Wow, it is hot!\u00a0 I\u2019ve been writing this blog since 8\/13 \u2013 I keep thinking back on what I was doing, 365 days ago.\u00a0 I remember it being stunningly hot, hotter than it is here in my apartment and we had completed the Cascades and were now in the bosom of the high Oregon desert.<\/p>\n
If it sounds like I\u2019m nostalgic it\u2019s because I am.\u00a0 I want to do those 40 miles of climbing over Santiam pass again.\u00a0 I want to climb through the Snake River Canyon, over Drinking Water Pass and on to Stinking Water Pass.\u00a0 I want to watch Pete experience his first ever bonk and throw a nice sandwich I made for him into the dirt out of frustration.\u00a0 I can still feel the high, hot sun burning my flesh as I repair a flat.\u00a0 I want to climb where there\u2019s snow on top of the adjacent mountains.\u00a0 I miss the loneliness of being on my bike with no one around for dozens of miles, nothing around but scorched earth, rattling snakes, sizzling insects and soft tarmac.\u00a0 I want to get to Bend and drink another Black Butte Porter. <\/span><\/span><\/a> I want to hang with Jeff and Patty.\u00a0 I want strangers<\/span><\/a> <\/span>to true my wheels and adjust my gears.\u00a0 I want to wake up in a place I\u2019ve never been before and look out my hotel room window to see the three volcanic buttes<\/span><\/a> <\/span>of Sisters, vistas I\u2019ve only dreamed about.\u00a0 Ah creating memories.<\/p>\n Julia created a book of photographs she had taken from each state and gave it to me for my birthday, an awesome gift as each picture brings me back to those places.\u00a0 I can remember how fast I was or wasn\u2019t going, I can certainly remember the stories big brother raconteur told me that day, tall or true, either way entertaining.\u00a0 I can sometimes remember the smell, what we ate, drank and where we went to the bathroom.\u00a0 I really want to get back and borrow these roads again.\u00a0 I know I will it\u2019s only a matter of time.<\/p>\n With Lance Armstrong\u2019<\/ins>s remarkable and inspiring return to professional cycling and his dominating win in Saturday\u2019s Leadville 100 this could be one of the best times to be out riding.\u00a0 Bikes seem to be on peoples mind.\u00a0 My friends are asking me to pick bikes out for them, go with them to the stores to make the purchase.\u00a0 My rock star friend Dave even bought a single speed bike with a Brooks saddle to roll around on between shows.\u00a0 Lately, I hear people tell me how much they are enjoying biking again.\u00a0 My dad went for a ride a few weeks ago and called me to tell me it was the first time in a while he\u2019d noticed how beautiful the hills were beyond the street where he lives.<\/p>\n Biking is freedom.\u00a0 It is freedom even in urban environments, some of my pals might say more so.\u00a0 Wherever\u00a0 I go I\u2019m assessing if it would be a good place to ride.\u00a0 And the answer is always yes.\u00a0 Every surface is ride-able and someone is always out riding.<\/p>\n My friends aren\u2019t the only people buying bikes; the shop down the street is selling bikes more than ever now and not just lame cruisers.\u00a0 I had my eye on a single speed Raleigh 29er<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 It sold within a week, not nearly enough time for me to decipher a way to steal it.\u00a0 I hope that orange gem gets ridden properly but the sad truth is that it\u2019ll probably sit in some neo yuppie\u2019s apartment until it\u2019s found in a classified ad on craigslist<\/span> <\/a>.<\/p>\n More people out riding is<\/em> the point.\u00a0 As much as it is exciting to see and feel the buzz within my small cycling community, I am still very worried.\u00a0 Too many drivers are running people over, the rate is alarming and it\u2019s happening every week now.\u00a0 Too many kids are out cycling without helmets on.\u00a0 Too many adults are out without helmets on even while their children are strapped to a seat on the back of their bikes.\u00a0 No one is immune to an accident.\u00a0 Helmets now are super comfortable, they look cool and they save lives.<\/p>\n Recently a cyclist was caught beating a pedestrian with a U-lock<\/span><\/a> by some passerby\u2019s cell phone camera.\u00a0 I, along with most cyclists abhor this behavior and believe this negates all the positive work that is being done to make the bicycle an equal member of our roads.\u00a0 As a community that wants and needs to be allowed access and opportunity to ride in all areas of this country we need to quell our violent behaviors.\u00a0\u00a0 We MUST signal to cars, we MUST NOT pull out in front of cars and also NOT roll impossibly slow without affording motorists an opportunity to pass us.\u00a0 Cyclists are only guests on these roads, as are the cars and trucks.\u00a0 However if we do not abide these simple courtesies we will continue to endanger all riders.<\/p>\n I have some recent tales of dangerous interactions while riding.\u00a0 While riding in midtown a couple of weeks ago I came across a <\/span>ghost bike<\/span><\/a> <\/span>memorial for a 65 year-old man who was killed by a car a few weeks before Christmas.\u00a0 A simple millisecond for that driver could have spared the life of a father, husband and brother, not to mention the driver\u2019s own horror knowing that this momentary carelessness ended another person\u2019s life. \u00a0That could be my biggest fear when I get behind the wheel of any car.<\/p>\n Last week during a ride \u201cCarlos from Columbia\u201d and I were pulling each other at a suffering (for me) pace of 31 \u2013 32 mph when a woman in a grey Toyota FJ Cruiser began beeping her horn and flailing her arms.\u00a0 (The speed limit on that stretch is 30 mph) Both CC and I gestured to her that it was all clear and to pass us, she didn\u2019t.\u00a0 Obviously not in a real hurry, she pulled along side of us and rolled down the passenger window to get into a screaming match.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t swear at her because I didn\u2019t have the air (& CC doesn\u2019t really speak English) but I was able to muster one sentence, \u201cdo better lady, share the road.\u201d\u00a0 In all honesty I wish I slashed her tires or sprayed her with a water bottle full of urine, like some messengers do to the reckless cabbies when their windows are down.\u00a0 But that never makes things better.<\/p>\n A few months ago I did actually swear at a women in a white Mercedes near Wykagyl,<\/span><\/a> New Rochelle.\u00a0 She shouted at me to get off the road and that I was going too slow.\u00a0 Startled because I was in the bike lane, I responded to her with the timeless F&#k you since she had all her windows down.\u00a0 I shouldn\u2019t have said anything especially since I was passing a big yellow SHARE THE ROAD<\/span><\/a> sign.\u00a0 Wykagyl is suburbia and contains part of New Rochelle\u2019s 13 miles of marked bike lanes.\u00a0 A Tool Academy<\/span><\/a> <\/span>reject in his pimped out white Lexus witnessed her harassing me and nearly rear-ended me, gave me a thumbs up and tailgated her until he could flip her off. Equally unacceptable although comical.<\/p>\n