One day I was riding this week I got dive bombed by an angry sparrow. I heard some frantic chirping behind me and looked over my shoulder to see a bird about a meter above my back, swooping and diving at me, attempting to get its courage up enough to come in for a kamikaze attack. The villain pooped at me, shooting its crap rockets towards my rear wheel in an effort to send me sliding to my grave on the pavement. With no weapons left in my arsenal save some illegal and controversial nerve gas, I decided the best option was to kick it into a higher gear and say goodbye to my angry chaser.
A few hours later I stopped at a country store and refilled my water and bought a bottle of iced tea. It was hot out, probably 100 f on the road. I downed the iced tea in one gulp (exaggeration, it actually took more) and started the last leg up to the top of the forest service road out east of Cottage Grove. I like that route because the last 10 miles or so are on a single lane road that follows Bryce Creek when it’s still a tiny creek. No snow or fallen trees got in my way this time, and I was free to imagine myself flying up a winding ascent in the Tour.
Out of water and at the top of the climb at 4,500 ft, I turned around and descended for 25 miles back down to the country store to eat a coconut popsicle, a large bottle of Squirt, a push pop sherbet ice cream thing, and a snickers bar. I’d done about 80 miles at this point and also eaten 3 cliff bars and was down to just one packet of sports beans for the 40 miles back to Eugene. Now one might think that since I just ate so much food, I’d easily be able to ride another 40 miles with just a packet of sports beans. But at this point in the ride I’d already burned over 4,000 calories and only eaten roughly 1,500. So I planned on making one more quick stop at a certain bell once I got to Cottage Grove 20 miles away, a taco bell if you will, where I got a burrito that had just the right amount of fake cheese sauce to bean ratio. After eating the half pounder I felt better immediately, and realized that it was probably because of the salt. I’d drank about 10 bottles of water but hadn’t had any electrolytes other than in the cliff bars and ice cream. The next chance I got, I stopped at a horse field and helped myself to the salt lick.
I got back to Eugene and had a great 4th of july barbecue with plenty of salty food.
Yesterday, I did the Firecracker crit. There were 15 of us signed up and a huge headwind kept it together for the first quarter of the race. I missed the stupid breakaway though, and ended up just trying to tire myself out. As Matt pointed out before the race started while we were getting lined up, it would have been a great group for going on a morning CSC ride with. But instead we went around the round crit course 40 times for twenty bucks. It’s not that I don’t like crits, it’s just that I like road racing so much more and don’t understand why all the good road races are over by May. Por que!!!??
Earlier this week I went on some other rides and did some other things that don’t need much explaining. They mainly involved riding my bike hard and eating food. Dave Roth and I destroyed the Thursday Nighter. The Tuesday night crit was a good workout but I missed the break; it was fun putting the pack in the gutter with McKenzie, though. I gut stung by a wasp on my lip and it swelled up. Oh, and I did go to the river one day in-between rides. I ate a trough-full’s worth of pho soup. And I almost forgot to mention that on the same section of road that I got dive bombed on the way out, I got dive bombed on the way back home. No poop this time though.
Tomorrow I’m riding to Sunriver to start my acclimation for Cascade and Nationals.
Calories burned while riding this week: 19,000
+
BMR calories needed this week (2,500 a day): 17,500
=
Calories per day: 5,200
KENNETT PETERSON 
Did I tell you I did Tour of Willamette in 2001? I think we raced up Bryce something or other. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done (the stage race). I remember a silly crit in Cottage Grove too. Saturn was all that back then. Cascade sounds cool. Doing Superweek here and there. Patty still asks about you. I think she’s smitten.
BK
BK, as a rule I generally don’t use big words like “smitten” on this blog because they perturb and belittle my readers.
By the way, here’s the definition readers: affected by something overwhelming; “conscience-smitten”; “awe-struck.”
The tour of the Willamette use to be bad ass back in the day. Lately, not so much. This year it didn’t even happen because not enough people signed up.
Kennett,
About the “gutter” move . . . there was a pile of dirt with cones marking it in that particular gutter. Could have gotten ugly if someone behind didn’t see in time to avoid. Not really worth the risk for a Tuesday nighter, right?
I like to chase imaginary things, and bark at empty trees
Andy, I agree. The dirt was dangerous. McKenzie accidently knocked one of the cones over that was marking the pile of dirt. After that, I made sure (when I was on the front) to move over far before I reached the dirt section. Although I can see how people behind me would probably still move over to the right as much as possible to get in my draft–making it dangerous for other people behind them. Not that safe, yes. But it sure made things interesting! haha. If it’s there next time (with the side wind) I’ll move all the way over to the left side of the road, though.