Cycle Oregon Weekend

Cycling while out of shape and drinking the fermented juice of the grape.

This past weekend the wife and I made the trip up north to Monmouth Oregon for the Cycle Oregon Weekend. Despite a sore posterior and a serious case of JLS (Jelly Leg Syndrome for the non-medicals) at the end of day two, the weekend ride was a great time. The maps below show the day one route north and the day two route south. The Willamette Valley was beautiful as usual and the roads in Polk County are top notch. A little training probably would have been a good idea, as the end of day one made me rethink the last three months of ice cream and Xbox. Who knew the hills outside of Dallas could be a veritable Everest to a 220lb office jobber? I mean, I am an engineer who works with graphical representations of data on a daily basis, and I must say that the hills highlighted by a red box in Figure 1 qualify as false elevation propaganda. Sure, the old lady on the recumbent who blew by me doing 4 disagrees, but what does she know?


Figure 1 - Day one ride north of Monmouth


Figure 2 - Day two ride south of Monmouth

Highlight: After coming back to camp on day one and doing my best impression of a saddle soar frontiersmen walking around the campus of Western Oregon University, a group of us decided to taste some of the offerings of the wineries we had drooled our way by on the bikes earlier. We went to Firesteed Cellars, Cherry Hill Winery, and a place I somehow forget that had a German sounding name I think (thank you, Pinot Noir). All of these places had some excellent Pinot Noirs, but probably the most unique tasting was the Firesteed chardonnay.

Lowlight: Work on Monday made me develop an intense hate for my office chair, which through no fault of its own could not cure my ailing rear. We are starting to get along better now, but next year I am DEFINITELY going to train.

Coming up: The engineering firm I work for uses Autodesk Inventor CAD software. I will be posting some helpful information for Inventor Users in the future on this blog. I will also review the media I consume; including books, TV, movies, and albums. These reviews do not reflect the opinions of my parent company or my parents.

Reading: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (Mark Twain), The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)

Watching: Californication, East Bound and Down, Weeds, Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia