Paw prints on the trail at Rancho

This picture of huge paw prints on a trail at Rancho La Puerta is taken from the blog, Worth the Whisk.  There are signs on the trails warning of cougar sightings.  These look more like those of a large Badger.

Macarons/bike blog turned food blog?

This post is made with Patti Londre in mind, creator of Worth The Whisk.  After some Fairmont intervals today, Craig and I went to a new Bakery on NW 10th, Nuvrei.  They have lots of sandwiches, salads, and pastries, but we discovered the macarons!

So many flavors, some with butter cream frosting, others with a ganache concoction.  Craig coined it perefectly when he said, "the frosting is a perfect compliment to the almond cookie."  My favorites?  The lemon with lemon/lime & orange zest butter cream zest frosting.  What could be better?  Add some Kombucha and I'm set.  Or, in Craig's case, a cup of their in-house roasted coffee.  Yelp reviewers seems to agree that these are some of the best macarons in Portland.  Warning - they are spendy little creatures at $2 a pop.

You can take home a rainbow assortment of these things!

On a sad note, the Bianchi didn't turn out quite as I wanted.  Hard to shift, extra clicks on the left, hitting the right crank on the front derailleur with every revolution.  Seems the old Shimano 105's are not compatible with a compact crank.  Back to the triple.

The Bianchi rain bike

Just picked up the Imola and it looks so much better.  Now to go ride in the rain to see if it fits better!

Too bad you can't see the Chris King bottom bracket

New FSA crankset, compact bars, got rid of the old quill type stem

This poor bike is becoming a mutt - Todd has some Campy shifters he can put on it so I don't have the extra clicks using the old Shimano 105's.

I have a cool Oregon rain sticker that KRhea designed that I'll put on too.

My wheel obcession

My Mavic Ksyrium Elite wheel rims are getting worn.  I like these out of the box wheels that weigh about 1550 gms.  I began to search for new wheels, talking to just about anyone that would listen and got a lot of advice.  A pair of Elite's advertised on Craig's List turned out to be a bogus pair of ?something? very small and heavy with a pasted on decal, 'Ksyrium Elite'.  Then, as I was telling my tales of woe my to my friend, Art, he interrupted me to say, "I have a pair in my garage I got from a swap meet for $150.  You can have them for that."  Whoa.  A $650+ pair of wheels, new, for $150!  They are perfect, the right color (black), Shimano drivetrain, never used, probably 2009's.  They are on my bike now.  Competitive Cyclist does a good review of them on YouTube.

In the course of searching for wheels, I now have a wish list and know just a tad more about them.  Dan at SW Bicycle said his favorite wheel is custom build, Velocity rims with DT Swiss spokes and Chris King hubs.  They weigh about 1400 gms.  I'd do black spokes with black Chris King hubs.

(VA - they are now available campy compatible!)

I also just found a very good article about custom builds on my favorite bike blog, Cycling Tips.

I'm into deals - getting a black FSA compact crankset from KRhea today for my rain bike!  Had to buy a new bottom bracket to fit, so splurged for a Chris King.  Overkill I know, but it'll last forever.  Todd,  the great mechanic at SW Bicycles talked me into it:

Mexican Biking

Ok, so it's been a while since I've made a post.  Andy Schleck won the 2010 TDF by default (poor Alberto), Lance is no longer being investigated and my blog has had no activity since December.  Doesn't mean we haven't been riding, on the contrary, Portland has had a mild winter and some weeks we are getting in over 100 miles.

February 3-13 I snagged a job providing medical relief at Rancho La Puerta, a 'spa' type resort in Tecate, Mexico.  I think it's more like a Girl Scout camp for adults.  Off the bike for more than 13 days!  Driving down to Mexico on CA-94 from San Diego I saw some bikers in race kits.  Not much of a shoulder, but I learned that the drivers are used to bikers and there are also many side roads into the mountains.  Man, I was sad I left my shoes and pedals at home.  Not that I would have had time to bike, but seeing bikers out riding made me wistful.  There is even a bike shop in Tecate where I could have rented a bike.  Oh well, the ranch kept me busy; I had weekend 24/7 call and night call during the week.  No real emergencies, just a few calls to make it interesting.  I love RLP - I met some new friends, friendships we hope are lasting.

My casita

So... back to biking around Mexico.  I discovered through a local that there is a sponsored ride May 5th, Rosarito to Ensenada.  We are going down to ride the Pacific Coast Century again this year (see post 5/10/10).  Maybe we should include this fun ride down in Mexico!  Dennis?  Are you up for that?  Interestingly enough, I told KRhea, PV Pres about that ride today and he knows the organizer.  No surprise, he is well connected in the bike world.

Speaking of the PCC and yes, this is related, I met Romney 'Nani' Steele, whose grandparents were the creators of Nepenthe.  We were able to go to a lunch cooking class she taught (Craig came down for two days).

Craig at our cooking class

I told her about our experience at Nepenthe, when we were riding down Highway 1 during the 2010 PCC.  Also told her about my video at Nepenthe (see post 5/19/10).  She told me to google Big Sur 1969, CSN&Y and there she is, a little girl, in front of the pool at the Esalen Institute, dancing to a live concert of CSN&Y.  Take me back in time!  I bought both her books, 'My Nepenthe' and 'Plum Gorgeous' both more than cookbooks and very good night reading.  Her friend, Sarah Henry, a free lance writer for Bay Area Bites, was fun to listen to with her Aussie accent, "a personal shift" (chef).

Also met a wonderful woman of Greek heritage, Lina Minicucci, an artist in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania.  Gotta love that town's name!  Andy enjoyed getting some Greek recipes from her (Andy drove down from Irvine for both weekends I was there!).

typical RLP vege meal

Getting side tracked once again, Andy left RLP early last Sunday.  She was invited to the Grammy's with her Uncle Keith who is now the head of iTunes for Apple.  She enjoyed the night with the Apple entourage, going to the EMI party in their limo afterwards.

Another friend I made was Suzanne Shiff, who runs the Napa Coalition of Non-Profit Agencies.  "Welcome to the Ranch" you could hear her saying to new folks coming in the dining room to start their week (she'd been there two weeks already). She needs to be the ranch docent (yes they have one).   'Life Coach' Emily Boorstein was one of the most insightful people I have met and we bonded the first day.  Some of her pearls of wisdom; "No first impressions; listen to the person you first meet and you will always find something you will like."  Or "sarcasm is just an acceptable form of hostility."  Of course, I had to attend Shabbat last Friday night.  Very moving.

Shabbat

I took a class from Patti Londre on blogging.  She is the publisher of a food and travel blog, Worth the Whisk. Her suggestions?  #1, name your blog (check) and #2 pick a publishing platform - don't start with a freebie (oops). She recommends buying a URL and using Wordpress or Go Daddy.  Oh oh, too late.  She said the average 'popular' blog, one that gets a lot of hits, can make a whopping $25.00 from ads.  I'm sure not going to make any big bucks!  The most popular food blog out there that makes more money is Pioneer Woman.  I just logged into Patti's blog and she has a post about RLP, Nani Steele's cooking class, along with a recipe for chard!  Cool!

The walk from the employee's casitas to the ranch

Next up - Century Bike Week with PAC Tours.  March 17th, a group of us from PV are going down for the week!  Rumor has it the guy that owned HTC Highroads will be riding.