Monthly Archives: August 2012

Crater Lake

On day three the prescribed course was from Fort Klamath to Mosquito Lake  (better known as Diamond Lake) via a trip around Crater Lake.  To get EFI credit (every fabulous mile), one also needed to do an out and back to the pinnacles.  Michael did not want to go completely around the lake or do the out and back to the pinnacles.  Instead we went part way around the lake and then retraced our steps, in order to stay next to the lake the entire time.  Michael’s goal was to be the lantern rouge and he did not care about EFI credit.

Route around lake without out and bak to pinnacles. We did not go completely around lake.

Altitude! and steep at times!  Oregon roads are gently sloped and beautifully maintained.  The gentle slopes are lovely on a tour, since you can always just go slower if you are tired.  However, I am better at shorter, steeper climbs and I liked having something to sink my teeth into on this day.

I never remember this stuff when I get home, so I took a picture. However, “crater formed by volcanic explosion” really is not that hard to remember.

Wizard Island

Mosquitos preyed on us as we rode and every time we stopped.  I got 9 bites on my ass.  The little suckers bit me through my shorts.  I got bitten as I climbed.  They saw me and thought “she’s not used to the altitude- let’s go get her,” and they chased me down and sucked me dry.

Crater Lake, blue rim, and me

I love my blue rimmed front wheel with purple nipples.  The purple nipples create a lovely purple haze that delights me and cheers me up on gloomy days.

Mary, Diane, Michael, me, Andrea. Picture by Steve Rogers.  I am not really that short. 

Diane could make this very loud seal barking noise.  She first demonstrated it on this ride.  At first, the noise was really quite annoying, but after a couple of weeks, it grew on me and I found it amusing and somewhat endearing.

“Take a picture of me by this snow bank!”

I was so excited to see snow.  I scoured the landscape, looking for a snow bank in order to have my picture taken in front of it.  Poor Andrea took this picture.  She hadn’t even had a moment to catch her breath after climbing a somewhat longer than expected and steep hill (at altitude), when I accosted her, shouting orders at her to take my picture.  I have been living in California so long, that I now find snow exciting.  I am glad it does not snow where I live.  I thought of my friend Charleston as this picture was taken and thought about how much he hates the cold.  I was happier than I look.

View looking away from the lake. I should really know what these mountains are, but I don’t.

Imagine a lot of loud seal barking noises being made as this picture is taken.

Crater Lake, clouds, and pollen

I grew up in Blacksburg, Virginia and my fifth grade teacher went on a trip to Crater Lake.  She treated us to a lecture and a slide show of her trip.  As a kid, the west coast seemed a world away and an impossible place to ever go, but I wanted to actually see the lake and I never thought I would.  I was very happy to have had the opportunity to see it.

Crater Lake and peaks

View from our camp site at Mosquito Lake (Diamond Lake)

The campsite was not as mosquito ridden as I thought it would be.

I wrote this article in March of 2010.  Jean, my neighbor, has since died.  

During the 1990 census, my aunt was asked to fill out the long census form. I am not sure what the long form asks now, but in 1990 it asked a lot of questions about type of housing: building types, size of building, indoor plumbing, heat, electricity, water, etc. The longer form also asked more detailed questions about the inhabitants. It queried regarding occupations, health, disabilities, education, methods of transport to and from work (biking, walking, carpooling, mass transit?), etc. I want to fill out one the long forms. I want to be more than a number, sex, race, and age.

I want to be described and understood. However, even with the long form, my apartment is not exactly exciting. It is typical- nothing unusual or interesting. A number would probably describe it adequately. (I would, however complain about my lack of central heating.) I might simply have to lie. “I live in a wigwam that is off the grid and has no indoor plumbing. The wigwam, however, does have central air energized by the manure-powered generator out back. I live part of the year here, but for 2 months I live in Sweden, 1 month a year in Morocco, and each July I take a month long retreat on Minnesota, focusing on fly-fishing and meditation. I have several vagrants hanging out in my front hall closet until the rain stops.” I have never been offered the long form.

I am not sure what the long form is asking these days. Do they still ask about carpooling, buses and whether you are on the grid? Are they now asking about internet access and phones? “Do you or anyone living with you have a Twitter account?” I am curious about internet access and how many people actually own computers. I think having a home computer with an internet connection is akin to having a diamond ring- a fun luxury. Being a little on the overindulgent side, I have both. However, so much of life these days seems to be done over the internet and not having home internet access now would be a large hassle (as opposed to a diamond ring, the lack of which leads to no real inconveniences at all). Many businesses and services act as if everyone has easy access to these expensive items and services. I wonder how many people actually do.

When I lived in Baltimore, people lived in run down condemned houses with lead paint, no heat, no water, and no electricity. Houses burned down regularly from the kerosene heaters people used to heat themselves. Now everyone I know has a cell phone. I seem to be further and further away from the squalor these days. I wonder if everyone in Baltimore now has a cell phone.

My husband has one of those handheld computer phones. The cost of running one of those things for 2 months is equal to the cost of a dinner for 2 at Cesar’s. I would much rather have the dinner at Cesar than 2 months of email going to my back pocket. The point is not quite valid, however, since my husband’s email still does go to his back pocket and we go to Cesar’s a lot more than once every 2 months.

I am going to try to find the Irish/English/Portuguese/French/German/etc box on the form. One of the doctors at my work asked me about my ethnic background and I said Irish and Portuguese (my answer for this question varies depending on my mood.) He replied “oh- a fiery combination.” I don’t think anyone has every described me as fiery and my husband was highly amused by the descriptor. The census form, however, offers me only “White,” which is hardly descriptive either. I think I prefer fiery, however inaccurate the adjective may be.

My neighbor came over to my apartment this morning and gave me my census form. I am apparently an 85 year old Chinese woman with very poor hearing and poor understanding of English. She mistakenly filled out my form. (Actually a kind neighbor filled it out for her.) She also filled out her own census form, so we have double the number of old Chinese ladies living on my floor and my husband and I are clearly absent.

She was given the regular short form, too. She keeps catching her kitchen on fire and I think we are going to have to insist her stove be turned off soon. She forgets that she is cooking and then goes off for a nap. She is just getting old and is forgetful. The census questionnaire doesn’t have a box on its form for that either.

79 miles. Ashland to Fort Klamath

It has been two weeks since the completion of the Oregon cycling tour and I haven’t unpacked yet.  However this morning, I finally hung my tent up on the balcony  to air out and dry and then decided to write up day 2 of the tour.

It rained overnight, so everything was wet and clean in the morning, except my chain, which was slightly rusty.  Michael was the last person to get his stuff on the truck, so he continued to meet his goals.

I had never actually packed up the tent on my own and it is a task at which I do not excel.  Jason packs everything up tightly and gets all the components onto a teeny tiny sac.  He has figured out the best and most efficient way to pack the tent.  “Follow the fold lines,” he instructs.  I loosely folded the wet tent in the air trying not to get it more dirty and paid no heed to fold lines.  By the end of the 2 week trip, I simply stuffed as much as possible in the sac with no time wasted on any silly folding process.  Every time I packed up the tent, I could feel Jason’s disapproval.  When Jason and I were first together, he, with disapproval in his eyes, would watch me pack my own clothes and then he would unpack everything I did and repack it “correctly.”   After about 20 years, Jason decided that doing everything himself was more work than having me do things not quite right.  In general, I could be said to have won.  Our apartment is a disaster.

We left camp a little after 8 am and arrived at the restaurant with pie at 0930.  The little cafe was full of cyclists and 3-4 of them were already drinking beer.  I thought it  a little early to be either drinking beer or having another breakfast, so I asked Michael to order me a hot chocolate (with whipped cream) and headed off to the bathroom.  This restaurant has amazingly slow service.  I believe that only two people were working there: the cook and a very pretty female teenager who served.  I really didn’t want to miss my opportunity to order the hot chocolate, since who knew when my next ordering opportunity might occur.  Michael, of course, forgot my hot chocolate.    I was annoyed and Michael was annoyed to be causing disappointment.  “You should have known I wouldn’t remember and not have trusted me.”   Michael got over his annoyance of having been forced to disappoint someone, by realizing that the missed hot chocolate order gave him a chance to go and talk to the pretty teenager again.   He gleefully ran off after the pretty girl and placed my order.

We were at this stop for what seemed like hours, but we eventually did hit the road again.  The roads were beautifully smooth.  I don’t think that I have ever ridden on roads that aren’t full of pot holes.  It was a nice experience.  The cars were very polite, since being polite is an easy thing to do in such a sparsely populated area.  Much of the trip was in tall trees.  I appreciate trees in theory, but I am fond of large open vistas and I was really happy when we came out of the trees into open ranch land between the mountain ranges.  A yellow street sign along this stretch warned of “congestion.”  The congestion consisted of 4 farm buildings.

View from the top of the climb out of Ashland

Trees and smooth pavement

congestion ahead

Ashland got a huge quantity of rain after we had left.  Everyone, but Mary, enjoyed a completely dry ride.  Mary got drenched.  It rained in Oakland.  It never rains in July in Oakland.  We however, lucked out and I arrived dry and happy with my unused rain jacket.

I liked the camp grounds.  I was awoken again and again by the howling of wild dogs (coyotes?) and that was kind of cool, too.

Last year Peter Wilborn’s article lamenting the current state of group riding was spread about the country through a variety of cycling list groups and facebook postings. I first ran across this article when a fellow club member posted it to the Oakland Yellow Jackets email list and the poster agreed with the article and also bemoaned the current stated of club riding.  I responded with the following letter, which I am reposting here.

Begin quote:

I have several issues with the yellowjackets group riding habits and people who know me will be familiar with my rants.  I like riding in groups and I like the yellowjackets, but I prefer not to paceline with them.  The advanced group vacillates between being aggressively fast pacelining or chatting pacelining.  The aggressively fast version is often hostile and unfriendly game playing, not simply fast.  We would be faster if we were behaving in a more efficient manner.  During the chatting pacelining, people are simply not paying enough attention to the road and other riders and is dangerous for the obvious reasons.  However, if that is what the group wishes to do, then that is what we will do.  I will just ride off the back.

Despite these reservations, I have received a huge amount of support, information, skills from other cyclists and continue to do so.  I do not think that the art of a group ride is lost.  I have learned so much from other people and still do.  I am very thankful for the cyclists, with whom I have been lucky enough to ride.  These people are still around; they didn’t disappear 10 or 20 years ago.

I spent Sunday riding with my friend Jack.  Jack is like the color white; he hits every frequency.  He is constantly irregular.  His speed varies greatly and he often coasts, though at irregular but very frequent intervals.  You try riding 100 miles with him and not become a more attentive cyclist.  Despite these quirks, Jack is a great cyclist.  He has put down about 10,000 miles a year for the past 10 years.  He knows a lot and you can learn a lot from him.  He is friendly and interesting.  The route I rode this weekend is one I would never have known about or done.  He figured out the route and did the reconnaissance.  It was 111 miles of beautiful roads and not a foot of “junk miles”.  We actually had a stream crossing.  Jack wanted to cut out an ugly and slightly dangerous section of road (dangerous due to boat trailer traffic).  He found the site of an old, now missing, bridge and we crossed a stream by foot at that point.  The route was unbelievably pretty and the roads had almost no traffic.  It was one of my favorite rides ever.  I would never have done this route on my own and I am very grateful for knowing Jack and for him inviting me to do this fabulous ride.  I don’t recommend pacelining with Jack, but he has many other redeeming qualities and my world has been broadened by knowing him.

I ride weekly with a gpc group.  Bob is a font of knowledge about rides and routes and riding with him is great.  Mark is my favorite wheel.  He is the most constant and steady wheel I know.  I do whatever Mark tells me to do and that policy hasn’t lead me wrong yet.  He has been helpful to me in both hints on how to be a better cyclist and by demonstration.  He has been very supportive of my cycling and I am grateful to know him.  Michael, my regular partner in crime for during-the-week short rides, has also been very supportive and enthusiastic, introducing me to other groups.   Riding with this group has made me a better cyclist, a faster cyclist, and a happier person.

Despite my complaints about the yellowjackes, I love riding with them.  The group is full of people I like and respect.  Alexis, Chrissie, and James immediately come to mind.  However, I would like to especially thank Charleston, who literally taught me how to be a cyclist.  Other than Jason, my husband, Charleston has been the most supportive of my cycling.  Charleston is also one of the smartest cyclist I know.  He reads traffic well, he picks good lines, and he is constantly paying attention to the situation and environment.   He was very kind to me when I first started cycling and I will always be thankful to him.

lisamc

Group ride: Duros West without Bob, our fearless leader. Alpine Dam. Me, Michael, George, Mark, Sabi