Interbike was this week and reading all the reports and looking at all the pictures coming out of it reminds me of the good old racing days.

This thing is a trip – it’s Mike Curiak’s prototype bike. In 2005, Curiak won the 350-mile Iditarod Trail Invitational setting a new course record in the process. This bike was built to help him in the extreme endurance race.





The downtube is sealed and it can hold up to 1.5 liters of white gas. The tube can be pressurized via a Schrader valve and then a camp stove can be run directly off the bike! He used it to cook food and melt snow for water.

Pretty interesting.

Today is Friday! Hooray, I made it another week. So what’s in store for the weekend? Lots of fall mountain biking and if I’m back in time, maybe I’ll give water polo another shot.

Last night was my first “night ride” of the year. Stopped and chatted with someone I hadn’t seen in about a year! That caused us to really finish in the dark. It’s amazing how much more fast I feel like I’m going at night. I think it’s because you have to focus on the trail so much. Here are a couple simple shots I took last night.







Anyway, it’s black bean, rice, and cheese burrito day! HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND

I'm an early riser, I just can't sleep in. In fact, I'm horrible at sleeping in general. I usually get at least 8 hours of sleep a night, but it's really a struggle to stay asleep sometimes. For those of you who do sleep in, you’re missing out on a beautiful time of day. This time of year is especially great with all the fall colors around.



Now that it’s almost October it gets dark too early for a big after work ride. That means it’s night ride time! Tonight we’re heading out with our lights for a good loop. The first hour and a half will still be daylight; it’s the end part where we’ll need the lights. I can’t wait!

I know I posted those ride pics with snow a week or so ago, but that is LONG gone and we're into summer again. The weather has been perfect for riding and that's what I've been doing.

Broken Top as seen along Metolius Windigo



High meadows rule!




Derek on a little fun section along the trail.



My biggest problem right now is trying to decide what to ride this weekend. Umpqua, McKenzie, something up by Mt. Hood...endless possibilities.

Papercuts and Butterflies

My cross bike was due for a front brake adjustment and I knew it. Coming into the roundabout down from my house the front brakes would squeal loudly and scare drivers, not to mention they weren't actually stopping me or even slowing me down much. Now, just using the back brakes isn't enough to stop me in case I should need to. So, I stopped by Chandra's to pick up her mail while she's outta town and I was holding it in my right hand as I came riding up to her place at a good clip. I apply the brakes and remember they don't really work, go to grab the back brakes and realize my hand is full of mail and can't, transfer the mail to my mouth...yes that's right. I got a paper cut on the left corner of my mouth (lip). I finally threw the mail down and grabbed both brakes with all my might just stopping short of her front door and the bushes.

I just got back from my lunchtime ride and what is with all the butterflies out? I thought we just went through this not too long ago and then all the caterpillars resulted? Something I can confirm though; when the butterflies hit you they leave a little black smug. I'm not talking when they smash into you and die, just when they fly into your arm or leg or something. It's like a smug of ash. Weird.

I'm allowed to what?

After my ride Sunday I decided to stop by the pool and check out the newly started water polo pickup games. I've never played water polo before and I thought it might be fun. I miss ball sports. My knee hurts when I jump and run so basketball, soccer, and volleyball are all out. This is a coed thing every Sunday evening and I was hopiing I wouldn't be the only female. Thankfully, I wasn't. I jumped on in and announced I had never played before and had no clue so a couple of them came over and told me to watch them underwater. You have to do this thing they call eggbeaters. It's the motion of your legs and when done correctly by pushing downward with the side of your feet, it keeps you afloat and upright without moving back and forth and up and down like normal water treading can. It's really a difficult motion to get the hang of but I managed to not drown. We did some drills and I was already getting totally winded. I need to work on my eggbeater because I am working twice as hard and moving my legs twice as fast as everyone else just to stay above water. TOTALLY GOOD WORKOUT. Game time.

We split into teams and they start to go through some basic rules with me. Rule #1 that surprized me. "You are allowed to, in fact, encouraged to: lean on, hold onto, grab, pull on the suit of, and generally harrass the player you are guarding." Wow...this could be fun.

I even scored 2 goals!!!!

I hope to get back out there next week.

Waldo Lake

Perfect weather, awesome ride. The lake is suppodely one of the purest in the world. It was scooped out by ancient glaciers, covers 10 square miles and reaches a maximum depth of 420 feet. On a clear day, you can see to depths of 100 feet. It was pretty clear the day we rode it. The ride just around the lake is 20 miles but we added on about 7 by parking further out and jumping on some singletrack.

Friday was our last day of riding and it was a stellar ending to a great vacation. We rode up to one of the glaciers, the Glacier d’Argentiere. We rode all the way up to the valley to the lift and then took it part of the way up the mountain. The rest of the way…we climbed! It was another brutal climb with loose babyhead rocks and plenty of grueling gravel. One of the guides actually turned to me and said, “I hope to hell you guys want to see a glacier.” Hahahah I couldn’t believe the absolute beauty when we got to the glacier though. Oh my god, that is easily one of the most fascinating things I have seen on a ride. As we ate lunch, pieces of the glacier would come crashing down in spectacular fashion. It sounded like dynamite going off as it resonated down the mountain. Apparently those glaciers are going to continue to melt away, and in 25 years it is estimated that they will be gone. That is a real tragedy.













The descent started out very technical with giant rocks comprising the trail and plenty of danger.









Then it hit the steep ass singletrack with more rocky, stepped switchbacks that required a lot of finesse. I am proud to say I mastered that trail and had very few dabs. The gravity dropper worked like magic and I was in love with the trail. We ended on another very cool section and bam, that was it. I was sad to be done riding there, really sad.

Mountain biking has taken me to many places I wouldn’t otherwise visit, and shown me parts of the world that I truly appreciate. Through all the blood, sweat and tears I have been continuously impressed with what this sport has done in my life.

Second to last day in Chamonix

Thursday brought clear, perfectly blue skies and I was pumped to ride. Good thing, because we had a doozy in store for us. We rode a series of rooty and rocky singletrack all the way to Montroc and then continued on up to the lift The “bubble” as they call it there, took us up a little ways and then we climbed for 35-45 minutes the rest of the way to the top of the Col de Balme. There is a little stone restaurant up there and at the top of the Col is the Switzerland/France border, with a sign showing the border. This was just a stone’s throw away from the very monstrous climb we had done Tuesday and I could see the singletrack at the top where I thought we had been starting to descend. We had lunch and then started the descent down into Switzerland.







This was a VERY cool descent that reminded me a lot of some of the riding here in Oakridge, Oregon. It starts out in the open - high up on the Col and then drops drastically via a set of switchbacks.





You can see some of the others in our group waaaay down there.





No joke, that’s what we had just come down.



Heading into the dark forest soon.







The singletrack continues on into the dark in the trees; rooty, and rocky with some really scary fast sections on the side of the cliff.





It lasted forever and dropped us out in a tiny town where we then rode back on the road to Chamonix.



That was a brutal road ride back up and I was totally dead by the time we reached the chalet.

Brrrrr

For the record, today is the first day of autumn and for my ride into work it was a whole 29 degrees. I was dressed for it though with my full leg warmers, jacket, and fleece ear/headband. I love the feel of fresh cold air in my lungs and then the burn that starts up after the initial shock. I hope I can capture some fall color photos soon.

Tomorrow I'm taking a breaststroke swim clinic to spice up my swim workouts. I've always liked the looks of that stroke but I know I am not doing it right because it takes me about 25 strokes to make it 25 meters and that just isn't right. So I hope to straighten that mess out tomorrow. Then we're off to Stu and Linda's for a birthday BBQ - HAPPY BIRTHDAY STU!

Sunday I'd like to go for a mountain bike ride, there are only so many weekends left before more snow hits the upper altitudes so I think I'll head up to the high trails. Pictures will follow for sure!

Black bean, rice, and cheese buritto day! WOOHOO

The next day was a rest day and we needed it after Tuesday’s epic. Today would be my first day of not riding in 12 days. We decided to take a train up to the Mer de Glace and play tourists. Glaciers are really fascinating – we don’t have many in the US but the Chamonix area is rich with them. The Mer de Glace (sea of ice) is the second largest glacier in the Alps. The train takes you up, and then we took a Gondola down a ways, and then hiked down into the glacier.









Some lady admiring one of the rooms







Later we rode the Alpine slides. Last time we were in Germany we had fun on them, these ones were a bit more risky. They had signs that said “Brake here” and they should not be ignored. A couple of us tested the limits of those little sleds and dangit, you can totally go off track with them.

Another self operated ride at the little park.





This place had a couple pretty good beers. Coming from Oregon - home of soooo many microbrews, we were disappointed overall with the beer in Switzerland and France. The wine was good to make up for it though.

Tuesday was really a very difficult day. I don’t know that I’ve ridden anything that demanding in quite awhile. I have no idea how far it was, only that it was an all day ride with a large portion of the time spent climbing. Once again we couldn’t see any of the surrounding mountains through the fog really – just glimpses here and there. We rode up out of town towards Montroc on a series of fun singletrack sections, then took a fun little trail around and down into the next valley to the base of the climb. Here we started a climb to the climb. Haha The real climb was an all out, serious incline. It switchbacked up and up and up, then more up, steep sections, more switchbacks and then finally to a lift.



This was only the halfway point but we stopped to regroup. At this point it started drizzling and the wind kicked up a notch. Perfect. We climbed some more and some more, some really steep pitches and of course more switchbacks. We arrived at another lift where I ducked under the building to eat a sandwich and wait for others. At this point a few people decided they were too cold and didn’t want to go any higher or climb any more and turned back. The rest of us pushed on…for more climbing. I kid you not, this is the most climbing I think I have done in several years and I have done a lot. It was a brutal grind to the top where I thought we would start a decent, but we climbed on some singletrack even further around to the other side of the mountain. HAHAh – we had to descend soon. Sure enough, we did. It was completely fogged in and raining so I got no pictures, but the singeltrack was really cool. It was a rocky little ribbon with switchbacks slashing down the mountain. We were above the treeline but soon descended into it and continued the fun descent. We ended up popping out on the road up the valley from Chamonix and rode furiously for the cake and coffee/tea that awaited us every evening upon our return. It was really the hardest day of riding I have done in quite a while and I would love to do it again and take some pictures. We all hit one of the local bars pretty hard for some cocktails and beer that night.