Tales From the Tube

SNOW!!!

2012-01-14T18:04:00.001-08:00

Dry Spell

2011-12-09T21:13:00.001-08:00

Mountain Weekend

2011-12-04T10:58:00.001-08:00

The Family That Skis Together...

2011-11-26T18:13:00.001-08:00

Powdery Start to Ski Season 2011/12!

2011-11-21T05:20:00.001-08:00

Mount Hood has received 4 feet of snow in the past few days and it is fantastically Coloradoesque blower powder. The Barker family woke up at 0500 and headed to the mountain for our annual pre-Thanksgiving ski patrol shift at Timberline and we were rewarded with a rare sunny day and knee deep powder.

And Hazel? Yeah, she did laps on the bunny hill for three hours. She remembered last season's skills as soon as she unloaded the lift. Not bad for a three year old!

Escape From the Green Blob

2011-11-12T23:17:00.001-08:00

The forecast looked pretty soggy and, with NoPoGirl on injured reserve, we decided to skip cyclocross racing and drive to a clear spot on the radar this weekend.

We shared some valuable family time in the trailer and enjoyed a campfire under the stars along the banks of the Deschutes River.

Luckily it's snowing in the mountains, so we're hoping to be skiing by Thanksgiving. Bring it!

Fall in Portland on the Mountain Bike

2011-11-11T14:58:00.001-08:00

Sometimes it's these final few weeks of Oregon's cyclocross season that are most precious. It's the calm before the storm. The leaves crunch beneath your feet, the days are foggy in the morning but still dry. The riding is fantastic and many of us are in the best shape of the season.

I've been racing a lot of cyclocross this year and doing well. I've spent many nights racing through Forest Park by headlamp, alone and with friends, training in the dark after work.

Today as a classic, soggy November storm loomed on the radar, some buddies from my team (Ironclad) and I set out on our mountain bikes to steal a few more moments in this dry weather before the skies open and rip the leaves from the trees. It will be a soggy, dark winter. But I'll treasure these gorgeous fall days racing through the woods with my friends. And man it's fun to go fast!

Memories

2011-10-20T19:07:00.001-07:00

I've been clleaning out the filing cabinet. Here are a few gems:

10 years ago I married my best friend, and skiing, rock climbing, traveling and bicycling partner in Estes Park, Colorado. A decade later we still find an amazing adventure around every corner. I'm the luckiest guy in the world.

I grabbed the above newspaper from a soggy newspaper stand in New Orleans 3 days after the levees burst. For three weeks my photographer and I endured incredibly challenging conditions covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I went two weeks without showering and met some of the most inspiring and resilient people I've ever encountered.

And finally, here's a photo from just before graduation at CU a long, long, long time ago. Wow.

Perfect Fall Ride

2011-10-16T18:10:00.001-07:00

Weekend on bikes

2011-10-09T18:07:00.001-07:00

Sunday found Eryn, Hazel and I riding 30 soggy, pine needle and leaf-covered miles of the Banks Vernonia trail. My legs were fried from a cyclocross race the day before at Heiser Farms and we wanted to rest and spend some time as a family.

The 21 mile long Banks, Vernonia State Trail follows old railroad tracke between (you guessed it) Banks and Vernonia. The old railroad grade provides an easy spin through quiet, fern covered forests with no other traffic but other cyclists.

We had a fantastic time together but my legs were in pretty bad shape after my lackluster performance at the Heiser Farm cyclocross race.

I placed 10th out of 30ish riders at Heiser which is consistent with my habit of placing top third in cross races. I rocketed out of the start in 2nd place and should have performed better. Unfortunately, the day before the race, I made the decision to run 5 miles in the morning and go for an hour ride the evening before the race.

My fault.

Great weekend though!

Cyclocross Season

2011-10-06T20:29:00.001-07:00

I've actually been training for cyclocross this year (it helps being married to a super motivated, super fit bike racer wife) and I've had my best results ever. Funny: if you ride your bike a lot you do better at races. Go figure.

On the Job at a Small Fire

2011-10-06T15:13:00.001-07:00

Muddy Nights in Forest Park

2011-10-06T14:01:00.001-07:00

The sun is setting early, it's raining and cyclocross season is in full swing. The past two rainy years have been a little demoralizing, weather wise, for the Barker family. But as the days shorten and the leaves start to turn, I'm trying to embrace this Northwest Fall and get out in the rain and dark and enjoy it anyway. The past couple of weeks have found me riding solo and with friends on the cyclocross bike in Forest Park. When I get home, I'm soaked, muddy and freezing. But I think I'm a little happier. And soon it'll be snowing in the mountains.

Blog from an iPhone? OK.

2011-10-06T13:49:00.001-07:00

Maybe I'll blog more often if it's this easy...

By the way, the picture above is in my glamorous cubicle at the fire department. Luckily, I spend most of my time in the field, but I snapped this photo with my iPhone as an experiment to see how the new Blogger interface works. If it's really this easy, expect to see the resurrection of this blog!

Yup, I'm still here

2011-09-18T21:11:00.001-07:00

I'm going to blame a combination of my Apple computer and a poor Blogger interface for my pathetic lack of posting.

First, the Apple: We download all of our photos under NoPoGirl's profile on our computer. I can't post from my profile on our Apple because the two profiles don't talk to each other. I'm pretty tech savvy, but it's a nightmare.

Second, the Blogger interface is pretty darn cumbersome compared to other platforms that I use these days.

But I love my blog. Do I let it die? Or do I just start posting as if I never quit?

Anyway, here's what I did this weekend: NoPoGirl and The Hizz were in Texas for a family event, so I took part in a Man's Weekend with a couple of my buddies from the bike racing team at Smith Rock. We rock climbed for two days and saw some amazing stuff. The most amazing thing that I learned is that I'm no longer a 5.10d rock climber.

We did, however, have a chance to appreciate the spectacular place we call home and climb some fantastic rock.

Hey, that was easy. Maybe I'll post again. If I have access to more photos.

Dufur

2010-11-15T20:48:00.000-08:00

NoPoGirl and I chased each other through the snow on a rare Saturday trail run below Mount Hood this past weekend. The snow crunched beneath our feet as we traced deer tracks down an old hunting trail. The air was crisp and smelled like pine trees and decomposing leaves from the deciduous trees that had just dropped their leaves. We were cold, we were tired, and we felt free.

I can't remember the last time we went running together without Hazel. We're pretty adventurous parents and we're proud to drag our little tike across the Northwest but, sometimes, a married couple needs some time to decompress.

The Barker household has been non-stop lately as we both juggle parenthood, new jobs, a full cyclocross race schedule, NoPoGirl's position on the ski patrol council, EMT classes two nights a week for me, and the list goes on.

Last month, I left town for 10 days on the east coast to attend the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Maryland. I book-ended the trip with visits with friends in DC and NYC. It was incredible, but while I was gone Hazel developed a stomach flu and NoPoGirl did NOT have an easy time. When it was almost over and I was almost home, NoPoGirl graciously booked us a weekend together in November in Dufur, Oregon.

Dufur? Where in the hell is that?

Exactly. Dufur is not necessarily in the middle of no-where, but it feels like it. The tiny community of 600ish sits in a small valley about 15 miles south of The Dalles and 25 miles east of Mount Hood. There are virtually no trees. The sun shines. It is fantastic.We first stumbled upon Dufur racing and riding bicycles. The village sits on Forest Road 44, which climbs 2,000 feet from Highway 35 and then plunges more than 20 miles down out of the trees and into the barren, rolling hills of central Oregon.So NoPoGirl conned her sister and brother in law (thank you Ailey and Ritchey!) into coming to Portland and watching Hazel (they took her camping in a yurt on the beach) and we struck off to the dry side of the Cascades.
Our lodging: The Balch Hotel. The Balch is a magnificent old restored hotel that was built in 1907 and, at the time, was one of two buildings in town that had electricity. It's now operated like a bed and breakfast, complete with delicious meals and the friendly atmosphere that encourages guests to get to know each other.

NoPoGirl and I spent Saturday trail running below Mount Hood and reading books, followed by an afternoon massage (I swear the therapist, who's the Sheriff's daughter, was trying to kill me. Awesome!) and an evening 3 course dinner complete with local wine. It was divine. Sunday we fueled up on another fantastic breakfast and struck out cycling on the hilly, empty farm roads around Dufur. As the miles (and cows and wheat fields) rolled by NoPoGirl and I settled into a groove and smiled. It was like the good-old days, just a LOT more expensive.

We indulged, we escaped reality temporarily, and tonight when we returned to a smiling toddler and a wrecked house, we were both thrilled to be home.

My Wife is Amazing

2010-09-26T17:14:00.000-07:00

Have you met my wife? She's an amazing person. She encouraged me to become a father. Best decision ever. When we're rock climbing, she forces me to do my best on the rock and give everything I have. She had an awesome job, but it wasn't hard enough, so she quit the job at the wealthy, upper class school and transferred to a school where she faces more of a challenge. She's an awesome role model for her daughter, who adores her.
And this fall? This fall NoPoGirl decided that she was going to take cyclocross racing seriously. The results thus far? Better than ever. Today she placed 3rd at the Battle at Barlow. She has a coach, a new bike, and she's giving it everything she has. What a bad-ass.

And she still has time to be an amazing, supportive wife. She makes me a better person, and I love her more than I can ever put into words.

Stehekin

2010-08-07T23:15:00.000-07:00

Let me be honest: I may be really outdoorsy and fairly athletic, but I'm hooked on my BlackBerry. I'm fairly type-A when it comes to work, emails, and maintaining friendships, and so I spend far too much time on-line.

Well, there comes a time when we must all unplug, and the far north end of Lake Chelan was the place to do it.

I've heard about the village of Stehekin since I met NoPoGirl. She spent a summer building trails in the North Cascades but never made it because it was so remote. Now, 7 years after moving here, we finally had a summer vacation in the United States and the desire to go somewhere new.
There are no roads to Stehekin. The only way to get to this town is by hiking 20+miles, flying by float-plane, or taking a boat ride that lasts several hours. There is no mobile phone service, no TV, and one satellite pay-phone. It is paradise.
Stehekin is built along the far north shore of Lake Chelan, 55 miles from the town of Chelan. The village is surrounded by towering peaks that climb thousands of feet from the water. The lake is more than 1,000 feet deep in places and, just across the lake from Stehekin, one mountain rises up more than 7,000 feet in less than 2 miles.
There isn't much of town in Stehekin. There is a resort at the boat dock with a small store and modest restaurant, a bakery a few miles up a road from town and a ranch that serves meals. NoPoGirl and I stayed at the Stehekin Landing Resort, overlooking the marina and the heavily glaciated North Cascades.
After three days and two nights, we had just barely begun to scratch the surface of this amazing place. There is a lifetime of trails to hike and mountains to climb in the North Cascades. We left inspired by the mountains and closer than ever as a family after unplugging from the rest of the world.

Rainier

2010-08-07T23:11:00.000-07:00

NoPoGirl and I have taken some amazing summer vacations. There was Chamonix , El Salvador, Spain, and the list goes on. Unfortunately, those trips are very expensive and the Barker family tightened the belt this year. Fortunately for us, we decided to explore the great Northwest.

We didn't know where we were going until about a week before the trip. The itinerary: The northeast side of Rainier, Lake Chelan, and NoPoGirl's parents' cabin on the Columbia River near Vantage, Washington.

We started at Sunrise on Mount Rainier. For the 7 years we've lived in the Northwest, we've always taken the easy drive to Paradise on Rainier's south side and called it good. Sunrise, on the northeast face of Rainier, was an eye opener. The crowds are smaller, the view is spectacular, and the visitors center accesses a staggering maze of alpine trails to glaciers and viewpoints.
Hazel, NoPoGirl took the easy 6 miler round trip to the Mount Fremont fire lookout. Hey, Hazel's getting heavy and I can only lug her so far in that backpack. After the hike I hopped on my bike and rode up to Crystal Mountain ski area. The next day, NoPoGirl climbed over Chinook Pass on her bike while Hazel and I drove the sag-wagon. We took some time to throw snow-balls into a lake atop Chinook Pass and take in the stunning alpine country that overlooks Mount Rainier National Park.

Soon, NoPoGirl had bombed down out of the National Park and towards Yakima. We caught up with her and pointed our truck towards Lake Chelan.

Sun-Soaked, Cloud-Free Awesomeness

2010-07-12T21:24:00.000-07:00

If this past year had been my first spring/summer west of the Cascades, I would be packing up and leaving. The clouds and unrelenting rain have been soul-crushing. The curtain lifted the week after July 4th and we've been outside every day since.

Summer is a funny thing in the Northwest. We all desperately race outside and soak up the sun as if, tomorrow, it'll be gone for another 9 months.

NoPoGirl, The Hizz and I have spent the past couple of weekends in Central Oregon. This past weekend we raced the High Desert Omnium in Bend, which consisted of a criterium (picture above) a time trial and a 60 mile road race. Our wonderful friends allowed us to stay in their fantastic a-frame cabin overlooking Smith Rock on nearby Powell Butte.

During the race, I ran out of water at mile 40 in 90 degree heat and saw the Spirit Horse at mile 60. It was miserable, and fantastic. As miserable as I was, I loved it.

Two weekends before that, the Barker Family headed to Sun River for the Pacific Crest Triathlon, where we lazed in the sun, rode bikes (including mountain bikes!) and NoPoGirl swam, ran and biked her way through the Olympic distance triathlon.

Gone Fishing

2010-07-12T21:15:00.000-07:00

My father always said his greatest failure was failing to instill a love of fishing in me. I grew up fishing on some of the best trout fishing rivers in Colorado, but my heart was always atop the peaks that towered above the streams.

But my dad is my hero and we live too far apart, so for his 60th birthday I hired a guide and asked him to fly out to Oregon and spend the weekend with me camping and fishing on the Deschutes River. It was awesome. We camped, talked, fished and had some too rare father-son time.

(above) Our guide and me in the drift boat on the Deschutes

Now that I'm a father myself, I have a much greater appreciation for spending time with my family. Every day is a gift, and I wish we lived closer to one another.

By the way, I caught a bunch of fish... and I loved it!

Podium!

2010-06-13T21:42:00.000-07:00

First let me say that I am an average bicycle racer. I routinely finish in the middle of the pack, sometimes I finish at the back. In fact, our diverse outdoor lifestyle means I'm mediocre at most of my outdoor pursuits because we focus exclusively on none of them. Rock climbing: average. Triathlon: below average. Skiing: above average.

Sunday, something miraculous happened: I actually placed in a bicycle race. Yeah, I'm shocked too. It happened in Vernonia during a short-track mountain bike race. It's only the second time I placed in a race (the first time was at a poorly attended criterium last summer in Hillsboro) and I'm stoked.

Not only did I score 3rd place, I did so on on 14 year old Cannondale F-400 that I bought in Boulder when I was a junior at CU.

The course was a 1.3 mile circuit that consisted of muddy singletrack and water features. I had a blast. My average heart rate: 178.

After the race, the Barker clan pointed the truck and trailer west and went camping at Fort Stevens near Astoria. Hazel had a blast (below) despite the fact that we were blasted by cool air and even some rain while Portland basked in the first warm weather we've had in 9 months.

Flex Time

2010-05-21T21:10:00.001-07:00

I've been working a lot lately. Weekends, nights, you name it. I'm not complaining, I love my job. Here's one reason why:

My boss recently told me to take a day off. Sound strange to you? Maybe not. But for the past eleven years I worked in an industry where that just didn't happen. I looked at my calendar, planned my work around taking Thursday off and, Wednesday night, my friend Joe and I packed up the car and headed to Smith Rock.

(Above) Joe tops out 120 feet off the deck on Crybaby (5.9)

Joe is getting back into climbing after a long hiatus and his enthusiasm for the sport is contagious. Of all the sports NoPoGirl and I enjoy, rock climbing has been the hardest to continue to do with a toddler around. We always have to bring a third or fourth person so someone is around to watch Hazel. Luckily, Joe and Ky love Hazel and we've been climbing together a lot lately.

In the 6 years I've been climbing at Smith Rock, I've never seen a day at the climbing area with fewer people. Joe and I rolled up to the parking lot Thursday morning after camping near Skull Hollow and found 5 cars in the parking lot. We proceeded to climb most of the easy Smith classics. Awesome day. And I'm very lucky to have a job that gives me the opportunity to blow off some steam when I've been working a lot.

Warmth?

2010-05-17T20:42:00.000-07:00

It's days like this, the day after a sunny, gorgeous day, when the rain is pouring down and you cling desperately to memories of sun and warmth as the sky vomits all around you, that I tell Hazel it's important for her to be a "tough mountain girl." When I ask her if she's a tough mountain girl she says yes and then I ask her what a tough mountain girl says. She growls like a tiger. I'm proud of her.

Someday, I want her to look outside at these gloomy May Oregon days and think, 'I'm a tough mountain girl, this is nothing.' But her daddy is sick of it.

I think winter gets harder every year I live in Oregon. Don't get me wrong, I love it here. But every year the winter seems a little bit longer and the longing for sun becomes just a little bit more desperate. It's tough living here between November and July. We make the best of it, obviously.

Ski season ended abruptly with the destruction of my favorite pair of skis. My Black Diamond O1 bindings ripped out of my Atomic Kailas as NoPoGirl, Ailey and I skied a gorgeous day in The Large Ski Area's Pea-Gravel Ridge. I was forced to slide out on one ski. If this same malfunction had happened deep into the back-country this could have been a really big deal.

The guys at the ski shop said that BD 01s just do this sometimes and I should have paired my aggressive Scarpa T1 boots with BD 01s and Atomic Kailas. I said that if Black Diamond bindings only work with certain boots and skis, they should advertise them as such so that people like me don't get stranded on the mountain. They scratched their heads.

Anyway, luckily it's the end of the ski season and NoPoGirl, Hazel and I have resurrected our trailer and, this weekend, we took it "camping." I use the quotation marks because it pains me to call sleeping in a trailer "camping," but it's better than not camping at all. To be fair, Hazel spent her first night in a tent at the age of 6 weeks and she'll spend many more nights in tents. The trailer is just easy and fun.

Our tough little mountain girl accompanied us up to Tom McCall Point in the Columbia River Gorge, on a bicycle ride from Mosier to Hood River and back, and rock climbing at Horsethief Butte. By Sunday night we were all a little cooked from the sun, exhausted and buzzed from the sheer joy of being out of the rain.

Attack of the Flying Frenchman (and other adventures)

2010-03-30T21:30:00.000-07:00

"No worries, mate," the dude said to me shortly after I had skied past the long line of bamboo poles labeled with bright orange "CLIFF" markers, "it doesn't cliff out. There's a couloir through the cliff band, righty-o."

My brother and sister and law had shooed me past the cliff signs on the Blackomb Glacier saying that last year the pitch was sick and I had to do it, so off I trudged towards a group of hapless and seriously out-of-their-league Australians and Euros standing at the top of the rollover. As I peeked over the drop I noted ice runnels and two rock buttresses about 500 feet below. If you fell here, you'd go into the rocks. Sure enough, though, there was a couloir about 10 feet wide that you could shoot through.

"Give it a go mate," the dude said and I did. Things were going well until I was halfway down the couloir and the mouthy Australian came hurtling past me on his back. I felt like a pin in a bowling lane so I bombed down the rest of the 40-ish degree pitch and ducked behind one of the rock outcroppings.

(Above) Taking Hazel on her first gondola ride at Blackomb. She loved it.

That's when I heard that unmistakable sound of Gore-tex accelerating on ice. I ducked just in time to see a different guy in a blue jacket rocket over my head and land about 20 feet downhill from me. He skipped off the ice below me and slid and cartwheeled another 200 feet or so before stopping in a heap below me.

I dutifully skied down and transitioned from vacation mode into ski patrol mode, conducting a full patient assessment while sending one of the man's buddies to look for a patroller with a radio to arrange transport. NoPoGirl constantly gives me crap for my strange ability to stumble upon spectacular ski accidents. This was no exception.

It's really kind of embarrassing that we've lived in Portland for 6 years and never made the drive to Whistler/Blackomb. The ski area is incredible. NoPoGirl, Hazel and I spent Spring Break there along with Nate and Marissa and, although we blew a ridiculous amount of money on the experience (we're not used to paying for lift tickets) it was totally worth it to hang out with friends and learn a new mountain.

So what about the rest of February and March? What the hell have you been doing?

Skiing, hanging out with NoPoGirl and Hazel, skiing, biking, skiing.

Yeah, so I've neglected this blog. We've been skiing a lot despite the lackluster snow season. We also attended Ailey and Ritchie's awesome wedding (see NoPoGirl's link and pics here) and we've spent a lot of time on the bike with La Hizz.

Soon, though, it will be time to put away the skis and start racing bicycles. Last season I started racing early and was in great shape by April. This season I've been skiing too much and on the bike too little. I'll be lucky to hang on for the first few races.

So that's my life for the past two months. I'm a crappy blogger. Thanks for checking back here. You can find more regular updates about Hazel's life (and, obviously, mine too) by visiting the blog we maintain for her grandparents and other fans at http://barkersbaby.blogspot.com.

Finally, Snow

2010-01-25T21:16:00.000-08:00

(Above) Sun, snow and Heather Canyon

The following are the most important in my life:

My family.
My friends.
Being outside in the mountains.
Snow.
Sun.
Cycling.

Shocking. Huh? Saturday and Sunday saw NoPoGirl, The Hizz and I getting to enjoy numbers 1-5 on Mount Hood and it was amazing.

Saturday I got to ski in the SUN (picture above, after skiing a chute between Basalts 1 and 2 in Heather Canynon) at The Large Ski Area. The Hizz got to go sledding.

Then on Sunday NoPoGirl and I took turns ski patrolling at SkiBowl and, once again, The Hizz frolicked in the snow.

Oh, and about #6 on that list? Yeah, I'm training for bike racing season... but not as hard as I should be. I'll probably regret that later, but right now it's snowing.

PS: Things that I hate:

Rain.
Rain.
Rain.
Driving or biking in the rain.
Rain (unless that means it's snowing on Mount Hood)

Twenty Ten

2010-01-12T21:11:00.000-08:00

"Your hamburger is mooing at you," NoPoGirl said. I bit off another mouthful of my scrumptious burger and as the blood wallowed in my mouth, I asked "doesh thish meem I cud get shick?"

"Probably," she said as she eyed her own rare burger, "how can you keep eating that?"

Well, I thought, because I'm just thrilled to be sitting here at this lonely bar in the middle of Colorado with just you. Just like the good ol' days. But I didn't say that. I just grunted and choked it down with a sip of the Wooly Bugger Nut Brown Ale brewed a few miles away in Grand Lake, Colorado.

We were eating dinner in the last joint that was still open in Granby and it was our first of two nights of child-free bliss frolicking in Colorado's frigid mountains. NoPoGirl and I rolled into town at 9:00 p.m. after two nights with my parents at a ski-in ski-out condo in Breckenridge and we were stoked for two more days of luscious Colorado powder.

I love going back to Colorado. It'll always be home to me. I went to college there and some of my fondest childhood memories are of exploring Colorado's mountains. Now that I'm the parent of an Oregon child, it's important to me that she spend time there too and grow up walking the same trails that I did. So as Hazel gets older, we'll be heading back to Colorado a lot more often.

NoPoGirl, Hazel and I had spent a few days with my folks and, after luxuriating in Breckenridge, it was time for Hazel to spend some time a

lone with her grandparents and time for NoPoGirl and I to have some time alone together.

As we headed off into the darkness under that brilliant Colorado night sky the phone rang. It was my dad telling NoPoGirl how Hazel was doing after being with my folks for just a couple of hours. "George," she said, "we don't want to know. Just be grandparents. We're on vacation."

And with that we raced off towards fresh powder at Winter Park/Mary Jane, bloody hamburgers and a cheap motel. It was fantastic. We skied our asses off and, on New Year's Eve, visited the nearby Hot Sulphur Springs and dined at a romantic little family-run hotel by the headwaters of the Colorado River. NoPoGirl fell asleep at 10:00 and I woke her up at 11:59:30 so she could count down into the new year.

The skiing was incredible. It's a pretty incredible feeling chasing your wife down a mountain as the wind roars through your helmet. We skied until our legs could no longer execute the telemark lunges that we asked of them, and then we packed up the car and headed back to Estes Park.

And as NoPoGirl and I walked back into my parents house and Hazel came running/stumbling towards us I think we both realized that at as much fun as we had together bombing down slopes and living like ski bums for a couple of days, we missed the hell out of our daughter.

This new year we are truly the luckiest people we know. I really believe it doesn't get any better than this.

Let It Snow

2009-12-20T20:42:00.000-08:00

I promised myself that this blog wouldn't become a Dad Blog. No-one wants to read a dad blog. They're all the same. But I guess all Outdoorsy Guy blogs are the same too and, let's be honest, I've posted so rarely lately that daily readership of this website has dwindled to less than a hundred a day.

The reality is that, in the grand scheme of things, our lives really haven't changed much since we became parents. Yeah, we're less hard core. But the only thing that's really different about our lives is that we do the same stuff with a cute little bundle of giggling, pointing, and increasingly opinionated baby.

This is the time of the year that our lives transition from mud and bikes to mountains and snow. What does that mean for Hazel? It means she's gone from sitting in a backpack watching bikes race by to sitting in a ski lodge or hanging out in a backpack while I ski her up the out of bounds terrain at our local ski area.

It's crazy, NoPoGirl and I are spending less time skiing together on the mountain, but I think we're all closer than ever. We're on the mountain just as much as we used to be, we just take turns watching The Hizz in the lodge while the other skis. But we're raising our daughter in the places we love, while we do the things that we love. And in a few short years, we'll hopefully be racing to catch up with Hazel as she bombs down the mountain.

I just hope she's having as much fun as we are.

It's Time... See you on the mountain

2009-11-13T21:23:00.001-08:00

Our Ski Patrol duties start tomorrow. See you there.

The Barker Family Makes Wend TV

2009-11-12T15:32:00.000-08:00

Our friend Heidi Swift is working as a roving reporter for Wend Magazine as they cover Portland's Cyclocross Crusade. They shot a video of Sunday's race and our whole family makes an appearance at the 2:00 mark. And if you want to truly capture the essence of cyclocross's sheer insanity and stupidity, watch the whole thing. Pretty silly.

Mud and Snow

2009-11-11T20:01:00.000-08:00

There's something I've always hated about rain. When I was a TV reporter, I used to have to stand in it for hours. I'd have to trudge through neighborhoods in the rain while wearing a suit, knocking on the doors of people who didn't want to talk to me. When it rained, it made standing around at crime scenes and disasters pretty miserable.

So if you hate rain why, you may ask, the hell do you live in Oregon? I've been trying to answer that question for the six years since we moved here from lovely, sunny (and poor and crime-ridden) New Mexico.

Well, I love Oregon. Hate the rain, love the mountains. And I love my new job. And now that I don't have to stand in the rain all of the time, I think I've found a way to embrace it: Rain makes mud. And rain makes snow. And this time of the year I love both.

Last weekend, NoPoGirl and I (plus about 1,200 other muddy gladiators) attacked a sloppy course at Portland International Raceway for the 7th race of the Cross Crusade series. It had been raining for a week prior to the race. It was wicked. I was horrible. And I was thrilled. I finally found a use for rain down here below the snow level. It makes cyclocross racing WAY more difficult and way more fun.

This is also the glorious season where cycling begins to take a back seat to skiing and NoPoGirl and I start making our weekly pilgrimage to Mount Hood. The flakes are flying on the mountain and we are stoked! Last weekend, on the day before the bike race, the whole family trudged up to Government Camp and frolicked in the snow.

You can see pictures of the whole fam damily by clicking here.

Oh, and remember how I mentioned that I love my new job? Yeah: I got Veteran's Day off. That's fitting because I used to be in the Air Force and have lots of friends who are veterans. Thanks for your service, everyone!

NoPoGirl and I celebrated Veteran's Day by dumping the Hizz off at daycare and heading up to the mountain to skin up the Alpine Trail (above) and ski down. The snow was crappy, but we were outside in the snow.

And as we drove back down into the rain, I smiled. There will be mud this weekend. And snow. I love this place.

So? How's the job?

2009-11-01T17:41:00.000-08:00

I've decided not to blog much about my new job. As you may or may not know, I've left the TV news business and now work as a spokesperson (public information officer/communications officer) for the second-largest fire district in the state of Oregon. Because of my position, it wouldn't be appropriate to say much about what I do.

But it wouldn't be appropriate to not mention it in this space either. So let me say this: I love my job. Love it.

I am fulfilling many childhood fantasies racing around in fire engines and learning the fire business. I've been attending classes at the fire academy and getting sweaty and dirty. It is awesome. I get to wear a uniform and represent a group of men and women who I respect tremendously. I feel good about what I do.

I have also been working a lot. I've been on the news a few times at big fires or incidents. I'm working on our District's social media strategy and have created and maintain a blog. I've been towing a giant trailer to elementary schools teaching kids about fire safety. I can't believe I was the one who was lucky enough to get this job.

So, do I miss TV news? Yes, I do. I miss the camaraderie of racing around from disaster to disaster with a photographer. It was a daily adventure and you never knew where you'd end up. I miss traveling across the region and seeing amazing things before anyone else. I miss the kind of story telling I spent 11 years doing.

But I get to see my wife and baby a lot more. And, with the exception of my on-call weeks, I know roughly when I'll be home.

I'm very lucky.

Snow on the Mountain and Suffering in Dairyville

2009-10-04T17:19:00.000-07:00

An early season snow was blanketing Mount Hood as NoPoGirl, Hazel and I headed up early on a Saturday morning for ski patrol chairlift evacuation training. This is a yearly ritual for us and it's something ski patrollers have to practice every year in order to be prepared for a broken chair lift. As with all of the activities NoPoGirl and I used to do before we had Hazel, it's a little more complicated these days. But our little kid is tough, and she's game for anything.
Hazel helped point out rocks ("Ra!") and trees ("Ah!") and water bottles ("BOOOOOwl") as NoPoGirl and I took turns helping people who had volunteered to be stuck guests down from the chairlift. Hazel then promptly passed out in her mom's backpack as I dealt with two TV news crews who had showed up to do feature stories about our patrol. You can see the stories they did here:

http://www.koinlocal6.com/content/mediacenter/default.aspx?videoId=12504@koin.dayport.com&navCatId=15
I awoke Sunday morning thrilled about the day ahead. The Cross Crusade began today. The Crusade is a series of cyclocross races across the region that attract thousands of participants. It has become a phenomenon. Like a giant mountain that creates its own weather, The Crusade has taken on a life of its own. At times, the noise from racers and fans is deafening. Today's race was at the Alpenrose Dairy near downtown Portland and it was huge.

I survived. NoPoGirl triumphed. It turns out that, after saying "cyclocross is stupid" for years, the woman is a stellar cyclocross racer. Hazel had so much fun that she forgot to take both her morning and afternoon naps.

Weekends are awesome.

Fire, Rocks and Friends in the Tieton

2009-09-22T20:53:00.000-07:00

Joe saw it first. "Holy crap!" he said, "the fire's right there." He was dangling from the side of the cliff on the Dream Wall at Lava Point in the Tieton River Gorge.

The fire he referenced was the same controlled burn we'd seen driving into the canyon on Friday night and the same fire that we'd asked the USFS firefighters about. "No problem," they said, "it's no-where near the climbing area."

It turns out that, after a full day of climbing, we'd been scaling a rock cliff directly below where firefighters had set a controlled burn. The flareup Joe had seen was less than a hundred yards away from us.

Chalk that up as another first. We were never in any danger because the relative humidity was high, there was no wind and it was cool. But it was still strange to clamber to the top of the cliff to find a burned forest.

That burned forest was just one of many highlights of the past weekend, which we spent in the Tieton with our friends Joe and Ky and Drew.

Hazel was there too. She played in the dirt. She tried to eat rocks. She slept for two nights in our little trailer. She took naps (above) at the bottom of the rock climbing area.

NoPoGirl and I are really enjoying sharing rock climbing with all of our friends. We don't get to climb as hard or as often as we used to, but we're climbing with a lot more people and introducing some people to the sport, and that's pretty cool.

And it's also probably a good idea to make sure Hazel doesn't think that the only thing mommy and daddy do is race bicycles in circles, cuz that'd be silly.

And so it begins

2009-09-15T20:58:00.000-07:00

NoPoGirl shot off across the cut hay field at the front of the pack. "Cyclocross is stupid," she used to say. "Why would you ever get off your bike and run? That doesn't sound like fun."
It turns out NoPoGirl was right. Cyclocross is miserable. It is a sweaty, dirty, scary, heart-pounding struggle to survive. Each participant must retreat to his or her own cave of pain and gut it out for an hour and try not to get passed by the sweaty, dirty, scared, heart-pounded racer struggling to survive behind you.

And it is totally awesome. And I am SO excited NoPoGirl is hooked.
Cyclocross season started this past weekend with Pain on the Peak. I raced and, as usual, came in near the middle of the pack. NoPoGirl was contending for the lead in the beginning. She finished sweaty, disgusting and happy.
And this is just the beginning!

Game Over

2009-09-01T21:28:00.000-07:00

It all ended on a warm night in an all-out sprint to the line at Portland International Raceway at sunset. The team was stoked. Our fearless leader won the race.

And my legs were trashed.

It's been a long year of serious road racing. Monday night's race was my 32nd of the year. NoPoGirl and I have battled through brutal wind, wet and dangerous roads and a series of ugly and unfortunate crashes by team-mates to come out of road racing season mostly unscathed. Now I need a break.

I've crashed a couple of times this year, but not in a race. And now road racing season is over. Monday night's race was the last in a long summer series that's chiefly responsible for Portland's vibrant road racing scene.

Now there's already a chill in the air, and cyclocross (above) looms larger than life on the horizon. After years of saying "cross is stupid, why would you carry your bike in a race?" I finally convinced NoPoGirl to try cyclocross. She bought a bike and we'll be getting muddy together this fall.

You can also find us rock climbing at Smith and the Tieton and preparing for a winter ski patrolling on Mount Hood. Although it's sad to see summer fade away, I can't wait for the adventure fall brings.

And I already can't wait for next year's road racing season. Bring it on.

A Weekend on Mount Adams

2009-08-30T20:32:00.001-07:00

(Above) The Mazama Glacier cascades down the southeast face of Mount Adams

You could say parenthood has slowed the Barker family down a little bit. Sure, we don't spend every weekend rock climbing or backcountry skiing. It's harder. But there is one thing we've done a LOT more of now that we have a little 13 month old munchkin to accompany us on our adventures: hiking.

It's been a busy summer. NoPoGirl, Hazel and I have been to the Olympic Peninsula, Mount Hood (twice), Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens and the beach so far.

This weekend, we headed northeast to Mount Adams. If you haven't spent time near Mount Adams, you're not alone. The mountain is overshadowed by the likes of Hood, St. Helens and Rainier. But what Adams lacks in stature it makes up for in elevation (12,000+ feet) and splendor.

(Above) Negotiating the carefully built, castle-like switchbacks on Sleeping Beauty Peak

I've climbed Mount Adams twice, but never taken the time to appreciate the glacier carved valleys and remarkably easy to reach views that surround it.

A drive from Portland to Mount Adams includes a gorgeous drive up the Columbia River Gorge to Hood River, where you cross the river and head up into the foothills to Trout Lake. We decided to do the usual Barker camping routine; eschewing the established campground for the fire-ring at the end of a random forest road.

We selected two baby-friendly hikes: Sleeping Beauty Peak (pictured above, on the summit) and Hell-Roaring Viewpoint.

Sleeping Beauty Peak (which NoPoGirl climbed 9 months pregnant last year) sits perched on the southwest face of Mount Adams and presents an easy 1.5 hour ascent up a steep, rocky trail to a volcanic plug that towers over surrounding valleys. It commands a stunning view of Mount Adams, Rainier, St Helens, Hood, the Columbia River Gorge and Central Washington's desert.

After a gorgeous night under the stars we awoke early and drove to the Yakama Nation's side of the mountain to hike up from Bird Lake to Hellroaring Viewpoint.

This easy, 5.5 mile hike provides a lot of bang for the buck. You hike past waterfalls, over dozens of babbling brooks and up, up, and up to a spectacular view of Mount Adams' Mazama Glacier and a valley 2,000 feet below.

On the way back to the car we feasted on huckleberries (above) growing on the side of the trail and marveled at the remote mountain that the Northwest seems to have forgotten.

If you want to see more pictures of Hazel (which is why you really check this blog anyway) look here: http://barkersbaby.blogspot.com

A Weekend on Rainier

2009-08-16T21:43:00.000-07:00

The weather forecast was not good. Cloudy on Saturday. Partly cloudy on Sunday. It was 39 degrees at Paradise on Saturday morning.
NoPoGirl, Hazel and I blew off the weather forecast, packed the car and headed two and a half hours north to Mount Rainier. We were greeted by thick fog on Saturday. We drove to 4,000 feet and camped in the clouds.

Sunday morning, the sun burned off the clouds and, for a few precious hours, we could see the summit. We raced for Paradise and were well rewarded with incredible flowers, cascading glaciers and a squealing baby.

Life sans Kid

2009-08-09T20:55:00.000-07:00

We were on pitch two of an easy sport route at the Pearly Gates in Icicle Creek Canyon in Central Washington. The rock was sticky, perfect granite.

We looked at each other and smiled. We were alone on a rock and ridiculously happy.

NoPoGirl and I dropped the kid at the in-laws in Seattle and headed to our new Favorite Place: Leavenworth, Washington.

Yeah, it's a kitschy Bavarian village. It's full of tourists and tacky. But the canyons and steep mountainsides that rise up just outside of town remind the visitor of the Alps.

I love being a father. I do. But the fact that I've posted so little on this blog lately is a huge reminder of how little free time I've had. Yeah, NoPoGirl, Hazel and I have been doing lots of cool stuff, but I haven't had time to post on the blog about it. Personal time has become a lot more hard to come by.

For roughly 36 hours, NoPoGirl and I were on our own. We mountain biked. We got lost on a forgotten mountain road and camped with a spectacular view of the mountains west of Leavenworth.

(Above) Our campsite 3,000 feet above Leavenworth.

Our biggest problem, though, has been rock climbing. We have to take a third person with us to watch Hazel while we climb. If we want to climb several pitches, the third person is stuck on the ground with the baby.

(Above) NoPoGirl on the creek crossing from the Pearly Gates in Icicle Canyon.

So, for a day and a half, we were on our own. It was just like old times. It was awesome. It took us half an hour to cross a stream and bush-wack our way out of a quagmire on the way to the rock. We were thrilled. We climbed, we gaped at the mountains, we smiled, we laughed.

But as we clambered down from the crag, we both thought about our little baby. We couldn't wait to get back to Seattle. We were so happy, but we missed her. As much as we both miss the old days when we went on adventures alone, we love our new roles as parents.

Yeah, our adventures are a little softer than they used to be. But being a father is awesome. Although I hope Hazel's grandparents don't mind watching The Hizzle every once in a while so we can go on an adventure on our own. Because that was awesome.

Summer

2009-08-02T22:14:00.000-07:00

(Above) Eryn and Noah, with Spirit Lake and Mount St. Helens behind

My dad threatened to friend me on Facebook tonight. "You haven't updated your blog since March," he said.

Well, it hasn't been that long. But it's been too long. To be perfectly honest, I was so freaked out about my career change and so excited about leaving The Large TV Station to go work for The Large Fire Department that I didn't want to say too much. I blog about what's on my mind, and that transition has consumed me.

But no more. The new job is awesome, thank you very much. Maybe I'll say a fleeting word or two about it on these pages from time to time. But this blog is about adventure, not work.

Summer has been amazing. I've been getting off at a decent hour with my new job. I'm home more often and can spend more time with Hazel and NoPoGirl.

We've dragged the family on all kinds of adventures.

The weekend after I quit my job at The Large TV Station we loaded up and headed to Bend for a two day bike race, where I actually finished respectably.

The following weekend, after my first week at The Large Fire Department, the family headed to Mount Saint Helens and camped in the blast zone. The highlight was a hike up Norway Pass to look at what's left of Spirit Lake.

Last weekend, Nate and Marissa where here and we headed to the beach, where we froze our asses off while Portland baked under 100+ degree heat.

And tonight, as I write this, we've just unpacked from a trip to the Olympic Peninsula. Hazel is getting lots of tent time. We camped up some forgotten forest road, climbed most of Mount Eleanor (the poor arthritic dog got tired and we had to turn around before the summit) and went swimming in Lake Cushman.

And now it's 10:30pm and I meant to go to bed at 9:30 so I could wake up at 5am and go to the gym. I'm lifting weights again and spooling up for rock climbing, cyclocross bike racing and ski patrolling. Oh, and I'm planning to start running up flights of stairs with fire-hose so I can maybe hang with the firefighters I'm supposed to represent.

It's an exciting time. So exciting, I just haven't had a lot of time to breath, much less blog. Sorry, you'll hear more from me in the future. I promise. Thanks for coming back to this web-page and checking in on me.

A Big Change

2009-07-02T10:30:00.001-07:00

(Above) Live on Canal Street in New Orleans, days after Hurricane Katrina.

You'll notice I haven't posted on this blog in a while. I haven't lost interest in maintaining it, I've just been wrestling with a major life decision. There comes a time in everyone's life when it's time for a change. That time, for me, is now. After more than a decade of working as a television reporter, I'm changing careers. It was a hard decision, but I need to spend more time with my family.

For the past eleven years, I've shown up to work every day ready for anything. I've received an assignment, spent my day scrambling to gather facts, shoot video, and brave the elements. I've scrambled to meet impossible deadlines and almost always nailed them. I absolutely love what I do for a living some days.

In my eleven years on the job, I've done some amazing things:
-I've moved from Boulder to Yakima, Colorado Springs, Albuquerque and Portland.
-I camped for a week with migrant farm workers in Central Washington.
-I traveled alone to war-torn Bosnia to report on the recovery.
-I reported from Columbine High School as shots were still being fired.
-I have driven hundreds of thousands of miles across the West.
-I spent months on the road covering forest fires.
-I've nearly been killed in a sudden forest fire, and helped the Albuquerque mayor's wife put out a wild-fire that threatened her home.
-I've raced around in helicopters, climbed mountains and been chased by criminals.
-I spent a month at Mount Saint Helens as it rumbled/sputtered back to life.
-I've waded through the streets of New Orleans as society crumbled and people lay dead in the streets.

But there are many days when I'm knocking on the door of a family who just lost a child or standing on a wind-swept overpass in the pre-dawn darkness talking about a snow-storm that never came. Those days outnumber the days when I can't believe I'm getting paid to be a TV reporter.

And on most days, I get home late and miss my wife and child. The hours are unpredictable. I frequently cancel plans after work because I was live at 6pm in a place hours away from the TV station.

If I want to progress and move on as a TV news reporter, I need to move to Boston or New York or LA and continue to crawl my way up the ladder while working weekends and holidays. I've been there and done that.

It's not that I don't want to work hard, long hours. I'm just ready for something new. I want a new and different challenge. And I don't want to leave Portland.

So I'm leaving my job at KATU effective next Friday.

I do have a job lined up. I'm thrilled about it. It's a dream job for me. I'll let you know, officially, what I'm doing once I finish my last day at KATU. Stay tuned...

Reflections on the Road

2009-06-03T21:46:00.000-07:00

It was an emotional night at PIR Tuesday. Our team rode in silence (above) ahead of the large category 3/4 field for two laps and thought about our friend who was critically injured in a race at PIR the night before.

There's a horrible sound a cyclist makes as he or she hits the pavement. There's the sound of scraping metal, the inevitable curses and groans, the smell of burned rubber. Bones break, carbon shatters, helmets save lives.

I'd like to say I haven't heard or seen it very often, but to be honest I have. Ride PIR very often or attend a criterium and you're bound to see it. As you see the peloton split and watch people hit the deck, you can only hope that the injuries aren't as bad as the mechanism of injury indicates.

I've been racing bicycles for two years. I've been lucky enough to not know anyone who's been seriously injured... until now. Monday night a team-mate and great person went down in a nasty collision at PIR during the final sprint. You can catch the latest on her condition here. NoPoGirl saw most of the incident as she raced near the back of the sprint.

As the two of us layed awake into the morning hours Tuesday talking about the crash, it brought the danger of this sport into clearer focus for us. I know my parents won't like reading this, but sometimes bicycle racing is dangerous. People get hurt. How does that affect me and my committment to bicycle racing? I don't have an answer to that question yet.

But as my team has rallied together to support our fallen friend, it's reminded me that family and friendship are more important than any athletic endeavor. And I'm lucky to have the family and friends that I have.

Rubber side down, everyone.

Racing, Riding, Swimming, Family

2009-06-01T09:23:00.000-07:00

It happens every year in the Northwest. Sometime between May and July, the endless morale-crushing gut-wrenching depressing months of rain give way to a few spectacular months of perfect sunshine. The entire winter, we console ourselves by saying, "hey, if it's raining down here it's snowing in the mountains!" We run in the rain. We ride in the rain.

After eight or nine months of toughing it out through blizzards and driving rain, we shed the Gore-Tex and frantically try to enjoy the weather before it disappears
NoPoGirl, Hazel and I have spent the past two weeks racing around outside as much as possible. This past weekend, NoPoGirl squeezed in an open water swim race (above) at Hagg Lake and competed in the OBRA Road Race in Rainier. I racked up 105 miles on my bike between Saturday and Sunday riding to Rainier and back from Hagg Lake. I had a lot of thinking to do and as the miles rolled by and my heart raced under a spectacular blue sky, my mind could wander.
It's funny, when we lived in New Mexico and Colorado, I would wake up and look outside hoping for some clouds to break the monotony of 300+ days of sunshine. These days we both feel guilty spending just a few minutes inside.
Last weekend we visited NoPoGirl's parents' cabin near Vantage, Washington. It was hot. The 1,000 foot tall rolling desert hills were still lush and green. Hundreds of miles of quiet farm roads fan out across the mountains and valleys in a vast web of perfectly rideable terrain. We rode, we rock climbed, we hung out with the family.
It's easy to complain about the weather, but we live in a spectacular place. And for these few fleeting months, you can find the three of us outside trying to soak up as much of it as we can before it's gone.

And then we may be calling you for advice on getting a one year old baby to ski.

Mothers Day

2009-05-10T22:08:00.000-07:00

"We're going to find some sun," NoPoGirl informed me last week when I asked her what she wanted to do for Mothers Day. "I want to bask in the sun, camp, ride my bike and be with you and Hazel."

Wow, I thought, that's exactly what I want to do too. So that's how we spent Mothers Day weekend: we loaded up the trailer and sought out sun, camping and warmth in The Dalles.
I've known a lot of great mothers in my life. Some dedicate their lives to their kids, sacrificing careers and lifestyles. I admire and respect those decisions. NoPoGirl, though, is unlike any mother I've ever met. She's so dedicated to Hazel and I, yet she maintains this energy and enthusiasm for exploring the world and getting into adventures that you just don't see in most people.
It's been strange watching my wife and partner in adventure morph into a mother. Obviously, most of parenthood comes naturally. It's nature. But each parent puts a certain spin on it. Some of us try to raise our kids to be like ourselves, others don't. NoPoGirl is passionate about raising an independent, adventurous, smart little girl. So far, Hazel is well on her way.
I don't know a lot about parenthood, but I do know that with a mommy like NoPoGirl, Hazel has one heck of a role-model to grow up admiring. And if she's even half as awed by her bad-assness as I am, she'll think her mommy's the coolest in the world.

Sun, Climbing, Family, Friends

2009-04-27T21:49:00.001-07:00

It's been too long since we tied in to a rope and launched up the side of a rock. We've been skiing and bike racing and hiking, but as we learned when our daughter was just a few weeks old, it's a lot harder for two of us to go rock climbing with a baby. We took a break. We dreamed of warm days and sun-baked rock. And finally we couldn't take it anymore.

It's hard to describe what it's like clinging a rock. There aren't many things in life like the airy feeling of a hundred feet of free air dropping away beneath you and nothing but your breathing and the cold, featured rock to occupy your mind.

I've been rock climbing for nearly ten years now and I still get nervous when I'm just a couple of feet above my last piece of protection. Outside noises fade from my ears. My breathing slows and I focus. Then NoPoGirl says something like "stop being such a wuss and just climb" and my concentration shattered, my ego is battered and I finally make the stupid easy move I'd been so timid to try. If it wasn't for my awesome wife's encouraging words, I'd make it up the rock a lot less often.

But things are different now. When I gaze down below me there's a lot more going on at the bottom of the rock. There's a little pink munchkin making funny noises and trying to eat rocks. There are the new friends we've made and take along with us so one of us can climb and one of us can take care of our Future Ropegun daughter.

Someday, hopefully, little Hazel will climb better than Mom and Dad. Mom already climbs better than dad, by the way, but that's nothing new.

Kings and Slush

2009-04-12T17:44:00.000-07:00

There are things that you should and shouldn't do while racing along at 25 MPH in a group of 70 guys on bicycles. You can chat, you can take a swig of water, you can eat. All of these things are OK as long as you maintain a straight line and do not swerve into the guys wheel that is six inches ahead of yours or the dude who's humming along six inches on either side of you.

Please allow me to add one thing you should NOT do. Do not unclip your foot from your pedal and attempt to remove your shoe cover while wobbling all over the road while racing along at 25 MPH with a group of 70 guys on bicycles.

Thank you.

For those of you who've been following this blog for a while, you'll remember that I'm not an expert at bike racing. Last year during the Kings Valley Road Race I got dropped quickly. Hell, that happens every race. I'll chalk last year's failure on the hills up to poor fitness and inexperience. These days I'm just finishing in the back/middle of the pack because I suck. But I suck less.

This year, I stuck with the group for 56 miles and 2800 feet of climbing until the last 200 meters when they rocked off to the finish line and I did not. I did not win. But I did not crash. And I did not humiliate myself.

And I was not the wobbly, hairy guy trying to remove his shoe covers in the middle of the peloton.
Sunday dawned soggy and dreary and NoPoGirl and I loaded up the family for a Sunday of skiing in the slush at The Large Ski Area. It was slushy and as you can see in the above picture, no-one was there. There were maybe 100 cars in the lot when we rolled in at 11:30am and we never stood in line all day.
NoPoGirl showed the slush a thing or two until the above pictured Giant Ice Block got the better of her in Roach Bowl. After a few runs we were both soaked and ready for a drink. And our favorite ski buddy was waiting for us in The Large Ski Area's very plush daycare. As always, I'm sure she was wondering what kind of strange life she's been born into. Get used to it, kid.

Cherry Blossom Stage Race

2009-04-05T18:01:00.000-07:00

It was like being in a wild west movie: We were the ones about to die, the cowboys were closing fast behind us, and the heard of horses was skittish.

The dozen or so animals crested the horizon as my team-mate and I struggled around lap two of the first stage of the Cherry Blossom Classic. The 30+ MPH winds whipped the dust away behind them in a reddish brown cloud as they galloped down the barren, green slopes towards us.

(Above) NoPoGirl heads out on the Stage 2 time trial in 31 degree temps Saturday morning.

They raced down to meet us as we sped by on our bicycles, giving everything we had. It was spectacularly beautiful.

For those of you who aren't cycling nerds like me, a stage race is a multi-day series of bicycle races like the European tours that you've heard of.

Friday we raced 40 miles through rolling hills near Petersburg, east of The Dalles.

Saturday (stage 2) we began the day with a time trial, where racers are judged by the amount of time they can complete a set course. It's a show of brute strength and determination.

Saturday afternoon (stage 3) we raced a criterium around a 4 block long course in downtown The Dalles. A criterium is a timed event. The group races a set time (we raced 30 minutes) and whoever crosses the finish line first wins. Criteriums are extremely fast and sometimes dangerous because racers are forced to negotiate sharp turns every four blocks while riding in a large group.

Sunday was the killer: Stage four involves 56 miles of racing with a tall mountain pass (above, near the top of the 1,000+ foot climb) and 4800 feet of elevation gain.

My group's field consisted of about 80 riders. It was fast, hard and relentless. We raced through a brutal wind Friday. The hills were steep, and as soon as we crested them we were blasted in the face by a headwind so strong it negated the gravitational pull of the downhill.

Today, after two days of racing, my legs screamed for mercy as we struggled at race pace for three and a half hours. I burned about 4,000 calories today and I can barely make it up the stairs at home. It was so good to roll through the finish line to see NoPoGirl (who'd just finished racing as well) and Hazel.

Someone told me Friday that, when I'd finished this race, it would be the hardest thing I've ever done. It wasn't. A Half Ironman is more painful and tougher mentally. But my legs have never been more spent.

And I've got another race this weekend.

Piece of Cake? (Piece of Glass)

2009-03-30T10:11:00.000-07:00

There's very little in life that feels like hurtling down a country road on a bicycle with 50 guys at your back and nothing but the open road in front of you. Wheels whir, the wind whips past your ears and your heart races as adrenaline pumps through your veins. It feels fantastic.

I was racing lap one of the 55 mile Piece of Cake road race with my team (that's me, above, #1213 with the boys in black) and the front of the pelaton was all black and yellow. Five of us followed the plan and patrolled the front. The race was in Woodland, Washington and attracted cyclists from both Portland and Seattle. The course is flat, windy and fast.

The first lap was fantastic. That's me (above) on the far right at the front of the main field as we zipped through the end of lap one. I felt strong after skiing the day before with NoPoGirl in a foot of powder at The Large Ski Area. I took it easy despite the phenomenal snow conditions and my legs rewarded me with strength and speed.

The race was called Piece of Cake. I was taken out by a tiny piece of glass.

Half-way through lap two, it happened. Again. I found myself drifting back out of the pack. I struggled. My heart rate surged to 197, which is roughly 99% of my max. I caught back up to the field and struggled some more. I ate a gel and downed some water but my legs felt like lead and my heart-rate stayed above 180.

Soon, I was off the back again. What the? The follow car carrying our spare wheels passed me. Then I felt my rear wheel bottom out on its rim. I'd been riding on a flat tire and I didn't know it.

If you're keeping score, that's the second flat I've had in four races this year. I stood beside the road and watched as NoPoGirl raced by with the pack of girls. Finally, someone came by with a wheel and I was able to ride with a few stragglers to the finish line.

Hazel was hanging out back at the car with our babysitter and all of the girls who'd finished their race before us. She enjoyed hanging out in the sun. If she knew any better, she'd probably wonder why she keeps having to come out to bike races if daddy keeps getting flat tires. I know I am.

But for that first fleeting hour when we were on the front, it was worth it.

My team has a racing report up on its web-site.

Sorry

2009-03-23T21:08:00.000-07:00

(Above) Marissa and NoPoGirl in the back bowls at Alpental.

I drove past a man playing the drums near Smith and Bybee Lakes just north of my house. He'd set up his drum set on the side of the road and was rocking out as the sun shot laser-like rays through tentacles of virga hanging down from the spring clouds.

I was driving back from Mount Hood, where I'd spent three days skiing in sometimes violent weather. It was a typical spring weekend in the Northwest as squalls roared past Mount Hood split by the occassional sunbreak. I had Friday off and skied in rain. On Saturday, NoPoGirl and I put Hazel in daycare and skied almost every run at The Large Ski Area. And on Sunday the alarm went off at 4:45am so that I could work a 12 hour day ski patrolling in 50 MPH winds.

It was a very busy day. The sun cooked the mountain one minute, winds blasted the mountain the next. I spent the morning battling the weather and the afternoon hauling patients off the slopes.

I haven't posted to this blog for a while. It's not that I haven't been doing anything interesting. I've been traveling for work. We headed to Seattle to visit NoPoGirl's family and skied at Alpental. I was called in to my real job on my day off. We spent last weekend perfecting our avalanche rescue skills. We've been busy.

(Above) NoPoGirl searches for a double burial avalanche scenario at Skibowl.

By the time I was in the car and headed back down the mountain to Portland yesterday, my family and reality I had a lot on my mind. I took the scenic route, driving along the Columbia River to North Portland and watching eagles circle above the whitecaps as brilliant beams of sunlight shot through bands of rain and sleet.

As I raced past Smith and Bybee Lakes trying to get home in time to see Hazel and NoPoGirl, I glimpsed a smile on the face of that drummer rocking out to the sun setting over the West Hills. I smiled too. Yeah, life's good. Busy, but good.

Road Grime is Crunchy

2009-03-02T10:42:00.000-08:00

I was hanging with the group, doing my job and starting to feel kind of cocky when I noticed my front wheel didn't feel quite right. Our group of 65 riders was just wrapping up lap two, 22 miles into a 44 mile race around Henry Hagg Lake near Oregon's Coast Range. My job was to help protect our team's chosen strongest rider for the race and I was moving up to work on keeping him out of the wind.

As I stood up to hammer up the race's most miserable climb, Lee Hill, I noticed my front wheel bottoming out. Not again, I thought.

I got a flat tire on Lee Hill last year, click here for the post. It turns out my flat tire was one of six our team suffered as we slogged around the soggy, dirty loop. There must have been a lot of glass on the road. The park has been closed for the winter and the road was filthy and in horrible shape.

I sank back away from the main field just in time to catch a follow car with spare wheels. I was back on the bike in less than a minute, but I had no hope of catching the group. Luckily I hopped in with a bunch of other dudes who also had flats and were trying to catch up.

I hung with them for the remainder of the race and got a great workout. I was also covered in a thick layer of disgusting road grime. I swallowed a bunch of it. When you ride that close to the guy in front of you, a lot of mud and dirt ends up on your face and bike. When I crossed the finish line I was greeted by NoPoGirl, who was equally dirty and happy.

And Hazel, as you can see in the picture above, just acted surprised. Why, she must be thinking, are my parents so strange?

Corduroy and the Kid

2009-02-28T21:31:00.000-08:00

NoPoGirl, Hazel and I headed to Skibowl Saturday under partly cloudy skies after missing out on skiing the 3 feet of new snow that's fallen in the past week. It's been tough staying in town and working while many of our friends take sick days and head to the mountain to enjoy the first decent snowfall in more than a month. But we Barkers are responsible, unfortunately.
The day turned out to be extremely easy with only one patient treated on the mountain and both of us got to make lots of turns on fresh snow. NoPoGirl and I took turns watching Hazel and she seemed to enjoy hanging out in the lodge and watching the busy people outside. For more cute pictures of Hazel, check her blog HERE.

Sublime Sublimity

2009-02-21T21:18:00.000-08:00

(Above) The cemetery where we parked for the race. That's also where I left my legs. RIP.

"My wife sucks," I thought. "Why the hell did she make me do this race?"

"Screw you!" I shouted at the cow as it comfortably chewed its cud from behind the barbed wire fence as I struggled alone through the final hour of a 45 mile misery-fest around Sublimity. Crap. I'm talking to cows.

"Rollers" my ass.

People who knew about the race said there were some rolling hills, or "rollers." The 700 feet of climbing per lap were adding up quickly. The Sublime Sublimity circuit race covered three laps around rolling hills on empty roads east of Salem. Unfortunately for me, some of the hills were very steep.

It was a tough decision this weekend: go skiing or bike race. The decision hinged upon finding a babysitter. NoPoGirl found a babysitter. We raced bikes.

I hung with the main field for the first two of three laps around the rolling twelve mile circuit. The group surged and staggered. A good ol' boy pulled out of his farm in his pickup truck... right into the middle of the group. As he puffed away at a cigarette, the main field pulled away in front of the truck. Those of us unlucky enough to be behind his 1985ish vintage Ford F150 watched helplessly as we gulped in lungfulls of exhaust and cigarette smoke.

Some dude attempted and failed to stick a track-stand as Mr. Pickup stopped at a stop-sign in the middle of the race right in front of us. He crashed to the ground behind me in a heap of spandex, carbon and flesh. A guy from Team Beer and I swapped pulls for several miles after the truck mercifully pulled away.

We careened down a hill at 45+ MPH. I felt like a rock-star on my new Veloforma as we rocketed around the course.

Then I bonked. My race was over.

It's interesting how the lead group looks as it sails away without you. The group of dudes pulls slowly away as you frantically pedal, trying to keep up. They're just 50 feet away, but they might as well be a mile from you. You save anywhere between 25% and 50% of your energy by drafting another cyclist. The main field sailed away working half as hard as I did.

For the next 12 miles I suffered through the hills alone. I struggled. I cursed out loud. I blew snot-rockets at cows as I passed by. I was angry. Why, I wondered, do I race bicycles? I'm suffering for no good reason, I thought. All I want to do is go to a warm place where I can drink a bottomless glass of water and eat something.

I struggled for several more miles until I hit the final grueling hill before the finish line. The 18% grade was brutal. People cheered. I grimaced.

Out of the 55 men who started the Cat 4 race, I finished 33rd. Not good, but not too bad either. 14 people started and gave up before reaching the end.

I stood there after the race as a lifeless lump waiting for NoPoGirl to suffer her way to the finish. The women started five minutes behind us. Soon, NoPoGirl fought her way to the finish. We hugged. We cursed.

My wife is awesome. My legs feel like jelly.

And even though I wanted to quit bike racing as I struggled through the last lap, I realized that surviving this misery defines me.

Cherry Pie

2009-02-15T21:31:00.001-08:00

A bird crapped on me (yep, that's it on my arm in the picture above) at the end of the Cherry Pie Road Race near Albany, Oregon. It was a fitting end to a mediocre performance as I sat safely tucked into the group of 70+ Cat 4 riders cranking out 52.2 miles of mostly flat terrain near Oregon's Coast Range.

It was my first road race with my new team and I had a job. My assignment: make sure one of the other guys stays out of the wind and gets in the right place just before the race's finish. We gave it our best shot but there were so many racers and the road was so narrow that we didn't deliver him to the front in time.
Cherry Pie is the first road race of the season. As the Tour of California raged in the rain hundreds of miles south of here, hundreds of amateurs from across the state converge on Albany to fight out their own version of bicycle suffering on the road.
This was also NoPoGirl's first race after her pregnancy and she was doing fine until someone crashed in front of her and she went down too. Luckily, she's OK. Her version of events is here. Crashing is an unfortunate reality of bike racing. Sometimes you're fine, sometimes you get a little road rash, sometimes you end up in a coma.

And Hazel? Hazel took it like a champ. She enjoyed the very busy people from the comfort of her new backpack. From her throne on our backs she could survey the silly spandex-clad adults zipping around and mete out her judgements with a well placed squeal or gummy, toothless grin. I love that kid.

Valentines Day on the Bike

2009-02-14T22:09:00.000-08:00

Hazel, NoPoGirl and I headed out to celebrate Valentines Day Barker-style and cranked out 18 easy miles in the sun before Sunday's race. Hazel sat in her bike trailer and stared seriously at my gyrating butt as she jiggled and bounced down the trail.
She thought it was so exciting that she fell asleep. NoPoGirl and I opened up our legs for Sunday's Cherry Pie Road Race. And we had some family time. Is there a better way to spend Valentine's Day?

Back on the Mountain

2009-02-08T21:11:00.000-08:00

(Above) Heather Canyon.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I became a ski patroller. NoPoGirl talked me into it. I was worried we wouldn't ski much anymore. It turns out that we skied more than ever as we learned the ropes and started pulling shifts on Mount Hood.

Ski patrolling was always something we did together though. Since Hazel came along, that became more difficult. Daycare at The Large Ski Area costs $85/day with a discount. There is no way I'm going to pay that for the privilege of working for free.

So now that Hazel's around NoPoGirl and I are taking turns. One day I patrol. The next she does and I watch Hazel. On the days we're not patrolling, we take turns hanging out in the lodge as the other one of us skis. It's working out OK, but I really miss skiing with my favorite ski partner.

Saturday we slept late and moseyed up to Mount Hood for a half day skiing in the sun. Hazel hung out in the lodge and we rotated baby duty. Sunday morning, the alarm shattered the silence at 4:45am and I was off for a 13 hour round trip to The Large Ski Area for ski patrol.

The day was eventful and exhausting. That's all I'll say about that.

But it was pretty cool coming home after a long and emotionally draining day to see these two smiling faces. Soon Hazel will be zooming down the slopes with mom and dad and we'll all be a family on the mountain again. But until then we'll take turns, and enjoy hanging out with our slobbering, babbling, squirming bundle of cuteness.

Ouray Ice Festival

2009-01-29T21:32:00.001-08:00

Tiny shards of ice flew past my face as I hacked into the man-made ice of the Ouray Ice Park. My crampons dug into the ice with perfect ease as world class mountaineer Vince Anderson shouted advice up the rope.

“The swing is all in the elbow,” he yelled, “not in the wrist. Focus. Relax.”

Relax. Yeah. This was relaxing.

NoPoGirl and I decided to learn to ice climb back in 2000 when we lived in Colorado. There was a new annual spectacle in Colorado’s most beautiful town called the Ouray Ice Festival and we’d heard that was the place to go.

I was working as a TV reporter in Colorado Springs and, with just a little cajoling, was able to convince by boss to let me take a news camera and shoot a feature on the Ice Festival. That’s how NoPoGirl and I ended up dangling from the walls of a canyon on a frozen waterfall with one of the best ice climbers in the world.Nine years later the quaint little gathering founded by mountaineer Jeff Lowe has turned into an international event. Thousands of ice climbers from around the world make the Ouray Ice Festival an annual pilgrimage. There’s a climbing competition, climbing clinics, slack line demonstration across the gorge, an ax throwing contest and a series of slideshows. Ouray residents consider the Ice Festival their biggest yearly attraction.

The ice clings to the granite walls of the Upper Uncompahgre River gorge like a white shroud draped over the quarter mile long canyon. For a decade now, volunteers have rigged hoses, pipes and nozzles to the top of the cliffs. As winter descends upon Southwestern Colorado, the waterfalls grow into ideal climbing routes.

(Above) NoPoGirl takes Hazel skiing for the first time on Ouray's free municipal ski hill.

The ice park is managed by Ouray Ice Park, Inc. The group of locals makes sure the ice is safe and helps set new routes on some of the gorge’s exposed rock faces.
As night falls, ice climbers and locals pack the town’s few quaint bars and restaurant. There’s a party and dance at the local Elks lodge. Ouray’s hot springs offer several giant heated pools and the chance to unwind and heal sore muscles. It’s a spectacular setting.
Ouray bills itself as the “Switzerland of America.” It’s not what you think. The former mining town is not a tacky imitation Bavarian village. The Switzerland reference comes from the large mountains that surround the town. Ouray is ringed by 13,000 foot peaks. Highway 550, the “million dollar highway,” winds its perilous path south through Silverton and Durango. It’s one of the most beautiful stretches of road in the country.
NoPoGirl and I returned to our favorite town in 2009 for the 14th annual ice festival as parents. Because we'd brought Hazel along, we couldn't stay in the bed and breakfasts that truly make staying in Ouray a unique experience. The town has more than a dozen family owned B&Bs that are mostly refurbished Victorians built by miners. Unfortunately, they don't allow children. We found a motel easily though and paid just over $100/night to wake up to a spectacular view just a ten minute walk from the ice park.

As we watched some of the best ice climbers in the world compete on Ouray's famous walls the sun broke through the clouds and NoPoGirl and I caught each others eye. Yeah, we're not skiing or climbing in Ouray this year, but it will always hold a special place in our hearts, even if we have to just watch this year.

Behold: My New Veloforma

2009-01-13T22:18:00.000-08:00

I want to sleep with my new bike.

I've been racing bicycles for a couple of years now. I'm not very fast. It's not because I don't own a nice bike; I lose races because I'm not in the physical condition that my opponents are. I'm OK with that. I've never blamed my bike.

Four years ago, shortly after we moved to Portland, NoPoGirl surprised me on my birthday with a gorgeous new Fuji Roubaix road bike. It has a carbon fork and carbon seat-stays and Shimano Ultegra components. It's fast and fun to ride. I was thrilled. The Roubaix is an entry level road bike, though, and as I got more serious about racing NoPoGirl started telling me I needed a nicer bike.

I'm notoriously cheap and, instead of buying myself a nice bike, I simply made minor improvements to my old one and spent the rest of my time building a fixed gear bike for fun. NoPoGirl would not be deterred though.

She surprised me on my birthday. When I walked in the door from work on Christmas Eve I discovered a Veloforma Ultra road bike on our repair stand in the living room. More importantly, NoPoGirl and Hazel were there to see my surprise. It was a special moment.

Veloforma is based here in the Portland area and also happens to sponsor Ironclad, the bike racing team that I joined last year. The company's founder has been very helpful and provided personalized attention. The bike's all-carbon frame rides like a dream. Its SRAM Rival components and Easton EA90 wheels are slick and light. I don't know what the bike weighs, but it weighs a lot less than my old race bike.

Unfortunately, I'm still in crappy winter riding shape. Fortunately, I have a great new reason to wake up early and sneak in a ride before I ride to work.

Sun, Powder and Copper Mountain

2009-01-08T21:38:00.000-08:00

The Tenmile Range (above and below) provides a stunning backdrop to Copper Mountain's back bowls.

NoPoGirl prepares to drop into Union Bowl, Copper Mountain (above) as Hazel (below) spent the afternoon with her grandparents.

The fresh tracks (above) below Union Bowl were available all day long from Rendezvous chair.

The sun gave us a spectacular show tonight above Colorado's West Slope. Moments after NoPoGirl snapped this picture from our car on I-70, the shadow of Utah's La Sal Mountain Range was projected onto the clouds.

A Crime Scene, a Blizzard and Powder a Hazel and a Half Deep

2009-01-07T20:58:00.001-08:00

NoPoGirl and I loved to ski when we lived in Colorado, but even though we were just a couple of hours from such incredible skiing we didn't get the 50 days a year that we averaged (pre-Hazel) in the Northwest. We just weren't as hard core. We also didn't have a chance to fully appreciate how incredible the terrain and snow really is.

When we return to Colorado for Christmas break, we try to make up for those years when we didn't appreciate what we had. It didn't start out well.

Monday: Eldora, the favorite for Boulder locals, was getting blasted by brutal winds. We'd been on the mountain for 45 minutes when they closed the mountain because the gusts were too intense to safely operate the chairs. Maybe it was karma. Eldora was a crime scene just days before. The mountain's general manager was murdered by an employee. Crazy.

Tuesday: Loveland, one of our favorite smaller areas, was similarly blustery. As chinook winds hammered the Front Range, 50 mph winds raked the Continental Divide above the ski area. NoPoGirl and I toughed it out in 11 degree weather and 50 meter visibility while my parents hung out in the lodge with Hazel.

Today: The Payoff. I-70 was closed because of blizzard conditions, but Copper Mountain was blessed with powder a Hazel and a half deep (that's about three feet) that was perfectly dry and fluffy.

My throat is still sore from all of the howling and screaming that I couldn't contain as we hurdled through the pow. It's good to be home.

Home in Colorado

2009-01-04T22:57:00.001-08:00

ESTES PARK, Colorado - There's something magical about being home in the Rockies. There's the squeak of new-fallen snow under your boots, the smell of pine-trees, the blazing sun in 8 degree weather, or the thin air at my parents 8,000 foot elevation house. It's a spectacular place.
I spent the best and most memorable moments of my childhood in this mountainous place. The craggy peaks have barely changed. My first glacier walk happened here. My first summit looms within sight of town. Lumpy Ridge towers over the place where NoPoGirl and I were married.

It's both wonderful and painful coming home. It's painful because I want to be here more often. It's wonderful re-living the memories and introducing my daughter to the mountains that made me who I am today.

Hazel is reacting to Colorado the same way she does to most new environments: with a suspicious stare and a careful suck of the hand. Pay attention girl. You may be an Oregonian by birth, but I'll teach you to be a Coloradan at heart.

Rainageddon 2009?

2009-01-01T18:32:00.000-08:00

It's raining in Tillamook. A lot. And there's snow in the Coast Range. A lot of it. It is because of these two weather events that They have sent me, a photographer and a satellite truck to Tillamook.

We're waiting for the water to rise.

Powder. Baby.

2008-12-27T23:54:00.001-08:00

NoPoGirl smashed through mound after mound of thigh deep powder as we careened down 1 Bowl at Mount Hood Meadows. I had been experiencing "powder stress," a phenomenon that occurs when one is stressing that the ultimate powder stash lays tucked away on some undiscovered slope. This phenomenon was exacerbated by the fact that I spent the past week standing on highway overpasses instead of enjoying the ridiculous amount of snow that's been falling in the mountains.

We looked everywhere on Christmas Day and found stash after stash of mind-boggling, perfect snow. NoPoGirl and I decided to treat ourselves to a present and put Hazel in the ski area's daycare.

NoPoGirl and I have slowed down a bit since Hazel came along. We still rock climb, bike race and ski but it's hard to maintain the same tempo that we once did. Don't get me wrong, we'll make a comeback. But it's tough with a 5 month old. Because NoPoGirl was pregnant last season, it's been a year and a half since we skied aggressively together.

As Hazel hung out in daycare for a cool $85/day, we chased each other around the mountain seeking out the deepest snow and the steepest lines. It was incredible.

At the end of the day, my cheeks were actually sore from smiling so much.

Winter Sets In

2008-12-21T21:27:00.000-08:00

When you work in the news business, you get accustomed to standing out in nasty weather talking about road conditions and wind chill. It comes with the territory. It's what we sign up for.

The latest winter storm, though, has crept slowly, reluctantly across the Northwest. We've been on the air for days with nearly non-stop weather coverage. The problem is that, until this weekend, there has been very little weather to speak of. The weather forecasts have been reliably, horribly wrong. It has seemed as if there was always an arctic air mass 12 hours away, but it never came. Meanwhile, those of us who are paid to stand beside the road and fill time in a newscast were expected to find a new and creative way to describe wet roads and smooth traffic.

The big storm, it seems, has finally arrived. There are between six and eight inches of snow on the ground. A nasty 1/8 inch thick layer of ice sits on top of that. The park near our house (Cathedral Park) is gorgeous.

Hazel seems to be taking it all in stride. We dragged her up to Mount Hood Saturday and took turns watching her while one of us rode through perfect knee deep powder. Tonight, we took her for a walk around the neighborhood. The kid will grow up in the snow.

And even though the past two weeks have been brutal, cold and mind-numbing, I wish it snowed here a lot more often.

Armageddon Arrives

2008-12-14T11:20:00.000-08:00

The phone rang at 4:45 AM when I was two blocks from work. "Brian," they said "it looks like the storm isn't going to hit until this afternoon. Any way you can go back home and work this afternoon?"

Yeah: no.

Luckily, Winter Armageddon 2008 arrived around 7:00 am instead. Sure, it's just a silly little dusting. It would be nothing back home in Colorado. But here in Portland people FREAK OUT when it snows.

And I'm here to watch it all happen. Wheee.

Awaiting Death Flakes From the Sky

2008-12-12T21:14:00.000-08:00

Winter? No. Not yet. They did have a gust to 70mph at the top of Mount Hood Express. But even the predicted 2 feet isn't enough to make anything up here worth skiing.

We need Winter Armegeddon 2008, but it just isn't here.

Shoulder Season

2008-12-07T21:16:00.001-08:00

I hate rain. Seriously. Of all the different types of weather phenomena: rain is my least favorite. Every Fall, though, I console myself as I stare out the windows at another hatefully dreary day by thinking about the snow dumping in the Cascades.

Man, I wish it would rain. The snowpack is dismal and it's been too cloudy most days to bother with the snowy upper slopes of Mount Hood.

If this blog has lacked updates lately, it's not because nothing has been happening. I've been working and hanging out with NoPoGirl and Hazel. I've been on a ride with my new team. NoPoGirl, Hazel and I even headed up to Mount Hood and ski patrolled on the tiny patch of snow that they call the Palmer Snowfield.

But it's been pretty slow around here. Most years, NoPoGirl and I have taken advantage of crappy snow in the Fall and spent the weekends rock-climbing. But we learned months ago that we can't rock climb unless there's a third adult around so one of us can keep an eye on Hazel. That third adult usually climbs the most while NoPoGirl or I hold Hazel.

Unfortunately, although we have lots and lots of AWESOME friends, few of them are as in to rock climbing as we are and even fewer are willing to head off into central Oregon to camp and climb with a baby for a weekend. So, unfortunately, we've had to put rock climbing on the back burner. It's been a bummer for both of us.

That leaves cyclocross. Bike races are easy, they're kid friendly and they're close to home. NoPoGirl and I took Hazel (and Alysha, Patrick and Silas) to the US Grand Prix of Cyclocross race at PIR this weekend and had a great time eating Nutella covered waffles and watching other people suffer through the mud.

As is obvious by the content of this blog, I've become obsessed with cyclocross and bicycle racing. It's a rush and it doesn't take an entire weekend.

But as much as I love hanging out at home, staring at the baby, going for long Sunday bike rides with my new team and generally appreciating Portland, I'm ready for some snow. Hazel's gonna love the lodge. NoPoGirl has new skis. And I have a season pass burning a hole in my pocket.

So, please, let it rain.

Cross Crusade - Covered in Poo

2008-11-16T23:32:00.000-08:00

I don't know if it was horse poo or cow poo or maybe a muddy mix of the two, but I finished the 8th Cross Crusade race at the Washington County Fairgrounds this morning covered in a mucky brown mix of grass, feces and dirt. I loved it.

This is probably the last post I'll write about cyclocross for a while. Today's race was the last in the popular series I've been racing in and I had my best result of the whole Cross Crusade, which is still middle of the pack. That doesn't sound like much, but I started at the back thanks to a random drawing that put me there. The mens C field is so popular that as many as 160 racers have been competing in my category, so in order to make things fair they've been randomly assigning people to begin at the back of the pack. I fought my way past 73 people to finish 57th.

(Above) Airborne while negotiating the Cross Crusade's infamous barriers.
It was a tough fight. The course was flat, but involved three significant obstacles. The first was several piles of bark/pete moss that you had to ride through. The second was an easy series of barriers that you had to dismount and run over. The third was where the poo comes in. The course looped right through some kind of rodeo stadium that was covered in six inches to a foot of mud and manure. It was virtually impossible for weaker cyclists like me to ride through this obstacle so riders were forced to carry their bikes and run through the muck.

I raced through that shit soup four times in my short race.

The best part of the race was that NoPoGirl and Hazel finally came to watch a cyclocross race. NoPoGirl still thinks cyclocross is stupid (she'll be racing at all of the road races next year though) but I got to introduce her to my beloved bike racing team and Hazel got to see all the strange shapes huffing and puffing past on the course.

After the race, NoPoGirl and I took Hazel for her first trip to the beach. It was a perfect finish to an awesome weekend... but twelve hours after racing I was still covered in poo, and I'm looking forward to going clean.

Only in Portland - The Cross Crusade

2008-11-10T17:23:00.000-08:00

I’ve been in the middle of riots and war protests. I walked the flooded streets of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and patrolled the villages in Bosnia after the war. The Cross Crusade cyclocross race at PIR this weekend did not top any of those experiences. But it was one of the craziest experiences I’ve ever been a part of.

Sure, it’s just a silly bike race. But never have I witnessed a more stunning blend of bicycles, athleticism and debauchery. It was shocking. Overwhelming. Fantastic.

I watched a grown man dressed in a sequined dress rocket through a 10 by 10 foot wall of bubbles. A drum brigade stood atop a muddy hillside where more than a thousand cyclists toiled, struggled and bled. My ski patrol buddy rocketed up a slippery, muddy hillside wearing a mumu. At one point five people crashed into each other while trying to negotiate a muddy off-camber downhill section of the course. Another dude raced though the mud for an hour with his broken bike seat shoved in his back pocket. I saw four rear derailleurs snapped off of bike frames. A team-mate raced several laps with his face covered in blood. Someone set off a series of smoke bombs at the top of a runup. It looked like a war zone.

My personal race, which began at 9:50am, was uneventful. A random number drawing determines your starting position and I drew one of the short straws. I started towards the back of a pack of more than 100 competitors. I successfully navigated fields of hand deep mud, a two foot tall concrete barrier, a run up riddled with wooden barriers and that nasty off camber muddy downhill that took out so many people. I finished with a giant smile on my face and spent the rest of the day watching the debacle (and I mean that in a good way) that became the Single Speed Cyclocross World Championships.

By nightfall I was hoarse, dehydrated and still living on the contagious adrenaline that ebbed through the crowd of thousands.

Only in Portland. I love this town.

Battle Creek Cross

2008-11-08T14:48:00.000-08:00

The greens were a little fast, the sand traps were not properly groomed, and the fairway was more like one of those fancy Scottish links courses. You've got to love bike racing on an abandoned golf course.

My bike is covered in seaweed, sand and sweat. It may not be real seaweed but it looks like it. I frantically dashed through knee deep mud and water five different times as I struggled to hold my own at the Battle Creek Cross Race in Salem. The course was a blast. We crossed four slippery wooden bridges, negotiated several stair step runups and I lost count how many barriers we carried our bikes over as we slogged our way around the course.

My team-mate, Joe and I drove down to Salem as two of the only dudes from our team willing to burn the fossil fuels and race two days in a row during this, my weekend of The Cyclocross Orgy.

NoPoGirl and Hazel took off for Texas last week. I'm once again (temporarily) a lonely bachelor piecing together ramen noodles and trying to remember how to remember how the hell I'm supposed to keep myself bathed and sane. Because of this, I decided to dedicate my weekend to my new bike racing team and race both Saturday and Sunday. I am now covered in mud. I did not win the race. I never win races. But I had a huge muddy grin on my face for an hour and I'm now picking the dirt out from between my teeth and deep within my ears. Good times. Time to hose off the steed for tomorrow's race at PIR...

Concession in Pendleton

2008-11-06T15:33:00.000-08:00

Senator Smith's concession speech in his posh office on a hill (above) and his $1.6 million house on a hill overlooking Pendleton below.

Election Assignment

2008-11-04T19:28:00.001-08:00

Hanging out waiting for a media opportunity in Senator Smith's hotel room.

The media scrum stuck in an elevator on the way to see the senator.

Waiting for something to happen in the ballroom at the Benson.

Verboort. Sausage.

2008-11-01T20:14:00.000-07:00

We'd already stuffed ourselves full of sausage and left the small town of Verboort when Peter went down. A group of us including NoPoGirl, Peter, Nate and Marissa rode out to Verboort for a little exercise and rain at the sausage festival. I drove Hazel in the car, which doubled as a sag wagon for the group. It was fun trailing the group and watching everyone toil in the rain.

The Verboort Sausage Festival attracts thousands to the tiny Dutch settlement west of Portland. It's a flashback to simpler times. Elderly people play bingo while tour buses and nursing home shuttles drop off hundreds of elderly folks who proceed to pay $15 for all you can eat sausage.

NoPoGirl, Nate and Marissa decided to call it a day after the 35 miles to Verboort and I got to ride back to town with Peter and friends. We'd ridden about 15 miles when we approached the hill on Helvetia and Peter banked into a right turn about 10 feet in front of me.

Peter's bike went out from under him and he smashed into the pavement. I didn't have any options. His bike and body were in front of me and my only choice was to slam on the brakes and hope for the best. Less than half a second after grabbing the brakes my back wheel locked and I was on the deck too.

Moments later I was checking Peter's c-spine and hoping traffic didn't run us over. Peter, who's 67 years old, insisted on getting up off of the ground and was more concerned with the condition of his carbon-framed, full Ultegra bike than anything else.

It turns out that Peter was sore, but in one piece. He's one of the toughest and most stubborn guys I've met. Despite our best efforts, he insisted on riding back to town.

In keeping with the sausage theme of the ride, my thigh (above) is a little raw.

My bike's OK though. And NoPoGirl and Hazel got to eat sausage. And as far as I know, no-one's been to the hospital yet. How cool is that?

Now who has some Tegaderm?

Rainier

2008-10-19T19:59:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I'm so hooked on cyclocross. Maybe it's the cheering crowds. Maybe it's the simple fact that I know so many people at the races and I'm social. Or maybe, and I mean this, it's the suffering.

Around about lap three at the Rainier Cross Crusade cyclocross race I approached a hill and bile rocketed up into my mouth. What the hell am I doing here, I asked myself, this never happens when I race on the road. I grimaced and cursed and just then a friend of mine from ski patrol appeared from the fog ahead of me and encouraged me to finish the climb.

Gravel and dirt spat out from my spinning tires as I stood up, spat the bile from my mouth and struggled through the last of the climb. Two more laps to go.

The lap before I'd seen a guy fly over his handlebars as he hit a root at the top of another climb. I'd started towards the back of the 140+ person group again (thanks to a bad number in the starting lottery) and was struggling to pass the gaggle of people in front of me. Another guy went down next to me. Yet another flew over his handlebars a hundred yards later on a high speed downhill through some grass.

NoPoGirl rolls her eyes when I talk about cyclocross. "I think it's stupid that you have to get off of your bike," she says, "if I'm going to race my bike, I want to race ON my bike." Makes sense, I guess. So NoPoGirl and Hazel stayed home and slept late while I flailed in the cold morning fog to the cheers and jeers of a couple dozen of my friends and new team-mates.

I plan to spend the next two weekends rock-climbing and hanging out with my little family, but I'll be back racing cyclocross in two weeks and I'll probably fall asleep tonight thinking about it. How pathetic.

A Trip to the Gorge

2008-10-19T17:00:00.000-07:00

NoPoGirl and I had kind of a mellow weekend. One of our friends was holding a rager of a party and we wanted to go. It's a long story. Email me if you want to know the details, which you won't be interested in. Anyway, we decided to stay in town so we could go to the party, which freed us up for another chance to sleep late and go for a hike in the Columbia River Gorge.

We took Hazel to McChord Creek Falls, which is an easy 3 mile round trip about 45 minutes east of Portland. Hazel slept. We took pictures.

Wilsonville Cyclocross

2008-10-13T15:59:00.000-07:00

I kept cursing to myself. I was holding onto my bike like cowboy hanging on to a bucking bull as it lurched and rocked around the Wilsonville Villebois cyclocross course. Why, I kept wondering, am I doing this? When does it start being fun?
Oh yeah. I am having fun. Suffering is fun and fun is cyclocross and cyclocross is suffering.

For those of you who aren't bicycling nerds like me: cyclocross is a lot like mountain bike racing. The Belgians developed it a long time ago to extend their racing season. Racers ride around a mile long (roughly) loop for a set period of time. The course includes barriers and very steep hills that require you to dismount and run with your bike. Here in the Northwest, cyclocross season is in the muddy, rainy fall so it's usually a pretty messy affair. The races are well attended, especially here in Oregon and riders are frequently cheered on by hundreds of beer-swilling spectators.

It is the coolest thing ever.

Wilsonville was my second cyclocross race and my first as a member of my new bicycle racing team, which I am very excited about. The team is much more cohesive than the last team I raced for and organized a little differently. It's a better fit for me, even though I loved Team Oregon and all of the people I raced with.

If next year is anything like this weekend's race, I'm in for a great racing season.

A New Life for the Fuji

2008-09-28T22:14:00.000-07:00

See that bike? That's the bike that turned me into a bike nerd. It's my old Fuji Ace. It's a 2001 model. I bought it in Castle Rock, Colorado just before I got married.

I sold that bike a month ago with a heavy heart. I had just bought a new bike for cyclocross racing and I knew it would make a great commuter bike.

But man, that Fuji and I have been places. It had 10,000 miles on the odometer when I sold it. We rode all over Colorado. I completed my first century on it in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It rocked and rolled through the rough and tumble streets of Portland, battling rain and sun and snow for four years.

I got 15 responses to my ad on Craigslist for that bike. The kid who bought it from me is 18 years old. He was just starting his freshman year at Oregon State.

I felt like an idiot as he pushed the bike off towards his pickup truck. "Take good care of it," I said, "I still love that bike." He looked at me kind of funny and said OK. "I'm just really attached to it," I stammered, "we've been through a lot together." I was bummed for the rest of the day after he left.

Tonight when I checked my email, there was a message from him. It's been a month, mind you. Here's what it says:

"This bike kicks ass for this place. Thanks man, I would consider it one of the best here!"

That kid just made my day. Somewhere, down in Corvallis, Oregon, a kid is riding my old bike around campus with a smile on his face. And that makes me smile too.

Smith Rock and The Crying Baby

2008-09-28T21:29:00.000-07:00

Yeah so we were a little ambitious on Saturday. NoPoGirl and I apparently did not learn from our experience two weeks ago when we drove all the way to French's Dome and did not climb because Hazel didn't want us to. What the hell, we thought, let's give it another try.

So Saturday morning we loaded up the Subaru and headed for Smith Rock. We were at the bottom of our planned by 2pm. We promptly set up Hazel's playpen in a rock cave so she'd be protected from rockfall and the blazing sun and set to work gearing up for the climb. She cried for three hours. At 5pm we gave up and headed for camp. Our rope did not leave the ground Saturday.

Luckily, our friends Brendan and Ariel showed up Saturday night and shared our campsite. Sunrise Sunday morning brought new possibilities. With a party of four, someone could watch the baby while the rest of us climbed. We actually got back on the rock and enjoyed the day as Hazel wavered between crying and staring at the rock ceiling of her cave.

I have to be honest, dragging myself out of the comfort of our home to go rock climbing is hard with a baby. Before Hazel came along, we did something like this every single weekend rain or shine. Now, I hesitate because I know it's going to be a lot of work. For selfish reasons, I'm tempted to stay home where it's easy and I can go for a bike race and NoPoGirl can go to the gym and Hazel can stick to her routine.

But luckily I'm married to NoPoGirl, who insists that we still try. It's hard for me. I get frustrated because I want to go hard like we used to.

NoPoGirl is patient. She's just happy to be outside with me and Hazel. At eight weeks old, the little girl has already spent four nights camping, visited the North Cascades, endured ski lift evacuation practice and been rock climbing three times. She's quite the trooper.

And me? I'm really starting to enjoy taking it slow. Yes, Hazel screams at inopportune moments. But things are different now. I'm just happy to be with my little family, learning how to adjust our old lifestyle to the new little bundle of joy in our life. Hopefully someday Hazel will appreciate being outside as much as we do. She's got a good start.

A Weekend With the Grandparents

2008-09-21T19:55:00.000-07:00

The family flew in from Colorado and Texas and we had a mostly mellow few days with Hazel. I snuck out Sunday morning and raced my first cyclocross race, in which I promptly placed in the bottom 1/3.

Back at Work

2008-09-15T11:48:00.000-07:00

I've been on paternity leave for six weeks. Six weeks of baby, baby poo and bicycling. It's been the longest stretch of inactivity for me since I was 16. And it was fantastic.

Man, reality is painful.

Climbing, Camping and Evacuating

2008-09-13T20:52:00.001-07:00

Saturday morning dawned bright and cold after a long star-lit night below Mount Hood. The Barker Clan camped in Der Kaiserhutte with Patrick, Alysha and Silus on a forgotten dirt road near a forgotten bridge across a nameless creek near Mount Hood Skibowl.

Friday night was a long night. We decided to take Hazel rock climbing for the first time.

NoPoGirl hadn't lead climbed in months and hadn't climbed at all since delivering Hazel, so we decided to take a leisurely drive up to Frenchman's Dome below Mount Hood and try out a little climbing before camping Friday night.

NoPoGirl climbed like a champ, but Noah was incorrigible as he usually is and Hazel became very unhappy just after NoPoGirl finished her first climb. We bailed. But dammit, we tried. And we climbed. And we'll keep trying, even though it may be harder than it used to be.

Saturday, after camping on that road with our friends, we headed to Summit Ski Area for our yearly chance to practice evacuating people from a broken chairlift. This is an annual requirement for ski patrollers, but it's also a great opportunity to catch up with some of the great people we share the mountain with all winter.

They were all excited to meet Hazel and the general consensus was that she will make a great ski patroller, just like her mom and dad.

The following video is NOT representative of my editing or photography abilities. I threw it together in ten minutes on my new Apple after 2 hours of sleep the night before...

Kermessed Up

2008-09-07T18:28:00.000-07:00

(Above) The group flies down the back straightaway. Photo generously provided by Melissa Boyd.

We'd just rounded the first few corners and were flying down a straightaway when I saw people and bikes in the air. I was racing in the C category, which is the slowest at Kruger's Kermesse.

The race is a farm crit, where cyclists race around dirt roads on a farm in a circuit. To put it very simply: whoever does the most laps of the circuit and hits the finish line at the end of the alloted time wins.

I did not win. And neither did the poor guys in the wreck I barely avoided. Man, they were hurting.

(Above) Me, suffering. Photo generously provided by Melissa Boyd.
My new cyclocross bike performed admirably though, even though I felt like I was holding on to a bucking bronco for 45 minutes. My average heart rate was 183, my max was 191 and 20 minutes after the race my heart was still beating at 140 beats per minute. That was a red-line workout.

This is the unofficial beginning of cyclocross season and it brings out lots of teams that don't really make appearances at the area's road races. But even though they're not throwing down on the road all year they're still super strong. I also got to meet blogger Carlisle's Class, who sometimes comments on this blog. He came in 3rd. I came in 27th.

As for the poor dudes in the wreck, I don't know how they fared. I know one guy ended up in an ambulance. I haven't stopped thinking about those guys and I hope they're doing well. Rubber side down, guys...

Family Camping

2008-09-06T21:35:00.000-07:00

When I look back at my life and add up all of the nights I've spent in a tent, it probably totals roughly a year. That's one year of my life camping. Before Hazel was born, NoPoGirl and I couldn't remember the last time we spent a Saturday night at home. NoPoGirl and I both know that we want Hazel to grow up in a tent too, and it's never too early to start.

So the Barker family hit the road after a few days in Eastern Washington and headed up to the remote northern part of the state. We didn't have much of a plan, but decided to spend the first night outside of Mazama, which is in the northwest part of the Methow Valley. Hazel did great in the tent so we decided to spent a second night in North Cascades National Park. The park is spectacular, but isolated. We drove 23 miles down a forest road and hiked up towards Cascade Pass, which sits atop a stunning cirque of hanging glaciers and towering peaks.

I have one more week of paternity leave left before I have to return to work and reality. I've been really lucky to have the time I've had to get to know my beautiful daughter. I can't wait to take her on more adventures!

She's Back on the Bike!

2008-09-01T16:14:00.000-07:00

NoPoGirl's family cabin is located on the Columbia River in Eastern Washington, about 2 hours east of Ellensburg. The hills are huge, brown and majestic. The river runs wide and deep down the canyon and high on the rolling hills above sits hundreds of miles of fantastic road riding.

Today, for the first time in months, NoPoGirl was able to get back on the bike and savor the wind in her hair. We rolled through an easy 20 miles, one month to the day after NoPoGirl gave birth. I don't know who was more excited, though, she or I. I was pretty stoked to be back on the road with her. Hazel was back in the family cabin with her grandmother.

As the miles ticked by we were both reminded of simpler times when we could both go for a ride whenever we wanted to. Right now, we're in that awkward stage when Hazel's too young to sit in the bike trailer.

But next year, women of cycling, watch out. NoPoGirl will be tearing up the race course. And Hazel and I will be on the sidelines with the Burley, making lots of noise.

Mad Props to NoPoGirl's Family

2008-08-30T19:14:00.000-07:00

We're in Eastern Washington at NoPoGirl's family cabin. It's Hazel's first big road trip. Luckily, Hazel was not in the boat when we decided to do a little Columbia River sandbar modification with the family boat. Not my fault! That honor goes to the Great Boat Captain, NoPoGirl's dad.

Cross!

2008-08-23T17:33:00.000-07:00

I've always liked to suffer and I think I might have found my newest outlet: Cyclocross!

I am now the proud new owner of a 2004 Cannondale cyclocross bicycle. I got a screaming deal on it from a fellow bicycle racer and I can't wait to get it muddy.

If you're not familiar with cyclocross, it's a cross between mountain bike racing and road racing. A cyclocross bike is a burly road bike. A large group of cyclists races around a muddy circuit of hills and barriers for a set period of time. I've never tried it. It looks like a blast!

The only problem is that cyclocross season only lasts for two months and happens to fall in the middle of our fall climbing season. NoPoGirl has made it very clear to me that rock climbing will take precedence, but when it's rainy and there's no-where to climb, look for me at the local cyclocross race.

Here's a video I found on-line:

I now have to sell a bicycle to account for the money I spent on my new ride. I'll use it to commute, so I'll be selling my trusty Fuji commuter. Let me know if you're interested!

Fire and Water

2008-08-19T15:11:00.000-07:00

We'd been racing for about twenty minutes when I noticed the whisps of smoke floating up the side of the bluff. Focus, I told myself, if you do too much sightseeing you're going to end up on your face. We raced some more, careening around corners at 95% of my max heart rate.

(Above) That's me, suffering, on the far left.
The Swan Island Criterium course forms a lazy D around an industrial area in North Portland. During a criterium, cyclists race around the course in a tight formation at high speeds.

As we flew around the corner again, I glanced up from the wheel in front of me and saw flames racing through the grassy ladder fuels and starting to torch trees. An entire neighborhood sat above the steep hillside and, I would find out later, neighbors were frantically spraying their homes with garden hoses as firefighters arrived on scene.

(Above, far right) At the starting line.
It was a strange distraction for a bike race. It was around 90 degrees at race time and record breaking 103 degree temps were forecast for later in the day.

It turns out nobody crashed because they were distracted by the fire. Firefighters doused the flames and no-one lost their home. Most importantly, I scored a significant confidence boost for my second criterium and I'm now ready for more.

Saturday's weather was a sharp contrast to Monday's steady drizzle and darkness at PIR. There is only one week of racing left at the track and I'm enjoying experimenting at the front of the pack. I got close to winning a sprint lap on Monday, but went out too soon. Hopefully I'll be able to take what I learned this year and have a more successful season next year, with Hazel cheering from the sidelines and NoPoGirl teaching the women how to race...

Back On the Road

2008-08-14T22:25:00.000-07:00

I often wondered how much NoPoGirl and I would slow down now that we're parents. My curiosity followed 9 months of dire warnings from acquaintances about how having a child would drastically alter our lifestyle. They're right. We have slowed down. Hazel's just 11 days old and we're spending a lot of time just cuddling with her at home. A few of our wiser friends, though, have told us to make sure we don't change too much. Make sure you travel, they told us.

In the spirit of their advice, we took Hazel on her first road-trip Wednesday night. It was low impact. We stayed in an old hotel in White Salmon, Washington and spent Thursday hanging out in the Columbia River and hiking in the Gorge.

Next week, Hazel goes camping for her first time. By ski season, she'll be an old pro. We're also introducing her to the gear she'll need to keep up with the Barkers, because we all know what happens to people who can't keep up with us! They're NORMAL.

Sunset Criterium

2008-08-09T18:18:00.000-07:00

(Above) That's me in the red on the left. It was ugly, windy and lonely at the back of the pack.

My pedal smacked into the ground in turn four of the Sunset Criterium's course and I felt the rear end of my bike lift off of the ground. I was in a sharp turn near the back of the main field and my heart rate was around 180, which is about 90% of my max. This is what I had been afraid of. We were only 12 minutes into the 30 minute red-line race around the 1/2 mile long loop and I was worried about going down. I started to sketch, I cracked, and I popped off the back of the field.

I think it's fair to say that I am not a strong criterium racer. For those of you who don't follow bike racing, a criterium is a very fast street race around a short course where cyclists race for a set period of time, not laps, and whoever finishes first at the end of that time wins.

I've had a friendly rivalry going with a few guys from other teams and one of my favorite people to race against was in the field, but I couldn't even keep up. I have a lot more learning to do and a lot of fitness to build.

But I did have the best cheering section at the race! NoPoGirl, Hazel, Nateski and Mike the Engineer from work were all there.

And NoPoGirl is looking GREAT five days after giving birth! I'll be racing next year too, but I'll be on the sidelines a lot too as she gets back on the bike and shows me how to really race.

The best part? Even though I didn't kick ass today, I have an awesome family to hang out with tonight.

Portland Twilight Crit

2008-08-09T11:23:00.000-07:00

The Barker family hit the Twilight Crit in downtown Portland last night and watched with thousands of others as the Pro 1/2 men raced for one hour around a half mile race course. This was Hazel's first bike race too, even though she slept through the entire event!
NoPoGirl's parents came along too and we met up with Patrick,Alysha and Silas, ANGELA, Nateski and Liz and Justin and Mary. This was our longest outing with Hazel but we're building up to a return to near pre-pregnancy activites.

We're already planning the first trip to the mountains and the beach, our first camping trip and our first trip to the Kaiser cabin to go rock climbing.

Today, daddy races his bike!

Hazel On-Line

2008-08-07T13:15:00.000-07:00

Hazel is now three days old and she has her own web-page! You can find it at http://barkersbaby.blogspot.com! Sure, I'll post lots of Hazel updates on this blog too, but with so many friends and family members scattered around the world, I thought it'd be good to have a clearinghouse for pictures of our little bundle of joy.
Besides, I'm still going to post lots of cycling, skiing and climbing-related stuff on this blog... so stay-tuned!

Less Than a Day Old...

2008-08-05T12:50:00.000-07:00

Hazel and NoPogirl are doing great! Sorry if we haven't returned all the calls or emails. It's pretty busy around here. We go home tomorrow...

Meet Hazel Gregg Barker

2008-08-04T20:00:00.000-07:00

Hazel Gregg Barker was born at 3:19pm after slightly less than 7.5 hours of labor. She's healthy and happy and sleepy and curious.

NoPoGirl is amazing and has more strength than I ever knew she had, despite finishing countless triathlons, bicycle stage races and difficult rock climbs. This is more impressive than anything I've seen her do. What a miraculous thing to witness.

Hazel weighs 6 pounds, 13 ounces and is 21 inches long. I am the luckiest man in the world.

Not Yet...

2008-08-03T19:45:00.000-07:00

We're on edge here at the Barker house. Things will be changing very soon around here, with the addition of a new future skier/cyclist/climber to the scene. We're just waiting for she/he to show up. In the mean-time, we're taking it easy and doing the kind of stuff regular people do.
NoPoGirl and I went to Mount Saint Helens today with her brother and his wife and it was fantastic. I also got in a nice ride with Team Oregon and we revived the barbeque. It's been a really mellow weekend. Something tells me that's about to change...

A Soggy PIR

2008-07-29T21:35:00.000-07:00

Our 39 person Cat 3/4 field spun around PIR's 2 mile track like a bunch of blue-hairs driving on ice. A steady July drizzle that had been sitting over the West Hills oozed over North Portland just as we rolled onto the track for the first of 15 laps.

My goal for the night: ride a solid race in my first 3/4 group and focus on not getting lured into any testosterone-driven, energy-wasting flyers on laps where there are no points up for grabs. I am not a mature bicycle racer and have been in the habit of sprinting towards the front on laps that mean nothing and then being too burned out to perform at all on sprint laps.

As the track got wetter and wetter and the field started cursing, I noticed we all had the same instinct for self-preservation. The pack slowed down on the oil-slicked, wet turns and the sprints seemed safer than they usually are in the 4/5 races I've been doing.

I finished near the back of the pack, but Team Oregon got a top ten finish.

I also accomplished my other goal for the night: avoid a crash so I can hold little baby Barker when she/he is born. It would be a bummer to have an arm in a sling when that happens.
Team Ironclad's front-man was kind enough to provide me with a pre-baby congratulatory race recovery drink (above) which has already been consumed as I rest my tired legs and scheme about how soon I can get baby Barker in the bike trailer...

Courthouse Crit

2008-07-27T22:20:00.000-07:00

(Above) Jacob Rathe rockets through a corner with 10 laps to go.
I did not race the Vancouver Courthouse Criterium, but NoPoGirl and I rolled across the river in time to catch the Pro 1/2 group as they suffered for an hour around the streets of Vancouver. Team Oregon did pretty well in the Cat 3 group, but we missed it. We spent our time cheering for Kenji, who pleased us with lots of suffering and sweating.
We also spent Saturday night at a friend's wedding in Glenwood, which is near Mount Adams. It's also about an hour from the nearest hospital and with NoPoGirl just 2 weeks from her due-date, I was a little nervous about being in such a remote locale. We survived though.
(Above) K-man, in blue, works to close a gap in turn 3.
This is also an exciting weekend for me, because the Tour de France is over. Finally that maddeningly stupid Bacardi commercial will be gone from my life. I'm going to have to stifle a vomit every time I see a Saab. Phil and Paul will no longer narrate my daily commute in my mind. And the TV will turn off again. I'll turn it back on next year, when Levi wins the TDF.

Ski Patrolling in July

2008-07-20T21:23:00.000-07:00

(Above) Perhaps you'll notice NoPoGirl's pants. They're supposed to zip above her waist. There's a bulge there... a bulge that in a few years will hopefully be shredding along with us.
The alarm went off on our bedside table at 4:00 am. The horrific claxon was a sickening wakeup call after laying in bed for hours having nightmares about little babies made of silly putty with no brains, but that's a story for a different post. I did not want to be awake.

Five hours later I was at 8,000 feet on Mount Hood with NoPoGirl ranting about how thrilled I was that we'd gone to the trouble of dispatching for a summer shift as ski patrollers and burned the fossil fuels getting to the mountain. We're required to serve at least one day as patrollers during the summer in order to maintain our membership. It turns out this is one of the best times of the year to be on the mountain.

NoPoGirl had ulterior motives. She hoped being on the mountain would cause her to go into labor. Me? I just thought it'd be cool to tell the future Barker Experiment #1 that he/she hit the slopes days before birth.

The weather was spectacular. The temps hit 70+ degrees at the top of the highest lift. For most of the day, the several hundred ski and snowboard camp attendees who populate the mountain kept from injuring themselves and gave us lots of time to lounge in the sun and enjoy making turns in July at the only ski area open in the US. Yeah, we had some first-aid action, but only at the end of the day. Nate, Terry (above) and I took the opportunity to explore the crevasses near the top of the White River Glacier. Millions of tons of snow and ice cascade down the canyon, leaving giant fissures in the snowfields. It's a humbling sight watching a glacier on the move.

So what, you may ask, did NoPoGirl do? NoPoGirl, who is just 3 weeks from her due-date, could not stand to watch me ski. She knows she can't act as a patroller and haul a thrashing, bleeding patient into a sled, but she still decided to make some turns.

We tried to talk her out of it. But if you know NoPoGirl, you know that once she's made up her mind, there's no talking her out of anything. And that's why I love her.

Fire on the Mountain

2008-07-15T09:03:00.000-07:00

(Above) The view from Trout Lake.

Mt Adams is on fire. I'll be out of email and cell-phone range. Later!
(Above) Courtesy Jim Crowley.
(Above) A newser, courtesy Mike The Engineer

Beached

2008-07-14T07:50:00.000-07:00

It was the dead of winter when I came home to find NoPoGirl curled up in bed. It had snowed 2 feet on Mount Hood that day and the latest ski report flickered on the monitor in front of her. NoPoGirl was seriously bummed that she couldn't get to the mountain. We were both worried a ski crash could cause problems with her pregnancy, so she barely skied at all this winter.

That night, we decided to splurge and drove through the tempest to the coast and stayed at a fancy hotel. It snowed in the Coast Range that weekend, but NoPoGirl and I relaxed and tried to forget about the skiing she was missing.

Somewhere around that time, as the mightiest winter in years dumped feet of snow on the mountain, NoPoGirl began plotting her summer. She needed a light at the end of the tunnel. She made reservations for us to stay at Nehalem Bay State Park on the Oregon coast.

It was 92 degrees in Portland this weekend, when we headed out to the coast to beach ourselves like whales and relax. Little did we know it was in the high 60s and the wind-chill was in the low 50s.
So as Portland sweltered, NoPoGirl and I wore sweatshirts and did nothing on the beach. It was a far cry from those snowy days in February where NoPoGirl couldn't ski because she was pregnant. And this time next year, we'll hopefully be frolicking on the beach once again with Barker Baby Experiment #1.

Mt Tabor, and Thoughts on The Tour

2008-07-09T21:29:00.000-07:00

I raced at Mount Tabor tonight. I did not win. Here's what it's like, for me anyway, to race around this short hilly course:

Start climb climb climb turn don't hit the pole big chain ring sprint downhill 39MPH harder harder dude swerves dodge flat sun in face hill ahead downshift sprint uphill hammer hammer go go go heart rate 181 redline gonna vomit bile in throat push harder stay with the group passing finish line right turn wheel caught in rut saved myself sprint uphill some more dude breaks in front of me almost hit him turn barely miss the gate back to the big chain ring heart rate 185 still with the group THAT WAS JUST ONE LAP!?!?!?!?

Tonight was my best showing at Mount Tabor. I stayed with the group for most of the race, but blew up in the last two laps and crossed the finish line (picture above) in pretty pathetic shape. It's a sufferfest, but I love it.

Portland is a great town to race bicycles. But when the Tour de France is on TV, it seems everyone in this town turns into a bike racer.

I have no scientific evidence of this, but the three weeks during which the TdF is held must be the most dangerous days for cyclists in Portland.

There was the dude in the Primal jersey on the squeaky old Bridgestone with down tube shifters careening down the waterfront, slaloming through dozens of lunchtime joggers. He clipped a girl while I watched and just kept on going. You should have seen the look of concentration on his face. In his mind, he was racing. In the joggers mind, he was an ass.

On my commute recently, I passed a guy on a slicked out mountain bike wearing a Gerolsteiner kit. I was on my single speed. I heard him crunch through a few gears behind me after I passed him. A minute later he squeaked past me, huffing and puffing all the way. Take it, bro.

Hell, I'm certainly guilty of the occasional commuter race. I've gotten into a dead sprint with a stranger at 1am. But it's different. EVERYONE seems to be acting like that.

Ride around town and you'll see all kinds of oddly aggressive cycling behavior these days. We're all inspired, I guess. We all can hear Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen in our imagination as they narrate our plodding progress through traffic.

Yeah, we're all wannabes. Just be careful out there. But race on a race course. And quit clipping pedestrians. Thank you.

Sleeping Beauty Peak

2008-06-27T12:10:00.000-07:00

I wanted drugs, badly. My head was throbbing. My neck: stiff. I tossed and turned Saturday night, willing daylight to come and, with it, a bumpy ride out of the mountains to the nearest urgent care clinic and, hopefully, antibiotics.

By Sunday I had a 103.8 degree fever.

I was sick because I had pushed myself when I shouldn't have, but for a few fleeting moments Saturday afternoon, it was worth it.

NoPoGirl and I decided to load up the truck Saturday morning and drive out into the backcountry around Mount Adams. I wasn't feeling great but I decided if I was going to be sick, I might as well be sick in the mountains.(Above) NoPoGirl on the summit of Sleeping Beauty.
Our destination: Sleeping Beauty Peak. The 4,907 foot volcanic plug is situated roughly half way between Mount Saint Helens and Mount Adams and commands a fantastic view of Mount Adams' south flanks, less than 10 miles away.

The drive is harder than the hike. From Portland, you drive up the Columbia River Gorge, through Hood River, across the bridge to Washington and then 20 miles to Trout Lake. Then you follow a 12 mile series of dirt roads to get to the trailhead. It's a haul.The trail is an easy, 1.5 mile series of switchbacks up a hillside that stop at a small saddle. From the saddle you tackle another group of switchbacks that wind up and through the andesite rocks that make up the massif. There was once a fire lookout here, and whoever built it also crafted an intricate series of rock walls that help chisel the trail out of the mountainside. NoPoGirl, Noah and I reached the top in just over an hour and took in the staggering view. You can see Mount Adams, St. Helens, Rainier, Hood and the glaciated Goat Rocks Wilderness from the summit. It's a spectacular view.And even though I'm pretty sure I was running a fever and getting sicker by the step on that short hike, it was worth it.