Bier en modder

Tabor a couple nights ago.  Thought I’d get one last hard ride in before TOE 50 this Sunday.  Seemed to fit in well with a moderate taper-down.  I’m trying not to underestimate TOE so I’d rather be too rested and lose a little time than too tired and blow up halfway through.  From what I can tell, there’s an ass-load of climbing to be done.

Anyway…back to Tabor.

It’s a quick ride from home over there.  So I headed out, got there & signed in, and then took off to continue warming up.  This race is probably the exact opposite of PIR – it starts fast and furious up the hill and usually stays intense throughout the 8 laps.  There’s no 1 or 2 laps to get your legs going.  Getting to the start fully warmed up is important if you don’t want to get dropped off the back.

I skipped dinner with the family before heading over so I was a little hungry.  I made things infinitely worse by riding near Flying Pie on Washington St.  For the next hour, all I could think of was bacon pizza.

Got to the start and lined up with a few laps to go in the Masters race.  Seemed like the 4’s had a smaller field this year.  I can’t say how fantastic it is that the 4’s and 5’s are split into 2 races.

The first couple laps were pretty good.  I took off up the hill on lap 2.  I don’t know why.  There wasn’t a preme.  I just felt like it.  It didn’t cook me but it took a few laps of sitting in to get my legs back.  Once that happened, things started getting ugly.

In the lower categories, I think Tabor is pretty ruthless in exposing and exploiting ability and fitness.  There tends to be yo-yoing of riders from the front of the pack to the back during the climb and descent.  I’ve alwads found it important, and safer, to stay up sort of near the front.

Heading up the hill by the speed bump on Lap 6, I saw a space between a couple riders and took it.  The one on my left, probably near the seam between the pavement and the gutter, moved over into me.  Once he made contact, he leaned in and pushed me out of the way HARD.  I then bumped the rider to my right.  Nothign got out of hand.  A couple WTFs! but no one went down.  The rider to my right who I bumped into checked in with me once we got to the top.  No harm, no foul.  It’s all good.

Now for the last lap, it’s even more important to be somewhere up near the front.  If you’re not in the top 10-12 or so when the bell lap goes off, forget it.  The pack moves pretty fast from that point on and it’s tough to move up.  Maybe on the downhill but I don’t think that’s a strategy you want to count on.

I was up there but boxed in about 2 deep in every direction, which is not a good thing.  Heading down and around the reservoir things got squirrley again with another bump and run.  It’s been a fast race and it’s getting tense.  As we went by the gate and up the hill, all hell broke loose.

There’s always a few riders who take off way too early, pop halfway up the hill, and slow to half speed trying to hold on.  Then there’s people who got caught 20 spots back trying to aggressively weave their way up through the pack.  No one’s checking their shoulder for space.  It’s a flippin’ free for all.

If you’re smart and patient, you *can* find a few seams there as the pack opens up a bit.  Winning is out of the question but you can get a respectable finish out of it.  The dangerous part is that, in my opinion, those people who took off way too early do not seem like experienced riders.  Yes, we’re 4’s but I think a majority of the pack knows how far out to start an attack.  So as the pack starts to swallow them up, a few of the people moving up pass pretty close on the left (for example).  A knee-jerk reaction is to swerve a little out of the way…into the rider that is passing them hard on the right.

I got caught in one of these.  More bumping.  More swerving.  Elbows getting thrown.  I think at one point I had to put the brakes on so it was here that I checked my right shoulder, got out of the way, and shut it down.  I don’t need to get hurt over this, especially sprinting for 15th.

That’s Tabor for you.  Pretty intense night, more so than I remember from year’s past.  I wonder if it’s just that the 4’s and 5’s are split up.  I don’t know.

So TOE 50 this weekend.  I’ll finish prepping the bike tonight and pack up for an early Sunday drive down.  I’m hoping for a 5 to 5:15 time.  I’ve put some great workouts in over the past couple months so I’m optimistic.

Monday PIR last night.  I don’t do many road races anymore.  There’s a number of reasons I guess but it generally boils down to I just like off-road a little more.   I think it’s the challenge of seeing what I can do by myself.  My results are largely dependent on my fitness and ability to ride the terrain, unlike road which does require fitness but frequently takes team tactics, and a small amount of luck.  So late last year, I decided to upgrade one of my bikes and it was a no-brainer to go with a new MTB.

One of the other primary reasons I shy away from road is that I dislike road crashes.  You’re usually going fast.  The ground is ridiculously hard and unforgiving.  And it seems like there’s better than even odds that it won’t even be your fault.

It’s interesting though to see the perspective on crashes in the two (or three) disciplines: MTB, cross, and road.  In the first two, it almost seems like an accepted part of the sport.  It’s tough to push the envelope in uneven and unstable terrain without going down.  It’s almost a given.  Yes, you can get hurt.  Stitches, contusions, rashes, sprains, broken bones, whatever.  But we take our lumps and come back for more.

Without question, road is different.  I hate going down.  I hate seeing anyone go down.  I don’t even like hearing about it because odds are it ended badly.

So 11 laps into a 14 lap race, I found myself in the front after making a very poor choice to not attack on the tail end of a few other unsuccessful ones by other riders.  I surged up to the front with the energy but lost confidence at the last second.  With a ’shit or get off the pot’ choice, I busted out the Sunday crossword puzzle and stayed put.  We/I rounded corner 11 where we started getting waved down.  It looked like 3 or 4 women were down right outside of the corner.

With 3 laps to go, we neutralled for the lap.  By the look of it, I wasn’t optimistic they’d be up any time soon, but at best we’d have a 2 lap sprint to the finish.  Coming around the same spot again, we heard the ambulance in the distance and knew we were done for the night.  One woman from Ironclad, Kristin, was still down.

Rolling back in to the pit, one guy in our field seemed a little bitchy that we couldn’t keep racing.  I don’t know, maybe I’m reading too much into it.  Then again, maybe not.  I was a little tired and, admittedly, a little frustrated at the race being cut short.  But I also found myself slightly angry that someone got hurt doing something that is supposed to be fun.  So hearing some dickhole complain about not getting his 13 bucks worth didn’t help.

Relatively quietly, all of us got our shit and went home.

Ironclad has an update here.  Good luck to her and her family.  I hope she recovers soon.

Heading out for a lunch ride to take out some frustration on my bike.  It’s overcast and about 65 out.  I’m no weatherman but it doesn’t look like 79 and mostly sunny like the forecast said.

I dislike power testing.  Yeah, the best power data you can get is from a race but sometimes the timing and schedule doesn’t always work out that way.  So yesterday’s ride, and one later today, is for a quick test.

Yesterday was the 5 and 20 min intervals.  For me, the 5 minute one is the suckiest one of all.  Right around the 2 minute mark it feels like you’re Hammy on a Red Bull in Over the Hedge – time slows down to a crawl while you suffer away.  Ugh.

I tried something different yesterday by taping over the power portion of the head unit, leaving just the speed and time visible.  I’ve had this feeling that seeing the power value, especially during the longer tests, could prejudice you one way or the other in your effort.

For example, heading out with a preconcieved notion that since your last test was at x watts, then after a month or two of hard work of course you should be at least at x + 15, or whatever.  But if you get this realtime feedback during the test that you’re not quite there…then what? These flippin’ tests are hard enough without getting a proverbial sucker-punch to the gut that you haven’t improved.

So yesterday, with the power value blanked out, the test seemed a little different.  Instead of checking in at a number, it felt easier just to ask myself – ‘is this the hardest I can ride for the next x minutes’ and then adjust effort based on that.

Anyway, the tests I did yesterday showed a solid improvement in the 5 min and a return to the 20 min effort I was in at the peak of last season.  Seeing as I’m barely getting into the rough stuff, it’s all good.

Whats next…PIR next Monday.  TOE 50, hopefully as part of a 35+ team, at the end of the month.  Then short track.

Time for what is turning into monthly updates.  I hope to return to a more regular posting frequency soon.  Tax season is almost over and I’m just getting settled into a reasonable training routine.  And honestly, there only so many posts you can put up over the winter/early season about cycling that don’t say

2.5 hours on trainer in L2/Endurance

or

3 x 30′ x 5′ in L3/Tempo.

Not unlike those workouts, it gets a little stale after a while.  It’s not that I didn’t need it though.  I ended last year in what felt like a spectacular flame-out.  After reviewing my training workouts for last year, I quickly realized that around August and September I tried heaping a ton of threshold and VO2 work on…nothing.  I did token base work but nothing that a 38 year old (relatively) novice cyclist should try to load 12+ weeks of high intensity intervals and racing on.

Looking back, I believe I technically peaked at the Larch Mt Hillclimb in early August with an average power of 375w for 1:10.  Everything went to shit after that and I never got that close to that number for extended periods of time the rest of the year.

This year I’ve started earlier and much, much slower and more gradual.  If I want to make it to early December in one piece, this is how it has to be.  I still feel new at this.

3+ months into this year, I still don’t feel fast but very, very fit.  It was after another solid 3 week block of tempo work that I went out for the first test: Hornings.

Hornings is notoriously a mud bog.  Spring rains + clay = mud. That’s just the way it goes around here.  But the weather turned silly-good at the tail end of the week.  Maybe there’s hope.

For the Cat 1’s, it was 4 – 5 mile laps.  I tried this race last year with disastrous results.  This year, however, felt different.  I was ready with a new full suspension ride and ridiculously aggressive tires  – Mullet style…business up front (20 year old Panaracer Dart), party out back (new Conti 26×1.5″ CrossCountry).  Good times.

At the start, I wanted to keep in mind that I’d done zero high intensity training thus far this year.  Nada.  Getting into a pissing match on the first lap trying to hold position or pass people wouldn’t be good.  I want to ride the full race.

So off we go…and straight up the entrance road for the longest stretch of both smooth trail and climbing for the day.  My first lap mantra?  Be cool.

Up we went for about 5 min. to the top where we started a quick downhill through the woods and…disc golf course?  It had a bit of a cross course feel to it; lots of quick, sharp turns and short up and downs.  Active riding.  We came out of the woods to a climb through the parking lot, the figure 8 crossover and up some more the the back stretch to where the bad mud was last year.  It was surprisingly dry(er).  Ridable by some, but not all.

Blast through the river crossing, by (but not through) the start area to a new section of loose singletrack up the side of a hill.  I tried riding it once and gave up.  It was faster and took less energy to run it.  Plus it felt good to get off the bike.  Continue snaking through the trees on singletrack for another 5 minutes, back to the start and up the hill again.

So that’s your 5 mile loop.  You were either going up hard or down fast.  There wasn’t any in between.  Kind of relentless actually, but in a good way.  It took my body one lap to get revved up and used to going anaerobic up the little hills.  After that I settled in and felt like I got faster each lap.  I missed getting lapped by Carl Decker with maybe 20 yards to spare.  This earned me another 35 minute lap.  Yay.

Decker screamed through the 4 laps in about 1:45 or so – 25 minute laps.  I finished around 2:20 – 35 minute laps – and 6th out of 11 Cat 1/35-45’s.  I had David Diviney in view for some of that last stretch of singletrack but I just didn’t have another match to burn to try and catch up.  Still – not getting lapped by Carl Decker on a fast course and getting within striking range of someone as fast as Diviney is pretty good.

So I’ve got an off week this week then it’s time to start bringing threshold work in.  For races, Bear Springs is at the end of the month.  I’ll skip Spring Thaw and probably Musdlinger.  Pickets is a possibility.  TOE 50 is almost a lock.  I’m not sure about anything after that with the exception of Tabor and PIR STXC.  I’m still a little road race-phobic primarily because of the lousy condition my road bike is in.  New Giant next year.

In the meantime, I will continue to slog through my taxes…right up to the deadline.  I hate taxes.  I don’t mind paying them – I mean, shit has to get paid for – I just hate doing them.

It’s my 11 year anniversary since moving out here.  Loaded up the Civic, pointed the car west and just drove until I got here.  Considering I’d never been out here and that (looking back now) I relied heavily on my parents, it was a big move.  A lot of things popped up after I moved that could have easily derailed me and sent me back east.  I’m obviously glad I stayed so I try to recignize it each year.

Feels like a month of Sundays since I was here last.  Vacation.  Joining Crackbook.  Birthdays.  Family Illnesses.  Tax season.  A little stress from Rachel’s work (mortgage industry…which currently is in shambles).  And the general chaos that goes with a 5 and 8 year old.

Spent a week in Hawaii in mid February.  We made a concerted effort not to ‘do’ anything.  Our daily schedule was as follows:

• get up whenever,
• drink coffee on the veranda,
• go the beach to read/ swim/ snorkel/ make sand castles,
• have lunch,
• make a pitcher of rum punch/mojitos,
• go to the pool until dinner,
• eat dinner
• read a bit until bedtime

That was basically about it.  Pretty rough.  The post-vacation bump didn’t last that long as we got back to the grind fairly quickly.

Rachel is an appraiser and is finding herself between a rock and a hard place in terms of doing work.  I think it was Greenspan who coined the term “Irrational Exuberance”.  I believe a new term is afflicting mortgage brokers and underwriters – “Irrational Retardedness”.  Seriously.  Everyone is losing it.

The homeowners are pissed becasue their house isn’t appreciating at the 20% it was 2 years ago.  In many areas, the value is down.  The lenders are stressed because the low interest rates has everyone going in for a refi.  The underwriters are freaking out because the loans their lenders approved are getting more and more difficult to sell.  And the appraisers are panicking because the underwriters keep coming back for more information, particularly nearby supporting house sales (which there aren’t any).

It’ll all settle out eventually but basically they good times from the early 00’s are so over.

Rach and I have 3 grandparents left; one for me, and two for her.  Once of hers, on her Dad’s side, fell and broke her hip a few years back and has been deteriorating since.  We learned after we got back from Hawaii that her kidneys are failing.  So a couple weeks ago we brought the kids by essentially for one last visit.  That wasn’t very pleasant.  Then my grandmother, on my mom’s side, is also aging.  She’s had some heart problems pop up over the past couple months which has my mom up there as a psuedo live-in nurse.  At 65, my mom’s no spring chicken.  I can tell it’s wearing her down pretty hard.

It’s tax time too.  With her self-employed business and our new rental house, I’m up to my ass in receipts, bills, statements, and records.

It’s all relatively under control but I realize now that I’m always doing ’something’ from the minute I get up to when I go to bed.  I think if all of this happened last fall during cross season, I’d have cracked.

Luckily, training hasn’t really ramped up hard yet.   I’m just about to start mid-base work next week.  Up until now, I’ve been keeping a fairly steady 6-8 hour a week pace of endurance/tempo work.  ‘Solid’ is a good way to describe how I feel now.  ‘Fast’ is not.  I’m in no shape to go fast right now but I’m in great shape to start training to go fast.  I’m more optimistic about the start of this season than last.

Hornings is coming up fairly soon.  Last year I raced that a day after I had a 24 hour stomach bug.  I don’t ever, ever, ever, ever want to do that again.  Plus it was a slopfest.  I could have possibly enjoyed it but I was incredibly tired and irritable.  Probably the stomach bug talking though.

Anyway, then there’s mudslinger, bear springs trap, and chainbreaker, which I’ll pass on.  A race on Mother’s Day?  Really?  Mmmm, I think I like being married better than racing.

Hopefully with cycling ramping up and perhaps other things settling down, I can return to more normal postings.  We’ll see.

Not much bike stuff here.  No racing lately.  Just enough training to push myself but not overload.  I’ll go fairly hard today and tomorrow and then back off until Saturday.  I’m only going to race Saturday since Rachel has stuff planned on Sunday.  I may go out and watch.  We’ll see.

After the race, it’ll be time to break down the bike and put it away for the winter.  I’m strongly thinking about having Jacob Rathe clean it.  I’ve heard nothing but good things about the work he’s done.

Also sort of up in the air about a new bike next year.  Not ‘if’ but ‘which one’…road or mtb.  I’m about 90/10 towards the mtb based on a) my existing mtb is running like a beat up 1988 Dodge K car.  Not good.  b) I can probably squeeze one last good year out of the Lemond.  And c) Presto has a lot of off-road riders.  I’d like to race more with them.

Based on that, we had a meeting last week to look & hear about the new rides.  More than a few of us were looking hard at the Anthem X2.  All XT.  4″ of travel.  Solidly made.  I’m having a hard time thinking that I need any more ‘bike’ than that as it’s a steep jump to XTR or SRAM X.0 and better brakes & shocks.

Anyway, there’s tons of fun stuff going on.

First is the delightful Kolsch I made Sunday.  First brew in the new fermenter which is very exciting.  It’ll take a couple brews to work out how best to use it.  For now though, it’s a champ.

The beer itself should come out great.  I hit all the target temperatures, didn’t abuse it during transfers, stayed clean through the cooling, and pitched plenty of yeast.  I even dumped the cold break.

For now, it’s set in the garage with the temp. controller on 56-58°F.  My work is largely done so it’s all up to the yeast.  I’m trying a forced ferment in the basement on about 200 mL to quickly find the final gravity.  I’ll use that to determine when the main ferment is done.

For the most part, my brewing techniques haven’t changed much.  It’s been about 9 months since I brewed last and since then I’ve read a few of the newer books on the subject and also picked up the new fermenter.  I’m trying out a few new things here to see if they make the process any easier or more predictable.   But basically, the bottom line is if any of these changes will produce a better beer.  We’ll see in a few weeks, maybe by the holidays.

Next is a bunch of basketball.  Owen and I are going to a couple games coming up.  First is the Blazers next Friday.  He got a free ticket from the Summer Reading Program through the library so I just needed to pay for mine.  The seats aren’t great but it’ll still be fun.  If we’re too far up, we’ve got the Jumbotron to watch although Greg Oden’s head should be easy enough to see without it.  All I can think of is So I Married an Axe Murderer.  HEAD!  MOVE!

The one I’m really excited about is the one in Seattle: UConn / Gonzaga.  Both will likely stay ranked in the top 5 assuming UConn can run the dreaded Buffalo and Stony Brook gauntlet and the Zags can get through Indiana, WSU and Arizona.  Owen and I will take the train up and back.  Should be a really fun day.

I’ll get out a Peak summary soon, maybe later tonight.  Had a busy weekend and today is pretty full.

The Oregon Velo pictures tell a fairly good story.  Just look under the A race and find the guy carrying his bike.  That about sums it up.

Thinking of Val Kilmer. Go back before Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Back before The Island of Dr. Moreau. Keep going past his mid-90’s peak of Heat, Batman Forever, True Romance and The Doors. And step over Top Gun and Real Genius. It brings you to Top Secret!

There was a character in it, Latrine, who was part of the French Resistance. Latrine always burst into the scene severely wounded from one thing or another, covered in bloody bandages. Someone yelled out “Latrine!”.

This is what my week felt like.

Cut the back yard Sunday. We’ve got an old apple tree in the back yard which used to be very nicely pruned before we bought the place. We don’t know enough about pruning so we’ve let it go a bit too long. Being tall I need to crouch down real low to get around it. It’s a rare landscaping day in the backyard when I don’t drop an f-bomb about that tree.

So this week I’m picking up the dropped fruit and stood up too fast. I took a sharp 2″ thick branch point that was pruned years ago right in the back, just below the scapula. Dropped me like a rock. I don’t recall seeing that branch before but there it was. The aftermath is that there’s pretty sharp pain when I pull back…like on handlebars for example.

Yesterday I’m at home in the kitchen after work putting stuff away and getting ready to prep dinner (oven-fried chicken). Got the recipe book out of the cabinet and I’m leaning over my backpack. Again, I stood up fast…right into the cabinet door. Within a few seconds I feel blood dripping through my hair and down my head. WTF. 5 minutes later I get the bleeding to stop but there’s a nasty 1 inch gash on the top of my head covering a big lump.

Still hurts like hell.

I swear I’m more of a menace to myself than anything else in this world.

What else…

In between maiming myself, I see that the ‘cross forum is slowly starting to warm up. There’s discussion of modifying the schedule. I haven’t chimed in yet but I’d rather see the races a little earlier in the day. With a 2:30 or 3 pm race, I figure to get done by 4 and home by 5-ish. Doesn’t give much time to help with dinner and the kids. Plus the A race is a couple hours removed from the kiddie cross, which both my kids really like. I’m not sure how the logistics of having them participate will work out yet.

Been getting adding VO2 interval work in to my workouts. Did 5×5′ this morning through the cemetery. It’s just about 6 minutes top to bottom so the length works out just fine. First few were ok. Last 2 started to get very, very uncomfortable.

As I was coasting down to start one of the last couple reps, a glorious revelation came over me. Cross is almost here. It’s tough to fathom with temperatures flirting with triple digits this week, but it’s coming. And putting it very bluntly, you can’t go fast unless you put this sort of time in.

I’ve transgressed through the 5 stages of interval training over the past month or so:

1. Denial – “I feel fine. All I need to do is straight lactate threshold work. I don’t need to go anaerobic during a race”
2. Anger – “This is bullshit. I f-ing hate intervals. They suck. They’re uncomfortable. F.U. I don’t need ‘cross.”
3. Bargaining – “How about I start easy. Maybe one interval this week. Add one more next week. I’ll be at peak form in no time at all…like January. Do you think anyone will notice if I sandbag in the B’s?”
4. Depression – “Is it rest week yet? I need a break. I’m so tired.”
5. Acceptance – “It’s time to get ready. Pain and suffering are what this race is all about. I am going to be ready for whatever this season throws at me”

Yep. It’s close. You can feel it.

Light rain overnight.  Not bad.   The garden could always use a little extra help.  Got up early to get the Lemond ready to ride over the next few weeks while I overhaul & tune the cross bike.  That should be done by September – just in time to start adding little off-road rides to the training plan.  I like the Lemond but quickly forgot how cramped I am on it.

Just some fun commuting antics on the way to work.  Rolled up to the Hawthorne Bridge where the barricades were down and the traffic was backed up to Grand.  As I got to the bridge deck, a few commuters were heading the other way.  I saw that the bridge was still down and that a barge was backing away from the bridge.

Based on the angle they were at, I’m assuming they came in too sharp to make it through the opening.  Looked like it was the Revenge of the Worcester Speedball (a joint & a coffee with a shot of espresso in it).  That’s a terrible assumption.  And probably dead wrong.  Screw it, I’m going to run with it anyway.

So I turned around and did a quick sprint over to the Morrison Bridge which (wisely) didn’t lower it’s gates yet.  Got up and over.  By now the barge backed itself up to the I-5 overpass.  I thought I could barely make out a “Student Driver” sign on the barge.  Maybe not.

Made my way back to Main.  By the time I did that, the gates were still down and traffic was still parked.  It was pretty sweet to have Main all to myself.

Whew.

Yesterday was a shitty day.  Today – armed with new coffee and a fresh batch of granola – I’m ready to finish out the week…hopefully in one piece.  Short but hard 5×5′x5′ intervals today.  2×18′x6′ tomorrow morning.  Saturday off.  2-3 hour ride out Dirty 30 to Logie Trail & back on Skyline early Sunday am.

The week hasn’t started all that well.   I spent a little time Monday and Tuesday trying to coax the powertap back to life. Turns out it wasn’t the battery – although I replaced it anyway.  So I replaced the hub and chest strap batteries since it didn’t seem to be able to pick up a signal.  Nope.  Nada.

Called Saris and spoke with tech support;

“You do this?”
“Yep.”
“How about this…?”
“Yep”
“Well, did you see this on the screen”
“Yep”
“Hmmm, you have another powertap handy that you can check the signal against”
Yes, of course, I have them coming out of my ass, “Um, No, I don’t”
“Well, that doesn’t sound good.  We’ll need to look at both the hub and the head unit. Go ahead and send it back to us”

So that’s where we’re at.  It’s not the end of the world.  My bike is good.  I’m healthy.  Everyone’s doing well.  It’s all good.  I was, however, really enjoying using it and was thinking about covering up the unit’s power readout with black tape to avoid getting analysis paralysis during rides.  Ultimately, it comes down to how you feel when you’re riding.  I’ve been riding long enough to know that I’m pushing as hard as I can on a 20 minute interval.  I don’t need to know how much power I’m putting out to feel that.  So it’s on it’s way back to Wisconsin.

What else.

Called Merrill Lynch to get an old rollover IRA transfered to my regular one.  30 minutes and 4 transfers later, I was told that I couldn’t.  Apparently the address change I submitted 2 years ago never got entered.  So they were getting statements bounced back from my old address and subsequently put my account on hold.  It now needs to be reactivated before they can do anything.  I hate Merrill Lynch.

I’m on a roll now.

You know, I’ve been slowly coming to an uncomfortable conclusion that I really, really, really dislike other bike commuters.  It’s been building for some time now and I think this summer it’s coming to a head.  We hear commonly that drivers feel that most cyclists ignore the rules of the road.  In my opinion, I think that’s a pretty fair statement.  The shit that I see people do on bikes – day in and day out – sometimes defies logic and explanation.

I think the Portland area drivers have been becoming adjusted to bikes on the road for some time now.  We belong.  And while it’s not the same everywhere, I see and hear less of cyclists getting swerved at or honked at & told to get off the road.  Again, this is not a universal statement but it’s just what I see when and where I ride (east side, west hills, Clackamas Co).  Your mileage, especially in the ‘burbs or up in Vancooter, may vary.

But…I do see and hear far more anger and tension from drivers from people on bikes doing dumb shit.  Blowing lights & stop signs.  Swerving in and out of traffic.  Crap like that.  And while I try not to let it bother me, sometimes it does.  The drivers that I rely on to give me a little extra space or consideration is starting to feel they no longer want to anymore.  In some cases, it’s getting hostile.

I’m probably in the minority where I follow all the rules of the road.  Really.  I don’t clip out & foot down but I do stop & track stand for a split second before moving on even when no one’s around.  I’m even more anal when I have my team kit on.  Doesn’t cost any time but I do know that more often than not, it gets me waved through by any other cars in the area.  I guess I just don’t understand why it’s so hard to just…stop.

I’m not really sure where I’m headed with this although I could write about it for hours.  I certainly don’t have a solution.  I wish I did.  Education?  Stricter enforcement with steeper fines?  I don’t really know.

Whew.  Moving on to the little stuff…

It’s hot.  And being the delicate flower that I am, it’s a little rough on me.  Enough of this 90’s shit.  Gimmie 60’s and 70’s and I’ll be happy.  I don’t like hot.

All of my taps at home are dry.  I need to put a call in to Belmont Station to see what they have.  Aside from the “Pssssst” of a flat tire, there are fewer depressing sounds I know of than a sputtering blown keg.

Lastly, I’m out of coffee here at work.  Great.  I can’t believe it’s only Wednesday.  I gotta go.