I want to be neutral and tell you about “the” race, not “my” race. But you know what? “The” race was exactly the same as the last race, so there isn’t much to tell. Dry. Dusty. Bumpy. Fast. Fresh produce. Jam band. Dirty faces. No shade. Corn stalks. Amy WInehouse on repeat play for 5...

We hear at the So So Velo West Coast Corporate Headquarters are pretty fucking tired of Summer. But no matter how many culturally insensitive rain dances we did, we were stuck with another hot and dusty Kermese this week. While the Cubans were getting Tina Turner’d by the rain and wind of Hurricane Ike, Portland racers...

It’s called chamois butter. I call it “sham WAH” butter. Because I’m French. And that is just how we say shit in France. But I’m told that nothing is more frustrating than working a stop at the Bridge Pedal, when a thousand sweaty men come up to you asking, in earnest, with double-negatives...

The Bridge of the Gods ride is both a Portland classic and a right of passage. It’s a scavenger hunt of the things that one should see in our Northwest corner of the state in the Norwest corner of the country. In fact, if the Woodburn Factory Outlet Mall could somehow relocate to Camas, Washinton, tourists would have no...

Something about the lighting at Albina Press makes everyone look prettier. It comes in through all of the giant windows, bounces off of the modern seating options and the monstrous espresso machine, and hits everyones face like the hanging light of a sunset. People glow like they just slept with someone they still like, before...

Sometimes we have to leave Portland to realize that there is another world out there. A world very, very different from the cycling utopia of Portland. A world where things don’t revolve around coffee, bikes, and bridges. In Ashland, Oregon things revolve around coffee, bikes, and patchuli oil. Lots of patchuli oil. It...

This could not be more obvious. But some things are so obvious that they just need to be said. Portland cyclists love Stumptown coffee. And Stumptown coffee loves Portland cyclists. It feels silly writing a review. We may as well have written a review about rain. Or bridges. Or too-tight black jeans. But we didn’t. We...

Once the wunderkinds of the Portland beer scene, the McMenamins have fallen out of favor with the cool kids, it seems. They ran around Oreogn buying schools and railroad stations and hotels and funeral homes, gave them all identical menus, then vomitted hippie paint all over the walls until they were indistinguishable. Lesson...

All summer long I’ve been seeing gaggles of brightly colored team kits on warm sunny days, riding tempo and laughing with one another. And then, around dusk, I’ll spot those same riders in the darkest corners of Forest Park with knobbies. Sprinting. Dismounting and remounting. Shouldering their dirty bikes up...

Once you’ve done the Oregon City loop, you’ll understand why Oregon City has usurped both Las Vegas and Disneyland as the premier vacation destination in the Western States. Sure, Las Vegas has neon and slot machines and prostitutes.  And Disneyland has surly high schoolers dressed up a cartoon animals. And...