Carry your own TP!

So, if life is giving you you-know-what, carry your own T.P.! I had a sizable package of toilet paper in my office closet that Monte & Sue had picked up for me at Costco last weekend. I hadn't gotten around to bringing it home in the car because the one time I drove the car this week I forgot to bring it home.
Thanks in large part to RJ's example of how much you really can carry on your bike, I thought I'd give taking the toilet paper home on my commuter a try. You can read about her latest on the bike load here.
As you can see, my "haul" worked out fine. As I rode home I must admit that I had visions of hitting a pothole and having rolls of toilet paper rolling all over the road! And I most certainly did get a lot of second looks as I pedaled home.

Good News, Bad News

The good news is that people in Walla Walla are driving 6% less than they did last year, and by the end of the year, it's expected that it will be 10% less. So, less traffic, and probably more pedestrians and cyclists. Cool, right?
The bad news is that the city's road maintenance funds come from the gas tax, so that less driving means less money for road work. Specifically, it means less money for repairing or adding to our barely visible bike lanes.
More and better bike lanes would result in more adults riding for transportation. I'd be interested to hear from anyone with ideas to get bike lanes higher in the priority list.

An unexpected call

I received an unexpected call to speak at a legal seminar in September (in the biz we call them CLEs, continuing legal education, 45 hours of which is required every 3 years of all practicing attorneys in Washington) on bicycle law and how to handle a bicycle case. It's an honor to be asked, and is certainly something which I care passionately about. Methinks it will be a lot of work, but I think the opportunity will be rewarding.

Still doggone sore

Okay, it's been seven days since STP. I expected my legs to be tired, but I didn't expect that my are sore when I turn the pedals.
They feel all right spinning slowly to work. But when I get out on the road, which I did Wednesday morning and this morning, they just plain ache deep down. Today the Hailstoners were going up Kooskooskie, and I turned around at Blue Creek. I figured if the legs were hurting it was time to go home.
I really, really, never remember having this happen before a week out. I thought by now I would just be rockin' strong.
Maybe I got dehydrated in the heat last week. I know that we didn't get anything to eat for nearly two hours after the finish, due to rounding everyone up, packing up the two rigs and getting our food at Red Robin.
Maybe I went really deep in my effort. That is true, for sure.
Anyway, I expect that some day my legs will feel like cyclist's legs again. I hope that day is soon!

My kind of mentality

This was written by Scott Martin, who used to write for Bicycling magazine. Maybe I can adopt his techniques on my next group ride:

:SCOTT'S SPIN

Mentally Challenged

I'm riding with two buddies, Jim and Larry. We're part way up a long climb and Jim is setting a fierce pace. Larry and I are groveling; we'll be dropped quicker than you can say, "Darn right I want fries with that."

Oh-so-casually, Larry declares: "Only three miles to the top."

"What?" says Jim, who hasn't been on this road in years. "I thought this was the top." Immediately his speed drops by 4 mph.

Larry, bless him, has just demonstrated the first law of competitive cycling: If you can't be good, be sneaky.

Yes, to paraphrase Yogi Berra, 50% of cycling is 90% mental. There's nothing like a strategically placed comment to throw your hated opponents -- I mean, beloved riding partners -- off their game.

But you have to move beyond the "your Momma's so ugly she gets her nails done by the vet" trash talk that passes for wit in most sports. Why? Because (a) cyclists are too smart to fall for that, and (b) cyclists care way more about, oh, their bottom brackets than they do about their mothers.

Here, then, is some talk to talk when you can't walk the walk:

You: "It's great you've gotten so many miles out of that carbon handlebar."
Your ride partner: "Do you think my handlebar's defective? Was that a creak? Maybe I shouldn't pull up so hard. Oh God, don't let me crash."

You: "It's all downhill."
Your ride partner: "Phew, I'm exhausted. What? Another hill? I thought you said . . . ."

You: "That looks like a really warm jersey."
Your ride partner: "Maybe I'm over-dressed. I'm really sweating. I am over-dressed. I hope I don't get heat stroke."

You: "You know . . . ."
Your ride partner: "Shut up!"

Event Day

Why am I smiling? Because it's over! Because I had a great time (except for miles 155 - 185). This photo was taken at the Red Robin at about 11:30 p.m.. Having been up since 3:45 a.m., it's pretty amazing that I remembered how to smile. My readership are probably all aware of what a non-night owl that I am.



Here I am at the finish line area.



Below, Jon Bren, glad to be done. He was awesome strong that day. His GPS got us to our hotel that night. Otherwise, I think we'd still be wandering around Portland. Jon also brought along enough bottles of Gatorade to keep the whole crew awash. He didn't want to get dehydrated, I guess. He also gave us his usual financial seminar when we were traveling. Did you know that most of the plastic bottles which we put into recycling bins are recycled in China? Most of the US plastic bottles are made out of NEW oil. Something is wrong with this picture. The Chinese buy our recycling and ship it across the ocean and make new bottles.




As usual, Tom Baffney manages to look mischevious even after 12 hours on the bike. He was wasted, though, and I don't mean from drinking. I don't think that I've ever seen him as tired as he was afterwards.


STP gives you an opportunity to see the whole spectrum of bikes and riders. One lady on a recumbent had a custom blue, flowered fabric "fairing" which made her aerodynamic and kept sunburn away.

Another group riding together had pipe cleaner head-dresses sticking out of their helmets.

My favorite, though, was the group with the "All winos, all the time" jerseys. We seemed to go about the same pace, because we kept passing and being passed by them.

Our fellow Walla Walla entrants riding in a separate group had a terrible time with flat tires. Walt Keyes had 4 flats (count 'em four), and Clint had one. About 5 miles from the end when they had the last flat, they were out of tubes and patches. Phil Kress came along and saved the day, donating his spare tube and helping them to get it changed. Hooray for Phil.

We had four 60 year old riders: Jon Bren, Tom Baffney, Phil Kress and Wally Fisher. Phil's daughter had given us a zipped up picnic container with a note: "do not open until the finish." Well, we were all so tired that we had no thought of opening anything except the bedcovers to crash.

We did open the package when we got back to Walla2. It contained a note from Courtney, "If this is what you do for your 60th year, what are you going to do for your 70th - the Ironman?"
In the package was gin, tonic water, lime juice, a lime, plastic cups and instructions for making our celebratory gin and tonics. We managed nicely!

A few pictures

To begin the journey, RJ delivered my luggage on her Surly/Extracycle, while I rode my bike up to Tom Baffney's with her. STP is a bike event, after all, right?


This is on of our custom "Hailstone" jerseys made up for our group. Hailstone refers to a particularly bad weather day many years ago involving an unexpected hail storm near Waitsburg. The group of highly educated and supposedly intelligent people took refuge during the lightning and hailstorm in a metal barn.
To be a true Hailstone rider, one must ride your bike in a hailstorm in the company of at least one other official Hailstone rider. Or something like that! I must confess I wasn't on the original ride, but have been well inducted into the clan by a number of hailstorms over the years.

The bright jerseys helped us to spot each other when we got separated from the other 9 Hailstoners among 9,000 of our closest cycling friends.


Here we are, posed for a group photo at Baffney's house, all fresh and eager. Included is Kim Hause, one of the rider's wives and our truly awesome support driver. Our other equally able support driver was taking the picture, supporting us already.

STP in a Day - well, almost!

This is a shortened version of the actual event weekend for my adoring fans. I made it 185 out of 202 miles. Except for the last two hours, the whole trip was a blast, the culmination of months of preparation and sacrifice, by not only me, but by Jim as well.
It was already 57 degrees on Saturday morning at 5 a.m. when we lined up at the start line at the UW stadium parking lot. It got hotter. A lot hotter. When I stopped it was 93 degrees; even at 11:30 p.m. when we left the restaurant and went on our meandering trip to our hotel it was still 85 degrees, and riders were still arriving. Obviously, I wasn't the only one who had a problem with the heat.
What will I remember fondly? The joy of a road trip with my cycling friends, in particular Tom Baffney, Jon Bren and Phil Kress, with whom I have ridden for nearly 20 years. This was Jon's one and only STP in a day, and I absolutely agree with him that neither of us needs to repeat this taxing experience.
Then there was the joy of hearing one of the guys at almost every stop-light or stop sign saying "Where's Deb?" There were quite a number of times when I got separated from them, but one of them always dropped back to "pull" me back. It was such a time of camraderie and I appreciated their efforts to help me. In St. Helens, at 175 miles, I was ready to quit. I was gagging when I just tried to swallow. Nevertheless, Phil was encouraging me to solider on like the good coach that he is. He said "I know you can do 10 miles, Deb, I know you can." So, I did, with him slowing to my turtle-like pace. But after those 10 miles, I knew that it was indeed time to stop, as I felt that I could no longer ride safely. So, I feel entirely satisfied with my effort and achievement. Here's a picture:

A scary sight

There was a bike-car accident that happened a couple of blocks ahead of me on 2nd at Chestnut as I rode to work this morning. Fortunately, I didn't see it happen, but it still shook me up pretty good. There were 3 cop cars there with their lights flashing. A witness told me that the elderly driver just came up behind the bike, hit the bike and she went onto his hood. The cops were talking to him and were picking up the bike to take it to the police station. I pulled ahead of one of the cop cars and kind of tried to get myself together. It was time for a Pepcid complete when I got to work, for sure. sigh. Just didn't need to see that two days before STP.

Five days to go!

Now I'm in the tapering phase. There's no use trying to build on more endurance. If I don't have it by now, fuhgeddaboutit. Friday morning I did 45 miles - up the bike path and 5 Mile hill with the group, then I backtracked up Kooskooskie, and back up over 5 mile, down Russell Creek and home.

The legs are feeling good, the mind is just a little antsy. Can I do it? Yeah, I'm pretty sure.

Will I get over-cooked too soon in the paceline? Maybe. Hopefully I'll have the good sense to stay within myself and just drop off the back if I need to. The adrenaline will be there first thing in the morning for everybody, myself included.

On another topic, we had the great pleasure of meeting and starting to get to know RJ's folks. We had a great time at the Farmers Market on Saturday morning, and then RJ rented them bikes and we rode out to the airport for wine tasting (gotta have motivation) and some great iced lattes at the Walla Walla Roastery. You can read more about our adventures here.
I'm looking forward to hearing more about their biking adventures in the future. Go Team Jensen!

Ann Ride Photos

A great time was had by all!

Ann Ride - Packing it in (or up)

Just a couple of pics to show the take-down process from the June 21 Ann Ride:



RJ lets loose at the end of a long day and long week of running the event! Yes - we did it!



How very much stuff Gus-Gus, the family 1994 Suburban can really haul.