Snow.

Yeah. Still here. The big apple.

So, it IS true, Portland has the best espresso. The best bike culture, the best racing scene, the best organic produce, the best coffee shops. What can I say? We are spoiled. At least I know it. I used to think I was this super tough big city kid when I was living in San Francisco. Now I can't handle all the people and hustle-bustle! Portland has turned me into a softie!

I drove up from Newark, Delaware Monday afternoon and made it to Sarah and Thomas' house. They have a little apartament in Prospect Heights with our friend Johnny Mayhem in Brooklyn. That is where I am staying. It is all of 4 blocks from Prospect park, a nice little park, closed to traffic most of the time and filled with little footpaths and "forest" trails. It was pouring all day Tuesday and I dutifully hopped on the Vanilla and made it up into the park for a couple hours of sluggish practice. Stairs abound in the park and I made good use.

My old friend Mark Beattie gave me a call and said he would meet me up in the park for a ride. We meet up after it starts raining really hard (I had been riding a couple hours already) and getting cold out. He did not bring his bike, I guess it was farther to go home and get it than to just head straight to the park from his girlfriend's house.

Mark Beattie was THE person I hung out with when I first got into cross racing. We would scam rides and make our way up to Tacoma and Steliacoom as well as doing the Crusades series races 4 years ago. He let me borrow those Simon Burney cyclocross books for a while and I just devoured them. Mark is a true friend. He was a wrench at the Performance out in Beaverton and at the CCC for a while and would help out in the Veloshop a bunch when I was really struggling. Donating parts and labor ALL the time. He even helped me fanagle a warranty return on a frame I cracked at Mt. Tabor race one year. He was totally pro: had 2 single speed bikes at the races (granted they were frenchy POS bicycles and falling apart all the time) and I thought he was nuts at the time. "Why don't you just ride with gears? You crazy!" Little did I know...

I got us lost in the park and we eventually met back up at Sarah's. We walked to Gorilla coffee where I bought him a coffee and we chatted. I remembered that he is one of the founding Veloshop team members too. Mark B, old school, the original pink kit! I think Ira Ryan and Bridgette Stoick are only a couple of the current riders who rocked the scary pink kit.


Wednesday morning, I am putting my spandex on and Sarah's cat Mimi nuzzles me and then just LAUNCHES up onto my shoulders and refuses to move! I really wanted to put a little leash on Mimi and strut around NYC like a rich old lady walking her cat. She is too cute. I usually don't wax about kids and animals, sorry.

Once I pryed her off, I rode over the Manhattan bridge and through the city to Central park! Like I was saying before, now I am a total softie. Riding through Manhattan was horrible! There is no way I would be able to handle living in the city. I should have stopped and taken photos of the traffic I had to ride through. It took me an hour and a half to ride from Brooklyn, over the Manhattan bridge and up into Central park! It was pretty funny. I could not handle having to do that everyday to just get some quality training time in.

Got a little news from the home front. My housemate-Veloshop teammate Brian Ellin ripping his rear derailleur off while leading his race. Ouch. I read some of thier race reports, seems like cross back home is going really well though a bunch of people are having more than thier fair share of mechanicals and flats. (c'mon, you can get away with 2 BAR if you have good technique!) I just woke up in NYC Tuesday morning and it is STILL pouring. We are going to walk down and have bagels and tofutti+espresso drinks. I think Sarah will head off to work and I'll be left to get on my bike and do like 20 laps of Prospect Park. Or just head down to the coffee shop and drink a few Soy Mochas. Hmmm...

Woke up early this Sunday and headed up to the Wissahickon race east of Philly. A UCI cat 2 race today as the first World Cup race is also today (but in Europe.) I just checked out those results, I really, really like the Petr Dlask jersey thing. I don't remember, did'nt he get dropped from his team for no good reason recently? What's up with Jon Page? Mechanical? Bad day?

Well, back to my BAD day. I woke up and felt great! Got to the venue and felt great! Great!

The course was a lot like the PIR race Brian and I just put on. Flat, fast, a little sand section, lots of off camber, not much deep mud. Again, I got shafted for the start, last row. Then, as Tim Johnson (he gots no UCI points for a call up) was squeezing his way up towards the front rows he got caught by the UCI officials and they made him go back behind me! Oh, the irony.

My race was brilliant! A wicked fast start, with Johnson nipping at my heels the whole way. I made my way up into the top 15 and all of a sudden this guy comes barreling at me and bounces offa me and into a fence! Tim J. uses that to go around me and I get right on his wheel and we drive it up and around a few people. I bump shoulders with this Richard Sachs rider a bunch and then as I am passing him in the sand section he actually tries to push me off my bike! I keep it upright and ride ahead of him "Hey, you can elbow me but you can't take your hands off the bars and push me!" I shout kinda laughing. I've lost Tim J. at this point and ride past an audibly pissed Ben Turner ("shit!") and into the top 10. Then out of nowhere the Sachs kid makes this huge effort on the road section just to bodycheck himself right into me trying to crash me into a fence! I keep it upright again and look back, "If you are ready to play dirty, I'll play dirty." "I'm not playing dirty, I'M JUST FASTER!" he hollers at me.

I laughed and rode away from him.

I could not believe he even said that.

I just don't take myself that seriously. Can you even imagine hearing that in a bike race? I mean really, what kinda mental state are you in to bark that out? Especially after trying to crash me out a few times to no avail, and still not getting around me. After the race, it turns out he is Justin Spinelli. Apparently he rode in the Giro di Italia for Saeco and is a big jerk at local east coast races. (so I hear, no offense.)

Oh, ego. Oh, testosterone.

Well, I was pretty sure he was going to punch me at some point so I just raced away from him. Kinda wierd to think that he rode in the Giro and now he is getting spanked by a transgendered vegan cookie eating mother fucker. Ha!

Well, back to the race. And really, I'll make it short, reading about racing can only be so fun. I promise I'll gossip about doing it and making out in a minute. I bridge up to these fast Fort-GPOA and Rock lobster riders and "Lets work, I REALLY wanna drop this Sachs guy." "Yeah!" they shout back. We work really hard and then...

...I bonk! With 2 laps left in the race I go from 9th place to 20th place. In 2 laps! You can NOT imagine how embarassed I felt. I was letting myself down, my sponsors down, my friends down. I counted the 11 people as they just waltzed past me. I had nothing. I was finished. I wanted to quit right there and hobble off to the car and sob.

But, I did'nt. I knew what was hapening and as much as it sucked, I had to finish it up strong. I would call it my "black day" but, I think that is racist.

Hey, 20th place, I got my race fee back, $30!

After the race I wandered over to get my $ and met Mark Mcormack. He was a really nice guy! You deal with this stressed out meat heads (see above) so often in bicycle racing that meeting someone with a pleasant personality was a breath of fresh air. We introduced each other and he told me to eat more than a banana for breakfast next time. Noted. Lesson learned.

Everyone on the east coast has been really stoked to see Vanilla out there putting it down. I heard random people I have never met screaming "Portland!" "Go Stumptown!". I met Richard Sachs too! He was really nice. I got to watch him race in the masters race. Sacha once told me he was impressed that I can run a bike shop and race seriously, I think it is pretty impressive that Richard can STILL be a framebuilder and STILL show up and race! I hope that when I am a little older, my shop is still around and I am still involved with racing in one way or another. I really like it when I see Sacha racing his SS, you have to be in touch with the people you are building bikes for.

So. I'm in NYC right now after driving up to stay with Sarah and Thomas in Brooklyn.

So, making out? I got nothing. I miss my ladyfriend. For reals! We've been calling each other everyday and it is really nice. I did take my mom out to dinner at "Homegrown" in Newark. It is a restaurant that this woman I used to fool around with in the darkroom in highschool during 6th period photo class opened up a few years ago with her husband.

Thats it, thats all you get. That is the closest I've gotten to fooling around.

Now I am off to get Thai food.

No golf, no "baby victory salutes". I hope Ryan or Barry never, EVER do that...