I hate thinking up titles to these things . . .

The East . . .

. . . vs. the West.

I feel like I should always come up with this clever little title, but I always totally fail. Whatever.

The blog has been so very neglected, and I can't even blame it on Facebook, because that, too, has seen little of me lately. Unlike my previous "where have I been" blog-post-life-updates, I don't have much going on so this is going to be really boring.

Why, oh why, when the West coast is getting ramped up for such late winter epics as Snelling and Merco do I still have no base, to speak of? To fully understand you would have to spend a couple weeks mid-January in New England. We've scarcely had a day without precipitation (mostly in the form of snow) in two+ weeks, and on those rare clear days it's pretty much arctic. Yesterday when I woke up it was -10 F with the windchill. Rad-tastic.

I'm going to share with you my hard-learned lesson of the winter 2010-2011: When faced with such inhospitable conditions as the Nor'east offers from December-March (hopefully) one ought to find joy in pursuits that do not involve wearing spandex and moving at increased rates of speed. One can wear spandex, or one can move quickly, but they should be mutually exclusive. And honestly I haven't done much of the former.

Not sure what else to elaborate on. I could get into how our X-mas/New Year etc. went (it was good), but it's been like, a month and I don't really feel like it. I got to go home for a week to visit with my family. I happened to go home when they were having 65 degree weather and I got a nice dose of sunshine, and got in a lot of biking. That was pretty much rad. It was good to see my folks and Reno and California again. But, I'm glad I moved.

I know, what the hell, right? But it was time for a change, you know? And sure, I could have just moved to Santa Cruz (oh please oh please oh please some day) but that wouldn't be enough change for me to really feel like I made a change. Or so I postulate, while awaiting the dumping 0f 10 inches of snow that we're supposed to get tonight. Le sigh. Anyway, as much as I love Reno and the west coast, this is a good experience, and all in all I'm glad we made the move, regardless of my wishes to return west in a number of years.

Anyway, the whole winter thing kind of throws a wrench in my bike racing plans, or, I should say, road racing plans. I mean, I'm just going to come out and say it - I don't want to ride my bike when it's 15 degrees and snowing outside. Sorry, I think it's time to admit that I am simply not that dedicated. And if I'm not dedicated enough to do that then I'm certainly not going to spend a month on the trainer instead. Pshaw, right. I was beginning to worry that I just wasn't that into my bike anymore, then I went out west and got to ride in the sunshine and it was total Bikelove. Descending down to the Yuba River with sunshine on my skin was pure ecstasy, as was the climb out. So it's not the bike that's the problem, it's the weather. And as such, I think it best not to force it. Okay, so I won't be fast in March, or April, or maybe even May. But there's still lots of racing in June, July, and August, and then there's always CX season. And it really forces me to find enjoyment in other physical and intellectual pursuits, which I feel can only make me more balanced.

Oh, the only really news-worthy bit is that I got a new job! But anyone who reads this already knows that, so that's kind of a stupid bit of news. But I love my new job and it makes me happy to be here, plus, free gym membership! Because it's really cold out there.

Anyway, if the first part of this post doesn't quite jive with the second half, it's because I wrote half yesterday and the finished it today. Until next time . . .

Where'd I go? Part 2

Riley was pretty excited that we didn't leave him behind.

Oh, the humanity.

The orange flames made us faster . . .

The Drive

In the space of 10 days I spent about 60 hours staring through a windshield. Sure, that’s nothing by long-distance trucker standards, but I ain’t no trucker.

First was the drive to Grass Valley to meet up with my dad, then I got to ride shotgun while he did all the driving to and from Ferndale, then I had to get myself home. That was about 12 hours total. Then I got home to a flurry of packing and cleaning. Monday we packed, Tuesday we cleaned. Wednesday we left Reno. Mapquest says it’s about 48 hours to drive from Reno, NV to Gloucester, MA, and about 2900 miles. It’s not quite all the way across the country, but pretty damn close. We have two cars, 2 cats, 1 dog, and 5 bikes (which is well down from what it was just a month ago). As such, we each drove solo, accompanied only by our furry friends and the sound of eachother’s wisecracks through the walkie-talkies we brought. And, in my case anyway, several audiobooks. It probably took us a little longer than Mapquest predicted because we were towing a trailer with the Jetta and we put all the heavy stuff in the back of my ol’ Hombre. What I mean is, we rarely could go faster than 60, except for those stretches of Nebraska where we had a killer tailwind and we could kick it up to 65.

We started with the kitties in a crate in the Jetta and Riley with me. This was my idea, as I thought the kitties would overheat if they were crammed in a crate in my non-air-conditioned truck. Unfortunately, Cody and the cats have a relationship of mutual dislike but forced tolerance (forced by yours truly, of course). What can I say – Cody is not a cat person and they’re perceptive little buggers. After a day and a half of listening to the cats yelling at him, and repeated attempts to drown it out with music and ear plugs, Cody couldn’t take anymore and we swapped furry friends. Riley thought it was great that he was finally allowed to ride shotgun in the Jetta, and the cats were so thrilled to either get out of the crate or get away from Cody that they stopped hollering and found cozy places to sleep.

Anyway, most of the trip is kind of a blur of staring at the back of the trailer (I just followed Cody the whole time). We stayed in Motel 6s, which, along with the food, got progressively worse as we entered the Midwest and improved again as we approached the East Coast. When we finally crossed out of Ohio and into Pennsylvania I privately to never, ever, ever live in the Midwest. As a matter of fact, the Pennsylvania Motel 6 on our last night was the nicest of the trip (although the Wyoming one wasn’t half bad either).

Saturday was our shortest day and when we got to our nice Motel 6 we had time to go for a walk and go out to dinner. We walked to a little diner really close to our hotel and were thrilled to be eating non-fast food. We even got ice cream (because there’s nothing you need more after spending 10 hours a day in a car than a bunch of empty calories!). I got a Frownie, which I found hilarious and also worthy of mention. The other funny thing was our waiter, who, whenever I would say thank you, which was quite frequent because I’m so fucking polite, would respond with . . . wanna guess? No, it wasn’t “you’re welcome”, or “no problem” or anything like that. He would say “Yes.” Just like that. Totally deadpan and serious. I loved it, and kept saying thank you to elicit more Yes’s. It was awesome. I think I love Pennsylvania. Or, I loved it until the next day, when we got a flat tire on the trailer. This was actually kind of scary, since we were going 60+ on the freeway and one of the tires totally blew out, and started smoking as it ground down. I expected the trailer to flip over off of the road and drag Cody to a horrible firey death, but it maintained its vertical integrity and we were able to safely stop to fix the flat. But I’m getting to the part about not liking PA anymore. As we were stopped we noticed that there were HUGE MILLIPEDES EVERYWHERE! Yes, HUGE FUCKING MILLIPEDES! Okay, I only saw a couple, but come on, ONE is too many. Anyway, we had a spare tire and got the trailer up and rolling again and proceeded on our way. That day was the day of crazy drivers too, further affirming my suspicion that east coast drivers suck. No offense or anything, crazy East coast people, but you’re crazy.

We left on Wednesday and arrived in Gloucester on Sunday evening, just in time for dinner. It was a surreal feeling to finally be here, with my cats and dog and all my earthly belongings. To tell myself, “We’re home.” Still getting used to it – well, duh, we’ve only been here a week and a half. But we’re mostly unpacked now and I think I have a job, which I’ll tell you all about if I actually get it. Now I should probably go do something productive with my day, like ride my bike or find some internet access so I can actually publish this post.

Where'd I go? Part 1

Yeah, long time, I know. Lots of changes, as you undoubtedly know. Let me back way up.

Tour of the Unknown Coast

The problem with waiting 3 weeks to write about something is I forget all the neat little details I’d wanted to include. For those who are unfamiliar with it, this ride is up in Humboldt County, a 2 day 100 miler, with about 10K feet of climbing. The first day is the longer of the two, about 70 miles. You ride down Avenue of the Giants, through the Rockefeller Grove (which is amazing) and finally climb up Panther Gap, which is probably 6 miles with 2500 feet of elevation gain (just a wild guess on that one). You then descend to Honeydew, which sounds sweet but in actuality bears a striking resemblance to scenes from Deliverance. Both the scenery and the people. But they’re used to the spandex crowd, since this ride takes place twice a year and the little shop there sells lots of cokes and snickers to the participants. So it’s not as sketchy as one might imagine. Anyway, you then proceed about 10 miles, following the Mattole River down to a little campground. They feed you dinner, and the next morning the Grange Hall down the road hosts a pancake breakfast with lots of Bisquick, ham, and Folgers. That begins the second day, which starts with a nasty little climb that isn’t really that little. There follow a number of these things until you descend to Cape Mendocino, and ride along the coast for 10 miles or so. This section is notorious for having a soul-crushing headwind. You round a bend and you see it – The Wall. I’m pretty sure every ride in Norcal has something called “The Wall”, and each probably deserve the name. This one is probably 24% for about ¼ mile, then drops to probably 20% for another ¼ mile. It’s not all that bad, but it’s definitely an epic ¼ mile, and if one were to go all crazy at the beginning and try to hammer up it they would soon find themselves walking. It’s long enough that you need to measure your effort a bit. Anyway, you then have a nice fast little descent and then hit “The Shadow of the Wall” which is probably 5-6 miles, starts out quite steep, and then levels out to a nice tempo climb. I like this one. It starts to seem interminable, but then you’re at the top and you have a fast descent back into the town of Ferndale, where you started the day before. An epic two days.

Anyway, I love this ride, me and my dad try to do it every year, although I haven’t made it up there the last two. This year the weather was a bit . . . wet. The first day ended up being pretty nice, cloudy but dry. Dry, that is, until we got to the top of Panther Gap. Then it decided to get really cold and wet for the descent. It’s not a very fast descent, and has a number of 10 mph hairpin turns. So it takes a long time to get down and by then I was pretty much freezing. Rather than loading up on cold cokes at Honeydew I contemplated the rather murky looking coffee and decided I’d rather just get on with it and get to camp and get dry and warm. As anyone who’s done much camping will tell you, setting up a tent in the rain sucks ass. But then I was dry and warm, although it seriously limited the afternoon activities. Usually we go for a swim in the Mattole River and relax in the sun with books and, in my dad’s case, his guitar. This time around we were confined to our tents with books. C’est la vie. We walked through the rain to dinner. I think I must have walked through some Poison Oak, as my ankles exploded in it four days later as we were driving across Wyoming (I’ll get to that part, maybe not today). Anyway, after stuffing myself with cheese ravioli and listening to my dad try to explain to a group of people why reality TV isn’t real, we walked back to our tents in the rain and called it an early night.

You know the sound of rain on a tent fly? I think it’s a great sound, you know, when I’m in the desert or something. When you’re in the desert and it’s raining at night you know you’ll be greeted the next day by clear skies and dust-free trails. Now, Humboldt County is not the desert. If I had to classify it I’d probably call it rain forest, but that’s a gross exaggeration of course. Anyway, all night long I heard the rain falling steadily on my tent. I slept surprisingly well, and woke up to . . . rain still falling on my tent. I’d talked myself up about riding in the rain before falling asleep, and I was determined to have a good day riding, regardless of rain or wind. It seemed to be letting up as we walked over to the Grange for our pancakes and bad coffee. We packed up wet tents, put on wet shoes, and jumped on wet bikes. The clouds must have dumped all their rain during the night, because it was surprisingly dry! A pleasant surprise, indeed. Not only that, but the stretch along the ocean was calm and gorgeous. The Wall felt easier than in years past (although my 58 year old father dropped me on the way up – curses!). We kept a good pace up the Shadow and passed lots of people who’d set out earlier than us that morning. Mostly-dry roads made the descent back into Ferndale fun and fast.

And then . . . it was over. It’s one of those things where you feel both victorious and a little sad that it’s time to pack up and go home. It was my last ride in California and with my dad before packing up all my crap and moving out to New England. It was fun, but also a little sad. The entire plan for our move out here was built around me getting to do that ride, and I’m so glad I did. Anyway, as my dad said, those mountains will still be there the next time we do it.

The Wall!

Ahh . . . the ocean. No headwind is a big plus!

Cold, wet descent into Honeydew.

Rockefeller Grove = big trees and bad pavement.