Should we have a TE banner somewhere? Do we have anyone who has a TE hat or something?
I could wear my Amici Veloci jersey, do you guys have one too?
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Should we have a TE banner somewhere? Do we have anyone who has a TE hat or something?
I could wear my Amici Veloci jersey, do you guys have one too?
I'll say. I was crewing for some riders training out in the John Day area.:eek::eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by Aint Doody
I think we should make up a TE get together plan. I don't have anything to specifically ID me as TE so we'll have to pick a place to meet or something,
Let's seeeeeeeee. I'll be checking in people at the regis. desk. I'm brunette with a Southern accent. (That makes me pretty easy to pick out.) Registration/reception goes from 5 until 8 pm. What if we meet at the regis. desk at 7 pm? I would imagine that by then I'd be able to shake free. Or if this fails, we could meet on Sat. evening at the pre-dinner function. Dinner is at 6 pm, but the room will be open at 5 pm, I think. Yeah--this sounds good--let's meet at the bar at 5:30 pm. I'm thinking the bar they will have set up for cyclists in the banquet room--not the lounge.
Anyhow, I'll be at both places. It'll be fun to get to finally meet y'all. I've met Bad JuJu and Harley at other places. I want to see Bikerhen's tattoo in the flesh. She was the inspiration for our croc mascot. Wait til y'all get the cool stuff in the bags. We stuffed them last night. And I'm really pumped up about the weather forecast. I surely hope it holds. It's raining today, which is a good thing.
And y'all will love our SAG stops. Now, if we can just get ODOT to sweep the bike lanes, but that's another long story.
Dang! Wish we were doing the hundred! But I think we'll be hard pressed doing the metric ride each day. Maybe you should stay in costume for our meeting in the bar saturday night? :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Aint Doody
It looks like Eastern Washington is gearing up for it's usual dreary Memorial Day weekend. I'm expecting the sun to be shining in Oregon. :p We can't leave Spokane until about four. I'm thinking about 3ish hours to get there? Hope we won't miss the party. bikerHen
You should be here before the party ends. It goes til 8 pm. I'll still be there waiting for you! I dunno about wearing my floozy outfit to the dinner. I might do it, but I ain't promisin' nuthin.'
Susan
Let's do 7 p.m. at the registration table.
I'm Brigitte. French being my first language, I have a hard time distinguishing accents, but I'll look for Susan. :) And I should recognize Wahine somewhere in there. (Well, maybe.)
Should I wear my tri kit for ya? You'll recognize me then f'sure.
I am soooooooo power psyched about this weekend.:D:D
I will be with you guys in "spirit" . . . but I sure wish I could be THERE! Sounds like it will be a lot of fun! And this Memorial Day weekend looks like it's going to be a nice one throughout the northwest! :D
Everybody will get a stick on name tag. I'll put my real name and then my TE name on mine. We can all do that! So I'll have Susan Kelley "Aint Doody." Ca va, Brigette?
Wahine, I'm glad you're psyched. I can hardly sit still at this minute. I don't get to ride on Sat. because of my SAG stop, but I'll be on the asphalt on Sun. and Mon.
See y'all Fri.!!!!!!
Susan -- "Aint" is the southern pronunciation of aunt
You totally sparked my memory with that. My mom was born and raised in East Texas and she spoke of all her aunts as Aint whatever . . . :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Aint Doody
I'm not sure we'll be there my 7pm, my sister can't sneak away from work until after 3:30 :( bikerhen
Awesome!Quote:
Originally Posted by Aint Doody
It's actually Brigitte, like "Breejeet". Since moving to Vancouver I discovered that some people thought that my name was Indian, not French!! :D Go figure.
I'm still power psyched even though it might rain on us and we're camping. Getting my gear together and DH and I will likely be leaving here at about 1:30. I get to try out my new sleeping bag from REI!! See y'all tonight!!
All I have to say is that this is one heck of an event. The staff and volunteers are amazing. The SAGs were unparalleled. We were fed and taken care of like kings and queens!!
Thank you so much to Susan and the CROC crew!!:D:D:D:D
And to the rest of you.... if you can come to this event do, it is the best organized ride that I have ever been on.
I'll be posting pics later. But now I must sleep.
Thanks for the kind words, Wahine! Y'all should see this girl. She's an amazing cyclists--and pretty cute, too! We did have a great ride. We had BikerHen and her sister, Wahine, Sprockets Mom, Grog, and spouses. Did I leave anybody out?
We work really hard, but it's so very gratifying to see cyclists come to our area and ride our wonderful routes. And we really have fun at our SAG stops. (I'm sorta worried about the picture that's gonna be posted!)
Hope y'all all come back next year. We tend to improve it every year.
We had a great time! Thanks Susan and CROC organizers for a super duper weekend. SAG, food stops, rides and meals were all just perfect. Even riding to the top of cabbage hill in the rain was quite the epic adventure. :D Although I'm going to have to practice riding over those darn cattle guards. :eek: We're already talking about next year! We HAVE to get our number 2 patch! Right? :rolleyes: bikerHen
My only suggestion for improvement might be an anti rain dance?
There's not much I can add in the way of raves for this ride and for all of the volunteers and their outstanding support. Wahine and I talked about it and while I've been on many organized rides some of which are MUCH larger, I have never been on one where I felt so well taken care of. Every SAG the folks greeted us warmly and offered any or all of what they had. The food was incredible!!! It's tough when you can't stop eating at each stop! :D And we never felt "alone" out there. There were ALWAYS support vehicles driving by, checking on us, cheering us on and making sure all was well. And just when you most needed a hot baked potato at the top of the wettest hill around....there they were! Well done you guys! Couldn't have asked for a more SATISFYING weekend! Any ride that can move me to tears of joy is definately one worth putting down as a regular! Thanks to all!
The first photo is of Sprocket's Mom, Me and Aint Doody. The second is a rock formation close to Aint Doody's trailer park trash SAG.
Well, aren't we cute??? With NOOOOOOO idea of what the next day was gonna be like!! Bwahahahahaha!!!!:rolleyes:
Here are some more photos, including pics of Sprocket's Mom wringing out her socks in the rain on day 2. Yes, it was really raining that hard.
Well, girls, y'all look like real cyclists. I, on the other hand, look like a 2-bit ???!!! It was really fun. I hate to tell y'all, but our club rode up Cabbage Hill yesterday in beautiful sunshine and 60-70 degree temperatures.
I'm so glad that the ride was fun for everybody. There was a smallish article in our local paper. You'd think they would cover it better, but that's our paper. The comment about our White Trash SAG stop was that there were 4 women there dressed in entertaining costumes! How funny! I do hope everybody will come back next year--you know you need that little 2.
Susan (aka Marlene--with Darlene, Charlene, and Karlene at the White Trash Stop)
WHAT A GREAT EVENT!!
Thanks to Susan and the whole CROC crew, we had a FANTASTIC time down in Pendleton. The weather was a little bit annoying on the second day but it makes for more stories to tell!!!!!
And the SAG stops were the best I have ever seen.
Thank you SO MUCH for putting that event together and for making us aware of it. It was great to visit your area and ride your routes, and of course great to meet you all!!
I wish we could make it again down there in the future!
I've had so much fun going back and reading all the posts about last year. And guess what!!! We're taking registrations for 2009. Grog, bikerHen, Wahine, and Sprocket's Mom should all get regis. forms in the mail. (Yes, we sent one to Canada with the extra postage!) Anyway it's gonna be another great ride. We've had to up it to $150, but everything is basically the same. There's one change--the Fri. reception is at Hamley's Slickfork Saloon which is an amazing place in downtown Pendleton.
I think I'm going to be on the metric this year with my white trash sisters--Charlene, Darlene, and Marlene. We do have on-line registration--check the website at www.cyclependleton.com. There is a dinner on Sat. night, but somehow that's not mentioned in one place. Dinners on Sat. and Sun. and breakfast all 3 days.
There may be some slight variations on the routes, but I missed the last meeting and am not sure. The maps will be on the website if they aren't already.
Come on to Eastern Oregon!!!
It looks awesome, Susan! I would have loved to go but there is no way I could be there on May 23rd in the morning because I will probably be turning in my PhD dissertation on the 22nd, as late as the office will be open! :eek: I might spend the weekend in Portland, but getting all the way to Pendleton, especially without a car, is not going to be possible. :( I wish it was a bit closer to Vancouver.
I strongly encourage anyone who can make it to Pendleton, OR, to go CROC it! It was really a nicely organized three-day event with great scenery.
And your rest stop was, by far, the most memorable. Chris often says how he wishes we had taken more pictures.
I will second what Grog said. This is a fantastic event and I had a wonderful time. This was one of the best events I've ever been to and I would strongly encourage anyone who can go to make it there.:cool:
Unfortunately, I'm not going to make it this year. :( I've commited to a 2 person mixed team for a 12 hour raod race that weekend. Darn. It was tough to give up CROC but my endurance racing habit needs to be fed.
Have fun ladies!!
Cheesy Grits!!!!! Here I come. (hmmm...my last few posts have been about food...perhaps I need to rethink why I ride...nah).
Lilbolt! Glad you're coming--part of John's group, I'm sure. And Wahine and Grog, we'll miss you. Turning in your dissertation--whoa, that's major indeed. I cannot even imagine that pressure. And thanks, ladies, for your kind words about our event. It is indeed a fun time. I'll put up pictures after the event. But I'll be encouraging more to attend on this post lots more.
My sister and I will be coming back this year. She seems to think we need to ride up Cabbage Hill again. :eek: I disagree, but I can't let her show me up! I'm already stressing about those cattle guards. It's all about the food and good times. THAT'S why I'm going back.
Aint Doody, glad you'll be covering the metric options. That way I'll get to see ya! Have to save my strength for that dang hill! bikerHen
Everyone who did Cabbage Hill in that rain last year qualifies for gutsy in my book (we decided to go sightseeing in the rain...we were dry, but not much of a sense of accomplishment.) The cattle guards will be just a minor nuisance if we have dry weather, and I will gladly slay them. :D
Bikerhen, if you could tackle that hill with the headwind in Palm Springs, you can do Cabbage again. And we'll do our best to have a sunny day. Can't wait to see all y'all!!!
Susan,
I've been spending time working on my training calendar for this year, and have officially added the CROC to my schedule for the year. WooHoo! Can't wait to come out and ride it again.
It would be really fun to have a TE get-together.
Susan
Well, we just will! I know bikerHen is coming--and Lilbolt. We'll see who else. Bring Edna. What else is she gonna be doing with Dave gone?
We're already half full. And we've got some fun SAG stops planned.
You can add my sister to the list too. She is so excited about CROC she might have been your first sign-up! She's a TE lurker. Maybe we can talk her into joining up. :rolleyes: bikerHen
I just wrote out my check! If you were here, you'd see me doing a little happy dance right now. :D
We've decided to camp. Susan, is the camping option halfway decent? Does the RV have a designated tent-camping area so that we won't be stuck next to someone's obnoxious generator roaring all night? I presume that camping gets us access to hot showers...
Susan
Yes, it's off to the side of the RV area with some smallish trees. It's not the greatest, but it's free and away from the RV's by roughly 100 yards at least. There is access to hot showers. As I recall there is a fire pit there, too. I hear that they've added some new sod to enlarge the area.
Hey, don't worry, the camping area is perfectly nice. If you're looking for secluded forested campsites, forget it, but this is a bike ride!!! So it's a small tent city but I don't recall any loud folks at night (everyone was respectful of others the first night, and after that...well, everyone's too tired!).
Showers are available and while there might be a small wait from time to time, I don't recall having to wait very long any day.
It's really fun, and the camping (I think) adds to the experience.;)
The camping area is just great, Susan, don't worry about it. And the views are lovely!
We're getting close to the maximum we allow--250. If you want to have a fun Memorial Day Week-end, get signed up quickly.
www.cyclependleton.com
Hey Aint Doody,
How's the weather shaping up down there? Heard on the news last night that the blue mountains almost got wash away yesterday. Should we bring our rain gear? :D bikerHen
It is supposed to be a fabulous week-end. The high is predicted in the low 80s/upper 70s and sunshine with a few clouds. Lows are around 50. No rain in the forecast. How does that sound???
Today the roads are being marked. My Elvis cupcakes have been baked and are in the freezer. I still have to get the grits going. Last evening we stuffed the "goody bags" and stuffed pirates and TV personalities. (Got your curiosity up?) The wanted poster for the outlaw is all ready. Our volunteer T-shirts are being passed out. The Kamanawana Lei U stop is ready. Nikii has her delicious vegetable chili all made for the Western stop. Pendleton blankets for the raffle are lovely. This year's CROC socks are in & lookin' good.
Fri. night we'll be at the Slickfork Saloon at Hamleys in downtown P'ton for our opening, and the CROC bucks will be given out there to purchase "adult beverages."
We are still sorta having to lean on ODOT to make sure the shoulders are swept. I'm getting a personal reputation with them as a b*!ch, I think! They just don't understand why we need the roads swept, as they'll just get dirty again!
Let's see--I haven't mentioned everything, but it's all coming together. Oh, and our massage therapist will be located in a teepee at Wildhorse. We have different Sun. night entertainment that'll make you want to get up and dance. Whew! Can't wait to see everybody!!!
It sounds like you're all ready for us. CROC bucks for adult beverages? Good idea! :D
My only request would be for carpet runners over those #%!#*! cattle grates on Cabbage Hill. Yes, I'm still stressing about those darn things! :o bikerHen
Just in case . . . Hope you won't be offended if I bring my rain gear.