Mark’s Bloomin’ Journal

Depite being back at my desk, or perhaps because of it I am more than ready to get back on the bike for a good cause. I am just back in from San Jose, CA. and another hot 100 miles, a few of which were spent trailing Lance Armstrong who can still ride a bike with some alacrity despite somewhat feeble declarations to the contrary. San Jose was the second stop of the superbly orchestrated Livestrong Challenge series whereby cyclists, runners and walkers participate in their respective disciplines to raise money for the Lance Armstrong Foundation. On another, also rather hot day a couple weeks ago, $1.0M dollars was raised in Portland, OR. This weekend past $1.5M was raised in San Jose, CA. Next it is onto Philadelphia, PA in August. I have no doubt it will be just as hot there and that the monetary number raised will continue to climb. We will wrap the Challenges up in a still (hopefully) balmy Austin, TX. in October.

San Jose was not merely as hot as a wood fired pizza oven, it was about as smoky as one, courtesy of the states current incendiary properties. The hills on either side of the valley being barely visible though only a mile or two away. Sunday morning dawns fairly cool and some thirty five hundred plus participants are unleashed by the national anthem as trumpeted by a young dentist from New Orleans who proceeds to cycle the battered instrument around various refreshment stops jazzing up the exhausted or those on their way to being so. Its always fun to hare out of town with a police escort and zip through major intersections that are momentarily blocked off for this peloton of amateurs, as it is equally so, tearing back into downtown after spending eighty or so miles out amongst the evergreen oaks and eucalyptus while wending a way past low water reservoirs and a few charred hillsides… all on rather lovely and very quiet roads.

The pace is good and last nights Appreciation Dinner at the Fairmont Hotel seems to be fueling a stronger and more rash effort from me than normal. Pasta followed by Creme Brulee apparently suits my level of athleticism nicely. The ballroom at The Fairmont is beautifully attired in yellows, as was The Tiger Woods Pavilion on Nike’s Portland campus a couple of weeks ago. The table center pieces in all venues are of course the Bicyclette Bouquets which can be found featured on Flowerbud.com through the end of The Challenge season. A lush golden bunch of roses, sunflowers and solidaster. Simply radiant! Lance is on his game in San Jose, seemingly fully engaged and enjoying the audience and the recipients of various fund raising awards, Here he obviously has fun, where for some reason he had less than, in Portland. I suppose we are all entitled to “off” nights. It is a great deal of fun to see individuals and teams having raised some startling sums of money enjoying a chance of photo opps with this legend of Alp D’huez and other rather large and steep alps.

It really is hot out on the course after only an hour or so and the pit stops are essential for topping up bottles. The volunteers actually “volunteer ” to do it for you which is a super friendly touch and speeds one on the way with a few cookies in a back pocket and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich clenched between the teeth, as juice from delicious nectarines still dribbles down your chin(s)…we don’t all look like LA you know… to mix with sweat on some expensive bicycle componentry. Hills come and go and pace lines form, fall apart on climbs and re form on the flats. At about mile 40 or so I fall into tempo with Adrian, sporting an Army jersey and a fancy Pinarello bike. Conversation reveals he is now in ATC at Hayward Field. He seems to have maintained his military level of fitness. Relatively new to cycling he rode a charity ride for a family member with MS and became hooked on the sport. At about mile 55 we have a good pace line going which just happens to contain an ex pat Oregonian familiar with a few of my training routes. We come upon a lone young woman battling a long boring straightaway. As we zip past I gesture to her to get on my wheel and hook into the draft. She does so very ably. It turns out Carolena only got a bike this December past and has never ridden more than 50 miles at one time in her cycling life. It turns out she is motivated, naturally gifted and a Minnesotan of a mere 22 years. She helps us to a very speedy 100 miles and the resultant grin on her face at the end indicates she will be riding for many years to come. She makes the whole thing look absurdly easy.

There is one rather brutal climb today, as there was also in Portland and it comes at mile 75. I thought Bald Peak in Portland was nasty but it is naught compared with this thing. It really is steep and it trails off up into the distant sky when viewed from the bottom. Its a low gear grunt for my little gang while others are forced to walk and one or two others require a little first aid in the shade. This climb comes in the full heat of the day and is very exposed. It is a blessed relief to gain the summit and understand that it is mostly a downhill pitch to San Jose. At the top of the climb a voice says “is that Flowerbud Mark” and I look around to see Diane, a fellow roulleur from days in France and several venues in California. She has a gang of family with her today and a streak of competitiveness means it is off to the races again!

People sit at lane ends, on front porches and along the sidewalks. They ring cowbells, they cheer us on and one or two have the garden hoses on mist to allow for a rapid cool down when passing by. There are signs of support in garden and pasture alike. Family members await with cameras to snap those that are riding. It is a remarkably fun and friendly atmosphere. People even cheer and wave from cars…such a pleasant change from the middle finger that so often greets me when riding in Oregon. Yeah, I know you have heard that Oregon is supposedly bicycle central and Portland is bicycle capital of the free and weird world, but that’s a load of rubbish. “Little Beirut” is what President George W. Bush called Portland and the current death rate of cyclists at the hands of unlicensed and uninsured motorists, the physical assaults on cyclists by the likes of TriMet bus drivers and the potholed roads might easily make one think they are riding in the the real Beirut! Enough said.
The finish line comes up in an avenue of yellow balloon arches, water misters, sponsor banners and a very talkative public announcer…all under the shadow of Adobe’s corporate HQ….and then of course there are the food and beer tents. It is rather a grand setting. Sally Reed and Becky Johnson, aka Tex and Annie Oakley are standing out in the broiling sun while having their “Survivor Roses” at the ready for all those having survived cancer as well as this particular challenge. They stand on the finish line come hell or high water until every single survivor has made it back in. These two have innumerous heart warming/rending stories to tell of those they meet and pass the yellow roses to on the finish line. They see courage and suffering and ultimately victories, however brief for some ,in so many forms out there. I usually join them for a while after getting off the bike and have spent much time on an upturned bucket shredding rose petals from surplus buds so that Sally and Becky along with their volunteers can sprinkle the late coming survivors with showers of yellow rose petals. This simple act carries amazing emotive force and I now see these showers of rose petals in much of the LAF promotional material. Before I had the chance to stand on the San Jose finish line and pass out roses and while I was in the midst of admonishing Sally re getting sunburned she delivered me my comeuppance by my having to get on stage to talk with the chatterbox about what exactly Flowerbud does for those participating in LAF events.

If the ride did not make me thirsty then stage fright did. The beer really hit the spot…hope it is as good in Philly.

There have been an awful lot of rental cars for me to drive in recent weeks and in just about as many countries. As the price of fuel soars they become an ever more costly component of the trip, therefore choosing the right one becomes critical to the bottom line. There is clearly a standout motive force and it is outrageous that we are seemingly deprived of the technology that makes it so.

While some of us (like those of us in Portland OR. whose behavior seems insufferably green and enjoy jamming it down reluctant throats) pat our collective selves on the backs and feel super cool for buying Toyota’s Prius or some other hybrid, in reality they provide dismal mileage by comparison to what is available to the world at large outside the US. The fact that we are (kept) in the dark about this and are laboring under the thought that we are heading in the right and righteous direction is absurd. To wit … I picked up a VW Passat wagon the other day in the UK and it effortlessly returned 55mpg while running at freeway speeds seldom seen here unless accompanied by flashing lights and dark glasses. It as easily burbled around country lanes a Hummer could not hope to fit down. If I had driven it with a little less abandon I might have got a solid 60/65 mpg out of it. While these figures may seem startling and other wordly to you they are becoming mid pack in the world out there as the French, Japanese and others launch ever more modern diesels that sip at the parsimonious rate of 75/80 mpg…while going like stink, all the while without the stink of course !

Don’t try kid yourself that these are toy sized cars for two and a purse, with gutless performance and a plume of smoke out the back. The Passat diesel in question runs and pulls stronger than any car I own or have owned with motors so much larger and grossly more thirsty. It will keep up with or soundly beat 95% of anything on our roads. Don’t kid yourself that these are polluting conveyances as they are not…they run far cleaner than our gasoline powered cars and from within the car itself there is nothing to tell you the motivation is coming from a diesel…other than the stunning mid range torque and acceleration! Not to mention the (comfortable) bulge in your wallet that you still get to sit on.

So why are we messing about with batteries which are clearly a poor answer and pose serious environmental problems in manufacture and disposal? The same goes for ethanol, the emphasis on which will surely lead to environmental degradation by removing far too much bio mass from the landscape, absorbing way too much water and man made nutrients as at the same time providing lousy motive power and upsetting the worlds food supply and pricing structure. Sitting out there still is a fuel source, that while declining could be made to stretch so much further, giving breathing room (literally) for us to develop even better, ever cleaner and longer lasting solutions to an energy source needed for transportation in particular. Why or how can we be proud of a fleet average that struggles from both engineering and political perspectives with 20 odd mpg when the vehicles already exist to triple that number at the very least? Just how blind can we remain as at the same time we pay lip service to our fuel consumption, complain about fuel prices and see sections of the economy suffer badly because of such. Oh and of course, don’t forget there is all that concern about the environment. If our current driving/travelling habits remained the same but consumed just one third as much as present…would that not be a good thing?

I know with certainty that if we put the average Jack or Jill in a showroom to make a choice between a hybrid and a diesel of the VW’s ilk the hybrid would never be asked to the dance. I read that Mercedes and now BMW will add more diesel options for ‘09. That is all well and good, but what about the rest of us mere mortals. Bring them on and let us all enjoy that sure to be $4.00 a gallon gas that  can be pressured to eke out 60mpg. We should be enjoying it right now so as to give us a huge competitive edge that has already been lost by those on the other side of the Atlantic where a gallon of the stuff already costs $10.00 courtesy of the tax and spend crowd.

As for my other recent drives, particularly in California the offerings were brand new, supposedly state of the art, pretty close to the most economical on offer and driving speeds were to say the least mundane and the mileages recorded by all models hovered around the 20mpg mark. None offered any more room for man or beast than the VW and none were as quick or good handling. The comment of “that’s just wrong” from a young teen when  viewing our own recorded 17mpg on the ride home from the airport pretty well sums up where we are. The puzzle is why?

No matter a certain malaise in the economy and the endless bucket brigade that bails out one atrociously run financial institution/mortgage company after another, the price of oil soars, the price of gold soars and Easter flower shipments soar right along with them…so all are not losers at the hands of the sub prime miscreants in Calabasas and their ilk. Having lurched through January, pulled back in February this is a more positive time to be in flowers. The last week or two have been active in a quite positive fashion. (more…)

What time of the year is it? Well, it’s time to write a Valentine’s Day article, you know the kind, where I enlighten you on Valentine’s roses and other suitable Valentine’s Day flowers…even as I watch the New York Giants battle the New England Patriots, Super Tuesday is mere hours away and the climatic conditions around Flowerbud’s growing regions and major delivery areas are a little less than conducive for a peaceful afternoon of chips, dip and overwrought commercials. Oregon is already 6″ above normal for rain fall (18″ in last 60 days) and if we get any more mountain snow it may well become our major export. Most of coastal California is inundated with rains and unusually cool weather and snow in drifts is about to re visit the Sierras.

This means that carefully scheduled V Day flower crops are dragging their feet. Likewise in Ecuador and Colombia there is a surplus of rain and cool weather in the growing regions. It is beginning to appear that excess will be no great problem this year. Taking that in stride I look further east and see that Chicago is storm bound and New York City is its usual frigid self…and Memphis? (more…)

As an intersection it may not even exist but as a rather abrupt turning point it certainly does and comes upon one unexpectedly and most inconveniently. Avianca releases me from the fetid confines of the aluminum tube that has made transit from Cartagena to Miami possible. The flight’s terminus seems hostile in comparison to its departure point. The slow, silent, bag lugging shuffle along endless corridors and past various surly check points that take up space and time with nothing more productive in mind than a glare or a sneer at the entrants.

Toes touching the yellow line, passport, permanent resident card, customs declaration neatly and accurately filled out I glance about at fellow travellers with suitably discreet curiosity and not a care in the world much beyond an idle contemplation of why my line always appears to be the slowest of them all and a silent prayer that those now at the booth have been as accurate with their forms as I and we can all move along and get on with the next chapter of a busy day. I am beckoned to approach! Idle contemplation morphs to an immediate and tightly focused understanding, that of having an enemy. (more…)