always keep one step ahead of yourself

Waking up on bike tour is a delight. Solo is even more delightful in some ways. You can look around, see that the sun is headed your way, the birds are awake, and decide to keep sleeping. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat, until the sunlight heats your bag and you have no choice but to get out of bed and make some coffee.



That blackened stump has been out there for several seasons now.  We set it alight accidentally back when we were using the Esbits. It is a reminder to be careful with fire. I pulled it out of the woodpile for use as a stove base (again), but this time I soaked it first.

I enjoy using the Kelly Kettle. I like the ritual of gathering and busting up little twigs, which don't seem like much and yet there it is- your first boil in 5 minutes. It's quiet. Solo, you can lollygag your morning with an extra round of coffee, and not even think about other people's unspoken agendas. You all have them.



You can waste your precious time lounging in the sun, eating breakfast at a leisurely pace, and speculate with the map about potential loops from camp sans gear.




Someone had left this deer skull in the tree next to the fire ring, but I thought it would have more impact mounted on the cabin porch and covered in wildflowers...

I settled on a fun route and hung my gear up in the shower with a note asking folks to leave it unmolested. Then it was hottt climbing, only with the feelings of extra power. When you are solo, you can also feel fast.


Seems like every time we are out there, I kick myself for not having tools for trail maintenance. This time was no exception, but I did put some work in by hand. I think it will help a little. No one can do everything but everyone can do something. Thank you! to all the volunteers who put in the good work on those trails.



The dried creek beds were full of deerweed/California Broom (Acmispon glaber) and surrounded by fields of CA poppies, and lupines in shades of purple, blue, yellow, and white. The buckeyes are going insane and smell wonderful.  It was some real grasswhacking singletrack, but the ticks were not bad at all. For Coe. The bugs are out, but not bad yet. I have itchy ankles from mosquito action in the early evening. I reckon another week and the flowers will be all gone; it looks like last week would have been ideal.



I'll take what I can get.



I like these mariposa lillies (Calochortus venustus).




I also appreciate, for name alone (?), the wally baskets a.k.a. Ithuriel's spear, a.k.a. grass nut (Triteleia laxa). See also the white globe lily, a.k.a the fairy lantern (Calochortus albus).




My gear was still hanging when I got back. It is such a luxury to have that cold shower! Hell yes, I took advantage of it. After lunch I packed up and began tying the fun singletracks together in as fun an exit as I could devise.



There is a lot of good hillside singletrack out there.



I saw this Northern Pacific Rattlesnake (Crotalus oreganus oreganus) about 6' before I ran it over. At speed (hella), all I could do was unweight the wheels as much as possible and let out a quick, shrill scream. I stopped and checked it out. It seemed totally unfazed. The range of coloring for these is surprising, and I really like the colors on this one. I guessed it to be about 24" long. I was glad not to have harmed it. Snake magic.



What a fun trip. "Jumping" the snake would have been ...better with a podner, and illustrates the wisdom of traveling with (capable) friends, but damned if the whole thing wasn't a Fine Time. I came home dirty, salty, and tired. That makes me appreciate the home life as it should be appreciated.

a smooth get away

The time is right for riding in the _____s. You picks your lines and you takes your chances. What with the warmth and the extra  evening hours, it's a bonanza. I got the boys' bicycles all dialed and lubed, and we went riding. Out to the New Stairs for some Brown Lunch...

 ...tofu dogs. J gathered miner's lettuce (Claytonia perfoliota) for a salad, as it is going ca-razy all over right now. While waiting on the nice, quiet twig fired Kelly Kettle to do it's work, we set up the hammock and did some lounging, and some tree climbing. Those fellas are agitating to bring the rope swang back out there, and that is prolly a good idea since it is getting frayed at the contact spot with the horse bridge and should be retired from that use. D says we shoulda brought the BB guns and he is correct.

After, it was a short pedal over to Rattlesnake to check under the board...




...and there were 2! The second is just up and to the left of the obvious snake. This board is far enough off the trail that they are seldom bothered by dilettantes; it is some singularly focused hasslers only. We employed the Snakecharmer 9000 to induce some tail wagging. You can feel the fat-bodied menace. After an exciting lunge or 3, the boys were very ready to get back to bikes.

This is training for life and happiness. We are thinking of big ideas, and one of them is the notion of camping out once a week. That is a idea with which we can roll.

no talking to the New Kid

Sitting here with a budding saddle sore, and my swellbow on ice, I am a fine figure of a man. The saddle sore feels like a shiny walnut dead in the middle of my right ass cheek. For what it's worth, the swellbow is on the right too. It's all right with me. But really, I feel great! It's funny, but these 2 local issues aside (and how glad I am that me swellbow can be relegated to a local issue...knock wood) I am filled with the quiet storm of heartiness. Why, just this very minute I feel so good I could let slip a ass whooping from hell on any uthaucka cares to ride a flat barred bicycle on twisty, moderately technical singletrack with lots of rollers and open areas for recovery.

You know, unless that person were a 120lb girl riding a singlespeed up and down relatively technical twisty singletrack in the dark.

There might be that.

I took a test bike from a company known for their big red S (branded even on your sleep, it's so prevalent- geez.) up some climby redwooded fire roads and down some grippy trails. I didn't like it. Rhymes with jumpstumper. The narrow saddle was very grippy- it kept ahold of my knickers (and I mean that in the 'merican way) and forced this saddle sore issue...to a head. Sorry.
The seat post was slipping on the way up. I also could not find a sweet spot to sit "in" the bike. Played with seat position,and height to little avail. I didn't like the bar- it felt like I was fighting it to hold my hands at the angle they require. I think a longer stem would help. The auto sag was cool. It climbed well, and in the long fire road sections I felt good about opening it up and giving it some stick, but the tight stuff- not so much. To be fair, I should put a longer stem on it and try it again (just getting used to the different balance points and the action of suspension bikes takes a little time), but you know how some bikes just have you grinning from the start? This one didn't.

So. Looking forward to getting that Pugsley...

Carbon road bikes have been whispering their slutty come hithers to me as well. Is it so wrong to want to ride the shit out of some potentially dangerous robot bike and then sell it every year to a square/rube/lawyer so I could (maybe) get another year's flawless porno ride from a throw away blow-up doll of a machine?

It's wrong, huh? I know it. I cannot condone a bike that requires a _ucking sticker to protect the downtube from "impacts" (like, uh, gravel?) in order to not crack and shear.
But. They ride so nice. Brief, but niiiice.

Whatever. That is back seat to the call of the fatbike, and this is all academic for now.

so low brow, you can't get under it

whoa.



Class of '87, yo.

In other super ghay news, there was the cross riding to the velocache. There was 1st the pave climbing (cuz that's how it goes), and then the sweet singletrack connector I cleaned up yesterday, and then the narrower pave climbing, and then the velocache deployment, and then the one lane pave climbing, and then the dirt. Ah.

On dirt it was paying attention and going quickly. Then it was time to clean up that other section of trail. You know, the one I been squawking about...


These are looking up. It doesn't look like much in the photo, but this is the sweet new route. You'll thank me when you ride it.







These are looking down. It doesn't look like much in the photo, but this is the sweet new route. You'll thank me when you ride it.


The flow is as good as it can be now, and I cleaned up all the little snags that were worrisome. My folding saw (a blown out Gerber, and one which I had "fixed" by drilling through the handle and bolting it together) crapped out for real on this one. Who has a line on a quality folder? I'm thinking I may just have to bite the bullet and get a buck saw.

At the bottom, I decide to hug the hill some and head back to more dirt options before dropping down to the cloaca (who doesn't love some possum ass?) of Seaside to catch the Swampside cache. On my way, I saw this little guy:

Diadophis punctatus vandenburgii - Monterey Ring-necked Snake.

I've hadn't ever seen one of these. So that's nice. He was very aggressive, and resistant to being handled.


I took another picture of my saddle. Look how green it is. That is British Racist Green, that is.

Then it was on to the velocache and wrapping the Peninsula to more trails homeward.