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.

run what you brung

Well, here we are in Portland, after a start to the cyclocross season. The laps at Alpenrose were long and bumpy, and you better be ready to start and stop and then get going fast again, and then jump off your bike, jump over stuff and get back on really fast. I think my gear is too big, because I was going super slow on some of the uphills. And I may have had too much air in my tires, because the bumps felt extra bumpy. But then in some of the grassy sections it felt like my brakes were rubbing, because I wasn't going faster. TJones rocked the single speed division. I was 27th out of 80+ in the category. Over 1000 raced total. CX is huge here.

The race wasn't too exciting for 27th place, but I did get passed by the naked guy (wearing only size small unda pants). Then I passed him, because I didn't want to look at his ass all day, and then I ate dirt on the barriers in the middle of the velodrome, and I couldn't catch back up to him. So I got beat by the naked guy.

And a guy took a picture of me...


It was really tough, but I'm already starting to plot out how I can make my bike go faster next week.

Have you seen me latley?

It's been pretty crazy around here with the job, and school starting this week. So let's just say it's been super busy here, but the weather has been pretty awesome. All I hear about is how it rains constantly in this city, and since we moved here in June it's probably rained 5 times or less. Now watch, tomorrow will be the beginning. Hopefully more of the days will be like today, it was damn near perfect.

In skiing news, the Portland Oregon dryland XC skiing workouts begin this week (Sept 29th). More information here. The cyclocross season is also underway, but I have not yet raced. That's still the plan.

Later-

iceland bike tour photo blog

Day 1: near Hella to Landmannalauger











DAY 2: Landmannalauger to Hyranyar












DAY 3 Hranyar to Nydalur


















Day 4 Nydalur to Laugafell


Rest Day @ Laugafell




Day 6 Laugafell to Akureyri








A more complete flickr slide show here, in case this wasn't enough for you... (make sure and click the photo for the captions.

Iceland Part 1

So here we are in Portland, and it's been a few days since we've been back from the tour.  I finally got around to putting some of the photos up from the iceland adventure.  Flickr photoset here. 

So the trip started out a little lame.  We had two segments to our flight.  One from PDX to MSP, and then the next day, we were flying from MSP to Reykjavik.  We split this up, because we got decent airfare w/ iceland air from MSP, and planned to stay at our friend Patti's house to get a good night sleep before the flight to iceland.   Problem was, we had a layover in chicago on the way to MSP.  So we were stuck in a holding pattern above chicago, until we got low on jet fuel, and the pilot decided to get gas in Detroit.  So we got gas, and by the time we finally got to chicago, all the planes to MSP were gone.  Our options were spend 50 bucks on a cab and 69 bucks on a hotel, only to get 4 hours of sleep to make our flight at 7:20am, or sleep at the airport.  We chose the airport.  They setup cots so it was not complete hell, but then the guards come by at 4am to wake everyone up and it basically stormed all night, but we did have a good view of the lightning storm.  So we didn't get a good nights rest.

The next day we were off to iceland.  We hit the blue lagoon hot springs / geo thermal site.  It was pretty sweet.  We then hit the hotel in sellfoss and put the bikes together and rested up, for tomorrow the bike tour would begin.

In other news, I started a new job here yesterday, up on the hill, at the OHSU SON as a DBM.

More tomorrow.

Iceland Bike Tour

We're back!! it was an awesome trip. more photos and stories soon...