I have a really life altering decision to make and I need to enlist your help and support. I can’t decide on a color for the new bike that Dan Boxer is building for me. I am definiately leaning one direction at this point, but both are so damn pretty that I can’t seem to pull the trigger.

The dimensions are pretty accurate since I modeled them off of some BikeCAD drawings that Dan sent me from my proportions. It should be a freakishly tall and awesome bike. I am very excited.

The logos I slapped on there may or may not be final or positioned correctly, but I felt like I needed to include them so you would have an idea of how the white will look again the final color.

The handlebar bag isn’t something I own yet, but I’m working on getting it in that general gray/blue’ish color. The rest of the components are just swapped out from my Salsa. So… black tires, saddle, seat post and stem, silver crank and derailleurs.

My life is so difficult! Help!

I mentioned in the past that Paul Johnson is foolishly letting some of us young bucks handle the SIR summer 100k. Time is ticking away quickly and we are starting to notice that it is coming up very shortly.

This 100k is typically known as a suckers ride because it is a bit shorter and usually has nice weather. There tend to be more of the Cascade riders out with us blue jersey types. I missed last years ride because it conflicted with Seattle to Portland. Thankfully it is on a different date this year. The 100k is on June 27th and STP is on July 11th/12th.

Matt and I are going to scout a few roads this weekend and Chris and I may do some driving to check out even further south. I’m trying not to eat up every weekend with bike related stuff, but I want to get a few hours in here and there.

This map is very rough but it shows some of the area that we want to cover. I personally think West Seattle has been underrepresented on SIR rides. It is home to some of the craziest hills in the city and if you know your way around, it can be very low traffic.

The only obvious issue with the area (and it is a big one) is the amount of choices you have in alternate routes. The trick will be to find roads that are fun and challenging without easier alternates. I don’t want a ride with 15 controls and a million turns. Riding in the city can be very pleasant, honest!

Chris and I are itching to start from our home in South Park. There should be ample street parking to handle the overflow if needed. I’m hoping that some of the folks that are nearby will have easy enough access to ride to the start.

If it proves to be a nice day, there should be some pretty spectacular views all along the water front. There are sections where you can see every mountain range in the state. I am really crossing my fingers on this one, it should be a lot of fun.

On a totally different note, I’ve been working with Dan Boxer over the last couple of weeks.

He is diving head first in to his bicycle building company and wanted some logos. I happened to be in the market for a bicycle so we shook hands and went to work. I don’t normally go into the business end of things here, but I can’t even tell you how excited I am at the prospect of riding a custom bicycle with logos that I had my hands on. I’ll lay out some more details in the next few weeks as things come together.

I’ve had some stomach issues in the past on my rides. Once I stopped using Perpetuem as fuel, my problems seemed to go away. Even when I had the problems, I’ve always been able to keep my food down. I never really imagined that I would be holding a whole team of people up while vomiting on the side of US 101 at midnight in below 40 degree weather.

The night time start really screwed up my eating habits. On a morning start, I can take in liquids, Ensure and light foods like bananas so I have a nice and settled stomach. Friday was spent eating a number of things that ended up being a violent cocktail later on that night.

Lets bring this back to the beginning. Matt Mikul, Dan Boxer and I had caught the 4:40pm ferry leaving from Seattle towards our Bainbridge start. Joe Platzner and Greg Cox met us at their favorite coffee shop. The fleche would have us on the road from 6pm Friday until 6pm Saturday, like it or not. Caffeine was going to be helpful.

We had a brisk start out to Hood Canal. The sun was still out and we were all pretty chatty and happy to be on our bikes. The weather threatened to be very nice on Saturday and we were happy to not have chosen a Thursday night start since it was raining most of that night.

The Canal Bridge was surprisingly uneventful, especially after my last time over it at night with heavy cross winds. The sun was still out and there was little wind to speak of.

My bikes fenders were annoyingly squeaky and my rear rack shook itself loose. To top it off, my brand new headlight was flickering like an old fashioned movie reel. It was going to be a long night for sure.

At the Hadlock control, we stocked up on water and a few snacks. I fixed my rack issue, but the fenders never really shut up for me. I need to put some new leather washers on them in the future.

On our ride down US 101, I started to feel a rumbling in my stomach. I’ve managed to ride through it in the past, but I never been sure if that was the correct way to take care of it. If I keep the sickness down, I ride at too slow of a pace and just hope that it goes away. If I stop and throw up, I lose any calories that I might have eaten and suffer at an even bigger deficit in the miles afterwards.

Suffer I did, but I was glad to have my stomach start to settle. I’m sure that I was burning through muscle in those hours though. I was very anxious to get some solid food at the Hoodsport control coming up. We were told that there was a 24 hour store in town. It wasn’t until we got there that we realized that nothing was open.

We pulled up to the grocery store and I sat down for a bit. I was really bummed out but I didn’t want to show it off too much. I had a pack of peanuts and some gel packs left. Both sounded equally unappealing for whatever reason.

We took note of a pallet of water that just happened to be sitting in front of the store. It turns out we were in need of such a product… After some second guessing, we tore open one of the cases, grabbed some bottles and left a five dollar bill. I’m sure they will understand.

Joe had offered me a candy bar earlier in the night when I was feeling sick. I turned it down at the time, but I really needed something in me. He kindly repeated the offer and gave me his Payday bar.

Sometimes there are moments where a single piece of food or drink can turn your ride around. The Payday bar saved my ride for sure. I can’t describe how happy I was to not have an upset stomach and a little bit of energy. I probably was a little delirious on top of that, so I got very chatty right away. It made the next few miles fly by.

Since Greg Cox has such a low RUSA number (he is an old timer with the group), he pulled some strings to let us use his cabin on Mason Lake as a control. There were some killer little climbs leading up to it, but the heated rooms and comfortable beds more than made up for it.

He had the fridge stocked with rando type snacks. I made myself a wrap and started to eat it as I walked up stairs to find a bed. I was literally still eating as I laid down, and barely finished it before passing out.

Less than two hours later, the Greg Cox alarm system woke me up. We all stumbled to find out gear and get our stuff together, but it was agreed that the short rest was very helpful. We got out the door somewhere around 6 am.

Our original plan for the morning was to get breakfast in Matlock, about 30 miles out from the cabin. Greg seemed to think there was a breakfast joint there, and he is older than me… so I took it at face value. We kept an okay pace for a bunch of tired guys that had to drag me along.

Greg and Joe were harassing each other most of the way and everyone in the group seemed to have problems with gas. I suppose I should say that they didn’t have a problem letting it go. Honestly, this is the smelliest ride I have ever been a part of. That includes my trips through farm counties.

Somewhere along a busy road, we crossed paths with Amy’s group of fleche riders. Mark Thomas let us know that there wasn’t any real food in Matlock. It was decided that we would get a snack there, and move on to eat in Montesano which is 25 miles from there. I’m sure you see where this is going. I had “breakfast” at 11 at a Subway. So much for that great sit down meal I had in my head.

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There were so many beautiful low traffic stretches heading out towards the coast. Blue Slough was a particular highlight right before we hit Cosmoplis (just south of Aberdeen). Our group was starting to split up a bit more. Greg and I leap frogged for last place. At some point the whole group seemed to rocket past and I was riding solo towards the 22 hour control.

I made it to the 22 hour mark with maybe 5 minutes to spare, if that. We stocked up on some food and drink and opted to get back on the road. There was one more control at a Taco Bell less than 2 miles from the finish thanks to some silly distance rule on our previous control. Thanks to that, I was able to roll in to the finish with the group where our spouses were nice enough to greet us.

The ride was much more difficult than I had anticipated, but that made the finish all the more beautiful. Jane and Norman drove down to share a room with me and attend the next day’s banquet ceremonies for the teams.

I was on a food binge Sunday morning. I finished off some of my left over dinner from the night prior, went down to eat breakfast at the banquet, then we got food right before leaving town at Olympia Hot Dog Company (new favorite Oly spot).

Team Painted Fleche won awards for “Best Name” and “Quintessential Randonneurs” which is a nice way of saying “average”.

Medals and awards are nice, but the stories of the road are the greatest gift.

Norman was over the last few nights and we were trading off cooking spots. Monday night he made a great spring pasta with asparagus and peppers. It was nice and light so we had room for the Dutch Baby with Lemon Sugar that he made. Supposedly the dessert is “tremendously popular in Seattle” despite the fact that none of us were very familiar with it. It has been doubling as a fatty breakfast pastry too. He repeated the favor on Tuesday night, but I handled the dinner portion that evening.

Norman was raving about this dinner, so it must have been pretty decent. He is the best cook I know.

The original recipe says you can use a red or white onion. I think the presentation is much more dynamic with red, and I needed more excuses to cook them anyways. I made the gratin side dish first because I don’t have a separate broiler on our current stove. It gave it a chance to cool down a bit while I cooked the trouchia.

Chard and Onion Trouchia
Adapted from Debrah Madison’s – Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 large red onion, quartered and thinly sliced crosswise
• 1 bunch chard, leaves only, torn into bite sized pieces
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 garlic clove
• 8 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
• 2 tablespoons chopped or torn basil leaves
• 2 teaspoons chopped thyme leaves
• 1 cup grated Gruyere cheese
• 2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a 10inch skillet. Add the onion and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until completely soft but not browned, about 15 minutes. Add the chard and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until the moisture has cooked away and the chard is tender, about 15 minutes. Season well with salt and freshly ground pepper.

Chop or garlic fine with a few pinches of salt, then stir it into the eggs along with herbs. Combine the chard and onion mixture with the eggs, stir in the Gruyere cheese and half the Parmesan.

Preheat the broiler. Heat the remaining oil to the skillet and when it’s hot, add the eggs. I don’t think that I let my pan get hot enough. My dish stuck to the pan a bit. It was savable though.  Slide the pan back and forth a few times to make sure the eggs are not sticking. Keep the heat at medium high for about one minute, then turn it to low. Cook until the eggs are set but still a quite moist on top. Add the remaining Parmesan, slide the pan under the broiler and broil until browned. Keep and eye on it though. There is a fine line between browned and burnt.

I sliced the trouchia like you would a pie or a quiche. Enjoy.

Onion Gratin
Adapted and altered from Debrah Madison’s – Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 2 pounds of yellow onions, thinly sliced
• 1 pinch of rosemary
• 2 eggs
• 3 tbsp flour
• 3/4 cup grated Gruyere cheese
• 3/4 cup of heavy cream (Okay… so it is a little decadent. Treat yourself, girl.)
• 1/2 cup of water
• 3/4 cup of bread crumbs

There was plenty of “gratin” with these onions, so you can probably tone it down or add more onions to your taste. For me, they were perfect.

Butter a baking dish that you don’t mind guests seeing. Mine was a bit bigger than I needed. Someone should really buy me some Le Creuset
dishes to round out my kitchen. Preheat the oven to 350.

Put olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet. Add onions and rosemary and stir until onions are covered with oil. After a minute or so, turn the heat down to low and cook until onions are soft and translucent, 30 to 40 minutes. If you want to go for it, I’ll bet it would be even more awesome if the onions were caramelized (1 to 1 1/2 hours on low heat).

In a bowl, whisk together eggs, flour, heavy cream and water. Add onions to the baking dish and cover it with the Gruyere cheese. Pour egg and cream mixture over the top of all of that. Sprinkle the bread crumbs over the top. Bake for 25 minutes or until the top is nicely browned.

Monday we met up with our friend Erin (and ex-Seattlite) and her new husband at their beautiful apartment in the Nob Hill neighborhood. It seems like everyone pays a crazy amount of money to rent or own in SF, and they are no exception. Her husband Martin is my kind of guy. Their place was stacked floor to ceiling with bike frames and parts. I pointed out to Jane that my habit wasn’t nearly so bad.

“See? Most bike people have way more than 2 bikes.” I don’t think it impressed her.

We cracked open some bottles of cheap Andre (extra dry, of course) and soaked in the sun on the roof of their complex. Martin had to go to work for an “emergency” Fox shock demo at his work, so he cut out early. The rest of us went to see Seattle’s The Dutchess and the Duke play a bar called Hemlock. An old friend of Jane’s named Adam met us and we all had a pretty great time. It was an extremely intimate set with a hundred or so crowding around the band playing acoustic without any amplification. Some of the songs gave me chills in a great way.

Tuesday we met up with Paul and walked down towards the Wharf to do some touristy stuff together. Erin rode out on her bike to meet us and show us where to get some clam chowder in a great sourdough bowl. Everyone else was disappointed with the amount of soup, but I loved the bread enough to not mind.

Across the dock was the Musée Mécanique. It was free to get in and had tons of old coin operated games and shows. We spent a long time messing around there, getting our fortunes told, playing games, and riding mechanical horses. It would have been an easy to miss attraction if Erin wasn’t there to show us where it was.

She rode out to a job interview from there, and Paul, Jane and I rode a streetcar back around the city to go visit the Castro district. There were penis chocolates to be eaten after all.

Erin met with us and showed us what turned out to be our favorite bar in the city, Zeigeist. They had pitchers of margarita, 5 dollar burger/homefry plates, and a huge patio with metal music playing. I was pretty stoked on that place.

Rabia met up with us and we had a Nova night at our hotel. That means that we ordered a pizza, bought some drinks and watched Nova on PBS. We are pretty much nerds. Mike rode out to join us in dorking out.

All I really remember about Wednesday can be summed up in one word. Burritos. Normally I ignore all “best burritos ever” comments because they come from people that haven’t spent any real time in San Diego or people that are vegetarians. These burritos in the Mission are legit. Believe the hype. Still, San Diego is better. Sorry, folks.

Thursday was a beautiful train wreck. Erin S. came out from Seattle to visit her Grandma in Palo Alto and we went to the park first thing after breakfast to … well… drink a little bit. It pretty much continued throughout the day and into the night. We took the BART (train/subway) out to Oakland to see Mikes band play and taunt the audience. The night was a little hazy. I think we got more burritos in the mission. I pretty much remember two crack head ladies doing the robot on the street corner. That might have been my imagination, but Jane confirmed it for me. Still, she might be messing with me…

Friday was thankfully more low key. We slept in a bit and grabbed some great breakfast at Boogaloos before driving down the coast a bit to soak in the sea breeze. It was a little too much breeze, but I’m not complaining. I think I was on day 4 or 5 of my short wearing reign. It was pretty awesome. I tanned up real good.

We picked up Mike and got some ice cream at a place called Maggie Mudd. It was delicious. Jane has been whining for a good banana split for weeks, and it really delivered.

We went back to Mike’s apartment and watched a movie called Southland Tales. I can’t even begin to describe how insane that movie it. It hurts my brain just thinking about it.

We finally went to Erin W and Martin’s for dinner that night with Erin S. To make it more confusing, the two Erins’ friend Aaron (sorry for the typo!) from Eugene came over as well. Erin W made the most delicious gumbo I’ve ever had. She is a teacher at the culinary institute there, so I figured it would be good… but wow. It was a 3 day process to make apparently. 1 with the stock and another for cooking down the rue. It was worth it. I’m hungry now…

They kept the drinks flowing (kind of a theme here?) and I kept bugging Martin about wanting to ride a bike of his. It was a single speed with swept back handle bars in a nice upright position. I’ve wanted to build something like this, so I was curious to try one out. He one upped me and suggested we try it on their 3rd story roof. We did scary little circles around and he snapped some photos of us being stupid. I’m hoping to get some of those soon. Did I mention it was scary?

The next morning we checked out and bid farewell to the city. I missed a turn out towards I-5 and ended up having to pay a second toll that day (I would have already had to pay one). We opted to drive to Eugene to visit some friend who just had a beautiful baby girl. They took us to a little restaurant and we got a chance to see how big she had gotten. Erin W was up to spend some time with her sick father so she came out with her step mom too. It was really a friend filled trip.

We drove up to stay the night in Hillsboro, OR with my mom again. We slept in Sunday morning and woke up to a pretty awesome breakfast. It was nice to be so close to home. We weren’t in a real hurry to get back, so we left around noon.

Norman greeted us at home with probably the best dish he has ever made. I can’t remember the name of it, but it was a french chicken dish that he spent a whole day on. Somehow the sun followed us too, because Seattle had record high temperatures for an April. It was a great way to cap a great trip.

I don’t even know where to start on this one.

Jane and I spent the week (March 28th through April 5th) in and around San Francisco recharging our batteries with some friends and family. We decided to make it a road trip so we could visit people in Portland, Eugene and Sacramento along the way.

We left Friday night after work on the 27th to drive down to Portland so we could stay with my mom and have a mini visit. She put together a great breakfast for us the next morning and we head out to make it down to Sacramento by Saturday evening.

The drive was beautiful but 9-10 hours in a car can really do a number on your backside. You would think the rando stuff would better prepare me for that, but it didn’t really seem to help. I shifted around in my seat pretty much the whole way down.

We got in to Sacramento a bit later than I was hoping to, but we had time for a drink with my cousin Monica and Angela at their local dive that night. We crashed out early though. They were nice enough to put us up on an air mattress that they bought just for our arrival.

The next day we spent some time shopping for sun glasses and I got to finally wear some shorts since the heat was really picking up as the day went on. I’m not exaggerating when I say that it has been 6 months since I’ve been in weather that warm. It was both welcome and off putting. I don’t think Jane and I were really ready for it clothing wise.

We left for the city that afternoon for a hotel that we had booked for the week near Union Square. The drive seemed to take forever and I was a bit surprised by the 4 dollar toll in to the city. For some reason I thought it was just over the Golden Gate bridge, not every major highway in to SF. We were lucky to have the cash because we don’t often carry any. We repeatedly took out cash all week since almost everywhere we went was cash only.

The first thing we did was for for a walk and get some Chinese food. Of all the touristy things that were possible, this was the only one on my list as a “must do”. I don’t remember the name of the place we ended up on, but it was pretty amazing. It was a world away from the over fried crap they sling as “Chinese” elsewhere. I can barely even eat Chinese food anymore.

We made plans to hang out with some Seattle friends that were in town on business that night but ended up falling asleep in our hotel at like 7pm. It was a pretty sad scene. The tired just really caught up to us. From then on, we made an effort to push ourselves so we wouldn’t waste any of the trip.

We got some breakfast at Squat and Gobble on Haight Ashbury the next morning. Our friend Mike Kenny was nice enough to meet us there. We’ve known him since we lived in San Diego and he is always a really fun time. We were all talking about various terrible taboo topics much to the disgust of the other patrons of the restaurant.

He showed us around the Haight and walked with us in to Golden Gate park. They shut down the park to traffic on weekends and there were tons of people biking around and plenty of people just enjoying the day. There was a couple who converted a stroller in to an outdoor stereo and choreographed dance moves while on roller skates. It was… a sight. Mike mentioned that dancing skaters are common in the area.

He split up with us and we went to the de Young art museum for an Andy Warhol exhibit. There just happened to be an Yves Saint Laurent exhibit on display that stole the show too. We had to sneak some photos from our phones since they weren’t allowing any photography. The museum was pretty incredible but a bit pricier than I was expecting. Still, we had a great time, but our feet were killing us from all of the walking.

Still, we are troopers, so we picked up our friend Paul who happened to work nearby our hotel and drove out to see his new place in La Fayette. He and his girlfriend Rabia found a great little cottage with a pool and everything.

We all went to see Portland’s Red Fang. They completely ruled it. Jane and I ended up down front for their closer song “Prehistoric Dog” and got in the photo they took of the crowd on their blog.

We spent the night playing Spot the Stevil. I had asked Stevil from How to Avoid the Bummer Life about what to do while we are in the Bay Area and knew that he was going to be at the show. I didn’t know exactly what he looked like though. I knew he probably had Vans on and I knew that he had kind of curly hair. It was a pretty fun game. I guessed it was one particular guy who later ended up almost getting in a fight with some ladies over the moving crowds during the set. I was correct. He was loaded.

And then on Monday… boy this is going to be a long entry.