John’s Ramblings

Being in a Friday celebratory mood last night, I gathered up Terri and Brendan for a trip down to Kent Station for dinner. I’m a fan of this collection of stores and restaurants, to the point of working it into our Newcomers bike rides here in the valley.

Last night I thought we’d try the Zephyr Grill and Bar. Terri and I ate there once, shortly after they opened. We were underwhelmed (as I recall), but I chalked that up to the establishment being relatively new. I think that they have been open for over a year now, so my hope was that we’d have a better experience. Silly me.

The server was a bit intense, asking us at least 4 times in 5 minutes if we were ready to order. A simple observation that we were all still squinting at the mouse-print menu might be a good indication that we were not ready to order. Terri and Brendan both opted to have the duck. “We don’t have any duck… in fact, we’ve never had it since it was put on the menu.” Brendan’s fall-back position was a braised lamb shank, Terri opted for my choice of veal saltimbocca served on a bed of white beans. We also ordered an appetizer of artichoke-gruyere dip.

The dip was actually ok.

The saltimbocca was very much like eating pork-and-beans, only less flavorful. The bonus was the very chewy pieces of meat. Brendan’s lamb shank was a giant bone with a big hunk of meat at one end, served in a bowl with a little broth. Once he managed to extricate a bite of meat from this beast, it was apparent that it had been boiled to the point of having zero flavor. He sent it back to the kitchen, and to their credit they did take it off the bill. All dinners were served with tonight’s vegetable, which was a hunk of broccoli that had been steamed to death.

The atmosphere is pretty upscale, as are the prices (entrees range from $15-$25 or so). The service and food, somewhat less so. Visit Kent Station, and eat at either Duke’s, The Ram, Fondi, or Zao. I’d recommend giving Zephyr a wide berth.

Yes, AGAIN.

Saturday I headed out in the morning from home to get in a “long” ride. From Auburn I rode out to Lake Sawyer, 4 corners, Landsburg, Kangley, Kanaskat, Cumberland, Green River Gorge, and back via Green Valley (a.k.a “Over the river and through the woods“). I ended the day with almost exactly 60 miles, and a pretty good case of “bonk”. I ate poorly at breakfast, and snacked on a single Clif Bar during my ride. By 1 p.m. when it was time to head up the hill to my house, I threw in the towel. Lessons learned on this day were:

• Eat and hydrate properly before a big ride, starting the day before.
• Stop for lunch, dude.
• If you ride almost every ride at 20 miles in length, your body will become accustomed to riding 20 miles. 60 will be 3 times farther than your body will want to go.

Sunday was far more low-key. We met a local group of riders at Mountain Bike Outfitters in Kent, and had a leisurely ride out to Green Valley for a little of their outstanding beef jerky.

Have I told you about the beef jerky at Green Valley Meats before? I thought so, but I’ll tell you again. They make it there, in more flavors than I care to count in the middle of a Sunday bike ride. There are fruit flavors, Jack Daniels flavor, thick, thin, turkey, elk, and buffalo to name a few (and, lest we forget, a flavor called “MyAssIsOnFire”). This is not your “Oh Boy” kinda mass-produced mystery meat. This is the real deal, crafted by people that know how to make it, and served by people that care if you like it. Their meat is damn good as well. In the summer I’ll take a small folding day-pack, and end my ride with a run down Green Valley. I’ll stop 1 mile up the road at Mosby Brothers’ Farm for some veg to grill, then stop at Green Valley Meats for the main course. All their meat is natural, and delicious.

60 miles Saturday, 20 on Sunday (there’s that 20 miles again), 904 year-to-date. Big Billy-Jim-Bob Carson has pointed out what would be obvious to anyone other than me, so I’m now shooting for 1,000 miles in the 1st Quarter of 2007 (double last year’s effort).

Turkey. Lots of it. It was a meat-tastic orgy of tryptophanic goodness. We brined and roasted this poor beast until it was hot, juicy and succulent. We didn’t stuff it, because stuffing is evil. But it was dandy nonetheless. Apologies to my veggie friends, I promise to be a better person tomorrow.

The Gran’s brought pie, for cryin’ out loud! There was this pumpkin-praline number that was to die for, which I may do. Restraint was in short supply, but I restrained myself to a single plate of the mainline food, and a single piece of pie afterward.

Now my esophagus is on fire. Really. I haven’t had a real case of heartburn in years, but I’m burning up tonight, folks. I went upstairs a while ago and rummaged around in a drawer long enough to find an old roll of Tums, almost as old as the Alka Seltzer ad to the left. Tossed a couple of those bad-boys in my pie-hole and chewed them up. Moderate relief has been obtained, but I have a strong feeling that I will be popping a few more before the sun rises tomorrow.

The Inlaws and outlaws all behaved. No one felt like fisticuffs. We didn’t sing kumbayah, but it was close. Everyone wants to come back at Christmas. I guess that’s a good sign!

Tomorrow is a day of rest. No riding, no spinning, no nuttin’. I may do a little programming while the house is quiet, but I’m not counting it as a work day. Four days in a row is just too good to pass up.

Terri (my better half) and I did a little ride today to shake out the cobwebs before tomorrow’s Daffodil Classic down in Orting. The weather promises to be pretty flippin’ ideal in the morning for a nice spring ride.

The purpose of today’s mission was to

• give Terri an opportunity to test our the superior gripping power of her new salmon brake pads, and
• test out my latest fix to my skipping chain problems.

I changed by chain out a couple of months ago, after about 4,000 miles. Perhaps too long to wait for that. I started to develop a chain-jump phenomenon on the back cluster, so I took it in a week ago to have the cassette upgraded. It was then fine in the larger gears, but I was still jumping on the smaller cogs. I took it back in to Angle Lake, and Dale diagnosed that the derailleur hanger was bent OUT, causing it to jump on the smaller outboard cogs. Apparently if the derailleur is bent IN (as is usually the case) the chain will have problems on the larger, inboard cogs. Bottom line is that it appears that Dale diagnosed correctly, and all is smooth in the shifting department.

The ride itself was uneventful. Sunny, but the winds were blowing from North to South at about 14 mph by my calculations. We rode North first, which was tedious to say the least. The ride home was WAY better!

We capped the day off by trying out yet another of the fine restaurants at Kent Station, this time the Zao Noodle Bar. Ab Fab. This whole complex is genius. So far we’ve had great success at:

• Dilettante Espresso
• Duke’s Chowder House
• Pizzeria Fondi
• The Ram
• Zao Noodle Bar

Plenty of parking, public restrooms, a theater, shops, etc. The is the ultimate place to start and end a bike ride.

It’s going to be another beautiful, sunny day here. It’s just freakin’ cold, man! This section of the continent is supposed to be “moderate in temperature due to the proximity of the Pacific Ocean, and Puget Sound”.

Well, someone flipped on the air-conditioning this week, and it’s 22 degrees at the moment. It’s been windy as well. Riding my bike in sub-freezing temperatures with a 20 mph crosswind isn’t my idea of a good time. Call me a slacker, but there it is.

I went to spin class on Monday and Wednesday, and will be going again in a couple of hours. It is no substitute for pedaling my ass up some of the hills around here, however. I also need to do some rides to concentrate on improving my pace, as I hope to do the STP in one day. Kind of a big nut to crack for Mr. Moderate Pace.

I’m down about 6 pounds since Jan 30th, which is pretty good progress. I’m still somewhere near a bag of cement to go toward my goal however, so I better start getting creative with my exercise regime, stat.

A couple of goodies for you on the food front:

Yesterday the Trader Joe’s Fearless Flyer arrived in my mailbox, and it mentioned these “Handful of Nuts” almonds. I’m a sucker for nuts, and would gladly munch nuts or trail mix while riding my bike, if only it were practical to do without stopping. They’ve divided roughly a pound of roasted unsalted almonds into individual serving packets. These packets can easily go into my jersey pocket or seat bag to give me a satisfying crunch during a long ride. I’m thinking this will be a nice change from all the other stuff you eat while riding, which tend to be mushy (like bananas) or chewy (like bars).

Last night we had store-bought crabcakes with a batch of chipotle mashed sweet potatoes. These spuds are really easy to make, satisfying on a cold winter’s night, and nutritionally sane to boot. Basically, you peel, cube, and steam a couple of sweet potatoes for 15 minutes. When fork-tender, throw them in a bowl and mash them with 1, 2, or more chiles from a can of Chipotle Peppers in Adobo Sauce (chopped up). Add a spoon or so of the adobo sauce from the can as well. Salt, pepper to taste. Add butter if you must, but it really isn’t necessary. Mash the whole mess & serve. Absolutely delicious. Props to Alton Brown, the ultimate geek chef.

I like to keep a web-based email account that I use when I am forced to enter an email for a software download or other such sites. This way my normal email inbox is at least somewhat less cluttered with Spam. Lately I’ve been using my GMail account for this.

GMail has some spam filtering which throws all suspicious mail into a spam folder. Google has also added a small advertising banner across the top menu bar of the mail display, which shows links to commercial sites related to the email or folder you are looking at. The net result you can see here:

So, the menu bar of my GMail Account’s Spam folder is a never ending generator of recipes for that canned pork product. Refreshing the page provides me with a link to yet another delicious recipe!

Auburn is not such a bad place to live as a cyclist (except for the fact that due to my house location on a dead end downhill, I basically live at the bottom of a 150′ deep hole). I have easy access to the Interurban/Green River Trail system within a mile of my house. Beyond the cities of Auburn and Kent to the east, there are an abundance of rural areas where one can ride their bike without too much horn-honking.

The weak link in this little bicycling nirvana has been the ways to get from west-to-east. Even with the addition of the 277th St. Corridor Trail, the primary link for me will probably remain Auburn-Black Diamond Road. You head south on “R” Street from East Main in Auburn, and after maybe a mile it bends to the left and becomes Auburn-Black Diamond. The road then runs the length of what is known as The Auburn Narrows. This is the gap in the east hills through which runs the Green River, and Highway 18. Our route lies between those two.

It is also frequented by a gazillion gravel trucks a day, as there is a quarry at the Auburn end of this road. The road is two-lane, often there is little shoulder, and the potholes could sometimes swallow a Hummer (that might be a good thing). Riding through here on a bicycle is a tense little dash for a mile, until you can get past Highway 18 and either head up the hill to Black Diamond, or go right to Green Valley & Flaming Geyser Park.

The great news is that the City of Auburn just closed Auburn-Black Diamond for paving work! My understanding is that the road may actually be widened a bit in places while they replace the road surface and shoulders along this stretch. I can hardly wait to try it out come March 1.

I made this little discovery while heading out to Green Valley Meats, a butcher shop of a bygone era where they sell organic beef, pork, etc., homemade sausages, smoked meats, and jerkey. As I was waiting for my meat order to be wrapped (remember when you didn’t pick up meat in a styrofoam and cellophane tray?), I noticed the bins of beef jerky on top of the meat case. Two at the end caught my eye: “Assburner”, and “2 Hot 4 Hell”.

I inquired, and was told that the difference was temperature, “Assburner” was not nearly as hot as “2 Hot 4 Hell”. “Want a sample?” “Um, sure”. She gloves-up. I’m wondering if it’s for sanitary purposes, or her desire to keep this stuff off her exposed skin. She snips off a small piece of each jerky with a scissors, and hands it to me. “Assburner” was pretty good. Hot, but not nuclear, and pretty good flavor. I’m a 4-star Thai kinda guy, so no problemo. Then she hands me the second sample. By the time I get to the cash register, the speech centers of my brain are unable to respond to the “debit or credit” question. I gesture, sign, smile and leave, chewing on a piece of absolute fire. Man, this bad-boy was hot! I had this major endorphine rush going on, so bad I probably shouldn’t have been driving. Things finally calmed down, but I swear I had a buzz going for at least 30 minutes from that one square inch of jerky. I am dreading seeing it again “on the other side”, however.