kendall card 2.0

I think I rode one of the more beautiful rides of my life today.

I’m in Oregon for the week and brought my roadie along so that I can get some rides in. I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be a great week for riding.

This morning I left my parent’s house in Tualatin, Oregon and headed west through Sherwood, linked up with Kruger Road that rose and up over a small mountain to finish up in Beaverton.  Along the way I passed by this beautiful Bed and Breakfast called the Chehalem Ridge.  I’m jotting this down for a get-away.

It was only a 30 mile ride but the views of Mt. Hood, Saint Helens, Mount Adams and even Rainier combined with the picturesque forest roads that were winding and beautiful made this ride a definite repeat! To top things off I saw 2 cars on Kruger Road and not a one coming down from Chehalem Pass.

These low quality shots from my soon to be retired cell phone don’t do it justice, but imagine the type of road that BMW would feature in a commercial - winding, ups and downs, 180 degree curves, tree canopy with sunlight cutting through…and you’ll get the idea. Add to that the bluebird skies and I was in heaven.

It’s nice to come home.

I don’t care about the haters.

I don’t care about the critics.

I do care about the cheaters but I still believe that Lance was clean.

There I said it, I took a stand, drew that line in the sand.

Cyn was up in the Uintas hiking Kings Peak with the boys from Thursday to late Saturday which meant that I was a single dad with Annapurna during that time. Whoa! That single parent stuff can be stressful. Props to all the single parents out there making it happen, and to Cyn who with grace lets me play more than any married with kids dad I know, hence being a single mom on occasion.

Around 7:20pm on Saturday night I got a call from my princess who says when I answered the phone, “Get your cycling stuff on we’ll be home in 20.” She really knows what buttons to push.

So I got Anna bathed, dressed for bed and dinner started and when they arrived home. After some long overdue hugs and kisses I had just enough time for a quick out and back up the Mirror Lake Highway to my 10 mile turn around point. It’s a ride that I try to do in less than an hour which means I have to average just over 20mph even with the 1100′ of climbing.

As I was nearing the turn around point the sun was setting behind Beaver Ridge and I had to snap some shots with my soon to be retired cell phone. Sunset cycling is so enjoyable!

As for the riding conditions, they were pretty good for a holiday weekend Saturday evening. I had a few miles without cars which was nice.

I imagine the fly fishing is great right now since I inhaled a half dozen or more bugs. They are thick out there. Did I say that sunset cycling is enjoyable? At least there are views of this to remind me of how good the ride was, despite the extra protein.

Oh yea, my time? I managed 1 hour and 2 seconds with the stops for photos. They were worth it.

Le Tour kicked off today and Valverde took the Yellow Jersey after basically stepping to the plate and signaling to the fence before the race began. Good to see a guy deliver in such fashion.

One of the things I hope for on this years tour is a “clean” tour. Although disappointed that Levi or Contador won’t be in the race, I don’t really care who wins but that it is a clean tour. It’s time for cycling to regain it’s place in the eyes of sport.

Check out this interesting perspective from Jens Voigt as he talks about the degree of testing that has, hopefully, cleaned up the tour.

Going Fast, I love it. Cynthia says that my driving is too fast. I know this.

Here are two examples of going very fast (three if you count the picture):

1. I’ve never owned a bike computer. I do now and last Saturday’s ride on Wolf Creek Pass was a fun testing ride for it. On the descent I was letting it run and looked down to see I was going 48.4 MPH! I admit that I pedaled a few times to see if I could push it to 50 but alas, thoughts of an out of control fall kept me still and poised for the downhill, tapping on the brakes a bit.

In case my mom is reading this, yes, I know what would happen if I went down at 48 MPH and yes, I wear a helmet (although at 48 MPH I’m not sure what good it’d do)

2. I’ve wanted to climb and ski the Grand Teton for a few years now but I guess I’ve not wanted it bad enough as it’s still a vision, an idea. I figure I could do it in a day. Then there’s Jimmy Chin. The guy is FAST. He flashed the Grand, Middle and South Teton this past month climbing and skiing all 3 of those peaks and did it car-to-car in just under 11 hours!

Oh yea, he did it solo. Mad props Jimmy!

Ride: Wolf Creek Pass
Number: 1st time this season - 2008
Conditions: Sunny, great cycling weather, slight tail wind with climb.
General Feeling: Knee felt good, lungs and legs were hurting. Granny gear the entire time, too much standing.

Note: Permit me to use this blog as a bit of a cycling journal. After this my first Wolf Creek Pass ride of the season I wanted to keep track of my season progress on this my favorite mountain ride.

After missing the chance for a ride around the valley with my friend Jim Kane, I set out around 10am on Saturday to head up Wolf Creek figuring to stop at the base of the climbs and then circle back through the valley to Weber Canyon in order to get around 50 miles of generally flat to mild climbing. After reaching the Mill Hollow turn off where at mile marker 15 Wolf Creek Pass road pitches up I turned and headed back down. Just before getting to the Provo River in upper Woodland I saw Bill and Gordon heading up so I circled back and after some pleasantries I agreed that I’d ride with them part way up Wolf Creek as I didn’t want to do too much climbing yet. Yea, right.

Although they dropped me I managed to keep them in sight until just before the “S” curve about a mile from the summit. So much for no climbing. I felt tired and winded, but the familiarity of the climb and the enjoyment of making this my first Wolf Creek Pass summit of the season was rewarding. While at the summit Dave Peck came up from the Hanna side and the four of us kept a pretty solid pace line all the way back to Kamas.

Since my “no climb day” was shot, I joined them on 248 until the top at the Two-hey gate where I bid them farewell and headed back for home, making it 61 miles and 4000′ of vertical.

It’s a good start for my annual solo ride of the Kamas-Wolf Creek-Tabiona-Fruitland-Strawberry-Heber-Francis-Kamas loop. It’s about 125 miles and 8000′ of climbing. I think this year I’ll go counter-clockwise as the headwind that I suffered last year for 90% of the ride nearly did me in! Anyone out there want to give this loop a go with me?

click the image to see the map much larger

Google Map link of this loop

Kudos to Keith at Base Camp Communications for a cool PR hit for the very worthy Africa Bike project (click that link)

I remember 3 years ago when my father and I were (re)building my home and we’d often find ourselves near the end of the day amazed, pointing to the sky at the amazing sunsets that were seen here in the Kamas Valley.

One hot summer night I recall us up there roofing or putting siding on the upper reaches of the house, taking in yet another whopper of a sunset and my dad quietly turned to me and said, “I’m really going to miss the sunsets when I go home. Almost enough to get me to move here.” Coming from an Oregonian that’s saying something.

The new header image of this blog is 4 images stitched together that I took from my “tower”. Just another day in K-town.

So it was last night while biking down from Wolf Creek Pass that I rounded the final corner before dropping into the river bottoms of Woodland and spotted another beauty. What roadie wouldn’t love this view?

Oh yea, I saw 4 cars the entire way home. I love this valley.

I was out for a short bike ride last night on the Mirror Lake Myway where I was passed by a total of 5 cars in one hour. I love riding on that road before the Mirror Lake and other campsites open up.

As the sun was setting a fiery red I turned around at the 10 mile mark, slipped on my new Pearl Izumi vest, upped the volume on my iPod and rocketed back down toward Kamas with 1100′ of advantage to help me along.

As I rode steady in the big chain ring and looked down at how well my legs seemed to be working for me, my thoughts went back to just over 2 years ago when I was bald and recovering from surgery on my brain. This happens from time to time, usually when I’m out in the backcountry or doing something solo. It also happens when I see something of beauty or share a priceless moment, often with my children or wife.

So it was while racing down the road, my mind thinking of my fortunate extension of life, that I remembered this video. And I wasn’t even wearing my Team Discovery kit!

When you register for an event, it’s customary to know if you’re “in” or not within a week or so. Given technology and the many database and excel programs, you might even squeeze the process of determining whose “in” to a few hours, or a day at most. If you’re really antsy and have to know in real time then Active.com is brilliant. But nearly 4 weeks?!?!?!

After last year’s race, it was with great anticipation that I looked forward to the April 22 registration date. I was up during the night, waiting for it to go live on their website, which is a slick flash based site. (www.lotojaclassic.com). Late night e-mails, text messages and IM’s were passed around, waiting to know. I hit the sack late and woke up early and then the text came through from Jason - “Registration is up!”

Since then, radio silence.

Is this another counting of the ballets? Am I sensing a Florida style ballot dispute? Is there an 89 year old grandma who is counting the registration by hand and rolling the dice for each registration, going best of seven to determine if you’re in?

I’ve heard nothing. No updates, no “shove off mate, you’re not in“, no “congratulations you made it“, not even a “all operators are currently busy, your wait is estimated to be 19 days” - NOTHING!

Training for a race that I have no clue if I’ll be riding is a buzz kill. When it comes down to it, a race is a business and businesses have customers who, unless the rules of business have changed, they need to take care of.

C’mon Lotoja, customer service applies to all businesses. Step up your game.