bike sticker

I saw a sticker on a fender of a fellow bike commuter on the way to work today that read: "Live Free or Drive"

Gotta love it. Sounds like a good motto for 2008.

If you want to get tough, move to Portland and bike commute all winter. You won't think it's so bad going out riding when it's in the 30s and rainy. Before the past few weeks, that kind of riding sucked pretty good. I would probably opt to not ride. But with some good equipment (rain wear and fenders), after a few weeks of pretty shitty weather, it's no big deal. That is if you can handle the depression that goes along with the endless winter here (no snow, cloudy all the time, super short days). And when it did snow here on Christmas day, people were literally dancing in the streets. I'm not even talking about accumulating snow. Just the wet crappy snow that melts when it hits the ground. And on the local nightly news, we got today classified as a white Christmas. KEEP PORTLAND WEIRD!

Here comes the rain again...

It's been a busy time after the cx season ended, first with finals, and now moving. That's right, moving. How are you spending your christmas vacation? No vacation here.

Aside from the big storm that caused all the problems on the coast a few weeks ago, it's been pretty decent weather-wise, until this week. I guess it's not even too bad, considering what the bike commute might be like if it would be 10 degrees cooler with the same winds and precip. 40F and gusting wind driven rain isn't bad compared to 30 with wind and snow. Of course if it was snowing like that here I think the city shuts down. But the cascade mountains are getting snow now, finally, as the skiing reports that I've heard so far have been pretty ugly. The skiing in the midwest however, is awesome this year, for the first time in 8 or so years according to my brother. Speaking of my Brother, he's engaged to Danielle now... Congratulations!

So next week we are going to move most of our stuff from Sellwood to Westmoreland (next to sellwood). By 2008 we should have everything moved. The bad news is, moving sucks no matter what. The good news is it's still a very walkable neighborhood and we'll have ample room for a basement bike shop / renewable energy laboratory, and a huge back yard for the greyhounds to do their racing (even though they're retired-they still like to go at it every once in a while).

More updates as necessary.

Phone number

We canceled a phone number. Do not call 503-327-8643 any more, but instead roll back to the 541 phone number (610-9679). That number has not changed and it's not new.

Right now, it's 36 degrees and raining at 40 feet elevation. You'd think it was about to snow if you knew better. But I don't think it is going to yet anyway. Based on the temperature, and the precipitation, which is not all water when it hits the car windshield but then immediatly melts (you know it has that slushy look to it when it hits the window and then the wiper blade swipes it away.) So it may be snowing in the PDX at some point this winter, since we still have just under a month to the solstice.

In other news, 2 finals next week, one the week after.

Coming soon, a demonstration of a solar powered robot that we built in circuits class.

sscxwc

The first ever experience cx (cyclocross) was a race I watched at riverside park in St. Cloud, MN, my hometown. The weather was cold and windy, and the race looked really hard. There was a bunch of beer and pork chops. There was a few people there but most were racing. There were no crowds.

So up here in Portland cx I've got into it a bit more, doing some of the races in the cross crusade series. They know how to throw down a cross race out here. There is a Halloween edition in astoria (that I missed), but you'll see costumes in each of the 7 weekly races. There are huge crowds every weekend. Last weekend was the official un-official world championships of single speed cyclocross. Estacada has a pretty good venue watching and racing. We're talking costumes. A tequila shortcut, dodge ball zone, lady in a bikini cheering all day, tons of intoxicated people yelling at all the riders. Here are a few picks I caught of the action...







Here's the leaders going through the tequila shortcut. It was a rowdy bunch.

the lead pack.

So I did not race in the world championships. I didn't attend the qualifier on Saturday, because of other stuff I had to get done. It was a spectacle, that's for sure. I did race the regular singlespeed race for the regular cross crusade, so that was just fine. I placed better than I have before getting top 20, so that was cool, but I got outsprinted again!!! Second week in a row. This time it was after the muddy run up with the crowd, and I was ahead of this guy by a bike length. Then we both had to get off the bike, and run up, only I pushed my bike instead of shouldering it, like a good cx boy. Well, I couldn't run fast enough to stay ahead of him and by the time I realized I should have picked up my bike it was too late. oh well. I'm learning.

State championships is this weekend at Hillsboro stadium. The only thing that might keep me away is electric circuit's homework and a chemistry test on Tuesday. After this weekend you can still race for 2 more weekends in Portland if you want to, a psuedo cross race on the 25th and the grand prix of cyclocross on Dec. 1st and 2nd.

So this time of year I've usually had the bike hung up. This year I've been biking to work every day (4 days / week) and I only drove the car to school a few times. And cross racing. So that's all. We are staying in Portland for Thanksgiving going over to Laurie's brothers house.

Oil Record High, Dollar Record Low

Up on yahoo fiinance this morning (oil record high, dollar record low)... another day another dollar... or is it? What it is, is a broken record.

School is keeping me too busy, and work is keeping me entertained. Cyclocross is keeping me alive.

I did not improve my placings this weekend at Barton Park (Cross Crusade #5), but I did finish, and I did crash, got up, and then sprinted (unsuccessfully) for 29th place. Next weekend is the World Championships. Rumor is that trebon, cameron, craig, decker, etc are all going to be there. Just qualifying for the finals on sunday will be admirable. It's looking to be muddy, for once. We've had amazingly dry weather for the past few weeks.

Bunny hop CX barriers

Adam Craig doesn't need to get off his bike to go over CX barriers. Check out the Cross Crusade #2 video for proof.

So I went in the one gear division again. Got caught behind a crash at the start, and it took me 1/2 a lap to catch up to this guy. So that's not good. Then in the end I worked up to 19th or so 22nd. I was pissed because I did n-1 laps (even though I didn't get lapped) so I will be looking to start further up in the field for next time for multiple reasons (noted above).

Like CC#1 the weather (sunny / warm) was very not cross season like (rainy / shitty). But today it was more like it. It wasn't even that bad. It didn't rain all day, and I didn't get wet on my commutes (well not very wet anyway=not perfectly dry). That might change tomorrow, we'll see.

The worst part of winter here is going to be the daylight, or lack thereof. I guess that's why Laurie ebay'ed one of these. Like that's going to take place of the sun.

peace out.

OIL

Found an interesting post on the huge amount of oil that we burn each year...

Read this.  

That's a lot of oil.  (Are we using it efficiently?)

The weather...

It's sunny today. So it was the first what you'd call really nice day since Sept 27th, so I'm calling everything before Sept 27th summer, and between Sept 27th and yesterday winter... and today and tomorrow are fall. Then based on the weather forecast:

we go back to winter on monday until further notice. So we got here in June just after it supposedly stopped raining, It was pretty much very nice until September 28th it started raining. Based on that experience, we have about 8 months left to wish it was nice outside. But wait, the days start getting longer in only 69 days. Wait. 69 days is alot, and the damn time didn't even change yet. I'm trying to come up with ways to think the worst is over, but really it hasn't even started. When can we move back to Bend?

Oh it's not that bad, check back with me in 6 months to see how converted I am to being a PDXer...

Hornings hideout tomorrow. I changed gears on my bike from 42X17 to 36X17, so I should be better off. I'm hearing the course is much more difficult (technically speaking) than alpenrose. It will be a true test of toughness, endurance, and a sure ticket to the hurt locker for 45 minutes.

Enough blogging I'm going outside.

Later.