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!