WebCyclery Blog

Bend Rocks!

noreply@blogger.com (WebCyclery Blog) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:16:00 +0000

The Bend cycling community is awesome. Last night we threw a little party/fundraiser for our friend and co-worker Andrey Yarbrough. He was hit by a truck 4 weeks ago and will be out of work for quite a while, so we figured he could use a little help getting through the next few months while he is rehabbing and not able to work.

Well, at least 150 people showed up and enjoyed great beers from Cascade Lakes Brewing Company (Thanks Chris) and great music by the Sweet Harlots (Thanks Laurel & Amy). Many who didn't even know Andrey, but just wanted to help a fellow cyclist. It's good to see the community come together like that. I saw owners and employees from Bend Bike 'n' Sport, Sunnyside Sports, and Sagebrush Cycles (and possibly other shops, I just don't know everyone from every shop).

We raffled off a bunch or door prizes from a whole lot of different companies-unfortunately I don't have a list of all of them because I was out getting more beer when we gave them away, but I know we had some stuff from Broken Top, Wade@Vulture Cycles, Edge Composites bars from Beverly @ BBNS, a helmet from Sunnyside, a cool handmade bowl from Andrey's friend Ryan, a massage from Cinda @ Recharge Massage Therapy, Cog Wild swag, race entries from Central Oregon Racing, and a weekend @ the Lara House from Lay It Out Promotions. Thanks to the Source & the Bulletin for helping us get the word out.

We also sold a butt load of raffle tickets for the big frame giveaway - we'll be raffling off a Niner EMD frame AND a custom hardtail from Warren Rice @ Realm Cycles. That raffle will take place @ the next WebCyclery Movie Night @ Mcmennamins. You DO NOT need to be present to win one of the frames.

So I'd like to thank everyone for coming out last night. The cycling community in Bend is a very special group of people and I am proud to be a part of it. It definitely makes me appreciate Bend even more than I already do.

Andrey has only been working here for about 7 or 8 months, but he has become a huge asset to our business. We miss his sense of humor and quality work that he does @ the shop. Hopefully he will be back soon.

Andrey is getting better

noreply@blogger.com (WebCyclery Blog) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:20:00 +0000

Well, 8 days after getting struck by a car at 50mph, our boy Andrey is getting better and better. He is currently in Inpatient Rehab @ St Charles, where Kevin's girlfriend Angela works. He is in Room 703 in case you want to go visit and say 'hi'. He's in good spirits, and he is starting to walk a bit, although he said it was more like a 'six pack stumble'. Hopefully we will get him out of there before the weekend. His road rash is getting better, and he didn't seem to be in much pain. His short term memory is getting better every time I see him.

We have set up a fun @ the downtown Wells Fargo - the acct is under WebCyclery-Benefit Fund for Andrey Yarbrough. We are also accepting donations at the shop. He'll probably be out of work for a while, unfortunately. We miss him.

Crit series starts tonight. We've got a couple of heavy hitters in the 1-2 race - Go Brian & Eric! We probably have another 5-10 team guys doing the race, just not sure who. Go Team!

movies & stuff

noreply@blogger.com (WebCyclery Blog) — Mon, 25 May 2009 21:12:00 +0000

I went to the Memorial Service for Steve Larsen this weekend. It was a really nice event. It was amazing seeing all of the familiar faces from Bend. He had a really big impact on this community and will be missed.

On a happier note, MeanT and I finally finished our movie about the PPP - I think they are going to show it this weekend at the Tower Theater during the Bend Bicycle Film Festival. It's our first attempt at making a movie - so it's not as good as we wanted it to be, but we still think it is pretty good. You be the judge - come on in and get your tickets!

Speaking of movies - don't forget that tomorrow night is WebCyclery Movie Night @ McMenamins. We're showing a DH movie in 3-freakin'-D - wahwho! Should be fun, if for no other reason than to see everyone in those funny glasses.

I've been able to ride my bike with a little consistency for the last couple of weeks, which is nice. This weekend Angela and I rode up to Mt.B and MeanT and I rode GS and Storm King and COD and ELV and all that stuff. It was a fun weekend of riding for me.

Angela and I are still trying to figure out our plans for Italy - if anyone has good suggestions for places/rides in Northern Italy - let me know.

-Kevin

Great Loss

noreply@blogger.com (WebCyclery Blog) — Wed, 20 May 2009 15:22:00 +0000

Last night Bend lost one of it's heroes.

I moved to Bend in 1996. I remember sitting on the floor in my shithole rental on one of my first days in town talking on the phone with a friend of mine back in Tallahassee. He told me to look in the phone book for Steve Larsen. Sure enough, Steve was in there. My friend was so excited for me to be living in such a cool place.

Being a small town, we were bound to cross paths, and we did. We had a few mutual friends, and I got to ride with him once in a while (when I was at my fittest and he was going slow). He was always nice to me and over the years would always stop and say 'hi' whenever we would see each other. He would come out for our FireCracker ride, Thrilla Cross Races, and Chainbreaker. In recent years, I'd see him a lot on my morning ride out at Phil's - he'd be starting his run as I was finishing my ride. MeanT and I just ran in to him last Wednesday morning on Kent's.

I found out last night that he had collapsed on a training run with a bunch of our friends and passed away. He was only a year older than me. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife and family.

ppp weekend

noreply@blogger.com (WebCyclery Blog) — Sat, 16 May 2009 04:22:00 +0000

the chainbreaker went off pretty well. We had a record number of entrants - i think 316 or so, plus another 30+ kids in the kid race...so close to 350 if you count them. The weeks of rain leading upto the race really kept the dust down, making for about perfect trail conditions.

Chris Sheppard hammered he whole race to take the win by about a minute over Carl Decker on his SS.

WebCyclery Riders took first in the Expert Men, SS, and Tandem classes, as well as a few second and third places as well. Awesome job everyone!

Bad news was that our good friend Elise broke her arm out at the race, which really sucks. We hope you heal fast!

Now that the race is over, I finally have time to ride again. I just rebuilt my Evolve with XTR and DT 240/Arch wheels - dropped another pound or so - so my XL weighs in just a hair over 27 lbs. I've only gotten to ride it a few times this week, but it feels great. Tonite, our new mechanic Justin and I went for a nice little ride up to whoops. I'm a pansy ass when it comes to the whoops, but they sure are fun. I think I'll be checking out upper whoops this weekend. I heard there was still a little snow up there today, but not a whole lot left.

PPP is tomorrow - good luck to all those competing. We hope you have a great time!

-kevin

Race this weekend

noreply@blogger.com (WebCyclery Blog) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 15:29:00 +0000

no - I won't be racing, but I think we might take the WebCyclery Bus up to the Bear Springs race this weekend if we can find enough teammates who want a ride. I know Angela is racing, and I think at least 4-5 more WebCyclery riders are going....so hopefully we can.

I'm finally starting to ride a little bit. Got to ride the last 4 days, and hopefully the next 2 as well. Short but sweet - but it is still early.

My stupid cell phone just shit the bed, so I am looking to get a new one. Do I really want a stupid smart phone? I am weighing my options. I miss the days of no cell phones.

Don't forget to follow me on Twitter! - www.twitter.com/webcyclery

-Kevin

twit

noreply@blogger.com (WebCyclery Blog) — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 01:00:00 +0000

Dammit! I've finally succumbed to all the pleas - I started to tweet - so follow my twitter - http://twitter.com/webcyclery - and I also set up a stupid facebook page. I've been postponing this because I think this is going to potentially be a huge time suck, and I already have too much crap that I need to do - but I'm told it is fun, and my sister-in-law is going to love it!

Spring Classic ride is this Sunday - we leave at 9AM - no charge - no frills - no bitching. If you don't like the gravel & dirt, just go a different way. That's the beauty of it!

Angela just called me from Sea Otter - she got 5th in her XC race today - woohoo!

TGIA

noreply@blogger.com (WebCyclery Blog) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 19:42:00 +0000

Thank God It's April! The weather is finally starting to get nice. Yesterday, MeanT and I headed out for my first real ride of the year. Nothing hard or long, just a couple of hours on the road bike. Everything went pretty well and I made it home without having a heart attack, so I guess that is a good thing.

If you haven't been in the shop lately, come on by and check out the job we did - we've sort of redecorated.

I finally cashed in some airline miles and made my flight reservations for going to Italy this summer with my girlfriend - so we're pretty excited. I've never been there, and we have no clue where we are going outside of the fact that we fly in and out of Milan. Other than that, we are open, but hope to ride bikes just about every day. We're definitely looking for suggestions.

-Kevin

New look and feel

noreply@blogger.com (WebCyclery Blog) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 23:12:00 +0000

We've been working pretty hard down at the shop these past few weeks and have changed things up a bit. We're still organizing things a little bit, but we hope you'll come in and check out the changes. We've increased the size of the showroom a bit so we can fit a lot more bikes on the floor.

On a side note, I sold my Primero, which is sad because I really liked it, but it does give me a record grouppo for a new tandem - and then I can maybe get another bike with the new Super Record 11 spd! Well, maybe that will be a little while because I really can't even afford the tandem yet.

I did make some flight reservations to go to Italy this summer. My girlfriend and I are going to head to Northern Italy for a couple weeks in September and ride our bikes all over the place - woohoo!

Guitars & Whatnot

noreply@blogger.com (WebCyclery Blog) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 16:16:00 +0000

I've really gotten back into playing guitars in the last 6 months. I played a little bit as a kid, took a year of lessons, but never really got into it. The, during the next 20 some years or so I would pick it up for a week or two every few years. Never getting any good. Well, this time is definitely different. A few of my friends have also started getting into it, and we're having a great time. I'm trying to learn some theory and all that shit, which is tough, but I am getting better. I went out and bought myself a nice new Breedlove Atlas Stage D25/SR a few months ago and I am loving it.

Now it is time for me to start thinking about more guitars....(I have an addictive personality, and just like bikes, you can't have just one guitar). I think I want a nice Gretsch, maybe a Les Paul or a Strat, or possibly a Paul Reed Smith. And I'm going to need some amps....hmmm, starting to get expensive. But not that bad....For the price of 1 nice bike, I can get a few guitars and amps, and be set for a while (do you like how I can justify this?). So one of my thoughts is that I need to sell one of my extra bikes, or at least some stuff, and put that towards my guitar fund. Anyone looking for a 51cm (XL) Salsa Primero? Great shape. Or even better, are there any guitar shop owners out there that like to ride bikes and want to trade? If any of you have a friend that owns a music shop and rides bikes, please let me know, or let them know that I want to meet them!

I had a good ski on Sunday. Well, I didn't really ski well - but it was fun. I've taken too much time off in the last month with Inventory and being sick and then my back was sore and blah blah blah....Time to start skiing again - Tues, Thurs, Fri, Sat & Sun - woohoo!

Later

Kevin

Big Sale

noreply@blogger.com (WebCyclery Blog) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 02:08:00 +0000

Well, if you haven't already read about it or heard about it, we are in the middle of our 11th Anniversary Sale. 11 whole years. 2 years in my garage, 3 years in the small shop, and now 6 years in our current digs. It has been a long time, and I like to think we keep on getting better. I really do love what I do, and I am pretty happy that I can honestly say that we have the best staff we have ever had. I feel really lucky.

We also have great customers, which are a huge part of why I like my job so much. Without our customers, we wouldn't be in business. Period. So if you are reading this, thank you. Thanks for coming in and giving us a chance to serve you. Thanks for checking out and reading through our website. Thanks for trusting us with your bikes and skis. If you are local, please come in and visit us during our sale. We are blowing a bunch of stuff out (good stuff, but for some reason we haven't been able to sell it), including all sorts of ski stuff, even though the ski season isn't even half over (since we started around Dec. 15 and will ski through April 15th or later....).

Come in this week and join us for a beer compliments of our friends over at Cascade Lakes Brewing Company

On a more personal note, MeanT and Bert and I went up for a great ski this morning. We (by we I am referring to nordic skiers in Bend) have it really good here. Some people bitch and moan about the grooming at Mt Bachelor, but it really is quite good. For those who bitch, they need to get out of town a little more often and see how most places groom. Sure, there are a few exceptions that might have better grooming, but not many. We pay $230 or so for a ski pass, and we get really good grooming on a whole lot of trails every day. Not every other day, or 3 days a week, but every day. I like to go early, and I ski on fresh corduroy all the time. Here's a hint - the earlier you go, the better it is (usually). If you go skiing at 4 o'clock every day, after hundreds of peoplee have skied, yes, the trails will be chopped up a bit. Go figure. But that's not Mt B's fault. They work their butts off to make sure that no matter how much or how little snow there is, we have good skiing, everyday.

Gotta run.

-Kevin

CX Party and skiing

noreply@blogger.com (WebCyclery Blog) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 11:18:00 +0000

Thursday night we are going to be having a little party here at WebCyclery to celebrate the fact that Bend has been picked to host the Cyclocross Nationals for the next 2 years. Woohoo! If you are a local, stop on by between 5 and 8 and join us for some Deschutes beer and food from the Taco Stand. We'll also have a band playing as well. Should be fun.

The nordic skiing in Bend has been great this year. Yes it came late, but it has snowed plenty. The first few weeks of the season I concentrated on classic skiing, and just this week started skating again. It sure is fun.

On Sunday, MeanTodd and I went up for a short skate after we watched a little bit of the Winter Triathalon that happened up at Mt Bachelor. It was the Nat. Championships, so I guess it was a big deal. Local favorite Carl Decker had a good run and the best ride, taking the lead onto the skis, where unfortunately he lost a few minutes and ended up in 3rd place (still qualifying for the World Championships). another local favorite, Eric Martin, was just inside the top ten on the bike, but had the fastest ski and almost caught Carl, finishing a few seconds back in fourth place, ahead of MTB legend Ned 'the lung' Overend. MeanTodd and I got a great view of Deadly Nedly taking a huge digger on the skis. We had just gotten to that spot, so MeanT didn't have his camera out yet. Damn! Ned still kicks ass at whatever he does. I think he is 54 years old or so. 5th place ain't so bad.

Happy New Year

noreply@blogger.com (WebCyclery Blog) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 04:31:00 +0000

acjNot much biking going on this last month. The snow finally arrived a couple of weeks ago, which is good for ski business. I think Mt Bachelor got another 4 ft in the last 3 days or so. The nordic skiing has been decent, but not great yet. I've been sticking to the classic skis so far. We've had so much snow that I figure it is going to be pretty soft each day I go. That, and the fact that I'm not in any kind of ski shape right now. I'll hopefully start skating this week and doing intervals and all that shit. At least that's the plan.

I got to go over to Eugene for Xmas. Spent the weekend with my girlfriend and her family. We spent one day cruising around town and stopping in at a couple of bike shops and guitar shops. The Guitar center and McKenzie River Music were both really cool - lots of super cool guitars to drool over. I'm really thinking about starting to collect guitars....there are so many awesome guitars! BTW, I got myself a new Breedlove Altas Stage a couple of months ago, and I am LOVING it! I haven't played my guitar this consistently in my life. I'm not good, but I am getting better.

For Xmas, my wonderful girlfriend gave me a custom leather 'WebCyclery' guitar strap - which is super cool. I get made fun of sometimes because I am ALWAYS wearing WebCyclery stuff - shirts, hats, socks, etc. It is truly one of the best gifts I've ever gotten. Thanks Sweetie!

Hopefully I'm going skiing a couple of times tomorrow. Once before work, and then again for New Year's Eve. We'll be closing early on Wednesday - 1PM, so if you call or try to come in after that, we won't be here.

Happy New Year everybody!

Riding again

noreply@blogger.com (WebCyclery Blog) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 01:53:00 +0000

Well, after my back went out a few weeks ago, I decided that I should just stay off the bike and wait for the snow to fall to get back into an exercise regiment - but I just couldn't do it. I had to get back on the bike last weekend and see if my back could hack it. MeanTodd and I rode with SuperDave (Footzone). He hadn't been riding for a few weeks too, so we were both pretty slow, which was good for me. We just did a basic loop around Phil's, 20 miles altogether, nice and sloooooow. It was great, and more importantly, I'm still walking 4 days later. So that means that tis weekend I can really go for a couple of rides (the dirt here in Bend is about perfect right now).

My girlfriend is doing a lot better as well. She's walking with just a cane now,and will probably get rid of that pretty soon. She's pretty fed up with sitting around my house, but it could have been a lot worse, and she's a lot happier now that she can get out and about a little bit. She won't be riding her bike for a couple more months, but she should be able to ski a little in January.

Time to go to Costco....

-Kevin

Bad crash

noreply@blogger.com (WebCyclery Blog) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 02:13:00 +0000

So a couple of weeks ago I got a call on from my girlfriend while I was at work. The connection sucked, but I could make out that she had crashed on Phil's Trail and needed me and needed help. Shit! I grabbed a demo bike and threw it in my car and flew out to Phil's Trail. I called 911 on the way and pedaled up the canyon. I found her laying on the ground with a couple of guys hanging out making sure she was okay. She had gotten thrown off her line and smacked a big tree - hard. After a few hours of waiting for the search and rescue, she finally got ATVed out of there. We spent the next few days in the hospital. Seems she had 3 transverse process fractures (vertebrae) and a few non-displaced fractures in her pelvis. Ouch. Her shoulder is pretty screwed up too. Overall, she's good. She can get around and finally left the house yesterday with the help of some friends.

In the process of caring for her (lifting her around the hospital, sleeping in chairs and on couches) I subsequently threw my back out again. It had been a year or so, which is pretty good for me. Had I stretched and slept better, I probably would have been okay. Oh well, lesson learned. A week later and I am almost back to normal. Still a little tight, but should be able to exercise by the weekend.

Angela is getting a lot better. She is very bummed out, and very sore, but in the big scheme of things, she got very lucky that she didn't need surgery and didn't have any spinal damage or head injuries.

She deeply appreciates all of the love and support that all of our friends and families have shown. You are all great.

Gotta run.

-Kevin

Riding in the Ochocos

noreply@blogger.com (WebCyclery Blog) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 02:09:00 +0000

This weekend I finally had the chance to ride my bike in the Ochocos Mountains which are located about 15 miles outside of Prineville, OR. Bend's Big Fat Tour featured a ride up Round and Lookout Mountains on Friday. Unfortunately, Henry and Ed already had the day off so they could ride it. Instead, I went on Saturday with a couple of other Bendites who didn't make it on Saturday. The drive sucks - about an hour or so out to the ranger station. From there, you climb about 1200 ft on a 7 mile paved road, and then the real climb begins. The climb up to Round mountain is pretty steep and just keeps going and going and going. I think it tops out around 6500ft (2600+ft of climbing in the first 11 miles) after a couple of hours of climbing. There is a quick descent (just a few miles) and then the climb up to Lookout Mtn begins. This is another 2500ft or so, topping out close to 7000ft. The views from the top are awesome (I forgot my camera). Then, the fun begins. The descent rips for about 10 miles or so with just a few little climbs on the way. The ride ends up being around 29miles with about 5600+ ft of climbing. That's a whole lot of climbing.

The ride definitely hurt. I've only been riding about once a week for the last month and a half, so this was my biggest effort since I was climbing the Croix de Fer in July. I'm just thankful that Gary and John took it easy on me.

IHopefully I get to ride again tomorrow! Woohoo!

-Kevin

Night Ride?

noreply@blogger.com (WebCyclery Blog) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:38:00 +0000

I MIGHT actually be going for a night ride tonight. I found a few of my old lights - the old NiteRiders (pre-HID and LED). Hopefully the batteries hold their charges. Now I just need to find my light mounts!

Pray for rain, we have another cross race on Thursday.

Vega$ was fun. For the first time, I went to a Vega$ show - I went to see 'O' (Cirque du Soleil). It was awesome. If you are heading to Vega$, it is well worth the money (and it is a lot of money).

Cool new stuff from the show? The new RIP9 is awesome. The new Salsas look pretty hot, and Ellsworth has decided to import the Glimpse - which will be a 5.25" complete SLX bike for about $3300. Belt drive bikes were definitely hot - Co-Motion is using the belts on their tandems (for the timing chain), but other than that, only Spot and small builders have them. We've got one of our team riders trying a couple out. We'll hopefully be bring in some parts for them once we get a feel for how well they are working.

Later,

Kevin

Back...in the US of A

noreply@blogger.com (WebCyclery Blog) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:54:00 +0000

So I've been back in the US for a month now, and haven't really posted to this blog at all. I've been busy. As soon as I got back, MeanTodd went on vacation for 10 days, so I got thrown into his job, which is a bitch (he does a great job at a very hard job). Luckily, all the guys at work had helped to clean up the mess I created when I decided that we should reorganize the store a week before I left. We still have a few things to finish up, but the store is looking really good.

I haven't been back on the road bike since I left France. I've only been on the MTB. My back has been feeling pretty darn great, and riding all spring and then July in France has got me into okay shape, which makes riding in the dirt a lot more fun. I'm only getting about 3 rides a week, but that's not too bad.

On Saturday, MeanTodd and I got to ride around Mt. Bachelor for the first time in about 8 or 9 years. We rode with 7 others from the Nordic Center down to Lava Lakes, then over Kwol Butte to Edison Snow Park. The trail is AWESOME! It's pretty damn technical for Bend, has some great descents, and a bitch of a climb up Kwol. I can't believe that I haven't ridden this trail more (Of course, I've barely ridden my MTB the last few years because my back has been for shit).

One thing that I learned on the ride is that EVERYONE should carry a Wheels Manufacturing Emergency Derailleur Hanger in their Camelbak. Yes, it is nice to have your own hanger, but the Emergency Hanger will fit just about anyone's bike, which means that you could be the hero if your friend has a problem.

On Sunday we had a little WebCyclery Team Party. We all met at Rob's house. I brought the bus, and everyone loaded their MTBs. Then, everyone rode their road bikes up to Mt B., where I was waiting with the bus. They all swapped bikes, and headed down the to town offroad. When they all got back to Bend, we had a little BBQ and pool party. Woohoo! That was fun.

Well, back to work today. Hopefully I will get to do some more MTBing in the next day or two.

-Kevin

Jour 16

noreply@blogger.com (WebCyclery Blog) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:27:00 +0000

The Vaujany - that was the ride for the last day in the Alpes. We decided that after the Croix de Fer, we really didn't need another big day - so we decided to ride the "flat section" down to Vaujany, and do the short climb to the ski resort. Short climb meant about 8km and 3000ft. This thing was a pretty steady 10% grade for almost the whole climb. Yikes. The knees and quads were definitely starting to hurt a little bit. It's been a couple of hard weeks.

The climb was really pretty nice, ad we went a few km past the ski area until the road started turning to gravel. I'm always up for riding off road, but since it was just an out and back, I didn't really see the need to proceed any further.

After we got back and showered, we decided it was time to go back up the Les Deux Alpes and check in to going paragliding. Yup, we had heard it was only 45 Euros or so, so we took the Gondola up to the resort and had some lunch, then tried to find the paragliding. Turned out that it was actually 70 Euros, and I was also realizing that I am pretty scared of heights, so I was glad when everyone else said that the price was a little to steep.

SO instead of paragliding, we headed over to the luge carts and did that about 4 times - racing each other and trying to catch one another cruising down the slide. After walking around a bit more, we found the Deval Karts! Holy Crap these were awesome. Basically go karts without motors - like soapbox derby cars, but with big fat tires. We all hopped in the karts and took the Poma lift up the mountain. All you really do with these things is cruise down the open slope, wherever you want. The karts turned for shit, and the grassy slopes were anything but smooth. We bought 6 rides for 10 Euros. There were 5 of us, so the first one down got to take the 6th ride. We lined up at the top of the slope side-by-side. I couldn't stop laughing, thinking how stupid and dangerous these things were. Kevin yelled go, and off he went. We all went. Kevin was far out front, bouncing all over the place, as were the rest of us. The steering wheel barely did anything at all, and the slope was filled with bumps and rocks and divots. I hadn't laughed that hard in a while. I could barely control the kart. I saw Kevin hit a dirt road that crossed the field and watched him pop up into the air. I am amazed that none of us got hurt. Kevin ended up winning, but gave Larry the last ticket to ride. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera this day, hopefully Toby or Gary will send me a picture of the Devil Karts. (The picture of the luge was from our first visit to Les Deux Alpes).

So this was our last day as a group. The next day we were heading to Grenoble, where Gary and I had a hotel for a night, then to Lyon for our flights. Kevin, Toby, and Larry were all driving to Paris to catch their flights.

The trip is practically over. The only well known Cols in the Alpes that we missed were the Glandon (which ends up at the top of the Croix de Fer - and I hear has a 13% final few km), and the climb to Les Deux Alpes. Both look pretty fun, and someday I'll come back and do those, but I think we hit about as much as we could in the time that we had (without killing ourselves).

Vaujany's ride stats - 62km/38mi

1005m/3300ft of climbing

Jour 15

noreply@blogger.com (WebCyclery Blog) — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 05:46:00 +0000

After watching the sufferfest that was the final mountain stage, we decided that we needed to go back up the Galibier from the other side - the way the tour went up it, then over the Telegraph, and up the Croix de Fer. Well, we got to the top of the Col de Lauteret (we drove up it because it is a 40km Highway - with shitloads of traffic) and found out that the Galibier climb was actually closed to traffic - just bikes were allowed - woohoo!

The Galibier was rather easy from the top of the Lauteret - only 8km, then we had a 17km descent, followed by a few km up the Telegraph and then another 8-10km descent. Riding the highway to the Croix de Fer sort of sucked, but it was only 10-15km. Once we got off the highway and went through town, the climb began. This Croix de Fer is a bitch. 30km long. It started out at about 10% grade for the first hour or so, then a short reprieve here and there, then another hour or so at 10%. It was also getting pretty warm, which made this one of the harder days of the trip. The road at the top was awesome - single lane, lots of switchbacks, great views - but I could have done without all the flies.

After getting to the top, it was a super sweet descent for quite a while. Having the GPS was cool because I could see what the road looked like 500m in front of me, so I knew if there was going to be a switchback coming, or if I could just let it go around a blind corner. Thumbs up on the Garmin 705!

Toby and I stopped in Bourg d'Oisan for a sandwich and some fluids on the way back. It was definitely one of the 2 hardest days that I had done.

Ride stats - About 132 km/82mi

2752m/9026ft of climbing

Jour14

noreply@blogger.com (WebCyclery Blog) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 06:33:00 +0000

After the Izoard yesterday, we decided to do an easy ride today, and then head into town to see the Alpe d'Huez stage. We decided to ride straight up the road that our hotel is on, which was one of he most beautiful rides yet. It ended up being about 22km to the end of the road, and climbed about 3000ft. It is a dead end road, but for some reason, the French just repaved most of it. The first 10-12km were a pretty big climb, and then it was a nice fairly flat ride the rest of the way. There were waterfalls all over the place, and a super blue/green river running all the way down the valley. I have pictures on my camera, but my camera is upstairs at the moment, so no photos yet.

After the 44km ride, Kevin and I put on some real clothes and hopped back on the bikes and rode down into Bourg d'Oisans to watch the tour stage. We sat in a bar for a few hours, watching the riders go up the Lauteret & the Col du Galibier & the Telegraph, up the Croix de Fer, and then hum into Bourg. When they we're about 2km from town, Kevin and I ran outside to the street and waited for a minute for them to cruise past, and then we ran back inside to watch them fly up l'Alpe d'Huez. I was an impressive ride by CSC - Cancellara was amazing on the front of the Peleton. After Sastre won and the the Yellow Jersey group cam through, Kevin and I hopped back on our bikes and rode back up to the hotel, so I ended up with about 60km for the day, and 3500ft.

More later.

Jour13

noreply@blogger.com (WebCyclery Blog) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:05:00 +0000

After doing the Col du Mort and the Col d'Ornon yesterday, we were hungry. We had actually gotten out pretty early, and didn't stop much, so the whole ride only took about 5 hours. Well, we were way too early for the pasta feed, so we decided to hop into the van and cruise up to Les Deux Alpes. Les Deux Alpes is this super huge resort just over the mountain behind us - about 15 miles by driving around (and up). The village is huge and the mountain is even bigger. There is so much stuff to do there that a kid would have an awesome summer hanging out there the whole time. People were still skiing up on the glaciers, there was tons of downhill mountain biking, those cement luge things, ATVs, tennis, soccer, basketball, dirt jumping, skateboarding, and a whole lot more. The line was too long for us to do the luges, but we are going to try to come back up on Wednesday - hope the line is shorter.

Today we decided it was a good day to hop in the car and hit the Col d'Izoard. We drove over to Briancon right after breakfast. We dropped Toby and Larry off in Briancon, and they rode the Col from the North end, which consisted of a pretty nice steady climb for 20km, with most of it in the 6-8% range. Gary, Kevin, and I drove 30km down the highway and parked the car at the other end of the Col d'Izoard and climbed from there. From the South, we had 31km climb. The start was a relatively easy 3-6% for the first 20km or so, then it kicked up, with a couple of the kilometers averaging 11%. We climbed all the way up to 2360m - which I think is about 7740ft. I think this was probably one of the steepest climbs we've done (with the exception of going up to La Garde). Unfortunately my body wasn't really into it. I couldn't get my heart to go at all - I felt like I was working, but just couldn't go fast at all. My heart never rose above 170bpm, and it was rarely that high. I think my body is starting to get tired.

Once at the top, we flew down and the rollercoaster top section had nice pavement and a ton of hairpins. It was a lot of fun. We had a huge headwind on the way down, which was probably good because it kept me from going too fast, I was still riding at 60kph.

Today's ride - 5566ft/1666m

35miles/56km

I'm having trouble adding photos again today - but I have some from today. Hopefully this thing will work better tomorrow.

Jour 12

noreply@blogger.com (WebCyclery Blog) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:18:00 +0000

So Day 11 was a day off, and probably a good thing. I think I needed the break, as did everyone else. Last night at the dinner table, Leon, one of the owners of the hotel, gave his nightly speech and said that there could be winds up to 60-70kph. I didn't really want to be anywhere to exposed for that sort of thing. We decided to take off shortly after breakfast - Gary and I rolled out at 9:12, about 10 minutes after Larry, Toby, and Kevin. The first 20-30km was flat to slightly downhill, so we caught up before we turned off the main road an onto the first climb of the day - the Col du Mort. This was a pretty big climb, but we started from such a low elevation that it din't hurt as much as some of the other climbs. I think the climb was about 3500ft or so. After we dropped down, we climbed up the Col d'Ornon, which seemed really easy. I think the first half or more was 5% or less, so a lot of big ring. Even when the grade reached 7 or8%, it didn't seem too bad because instead of going through switchbacks we were rolling through fields of wild flowers. We hit the top and had one of the best downhills yet, super fun, some tight and twisty stuff, nice roads.....yay! The ride was one of our longest yet, maybe 115-117km or so, with 7000ft of climbing. A good day once again. I didn't take too many pictures today, as it was slightly overcast and I wasn't in the mood. I will try to add the few I took later today.

Hotel Au Bon Accueil

noreply@blogger.com (WebCyclery Blog) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 08:31:00 +0000

It's raining a little bit this morning. Luckily we're not in a rush to get going. The hotel we are staying is called the Hotel Au Bon Accueil. It caters to cyclists, especially the Dutch. I just thought I'd through in a few photos of the place so you can see how plush we're living over here. We're outside of Bourg d'Oisans by about 10km (Bourg d'Oisans is near the bottom of L'Alpe d'Huez) - near a little commune called Venosc. From the hotel, we can ride a whole bunch of rides - Alpe d'Huez, Col de Sarene, Les Deux Alpes, Col d'Ornon, Col de la Croix de Fer, Col de Telegraph, Col de Galibier, and a few more that aren't quite as well known. We are also a short drive from a bunch of others. I think tomorrow we will drive to Briancon and hit the Col d'Izoard.

Here's a picture of downtown Bourg d'Oisans. Seems like the place is goi

ng to be going crazy these nxt few days, with the tour ending on Alpe d'Huez on Tuesday, and leaving from town on Wednesday. I'd bet that some of these places make a good chunk of their annual revenue in this one week of the year.

Here is the view from my window - I couldn't get both mountains in one shot, so this one is to the left...

And here is the view to the right..

Here is the viewing room for the tour - more of a big 3-sided shed outside with a big screen tv. It has chairs, couches, and all sorts of tour memorabilia - unfortunately it is all in Dutch,

so I can't read any of it.

Here is Gary getting another plate of pasta.

That's all for today - I'm hoping the thunderstorm will pass and we can ride, but then again, a forced day off might be a good thing. I probably won't take one by choice, but I'm sure my body could use it. I think I've climbed about 33,000+ ft in the last 6 days - and only ridden about 290 miles. I think I might be close to 50,000ft for the first 10 days - that's the equivalent of climbing to Mt Bachelor about 20 times. A demain!

Jour 10 - another good day

noreply@blogger.com (WebCyclery Blog) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 19:38:00 +0000

Kevin E. and I decided to ride on our own today. Kevin didn't get to do the Galibier yesterday, and he wanted to get a good amount of climbing. So we started off the day by cruising up Alpe d'Huez - probably the most famous of the big climbs. That was a bitch. It started off steep - and by the time it eased up just a bit, I was too tired to "go easy". I still went slow, but it hurt. Alpe d'Huez has 21 switchbacks

all the way up, and they are all marked -which can be a little discouraging now and then. I stopped once or twice for some pictures. The Tour de France is climbing this on Wednesday, and people have already been setting up camp for the last few days on the side of the road, which can make for some great entertainment. Today, about half way up, some guy was jamming on his electric guitar just encouraging riders as they climbed. There had to be thousands of riders that road up it today. It is pretty crazy.

When we got to the top, we decided to sit down and have some lunch - jambon buerre & Coke! It was good, then, instead of heading down, we decided to keep on climbing and ride the Col de Sarenne. This was a really beautiful climb, but the road was definitely rough (which I really like). Lots of gravel, rocks, pot holes, etc. This thing climbed another 1000ft or so, past the goats pictured below. When we got to the top, we had a rough, yet very fun descent for about 6-8km, then the rad turned to fresh pavement and was super sweet for the rest of the way down.

We then decided that we would climb a little more, so after dropping down, we took a right which was going to take us to La Garde, about a third of the way up Alpe d'huez. Well, this little climb was steep, almost all oer 10% - mostly 11, 12, and 13% - I would guess it took about 30-35 minutes. Once we got up that, we ran into Larry, Gary, and Toby heading the other way. They told us we were in for a treat as they had just come up the ridge road, which we were about to descend. The ridge road hugs the side of the mountain and is super exposed. It is only about 10-12ft wide or so, so passing cars was tough. How cars passed each other is mind boggling.

We finally made our way down that, and then down the bottom part of Alpe d'Huez, and back to Au Bon Accueil for a shower and some pasta and an Amstel.

Great day of climbing once again, and the weather was once again superb.

Ride Stats

About 75km/48mi

ROughly 7000ft/2200m of climbing.