Reader letters #1....

After my piece, 1,001 Nightmares, appeared in the Rivendell Reader, Grant at Rivendell began forwarding the reader mail it provoked. I received over 50 letters, many of which I will post here in my blog. You'll recall that I'd quit riding, and asked readers for suggestions of suitable areas for (road) cycling.

For no particular reason, I believe I'll post them in alphabetical order. And I'll include the writers' initials instead of complete names. Here's the first:

From: AW
Date: Sat, 11 Feb 2006 6:39:30 -0800
Subject: Maynard's plight

Maynard,

I can sympathize with your situation, I moved my family from the Bay Area (Fremont) to Wenatchee, WA in the fall of 2003. I grew up in WA, but was stationed in Oakland while in the Navy from 1988-1993. I grew to love the area and stayed after I was discharged. I met my wife and we had two daughters there. I don't need to tell you about the great cycling community and riding in the region.

Anyway, we grew weary of all the congestion, sprawl and generally uncaring and rude populace. I lost count of how many times I was verbally assaulted and almost run off the road. When we decided to move it was a leap of faith; we've never looked back. This place is great, if you can get past the superficial redneck appearance you'd love it.

Wenatchee has around 30,000 people and the surrounding area is around 70,000. We're rather isolated from Seattle and Spokane - right in the center of the state on the Columbia river. There is no Interstate access and and a small regional airport with 4-5 flights per day to SEATAC.

Located on the dry side of the Cascades annual precip. is about 9". Most of this falls as snow, but with some late spring and early fall rain showers. Temperatures are 80-90 in July-August and 30-40 in Jan-Feb.

Road cycling is good and the "Jobst" style riding doesn't get any better in my opinion. Wenatchee Valley Velo is an active, competitive club with two weekly rides, Wed and Thurs mornings in season (April-Oct) starting at first light or around 0600.

Apple Capital Bicycle club is a more touring oriented club in the area. Each May or June Wenatchee hosts the Washington State Omnium stage race. This consists of a time trial along the river, the Twilight criterium(downtown) and the road race in the Wenatchee Mtns(one of my favorite road rides). This race happens mostly due to the efforts of Ed Farrar local orthopedic surgeon and father of Tyler Farrar an up and coming pro just signed with Cofidis.

In the time I've been here, I've yet to have a negative interaction with a motorist, that's not to say it can't happen. Most of the time you're riding on roads with almost no traffic. Once you leave town there may be none.

Feel free to contact me if you want more info. I hope you can get out on your bike again and find a place for Tamar and yourself.

Sincerely, AW