Saturday Ride Report With Pictures

Remember in The Big Lebowski when The Dude is getting a drink at the bar in the bowling alley and the mysterious cowboy tells him "Sometimes you eat the bar, sometimes the bar eats you."? Of course you do! Todays ride was the latter, sort of.

I did a hard ride yesterday and wanted to do 30 miles today to start getting my body used to riding longer distances on consecutive days. I decided to ride out to Sauvie Island because I haven't done it in a while and I was thinking after yesterdays climbing something flat would be nice.

So I got up early and checked the weather, drank some coffee, got dressed, and hit the road just after sunrise. I'm going to get all my whining out of the way right now so it doesn't plague this post like body odor at a basement show:

I don't wear wool. But damnit if cotton socks don't fail me every week and my feet are numb with cold less than 10 miles into the ride. Am I going to have to rescue a sheep, buy a plot of land for it to live in peace on, and follow it around collecting the wool that falls off on it's own before I will have warm feet in the winter? Truth be told, I haven't really looked for good vegan socks. I'm sure I can find them, and I won't have to exploit a sheep by buying it a farm and collecting it's wool shedding to darn my own. I'm just tired of cold feet!

Which gets to the bigger issue. I am tired of being cold! It's February, it's fair game that it's cold, and thusly, that I am cold, but still. I am dreaming of warm rides. You will be mine, warm rides!

The Whinocerous would also like to say that todays ride was mostly unpleasant because it is hunting season and I did not know you could shoot animals on Sauvie Island. I was most of the way around the island when I heard guns and birds making bird noises as they took flight en masse. This made me so mad. I rode by a trailer on a pretty large plot of land that had a big pickup truck out front with some dudes getting suited up to go hunt. I looked at their property as I rode by it. No sign of a garden. No fruit trees. 

Keep in mind, Sauvie Island is mostly farms and they grow everything there.

This made me remember that line hunters tell about needing to hunt for food. I imagine many do eat what they kill, but if that was a legitimate reason for hunting, why aren't hunters master gardeners? If they were all about needing a cheap source of food, why not grow it?  You can surely grow more calories than you can kill. These knuckleheads I rode by clearly had enough land for a massive garden, but weren't growing shit. More fun to go out and ruin the silence on a Saturday morning by destroying beautiful birds?

Hearing gunshots made me grumpy.

So! That is the end of the whining. 

All of that made it hard to really get into riding today, but I had a thought afterwards. I figure everyday of the big ride in May probably won't be some glorious visionquest where the secrets of the universe are reveled to me and the bike pedals itself. There are going to be some hard days and this was a hard day. So today was good training for days when I can't quite get my head in the game but have to keep pedaling. 

I got some pretty pictures, too.

Friday Ride Report And Tips On Donating

Today I rode with my friend Glenn, we went up the west hills, which seems to be my new normal route. We did a different section than I've previously done, which is pretty easy as they flank the whole west side of the city. Somehow though, this section seemed to go a lot higher than the sections I've done before? Am I just a softy or does anybody have facts on this? South hills versus North hills? They look the same when you look at em from the east side of the river. I'm pretty sure I'm just a softy today.

It was fun having a partner, though I'm a lot slower going up than Glenn. If you bike, perhaps you have friends like this, they rarely have to get out of the saddle, don't seem to get winded, and seem to barely be pedaling while you're grinding it out huffing and puffing? It was great though, it made me work harder than if I'd been on my own. Were it just me, I would have been stopping every quarter mile for a mouth full of trail mix or another Nutter Butter.

I'll do this route again and take pictures, it was beautiful. Lots of views of Mt. Hood and Mt. Saint Helens, as well as downtown Portland, from way up high. With my commute, today will come in at about 33 to 35 miles of riding with hills, which is a good workout. I'm going to try and do 30 miles tomorrow, and 30 on Sunday to get some multi-day exhaustion going. 

Brendan Brazier told me in an interview once that it is good to train when you are tired if the activity you're training for is going to have you working hard while you're tired. It helps you get mentally prepared and helps you realize you can keep going even when you're beat. That is this weeks goal.

So, the donation page has been up for a day and a half and we're over a thousand bucks already! Thanks to all of you who have pitched in so far, I truly appreciate it. I've come up with some tips to help you decide when and how to donate. They follow.

Tips On When And How To Donate:

1. Do it drunk, if you are the drinking type. If you're like me, you'll be feeling extra generous!

2. If you don't drink, get drunk and do it cuz you won't know what the hell you're doing and will probably donate everything you've got. When you wake up with your first hangover wondering where your money went you'll realize asking for some of it back would just enhance your shame. Look at how much good you did the animals!

3. Do it on pay day. What good are you to me if you only have two dollars and thirty three cents to your name?

4. Do it after you watch Babe: Pig In The City.

5. Do it when your roommate who you know has a trust fund goes out clubbing but leaves his or her credit card at home. You know they want to help animals and again, way too shameful to ask for it back.

That's all I can think of right now, but I'm sure I'll have other brilliant and somewhat legal tips for you as time goes on.

I think I'm going to ride out to Sauvie Island tomorrow, I'll take pictures for you. There's a nude beach, but I think it's still too cold for all but the most ambitious dirty old men, so I probably won't get any shots there. Sorry.

Donation page is up!

Hey everybody,

The donation page for my ride to Farm Sanctuary is up and ready for you. I know times are tough so whatever you can do is greatly appreciated. I will post later about the hardships our economic situation is having on animal rescue efforts, but for now, as you think about what you're able to give, look at Whitaker. He was rescued by the brave folks at Farm Sanctuary. Think about how happy it will make you knowing you bought him lunch a few times.

Yes, I just played the emotion card. It is the first of many times I will do that.