AREA FAMILY IN FRANCE

A day after witnessing Fabian C. destroy the peloton at Paris-Roubaix, Area Man goes on an hour-long run under the Tour Eiffel, along the Seine to Place de la Concorde, past Esplanade des Invalides and back to Rue Cler. He is becoming quite the Francophile and will no doubt be annoying about it once he returns to les Etats Unis.

LOTS OF FUN THANGS COMING UP

Big few days which leads to an even bigger week and a half or so. First up, we're heading to Seattle on Wednesday where I'll be doing a slide show-presentation thingee for Team in Training at the big REI. Should be lots of fun. Thursday, check out my story in the The Seattle Times Northwest Weekend section about our little exploratory trip of Birch Bay, Drayton Harbor and Semiahmoo Spit.

Also on Thursday, we fly to Paris where we'll be for the next 10 days! Since we're staying in an apartment (near Rue Cler), once we're back I plan to annoy people by beginning sentences that refer to our time there with "Well, when we were living in Paris, we would ..."

Oh, and guess what happens to be taking place during our time in France: the 108th edition of Paris-Roubaix, the queen of the Classics, the Hell of the North. And guess what, we're hooking up with some British tour group to watch the race. Should be a gas, gas, gas.

For old time sake--and to give Tom a bit of a boost for this Sunday's race--I thought I'd run this photo of big Tom Boonen and I hanging out in Pasadena during last year's Tour of California.

SEPARATED AT BIRTH?

I don't know about you, but I can't tell these two apart--can you?

(Thanks to seattlebikegurl's Photostream for the top pic from Sunday's Fort Ebey race.)

FORT EBEY MOUNTAIN BIKE RACE

Headed south to beautiful Fort Ebey State Park for the SingleTrack Cycles West Side Mountain Bike Series race number 4. Part of the BuDu Race Series. First race since what, last August or so, and first single-speed race ever. (Hope it won't be my last.) Extremely, extremely hard.

There was one heat for all single-speeders regardless of class or age. Thus, I finished a sparkling 9th out of 12. Doesn’t sound great but my time (1:28) would’ve put me 5th (out of 22 or so) in the 40+ sport (geared bikes) category. So I’m not sure what to make of that. (Jump into the sport 40+ race on my single speed?) Looking down the line of SS bikes at the start, I saw some Niners, Gary Fishers, and a couple Felts; nobody was rockin’ the low-end steel bike with rigid fork like me. (Is it obvious that I'm attempting to make myself feel better for finishing 9th out of 12?)

'nother thing: the flyer implied the race would be about 50 minutes but the course was two laps of 7 miles, with 1,000 foot climbing in each, so it took me almost 90 minutes. (Single speed winner was like 1:11.) Kinda like showing expecting to run a 10K but finding out you’re running a half-marathon instead. (Not really, but again, I'm trying to make myself feel better.)

All that said, it was great to race again! And Fort Ebey has some amazing trails--twisting, winding and narrow with lots of steep climbs and descents. But they're pretty darn dry, sandy almost in spots. Must be the rain shadow effect. And race organization was tops too!

FIRST HUNDRED MILER OF 2010!

The Titanium "Scott Young" Cowboy and I got out for our first hundred miler in a while on what was our first road ride since maybe last June or so. (We've been riding mountain bikes almost exclusively for a while now so it felt great to get out on our sleek elegant machines.) Super fun, super great. Weather couldn't have been any better and in fact, I think this is the first time I've ridden 100 this early in the year.

From B'ham, we headed south on Chuckanut Drive to the Skagit and over to Samish Island. Throughout the day we probably saw 50 eagles, 100 or so swans, countless great blue herons and even more countlesser daffodils and tulips. It's OK that I took photos of the purty flowers and even one of Scott in front of the flowers, innit? (See at the bottom of this post.)

From Samish Island, we continued south to La Conner--see pic of Scott drinking coffee whilst eyeing Rainbow Bridge (which is also the title of a Jimi Hendrix album I once had)--and then points inland and upland and though we tried like heck to avoid it, we eventually found ourselves climbing Bow Hill Road.

From there, up to Lake Samish, which we lapped twice because we realized we were a little short on mileage, and then back to B'ham. A hundred miles in 5:47. And now I eat. And eat.