A couple months ago I had an amazingly shitty week of Automobile/bicycle interaction. I wrote about it. It was shocking how poorly the people on the roads were behaving.

This morning was a little different.

In a good way.

Kid in his dad’s huge pickup honks at me from behind while I am doing intervals, then leans out the window and apologizes when we come to a stop sign together and he realizes I am making a left hand turn in traffic.

(there were a handful of other good encounters but, it is a few days later and well, I forgot the details. Let’s just say that everyone on the road was feeling friendly.)

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In the actually shitty news dept: my lady has been real sick all day with some sort of food poisoning, possibly from some Thai she ate last night. Makes me think about eating at what WAS one of my favorite vegan restaurants in the world. I guess not anymore.

That sucks. Eh, not like we are at a loss of veg places to go out to eat in Portland.

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It was 10 degrees (50F) this morning. So cold, I bundled up and shivered for the first part of the ride. After a couple hours it warmed up enough to be sweaty. Crazy. I have not worn leg warmers in a while.

Things are moving quickly now. The weather is turning. It has been raining. The cx machines are getting put together.

It smells like burning leaves in the mornings.

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The tunes that fuel my intervals:

Steve Aoki
Van Halen
Erase Errata
Journey
Mars Volta
Tragedy
CSS
Slits

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“How was the SSWC?”

“Hard.”

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Rode so hard this morning that the Condor was about to puke a few times.

I was close to it too.

Got an email back from Barry Wicks with the line: “see you at Starcrossed!” and I laugh to myself when I am training super hard. Thinking about trying to stay on the super-talented PRO wheels is going to hurt twice as much as I can hurt myself when training.

I felt like I was just starting to ride respectably before I broke my ribs last season. Hoping, maybe, this year I’ll find some form and not keep embarrassing myself.

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Excited to start racing.