Tampa Cyclocross

Cyclocross events are normally held towards the end of the year and many racers embrace the ridiculousness of racing in the rain, mud and cold.

Portland, 2004

For some great NorthWest style cyclocross photos, check out  http://pdxcross.squarespace.com/, amazing talent, on both sides of the lens.

In Florida, some things are just easier.  Today, we had clear blue skies, no mud, and no rain; but still had a fun day of cyclocross racing.  The organizers did a surprising job of creating challenges from a race venue that at first look didn't seem to include anything more challenging than avoiding sunburn.  There was a fairly ridable sand pit, a few off camber corners that I really liked, and several high speed sweeper corners with trees on the outside edges to keep your attention.

I ended up in 2nd place out of about a dozen in my group.  Connie took a picture of the the awards, but she also took this photo of the women's awards.  I'm not sure, but this may be part of her plan to get some of our riding friends from Portland to come here for a bit of winter training. 

Sarasota Cycling

We've been getting out and exploring the local cycling scene.  Mostly it has been frustrating, with a few moments of "this is so great I can't believe I'm here", but we've found a few good places to ride.

Here is Connie on Casey Key.  This is a small island just south of Sarasota.  The island is about 5 miles long and maybe only 200 yards wide at the skinny parts.

We took a "rails to trails" to get from South Sarasota to Casey Key.  Ended up with about 25 miles, most of it without traffic and lots of great scenery.   An excellent ride.
More of Casey Key.

In Oregon, we were accustomed to group rides without much structure, and changing or adjusting the route as we went along.  The club rides in Sarasota are scheduled, with the routes and speeds completely pre-planned.  Here is a photo from the Tuesday morning Potter Park ride.

The signature hammer ride for Sarasota has got to be Longboat Key.  A lot of groups do this route.  Generally they leave from downtown, hammer over the hill (Ringling Bridge), ease up through the congestion around St. Armands, then it is open road for about 18 miles.  It's far from perfect, and can have a bit too much traffic, but it's never more than a few hundred yards from the water and out and back gives about 40 miles with only a few traffic lights.

The best part of riding in Florida?  Wearing shorts and short sleeves in mid-November.

Sailing Sarasota Bay

We're settled into the new condo and are starting to get out and about town.  One of our first stops was to check out the weekly racing at the local sailing club.

Hard to complain about sailing in shorts and T-shirt on November 2nd.  This is in the bay, directly in front of our condo.

New Condo

We've decided to set up camp in Sarasota and have rented a condo.   We looked at a few other towns and in the end it was a hard call.  Sarasota is definitely a sleepy place compared to Portland, but it is a reasonable size, has a lot of good restaurants, beautiful beaches, an active sailing club, nearby mountain biking, and I'm hoping some excellent boating.

We had wanted something closer to the beach, but long term condo rentals are fairly rare here and we just couldn't find the right combination of location and a newer building.  This particular building is only 8 blocks from downtown, and a short ride over the bridge to the beach.

We're on the 15th floor:

Gotta love the pool:

The building has its own theater that residents can reserve for their use:

We don't have anything to put in it, but residents can rent out a portion of the wine cellar:

We are still unpacking boxes, so we haven't had time to use any of the great amenities, but hopefully that day will come soon.

One side note in the interest of full disclosure; I "borrowed" these photos from a real estate web site.

Jungle Biking

Today, we rode at Alafia Park, about 40 miles from Sarasota.  These trails have been adopted by SWAMP, the local mountain biking club, and they've done a great job of building trails here.  Lots of roots, very tight, technical trails, some with descents that are silly steep.

One point of interest is that these are biking only trails.  This is a complete change from trails on the West Coast, many of which started as hiking trails and where bikes are tenuously tolerated.

Sweet Dreams

We've been on the road for about 6 weeks and we've seen a lot of hotels.  Some were good, a few were bad, but most were not memorable at all.  The Holiday Inn in Sarasota is a standout exception. This may be the nicest Holiday Inn in the country.

Although the condition of a property is an important element in the experience, more often than not, it's the small things that matter.  For instance, the Sheraton on Ft. Lauderdale is a nice hotel, but the $10 per day for internet access is only one of the many ways they are constantly trying to squeeze money from the guests.  Another example was the Fairview Inn in New Orleans that tried to rent us a moldy room while a very nice room on a higher floor sat empty.

There haven't been any surprises at this hotel.  Everything is nice, clean and very comfortable.  In fact we've extended our stay a few days.

Here is a link to a story about this hotel in the local newspaper:
holiday-inn-owner-explains-his-motivation/

Attack of the blobs

I'm swimming in the Gulf, off the coast of Destin, when I feel something nipping at my heels.  I take a look and see a little fish.  That was no problem, a bit odd, but no problem.  A bit later however, I start to feel some stinging feelings; on my side, right leg, left leg.  Within minutes, I am out of the water, and realize that I must have ran into some jelly fish.  The pain wasn't terrible, a bit less than a bee sting, and within about 30 minutes all the pain had subsided.

The next day, this is what the beach looked like; thousands of Moon Jellies washed ashore.

Sources on the internet indicate that the Moon Jellies have a very mild sting; I would argue that.  In any case, these are creatures to be respected.

Mountain biking without mountains

We spent a few days in Destin.  This is a nice town to visit; reasonably priced hotels, clean beaches and clear water.  I don’t think I’d want to live here as the town is geared primarily towards the tourists. 

With a bit of internet research, we found a nearby mountain biking opportunity.  Eglin Air Force Base is about 15 miles inland and has a reported 26 miles of trails built specifically for mountain biking.  To gain access, we needed a permit which requires watching a short video to learn what to do if you find an unexploded ordinance (leave it alone, as if that wasn’t obvious).

At one point, this guy was blocking the trail.  He was meaner than he looks. 

Someone has built a few ramps and other features.  

We rode for about two hours and didn’t see all the trails.  Surprisingly, the riding here reminded us of Bend, Oregon in that the trails were twisty and fun, although there are certainly no mountains here.

First Day in Destin, Florida

We went to the beach of course.

Seems that all of the coastal regions of Florida have nicknames; they call this area the Emerald Coast.

New Orleans, LA

We had wanted to get a hotel close in to town, but based on the on-line reviews, a decent hotel here will run about $200.  In addition, most of the close in hotels have limited parking or valet only parking.  Considering the prices and the huge amount of luggage we have, we decided to head for the suburbs.  We ended up at a Fairview Inn at $129 per night.  One of the most expensive hotels on our trip, and one of the worst in terms of quality.

I'm not sure what to think about New Orleans.  It has all the crime, traffic, and other difficulties of a large city, but the reality is that Portland is nearly twice as large and yet infinitely more livable.  We only stayed 2 nights, but ended up having a nice time.

We took the bikes for a ride along the levy, all the way from Kenner to the Garden District, about 30 miles total.  Cruised around the garden district for an hour or so looking at the old mansions.  I really enjoyed the ride along the levy.  The viewpoint from the top of the levy gives an interesting perspective as it passes along the different neighborhoods.

We also went down to Bourbon Street later that evening, but only lasted until about 9:30.  I have a feeling the party was just getting started, but we were ready to call it a day.

Houston, TX

The next stop on our tour of Texas was a few days at my brother's house in Houston.  Unfortunately, he wasn't there, but we had a great time visiting with Julia and the kids.  I think everyone improved their ping pong skills over the course of many games played.  I borrowed Terry's road bike and took a little tour around town including the Bray's Bayou bike path.  It has been over a month since I've been on a road bike and it was nice to ride some easy rolling skinny tires for a change.

Here is the track from my Garmin.  I've had this GPS for a few years, but I am still amazed that a wristwatch can record my position, heart rate, and speed; and then download all the data to a server where the data is held for no charge.  It's a huge amount of technology to fit into a watch.

The elevation recording is not broken, Houston is just that flat.

Here is a link to the Garmin model I've been using:
Garmin 405

San Antonio, Texas

The drive from Carlsbad, NM to San Antonio is long, but it went well and the 80 mph speed limit helps the miles go by a bit quicker.  Had a couple of relaxing days thanks to the southern hospitality of our friends Lisa and John.

Did a bit of touristing and visited the mission San José.  Fairly impressive considering that Texas must have been more or less wilderness when the mission was established in 1720.  

Carlsbad Caverns

We took the Lower Cave guided tour of Carlsbad Caverns.  Although the self-guided tours of the Big Room  are indeed impressive, the Lower Cave tour is much more intimate and is a completely different experience compared to the Big Room tour.  On our 3 hour venture, there were two guides and eight tourists.  The entrance was fairly scary.  First we had to scale down a sloped rock face using a knotted rope.  That was no problem.  That left us standing on a ledge, from which we had to step on a series of 3 ladders that were bolted to the walls of the cave.  I didn't like the ladders much.  Everything was wet and a bit slippery and the top is about 30ft from the cave floor.

If we were to visit again, I think we'd skip the town of Carlsbad and instead stay in Roswell.  Carlsbad is bad.  It just looks like a town that nobody cares about; lots of vacant buildings, the hotel was expensive and beat up, we didn't see any decent restaurants, and there doesn't seem to be much else to do except visit the caverns.  On the other hand, Roswell looks like fun.  They've really embraced the alien visitor theme, and it has a walkable downtown with some interesting looking shops and restaurants.  

Santa Fe & Taos, New Mexico

We spent 4 days in the Santa Fe area, and drove up to Taos on one of those days.  For Taos, I think I should invoke the policy of, if you can't say anything nice...  On the other hand, Santa Fe was a real treat.  It is the first stop in our travels that felt like it could be in a foreign country.  Building codes going back to 1912 have restricted the allowable styles of architecture in the historic districts to various versions of the pueblo style.  The result is a town that is surely unlike anywhere else in the U.S.  Although the town is certainly scenic, I didn't take any photos of downtown.  I guess I was just too busy enjoying the moment.

Our first night here; walking through town while the bells of St. Francis Cathedral announce the evening's Mass, then dinner at the rooftop patio of the Coyote Cafe under the full moon.

We biked for two days.  Santa Fe could give Portland a bit of schooling when it comes to having excellent mountain bike trails close to town.  The first trail system we rode, the Dale-Ball trails, were inside the city limits and just a few minutes drive from downtown.  There are plenty of other close by trails that can be combined with the Dale-Ball system to make some truly epic riding days.

Here are a few photos of pointy things on the trails...

After 4 states, and unknown miles, about 15 of these small thorns brought my bike to a halt.

We've been using Continental Tires set up as tubeless with Stan's sealant.  I pulled a bunch of these same thorns from our other tires and they sealed up with no problem; probably not enough sealant in this particular tire.  In any case, no harm done and the bikes are ready to go again.  It may however, be awhile, as we are headed to Texas and don't expect to be riding much.

Santa Fe Farmer's Market

We've been making a real effort to use the foods available from farmer's markets and trying to stay away from fast food.   These photos were from the Tuesday morning Santa Fe market.

It has been interesting to see the regional differences.  California markets had a huge variety of tree fruits, cantaloupes, and artichokes.  Roasting chile peppers is a big thing in New Mexico.

Grand Canyon

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the Grand Canyon, other than the obvious, but in any case, it certainly delivers.  When arriving at Grand Canyon Village, most choose to park their cars and either hike, get carted around by tour buses, or ride bikes.  Private vehicles are not allowed access to most of the developed overlook points. The overwhelming majority of visitors choose the tour buses.  For bikes there are several miles of paved trails and an 8 mile road along the rim that is used only by the buses and bikes.  The result is the potential of a 20+ mile round trip ride, with essentially no traffic, along the rim of the Grand Canyon.  Simply staggering.  And I’ve got to hand it to the Park Service for having the courage to make these restrictions in our car-centric society.