Yesterday was the Strawberry Century.  Felt good, plent left in the tank when I was done finishing at 18-19 miles an hour and averaging 16.2 for the entire ride.  I ate and drank correctly and felt really good, it was fantastic.  I want to give a big shout out to the Santiam Spokes Bicycle Club for putting on another wonderful ride.  Next week, Tour de Blast.

Well I checked the first ride off my list this year and it was brutal .  I rode from my house to the start line, and left the starting point at 7:50.  Wanted to get out early and since it isn’t supported, thought I would finish around the time of the fast guys.  Well a couple of miscues, and some brutal climbing later I finished at 1:50.  7  Hours (including the ride from my house and then home).  Wow what a ride.  Final stats 65 Miles 8900 feet of climbing.  Owww.  Next ride is Monster Cookie, 62 miles of flat.  Nice

So I have still kept up with the training, first hard ride on the schedule is next weekend the 17th.  De Ronde de Oeste.  Just found out yesterday that I got into the RAMROD, so July is going to be a brutal month.  STP on the 9th, RAMROD on the 28th, Tour de Cure on the 30th.  Way Cool.

So today was the worst day of the year ride and aside from being cold it was quite nice.  No rain until the afternoon after the ride was over.  I am guessing if they called it the “nicest day of the year ride” it would have deluged.  I rode from my house to the start line so it gave me 55 miles and put me over the century mark for the week.  First time this year.  Woohoo!  The 45 mile ride did not have too many of the costume contestants on it, but it was a great ride with some hills and some nice flats.  We met up with the 18 mile riders towards the end so that slowed things down a bit, but not too much.  The reward was a cold beer at the Lucky Lab at the end and that is always nice,

So I rode with my good friend Chris today.  My original goal was to ride over to Vancouver do the bridge loop and then ride home for a total of 64 miles.  I took off from my house at 6 in the morning, and the drive train issues that I was having earlier in the week were getting continually worse.  I thought the issues were tied to the front derauiller issue I was having last week.  I had to turn around at the zoo, go home and put the Scattante on my car rack and drove to Chris’s. We then did the bridge loop from Vancouver to the 205 bridge to the interstate bridge back to the start.

This was Chris’s first ride of the year and a little rough.  I had a good ride, stayed in the big ring even on hills to make sure that I got a good workout.

I then took the Madone into a Bike Gallery and was a little frustrated because I had taken it there last weekend to get the drive train issue resolved.  They found I had a broken link on the chain, fixed it, explaned the trimming of my gears when they go across the derauiller.  They were fantastic and it turned out to be a great bike day.  I really want to thank Caine and the rest of the Beaverton bike gallery service staff for talking me through it and being extremly helpful.

Looks like there will again be no official Tour de Ronde in Portland this year.  However, some people are going to meet on the 17th of April to do an informal ride.  Looks absolutely brutal and I can’t wait.

So the January stats are:

Not bad for winter, but I really need to start ramping it up.