The race actually starts at noon on Friday, June 13th. I will be wearing a tracking device courtesy of SPOT, so you can track my progress (in real time, I think) here:

http://tourdivide.org/leaderboard

Furthermore, I will be calling race headquarters every couple days or so to check in and leave a message on my status. The actual voice recordings and transcriptions will be here:

http://tourdivide.org/blog
http://mtbcast.com

When I return, I will post photos and a write-up on the race.

Until then, bonne courage!

Speaking of backlogs, my next FCN article will be about motorcycling through the Poudre Canyon. I’m working on that article right now.

My last attempt ended after 100 kilometers in the Boulder 100 last October. This time, I intend to go the full distance in the Sulphur Springs 100 in Ancaster, Ontario this Saturday, starting at 6:00am. In fact, there will be 47 of us attempting to do so. Here is the full race roster. (more…)

I will to expand this post later at a later date when I have time (probably July!)

Then, in the Toronto, Ontario, I had dinner with relatives on my mom’s side of the family that I haven’t seen in almost 23 years (when I was 9 or 10.) Above is a photo from that get together. It was great to see them all after all this time. (more…)

The last three CNN headlines:

• John McCain was in Stockton, CA (where I grew up) rejecting some conservative pastor’s comments.
• A huge tornado touched down in Windsor, CO prompting a state of emergency. Man, that is only 15-20 miles southeast of where I live in Fort Collins! Hope the damage in Windsor wasn’t too bad and that not many people were hurt (I heard at least one person died. :( )
• Wildfires in the Santa Cruz mountains, where I used to spend a lot of time many years ago. Hope my friends living up there are okay.

Funny how no matter how far from home I go, home always seems to come back to me.

Part of my problem is that French vowels and letter combinations are often pronounced much differently than a recalcitrant Anglophone would expect them to be, and that some words have completely different meanings than you’d suspect. Here are some examples ma professeur gave today. (more…)

I first heard about the tam-tams from my friend Kathleen, who used to live in Montréal. I wasn’t exactly sure where one could find them in Parc Mont-Royal, but it wasn’t hard — one could hear them a kilometer away with dozens of people (both residents and visitors) banging on leather and wood drums and even the bottoms of overturned five-gallon plastic paint cans. Meanwhile, others played hackey sack or flapped their arms wildly in the air while hopping around on the ground like a spring in an improvised dance. I merely watched, thank you. (more…)

“Don’t forget to try poutine!” wrote a friend who used to live here.

“Last night I ate pizza and poutine,” said an American from San Francisco in my French language school.

“As-tu essayé poutine?” a French-speaking Dutchman asked me later that day.

So the second night here I went out for a 10:00pm snack of this mysterious poutine. I didn’t even have to resort to Mickey Dees. Instead, I went to an A&W-like joint called Le Belle Province and had a regular-sized cup of poutine. Just one of them, thank you. The above photo has two because one of the Indian subletters I went out with also had a serving of poutine, so no, I did not gorge and pretend I was in some food eating contest by having what might have constituted a McDonald’s super-sized poutine. (more…)

I could get used to seeing all the eye candy here in Montréal. In this city where seemingly everyone is impeccably dressed and the women are (in the words of several friends who were right!) “totally hot,” it comes as no surprise that many of the cars people drive are gorgeous too. (more…)

No worries; we waited and still had fun. It turned out to be a good scouting mission for the question of “where in the city does one go running or biking for fun anyway?” In fact, four days later, I’d run on the same trail (which was adorned with banners proclaiming its 30th anniversary) to the port of Lachine and back for a distance of, oh, 30 kilometers. (more…)

To summarize the last three winters: (more…)

Which is where I am now and will be for the next two days. I am already (after being here for only six or so hours) feeling somewhat overwhelmed by all the cars (worse traffic than San Francisco!), crowds, noise, and outrageous prices (e.g., $40 parking and $4.59/gallon for diesel near Fenway Park. Fortunately, I did not drive!). But it hasn’t been a bad day — even if I do already miss Maine, New Hampshire, and of course, the ‘Stang. (more…)

I stopped by the Owl’s Head Transportation Museum which was really interesting, and stopped in Camden during the evening. I also did a 3.5-mile hike up and down Mt. Battie in Camden, which was very steep and probably not the greatest idea for getting ready for the Boston Marathon on Monday, but absolutely worth it from a surreal spiritual sense with the views from up above.

It’s also funny to say this, but I am in love with my rental car! Yes, a Ford… the sky blue Mustang Convertible I wrote about yesterday. What a fabulous machine! America can build great cars!

Off on my last drive in the ‘Stang back to Manchester, New Hampshire. Then, I should be in Boston not too long after hopping on a free shuttle from the Manchester Airport. Signing off from the beautiful city of Portland, Maine.

I had to agree with Lisa — Portland is a very cute town with a beautiful downtown, harbor, shops, and restaurants. The funny thing is I had a near-similar experience to Lisa for parking. You see, I had overstayed my meter time by two or three minutes, and right when I got to my car, a meter patrol guy was in the middle of tearing a ticket from his ticket pad and slapping it on the windshield. The split second after he did this I said, “sorry,” and he turned to me somewhat embarrassed and ended up apologizing in return. (more…)

There turned out to be one problem, though, when I got there. The park was closed. (more…)

As it turned out, Camden also made for a great stopping and turnaround point during my White Mountains to Blue Seas drive. (more…)

“Hey, what’s this?” I mused after reading a paragraph. “A ‘transportation museum’ just southeast of Camden.” Reading on, I noted something about planes, some vintage Harleys, and even a prototype 1963 Mustang. I think the latter just about did it for me since I was driving (and enthralled with) a 2008 Mustang on this trip. (more…)

These words came to mind as I followed a Suzuki GSX-R rider, not nearly able to match his speed or corner-carving prowess and bemoaning the fact that my rental car had an automatic slushbox instead of a proper stick. But that was the only complaint I had, and it was a minor one. After all, here I was in the White Mountains in a Ford Mustang convertible — much better than, say, a Ford Focus I thought I was going to get from the rental car agency — and the weather was gorgeous enough to have to top down all day. And the alpine scenery was, well, mind-boggling all right. (more…)

The woes of the morning were suddenly erased when I arrived at the Manchester airport, with just one sentence from the girl at the rental car agency (Budget) that I had a reservation with. (more…)

Here are some photos. (more…)

What a concept, a zero-cost race! Heck, even the Fort Collins Running Club’s Tortoise & Hare races aren’t free, although at $5 (for members) they are practically so since they include breakfast at Gib’s Bagels afterwards. (more…)

Take Boquete, Panama, for example. This is one of the most beautiful places I’ve been to, surrounded by verdant mountains and ubiquitous colorful flowers. It was a shame to me, then, that in certain places there were so much trash (plastic bags, food containers, aluminum cans, etc.) littering the sides of the roads or banks of the rivers. Being a near-obsessive/compulsive neat freak, I felt the urge to come out with some garbage bags and pick up some trash — a feeling only pacified by the reminder that I was not going to be in Boquete that long and that our schedule was already jam-packed as it was. (more…)

There’s one problem with this. I don’t have an Earthlink account. I never did and I certainly never will in the future. And if I have my way, this post will encourage no one else to either! :) (more…)

Why the sudden interest in interiors, you may ask? Blame it on a couple of cars I rented in recent months. (more…)

Very well, thank you. Can’t say I am really missing her. Actually, it’s been a big relief not having to deal with ignition points, valve clearances, dual carburetors, carburetor dampers, distributors, fuel pumps, hydraulic fluid, bewildering electrical maladies, knockoff hammers, tubes in the tires, etc. Maybe I’m still in denial mode.

And of course, there’s Goldie’s replacement: the Buell. (more…)

Unfortunately, it happens with shoes as well. (more…)

It’s curious how it seems like whenever friends from out of state come here, sub-optimal weather coincides with their visit. For example, in January 2007 John’s visit occurred on by far the three most bitterly cold days I’ve ever experienced (a high of 1-2 degrees Fahrenheit) — only for the temperatures to return to 30 degrees the day after he left. Then, during Tori’s first visit last year, we had a heat wave resulting in two of the hottest days of the year (99 degrees). (more…)