OHPV Human Power Challenge

Last weekend three generations of our family attended the Human Power Challenge at the Portland International Raceway. We had time trials, sprints, drag races, an obstacle course and a road race, all under human power. Some folks had bikes, some had trikes, and some had totally enclosed velomobiles. I hope to have some good photos soon, but for now here's a great shot of me on the final lap of the road race.

Here are some stats from my point of view:

1. Great Grumpy had a faster drag race speed than me even though I went faster than he did when we were side by side.

2. In the road race I was able to pass the 15 year old girl again this year.

3. I almost kept up with the famous woman who had set a 24 hour speed record on her bicycle. (Don't I get credit for "almost"?)

4. In the obstacle course I was faster than a six year old boy on a BMX.

So you can tell I was not very competitive. I didn't win any prizes this year but with a borrowed recumbent I think I improved my time trial speed and my 200 meter sprint speed over what I did on my diamond frame bike last year.

Little League

Our favorite Little League team, the Mets, were playing at La Center yesterday. Our favorite player, #13 rotated during the game from center field to left field, then to second base on the defensive side. Here you see his batting stance, a nicely aggressive pose. He was the first batter in the top of the 6th inning.

Apparently that stance frightened the pitcher into throwing wild pitches. The arrow shows the blurry location of the ball and you can see #13 watching it with disappointment. He walked to first base, then stole second.

Here our intrepid player #13 is watching for a chance to steal third base. You can see by the scoreboard in the background that two of the batters following him were put out, and shortly after this photo was taken the third batter ended the inning with another out.

It was fun watching this level of baseball again after so many years.