Mountain Bike Bliss at Hagg Lake

Going to school during the summer had many nasty side effects, one of which was that I didn’t ride my mountain bike on one single trail for the entire summer. The closest I got was doing a few short track races at PIR, which, being 10 minutes by bike from home is pretty convenient. Still, last summer, I did both Mountain Bike Oregon Weekends and even managed to run off to Bend with my girlfriend. I couldn’t stomach the idea that my poor steed wouldn’t touch a trail in 09.

Luckily when I sent out a desperate call for a last minute riding buddy, Zan replied. She shuffled a few meetings around and suddenly we had a whole Friday to search out and ride that sweetest of mountain biker drugs—singletrack.

I perused my stack of little-used guide books and we narrowed the choices to either Post Canyon in Hoodriver, or Hagg Lake, just an hour west of Portland. Since we were looking for something a little more cross country, than freeride oriented, we chose Hagg Lake, and to say we weren’t disappointed would be an understatement.

As Zan was loading my bike onto her car rack, I heard her yelling out the name of a mutual friend who was just riding up to my neighbor’s house to go on a road ride with them.  When we mentioned our chosen destination, her look was not very approving. “Is the trail bad,” we asked, concerned.

“No, it was just a little buggy.”

Since fall was well underway, we figured that wouldn’t be a problem.

We parked near the dam and entered the trail having no idea what we would find. The weather was as perfect as we could ask for—a picturesque fall day with full sun and a light breeze. The trail started out mellow, winding gently through a tunnel of trees.  For about 90 seconds I found myself thinking, “This is nice…I could even bring Jess out here*.” Then things got interesting.

The trail started to dish out surprises—going from smooth and flowy in one second to sudden turns revealing small, but lung/leg-busting little hills that would leave you walking if you weren’t geared down and ready for them.  I become more alert and more excited. My smile got bigger. Dragonflies darted in and out of my path but there wasn’t a mosquito to be found.

About 15 minutes in, we made a hard right turn into a sharpe, longish off-camber incline with enough exposure to make me rethink my attempt to ride it. It was one of the many sections we encountered that I thought might be rideable on a second pass. But such is the fun of exploring a new trail. You don’t know what’s coming so you just have to stay focused and try to react without letting your brain get in the way. When we started, I felt like I didn’t even remember how to ride over bumps, but after a little while, I started to loosen up.

The biggest surprise of the day was finding out pretty quickly that I’m a  more advanced MTB rider than Zan.  Zan is an Ironman and a regular racer with our team and could easily hand me my ass on the road, without even breathing heavy (which is good since she has asthma). In fact the one road ride that Jess and I took with Zan a couple of summers ago, she was recovering from a bad cold and her lungs were still pretty weak, which was the only reason we managed any semblance of keeping up. 

Mountain biking seems to require just the kinds of sudden hard efforts that asthma probably doesn’t like—and hills are more challenging because you’re also navigating obstacles. We quickly fell into a routine, with me riding in front so I could keep my rhythm going and just stopping every few minutes to wait.  It gave me a chance to enjoy the scenery and stop and smell—well if not the roses, then the trees.

The nice thing about riding around a lake, is that you don’t have to do a lot of way finding. For the most part when we encountered forks in the trail, we just kept turning right. We did take a few wrong turns, which ended us either at a cliff overlooking the water or in one case, a disc golf course ‘hole.’ We just counted it all as part of the adventure.

It’s a good thing there weren’t many bugs because they might have ended up in my teeth. The smiling was pretty constant and I kept suppressing the urge to shout for no reason—and sometimes I didn’t bother. I felt like Hiro after he teleported to NY for the first time.

Zan and I couldn’t figure out why no one had ever mentioned how extremely awesome the Hagg Lake trail is. Even Danielle hadn’t said anything that morning. Maybe the bugs were so bad, she had blocked out the good memories.

There seemed to be a bit of everything to be had.  As we worked our way around, skinny tunnels through trees gave way to wider bits of double track along open fields, which turned into literal singe-track—divets through high grasses just big enough for our fat tires.

About two thirds of the way around, we got going after a photo stop and I got into a particularly good groove. The trail was throwing some challenging hills, but I went into the zone and powered up them.  Then there would be the descent and some flowing curves. I was killing it, and I could hear Zan right behind me, which kept me motivated to go faster.

Finally the trail opened up again and I pulled to one side of a double track section, and a guy I didn’t know whooshed past, yelling “Wow, you’re in really good shape!” as he went by.

Oh crap! All that time I thought it was Zan! “I thought you were my friend!” I yelled as he pedaled away.  It wasn’t long before the real Zan came pedaling up. She had heard him coming in pretty hot and pulled over right away. It’s kind of hard to look over your shoulder on the trail. It’s a good way to run into a tree. No harm done and we continued on our way.

All too soon, we could see the dam and the road going over it that meant our perfect trail was near it’s end. A short pavement stint took as back to the parking lot where we sat on a picnic bench and ate snacks. Zan introduced me to something called Primal Strips that look and taste like jerky but are vegan. You can pick gluten free or ones made without soy. They were pretty tasty and I couldn’t wait to try them out on Jess.

Two fishermen wandered over looking every inch the part except for one guy with an incongruous Livestrong bracelet. He inquired whether we had ridden around the lake, the distance and how long it took. “That’s longer than I need to ride,” was his conclusion. He saw us struggling to open up our Primal strips and kindly offered up his friend’s pocket knife, which he promised hadn’t been used on any fish. Since the knife was about 2 inches long, I figured he was telling the truth.

He was inspired to tell us about his son, who did a triathlon nearby and how he talked his girlfriend—who had never run before in her life—into doing a half-ironman. “It was a big race—they had real Ironmen from Hawaii and everything.”

Zan was quiet, and by the greatest effort of will, I refrained from bragging for her about her Ironman status. She had just showed me her new tattoo of her Ironman Canada number before we started the ride. But Zan’s not one for showing off, so I kept my mouth shut.

“Did she break up with him?” I asked the fisherman, about the girlfriend. Jess wasn’t happy with me for taking her on a 65 mile ride of all hills in the coast range. I could just imagine the reaction of someone who had never run trying to do a triathlon with little no training.

He laughed. “Well, things were tense for a while and I don’t think there was a lot of lovin’ going on.” He didn’t quite have an accent, but he drawled in a way particular to people who’s lives are slower-paced than city dwellers.

We we quiet then, going back to our respective enjoyment of what would turn out to be one of the last gorgeous days of fall.

On the drive back, we hit the inevitable traffic snarl on Hwy 26, and Zan had the brilliant idea of getting of at Sylvan and taking Skyline to Germantown Rd and over the St John’s bridge. It’s a road she’s ridden dozens of times, but had never driven. After we’d passed a few cyclist on the narrow road with more than it’s share of blind corners, she wondered aloud how they ever survived riding up there!

Of course we hit another parking lot on the road as we got to the bottom of Germantown, but it didn’t take too long to inch our way onto the bridge entrance. Zan pulled over to let a tailgating guy in an 80’s red Prelude pass by before he smashed up the bikes on the rear rack.

The whole day made me simultaneously glad I’d managed at least one MTB ride and kicking myself for not somehow squeezing in more of them over the summer. I’ll be holding onto the memory of smooth flowing trail under a bright blue sky to see me through a long winter of gray.

Cherry Blossom Classic

As the date of this bicycle race, cosponsored by my team Sorella Forte, got closer, I started grumbling more. What was I thinking, agreeing to spend my last weekend of an already too-short spring break--and I use the word 'break' loosely-- standing around the side of the road in The Dalles, OR?

But it was too late to back out. At the least, I figured I'd get far enough east to get a little sun. So, after spending most of the day Friday putting the last touches on our newly painted office, I packed (I used the word 'packed' loosely) up too much and not enough stuff and headed east.  I took my Cross Check, figuring that any riding I might have a chance to do would be more commute style than recreational road riding. My poor roadie definitely needs some love though.

I left after 7:00pm, late enough to miss rush hour traffic. My energy was good and so was my iPod mix and the drive out was not bad, as drives go, until I got into town and mis-read the directions. I turned left off the exit, which took me straight into Washington.  Not good. I turned around and stopped at the gas station to get directions, turning off a song that might get me shot before getting out of the car. The guy in the gas station was very nice and gave me a free map.  A few more missed turns in the dark and I finally arrived at my host  house, home of Tara, her daughter Leanna and their incredibly cute dog, Milo. Milo unfortunately stays in an outdoor kennel all the time or I would have been happy to sleep with him.

The back door was open with a welcoming note to come in and make ourselves at home.  Leanna was the only one home, sharing her mom's room for the weekend and allowing one of us volunteers to take over her (very pink) room.  Jen's bag was already stashed in there, so I took the 'designated teen room' with a much more sleep-compatible color palatte. 

I took the sign at it's word and settled in the living room to catch the end of Dollhouse.  Tara came home shortly after that though so we ended up chatting instead.  I could tell instantly that she was very sweet (she was letting a bunch of strangers invade her home after all) and very involved in the community. She told me about her work with Haven, a shelter for domestic violence victims.  I got a tour of the kitchen and she'd bought all kinds of muffins, fruit trays, juice and coffee for us. 

Jen came home a bit later and we had a chance to talk some too. The best part of the weekend was definitely spending time and actually having conversations with my team mates. Since I don't race and don't show up to the group rides (thanks in part to the school black hole I'm in for at least another two years), I rarely get to see them, and have a terrible time remembering names when I do.  Jen is doing some really interesting work with her consulting firm so we geeked out about web stuff for a while. Then she wisely went to bed, while I unwisely stayed up way too late reading Ghost Trails.

In the morning I reported to the defunct Petersburg school and checked in with Shari. She sent me to join Deb and Maureen at the turn off to the parking lot at the school and direct folks to the start line, two miles further up the road. I drove back down and parked next to Deb, but they warned that the property owner might be a little crotchety about having more than one car there. So I took the opportunity to go back to the school and ride my bike the half mile back to our spot. Whoo hoo, I used my bike, yay! 

There we proceeded to talk and shiver in the sunny, but 35 degree morning air. Even with the cold, time flew by until they both left for a nature break and ended up going on errands for Shari for an hour. And me with no book to read. And despite packing everything under the sun, I had left my mittens at home, which I was sorely regretting.  So I did jumping jacks in between directing riders on high end, funny looking time trial bikes to turn left to get to the start.  It was funny when I told them it was two miles up the road and some of them reacted with a look that clearly said, that far? To which I replied, "You're a racer, you can make it!" 

Eventually my companions returned and we resumed gossiping about everything from the common tax bracket of most racers (those bikes are pricey, and the crashes inevitable), to the sexual orientation of the racing community at large (overwhelmingly straight among men, in fact the three of us couldn't think of one gay male racer). This confounded Mo's sheltered coworker, who assumed that any sport with that much spandex must be crawling with homos.

The temperature eventually rose to more pleasant levels and a coffee fairy came by with Starbucks *and* condiments.

The time trial was over at 11am, at which point we were released from duty for a few hours, until the afternoon criterium.  As I drove back toward Tara's, I crested a hill and was literally stunned by the majestic view of a snowy Mt Hood,  framed by a cloudless blue sky.

We met up at Tara's, where Maureen would be taking over the pink room that night. Then we went into town for some lunch.  When we asked locals about food places, the choices read like a who's who of fast food joints: McDonalds, Subway, Carl's Jr, Burgerville...and Taco Del Mar.  Deb decided on TDM. It was actually the nicest location I'd been to and they had free wifi.  Who says you can't get modern conveniences in small towns?

When we showed up downtown later, we were put on corner marshal duty for the criterium. Our job was to keep people from crossing the street in front of the racers. It's amazing how easy it is to control a crowd when there's no actual crowd. It was a pretty chill assignment and of course, the racing provided great entertainment. And did I mention the sun was out?  My corner mate Connie, a resident of The Dalles, even traded corners with me so I could shelter behind a building and out of the ever present wind. 

Towards the end of the women's 1/2/3 race, my team mate Sage came over to visit. As a mountain bike racer, Sage was out of her element, but had decided to dip her toe just once in the road racing pool.  I left her to guard my post for a few minutes while I found the loo and when I came back, all hell had broken loose. There was a nasty crash as the women came out of the turn on the last corner of the race.  I heard talk of broken ribs, femurs, concussions. I was kind of glad I didn't see the crash. I think those things are much more bearable to watch on TV. In the end, four riders went away in three ambulances and the men's race was shortened  by fifteen minutes because of the delay.

The men's pro race went off without any mishaps and all the exciting race tactics you'd expect from a pro race. It's amazing how they make the beginning riders look like they're out for a sunday stroll. There's an audible whoosh when they go by. It's pretty cool.

When the racing was over, we worked well into the evening breaking down all the equipment, including the scafolding over the finish line.  The weekend definitely made me appreciate all the work that goes into pulling off a successful bike race.  The owner of the pizza shop came out when we were nearly finished and offered the nectar of the gods--FREE BEER! Everyone become very excited except for me of course. I managed to get a free juice instead and we all hung out and talked of bikes and racing and sun, sweet sweet vitamin-D-giving sun, till the owner brought out a mop and kicked us out. 

When I got 'home' Lorraine, a new team member, also joined us at the house. Lorraine is in nursing school and I have plenty of experience listening to nurses bitch about work, so I listened while she told me about some evil biddy who's making her clinical training extra challenging. I could tell from the way she handled the situation that she has zero tolerance for B.S. and she's going to be a fantastic nurse. 

My phone service said 'extended' from the moment I arrived in town, so instead of calling Jess each night, we used Google voice chat, which worked quite well.  Her laptop doesn't have video but hearing her voice was better than texting.  I once again stayed up too late with Jill's Ghosts, and then slept poorly on top of it, thanks to a second TDM burrito brought around for free to the course marshalls. Yeah, burrito for lunch and dinner with no Beano wasn't really a great plan.

The next morning it was off to the Gorge Discovery Center for the start of the final stage of the race.  This was a road race on a 28 mile loop course featuring several evil climbs. When you turn onto a road that's named Seven Mile Hill Rd, there really can't be any good in store.  The cat 4 women only had to do one loop, but everyone else did 2-3 turns around the course.  My station was at the turn off to Seven Mile Hill Rd, and my job was just to make sure the racers turned onto the right road on the three way fork.

The races went off three at a time with about 10 minutes in between. On the first lap, the peloton was still all together with the lead car in front, so I really wasn't necessary, but I waved the blue pom pom Shari had given me and said encouraging things to all the racers.  It was a gorgeous day, sunny, just shy of warm and not too much wind, at least for the Gorge.  Once the cat 4 women came by, I had about an hour before the next wave. I drove back down the hill to hit the loo at the gas station and stock up on zoos zoos and wham whams as mom used to call them--junk food to everyone else.  Then it was back to my station, where I read my book until Betty radio'd to look out for the next wave.

This time it was all strung out, as riders who had been popped off the back in the climb struggled through their own personal time trials.  Sometimes they were lucky enough to find a small group to work with, but it was a good 30 minute spread between the first rider and the last. The cat 3 men who came through first were feeling good enough to joke around with me: "Hey, aren't you supposed to have our beer?"

"Its at the top of this hill," I promised.

Betty gave me a heads up when the DFL rider went through. Once I waved him on (but that road doesn't look as steep, he said wistfully of the alternate fork), I grabbed my bike again and decided to see a little of what the racers were dealing with.

There was an Ironclad racer stopped just after the turn, and he talked for a long time to someone in a support car. Then (reluctantly it seemed), he started pedaling again, just as I started up the hill. Although he'd been racing for hundreds of miles over the past three days and was obviously tired, I couldn't keep up with him even for a few minutes. The road curved gently enough that I kept him in tantalizing sight for a little while, giving me great fodder for imagining what a real race might be like.  In a real race, I most surely would be spit out of the peloton in short order, and chasing to keep up with whoever I could, so it wasn't too far off the mark. I surmised that if I'd had my road bike, a big breakfast and a warm up, I maybe could have kept pace with him for a mile or so, before the road turn more sharply upward.

Once he dissappeared, I turned my attention toward the spectacular scenery. I was squarely in the middle of farm country, winding through rolling hills covered in trees still barren from winter, that looked like figures from Lord of the Rings--frozen in mid-stride by some evil force, just waiting to be set free. Rusted out trucks and farm equipment gave splashes of red to the greens and grays of the grass and rocks. And the road, at least what little of it I had time to ride in fifteen minutes, didn't seem that steep, even on my steel tank of a cross check. I decided I really need to return sometime with Jess and our road bikes and make a proper tour of it.

But time was running out and I had racers to shepherd. There was still time before the start of the final days races at noon so I went down to the start to see if I could figure out who was replacing me. I had let Shari know that I needed to leave at noon. On my last official day of spring break, I needed to get home to take care of a few things and get the car back to Jess in time for her scheduled massage.

I got on the race radio and was told that Alana would take over for me. But first I had to go give Lorraine a desperately needed potty break. She was only a half mile from the finish line, at the entrance to a golf club, closing the road when the peloton came barrelling into the last 500k of the race. I rode my bike down to her spot and she grabbed her bike from her van and took off towards the finish line and the porta-potties.

I only had to stop a few cars, but the old white guys coming out of the club weren't too keen on obeying my orders. Things that make you go hmm....as Arsenio would say. But they didn't run me over, and the racers got to sprint to the line in peace--or as much peace as you can have when your lungs are about to burst from your chest.

I cheered everyone who came by and was amused by the retort of one of the Ironclad riders who grumpily proclaimed, "This is the worst thing I've ever done!"

"But you finished!" I shouted to his quickly receding form.

When Lorraine came back, I went off to find Alana and found out she had gone back to the Sorella host house to pack up her stuff.  All the racers, lead and follow cars were gathering for the start of the men's pro race and my corner marshall spot was empty. So I got back in the car and squeezed into the line behind the Landrover/Orbea support car as they rolled out.  It was quite a sight to see the colorful sea of riders moving smoothly down the road. Although it felt slow as a driver, I realized were doing 20mph and the race was still neutralized while we got out of town.  When we reached my corner, I pulled off to wait for the cat 3 men and pro women to come by. In the meantime, I hunted down Alana's phone number and we straightened out the hand off.  I left once the last of the first wave came by, but Alana had about an hour before the men would come around again, so it all worked out.

As annoyed as I was before the start of the weekend, I had a really good time and was glad to get to know a few of my teammates better. Heck, I may even remember their names next time I see them. Hope springs eternal.  The race seemed to go off without too many hitches, especially considering it was the inaugural event. And the town seemed to welcome the event too.

I hope to make it back out there sometime this summer and explore some of those open roads the proper way--on two wheels.

Cyclocross madness

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

The last cyclocross race of the season was out at PIR the first weekend of December. That's about a 10 minute bike ride from our house so we ventured out into the muck to watch the insanity. The rain was epic, and the temperature was in the 30's and yet we saw guys in the elite men's race wearing what I would consider summer race-wear; shorts, short sleeve jersey, short fingered gloves, or in some cases no gloves at all. There we were bundled in many layers and waterproof shells and I just could not fathom how they did it. My capacity for suffering will never be that high. But it's sure fun to watch them slide around.

We mostly watched on a muddy hill that most riders started out riding up but as the laps went on you could see how much more effort it took and more of them got off and ran. There were also more wipe outs.

We didn't even last the whole hour to see the end of the men's race. We got too cold and baring our hands to unlock our bikes was the final straw. It was then that I discovered that they way to get Jess to ride faster is to freeze her. In an effort to get feeling back to her extremeties, she left me in the dust getting out of there. We stopped at Fred Meyer on the way home and I locked her bike up for her so she could go straight inside and warm up. All part of the service.

Can't we all just get home alive?

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

November called and got it's weather back and today was a truly miserable, never-ending downpour kind of day and I really didn't want to go out in it.

But I did, because the We Are All Traffic press conference was held at 12:30 down at City Hall. I went because I'm concerned about the fact that several cyclists have been hurt or killed in the last few weeks and the police continue to bend over backwards to excuse drivers who are clearly at fault. I went because my girlfriend rode out in this crappy weather to work this morning, as she does three out of four mornings a week these days and I want her to come home safe each night. (Two close calls today for her, one in each direction). I went because we ride by Brett's ghost bike all the time.

As I pulled up to Interstate, a MAX train was waiting with open doors so I hopped aboard. Yay multimodalism. I checked out Brett's memorial as we went down the hill.

I got off downtown and even on two wheels, getting through traffic was tough. The buses are going up third street now while construction continues on the new MAX line. Twice I gave up and walked up the sidewalk just to keep moving. As I got back to a rideable street, I noticed an SUV at the light with her right turn signal on. How ironic would it be to get right hooked on the way to the traffic rally? I didn't feel like being a martyr today. I waved at the driver till I got her attention and signaled my intention to go straight. Disaster averted.

The crowd was pretty good for a Friday in the middle of the day. Most of the cycling heavy hitters were in attendance. Several speakers got up and gave some really nice talks, focused on trying to heal the bikes vs cars divide that the media insists on playing up relentlessly for the sake or ratings.

Personally, I would like to get back to enjoying my commutes instead of feeling like I'm venturing into a war zone each day.

Here's a snippet from Joe's (AKA Metal Cowboy) talk about R.E.S.P.E.C.T. We could all use a little more of it.