Waves to Wine 2008

It's that time again. Here's hoping all my loyal blog readers (Dad? Tricia?) will see this and help me out on this year's fund raising efforts.

Click this logo to donate to my 2008 Waves to Wine Bike ride.

Seattle to Portland 2008

This year's Seattle to Portland ride was a delight. The weather was warm, and got up to almost 90 at the end of the second day. That's not too warm for those who live in Antioch, CA. We had tail winds both days and were able to average 15.5 on day one and 15.75 on day 2. Tricia was a rock, just rolling along at 18 and 19 for long spurts. At one point she was leading a line of guys in Air Force jerseys. We were rolling!

We had no big adventures, but a couple of small amusements.
The night before the ride Tricia asked "Is your rear wheel supposed to look like that?" and indeed, it wasn't. When I wasn't looking I'd let the rear tire develop some darn near rubberless spots. I'd just oiled our chains and hadn't even noticed. I really would have been pushing things to keep riding on it. Fortunately REI is open until 9PM, and I made it just under the wire.

I did make one other screwball move. As I put cycling clothes out on Saturday night I realized I had no shoes. I'd left them on a table back at the midway point party when we got a ride to our host family's home. They were kind enough to haul me back and my shoes where right where I'd left them. I was contemplating how it would be riding in tennis shoes...but I didn't have to.

But it all worked out really well. Heck, we were hardly tired after the ride.

Now I know what went wrong

I had a tough day cycling the other day and couldn't figure out why for a while. Now I know.

I have Sole inserts, which I like a lot. A few months after I bought them I received an offer for two pair of their socks -- for free. I took them up on it, and the socks seemed very nice. I wore them and enjoyed them.

After my rough day, when I took them off, I noticed they were marked, on the inside, "left" and "right."

Now, I can't see or tell the difference, but apparently my body subliminally knew I was riding with them on the wrong feet! Clearly that was the problem. That's a mistake I'll be sure to never make again.

Case closed.

BART Bicycle Priority Area

BART in the SF Bay Area now has areas in the its cars set aside for cyclists. Except the area isn't big enough, they don't hold your bike up and if the lard ass in the seat next to them stays put instead of moving to an empty seat you can barely use them. Our bikes stuck out into the door space because we couldn't flip the seat up. It was filled with people who just couldn't see us, or the empty seats all around them.

I guess it's a good step, but really....

In Portland their transit train cars have hooks for bikes that worked really well. Not that I'm bitter or anything.