a midway bikelog

I totally understand the impulse for this sort of downsizing:

I could see doing something like this when the kids are grown up, though i’d probably double the size of the place just to have a workshop.

It actually happened a couple of weeks ago now, but some pictures of Fiona at her kindergarten graduation:

We are all very proud of her, and she is very excited for first grade this fall.

John Moe of Minnesota Public Radio created this series of shows called Wits, where he and musical guide John Munson have a writer and a musical guest and they’d talk about a topic with sidetracks and fun. I went to the second show with George Saunders, who i’d never read before, and had a great time, very smart and funny guy. Mike Doughty was the musical guest, and that was fun too, as i’d seen Soul Coughing play but not him solo.

The big finale of the series was John Hodgman, who i love, but i wasn’t able to make it to the show. Happily, MPR did a video stream of the entire show, and that is now available on their website, so i did get to see the whole thing, just a bit delayed. It was a great show, as expected, and they had Neil Gaiman onstage and Hodgman read from David Foster Wallace (who is another favorite) and their musical guest was John Roderick.

I don’t know what cave i’ve been living in to not have heard of John Roderick and his band The Long Winters, but wow am i glad i heard that show. He’s the real fucking deal songwriter. I’ll be heading out to collect his back catalog shortly.

The song he played at Wits is a new one for the new album he’s been working on for over a year now, maybe two, and the song is called Not Moving To Portland. It’s one of those deceptively complex songs with some simple chords and really interesting phrasing and a good story to tell all at once. Doing a little digging to hear more of his stuff, i stumbled upon the following recording of the song from the beginning of this year:

It was recorded for a Seattle arts fundraiser, and the video is pretty cool, but i noticed that the lyrics are a little different than the version i’d heard. Here’s the Wits show, jump to about 40 minutes in to get to the song intro (though the whole show is good):

The arrangement is slightly different, with Munson’s bass rather than backing vocals, but the lyrics are also changed, making the storyline stronger and more personal. And it was a fine song before, top 95%, but i like the newer one better. What grabbed me on the first listen was Roderick’s big voice ringing out on the chorus and how the verses sort of dance around the phrasing of the 3-chord repeat. It’s a beautifully constructed song. I wonder if it’s done, or if he’ll tweak it again before the album is released.

Yesterday i completed my second gravel century of the year yesterday at the inaugural Westside Dirty Benjamin race. It was an interesting contrast to the Almanzo 100 race i finished last month. Of course 100 miles on mostly gravel roads is nothing to sneeze at, but while the extra challenge at the Almanzo was the hills, for the WSDB it was the wind.

As with the Almanzo, i met many friends at the race start, obviously an indication of my high caliber friends and our collective warped sense of cycling fun. Weather was perfect: partly cloudy and mid-60s heading for the mid-70s, but it was the wind gusts near 20mph that caused trouble. The first half of the race had a series of turns that each put us into a different sort of headwind but only one short respite from it.

I was feeling pretty lousy for the first 10-15 miles frankly, having been mostly off of the bike for the month since the Almanzo race. It was tough to ride into the wind, working harder than i should for a measly 10mph. The maddening thing about the wind, of course, is that unlike a long climb you can’t see the end of it. I did a better job eating and drinking early and often, but the nonstop push into the wind and the lack of recent training brought back the threat of thigh cramps and i had to back off even further and spin more.

Since i had too much food along for Almanzo, i traveled lighter for the WSDB and got lunch at a grocery store in Watertown. It would have been faster and cheaper to use the drop bag service at the checkpoint, but i wasn’t organized enough before the race to get it together. I just got whatever smelled and looked good at the store and ended up eating 2 Chester’s deli chicken breasts and chocolate milk, which was declared “hilarious” by my friend Jana at the checkpoint park. Hilarious, but delicious, and worked fine for the rest of the ride.

A couple of miles after the checkpoint i got to outrun the only dog that chased during the day. Surprising, given that at least 70 riders had passed by then, probably a good workout for that old black lab, but i was fresh enough from the break to outsprint it.

Miles 55-90 were the best of the race for me. After fighting the headwind and generally feeling unsettled on the bike through the first half of the race, i finally found a good rhythm and the miles seemed to float right by. The tailwind we had for most of the second half certainly helped, riding along much more easily at 15-18 most of the time but still soft-pedaling to keep the cramps at bay.

The last dozen miles of gravel were a little soft, hard to find a good line on, and i was getting a little sore and tired. The race was actually 106.5 miles, but the final 6 miles or so were all asphalt, lovely and smooth, with a tailwind and rolling hills. It felt like a gift to finish the ride with a handful of fast miles like that. I finished in about 9:15; just over my Almanzo time but not bad considering the wind and my lack of training.

Great work by organizer Martin Rudnick along with Karyn and the rest of the crew who put on an excellent race. There were post-race beers and delicious pulled pork sandwiches from King’s Bar and a nice choice of schwag. The highlight of the little bit of post-race time i had to hang out was watching the unicyclist Dan come in to the finish. 106.5 miles on a 36″-wheeled unicycle, simply amazing.

This was the second trp to Alaska for my dad, brothers and me, the last time being 4 years ago but further north, in the Kenai Penninsula. We wanted to see a different part of the state, plus while we had great halibut fishing in Homer and excellent salmon fishing in Soldotna, staying in SItka allowed us to fish for multiple things from one home base, so we spent less time driving cross-country.

We all met up in Seattle then flew north together. We fished with Frontier Charters, and they were great. They picked us up at the airport and let us use a van for the first couple of days we had before we fished, and we had a good time exploring the sights in and around town. Sitka is on beautiful Baranof Island, surrounded by little islands and filled with mountains and dense forests. Fishing is the main attraction to the area, but the hiking and biking is also wonderful.

One of our first stops on Monday was a nice whale watching park just outside of town. It was low tide, and we had a nice little hike among the rocks.

We had a couple of days to do some sightseeing before our fishing started, so we explored town, did a little hiking and exploring the trails outside of town and took a glass-bottom boat tour to see some of the sea life along the coast.

We fished 2 days and did very well with the salmon (20-30 lb kings, one coho) and rockfish, got a couple of nice lingcod inside the slot limit, and a couple of nice yelloweye too. The halibut fishing was unusually slow, but Mike and John each hauled up a smaller one on the first day. The rockfish action was nonstop while we were over the reef, pretty much as fast as you could drop a line and pull it up.

A fantastic trip, beautiful country and great guys to hang out with.