A Green Egg...

This week’s theme was getting to know Corvallis in the spring time. Monday started off cold and rainy (the remnants of the snow storm that bollixed my triathlon) and Tuesday was much of the same. But the difference was that on Tuesday I discovered my new favorite pastime in rainy weather: cyclocross. A sport, I think, that must have been founded when a road-biker thought “Wouldn’t it be cool to ride my road bike off-road.”
It started when my teammates on Pacific Power/Blue Sky decided to ride their trainers rather than brave the dripping rain. So instead of joining them in their stationary desperation, I called up Justin, my pro-mountain biker roomie, and asked him if he was riding that evening and which steed he intended on riding. When he responded “cyclocross bike”, I agreed to meet him without any hesitation. I showed up on Tigger (my former tri-bike turned everything bike) at the Dream-Bean (a storefront location featuring a pizza place called American Dreamz with an exceptional pizza called the Bill Walton and a coffee shop named The Beanery which among other things makes a concoction called a “sweet hot chocolate”).
As we were heading out of town, he looked at me and said “This ride is epic, are you prepared for it?” He was asking me this question mostly to make sure I had enough food and water, but I think also a little bit because of my skinny tires, the road-specific components on my bike, my claim to be rubbish at mountain biking, and maybe, my girlieness. But I looked straight at him and told him that I had brought enough calories and smiled ☺.
We rode North and West out of Corvallis, around the town of Philomoth, and through the “town” of Wren within the first 10 miles. Before long we were on a dirt road and beginning to climb. We climbed in fits and starts up a forest road, the road looking less and less like a road as it went from dirt, to crushed gravel, to pine needles, and finally to rutted, stick-filled, tracks only used by the logging trucks. Many of the roads were not maintained and Tigger handed them all like a champ, only once burying a tire in the mud. We rode through moss covered forest, clear-cuts, and passed cabins (and one hobbit mansion) all without seeing a sole for 15-20 miles. The final climb was a beast, but the seven mile descent back to Philomoth was worth every crank turn.
I had such euphoria after that ride, that I didn’t even mind being seriously muddy and having to trudge back into work to get my bag. Added to the awesomeness of the folks at La Rocita who filled Justin and my super grande burritos with the rest of their fixings so that they were busting at the seams, this might have been one of the coolest rides I have been on, ever (added to Big Thompson and 401). I need a cyclocross bike!
To be continued.....I still haven't explained the green egg.