Idyll

Sunday, 24 August

idyll n - a work in poetry or prose that deals with pastoral scenes or suggests a mood of peace and contentment

This piece of bloggery deals with an experience that brought a mood of great peace and contentment. Yesterday we did one of my absolutely very favorite rides, and it was absolutely perfect. I dropped Old As Dirt and his trusty Marcroft steed in Marblemount, drove to Newhalem, and set out on my bike for Mazama. If you've never ridden over the North Cascades Highway, I can only wonder why you are afraid of heaven on earth.

The rain we had in western Washington last week had scrubbed the smog away, and the skies were blue blue blue. Diablo Lake where you cross the bridge at Colonial Creek was a sheet of blue-green glass, broken only by a few kayakers. The view to the north over Ross Lake was crystal clear. After the road drops down to Panther Creek, the unrelenting climbing starts--but yesterday there was enough tailwind that I did the first part of this in my big chain ring. I finally passed another cyclist a few miles before Rainy Pass, and then another as I started the final climb up to Washington Pass. The peaks were breathtaking. The descent down the east side of the pass usually makes me...uncomfortable, but yesterday there was a solid (not swirling) headwind that kept the speed from getting out of hand, and I just cruised those seven miles down to Lone Fir. I rolled into the Mazama store thinking (nay, knowing) it was the most perfect ride I had done all year. Whatever happened on the way back--headwind, bad traffic, rain--I would just tell myself that the first part of the ride required that I pay a price.

But where the heck was OAD? How could have not caught up with me in 60 miles? Was the price of a perfect ride for me some misfortune for him? Fortunately, I was too busy enjoying my blueberry zucchini muffin to let panic encroach too far into my blissful state--and after about 10 minutes he rolled in. It was 82 in Mazama, a perfect temperature for an afternoon nap. But we had to retrace our tiretracks back to Newhalem and couldn't linger.

He gave me a 6-minute handicap, and I rolled out to enjoy the stiff tailwind that blows from Winthrop to Mazama and into the mountains. The only problem with a tailwind up a climb when it's 82 degrees is that you get pretty toasty, and there's no water along this route. But I kept picking off the landmarks that break up this part of the ride. A couple of times I nearly rolled into the ditch when I tried to take pictures of peaks to the left (I'm right handed, and somehow the crossover just doesn't work). I searched for the mate of the armwarmer I found after the Cutthroat Lake trailhead two weeks ago, but no luck. And before I knew it, I was at the base of that hairpin switchback just before the top of the pass. I stopped in the switchback and looked back down the several miles of road that cling to the side of the canyon, but I couldn't spot OAD (only the guy I'd just passed who sounded less than convinced when I assured him we were almost there). The last half mile between the hairpin and summit is cliff-dweller terrain, but I stopped and peered over the edge, and then behind me, and there he was in hot pursuit. He caught me just after the top of the pass. It was perfect timing because then we rode together all the way back to Newhalem.

The biggest bummer of the entire ride was a dead deer in the road going up to WA Pass. There were a lot of miscellaneous car parts along with her. The worst traffic was two pickup trucks that didn't give me a whole lot of space. For a 121-mile ride, that's miraculous. The weather could not have been better: temps in the 70s for the whole ride, thin cloud cover a few times, but no sign of the heavy weather moving in from the Pacific. Shorts, jersey, and armwarmers were the only clothes I had. The hurricane-force winds that often pick up in the afternoon above Ross Lake were just a moderate breeze. You gamble when you ride in the mountains (as we did two weeks ago, when it poured and we chose to bail and drive east to sunnier climes), and yesterday we were lucky winners. I thought I had the most perfect day ever on a bike, and my husband wondered how many other cyclists have wives who think a perfect day involves 8 hours on a bike. :)

PruParty

Friday, 22 August

One of my tandem partners is leaving town. :( Like so many bike racers, PruDog thinks he's found greener grass and is moving on. Whether you agree or disagree with his politics and economics and race tactics, you have to admit that he has done way more than most to support bike racing in these parts. From Ohop to optics, he truly helped "grow" the sport. Even if you don't know it yet, you're going to miss him. Come say goodbye and good luck to the PruFamily:

Thursday
September 18
7:00 p.m. - ??
Pied Piper Ale House
2404 NE 65th St
Seattle WA 98115
(206) 729-0603
"kid friendly"

Bring your roasts, toasts, and PruStories.

Planning for 2009?

Thursday, 21 August

OK, all you folks all eager about your new teams for 2009, have you seen the super ultra tentative Oregon calendar highlights yet? New road races, new stage races...should be good.

Banana Belt Series 3/1/09 3/15/09
Scio Road Race 4/4/09 4/4/09
King’s Valley RR 4/11/09 4/11/09
Cherry Festival Classic Stage Race 4/17/09 4/19/09
Willamette Stage Race 4/23/09 4/26/09
Deschutes River Valley TT Festival 4/24/09 4/26/09
Twickenham RR 5/2/09 5/2/09
Mount Hood Cycling Classic 5/13/09 5/17/09
Cirque du Cycling Criterium 6/13/09 6/13/09
Elkhorn Classic Stage Race 6/19/09 6/21/09
Oregon Pro Cycling Classic (NRC) 6/22/09 6/28/09
Salem Fairview Circuit Race 6/28/09 6/28/09
High Desert Omnium 7/11/09 7/12/09
Cascade Cycling Classic 7/22/09 7/26/09
OBRA TT 8/2/09 8/2/09
OBRA Crit 8/9/09 8/9/09
Swan Island Criterium 8/15/09 8/15/09

http://www.veloreview.com/obra3/2008/08/alright-heres-a-bone.html/

Team BARR winners

Wednesday, 20 August

The webmaster is apparently away from the web, so I'll scoop the WSBA site and bring you these latest results from the WSBA's 2008 BARR competition. Team BARR prizes only go to the cat 1-2 men's and women's categories, but here are the team BARR winners for all categories:

Men 1-2 Hagens Berman
Women 1-2 Team Group Health
Men 3 Garage Racing
Women 3 Team Group Health
Men 4 Old Town Bicycle
Women 4 Valley Athletic
Masters Men A BRI
Masters Women A Wines of Washington
Masters Men B Avanti
Masters Women B Fanatik
Masters Men C Cucina Fresca
Masters Men D Fanatik

There were some really close competitions!

You can challenge my spreadsheet skills as soon as the full details are posted:
http://www.wsbaracing.com/home.asp

Northshore

Monday, 18 August

For all of you who missed Northshore yesterday (and there were a lot of you who did), you missed out on a great race! It is an awesome course, and WA ought to use it for a state road race championship some year. Good climbing, a couple of flat stretches, and a super fast downhill "bend" that I must say was absolutely screaming fun in the lead car. :) I suppose the stairstep climbing would take its toll (I did the team thing and drove instead of racing) and cause painful suffering, but there was some good tactical racing yesterday along with just plain ol' attrition. The course also features some really picturesque barns and some trouses (a term I learned at the Mt. Hood stage race for trailers that have been house-ified). Oh yeah, and yesterday there was a giant clap of thunder at the end of the masters/women's race but only a few rain drops all day long. Kudos to Phil & Co. for putting on this race again after the snow day at the end of March!

Gettin' ready to roll--slowly

Thursday, 14 August

My rain bike came home last night from summer rehab. I wish it was as easy to get me prepped for riding in the dark and the rain again! The notes from the mechanic said I had been riding the bike too much, simply wearing out key parts. The little pulley wheels in the rear derailleur were so broken down he wasn't sure what exactly had been holding them in place or how I had been able to shift. While it was good to see Dean, having the bike on display was a harbinger I could do without. I'm definitely not letting anybody put 28mm tires on it this year!

My summer vacation

Tuesday, 12 August

Last weekend was my summer vacation. I think it was the only weekend all summer to involve travel and not involve participation in a bike race. In 2007 we missed out on our usually annual trip to Winthrop, and we wanted to make sure we got one in this year. So our plan was to drive to Newhalem, ride to Winthrop, hang out, spend the night, and ride back to the car. Because of the quantity and quality of the scenery and the great road, it is probably my very favorite ride.

The plan didn't look quite as appealing on Saturday morning as we drove through the rain on our way north on I-5. It stopped raining, mostly, in Marblemount, and the road was dry in Newhalem, so we chamoised up. But by then the rain had crept east, and it was raining before we got underway. Oh well, "it's a warm rain" and all that. Three miles up the hill, we decided that it wasn't so warm (it was maybe 60 degrees), that it was going to get wetter and colder before it got warmer, and that there was a Plan B. So we turned around, got absolutely soaked on the descent, piled into the car, and drove to Winthrop. There were lots of other cyclists on the road who apparently thought riding in the rain was a whole lot funner than we did.

Things cleared up a bit by Rainy Pass. That's a reflection of my sock, which I was trying to dry on the defroster on the dashboard. I forgot that I also needed to dry the shoes to do much good. :(

And it was 85 degrees and sunny in Winthrop--who could ask for anything better? After too much lunch, we had to seriously think about riding again.

Instead of doing hill repeats up the east side of Washington Pass, we decided to head south to Twisp and then east over Loup Loup Pass, which was new terrain for us. It is a nice road, not much traffic under normal circumstances, and a long steady climb (but no panoramic vistas).

The descent down the east side of the pass into Okanogan was so long and progressively windier (as in more wind, not more winding) that I was having flashbacks to 2007 Elkhorn stage 1. We finally found the town of Okanogan (a mini-Wenatchee....need I say more?), stocked up on water and sugar (coke, ice cream), and braced ourselves for miles of uphill headwind on the return.

We were surprised to see how much a wildfire on the other side of the river had grown in the short time we'd been in town, and then were even more surprised to see a new one had flared up just over the ridge south of the highway. Three fire trucks passed us, and we could hear them lumbering up the dirt roads in the brush. A reconnaissance plane flew over, and pretty soon a helicopter was making fly-bys. I felt a wave of compassion for a family standing in their front yard, watching the activity for a fire less than half a mile away that could potentially threaten their home.

All in all, though, the climb and the wind were not hateful. Again, it's a long climb up to the top of the pass, which summits in pine forest just over 4000 feet. The descent back into Twisp was worth the price of all the toil and suffering: I rode 7 miles without pedaling, and my average speed over the first 6 of those miles was 30 mph. I think I touched the brakes once. And then we meandered up the back road to Winthrop, scoping out some bizarre architecture, including a house that looked straight out of Santa Fe, a giant geodesic dome with green tarps in lieu of siding that looked like something out of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and some more standard million-dollar Methow homes. The ride turned out to be 88 miles with probably 6500 feet of climbing, so it was a good day's effort.

On Sunday morning, we drove to Mazama, rode to the top of Washington Pass, checked out the rain squall just west of the pass, and rode back down to Mazama. Along the road, I found the WSBA frame number that belongs to a cat 3 from Duvall; maybe the WSBA should include the state's fine for littering in the replacement fee for frame numbers. It's certainly not good for our image to be dumping bits of plastic along scenic highways, especially not ones that other cyclists care for under the Adopt-a-Highway program.

Also in this stretch of riding came one of the scarier manmade experiences I've had on a bike recently. There were a couple of hunter-types sitting on the embankment above one side of the road, taking potshots at something across the narrow little canyon. That meant they were firing their guns directly over my head as I pedaled past on the road. And these were no BB guns. The concussion when they fired was enough to make me involuntarily blink. At least they were gone when we came back down!

After a long coffee pause in the Mazama store and a surprise visit with half the Bowmer family, we had to pack up the bikes and endure the long drive back to Seattle, in plenty o' time to watch the Kirkland crit!

Weekend report

Monday, 11 August

Wow! What a weekend of ups and downs. I took a couple of days away to "train" for next Saturday's state hillclimb championship, but more on that in my next post. Other highlights from the busy weekend:

Get well soon to Tricia and Carol and all the other crash victims from the Kirkland Crit. Too many bike racers got up close and personal with restaurant chairs and tables, shrubbery, curbs, metal barriers, and other hazards. And good luck to Dustin for surgery on his hand after his crash at the crit in Portland on Friday night.

BIG congratulations to Hilary on her fifth place finish at national road championships. Focus and determination go a long way in this sport--especially when they're added to fitness and natural ability! :)

And more team gossip: those Garage boys are in the news again. Jason and Heather are parents of a newborn son, and Mike and Kele are newly expecting. Congratulations to both families!

All the excitement from north central Washington--including a WSBA member caught littering on a state scenic highway--coming soon.

Keeping up

Wednesday, 6 August

Y'all need another post to attach comments to so no one has to scroll down thru 18 comments to say something pithy (or pissy) about teams or sandbagging or whatever. So here's tonight's picture from the pea patch:

It takes a long time to pick a couple pounds of green (and yellow and purple) beans and a half a pound of snow peas! But it's great to put them in the freezer and have really local veggies for wintertime stirfries.

Another lightbulb clicked on in my brain today after I got an email about a new local team and recalled a seemingly odd carpool combination at the TT on Sunday; suddenly things made a lot more sense. And of course now every time I see people together in unexpected groupings, I'll be trying to read as much as possible into who's suddenly bonding.

And on a more important subject, what's up with the results from nationals? USA Cycling doesn't have 'em, VeloNews doesn't even seem to know that nationals are on; I've only gotten a third-hand report that Alison Powers won the women's TT by 30 seconds over Mara Abbott.

Rumors and secrets and gossip, oh my

Monday, 4 August

I knew I'd find a link between today's title and today's picture, which are really about wholly different topics....

Today's picture features the latest crop from my garden: potatoes--and dirt. If you come home next spring from a race, along about TST time, and find some sprouted spuds in your cupboard, (assuming they were organic) chop them up with a sprout ("eye") to each piece and go stick them in some dirt. Keep mounding the dirt on top of them as the leaves sprout above the ground until you have a heap that's maybe 8-10 inches above the rest of the garden. Water them occasionally, maybe put some composty stuff on top to keep the moisture in, and voila--you'll have spuds by the state TT championship. (Scrub before cooking!)

As for rumors and secrets and gossip, 'tis the season for dirt on what's up for next season. This is about the time of year when everyone ceases to be excited about this season and starts to get amped up on plans for next season. Rumors abound. New teams. Riders changing teams. Handwringing over what decision to make. People proving the old adage that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence (or, in this case, in a different jersey). It's great stuff. You find yourself saying the wrong thing to the wrong person but not figuring out it was the wrong thing to say for a day or two when you learn some new tidbit and about a gajillion pieces fall into place.

If I neglect to say it before Wednesday's time trial and this weekend's road race, good luck to everybody who's going to nationals in Orange County. A bunch of Northwest women are headed south: Allison, Dana, Hilary, and Suz come to mind. I hope you are all have great races!

More sweetness

Sunday, 3 August

It was a pretty sweet weekend. I converted some of my summer raspberry harvest into part of our winter's supply of jam. We went to a post-wedding party and listened to the happy couple say sweet things about each other (congratulations, Paul and Kit!). I bought 23 pounds of Gravenstein apples, which are absolutely the best cooking apples in these parts; much applesauce making is in my immediate future, and the apple pie I made tonight was even better than what I had at the Sweet Life last Sunday.

And to top it all off, I set a 40K PR by more than 2 minutes at the state time trial championship today. I squeaked out a gold medal in the old ladies category by a mere 14 seconds. Turns out that Old As Dirt and I crashed the results software because we have the same WSBA number; there are hundreds of such pairs, but we happened to be the first to finish. If we had also raced tandem, the officials would probably still be trying to reconstruct things!

I'm scared

Friday, 1 August

The State of Washington Voters' Pamphlet for the August 18, 2008 Primary arrived in our mailbox yesterday. I started to browse in its pages and found out that a little information about the candidates is a scary thing. For example:

One Congressional candidate lists as his family: "The life of Spaceship Earth is his family."

Another opens his Candidate Statement with: "I rise to defend the moon and stars, the air we breathe, the oceans and the rivers, the plants, and all living things upon this our Mother Earth...and you...and your children...and your sacred poem...before the salmon die, before the birds stop singing; before the bees forget how to fly." (Those are his dot-dot-dots, not places where I've dropped stuff.)

Moving along to candidates for governor, we find one whose Candidate Statement says: "Because I feel Washington State should be leading the Nation in promoting a Spiritual Civilization based on holistic medicine, alternative energy, affordable housing, relevant education, a dynamic economy, bio-diversity, world development and meaningful access to justice, I respectfully propose my 'FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS' PLAN OF ACTION."

Another gubernatorial candidate lists his occupation/employer as "retired." [Has nothing to do with his time, so he's running for office?]

Another lists websites of interest and includes Aljazeera. [Yeah, maybe it's an interesting site, but given what else he says in his profile, this is just plain scary.]

Still another lists 1 cat and 1 dog as part of his family. [I'm all for dogs and cats, but I'm not sure I'd list 'em in a space where most people list children or deceased spouses.]

Then we move on to lieutenant governor and the people--or at least the statements--seem closer to "normal." I might conclude that the higher the office, the weirder the weirdos, except that one of the candidates for state representative opens his Candidate Statement with (the caps are his): "I INTEND TO EMPOWER PEOPLE TO SOLVE THEIR OWN PROBLEMS." He goes on to list two reasons he's running for office, one of which is "to promote my campaign theme of 'Compassion for a Republican.'"

I guess the bottom line here is if you want some scary entertainment, you need look no farther than government-published material in your mailbox. I know I won't be answering the phone until after the primary.

Better stoker pix

Tuesday, 29 July

Here are a couple more stoker photos by a better photographer, Jo Wienert, who was on the second-place bike in the B category.

I swear this image is photoshopped. We're going around turn 1, and I was sure that we were in the inside gutter every lap as we approached this turn. This looks like we're in the next county--which would almost be possible on that course! See how many times you can pick out the word Co-Motion in this picture. :)

Here's another photo of the beautiful King Estate Winery. In case you're just desperate to do a race that starts and finishes there but don't have a tandem, you're in luck: the Eugene Celebration and Willamette stage races (September and April) both have stages there.

More stoker photos

Monday, 28 July

Let's see if blogger can do this:

A little chatting early on.

Pacelining.

Oops! This is how most of my on-the-bike photos turn out!

I think he was getting tired of me trying to take pictures of riders behind me. But this is the only one of that batch to turn out! Note that the son is captaining this bike and the father is stoking.

How many years before this father and son duo swap spots on the tandem?

Hill-less was a hoot!

Monday, 28 July

I was initially disappointed when the road race at the Co-Motion tandem stage race was substantially revised for 2008 and the big hill (the Wolf Creek climb) was removed. Then I realized that also removed the nail-biting descent. :) The alternative route selected was two laps of a weekly "training ride" (unsanctioned race would be a more apt description). Each lap featured Sprinters Hill (500m?) and Welders Hill (1K?) and a couple of draggy roller things. But not long after Welders Hill at the end of lap 2, we turned off the circuit and back to the King Estate Winery, which meant a pretty hard climb on the Lorane Highway and then a 1K ascent to the finish line. It turned out to be a ton of fun.

Our "A" category started first (and rode farthest). We were neutral going down that hill on the Lorane Highway because of some bad pavement, and just a few miles after we started racing, one of the bikes broke a spoke. So while they got a wheel change, the rest of us (well, the men, anyway) had a pee stop and then we were off and racing. The pace was fast but not furious all the time, and it was great to be in a group of just tandems.

At the end of lap one, the big guys wound it up and showed us how they can put out 1200 watts and go ripping down the road. They did this again, but didn't get too far either time. Another male/male bike pushed the pace the second time up Sprinters Hill, but things came back together. People were getting tired by Welders, and then the race split for good on the Lorane climb. The gaps established there were pretty much held all the way to the finish. The Canadians proved not to climb as well as they sprint, and they only beat us by 2 seconds at the finish line, and only 29 seconds in the overall GC. We were second overall and first mixed tandem.

I had some moments of concern halfway through the second lap when my legs felt absolutely dead on one of the hills. It felt like we had a flat, which we did not, and it was really hard to climb. But then on the bigger climb, my captain rode straight through the field to the front and set tempo all the way up. And my legs were fine. All I can figure is that on the earlier hill, I was working harder than he was. I was probably back there with my head down, figuring it was a hill and I need to go all out, while he was watching the group and keeping us in a steady position that turned out not to require as much effort as I thought. It was a pleasant surprise to discover I had more left than I thought!

I have long maintained that racing tandem is so much fun that perceived effort is less than actual effort, and yesterday was a day to prove it. It was great to be absolutely spent at the finish line (those two hills do that to you), and then to sit around at such a great venue for postrace conversation and awards. Thanks to everyone at and connected to Co-Motion for putting on such a great race for us!

And I even got my slice of apple pie on the way out of town. :)

Naysayers

Saturday, 26 July

For all you naysayers who think a tandem crit is just too far outside the realm of bicycle racing possibility, here's proof that they do happen. See, everybody lines up just like at any other crit. They don't call GC leaders forward at this stage race, though. Might be too hard to get a tandem and two riders through the pack up to the front?

And then they're off, and they go around corners like at any other crit. These pictures are the B crit here at the Co-Motion stage race. In the A crit, which I saw from the inside and thus no pictures, we had a few moments of excitement. "The big guys" (two Canadian men; the stoker is blind--they're the only team of two males who aren't father/son) clipped a pedal in turn 1 early in the race, and that sort of put a damper on everyone's tight cornering habits for a while. Maybe 15 laps into the race, the big guys launched an attack, and the stellar sprinter team of Gann/Gann (father/son) from Medford or Ashland or somewhere else Down South) jumped to go after them--and snapped their chain. The captain's foot went flying off his pedal, and the chain was looping around into space, but they kept the bike up. We saw Gann junior fishing part of the chain out of a tree later during the race. And then about 75 meters from the finish line, the big guys blew a tire. Nobody could tell who had flatted and there was just that briefest hesitation which put a might big hiccup in the sprint.

So, although I had a few laps of hating life early in the 35-lap (!!) crit, I survived. The TT this morning was much more fun. No one agrees on how long it is. I think it's advertised as 10K, but the mile markers along the way indicate it's about 7 miles. Our time was 3 seconds faster this year, and the only team that beat us was the big guys.

Tomorrow is the road race. No Wolf Creek climb (or descent!) this year due to road construction, so we do two laps of "the Thursday nighter." A couple of sorta hills per lap, and a 1K climb to the King Estate winery at the finish.

Sweetness

Friday, 25 July

No racing to report yet (that starts at 10:03 tomorrow), but lots of Sweet Life. This is about 5% of their display case. I was jonesing for some apple pie, but they were out.

So I had this instead. Completely vegan. And gone in a hurry. :)

Gustav

Thursday, 24 July

Meet Gustav. He's the guardian owl of my garden. He has done a spectacular job this year of keeping away the tiny little birds that love to feed on my crops. His head bobbles and swivels 360 degrees, so sometimes he looks like he needs an exorcism, but that's all part of what makes him look scary. I used to use a big net over the berry bushes, but the little birds would hop along the ground, get under the edge of the net, fly up into the bushes, and then not be able to get out. I felt bad for them. Gustav is much better. But I feel bad that he spends all winter in the shed with his head on the shelf next to him. I'm pretty sure he's a muggle owl, so he can't get a seasonal job delivering mail to students at Hogwarts.

Here's what Gustav is defending. Mmmmm. A big batch of raspberry jam is next on my agenda.

Here's the critter in my garden with the DNA to be a hunter, but he does a much better job of watching the lavender grow and picking up dirt off the patio with his fur, only to deposit it somewhere indoors at the first opportunity.

And you thought this was a tandem and cycling blog? Hold your horses, I'm off to a tandem stage race--road race, time trial, crit, and all. I'll try to post something about the actual race and not just the delightful repasts that await us!

While you wait for a tandem report, pick a number between -15 and +15 and join the pool for how much weight PruDog will gain or lose on his vacation! Read the comments for this entry. You can also go read David Longdon's report on what he considers the most fun he's ever had on two wheels (warning: some of you will think he's crazy!).

Perilous times

Wednesday, 23 July

My opportunities to go for real bike rides these days are so few and far between that when I get one, it's more useful as a stress reliever than as part of any focused training regimen. So I was excited, more or less, to head out for a couple hours this afternoon and chase some demons out of my brain. Turns out I just exchanged those stressful demons for the stress of some extremely close near-misses.

I was heading north on Juanita Drive, flying down the hill to the stop light at Simmonds. Literally out of the blue (well, maybe grey--it was still cloudy), a golf ball falls out of the sky and bounces off the pavement less than 6 feet in front of me. Mind you, I'm going 31 mph (the radar told me so), and that little white orb is probably going even faster. I instinctively cringed and ducked as much as you can on a bike because I had no idea which direction the ball would bounce. I never saw it again, but I had to wonder what good ANSI and SNELL certification does against errant golf balls from the Inglewood golf course.

I continue on my way home, much relieved to NOT have the headache a golf ball might have induced, even with a helmet on. I'm rolling up to a stoplight when a kid on a BMX bike comes flying out of a blind driveway without even looking up. I had enough time to wonder if he was going to crash into my front wheel or my right leg, but I was surely going to get t-boned one way or another. He was apparently practicing his right hook slides, because about 6 inches from my front wheel, he pulled hard right (he still hadn't seen me). I was proud of myself for not swearing at him, but I sure yelled a lot.

A block past that stoplight I was rolling up to, I came onto what appeared to be a 3-car accident. I must have missed it by less than 60 seconds. There were a lot of stunned-looking people standing around, and neighbors were just starting to come out of their houses. Traffic hadn't even started to back up, although one car was stopped in the middle of the street and another was diagonal in the intersection.

Is it a full moon? Is someone doing a bad job of trying to kill me? Is it safe to go out in my backyard and pick raspberries?

Wild times

Monday, 21 July

Yesterday was one of those beautiful, leisurely summer rides that you store away in your memory for when the weather isn't as beautiful or the riding as leisurely (it might be harder in the winter but it's probably slower too). I was with just a couple of teammates, and we remarked more than once how much different the same old roads seemed (1) on a race bike instead of a rain bike, (2) in the sunshine, and (3) without being bundled up and cold.

The contrast to our nice, mellow 4-hour ride was the wild goings-on in sleepy Snohomish. I had a bad feeling when we crossed the bridge and turned along the main street and it was filled with classic cars and hordes of people. But it takes more than a thousand people and shiny cars to come between me and a much-anticipated coffee stop, and I was able to forge a path on my bike through the humanity without anyone cursing me. As we were leaving town, we were bombarded with the sounds and smells of a Civil War reenactment (and people think 12-hour time trials are fundamentally strange?) at one end Harvey Airfield. At the other end, a small carnival was set up.

The sign at Stocker Farms reminded me that this was Kla-Ha-Ya Days. 'Member when a bike race used to be part of this craziness too?

GIGANTIC PROPS go to teammate and friend Brian Ecker for his run at a course record at Race Across Oregon this weekend. First (you know, for, like, 250 miles) he was in a dead heat with last year's winner. Overnight (it's a 535-mile, nonstop bike race) he gained nearly an hour over his closest competitor. But after something like 30 hours on the bike, and within reach-out-and-touch distance of Mt. Hood where the race finishes at Timberline Lodge, his body was no longer willing. I can't say enough how much I admire him for taking on this challenge (and his support crew for going along for the ride) and for listening to his body and deciding to stop while it was still a decision. Wishing you a speedy recovery, Brian!