Chris King calendar debuts, to benefit breast cancer detection

"Pretty and Stong" is the latest effort from a seven year relationship between the folks at Chris King and the Komen for the Cure cancer nonprofit. Together with PDXCross.com they have assembled a cyclocross calendar to raise money and awareness in the fight for a cure to breast cancer. The 2010 Pretty and Strong Calendar highlights women cyclocross racers of the Northwest.

About the calenday and effort from the Chris King website where you can buy the calendar:

"Pretty and Strong enters its 7th year as a special edition and we are pleased to continue our strong relationship with the Oregon and SW Washington affiliate of Komen for the Cure. For 2010 we are excited to present a calendar benefiting Komen for the Cure in partnership with the talented photographers of PDXCross.com. Our shared effort with this calendar is more than an intimate look at the joy and tenacity of the women we see racing cyclocross each weekend during the fall. It's a call to awareness for early detection because breast cancer still doesn't care how fit or fast you are on a bike. Please make an appointment to see your doctor and circle the date on one of these great calendars."

According to a VeloNews online article,

"The concept gelled when Chris DiStefano of Chris King learned an interesting statistic related to rates of early detection in the Northwest. He was in a lunch meeting with the Oregon and SW Washington affiliate for Komen for the Cure, along with Diane Chalmers, Chris King VP of Operations, and Cristina Moore, Development Manager for the local Komen affiliate. Moore informed the Chris King employees that the demographic with the lowest rate of early detection included many of the women they were seeing at cyclocross races every weekend."

Chris' DiStefano and King sat down with PDXCross and poured through heaps of images to pull together the inaugural calendar effort.

You can purchase a copy of the Chris King “Pretty and Strong” calender on their website: www.chrisking.com

Brain Freeze - and other parts

This is Portland for God Sakes! It's not suppose to be this figg'n cold here - especially when the sky is blue and the sunshine is pouring down.

Today the forecasted high is 29 F or something insane. Rode over the weekend with the "the Kids" and descended through 1,100 feet of brain freeze as well as the expected toes, fingers, and rest of my body by the time we rolled through town. If this is going to be the impact of global climate change then my winters will be spent penning this blog from the tropical slopes in Costa Rica - BTW - it was 82 F @ 3,000ft in San Jose over the weekend!!!! Think about it - ride to the west coast and back, get in 5-6,000 vert and do it all in 80 degree sunshine - YES, that's December cycling!

No whining here - it's just frigg'n insane to be out in this stuff.

Speaking of being out in this stuff - Portland was hosting the final round of the USGP Cyclocross Grand Prix at PRI this weekend. Great crowds out to see the boys - and girls - under cold, dry, winter skies on Saturday. So I decided to join the fun with Jenn and a couple visiting friends. Holy cow was it cold standing around there! With wind chill dropping temps in the 20's I was wishing I had my bike and trainer just to pedal in place, burn some calories to stay warm. On a day like that I give it to the winners, Katerina Nash (Luna), who dominated all weekend and Jeremy Powers (Cannondale-Cyclocrossworld.com) split one with Saturday's winner Todd Wells (Specialized), (see the VeloNews final results recap), but really, my heart goes out to the poor sods dragging around last - listen, I appreciate the effort, but there is no Lanterne Rouge, save yourselves, grab some fries, a pint and get warm.

That's what the spectators were doing - at least those that could still control any motor function except involuntary shivering. If my L4 and L5 vertebrae had been more friendly to one another this season I was actually planning on giving cross a go - after this weekend I still think it looks fun - but I'll be heading up the formation of Costa Rica Winter Grand Prix.

Taking it all too seriously

The last couple of weeks on the bike have been nutso - all getting way too serious. I realized that this morning. Maybe that's the price you pay towards the end of your first year of racing; hours in the saddle, too much time at threshold (kinda like hanging at 13,000+ ft too long), screwed up diet (i.e. elephantine amounts of GU and Heed) and then all that lactic acid seeps up, up into your brain, where it feeds cyclodragons, that rear their 53-toothed heads and lash out. Maybe that's why its best to do this racing thing when you are 17 or 22. I mean at that ripe old age most of the people around you are just as screwed up as you are so probably don't notice whatta total dumbshit you are being or don't really give-a-shit because they are equally in the mental dumper too. At the Masters 45+ age taking yourself that seriously and starting to let it enter all the other aspects of your life - relationships, friendships, health - is just frigg'n stupid. Ah, but recognizing it? Not so easy with cyclodragon roaring about breathing fire and torching everyone you care about.

That doesn't mean I love racing less or need to be less competitive - just need to look at the Jens Voigt socks more often and say to myself, "Vroom Vroom Vroom" and smile.

I don't regularly quote others blogs, after all the idea of a blog to some degree is to write your own crap, not spread everyone else's, but I bumped into "Jim" of The Unholy Rouleur when I was trying to understand the upcoming cross season from the eyes of crossers - and to make sense of Judd's bubbling-over-5-year-old-excitement about the first cross crusade race of the season Oct 4 here in Pdx. I'm trying to make sense of it because I'm planning on giving it a whack and see what all this mud and beer is about - and maybe just that - mud and beer - and that's why it's so fun? Anyway, the the following struck me for multiple reasons, but the most important was it reminded me the past couple weeks were starting to get "wayyyyy to serious" and with the upcoming Everest Challenge it was time to regain my sanity before I go to California and annihilate myself on some slope of the high Sierras.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Crash Like a Child

"Beppo said something really interesting to me riding back from 'cross practice today: "Cross is nice and different because it's about the only thing you can do on a bike where you're riding along and you crash and then you sit there laughing."

That's true. There's something nice and child-like about cross. We take to it in innocence, like a 5 year-old wants to race everywhere. You don't need to have a reason for it, you just do it. It's fun to do it. So you act like a kid and that's just what you do.

I'm thinking about this today because maybe we cyclists are about to dick up cross like we've dicked up mountain biking and dicked up road riding and maybe track and just riding to work.

At times, we take ourselves wayyyy too seriously. "

Click on the title if you want to read the rest - it's a nice reminder to stay connected to the fun-factor in what we do. Maybe even draw on my French lessons and read it outloud so the words stick with you a little longer and seed themselves under that bike helmet for a later date when they need to be called upon.