I had just taken a 10 pound bag of farm fresh beets through hours of scrubbing and boiling, cooling and peeling, slicing and spicing, pickling and canning until victory was mine: 12 perfect pints of pickled beets lined up like little soldiers.

During the struggle, I overheard a snippet on the radio about pickles and warfare.

Caesar distributed them to his troops to fortify body and spirit. Napoleon’s need for a stable pickle supply for his soldiers led to the development of modern canning techniques. Pickles were rationed in WWII, so that the good guys could eat them and fight the bad guys. And we all know who won.

Despite what it looked like, the carnage in the kitchen wasn’t a battle against the beets at all. It was a struggle against our common enemy: the perishable summer.

The sun is setting earlier now and I regularly hear crunchy yellow leaves beneath my feet. I must accept that some of my tomatoes may never ripen. But I won’t accept the fall without a fight. And so I march into battle with a knife in my hand and a middle finger for the end of summer.

After it was all over, I savored my victory. They were a little sweet and a little sour. And some cold day in November I am going to pop open the spoils of war and feast on a slice of stolen sunshine.

At the bottom of our last major descent of the day, my tandem pilot Bob yelled back to me “Sprinkle water on the drum brake!” I watched a weak trickle from my water bottle sizzle and pop. Water turned to gas, and it was gone. Burned up by the accumulated heat of so much resistance. If I had been capable of poetry at that point, I would have understood this as our last physical sonnet to glory.

The Rapha Gentlemen’s Race prides itself on its brutality. It is unmarshalled, unsanctioned and takes as its battle cry “Glory through Suffering.” This route dispatched us to 123 miles of grinding climbs, false summits, dust and gravel. The day handed us searing heat.

Before the race I had questioned the necessity of hitching “glory” to “suffering.” With some cheeky Buddhist logic, I dismissed suffering as a matter of perspective or mental attitude. But by the time we hit Pittsburg Road, I was reminded of the noblest truth of all:

Suffering is as ordinary and inevitable as the next breath. Glory is a state of mind.

Only 7 of the 27 teams that started this race made it to the finish intact. Riders went down with one flat after the next on the steep gravel descents. Tires blew off of rims. Riders spun out and fell at 3 miles an hour. Chains dropped. Chains broke. Drivetrains derailed. Sunstroke and dehydration plucked off even the strongest riders.

At the bottom of that last major descent, our remaining team had nothing to race but the sunset. We’d been the first to start at 9 in the morning and we’d be the last to finish, 11 ½ hours later. At this point, I winced at every bump in the road. I had sunscreen in my eyes and my hands had gone numb. We all got quiet. I think we were looking inward for what was left. I poured my last drops of will and joy into the pedals to keep them turning. It all burned up, meeting the sun at the horizon.

As I rolled into the finish, I realized that glory wasn’t waiting for me. And that all I was left with were fleeting moments of beauty and hours of transition: Water into gas. Hurt into motion. Sun into darkness.

And maybe beer and a shower.

It struck me while watching this video that you could replace the surfboard with a morning ride, an early trail run, a mid-winter cross country ski. I want that feeling of space, movement, and utter ease in the natural world. I want to find the pace that gives me access to profound beauty. If I get a glimmer of that from time to time, I know I’ll have gotten what I came for.

A frame is a vehicle stripped of it’s “go” parts.
A frame, even still, has a view to the world.
Through this sparkly pink touring frame, I see nothing but flowers and endless sky.

The appeal I suppose is similar to journal writing. I love the idea of rigorously documenting mundane stuff. This takes persistence, a daily practice and the lapse of time before you have a body of work that shows you something larger.

I am not interested in my daily purchases, or perhaps just not enough, in order to commit to such a project. The parallel daily habit in my life would certainly be cycling.

Biking is a bit of an obsession and it does lend itself to all kinds of documentation. I know cyclists who track their miles each year, their altitude and their heart rates. And over time, they can tell you how many times they have circled the globe. They can tell you how many Everests they have climbed.

For me, this type of cycling data has never made the whole experience seem greater than its parts. It’s a foreign currency. I can’t exchange yearly miles for intrinsic value or real meaning. But I was reminded this evening that everyday cycling does every once in a while give me something unaccountably larger than the daily ride.

It was one of those nights when I felt stronger than I really am. It was like a surprise upgrade to first class and I was flying in a way I’m not quite used to. On rides like this the speed comes effortlessly and the ground just spins beneath me. I am on top of the pedals, on top of the world. And this doesn’t come from nowhere. There are countless miles in these here legs. Without counting a single one, I feel myself as a larger body of work.

On rides like this, you don’t frame it, count it or clock it. All you need to know is already in your legs and you just let them fly.

“Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.”

Have you ever heard that wonderful factoid about how we can hold up to seven chunks of info, plus or minus two, in our short term memory at a time? Well I invite you to cast aside the order of the planets and commit something of greater practical importance to your memory.

The Moosewood Fudge Brownie recipe. 6 ingrdients, 6 steps, one bowl. Because if you keep some basic supplies on hand and have this recipe committed to memory, you can go from zero to brownies in 25 minutes.

Impulse brownie making is power. This is the itch and the scratch in one 9″ sqaure baking pan. So grease it and let’s begin.

Moosewood Fudge Brownies (adapted)
½ cup butter
2 large eggs
1 cup lightly packed brown sugar
½ tsp pure vanilla extract
¼ cup cocoa powder (Moosewood calls for 3 squares of unsweetened chocolate to be melted with butter)
½ cup flour

Preheat oven to 350.
1. Butter your 8” or 9” square baking pan.
2. Melt you’re your butter.
3. While it is melting, beat eggs in a medium sized bowl.
4. Add the brown sugar, melted butter and vanilla.
5. Stir in the cocoa powder and flour until smooth.
6. Pour into your pan and bake for 20 minutes, or until done but still fudgey.

These brownies are straight-forward yum. Perhaps you have seen a brownie recipe that is more exotic or special, but this one is like husbands and pets – when you claim it as your own, you believe there is nothing finer on god’s green earth. At least as far as you can recall.

Last night I had a dream about a Llewellyn investment cast lug set.

In the dream I wore my brazing glasses, and through their darkened greenish light, it seemed as if I was looking at the seat lug from every angle at once. I had the torch in one hand and a coil of silver in the other. My vision followed the heat, followed the silver into the lug to where the seat tube and the top tube came together. I woke up. I went back to sleep and woke up again.

This morning I headed to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee and I saw the package containing these lugs sitting on the kitchen table. My dream came back to me and I blinked it off. I drank my coffee and started my day. I finished a bike, ordered some parts, met with my mechanic, and talked to customers. I walked by these lugs about a dozen times with a million different trajectories of attention before clearing a space in my day to open the package.

Now that I have them spread out on the kitchen table, it is just as I suspected. These lugs won’t sit still. They are rumbling around in mind, already prepped for brazing, already cooling down. They are already a cyclocross bike for a ballet dancer in Albuquerque. And tomorrow, they’ll go out to the shop with me and I’ll light up the stuff that dreams are made of.

This last week my view through the shop window has looked like a fading photograph. Each day drains more color from the trees and sky and even the sun appears desaturated and half-hearted. Inside the shop, the heater hums at my feet but steel tubes and tools feel colder in my hands. I find myself seeking warmth.

I wrap myself in layers of wools and fleece, but as I work, warm pockets of air drift off and away from me. In these spaces, the cold settles in. I feel the need to spark my pilot light. I need warmth that begins inside me, that moves through me and with me.

I make a cup of tea. Leaves and water. A steeping cup sits next to me on my workbench and its steam infuses the sharp metallic air of the shop with a softer note. Between tasks, my hands curl around warm ceramic and I sip. It is a rustic tea ceremony I make for myself, lacking ritual or precision, but full of appreciation.

How unlikely that, while the rain outside pulls color from the fallen leaves, water poured over the tea leaves in my cup draws out a richer hue. Oolong, desert sage, green tea, peppermint – uncurling and softening. And how graciously that tea warms my belly, softens my shoulders and radiates through me. Sip by sip until I feel that warmth as a part of me, a warm cup for a cold shop to wrap itself around.

FAVORITES:

Republic of Tea Desert Sage – reminds me of a dear friend, calls for plenty of honey.
Tao of Tea White Peony – Given to me by a customer I adore, it is sweet and a little nutty.
Trader Joe’s Earl Gray – the kind of no-nonsense get ‘er done black tea my mom raised me to drink.

COVET:
Tao of Tea Jasmine Pearls – when asked Twitter for a recommendation, the masses rallied for this one.
Lipton’s Russian Ceylon – available in France and England, this blend is reported to have little yellow flowers and comes recommended by a friend who knows about such things.
Smith Tea Brahmin’s Choice – the latest from new (old) local teamaker Steven Smith.

I was there.  Not in spirit, like someone sitting with coffee and a waffle at the kitchen table thinking cheerful thoughts for a hearty bundled-up peloton.  No, I was there in the wind-chapped flesh.  Only I was a half mile across the highway, a half hour late, and in an industrial park of misery.

For brevity’s sake, let’s call that Hillsboro.

In retrospect, I can see I was ill-prepared.  It wasn’t what I didn’t bring – I brought my earnest intentions, a buttered muffin, and a Max ticket. . . It was what I failed to leave behind that did me in.  I deboarded at Orenco Station with the useless assumption that NW 231 st surely mustn’t be too far from NW 235th, where you were all waiting cozily to begin your ride.  I set out, at 13 minutes to nine, to find the next block, orient myself, and head your way.  After five minutes, it became clear that the street grid was pocked with condos in the way you might imagine a really rough patch of the space time continuum to be pocked with black holes.  I sought a native guide, a woman with an eager terrier and a snappy jogging outfit.  Her directions were confident, her hand gestures were vigorous, and she shouted over the sounds of wind and traffic “head that way, you’ll see signs!”

Yes I did.  I saw signs for HWY 26, a tile warehouse, Ocean Beaches, any number of likely contractors for the US Defense Department and the garage door opening industry.  I squinted into the sun, and like a dog circling three times before settling down for a nap, I circled around and around before settling down into a serious funk.

I wanted an urban planner.  I wanted an explanation.  I could have been dropped into the middle of Paris and gotten directions from a mime troupe with better results.  Or at least found my way to a cafe au lait, a pain au chocolate, a bon jour!

I pulled the phone from my jacket and called home.  Austin consulted the internet, and I was once again on my way.  But by the time I arrived at the Longbottom Coffee and Tea, it was 9:47 and you were gone.  The Portland Velo ten o’clock ride and a group of triathletes were milling about speaking breezily of recovery zones and electrolytes, so I pointed myself into the wind, and headed toward the hills.

It was too late in the game to trade up my patch kit for a suitcase of courage.  I would like to report a certain pluckiness or determination to make the best of the situation, but over the course of the next three hours, there were down trees and wrong turns.  And, as long as we are being honest here, there may have been a roadside tantrum of sorts, either the cause or the result of a pair of day-glo polar fleece mittens blown down the road like a pair of addled tumbleweeds.  But we don’t talk about that anymore.

At long last, Austin met my arrival with embraces, declarations of love, and a grilled cheese sandwich.  We took a trip to Stumptown Coffee just to be sure that both body and spirits were restored.  (Mocha, lots of whip.)

So this is just to say that I tried, and that I would still love to go for a ride.

Next Sunday?  Maybe someplace closer in perhaps?

RAPHA Cross Roller Race – Oregon Manifest 2008 from RAPHA on Vimeo.

We donated a frame for the first ever women’s division, which was won by Megan Farris from Team River City Bicycles (Megan – if you are out there, give us a call!).

For a fantastic set of images from the event, check out PDX Cross here, here, here, and especially here.