It is not that a PRO racer needs be a responsible public figure for themselves or their team’s own good.

It ties into the responsibility of every human being to act decently and with awareness of others.

It never made sense that people cruise through life not realizing (or more to the point, not giving a shit) that their actions affect others.

—

I spend 20 hours a week on my bike and I can go all winter long without a single incident of car/bike or bike/bike drama.

The second the sun comes out everyone starts acting like they own the road. Or at least the piece of the road they are on at that second.

—

Recent car happenings this week:

*Yuppie gives me a smug, dismissive, blank stare (the I could care less that you are on a bike) while driving past me in the Pearl district in his beamer. Took me a second to realize it is a local frame builder. Nothing wrong with beamers…

*get passed by a woman in a Subaru while training down in Canby/Oregon city. We are in the bike lane and she is shouting something about “staying on our side”. She swerves in and out of the bike lane slamming on the brakes, menacingly. I slow down and dial 911. Give her auto description and plate # and hope they pull her over.

*riding bikes down N Vancouver ave. see a customer who gave me an earful about being car-free and living super “green” loading his track bike into a giant Suburban.

*we have some really awesome neighbors who like to play basketball on the street in front of our house most evenings around 3am-ish. Now we park our hippie eco car (aka: Spacehawk) underneath the basketball hoop.

*saw a video linked from this site. I agree, and that is why I do not participate in Critical mass anymore.

*riding to get coffee with Pete on a quiet SE side street. hear the telltale rev of the engine of an impatient driver who proceeds to pinch us out of a tight roundabout. As policy, I don’t give drivers the finger.

I gave him the finger.

it is Saturday morning and you almost ran my girlfriend into the curb trying to get past us just to park in front of your house a 1/2 block later.

*while driving some chairs and equipment home from work on Thursday eve I get hollered at by a superfan in a lowered Volvo!

“hey Molly!”

pretty awesome to bump into a rad pal. be it in car or on bike.

After a week of bullshit interactions with automobiles it was great to have a nice one.

It is not cars are inherently the big assholes, it is the smug jerks that drive them.

—

Scarier than car drivers are the righteous commuters. I ride pretty slow while commuting. The days it stops raining I have to start being hyper-aware of all of the unsafe riders that come out of the woodwork.

I like giving pedestrians and joggers a lot of room, give them a heads up, move a couple feet away from them while passing. And without fail there will be some yahoo barreling past screaming “on your left asshole!” (generally with the expletive), because they are so appalled that anyone would slow their progress.

Then they buzz me and freak out the pedestrians. making all cyclists look like douche bags.

I wish I could count on the bicycle riding folks out there to treat others with the same respect they would want an auto to treat them.

Pretty sure they would consider the move they just pulled on a bike totally fucked up if an automobile did the same to them.

slow down.

—

end rant.

off to train.

Yikes!

Donn/Challenge got back to me about their “file tread” tyre availability:

“The Grifo XS (file tread) will be arriving mid to late July. This tread design will be available in the following configurations:

* Grifo 32 XS Tubular Black/Brown (black tread/brown sidewall)
* Grifo 34 XS Tubular Black/Brown
* Grifo 32 XS Tubular White/Black
* Grifo 32 XS Open Black/Brown
* Grifo 32 XS Open White/Black”

The open tread is the clincher version!

I’ll have them in stock when they are available!

White file tread clinchers!

–

I’ve also got a small handful of Dura Ace 46 tooth cyclocross chainrings available!

$120 each shipped in the conti USA!

So dope! And rare!

The dolphin, the goat and the moose. And the gerbil…

All of that. For what?

Glicker.

Cara.

Kenji.

You become your power animal.

—

On cyclocross tyres:

After some wrangling I am still technically a Dugast dealer.

Thanks to those who deserve thanks and… I’ve got a boatload of Dugast Rhino’s in stock!

More coming too.

Donn from Challenge writes:

“Hi Molly!

We should be able to release the new “mud” tire, Fango, tread design soon. We will have the tire ready to go for the start of the season.

I have Grifo Open (clinchers) in stock.”

…Fango eh?

Yes.

We packed the S H I T out of the rental.

4 bikes + 3 huge over packed luggage bags + 12 wheels + tons of CLIF product + double bike box + tired bike racers.

H O T T.

I’m back at the host house with my legs up.

The stage was 75 miles, with 1 x 15 minute climb and a bunch of rollers on the way in to the finish.

I was hoping to have more info about other riders but I got myself dropped from the peloton halfway through the race so…

The Gentle lovers were out in force. Hagens-Broadmark were riding pretty solid though, they were dragging their feet sitting on the front riding “tempo” up the start of the climb. No one understood that tactic. Bob’s cycling was riding really strong, there were a couple of Symmetrics guys bitching about how un-pro the racing was. I saw a Veloce rider nursing a shoulder on the side of the road as I chased the peloton on the run in to the finish.

We blew through the first feed zone around mile 25 and I looked down and my heart was pounding really hard! “uh-oh” I said to myself. I’ve been fighting a cold all week and I don’t know if it is that combined with a little bit of altitude and allergies and the heat but, my HR was really high the whole race and I had a hard time breathing.

I’m not even really that sore, just sorta out of breath. I gots a thousand excuses.

Well, shit. I wish I had more to write about. I saw Kenji and Even Plews in the pack.

My teammate Glick finished in the lead group. I think I was about 4-5 minutes behind him.

It is late and we are going to try and figure out our time trial start times based on the results from today.

I got roped into racing a stage race in support of this guy.

Racing on the Organic Athlete squad. There is a bunch of us here crashing in a couple of host houses. Using the wifi and eating veggies.

This is our morning. Coffee (stumptown, yes), oatmeal, bananas, coffee, jus d’orange.

Internet.

About the internet: we are googling all of our rivals and rival teams, looking up stats and race results.

The fabulous Cara Gillis and I packed the hell out of our full leather interior Mazda, put it into robo cruise control and hit the road mid day on Thursday.

Pete’s birthday was on Tuesday and the Cardinal’s hosted a bbq in her honor. It was super sweet. Elizabeth Cardinal baked her a layed cake and a bunch of super sweet pals showed up. We had an all vegan grill session which was pretty sweet. I NEED to stop eating those damn kielbasa. They destroy my gut. For days afterwards.

I’m going to keep a day to day update going on the site, if you want some info about a particular ride (Organic or not) let me know and I’ll try to get some info up here. The batteries on the camera are dying and my cellphone takes worthless photos.

PS: Cara has a race blog here.

SHOUT OUTS:

EDGE composites for setting me up with a last minute pair of “pre-release” clincher rims. (looks like EDGE has a fancy new website too. Check it out.)

Deep. Carbon. Clinchers. holy crap. I got them built up a couple hours before we packed up the car so, we will see how my quick build holds up. Suffice it to say, the rims are flawless, light, and aero. Per my coach’s recommendation, I am going to go for it it in the TT. We will see if I can do a sub 22 minute tt.

Alchemy bicycle works for getting me the fancy Sapim spokes just in time to lace up the Edge wheels!

Thank you EDGE, thank you Alchemy.

The sensations, they are good and the equipment, she is beautiful.