A Quilt for Margi & Scott

I put together another one of these little car seat quilts for our friends Margi and Scott who should be getting their new little bundle of joy...oh...any day now!  I used a lot of the same colors that I put in the quilt for Nico earlier this summer - next time I make one of these I'm going to have to switch up my color scheme!

Quilt for 'Bart Brad' - my chosen nick name for the lil' nugget (short for Bartholomew Bradway. I don't think the parents like my name suggestion!) 

Plains of Abraham again!!!

I got to ride plains of Abraham again today! Such a great trail! I
tagged along with our friends Laurie and dan at the last minute- it
was another beautiful day!

Plains of Abraham

Thor and I got out last weekend to do one of our favorite rides:
Plains of Abraham. We like to ride this as a loop and head up to PofA,
across Windy Ridge, and back out the Smith Creek Drainage. It's about
a 5-hour ride if you ride pretty continuosly.

We rode on our own and had a great time! It was a real treat to ride
together - it has been a long time since just the two of us went on a
ride alone! After the ride we stopped to swim at a reservoir up near
St. Helens and it was absolutely lovely. We're hoping to try and sneak
in one more trip there before the end of the year!

Jackson Run Bike to Kindergarten

I just love this video - it's from Pinkbike.


Jackson Run Bike to kindergarten. on pinkbike.com

Oakridge Super D Podium

I found a podium picture from Sunday. I think we were supposed to be raising our arms in the air – but I hugged Beth instead. Oops!  I don’t quite have my podium etiquette perfected yet. J

Oakridge Super D!

Thor and I rolled down to Oakridge over the weekend for the Oakridge Super D.  It was sort of a bittersweet weekend because Thor woke up on Saturday feeling fluish, and nowhere near 100% on his bike. He has been locked in a battle for overall series champion and needed to be on top of his game for the race on Sunday - unfortunately he woke up feeling worse on Sunday, tried to race anyways even though he was feeling dizzy and had vertigo on the bike - and crashed out (shredding his kit in the process).  Very sad.  Unfortunately all four races in the series count towards the overall standings - so he won't get to drop his worst race.

Bye bye carbon Santa Cruz Nomad bike frame (overall series prize for his category).

 

 My race, on the other hand, went great!   I got 2nd place in my

category, my best finish of the season - AND what I was even more excited about is that I cleared the 15-mile course in under an hour (~59:40)!  Last year's winning time was ~1:06:00 - so I was pleased to shave over 6-minutes off that time.  The woman that beat me is from Seattle and she is a) incredibly fast, and b) possibly the nicest person ever - so it was no problem to come in 2nd to her - because she's just fantastic all around. =) (AND - I would have made the top-5 pro podium with my time - which is also a first for me!).  I won two tubeless ready Continental Tires (a Mountain King and a Trail King) - which was a GREAT prize. I've really loved the Continental tires I've ridden on in the past - so it will be fun to try a few more out.

 

 My run was not perfect (I rode perhaps my sloppiest switchbacks of the season - sooo ugly! - I actually had to get off my bike at one steep, 180-degree turn and flip my bike around to face the correct direction before I could get back on!) -- BUT -- overall I did a much better job than usual of staying off my brakes and accelerating on the straight-aways - so I felt really good about my run even before I saw my time.

 

An extra special treat was the bear grass at the top of the course that was blooming - that only happens about once every seven years - this was the first time either Thor or I had seen it. Absolutely beautiful!

 

 

 

Bell released a ~2 min. promotional video about the Oregon Super D series and Bell-sponsored rider Matt Slavin.  The footage is neat - AND - Thor makes a 1-second cameo appearance at 1:35 in his snazzy orange helmet that he loves!

I just loooove my efficient showerhead!

Yesterday the KGW's environmental reporter, Keely Chalmers, popped over to our house to interview me for a spot they did on the local nightly news about efficient showerheads.  I'm at about 0:21 (and Laea made it too!)