Some of the biggest heroes during the week of Cycle Oregon are our beloved SAG drivers (SAG:Support and Gear). These rescue vehicles are operated by friendly and furry friends on a mission to bring laughter, cheer and Continue reading
Tag Archives: ride like a girl
I Didn’t Become an Athlete Until I was Sixty
Keys’ first choice is mountain-biking (Mountain Bike Camp, Moab, UT)
Susan Keys is an Oregon State University associate professor and senior researcher, retired Johns Hopkins professor of counseling, a national authority on mental healthcare and suicide prevention, wife and mother of two, grandmother of two and an avid cyclist. Road biker or Mountain biker? Yes. Ask Keys about biking and she will begin by saying, “I didn’t start biking seriously until I was sixty …” Continue reading
Idaho Day 3: Whitewater!
Every good bike tour has one key ingredient: a rest day. This one may have preserved my cycling habit after yesterday’s urge to exchange cycling for life on the sofa. But a prime rib dinner and a good night’s rest yielded a morning of new energy.
Being that our campsite was beside Jackson Hole, Wyoming, there was just one rest recipe for me: whitewater Continue reading
Idaho Day 2: The Worst Wind, Wyoming
A fierce and unrelenting headwind resisted every pedal stroke as we attempted eighty miles of flats, climbs and rollers enroute from Ririe, Idaho to Hoback Junction, Wyoming. After fifty miles I was fatigued and famished. At sixty I struggled to recall why I started biking. At seventy I was beginning to think that “sagging” Continue reading
Idaho Day 1: Flats, Gravel, “Try to Keep Up!”
We are at it again. Bike tour number two – stateside this time. It’s my first vacation in the northwestern state of Idaho. We started in the rural southeastern town of Blackfoot, self proclaimed potato growing capital of the world. A wee bit of irony given I just returned from Ireland last month.
Our first mission: bike 60 miles north and then east to Ririe, an even smaller town (population sub 650). I thought I’d share the three challenges I faced Continue reading
Celebrating Firsts & Personal Bests
Last Saturday thirty-nine cyclists of the Ride Like A Girl Team gathered at each of the four starting lines: Portland, Newberg, Amity and Grand Rhonde, with a singular purpose: Reach the Beach! A long road with months of preparation and training: biking in spite of rain, learning to climb hills, facing ever-increasing and more challenging distances, monitoring food intake, gathering sponsors and managing a good dose Continue reading
Spring has its Price: Rain
Some days you don’t see it coming. Some days it looms ominous but yields only grayness. And some days it reigns over your best-laid plans. Rain: drizzly, shower-y, intermittently, steady or downright heavy; in any form – we love it and we hate it. As a cyclist, I do my best to avoid it.
photograph by Rohith Gunawardena
“The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
