Fail! Fail! Fail!!!!

Not much to say about the initial Tabor race, my legs felt good and strong, the competition was stiff, and I dropped my chain 3 times. So, I finished at the bottom of the results.

372 Days and Rain!?!

I have been waiting 372 days for today (1 year + 1 week, late start) and it's raining! Booo, oh well maybe this means that fewer people will show up and I will have a better chance of surviving without self inflicting a cardiac episode. Oh if you don't know what I am talking about, it is the annual "Velo on the Volcano" circuit race series.

Last night I blew up my legs at PIR and got shelled, wish me luck tonight!

21, a Lucky Number?

Can you believe I have already written 21 blog entries (counting this one)? I doubt that my reader list is 21 people long, if half of that. So how is it going? Do you enjoy? Surf or skip the writings and just look at the pictures? Let me know, feed back, it's a wondrous thing.

Another lucky thing, Ky, Kona, and I are still alive. In our Thursday/Friday weekend we decided to head out to the Mount Hood Wilderness for an a quick backpacking trip to Ramona Falls, one of Oregon's best waterfalls.

After a beautiful hike along the Sandy River Gorge with sunny skies and warm temperatures we took our time eating lunch, setting camp, photographing the waterfall and deciding if we needed the rain fly. Later in the afternoon the sky changed shade and we decided that maybe a rain fly would be worthwhile, in case it started to rain in our sleep. No sooner than we finished staking the fly, did a wicked wind pick up and rain commence. Shortly thereafter Ky, Kona and I jumped into the tent and began to pray for a shift in wind as a lightning and thunderstorm erupted over our head. Being a good 90 minutes from the safety of our car we decided it was best to ride out the storm in our tent. Kona slept while Ky and I watched lightning strikes light up the thin walls of our tent and count the delay before the thunder crash. While the sound was near deafening, the delay never came inside of 5ish seconds, which urban forecasting says is 5ish miles.

I have been through many many thunderstorms, much larger ones, but nothing compares to riding one out in a tent under fir trees. Although, I must say a night in a single wide trailer on top of a bare hill in Alabama came in close second, literally rolling thunder. Here Ky waits patiently for our dinner to finish re-hydrating. The dinner was a scrumptious backpacker rendition of "Tamale Pie." Not until I started eating did I realize it was a vegetarian dish, some chicken would have been a nice touch, maybe some cheese and sour cream too. As you can see in the photo is more a soup than a pie, apparently when you pour soup on top of stale tortilla chips it makes it pie.

The next morning we awoke to cold and damp weather with the promise of rain, so the pre-hike oatmeal was abandoned in favor of a little bit of trail mix and a quick breakdown of camp. An otherwise uneventful hike brought us back to the car and down the road for a much deserved Sharis feast. After breakfast back to the house for rest and recouporation, I don't think I've seen Kona sleep so hard. As always more pictures can be found on flickr. Enjoy!

Back to PIR

Well, it has happened, I have returned to my roots and begun racing back at PIR (Portland International Raceway). Racing is a broad term, I don't know how many of my competitors last night would have classified my efforts as racing.

To start the night off Ironclad lead the first two laps in single file line at a light pace, a sort of moment of silence and reflection, for our fallen teammate Kristin McCarthy (Kmac). In case you haven't heard she was in a bad bike/concrete tango at a Monday night PIR that has left her in the hospital with some head trauma and broken bones (and a trashed bike). It was kind of the 3/4 group to allow us to lead the two laps, it meant something special to a lot of people.

Once the two laps were over the fun began in earnest and the pace jumped to light speed. Not 1k into the race pace a Beaverton Bike Club racer experienced a full tubular tire blow out sending his ass to the pavement and several other racers (not asses) to the grass. Amongst the illustrous group was none other that Brian Barker, my nemesis. Just kidding Brian, you haven't earned the title nemesis, yet.

A few laps later I started to experience a bad combination of things, boredom for the back of the pack and the realization that I didn't have what it took to actually compete when the race came down to the line. Also I didn't want to be, that guy, and sprint for a 35th place finish. So as the group came down the home stretch things began to slow down and bunch up, as they always do, so I made my break. The field was busy looking to the right at Dave as he made the same jump as I was making on the left side of the track, so I got away completely free. We met in the middle of the track, inverted and then I shot off the front to give him a wheel, for a better break. You can see me looking to my right making sure that I wasn't about to take both of us out as we were heading for inversion, I didn't want to zig if he was going to zag. Shortly there after Dave fell off and someone from the Shower's Pass team joined on. I didn't last long, as I knew I wouldn't, and shortly there after I was dropped from the race and I retired to the sidelines.

Dropping was fine, I knew it would happen, unfortunately my master plan of getting 4 or 5 people to jump with me and stretch the field was also a grand failure. Either the field wasn't paying attention or they just knew I didn't have a snowball's...

Oh well, as long as I learned, even though I didn't like what I learned.


A sampling of the nights participants. Thanks Eryn for the great photos.

Weekend Update

The splendiferous weather continues, so Ky and I threw Kona in the car and headed up to Puyallup for a weekend of packed full of activity. Friday night after a mellow drive we were welcomed to Hotel Bennett with fabulous meal and a comfy bed, much rest was going to be needed for the two upcoming days.

Saturday morning Ky and her rents headed out to Bainbridge Island for Golf and Mimosas (I'll let you guess who did what). As usual I hoped on my two wheeled steed and headed for the mountain. Mt Rainier to be exact, after a bit more than 4100 ft of climbing, 75 miles, a bit of gravel, and a couple close calls, I was back at the residence getting ready for the next activity of the day.

After a shower and lunch, I fed Kona and started up the Xterra and pointed north, destination Seattle. A Chinese dinner and Major League Soccer (MLS) game was on the book. Here Ky and I pose outside Qwest Field/Xbox Pitch (yes they named the "grass" and the stadium separately), notice the matching scarfs. Apparently team scarfs are mandatory accessory at Sounders games, even in June, I didn't believe it until I was in the stadium and literally everyone had one. I am not sure if this is a soccer thing (since I have a UP one, but never took it to a game) or if it is an MLS thing or a Sounders FC thing. The stadium was packed, the crowd was rowdy, the game was a tie. After the game back home and straight to bed.

Sunday morning was greeted with coffee and eggs, calories were needed because it was back to the mountains for a hike up to the Green Lakes (think emerald not split pea). Kona decided early in the hike, he didn't care how frigid snow melt is, he is a Labrador and Labradors swim. His first venture was a bit unexpected and fortunately into an eddy, the river was definitely running stronger than his legs could swim. From their on out Kona was on tether and it definitely was put to use. Timid does not describe how Kona now leaps into the ragging river, I smell a Dock Dog.

After a few harrowing river crossings (narrow bridges over incredible rapids) a quick snack more swimming and a picnic lunch it was back to Puyallup for one dinner and then back to Portland, one of us had to be up at 5am for work on Monday (hint: It wasn't Ky and Kona is a freeloader).

More photos on flickr.


Kona had a blast!