It just hit me that I’ll be helping out at the OBRA Alpenrose Cyclocross clinics starting tomorrow!

The flyer is here.

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What the hell?

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.

I’ll update my damn website!

Let me think back… I raced a big-deal criterium a few Friday nights ago. Very fun, very fast. I like racing with road PROs. It is just so damn hard you can’t fake it and sit in. Not that I was doing much besides staying out of everyone’s way.

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Last week I did a HUGE training block in the near 100 degree heat in Portland. yikes.

Now it is back to a typically Portland 60 degrees and rainy. So I ride my cx bike in the mud.

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I’ve started setting up my cyclocross schedule.

The skinny?

Traveling domestically for the first month, then back home to race ALL of the Cross Crusade races and train before heading back to Europe or a month or more.

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I love Phil Varner’s flickr page:

Pre-Tonkin Oregon cyclocross lore. Note the apparently brake-less set up. Fixed? Coaster brake?

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There is much to write. Yet, not enough time. I am up to my neck in cx.

Got a new batch of FMB tubulars and at the same time we sold out of Dugast Rhinos! It may be at least a few weeks till I see any more.

Belgie nationals colors on FMB SSC tyres. Amazing.

Got a small batch of FMB road tyres too. His special RACING PRO tread in 22 and 23mm.

White Challenge file tread tubulars are here and they are dope.

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I am moving in with Pete next month, that is going to be really cool! Our new rental is all of 3 blocks from my current house so, I still expect to be able to spend many a late night watching South Park with Steven and Brian. Till I get tired and have to wander back home in my pajamas.

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Heard a rumor that Race.cx is back online.

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I stole a photo from Jose for my header. Check out his photos. New-ish Veloshop team mate and excellent photographer.

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Speaking of Veloshop, there is a bunch of new Veloshop kit at the Veloshop. i remember people were looking for some and I don’t have a list handy. Mostly xs – medium bib shorts and short sleeve jerseys. Call down to the shop if you are looking for some.

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Another image stolen from the internet: Eric Zo.

Sportieve groeten.

wow.

If there was an 11 on my life I’d be in it right now. Everything is happening full tilt!

So damn busy!

The blood is in the water, the cross sharks can smell the season coming miles away.

Starcrossed registration opened up yesterday. My teammate taking the holeshot registering in the Elite category while one of my other teammates was in the Veloshop dialing in his EDGE clinchers.

So dope.

In other hilarity, I love the euros:

I’m in love with the US VTT riders right now.

My prediction: Wells and Craig on the Olympic podium. If the golf player can keep his tyres from flatting. And whatever happens, Adam will nose wheelie across the finish line, hacking from the pollution.

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The businesses are going really solid right now. It is summer. Pre-cyclocross. And everyone has so much momentum right now. I’ve been training really consistently and the numbers I’ve been getting on the little yellow computer I stare at have been progressively good. Good and gooder. Gooderer.

It is shocking how crappy I felt this February after the busted ribs, Europe, and a month long fever. I was really barely able to ride a bike. And now I’m back to normal, if not riding at a higher level.

I’d be pushing 6w/kg but, I can’t afford the PRO training plan with my coach.

Off to buy more groceries with my badass housemate.

Writing from Stumptown coffee in Seattle, Washington.

Just flew back from an epic vacation to the mid-west with Pete.

Epic.

I flew to Minneapolis last Monday morning and after a shitty flight and brutal Greyhound experience, spent a few days relaxing in Alexandria: Birthplace of Autumn Peterson and Olof Ohman; finder of the runestone. Quite the controversy.

We stayed at the house Pete grew up in. I met her dad for the first time, very nice. Hanging out with Pete is pretty much a non-stop joke fest anyways so hanging out with her mom and sister turns in to a make fun of Autumn session. We gave her enough shit to last all year. Satisfying.

We rode our bikes around the lake and played a round of mini-golf in which I trounced AP and enjoyed the local culture. We went to Fleet Farm. Which is like a bigger version of FredMeyer and Homedepot and a bait and tackle shop.

We spent our days making food, laying around in the sun, riding a motor boat on the lake and eating rhubarb pie.

A few days in Alexandria were followed by a couple more spent in Minneapolis.

Riding bikes around the city, drinking espresso and watching the Tour.

I went to Cars R Coffins and One on One bicycle studio. Discovered that most bike shops in Minneapolis have full service cafes in them. And most are heavily lacking in the vegan baked goods dept. though.

Got to spend an evening bbq’ing after a long nap and talked about Portland with non-Portlanders.

Did not touch my bike all week.

I take that back. AP and Katie Peacock forced me to ride all over Minneapolis. We did a huge loop of the city met up with Anni K and played a mini-mini golf round at the Walker art museum. There was this huge bike powered pinball sculpture/hole and I got a f’ing hole in one on it. It blew my mind, you had to be there.

Pete and I made our way down to Quality Bicycle Products before dropping me off at the airport this afternoon. My new sales rep Justin accompanied us on a tour of the AMAZING facility. I now bike and bike industry stuff can be mind numbing for non bike industry folks and Pete was a gracious companion. I think both of us were floored by the company and business practice.

She dropped me off at the airport, we made out and I went into the French Meadow bakery for a vegan reuben sandwich and rasberry chocolate bar. I’m going to pen a letter to the owner of French Bakery. Offering vegan options in an international airport is brilliant. Not just a few options, 1/4 of the menu was veg.

Dope.

They are way ahead of the curve with that one. So I spent a lot of money there. And was more stoked than I was at one of the bikeshopcafes when the barista went in to the tired story about: “we tried selling vegan stuff, and how they did not sell, and she was sorry, and they have clif bars that are vegan” I don’t want a sob story, I just want a snack.

A clif bar is not a snack, a clif bar is what you eat when you have nothing else left in your jersey pockets on long rides.

I know, I know she was being polite and helpful… but, come on!

Vegan cookies are pretty easy to make and stock, it can not be that hard to find a decent supplier in Minnesota. right?

Kinda backwards to me that the punky bike shops frown on the vegans and the big corporate business chain in the airport meets my needs.

eh.

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I bailed on a vtt ride with pals today to spend another few hours in the Stumptown on pine and belmont to plug away at editing images and content for my website.

I really think we need to revisit the painting from the Runestone museum. In detail.

Now you need to ask yourself. Will you or won’t you?

Put it up on the internet for sale.

Help a poor bike racer out.

Thank you.

Whew!

The legs are heavy. My mind is clear.

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Did you know Oakley makes glasses for people with slanty eyes? Or so they tell us.

I got an email about it. “this is 2008 right?”

Yeah, and George Bush still does not care about black people.

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Saving the weekend, is Bend’s own Horner.

F’ing awesome.

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And it is clear now I am not the only one having a hard time with all of the righteous and aggro cyclists and drivers this summer.

After a sensationalist cover article in the Oregonian last week, Bike Portland pens an elegant response to the bike-car-bike-bike antagonism.

I’m still getting extra grief from the autos and commuters in this sunny warm weather.

I mention it so much recently because it is truly worse than “normal”. Everyone is chomping at the bit, ready to jump all over you if you blow a stop sign or are commuting in spandex.

…took an oncoming deliberate swerve into our lane while out on Sauvie Island training yesterday afternoon.

damn!

Can’t get a break lately.

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Things are good, things are really good.

Training my butt off before shifting into high gear for a long cross season.

The power is good, the sensations are positive. Things have improved from last season and I’ve still got another month of “building” so… that is exciting.

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Stirring the pot and fanning the flames since 1999.

It is not that a PRO racer needs be a responsible public figure for themselves or their team’s own good.

It ties into the responsibility of every human being to act decently and with awareness of others.

It never made sense that people cruise through life not realizing (or more to the point, not giving a shit) that their actions affect others.

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I spend 20 hours a week on my bike and I can go all winter long without a single incident of car/bike or bike/bike drama.

The second the sun comes out everyone starts acting like they own the road. Or at least the piece of the road they are on at that second.

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Recent car happenings this week:

*Yuppie gives me a smug, dismissive, blank stare (the I could care less that you are on a bike) while driving past me in the Pearl district in his beamer. Took me a second to realize it is a local frame builder. Nothing wrong with beamers…

*get passed by a woman in a Subaru while training down in Canby/Oregon city. We are in the bike lane and she is shouting something about “staying on our side”. She swerves in and out of the bike lane slamming on the brakes, menacingly. I slow down and dial 911. Give her auto description and plate # and hope they pull her over.

*riding bikes down N Vancouver ave. see a customer who gave me an earful about being car-free and living super “green” loading his track bike into a giant Suburban.

*we have some really awesome neighbors who like to play basketball on the street in front of our house most evenings around 3am-ish. Now we park our hippie eco car (aka: Spacehawk) underneath the basketball hoop.

*saw a video linked from this site. I agree, and that is why I do not participate in Critical mass anymore.

*riding to get coffee with Pete on a quiet SE side street. hear the telltale rev of the engine of an impatient driver who proceeds to pinch us out of a tight roundabout. As policy, I don’t give drivers the finger.

I gave him the finger.

it is Saturday morning and you almost ran my girlfriend into the curb trying to get past us just to park in front of your house a 1/2 block later.

*while driving some chairs and equipment home from work on Thursday eve I get hollered at by a superfan in a lowered Volvo!

“hey Molly!”

pretty awesome to bump into a rad pal. be it in car or on bike.

After a week of bullshit interactions with automobiles it was great to have a nice one.

It is not cars are inherently the big assholes, it is the smug jerks that drive them.

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Scarier than car drivers are the righteous commuters. I ride pretty slow while commuting. The days it stops raining I have to start being hyper-aware of all of the unsafe riders that come out of the woodwork.

I like giving pedestrians and joggers a lot of room, give them a heads up, move a couple feet away from them while passing. And without fail there will be some yahoo barreling past screaming “on your left asshole!” (generally with the expletive), because they are so appalled that anyone would slow their progress.

Then they buzz me and freak out the pedestrians. making all cyclists look like douche bags.

I wish I could count on the bicycle riding folks out there to treat others with the same respect they would want an auto to treat them.

Pretty sure they would consider the move they just pulled on a bike totally fucked up if an automobile did the same to them.

slow down.

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end rant.

off to train.

Yikes!

Donn/Challenge got back to me about their “file tread” tyre availability:

“The Grifo XS (file tread) will be arriving mid to late July. This tread design will be available in the following configurations:

* Grifo 32 XS Tubular Black/Brown (black tread/brown sidewall)
* Grifo 34 XS Tubular Black/Brown
* Grifo 32 XS Tubular White/Black
* Grifo 32 XS Open Black/Brown
* Grifo 32 XS Open White/Black”

The open tread is the clincher version!

I’ll have them in stock when they are available!

White file tread clinchers!

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I’ve also got a small handful of Dura Ace 46 tooth cyclocross chainrings available!

$120 each shipped in the conti USA!

So dope! And rare!