Ride reports

We have been spending our sundays with the kind Bike Central people, riding between 40 and 60 miles in varying terrain. This sunday was no exception, and for your edification, here is the ride report, replete with in-jokes, courtesy of Craig Sinanian:

Had a good night's sleep...no asthmatic cats or anything. A little bit of cat puke on the chair, but...oh wait this is supposed to be a ride report not a cat report.

Sunday November 20th was a nice day to be a cyclist and an even nicer day to be part of the 'Black Wall of Death'. The usual suspects were there with the addition of Steven 'McLaughy' McLaughry's better half on the tandem. Actually, we were treated, and by treated I mean punished, by having two tandem teams on the ride. Mark and Lynn and Steven and Alexandra. The rest of the peloton consisted of myself, Gary, Jen, Dean, Per, and Emilia. If I've spelled your name wrong it's because I'm in Beaverton for the week and have gone into shock and spelling is always the first to go.

We started off a little after 11 because Steven broke the cardinal rule of letting friends derive drunk and decided the morning of the ride would be the best time to install a tandem mount on their car rack. Tsk, tsk. After some quick feets of engineering, they were on their way from the 'Shoug and we all merrily left the cul de sac of Pommel Ct knowing what Lynn had in store for us.

A few miles out we encounterd a bizzare run in with a kind roofer. He offered us the use of his floor pump and even a spare wheel if needed. So off we went into the hinterlands of Washington County for some good ol' fashioned leg searing fun. The first climb went uphill if I remember correctly. Per showed us all a clean pair of wheels and red star'd mud flaps. Dean muttered something about 'this road was here all along and no one told me?' as he zoomed by on the descent. I was blinded by my new gold Chris King headset, or is that Chris Bling?, and just tried to stay out of the way of Team Tandems.

At the top of Climb #2 we impressed a gaggle of middle aged ladies with our matching clothing. 'Are you a team?' 'Yes, Bike Central' 'Wow, so what is the name of your team?' 'Bike Central' 'So if you were a team, what would your name be?' 'Okay, Bike Central' and so on.

At this point, Jen decided we were all riding too slow and went off on some bizarre sprinter-turned-climber workout while the rest of us fended for ourselves and climbed Pumpkin Ridge. The climb started on some rough pavement but turned to smooth blacktop and went on for about 6 miles. Very nice gradient and would definitely like to continue on the hardpack dirt part. Let's all buy some heavy duty tires okay?

At the top of Pumpkin Ridge, Alexandra exclaimed, 'What a wonderful day! My ass doesn't hurt at all! This is wonderful!'. I concur. The way back down was misery for the singles, while the tandems plowed on at about 45 mph. I hung on for dear life in my 53x12 and finally popped off with about a 3/4 a mile to go. The way home was uneventful. Dean secured his position in the Green Jersey by taking the final town line sprint for double points and my gold headset got us home like a beacon just before dark.

Celebrated Gary's day before birthday with some cake and root beer, loaded up the mighty Tercel, and headed back to Portland with tired legs, arms, feet, wrists, fingers, toes, biceps, triceps, shoulders...I mean it was the best ride ever!

J. N.

Back in the grind

Once back home, the training started up again in earnest: Grass track, team rides, weight lifting, indoor spinning. One of the hardest things we are doing right now is olympic weightlifting, where we jump with weight. It is hard to learn, because it is very technique intensive---however, it is loads of fun. In terms of grass track everyone is getting increasingly competitive in terms of headbutting, pushing and sheer verve when pushing through crowds of riders. This took a little bit of time to work up to for Amelia, but now she is more than capable of putting the old shoulder in when someone crowds her, or tries to sneak around her.

Sweden

While in Milano on official math business, I popped over to Sweden for a weekend for some intense socializing. All the usual suspects lined up for full spectrum entertaining, with one notable exception. I also got socks, and some euro clothes---In the US I always wear some ratty carharts over my biking gear and a thick bike jersey, but somehow as soon as I turn up in Sweden without a bike, I feel the need for some nicer duds and a haircut (which almost happened). Go figure. I guess it is just a pack animal response to the importance of fashion in Sweden.

Some things do not change much. Here Johan, looking as regal as he always does in his favorite 50's chair.

We decided to have a dessert party. This is one of the things that high volume bike training gives you a taste for, I can tell you.

Some people were busy knitting mackerel hats in honor of their favorite soccer team. I never got to see the finished product, but what I did see looked great.

Halloween!

Halloween brought on a variety of costumes in the house. Here Genevieve. Ask me sometime what she was dressed up as. This outfit rode in the Zombie holocaust alleycat earlier in the day.

Other people dressed up as evil dolls, and scarecrows.

Assorted people cooked a nice meal for the house and we all chowed together.

Tara had a birthday, and of course she had to have a cake. A first baked a chocolate brownie thingy, but Tara was stuck in Seattle so we ate it before she came home. This is the one she actually got, note the oversize candle. Small candles are wussy.