biking isn't dangerous...

...it's *reading* about biking that's the risky part. I was innocently walking over to sit on the couch where I nearly landed on my head when I slipped on a copy of Velonews sitting on the carpet.

Totally sketch.

purge

I deleted a previous post because it was lame.

I am replacing it with something my boy said in the bathtub after passing a bit of gas. True story

"I just gassed. Did it sound like a flute?" - Ben

I don't know where he gets it. We've never discussed the potential musicality of gas.

*MORE* boredom

I thought, in continuation of a theme, I'd list out the top gross things in our trash can right now:

Cat poo
Dirty Diapers (Ben and Max Poo)
Festering ziplock of uncooked eggs
unidentified ziplock of brown liquid
... and the winner
A dead mouse - crisp, hardened and nearly weightless

What? No comments? Can't really believe it.

the engine part II

to add to the boredom, I've introduced this addendum:

In the previous post I exaggerated slightly on the temp range to highlight a point; that there's a huge gap between the heat generation along with low cooling during a climb versus the low heat generation and intense cooling during the descent [on the bike.] And it's pretty amazing that such a huge difference exists. I tell the story in the first place because those that don't ride or those that don't venture out when the weather turns sour perhaps cannot easily imagine this stuff. I just think it's cool.

The addendum is simply this... When outfitted in the proper gear, riding in any conditions can be comfortable. It's easy to be not too warm & not too cold, including toes & fingers. The current crop of technical layers is truly remarkable. I've bombed down some hills in cold rain and something well under 5mm from skin to outer shell completely cozy. The thin layer is a wall that cuts through what would otherwise leave you shivering and really unhappy. Armed with a wind breaking cap under the helmet and some full coverage glasses and you begin to create an inside and outside. I'd like to use an "inside a car" analogy but that depresses the message. You've rolled out in the misty fog, drizzle or pouring rain to experience it, not be completely isolated from it. The isolation that keeps the core warm, however, is a very good thing.

When intentionally setting out in the cold and rain, it is rare that a rider gets cold. It's the seemingly nice day that turns pear shaped and you're without the aforementioned technology does one suffer. Those days are remembered with a shudder & a shake. I've walked into a bike shop after a day like that and loaded up with piles of winter protection like a hungry shopper at the grocery store.

The addendum to the boring post has gone on well past due. Carry on.

the engine

prepare yourself for a mind-numbingly, and over punctuated, boring post...

ready...

Here it comes...

So it's cold, dark and usually raining when I roll out for my 10 mile /35 ish minute two wheeled commute. I start out layered in cozy & waterproof clothes. At exact points along the ride I drop layers.
I unzip jackets at 7th & Failing St
At Interstate & Alberta I lose the fleece hat
At Delta Park I swap fuzzy gloves for skinny ones
Then I'm dialed for the rest of the ride.

[anyone still reading???]

It's just {marginally} interesting how the human machine works and how the flow of cold wind & rain keeps the engine cool. Stopping at stoplights and the system overheats, even just the 30 seconds the equilibrium is broken and I roast. Then, with wind & rain back on, it all comes back down. Outside of the commute on recreational rides, the difference between climbing and descending is epic, all on the same day. If it's 47 and rainy, 10 minutes into a long climb and you could pretty much ride naked and be too hot. Then point the bike downhill and you're doing 35-40mph and exerting 30% of the output. The rain feels like ice pellets and your 5 layers with the final being a waterproof membrane isn't enough if the downhill is sustained for more than a few minutes.

Helen

A toast from one steaming thing to another. It's a great hike/scramble and I *highly* recommend it to anyone who has baseline fitness and owns a thermos.

Soba 1999 - 2006

This was, as far as cats go, a really cool cat. Ultra social and friendly. *It* thought it was a human, or so it appeared from its persona.

It went from healthy to tonight's vet visit inside of 36 hours. The annoying thing about cats is that they "mask" or hide their ailments so as to not show weakness in the wild. The vet thinks something heart &/or lung related probably linked to cancer.

Max and Ben really lit up and would chase/torture Soba. The cat put up with this quite well and actually enjoyed it assuming cats don't stick around if they're not having a good time. There's little funnier than Ben awkwardly carrying Soba around. Soba rallied for all of the Hunter/Wicker moves: Oakland>Berkeley>Boulder>Portland. Unlike Miso, this cat was into it.

The cheeky thing wrecked more than one night's sleep and covered the furniture with so much of its fur that one could fashion a whole 'nother cat from the pile. But all those small things aside, we will miss you Soba. You set the bar.

train wreck

is the best way to describe my foray into coffee roasting. Impatient at 9:40 pm I decide I *must* try out my new coffee roaster. This is a modified hand cranked popcorn popper. All the components arrived in a brown truck today. Making a long story short I got it so hot that I melted the plastic window and the beans nearly caught fire when I first tossed them in. So I have beans that are burnt beyond recognition, damaged equipment, and nothing really positive to say except...
{pause}

HEY

I'm roasting coffee! I learned over a dozen things in this alpha adventure. I won't list them but I will say that the numbers on the thermometer are false as evidenced by bubbling plastic. Oh, and a high output camp stove is *not* the right means to deliver controlled heat. I thought that I would use distance from the stove as my heat control. This might have worked if I didn't start at what has to have been 700+ degrees.

For the record, I did take mental note the location of the fire extinguisher.


Tomorrow I bring the operation indoors where I seal off the kitchen and run the 600 CFM blower. *Then* I will have the power to tune the heat in an exacting way.


If anyone has ideas on how I can get a stick thermometer to read more accurately please chime in. Otherwise answer this: Why would a grown man take an old tyme popcorn popper and try to roast coffee in it when he has access to the finest roasted beans on earth?

love for the marine layer

oh how I love thee. I anxiously await your return.

Godspeed

sick & sad

Check this out

The last sentence is the sad part. "As an alternative to antibiotics"... like it is essential that the food industry use antibiotics. *Somehow* and how they can perform such miracles is just so amazing... somehow organic farmers have managed to produce meat without either antibiotics or this fancy benevolent critter-eating-malevolent critter. It's good versus evil yet again.

If I eat meat, I want it to be sprayed with these friendly critters and then coated with nitrates.... mmmm mmm goood.

Whenever I read something along this general topic of food technology, I'm always happy that I live a nearly pure organic and meat free existance.

There was a great [npr] story where the author focused on the traditional preparation of food, the way it has been done up until mid 20th century. The interesting spin was that he considered the convenience factor of foods lately to be, "taking away" from a fundamental joy of making your food from scratch. While we, as a society, have generally accepted the notion that we're too busy for that sort of thing, it's really not true. We simply choose the lazy option (myself included these past few months) much of the time. I've been peeling that one back, especially with the summer fruit & veg season in full swing. I've recently switched to bread found in the refrigerated section. These live breads are really amazing. They offer a complete protein and have an extremly low glycemic index...basically the total opposite to white bread or pizza dough. And it's beyond tasty... it's awesome. This doesn't add preparation time (which is good) but I lose the "joy of cooking" which is bad or good depending upon opinion. I'm happy to be eating real food with minimal processing. The ideal breakfast is two of these delicous refrigerated flour free english muffins + butter +marmite & a cappucino from *the machine* and I'm pretty much in heaven. Just don't spray any viruses on it... I'll take my chances.

still life

There's a chain link fence. Attached to the chain link fence is a placard depicting what will be built on the currently barren space. It's something modern, something tallish, something decidedly upscale. There's graffiti on the placard but the building can still be seen through the spray.

why

The more I live, the more I am disconnected with all that is crap in this country:

• I am disconnected from fast food & factory farms
• I am disconnected from malls
• I am disconnected from a car commute & requisite concern for gas prices. In fact I'd *love* to see them hit $9/gallon. Not right away, not in such a way that really screws over those just getting by but in an easily seen trend, say up a dollar every year. This would radically alter the economy in an ecologically positive way. & ... I'm quite sure of this one, our aggegate GDP would rise faster as a result.

The more I live, the more I am connected to all that is good in this country:

• I am connected with indy and local sources of food & coffee... & super fresh eggs!
• I am connected with the mountains, bike racing scene, & PDX culture
• I am connected to my job via a ten mile bike commute

These are all the top of my head sort of changes. I'm not putting this out there to say, "Hey look how swell I am" because I'm quite sure that I impress few with my actions. I do this stuff for me, because I seriously feel ill whan I do otherwise. Speaking of feeling ill, I'm *out* of coffee beans and that's a serious problem which will be rectified at exactly 7am tomorrow. Fishew!

Buying a house?

Or selling one? This is a shameless plug for a friend. Zach Newman found us our home and did more work, and this is no exaggeration, than our previous 3 realtors combined. If you ever say to yourself that they don't deserve the % they get it's because they don't work like Zach does. So I'm sending this shout out to generate business for my man Zaaaaaach. He rules. If you find yourself in the buy/sell situation you really need to work with him.

www.equitygroup.com/zach

Standin' in the shower thinkin' - pf

So as I was trying to cool off in the shower because the heat in PDX and particularly in our upstairs is triple digit fun, I turned the know towards cool but couldn't bring myself to go full cold. In fact, I'm guessing it was rather lukewarmish.

Suppose you came across a waterfall where the water was briskly cold and it was super hot outside. You'd find a way to get under it. At first it would be exhilarating in a too-cold sort of way but then you'd get tough and adjust. Beyond that you'd grow comfortable in the cool cool water.

Meanwhile, in the shower, it's nearly impossible to drag the knob all the way to cool unless dared by a spouse.

Which brings me to my pointa-obscura.

Single speeds are the chilly waterfall. You can go way cooler than you otherwise will because there's no control knob allowing you to meter your pain. The result is that you push through and become stronger & faster. Either that or you don't go in the water at all.

reports

ok, so blog has had such little new data so here:
-I got sick, recovered in 24 hours
-Amy did the same
-It's going to be super hot here in PDX
-Our friends just had a baby whose name is MAX... nice choice.
-I'm looking for a bicycle tire that's simultaneously light and punctureproof. Any thoughts?

blunt trauma

Finally back on the bike after a much-too-long 2 day hiatus. Perhaps two days isn't huge but we inside of a week from the Pacific NW's summer solstice and it's time to *be* outside. Rolling past the accident scene I immediately worked out how the crash went down. It's wierd how I reacted when it occurred with a sense of urgency to get back on the bike. It's as if jumping on the bike quickly lessens the perceived significance of the crash. It must be, if I *can* get on the bike then it can't be too bad... right? The odd takaway from that is that *I* am your guy for any sort of outback adventure as I'll push through whatever crazy injuries and process them later.... but I digress.

It went down like this... cresting into the steep and soft sandy section, the front wheel gets stuck in the sand and I land squarely on the ragged prickly stump. I originally thought the stump was the obstacle and I was thusly confused why I didn't fly *over* it. So there it is then.

So here I sit and my arm is still inflated with blood from serious blunt trauma. The leg suffered seemingly similar damage but it's normal save a few scratches. What that tells me is there's some serious carnage going on under the skin. I'm so surpised by the severity of this mayhem. I suppose I hit pretty hard directly on that stump which, as I think about it, is really ugly {laugh}

It's the venue that's confusing. This is my *commute* so what am I doing incurring a mountain bike injury. The real backstory to all of this is not what happened here but what *didn't* happen during every other crash. I've blazed off trail. I've had my front tire disappear at speed along wide open velocity sections and I lost skin but nothing that actually hurt post bandage. There are a million stories like that. I can look at the various scars and recall their history. The one crash that I always think about when I think about the luck which pervades goes like this:

The classic Downieville CA downhill route. Riding the 3rd divide which is not the technical route but the "holy crahp I'm going super fast" route on wide-as-your-hand singletrack. So there I was at said velocity when a stick meets and arrests my front wheel's rotation. Generally front wheels don't skid, they more or less can't. Locking the front wheel = over the bars without hesitation. In this instance where my body position was loose and aft the front wheel skidded something like 10 feet before I was catapulted through the air. By the time I made contact with earth, I had made a 270 degree rotation, missing my front, head, and finally landing right on my back. Instead of the 1mm of protection I have on my front, my back sports a padded backpack full of fluffy clothes and a flexible bag of water that unintentionally protects the spine. So that was my landing mechanism. I was inches from a huge tree to my left and there I was in this softish spot taking inventory and testing each body component like a pilot's pre flight check. Even with this miracle of a landing I had a crazy yet painless internal bruise that started on my back and proceeded to leech forward through my abdomen before the greenish blue color faded. There was no better way to dissapate such energy and force better than exactly how it went down. LUCK

So while I'm certainly not beaming with joy as I nurse my throbbing arm, I am grateful that I've been so lucky for so long.

fancy fone

retain for your records>>>

5
0
3

and then 927 587 don't forget the 1

I avoided the email blast on the this and am going for the pull approach of the blog. I have no idea whether there are some blog spiders that find telephone numbers and send IM message spam (yes I understand the redundancy there...dtt dtt) & I don't want to learn. Hence the innane text intertwined with my #

Customer service

This is why you buy stuff from Nordstroms. They rock. I'm never buying anywhere else.
Excerpt from their customer service LiveChat follows:

Tim H: Hello and welcome to Nordstrom, Charlie!
Tim H: I see your question: I have 2 shirts & pants that are over a year old but are in near new condition with the minor exception of having been ruined due to laundering them with some wax lip balm. Can I exchange these?
Tim H: Were these items ordered through Nordstrom.com, or in the store?
Charlie: In a store
Tim H: Charlie, do you still have record of the purchase?
Charlie: I'm guessing no..:^(
Charlie: It is nordstrom brand stuff if that's important
Tim H: One moment and I'll look into your question.
Tim H: Charlie, you will not have any problem exchanging your items at any Nordstom store. I would suggest giving one of our Personal Shoppers a call at 1.888.282.6060. We could then try and find record of your purchase. I ask that you call due to the fact that this forum is not secure and for your protection, I can't ask for specific personal information.

red meat

For all of you avid readers out there who have been disappointed by the lack of images here at the cafe... well, you're in luck. This tasty looking arm meat looked much more knarly covered in dripping blood and dirt. This is the cleaned up, medicated version. {yawn} I know.

So there I was JRA on my bike commute. You see, there's this little piece of skinny trail that bypasses a gentle arc of a turn on the paved section and instead goes in a straight line, effectively cutting out two sides of a loosely defined triangle. It peels to the right of another turn so it's a natural route, i.e. the bike *wants* to go on it. The trail begs, "ride my dirt!"

It's totally flat and then rolls down the face of a berm. Upon first dropping into the steep downhill bermy bit, there's a soft loose bit of sand and... as I recently discovered, a partially buried stump. I've successfully navigated this section 75% of the time ( i.e. wiped out once scratch free, made it twice) until now. I'm down to 50/50 :^(

The crash was spec[tacular], complete with puff of smoke/cloud of dust and a captive audience of car commuters waiting for the metering lights to go green. I quickly remounted and rolled a few feet until ...
...ugh...

... it hurt.

I kept going but realized that real output from my right leg = pain. That's the interesting thing about bike commuting. It's not riding-as-entertainment although I certainly entertained a few people today. It's treating the body as machine, as engine. If there's a green light, lay it down (i.e. "floor it") and be on your way. So when the motor is damaged but still at say 60%, it's still time to keep creeping along. I'm commuting. I'm going home. I have a list of things I want to do, first of which is get a coffee from the Albina Press.

Not realizing that I was covered in dirt, the barista queries the reason. I thought that I had cleverly positioned my undamaged side to the counter. {embarrassing}

So here I sit, battered and limping after pulling two significant pieces of wood from the nastiest scratch and getting everything clean and medicated. Overall the ride was pretty good: I was out in the sun & hell, I had a delicious espresso. I'm thinking that i'll take the gently arcing paved bit from now on.

Hell yeah

For all the time, all the money, all the sleep deprivation, all the bikeless weekends*... It's still really [expletive] cool to be a dad. When little Max gives over one of his goofy grins or bounces around in giddy unplacable [sic] enthusiasm it's just awesome.

& When Ben decides to snuggle in with daddy or insists that I hold him while making a cappucino because, "I want to see." it's marvelous although the cappucino is difficult to execute.

So I hope all you dads out there are enjoying today. Crack open a beer for a job well done. But don't have too many because there are only a few precious hours before you'll be back at it again.

** OK OK so they're not really bikeless but dragging the trailer with the kiddies to the farmer's market or going for an early morning road ride in lieu of a 7 hour epic singletrack ride through aspens and around alpine lakes just isn't the same. It's crazy to think that our lives used to consist of such riding more weekends than not during the summer.