Oh, My Portland

There is this magical effect that has been prevalent in my life whenever I travel that I call the "Portland Curse." Basically, the curse is that wherever I go the Portland weather follows me. I can travel to San Francisco and it'll rain. I went to Nice in the French Riviera and it rained. Whether it's Germany, Israel, or Hawaii in the summer, even if it's supposed to be blue skies, it'll start raining when I get there. So it's been pretty rainy in Strasbourg because it's in Northern France and it rains here all the damn time. But today I was reminded of the Curse in a uniquely charming way.

The infamous David Guettler of River City Bicycles generously sent me one of their kits to enable the looking pro and as well as spreading the love of this awesome shop to Europe. Pretty cool deal. And a fine looking kit of I don't say so myself:

So, the first thing I did this morning after I got it was the same thing I do every morning: I went for a ride. It was beautiful out, a veritable rarity in Strasbourg. I did some jumps, worked on the leg speed, and spun down the canal. A real nice ride. Then, after about an hour, the clouds started to roll in. Damnit, I thought to myself, there's a lot of white on this kit. The sky opened up and it didn't just rain, it started to freakin' hail! Luckily I was wearing an RCB cap too, which I flipped down to semi-protect my face from the icy bullets hitting me in the face at 50km/h.

I felt so at home. I had already turned around at this point and threw in some impromptu threshold work to keep the blood flowing and get out of the freezing rain quicker, but it wasn't an all bad experience. I was actually kept pretty warm and dry thanks to the weather resistant fabrics of that fancy new jersey (as a side note, this is perhaps the only construction of a sentence where the word "fancy" can appropriately be placed adjacent to the words "new jersey"). After I got home was a little dismayed at the dirt soaked into my new duds, especially the white leggings. But, they rinsed clean real nice with just a little bit of dish soap, so they will be looking fresh to rep this weekend on the team ride. It's all in a days work. And you gotta love the work.

A little on the bike vanity. You can see how sunny it was when I left the house.

Disclaimer: This blog is not sponsored by River City Bicycles, Castelli, or the State of New Jersey. I just think they do/make great things. Except the State of New Jersey.

Kyle McCall

@upwardprogress