I Missed My Granny

I remembered last year's 3 capes as the most scenic of the Oregon 2007 brevet season. With a very favorable (by Oregon Spring standards) weather forecast, my hope was to have a faster time. I figured 2008 would be a year to decrease mileage, replenish long term physical reserves and explore different approaches and equipment (no buying more bikes, though). One thing I'm sure of is that my 2007 mileage was not sustainable on a physical, professional or family/friends level. So, less miles and try to get more out of them. BTW I don't believe in or like the term "junk miles", but if there are time/energy limitations, a goal oriented approach is needed at least part of the time.
A few things to tinker with:
Controls: One thing that I've noticed was that the longer I rest at a control the more sluggish I feel when resuming. Is this a cause or consequence?- Don't know. But only by experimenting can I find out if increasing fatigue is the cause for the longer stays. So, my goal was to get the card signed, do bladder breaks and keep moving.
Food: I know large food boluses don't agree with me and that nutritional value has to take precedence over any other factor in rides over 200K. So, it was back to Perpetuem.
Also, since I'm not doing anything longer than a 600K this year, I can see how much junk I can leave out of my trunk. I have been using a small handlebar bag and a small saddlebag for the past month and am going to see if that's enough storage for this brevet season.
Camera: Chose film over digicam for this ride as the film camera is more compact. Choice was also inspired by Leslie L., who had said she was bringing her film camera.
Wheels/tires: My choices were my Kysriums/Vittoria Open Corsa/11-27 cassette which are my fair weather setup or Mavic Open/Vittoria Pave/11-34 cassette which is my rainy day setup. I chose slightly lighter hoops over better granny gear cause I'm a weight weenie and had been using that set of wheels recently and didn't feel like swapping.
The start was cold but only my hands really felt it. As we're going up the first climb, John Maurice remarks that this brevet is fairly flat for a 300k; "don't feel that way to me" was my reply. But after the first control, there was a nice long descent. Together with warming weather and a flat and very pretty section which followed renewed my hopes for a better time. It was also great fun to hang out with the usual suspects. I enjoyed talking (photo)shop with Nate and Leslie and very pleased to see Nate lugging along his Olympus SLR which is probably close to his age. John, in addition to maintaining his flat ride assessment, was asking how I was liking my Perpetuem diet.
Then came the Second of the Capes. Less than halfway through the ride I found myself spinning (if you can call it that) 40 RPM up the incline and thoroughly regretting my choice of equipment. By the time I reached Pacific City I knew I would have difficulty meeting last year's time, let alone improving on it. I was moving quite deliberately over the Grand Ronde pass when I was joined by Peg W. We shared the hospitality of the motorized users and argued over who had been called sweetie by one of the gentlemen in a pickup truck. "I think he liked you" cooed Peg. I insisted the overture was directed towards her. Finally Peg remarked-"you realize we're arguing over someone with 3 front teeth".
We were joined shortly after arriving at Grande Ronde by several more Randonneurs. At that time, my only goal was finishing within the time limit and was quite happy to have folks to lallygag with. I had similar levels of fatigue at PBP and an AZ 600K that remains my only DNF. It also was clear that it would behoove me to have company as my nighttime navigation talent is minimal.

I was part of various groups for the last stretch for the last 30 miles and relied on Cecil for the last 10 miles or so for navigation and commiseration- I felt that any little bump on the road felt like a hors-category climb and she was feeling likewise. Alas, we earned in a few bonus miles by making a wrong turn less than a mile from the finish. Ouch.

Lessons learned-

I will never, ever do a ride longer than 200K without a 34t cassette again. It's hard to evaluate the effect of carrying less stuff, using light wheels/tires when you're having engine failure from grinding along at 40-50 rpm for a couple of hours.

I felt badly about being less than helpful with nighttime navigation but I don't think my sense of direction will improve anytime soon. So I got a Garmin GPS device the next day. It only has 15 hours of battery life max, but if I only turn it on when it's needed for navigation purposes, it certainly should be sufficient for 600K and under brevets. We'll see.

As for camera choices, I'm glad I took my Leica. I don't use it enough. I'm limited to one lens, one film speed and color or B&W. That approach has its charms.

3 Capes 08

182

That's the highest HR I saw on my computer this month; only one heartbeat off my highest recorded reading. So, why does this merit posting?- because I had not seen anything close to this number since last summer. It provides some objective evidence that I'm close to, if not completely, recovered from the long term fatique that set in last fall.
With that increased friskiness came more options as the new season began this month. I had been looking forward to SIR's Chili Feed brevet. New terrain, a chance to get out of town and a large contingent added to the sense of anticipation. The weather forecast dampened my enthusiam a bit as it did not look promising for photo-ops, but I decided to bring a camera along regardless. The morning began with a steady rain. I was glad that John and Joanne had decided to drive to the start from the Kent Best Westerm. Geri and I had a good look at the hill that I would have had to climb to get to the start while driving to have dinner the night before. Geri had offered to give me a ride to the start if I wasn't able to hook up with John and Joanne.
The rain, the dark, the hustle and bustle at the start of the ride were sorta deja vu all over again.


The snake of red lights at the start of the ride along with the sense of "not quite in control" that rain, darkness and steep downhills brought had a quality that was flat out deja vu and was my sensory highlight of the event.
My priority during the 1st half was to keep up with the mix of riders I found myself with, some of which were familiar faces. A paceline which had formed in the flats after the first control fell apart on the hill prior to the Black Diamond Bakery control.
The following interval felt sluggish. Contributing factors were actually having to read the cue sheet, uncertainty of directions as my computer mileage was off, tightness from staying too long at the control and being bummed at riding by myself. Luckily I only made one wrong turn with a minimal distance penalty. A few riders passed me to both annoying and reassuring effect. Nothing looked particularly photogenic.
Helped by Dave Rowe's friendly wheel I made it into Greenwater. A short stop but enough to provoke a good case of Raynaud's phenomenon. Thereafter, a dyssynchronous return to Kent, including yet another wrong turn.
Dyssynchronicity is, if it's confined to a hobby, not something to lose sleep over. But it makes no sense though to feel bummed about a leisure activity, and so I think about why. Back to too many options. Be social?, ride fast?, take pictures?, eat stuff I like? As I pondered these questions, Beth Hamon and David Rowe posted blog entries that helped me organize my thoughts . Not an easy task which is why this entry posts 2 weeks after the subject Brevet. Doing the right thing requires a truthful answer to the question- what do I want? At this time, if riding fast is the goal, then there's not much room for anything else. I do better with company and that's independent of drafting. I also need to be less self indulgent with chow- for me that means using Perpetuem. My friends know that I have not tasted that stuff since August. Speed is not going to be my goal every time I get on a bike, but sometimes going as fast as I can for a given distance is what I need.

February Sturm und Drang-not.

I grew up in hot to mild weather environments where a warm, sunny day was the default setting- NW Mexico as a kid, So. Calif and the Bay area as an adult. Not having experienced much inclement weather, the variety of weather conditions of the PNW held an attraction dismissed by foul weather refugees as the product of inexperience. Well, 14 years later, I'm still here. My attraction for the variety the PNW offers is leavened by the close relationship one develops with Mother Nature when you commit to spending large chunks of time outdoors on a bicycle. During much of the Fall and Winter Her message is, if not "fear Me", certainly "respect Me". As with other temperamental entities, it's a relationship that can be rewarding, but demanding. I say demanding, but not irrational- Alaska and the upper Midwest come to mind as a frame of reference.
So in the dead of winter, I was bracing for a cold, wet and windy Permanent. I was twice daily looking at the weather forecast that at the start of the week predited a partly sunny weekend. As the weekend neared, I allowed myself to anticipate, if not expect a dry permanent. I can imagine randonneurs in more temperate climates puzzled over someone getting psyched about a "partly sunny, lows in the low 30's and highs in the low 50's" forecast.
I met Lynne at the parking lot and commented what a pretty morning it was. She replied it's 32 degrees right now. We then joined Cecil and Andrew at the Coffee Cottage and embarked on a thoroughly pleasant day.

The temperature warmed quickly, wind was minimal and the route very benign and scenic. I'm familiar to many of the roads on the route, but usually in the context of difficult weather or a more demanding pace. Since Mother Nature was in a kinder, gentler mood it was a good opportunity for photos.

3 Prairies Feb. 08

Nietzsche, schmietzsche- after the last two Permanents, I needed a ride like this.

The Cyclist in Winter

Winter officially began about 3 weeks ago, but it has been feeling like that for 3 months. The trainer is being used more often along with the thought that there has got to be a better way to go about this indoor cycling thing. TACX knows this:

My reality is a little different. Wife banned the trainer from anywhere inside the house.

I hate chandeliers anyway and the longest I can usually stay on a trainer is an hour, so I'll keep my present arrangement.
It's taking me longer to do 200Ks. Finished this latest one with a big 20 minutes to spare. Hey, one is supposed to get better with experience, right? As we were driving to the start in Newberg, the precipitation was a slush of rain and snow. Joanne chirpped that the forecast was for sunshine. I said if the roads were icy, I wasn't riding. We get to the parking lot and John discovered that he 1) did not have his main light battery. He felt that his back up light would be sufficient. Then he found out that 2) he forgot his rain jacket. "That's a show stopper" I muttered. Undaunted, off he goes back to Salem to retrieve the missing items. Joanne and I went to the coffee shop 3 blocks away to wait. At the agreed upon time I went back to the parking lot to look for Paul R. who had drove from Eugene. He had signed up for the same route unaware of our plans. We were happy to have another rider for company. My question for John was- who is Paul? When John was filling me in on the way up by starting with the fellow having some impressive randonneur credentials, I knew immediately who it was. I met him on Salem Bike Club's Peach Century. We both had our PBP jerseys on. He did PBP in less than 80 hours and with plenty of sleep. How am I going to keep up with this guy and a strong tandem?
I was going to take a picture at the coffee shop when I found that my digicam was DNS due to low battery. It spent the 200K in John's car. I've been using old school cameras for 40 years and digicams for the past 4 years and am decidedly ambivalent about the latter. Digital advantages: Don't have to scan, one camera body can serve for low speed, high speed, color and B&W film equivalents. Lots of options in a reasonably sized package. The quality of the Fujifilm S5 is good enough for my purposes. Up to 5 months ago, I could not say that about the prior digicams I had used. Digital disadvantages:between the battery and the camera basically being a computer, the thing either works as designed or not at all. Film advantages: Leicas are essentially very sturdy point and shoots. They have a bomb proof body and an overbuilt shutter. The meter is battery powered, but a spare battery is coin-sized. If for some reason (battery drained has happened twice) the meter doesn't work, exposure for negative film is forgiving and easy to estimate. The rangefinder mechanism is vulnerable, but if it goes out you can focus by guessing the distance. Disadvantages: output is limited to the loaded film's characteristics. Yes color can be converted to monochrome during scanning, but doesn't translate as well as I would like. Unfortunately, scanning technology is not evolving at the same rate as digicam technology (capitalism at work here).
We left about an hour past our official starting time. All of us were prepared for 200K in rain,wind and cold and we rode into a headwind/crosswind for the first third of the ride. There is a great little Mexican food place in Mt. Angel that we have used before as a control. The food and hospitality were wonderful. The tone for the ride was by then apparent- good company rather than competition. The weather also turned relatively benign.
We did have some rough spots on the way back. Hwy 47 was no fun at night in the driving rain with lots of cars, blinding headlights and a narrow shoulder. John and Joanne then had a flat in Forrest Grove with 3 tubes required to repair. We all thought however of our good luck: we were repairing it under an awning and with good lighting instead of say on Hwy 47. We were aware that Paul's R-12 string was at risk if he stayed with us. Much to his credit, comeradeship was more important than the award.
As stated above, we did get back in time. The completion time was nothing to brag about, the conditions were not confortable, no photos to show, but I very much enjoyed the ride due to the company I kept.

R-12

My randonneering experience began this January in Arizona. I first read about PBP in summer of 2006 and participation quickly became a "might be able to do this" sort of idea. With that in mind I did STP (Seattle to Portland) and RSVP Seattle to Vancouver BC). I choose the STP 2 day option over the double century thinking, as I had never done either, better to walk before run. STP was enjoyable and encouraging even with the knowledge that it's a pretty flat course and has the reputation of being a good "starter" event. RSVP was also a very positive experience. I was faced that fall with PBP scheduled in 10 months with those two events and four weeklong bicycling vacations as my limited resume for multi-day events.
So, I figured I'd better get past ideation as soon as possible. I took the last two weeks of December off from bicycling and flew to Arizona the first weekend of January for my first ride over 110 miles. Thirteen brevets later my PBP notion was realized. By then the Randonneur Syndrome had become a chronic condition as opposed to a self limited illness. It manifested itself post PBP as wanting an R-12 award. There were brevets in very scenic areas nearby in September and October. Then the thought process was: hey- just two more rides. I got off pretty easy for November as that ride was pretty benign by Oregon geography and weather standards.
Which brings us to this year-end's Permanent. Temps in the 30's, rain, snow (admittedly just a few minutes at the risk of letting truth get in the way of a good story) and wind in the 20's with gusts in the 30's.
Morning was cold, dry and not very windy.

I began to allow myself to visualize the whole day being like this. Arriving in Silverton, I took off my rain jacket and was warned by Joanne- "now you've done it". Within 10 minutes of this action- even though I had sheepishly put the jacket back on, it began to snow, albeit briefly. Still eventful for a guy who grew up in Mexico and Southern California to be able to say he had his first bicycle ride in the snow. What followed was a relatively pleasant interlude. Shortly after, we experienced the "significant rollers" that Susan noted in the Permanent description. Then the wind and the rain intensified.
We arrived in Scio with only a hour margin at that control. Scio calls itself the covered bridge capital of the west. The bridges are picturesque, but feeling time constraints and having seen the bridges before in better weather, we did not stop until forced to do so.

A truck had not lowered its boom while going through the Gilkey Bridge, leaving it closed to traffic. Hopefully the company who owns the truck will have insurance to fork over the repair bill. It would be a shame to have it replaced by a concrete structure. With apologies to Linn County, we used the damaged bridge to stay on the route. Using the nearby parallel railroad bridge did not strike anybody as a good idea.
As dusk approached we arrived in Salem. The idea of DNFing began to intrude in increasing force as it got darker, colder, wetter,and windier. John and Joanne made no verbalization of anything other than finishing, so I kept these dark thoughts to meself. We arrived in Wilsonville with the help of a tailwind (at last!) for the final 25 miles. Just for kicks we got to ride on the I-5 shoulder just before the end. John and I have done many rides together and I've never seen him so elated at a finish. He asked which was the hardest 200K I'd done. As you might guess, it was this one. It certainly was the one that took me the longest- 11hr 30 min. The conditions were difficult but evidently doable. The next day, with unrelenting rain and winds in the 30's and gusts to 50's, would have been another story- one I'm exceedingly glad not to narrate.

Wine Country Populaire

The Populaire began painfully enough. The only cure for my Raynaud's when it's that cold is to work hard enough to warm up from the inside, as below 35 degrees or so, no thickness or style of glove keeps my fingers from burning at the start of a ride. My legs did not feel my fingers were compromised enough to justify working past a middling amount, so it took about an hour before my hands felt comfortable. After that, between my core and the ambient temperature improving, so did my disposition.
This was one of the two major wine tasting weekends in Yamhill county. We as cyclotouristes duly participated. Entering Carlton I was with the Seattle contingent, who stopped first at Cana's- an impressive enough spot;

but not what Maggie and Eric had in mind. Their idea was a much less conspicuous establishment just outside of town with a small tasting fee, great wine and appetizers. (link to photos from the ride)

Wine Country Populaire

How did they know about this place? Last year, Maggie had been adamant that the only way she was going to stop for wine tasting was if they were offering roadside service. Shortly after saying that, sure enough, Carlo&Julian had greeters at curbside. That was the first wine tasting event for one of their friends and Maggie claims that visit turned him into a wine geek.
This pleasant environment became less so in the afternoon when the motortourists invaded Yamhill County- wanting to take in the bucolic countryside in large numbers, in large vehicles and at 60 mph. Giving credit where it's due, they passed giving a wide berth and slowed down if there was oncoming traffic. I'm thankful that this level of traffic occurs only several times a year in Yamhill, Polk and Marion counties but fearful that in time we'll be no different than Napa and Sonoma.
On returning to Forest Grove, I received some static about my late arrival and enjoyed dinner with the SIR and OR group.
The next day, sure enough, it was blue skies and (slightly) warmer temperatures. Geri and I went back to Carlton on Sunday and stopped by C&J to pick up a half case of wine and then Cana's for wine tasting. We then went to McMinnville to pick op our Christmas tree. Part of me was wondering why it wasn't like this on Saturday, but mostly I was grateful for a dry, safe and fun Thanksgiving weekend.

R11

Signing up for a permanent is kinda like a blind date-agree at your own peril. Not like the weekend club rides where you can look at the weather that AM and decide accordingly. Even more flexibility exists when riding on my own. I looked at the weather sites all week hoping for the best. As Saturday came closer I was pondering the likely reality of a long, cold, wet, and windy ride. I asked myself why am I doing this?- what is the big deal about an R12 award?? Usually I save the inner whimpering dialogue for a painful interlude somewhere along the ride, not before even starting. Conflict led to resolve when John and Joanne called to set up a time and place to meet prior to the ride. These two don't need designations/certificates; they just like long rides.

The ride started as I had hoped it wouldn't- temps in the low 40's, headwinds and driving rains. And the hilly portion of the ride was at the start. I told my fellow travelers that if they wanted to know what a large chunk of PBP was like- well, they were experiencing it. We did get a return on our headwind investment on the way back, which greatly improved my spirits.
Past Amity, John remarked that he was worried about us as he was seeing blue patches of sky. That was accompanied by warming temps and flatter terrain. The remainder of the ride was positively benign. Further on, the Fall skies put on an absolute show. Photographers live for conditions such as were present on Saturday, especially in the late afternoon. A few photos to remember a gorgeous afternoon:

ThreePrairies.Nov.07

Such are the rewards of risky weather, ignoring my inner wimp and having great riding companions.