Flower Delivery Service

I commuted 3 of 5 days last week to work on the 925 (mentioned in the post below) and aside from getting caught in the rain/hail for part of the ride home, and a near miss with the Day and Night Heating guy that wasn't looking as I drove past the parking lot he was pulling out of, I was really glad to be riding to work.

As I was leaving on Friday, the lovely lady I live with said "oh, you're riding in today? I was going to have you take some flowers to the office." Since Mike at Cycleworks has said on more than one occasion that you CAN take anything with you on the bike, I decided to live out his mantra and offered to take them anyway.

At least if the web gig doesn't work out, I could pimp myself out as a bicycle flower delivery guy. Maybe I could step it up at Valentines day and offer a singing flower delivery guy special!

Hasta.

Just Give Me The High Gear!

In a classic guilty pleasure movie of mine, Days Of Thunder, Cole Trickle (a.k.a Tom Cruise) has to pull of a minor miracle and use just the one gear he has left to finish and win a NASCAR event. He screams to his pit to get him out in front of the pace car since he's going to have to ramp up that high gear to any decent kind of speed, or he's out. Let me just say Tommy, I feel your pain, I feel your pain.

For the past week, I've been tooling around with just 'the high gear,' or at least, one of them, on a Redline 925 that I picked up last week. If you've been paying attention, you know that I ride a sweet little frame from Italy that goes by the name of Torelli, and she's set up with more gears than I will likely ever use in a years time....all mine for the taking.

The 925 is different though, it's a single speed, and has just one gear. Remember when we were kids and had BMX bikes, or Stingrays with banana seats, or any other number of bikes that only had one gear? And we got along just fine, right? That's the deal with the single speed once again. One gear, just one thing to go round, and round, and round. Here's a shot of the one I picked up.

It's set up perfect for commuting with fenders for those rainy days, a little blinky light up front, and a brake. I know, you'd think a brake would go without saying, but if you flip the rear hub around on this guy, the bike becomes a fixed gear bike, or as the youngin's call them, a 'fixie.' Right now, when I stop pedaling ,the bike keeps moving, and I hear the gentle purr of the freewheel humming along. On a fixed gear, when back wheel moves, the pedals move...forward, or backwards. You go fast, they go fast. You go slow, they go slow. And get this, some yayhoos, er....courageous souls, even go without a brake, using just body parts to get the thing to stop. Basically, you have to slow into a stop, or skid it, if you're going fast. Look up 'fixie skid' on YouTube, and you'll see what I mean.

Anyway, it's been fun to just hop on the ol' bike without worrying about special shoes to attach myself to the bike with, or the appropriate matching clothes to look like I belong on said bike. Instead, just hop on, throw on my laptop bag, and ride on into work. The whole bike cost me less than the wheels on my Torelli, so I don't get too concerned about riding it in the rain and ugly weather. Not to mention it's already been called 'hot' and 'sweet' by a few of the single speed / fixed gear riders on the forum I frequent.

Riding with just one gear, although fun, can also be a little brutal...especially for an old, chubby dad. Climbing Commercial street with what would normally be the gear I ride at 15-16 mph is MUCH more work than the granny gear. In fact, I thought about riding all the way out to Cycleworks, but turned about halfway up Commercial, and pulled into DayBreak Coffee for an iced coffee instead.

Now I just need to finish up the other single speed I was building out of the Karate Monkey so other Pez family members can ride along.

Hasta.

Monday Evening Ride

Ok, so when Weather.com says Sunset is at 7:40 pm - it means it, and not a minute later. And this time of year, it gets dark pretty quick after sunset.

The picture here at the top is from my ride tonight. It was an amazing sunset. In fact, it was so cool watching the sun bounce off the clouds that I kept riding figuring I'd squeeze in a few more miles before racing home in time to beat the dark. As luck would have it, I ended up riding home a little longer in the dark than I cared too...and as luck would have it, my little blinky red light had died, so I was really asking for trouble. Thankfully, none found me.

After the family hurked down some tacos at the little Taqueria above Reed Opera House, I was feeling the need to work off some extra calories, so I geared up and headed out around 6:40 pm. I figured I could just do the 12 mile Windsor Island Rd Loop, and be in way before sunset, but it was so pretty out tonight that I just kept going, and ended up getting in 19 miles instead. The temperature was dropping at a pretty good rate, and a little drizzle even managed to sneak out on me. Otherwise, nothing major to report, and nothing out of the ordinary, but I felt compelled to pull out the phone and snap some photos. I'll just post them below for the remainder of the post.

Hop fields in North Keizer on Wheatland Rd

Waconda Road heading to River Rd


Same shot through my Tifosi polarized riding glasses.


Sun setting quickly, time to get home!

Neither Rain, Nor Sleet, Nor Snow....Wait, This Is Spring Break?

Just a few days ago I was in the sunny warm embrace of a San Diego springtime. I mentioned to Nate that if we had more time I'd be hitting a local bike shop, renting a bike, and getting out along the 101 beachfront for a ride. Oh how the times have changed.

Today I decided to work off some of the In-N-Out flab I picked up on the aforementioned road trip, and set out for a 20 mile boogie to the Bankers Cup coffee shop in St. Paul. I spent part of the morning waiting for the kids to call from the border to let us know they'd made it safely back to American soil, and once they did, I figured I could get away from the phone long enough to squeeze in some exercise. Question was, would the weather hold up long enough for me to do so?

If you've been following the local forecast, we've had wild weather. Everything from sun breaks to rain, sleet, hail and snow. The sun was peeking through as I geared up, but I saw the clouds off in the distance, and hoped they wouldn't move in on me. And even if they did, I rode 70 miles in the rain last summer....right? I could handle a few in the rain if the good Lord decided to send some on down. And send some down, he did.

For about half the ride -- probably 10 miles in the middle portion -- it rained. And it hailed. And doggonnit, I think it was snowing too. It was colder than last years Livestrong in the rain, and the hail/sleet on the face didn't feel too great, but after those 10 miles or so, it cleared back up and I rode the last 5 miles into St. Paul on sunny, but wet pavement.



The Fam drove out and met me at the Bankers Cup. It's a quaint little espresso shop built in an old bank building.

There's a great fireplace (which I wish would have been fired up) and the coffee is from our own little Governor's Cup here in Salem. I got out there shortly after one, the family rolled in close to 1:30, and the shop closed at 2, so we had to grab a quick drink and go.

I changed into the dry street clothes they brought, tossed the Torreli in the back of the Blue Dream, and hitched a ride back on four wheels. We also hit the local feed store where they sell Ass Kickin' products, Cattlepults, and every kind of feed and fertilizer imagineable.

Although it was turned off, they also had a serious 50" flat panel hanging above the rustic wooden door....nice!

And so ends the crazy Spring Break week of 2008. The kids will be home tomorrow night and everyone is looking forward to having their children back in their homes. Looking forward to some sunny days ahead for better riding than rain, hail and snow!

Hasta!

PS - Keijiro - you would have hated it....even colder and wetter than last year! That Bay Area ride is sounding better by the minute!

Road Trip

Let me just say that after 1500 miles of a 2100 mile, 42 hour round trip drive. After enough Rockstars and Starbucks canned Double Shots to own stock in both companies, and after a 5 pm dinner stop at In-N-Out in San Diego already....a group of fellas from Oregon with an all night drive ahead of them should probably *not* take this on at 1 am.

But, it *was* the last In-N-Out that was going to be open before we left California. Who knew there was such a thing as 'Animal Style' burgers there?

Hasta.

Saturday Ride In Between The Rain

When the rain comes, they run and hide their heads....

Or, the wait for a cloud break, throw on the gear and hit the road.

After a week off of riding, I was anxious to get back on the bike. With still very little free time, and coming off the flu/cold combo, it's been tough to get out and ride this week, but Saturday provided a quick opportunity.

The previous week was beautiful and I was able to do my 30 Mile Waconda loop. This week I started hitting rain at the 10 mile mark, and since I'm still hacking pretty good, at least a little each day, I turned and just made a 20 mile loop for the day. Every mile on the bike, outside of the garage, is a good one.

As you may have noticed, I replaced last years Livestrong ad with a mileage counter for the year...my goal is to ride 2000 miles this year on my bike. I'm at 82 for the year. To hit 2000, I need to average about 45 miles a week, or at least 15 miles each time I ride, and do that 3 times a week. With the slow start to the season I'm off pace by about 450 miles, so I've got some making up to do. Thank goodness we just Sprung Forward with Daylight Savings Time -- hopefully I can take advantage of the longer day soon!

Another goal I'm contemplating is doing this years Monster Cookie Ride, which leaves Salem, heads north for 31 miles, then turns back around for a 62 mile metric century. The ride is a relatively flat ride, with only some rolling hills along the way. I have also heard many a comment about the cookies along the ride, specifically the macaroons, which I'm sure I'd be tempted to try. Of course, as a chubby guy who took up riding to lose weight, riding my bike and eating cookies isn't really the plan of the ages to accomplish that goal. Hopefully I would burn more calories for the day than I would consume in cookies!

I'm also still wondering about Cycle Oregon, but just not sure I can take the time for the whole week, and/or creatively take the whole family out with. If I come up with good solutions for either, I may be in!

Hasta!

Day 369: One Year Later

Well, it's actually been more than a year, but figured I should commemorate the day somehow and dust this old blog off for a bit. So lets chat, over a hot cup of coffee from the Fogon, shall we?

On February 3 of 007, I set out to lose some weight. I won't bore you with all details in this post...you can go back through history and see the hows, whys, and whats that inspired me to get going. I blame it all on that Lifehacker, Kyle Pott. But I digress....I was pushing 260, and really wanted to get out of the whole Mexi-Claus look I had going on. I set many goals along the way, but really wanted to lose 50 lbs, and 124 days later, I did just that.

Now a year later, I'm happy to say that I've kept it off...well, mostly. Life got pretty crazy, busy, ugly, and stressful around September and pretty much stayed that way until just about now. Things are finally starting to feel like they may be getting back to normal. And I'm ready to get back into the swing of things and start making the next push.

I say I've mostly kept it off because I've fluctuated around that 50 lb mark off and on. Gaining back as much as 8 lbs, and losing as much as 3 more lbs for a total of 53 at my very best mark. Today I'm a good 5-6 lbs off of my mark, but still holding on to a 42-43 lb loss, which is the best I've ever done. I'm happy for that, but am feeling like I'm right at the Crossroads -- I'll either put back on my glutton hat, and get all jolly and fat again, or I'll get back to exercising, drinking water, and paying closer attention to the calories. I'm probably mostly writing this post for my own accountability in choosing the latter.

That's it. I'd have loved to have said I hit 70 or 100 lbs by now, but life happened. I'm trying to mix it all up now and see if I can't get stuff done and still lose weight. I think the next 50 lbs will be harder by far. :)

Hasta.