I rode in to work today.  19 miles one way.  Takes 1:20.  Burned over 1,000 calories.  It rained the whole way.  I was fine warmth wise and the rain wasn’t pouring just a light rain or sprinkle but spending over an hour in it gets you wet.  Things I learned:

1. Wrap your clothes in plastic or bags otherwise you look like you pee'd your pants.  Yep.  I got to work, pulled my clothes out of the pannier and my pants were wet because the rain had soaked through in spots.  So most of the pant leg was dry accept right around my crotch.  Nice.
2. Bring some extra socks and gloves.  They’re wet.  And now I’m going to have to put on my wet socks and gloves for the ride home which is not going to be pleasant.

Otherwise I planned pretty well.  I carried an extra backpack today to bring in some extra hangers so I could hang things to dry them out.  You might be also interested to know that my office doesn’t have a shower.  That’s right I rode over and hour and then didn’t take a shower.  But I betcha I looked funny in the bathroom, washing my hair in the sink, and wiping my body down with a hand towel.  I also used these anti-bacterial wipes to wipe down my whole body and get me smelling “fresh and clean as whistle” (queue Old Spice commercial).  I actually don’t feel gross so I think this will work.

I should also mention that I’ve been meaning to post the picture of my going away party but that I’ve been hemming-and-hawing over a good website to host it on and/or do it on my own site http://www.mketopdx.com.  I did actually upload them to Kodak’s EasyShare Gallery and it did a nice job, let’s you create a photo album, let’s friends/family purchase photo’s, etc.  But… I’m kind of a geek – I don’t like being told how to do something when I know there’s other ways.  Kodak forces viewers to log in, only uploads via their client, I have to email myself to get the darn link to the album or else email everyone through there interface etc. etc…  I don’t like that.  So I’ve been doing some hunting and I ran across Flickr.  And actually it’s been getting some hot reviews.  You can print or pickup your photo’s at Target.  The photo browsing and searching is phenomenal.  The photo slide show is awesome as well.  I’ve used Flickr in the past to host a couple of images that I used on a forum but it’s gone through quite an upgrade lately and looks like it’s recently been purchased by Yahoo.  So I think I’m going to use that and see how it works.  I’ll post the link to the photo’s later.

Tonight Heidi and I are headed to a Fat Tuesday festival on the North side of Portland.  Someday I’ll have to give you a breakdown on how the city is structured into these 4 quadrants.  NW, SW, NE, SE and all the roads revolve around that naming convention.

Well it's been 3 weeks now in the Pacific NW. It's rained a total of 1 day. Light rain drops not the downpours of the Midwest. I didn't do any riding this weekend unless you count the 2 mile round trip to the grocery store. I've always wanted to try and do my shopping, commuting, etc by bicycle and make the use of the auto be a exception to the rule. Although I hate to admit it, it helps that out here you aren't viewed upon as being a freak if you walk around the grocery store in your cycling gear. I can't count how many times I've seen people using cloth bags from home instead of the plastic bags in the checkout lane. If someone did that in the Midwest there'd be 'looks' of 'is that person a freak' and sighs of disgust because it takes just a little bit longer for the checkout person to load the grocerys in cloth bags that don't fit the little metal pastic expanding thing for the plastic bags. I think it's cool - they don't recycle the damn plastic bags so where they hell do all those bags end up?

On Friday after work I headed directly to this bar/restaurant/hotel/venue called White Eagle Saloon to meet up with my old friend Jenn. There was a good band playing background music while we talked, drank, and enjoyed happy hour. Heidi showed up around 8 or 9 and we got some dinner there as well. The next band at 9 was pretty good too. The place had good food and it's own brewed beer. The atmoshpere was laid back and casual. They also have 10 rooms that you can stay in.

Heidi went to Eugene, her home town which is about 2 hours south of Portland, to visit her parents and spend some time with her friend Anne so I spent the weekend catching up on some gaming (dinged the 'lock 29 & 30), catching up on watching the Tour of California (grats Floyd Landis), lobotomized myself by watching some World's Strongest Man on ESPN, and also watched some of the Olympics - all the watching was done via the DVR too - no commercials! Anyone like Wallace and Grommit? I think my good friend Kevin back at Harley mentioned that to me awhile back and Heidi had already heard of it and likes it. So we watched Wallace & Gromit in Three Amazing Adventures Sunday night and plan on watching Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit later this week.

I forgot to mention that I flatted on the way back from Vancouver about 2 hours into the ride from this little bad boy next to the bottle of Corona – nice screw!.

I was kind of out in no-man's land I thought and had even phoned in to Heidi that I needed a lift. I had walked about 1/8 of a mile when a roadie stopped and gave me a new tube. I don't think he was commuting since he had no bags and was in a full navy and white Specialized kit. While I was changing the tube out another biker passed and offer the usual "Everything ok?" So I guess bikers are friendly out here.

I stopped at Performance yesterday to buy a couple tubes, tire levers, and a portable pump so I don’t get caught like that again [if you’re reading this thanks Mom!  I finally used those gift certificates you gave me 1.5 years ago!].  They can be a little pricey but it’ll work for the short term.

I also stopped in another bike store to have my mtn bike worked on.  The guy writing up the service ticket was very cool.  He moved out here from Michigan about 7 years ago and loves it here.  Says the mountain biking is awesome.  More hills.  But your riding through a friggin rain forest!  It appears that it’s a little less organized compared to the whole WORS circuit thing but I got the feeling that they like it that way when he started mentioning grabbing beers after the races.  I think I’ll fit right in since that’s the way our crew operated back in the Midwest.  Laid back.  Sounds like the races are more individual and not strung together into a series.  Apparently the site to check all the stuff out on is Oregon Bicycle Racing Association (OBRA).  It also sounded like road racing is a little more popular than mountain biking but that cyclocross has them both beat.  This is much different than back in the Midwest.  There’s a pretty full schedule on the site.  I think I’ll try my first race – the 20th Peak Sports Muslinger – on March 26th – 4 weeks away!  Looks like it’s being held in the Coastal Range in a small town called Blodgett, OR.  Funny how they not only mention the course distance but also the feet.  That must be the feet of climbing!  I think I’ll try sport to begin with – 21 miles and 2800 ft of climbing.

When isn’t a 3 day weekend a good weekend?  I had Monday off.  Presidents’ Day.  That’s weird since I’ve never had that off before.  Back home we usually have Good Friday off.  Not out here.  Old world vs new world – sensitivity to favouring Catholics?  /shrug

Monday I did a 3 hour ride.  I rode to work and back.  Took about 1 hour 20 min for 19 miles to get there.  I had to stop in Starbucks for a hot tea and refill my water bottle on the way back since the extra I brought along flew off the back of the bike somehow during the ride.  When I left the house it was sunny and warm (high 40’s) but as soon as I crossed the Willamette River (1/4 of the way into the ride) the sun ducked behind some clouds and it got a little colder.  My feet were so cold they got numb and I had that hot swollen toe feeling as I sat in the Starbucks.  Starbucks are all over the place here by the way.  You can’t go 4–5 blocks without running into one.  And the thing is there’s always people in them.  You’d think with so many of them that there would be some saturation.  People are sitting around relaxing drinking or eating and reading or conversing.  It’s actually quite a relaxing atmosphere.  I had a short conversation with a deaf guy that was pointing at my bike because I had left the flashing head-lamp on when I came in.  He was a really nice guy.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to do this ride for awhile.  First figuring out how to cross the Willamette river and then figuring out how to get to the major bridge that crosses the Columbia river into the state of Washington.  Crossing that bridge was interesting.  Most of the time out here the roads are extra sensitive to bicyclists.  They have generous bike lanes on almost every street as well as bike specific traffic lights!  Well Washington isn’t so bike friendly and Portland likes to stick their nose up at them.  One reason is for the most part people commute from Washington (mainly Vancouver which is the major town on that side of the river) into Portland for work – causing wear and tear on the bridge (that’s already seems ancient to have an Interstate on it!).  Then they bicker about who’s going to fund it to renovate it and so on...  So Portlanders have this status thing and have words to describe Vancouver like, the Couve or Vantucky [not unlike the FIB or Flatlander or Cheesehead or Cheddar Curtain terminology back home].  So the bridge is kind of like this unwanted thing that connects Washington to Oregon. 

Anyway so the commute across this bridge is precarious.  There’s only like a 3 foot wide section that you can ride and if I run into a pedestrian or another rider I’d definitely have to stop.  On one side you have a 3–4 ft steel railing and then it’s a long long drop into the river and on the other side you have these steel girders coming down with huge rivets and vehicles zooming past at 60+ mph causing little wind gusts that push on you.  I had to keep my eyes straight ahead and not let them wander to check out the mountains or river too much for fear I’d wreck myself something bad.  It’s also easy to build up speed because obviously the bridge is not flat.  It’s crests in the middle so there’s quite a climb on one side and then a decent descent on the other where you can build up speed. 

I should’ve stopped and taken a shot while I was on it now that I think about it but here it is just before I entered it.

On my way back I had to cross a bridge that spans the Willamette river as well.  As your coming back (South) across the river, there’s a friggin’ stoplight just for bicycles!

I did alot of Olympics watching.  I always seem to gorge myself on the Olympics when they come around.  How often do you get to see sports like Snowcross!

Heidi and I also went to Doug Fir on Sunday night to check out a few bands.  The opening band was called The M’s (review).  They sounded alot like the Beatles and were the best show of the night.  They were also from Chicago!!!  The second band was called Heroes and Villains – they are from Portland.  Interesting music – very artsy.  They had 3 guys and 2 gals and the one gal could really sing.  I think they are a local band that hasn’t really released a major CD yet.  I did find this web-site that has some music on it though.  The headliner, all this for just $8 BTW, was Archer Prewitt.  Maybe it was just getting late or we were tired but this guy was putting both Heidi and I to sleep… and we were friggin standing!  Of course they were serving good beer and the venue was small and cool.  Definitely want to check out this place again.