Roasting Peppers - Fall fun!

Roasted Peppers

Cross Crusade #4: PIR

Last weekend Thor and I both raced the fourth Cross Crusade race out at PIR. The conditions were wet and muddy, and I have some great pictures.....which are currently living on the camera that neither Thor or I can seem to locate. Meh. It wasn't either of our best races - Thor had a fantastic start (top 5!) and then got a flat on his second lap. He was able to make it into the pit, but lost a bunch of time - still ended up having fun though.

PIR is usually my favorite course, but I got a flat right at the beginning of the 2nd lap, and didn't have a spare SS rear wheel in the pit so that was the end of the race for me. I was pretty disappointed because the conditions were so great - I was really looking forward to racing! Anyhow - check out this great video of the festivities to give you an idea of what it was like out there.

Cross Crusade Race #4 PIR from Burk Webb on Vimeo.

McKenzie River Weekend

Becky, Josh, Thor & I spontaneously decided to head south to the McKenzie River for some mountain biking a couple of weeks ago. The weather was perfect!

A view of the lake at the top of the trail.

Josh part way around the lake.

Part way down the trail we found some lobster mushrooms! Yum!

A shot of Blue Pool

When we stopped for lunch Thor made a new, little friend (he blends in - look near Thor's hand).

Me on the trail.

After the ride Thor took a little time to do some fishing - a I even got out there for a few casts!

Cross Crusade #2: Rainer (and Mom's first Cx race!)

Last weekend was the second cross crusade race of the season. It was my mom's first cx race ever, and my first race as an A! Thor raced too - with a much better outcome than last time (not the cluster of mechanicals that he had last week). Here are some photos from the races.

Thor running up a slippery off camber section.

Thor - headed downhill.

The pictures of mom's race are a bit out of order - this is actually the last shot I took of her on the course.

Remounting the bike on the first lap!

Coming up the same off camber section as Thor.

Smiling, and clean, before the race.

Thor - running a set of barriers half way through his race.

A picture of the truck from pdxcross.com - We carpooled out to the race with my mom, and friend Laurie - so we maxed out the bed of the truck!

You can see a neat picture of my mom on the BikePortland.org website here

And here's a video from the race!

Foggy Fall Syncline Ride

Andy & I went riding in the rain & fog this past Saturday up at Syncline. We were up high - but without the amazing views we've been able to see in the past! Despite the rain -it was a great day of riding and we were out for close to 4 hours - I love it up there.

Pretty green strip of trail through a meadow.

Late Fall Harvest!

A couple of weeks ago I finally got around to harvesting much of what was left in our raised beds. Thor and I were overwhelmed with veggies - so I passed a basket off to my mom filled with carrots, green tomatoes for pickling, lemon cucumbers & beets. Yum!

Fall Garlic Planting

One of the great accomplishments of last weekend was getting all my garlic planted! (Nevermind that three dogs tore through my raised beds last night and uprooted most of it...sigh... hopefully it will all make it despite the disturbance).

I planted two varieties this year - and I planted a whole bed's worth - which I am really excited about!

Musik: This is a hard neck variety that is supposedly very easy to grow, disease resistant, and with nice flavor. I planted two bulbs worth (approximately 5-6 large cloves per bulb). This is my first time planting a hardneck variety - so I'm interested to see how it turns out!

Musik. Photo from Easy to Grow Bulbs.

Nootka Rose. Photo from Bloosqualls Garlic Farm

Nootka Rose: This is a softneck, silverskin variety that is supposed to store and braid exceptionally well. Thor and I have always planted softneck varieties in the past because I like being able to braid it (the last batch of seed garlic we bought was Western Rose variety - but I can't see that I ever posted that back in 2008!) . I planted five bulbs worth of this variety - which may produce up to 40 garlic bulbs come next July!

Here is a link to a handout I picked up at Portland Nursery about planting/caring for garlic in case anyone is interested in more information about cultivating garlic themselves.

Cross Crusade #1 - Alpenrose Dairy

Saturday was the first race of the 2010 Cross Crusade series! So much fun - there were over 1500 people racing -including Thor in his very first cyclocross debut! Unfortunately Thor had a less than amazing first time out - with two flats, and a snapped chain. Yuck. AND - I couldn't find any pictures of him online to post, so you'll just have to take my word for it that he was out there. =)
I had a decent race: a very fun race, made less enjoyable by sub-par pre-race nutritional choices (um...leftover birthday cake and a fried egg & bacon sandwich for breakfast. ouch. Like I don't know any better). Let's just say that little egg/cake baby didn't digest well and made itself VERY known during the race once I started to try and push the pace. Ah well, lesson learned.
Aside from that little distraction I had a really fun time out there - and there are some good pictures of me floating around from the race. These next couple were taken by my teammate, Michelle's, husband Matt. What I'm most excited about is how I'm looking around the corner in each of the pictures. This is something I've been working on a lot - so I'm excited to see I'm actually doing it while racing when I'm not thinking about it!

The Alpenrose course is a lot of fun - and includes some fun features like this great stair run up.

See the entire set of pictures by David Roth here.

And last, but not least, a video to keep you occupied if you're procrastinating at work! I don't know the guy who shot it - but thank you Cole Sprague for sharing! The music selection is a little non-traditional, and I would recommend fast forwarding to about 4:30 minutes if you want to watch a full lap of the course - about 5 minutes of video. (Up until 4:30 it's just people running the stairs over-and-over).

Nerd Party - My 30th Birthday!

I kept holding off on posting about my birthday because I was trying to find a picture of the fabulous cake that Margi baked for my friend, Laurie, and I that depicted a cyclocross course - it was AMAZING! If I can ever track down that picture I'll post it - but in the mean time here's a pic of Thor and I in our nerdy attire* to celebrate my 30th.

*I bought those pants for Thor waaaay back in the day when we still lived in Alaska. They were like $1.50 at Goodwill - and I knew they would come in handy some day! It only took 9 years to get him to try them on!

Anna, Thor, Sarah

I just found this great picture of Anna, Thor and I buried in my email. Typical. I meant to post this awhile ago - it's from the weekend Dad was visiting Portland and we all got together for dinner - it was a great night!