The Kaos Theory

Since we were having Granny’s 90th birthday party at our house at noon, I needed to get out early. Starting at about 8:45 am I left the house fully bundled up. I mean it was 45 degrees and cloudy, brrr. I decided to I needed to push the distance some this week and talked myself into riding out to Estacada and back. It was one of those rides that my head tried over and over again to talk me out of it, like I had one of those gremlins on my shoulder from a Bugs Bunny cartoon. You can always ride tomorrow or why don’t you turn around here, it’s so nice and toastie in the house? Each time the little devil tried to discourage me from continuing, I kept pushing on. I had to because I knew when I finished the endorphins would give me the buzz and I like that buzz. So I trundled off down the steep hill from my house and out to the open road. I felt good and kept a nice tempo for the first three or so miles while my legs and body warmed up. As Emeril would say I “kicked it up a notch” for the next 4.5 miles when the gremlin visited. That when I saw a sign that said “Damascus 3 mi”. Why don’t I just cut this a little short I thought, I’d still be putting in some mileage. I turned on to the road and preceded to do a short climb up around a corner when I saw what I feared. An extremely steep hill seemlingly going on forever. I was committed to this now and plodded up the hill. After about 1/2 a mile in was gassed, my legs felt like they’d fused in a straight position. Alternating between standing in the peddles and sitting in the saddle didn’t seem to help. I pulled off to the side to catch my breath and decide what to do. While standing, well slumped over the handlebars, I espied a lady unloading her trailer in her driveway. I better find out where this hill ends so I called to her and asked “How far to the top?” and she nonchalantly replied “Oh, you’re about halfway there but you haven’t got to the steep part yet” This time the gremlin and I were in complete agreement and I headed back down the slope. But the gremlin hadn’t got the best of me yet, I could have easily continue back to the warm abode by turning right or I could continue on by going left. Overcoming the steely glare of the gremlin I went left. Somehow the sight of the neverending hill gave me new life and my legs came back. Once again the evil green thing on my shoulder reared his mug and whispered in my ear, “Did you know it’s raining now?”. I could barely see as the rain splashed in my face. Tempted again to capitulate to the G man I continued on. This scenario happend again at Barton, the 211 interchange and Eagle Creek but I finally arrived in Estacada with a sense of accomplishment. I’d overcome that little bastard and spit him out. Funny thing, I didn’t see him on the way home. I hope I left him on the park bench outside the city hall of Estacada.(BTW, that’s a picture of it in the link). Almost forgot the stats portion, 33.62 miles with an average speed of 14.3mph.

Landis triumphs at Paris-Nice

When the French can’t even win races on their home turf they might as well just quite cycling all together. This makes it 2 years in a row Americans have won this classic. That’s going to leave a mark on the French psyche. BTW, the French have updated their terrorism alert status from “Run” to “Hide”. I’m sorry it’s just too much fun to ridicule the frogs.

**Update**
I was watching the rebroadcast of the race on OLN and Bob Roll stated an astonishing fact. The last Froggie to win a STAGE of Paris-Nice was Laurent Jalabert in 1997.

Up to this point I have collected $135 for the American Lung Association. Therefore, I’m officially entered in the ride. Woo-Hoo! BTW, Generlissimo Francisco Franco is still dead at the age of 82.

I’ve started my training for the Reach the Beach ride in May. Yesterday, I rode the always dependable loop to Linneman Station. 21 miles with an average speed of 14.6 mph. The weather was perfect, almost 60 degrees at noon with little or no wind. Damn near a heatwave for this time of year in Portland. So warm in fact I rode in my bib shorts instead of the Long John variety I’ve been wearing lately. I layered up the top with my body liner shirt, my wool short-sleeved jersey topped of with a normal summer jersey. I was not the least bit cold. For the first 6 miles I was cranking out some good speed, 21 to 22 mph, through the rollers and a couple of decent climbs. Once I got to Linnemann and on to the Springwater I tried to keep up the speed but I ran into a headwind knocking my rate down to 17 to 18 mph. I felt real good for most of the ride while pushing the tempo. That lasted until I got to the last set of hills about five miles from the house. This section has several steep sections seemingly going on forever. At the top of the final climb, which I call Cranberry Hill because of the name of the cross street at the top, my legs were heavy. The strange thing about climbing the last hill was what was going on in my mind. I don’t remember riding to the top. I was concentrating so hard on pushing the peddles, I didn’t notice I’d crossed over the threshold and was heading down the decline. That gave me a burst of confidence I will need when I do the Reach the Beach ride. Because based on the topo map there will be many more like Cranberry Hill, probably longer and steeper too.