And more wintry gravel!

Sunday's ride with RJ up Cottonwood Creek/Lone Fir Road produced endorphins, exercise and broken equipment.

Before we got a few blocks, the fender on my mountain bike commuter broke. We tied it to the rack with electrical tape and called it good. By the time we got to Cottonwood Road, I was having a terrible time keeping up with RJ. I looked down when we stopped, and found the source of my slowness: the rest of the fender was now dragging on the rear tire, effectively upping the gear and slowing me down even more than normal. So we removed the fender entirely (see bottom picture) and proceeded to the gravel. It was mostly very rideable until we got to the snow. At that point I got off and walked the 100 yards, and RJ kept going and "cleaned it" without stopping.


When I got home I had that glad-to-be-out of the cold expression.



Here's the remains of the rear fender:





I suppose a fender that lasts ten years gave me my money's worth!

Now, if it can just avoid snowing this weekend, I'll be a happy camper.

What will the satirists do without George?

Courtesy of my list-serve, quotes by George W. Bush, for whom the English language seems to be a foreign tongue:

'The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country.'

'If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.'

'Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child.'

'No senior citizen should ever have to choose between prescription drugs and medicine.'

'I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy -
but that could change.'

'One word sums up probably the responsibility of any Governor, and that one
word is 'to be prepared'.'

'Verbosity leads to unclear , inarticulate things.'

'I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future.'

'The future will be better tomorrow.'

'We're going to have the best educated American people in the world.'

'One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic
pictures.' (during an education photo-op)

'Illegitimacy is something we should talk about in terms of not having it.'

'We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur.'

'It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our
air and water that are doing it .'

'I stand by all the misstatements that I've made.'

And here is one from his press conference just a couple days ago:

"I think the press has misunderestimated me..."

No, I don't think that they did!

Waitsburg for Barley Wine

On Sunday, RJ suggested that we ride to Waitsburg. I said, okay, that sounds fine. Then she added, we can go to the Laht Neppur brewery while we're there. I thought that she was joking until she asked me where our empty growler was. She was serious!

So, off we went via Lower Waitsburg. There were the obligatory picture taking stops, which were cold due to the wind, especially as I had stupidly forgot to wear my wool jersey. Here is a photo of me bundled up while RJ took pictures of the old Waitsburg flour mill:



To our delight, our friends Clint and Patty were at Laht Neppur. RJ and I ordered a small pizza (carbs, you know), and visited while the owners plied us with small samples. We picked out the barley wine for the growler. When we went to pay, there was an added surprise as our friends had picked up our tab!


Despite the added weight of the full growler, RJ still was about a thousand yards ahead of me at the top of the Waitsburg hill. As Clint told me the next day, he wasn't surprised about RJ toting her growler up the hill at mach 3 . . . barley wine can be very motivating.

The headwind added a high degree of difficulty up the hill for us lesser mortals. If hills were given a degree of difficulty like different swimming dives are (the half-pike, the 3 1/2 twist, the whoop-dee-doo), then the Waitsburg hill with a howling headwind is the whoop-dee-doo, and pretty near to the top of degree of difficulty for me.

New Year's Day ride

What a great way to start off the New Year - going for a ride with RJ! As always, she leads me into adventures, such as this gravel pit. Even with the classic wool Whitman jersey, it was damn cold when we weren't riding because of the wind coming off of the then snowy mountains.

Like a couple of kids let out of school unexpectedly, we bopped on out.



Tucked away in the blade of the bulldozer - perfect for a hobbit hiding from the winter wind.

Base training benefits

Yes-sir, you can see that RJ is getting the full benefit of my training session yesterday! She is such an advanced cyclist that she can absorb the benefits of my training just be being in proximity to my sweat. I wonder if I will ever become so adept at training by proximity?

Are there potential weight loss benefits to be had by sitting next to a skinny person? Can you get smarter by sitting next to a genius? Is there a whole world of "proximity benefits," just waiting to be tapped?

And now, a word from my heroes

A family from Walla Walla spent last summer pedaling across the United States. That is enough to make any family of four a heroic one in my book, but in this case the mom has Multiple Sclerosis, and the kids were only 10 and 12 years old. The kids each took turns riding behind one of the parents on their tandems, switching from Dad's "bad bike" (a standard tandem) to Mom's "good bike" (a recumbent tandem) each day. Plus, there were no electronics on the trip so everyone had to talk to each other.

Listen to the link below for the NPR story on them:


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98591972


Here's a link to their blog of their journey together:

http://www.shut-up-and-pedal.blogspot.com/

An amazing feat in my book, and is a lesson to me about determination, planning and just plain fun.

It's baaack!

Sigh. The snow is back, only one day after I finally got to go outside and ride my bike. After my first ride outside in a month, I felt as if I had been let out of jail. Now, it's like the white prison walls are back.