Archive for the 'Adventure' Category

This is part 2 for me as I did it back in my early NW days (1998).  This is a 202 mile bike ride from U of Washington to downtown Portland.  This year was good weather, albeit a bit hot.  This time I rode the course with Trent and Justin - both very strong riders.  We took a train up to Seattle on Fri night and got in late (bridge issue) - ended up getting to bed at 1am and alarm went of at 330am.  Ugh.  We pacelined most of the race save near the end when I suggested they move fwd. as they had more energy left than me.  The climbing was a bit surprising.  It was a bit more climbing (~5000 ft. in gain) than when I last did it in 1998 on the good ole Centurion - see:Cascade Bicycle Club Message Boards - but still fun nonetheless.  Race info: http://www.cascade.org/EandR/stp/STP_Details.cfm

Oregon Velo � Blog Archive » Photos: Cross Crusade’s Hillsboro Stadium  It was a muddy and cold weekend in Portland… so why not join in on a bike race!  After looking at the photos at the link above I am not quite sure why I do this (I acutally pay people to enter these things), other than it begets the worst and best feelings  I have each week… more so the latter.  Cyclocross racing in the mud, rain, and even snow in the fall is similar to what the winter’s snow is to me, fun (although there is no comparison to snow).  The other cool part is it’s a chance to meet more crazy and fun people.

Yesterday was a great day for riding up near Mt. Hood (that’s Mt. Adams in the background). For more click here to see the album.

As I was researching the latest in waterproof materials I found that there’s a good alternative, perhaps better alternative, to Goretex and it’s called Sympatex. I have heard of this material before, but was glad I made a few minutes to look more into it. I found this article which explains the difference between the two fabrics in a simple, but effective fashion (ALPINE PRO - FAQ). Sympatex is non-porous and requires less maintenance, while Goretex is porous and requires more maintenance. The only down side I can see to Sympatex is perhaps weight since it is consists of layers vs. Goretex which can just be one “sheet” of material.

Irked by the fact that I didn’t have my randonnee setup, skins, and avi-gear in town (PDX) this weekend I went out and got a setup for PDX. I wanted to enter the Randonnee race up at Alpental, and think my winter sport will now be the Ski Mountaineering Race Series vs. the Freeskiing Competitions (which are too dangerous for my old blood these days - not to mention trying to keep up with insane 18-20 somethings is tough).

My current setup (in Park City) is the following:

• Salomon 175cm Pocket Rockets with Fritschi Freeride bindings accompanied by Black Diamond Ascension Nylon Clipfix skins, Mammut Barryvox Beacon, Backcountry Access Companion System Shovel/Probe system, and Technica Carbon Icon boot

The latest setup (didn’t dup the avi-gear setup yet, only so much to spend at the moment) I decided on is:

• Salomon 174cm TenEighty Foil ski with Naxo 01 bindings accompanied by Black Diamond GlideLite Nylon STS Skins, the same avi-gear (will have to cart that around), and Salomon Performa Equipe 9.0 boot
• BTW, there’s an AWESOME Naxo 01 review with supporting pages/info on Wildsnow.com

I am getting the setup mounted tomorrow or sometime next week… I am excited to test this setup out at Hood next week or the following week in Tahoe!!!