My legs were a bit knackered on Monday from Cherry Blossom. But they began feeling better already on Tuesday. I planned on doing a three hour ride in the morning, but it turned into a one hour ride because I had to get a new chain and then fix my shifting again. And I hate spending money on some stupid worthless part like a chain. It was $50 (ultegra) plus $10 labor at Performance. I thought Performance was supposed to be cheap!! I went there because my local bike shop here in Sherwood, Willamette Valley Cyclery, was out of 10 speed chains. But damn. When did chains start costing so much? Is there a global chain shortage or some kind of chain-maker’s strike? I ended my three hour’s worth of shammy time and one our of actual riding and started painting our garage. But quickly grew very sleepy as the warm sun beat down, so I took a nap.
Later that evening I drove up to Portland for PIR (Portland International Raceway), expecting 20 or 30 people like a Eugene Tuesday night crit. Maybe a few more because Portland is bigger. But nope, there were 90 people in the race. That’s an even bigger number than 62!! And in my opinion, 62 (or even 29) is a very large number. Too large to count, actually.
I attacked hard for most of the race, getting in a breakaway just about every lap. I could tell my legs were still lagging a bit from the weekend, but there’s only one way to make them stronger so I went hard. With two laps to go, I sat in to rest for the sprint. I ended up too far back by the final turn and on the right side of the track, which turned out to be the wrong side to be on. No one was going fast enough in front of me and the left side was still going faster than I was, so I ended up just sprinting from where I was for about 500 meters or however long that last straightaway is. 22nd place, BOO YEAH.
Today I rode for 4.5 hours at a good pace and now I think I’m tired. But I’m not sure.
I ate a good sandwich after the ride, among other things. Here’s what I put in it:
One piece of Dave’s Killer Bread
One piece of some other bread because there was only a half piece left of Dave’s Killer Bread left
I toasted the bread.
I accidently left the plastic bag from the bread on top of the oven toaster and it melted plastic everywhere
onion
red bell pepper
a huge amount of spinach
a bit of deli ham
a fried egg
lots of Valentino’s extra hot hot sauce, which isn’t really that hot.
KENNETT PETERSON 