Blather on Bicycling

What a crazy stretch of weather we had in La Grande around last weekend. It was all bookended by ice on Hunter Hwy. On what seemed to be an innocuous Wednesday morning I rolled unto hunter. I soon noticed that the overnight moisture was still present in the tire grooves and it wasn’t looking normal. The temperature reading before I left was above freezing but this apparently wasn’t the case on the road surface as I stopped and confirmed the black ice. The traffic was still maintaining its careless speed so I quickly ushered myself off the road. One pickup had fallen victim with a broken axle, I’m guessing from a skid onto dry pavement. My more recent ice experience was Tuesday on my morning ride. The road was wet where traffic was driving but ice on the edges. This had me cyclocross riding on the world’s narrowest shoulder and then jumping down to safer mid-valley roads as soon as I could. It ended up being a good ride as I stairstepped down the gravel roads through the valley ending up down by Hotlake where I was roaming with antelope before cruising into town on Foothill. Read more

I always refer to the Peniston area as the tropics, but today was downright ridiculous. Six locals rode the MTB race at Echo under summer-like conditions. I was burning up on the first lap. Shortly into the race, El Train and I worked out an unspoken strategy to sit at the back of the expert class. It took some work, but eventually we were able to get most of the people in front of us. Read more