Cyclocross racing

I went with Nick to his cyclocross race in Tacoma today. The race was held at Fort Steilacoom park - a really interesting place if you’ve never been there. There is an actual fort which is perched on the only hill in the park. Trails criss-cross the hill and lead around a Greenlake-sized pond below. Large grassy fields would be ideal for running our dog, if we had one.

I had a little time before the race to explore the course and find good spots for photographing the action. I wandered up to the fort and found it in ruins, covered with grafitti. A high fence with razor wire surrounded it (a fort around the fort?), but someone cut a large hole in the fence making it possible to walk around inside.

I was there to see the race, though, so I wandered back to the start. I still don’t have my 28-105mm lens back from the repair shop, so I shot with my 75-300mm lens. It was an interesting excercise in being forced to fill the frame with the scene. I focused on riders faces at the start and managed to capture a priceless one of Nick and the guy next to him.

After the gun went, I hurried over to a section of the course called a “run up.” Officials direct the course at various points up really steep hills, so steep that the only way to get up it is to get off your bike and carry it up. Three seconds after this picture below was taken Nick passed the guy in front of him. (I was too busy cheering to take a picture.)

In the end, too many things went wrong with Nick’s bike to allow him a great finish. It did come down to a short sprint at the end with this guy.

Nick beat him of course

Quote of the day: “My legs felt great, but my lungs felt like they were going to come out my ears.” - Nick

New Bicyclette!

After months of agonizing over the choices, I finally bought my very own road bike frame today! To celebrate, Nick and I popped open a bottle of Red Bicyclette merlot with dinner - mmmm!

In a few weeks, I’ll be the proud owner of a Marinoni Ciclo, custom built to my size and riding requirements. It will fade from Curacao in the front to Astro on the rear triangle and be totally badgeless, except for a silver Marinoni “M” on the headtube. Very stealth.

Now I have the pleasure of picking every little part to build the frame into a bike. Campagnolo or ShimaNO? (Wait...that’s a no-brainer.) Chorus or Record? Double or Triple? And that’s just the start!

Cat Haikus

Uniquely Japanese, haiku as a form of poetry seems uniquely suited to felines - I could almost imagine them being our cat’s preferred form of communication!

I received the following in an email. I believe they were collected various places off the Internet. Sorry there is no attribution.

The food in my bowl
Is old, and more to the point
Contains no tuna.
----
So you want to play.
Will I claw at dancing string?
Your ankle’s closer.
----
There’s no dignity
In being sick - which is why
I don’t tell you where.
----
Seeking solitude
I am locked in the closet.
For once I need you.
----
Tiny can, dumped in
Plastic bowl. Presentation,
One star; service: none.
----
Am I in your way?
You seem to have it backwards:
This pillow’s taken.
----
Your mouth is moving;
Up and down, emitting noise.
I’ve lost interest.
----
The dog wags his tail,
Seeking approval. See mine?
Different message.
----
My brain: walnut-sized.
Yours: largest among primates.
Yet, who leaves for work?
----
Most problems can be
Ignored. The more difficult
Ones can be slept through.
----
My affection is conditional.
Don’t stand up,
It’s your lap I love.
----
Cats can’t steal the breath
Of children. But if my tail’s
Pulled again, I’ll learn.
----
I don’t mind being
Teased, any more than you mind
A skin graft or two.
----
So you call this thing
Your “cat carrier.” I call
These my “blades of death.”
----
Toy mice, dancing yarn
Meowing sounds. I’m convinced:
You’re an idiot.

Big Ride - Final Update

Posted by Nick:

Greetings from home.

Following a rest day in Fort Bragg that included another vegetable-intensive breakfast, lunch at the brewery, and my lurking cold finally fully developing, we set out on a 112-mile death march to Bodega Bay, filming location for Hitchcock’s The Birds.

While the other Big Riders were laughing at me behind my back while doing their laundry, I was talking to a well-tattooed local who was interested in our trip, thought what we were doing was awesome and, most importantly, told me to visit Glass Beach.

Glass Beach is an old garbage dump on waterfront in Fort Bragg. I don’t know the specifics, but it looks like somebody covered the dump with fill dirt and tried to turn it into a park. As the ocean eats away at the shoreline, it exposes buried garbage that has become fused to the dirt and rocks. The beach surface is equal parts small pebbles and tumbled glass from broken bottles. It sounds sick to admire the tenacity of the garbage, but it’s really quite beautiful. It’s a wild experience to stand on a shimmering floor of green and blue and white and brown and purple and red. Dan, the guy who told me about the beach, said people go there and collect bits of glass to use in mosaics. Jutting out of the glass were rocks with sparkplugs, shoes, hubcaps and bits of rebar embedded. Fossils already. As I said, the tenacity of our garbage was amazing and shocking. It doesn’t go away.

With my cold now in full swing, I wearily pedaled back to camp and tried to take a nap while our campsite mates Dave and Karen cleaned bikes and Carry read the latest Northwest Brewing News. We walked to a very cool and pretty crowded Mexican restaurant just outside the campground for dinner. I had meatball soup and was grateful for the salty broth.

The day after our rest day featured the same relentless rollers that characterized the last part of the day before. A never-ending series of sweeping descents to the left followed by a sharp right-hand bend and a climb back to the level you started from. “Why not just build bridges?” we wondered. This was a long day. I rode with Carry the whole time and we rolled into camp at about 6:00 in the evening. Dinner was at 6:30. Many people came in on the support vehicles, with the exception of a few riders who managed to miss the sweep cars and cruised into camp, 24 oz. cans of Fosters held triumphantly aloft, well after dark.

The last two days were uneventful from a riding and scenery perspective. Carry and I had been craving a dinner of bread, fruit, cheese and wine for a week now. En route to our final campsite, we stopped in Point Reyes and purchased said items. The entire group was jealous. “You guys have cheese. Oh my, you guys have (gasp) strawberries!” Good times at the campfire.

On our final cruise into San Francisco, we passed through Sausalito. If I were a billionaire, I would move there. I loved its pedestrian-friendly layout, narrow streets with wide sidewalks, abundance of useful shops including the coolest bike shop I’ve ever been in. I loved how the houses are built almost on top of each other on the hillsides, attempting to maximize the number of people who could live with the view.

I’d visited San Francisco often during my sailing career, racing frequently out of the St. Francis Yacht Club, practically underneath the Golden Gate Bridge. I’d never been on the bridge though. It’s a major bicycle route so it was busy. The temperatures were chilly, the bay was foggy and of course windy. Nonetheless, I was pretty excited to be up there, looking down on the Saturday morning yachting scene, riding my bike through throngs of tourists exiting their busses at Golden Gate Park.

I relished the cruise through the Presidio and along the waterfront, visiting the beach where, while competing in a major collegiate sailing invitational regatta about nine years ago, under the watchful eyes of competitors and coaches alike, I turned my boat parallel to the beach to land oblivious to the huge wave about to hit me beam on. The boat rose up on the wave and suddenly dropped away, leaving my crew, Tracy, and I to gracelessly back flip into the Bay. Fond memories.

Just when we thought the end (hot showers) was near, calamity arose. It was about 12:30 and our hotel wasn’t ready for 41 sweaty cyclists to arrive in their lobby wanting to change clothes and clean up. Refusing to check anyone into a dirty room, we were left to park bikes in the lobby and sit around looking kind of gross. Rooms came available as they were cleaned, but it had me wondering why they couldn’t simply let us in our rooms so we could drop off luggage and take a shower, cleaning the room when they could get to it. Somebody tell me why I can’t take a shower while the sheets are still dirty. We wrapped our bikes in our Big Mr. Squishy Therm-a-Rests for the truck ride home, took showers and hit the town.

Transitioning back to civilization was not as difficult this time. We’d visited towns all along the coast so the shock of walking down a crowded street was not as pronounced as it had been when we returned from hiking the West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island a few years ago. What was shocking, however, was how slow it felt to walk. I usually walk a little faster than most. The crowds packing the sidewalks at Fisherman’s Wharf and along the waterfront were spending a lot of time stopping, walking suddenly diagonally, and generally not adhering to the iron-clad rules of traffic management. We just about went nuts! All these people are going, what, four miles per hour? Ridiculous! ?If you can’t handle the pace, get off the sidewalk!? I wanted to shout. I had, after all, spent the last two weeks traveling at an average of 17 miles per hour.

I would do this again in a heart beat, though I would prefer to do it properly, with a small group of friends and carrying our own gear, like Carry and I did on our honeymoon. I’ve always wanted to ride this stretch of road, particularly in Oregon, but I’ve always been curious about California as well. I would like to finish the west coast, from San Francisco to Mexico. I’d like to go north into Canada.

Riding your bike is an incredible way to tour. You get to see more, smell more, stop for coffee in more interesting places and meet some very interesting people. I feel like a more complete cyclist.

Control

"A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it."
- John Steinbeck