ronde van retaard part i

shit balls! i was meaning to create this post a long time ago but just have not gotten around to it. anyhow, while in sweden i competed in the ronde van retaard which roughly translates to a round of retarded. although it is a swedish event the origin of the name is dutch. i have not idea why. the race tries to emulate the conditions racers had back in the day. single speed or fixed gear off roading madness. geared bikes were allowed, but they had to tape their shifters.

my retaarde bike!

there were about 100 racers that boarded the train at seven in the morning to a completely random countryside location outside of gothenburg. lots of awesome bikes to see, most of them specifically built up for the retaard and one of which had been iodized in copper as an experiment. it looked fresh. my cousin observed that there were definitely more brakes this year then there had been in the past. apparently it was typical for someone to give up or break a bone so riders were getting wiser.

see the copper!

we received our numbers and after a short swedish announcement we continued as a group to the official starting point. the ride was split up into 10 bouts with a total course length of about 62 miles. sounds like a piece of cake but don't be fooled, this had some extreme terrain to conquer. me and my janky ass bridgestone that my cousin hans and i put together the day before. the bike itself wasn't janky but the spring in my chain tensioner was not cooperating and practically every time i pedaled the chain would jump. without toe clips and through the rain and mud, my feet kept slipping and i found myself becoming quite frustrated but i was determined to finish.

we rode through the farmland and i saw in the distance giant scottish cows which reminded me of jim henson creatures. during the 2nd bout we were rounding a corner along one of these fields and i heard an amplified voice. a solitary figure was standing on top of a boulder with a megaphone reciting swedish poetry, and unbeknownst to us, was filming everyone ride by:

crazy swedes.

sykkelen norge

so it has been forever since i last wrote but no body reads this anyhow so no worries there. i am in norway and will travel to sweden tomorrow. my cousin is building a bike for me to ride during my time there and he is quite an expert so i can't wait to see what he has put together. it will either be a fixed or a single speed because the race we are participating in is an off trail fixed/single speed event. i do not really know what to expect but i know it will be an awesome time. here are the guidelines. ahhh! i cant wait!

i have rented a bike three times here in norway and each trip was very different. in balstrande i rode along the beautiful fjords on a narrow european highway and ended up having to turn back after about 10 kl due to my fear of getting ran over by the speeding drivers. it is true that everyone in europe drives like a very skilled mad man and a girl on a bicycle would have no chance, although i suppose i could have trusted them since they know what they are doing. i am just not used to it. i rode along orchards and pastures with sheep. each of the individual farm houses had a subtle detail which seemed to identify them from one another but was still among the traditional norwegian style.

the second trip was in bergen which is one of the major cities and it was fun bumping around on the cobblestones and finding little shops and cafes behind twisted alley ways. once again this expierience justified to me why traveling via bicycle is truly the best option. its all about the ground you can cover and the details that you can observe. in the city the drivers are very aware of cyclists but like in portland i found myself being too passive with them. another "i am used to seattle drivers" advancement issue. 

in voss (like that fancy water!) there is a lake with lots of lovely trails but unfortunately i did not have the time to ride around the whole thing. my trip to voss was by mistake because i messed up my dates, etc., etc. but regardless, it is a really nice little town and was a pleasure to see on two wheels. i even got to visit a family owned farm and lodging house called skjelde gard which my great aunt bitten has been running for years and has been in the family for even longer. definitely a bonus and worth the extra day that i unknowingly already had in norway.

here are some bikes i saw in bergen:

  

flat thirty three appropriately.

fuck. yes.

this is what i will be doing in sweden!

9 - 5

holy crap! this was one of the most fun events i have been a part of yet. the 2nd annual 9-5 scavenger hunt was clever and extremely well organized with over 150 items on the manifest along with some time sensitive check points. i joined up with ross, krystal and payton who i always seem to run into at these kinds of things and it was perfect because i had no team and this was definitely a race where numbers had an advantage.

within the first two hours we had completed a lot of the photographic check points which included shots of neighborhood street signs or businesses with the names of the neighborhood in it. bartenders holding the spoke cards, fortune cookies, toothpicks, stealing white crayons out of the boxes and anticipating a child's sorrow etc. right after purchasing 47 cans of tomato paste in greenwood we were stopping at the am/pm and jack in the box on aurora for some hot sauce and artificial sweetener packets when payton got hit by a car coming out of the parking lot and tacoed his front wheel. luckily he was not injured at all but we had to be at our first check point in an hour! the guy that hit him was really apologetic and slightly intoxicated so he agreed to drive payton to my house where i had a spare front wheel for him AND the first checkpoint was at the colonnade which is half a block from my back door.

since we were already close to a few more of the neighborhoods we smashed up 80th to the lake city sign which ross had remembered being conveniently intersecting with roosevelt. we got our lake city neighborhood shot and bombed down roosevelt all the way to my house picking up some coffee cups and energy drink cans along the way. roosevelt felt like a dream compared to 80th with 25 cans of tomato paste in your bag. it was really more the awkwardness and the poking that bugged me as opposed to the weight. but if you have ever ridden southbound on roosevelt for 5 miles its a relaxing jaunt regardless.

we got to my house with about 20 minutes until we had to be at the colonnade so we gathered up the things i had. fake flowers, a seattle pi front page, fake tattoos, balls, dolls, seashells, pine cones, driftwood, and a million other things. there were many advantages for us with my house being so centrally located and directly on the route. we ended up leaving everything there for the south end portion of the ride to be picked up later.

after the colonnade we split up into two groups. krystal and i hit lower queen anne, south lake union and downtown while the boys got capitol hill and sodo. we got both of the designated clock photos, one of the pemco clock and one of the starbucks clock at 1:30 am. after we hit all of our spots we rode back to my house to drop stuff off and see what else we could scrounge together. my neighbor giles rolled through the alley and poked his head in to see that we were frantically pulling shit apart. he was a big help and we went to his place for a golf ball and he had a missouri quarter which was one item with a higher point value. he also loaded us up with snack bars and cookies. it was perfect. and the house next to his was getting demolished so we found the bricks and cinder blocks we needed as well.

the 2nd meet up was at the marginal way skate park. we regrouped with the guys but decided it would be best to split up again for the final stretch. ross rode to the south park bridge to write down the vietnamese translation of a warning sign. ross and krystal rode to georgetown and hit up a grocery store for a few of the last items. i was selected to ride to laurelhurst which was the only neighborhood we had left. i stopped at the house and grabbed everything i could. abandoning the couch cushions for the teammates to follow. after that it was basically burke gillman all day and riding back to gas works as the sun was coming up and the birds madly chirping was a wonderful experience.

i was the first of my team to arrive and started counting the points that i had and anything else i could remember. we had to have our manifests in by 5:11 sharp and the time was nearing rapidly. the rest of the crew rolled up with about 6 minutes left and we tallied everything up and handed it in. ryan and melissa had provided a beautiful hot breakfast buffet and i only wish that i wasn't so caffeinated and excited because i would have enjoyed it much more. regardless it was awesome watching the sun rise over our magnificent city from gasworks.

to our surprise we ended up coming in 2nd place. it was not announced at the race but when the placements were posted on go means go i got a text from ross saying that his friend brendan had seen it. brendan lives in portland so it was funny that none of us heard about it first but it was a very pleasent surprise. the winning team had brought in 96 cans of tuna, which upped the ante on our 47 cans of tomato paste. but if it really was boiled down to the wire i think that their 1969 moonwalk pi front page would win over our 2008 obama election pi front page. they also were able to find copies of boys life magazine which we knew had no chance in finding.

all in all it was such a blast! thank you to ryan, melissa and go means go! and check out the photos that greg took. a night of epic proportions! i was so amped i could not go to sleep until 9ish but it was definitely worth it. ross took most of the photos so if i get a hold of those i will be sure to post em.

simply gratuitous