The Pogues!

My review and Mandy's pics of the Pogues show are up over at Loose Record. Checkit.

We Interrupt This Cycle Oregon Broadcast....

Ok, so just a bit of non-Cycle Oregon house-keeping to do...

A few weeks ago, former Univerity of Oregon basketball stallion and Cycle Oregon mate, Rob Closs, enlisted me to take his place on the annual Lance Armstrong Foundation LiveSTRONG Challenge ride on September 30th. I eagerly accepted, as it is a great cause and I am pretty much always down to ride a century. The LAF folks were very helpful in getting Rob's registration switched over to me and I was all set to ride in no time. Since it was a fund raising ride, I figured it couldn't hurt to send out a quick email to my friends and family to solicit some last-minute donations for the ride. Before I could even blink, I had collected over $1000 just from folks logging in and donating. I was totally blown away by everyone's generosity and willingness to give. Good on ya, friends!

The ride itself was nuts -- absolutely pouring down rain amidst a swirling cacaphony of wind, so much so that they closed the hilly 100-mile route and made all the centurions ride the relatively flat 70 mile route instead. If I weren't on a bike, I would refer to it as a miserable day, but it was fun and a positively Oregonian experience nonetheless. I met up with a funny Scottish guy who was pretty strong and we fought the vicous head winds together. I was freezing cold when I finally arrived back at Nike, and the beer and pizza totally hit the spot.

The next Sunday was the Harvest Century punctuated by markedly better weather than the LiveSTRONG ride. Justin was the one friend I could convince to do it with me, so I picked him up at 6:30AM and we headed out to Champoeg Park for the last supported century of the year. We ran into Mike Walter at the start just as his group was leaving and said hello, I had hoped we could catch up to them, but we never did. It was a flat, mellow course winding around the area south of Portland where the elusive Lonasaurus Lenevicus is known to ride around. That is, it was mellow until around mile 60, where the headwind started. For about 30 miles, a full-on headwind brought the entire crew of riders to a crawl. I did not want to spend one second more than I had to in the wind, so I put my head down and gunned it into the wind. I felt bad for dropping Justin, but there was no way I was going to have that wind in my face any longer than absolutely necessary. I waited for Justin at the penultimate stop of the day and we rode to the finish together... that is until I got a pinch flat on a railroad track in Newberg, and he went on. FUCK! I changed my tube as quick as I could and hit the road, swearing to myself that I would catch Justin before the end. I caught him with about a mile to go and we rolled in to Champoeg Park together and quaffed a free beer and a burrito.

Yesterday, Ben and I headed out to the Vista House, leaving my place at 7AM. It was a nice ride on a beautiful day -- cold and foggy starting out, but by the time the sun was out, the fog had burned off and it was gorgeous. I had my new Cane Creek Volos TI wheels on the Ellsworth, and they fucking ruled. Super stiff and fast. Now I have the Ksyriums on the Surly and the Volos on the Ellsworth, so both bikes have a nice set of wheels, which makes a huge difference, especially for climbs. Awesome.

So... for any of you Portlanders, I am going to be riding a 3-5 hour ride pretty much every Sunday morning through the winter. I would love to have company, so send me an email if you're interested. The routes are dynamic and always open for discussion, so let me know!

Cycle Oregon 2007: Day 5 -- What Doesn't Kill Lingy...

For the first time of the week, I woke to the soft patter of raindrops on the nylon of my tent, and Day 5 began with a sinking realization that the week was now really almost over. Three more rides to go. Somewhere between the evening of Day 4 and the morning of Day 5, the week went from seemingly never ending to almost over. The good thing about waking up with a pang of could-be regret like this, is that it caused me to breathe slower and be more aware to take everything in on the last few days. I silently packed my things into my bag of increasingly dirtier and dirtier clothes. My kit selection process went from "what's left that's clean" to "what's the least dirty". I had some clean stuff left, but I wanted to save one clean setup for the last day, so I didn't roll into the finish line to greet my lovely wife smelling like a rotting onion. The fact that the morning was warm didn't occur to me until I was standing naked in my tent and my testicles had not retreated into my chest as per the previous 4 mornings. I slid into my gear, trying to balance the possibility of a wet ride with the fact that it was warm, and there was a pretty good bit of climbing to do. I elected for the standard issue outfit of shorts and jersey as well as arm and leg warmers, but no rain jacket or booties. I left my tent and grabbed my loaner 2008 Trek Madone and headed over to the RVs to see what the crew was up to.

I tagged a long with a group that was just heading over to breakfast and had a couple of spoonfuls of powdered eggs and a slice of kielbasa that I washed down with some watery coffee and some orange juice. I was a little hungry, but I didn't want to eat too much as the no-solid-food rule had been working out pretty well for me. Day 5 lunch wasn't until after the ride in Oakridge, but I had plenty of Hammer Gel and an emergency Clif Bar should the need arise, so I didn't feel obligated to chow down too much. Everyone ate essentially in silence and we returned to the RVs to prepare for the ride.

The mood of the entire camp was essentially a reflection of the weather... not terrible, but a little gray and soggy. The RV'ers were packing up as the group assembled and we all mumbled our good mornings to each other. I was pretty excited to try out the demo bike, as I had never ridden a carbon-framebefore, but my enthusiasm also extended to the fact that we were going to be riding on a newly-paved stretch of mountain road for a significant portion of the day. We assembled for our morning picture and we hit the trail in two groups, as the Aussies were a little slow on the uptake that morning. I was in the second group with Amanda and the Aussies.

We were one of the later crews getting out of camp, and we had the first few miles of the course essentially to ourselves. Eventually, we got onto a multi-use path heading around Dorena Lake, and started to have to deal with passing as a group which proved to be a little sketchy due to frequent entrance/exit posts and road crossings. Still, we had a good pace and a string group, so we flew along nicely. The Madone felt great -- very snappy and responsive, and very, very light. I could feel the efficiency in the power-transfer, and the rolling hills on the course were like an amusement park ride. Eventually I pulled away from the group and caught up with Lingy, Ed, Keith and Steve and fell in line with them. I felt great -- which was good, because that entire group is nuts to ride with. These guys are all super nice and fun to ride with, but they ride strong 100% of the time, no one eases up and everyone takes their turn and pulls hard. We had a killer rhythm going which got us caught up to the front group of Lon, Sally, Roland and Matthew. All of this jockeying and pulling and drafting is an amazing way to pass the time. Before we knew it, we were pulling into the second ODS stop of the day (we skipped the first), which was at the base of the big climb.

I decided to let the front group go and wait for the Aussies, since I was enjoying riding with them, and I didn't really feel like hammering up the climb with the Lon train. We set off on a nice pace, the grade was only around 2-3% at the beginning, so we were chatting and goofing around, when out of the blue, Scottie just took off. Not to be pwnd, I jumped on his wheel and we set up off the hill. A short bit later, the course turned off the road and onto a newly-paved, 1-lane access road that was more like a bike trail in the middle of the wilderness. This was described in the Cycle Oregon literature as "virgin pavement," and it was super smooth and fast -- great for climbing; if not a little packed with recumbents and other slow climbers. Scottie and I took turns in the front and we flew up hill, "on your left" became the mantra of the day, and I think I was more tired from saying it than from the actual climb. It was a grind though, and before long, we were winding our way out of the soggy morning fog and into the hot, high-altitude sun. The path was beautiful, the climb was tough and the company was great, we set into a great rhythm and in fairly short order, we were at the ODS stop near the summit.

We downed some V8, filled the bottles and had some yummy fresh fruit while waiting for the rest of the group. We hooked up with Amanda, Zed, Robbie and Kirsten and were off again. There was a short two-mile climb up to a false peak, a two-mile descent, and another two-mile climb up to the real peak, and then a huge descent into Oakridge. We hit the trail amist tons of warnings from the CO staff about how gnarly the descents were. Amanda, Scottie and I were feeling strong, so we hammered up to the first peak and down the backside and stopped to take a couple of pictures where were could see the morning's fog way down below. We continued the fun drop and hit the climb on the other side. I still had legs and I knew the rest of the day after this 2-mile stretch was gonna be all downhill, so I really hammered on the loaner bike to see how she could climb. I left it in the big ring and FLEW up the 2-miles of 6% grade, out of the saddle the entire time. The bike was super-responsive, and this type of riding was perfect for a super-stiff, carbon frame. I waited for the rest of the group at the top, and we hit the descent together.

I started the descent a bit on the conservative side. It was a new bike and I am not a balls-out descender anyway, but the faster I let the bike go, the better it handled and the more comfortable I got. Eventually, I was all by myself absolutely flying down the hill. The pavement was smooth, excepting the occasional usually well-marked high-altitude blacktop separation or deformation, and the bike clung to the surface. I was on the drops, and barely ever even touched the brakes. Since it was a loaner bike, it didn't have a computer but I guarantee you it was the fastest I have ever been on a bike. There were a few rollers midway down and the bike sliced up them like it had a motor, I was flying past people to their occasional disagreement... more than once I heard, "too fast!" in my wake as I zipped by someone. Hahahaha, suckers.

The descent seemed to go on forever and it was glorious. Big, winding corners and wide open straight-aways -- the surface was dry as a bone and there was no reason at all to brake. There was one sketchy spot where there was a drop off in the middle of the road maked with "XXXXX" across it. I hit it, but I had seen it early enough that I was expecting it, so it didn't throw me at all. I couldn't believe how long the hill was, much like the climb up, it just seemed to go on forever. Finally, I hit the bottom and was bummed that it was over, but grinning like an idiot from the absolutely epic ride thus far. I stopped at the bottom and waited for the crew, Amanda was the first person I saw, but she didn't know how far behind the others were. I decided to wait a little longer for them and she went on to camp. I waited a few more minutes, but still saw no one, so I headed into Oakridge with thoughts of a cold beer and a hot slice of pizza, not to mention my 2nd massage of the week. It was a little windy for the last couple of miles into camp, but I was still beaming from the great ride. I pulled into Oakridge and quaffed my chocolate milk.

As I was heading to the tents, I ran into Lon who informed me that Lingy had wrecked on the descent. Shit! Our group had been so fortunate thus far that mathematics dictated that one of us should have gone down by now. Of course it had to be Lingy... the guy with the nicest bike of all of us his full-carbon Colnago masterwork. I stopped by the first aid station and didn't see Lingy, so I decided to head over to the RVs to see if he was there, but first I went and exchanged my awesome loaner bike for my trusty Ellsworth. I bullshitted with Dax (the Trek rep) for a while and got my bike back -- and immediately took it to the Bike Gallery station for a lube job on the bottom bracket. "It'll be ready after announcements, the gal told me when I dropped it off. Free bike repair, sweet.

I walked the fair distance from the tents to the RVs to see how Lingy was doing, and noted that the wind was still gaining strength and the clouds were beginning to look heavy with rain. The RV folks were pretty solemn and the news on Lingy was that he was pretty banged up, but OK for the most part, but no one was sure whether he would keep riding or not. I grabbed a beer and chatted with Ed and Roland for a bit, then Keith popped out of the RV and pulled out some tools and supplies and quietly began to work on getting Lingy's bike back in order.

The comraderie of the week was completely underscored by this brotherly gesture from Keith -- he put Lingy's bike up on the repair stand and meticulously went through each component cleaning it and inspecting it and make sure the bike was up to snuff. I suddenly realized how fortunate I was to be with a group like this. Not only was everyone strong riders and fun people, but there was a unspoken bond that everyone had everyone else's back. It's sounds kind of corny writing it in retrospect, but it was a pretty awesome realization at the time. Lingy hobbled over right about that time and while he was obviously in some pain, he was in good spirits, and wasn't at all put off by having to repeat his story a hundred times. It turns out he hit that very same "XXXXX" bump I mentioned earlier, and came down crooked. He was badly scraped up and bruised, but maintained he would continue riding. I felt like a weenie.

The rain started later that evening, and when I stopped by the RVs after my dinner and massage, no one was around. I figured this would be a great opportunity to catch up on some rest and reading, so I retired to my tent around 8:30 and called it a night.

Cycle Oregon 2007: Day 4 -- Hump Day

I slept like a corpse after the beautiful and exhausting Day 3 ride around Crater Lake which was capped with a Flintstone-size slab of end-cut prime rib for dinner... not to mention the x-number of beers I put into my face, and our harrowing brush with death at the hands of the gruesome Oregon Mountain Hag. However, the pitiless morning bell tolled early with the swarming sounds of tent zippers and folks conversing at full volume without regard for others who might not want to wake up at 5:FUCKING:30. My common sense won the battle of "Should I Stay or Should I Go?", and I hunkered into my sleeping bag and made an attempt at reading my book until a more sensible hour for arising came, which it did all too quickly. I did the 50-second drill of sliding into my kit as fast as I could and then packing all my stuff into my huge duffel. Day for was the billed as a "40 mile descent", which, at this altitude and temperature meant "40 miles of freezing your ass off", so I was triple layered with long gloves, outer shell, booties and full arms and legs.

I made my way over to the RV to meet up with the crew and noted that I was feeling pretty good -- my massage the day before had me feeling nice and limber, and not at all feeling like I had ascended over 6500' the day before. The RV inhabitants were stirring and I gratefully accepted a cup of hot coffee and a tasty muffin from the lovely Carol, as I shot the breeze with Frank and Lon (I was begining to feel almost guilty for as well as I was being treated, but not guilty enough to turn down any of the hospitality). The temp was in the 20s, but climbing, still, I was happy to be nice and bundled up; although I did get heckled for having so much kit on. We reminisced a bit about our encounter with the Mountain Hag the previous night, and Lon mentioned that their neighbors had stopped by and remarked, "Who the hell was that bitch last night?", they also said they had enjoyed the music. Sweet.

The crew assembled and we said our goodbyes to the recreational-vehicle-bound and hit the road. I was immediately happy that I wore so much as it was the true manifestation of "Butt Cold". A couple of small rollers out of Diamond Lake helped us warm up a bit, but once we hit the big downhill, it was all downhill for quite awhile, and I was again glad to have so much kit on. Lon, Matt and I jumped out in front of the main group and took turns out front as we rocketted down the road. Down, down, down we went at an average of 30MPH or so, just flat out flying, it was pretty awesome. Both Matt and Lon are ace descenders, so I was just hanging on for dear life, happy they were finding the good lines for me. After 15 miles or so, the route turned off onto a smaller road, and we waited 5 minutes or so for therest of the group to catch up, and then road a mile or so to the first ODS stop of the day.

At this point, it was warming up, and I shed some of my kit at the ODS gear drop (you leave your gear in a bag with your rider number on it, and you can pick it up at camp that night... pretty sweet). We filled our bottles, hit the blue rooms and got back on the road for another 20 miles or so of rolling descents. The road surface was pretty rough, which made it not quite as fast as the first 20 miles, but it was still pretty easy riding, and everyone was in good spirits when we rolled up on the lunch stop. The sun was shining, the temp was warm enough to get down to just a jersey and shorts, and lunch was a tasty chicken wrap with some pasta salad and the ever-present chips and grapes. I had taken to grabbing a few packets of salt and putting them on my lunch to help prevent cramps... which appeared to be working since I hadn't cramped since Day 2. I also tossed back a couple cans of V8 juice, which for some reason is particularly awesome in the middle of a big ride.

Full of a tasty lunch, we headed off under the agreement that we would be at a Sally-mandated "social pace". We took off in a double column of probably 10 people, and started into the big, parabolic climb of the day. The first couple miles were all 1-2%, and it was hard to even notice any elevation gain. We chatted and swapped positions, and enjoyed the company and the sunshine as we rose through the hills. There were lots of folks on the road and we passed through them, our eschelon of riders swelled, pretty soon, we were 20 strong and still managing our social pace up the steepening hill. As the grade increased, our group fractured and the conversation died. Before I knew it, I was all by myself working up the 7-8% last few miles to the top.

It was hot now, and there were folks stopping and resting and panting and wheezing as the hill continued its winding ascent into the sky. It was a long climb, but not really all that bad -- although you wouldn't know it from the carnage on the road. That said, the ODS stop at the top was a welcome site, as was the iced mocha compliments of Nossa Familia. We all re-grouped at the top and took a nice little rest as bottles were refilled and snacks were chomped.

Leaving the ODS stopped was a staggered affair as there was a hairy 9% descent with a not so lovely chip seal surface that takes a wilderness beating in the summertime. They let people leave 4 at a time with abotu 30 seconds between each group. Our group at this point was me, Matt, Amanda, Zed and Robbie -- the staged descent had split our big group up again. We waited in line for probably 15 minutes and were finally allowed to begin our descent. The warnings had done their job as folks were literally crawling down the mountain... the sound of squeaking brakes was like a flock of dying birds and at least 5 people were fixing flats on the shoulder because their brakes had heated their rims and popped the tube. By the end of the 9 mile descent, my forearms were burning and my hands were numb from braking so much -- I was very happy to be back on the flat.

Back on a flat road with a good surface, we were all ready to get into camp. By this time, the wind had picked up, and was right in our face, so we formed a paceline and put the hammer down. Matt had the strongest legs of the group, but we all put in our time at the front. We picked up a straggler or two along the way, but we managed to drop most of them fairly quickly. At this point, we were 75 miles into a 90-mile day and just about everyone was beginning to run out of gas. I had some Hammer Gel left, which I quaffed, and it helped me keep up with Matt and do my duty at the front pulling into the building wind. The pulls got shorter and shorter and the wind strengthened, but we had a great crew, and before we knew it, we were pulling into the park at Dorena Lake and being handed the ice-cold chocolate milk that punctuated each finish line.

We hit the RVs and had a beer as the whole crew trickled in. We heard the story of how they actually had to close the road from the top of the hill because there had been so many accidents on the way down that they ran out of ambulances (there were 4) -- they literally had to wait for them to come back from the hospital in Cottage Grove before they let people go again. We were happy to have been in front of that mess. At 7PM, people were still rolling into camp.

After a nice, hot shower and a Ben and Jerries smoothie, I skipped the camp dinner and had a couple slices of Hot Lips pizza instead. I made my way to the RV and hooked up with the Aussies for a couple more beers and some tunes in the RV. Zed mentioned hitting the Trek truck and seeing if he could get a demo bike for the next day, so I walked over there with him. For giggles, I asked if they had any 60cm Madones, and it just so happens that they did. I went back to my tent and got my bike and swapped it for a brand new 2008 Madone 5.2 to use for the next day. Sweet.

I hung out at the RVs for a little while, but the big climb and the strong run into camp got the best of me, and I hit the tent around 9:30 for a welcome snooze.