Outside Features

Local olympian Barb Buchan with legendary cycling coach Eddie B. IS IT SAFE TO RIDE
YOUR BIKE IN BEND?
Last week, I told my story of
being hit by a car while riding my bike. I don't have the data to
statistically prove an epidemic, but it sure seems like one. Naturally,
I've now heard all sorts of other stories and just this past week there
were two new serious incidents in which cyclists were struck by cars. A
lot of the feedback to my article, and others, rants about the Bend
Police Department letting the automobile drivers off the hook.
Ironically, an off-duty police officer was one of the victims this
week, so we'll see if striking close to home has any impact.
Sadly,
Bend is becoming a scary place to ride and I'd love to see our city
make a real effort to become more bicycle and pedestrian-friendly. I'm
jealous when I visit other cities that seem to care so much more about
this. In Ketchum this summer, I was impressed by their bike paths. When
I lived in Boulder and Palo Alto, I rode the dedicated bike paths all
the time. Even little things can make a difference. Can someone tell me
why the bike path up to Summit High, one of our rare segments of bike
path, does not have a curb cut to allow access? What excuse is there
for the lack of a pedestrian crosswalk across Galveston at the south
end of Drake Park? That crossing is officially considered part of the
River Trail. I'm hoping that we've reached the critical mass of
tragedies that makes this issue a priority.

I'm grateful to be alive.
On Labor Day, I decided to go for a quick
little late-afternoon out-and-back ride on Skyliner. I was just about
home, cruising down Galveston toward the Flaming Chicken, when a beige
Toyota Prius in the oncoming lane suddenly turned left directly into my
path. The scene has been replaying itself over and over in my mind in
slow motion. I braked hard, but there was absolutely nothing I could
do. My bike and my body slammed into the front quarter panel and
passenger side door, ripping off the side view mirror. I somersaulted
across the windshield and crash landed on the other side. Intense pain
set in about 10 seconds later.
People were instantly there as I
lay on the asphalt, clutching my left shoulder and moaning in pain. I
remember yelling "Call an ambulance!" and then repeating two phrases:
"Can someone give me pain medication?" and "It's not fair." A person in
the small crowd came up to me, I think his name was Bill, and said,
"I'm a first responder." He started the process of assessing me for
head trauma and spinal cord injury and stabilizing my spine.

How lucky am I? The Deschutes River flows through my backyard.
Everyday, I watch the geese and the ducks, sometimes the swans, float
by as I work in my home office. It's magical when the sinking sun
bounces off the rippling river under the willow tree and sets my living
room asparkle. My dog is endlessly entertained by the beavers, otters
and minks and I never have to worry about filling her outdoor water
bowl. Occasionally, neighborhood boys set crawdad traps from my dock. I
frequently paddle from my backyard up to McKay Park, down to the
Newport Bridge and back again. I can say with 100% confidence that I
have logged more river miles on the Mirror Pond run in the past eight
years than anyone in the world. I am intimately familiar with the
channel of best flow, the submerged rocks above the Columbia Park
footbridge, the underwater pylons below the Drake Park footbridge, the
swan nests, the water level and the silt buildup in Mirror Pond.

Over
the years, I have also collected the following out of our river: a love
note in a beer bottle, a leather statue of an ibex, a plastic frog, an
Aerobie Flying Ring, a license plate, a horseshoe, a lawn chair, a
couple flip flops per summer, several pumpkins, a few unmanned
floaties, 20 softballs, 39 tennis balls and approximately $5.75 in
recycling. A couple of weeks ago we reported to the Bend Police a
picnic table going down the river. It is still hung up on the buoy line
in front of the Newport spillway. Why someone felt compelled to launch
the table, presumably from McKay Park, and why no one has removed it, I
don't know. I love the Deschutes River and I think we should all
appreciate this treasure that flows through the heart of Bend.

And we all glide on. Soaring, etc.

OK, so we are all glad that the tourists have gone home. But maybe, secretly, we have an inner tourist that actually enjoyed riding the Space Mountain Roller Coaster at Disney World, bungy jumping in Queenstown and partaking in the wine and cheese safari in Napa Valley. Rather than wait 'til the relatives come to visit, now is the perfect time to come out of the closet and be a tourist in your own backyard.

GET ABOVE IT ALL

Last week, the friendly folks at Sunriver Soaring invited me to go on one of their glider flights. I'd never been in a glider before and, to be honest, I don't do particularly well on roller coasters and such, so I did sneak a Dramamine before my flight. I met the crew, including pilot Dale Masters, at the Sunriver Airport. It instilled confidence to meet Dale. He just looks like the seasoned pilot that he is and, with 30 years of successful soaring under his belt, he is the author of Soaring: Beyond the Basics. Brian Lansburgh, who has owned Sunriver Soaring for about a year and a half, supported his family for years as a comic pilot. That sounded like an oxymoron to me, but Dale explained, "He would fly like he didn't know what he was doing (which actually requires tremendous skill) and cap off the performance by landing and hopping out of the cockpit in a clown costume."

Future olympians?THE TORCH MOVES ON

If you are like most people, you were unusually glued to your TV the past two weeks watching the Olympic coverage from Beijing. You were blown away by the incredible, record-setting gold medal perfection of Michael Phelps in the pool. You were mesmerized by the gymnastic performances of Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson. You were shocked and dismayed when we dropped the baton…twice. And you have probably learned more about beach volleyball than you ever wanted to know. Maybe you even rooted for Bend's own Adam Craig in the mountain bike race. Now that the torch moves on to Vancouver for 2010, I'd like to submit my candidates for new Olympic sports:

Extreme Ironing: Founded in 1997 by two Brits named Phil and Paul, but better known as "Steam" and "Spray," EI is a sport that "combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well pressed shirt," according to the Extreme Ironing Bureau. "It involves taking an iron and board (if possible) to remote locations and ironing a few items of laundry. This can involve ironing on a mountainside, preferably on a difficult climb, or taking an iron skiing, snowboarding or canoeing." In 2002, the German Extreme Ironing Section organized the highly successful World Championships in the village of Valley near Munich with German ironist Hot Pants winning the individual event and a British team taking the top spot in the team event. The international popularity of this sport makes it an obvious selection for the Olympics.

Suzanne King surrounded by children sponsored by Grandmother’s Education Fund Africa in Kenya.THE SECRET TO WINNING

I think most athletes, no matter their talent level, fantasize about going to the Olympics. I was no different. In my early twenties, I got into bike racing and started winning on the collegiate circuit and some Northern California criteriums and track events. I lived to ride. But, put me in a road race with the likes of Katrin Tobin or Sally Zack and I was off the back like a sack of potatoes. It was pretty clear I didn't have the talent to hang with Olympians, so I had to find another way to make it to the Games. Through my career, I've ended up being fortunate to partake in the Olympic dream by working with some of the greatest athletes in history.

I became the sports scientist for the 1992 U.S. Olympic Cycling Team and dedicated myself for two years to working with the athletes and coaches to use science and engineering to optimize athletic performance. I measured oxygen uptake, analyzed blood lactate, monitored heart rates, plotted pedal forces and studied drag in a wind tunnel. I created Coach Chris Carmichael's first training log (the earliest step in the evolution of Carmichael Training Systems). We had a very talented crop of junior men, led by future pro stars George Hincapie and Freddie Rodriguez. But, the standout of the squad was a 19-year former triathlete named Lance Armstrong.

Aisles and aisles of stuff at Outdoor RetailerOn Stuff

As outdoor lovers, most of us try to tread lightly on our planet. We Leave No Trace, we join Blue Sky, we ride to work, we recycle. But we also love our gear: our full-suspension mountain bikes with disc brakes, our biomechanically designed running shoes, our lightweight carbon fiber paddles. Cool stuff.

George Carlin, the satirical comedian who passed away in June, had a famous routine on stuff (Google him to find the YouTube video of his five-minute sketch). He made fun of how attached we are to, and possibly bogged down we are by, our possessions.

The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard at storyofstuff.com takes a harder line on manufacturing and the evils of Stuff in our consumption-based socioeconomy.

So, how do we align our environmental ethos with our desire for techy new gear?

Manufacturers in the outdoor industry are faced with an especially ironic challenge. They are in business to build products that enable people to get out and enjoy the great outdoors, but the manufacturing of those products ultimately consumes finite resources.

Wallowing in the wallowas. BACKPACKING

Due to our huge snowpack, backpacking season has been a long time coming this summer, but it is FINALLY here! My friend Patty and I have a favorite annual tradition: A weeklong backpacking trip with our dogs somewhere within a day's drive of Bend. We load our packs with tents, sleeping bags and food from Trader Joe's, while the dogs don their Ruff Wear packs filled with buffalo kibble and milk bones. Our chosen routes always include lots of water in the form of rivers and lakes. Since I was spending this week in the wilderness without an Internet connection (horrors!), I thought I'd share some insight into a few of our great trips.

My favorite trip of all seven so far was the Wallowas in the far northeastern corner of Oregon. It is a long drive to get there, but so worth it because of the spectacular scenery. We hiked a 36-mile loop starting outside of Joseph, through the Eagle Cap Wilderness that featured breathtaking alpine scenery. I'll always remember the view from Glacier Pass down into the Glacier Lake basin.

For a fun trip only a three-hour drive east of here near John Day, try the Strawberry Mountains. It was our first trip, when the dogs were puppies. We did a 35-mile traverse and the highlights were climbing Strawberry Mountain and swimming in Strawberry Lake. The Strawberries are nice for a close trip, but not as rugged and beautiful as some other options.

Taking a ride on the wet side. THE GRASS IS GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PASS

Alan and Bev Abbs are ultra runners from Red Bluff, Calif. who came to Bend a couple of years ago to compete in the Raid adventure race held here. That same weekend, they read an article in the local paper about the secretly great trails in nearby Oakridge. They decided to check it out for themselves on their way home and ended up buying a house there. Why? They were impressed with the endless miles of trails available and liked the idea of a respite from the hundred-degree-plus heat of California. I caught up with the Abbs on a recent weekend in Oakridge. The previous weekend, they were supposed to compete in the Western States 100, the granddaddy of ultramarathons, but it was cancelled for the first time in its history because of the raging wildfires in California. Bev was nursing a sore knee from overtraining anyway, so they planned a weekend of mountain biking cross-training in Oakridge and invited me to try to keep up with them.
The trails of Oakridge, a 90-minute drive from here, represent a nice change of venue for Bend riders and trail runners as well. We seem to have a narrow window when our trails are snow-free, yet not dusty. Just on the other side of the Cascades, you find lush vegetation which keeps the trails cool and shady and in excellent condition all summer long (though mud is an issue in the shoulder seasons). The first day, the Abbs' took me on a 35-mile ride that started with a grueling 2,500-foot climb, but the twisty, wildflower-lined singletrack descent down the Alpine Trail made it all worthwhile. The next day we wound the spring again with a steep 1,500-foot climb in order to descend the Larison Rock Trail. There are rides with less climbing in Oakridge (apparently the Abbs' don't do them), notably the epic 30-mile long Middle Fork Willamette Trail.

What would happen if you broke your leg out there?A SWEET SPOT

Laurie Fox decided to go for a run on Kent's Trail with her dog Lyle one December afternoon three and a half years ago. Unexpectedly, a few miles out, she slipped on some black ice and fell hard, cracking her ankle. Laurie is an experienced outdoorswoman; she attempted to fashion a splint from some sticks and she started crawling toward the trailhead, but she had no cell phone, night was falling and she was losing body heat quickly. Luckily, Laurie had a husband back home who knew where she had gone and that she was late returning. Also luckily for Laurie, a homeless man on his bike came across her and was able to build a fire and call 911. Laurie was rescued, but she has looked at her outings differently ever since. "I always have a pack with a whistle, some matches and a cell phone, at the very least."
Ironically, a similar accident happened to Karen Johnson, another experienced outdoorswoman, two Februarys ago. She headed out for her usual run with her dogs on Phil's Trail on a cold, foggy morning before work. She was aware of the ice on the trail and was running cautiously, but suddenly slammed to the ground. She remembers the loud cracking sound of the compound fracture of her tibia and fibula and the intense pain. "Jake is no Lassie," she said of her dog, but she did have her cell phone with her. She pulled it out, but could not get a signal. She could barely crawl, so she tried waving it over her head and luckily managed to get a call through to her partner Ken. "I'm above the chicken and below the rock and I broke my leg," is all she needed to say. Ken and Search and Rescue were able to save Karen, but she believes she would have died from hypothermia otherwise.