Stoked

GF Pumpkin Bread

2011-10-22T13:10:00.000-07:00

Saturday, 22 October (updated 28 October)

I started with a recipe for Sweet Potato Bread that I found in the latest catalogue from Penzeys spices (sorry, can't find it on their website). My baking philosophy is that a recipe is a starting point, and you make it work with what you have. I had some cooked pumpkin on hand, and it seemed easier to use that than to cook a sweet potato. I modified the original recipe by cutting the amount of sugar in half and cutting back on the oil (I find you need less fat with GF flours). My measurements were not very precise, and I didn’t add any xanthan gum, and it came out fine. It doesn't rise a lot, but judging from the picture with the original recipe, the gluten-ful version didn't either. Pumpkin and sweet potatoes are heavy stuff.

Here’s my approximate recipe for GF Pumpkin Bread.

1 cup brown rice flour
¾ cup white rice flour
¼ cup oat flour
[other flours and flour proportions would work too; I’d stay away from the starches—the pumpkin needs something substantial to absorb the moisture]
¾ cup brown sugar
[less sugar would be OK, or maybe a little molasses and a little sugar]
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1/2 tsp each cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger (or to taste)
1 cup cooked pumpkin (make your own or use canned)
2 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup water

Preheat oven to 350. Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl; mix well with a whisk (to get everything evenly distributed and to break up the clumpy oat flour). In a small bowl, mash up the pumpkin and add the eggs, oil, and water. Mix this until smooth, then stir the mixture into the dry ingredients just until moistened. Spoon it all into a greased 9x5 inch loaf pan. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until it passes the toothpick test. Let the loaf cool in the pan for 10 minutes before turning it onto a wire rack, then let it cool to room temperature before you try to slice it.

If you don't like plain pumpkin bread, the original recipe calls for sprinkling vanilla sugar over the top before you bake the loaf. Or you could add icing before slicing. Or add some mini chocolate chips or toasted walnuts or raisins to the batter. Or carefully spread Nutella on individual slices.

Another Elkhorn race report

2011-06-21T14:38:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, 21 June

It was a great weekend at the tenth edition of the Elkhorn Classic. There is so much to love about this race. It’s challenging. It’s rewarding. It’s beautiful. You make new friends and are reunited with old ones. It’s a city girl’s chance to hang in a friendly small town. Highlights for me this year:

New discovery. It took 10 years of thinking Sunday’s road stage was 118 miles out in the middle of nowhere, but this year I discovered that there is a CAFÉ halfway through the race. It’s making me rethink my strategy for next year. Coffee and pie might hit the spot after the first feed zone: unless you want to vie for that coveted 12th place in GC, what’s the difference between being 15 minutes and 30 minutes down? There will still be beer and pizza for you at the finish—and there will still be men stragglers on the course behind you. :)

Nature breaks. In Friday’s road race, it took the women’s peloton about 3 miles of talking and waving to organize a pee stop. Best comment: “Don’t tell Candi. We’ll all get flamed on OBRA chat!” In Sunday’s road race, the cat 1-2 men passed me as they were trying to take a nature break. Some appeared to get stage fright with me hanging off the back of their bunch (I hid behind the follow car—out of sight and no chance of any downwind drift). Some had to stop, some nearly ran into the ditch as they tried to go while riding on the edge of the pack. Kept me distracted from my solo pity party at that stage.

Ego. I think my GC finish this year was tied for my highest place ever at Elkhorn. I was also DFL, so it wasn’t much of an ego boost. But I forget that on the way to and from this race, I pass by a stage race prologue course where I still hold the women’s course record. I won by one second. Happy memories every time.

In-race entertainment. In Friday’s road race (after the pee stop), one woman rode off the front of the pack on the descent into Union. She had about 300 meters on us coming up to the second of two turns on the entire 73-mile course. A man in a wheelchair rolled out into the crosswalk. The lead car had to stop. The rider had to stop. What’re ya gonna do? Her team then proceeded to hammer away at the front of the bunch (there were a sum total of 20 women in the race this year) while one of their members tried to deal with a mechanical at the back of the bunch and got dropped, never to catch back on.

Memories: When you’ve been at a race 10 times and in it 9 times, you are distracted by memories of people you’ve raced with and accumulated race highlights. When stage 1 and stage 4 were run in the opposite directions. When it snowed. When the TT course ran straight out to the Elkhorn range. When the NZ women’s team showed up on their way to the HP Women’s Challenge, shattered the field on the first climb on the last day, and then DNFed at mile 18 because they didn’t want to ride that far right before HP, leaving the rest of us in onesies and twosies for the remaining 80-some miles. Riding in cattle drives on stage 4. Climbing Dooley Mountain with women who’ve never ridden 100 miles in their lives and surprise themselves by making it up that final climb. (I’m still trying to block the memories of the year we rode down to Hell’s Canyon in horrible heat on a substitute course because of road work.)

Baker City peeps. It is quite amazing to ride your bike 50 miles into the Oregon mountains, come to an intersection, and discover two friendly corner marshalls stopping traffic so that you can roll through a stop sign. Lead and follow cars are staffed by devoted local supporters. The crits (when not cancelled because of rain) are loaded with more primes than there are laps in each race. The people in every feed zone, all 20 of them urging you to take THEIR bottle (but I only have two bottle cages….) and no miffed hand-ups. And all the businesses that welcome riders (they know who you are when you walk in the door) and ask how the race is going.

Going solo. I was flying solo at the race this year because Mick was off jousting with other windmills at Race Across the West. But it is such an easy race in terms of logistics, and many people generously “looked after” me. And they are some of the ones I will remember while I’m racing out there next year!

HT*U Part One

2011-06-01T14:51:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, 1 June

I vowed not to be a wuss or to whine too much about the unpleasantness forecast for last Saturday’s Lewis and Clark 12/24 hour race. That made things hard before I even got on the bike. A tornado touched down on Friday evening not far from the race start, and the forecast for Saturday included rain and snow above 2,500 feet (the race tops out on Old Man Pass above 3,000 feet) and thunderstorms with hail in the afternoon in the lowlands. Yummy race conditions—not.

There’s no boy scout in me, but I went into this as prepared as I could. Toe warmers between my shoes and shoe covers, one pair of dry gloves in my pocket and another pair waiting for me at each of the time stations, dry rain jacket at each time station and dry everything at TS 2 at the top of the pass. Prep for my previous 12-hour events has mostly focused on food, but this one was all about trying to stay warm; staying dry was apparently out of the question.

Yes, it was raining at the start so it was full-on HTFU from the get-go. The first few miles are up and down, and I caught and passed several riders. A group of recreational riders going the opposite direction included someone who recognized me, and during our mutual greetings of “hi,” I missed the route marker painted on the road and thus missed a turn. But so did the rider in front of me, whom I continued to chase until the road came to a dead end. We turned around and got back on course; some folks were more than a little surprised when I passed them for the second time in three miles.

I’ve raced this part of the course four times now, so I didn’t have to have the cue sheet in hand, and I recognized most of the turns (apart from the one I missed). After a beautiful stretch along the Washougal River, the route eventually comes to the Columbia River Gorge and a busy highway. Most traffic was polite, but one tractor-trailer fully loaded with plywood did not move over an inch. Thankfully, this was a section where the shoulder was 3 feet instead of 6 inches. Time Station 1 is at the Bridge of the Gods, and it looked very Wagnerian with the fog and mist in the hills and on the river (and a tailwind, gentle by Gorge standards). I had already planned to simply roll through the time station, but I snagged three cookies before hitting the road again.

From that point until I reached the end of the big loop back in Hockinson 100 miles later, I saw just one other racer. I had already passed all the other women in the 12-hour race. It was hard to stay motivated without anyone on my radar, but there were other things to keep me occupied. An elk came out on the road and blocked my path (I had not HTFUed enough to play chicken with something that big!). There was a timed KOM section up the steepest part of Old Man Pass; the time keeper at the bottom was ringing his cowbell so hard that I couldn’t ask if there was anyone ahead of me to chase or how far to the top. Who would have thought: too much cowbell!

Time Station 2 at the summit was a full stop to stock up on food and water and to swap some of my soggy clothes for warm, dry layers (no snow falling up there, just sunshine!). Gotta love stripping off half your clothes by the side of the road at the top of a mountain. The first few miles down the north side were between four-foot snowbanks on either side of the road, and I was so happy for my dry clothes and heavy winter raincoat and toasty toes, especially when I rode into a shower. I thought there was no way I would see Mt. St. Helens through the clouds and rain, but being wrong is good sometimes! In the first glimpse, clouds obscured the top of the mountain. But then I remembered that mountain has no top! From a lower elevation farther down the descent, the complete view was breathtaking: the all-white peak so close you could count the trees on its lower slopes. This view is worth the price of admission (in dollars and effort) to this race. It was all I could do not to stop and gawk! (I did stop here to take pictures the first time I did this race.)

The race winds downhill through forest and then continues along a reservoir to the town of Cougar and Time Station 3, and the headwind along this stretch was demoralizing although not demonic. The best food discovery this year was mini bagels with PB and marmalade. Fix one to-go and eat it as you roll out. There is a drawback to this eating plan, however. After TS 2, the marmalade oozed onto my gloves. Licking my gloves was a little gross if I thought about it too much, so at TS 3, I took off my right glove before I started eating. Then I managed to get marmalade on my brake hood. No, I did not try to lick that off!

More short climbs and small towns and a bunch of RR tracks, and eventually you’re back at the start/finish in Hockinson to tackle the short loop to fill out your 12 hours (or 24). Going so long without seeing another racer left me feeling complacent about the whole race thing. I was ready to climb off and be done at the end of the 140-mile big loop, or at least to stop at the finish line and ask how far back my competition was in order to figure out how much farther I needed to go to win. But that didn’t seem very sports(wo?)manlike and perhaps an insult to the promoter (I won’t try my best), so I didn’t. Funny, though, seeing more racers on the first lap of the short loop unconsciously got me back into a more competitive mode; I set a goal and worked really hard to ride steady so that I would meet it (I missed by 2 miles—I dropped my chain about 6 miles from the end and that broke my focus).

My total distance for the 12 hours was 177 miles (not counting the extra mile I rode off course just after the start). Certainly not my best effort on this course, but better than the 0 miles I was afraid the weather would bring me to. Not seeing other racers—or their always-cheerful support crews—gave the race the feel of a touring ride for almost 100 miles. But the competitive drive and social interaction as I passed other racers or they passed me made the last few hours fun—in a really perverse way.

But will it work?

2011-01-24T11:53:00.001-08:00

Monday, 24 January

Picking up from a thread of comments on a recent Facebook post here:

There's a relatively new business establishment along my commute route. It's an interesting concept, and I'd like to think that it might work: drive-thru grocery store.

http://www.foodiesdrivethru.com/

Many times on my way home from work I think up the perfect meal plan, only to be foiled by some key ingredient I know I'm missing. I could stop at a regular supermarket, but I don't carry a bike lock with me and I'm reluctant to leave my dirty, fendered, heavy commuter bike unprotected for even a few minutes. A drive-thru grocery store could be perfect. Unfortunately, this one doesn't seem to carry the sort of thing that's likely to be missing from my pantry; I'm usually looking for veggies or rice or GF pasta. Maybe their inventory will expand or shift based on demand?

I'm hoping for a chance to visit this place. Also unfortunately, it's on a state highway, and in this particular stretch there is no bus lane, no bike lane, and no shoulder. But I'll try to get there and follow up with info on what price you pay for this convenience. I see they're looking to set up franchises, so you could bring one to your neighborhood too!

Meaningless data for 2010

2010-12-31T21:13:00.000-08:00

New Year's Eve

Jennifer recently wondered “why do rides seem so meaningless when your powertap doesn’t work?” I feared that my miles for the year were therefore all meaningless since I have none of the data that a powertap captures for any of my excessive miles. Z, however, reminded me I am just as fixated by the numbers I generate at the end of each year as Jennifer is by the display that mesmerizes her for every inch she travels on a bike. True enough, although I prefer to think of my habit in a category I heard described on the radio today: the need to make lists at the end of the year. Maybe it’s a way of proving to myself that the last 365 days were not without meaning or merit or some sort of accomplishment.

What I really meant in response to Jen’s question was that every mile on a bicycle should be meaningful with or without data, even if you don’t know that it was a mile you just traveled or 300 seconds of your life that it consumed. My most memorable moments on a bike in 2010 were these:

Riding along the John Day River with Mick and Terri on a May afternoon. The temperature was perfect, we were all the traffic there was, the river is always beautiful, the riding was easy on the legs, and it was all just incredibly peaceful.

Riding the long climb up from Clarno (located elsewhere on the John Day) on the tandem with Mick. Again, there was no traffic, you feel like you’re climbing up the side of the world with views to everywhere—and there was Christy Moore on my iPhone to keep us moving along.

Riding from Newhalem to Mazama and back. I just don’t get tired of that ride or those views. I made the trip 5 times this year. I passed someone walking his bike, I passed someone who was riding so slowly I thought he would tip over onto his paniers, I just missed the boulder the size of a house falling into the roadway, and I reveled in all 120 miles every single time. And I found a quarter on the shoulder of the road on 3 of the trips, and on the last trip I found decals for the letters M and W (like you'd put on your driveway signpost) on the shoulder--just those 2, no other letters.

Hearing a lot of gunfire as I approached the turnaround at the WA State TT Championship. Even in my oxygen-deprived state, it was unnerving, to say the least. Seems the locals were getting in some target practice. There was also that horrific downpour in the last 10K of the Ravensdale Road Race where you could not see the road in front of you. The finish line was about the bleakest and loneliest I've ever seen.

Really, though, the most memorable moment was the day and a half of watching my husband get to the Race Across Oregon finish powered solely by determination. The heat took its toll on the Irish lad, and his stomach rebelled (over and over again), so the last 200 miles were fueled by willpower alone.

So here’s the data for my year in review:

Total bike miles on the road: 13,012 (2009: 12,333; 2008: 12,693).

Month with the most miles: January 1,383. (My biggest month in 2009 was May, with 1,653 miles; May was No. 2 in 2010, with 1,336.)

Month with least miles: November again, with 671 (down from last year’s low of 757).

19 rides of 100 miles or more, up from 16 in 2009. Longest rides were 193, 181 (tandem), 144, and 136 miles.

First day in the year that I did not ride my bike: May 30 (that tells you something about the mild winter we had). Also missed 3 days while crewing for my husband at RAO, 2 days in the snowpocalypse in November, plus 9 more days. So 15 days of no cycling out of 365. (The figure was 29 in both 2009 and 2008.)

Most miles in one week (7 days): 451 (down from 599 in 2009).

Number of times I rode a trainer: 106. That’s up from just 9 in 2009. Different training program. I thought I would learn to spin more on the road, but I think I just do all my spinning now on the trainer.

Holiday base miles

2010-12-26T15:15:00.000-08:00

St. Stephens Day

Just a quick follow up on my pledge to ride 1,000 miles between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The weather cooperated (no snow or ice) and I beat my goal. A short ride on Christmas Eve pushed my total to 1,111 (couldn't have hit THAT figure if I'd tried!). I also ran 30 miles during that period.

Fairly early in the process I decided to make the National Park Service the beneficiary of this little challenge: every mile in excess of the goal would be worth $1, and every mile short of the goal would be worth $2. I chose the Park Service because (1) it needs support and (2) I made 10 passes through the North Cascades National Park this year without having to pay a penny for the priceless experience. I'll be sending my check to the NPS superintendent in Sedro Woolley this week.

Time to organize my next training targets.

Flash mobbing

2010-12-11T19:02:00.001-08:00

Saturday, 11 December

Today the flagship Nordstrom store hosted a flash mob performance of the Hallelujah chorus from Handel's Messiah by the Seattle Symphony Chorale and a host of other local choirs. It was not very "flash," but it was definitely "mobbed." The non-event was supposed to be top secret, but I'm sure each of the 500+ singers told 10 people (thanks, Brandon, for the tip!).

I got there at T minus 25 minutes and you could hardly walk around the main floor of the store. Since I average less than one trip downtown per year, I thought maybe this was normal for a Saturday in the Christmas season. Until I heard people asking "is there some star here?" and "are they all standing in line for something?"

Exactly on time and according to the described plan, the piano tinkled out an upper-register version of "Deck the Halls." Out came cameras and phones--and sheet music. With absolutely no ado, the pianist moved into Handel's work and the singers sang. From the spot I staked out, I could not see maestro Gerard Schwarz (he's featured in the video in the Seattle Times link below). What I could see, though, were singers going up and down on the escalators (which you don't see in the pro video link), some poor shoppers just trying to go about their shopping with no clue what was going on, and of course all the phones and cameras raised above the mob.

The work iself is pretty short. The singers got nice applause when it was done, and that was it. No un-ado. Good thing no one invited the Seattle Fire Department--it took ages for the mob to dissipate. One poor guy working his way into the store was so disappointed to see us all moving toward the doors and said "I'm too late?!"

In the Irish idiom, it was brilliant. It was art, religious art, in a highly commercialized setting. It was a cooperative, voluntary effort of the music community. Maybe it was disappointing that so many of the people there were not surprised by what happened (the missing "flash" part), but how amazing that they all wanted to be there. The Messiah is Easter music, but this was definitely a Christmas experience.

Here's the professional report:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013658303_messiahmob12m.html

And here's a clip of my iPhone video:

Sibling rivalry, or how many miles to Christmas?

2010-11-26T17:17:00.001-08:00

Black Friday

During Thanksgiving festivities, my brother revealed that he is participating in something called the Jenny Challenge. (No, it has nothing to do with Jenny Craig.) The goal is to run 100 miles between Thanksgiving and Christmas (Jenny challenged her uncles and siblings to do this one year). Somehow it's a fundraising function, but he didn't get to those details. A laudable goal, but 25 miles a week seems a bit brutal to me. So I wished him luck without taking up the challenge.

But in the thinking time I had on my bike ride today when I wasn't dodging slushy patches on the road, I realized that setting some sort of goal to counter the fudge factor of December would not be a bad thing. So I am embarking on the Jenny Gamble. My goal is to ride 1,000 miles between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's a gamble because that target is not an enormous challenge (for me) except for the gamble of December weather. Last year I rode 954 miles during that period, but there were some icy days when I could not ride. I will make it a little less easy by stipulating that trainer time and indoor time trials do not count; these should be "real" miles.

So I have 29 days to cover 1,000 miles. Just 34.5 miles a day. I got in 73 today, so I'm off to a good start. If I get desperate near the end, there's always the solstice ride (ride from sunset to sunrise through the longest night of the year), but I hope it doesn't come to that! I'll keep a total on my Facebook wall so you can hold me accountable. Join me?

Double Trouble

2010-10-18T14:51:00.001-07:00

Monday, October 18

The Double Trouble double century on Saturday was my second-longest ride ever on the tandem: 181 miles. Lots of things were learned.

If you’re thinking of trying your hand/legs at ultra racing or riding, try something in nice cool fall weather. While I complained about the lack of toasty sunshine, really it was nice to not worry about dehydration (I drank maybe 3 bottles during the 13 hours we were out) or heat exhaustion or sunburn or excruciating hot spots on my feet.

If you think tunes would be a nice distraction on your way up an 8-mile climb and hold your iPhone out to the side of the bike in your left hand so your captain can hear the music too, be prepared for your left arm to be even more tired than your right arm the next day.

If you really dread the high-speed descents more than the climbs, pick a number to represent how many tight, fast turns you have to survive and then count on your way down the hill. There will be a lot fewer alarming moments than you think. I chose 20 for the drop after Fossil down to the John Day fossil beds and there turned out to be more like 2.5. (Sometimes I was a good descender and sometimes not; flying into Condon I was in full tuck position out of the wind, but in a few places I was sitting up as tall as I could to try to slow us down.)

If the sun goes down and you’re panicked because the road ahead tips down and disappears into black way too fast for comfort, or even moderate discomfort, and you think the captain is absolutely overdriving the headlight on his helmet, take off your dark glasses. (That was a real “ah ha” moment.)

I don’t wear trousers. At least that’s what one gentleman at the retirement home in Fossil told me as he figured out why our pants didn’t get caught in the two chains on the tandem.

Bruschetta is very nice to eat at a sag stop in the middle of a double century. Cookies get tiresome after the first dozen or so. Unfortunately, it is possible to ride 181 miles and gain weight. I heard from other riders that beer is not such a good thing to drink on a long ride, although the only other woman to finish the whole route thought the swig of whiskey for the last 5 miles was the best way to get down a very fast, twisty descent in the pitch dark.

From my captain’s perspective, towing me along on the climbs was as good as having 400 miles in his legs. Our speed up the Clarno climb was the same as his on that stretch of road during Race Across Oregon…in mid-summer heat…after pedaling mostly nonstop for about 30 hours….

Thanks to Mick and to George and Rob for an amazing day (and to a couple of FB peeps for the pix I borrowed here)!

Training tribulations, Ring of Fire wrap-up

2010-09-27T14:07:00.000-07:00

Monday, September 27

I’ve gotten myself into a bit of a training conundrum. I’m signed up to do a double century on the bike on October 16 and a 10K run the weekend after. Normally this is a good time of year for a longer run because you can let the bike miles slide. The challenge here is to keep up the bike miles and climbing (there’s probably 15,000 feet of elevation in this double) and to ramp up both speed and distance in my running (I run--pretty slowly--a couple times each week to help preserve bone density).

There are the days before and after the ride that I should rest and therefore cannot be doing a nice, long prerace run. There are other conflicts, like a team meeting and related hoopla, that fill most of a weekend training day. And then there’s the wild card of the weather, which can make a 100-mile training ride seem mighty unnice if you try to actually schedule it into your training plan. Oh yeah, and it’s the time of year to start hitting the weights in the gym again.

There are other conflicts too, like the fact that I should spend every dry waking hour painting the house. Or two evening meetings. Or the fact that I refuse to get up in the morning at an hour that starts with a 4 to train. Or the fact that the city DOT closed a key arterial on my shortest route to work so that I cannot spend more of my prework time training instead of commuting.

I think I need to discover how to chart the dimension of time because right now my two-dimensional training schedule is pretty full. How do I access the 3D version of the spreadsheet?

Ring of Fire Wrap-up: It was good. I had my nutrition dialed in, talked myself out of skipping one installment in the interest of time, and had a minor meltdown (ALWAYS carry a spare gel in your pocket!) that utterly demoralized me (funny how lack of food and water plays with your brain!) for about 90 minutes. But it was a perfect day in a gorgeous location and I was on my bike. Best part of the night shift (supporting the 24-hour racers) was an 8-inch telescope brought by the wife of one of the 24s. I got to see Jupiter and 4 of its moons in all their glory while they were the closest to earth they’ll be in a long time, plus we saw the nebula that is the sword on Orion’s belt and the Andromeda galaxy. Yeah, it’s dark in Maupin at night!

Shrine, meet fiery ring

2010-09-09T12:21:00.000-07:00

Thursday, 9 September

What serendipitously coincidental timing for the blog Muse to visit! Last post: ultra race failure. This post: next ultra race coming up.

Saturday is this year’s incarnation of the Ring of Fire 6/12/24 hour time trial. As ever, I’ll be pushing my envelope with the 12-hour version. There’s been virtually no specific training or planning for this event (OK, 6 rides over 100 miles in 2 months would be most people’s idea of ultra training), so I guess I am relying on the shrine to the ultra gods (see previous post) to propel me to the finish. I have tended it faithfully over the summer and offered up various tokens (4 championship medals and other trinkets) in the hope of keeping them happy.

Last year’s ROF featured temps over 100 degrees; this year we’ll be lucky to see 70—and lucky not to see 35. I’ll want heated water bottles, not frozen ones. I started piling up food to take and thought, “really, how much do you need for just 12 hours?” I can’t eat two bars every hour for 12 hours; I can only drink so much protein/energy drink; electrolyte drinks get to be icky after about 4-5 hours. So I bought a couple Cokes, a 6-pack of Oreos, and a bag of Ritz Bits Made With Real Peanut Butter. Throw in some grapes and pretzels, and that should be good. Beer and sweet potato fries come after (as soon as) I get off the bike. I don’t plan to follow the Mick Walsh Nutrition Plan (150 miles on 0 calories) but there’s no point in packing a 4-course lunch, either.

The other competitors in my division are (so far) two: Karen Armstrong, climber extraordinaire and amazing ultra cyclist (I’ve already said my goodbyes to my course record here), and Beatrix Kiddo. Since there are no bike racers in the WSBA or OBRA membership databases with that name, I guess it really must be her. I think I’ll schedule a pee stop deep in the woods and out of sight when she’s about to pass me.

Mostly I’m hoping to slay the demons still bedeviling me from last year’s fail at ROF and this year’s bad luck at Lewis and Clark. Extras would be beating my old course record (even if Karen beats it by a lot more) and the glorious views of Mt. Hood, Mt. Jefferson, and the Columbia Plateau. And lots of great camaraderie, which I know I can count on above all else.

And as if an ultra race isn’t a geeky enough thing for one weekend, the day after my race I get to go to the Wool Gathering. If you find a knitted hat in your mailbox in the next few months, it’s probably because I couldn’t resist buying more yarn than I knew what to do with.

Shrine of the times

2010-05-31T15:41:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day

Saturday was the Lewis and Clark 12/24. I've done this race (12-hour version) twice before on my single bike, and the goal this year was to do it on the tandem. We didn't aspire to any enormous distance in our allotted 12 hours, just log some fun miles and establish a tandem course record (there isn't one).

The weather forecast was grim all week, and I announced that it if was raining, I wasn't going. Climbing and descending a mountain pass in the rain--after 4 hours on the bike--didn't sound like any kind of fun. Funny enough, it was not raining at the start. The promoter's bribes to the weather gods had paid off. Briefly. Within 15 minutes, the drizzle started and my captain was saying "I thought you said you wouldn't race if it was raining." Yeah, well, I'm here now, let's go. Sadly, the bike had other notions. When we started up after a "nature break," the front shifter snapped off inside the brake hood. The derailleur was about halfway between the small and middle chain rings. Eventually we found a screwdriver and got it to run well enough on the middle ring, but it was pretty clear that we were neither going to climb any steep hills nor have much fun on anything even slightly downhill with that gearing. So we limped our way to Stevenson, found a nice coffee shop, watched the Gorge winds, and caught up on Facebook. And then we turned around and rode the 46 miles back to the start. 50 rpm uphill on a tandem when you can't swing the bike or mash the gears is absolutely brutal.

DNF. Boo. For a bike racer, my competitiveness is down at the low end of the spectrum. But DNFs really leave me disappointed. It was worse than suffering through the rain and cold; it was a flat feeling of being let down. It was a no-fault DNF, and there was no one to blame, not even myself. And it compounded the lingering feelings I had from the Ring of Fire 12/24 last September where hot temps did me in (that one was more my own fault, and I learned from the experience, but the disappointment was palpable).

What to do? Yes, plan and train even more and better and smarter for Ring of Fire. But I had so many eggs in that basket last year that my performance was devastating. Then I noticed Gina's sage advice to Jennifer about setting up a shrine to the crit gods to induce them to treat her better and realized that maybe I need my own shrine of the times, this one for the ultra (so far defined in my book as 12 hours) gods. So now it is set up, and in a spot where I will see it often. In addition to appeasing the ultra gods, it will remind me of Gina's wisdom and Jennifer's competitiveness--and hopefully some of each of those will rub off on me.

Kamikaze squirrel

2010-05-24T11:33:00.000-07:00

Monday, 25 May

Spoiler alert! This will not spoil the outcome of a bike race for you, but it might spoil your lunch. Do not read this if you are ultra-sensitive about the fate of animals.

It finally happened. I ran over a squirrel. Bad karma, mea culpa, oy vey.

I was riding down the Old Woodinville-Duvall Road (a quiet detour off the busy W-D Road, and a nice little climb besides), not paying too much attention to wildlife, and suddenly there was a squirrel shooting under my bike. It happened very fast, but I do remember time to think “this is not good” (usually the vocabulary I come up with in such situations is not repeatable). I fully expected that it would be about like trying to run over a brick. Since I was going 20-25mph, definitely not good.

Who knew? Squirrels are soft.

I kept the bike going in a straight line, stayed upright, and did not stop. What could I do? While I would like to know how the squirrel came out of it, I don’t think I improved its wellbeing (I’m pretty sure I ran over more than its tail). If I stopped to inspect the damage, I was neither going to save the squirrel’s life (call PAWS?) nor dispatch it into the next if it was maimed (grab it by the tail and fling it high into the woods?). Don’t get me wrong. I could not have harmed the animal intentionally. I was quite distraught for the fate of the poor little creature, but—honestly—how could I have helped it? (To be really cruel about it, eastern grey squirrels are an invasive species here anyway.) Hopefully it at least managed to get out of the road so that all the Tour de Cure riders who had to go up that road on their century ride didn’t have to look at it lying there. When I did stop at the next intersection about a mile down the road, there were no traces of squirrel on my bike, just the usual worms and slugs that accumulate from wet roads.

Maybe next time you ride down that road you’ll see a gimpy but otherwise healthy squirrel? Maybe my bad karma is dissipated by the squirrel’s own Darwinian behavior?

Thursday thoughts

2010-05-13T11:57:00.000-07:00

Thursday, 13 May

I seem to have been on the receiving end of a lot of pity aphorisms today. Many are remarkably relevant to my work and personal lives, and some nudge me away from dour thoughts that overtook me on my early morning ride. Here are the best of 'em:

If you’re old, and you wake up in the morning and nothing hurts, you’re dead.

They found out what’s at the end of the tunnel: another tunnel.

It's good to have guardian angels, mentors, and people that push you to do MORE.

A dollar’s worth of jelly beans can change your day.

Little things can make such a difference; a little smile, a little treat, a little extra.

Do something new every chance you get and make it fun.

Loup Loup mystery unwound

2010-04-29T07:58:00.000-07:00

Thursday, 29 April

Out in the middle of nowhere on my Loup Loup loop from Chelan (see previous post), not too long before the pavement ended, I rode past a complex of what looked like satellite dish thingies. They were out on a ridge maybe a half mile from the road I was on, and the sign on the gate was some made-up telecom sounding moniker. I puzzled for a while about what they might be or do, but then I rode past some other curious thing to wonder about and then the pavement ended. And then I forgot about them altogether.

This morning's Seattle Times reveals that the site houses a deep space telescope, akin to the Hubble. It's one of ten in the Very Long Baseline Array. "This system is so good that it has the ability to see fine detail equivalent to standing in New York City and reading a newspaper in Los Angeles. It peers through clouds and dust into other galaxies, into regions where planets are being formed. It has produced images that go to the very beginnings of the universe, and helped discover a black hole in the center of the Milky Way."

It seems pretty cool to me that it sits out there in our amazing resource of fruit orchards, that it takes only two technicians on site to keep it going, and that Erik Lacitis happened to write about it while it was fresh(ish) in my mind. I must try to follow up on more of the curious things I see on long rides in the boonies!

Wenatchee roubaix and Loup Loup loop

2010-04-18T20:43:00.000-07:00

Sunday, April 18

Today's ride was the short little jaunt that is the road race at the Wenatchee omnium. However, there is rather less road than there needs to be. In places, the potholes and missing pavement stretch across the entire road, on both uphill and downhill sections. The phone camera photos don't really demonstrate the depth of the problem. And sure, most of the road is fine (if you don't ride anywhere near the right edge). But some of the road is just not there. I like paved road beneath my road bike, thanks very much.

Some of the holes are full of sand from a winter of road "maintenance." When you're riding by yourself, these are a challenge (picking them out of the shadows, finding a line). In a group of more than 2 riders, they could be treacherous. Although the course cries out for superlight carbon wheels, it could be their last hurrah. The problems start about 200 meters after the left turn at the church and continue on and off for several miles.

Yesterday was the long-miles day. I racked up 136 miles in the saddle and somewhere in the neighborhood of 6000 feet of climbing, finishing with 50 miles into a significant headwind. But only 3 stop lights and 1 WalMart. And not a single other soul did I see upon a bicycle. I rode from Chelan to Okanogan, then over Loup Loup Pass to Twisp. I stopped to take a picture (or three) at the top of the pass and reveled in the silence. Nothing to hear but birds and trees swaying in the wind. And I discovered a great bakery in Twisp, which will induce me to ride through that town again. The scariest moment was encountering a "pavement ends" sign after a string of "road work ahead" signs. Happily, the missing pavement on this road (Old 97) was replaced by oiled dirt (I didn't know they did that anymore) with only a tiny bit of gravel. It was almost as good as the paved road--and a whole lot better than the Stemilt loop above Wenatchee!

Numbers and comparisons

2010-04-12T12:24:00.000-07:00

Monday, 12 April

130 miles of road racing for me this weekend. That’s a lot, for me. Kings Valley Road Race in Oregon, Olympic View Road Race in Washington. Similar, but not the same. 31 cat 1-2-3 women at KVRR, 29 I think at OVRR. 18-mile circuits; lots more climbing (and wind) per lap at KV. Pace was faster at OVRR, but at KV the field was lined out single file a lot more often.

Full disclosure: I admit I didn’t do much racing. I was mostly hanging on, getting in some "speed work." My average speed for nearly 3.5 hours at OVRR was about 25% faster than I ride on my own. But I also learned and observed.

Learned: Sue Butler is sublime on a bike. Most of us ride a bike; she is just there among us, effortlessly. You would not know she was pedaling to watch her in the pack. It’s beyond having a smooth pedal stroke. It’s being at one with the bike. A pleasure to behold. More practically, I learned from watching Tina how to get through the worst crosswind section at Kings Valley. On the first lap, that was a couple miles of hell for me, and I barely made it. Then I saw where and how Tina was riding, and by copying her example, the second and third laps went much better for me. My arms ended up being tired from the death grip I had on the bars to hold my position, but the legs were much happier.

Observed: A cat 2 team leader who flagrantly violated the centerline rule to get to the front to be with her peeps, apparently oblivious to the fact that others in the pack were commenting on her poor example. A cat 1 who forgot that you don’t cross the centerline into the left lane when you have a mechanical and expect service from the wheel car. A cat 2 who didn’t know where the finish line was when she started to sprint (and who was disappointed when her legs gave out before she got to the line). Cat 3s who can’t get out of the saddle and keep the bike in a straight line. A cat 2 with a pedal stroke that looks like her left ankle is unhinged.

Also observed: A lot of selfless teamwork. Active racing. And some new cat 3s who surprised themselves. Two days of good racing.

Oh yeah, race numbers. OBRA riders understand what the purpose is behind two jersey numbers. One is for the finish line, the other is for the official in the follow car. So at KV, one number sideways on your left side, one horizontal across the pockets. I wasn’t absolutely 100% certain the camera was on the left, and we got to the start less than 30 minutes before the first race went off, so I had just prepinned one number on each side. I was the oddball in the pack (OK, in more ways than one). Next day, at OVRR, I got my act together: one number on the left, one on the pockets. Everybody else had their second number pinned for the nonexistent camera on the right side of the road. We are stuck with the requirement for two jersey numbers because the officials want them, but that second number is just about useless when it’s pinned sideways in your other armpit. Sit in a follow car sometime and see for yourself.

Eight days a week

2010-02-16T11:56:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, 16 February

Eight days a week
Is not enough.

I’ve been thinking about the content of this post for two weeks but can’t ever find the time to finish it up.

I really need eight days in a week to get everything done. Housecleaning, rest day, blogging, gardening—there just isn’t time to squeeze everything in. Watch a movie? Read a book? Ha.

Along came the Presidents Day holiday, and I thought “aha, the perfect extra day.” Unfortunately, I always try to accomplish more things on a holiday than there is time for and so end up feeling even farther behind and/or more tired than if there hadn’t been a holiday. I didn’t start out yesterday with ambitious plans, but somehow the 4-hour bike ride consumed 5.5 hours, the eating/recovery/laundry afterward took time, and poof! the day was just about gone with hardly time to do all the normal Monday tasks.

God got everything done in six days, but I can’t manage in seven. Maybe life has gotten more complicated?

It's not about the watts

2010-01-29T14:50:00.000-08:00

Friday, 29 January

I am blue today.

This weekend marks the tenth anniversary of the death of two family friends in a preventable plane crash and the celebration of life/memorial service for another friend who recently lost a long battle with cancer. None was what you’d call a close personal friend, and yet they were all intertwined with my life and who I am and what I treasure in ways I come to appreciate more as time passes. Remembering them makes me realize how trivial the pursuit of watts, power, and speed really are in the big picture. That doesn’t mean I won’t be out training on my bike this weekend, but it does mean I will be using that time to enjoy the friends I’m riding with, the things I see, and the things I learn. Whether the end result is greater speed is not the most important thing in the world.

If I am, at lucky best, a mediocre bike racer, it’s not because I don’t care, it’s because other things are important to me. After one particular thread of whining listserv email this week, a friend commented that you had to take but one look at Haiti to put all our bike racing quibbles--nay, our priorities--into perspective. I hope not to get so focused on my own goals and desires that I fail to cherish the people who make up my life. Sure, I’ll miss 350 watts when I can no longer pedal that hard, but not like I miss the people who’ve shaped whoever I am.

Bleak midwinter: NOT

2010-01-15T15:58:00.000-08:00

Friday, 15 January

"In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone."

So goes one of the lesser known Christmas carols. But we aren't even to midwinter yet (barely three weeks into winter) and already things are breaking out in fragrant blossoms, which can only mean full-on spring is just around that corner. All of these plants are blooming outside my office today (okay, the daphne and lily of the valley are still not quite in full bloom, but the witch hazel and the super-fragrant white stuff make this midwinter anything but bleak):

2009 recap, part 2

2009-12-31T08:53:00.000-08:00

Thursday, 31 December

When I was writing up the on-the-bike highlights of 2009 yesterday, I tried to think of the biggest adrenaline rush or biggest drama. Of course it came to me on my ride yesterday afternoon: the episode with a yellow jacket under my jersey. I'd say stripping off half my clothes in a farm valley and suffering 4 stings at once qualifies as drama. There was also a very long ride that qualified as the worst day of the year on the bike, but we don't need to remember that!

So, the numbers.

Total bike miles on the road: 12,333 (assuming no catastrophic events deter me from the usual ride home from work this afternoon). Surprisingly, that is down from 2008 (12,693).

Total days with no bike miles on the road: 29 (same as 2008). I was on vacation for 11 of those days, supporting a women's team at the Cascade Classic for 4 of them, at all-day cycling meetings for 2 of them, and sick for just 1 (something to be thankful for!)

Month with the most miles: May, with 1653 miles.

Month with the least miles: November, with 757 (that was the month with 11 days off the bike for vacation).

Most miles in one week (7 days): 599.

Number of rides of 100 miles or more: 16

Three longest rides: 193, 151, 137 miles. (Longest ride in 2008 was also 193 miles, but at a different race.)

Number of times I rode a trainer: 19. 12 of those were indoor Computrainer time trials at CycleU, and 3 of them were on days when I could not ride outside. No, I don't ride my trainer much.

The biggest bummer of the year was the awful weather at early-season races. I didn't see much point in racing when it was 38 degrees and snowing/raining; weather kept me out of 5 races in March. The flip side of that was the spectacular weather all summer; never was a long ride in the mountains cancelled because of weather.

Thanks to all who raced and rode with me in 2009. I thoroughly enjoyed almost all of it. Here's to more happy miles for all in 2010!

2009 recap, part 1

2009-12-30T14:00:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, 30 December

Tomorrow I'll churn out the annual statistical review of my cycling year, but here are some of the non-quantifiable highlights of 2009:

Favorite ride: Seattle to White Salmon

Favorite race: Elkhorn stage 4 (2009 version)

Most exciting race result by someone I know: Lisa M at elite nats

Most heartbreaking race result for someone I know: Mick losing Elkhorn by 1 second

Biggest buildup and corresponding letdown of my race season: Ring of Fire

Most amazingly bad place to stay: Ukiah

Two favorite pictures of the year, more for what they evoke to me than any artistic qualities they might have:

Holiday hilarity

2009-11-15T09:57:00.001-08:00

Sunday, 15 November

I saw these hilarious things in first one holiday catalogue and then another. They seemed like a good trendy detour in my hat-making "career." And so I've been cranking them out and inflicting them on innocent friends (just like I do with regular hats). They are pretty funny when you think about them: most wine bottles are either lying flat in storage or are uncorked and emptied. But I suppose every cab needs a cozy. :)

Temporary retooling

2009-10-18T20:11:00.000-07:00

Sunday, 18 October

Following up on Ring of Fire and its mockery of my goal-setting, I figured it was time for some time off the bike and a little change up for mental rest from long miles on the bike. I picked a local 10K running race that benefits the scholarship fund at the University of Washington. I had 4 weeks to recover from ROF, retool, and retrain to run 6.2 miles.

The goals I set were to reduce my bike miles and to finish the race in less than 60 minutes (I don’t run fast, either!). I failed at the first one—or, at least, bike time was not given over to running time. Somehow I managed to do all my training for the event in the morning (I got up at 4:55 once) before I rode to work. Never did I run on the weekend, and only once did I shorten up my ride to work.

My race time (53:12) was not mortally embarrassing and certainly better than the 10-minute miles I was prepared for. While there were a lot of people a lot faster than me, there were more who were slower: my time was 2 minutes faster than the average, I was 371 out of 868 runners, and 17/64 in my age group (in which nearly everyone is younger than I am). I used bike racing tactics: I took the shortest line through all the corners, and I found big guys to run behind in the headwind sections, even if I had to sprint a little to catch up to them. And I found another sport where tons of people pass me going downhill!

Most interesting to me is my recovery. I have some gentle aches and pains from 53 minutes of pounding my joints (knees, hips) but I am not tired. (I tried to ride some extra miles on my bike after the race, but one of my pedals seized—some kind of sign, maybe?) I guess that means I didn’t run hard enough, but it also means I benefited from my enormous base of miles/fitness. My goal here was not to become a runner but to focus on something besides cycling for a while, to set myself some new goals.

A bonus: only one of all my training and racing miles was rainy!

Next training program: super slow at the gym. I know that will hurt! And I'm jonesing to ride a century again, even if it's only metric and even if it's on the rain bike.

Triple century in Hood's hood

2009-09-28T12:49:00.000-07:00

Monday, 28 September

Since there’s snow above 4,000 in tomorrow's weather forecast, and temps tomorrow aren’t supposed to reach 60 down here at sea level, I’m pretty sure I’ve just had the year’s last weekend of glorious summer riding. And what a weekend it was!

Early Saturday morning I sent the hubby off on a 300K adventure with the Oregon Randonneurs. Then I drove to Mt. Hood Meadows and set out on my own adventure. It was cold up there!! And the first 8 miles or so were downhill. Too cold for bare skin! But next was 8 miles of steady climbing on FR 44, and very soon I was shedding more layers than I had pockets for. Because this is an empty road on a busy day, I was kinda worried about encountering bears foraging for winter hibernation at my early hour. Instead, I encountered woodcutters harvesting last winter’s blowdowns. For the top several miles of the climb, there was a chainsaw running about every quarter mile. No bears to be seen.

The temperature increased rapidly as I dropped down the 17-mile descent toward Dufur. Rolling along the valley into town, I felt a bee sting me just under the collar of my jersey. Ouch—and much flapping of clothing with one free hand. Satisfied the bug was gone, I kept pedaling. Two or three minutes later, it stung again, still under my jersey. This time I slammed on the brakes, dropped the bike, unzipped my jersey, and just about stripped off all my clothes in an attempt to get the thing away from me. End result (which I could not see at the time): 4 stings. Not much to do, though, besides keep on riding (and swearing a lot from the pain).

After Dufur comes the “gentle climb” of Dufur Gap Road. It is pretty, and the views of Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams at the top are wonderful, but it is a long grind. And no ROFers to chase this time. Then down to Tygh Valley, left on 216, and eventually to Maupin. Exactly as planned, my ride buddy was sitting in the city park, eating potato chips, and checking race results with his iPhone. I found some ice cream, and then we backtracked to Tygh Valley, following the route for his brevet. A two-mile climb brings you all the way up out of the river canyon and onto what I am told is officially named the Columbia River Plateau. From there it’s sort of false flat as you head west into the trees on the slopes of the Mt. Hood foothills and then it’s about 20 miles of real climbing (with a couple short descents) back up to Meadows. There was a consistent headwind for this whole section of the ride. I love hearing the wind in the trees above my head but am not so enamored by pedaling uphill into a headwind.

My total distance on Saturday was 122 miles, just shy of a metric double century. Three major climbs, plus two that were a couple miles long. Most of this was the big loop from Ring of Fire, but starting in the middle. It was noticeably different to have fresh legs for 44 and tired ones for 48, when usually it’s the other way around.

Sunday was a team ride, starting in Hood River. We headed east, through the “microwave” wild fire acreage, and to The Dalles. Looped around on Eight Mile, Emerson Cutoff, and Boyd Loop to get to Dufur. On Eight Mile, the hills are tight and close, almost claustrophobic, but from Boyd Loop you can practically see forever: orchards, vineyards, mountains, valleys, trees, farms. Then we went the opposite way over my Saturday route on FR 44, down to highway 35, but turned right to head back to Hood River. I managed to stay with the group until Dufur (5 flats on other bikes and a headwind gave me recovery and shelter) and then was on my own. My only other trip up 44 was on a cloudy day, and I had no idea there were so many luscious views of Hood all the way to the top. Just past the summit, I think I could pick out what is now the top of Mt. St. Helens above a nearby ridge. 101 miles for the day.

So 223 miles in two days, a double metric century and a regular "English" century. Not a cloud in the blue, blue skies. Warm enough to be summer, cool enough to ward off heat exhaustion. Wind but not gale force. Little critters (chipmunks, squirrels, pikas) but no bears. Riding on parts of courses from at least 11 races. Great ride company for parts of both days, and great hosts in between the riding. Priceless.

It’s going to be tough to transition to riding around Lake Washington on my rain bike.

Ring of Fire / End of Season

2009-09-15T14:08:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, 15 September

The Ring of Fire time trial is one of my favorite races, a superb finish to a season of racing, and a nice signal for the end of summer. This year I logged more long rides as training, and I thought I was as well prepared as I ever could be. I had been working on my “ultra” nutrition all summer, I took the time trial bike in the hope of getting in some faster miles on the flatter part of the course, I was rested for the event and ready to go. I was reasonably confident of beating the 193-mile women’s course record for the 12-hour race.

However. The nagging thought in the back of my mind through all of this was that weather had severely limited my racing all year. I skipped a bunch of early season races when it was 38 degrees and precipitating (rain, snow, whatever). The first stage at Cherry Blossom was abysmal because of Gorge winds, and the first day at a training camp in May was about the worst prolonged period I’ve ever had on a bike because of incredible winds. The last stage at the Elkhorn Classic was shortened by 80% because of cold precip. But July and August had been good (too good?), and I had done at least six rides in the mountains of 120 miles or more.

My start was at 7:23 a.m. Roughly the first 60 miles are mostly uphill as you climb through forest on the SE flank of Mt. Hood. The temperature and winds were perfect. I was surprised to be offered ice for my water bottles at the first two sag stops (whatever for?). Then a 20-mile descent down to the plateau of central Oregon brought a quick climb in temperature. A one-mile climb to the third sag stop (at about mile 90) convinced me that ice was a good thing, and I stuffed one jersey pocket with it (as well as my bottles). Gradual climbing continues relentlessly on Dufur Gap Road, where I still felt good. On the long descent from that summit, my speed went from 37 to 27 when I hit the headwind, which stayed with me for the next 5 miles of rollers. The heat and headwind combo sapped my energy, and the sun baked my brain, so that when I hit the flat stretch of 8 miles along the Deschutes River, I could muster no better than 18-20 mph with a substantial tailwind. I rolled into the start/finish to start my short (27-mile) laps, hoping to get the first two on the TT bike before tired legs would probably rebel at the unfriendly gearing.

The legs were not the problem. It was my head in the heat. Two miles up the first climb I knew I was going nowhere fast. I was only mildly dehydrated, which is a state I bear pretty well; this was just inability to bear the heat, which was registered by at least one rider at 97 degrees. I seriously contemplated getting off the bike for a rest (a nap was what I REALLY wanted), but (a) there was no shade and (b) I was afraid of rattlesnakes. So I kept pedaling. I have no technology on my TT bike, but I know my pace was very slow. Amazingly, however, nobody passed me in those 27 miles, which simply meant everyone else was suffering too. On the flat stretch of river road, I had so little strength, I could not go fast enough to ride in the aero bars. My power was probably at about 12 watts.

When I rolled into the start/finish after 139 miles, I told them I was done and got off the bike. There is air conditioning in the lodge, and I spent some time lying down inside, cooling off. Then came food and liquids. And then I could enjoy the general party atmosphere that dominates the parking lot around the finish line at this race. After about 2 hours, it occurred to me that I didn’t feel lousy any more and I could probably ride my bike. I still had 3/4 of an hour left in my 12, so I got back on the bike and put in 13 more miles. It was a beautiful time of day to ride: the sun was setting behind the Cascades, the temperature was in the 70s or low 80s, and Mt. Hood reigned supreme over the plateau. My legs still had lots of miles in them, even if my clock did not.

Your race here finishes wherever you are on the course 12 hours after your start. I happened to be at mile 13 on the 27-mile loop; backtracking involves a climb of at least 2 miles, so I chose to keep going “forward.” Within a mile, a car came in the opposite direction and the driver stopped and told me she had been sent out to pick me up. (The car had passed me dozens of times during the day, so I knew she was with the race.) My husband, who was attempting the 24-hour version of this race, was asking for me because his heat exhaustion and dehydration were so severe they were sending him to the hospital. 14 miles in the car under those circumstances seemed to take longer than they would have on the bike.

Hubby had been sick several times, been rescued by another rider’s crew, collapsed, and agreed that the hospital was the place for him. He had a support crew who would take him to The Dalles, which meant I didn’t have to sit in the ER with him in my sweaty exhausted dehydrated state. MCMC gave him 3 liters of fluid and sent him back to the race; there were 6 hours left in his 24 when he got back to Maupin, but he did not get back on the bike. I am so grateful to Mandy for retrieving me, Adrian (Adrienne?) for taking care of him, Ken for taking him to the hospital, and countless others for their genuine concern. I was clearly the bad wife, however, because other riders asked me for updates on his condition at least every 15 minutes. I have no cell coverage in Maupin and thus had no news, and his condition didn’t seem too complicated, but I guess I was supposed to be trying every means available to get updates from the ER (which is nigh impossible even when communications are good). Ironically, his recovery was faster than almost anyone else’s simply because those 3 liters went straight into his bloodstream while the rest of us had to wait for absorption into our systems.

The disappointment for both of us was huge. This had been one of our big goals for the season, a training focus for a long time, and a lot of thought had gone into our preparation. I am thankful of course that our hopes were dashed only by weather and that no one suffered long-term effects (a majority of racers were ill). But it doesn’t escape me that I planned, trained, and set goals specifically for this race—for naught. Sure, I am somewhat gratified that I felt really good on all the climbs, that my training worked, and that I really like my LandShark. Nothing hurt, I just had no energy.

Since the race failed to be a happy end-of-season benchmark, my recovery ride the next day included one big climb up from Maupin toward Grass Valley. There was virtually no traffic and nothing to limit the panoramic view at the top. Whenever I stopped to take pictures, I could hear nothing but birds and bugs and dead wildflowers rustling in the breeze. I could see some of the peaks I had “friended” this season: Hood, Jefferson, Washington. It was sweltering again, but I didn’t care. This was the end of my summer and reminded me how truly grateful I was for all the miles I put in this year. The camera could not capture the expanse and the simultaneous senses of freedom and desolation.

So for the end of my season I am left with disappointment but also the increased desire that comes from a sad result. But even more I am left with the peace and sanctuary that were so much a part of all my long rides in 2009.

Getting closer

2009-08-14T20:06:00.000-07:00

Friday, 14 August

You have to understand, good pie crust is in my genes and is part of my heritage. My mother and my grandmother made such fantastic pie pastry that, as a child (and even to this day), I preferred pie crust to pie filling. They taught me well, and I can make a flaky, wondrous delight with flour, shortening, water, and a few grains of salt. But then shortening was condemned as the root of a lot of evil, so I substituted canola oil. Definitely not the same, but passable, and more work. Then my husband gave up wheat, which cuts out the whole flour thing. But apple tart is his dessert of choice, and it's gravenstein apple season, so I must bravely go forth and try to learn new pie-making skills.

The first recipe I found was a flop. It basically said you could substitute rice flour for wheat flour, and butter for shortening, and you'd be happy with the result. NOT. If you're not a pastry maker, it's hard to explain, but gluten is the thing that's in flour that makes a pie pastry too heavy and ugh-ly if you work the pastry too hard and beat down the gluten. So, if you start with gluten-free flour, it's pretty much a no-brainer that you've got a headstart to heavy and ugh. It came out like rich (that's the butter), dense, chewy pastry instead of a light flaky wonder.

Then I got some sound advice from a true pastry chef (thanks, Laura!) and inspiration from a county-fair, blue-ribbon pie making queen (that's you, Judy)--both of 'em bike racers. And did some more research in that giant cookbook called the internet. I narrowed my choices down to two recipes. Both called for weird things not in my cupboards (potato starch, xanthan gum, sorghum flour), so I had to go shopping.

I have to digress here. I have a "thing" about trying to make foods into things they're not just so they look like other foods. Tofurkey comes to mind. There are so many good foods out there that if you choose not to eat one (turkey, in this case), why not just admit you don't eat turkey and not pretend to yourself that you're eating dead poultry when you pretend to others that you don't eat dead poultry? I'm a vegetarian, but I try not to eat overprocessed foods--and most of those tofu-derived, fake meats fall into the category of things I don't buy. What's this got to do with pie crust? Well, maybe pie crust is meant to be just shortening, flour, salt, and water, and if you choose not to eat one of those ingredients, maybe you should just be content to eat apple crumble instead of having your pie and eating it too.

But I had to try. So this afternoon I stood (in my helmet and cleats) in the "natural foods" section of my supermarket (what are all the other foods they sell--"unnatural"?), pondering sorghum flour and other things I'd only seen as so many words on nutrition labels. I thought the recipe calling for xanthan gum would be the way to go because it only called for two things I didn't already have. But xanthan gum is $13 for a little package, and really what was I going to do with a pound of xanthan gum? So I opted for the white rice flour, sorghum flour, and potato starch recipe because those three items together cost less than xanthan. Not cheap, but not $13. Oh, and I also bought some shortening, on a tip from Laura.

My recipe rubbed against my pie sensibilities. Adding an egg is cheating! And no thanks, I don't want cinnamon in my pie crust. I'm not sure about vinegar, but I know a lot of people use it. Basically, though, I followed the recipe, substituting shortening for some of the butter. It rolled out better than my previous GF attempt and it hung together better in the pan. It smelled good while it baked (that was the apples, though), and it got nicely brown and a little crispy on the edges. Then we had to wait for it to cool.

I think I'd rate this attempt at a B+. It is definitely better than store-bought pie crust. I had more pastry than pie, so it was maybe a little thicker than it should have been, and thus a little heavier. The bits of the rolled edges were close to the "real thing." One noticeable difference is that rice flour is grainier than wheat flour, so at first bite the pastry is toothier. But when you eat the crust with the filling (like most pie eaters do, I suppose), it's really really close to a wheat flour crust. With some tweaks, I think this recipe will be a keeper. Maybe I'll have to let the PruPieMaster be teh judge....

BTW potato starch is pretty cool stuff. It's kind of like cornstarch, but heavier and not as...flighty. I'm looking forward to working with it some more.

Cascade

2009-07-27T11:44:00.000-07:00

Monday, 27 July

I've been going to the Cascade Cycling Classic longer than almost any other race. I always have a fun time in Bend. This year was no exception.

There were so many things that contributed to a great week. Best find this year was Le Cakery, where you get to pick the flavor of your cupcake and the flavor of your frosting; it's a really good thing there's not a place like that around the corner from me the rest of the year! Thump Coffee was a great place to drink super good coffee (if I can tell a difference, it must be good!), catch up on email, watch the Tour, and people-watch the who's who of the Bend cycling community (thankfully I had a guide who recognized them; I did not, for the most part). The scenery around Bend of course is marvelous, and the level and amount of competition in the bike races prove that riders in the NW will race in the summertime if you give them what they want. And having Jadine and Mike share their honeymoon with about 600 other bike racers made this year's trip to Bend unique! :)

But the thing that made the week most special for me was people:

The host housing friends who welcome you back year after year.

The teammates and support staff who work so hard together to make it all happen, even in the face of bad luck, illness, and injury.

The "kid" I haven't seen in years but ran into out of the blue on the crit course who now owns a bike shop in Boise.

The man who came up to me at the crit and said his son was at a national junior team camp (?) with the son of an old friend of my husband. His son's name is familiar in Oregon bike racing, but how did this guy know me just walking down the street in Bend?

Four of the Hagens Berman guys, melting into a bench outside an ice cream shop in downtown Bend. After I'd chatted with 2 of them for at least 10 minutes, one of the other 2 says "I don't think I know you"--as in, why are my friends so chatty with this old broad? The fourth was too shy to say much at all. :)

The commissaire from Seattle who shared a table with my team director and me during our morning coffee/Tour/email ritual and offered up a little of the officials' side of the race.

The OBRA official who didn't hesitate to let me register for my husband while he was stuck in a rental car nightmare. Everybody else had to show their license, but my magic words that afternoon were "I'm Mick." :) I did have to repeat them several times as I moved through registration because everyone in the process wondered why I was at packet pick-up for an event with no (amateur) women's field.

The woman behind me in buffet line at the meet-the-sponsors pasta feed for the women's race who had crewed for a two-person relay team at Race Across the West. She was astounded that I had even heard of the race (RAW and Cascade draw from pretty different cycling communities) much less that I knew riders and other crew at that race. I tried to get her to try the 6-hour Ring of Fire TT this September.

The Bend cyclist who killed the women's Firecracker TT on July 4 who was part way up the time trial course, cheering for my rider AP.

The race staff who always had time to say hello and answer my questions.

Cycling is such a small world and for the most part a close-knit, supportive community. It is fascinating to go to an event as big as Cascade and see how parts of your world are connected to each other in ways that don't involve you that you would never imagine. I stopped in to see a tandem friend at his bike shop in Bend and to thank him for advertising some other friends' used tandem on his email list. Totally coincidentally, a clothing line they rep was hanging on the wall next to the tandems in the shop.

So much better than Facebook.

Bliss on a bike

2009-07-13T14:03:00.000-07:00

Monday, 13 July

Back in May, at training camp in north central Oregon, I agreed with Terri that it was spectacularly beautiful country but, due to lack of “real” trees and bodies of water, I wasn’t sure I could happily live there. My riding this weekend was at the opposite end of the spectrum: Friday and Saturday featured so much riding among the close quarters of hills and evergreens that when at last I got to that plateau east of Mt. Hood, it felt comforting, like coming home.

My two-day bike journey this weekend was from my home in Seattle to Hood River, with a stopover in Packwood. Friday’s ride was nothing hard to figure out, and I had ridden all of the roads before, just not strung together in this order. The worst traffic was in the first two miles (I forgot to bypass Lake City Way at rush hour). There were very few cyclists on my route out May Valley, down past Hobart to Ravensdale, then past Palmer-Kanasket Park en route to Enumclaw (it was STP weekend, so nobody was out training on Friday!). Mud Mountain Road out of Enumclaw was so peaceful—and it was fun to read the years of race exhortations written on the road. Then the reality of 410 traffic all the way to the top of Cayuse Pass. Somewhere along there (mile 70 in this day’s ride), I counted 15 cars going by me in one mile. Not so bad. Since the Stevens Canyon Road is closed and drivers can’t make a loop through Mt. Rainier National Park, there wasn’t much traffic after the top of the pass. Better yet, there is no road construction this summer on 123. It’s pretty much downhill all the way to highway 12, and then rollers the last 7 miles into Packwood.

The weather was a good friend. I had a perceptible tailwind on all the southerly sections (almost the entire route) of my Friday journey. Mountain thunderstorms were in the forecast, and, sure enough, the big puffy clouds forged into ominous blackness as I got to Crystal Mountain. No thunder and lightning, but the cloud cover was a wonderful relief for the long climb up Cayuse Pass. It was pretty chilly at the top, with lots of snow still lurking in the woods. By some fortunate wind-swirling-in-the-mountains effect, I also had a tailwind boost heading west along 12 into Packwood.

Packwood is not exactly civilization (no cell phone coverage), but it has more than one restaurant and a supermarket. And elk. And, last weekend, the Sports Car Club of America. Fun to see people who geek out about something besides bikes!

Saturday’s ride started along the course of Cascade’s High Pass Challenge: west on 12, south on 131, then continuing south when the state road turns into forest service road 25. The climbing here is long and steep and slow (especially with a backpack, especially when you know a long day in the saddle lies ahead); I kept reminding myself that I’d done this on a tandem. Eventually you come to the turn for the Windy Ridge overlook at Mt. St. Helens—I kept climbing south on 25. Finally you crest a ridge and your close-up view of a million trees is gradually replaced by territorial views. After all the meandering through forest, I wasn’t sure what direction I was facing. I was surprised that the first peak to emerge into sight was Mt. Hood! A couple more bends in the road, though, and I was looking NW straight at Mt. St. Helens. Eventually the road dropped back into the forest as I descended toward the Swift Reservoir. Once at the junction with FR90, I was on familiar roads. 90 follows the Lewis River drainage NE to the junction with FR23. Persistent climbing here—not steep, and some sections with a great tailwind. I saw a few other cyclists going the opposite direction on this road, and I stopped at the only campground to get water. At mile 80, I counted the vehicles that went by me in a mile: zero. It was another 1.8 miles before any traffic passed—in either direction! Yes, these are quiet roads. The abundant trees were a bonus on a 90-degree day; I was thankful for so much shade on the road.

I was delighted with my faulty memory when the anticipated climbing on FR23 was mostly just rollers for about 10 miles before the descent, which brings amazing views of Mt. Adams. Finally I got to Trout Lake for coke and cookies and another water bottle refill. From there, it’s 22 miles mostly trending downhill toward the Columbia River and the end of my journey in Bingen, where I found our car, drove across the bridge (no bicycles or pedestrians permitted) to Hood River, and then out to The Dalles and the trek south to Maupin.

As I drove up out of the Gorge onto the plateau of central Oregon, everything was bathed in hazy soft pre-sunset light, the hills and fields were golden, and Mt. Hood and Mt. Jefferson were sentinels over this vast space. The closed-in feeling of riding under tree cover all day was lifted and I truly felt that all my worries and fears were gone and that I was returning to a familiar, comforting space. Such a contrast to the emotion in May near Antelope and Shaniko where the scenery is similar but I missed shades of dark green and blue.

I did have plenty of worries and fears to release into the great wide open. There were the issues of being a solo female rider whose transportation was a device whose mechanics she doesn't grasp very well. Have you ever noticed that things (shoes, pedals, saddle, unknown bike things) are particularly prone to squeaking when it’s hot? Other niggles weighed heavier. After a poorly calculated trip last year, I was more cautious in mapquesting this year’s epic ride, but forest service roads are not well documented. I was slow (8-9% with a backpack yields low speed) to cover some sections of the route, giving me much time to think that I would never get there. And then there were practical issues: Where exactly are you supposed to seek shelter in a forest in a thunderstorm? Are those frequent piles on the road that look like dog poop actually bear scat (had to be—no dogs live out here)? What if deer run out in front of me when I’m going 30 mph down a descent? What if I miscalculated the distance by 30 miles again this year?

When you’re riding solo, there is too much time for such things to mess with your mind. My trip was perfect. The weather was summer-hot but not miserable, not wet, and certainly not cold. I had plenty of food and water. There was minimal traffic but just enough so that I probably wouldn’t be stranded out there for 3 days in the event of a mechanical catastrophe. The distances were almost exactly what I’d calculated: 123 miles on Friday and 137 on Saturday. I was blessed with tailwinds on important parts of the route, with headwind mostly only as I approached the Gorge (where there is always wind). Motorists were considerate (!). The biggest critters to cross my path were chipmunks. No issues with feet or saddle or bike or backpack. The up-close, clear-air views of Rainier, St. Helens, and Adams are things you cannot even imagine from the cityscape. I rode for miles and miles where the only sign of humanity was the road I was on and the only sounds were birds, bugs, and breeze in the trees. Bliss.

On the third day of my weekend, I got up at 5:30, waited patiently (making hats, of course) in a parking lot for the show that is Race Across Oregon (a 517-mile, nonstop bike race, if you didn’t know) to come through the tiny rafting mecca of Maupin, kissed my husband as he climbed off his bike at the end of a relay leg down cruel, demon-filled Bakeoven Road, leapfrogged his team on to Dufur and up FR44, and drove on to the finish line at the Cooper Spur ski area. An inspiring group of 4 riders and 4 crew, Koenig’s Kronies were the first to finish the race on the new route. Congratulations to them and every other competitor in the race!

Weekends don’t get much better than this. I feel truly blessed by the good fortune that led to my perfect ride and by the family and friends who checked up on me during my travels.

Gluten-free-ness

2009-06-29T13:49:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-29T09:36:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-22T09:33:00.001-07:00

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

2009-06-09T12:17:00.001-07:00

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

2009-06-01T08:57:00.001-07:00

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

2009-05-24T20:37:00.001-07:00

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

2009-05-19T11:36:00.001-07:00

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

2009-05-10T15:56:00.001-07:00

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 ?

2009-05-07T07:44:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-06T09:04:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-05T11:51:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-04T07:47:00.001-07:00

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

2009-05-01T20:05:00.001-07:00

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

2009-04-27T09:28:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-04-23T12:06:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-22T11:30:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-30T13:51:00.001-07:00

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

2009-03-27T19:43:00.001-07:00

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

2009-03-18T11:51:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-01T18:57:00.000-08:00

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.

A little of everything

2009-02-22T20:31:00.000-08:00

Sunday, 22 February

Today was a real mix. A race and a training ride. Drizzle, sun, wind, 62 degrees, and snow. 55x12 and I don't think it hurt enough.

Today was the 2009 edition of the Frostbite time trial. An elongated course this year to make sure we got the full, advertised 9 miles. A lot of really fine dirt on the road (left behind by the January floods) mixed with the occasional light drizzle and mocked anyone with white on their team kit. In my preride of the course, there was absolutely no wind; the flags hung limp against their poles.

I am always a little concerned before the first TT of the season about the switch from the compact gearing on my rain and race bikes to the monster 55-tooth chain ring on my TT bike. Within 500 meters of the start line today, I had a huge grin on my face. It is so much fun to go fast. :) But you can't breathe hard through a grin, so that was short lived. I spent the vast majority of the race in my 55x12--I guess I adjusted to the bigger chain ring okay.

In retrospect, I had too much fun and don't remember suffering enough. And since there are still no results, I keep trying to remind myself that if it wasn't a mental struggle to maintain the effort, then it wasn't enough effort and my result probably won't be great. At least I know I have to push myself harder next week at the Icebreaker TT.

Immediately postrace, I got a phone call from my husband, who was stranded about 10 miles away (on a solo training ride) with a broken chain. I went and picked him up, we went for coffee, met up with some BlueRoosters on their training ride who also stopped for coffee, and then set out on a little spin of our own. It was a hard ride, definitely more "tempo" than "easy spin" with two good climbs and a few rollers and some long, gradual draggy stuff into a stiff headwind. But beautiful scenery, really balmy sunshine, and STILL snow patches beside the road out by Lake Roesiger. Two hours of that and we were back at the car; I drove home, he rode.

It was a good day. TTs are just fun!

Hat explosion

2009-02-16T07:51:00.001-08:00

Presidents' Day

In an attempt to get rid of some of the odd bits of yarn I have and also to inflict my hats on a greater audience, I've been making new hats to take to the bike swap next Sunday. Baby hats, kid hats, adult hats, even one "team" hat--all with yarn leftovers. Priced accordingly. See you at the swap!

One of our own

2009-02-13T09:22:00.000-08:00

Friday the 13th

Hot local bike racer makes the news. See #10:

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/seattles-sexiest-2009/Content?oid=1098595

Can you really "ride the Alps" in 130 miles?

(Don't worry, it's probably OK to view this at work, even if it is The Stranger.)

Lemon meringue unpie

2009-02-07T19:32:00.000-08:00

Saturday, 7 February

Making a whole lemon meringue pie for two people seemed like a bad idea: too much of a really good thing. But apart from the sugar, the lemon filling and meringue aren't really that heavy/fattening/"rich." So I made half a recipe and put it in ramekins--without any pie crust. All the lemony flavor and light meringuey goodness without the high-fat pie crust. Mmmmmm!

The community mourns

2009-02-04T15:50:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, 4 February

In a tragic bike-car collision in Ballard this morning, we lost cyclist Kevin Black of the Alki Rubicon team. My thoughts and prayers go out to Kevin's family and friends and teammates and especially to his two little girls.

Details of the accident have not been released; the Seattle Times' story is here.

Ride safe, and hug the ones you love. Often.

Bend

2009-02-03T14:58:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, 3 February

Wow! Congratulations to Bend, Oregon! According to rumors flying around the internet today, in 2009 and 2010 that city will host not only cyclocross national championships but also elite road national championships. That's more than a small feat for a state that is not a member of USA Cycling, whose championships these are. Much credit is due to the Oregon Bicycle Racing Association for the incredible job it has done to grow excitement and enthusiasm and familiarity for cycling in local communities (government, sponsors, volunteers). Hosting road nationals is not a money-making venture, so obviously the right pieces were able to come together to make things happen for Bend. What great news to launch the 2009 road season!

Vicarious stress

2009-01-28T19:55:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, 28 January

Yesterday afternoon I attended a meeting in my department about budget cuts. The size of the cuts won't be known until the legislature adopts a budget, but fear of the unknown is great. People express this fear differently. Some are angry, mainly with those "at the top" who are pretty sure to be secure in their jobs. Some are critical, because without specifics management cannot take concrete action and seems ineffectual. Some are nearly desperate, throwing out un-thought-through suggestions as if grasping at straws. Discussion went on for nearly 90 minutes. It didn't bring any results or tell us anything new.

My job is probably not in jeopardy, so my fears are mainly for my colleagues, my department, and morale in the workplace. But when I got on my bike to ride home, I felt exhausted and had no energy. Maybe the emotions of others at that meeting were so strong that the stress transferred to me? Maybe fear took a physical toll on my well-being? If so, this does not bode well, either for my workplace in the months ahead or for our society where so many are under similar stresses.

I keep thinking of the man in LA who murdered his wife and five children and then committed suicide because of his debts and job worries. We all need support networks, which means we all need to be someone else's support. We need to check in with people we know who face uncertainty and stress. We need to help each other find ways to relieve that stress, even if it's only listening.

Sorry to be sappy. Maybe the physical manifestation of others' fears was more tangible for me because I could feel it in my performance on the bike, but how will it play out for others in terms of road rage, domestic violence, and so many other ways we humans have devised to "vent"?

Where was everybody?

2009-01-25T16:46:00.000-08:00

Sunday, 25 January

The forecast today was for subfreezing temps overnight with a dusting of snow, and then pure sunshine for most of the day. Um? We had more than a dusting last night, and the temperature was right at freezing when we got up this morning. So no early-morning bike ride (snow on the driveway is a good clue that road conditions might not be the best for bikes). Did some chores and headed out at 12:30, after it had warmed up 2 whopping degrees and just exactly as it started to snow again.

The original plan was to ride around the south end of the lake, but that seemed less than a good idea in case the snow started to stick. We went as far south as U Village and then headed north on the bike trail. At Lake Forest Park, Mick had had enough and went home, but I wanted to ride out the trail a little farther. It was snowing pretty hard but not sticking at all. And I had the trail all to myself. Between Bothell and Redmond, I saw a handful of runners and maybe 2 cyclists. It was peaceful and beautiful with the snow coming down.

On the way back, I figured it would be good to throw in a little climbing, so I went up Hollywood Hill. This was the most wonderful part of the ride. I love the snow--usually--and it was amazing to be a part of it, to see it on the trees all around me, and to be able to ride my bike through it all. The view at the top would have been spectacular if the forecast had been right; you look straight out to the Olympics from here. Today, well, you couldn't even see Seattle.

What great good fortune to have two beautiful rides in one weekend--and beautiful in such different ways!

LandShark Loveliness for the WooHoo100

2009-01-24T17:38:00.000-08:00

Saturday, 24 January

The big FRM team ride today was from Kenmore to Anacortes via Granite Falls. Of course, a bunch of folks would be turning around at someplace(s) as yet unknown rather than doing the whole, epic ride. Me, I was hoping to get to Granite Falls with the group and then toodle my way home via Lake Roesiger or Monroe. Ha. We got as far as the UW Bothell campus and my rear derailleur cable broke. I sent them all on their way with good wishes and headed home. 9 miles on my 34x12 was interesting; I had to walk about 100 meters at the top of a short, steep hill but otherwise just tried to stay on top of the gear.

At home, it was a simple process to set up my new LandShark for its first real ride, and I was back on the road in a matter of minutes. I had no real plan but headed toward Snohomish. Temps were cold, and I was vigilant for ice. I was a little unnerved in Clearview, where there had been LOTS of freezing fog which was just beginning to drop off the trees onto the road. It was like riding through mini hail storms.

Coffee and raspberry bar in Snohomish, then, what the heck, let's see how much nicer it is to ride the light bike on that bear of a back way to Monroe. Lots nicer, that's for sure. There's one absolute monster of a climb where I pretty much have just one speed. But today I was able to "accelerate" (from 6.4 mph to 6.7 mph) in the last 100 meters. There's also a bunch of draggy 2-3% road on this route, and I absolutely flew along (I'm pretty sure there was a tailwind). There are a couple of nice descents, too, and I was really hoping to get the bike up to 40 mph. I never got over 34, but the bike is rock solid with no little flitters (that's a highly technical bike review term, you know!).

It was a wholly uneventful ride. Nothing got sore from being on a new bike for the first long ride. I kept thinking how nice it was to have a custom bike that fit me, instead of me having to fit the bike. (The only other custom bike I have is the tandem, and there are limits to the custom fit of a stoker compartment.) Near the end of the ride, I realized that it was also my first long ride on a new saddle. I've been riding Avocet O2s on all my bikes for years, but sadly they are no more and I had to find something new for the LandShark. Hooray for Erik Moen's perfect suggestion--I don't even think about what I'm sitting on!

At the end of the day, I'd done 19 miles on my rain bike and 81 miles on the LandShark, the first century of the New Year! The Chinese New Year starts on Monday, so I guess it was good timing. :)

P.S. to Brian, Mr. "Nobody Here Knows What De-Icer Is": There is de-icer all over many, many roads in Snohomish County, on SR 522, in Woodinville, lots o' places. Maybe it's just that nobody in West Seattle knows what de-icer is?

Warning signs

2009-01-19T19:01:00.000-08:00

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

It was so nice today that I had to turn what started out as a putzy 3-hour ride into something more appropriate for a glorious winter day. So, fueled up with coffee and a chocolate pinwheel cookie (bakery-sized, not the supermarket kind), off I went to the backroads of Snohomish County. It had been a long time since I'd been on this particular road, and it was just as hard as ever.

As soon as you turn off the bike trail, you start climbing and go over a bridge across the Pilchuck River. Well, most bridges today were a bit frosty, which made me realize this rural, woodsy road was going to be iffy in terms of black ice and frost, especially with brilliant sun and dark shadows sometimes making it hard to see the road surface very far ahead. By the top of the first climb, I had devised a little warning system for my paranoid self: if there was frost on the grass (or whatever) beside the road, then there might be frost or ice on the road, but if there was no sign of frozen matter, then the road was probably clear. This scheme worked well for a bunch of miles, through warm and cold patches and one descent that would've been fast on any other day. Somewhere around Lake Roesiger, though, in my peripheral vision I noticed copious amounts of white stuff on the shoulder. My attention immediately focused on the road, but that seemed clear. Then I looked at the white stuff: snow. Lots of snow. Snow up to within a foot of the fog line and receding back into the woods under the trees. This went on for 4-5 miles. It was cold, but the road was safe for riding.

In addition to frosty patches and snow banks, I saw lots of devastation from December's weather events. One picturesque pasture in a tiny valley completely destroyed by a stream that must have altered course and spread rocks and tree parts helter-skelter across the patch of green. A stretch of mossy trees lying sideways where Woods Creek had heaped mud and debris onto the road. Out on the Tualco Loop Road south of Monroe, the barbed wire fences are festooned with strands of grass, and the anchor wires on utility poles have huge "nests" of grass and other debris 10 feet off the ground, left behind by the receding flood waters.

It was a glorious day to ride a bike. It was warm in the sun, chilly between the snow patches, and so beautiful all the day long.

And now to work on today's volunteer task to mark the day that it is and to get ready for the momentous day that tomorrow will be.

New April stage race

2009-01-12T15:27:00.000-08:00

Monday, 12 January

There's a brand new stage race in The Dalles this spring that sounds like it's going to be a great event. Chad Sperry knows how to put on a bike race :) and Sorella Forte is all about women's bike racing. I've raced on a couple of the courses and ridden part of another. It's supposed to be slightly less epic than Mt. Hood, but since it falls in early April after winter training interrupted by snow in these parts, I think it's going to feel pretty epic. While you're in The Dalles, be sure to check out their ace bike shop, Salmon Cyclery.

Here's the race announcement and link to the website:

New for 2009
Cherry Blossom Cycling Classic
4 Stages
3 Days
$8000 in Prizes

Sorella Forte and Race Director Chad Sperry have teamed up in 2009 to host the Cherry Blossom Cycling Classic April 3-5th in The Dalles, Oregon. This is going to be a tremendous stage race located just one hour east of Portland and more importantly on the other side of the Cascades (that dry rural side). With an average day time high of 60 degrees and a 1/2 an inch of rain for the month of April, the region is truly the Banana Belt of the Northwest. $8000 in prizes will be up for grabs and the courses will be top notch with many of the roads debuting on the NRC with the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic. Travel time to each stage start is 4 miles or less from the city of The Dalles. Race consists of 2 road races, time trial and a criterium. Courses are well balanced and favor no one but those who are willing to ride the hard and have strong early season fitness. Categories include

Pro 1-2 Men
Pro 1-3 Women
Masters Men
CAT 3 Men
CAT 4 Men
CAT 4 Women
Masters Women (will race with CAT 4 women but scored separately)

Registration opens today. Register by February 25th and receive a $10 discount. Field limits are mandatory so be sure and register early to assure your spot.

For course, registration info as well as breaking news and updates be sure and check us out on the web at www.cherryblossomclassic.com .

Flood ride

2009-01-10T15:31:00.000-08:00

Saturday, 10 January

(More pictures are posted here.)

My ride buddies today wanted to stay high up on the hills to avoid the flooded valleys, but I wanted to see the new Lake Snoqualmie. We parted company on the Woodinville-Duvall Road, and I headed east, to the flood plain. I knew the West Snoqualmie Valley Road and High Bridge Road were open, so I would probably not be forced by high water to turn around.

The West Sno Road offered watery views across the valley. Bear in mind that on a good day, you can't see any water from this road. The only problem for cyclists was the uncertain content of the muck on the road (and thus the spray onto the water bottle) between dairy farms.

The bridge at the Crescent Lake Road (where you turn to ride to Monroe) was rebuilt a couple of decades ago after the old one washed out, so it was high and dry. However, where the road dropped down toward valley level, you could see the "high tide" line where the flood had deposited debris before it receded. The water level seemed to be about 10 feet lower today than it had been whenever it peaked.

From there, West Sno Road becomes High Bridge and it rises above the valley floor. I had figured the road would be closed at Lost Lake--the 3 Rivers Mobile Home Park always floods, and there's another low spot just down the road where there's a gas pipeline substation. But the road was not closed, and Lost Lake seemed like an epic climb after 3 weeks off the bike, so I kept heading north along the valley. Surely the road would be closed and I'd have to ride up Fales? Nope. That stretch of Elliott Road had obviously been underwater recently, but the water level in the fields was maybe 2 feet below the road. I continued on north up Connelly Road past Kenwanda Golf Course. Hmm, turn left and go up Broadway, or turn right and go down at look out at the sea toward Snohomish? Oh, let's go have a look.

And of course, that meant turning onto Springhetti Road, which was definitely closed. "I just want to look," I told myself. And then, "that water over the road doesn't look tooooo deep." The third section of submerged roadway was pretty long and a little sketchy and rather dampish for the one foot I had to leave clipped in to pedal with. And then I was at the junction with Highway 9 and Airport Way. Oh, keep going--it was either that or turn around. There was lots of debris on the road on the south edge of the airport. And more road closed signs just past the RR tracks. This water was where I had the toughest decision: try to ride through it, or turn around. Well, I couldn't bear the thought of being so close to Snohomish without actually getting there (you'd think I'd never been there before), so I watched a couple of SUVs plow through and then rode through. Piece of cake.

Snohomish was a busy place--mostly folks coming to look at the river, I think. On the way back, I ventured out to the middle of Highway 9. Looking west, Marsh Road was like a boat-launch ramp: it just disappeared underwater. And 9 itself was swamped on the south edge of the valley. I had a little more confidence going back through all those submerged sections; I could usually get up enough speed that I didn't have to pedal while coasting through. It was a little eerie, though, that it wasn't like riding through a puddle; this water was part of a river and was definitely going somewhere.

It was a good ride today, my longest in a month. While there was plenty of sightseeing to keep me distracted, it would be better for everyone if those sights hadn't been there to see. Except the eagles at Log Boom, at both ends of the ride.

2008 in review

2008-12-31T18:35:00.000-08:00

New Year's Eve

I did a little math at this time last year, and it was kind of entertaining. So here are some numbers for comparison for 2008 (2007 data in parentheses):

Total bike miles: 12,693 (10,931)
Total days with no bike miles: 29 (23)
Month with the most miles: June (July)
Month with the least miles: December (January)

My three longest rides were 193 miles (September), 190 miles (May), and 152 (July). Not much else in the way of epic miles: there was one day of 97 miles on the tandem and another ride of about 103 miles, but otherwise it was pretty tame stuff.

I won some races and wasn't even a factor in a lot of others. The best smack-in-my-face result was having the fastest women's time in a short, flat, technical prologue at Willamette. It was definitely not my kind of course, and it definitely should've belonged to some of the other women there. Don't sell yourself short! The Tenino TT course (I'd never seen it til I raced it) was kind to me--and fun. I learned to relax and have some fun in tandem crits. I took some pleasure from my results in those 193- and 190-mile races listed above, beating most of the men in those races. And I learned SO much on that 152-mile ride.

Goals for 2009: continue to have fun on my bike and to encourage others to have fun on their bikes. Enjoy riding my BEAUTIFUL NEW BIKE! :) Maybe I should try to crack that double-century mark, eh?

Happy New Year to you and yours. May you surprise yourself with your accomplishments, exceed your dreams, and enjoy good health throughout 2009!

Two weeks and counting

2008-12-26T20:15:00.000-08:00

St. Stephen's Day

Today marks two entire weeks of not riding my bike outside. I don't think I've ever strung together so many consecutive days of not rolling down the street. Earlier in the week, I was optimistic that we'd get out this weekend. But this was the state of my street late this afternoon, after a day of "thawing" (a neighbor reported that it snowed here most of the day). The street (in north Seattle) is covered by 6-8 inches of compacted snow, with slush at the bottom. Driving in this is exceedingly difficult; we pushed 3 cars (one with chains, one with all-wheel drive) out of the spots they were mired in during a short walk on Christmas morning, and I pushed another all-wheel drive vehicle that got stuck backing out of a driveway while I was on my way to the bus this morning (the bus never came, but that's another story--and another 5-mile walk). It doesn't really look like the snow/ice/slop soup will be gone in time for a weekend ride!

Dawgs n cats

2008-12-23T20:48:00.000-08:00

Festivus

OK, yes, things are a little slow. My legs got tired after 30 minutes on the trainer tonight. Maybe that's because I ran 2 miles in the snow this morning and walked a total of about 7 miles on my way to and from work today. Or maybe it's because they're not used to pedaling? I keep baking lots of cookies, but that's pretty uneventful and not really very photogenic. There were so few people in the gym when I was there yesterday that I couldn't even think of anything malicious to say about any of them. And the toddlers in Starbucks were just about the cutest little cherubs you could hope to encounter. So here's the odd pair of photos from today's portfolio:

Winter solstice

2008-12-21T16:34:00.000-08:00

Happy Hanukkah

Snow !

2008-12-18T20:42:00.000-08:00

Thursday, 18 December

Unlike most people in Seattle, I was at work today. But I managed to squeeze in a little Christmas shopping and a long walk home. Here's the view from my office, Ravenna Park, and random landscaping that caught my eye.

Double Macchiato

2008-12-10T20:24:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, 10 December

What's in your living room? As the quip in my household observed, we have a Double Macchiato. The co-owner of the "second shot" is worried that they may mate if the lighting is right and that we'll soon have tricycles roaming our hallways.

Alas, the other owners will pick up theirs this weekend and then ours will only have the couch and the LandShark single bike for company.

Bad idea

2008-12-09T07:55:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, 9 December

On my way home last night, meandering through a neighborhood between arterials for a couple of miles, it struck me how really enjoyable it was to pedal along and admire the Christmas lights on (and in) houses. This is a very low traffic area, so riding doesn't require so much attention. It occurred to me that it might be fun to get a group of cyclists together to go caroling--on bikes--through a neighborhood like this one. Honestly, it took me at least a block to figure out why this would not be a good idea:

1. I've heard cyclists sing "Happy Birthday." I'm not sure anyone would recognize their group-sing rendition of any Christmas carol.

2. Too many people these days have helmet-mounted headlights. Turn your head to look at/talk to your neighbor, and that Christmas carol would be filled with expletives from the victim you just blinded.

3. I think that pedaling, singing, and steering a bike in a group requires more coordination than most of us have; it would be a massive crash fest. Even at a sedate pace, that doesn't sound like so much fun. "Hark the herald----slowing----angels sing...."

I tried to work out how to do this on tandems, but I'll leave that to Henry and just enjoy this particular quiet, well-lit neighborhood each night on my way home.

How do I say this ?

2008-12-06T19:31:00.000-08:00

Saturday, 6 December
(Happy Birthday tomorrow, .n.!)

I know of at least three Seattle groups whose "training rides" have the unstated objective of dropping as many people as they can. Wait? Regroup? Hah. LSD base miles? "I don't want to lose all my fitness." Testosterone isn't quotable but seems to be a factor. And I can't tell you how many times I've been hanging on to the back of some group of male riders when one of them comes back and starts griping--just to me--about how so-and-so is riding too hard. Do they gripe to the offender? Not so much, apparently, because it's a pretty regular occurrence and the offending is mutual (they take turns griping and riding too hard at the front).

Today I had the distinct pleasure and privilege of riding with one of our local pro riders. He was on a nice Felt with his name on the top tube. I was on my 3-year-old Redline with disc brakes and fenders. He saw no need to drill it on the flats or drop us on the climbs (and, happily, nobody was going to attack him on the climbs!). It was an enjoyable, pleasant ride. His season starts in the middle of February and there he was in early December, training at a pace that someone his mother's age could keep up with.

I often say I ride and race for the entertainment value; you never know where you're going to find it!

Pie !

2008-11-28T20:04:00.001-08:00

Friday, 28 November

I got up before dawn on Thanksgiving morning to bake two of these to take to the feast for 16 we attended. I wanted to make a pecan pie too but discovered I only had two pie pans. So the pecan pie was in cookie bars, which I made a day ahead. And since we ate rather too many of the cookie bars before Thanksgiving, I also made a batch of ginger cookies. So while we didn't have any other (semi-nutritious) leftovers, we did manage to have pumpkin pie with whipped cream and pecan pie cookies for dessert tonight. I'm saving the ginger cookies to go with post-ride tea tomorrow afternoon. But I'm not sure they'll last that long. :)

I failed felting

2008-11-28T19:32:00.000-08:00

Friday, 28 November

Today I got around to one of those craft projects I've been pondering for a while. It's time to start thinking about making Christmas presents!

For a long time, I've had a Pendleton wool blanket that used to belong to my grandparents. When I was a child, they were using it to keep apples from freezing in their shed during the winter, so I figure it was at least 50 years old and maybe a decade or two more. It was threadbare in many places, and the binding around the edges was long since gone.

The plan was to "felt" the blanket and use the fabric to make tote bags? vests? slippers? My previous attempt at felting worked exactly as it was supposed to, although it was about 1/200th the size of this blanket. Blanket agitates in the washing machine in hot water and a tiny bit of soap until it shrinks down to the size and texture you want in your felted products. (I did this by accident to my husband's beautiful Irish sweater a few years ago, but that's another story.) I figured the most awkward part would be coaxing a big piece of wool to get dry in Seattle in November.

After two passes through the "agitate" part of my washing machine's cycle, I checked out what was going on. The blanket had escaped its cloth bag (which you use to keep the fuzzies that come out of the wool from stopping up the machine's lint trap), so I put it back in, scooped out some stray bits of wool fuzz from the soapy froth, and set it back to doing its thing. Two more "agitates" and I did another inspection. Hmmm. Gobs of fuzz everywhere. Tape measure tells me the piece of wool is not getting any smaller. I decided to take it outside and hang it up on the clothesline to dry. As I hold it up, I realize the blanket had been gradually disintegrating in the washer, hence all the wool fuzzies. Instead of becoming compacter, the fabric was loosening up and falling apart. Hmmmm. That means this project isn't going to work.

But giving up isn't as easy as it sounds. Sure, the blanket goes into a plastic bag and into the garbage. But my washing machine is full of (surprisingly dirty) water that's full of wool fuzz that I cannot possibly let just drain out. I can capture some clots with my fingers, but there's still a lot in there. I end up scooping all the water out into a bucket and then pouring that water through a strainer to capture fuzzies. Slooooooooow process.

As I picked up some stray fuzz off the floor in front of the washing machine, I realized that it looked a little bit like nylon fuzz instead of wool fuzz. So I let it dry out and gave it the burn test. Wool will turn to ash, but synthetics melt. This stuff definitely melted. That was a very complicated way to find out that an old wool blanket wasn't just wool! I guess the lesson is not to try to felt something that's so old the label has fallen off or worn away. Or maybe it was just a complicated way of figuring out that my family didn't wanted felted wool tote bags from Grandma's blanket?

Giving thanks

2008-11-25T15:33:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, 25 November

Please join members of the cycling community for the 5th annual Seattle Thanksgiving Day Ride to benefit Northwest Harvest. Meet at the Leschi Starbucks at 9am for a 9:15 departure and a socially paced ride around the south end of Lake Washington. The suggested donation is $5 per rider, but donations of any amount are welcome. In past years, the cycling community has contributed $600-$800 to Northwest Harvest, and this year a gracious donor has stepped up to match our donation.

And to all of you who can't join this ride: best wishes for a Thanksgiving filled with sharing thanks and joy and being grateful for whatever you have !

Whirl-a-weekend

2008-11-23T19:50:00.000-08:00

Sunday, 23 November

Wowza. What a weekend. Hubby goes to Tucson, wifey plans to do a zillion things while he's gone. Here are some of 'em that actually got done.

Thursday evening: new bike build take 1 (lasts til 11:30).

Friday evening: not enough sleep Thursday night but I race CycleU TT anyway--and go faster than I did any time last winter (I think they must've recalibrated in the interim). Run errands on way home, stop for Thai food, emerge into a monsoon. Go to bed at 8:30.

Saturday: 73-mile ride, remodel the garage to store more bike stuff, new bike build take 2 (it's done; it weighs 15.2 pounds; I'm afraid to ride it outside cuz the streets are still damp and it might get dirty).

Sunday: 69-mile ride, rake leaves, sweep up fir needles, do laundry, make soup, go to the gym, sit in the sauna (ah!!!), go to the grocery store, catch up on email.

Going to work on Monday? Recovery. :)

Gifted

2008-11-15T19:36:00.000-08:00

Saturday, 15 November

What a gorgeous November day we were gifted with today in these parts. Warm enough to make the grass grow, sunny, wispy clouds--maybe there is something to that global warming hoopla. We're still drying out from the deluge at the beginning of the week. Really, though, it didn't rain all that much in the city. The damage was done in the mountains: the freezing level was sky high, so all that precip came down as rain, washed downhill as it tends to do, and overflowed local rivers. If you rode to, say, Snohomish today, you saw very little flooding. But just a few miles south (upriver), conditions were different:

I wish this picture had a soundtrack to go with it. In the new lake that stretched a mile across the valley were thousands of ducks and geese, all honking and quacking about their good fortune of a new water feature in their habitat. This flooded road was so convincingly flooded that no trucks even tried to drive through it, and I'm pretty sure it will be under too much water to ride through tomorrow.

Enjoy the gift of these glorious days. You'll be complaining about the weather again soon enough!

Bugs on drugs?

2008-11-12T14:06:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, 12 November

I was stung by a bug this morning on my ride to work. Given that we're in mid-November, I expected bees to be dead or hibernating by now. But this one latched onto my neck and delivered a dose of venom that could only be described as "on steroids." The sting site hurt like heck, and I nearly collided with one of those posts in the middle of the trail as I tried to make sure the bug wasn't still under the collar of my jersey. I seemed okay for the rest of my ride (5 miles).

But when I got to work, I was mostly covered in a red rash that itched like crazy. Then I got lightheaded and watched my peripheral vision close in like I was going to pass out. I've never had a reaction--other than "ouch!"--to a bee sting, even as recently as this summer, so I searched for some sound medical advice from Google. Apparently, if you're going to die from a bee sting, it'll be in the first few minutes; at least I was past that worry. A coworker told me to take Benadryl and implied I'd then need to go home to bed to sleep the stuff off. The welts on my arms were getting worse, and my eyes were red-rimmed. Time for "urgent care."

The doctor told me I was having a mild allergic reaction to the sting (imagine that!) and that Benadryl would help (but I thought the side effects sounded worse than the symptoms). However, what he spent most of his time assessing was my low blood pressure (90 over 60-something) and HR (less than 60). They took my blood pressure and pulse SIX times--sitting, standing, lying down. When I explained that I had ridden my bike for 5 miles after getting stung, they figured out that there was probably not a cardiac incident going on.

From the clinic, I went straight for my drug of choice--caffeine--and skipped the Benadryl altogether. But I think I'm going to start carrying it on my epic bike rides out in the middle of nowhere. Bee sting reactions supposedly get worse as you get older, and anything much worse than what I had today would have me sitting in a ditch somewhere for a while.

Watch out for (s)low-flying bugs on steroids!!!

Rally for Ed

2008-11-09T18:50:00.000-08:00

Sunday, 9 November

Today was the Rally for Ed, hosted by Wenatchee Valley Velo to show support for Dr. Ed Farrar, who's been in intensive care since being struck by a car more than two weeks ago. Except for the whole reason we were there, it was a marvelous event. WVV had it all extremely well organized, and I think it was the first ride I've been on where a max speed (12 mph) was announced before the start and never exceeded.

We started behind the convention center, did a ceremonial lap of the original crit course from the omnium (I did not get dropped!!), and then rode out past where Ed's accident was and ended at the hospital. A few locals made speeches, and Tyler Farrar finished the event by thanking us all for coming.

Everything we know about Ed was affirmed by how many locals turned up--on everything from Cervelos to BMX bikes. And more than a few of those locals were amazed to see so many of us "westsiders" on the ride. If there truly are healing powers in the positive thoughts of so many caring people, then Ed's recovery should have made major strides today. Thanks to WVV for making it possible for so many of us to express our concern and good wishes!

Small boxes are nice too

2008-11-07T07:58:00.001-08:00

Friday, 7 November

Some people get as excited about the stuff that came in the mail yesterday as I got about the new frame that arrived on Tuesday. Parts! Really new parts. I've got to get this stuff home so I stop opening the boxes back up to drool while I'm at work!

Epicness

2008-11-04T19:13:00.001-08:00

still Tuesday, 4 November

OK, I can bear pouring rain and lashing winds on the 4th day of November. The extra bonus of a thunder and lightning show was unexpected--but I paid it hardly any attention because I was busy trying to figure out whether I could ride across a layer of hail on top of mulching leaves on top of wet pavement (slowly, eventually, yes--remember I have less traction than some of you). When I stopped to take this picture of white stuff at the beginning of November (see Henry, it's not just in Bend!), I happened to look up at the houses on the hill above me. I thought the weather was pushing the envelope of the season just a tad, but then I saw a Christmas tree. Two miles down the trail, there was just a little light rain and the trail was dry under the trees. Microclimates? Maybe a nanoclimate?

Good things in big boxes

2008-11-04T13:34:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, 4 November
Election Day

I brought my camera to work today. I wanted to take some leaf pictures while there are still leaves left. There's a Japanese maple outside my building, and all the different colors of its leaves on the ground were gorgeous this morning. And then the leaf blowers came and by the time I went out with the camera (after it stopped raining), the leaves were gone. :(

But mostly I knew I wanted to try to take pictures of something that was supposed to arrive in the mail today. Sometimes good things come in big boxes too, at least in ones that say this on the outside.

It was really fun to pull this out of the box because I had requested the general idea for the graphics but had no idea how John would put them on the frame. It's beautiful, and more subtle and nuanced than I thought possible. It also weighs just about a kilo.

Unfortunately, my camera and office lighting just don't do justice to the complexity of the blue-black paint. Hopefully some of the depth will come through if you click on the pictures for a bigger image.

I can't wait to get it home and built!

October diet summary

2008-11-02T20:32:00.000-08:00

Sunday, 2 November

I survived 31 days without sugar or flour. You can too. Your body needs neither. You will feel better without them. I lost 4 pounds and 1-2 percentage points off my body fat. My rain bike still feels like a fat slug, however. :)

My celebratory feast included (my half of) an amazing plate of antipasti, all of which I could've consumed under those dietary restrictions (but not the nice foccacia that went with it). The pumpkin and goat cheese ravioli were a little too much pasta and not enough pumpkin and goat cheese. But the German chocolate cake (from Whole Foods) was definitely a good choice for getting a sugar and chocolate buzz. With my head still not quite screwed on tight after the chianti with dinner, I was kinda loopy (but happy) for a while.

And this morning we had pumpkin muffins! But I used almost no sugar and substituted whole wheat flour, soy flour, and a tad bit of corn meal for 2/3 of the white flour in the recipe. And they came out better--a finer texture--than usual. I discovered, however, that my organic molasses is a product (are a product?) of Paraguay. Now really, has the United States lost the ability to produce organic molasses?

On the subject of Whole Foods, did you notice the juxtaposition of articles on the front page of the Seattle Times today? The one at the bottom notes that the rush for organic foods is fizzling and companies like Whole Foods are hurting. But while people are expected to cut back on good food, they are likely to have no trouble finding millions to spend at the new casino built by the Snoqualmie tribe, as noted in the feature article on the front page. Maybe that's why molasses are from Paraguay?

I wanna believe

2008-10-30T07:45:00.000-07:00

Thursday, 30 October

Of all the athletes brought down for use of performance-enhancing drugs, the one who disappointed me most was Marion Jones. I thought it was beautiful to watch her race. She had so much poise, such a race face, so much emotion....and speed. So when the voice across the room last night told me she was on Oprah, I had to watch.

Marion the arm-chair interviewee was a much different person. Maybe she was trying to be a much different person. I think six months in prison certainly gave her time to put together her story and repeat it like a mantra until it was her only story and the one she believes 110%.

A newspaper column this morning said that Oprah only asked "softball questions," but I thought the one that Oprah kept coming back to, kept not fully believing Marion's answer, was "how could you as an elite athlete not know what you were putting into your body?" On the surface, that seems like a valid sticking point in Marion's story. But embedded in our society, it's totally plausible.

Marion wanted to believe her training was making her better, faster, stronger. The "supplements" she was taking would help her recover faster, build more muscle, all those things that we take supplements for. Her job was to focus on herself; she had coaches to help her with the details. And maybe, just maybe, at some level she just didn't want to know what it was exactly that she was taking.

Still don't believe it? You wanted that $875,000 house, even if it was beyond your means. Your lender said "I've got this great adjustable rate mortgage and we can make it happen." Maybe you asked what happens when the ARM "adjusts," but look how many Americans did not. Or you hear that eating fish is good for helping to prevent heart disease. And look how much fresh fish is available at the supermarket. Those reports that it's laced with flame retardant and heavy metals and other toxins? You don't worry about them; fish is good. It's so much easier not to ask questions, especially if you are otherwise getting something you want or like.

Marion does not deny that she took performance-enhancing substances but says she did not "knowingly" take them. She knew something she was doing was making her faster, but wouldn't we all like to believe that good training was bringing the promised results? I'm not trying to defend her or say she was unjustly punished. I'm just sorry her career ended the way it did. The saddest moment during the interview for me was not when said she'd missed her children's birthdays while she was in prison but when she said she'd never run again. She was a cover girl, and she could've been a role model. If she finds the right theme, maybe she still can be.

Excitements

2008-10-29T11:57:00.001-07:00

Wednesday, 29 October

[ This is my 360th blog post. Does that mean I've come full circle? ]

Here's what passes for excitement in my world today.

I have only two days left on my bizarre, ban-the-refined-white-stuff diet. It really only seems weird when you try to "eat out." I've learned how to make cheese sauce and pie crust without flour and many, many things without sugar. I'm trying to restrain my excitement so that when I get up on November 1, I don't immediately consume all the leftover Halloween candy for breakfast and then go for a bike ride to a bakery where I'll have to have two 16 oz. cups of coffee to go with at least two white-flour pastries. For the WSBA meeting that afternoon, all that white stuff would either leave me with such an incredible sugar buzz that I would get, um, passionate about some very obscure item of discussion or send me crashing from the aforementioned sugar buzz to sleep through everyone else's passionate discussion. Since the venue for this year's meeting also offers retail therapy, I need to stay awake.

I have, however, already done my part to stimulate the (relatively) local economy. My brand new, custom, handbuilt frame is in the mail. It weighed less than two pounds pre-paint. I think this is my first new single bike in four years. At Ring of Fire in September, Brian said "I can't believe you're still riding that K2." It was the perfect follow-on comment to the initial contact about a new frame just a week earlier. It's supposed to arrive on Halloween, and you can be sure I'll post pictures.

I am thankful that my excitements are on the happy end of the scale, and I wish for good news today for Michele, Ed, and Amy, each of whom could do with a healthy dose of happy excitement.

Planning ahead

2008-10-23T14:00:00.000-07:00

Thursday, 23 October

Eight more days and I'm done with my diet of no refined white flour and no refined sugar. So where should I go to celebrate (?) a month of healthful eating? In the entree department, I miss pasta the most, but that's an easy fix. The more challenging question is where to go in Seattle for the best dessert? Not the biggest, but the best. Not the fussiest, but the tastiest celebration of flour, butter, and sugar (sorry, TB!). While the Sweet Life in Eugene is calling my name, even I can't drive that far for dessert. There has got to be something similar in Seattle, something I have so far successfully managed not to learn about for good reason. Suggestions, please!

Newspaper surprises!

2008-10-22T07:38:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, 22 October

I was pleasantly surprised this morning to find not one but two items connected--if remotely--to cycling on a single page of my PI (that's the Seattle Post Intelligencer for you non-locals).

The front page of the Life&Arts section has a blurb at the very top about expansion at the Garage--more bowling lanes, pool tables, etc. Congrats to the Garage crew for their success! Good to know that the business is growing just like the cycling team!

And in the bottom right corner are some extremely nice props for Craig Hetherington at Taste restaurant at SAM with many kudos for his great October all-local menu. When was the last time you saw such a laudatory restaurant review? Way to go, Craig!

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/food/384321_dining22.html

Tandem fun

2008-10-19T14:52:00.000-07:00

Sunday, 19 October

Another fun day on the tandem. Coincidentally, we ended up in a group with three other tandems. It was cold at the start and took a long time for the sun to come out. But another good day for riding nonetheless.

Dessert

2008-10-18T19:10:00.001-07:00

Saturday, 18 October

Dessert. The most important meal of the day. Also the most difficult one to prepare when you're on a no-flour, no-sugar diet. But what I assembled this evening was pretty tasty.

A handful of late blackberries hanging over the back fence this afternoon was my inspiration. I spread them in the bottom of a small baking dish (the perfect size for serving two people--found at Avoca Handweavers in Kilmacanogue, but I digress) and sliced two apples on top. The usual topping for apple crumble definitely includes flour and sugar (brown sugar, in my kitchen) plus some sugar on the apples. I finely chopped some oatmeal and pecans, added a little cinnamon and about a tablespoon of finely cubed butter, and then bound it all together with maybe 2 tablespoons of maple syrup. I poured a tiny bit more syrup over the apples, put the topping--you guessed it--on top, and baked it until the apples were done. It was definitely not overly sweet, but it wasn't tart either. There was no maple flavor, and the pecans and the oatmeal held together perfectly. You could make this fancy by putting some maple-glazed pecans on the top before serving, but it was also pretty good with nonfat vanilla yogurt on top.

This was definitely better than the broiled bananas with honey and walnuts that I tried last night. Not sure what tomorrow night will bring, but I know lunch has some butternut squash and carrot soup. No curry in it this time, just leftover fried rice.

Tandem ride in the sunshine tomorrow. That's almost good as being 5 years old and knowing that tomorrow is Christmas!

Demises

2008-10-17T12:19:00.000-07:00

Friday, 17 October

I was greatly saddened yesterday to learn of the demise of not one but two of my favorite establishments in the town of Monroe.

Years ago I made so many stops on training rides at the Fiddler's Bluff coffee shop that the baristas would have my order started before I even spoke. I bought a framed piece of art there once, done in chalk, by a local artist; since I was on my bike, I couldn't take it with me, and the shop owners eventually delivered it to my doorstep (32 miles away). It was hard for them to compete in the baked goods department with the Sky Valley Bakery across the street, but they were a local source for Fidalgo Bay coffee, and in their heyday, Fiddler's Bluff was a perfect stop on a 65-mile ride.

Just a few years ago, the Wicked Baking Company opened out on the west edge of town in an old yellow house. Their cinnamon rolls were to die for. It was many visits before I could forgo one of those in order to try something else. It was (as far as I could tell) a women-owned and operated business. All the pastries were amazing, and they did wedding cakes and bread too. My sources tell me the building is now a BBQ joint. So sad.

Another sad demise yesterday was the demolition of yet another perfectly nice house on Riviera Place in northeast Seattle. Odds are that it will be replaced by a garish, ugly, 3-story box with no redeeming features that stretches from one property line to the other. Is this progress, or just greed?

Daunting

2008-10-15T20:06:00.001-07:00

Wednesday, 15 October

It's a good thing I have to watch where I put my feet when I run stairs. If I kept my eyes on where I was going, I think it would be a little daunting/discouraging/demoralizing. On the stairs I run, you can't see the top from the bottom. This photo makes them look like something out of an Indiana Jones movie: covered with moss and leaves, and ivy vines creeping over everything. Hadn't noticed that in person! The view from the top is wonderful, and it's so quiet in this neighborhood that you can hear the wind blowing off the lake and rustling the trees--before you start breathing hard, that is!

Last of the . . . .

2008-10-13T15:00:00.000-07:00

Monday, 13 October

Grapes. For lunch today, I had the last clusters of fat, juicy, purple grapes out of our garden. About half a pound of them, I think. And they are just about the last things to be harvested out of the garden this year. There are still the herbs, which go on forever and would take over if I didn't clip them back, and some green lumps on the tomato plants which might be induced into ripeness with a few days in a paper bag. Oh, and one of the raspberry canes set some late raspberries that will probably never get ripe. But the days of meals with mere minutes from plant to table are gone. We now select from the summer harvest stored in the freezer, which is just not the same, or hidden away in jam jars.

Pumpkin time

2008-10-12T17:14:00.000-07:00

Saturday, 12 October

What a great day to ride the tandem! All I had to do was pedal along and admire the great foliage. Those trees down at Coulon Park in Renton have started their annual show. Another week or two and they will be on fire with color! Lots of shrubs and trees in other places are already at their peak. Add in the sunshine and a mellow tempo, and it all made for a grand ride. We wanted one last spin on the tandem before it might be forced into hibernation by the weather.

And when we got home, we had one of my cooking experiments. Curried pumpkin soup with quinoa. No added fat. Curry, ginger, garlic, and a little cayenne gave it some zing; the blender smoothed out the stock before I added the cooked quinoa; and a little nonfat milk made it sort of creamy. Tasty and healthy both, and warm in more ways than one. Mmmmmm!

One third

2008-10-10T08:56:00.000-07:00

Friday, 10 October

At Carol's Big Birthday Bash about a month ago, TB was lamenting her upcoming time with her inlaws because they seem to subsist on food comprised solely of "flour, sugar, and butter." Unlike TB, I happen to like FSB, but her comment made me realize I'd been indulging in rather too much of them. I was then 36 hours away from my second 12-hour time trial of the year, and when you know you're going to be pedaling for that long, you figure you can eat anything. And a week later, I did a 104-mile ride, which only reinforced that thinking. All that time on a bike, though, gave me lots of time to think, and I put together my training plan for the autumn and the beginnings of a nutrition regimen.

My goal for October is to eat no refined wheat flour and no refined sugar. (The original plan was to also eliminate caffeine, but for the sake of my husband--who has to live with me--I ditched that element.) Neither of those are things your body needs, and they're hard to digest, so it is an attempt to eat more healthfully for a little while and to maybe strengthen better eating habits. So far, I have made it about one third of the way to my goal. While a few things have been challenging, it's not too bad.

Breakfast cereal is the number one stealth location for sugar. Some form of sweetener is the second ingredient in almost every cereal I checked. I already eat a lot of oatmeal and I need/want something else occasionally, mainly as a vehicle for milk or yogurt.

I forget sometimes that there's a little bit of sugar or flour in things I cook. I had to put maple syrup (the stuff from trees, not high fructose corn syrup disguised as "maple" syrup) in applesauce instead of sugar, and we couldn't tell the difference. I tried using a mixture of soy flour and cornstarch in place of flour in scalloped potatoes, and it didn't work at all (not a bad result, just no effect). One of my favorite things about the off-season is being at home for weekend breakfasts. While my husband could live on cereal and toast, day in, day out, three meals a day, my parents always made something special for weekend breakfasts, and I confess that I love to make (and eat) pancakes, waffles, or muffins when we're not racing (provided there's a big training ride on the agenda). So I've missed those, both making them and eating them.

One thing I hadn't thought through was how much protein I get from the white flour that's in pasta. Wheat has a lot of protein, and we usually eat a lot of pasta. Quinoa has become my new best friend. A neighbor tells me you can cook it and eat it like oatmeal, but I haven't gone that far yet.

For me, it's easier to lay down basic rules like this to guide my eating than to take on a diet where I just intend to eat "less." I know from the get-go that there's absolutely nothing inside a Starbucks that I can eat (on principle, I refuse to pay $2.50 for 25 cents worth of oatmeal). Eating out would be a bit of a challenge, but I am looking forward to yummy Thai curry with rice soon. I'm hoping a side effect of this nutrition plan will be a few pounds lost, but that's not the goal. I am, however, thinking of trying a super low fat diet for November to try to accomplish that. As a vegetarian, though, it would be really tough for me to get by without nuts or cheese. I'll just be sure not to start that until November 2 so that I have one day when I can indulge in Halloween candy!

Numerology

2008-10-08T10:28:00.000-07:00

Today is, as expressed following U.S. convention, 10082008. Not such a good date in my family, but hopefully somehow happily significant for you and yours.

Hat therapy

2008-10-03T12:56:00.000-07:00

Friday, 3 October

I've made three hats in the last week, all given away now. A therapist would probably have a heyday with how therapeutic they are in the making but also how comforting I hope they are in the receiving.

The first one went to an expectant mom at work. Her firstborn is a boy and she was ecstatic to have something pink to go in the nursery. All the time in making a baby hat is spent thinking how much joy there is to come in the tiny little person who will wear it.

The other two went to cyclists who've been enduring extraordinarily tough times in their personal lives. In a way, these are meant to be like hugs when there's no one around to give a real one. Both women have both suffered from pain that can't really be shared, no matter how much the rest of us reach out in support.

The yarn in the pink one is all acrylic; baby stuff has to be highly washable. The green one is nubby stuff from Co. Donegal that I picked up in the basement of a shop in Dublin last year. I loved the way the color and texture aren't uniform; I don't think it was spun by hand, but it had that feel. And the yellow one (representing a team kit, not my fashion sense!) comes from Peruvian sheep. This yarn is a staple in my hat making--it has so much body and stretch and is wonderful to work with.

Next up I think is another baby blanket. I haven't picked out the yarn yet, which is always a fun step in itself.

Winter weather

2008-10-02T07:38:00.001-07:00

Thursday, 2 October

Forecasters are saying our last flirtation with summer weather is about to come to an end, so I spent yesterday afternoon painting some more of our fence (it was installed last summer) and then after dinner I did a spin around the front yard with the lawn mower in "low light conditions." It was still warm this morning--62 degrees when I rode past the digital thermometer by Counterbalance Bicycles on Blakeley at 7:05. But just in time for weekend training rides, the wind and rain will spread all over western Washington. Reality arrives on a big wet, heavy cloud.

Cyclists rate winter weather by how much of it you can ride in; different people have different tolerances for icy conditions and monsoons. Not much good is remembered about the winter of 2007-2008. We had floods, ice, and snow. I remember a lot of days when I couldn't ride to work. Now the forecasters are out with their predictions for 2008-2009....sort of:

"Relative to last year, it's likely we'll stay a little drier this winter." But there's also no sign of the El Niño conditions that usually bring an exceptionally warm and dry winter to the Pacific Northwest. That leaves the region in a kind of meteorological limbo, where it's very hard to predict how the upcoming season will play out. "We can have crazy weather here anytime." Computer models suggest temperatures might be slightly warmer than usual this winter. But when it comes to rain and snow, the models are deadlocked: They show equal odds it will be wetter or drier than usual. But that doesn't mean the weather will be bland. Some of the region's biggest floods and windstorms have hit in years when there is neither an El Niño nor La Niña.
"We could see a fairly significant amount of severe weather." (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/othersports/2008221280_winter02m0.html)

I think they don't have a clue....imagine that! Time to put your fenders on!

Literature

2008-09-28T19:57:00.000-07:00

Sunday, 28 September

For the first time in about a year, I suddenly discovered myself with time to read a book, so I bought Annie Proulx's latest collection of Wyoming Stories, this one titled Fine Just the Way It Is. As one review quoted on the back cover notes, "Proulx has found a tone and style of delivery that allow her to be humorous and existentially black at the same time." My father quit reading her work because it's too "gloomy" (he prefers biographies of dead presidents, which are neither light nor cheery). She can poke subtle tongue-in-cheek fun at the most dire human condition or circumstance, and her writing is sometimes oddly hysterical.

What's this got to do with bikes or hats, you ask? Well, the second story in the collection is titled "I've Always Loved This Place" and it's about the Devil trying to plan a make-over of Hell. "Nothing has been done to this damn place for aeons." (See the connection yet?) So the Devil and his assistant set out on a golf cart to "tour the property and see where we can make improvements." They devise plans for a new entrance gate (keeping "Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here"). "Double our fly-gnat-mosquito-chigger package order."

The Devil's attention keeps returning to a city high on the top of a mountain. Here's where my brain started taking in familiar words out of context, just like when you unexpectedly encounter a cyclist you know in a work setting. "It's the ideal end point for the Tour de France. Pro cyclists have earned a place in Hell. It is twice the size of any Alp." But just a long, steep climb isn't torture enough. "Let's get some coarse and broken cobbles on the steepest stretches here. I want those guardrails removed from the abyss....Varied weather will help; sleet storms, parching heat, black ice on the cobbles, hurricane force crosswinds [sounds just like racing here on earth, eh?]....Every rider will be on drugs and some will go down frothing at the lips like Simpson on Mount Ventoux in nineteen sixty-whatever. And let's have screaming crowds who throw packets of filth and fine dust, handfuls of carpet tacks, who squirt olive oil and then piss on the riders. Water bottles filled with kerosene and alkali water....More dogs on the course. And rattlesnakes. Let's see--how about an obligatory enema in the starting gate and EPO breaks every thirty minutes. As for the UCI--" The Devil whispers into the assistant's ear and then they move on from cycling Hell to talk of castrating and branding cowboys in an afterlife reversal of fortunes.

Maybe the moral here is that I need to be nicer so I don't end up on this slippery slope for eternity? :)

Starcrossed

2008-09-21T20:28:00.000-07:00

Sunday, 21 September
last day of summer

Last night was the Starcrossed cyclocross extravaganza at the Marymoor velodrome. Lots of people had lots of fun. There was: Beer. Mud. Coffee. "Stale" hotdogs (a second-hand report). People I hadn't seen in a long time. Teammates and other friends racing. Long, grim faces (O.A.D. and I concluded that (1) nobody racing looked in the tiniest little bit like they were having even a trace of fun, and (2) there was nothing fun-looking about the actual racing). But oh the very best part? Walking around and looking at all the hats. :) I was like a kid in a candy store (OK, like ME in a candy store) and stared at a lot of people's heads. And I realized that the ones I make are as good as anything anyone had on. Maybe next year I should bring a boxful and a tent (it poured rain for hours) and see if I can make enough money for coffee on winter training rides?

When did this happen ?

2008-09-19T08:57:00.001-07:00

Friday, 19 September

It was summer just last weekend....sunshine, warm temps, tomatoes from the garden.

Now all of a sudden the trees aren't green any more and it's dark during too many of my waking hours. The rain bike keeps trying to get ahead of the race bike in the queue in the garage. And the trainer bike: I can't remember the last time I "rode" that.

I guess it's like rain in January: there's nothing I can do about it, so I might as well enjoy the show of colors and the sunshine when it happens.

PruParty

2008-09-17T09:25:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, 17 September

Just a reminder:

Come say goodbye and good luck TOMORROW to the PruFamily as they move south:

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

New-team ride

2008-09-15T07:22:00.000-07:00

Monday, 15 September

After my Ring of Fire race, I figured I deserved some serious time off the bike and I wasn't planning to ride much this last weekend. But then I got an invitation to join a ride of a new team that's still coming together. Unlike other new-team rides (as reported on local blogs) that ventured all the way around the north end of Lake Washington or featured a whopping 4 kilometers of climbing, yesterday's outing was a nice 103-mile jaunt and featured 6,400 feet of elevation gain.

We started in Carson:

We rode out the Wind River road and climbed about 10 miles up and out of the drainage and over this pass:

A few miles past the summit, we turned left on Curly Creek Road (a screaming descent) and had great views of Mt. St. Helens. This view is from the top of the descent. The mountain gets closer and closer as you descend and fills up the gaps between the trees by the time you're near the bottom.

We turned right on FR 90, which winds along the Lewis River for a long way. We met up with a couple signs like this one; the longest dirt/gravel section was about half a mile.

We stopped at a campground along the Lewis River for water (which we had to pump out of the well). Instead of pit toilets, this campground had composting toilets, and I learned that my waste wouldn't go to waste:

At the next junction, instead of taking the road marked toward Trout Lake, we opted for the hillier route (even though Trout Lake was our next way point). About 15 miles of climbing brought repeated view of Mt. Adams--and utterly empty roads. There was absolutely no one to patrol the yellow line in the middle of the road. :)

After all that climbing, you come to the junction to Randle and Trout Lake. While Randle is closer to home, Trout Lake was where I needed to go. A few miles of flat and gentle rollers (and more views of Adams and no traffic), and then there's a 12-mile descent into Trout Lake. I hung on to the freight train paceline until one steep section where gravity didn't favor me. We stopped for calories (the first store we'd seen since Carson) and then rolled the last 25 miles down to White Salmon with views of Mt. Hood most of the way (but speeds too high for me to fish the camera out of my pocket!.

Glorious day, perfect ride, wonderful friends, and great food all weekend. I was so glad to be there!

Veep wannabe

2008-09-11T19:14:00.000-07:00

Thursday, 11 September

I usually leave discussion of all things politics to PruDog, but I managed to hear today an interview by ABC's Charles Gibson with Sarah Palin. The best laugh I got was hearing a woman who wants to be the proverbial heartbeat away from being president of the United States talk about "nucular" weapons. I guess they don't have too many of them up in Alaska and she can't be expected to know much about them--or at least not how you say the word? I suppose she bought her house from a reelator, too.