Le Portland - Hagg - Portland

Before even laying eyes on my bike on Saturday morning, the battle was already in full swing. At 5AM my alarm went off and the parade of excuses began its long march through my reasoning, trying to convince myself not to get out of bed and ride. The plan was to get up at 5, do a quick tune on the bike and be on the road by 6 so as to make it to Lon's house by 7. However, I made the mistake of having "a few beers" with a friend (and heroic pint-quaffer) at Produce Row the night before. As I lay in my deceitfully comfortable bed, next to my sweet, sleeping bride, the bloodless battle of reason waged in my head:

Pro: "It's a beautiful day; perfect for a ride"
Con: "It's also a perfect day for relaxing!"
Pro: "You haven't been on a ride longer than 30 miles on the new bike"
Con: "Yeah, but you can spend the day relaxing! The new bike isn't going anywhere..."
Pro: "You've never been to Hagg Lake"
Con: "So?"
Pro: "You always flake on Lon. Don't be that guy."
Con: "Lon thrives on being such a bad ass that no one wants to ride with him."

And on and on...

Finally, the Pros eeked out a narrow victory and I dragged my ass out of bed and began getting ready for the ride. After a year or so of Ben's gentle nagging, I broke down and purchased some Hammer Gel and some Hammer Bars as well as some Perpetuem. I have used Clif Shots and Clif Bars almost exclusively to date, but I was finally won over by a very convincing article about Hammer products that I read recently.

I spent about 20 mins cleaning and tuning the new Ellsworth. Man, this is such a sweet bike. It comes in a just under 18 lbs with pedals, which is extremely light, especially when compared to my beloved Surly. It's aluminum with a carbon fork, and a compact 10 speed Ultegra group.

After getting the new sled all dialed in and cleaned, I filled up my water bottles, did a gear check and hit the road towards Lon's house. It was cold but clear as a bell when I left. I opted to wear my new smart wool arm-warmers, which turned out to be a good plan, as it was only just 6AM and the sun wouldn't be out until I got to Lon's house. I went up the cemetary and I was feeling pretty good, although I was taking it easy knowing I had a >100 mile day chasing Lon ahead of me. The rest of the way to Lon's house was a breeze -- through Multnomah, out Hall Blvd to Durham. I pulled into his driveway at exactly 7AM. Huzzah.

I topped off my water bottle and we hit the trail. The sun was out now and it was immediately apparent that this was going to be an absolutely stellar day. We headed out to the ever-kick-ass Kruger Rd for a bit of climbing. Lon was going easy on me, but I was still able to keep a good pace, and spirits were high just because it was such a gorgeous morning. The descent off Kruger is so fun; Lon was off like a rocket, but it took me a bit to feel comfortable with super fast descents on the new bike. The geometry is way more forward than the Surly, which feels a lot faster and a lot looser. We rocketed to the bottom of Kruger, and then we headed up Hwy 219 towards the Bald Peak state park. It was about a 10-mile climb to Bald Peak from there, with a couple of small drops in the middle. Not super steep anywhere, but definitely some good climbing to be had. Again, Lon was going easy on me, but I was feeling pretty strong and we stayed relatively close up to the top. The view from the peak was absolutely amazing, and we got a first look at our destination off in the distance: Hagg Lake glistened in the morning sun.

The descent off of Bald Peak was a nutty 17% grade drop down Laurelwood. My hands were sore and tired by the end, and I was very thankful that it was dry. Lon kept talking about going up it on the way back. Uh...

As we got down to the flat and made our way out towards Gaston and Hagg Lake, the wind picked up a smidge, and I guiltily clung to Lon's wheel as we hammered out Hwy 47 to the Lake. We made a turn onto the road that encircles the lake and were surprised to see a whole family of deer (two adutlts and two fawns) crossing the road, we slowed and kept our distance, knowing that does with baby fawns are prone to being protective. It was a cool sight, though. As we approached the lake, there was a bunch of traffic and we realized that we were actually riding into the triathalon in mid swing, cool. We turned off and eventually found ourselves heading the opposite direction of the cyclists, which was pretty cool. Lots of fancy Tri bikes and athletic lasses in tight clothes. Nice. It was another 5-6 miles to the start/finish where we met up Lon's family right about 10AM and watched his niece, Gabby, finish 8th in the Age Group National Championship Triathon. Nice work, Abby!

After about an hour of hanging out, we filled our water bottles and headed out, hitting the road at 11. It took a bit to get my legs back after that long of a rest, but we were soon back on pace and jamming. Lon's brother-in-law suggested an alternate route back that turned out to be a pretty awesome jaunt back through the farm land of Forest Grove -- all except the part where I got stung in the head by bee. Lon and I parted ways at Scholls and I headed home via Multnomah Village, with a quick stop at Ben's house (which was at almost exactly mile 100) to say hello and borrow some lube for my squeaky chain. I made it home about 1:15PM, and felt really good thanks to my Hammer Gel. It ended up being 106.7 miles, my personal record for milage. Sweet.

I took a quick nap with Miles and then Mandy, Sailor, Mira and I went to see a matinee of Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Overall, a totally awesome Saturday.

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.

Breakfast With The Leneves: Humble Pie

Date: Sunday, April 29th, 2007
Leave: 8:00AM
Return: 1:15PM
Distance: 72.3 miles
Average speed: 18.2 mph

I left home at 8AM on Sunday to meet Lon and Sally at their house in Durham by 9AM, thinking that an hour would be plenty of time to get the 15 miles from my house to theirs -- which it was not. I forgot to account for the fact that the first 10 miles of the journey are pretty much all uphill -- most significantly up the short but painfully steep hill from John's Landing up to Barbur Blvd. I rolled into their driveway at precisely 9:00, having taken a wrong turn at the very end. Happy to be ontime (it looked dicey there for a bit), but having used more legs and energy getting there than I would have liked, I scarfed half a Clif Bar filled up my water bottles and procured a couple scoops of Cytomax in preparation for a brutual few hours of chasing the ever-fit Leneves around the rural roads southwest of Portland.

We set off into a blistering pace almost immediately; I was feeling OK, but not liking pushing so hard just to keep up in the first 10 miles of the ride. Riding with Lon is like chasing a crossbow bolt. He gets into his aero bars and just hammers -- Sally glides along effortlessly on his rear wheel, and they both talk and laugh and make conversation with me while I am trying to hide the fact that my lungs are dragging along behind me. Despite my weiner status, the ride was great, nice rural roads with very little traffic and the day just got nicer and nicer as we rocketed along. There was one sketchy part along I-5, but it was only for about a half a mile to get across the Willamette.

We made our way through the mostly flat, sometimes rolling hills of the farmland, out past Champoeg park where there was some organized ride happening, and eventually all the way out to St. Paul, where we turned around. I should remark again at how nice of a morning it was (it offset the impending lump in my stomach due to knowing there was a bunch of climbing yet to come). Coming back from St. Paul, we went north into Newberg and made our way over to Bell hill. There was a bunch on construction going on, so we had to literally climb through a ditch to get where we were going, and as soon as we got back on the bikes Lon's rear wheel went flat, so we took a little breather and bar'd up for the impending climb.

This is where the bonk started. I was already about 50 miles in, and quickly running out of gas due to the accelerated pace of the day. I would estimate that I was running at 85-90% the entire time (as opposed to 60-65% that I usually do), which was quickly draining my energy reserves. So we started up Bell hill, and both Sally and Lon pulled away almost immediately. My legs were burning and I had run out of water, so I was trying to climb in the ol' slow and steady fashion, but I knew a full on bonk was on its way. Lon, the fit bastard, would ride down to me to make sure I wasn't passed out in the ditch, and then ride back up like it wasn't a hill at all. As much as I appreciate the gesture, it added to the misery. At the top of Bell, he graciously kicked down some of his water and we proceeded on.

Before the ride took place, Lon kept talking about the climbs in plural, so I knew there was more to come, but there was a little piece inside of me that hoped that wasn't true. There was a nice descent off the top of Bell and then a STEEP little 14-18% climb out, and then another steep drop down to Hwy 99. We crossed Hwy 99 and I had managed to recover a little bit, but my heart sank when we pulled off at an exit labelled, "Parrett Mountain". Balls.

Parrett Mountain was long as shit and actually a beautiful climb that I really would have enjoyed had I not been already bonking for the last 30 minutes. Lon came down to cheer me on multiple times, and even brought Sally down with him as I approached the top. While I know both Sally and Lon have been cycling for decades, it still put in perspective how much farther I have to go with this whole being a cyclist thing. It also had me cursing my steel frame, fat tires and fenders on my beloved Surly, since they both ride Titanium-framed Serottas.

The descent from the summit of Parrett Mountain was unfuckingbelievable, and totally worth the bitch of a climb to get to it -- hit 42mph and stayed there for a good long time. The only problem was that at the bottom I got a cramp and spent the rest of the way back to Lon and Sally's trying to fight off various cramps in my legs, and moving quite slow as a result; further solidifying my status as a weenie with the Leneve's. However, it was a great training ride, and while I was totally humbled by the athletic prowess of Lon and Sally, I was proud of myself for riding through a pretty serious bonk and getting some serious climbing in to boot.

Terwilliger Four Beers Deep

Date: Friday, March 30th, 2007
Leave: 4:00PM
Return: 6:00PM (minus a pitcher of beer at the Lucky Lab)
Distance: 25.3 miles
Average speed: 17.6 mph

I always allow myself to get talked into riding with Ben and Lon after a couple of beers and it is, without fail, awesome and sucky at the same time. We had a banner quarter at work this year, so the booze started flowing at around noon and didn't stop for the rest of the afternoon. Just as I was thinking, "wow, I kind of have a buzz...", both Ben and Lon proceeded to call me a pussy until I agreed to ride up to the SW Lucky Lab with them. Not really a difficult ride, but enough hill climbing that 4 beers is not a welcome inhabitant of my stomach.

The other thing about riding with Ben and Lon is that Lon has 1 speed, Fucking Flying, and Ben has many speeds, but none of them are slower than what anyone in sight is going, so it pretty much means Dave is sucking air and wheezing like pansy the entire time. We of course hit every green light, so it was a hammer fest all the way up Terwilliger to the Lab. I think Ben and Lon enjoy dragging my younger lungs around and then trying to make conversation the entire time, as if they aren't even breaking a sweat. Since I was the last one to Lab, I had the honor of buying the beers. Fuck.

After pleasant conversation and a pitcher of the organic Golden Ale, I parted ways with Ben and Lon and headed back to the office to get my bag. The descent down Terwilliger was as fun as I expected it to be -- it's rad to hit 36 mph on a sunny day. I zipped back to the office and grabbed my bag and headed home via the Springwater Trail where I got a nice 25mph pull from a racer guy.

Me getting ready to have my ass handed to me (photo courtesy of Brian Myers):