Daisyland

There are wet Randos fettered by chains to a wheel in perpetual motion.

So by 0500 I was at Desmoines to start Desmoines - Blackdiamond.

Why ? Because that is what I have modified for the June Populaire

 

First Control at Green Valley Meats is bolted shut but the Porta-Potty is open

On Sundays they open at 1000, not a problem.

There are no magnificent views today at the Blackdiamond Bakery which is just a wee bit off course.

A cup of Coffee warms me up and two cookies to go.

Green Valley Road is Daisyland, Daisies my favorite flower.

I stop to pick a few for the Podium Girls before stopping at Valero for the Auburn Control..

They are not impressed.

"Back to work" they say

"You've had your fun"

Thanks to Alan Bell
Tomorrow I will ride "June Pop"

Reckless Necklace

Thanks Mark

Guinevere

"Winter is coming"
Ned Stark (Lord Of Winterfell)

Khaleesi

Got hitched to Khaleesi on the 8th month of the 4th year

But could not hold it together for very long

So I broke it down and flew Iceland air

To a Velo-land that speaks a different tongue

We set out at nite for the women of the Gite

I gave her a wrenchin and she gave me her word

I asked our objective, she said we'd be back by the 25th

Most ambiguous thing I have ever heard

Kindness in everyone seemed the norm

As we spun through the nite and into the dawn

Sadness and spasms when he died in a storm

But we made up our minds that we had to go on

Ridin for fame as there is no gold?

Or bling bling strung on a nylon necklace?

Thinkin miller time or any beer that's cold?

I was thinking Khaleesi thought I was so reckless.

Then she told me we would do this again

And things would be different the next time we would

If only I could calm down and just be a friend

Too tired to understand all the strange things she pulled.

Thanks Daenerys Targaryen and of course Steve Hampsten.

Remembering Thai Pham, we never got to meet.

Winter of My Discontent 2 (Cocoon)

Riding so many miles, so many things went to mush.
Even the legs went to mush, Vinnie's paralysis! I called it.
Fired too many cannons, Sir Robin sez?
Only a phase, I sez.
Just a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings and fly away.

Thanks Tim Foon Feldman.

The Winter of My Discontent 1(the feast of the immortals)

How does one start to write again? A story perhaps? Long long ago in a very special time...... Maybe once upon a time... How about, just the year two thousand and ten. The year when, without actually knowing when I decided on it, decided to ride either 30,000 kilometers or 20,000 miles on a bike. Being a bike polygamist, and a tinkerer with bike electronics. And at the same time a poor log keeper, I would use RUSA to keep the log. So off I rode, every Brevet I could manage in the Great Northwest including a 400k Fleche from the White House (Charlie White's Home) into British Columbia. But that is a different Country and so is Texas I gather, or is the Jury still out?

Congratulations! Gary Gottlieb, made a marker for the Long Distance Rider.
Much of a long distance ride depends on logistics, I tried to look at it as one big ride. With a full time job and children it would be tricky. It helped that RUSA sanctions a "Workers Ride", I would also learn a lot about working Brevets. The Seattle International, and Oregon Randonneurs are a tightly knit bunch, they support long distance cycling rain or shine, but Brevets would not be enough. Again RUSA sanctions a "Permanent", a Brevet that one could ride at anytime agreed on by the owner of the Permanent and the rider. I remember vaguely Kent Peterson's blogs on training to race the "Great Divide". Practicing not training I think he called it. With Coach "No Car", Coach "No Gears" and I think there was a third one. I called on Coach "Permanent". Owning no Permanents of my own and not having yet unveiled any aptitude for routing courses, I called on the SIR Permanents which are all owned by the inexorable Geoff Swarts.

The Mystic Mjolnir at Cape Flattery, it only takes a camera to make her smile, though I had carried her through rock, bramble and bush to get this shot. As long as I had my Serotta I was down for whatever.

It was also the year Professor Dan and my friend Andy from down under visited with me for the Cascade 1200. Kole joined us in a pre ride libation. I thanked them for the visit and explained the significance of libation amongst the Igbo people. A must at any significant event which we ritualized by dropping some of the contents of our goblets on the earth in which we have interred our ancestors. Sharing with them our pleasure, for if they had not copulated, it would not have been possible. Though in my self centered take on it, the only reason they existed in the first place was to make the moment possible. I further explained my gratitude, for in our philosophy a poor man is a man who prepared a big feast and no one came to share it with him. My assumption is that most of the feast would go on the ground to the ancestors, hence the "feast of the immortals".
The SIR list of Permanents is a feast of Olympian proportions. May we gather again from far an near to participate in this feast. What use is a website full of courses if no one rides it.
And that's just the beginning of my story.

Thanks Gary Gottlieb for pushing the envelope.

A Forest by the Sea

Forest, show me how to roll!

Thanks Dan Boxer