skaeP eerhT ehT gnitsuB

Date: Wednesday, May 30th, 2007
Distance: 21.4 miles
Average speed: 13.8 mph

Justin and I busted the full Three Peaks ride in reverse today, it was pretty kick ass. I did the graveyard in the morning too, which made for a pretty awesome day of climbage. It was really hot though, I think I went through about as much fluid as I did on the Reach the Beach ride.

You know you're becoming a cyclist when...

Are You Addicted To Cycling? Check Off All Which Apply To You (bonus points for speed, deductions for drafting)

Via MetalCowboy

• You know every traffic light sequence in the tri-county area for stop free pedaling.
• Either it’s a Brooks saddle or I will stand and pedal the whole way, thank you.
• You wear more tights than a children’s theater group performing Peter Pan.
• You have eaten pasta directly out of your front bag, while pedaling.
• You have more up-to-date knowledge of bike specs, gear and camping equipment than the staff at your local shop, the reps in your community and the editors at national magazines.
• You have a killer set of bodybuilder quads and a pair of angel hair pasta thin arms. That ten year old boy called again. He wants his biceps back.
• You don’t hate drivers as much as pity them in their steel cages, surrounded my shock jock rhetoric and their vague anger over how it came to this.
• You think about each hill as a cyclist, even when you are driving in a car.
• You calculate distances between cities by how long it would take you by bike. ( 21 bike days from St. Petersburg to St. Louis)
• You know how many miles you rode last night, last week, last year.
• You don’t find it over sharing to tell people you just met how many miles you rode last night, last week, last year.
• You have a Biker’s Tan. (bottom 2 /3 of your legs, lower 1/2 your arms, and two little circles on the tops of your hands)
• You get sad when your Biker’s Tan fades.
• You have nothing good to say about logging trucks or RVs with living fossils behind the wheel, or anything sporting wide mirrors.
• You have lost feeling in your hands, neck and groin for substantial periods of time, but still you consider it the fair price of doing business on two wheels.
• You have far too many photos of yourself on or around your bicycle next to signs at the top of mountain passes, Welcome To So and So State, National Park entrances, starting lines of bike rides, historic sites, and in front of bicycle shops.
• You’ve lost sleep over the trailer vs pannier debate - of course you own both.
• You can’t bring yourself to recycle any magazine remotely related to cycling. (Bicycling, Adventure Cyclist, Dirt Rag Bike, even that issue of GQ where Al Gore was on a bike)
• You’ve given your bike a nickname.
• You’ve used that nickname out loud -- in mixed company -- and felt no shame or embarrassment. Some of us aren’t so brave.
• You lift your butt off the car seat as you go over potholes, railroad tracks and speed bumps.
• You turn the air vents of your car to blow directly into your face and imagine you are on a bike ride.
• You own a pile of lightweight stuff that has multiple uses, and you’ve tested all of them in real life situations.
• You have enough funny/scary animals chasing me stories to close a bar of rowdy Irishmen or outlast a windbag uncle at the family reunion. (note: No windbag uncle? Hmm, could be you)
• You’ve slept in a church, playground, cemetery, farm pasture, yurt and jail voluntarily?) beside your bicycle.
• You know the other definition of Critical Mass.
• You are an expert at spotting thunderstorms, tornados, windstorms, marauding cattle and ice cream stands from a distance.
• You have been caught in a thunderstorm while still in the saddle blinking away water and grinning all the way home.
• You check your helmet mirror for what’s behind you even when you are off the bike and not wearing it.
• You hate headwinds, hills and trucks parked on the shoulder of any descent.
• You secretly love headwinds and hills, but those trucks parked on the shoulder of any descent are still the work of an angry god.
• You forget, much like a woman after childbirth, all the pain, headwinds humidity and hills within days of a long ride, and start dreaming about the next.
• You have coachroached: bonking so badly that you have to lie on your back, pull your arms and legs tight and spasm your legs into the air to relive the cramps. Take a picture of that sometime.
• You can say "My bicycle has been stolen!" in six different languages.
• Your bike is more expensive than your car. (if you even own one)
• You never ask anyone in a car if the road you are on has "hills" or "climbs".
• You wave to drivers with bike racks.
• You have convinced yourself and others that protein bars are tasty. Here, try the coffee, banana, peanut butter Sundae ones, they’re the best.
• You have tested your hypothermic limits and found that they can be expanded with pedal speed, layering and hot cocoa.
• You agree with the statement; "If everything feels in control, you just aren’t going fast enough."

Riding with the Dead

So I have been trying to increase my hill intake since I have some big climbing rides coming up, like the Summit to Surf ride in July, which is a century that has 9,500+ feet of climbing (most notably, the climb up to the Timberline Lodge), and of course, Cycle Oregon. To date, my main way of getting some climbing in has been to do the Three Peaks ride on the way home a couple times a week, which is a great ride with some decent climbs, but I have been wanting to find a good way to get some climbing in on the way to work in the morning. Well for the first time as a way in to work, I tried going up the Riverview Cemetary, and I wish I had done it before. Not only is it a good, stiff bit of climbing, but it spits out onto Terwilliger, which has a bit more climbing and then a raucous, 30+ mph descent into downtown. I have done this route 3 times this week, and it's awesome. I even did it with my bag and it wasn't too bad (and I HATE climbing with a bag on). Anyway, a day with the Boneyard in the morning and up NW Westover in the evening adds up to close to 6000' of climbing, so it's good prep fo sho!

Better than being Angry...

You scored as Scientific Atheist, These guys rule. I'm not one of them myself, although I play one online. They know the rules of debate, the Laws of Thermodynamics, and can explain evolution in fifty words or less. More concerned with how things ARE than how they should be, these are the people who will bring us into the future. Scientific Atheist 100% Angry Atheist 83% Militant Atheist 75% Spiritual Atheist 58% Apathetic Atheist 50% Agnostic 33% Theist 17% What kind of atheist are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Ah The Man.

Tom Waits reveals his 20 favorite records of all time, and proves he is as prolific in his fandom and he is in his spectacular music. I get a lump in my throat with what he has to say about "Rum Sodomy and the Lash" and "Rant in E Minor".

Westover and Barnes Road

Date: Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007
Distance: 17.5 miles
Average speed: 16.0 mph

My after work ride today was relatively short, but with a shit ton of good, old fashioned climbing. I left work, headed over to NW Portland and up Johnson to Westover. I have come down this way several times, but never up it. It was sunny, but not too hot, and I felt great. I went up through the Pittock Mansion and down and back up Barnes Road up to Skyline. Then, finally blasting down Fairview back into downtown and home via the Springwater. Great ride.

The Beach Was Reached!

Date: Saturday, May 19th, 2007
Ride Time: 5:44
Distance: 104.3 miles
Average speed: 17.3 mph

Justin and I made the 100 mile Reach the Beach ride in triumphant fashion and quaffed our victorious pints like pillaging Viking warlords.

The ride was great. We loaded up our pockets with all the free ClifShots and bars we could hold and left the start line at about 7:30AM amid a wash of other Portland cyclists. We kept a good, fast pace as we headed out south west from Portland, and I was surprised that the route actually went up Kruger road, which is a fairly long climb. The descent off of Kruger was so much fun, and both Justin and I were feeling great. We stopped and quickly filled our water bottles and kept rolling on towards Amity.

It began to be clear that the headwind we had been riding into all day was not going to subside; in fact, it was gaining strength as we made our way west. There was one stretch of about 7 or 8 miles that was on pretty rough pavement with a direct headwind, which was the worst bit. Once we made it through that stretch, we were fine and everything else seemed like cake.

The last rest stop we took advantage of was in Grand Ronde, which left about 25 miles to the end. After we filled up our water bottles and at some more bars and ClifShots, we headed out. I felt unusually strong still, and decided to hammer to the end. There was a stretch coming down off the costal range to the beach that was just amazing... it wound along the river and had a great road surface and no wind because of the tree cover. My legs felt great and I had lots of energy due to all the free snacks, so I was flying. There was one bit where Haystack Rock careens into view as you drop out of the hills, indicating that the end is near; which is an awesome feeling, and gave me another boost.

I quickly found myself being cheered on by a bunch of folks as I pulled into Pacific City and on to the Pelican Brew Pub where the finish line was. It was pretty cool to have a bunch of strangers cheering me on as I pulled into the parking lot. It took me a second to realize that it was really the end, and I totally felt like I could have kept going. The worst part about the end was the fact that they were blasting Hootie and the Blowfish through the PA.

I checked my bike into the storage lot, resisted the strong urge to get beer and waited for Justin to arrive, which he did only about 15 mins behind me. We went straight through the food line, which turned out to be a less than stellar spread of bland and unimpressive, fajita-like fixings, but fortunately, there was beer and we did quaff.

Mandy and Violet showed up a little later and we chowed some food and enjoyed the cycling nerdy and the fine Pelican Brewpub's beer. We ran into Lon and Sally, who also rode the 100 miles.

All in all, it was a great ride with no mechanical or medical problems and decent enough weather. We had a house at the beach with a hot tub and a weekend-long babysitter, so the rest of the weekend was spent relaxing on the beach. Good times.

Them Thar Hills

Date: Tuesday, May 14th, 2007
Leave: 4:45PM
Return: 6:30PM
Distance: 24.5 miles
Average speed: 15.9 mph

Another quick run of the three peaks in gorgeous weather. I didn't feel quite as strong as last time, but I still felt great and it was such a beautiful day. I am starting to really love this route.

Hilarious Cargo

Date: Tuesday, May 8th, 2007
Leave: 9:15AM
Return: 11:13AM
Distance: 25.66 miles
Average speed: 12.83 MPH

Since Sunday was Mother's Day, I decided to take a ride on Saturday instead. Justin and I had talked about going out to Hagg Lake and back, but he was a scratch due to familial commitments, and I didn't feel like blowing a whole day on a 110-mile solo ride. I ended up hitching up the Burley trailer and taking a nice, long ride out the Springwater Trail with Miles. The goal was to stay out of Mandy's hair for at least two hours, so I decided to set a mark of ~12.5 miles and to a good-ol' out and back.

I have to admit, the start was a little rough. Not only is Miles 40+ pounds, but the trailer itself adds a ton of drag. I was almost immediately regretting that I filled my bottles with just water and not Cytomax. Also, as we were coming to a stop where the Springwater Trail crosses Johnson Creek blvd, I almost fell on my ass because the balance of my bike was all off, and I unclipped the wrong pedal. Sweet.

The first couple of miles of the Springwater from my house is very choppy pavement, so it was pretty slow going, 12-13mph. I was working hard, too; it suddenly occurred to me that this was going to be a pretty good workout. Miles was being his normal hilarious self, singing and yelling the whole way. He was a little confused about our path and his ride, so he kept singing a song about the "Spingwatta Trailoo." He actually did great the entire ride, and had fun to boot. It was nice to have the company too. After around 82nd avenue, heading east, the trail gets a lot smoother, and that really helped me pick up the pace. I got to where I was sustaining a good 18-20mph clip, but really feeling it in my legs. It was like a long, shallow climb.

We made it all the way *almost* to the end of the paved part of the Springwater and turned around at just about exactly 12.5 miles. The ride back was faster than the ride in, but I was really starting to lose energy and almost out of water. Miles kept my spirits up and we were joking and laughing most of the way. I came up behind a crew of 50-somethings on $5,000 bikes at the 82nd street intersection, and after plucking along behind them for a bit, I passed them, much to their chagrin. I was almost home at this point, so putting a little effort into it, I broke away from them and could almost feel their shame at being passed by a dude on a cross bike with fenders pulling a trailer. I love it.

I Could Eat Nails!

Date: Tuesday, May 8th, 2007
Leave: 4:45PM
Return: 6:35PM
Distance: 24.5 miles
Average speed: 15.7 mph

Today was the most beautiful day of the year so far. Mid 70's, sunny, breezy and kick ass. I did a post-work run of the Three Peaks and KILLED it. I felt better than I have ever felt doing so much climbing, it was great. I hooked up with Brian, Scott, Mark and their better halves whose names escape me for a pint at the slow-serving Rogue Brew Pub, and headed home with the wind at my back. Great ride.

St. Helens And Around The Horn

Date: Sunday, May 6th, 2007
Leave: 7:00AM
Return: 12:35PM
Distance: 86.7 miles
Average speed: 17.6 mph

Thankful that Ben was a work-induced DNS since he wanted to meet downtown at 6:30AM (which would have meant leaving the house by 6AM), Justin and I hooked up at the more reasonable time of 7:30AM at the base of the Broadway Bridge. After a quick cup of joe at Anna Banana's, we were off out Highway 30 towards the bustling metropolis of St. Helens, Oregon.

The ride out to St. Helens is super flat with only a couple of low rollers, so we made great time getting out there. I had just bought some new shorts and a new jersey, along with a huge vat of Cytomax, so I was enjoying my new gear. The weather was a little on the chilly side early on, but was fine once we were moving.

At one point in the ride, a huge tour bus came screaming by us, fast enough so that the mirror WHIZZED by my ear. I thought to myself, "dicks." Then, about 2 or 3 miles up the road, that very same bus was pulled over by a cop. "Ha! Dicks" I thought to myself. Another 5 miles or so, we arrived at our turn around of St. Helens, and stopped at Burgerville so I could put a small cheeseburger in my face. Turns out that tour bus was at the very same Burgerville, and they were a travelling marching band, called The Get a Life Marching Band -- a nice, portly group of aged band nerds. One guy asked me, "how far you ridin'?" I answered, "About 80 miles." To which he proceeded to tell all 30 of the other members of the band, "this guy is riding his bike 80 miles! I've never even heard of that! I can't even ride 1 mile!" to which a band mate replied, "That because you're a fat ass Chris." Funny.

The ride back on Highway 30 was nice, and I introduced Justin to the merits of drafting another rider. We parted ways after the St. John's bridge cause he had to get home or something, and I wanted to get a lap around the horn in before closing up shop. I felt pretty good all the way home, and had plenty of legs to stay in the big chainring just about the entire day. I can't wait for Cycle Oregon.