but they still have to work for the next 60 days. So they'll be back in the office today. Since there was no official announcement that cuts were made or to whose positions, that means officially nobody knows there were cuts. When I see these people, do I adhere to the official line that we don't know they were "reduced," or do I be sympathetic and thereby admit that we were gossiping about them all day yesterday when they were out?

Monday massacre

Cinco de Mayo

The man who had to do the deed referred to it as "the Monday massacre." Staff positions in my department were reduced by 3.5 yesterday. That's out of about 40, and most of those are not FTE to begin with. And there will be another round of cuts in 60 days. Okay, I know I work in an insular place and everybody is suffering through this and I'm extremely lucky that my position was not on that list. That doesn't mean it hurts less. We celebrate the 100th anniversary of our department next Monday. Who's going to feel like celebrating anything?

Gear shortage

Monday, 4 May
Black Monday, I think

I had to skip the first half of the Westside Omnium this weekend because of a work commitment. That seemed to work out pretty well, at least in terms of weather. I missed the dumping rain at the finish and sliding out in the corners that some folks seemed to have suffered at Glenwood. Sunday's weather was just about perfect; we were all able to work on moving our tan lines up our legs by shedding the knee warmers.

I thought my bike was set up perfectly for the Longbranch course, with compact gearing and 11 speeds. That, of course, presumes that I could use all 11 cogs on the cassette. Sadly, I discovered the first time up the 15% hill that I was not going to be using the 4 lowest gears on my bike. The chain would skip, eventually, every time I dropped the gear to something low enough to get up the hill. My speed would go from 5 to 2 mph and I'd have to hurriedly shift up and pedal in order not to tip over. For a while I was in denial, figuring maybe it was just one bad cog and if I shifted all the way to the bottom, I might spin ridiculously but at least I'd spin. Not so. So I clambered up that hill (the follow official asked me afterward what was up) 5 times with an rpm of about 30. I would get dropped every time, but I guess I saved time and energy by not having to shift up so much at the top and I managed to get back to the pack on every lap but the last. The feed zone climb was not so bad because the steep section at the bottom was shorter and the two pitches after that weren't so steep. Hard, yes. Shrieking pain in the quads like the 15%er, no. Needless to say, there will be some mechanic consultation happening before I take the bike up another 15% grade.

It was a curious race. Two hard road races in an omnium format with a huge prize on the line to the winner. There was less emphasis on winning Sunday's race outright than winning the omnium overall. It made for some very strange spells in the race where virtually nobody in the pack would work because of the few riders scattered up the road--either they were teammates or they had no omnium points and weren't worth the trouble of chasing down. The course at Longbranch is enough to make sure things never get very boring, and there were race dynamics going on for a good long time. Afterward, I realized it was the first Washington road race I've finished this year; at long last, we seem to have moved out of snow season!

Mega miles in the month of May

May Day

If all goes according to plan, May will probably be my biggest mileage month of the year. For those of you who abide by training programs, I could say this month is carefully planned to make sure I have the endurance to finish Elkhorn. :) And how appropriate that the promoter posted a reminder today about the good times that await at Elkhorn. Some of my miles will be long, "junk" miles, some will be shorter (how can a mile be longer or shorter?) with greater intensity. There is some epic climbing built into this "training program" too.

So to kick things off on the first day of May, I tacked an extra 5 miles onto my commute, for a grand total of 33. If my daily average is that measly sum, I'll barely get over 1000 miles this month. I aim to do better than that--stay tuned!

DRVTT fun

Monday, 27 April

This weekend was the fun little Deschutes River Valley Time Trial stage race in charming Maupin, Oregon. Two days, three time trials, for a total of 82 miles of racing.

The weather was cool but sunny and dry. Conditions were made more, um, interesting by wind speeds in excess of 25 mph on Saturday. Since I don’t much like riding in the wind, I was positively delighted to be racing tandem.

Stage 1 is 26 or 27 miles—stokers don’t keep track of these things. I think the elevation gain is something like 1,600 feet, and most of that comes in the first 4 miles as you climb up from the Deschutes through Maupin proper. Then a nice descent, flat, rollers, a twistier descent, and then 8 miles of flat road (with cattle guards) along the Deschutes. There were savagely windy stretches around miles 4-6 and 24-27, making for especially good fun with a disc wheel. Tandems were the third category to start, and we were last in our category because we won the event last year. So lots of rabbits up the road. We knew we had some tough competition this year, and although we had caught all the other tandems by the top of the climb, we were highly motivated to do our best to hold them off on the descents and flat stretch. We did, and we had the fastest time overall for the stage. This never happens; we give credit (?) to all the wind. Having a leadweight anchor (me) on the back of your bike is helpful on rare occasion.

Stage 2 is about 8 miles of hillclimb. I was expecting this to be hatefully hard and that we would get blown sideways for 7.9 miles. As soon as we rounded the first hairpin and started climbing in earnest, there was a nice little tailwind boost. Big-ring climbing is my kind of climbing! Somewhere around mile 4 or 5 (the promoter sets out mile markers for every one of the stages), the road turned and was no longer as sheltered (i.e., we got up out of the river canyon). One gust sent the tandem three feet across the road. I was very happy to be leaving the driving to someone else and just kept pedaling. I could see that the road turned in a couple hundred meters, and we would have a tailwind again. But there were a more (and more frequent) crosswind stretches before the finish. We did not win this one and lost our spot at the top of GC.

Stage 3 is 23.x miles of mostly uphill on the way out and mostly downhill on the way back. The wind had mostly subsided for Sunday’s stage, but we did definitely have a tailwind on the way out and a headwind all the way back. Last year we utterly bogged down on the way out on this stage, mentally and physically. On the tandem, there’s not much opportunity to vary your position, and 23 miles of climbing is pretty static. We made an effort this year to stand more often, and I devised a little scheme to keep me mentally distracted. Stokers are tasked with providing more power than drag, so I have to keep my head down (i.e., quit looking around). Watching the captain’s bottom bracket is only interesting for so long. I could only see those mile markers when they flashed by in my peripheral vision, and there was never time to see the number (which is painted only on the front). But I started counting them off from the start, and after the really tough first 4 miles of switchback climbing subsided and we settled into a rhythm more or less, I started counting how many pedal strokes we did per mile. Okay, admittedly we are not climbers who spin our way up hills, but I was surprised at how few revolutions it took to travel a mile. The mile with the fewest had 190-some, and the mile with the mostest had 260-some. They were typically about 220.

While I was engaged in counting to 200 over and over, my captain was keeping his eye on our closest tandem competition up the road. At first it was pretty lonely out there, because all the single bikes ahead of us in GC flew past us on the steeper part of the climb and the undulations in the terrain were close together so that you couldn’t see too far ahead. The second-place tandem started 2.5 minutes in front of us on this stage, and after a while we could see them (but no one else) off in the distance. A few miles from the top, we started to catch the slower riders in other categories. By the Bakeoven summit (turnaround), we had the gap on tandem 2 down to about 20 seconds. And then we lost a chunk of time. After 23 miles of plodding uphill, we had to turn the bike around an orange cone in the middle of a narrow road with no paved shoulder. We didn’t pedal enough and the bike went 2 inches wide. I was watching the front wheel and when I saw it was going to go off the pavement, I figured it would be fine because the gravel shoulder was even with the pavement; there was no sharp lip to negotiate getting back onto the road. Ha. The gravel on the shoulder was soft as mush and our front wheel sank instantly. The bike tipped over and we both hit the ground. The poor official at the turn didn’t know what to do to help us; neither of us could get unclipped from our pedals and it took some time to get untangled. I feel sorry for the rider who came into the turn after us (but someone assured me later than he probably didn’t lose much time relatively speaking for a 47-mile TT). I honestly cannot remember hitting the ground, and I have nary a scratch or a bruise. Mick did not come out so easily and took scar tissue off old battle wounds on his left knee. He was oozing blood by the finish but I couldn’t see this from my “vantage point.”

So off we went, with maybe a little more adrenaline but also maybe a little more apprehension. I vividly remember that last year we didn’t pedal for the first 5-7 miles after the turn. Not so this year. The headwind meant we could just about spin our 55x11, although I think a few times our cadence was, like, 125 (which is brutal on a tandem, going downhill). About a third of the way down, I could feel misery setting in. My arms hurt, my legs hurt, and sitting on the saddle was none too fun. There were some blessed moments of not pedaling and also some short uphill stretches, which used different muscles. I cheered myself by looking up and counting Mt. Washington, Mt. Jefferson, Mt. Hood, and Mt. Adams, a glorious who’s-who of Cascade peaks. Then I started looking for mile markers again, this time to see how much longer I had to suffer. When I finally saw one coming, I was sure it would tell me we had 5 miles to go. No, 9. Ouch. Of course, we were picking off single bikes on the descent like it was open hunting season, and I did have to be thankful that at least I was getting my suffering over with quicker on the tandem.

The last 4 miles of course are down the steep hairpins we climbed on the way out. These are a huge mental challenge for me because the bike is going far faster than I would ever choose to negotiate these turns, and we actually pedal on the straightaways between the hairpins. I did pretty well here this year, and I just about had fun on the righthanders. The left turns still freak me out, but I focused on breathing (as opposed to holding my breath and getting stiff) and not looking over the edge. Last year, we dove past other riders in some of the turns, but this year we were behind a guy who was taking a good line and traveling pretty fast, so we just followed him down to the finish. Although tandem 2 rode away from us after the turnaround, we managed to beat them by a few seconds on the stage.

This is always a fun race, and we knew it would be tough this year. Jim and Heather (tandem 2) are both riding well this season (which is especially great news for Heather), and I still remember being soundly beaten by them in an uphill sprint finish (with a different captain) a couple of years ago. Their “give it everything” competitive spirit helps to boost mine as well. They had the second fastest time on stage 1, and it was kind of fun to shake up other riders’ conception of tandems by having the fastest times on a hilly course. Thanks to Mick for a great race—and I’m sorry you got all the road rash. Thanks to George and Terri for putting on such fun (if diabolical) events, and to Greg for the ride back to the start after stage 2.

Our prize? Free entry into another time trial in Maupin in September. We made our hotel reservations before we left town!

Why no Willamette?

Thursday, 23 April

Take a minute to mourn with me. The bad news came down on Tuesday: this year's (and probably any subsequent year's) Willamette Stage Race was cancelled due to apparent lack of interest on the part of the cycling community. How can this be?

Earlier incarnations of this race had bigger fields than the promoters were able to handle, or so it seemed. Those promoters' versions of Willamette failed because of problems on their end (sponsorship "issues", mainly). This time, the race failed because not enough people wanted to race their bikes.

Where are all those Northwest racers who love a good, epic challenge and know the roads around Eugene are some of the best we've got for riding and racing? The other races on the local calendar this weekend are hardly overpowering draws: a time trial stage race in Maupin (don't get me wrong--DRVTT is an awesome weekend of racing with fantastic promoters) and a road race in Washington on a somewhat unselective course (except for selection due to crashes because of fowl in the road and silt from winter floods on the road).

We keep losing more of the best races on the calendar. I am so sad to see Willamette go the way of Columbia Plateau and HP. You can't blame these Willamette promoters: Mike and Sal worked so hard to think through and provide for all the minutiae in race organization. You can't blame the weather: it can be 80 degrees and sunny this time of year in Eugene. You can't blame local agencies: it is tough (expensive) to get permits out of Lane County, and still Willamette was going to take in some exciting, beautiful road courses.

We can only blame ourselves for letting this one get away.

Number 400

Earth Day

My brother emailed to ask if I gave up blogging for Lent, so I guess it's time for an update. Turns out this is blog entry number 400 for me, so even if I've been quiet for a few weeks, that apparently is not a typical trait for moi.

For about 3-4 weeks (until yesterday), I was working three paying jobs, one of them my regular full-time "real" job. In this economic climate, one cannot complain too much about being paid from three sources, but together they did not leave much time for training and even less for blogging. But now I'm back to just the usual two--and hopefully they'll both continue. My real job is at the University of Washington, and all we don't know is how big the hammer is that will fall when the legislature makes its budget. Rumor has it that the staff cuts in my department will be in the double digits. "Grim" does not begin to describe the work atmosphere.

In the better news department, the peas are up in my garden, there should be rhubarb to harvest in a couple of weeks, more potatoes seeded themselves this year, the parsley is taking on science fiction proportions, the herbs that looked dead after three months of frigid winter have burst back to life, and the fruit bushes and trees are just about to leaf out. I started some sunflowers indoors and will transplant them outside soon.

Bike racing on the tandem this weekend, and plans for epic huge miles during the month of May. I hope I'm up to all of them. Stay tuned!

Elusive

Monday, 30 March

Last Saturday was one of the best road races on the NW race calendar. And it snowed. All day. It didn't really stick to the roads, and hundreds of people paid their money and at least started the race. Not I. Riders who "finished early" came back to the community hall at race registration shivering uncontrollably and lacking their full mental capacities. They were so cold that their bodies were diverting energy to things other than their thinking processes. It was interesting--if not very motivating--to see. Racing and 36 degrees with heavy wet snow are just not compatible.

I had spent the last few days convincing myself I could race in the rain on this course. It poured here a couple years ago, and I survived. So I would overcome the blehs I had in the rain at Mason Lake and just do it. Visualization might work for some people, but you have to visualize the right thing. I did not dial in the snow part of the equation.

So here we are more than a month into the race season and I have completed a sum total of one road race. I never imagined that weather would be a consistently determining factor in getting to the finish line. Needless to say, I am more than a little worried about the prospect of a stage race this weekend. Maybe I should race the masters women's category after all....

Earth Hour

Friday, 27 March


Tomorrow, 8:30 p.m. local time, turn off your lights!

3,900 CITIES AND TOWNS IN 84 COUNTRIES AROUND THE WORLD WILL TURN OUT FOR EARTH HOUR.

NEWEST GLOBAL ICONS: The European Union Headquarters in Brussels, St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City and the Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium in Beijing will all go dark for Earth Hour.

http://www.earthhourus.org/main.php

Helmetless horror

Wednesday, 18 March

I don't rant here very often, but some messages deserve endless repeating.

A woman who works where I do died last week after colliding with a car while riding her bike to work. Harborview staff actually came here to tell her husband (who was in a meeting and unreachable by phone) that his wife was brain dead. She was not wearing a helmet; neither she nor her husband ever did when they rode their bikes. Medical personnel told her family she would still be alive if she had been wearing a helmet.

No matter who you are, how invincible you are, how long you've been riding, how good your bike-handling skills, how quiet your street, how short your ride, how long you've ridden without ever falling down, if you get on your bike without a helmet on your head, you are not only an idiot but an idiot with no thought of those who love you (or even those who only like you) who might have to hear that you're brain dead in some hospital. If you don't care enough about yourself to think you need a helmet, at least care for those around you and reduce the potential for tragic news.

Consistency

Sunday, 1 March

Today was the Icebreaker time trial near Black Diamond. Eleven years ago (less one week), I also raced on that course. My time on March 7, 1998, was exactly the same as my time for my second race on that course today: 25:04. If you had told me in 1998 that I'd be racing there in eleven years, I don't think I would have believed you. And if you had told me I would race TWICE, I am sure I wouldn't have believed you.

Race conditions today were just about perfect: a wet road for less rolling resistance, but no rain and virtually no wind. It was the first time I can ever remember being able to see the downhill on the course on the way out--it's so slight. And the way back is hard, but you know it's going to be and you just dig that little bit deeper. On my first ride, it took a while to settle into a gear after the start and after the turnaround, but both times it happened to be the 55x12 again. It is so much fun to roll out that course: it twists and turns with the only straightaways being before the turnaround and the finish. Since I failed to have much dialogue going on in my brain during last week's race, today I tried to remember to keep telling myself to ride harder.

After a 20-minute pause (spin, drink water), I started again. Ride number two was a bit interesting (and 29 seconds slower). I usually go out as hard as I can from a TT start and back down in bits until I find something I might be able to sustain. Well, there was no sense of going hard at the start of number two. It was just right back into the same rhythm. I guess that's good, but I missed the sense of "OMG I can't keep doing this!" But then it got really weird. I could not focus. Not my brain but my eyes. I was looking between the bottom of my helmet and the top of my glasses, and everything was all fuzzy. This was disconcerting and almost like not having a good sense of balance. If I tipped my head back and looked through the glasses (they're not prescription), I could see but my head was most unaero. I did this for about two miles, feeling like I was riding by instinct (which probably does not involve pushing oneself to one's limits) while trying to figure out the vision thing. I kept moving the glasses around, and I guess I finally found a better spot because the problem disappeared and then I felt like my brain was better focused on racing. Surprisingly, the way back seemed shorter the second time around--interminable, but shorter. :)

I rolled up and down and chatted with a few folks after ride number two. Only as I was walking the last 20 meters back to my car did I discover that the front brake was rubbing the tiniest little bit, just barely audible. Good for 5 seconds off my time, don't ya think?!

A couple of moments of levity. Annette started a minute behind me on ride number one. About halfway back from the turn, I heard a disc wheel coming by. I was really impressed for a split second--and then immensely relieved when I realized it had to be Flavio. And as I was rolling up and down the road between races, I kept seeing people in these new-fangled aero helmets with earflaps (to cut down on drag for anyone with ears like W's, I suppose). They looked like something out of the original Star Wars movie to cover up Princess Leia's cinnamon-roll hairdo.

So the prelude to the race season is over. I like easing into things with two time trials. I get into the routine of getting to races and getting ready to race, but the events themselves are short and I can still get home in time to....sit around, read Facebook, and cook some pretty tasty gluten-free muffins.