mysterious disappearances

Unexplained absences. Virtual this and that. As always, I attempt to crack open the seamy underneath and get some bike riding done with an eye to start something. Nibbles on the line- the old familiar, faded and frayed "who wants to Party? and ride 'hard'?" It's ever one or the other with these people. Small success the last couple weeks getting folks (plural?!) out in the woods at night aboard bicycles, drinking beers, doing things. An injection of chaos and good-natured anarchy is a balm to the soul. So, plans. Plans for the wrecking of some things that well deserve ruin, and from which wreckage a new platform for the launching of further fun and relaxation.




So and so gave us a handle of Crown Royal, which is out there for the time being. Go get some. I hauled it out from home, via bicycle in a backpack, too, so it is shriven. Yes, it's a glass bottle. C____ B___________ told me he'd had occasion to utilize the shrine for it's highest/best purpose the other day when he needed tools he didn't have with him. I liked hearing that. It really isn't simply a box of whiskey.






I received delivery on the parts to make a new front wheel for the Big Dummy the other day.



With some help (it took some figuring) I got it all loaded



and rolled that ramshackle sleigh up the hill, along streets and trails, and took it home to my workshop, my dear.



That ain't the best comparison photo, but you aren't paying for this. It's the Surly Dirt Wizard 2.7 on a 26" Rabbit Hole vs a 2.4 on some Mavic or other. It eyeballs about 12mm wider, and maybe the same taller. I reckon more float is good when hauling a bunch of other people's camping gear (for example) around on some fairly tough trails. If I may say so. I'll let you know how she goes. Oh. It's a dynohub on account of adventure and fun take place at all times, and you're better off prepared.





Also, there is not a whole lot that's better than staying loose on the bike and putting the front end where you want it while the rear hops and slips and catches and breaks loose and hooks up and it's all just like it should be.

a whole new blog

This one's for the people.

We crept out to the secret spot, my riding buddies and I. And we stowed our crap behind the tree (hung the food bag up high) so's to set the scene for some fast and loose.

There was the required fiddling with bikes that haven't been ridden in a while- the saddle height adjusting, and the refresher talk in regard to shifting. There was not the talky talk about gear and the new new. These fellas don't care (SO refreshing). They are in it for the smiles.

Well, and because I require their participation. Given the choice, there will always be the quick and easy. TV, computer, facetime, Minecraft, skate park, or whatever's next are the rathers but after the ultimatum there are no frowns to speak of and the little reservations are quickly forgotten when the trails shifts, narrows, and swoops.

 Secret Boys. We don't say.

Sun goes down, adventure goes on.

When we are done wringing the last drops out of this Good Time, we roll out.

 There is no sign we were ever there at all.

_______ of these events is merely bargaining

With 2 consecutive days off, you have choices. Some opportunities present themselves more readily than others. Bike camping is always ready to cut in line. In point of fact, the Big Dummy featured in my dream on account of we had been planning to use it for this trip.

 J is still willing to ride for fun. We figured we'd head over to the Secret Spot and spend a night.

Neither of us fancies driving if we can ride.

It's been a while since I used the Big Dummy. Sad to say, it has been put away wet many times. On the climb I stopped us a couple times to rerig the load in an attempt to banish the clunk. By the time we go to the interchange pictured above, I could not ignore the wiggly bottom bracket.

I considered. My inclination in situations of this type is to just run it. It has worked for me as often as not. I can learn the hard way, eventually, as evidenced by the decision to turn around, go home and switch bikes. This was a tough break.

J did really well riding with traffic. We talked about watching for car doors, and cars on the side of the road with their lights on (indicating potential for ________), and cars backing up, and where to stop and how far over to the right to stay, etc ad nauseum. He was rock solid. The turn around did not phase him on account of it was all downhill.

I don't know where you are in your bike repair spectrum right now. I, personally, have 2 bikes in perfect working order and 9 several in various stages of non-work. Of these, a number have parts cannibalised and interchanged. I knew it was a whole new ball of wax waiting for me in the bike room, and I wasn't stoked. I wanted to ride, not wrench! And daylight is always slipping away...


Gah!


I got right to the parts swapping. One thing led to another, and there was the backtracking and the sidetracking, and just as I was deciding it was a master stroke to just go ahead and attach the Pletscher rear rack rather than take a rack off another bike to attach- J said, "Why don't you just take the basket bike?" Which bike is one of the 2 bikes in perfect working order, as it is my commuter. Well, as perfect as a clapped out collection of sweet-but-well-used-parts hung on a 1989 pink/purple/teal StumpJumper (top of the line, bitches! Specialized doesn't make a nicer bike) can be. But and yes, that was just the right idea at just the right time.

So I was guided to The Way by an 8 year old, and in short order we were gone.

In that there above, J is cleaning his rock that he found to take home.

And in that there above, J is Eddy Merckxcury. Welcome back, 1982! He likes to wear tank tops these days to "show off my muscles." I blame California.

release a burst of fragrance

Enough duff dragging.

It was time for the annual Condor Tour. There was a lot of back and forth via email. People signed up, people declined, people reneged, people learned how to use the "reply all" function.With my gourmet knowledge and intelligence, I signed on for a short time tour (2 days & 2 nights), whilst the other 3 show-ers opted for the full ride of 6 days.

I got off work Sunday evening and headed straight for the Sav-Mart, where they got the cases of Hamm's for $12.99.

Yep. There's a whole case in there.

Day became night as I pedalled out to meet the fellas. They'd ridden from Bonny Doon to the campground, around 100miles. I was only riding 50, but a case of beer is heavy, so I stopped a few times to lighten the load. It occured to me I could go even further in that regard:

 So I strapped the backpack to the front rack and swerved my way along the further reaches of CV. That was a lot better. When I got to camp, I brought the pouring drizzle. We all sat in the dark and drank beer while saying stuff to each other. Then we slept. I was  (per usual) stuffed up under my tarp, tentless. _ick and _odd had some slick tarp tent action, while _in_er just laid in the wet.

 He woke up wet. Soaked. Him and all his gear.

One of these days I'm gonna get my tarp situation dialed. But these bike camping trips keep coming in the meantime and I'm damned if I'm gonna not do something fun because I don't have the perfect gear (that's for losers) so for now it's shantytown...

My friends make fun of me, but I am dry. Ish.

 It's a real nice place to be.

It has been my experience that sunlight is a strong disinfectant, hence the chamois on the outside of my pack. Wear one pair of bibs while the other is subject to the burning rays of purity.

Again with the incredible flowering.

 There is a fair amount of climbing along there. You can see the road as it winds past _ick's head.

 This rainbow was just hanging in mid-air.

That rainbow was lurking in the mist along the near ridge. I've never seen anything like it.

The slide is well packed right now. Later in the year it will be dry, scary and loose .

That is a staged photo. The grade is actually quite nice, but it looks better on film to grimace. More serious and PRO.

 And speaking of PRO, we stopped at the swimming hole on the other side so's _in_er could hang up his gear (all of it) to dry while we swam and had lunch. That water was...bracing.

 People's set-ups varied. Set-up shoot-off:

versus

 versus

 (open and closed)

I have no pictures from the rest of that day which we spent riding bikes. There was the big climb at the end, and we were all so shelled (my wife says we cyclists have too many euphemisms for extremely tired) that we opted to skip the grueling up and down 5 mile section out the ridge to the proposed camp spot in favor of the close and hidden spot. Plus, it is behind a gate which keeps out the autos.

It is a real nice spot for an evening of drinking beers around a small and carefully/safely managed campfire. Camp there was set-up in the settled fog, and revisited the shantytown motif for me. The other guys had their tarps set up real tight. So tight that getting out of them for a midnight pee was tough. One fellow asked for help the next morning to avoid contacting the wet underside of his coffin-like tarp shelter. "Can you open a corner for me?"  So.

The fog settled during the night and we awoke to clear skies and the prospect of another full days worth of riding. I love bike tour.

We headed out the ridge and then dropped down towards the Pacific,

which descent always gives me the stomach flutters but was even more nervy with the road tyres. When we reached HWY1, the fellas turned South to continue their epic while I headed back North towards home and a shower. I wished I was continuing on with them.

It was a strong group, and the pace was necessarily brisk to cover the amount of mileage planned. I had no problems keeping up, and that is satisfying. I felt strong even on the final leg, so I opted to climb up Old Coast Road from Molera and drink the last beer in the redwoods before returning to the coast at Bixby and hammering out the last few miles.

Thanks for the Good Times, boys.

looking to get into trouble for free

Returning from the latest series of training maneuvers, I have only 3 pictures to reveal, and they aren't even mine. Thanks, _ick.

 _ick and _odd had ridden out Sunday afternoon, just the 2 of them. All the other cyclists ran and hid, I guess. Coe is too hot. Coe is too steep. Coe is too full of you people...

I had to work on Sunday, so I pulled into the parking lot solo after dark and got ready to go bike camping. That means I pulled my bike out of the race van, stuffed some last minute things into my bag, and drank a tall boy. Then I headed out into the night to meet up at a predetermined site.

Riding turned uphill with a vengeance and quick! I considered throwing up, but decided against it. I discovered that the "fix" I had achieved during the last solo camping and biking expo was more of a "hack", to wit: I had indeed straightened the bent hanger enough to use the granny to limp out, but not enough and to the detriment of my derailer cage. Then I left the bike to rot, because who wants to look at the instrument of so much suffering until a proper interval has passed? I had put the bike in the stand the night before this trip to lube the chain, and had again manhandled the derailer cage fairly dramatically to get it back in line. It all shifted perfectly in the stand, of course. To the eyeball it was fine. Who needs to test ride?

Well, all of us should. You can't teach me.

Pausing trailside, sidehill, I bent that cage as well as I could but at that point I was leery of too much cold setting. Too much bending becomes fatiguing and yields breaking. Fuck it, it worked well enough to leave in the granny and climb and that was all I needed that night. It would be fine in the morning.

The next morning, I hung the bike up and gave it the hairy eyeball, and some elbow grease. It was clear that there was no more reefing to be done without serious risk of breakage.The p-knuckle was buckled, a spread and a twist there. I figured the possibility of shifting was better than the certainty of emergency-rigged singlespeeding, so it became a done deal: run what you brung. I effectively had low granny and tall granny (cross chained like you read about) with a couple/three higher gears from the big ring, depending on how many stream crossings and how recently I'd lubed the chain. I spent a small amount of time in my mind cursing things, but Coe is steep enough that I wasn't too fussed. I could soft pedal the descents in a higher gear with little trouble, and the low low was what I wanted much of the time anyhow. Besides, it beat quitting. That's for Quitters.

So I chased those fellas around Coe for the next 2 days. Conditions were perfect.

It is not possible to overstate: conditions were PERFECT. The wildflowers were going off. It was a riot of color and smell. Really nice.

I did learn somethings:

A) A few more of the good ways around.

2) _odd kept brewing his coffee through his*ahem*coffee colored hankie, which at first seemed silly and extreme, or extremely silly, or even just extreme but upon reflection makes a seriously domestic sense. I carry my fancy pants (well, it is tiTAINium) french press, because there is not the possibility of going without coffee. But the possibility of going without the weight and bulk of the press...that's an idea I may have to quietly appropriate while not giving my buddy any credit. Maybe going so far as to claim I "used to do it that way" or somesuch. Because, you know.

C) The proper amount of tall boys to be packed for a trip of that duration is: MORE.

D) When looking at a map, the 1st thing to do is to orient yourself to the actual location of yourself on the map. This can be harder at some times than others, but remains a crucial 1st step. Repeat until successful.

E) I am finally coming to grips with the looooooow pressure these fat tyres require. I have been made uncomfortable in the past on the off camber aboard the fat bike. I have now gone through that discomfort and have reached a rudimentary understanding of the larger balance point offered by such a pendulous contact with tha earf. I am prepared to explain this further via some simple drawerings, but words will have to do in this medium. When riding sidehill, your tyre will lose traction at some point. There is a window of time to react and get back over the balance point. As the larger volume tyre shifts, this window is open longer. The tyre has more contact, and the squish slows down the whole equation, so I can get back on it well after I'd have lost contact with a narrower/harder tyre. If that makes sense, great. Anyhow, I've made a break through. Also, I can see lines for the fat bike now. Hammering in the chunk is in bounds at this point. BAM!

6) Do NOT be afraid to try different positions. Take that how you will. You will be surprised at how you think you think something, but circumstances can lead to a rethinking that really works. And then circumstances will change and that thing you thought you now thought needs some different thinking. Hey, the Golden Rule will always apply. I'm just saying you might want to check out what angling your seat nose down can do for you if you are gonna climb and climb aND CLIMB.

7) If you like the camping and the bikes, check these fellas out: Black Cat Bicycles and Hunter Cycles. They are people who ride. The kind of product development they have developed is only achieved by the elite few who are willing to put themselves in ridiculous situations, on bikes and in the woods. They are those guys.


Any of you who pass up the chance to ride your bike and camp are stupids. Really really.

You should occasionally

Recently, I invited 2 bicycle enthusiasts to accompany me on a questionable bike camping trip. 1 of these fellows declined, wisely and politely saying "My mommy just got into town, sorry I can't go, plus it sounds totally sucky." The other of these remains incommunicado, which I took and take to mean that he also knew the idea to be a bad one. I said as much in the invite. I said, "it's prolly a bad idea, but..." and those are the words that started the Church of the Sweet Ride, and they are the words by which I try to live.

Well, HA! Only Day 2 totally sucked. Day 1 was so great! So much downhill in such nice conditions...zero bugs! snow, in the high country! no people at all! Y'all really blew the 1st day. Plus it would have been nice to have some help around for when I highside pedal strike the super off-camber and nearly pitch out into the abyss. I had to take a moment after that one. I will say, the awareness of being at the business end of things all alone and far out colors one's experience. It makes for some cautious type rallying. It is a vein worth mining, solo back-country riding. I asked myself: could you be transported to that place? And I answered myself: No. It is part and parcel, the Suffering involved to reach it. It sanctifies it. It is fucking exalted.

Let's not speak of Day 2, save to say 1) it was waaaaay better than last year (which, yes, I said I would never do again), and B) I got so frustrated and hateful I chucked my loaded bike over a hundredth deadfall and ended up bending the hanger pretty badly miles from nowhere. It was fixable. With the feet and hands, proper leverage and brute force, it was fixable, but it sucked anyhow. Over all, the trip was not worth doing. Though I have a high threshold for suck, once it is crossed there is no returning.

But, if we could work out just the Day 1 route...we'd be on to something.