A DAY ON HOLIDAY

Here we are again in Europe enjoying the sights, the smells and of course the roads. The area of the mid pyrenees is like an amusement park for road bikes. Small paved roads gives a rider numerous choices to go in the same direction. Yesterday 6 of us went to the same area on three totally different routes. We were not being anti social but two needed to stop by the train station, two wanted to avoid some steep descents, and two of us left quite late so we took a more direct route. All had a great time on some of the best roads we have ever ridden. The other group headed south and had a great time on some roads very similar to ours.

Today was market day in St Cere. It is not an amazing market with fresh everything but more of a mercantile market, kitchenware, clothing for everyone, jewelry, and live chickens. I was pretty sure these are chickens for eggs, but they could have been for eating. One man bought one and a woman bought 4. They were all professionally stuffed into a cardboard box. I was wishing my farmer sweetheart was there to see. This is not Bend.

A couple of days ago we went out on a wet day during a sucker hole. This is when the clouds part and the sun appears. Minutes after we left it was pouring rain. Only six of us choose to ride that day. In the first town we decided it was time to have some coffee and see if the rain would stop. The cafe was closed, so was the next one and so was the next one. At that point I needed to eat so we found some shelter under a the opening of an old (very old) church. We happily ate our sandwiches, quiches and nut torts, again not Bend. Everything one does over here is an adventure and interesting.

We have had a few setbacks on this trip. One of our bikes is still missing. Linda has done her best to get by. She borrowed a bike the first day, the second day it rained and most of the group enjoyed the town. Yesterday we expected the bike but it was a no show so Linda and Paul took a hike up to the castle in town. Today we have been assured it will arrive by 1pm. I will get it together so they can have a long ride this afternoon.

Gary has a bad cold and sat yesterday out, today he is back at it though. He is in good spirits anyway. It is Gary and Priscilla's first trip to Europe and they are enjoying it 100%.

We also are going to have to be here during a general strike. This happening the day we were supposed to leave. This means the trains probably won't be running. Most of the group have selected to leave a day early. This is wise as they will be able to get home in time. I have elected to leave a day later. Not prudent but it is a chance I am willing to take. I want to spend as much time as I can while I am here. Here are some photos of our group and some sights.

Thanks for reading,

Don

IN FRANCE

We arrived in Paris two days ago at 6:30 am. Not much to do until the train was going to take us to Brive-La-Gaillarde at 2PM. That made for a relaxing wait. We had to get to Terminal 2 at the Charles de Gaulle Airport and then wait for Paul and Linda to arrive. They arrived on time except that Linda's bike was left behind in Washington DC. Not good. It is hard to have a cycling holiday without a bike.

We got to the Train station and Muffy and I decided to take a short walk along the Seine River. In the distance we could see the backside of Notre Dame Cathedral, the top of the Eiffel Tower and we ran into Bernard. Bernard is our French friend who comes to OBR almost every year. The chance of seeing him on the streets of Paris (where he lives part time) was pretty impossible, but meet we did. We had a nice chat with him and his wife Dominique. Then it was back to the Gare Austerlitz. We managed to get all of our baggage on the train ( 13 bikes and multiple suitcases) and sit for the long ride to Brive. The train for me was a great choice. One could nap in the seats, walk around the cars and look at the scenery pass by at around 100 miles a hour.

Our shuttle met us in Brive for the short bus ride to St Cere. Madame Berry was there to greet us and help us organize our large numbers of bags. One of my favorite things about returning to a familiar town is seeing old friends. It is comforting to know that we were going to be treated in a warm friendly manner. Though I have heard many stories of being treated unfriendly in France I have never experienced it, and yes they do smile in France.

Yesterday, our first riding day it was off to the Nut Festival. We had been close to the nut festival a few years ago. It happens every two years in Saillac, about 30 kilometers from St Cere. It is a celebration of walnuts and it is called the Fete de Noix. Noix is nut but it actually walnut. They have a big meal (this year the theme was Spanish and the meal was paella). The locals dressed the part as torredores, flamenco dancers, mexican banditos etc.

We tasted nut oil, cocoa nuts, sugar nuts, nut loaf, nut tarts, nut mustard, pretty much nut everything. We were also riding on the Route de Noix. It was kind of nutty.

100 kilos of some of the best riding around.

Today I woke up to a partly cloudy sky that quickly turned into an exciting thunderstorm. Now, at 10 am, we have a steady downpour. Some of the group are headed out with a rental car to see the sights, some are waiting for the rain to stop and I am writing this postponing my interval session in the hill of St Cere (rain or not).

Here is a link of our ride yesterday. I will have photos later. Thanks for reading.

Untitled by donoso@bendnet.com at Garmin Connect - Details

THE URGE TO PACK

I am leaving for France and Scotland next Friday and I woke up this morning with the urge to pack. I really haven't thought too much about this trip other than make reservations, help my friends who are coming with me and talk to Lew and Barb about the different routes we will take. A couple of days ago I thought maybe I should check the weather. I did and it didn't look great, I checked again today and it looks a lot better.

Anyway today I just needed to pack, some kind of traveling instinct I guess. I didn't want to pack my suitcase as I will still be using lots of those items, so I packed my bike. I have a Ritchey Break-a-way and it goes into quite a small suitcase. So at 7am I am out there getting ready for my trip. Next week I will have 5 more bikes to pack so this was a good start.

When I pack my bike I think of the first time I used this bike. It was an unexpected trip to France. My good friend Kent Mills had booked a luxury tour to see the Tour de France with his boyhood friend Ric. But Kent the week before had decided to do some extensive yard work and he ruptured a disc. He had no trip insurance so after a few frantic phone calls and an offer to Susan he gave the trip to me. I had decided I was going to get a Break-a-way that fall so I put in a frantic call to Ritchey and got one on the way. It was going to get here on a Monday and I was leaving on an evening flight on Monday. I showed up around 1pm. I was at home franticly packing it, sending Kathy down to Sunnyside to get some parts I needed. I never even had a chance to ride it. Off to the airport to Portland where I had to spend the night. I got it out of the bag, out on the tape and took it for a test ride. It seemed OK.

The first ride on that bike was up to the Tourmalet, the most storied pass in the Pyrenees. It worked fine and on the downhill I was feeling like I had ridden this bike thousands of miles.

It has been like that ever since. I don't ride it much but when I do it feels like home.

Packing for me is not unpleasant. I usually do it early (my instinct I guess) and every time I pack my bike I relive all the wonderful trips and think about the wonderful friends I have traveled with. I will be writing my blog more often during this trip so you can follow our adventures. Enjoy.

One more thing. My friend Serena wrote a very nice blog about our friendship, you can read it here Run bike ski

TRANSITION TIME AND NEW PLACES!

I have been accused of not writing a blog for too long. The truth is I need something to say for me to write. August has been too busy for me to reflect on my life. In other words I have been doing and not thinking. August starts with the Oregon Bike Ride for me. That would be my last blog. Then before OBR was even done it was off to Serena and Ben's wedding in Opal Creek. Then it was back to work, riding my bike and starting to think about Cyclo Cross.

The thing that has really overwhelmed me this year are the three new places I have been this year. Those are Opal Creek, Iron and Cone Mountain and Jack Creek to Three Fingered Jack.

Central Oregon has been my home since 1969. I have hiked, ridden and driven to most of the really good spots in Oregon. I can't even begin to name them all but there are plenty. Some are so good I like returning year after year. That is where the problem lies. Since I return to my favorites every year I haven't been to some places that really should have not been ignored. So first it was off to Opal Creek for a wedding. Opal Creek is famous for the fight for it's existence in the 70's. I don't have all the particulars other than it was going to be logged and some very determined people fought it with everything from legal to protests. It was worth saving. Old growth trees, pools for swimming and hanging out just a perfect westside paradise. It was where Serena and Ben fell in love and it has become their special place.

Then Barb got us to go to Iron/Cone Mountain. This is one of the best wild flower viewing areas in Oregon. We have been meaning to get there for years, so this year we made it. Again why had we not been there? I can't answer that but now that we have made it we will return.

However the place that really made me wonder what have I been doing was the hike to Canyon Creek to the base of Three Fingered Jack. The truth is I am an eastsider. As beautiful and wonderful the trees and flowers are on the Westside, I like the desert and the openness of the eastside.

I can't even begin to describe the hike to Three Fingered Jack other than I was amazed at the beauty, the feeling and the intimate feeling of being so close to Three Fingered Jack. TFJ has always been the one Cascade mountain I had no affinity for. I have no logical reason for that. Now it is close to my favorite. I have very mixed feelings about getting there 40 years late. One is how could I not have been enjoying this jewell that is so close and the other is the wonder of having discovered it now.

The photos say it all for all three places. Thanks for reading.

Don

OBR 2010

OBR this year went to some of my favorite places in Oregon, places with memories, places with no cars, places I like to share with friends. On OBR I got to share them with 240 friends.

We started in Klamath Falls. I got to know K Falls, as we used to call it before I knew anything about Bend. It was 1970 when I got a job with the US Forest Service working in Chiloquin. K Falls was the place to go to buy a book, binoculars, get a good meal, see a movie the fun stuff and I did all of that 40 years ago. Until Bend finally got it's new library a few years ago Klamath Falls had a much bigger and modern library than Bend. It sits on the largest fresh water lake West of the Mississippi, and it shares its name with the Klamath River, which traveled to my College stomping grounds. We headed to Bly, Silver Lake and then a stop over day at Diamond Lake. This meant we made a big circle around the area I worked in all those years ago. We even rode by my "driveway" which is the upper photo. A few miles down that road, I had a small mobile home that was my guard house. It was close to a spring and hundreds of Sandhill Cranes. That was the summer I was a bird watcher. There were so many and so beautiful I went and got the bird book and binoculars (those were actually a birthday present for Kathy). What a

great job for a boy of 19. I felt like a man then but I have come to realize what a boy I was. I say that as a good thing.

On our lay over day at Diamond Lake ( besides feeding the mosquitoes) we went and rode our bikes around Crater Lake. Crater Lake will always be special for me because Kathy and I spent a very important and romantic 4th of July weekend there in 1969. When I see the Lake I see and feel all of those years we have been together. Though Kathy wasn't there on this trip she was there in my mind as she always is.

Traveling in a National Park is always a bit different than other places. The brown interpretive signs, the vehicles with so many different license plates, and the Rangers always ready to answer those questions. I have to share two of my favorite tourist stories. One I was at the rim and someone asked if the water was really that blue. The other was the "husband" explaining to the "wife" that the lake filled up in the winter. The wife, who was quite observant, wanted to know how all of those pine trees near the lake shore survived. Our ever ready husband was quick to answer that they were a special species of trees that could live under water.

The rest of the OBR was also quite fun as we made stops in Butte Falls and Fort Klamath. I was impressed at all of the riders who told me how much fun they had. I am glad they were able to enjoy an area I have enjoyed for over 40 years.

Don

SUMMER'S DEFINING MOMENTS

Summer is the season where events mark the beginning the middle and the end. For a school boy those dates are fairly obvious, end of school, 4th of July and beginning of school. I never liked school as a boy, it wasn't until university that I looked forward to fall. As a boy summer was full of adventure, lazy days in the sun playing baseball and riding my bicycle. When I became a young man and went off to university summer was three months of hard work, fighting forest fires and being away from friends and sweethearts (well really only one sweetheart).

At the age of 59 summer still has the same importance it did as when I was a boy of 15. It is a time to enjoy the sun, get outdoors, ride a bike hike in the mountains eat raspberries out of the garden, and even if one isn't supposed to get some sun. As an adult though summer doesn't have the feeling of doom when it is over. I also love the fall, and to this day when I start seeing back to school sales I am so pleased that isn't me. Fall has a better taste when school isn't involved.

It would come as no surprise that summer's defining moments are cycling events. The end of the Giro in May is the start of my summer. The Tour de France in July is my high summer, and The Oregon Bicycle Ride, though in August, signals the end of real summer is coming. It seems when I leave for OBR the temperatures are hot and the days are still long, and when I get back the days seem so short and the temperatures have receded from the 90s into the lower 80s. I know then that cyclo cross is coming soon and busy days in the store are pretty much over.

Of course even those things change. In the 80s Sunnyside's busy days started at the Pole Pedal Paddle and ended with July, now the busy days start in March and don't really end until the middle of September. That is not only to do with the population of Bend but also with our habits. Cycling has become a 12 month activity, not a 3 month one.

In my photos this blog I have include a few that mean something to me. One is a photo of Tumalo Mountain with moon at about 6am from halfway up Farewell Bend trail. Riding a bike in the wee hours of morning is the best, especially with a friend who happens to be as insane as I. The next photo is Serena (that same friend) racing in the Cascade Cycling Classic. She did quite well by the way. The next photo is a pro racer drafting his team car up the Shevlin Park hill. This is called cheating by the way, even in the Tour it would be called cheating. The last photo is of course of our adversaries in the Tour this year, Alberto and Andy. They put on quite a show and I thank them for that.

I hope your summer is as meaningful as mine.

Don

TDF: GOING BACK 5 YEARS, DIFFERENT AND THE SAME

Going back 5 years in the Tour de France things were different and they were the same. I was lucky enough to be at that tour. The reason I was there is a bit of a story ( a friend bought a trip, couldn't go and gave the trip to me). I loved watching the tour and I would tell everyone who loves bike racing to go to the Tour at least once. Watching the Tour live is an experience that I will never regret. Traveling in France in the summer is difficult though.

Lets get on with my story. Five years ago my group choose Revel as the stage to watch the finish. This is the same town that the tour is finishing today. Revel is another beautiful town in southern France. There was a break that day with Paolo Salvodeli. He was on the Discovery team, a teammate of Lance Armstrong. The finish in Revel is tricky because there is a short climb with a technical downhill. I predicted Paulo would win and win he did. Paulo, who is retired now was known as il falco (the falcon) because of his descending abilities. He was also a decent sprinter. He won the day. He later went on to win the GIRO for a second time. If you look at the photos you will see on the big screen television a photo of Perrick Pedrigo. He was in the main field that day trying to pull in the chase, today he is currently in the break still racing with one career TDF win. You will also see in the photo Thor Hushovd putting on the Green Jersey. He is currently the holder of that jersey. Will he keep that jersey today, tough to tell. I think Alessandro Petacchi will beat Thor in the sprint but I can't say by how many places. So that could be the same as 5 years ago. Lance is back in the race, though not in the yellow. I got to ride the course 5 years ago and do the final climb. Like any climb it depends on fast you go whether it is hard or not. This one is not that tough unless someone fast is up front trying to put the pressure on.

Watching today is special because I have been to Revel, the next 5 days will also be special for the same reason. I hope to go back to watch the tour someday. It won't be with a big tour group just some friends will do. I will remember not to go to too many finishes. As you can see by the third photo it is too crowded to really see anything, when we go to the mountains we will go to the second to last summit, and find a cafe with a TV to watch the rest of the race, and though Paris was an experience, it is just too crowded to really enjoy the race.

5 years seems a long time but it really isn't as many of the same players are still here.

As I write this the breakaway is almost caught and there is 10 miles to go. Who will win, who will have green, who will be ready for the Pyrenees? Soon we will know.