WHO READS MY BLOG

I know some of you who read my blog, but I am surprised when someone I don't know tells me they read my blog. It is nice though. I feel honored that you out there enjoy what I write. I write about things that are close to my heart. I write about the positive things in life that pertain to cycling and skiing. Cycling has given me almost everything I have. When I went to University I had to write an essay, it was about a bike tour I did when I was 14. That was 43 years ago. I still love cycling. It is easy for me to see the good in it. The health, the competition, the exhilaration of riding a mountain bike, the skill it takes to ride on technical stuff.
Some of my best friends live in Scotland. We go on holidays there, we go to Spain with them, they come over here. That is because of cycling. Have you ever traveled to Europe, arrived in a strange airport had to find your way to a hotel you have never been to, all the time driving on the left hand side of the road. Well when I go to Scotland my friends pick me up, take me to their house and then cook dinner. Cycling had given me that. We do the same for them when they come over here.
Let me know who you are and what you like about my blog. You can leave a comment. I will share with you what you have all written, please be positive. There is too much bad in the world to include it my blog.
Kathy didn't come from cycling, she came from somewhere more special.
As Kurt Vonnegut's uncle said , if this isn't good what is.
Thanks for reading
Don

RIDING WITH DAMIAN (AND OTHER FRIENDS)

I have known Damian for a long time now.

Maybe 10 years. He was a student at OSU when I met him. Now he has two jobs. He is the owner of Westside Video and he works as the Western Tech Rep for Pedros. Pedros is a bicycle tool and lubricant manufacturer.

He is 30, I am 57. Old enough to be he father. I am not, I am his friend. We hit it off early and he has raced for Sunnyside most of those 10 years. But we are not friends because of that. We are friends because we love cycling, we like Battlestar Galactica, we are passionate about Cyclo cross and we like to joke. We don't have everything in common though. On Sunday we started our ride at 9, he went to bed when I woke up, 4AM. His ride was longer than his sleep. But he was there anyway. Why? Because he promised and because he wanted a riding partner who would ride with him and not drop him.

It is fun to ride with a group, or a friend who have a certain etiquette about riding. This means you finish with whom you start with. This means you are not pushing constantly while your companions are suffering. It means your Sunday rides are not races, they are for endurance fitness. So Damian and I ride together. We just needed a 4 hour ride. Not a race. Damian is stronger than I, but I never noticed that once in 4 hours. It is amazing but I can ride with people stronger and weaker than I. It has to do with following the basic rules. Don't half wheel, don't attack every little rise, if you are weaker don't take some really hard pull and then be so tired you can't keep up any more.

I have ridden in Europe with some amazingly strong riders. We go up the long climbs at our own pace. We wait at the top, ride down together, the flats together, eat together. Have a meal together after the ride. Always finish together. . If you ride like this you will have an amazing amount of friends all over the world. They will be women, young dudes, old guys, all walks of cycling life. Do your intervals by yourself, do your Sunday ride with a friend or two. The world needs more friends and less competition. Leave that for the races.

One more thing, isn't that a great view of the mountains behind Damian.. Bend is just a great place to live and ride. I must be blessed.

Don

Mallorca in March

This is me in Mallorca, Spain. It is March and the fruit trees are in bloom. No snow, an lots of roads. Except this is not this year. I am home. I like being home, even in March. But I miss Mallorca, and all my friends that I meet there. Kevin, Andy Ali, Pete, Steven, Bob Steve, Colin etc. I miss the cafe con leche, I miss the lunches in the Plaza's. Lots of plazas. The switch back climbs. Sa Calobra. An epic climb carved out of the rock. Group dinners. Yes I miss all that. Next year will be different. I will be back. Hopefully my friends also.

It smells different ever there. Everything. The cars, the dirt, the blossoms and the food. I can smell it right now.

Next year I am going to take a group of Sunnyside Sports friends over. I want to show them that even when the dollar is down you can go to Europe and have fun without spending a lot of money. I want to show them that being in one place for two weeks can be just as rewarding as seeing lots of towns. I want to show them a more Euro type of Spring trip. More like a camp. If you are interested please contact me at donoso@bendnet.com . We will be going in March, I am hoping for about 10 with a cost of around $2000 for the two weeks. Maybe even lower.

Olive oil, paella, tumbet, windy roads (windy too sometimes), Lots of cyclists, I can't wait.

Don Leet

COACHING NORDIC SKIING

I have been working for the MBSEF coaching masters sking for 15 years now. I still remember Tim Gibbons asking me to help Greg Stone. The first year was a bit dicey as we had too many signed up and not enough coaches who were around all the time.

When I ski up at the mountain, and I see all the skiers skiing around around 50% have been in my class one time or another. Most look pretty good on skis. It makes me proud. If you are up skiing and you see lots of skiers using the V-2 technique everywhere they have been in the MBSEF program.

This year Greg Strome was the other part time coach along with Ben, Sara and Brenna. Most people I talked to had a great time and learned a lot. I like to think that skiing is fun, that technique is fun and only when you go hard is skiing hard.

In the photos above Sean and Cindy are working on the V-2 alternate. Both looked great. We had a great day on the mountain last Sunday. A perfect 10 in my book. Cold snow and warm air.

It is not always that way. Earlier this year when I was watching the technique of some skiers all I could really see through the blizzard was that they were making forward progress. I guess that is something.

My ski season winds down this time of year. I am allergic to my car and though I love to ski I find it hard to drive for an hour when I can just get on my bike. But I will be up a few more times, hoping for the sun and perfect snow. Look out for those V-2ers and you will see my mark.

Don Leet

BEING RESCUED

As some of you locals know there was an incident of a rider not stopping to help another rider. A lot has been written about that but this blog has nothing to do with that. I will say I hope it blows over and there are no hard feelings.
This blog is about me (no duh) and being rescued. If you don't know by now I ride a lot. I started riding a lot when I was 13 ( I started being hungry all time when I was 4). When you ride a lot things happen. Spokes break, tyres go flat, keys get lost, the sun goes down, the energy runs dry.
The first time I was rescued was in 1964. We were on a tour in Central California. It was my last day. I was trying to get from Rio Dell to Cupertino. With about 40 miles to go I had a spoke explode on my rear wheel on the freewheel side. I had no tools to fix that. So I called Mom. She was working, but after work out she came. This was a pretty big deal because my Mom never really did get used to driving in the Bay Area. It was rush hour. I probably wasn't the most apreciative son as I had waited at a gas station for about 7 hours. That is long time for a 13 year old. But I got home, and mom didn't mind too much.
The last time I was rescued was today. Mom is still around and would have come but I called Kathy. After the last blog she has a soft spot for me and it was getting dark. I waited today for the sun to warm. Finally at 1 it seemed ok. But that didn't leave quite enough time to go 110 kilos. Especially when I had to fix a broken chain. No tools no parts. I went back the 20 feet from where I had stopped and found both parts of the quick connecting link lying in the road. They are not supposed to come apart. Lucky! After I got to Highway 20 and it was 4pm with 30 miles to go, I pretty much knew I wasn't going to make it. I did get to Ward Road. The sun was so low I couldn't see anything and I was thinking the cars behind couldn't see me. So out came Kathy. With a smile on her face. How good is that?
She doesn't always come with a smile. I can't blame her. A few years ago John, Ben and I rode around Waldo Lake. Great ride. But when we got back to the car I could find my keys. Ben and John hitchhiked to town and I called Kathy. That sounds cool but you see I had the car. We are one of the few families with one car. She was busy, but she rounded up Gary and Susans Nissan, and she came to get me. I know, all of you are asking why didn't you use the spare key? Well I hadn't gotten around to a spare yet. I now have one of those small plastic keys sewed into my chest. Kind of like a man called horse ( a movie about the sun dance). It hurts most of the time but it is a good reminder about not loosing your key.
For a while it seemed that the main thing about being married was getting rescued. Kathy tried to explain to me that really wasn't part of the deal.
I could go on and on as there are really quite a few more but I think you get the picture. I sure appreciate all those times. I keep thinking it will be the last.
Don

VALENTINES DAY

It wasn't very warm on Valentines Day this year but it was sunny and not much wind. We went for a bike ride together. Kath loves it out east. She doesn't get out there as much as I do. I have bicycle disease. That means I ride whenever I have a chance. It means my favorite vacations include a bike. It means I race. It means I have worked in a bike store (Sunnyside Sports) most of my life. Most everything I do has to do with bikes.

Kathy is normal. She likes to ride, she has been to Spain to ride with me. She has some really nice bikes and likes to mountain bike and road bike. But not like me. So on Valentines Day it was special that we went out together. She is my favorite riding partner. She is smooth, looks like a pro. She never drops me. Sometimes she will ride next to me but only when it is safe. She will tell me what flowers there are and what the plants are that we are smelling and just how beautiful the country is. Everytime I ride with her it is special. Like Valentines Day every time.

We used to have a tandem. That was fun, but Kathy likes to shift, steer and basicly be in charge. I like that. I would rather ride with her than be on a tandem with her. Someone asked. How do you ride with her without the tandem? I told this person I had been training quite a bit and could keep up with her pretty much all the time. I have this idea this person wondered how I, a bike racer, could ride slow enough to enjoy myself with Kathy. Well it is simple, I simply pedal at the correct cadence in the correct gear so my speed matches her speed.

We had a great ride on Valentines day. Did about an hour, her pace, we dressed warm and had a hamburger at the Pilot Butte drive in afterwords. I hope she wants to ride again soon.

Don

SPELLING RHYTHM AND MORE

Spelling is not my strength. I lose every Scrabble game I play. I used to think it was some defect in my brain. No spelling gene. About 12 years ago I decided to learn Spanish for real. I had taken Spanish before but it didn't stick with me. I did pretty well in Spanish. I can now read fluently and speak almost as well. I can spell in Spanish, every word. Wow, I thought I can spell better in my second language than in my first. That is because Spanish is simple. It is spelled as it sounds (almost always).
Then I started to write this blog. Writing in a blog is not as demanding as writing in english class. There is no teacher grading your paper, and a blog is expected to be a bit informal. I don't like to appear illiterate. Since I started to write in Spanish, and never misspell a word, I have had higher expectations in my English. I use spell check on the blogger. I guess that is cheating but I use it anyway.
My last few blogs I haven't found any spelling errors. Then Kathy showed me how to spell rhythm. So I checked the spell checker and realized it wasn't working. She was kind and said rhythm was a hard word. Probably greek or something.
So I will continue to write. I will try to spell as best I can, or maybe I will escribir en español (castillano). En Español es muy facil que deletrear. Pero nadie puede entender nada.
Donoso