Sunday, March 27, 2011

Piggly Wiggly Weekend Ride

Last weekend (I know, I know - late AGAIN!!) the weather was terrible (as it has been all 'spring' so far). Thor and I were determined to go biking, however, and so we ignored the NOAA radar report and headed out to the gorge to ride anyways.

Here is what it looked like as we approached Hood River. It never got better.



We rode about 6 six laps out at Syncline - which had both of us thoroughly pooped by the end.  It poured on us the entire time, and was probably only about 38 degrees. Not exactly the best ride we've ever had, but we decided it was good training.

A couple of years ago Thor bought me this great jacket (a Sugoi that I don't think they make anymore) - and it finally bit the bust on this ride.  As Thor put it: "it molted." It has been getting little holes here and there, but I think this ride was finally just too much for it, and the pouring rain just disintegrated what was left of the shell.  R.I.P. Sugoi shell - this jacket hit the trash before we left Hood River.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Echo Red-to-Red: OR XC MTB Race #1

Last, last weekend (the weekend of March 12/13 - I'm perpetually behind these days) - Thor and I rolled out to Echo, OR for the first OR XC MTB series race of 2011, and more importantly: the first camping trip of 2011!!!! We headed out with good buds Sarah, Emily & Josh (Becky had to stay home and be a genius prepping for her thesis defense coming up this spring).  The race was on Saturday, so we rolled out on Friday right after work so we could squeeze two evenings of camping in.   Once again - photos are in no particular order (although I think I figured out what I am doing wrong - so I'm going to try loading my pics differently the next time and we'll see what happens).

Sarah's Race report (brief):  For the first race of 2011 I raced in the Cat 2 19-34 Women's category.  I felt really good - and ended up winning my race by a healthy margin of ~7 minutes.  I think this means I should probably upgrade to Cat 1 for my next XC race - although I am cranky about this because it means I have much less chance of winning any sort of prizes this year.  Yes, yes, I know - silly to be concerned about prizes - but I love them! I sort of feel like a little kid  - I get stoked about pretty much anything (except hand-drawn paper awards).  At this race I won a bottle of Sno Road Red-to-Red cabernet sauvignon from Sno Road Winery - very exciting!
    I raced on my new Niner hard tail that Thor just finished building up - and it felt fast!  I was concerned about how my back would do over 24 miles with no rear shock, but although it was a bit tired by the end I was pleasantly surprised by how good I actually felt.   The first 1.5 miles or so of the race was on a gravel road - so you really had to push it to try and get good position in the field heading into the single track portion.  I didn't pay attention at the start of the race, and thought that they were going to send the women out separately from the men - but that wasn't the case - so I ended up having a pretty poor position at the back of the pack heading out (note to self: pay attention to pre-race announcements).  I had to do a lot of passing once I got onto the single track - but fortunately there were quite a few 'flattish' sections to power out and around people - so I didn't feel like it was too bad.
    About 2/3 of the way into the race I caught up with the leader of my field - although I didn't realize she was in my category - I whipped around her without paying much attention - and was then surprised when she passed me again about 3 minutes later. It was only then that I noticed she had the same color plate as me - which meant we had started at the same time.  We rode together for the next couple of miles until I managed to hit my pedal on something and send myself flying over the handlebars - I never saw it coming!  I landed pretty hard on my hands, but was able to pop up and get right back on my bike.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to make up the 30-or-so seconds that I lost, but it turned out at the end that this other woman was a 35+ rider - so that's how I managed to win my race anyways despite the crash.

Thor's Race Report (even briefer):  I had hoped to get a report from Thor himself - but as of press time (already late!) he still hadn't written anything up - so here's my version:   Thor is getting strong this year - he is riding a hard tail single speed that he bought from a friend of ours, and I'm impressed with his ability to ride that thing without totally bonking!  It sounds like Thor was having a great race in the Men's SS category - until he went into a corner way too hot and peeled his tire of the rim.  Oops. Epic crash - but he was fine - and  30 minutes later he was back on the course and was able to finish his race. No DNF - yay!   He had a great time - aside from thinking that the extra, muddy section that they tacked onto the Pro/Cat1/SS course was a total pile because it was 'too much like a cx course.'

Here are two pictures of Thor and I racing from Oregon Velo:

 

Okay - onto the fun stuff - camping!   We LOVE to camp.  And Emily, Sarah & Josh also LOVE to camp.  And we all LOVE to ride bikes.  So it makes it especially fun when we are able to combine the two and camp and ride bikes all in the same weekend.   It's almost too much.  The Sno Road Winery owns the land the course runs on, and they very graciously opened up a piece for racers to camp on for the weekend - it was perfect.  The temperature was pretty chilly, but dry (mostly) - and we were able to see the stars at night, so I count that as a good camping trip. We ate good food, remembered the half & half for our coffee, and had plenty of bourbon in cider in the evenings - so it was a great start to the 2011 camping season.  
    We stayed out camping on Saturday night too - and rode the course again on Sunday. Lovely.
   

Josh - and our truck full of bikes pre-race on Saturday morning

 
A view of the country we were riding through - from our ride on Sunday.

 
Thor, Josh, Sarah & Emily on the Sunday ride

 
Self portrait with my super fashionable shades (unfortunately they are REALLY comfortable, and don't fog at all....but I kind of feel like they look ridiculous)

 

Sarah - or 'Waldo' as we took to calling her that weekend - in her brand new glasses

Emily & Coop
double rainbow from our camp
Thor and I at the fire on Saturday night.
Sarah & Emily - enjoying the morning sun.
 
You can see the start of the bruising on my right hand (left in the pic) from my trip over the handlebars!

The epicly piggly weather upon getting back to Portland. It was like staring the dark clouds of doom in the face as we drove west down the Gorge.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Mom's Canon Beach Watercolor

I just realized I never posted this picture that my mom painted at her water color workshop a couple of weeks ago - isn't it neat?    I have zero artistic talent when it comes to drawing, painting and photography (what people generally think of as the 'arts') - but Anna and Mom are quite good - and I always love seeing what they're up to.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Sun & Snow - A fun filled weekend

Last weekend (the first weekend in March - so yes, I'm behind) - we had a fun weekend of playing in the outdoors - and got some sun AND snow time in!  On Saturday we went back country skiing with our friends Margi & Scott up near Mt. Hood - it was the first time Thor and I had been on our skiis in over a year (!) - and it was such a treat to get outside to play in the snow. I miss it!  The snow was heavy and wet, and Thor did quite a few summersaults over his ski tips, but overall we had a fantastic time.

On Sunday we rolled out to Syncline to test ride the 29ers that Thor has been busy building up in preparation for the XC race season.  Mom, Annie & Laea came with for a great day of riding in the sun - followed by a tasty brew and lunch at Everybody's Brewing in White Salmon.  I almost had a mini meltdown on the uphill when I ran out of snacks, but fortunately we ran into the Chris King crew out riding and one of them had an extra bar in their backpack. Crisis averted!

With the 29'ers at the start of Sunday's ride.
Mom & Annie - enjoying the sun.
The view from the top.
Laea with her 'stick' she found at our rest point.
In between runs on Saturday.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Williams' Susitna 100 Pics

Here are some pics from the start of William's Susitna 100 attempt over President's Day weekend.  W cranked out 50 miles in the snow before the shovel broke off the front of his sled. Dang!  But he had a great time.   Thanks to RW Renrag for the pictures!

W - attached to his sled -ready to run
Cozy in his coat - waiting for the start
A close up of the evil sled

Friday, March 4, 2011

Double Rainbow

Yesterday the weather was a bit crazy - we'd have huge downpours followed by periods of sun.  I stayed a little bit late at the office, and around 5:30pm happened to glance up and see this double rainbow!  One is really obvious - but if you look to the right of it you can see the faintest shadow of a second rainbow - it was really spectacular set against the stormy blue/purple of the evening sky.

Looking east towards Mt. Hood - from my office building in downtown Portland.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

The Presidential Ham

Kathryn and Brian visited Portland over the weekend, and had the fun idea of going to check out some 'art' in the Pearl district.  Thor and I had no idea where to go to see 'art' in Portland (I'm sure this is not surprising to any of you who know us!) - so Brian selected a show out of a local indy newspaper.  His selection: The Presidential Ham.

The Presidential Ham ended up being a series of 44 oil paintings - one for each of our dear American Presidents.  As the name implies - in each painting the President is holding a ham. In addition to the hung portraits there was an interactive component to the show as well - there were two paper mache hams on a table that you were encouraged to pick up and take your picture with. You were then supposed to send your picture to the artist, Bijijoo. Below you can see Thor and I's contributions to their collection.  Overall it was quite an interesting experience - followed up by a delicious lunch at Kenny & Zuke's.  Yum!


Napa 2011

Last weekend over President's Day Thor and I took a trip down to St. Helena, CA to visit our great family - Linda and Garry Rose!  Linda is Ralph's cousin, and we always enjoy seeing them, and getting a chance to visit - it always involves lots of coffee and fun chats!  Anyhow - we had a fabulous weekend, but I feel like I'm getting behind on posting pictures, so I'm just going to toss them up here and put captions on everything.  As usual - I can't remember how to upload the pictures so they show up in the correct order, and I also have trouble figuring out how to move the pictures around once they're uploaded....I know, I'm hopeless! 


Linda & I at Benessere with the sign welcoming us to the winery! This cracked us up. Linda & Garry know the wine maker at Benessere - so he 'rolled out the red carpet for us'

A close up of our welcom sign
On our last day in CA Thor and I did a great hike up out of Calistoga. The colors were beautiful - here's a shot of Thor heading down the trail.
The trees were all draped in this beautiful lichen


The view from our lunch spot
Giving Thor the karate chop - with my ninja hood up. It was quite chilly up at the top!
On our way down Thor spied a little finger of single track snaking off into the woods.  We followed it and came across a great biking trail - complete with banked turns and this crazy teeter-totter

 
I'm showing off how tall the poison ivy is in this shot here - waaaay over my head - and thick on both sides of the trail!
Took this early morning shot on my jog Sunday morning.

Another jogging pic

The weather was cold, cold, cold when we showed up on Friday night. We went to visit Pride on Saturday, and there was snow up in the vineyards!  They said it hasn't snowed in the valley like that since 2007.

Self portrait - Pride Vineyards
lichen on a rock along our hike