Ride Announcement: A Nice Ride for Dave Nice

OK Seattle area folks, save the date of Sunday July 30th, 2006. We're going to have a fun ride and raise some money for a good guy.

As many of you know, Dave Nice had to drop out of the 2006 Great Divide Mountain Bike Race when his bike and gear were stolen in Montana. Dave has vowed to come back next year and various of his pals have already raised some bucks to get him a replacement bike and some gear. I was thinking about how I could help and came up with this idea.

Last year a lot of my pals put together a 100 kilometer mostly off-road ride from North Bend up to Snoqualmie Pass and back. It was called the "Not a Nutrional Role Model" Ride and donations went fund my 2005 Great Divide Race. Everybody had a great time and now Dave's misfortune gives us a great excuse to run the ride again. The ride will be basically the same route. There is no fee for the ride but we'll take donations and the money will be sent to Dave.

I'll post more details when I get back from The Van Isle 1200K, but to get a feel for the ride see my report and pictures from last year's ride here:

http://www.carsstink.org/peterson/NotNut/NotNut.html

BTW, if you can't make the ride or want to help Dave right now, Paypal any amount to scott@salvagetti.com

Keep 'em rolling,

-- Kent

Great Divide Race Photo Gallery

The good folks at the Adventure Cycling Association have a nice gallery of pictures from the first day of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Race here:

http://www.adventurecycling.org/gdrgallery/

They've got terrific shots of each racer's bike and some nice trail shots. You can follow the day to day action on the GDR here:

http://www.greatdividerace.com/

Brad's Ride -- Monroe to Farmer and Back

My pal Brad Hawkins has this great habit of going on cool rides and then sending wonderfully descriptive stories from his journeys. Yesterday he sent me one of these reports and gave me permission to share it with all you folks out in the blogosphere.A bunch of pictures from his trip are here:

http://www.clairifier.com/gallery/2006junpict?page=14

---

Ride Report: Monroe to Farmer and Back 6/25-6/27

Dear Friends,

The legs are still a little sore but I feel good enough to write you all about. The Seattle Randonneurs held their Cascade 1200K ride around Washington and I was drafted into providing some support at Farmer Washington. For those of you who don't know about Farmer, well, it's a very nice wide spot in the road about 15 miles east of Waterville up on the plateau east of Orondo. I'll just let that sink in for a while. It has a grange hall and some grain elevators, no running water, no toilets, no trees, no nothing unless you happen to have a key to the grange hall and can get out of the blinding sun and heat.

I had a wedding to play on Sunday afternoon so I was a little pressed for time as I got ready Sunday night with my bike and such. When I got to Kirkland, I realized that I had forgotten my helmet and a change of clothes so I drove back to Seattle. Claire was very understanding and didn't even mention what a hairbrained idea this was but she kissed me again and I was off driving out to Monroe, Washington.

I parked at the Holiday Inn where many fine, abandoned cycling cars were lining the sidewalks and parking lot of said hotel. Good enough. I pulled the bike off the van and took off. It was 8 PM.

The tailwind was delightful and the temperature perfect as I raced through Sultan, Startup, Gold Bar, Baring, finally alighting in Skykomish where I picked up some trail mix, milk, and filling my water bottles. The Chevron at Skykomish is used to seeing cyclists and the guy behind the counter was only concerned as to why I was leaving so late. No biggy though, he'd seen it before. It was 10:15PM.

The hills up to the pass were a bit of a surprise to me as I've never done this ride all the way from the flats up to the top of the pass from this direction before. Lessons to the newbie but I was still having a good time.

I stopped at the pass and took a picture but as you will see in Claire's site, photo flashes are somewhat uncontrolable so it's impossible to show how high I got up until the way back. It was midnight.

I put on all of my clothes available and gloves as well for the descent and cruised down the mountain. This is one of the best descents I've ever done as it seems to go down hill all the way to Wenatchee. All the way in your big ring. Now that's cool.

After a while though I felt the need to fill the bottles and stopped at the highway rest area west of Leavenworth. Among the sleeping truckers and RV'ers was a motorcyclist sitting at a park bench. I waved and he came over. It turns out that "Eric" was on his way to the Tri Cities and didn't want any heat so he was riding at night. The twist in this plan was that he seemed amped up on some kind of meth. Cool guy, very friendly, he was probably awake for the next two days.

I arrived in Leavenworth around 1:30 AM. This city sleeps very soundly and I didn't even hit the brakes. Cashmere was reached an hour later and I treated myself to two corn dogs and a quart of chocolate milk. This is my recovery food of choice and incorporates all that is good in american dining. You can eat it off a stick and drink directly from the carton. The best part is that it works quite well if you are burning the calories. $3 works out to something like 2200 calories. Mmmmmmmm! Don't forget the mustard.

Wenatchee has done the most ridiculous job on their bridge across the Columbia river you could ever imagine. They scraped off the asphalt which looked to be relatively new judging from what they left on the shoulder and deposited it somewhere else in town. No equipment is in sight. It's just a big, scary mess of sliced asphalt and road rocks everywhere else.

The sun started coming up around Orondo and I started taking pictures again. The grade out of Orondo is a singular experience and I stopped 4 times. Once at the top, the craggly rocks and water cut canyon turns into endless wheat fields and broomstick roadways reminiscent of North Dakota or west Kansas. It was a nice change of pace.

Waterville is a cute little town that I came upon at 7AM. The only water to be found was at the only open business in town, the espresso stand. This stand is famous among the long distance cyclists as apparently is the Orondo grade so I had to stop. After Waterville, it was a short hop out to Farmer where Fred Mulder some nice guy I can't remember, and Mark Thomas greeted me with smiles and understanding questions. These two are veterans of overnight and long distance rides and instead of puffing up the experience to them, we could just sit in deep understanding of this crazy cool sport. I arrived at 8AM; just in time to support the fast riders coming up from Quincy on the 1200K.

I made sandwiches and helped out until 1 PM with about an hour of sleep in the middle just to catch up. There were all kinds of DNF's the day before because of the heat and the volunteer list was swelling as the growing cadre of DNF's formed a sort of Dead Head caravan. Some guys would find a ride, others would drop out and then ride along just for fun. All had suffered, some were having a whale of a time.

After cleaning up and helping Dan Turner and Fred pack up the last truck, I bid them farewell at 2:30 PM and rode back to Waterville. This time I took some pictures and then really enjoyed riding back down the hill that had caused me so much heartache and pain that morning.

At the bottom, I found the best cherries I've ever had, rolled into the traffic menagerie that is Wenatchee, didn't stop and then cut up past Cashmere and then, just east of Leavenworth at about 7 PM, I found a nice spot in the Wenatchee river to strip off and bathe. It was just a perfect ending to a hot, hot day where the temperature reached 109. As I rubbed off the road grime, I noticed two young ladies across the way just enjoying the show. I waved, they waved, and that was the end of it. I'm just glad that I can be the subject of someone else's story and that I don't have to just come up with my own.

Dinner was pretty good, German fare for a change. After leaving the "Durndel" zone, I trotted up the canyon and found a nice camping spot that is marked "no camping". As a cyclist, I hate to flout the laws but I never know where to put the forest pass on my bike so I just don't. I hope some of you will understand.

Nine luxurious hours later, I awoke to a rushing river and perfect blue skies. The ride up the pass westbound was cool and nice. I happened upon a road crew broken down along the grade who had been broken down for two days and perhaps were waiting two more as a starter motor was being built in Yakima. The wind was a kicker once I got to the top but didn't get in the way too much.

At this point I was ahead of schedule, having passed Stevens at 12PM this time and gotten much better pictures, I rode down to the Old Cascade Highway and followed Kent Peterson's route. Kent, if you are reading this, the Iron Goat Trail is even better but requires about 60 ft of portage over a new bridge and some gravel. Highly recommended.

Being early, I started looking for any reason to stop. Dead snakes, other bikers, historical markers, interesting side roads, etc. I had 5 hours to coast into Monroe so I took it. I saw the fish hatchery, the reptile zoo, a gravel pit with a precariously place boulder replete with smiley face, and a long time friend, Weldon Grant, who showed me around the Monroe Hospital business office. It was a joy.

At 5PM or so I rambled back to the Holiday Inn where I helped the riders coming in after 1221 challenging kilometers. It was a party atmosphere with all you can eat pizza and pop. The riders had to get in by midnight and everyone expecting to make it made it, the last four by seconds! It was cool!

General statistics for the ride are as follows:

Ride Start: 6/25 8PM
Ride End: 6/27 5PM
Miles logged: about 340
Hours slept: 10.5
Average speed: perhaps around 13mph with stops
Dead Snakes by the side of the road: >15
Amused ogling ladies: 2
Important numbers for the trip: 8 and 12 (I seemed to start at 8, end at 8, and Stevens pass was reached at 12AM and 12PM respectively)

Have a great day and thanks for letting me waste some of your workday,

Brad Hawkins

Drive Now, Talk Later

From the Science Blog:

Three years after the preliminary results first were presented at a scientific meeting and drew wide attention, University of Utah psychologists have published a study showing that motorists who talk on handheld or hands-free cellular phones are as impaired as drunken drivers.

More here:

http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/cell-phone-drivers-as-bad-as-drunks-10911.html

The bumper sticker shown above comes from the Car Talk Guys and you can get one of your own for the price of postage and an envelope. Details here:

http://www.cartalk.com/content/features/Drive-Now/bumper-sticker.html

Pat Rodden's Cautionary Tale of Woe

Michael Rasmussen is one of the many SIR members providing support on the Cascade 1200K. He's also writing wonderfully descriptive field reports and also collecting some great feedback from the riders. Michael forwarded the following note to me from Pat Rodden and I'm reprinting it here with Pat's permission.

To: Michael Rasmussen
From: Pat Rodden
Subject: Cascade 1200 - Pat Rodden
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 10:28:47 -0700

Hi Michael,

Just wanted to close the loop on my 1200 experience which all in all was wonderful albeit shorter than I had planned. Once I reached Ellensburg yesterday the gravitational pull of the West grabbed me and I headed West on I90 back to Monroe rather than continuing on to Sellah. Up to the point of reaching Ellensburg I had a total of 8 flat tires over the previous 2 days (5 of them were between Cowich and Ellensburg)! I was completely demoralized trying to keep the bike on the road. Many people were quite helpful as I continued to repair tubes throughout the ride and I owe them much thanks as well as a tube or two (and quite possibly an ice cold beer as well).

After heading west on I90 I made it to Rosylin where I had my ninth flat. In the middle of repairing the latest flat on the shoulder of I90 I received a lecture from the state patrol of what I fool I was for being out here in the traffic and heat. He went on to say that there should be a law against riding on the interstate and he would gladly write me a ticket if he could. When I suggested that he give me a ride up to the next exit where I could repair my tire in a safer place he quickly departed. So much for help.

After repairing my ninth flat and getting the wheel back on the bike I set the tire on the ground and listened to my 10th deflate. While I won't admit to shedding any tears I was certainly dumbfounded. I walked the mile to the next exit to regain some composure before repairing the flat. Soon afterward arriving at the 10th exit a good Samaritan saw my predicament and gave me a ride from Rosylin to Preston where I was safely positioned to repair the 10th flat in the Preston Park and Ride. Once I fixed this latest flat I realized I was down to single patch for any further flats. I made it almost to Carnation before using my last patch to repair flat number 11. From this point I limped into Monroe making it in about 6 pm on a poorly inflated tire (I couldn't seem to keep the pressure in the tire). This morning when I retrieved my bike from the back of my truck the back tire was flat. I can't recall having a single flat tire in the last year running on Michelin Pro Race IIs or Schwalbe Marathons.

I failed randonneur 101 and paid the price. After using some wonderful 36mm heavy Schwalbe Marathon tires on the previous Brevets and feeling as if they were too slow and heavy on the eve of the Cascade I switched to 28mm Panaracer T-Serv tires. The mistake is for all others to learn by! Never run Panaracers! They are absolute garbage. 15 years ago I had a similar experience using Panaracers that had terrible side wall support while going up the North Cascades highway. I swore off Panaracers for the past 15 years and thought I was safe using their latest products.

Side Note: While on the bike I was asked by a lot of randonneurs about my hydration system. I mounted a Camelbak StoAway 100 oz. on the bike frame just behind the head tube and below the top tube and then routed the tube for easy access while on the bike. This gets the water supply (and weight) off of your back and on to the bike. In addition I had a camelback on my back (without a bladder) that I would use to stuff ice into and let it melt down my back. It works well for about an hour and a half and I never once had problems with the heat (although I missed out on the worst of the heat up the Rattlesnake Hills). It seems to work well in two ways. Direct application of the cold to your back and also the evaporative cooling
that takes place when the water evaporates off of your bike. Others might want to consider a similar setup when the weather is predicted to be as hot as it turned out to be.

Thanks again to all the wonderful volunteers (yourself included) for making the Cascade 1200 a great ride!

All the best,

Pat Rodden

On Jun 26, 2006, at 11:17 AM, Kent Peterson wrote:

Wow. Pat would you mind our sharing this cautionary
tale with the great blogosphere? We can edit out
your email address.

Now I'm nervous, I just switched from my tried
and true (and despised by many) Specialized Armadillos
for (slightly) lighter, wider and cushier Contis (Top
Touring in the back, Contact up front) But I will have
a week or so of testing before I take them up to VanIsle.
And I do carry a spare folding tire.

Were all the flats explainable or did you get mystery
flats?

Great tip on the Camelbak.

Kent

Hi Kent,

You are all welcome to publish my account. 10 of the flats were on the back wheel with just one on the front coming from a thorn. I found 4 flats with small wires that pierced directly through the centerline of the tire. Two flats total were from thorns. The balance I have no idea with no obvious source of a flat. Actually I take that back because two of the flats were my having to repair my previous patches with glueless patches. I am not sure if I did not clean the area sufficiently or if it was the heat that would not allow the patch to adhere properly. I assume some of the flats were pinch flats from me installing the tire improperly althought the tires did go onto the rim with ease (the only good thing I can say about the Panaracers). Prior to the Cascade 1200 I only had about 35 miles on the tires and those miles came from the relatively clean roads of Whibey Island.

Another note on the Camelbak - I had to add about 8" on to the off the shelf tube that comes with the StoAway Camelbak to get it in the ideal position for drinking. Throughout the ride I drank ice water using the system. The bag is somewhat insulated and the water stayed cold until the last drop. You just need to make sure you cinch the bag to the frame in at least two places to secure it so that it does not get in the way of the knees. I also cut out the center of the water bottle holder and mounted it to the down tube to 'center' the bag.

Every time I go to fill up the bag it reminds me of filling the car at the gas station!

All the best,

Pat

Dave Nice's Bike Got Ripped Off!!!

See how happy Dave looks in the picture above? Well Dave is not nearly as happy right now. Dave was racing the Great Divide Mountain Bike Race when he pulled over to nap. He must've napped a bit too deeply. When he woke up his bike was gone.

This info is hot from the trail. Details should be hitting the Great Divide pages here:

http://www.greatdividerace.com/

If you are in western Montana and have any lead on the bike, I know Dave would love to have it back. And if there is anything anybody reading this can do to help Dave out, I'll be posting contact info as soon as I get it. I'd give him my bike so he could keep racing, but the Monocog is too small for him and it's a couple of states too far away.

Hot Climbing on the Cascade 1200

From one of Michael Rasmussen's roving field reports from the Cascade 1200:

After Packwood came the climb to White Pass. Riders from Florida don’t have hills at all. Riders with New York riding exposure have hills of steep grades but short duration. White Pass is neither of those. It is a Mountain Pass, twelve miles of climbing. It doesn’t get really steep, maybe 7% says Terry Zmrhal, but it doesn’t quit either. Today’s adventure held a mix of challenges for riders. Start with having covered 160 miles already, add in the warmth of the day, then top off with a mild tailwind. The tailwind wasn’t enough to push you up the hill, it was just enough to not be a cooling breeze as you pedaled.

More than one rider ran low on water climbing up to White Pass. Michelle Dulieu ran completely out and was eying a road side stream. She’d never encountered a hill this long before. Dave Johnson and Charlie White took time off to wade in the pool at the base of a roadside waterfall - and soak their heads in the cool waters.

At the top most riders had white swirls embellishing their clothing - the salts of their sweat built up on sleeves and legs, jerseys and shorts.

More great stories and pictures can be found at the Cascade 1200 blog at:

http://c1200blog.randonista.com/

The Usenet Bicycle Archives

A bunch of of interesting bikelore is collected here:

http://yarchive.net/bike/index.html

Among other things you'll find many postings the legendary and somewhat gruff Jobst Brandt, the author of The Bicycle Wheel. You may not agree with everything the man has to say, but he is a fellow who has ridden many thousands of miles and has spent a lot of time thinking and studying various aspects of cycling. In the archive you'll find out why he doesn't like Polarized glasses or Sturmey-Archer hubs but there is a host of other stuff in there as well.

For the record, I agree with Jobst on the glasses issue but I think Sturmey-Archer hubs are super nifty. I guess that I'm one of those guys Jobst was describing when he said "Most folks only use top gear with a tailwind or when idling along."

Jennifer Wise and the Cascade 1200 Pledge

Jennifer Wise leads the riders in the ride at the start of the Cascade 1200.

"I pledge allegiance
To the ride
Of the Seattle International Randonneurs
And to Randonneurs USA, of which it’s part,
One pedal stroke, after another,
Unrelenting
With exhaustion and achievement for all."

Great reports from the ride are being logged at:

http://c1200blog.randonista.com/

Princeton Tec Apex

While working the bike check-in at the SIR Cascade 1200 I got to see a lot of different light set-ups. A couple of riders were using the Princeton Tec Apex headlamp as their primary bike light. In both cases I saw, the riders had removed the headstrap and attached the light to their handlebars. As a bike light, they mostly run the three Watt Apex at it's lower power-settings to conserve runtime.

A very glowing review of the Apex can be found here:

http://www.flashlightreviews.com/reviews/pt_apex.htm

On Amazon and other places I've found a lot of favorable reviews along with some negative reviews by people who were dissapointed and misled by some overly optimistic marketing. There is no free lunch and you can't get super-bright light for 72 hours off four AA cells but given the current limits of technology, the Apex looks pretty good. I've been very pleased with my Princeton Tec EOS as a helmet light but it uses 3 AAA cells. The Apex has a more rational 4 AA cell battery pack and from what I've read it runs very nicely with rechargeable NiMH cells. The riders I talked to seem very happy with the battery life and light output of the Apex on the lower power settings.

I don't have an Apex yet, but it makes a very looking, compact light and I think I'm going to be getting one soon. If and when I do, look for pictures and a more detailed report here.

SIR Cascade 1200K Brevet

The Seattle International Randonneurs Cascade 1200K Brevet started at 6:00 AM Saturday June 24, 2006. You can follow along via the blog at:

http://c1200blog.randonista.com/

I'm not riding this one but I got to work the bike check-in last night and this morning up in Monroe. A lot of work goes into making an event like this happen and it's really neat to see it all come together.

Best of luck to all the riders.

-- Kent

Ali's PediCab

Ali is a Seattle messenger and entrepreneur. One of his latest projects is this neat pedicab from Thailand. Ali and Joe are working to get a decent crank installed on the pedicab and also give it some brakes that will be at least one step above Fred Flintstone era technology. So far the cab is a work in progress, but it sure looks cool. You can see a few pictures here:

http://www.carsstink.org/peterson/AliCab/AliCab.html

The Great Divide Mountain Bike Race

The 2006 running of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Race starts Friday June 23rd at high noon from the border at Port Roosville, MT. Links to audio and text updates can be found here:

http://www.greatdividerace.com/

Last year's winner Matthew Lee is racing this once again and again he's riding the Canadian section as a prolog. Tough guys Matt Chester, Rudi Nadler and Dave Nice are all taking a shot at the course on fixed gears this year which makes my last year's run of the route on a singlespeed seem pretty tame. To everyone racing this amazing route, I wish you the very best kind of adventure. Keep those pedals turning,

Kent

Jim Foreman's Shortest Tour

Jim Foreman is one of my online pals. He's a man who knows how to tell a good story and he's been around for quite a while and seen a lot of things. He recently wrote a nice little tale about his shortest bike tour and you can read it here:

http://www.jimforeman.com/Stories/shorttour.htm

You can also read a whole bunch more of his stories and books for free online at:

http://www.jimforeman.com/

And I'll repeat what Jim once said about my stuff, but turn it toward Jim. If you enjoy his writing, feel free to send him a few bucks. Jim was one of the many people who contributed toward financing my Mountain Turtle Adventure but I know he also talked more than a few people into helping me out. Jim's the kind of guy you want watching your back and the fellow who has a story for every occasion.

How To Always Smell Fresh

Toronto Cyclist Darren J. has some good tips for cycle commuters who don't have access to a shower at work. Check out:

http://bikerefugee.blogspot.com/2006/05/how-to-always-smell-fresh.html

A Day on the Bike

Saturday I rode my bike on one of my favorite routes. The story and pictures are here:

http://www.carsstink.org/peterson/6-17-06/DayOnBike.html

Keep 'em rolling,

- Kent

Good Gear for Bad Times

Living and cycling in the Pacific Northwest I perhaps get too many chances to test foul weather gear. The Ultra Marathon Cycling Association (UMCA) decided to tap my expertise and had me write about some of my favorite bits of nasty weather gear. I chose to write about the Rainshield O2 jacket, Rainlegs and the Marmot DriClime Windshirt. You can read the full reviews:

http://www.ultracycling.com/equipment/foul_weather_gear.html

As always, I advise supporting your local merchants.In the case of Rainlegs, however, everyone I know in the US who has these wound up ordering them from Rainlegs UK site at:

http://www.rainlegs.co.uk/

If you'd like either a Rainshield O2 jacket or a Marmot DriClime Windshirt and can't find those locally, you can order them via Amazon.com. As always anything you order via one of my Amazon links does kick some money back to me, but I only recommend products that I have found to be worthwhile. By the way, when I say anything, I mean anything. If you enter Amazon via one of my links and then buy something completely unrelated to cycling like a CD or a book or whatever, I still get a small referal fee.




Keep 'em rolling,

- Kent

Tinker Juarez and RAAM

Tinker Juarez is one of the many amazing people who is competing in the Race Across America (RAAM) right now. Tinker's a total rider, most well known for his many mountain bike victories, but he's currently hammering his way across the country. There are some interesting reports here:

http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=200788

This is a small excerpt:

During his massage his crew swarmed about; mother Rose feeding him, Trevor calculating estimated times for the miles to come, Ed and Jim attending to his bike. When Ed commented that when he cleaned the drivetrain, he found absolutely no sign of grime on the small chainring, Tinker’s nonchalant answer was, “Well, I haven’t been out of the big chain ring yet. Not at all. But that little ring, it’s coming. It’ll have its day.” Incredible! Tinker has amassed 816 miles since Sunday, has climbed thousands of feet, and from the 8000’+ town of Durango he declares that he’s done it all in his 53!


Which isn’t to say that these first days of the Race Across America have been easy. Far from it. “This is by far the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he admits. “It’s so much harder than I ever could have imagines. But I could go home and cry about how hard this is, or I can keep on going and cry on my bike. Crying on my bike sounds better.”


Full coverage of RAAM is here:

http://www.raceacrossamerica.org/

Max's Cycling Pages

Massimiliano "Max" Poletto is such a no-ego guy it took me quite a bit of poking around on his pages to even find his name. But it really wasn't any hardship to read his various ride reports, they've got all kinds of wonderful details. You can see for yourself by exploring here:

http://www.maxp.net/bike/

To get a feel for Max's writing, here are a couple of exerpts from his 2005 LEL ride report at:

http://www.maxp.net/bike/randonneuring/2005-lel-1400k.txt

I leaned my bike against a wall at the control and stared in disbelief: right in front of me, next to my Rambouillet, was Sean's bright red Trek! I checked in at the control and discovered that Glen had left less than half an hour earlier. Maybe I wasn't doing so terribly after all. Sean and Finn sat at a table in the dining hall, and Sean told me an incredible story. After a lot of creaking, one of Finn's pedals had finally snapped. At first, Finn had tried to reattach the pedal to the broken remains of the spindle. But when that approach failed, he simply took off his shoe, stuffed it into his jersey pocket, and wrapped his toes around the jagged spindle remains that still emerged from the crank. In this way, I believe, he pedaled some tens of hilly kilometers, Sean at his side, before a motorcycle marshal caught up to them with a pair of spare pedals. Blood stained his sock, but he didn't stop.

and later in the same report:

I have many memories of those last 65Km: the expansive scenery, the magnificent light, the feeling of achievement at having completed LEL despite the last day's troubles. Yet my best and most unbelievable memory is of Finn, in his granny gear for the first time in 1350Km, pushing Sean up the hills. Sean, his tendons swollen and ibuprofen no longer effective, was forced to soft-pedal even on gentle climbs. He told us to ride on without him, but that wasn't an option for us. I'd have been perfectly willing to ride with him at whatever pace he could muster, but Finn had a different idea. He would ride down the hills just behind Sean, then downshift, put his right hand firmly on Sean's lower back or his saddle, and push him all the way up the hill. At the top he'd accelerate his pedal stroke and finally push forward with his arm---a powerful, sweeping motion that launched Sean over the top of the hill and down the other side. And then he would repeat the procedure again. He did this time after time, on scores of hills, many of them steep and quite long. Together they climbed surprisingly fast: I could probably have outsprinted them had I needed to, but even keeping up with them was no easy task. I was in complete awe of Finn and his technique---I had never seen anything like it.

Max is one of those guys whose passion for the ride shines through in his words. He tells the stories that really capture the feeling of the ride.

Vitamin B and C and Stress

I just read a post from one of my rando pals on an email forum where he said (among other things) :

"I always seem to have some period of adjustment in the early season when my body (including GI tract) seems to need to get used to the physical stress of events. (I've got a ton of cold sores right now.)"

At the end of the Great Divide Race last year my friend Trish complained of mouth sores as well. I'm not a doctor and I don't play one on the internet but back in 1999, before I rode Paris-Brest-Paris, I read almost everything I could find about distance riding and the strains it puts on the body. And one article I read (it was on paper and no, I don't have a reference handy) was written by doctor who'd ridden PBP and developed the serious cold sores that kept him from eating. He theorized that the sustained effort and sweat would lead to a leaching of the B and C vitamins from the body. B and C vitamins are water-soluble and you really can't store a bunch of them in your system. But you can take daily B and C supplements.

I'm not a big fan of drugs (coffee excepted, I'm a huge fan of coffee!) and I pretty much don't even take things like ibuprophen. But I do take a daily "Stress-B" vitamin, which is a B & C vitamin mix. One brand-name is "StressTabs" but you can read labels and find generic equivalents. Since I've been taking these, I haven't had any problems with mouth sores on the longer events. One side-effect you should be aware of is that excess B-vitamins will be flushed out in your urine, making it a bright yellow. Don't worry about this, the bright yellow doesn't mean you are dehydrated, just that you've got more than enough B in your system.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent

SIR 600K, June 3-4, 2006

Last weekend I rode the SIR 600K brevet on the Olympic Peninsula. The story and pictures are here:

http://www.carsstink.org/peterson/600K2006/SIR600K.html

Kogswell Model G 3 Speed

Last week I converted my Kogswell Model G to a three speed. The story and pictures are at:

http://www.carsstink.org/peterson/3Speed/KogswellG3.html

Air Pollution and Cycling

I've talked to various folks who are worried about the quality of the air and worry about breathing polluted air while cycling. The report here:

http://www.bv.com.au/inform.php?a=6&b=31&c=1015

has some interesting information on the subject.

Wander Around Oregon

Over Memorial Day Weekend my pal Fred Mulder and I rode around some very pretty parts of Oregon. The story and pictures are at:

http://www.carsstink.org/peterson/WanderOR/Wander.html

More Coverage in the Times

Christine and the kids and I have gotten a lot of nice reactions since the article about us ran in last Sunday's paper. I've had fellow bike commuters comment on it and there have been many nice comments here on the blog. Old friends have found us via the article. Strangers have started introducing themselves and saying that what we do is "impressive." I guess we've made an impression on folks. One good bit of parenting advice I got years ago was that "kids don't listen to what you say, but they sure as hell pay attention to what you do." I think that is true for adults as well.

Seattle Times columnist Nicole Brodeur was one of the people I've talked to since the original article came out and she published this in today's paper:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nicolebrodeur/2003029538_brodeur31m.html

I always say that I'm not a role model but in our lives we all are role models to someone, in some way. It's really easier for Christine and I to live when we're not being profiled in the paper. Christine is looking forward to having her fifteen minutes of fame be over but she says to me, "You're stuck. You're an internet celebrity. You have a blog."

Maybe I'm stuck, but I'm stuck doing something I love. And maybe, just maybe, more people will get out of their SUVs. Maybe they'll walk to the store. Maybe they'll bike to work. And maybe we'll get to a place where folks will say "Yeah, so that guys bikes everywhere? That's no big deal. Hell, that's normal."

A family of 4 -- but no car

This past weekend, while I was off wandering around Oregon with my pal Fred, the Seattle paper ran a front-page story about about how my lovely wife and I raised our kids in a car-free household. You never know how a story is going to turn out until you see it in print, but I think the reporter, Sonia Krishnan, did a pretty good job telling our story. The text and pictures are online here:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003023972_carless28e.html

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent

Biking to Work

Last Friday was Bike to Work Day here in Seattle. In my job and my life I preach the gospel of every day being Bike to Work Day but this annual event does serve as a nice catalyst to get some new riders to try bike commuting. The folks at the Cascade Bicycle Club Education Foundation do a terrific job of lining up sponsors, coordinating volunteers and making sure a lot of little things happen to make the day a success. Each year my own commute is a little extra special on Bike to Work Day.

Friday I was out the door at 5:11 AM. About an hour later I rolled past the crew setting up the commute station on the Seattle side of the I-90 floating bridge. When I got to my office at Bikestation Seattle at 6:28 AM, Barb already had the table set up outside and we were getting our first commuters coming through. I dashed over to the nearby Starbucks to pick up the two big bags of scones and muffins they were donating to our station.

Over the next few hours, we saw a lot of commuters. We gave people various bike maps,Clif Bars, water bottles, pastries and clever little nylon neck wallets. Joe give people free bike inspections and quick bike adjustments. We completely sold out of $10 Bike to Work Day t-shirts and even sold a couple of the volunteer shirts we'd been given.

Eileen Kadesh from Metro has seemingly limitless reserves of energy. She not only got Starbucks to pledge us the scones, she'd ordered in the cool wallets. And every day she works to make the Metro system work for cyclists. Friday she spent the first few hours of the morning at another station before coming down to the Bikestation with another of her Metro colleagues to work the later shift at the table outside.

Elsewhere in the city, hundreds of other folks were doing similar things. The event was very successful. I don't think my buddy Chris Cameron will mind if I quote a bit from an email he sent us:

Our heartfelt thanks go out to you for an amazingly successful 2006 Starbucks Bike to Work Day. We had a good feeling this year was going to be significantly different than in years past. 2006 had 15,234 bicycle commuters counted by our forty stations compared to last year's 10,098 riders. (A 52% increase in twelve months and a 283% increase since we started counting in 2000)

We appreciate all of you who come over to Sand Point to pick up and drop off supplies, sell t-shirts, arrange workstations and volunteer your precious time to the event. We understand that the success of this event is a direct result of the time and effort put in by our station sponsors and our many wonderful volunteers. Every year the stress of producing such a huge event pales in comparison to the overwhelming positive wave and spirit of volunteerism that makes bike to work day so special.

Think about that. Over 15,000 commuters. Over 15,000 people not in cars. Maybe the price of gas should get as much credit as all the t-shirts and pastries and free water bottles and volunteer effort, but I'm not going to thank the oil companies. I'll thank Chris and Eileen and Barb and Joe and all the folks out there on bikes, doing their bit.

There is alternative energy, it's human energy. It's not just how these good people go to work every day, it's why they go to work every day.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent

Pictures and Thoughts from the Ride of Silence

On Wednesday May 17, 2006 I was one of the hundreds of cyclists who rode in Seattle's Ride of Silence. Like many of the riders I spoke with before and after the ride, I had (and still have) mixed feelings about the ride. I want to honor the fallen and remind folks that cyclists are legitimate users of the public roadways. On the other hand, the Ride of Silence can also send the message that it's just too dangerous to ride on the roads and I don't believe that. I chose to ride to remember the fallen and two of the fallen in particular.

I knew Ken Kifer through his writings and we exchanged a few emails a few years ago. He was one of the good guys, a true philosopher, the kind of man Thoreau was describing when he wrote:

"To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically."

Ken wrote a lot of good stuff and posted it to his website. When he was killed in 2003, a lot of people knew that they had lost a true friend. Thanks to many fine people, Ken's legacy and his website live on. Despite the tragedy of his death, his article Is Cycling Dangerous? is still the best analysis of the subject I've found.

When I was riding on Wednesday, I was also thinking of Larry Schwartz. Again, Larry is someone I only knew via the Internet. Larry and I were both members of a club called C-KAP, the Canadian Kilometer Achiever Program. Although most C-KAPpers are Canadian, Canadian citizenship is not a requirement. Larry and I were both members of the club's American minority. Larry and I were also a couple of the club riders who logged a large number of kilometers each year. C-KAP publishes an annual report and each year I'd see my name in the top ten in terms of kilometers and each year I'd see Larry's name as one of the people who'd logged more kilometers than I had. Part of the friendly competition of the club is seeing if you can move up in the annual rankings.

When the 2003 C-KAP report came out, I was surprised to see I'd finally beaten Larry in the annual rankings. He was 14th on the list instead of being in his usual spot in the top ten. But I hadn't won anything, the numbers told a small part of the story and the cover story of the report told the rest. On May 1st, 2003 Larry Schwartz was riding his bicycle when he struck from behind by a school bus. Larry died without regaining consciousness on May 4th. He left behind many friends, including his fiancée Judith Ann Jolly. The driver of the bus was sentenced to six months in jail and five years probation.

Even though he's only lived to ride four months in 2003, Larry still rode 12,212 kilometers that year. Clearly, Larry loved to ride. Larry loved to ride and that love inspired others to ride. Larry's tragic death became the catalyst for the Ride of Silence. I rode with hundreds of other riders in Seattle and thousands of riders across the country to remember Larry and others like him.

Warren Zevon knew that life will kill you and Jim Morrison knew that no one gets out of here alive. Ken Kifer and Larry Schwartz knew that life is for living, for doing that which you love. Both those men loved riding and passed some of that love on to the rest of us. I rode on Wednesday and I ride every day because, like Ken and Larry, I believe in riding bicycles.

My pictures from the Seattle Ride of Silence are here:

http://www.carsstink.org/peterson/SilenceRide/Silence.html

Alex Wetmore's report and pictures are here:

http://blogs.phred.org/blogs/alex_wetmore/archive/2006/05/20/157.aspx

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent

Sheldon Brown and Wolfgang's Vault

If you are at all interested in bicycles, the odds are that you already know about Sheldon Brown. For many years he's been the go to guy on the internet in terms of bike info. He's created hundreds of great web pages, written thousands of intelligent email responses to queries and he's really a genuine living treasure. Almost any Google query on any bicycle question will probably lead you to one of Sheldon's pages.

Sheldon's interests extend beyond bikes and an interesting launch point into Sheldon's world is at:

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/hb.html

This is Sheldon's Homebase page and it's been around since February 14th, 2000. Sheldon states:

" This document is primarily for my own personal use, but I have made it available to anybody who may find it useful."

That page is pretty darn useful and interesting. While it's fun to check out the various bicycle links, some of the other stuff is also fascinating and useful. A while back, via Sheldon's page, I followed a link to Wolfgang's Vault.

http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/

Wolfgang's Vault is a terrific audio resource. Here's the description of Vault Radio from the site:

Bill Graham and his concert promotion company, Bill Graham Presents, produced more than 35,000 concerts all over the world. His first venue, the legendary Fillmore Auditorium, was home to many of rock's greatest performers - Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Doors, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Prince - and the list goes on and on.

Graham taped thousands of live performances and stored the tapes in the basement of the BGP headquarters. These tapes and the concerts they captured lay dormant until the Bill Graham archive was acquired by Wolfgang's Vault (Bill Graham's given first name was Wolfgang) in 2003.

Vault Radio is now playing selected tracks from these concerts in an FM-quality, 128K digital radio stream.

Does Wolfgang's Vault have anything to do with bicycles? Maybe not. But when I'm not on my bike ( I don't do the iPod or Mp3 thing when I ride) the odds are pretty good that I've got Dylan or the Dead or Jimi or somebody else reaching out across the years, out of the depths of Wolfgang's Vault and playing out the tiny speakers of my laptop.

Seattle Area Bike Maps

In my job I help people figure out how to get around by bicycle. One of the things new bicycle commuters discover is that the best route for bicycling somewhere may not be the route that would use to drive to that location. Various agencies have created some pretty good bicycle maps and many of these maps are available online. A lot of these maps have color codes indicating road and trail conditions and arrowheads indicating where the hills are (a key bit of infomation when you are moving under your own power)
.
I don't claim this is an exhaustive list of the area bicycle maps but below are links to several useful bike maps for this part of the world:

-------

Bellevue Bicycle Map:

http://www.onelesscarbellevue.org/sub/com_bikewalk.shtml

-------

Bellingham Bicycle Map:

http://www.cob.org/gis/maps/transportation.htm

--------

Burke-Gilman Trail Map

http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/transportation/burkegilmantrailmaps.htm

--------

King County Bicycle Map:

http://www.metrokc.gov/kcdot/roads/bike/map.cfm

--------

Redmond Bicycling Guide:

http://www.redmond.gov/cityservices/citymaps.asp#Bicycling

--------

Seatac Airport to Downtown Seattle Map

http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/transportation/seatacbikemap.htm

Written directions are here:

http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/transportation/seatacbikewritten.htm

--------

Seattle Bike Maps:

http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/transportation/bikemaps.htm

--------

Snohomish County Bicycle Map:

http://www.commtrans.org/?mc=Ridingthebus&subcat=11&page=3

---------

Ride of Silence

Date: Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Time: 7:00 pm
Where: At over 120 U.S. locations and eight other countries

Join cyclists worldwide in a silent slow-paced ride (max. 12 mph/19.3 kph) in honor of those who have been injured or killed while cycling on public roadways.

So far, rides have been planned for Everett, Renton, Seattle, Tacoma, Vancouver, and Walla Walla. For ride locations and contact info, check the www.rideofsilence.org website.

Stuff about Stuff, Virtual Stuff and Other Stuff

Hang with me on this one folks. Bikes fit in with this somehow.

The thing of it is this: you'd think it shouldn't be about things.

I'll start making sense in while.

I recently found an interesting translation of the Tao Te Ching here:

http://www.beatrice.com/TAO.html

and it states it fairly well. Here's how it starts out:

---

If you can talk about it,
it ain't Tao.
If it has a name,
it's just another thing.

Tao doesn't have a name.
Names are for ordinary things.
Stop wanting stuff;
it keeps you from seeing what's real.

When you want stuff,
all you see are things.

Those two sentences
mean the same thing.
Figure them out,
and you've got it made.

---

Clearly this translation is more from the Jack Kerouac/Quentin Tarantino school of thought than any ivory tower and that's cool with me. I'm a pretty simple guy and the basic teachings from Tao and Zen have always resonated with me.

Here's the thing of it. Even a relatively simple guy like me has lots of stuff. It often seems like too much stuff. My wife will tell you it's definitely too much stuff and I've long been convinced that she's the wisest soul in this family.

But thinking about too many things is still thinking about things. We are creatures of the world and the world is full of things. I write about some simpler things, things that I've used to replace other things. I don't think I'm on a path that ends without things, but I am on a journey where I think quite a bit about the things that I carry.

I think I've figured out why I like the fixed gear bicycle: it's enough bicycle for me. A bicycle is often enough of a transport vehicle for me. The simpler solutions appeal to me. I like simple things. I like simple bikes.

My life is fairly simple, but I still think a lot about stuff. I write about stuff. I write reviews of stuff and sometimes those reviews show up on this blog or in Dirt Rag or in the pages of UltraCycling. And the more I write about stuff, the more stuff folks send me. And the Internet is one giant window into a whole universe of stuff. I get emails from folks asking me what I think about some bit of stuff and a lot of times I write back and tell 'em. I've got opinions. In some cases, I've got experience. And I've still got too much stuff.

I've got a lot of books, but I try to pare that down. Back in 1982 I got rid of most of my stuff and took my first really big bike tour. I rode from Minnesota to northern California. I've always been a bookish sort, but books are heavy so I only took one paperback with me. I'd read that book in the evenings after the day's ride and when I finished that book I dropped it off at a used bookshop, picked up something else and continued on. For that time of my life, it wasn't a bad way to live.

It is perhaps worth noting that even such standard-bearers of simplicity as Henry David Thoreau were not always purely simple, all the time. Thoreau lived in that cabin for two years, two months and two days. In the opening page of Walden, he writes "At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again." And one of my favorite jokes was delivered by Bob Newhart in his droll, button-down delivery, "Thoreau said 'simplify, simplify, simplify.' Wouldn't it have been simpler if he's only said it once?"

I am at present a sojourner in civilized life. I live with a roof and walls and windows and a stove. I share this space with many things including a box that keeps ice cream frozen and another that lets me send these words out into the ether. I have such a luxurious place for my stuff (to use George Carlin's phrase), that I actually can afford to have a paper copy of Walden as well as the very handy electronic one. Excessive luxury, perhaps. Perhaps I hang onto the paper copy out of sentiment.

Our Google-searchable, fiber-optic and wifi-linked world has not eliminated paper but I've realized that these are days in which I read more words from screens than words from printed pages. I am eying my bookshelf with suspicion.

I sometimes get paid when my words hit paper but in this weird virtual world I bet you are reading this off a screen. And you may be reading it just minutes after I wrote this down. Or maybe you are reading it years from now. But let me tell you a story about this weird virtual world, where books become bits, where books don't have to be paper and where bits become stuff again.

Last summer I raced the length of the Continental Divide on a single-speed mountain bike. The story of that ride appeared in the pages of Dirt Rag and as a virtual book at: http://www.carsstink.org/peterson/Turtle/MountainTurtle.html The folks at Dirt Rag paid me for the article based on what they knew of me from my online writing. Many, many people put up money to help me make that trip based only on words they'd read off screens. Since the trip, many more have paid me something for the virtual book. I'm not getting rich, but as I said, I'm a simple man. I do make more money from words on screens than words on pages.

On this blog, I write about what interests me. I try to keep it connected to bikes, since I'm basically a bike guy. Interestingly, again it was my words on screens that helped me convince people that I could make the jump from being a software guy to a bike writing and bike advocacy guy.

And while this blog is basically non-commercial, I did add a couple of potential revenue streams to the bits. I hope I've added these things in ways that are not too obnoxious. My Mountain Turtle story has has a PayPal link attached for those who want to pay something for that tale. I also have a Café Press store that sells T-shirts and other items. And a few months ago I decided to experiment with an Amazon Associates Store called The Mountain Turtle Market which provides links to various items that I find useful. None of these things generate tons of money but little bits count up.

The Amazon stuff has been the most interesting. Back in January I wrote about the PrincetonTec EOS headlight and a bunch of you folks must have needed a light like this because 20 of you ordered an EOS. I get about 5% commission off those sales, so in that case I made back the money I spent on the light. The EOS is the single most popular item in my online store.

A very interesting thing about Amazon is that if you go to Amazon through an Amazon Associates Store or link and purchase anything within the next 24 hours, the referring shopkeeper gets a commission on that sale. So even though I was only linking to bike and sporting-related items and books, I wound up getting commissions on software, computer books, CDs and all kinds of other things. A standard searchbox like this:




lets all of Amazon be a potential revenue stream.

Let me restate that I'm not getting rich. But I did get my first quarter commission from Amazon and the best deal is if you take it in the form of an Amazon gift certificate. So naturally I used it to buy more stuff. In this specific instance, I got this specific thing a PalmOne Zire 31:







Now here's why this is semi-bike related. I use this primarily as a document reader. This is smaller and lighter than my paper copy of Walden but tucked onto the thumbnail-size SD card is the text of Walden and the Leaves of Grass and the writings of Lao Tzu and novels by Joseph Conrad. And more. Sites like:

http://manybooks.net/

are my libraries and bookstores now. Thanks to writers like Cory Doctorow I can also read some great modern books as well as the classics. Is this simpler, is it less stuff? In one way, certainly not. Electronics and batteries and SD cards and USB cables don't have the simplicity of paper copies. But in another way it is a smaller pile of stuff. I've got a load of paper books to take to the used bookstore now. I don't think Henry would approve but Whitman might. Perhaps I'm not simpler, perhaps I contradict myself. I think Walt would be OK with that.

"Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
-- Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself" US poet (1819 - 1892)

Safety First

Last Thursday I gave another seminar at the Seattle Bikestation. The topic this time was "Safety First" and the text of the seminar can be read here:

http://www.carsstink.org/peterson/Safety%20First.html

As with any of the stuff I post here, if you think it's of use and you'd like to reprint it, link to it or distribute it, feel free. All I ask is that you retain a reference back to the original source. When I get more organized (and it's very hard to picture my getting less organized!) I'm probably going to sweep through my site and place all the content under Creative Commons license. See:

http://creativecommons.org/

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent

WeWeWr: Trail of Tears

Hey there blog fans.

Spring is the busy time in the world of the professional bike commuter so a few other things are getting some of the attention that could be going to this blog. But fear not, you'll be seeing more stuff up here in due time and I'm lucky enough to have eloquent friends who send me neat stories which I shamelessly steal to fill this space. This morning I had a great note in my inbox from my friend Brad Hawkins. He's generously given me permission to reproduce it here.

Brad Hawkins with his John Deere bike and cello

----------

Dear Friends of the Wheel,

It was a sad day in Kristina/Brad land today. The Westbrook Weekly Wramble kicked off today with the usual suspects: Karl, Claire, Kristina, and the non-alliterated Brad. The sun was out, the wind, constant at 20-25 out of the northwest. We chit-chatted by the clock and looked wistfully around for all the rest of you bozos who never come but still want to be invited.... every damn week. I digress......

Where was I, oh yes, we met down at 3rd and University, Karl on his "rain" bike, which consists of a Cannondale CAAD 5 with full Dura Ace, $1500 wheels, of course no fenders (remember, "rain" bike), and handlebars rotated so far forward and down that the shifters actually point forward like some charging bull. The drops in full Modolo style point back up towards the rider just begging for some sort of header where the rider will be blissfully impaled upon impact. Claire, riding the best bike ever made by the Trek/LeMond/GaryFisher/you'renext juggernaut, the Big Sky, which was inexplicably discontinued for lack of interest by Greg LeMond himself probably. I showed up bobtailing (riding without my trailer) the John Deere which feels like a veritable cheetah, ready to pounce despite weighing more that two of Karl's "rain" bikes. Kristina, having just chided Michael at the last ride about his complete inattention to all things mechanical, shows up with her regular steed which looks more and more like the retarded child at the supermarket wearing the football helmet yelling for soda pop. I'll get to that part later.

So we start down third but not before swinging our bikes around and mine so hard into Karl's nifty wheel that I'm sure I've put it out of true (bent it). No such misfortune. Bikers race down 3rd like bats on the hunt for their meal, darting among the buses and laughing at the poor saps stopped by police for the simple offense of driving a car down Third. Hey, I don't write the rules, I just rub them in others' faces, especially that Hummer 2 with the spinners, yeah, you were my favorite "victim" of all. We fall in with some other bikers and wend our way down to Alaskan for our search for the perfect hill-less ride. Yes, we are here for the flats. Save the Alps for another day; today we ride in Flanders, in the Netherlands, across the Cossack Plain. Today we ride the wind, we search for the perfect flat land ride, the one we are sure our dilletante friends who want to ride, who say they will be out, who brag about their bike, who brag about mythical epic rides of yesteryear, but are too afraid to ride up Pike Street, let alone some of the more challenging hills of our fair land. This ride was for you, suckers!

We get onto Alaskan and are heading with the wind at a comfortable 20 mph clip. This is only possible because the wind smiles on our exploits, Yea, the great God above wants us out there and I'm just sure that when we turn around and head back, by golly, that same God will smile on us and turn that wind around with us just for good measure. It's that kind of ride. The cars are a delight and each one smiles as I pull out through the obstacles and block their path home. Everyone understands. Everyone is smiling. Good will is all around us. The Gods are smiling.

Not so fast! Karl flats out. Remember those $1500 wheels? well, they are protected by a thin band of rubber pumped up to 500 atmospheres of pressure and and these have been done in by the detritus of some drunken fratboy who wanted to pretend to be wild while the trust funds are still paying by throwing his bottles out of a moving car. We bikers love this. This is our favorite thing in the whole world. Nothing makes our day like broken bottle glass on the road way. Automotive safety glass? no problem, you can chew on and swallow that stuff, but somehow the beer companies prefer crap glass that splinters into millions of tire shredding pieces. Karl likes thin tires. Karl has been known to go very fast on thin tires. Glass likes thin tires. Karl doesn't go fast when glass likes thin tires. Karl doesn't like glass.

Kristina offered up a bandaid to patch the hole in the side of Karl's tire. I wasn't so sure and offered the tried and true method of a dollar bill. Karl took the bandaid. It worked just as you would expect and bulged out, nearly ruining a new tube. Karl, deflated, deflated the tire and inserted my now folded dollar bill. Works like magic. We were off and running in no time and with my mental calculations, we could still have a good ride and let me make it back to SU for a rehearsal.

We cruised down to West Marginal Way and then into South Park. South Park and South Seattle are my favorite places to ride because this is where the kids get to play in parks. In north Seattle where all the white people live, it's too dangerous and white kids run the risk of getting kidnapped or raped or whatever. In the south end, kids play in the parks, ride their bikes around the neighborhood, get icecream at the local market, sit around and just kill time. The kids are happy here. I like the south end. We ride from Cloverdale onto south 14th Ave and then stop for a regroup. Kristina's bike (remember the football helmet) has decided not to shift anymore. She's cussing up a storm and demands that one of us looks at it. The shifter isn't working and we soon figure out that the cable has broken at the derailer. No sweat, I start to thread the frayed cable through the adjuster and discover that it won't go in. Time is slipping away and I have 40 minutes until I have to play a downbeat with cello in hand. It's a paying gig.

I cut bait and start to adjust the limit stop on the derailer so Kristina won't have to ride a 42:12 all the way home into the wind on 92 gear inches. Kristina howls in protest. "Don't touch my derailer!" she wails. A street fight nearly breaks out between us. Claire comes to the rescue and cooler heads explain that this will give her 2 gears to play with (one in back and two in front) so she can limp home. Karl wonders why only two since she has three sprokets up front and I chuckle while telling him that that part of the bike hasn't worked in a while and Kristina hasn't used the big gear reliably since the first W. Bush administration. The bike comes with 27 gears, Kristina has let that dwindle 18 and now through neglect and bad luck, she has two. Kristina is a civil/mechanical engineer. Kristina's bike IS that retarded kid right now. You feel love, you feel empathy, but you just can't stop looking and pointing. Somewhere in Redmond, while you read this, Michael Tromsdorff is on the floor laughing his ass off.

It's now 6:25 PM and I have to play at 7. We are in deep South Park and I scope out a new, fast route back to civilization. We cross over the 16th street bridge and onto East Marginal Way past the Air Museum. Ryan, eat your heart out. We then hobble over to Airport road for the fast, wind in the face sprint (thanks a lot, God!) back through Georgetown. We climb up and over the train bridge, hurtle ourselves down the other side, and Karl flats again. It's 6:42. At this point, I can't wait around so I kiss my darling Claire on the cheek and high tail it out of Dodge. I climbed up into Chinatown, right onto Jackson, left onto 12th, huffing and puffing, running every red, and make it to rehearsal at 7:01 where the director is nonplussed.

Claire or one of the others will let you know how it all ended. As for me, this should be a cautionary tale. Get your bike fixed regularly, get some tough tires, and don't try to get 20 miles in when you have a time limit. Oh yes, and explain very clearly what you are about to do before you wrench on someone else's $90 derailer on the sidewalk next to a busy intersection where you are the only person not lost...... so you don't get your ears boxed.

Brad Hawkins
hawkskins(at)gmail.com

What Eric Said

If Eric S. Sande ever gets out to the Seattle area or I ever get to the Washington DC area, I'd like to buy him a cup of coffee. Yesterday he posted this lovely and practical bit of advice over on the Bike Touring List:

http://search.bikelist.org/getmsg.asp?Filename=touring.10604.1170.eml

Keep 'em rolling and keep perspective. Eric's wise words are good guidance for the journey.

Kent

Voyage

As I've mentioned before, the Aerostich folks put out a great catalog. Their focus is gear for motorcycle adventures but a lot of gear in their catalog also comes in handy for human powered adventures as well. But the great thing about their print catalog is that it isn't just a listing of shiny dodads and geegaws, they intersperse the product descriptions and pictures with quotes from folks who actually go out and do stuff. Their latest catalog has quotes from such bike people as Grant Petersen and Maynard Hershon but my favorite quote is this one from Sterling Hayden:

To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest... "I've always wanted to sail to the South Seas, but I can't afford it." What these men can't afford is not to go. They are emmeshed in the cancerous discipline of security. And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine. And before we know it our lives are gone.

What does a man need, really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in -- and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all, in a material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention from the sheer idiocy of the charade.

The years thunder by. The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.

Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?

-- Sterling Hayden, Voyage, 1976 (Thanks Doug Hackney)

Bicycle Commuter Act

There are versions of bike commuter incentive legislation proposed in both the house and the senate now. Maybe something will actually get passed someday. Read more about it here:

http://www.bta4bikes.org/btablog/2006/04/24/sen-wyden-introduces-bicycle-commuter-act/

Commuter Bike Considerations

I've been giving a series of talks about bike commuting. This is pretty much what I said at today's talk at the Seattle Bikestation.

Commuter Bike Considerations: Riding to Work is Not the Tour de France

By Kent Peterson, Bicycle Alliance of Washington

I’m going to start by talking not about bikes, but about shoes. I’m guessing here but I’ll bet that the odds are pretty good that you own more than one pair of shoes. If you go to a fancy party you probably wear different shoes than you would to go hiking on Mount Si. If you are going to jog around Green Lake, you’ll probably choose shoes that are designed for running.

Well, bikes are like shoes, there are different kinds of bikes and some kinds are better for some things than others. And like shoes, the single most important thing with a bike is fit. Bikes come in different sizes and if your bike doesn’t fit you, you’ll never get comfortable. So the first thing I tell people about bikes is to go to a good bike shop, talk to somebody who knows bikes and get a bike that fits.

A bike not only has to be a good fit for you, it should be a good fit for the riding you are planning on doing. If you are planning on using your bike for commuting, riding back and forth from home to work or school, you should get a good commuting bike. Unfortunately much of the bike business is geared around racing bikes or extreme downhill mountain bikes or various things other than commuting, so as a customer, you may have to do some digging to find the right kind of bike. Remember riding to work is not the Tour de France. The bike that is right for Lance Armstrong probably isn’t the best bike for your trip to work.

Let’s start at the bottom and talk about tires. Lance rides really skinny, really high pressure racing tires. Lance rides on really smooth roads in France, roads that have been swept and fans write his name on the road. When Lance has a flat tire, there is a car right there with a spare wheel and a mechanic to swap in the new wheel. When you ride to work, the road probably has potholes. Fans probably don’t write your name on the road but people may yell things at you as you ride. If you have a flat tire, you are the person who has to deal with it.

So a commuter bike should probably have bigger, tougher tires than what Lance has on his bike. Some people commute on “mountain” bikes, some people commute on “road” bikes, but the important thing is that your bike has tires appropriate to the task. Returning to the idea of shoes, tires are like the shoes for your bike.

Lance knows that higher pressure tires roll easier and lighter tires roll better than heavy ones. The important thing is to find the right tire for the job. If you are riding a mountain bike on the road big, knobby, low-pressure tires are probably slowing you down. You can probably fit your bike with a slicker, high-pressure tire that is still tough enough for the potholed streets. On the other hand, if you have very skinny, very light racing tires on your road bike, you may pinch flat on the edge of a pothole or be undone by a patch of broken glass, so you probably want to look at getting a tougher road tire. There are a variety of good, tough tires out there and two that I’ve used and like are the Specialized Armadillo and the Schwalbe Marathon XR.

Some road bikes have better clearance than others for running fatter tires. A lot of modern “racing” bikes can only fit tires that are about 23 mm wide and such a bike probably isn’t as well suited to commuting as something with more tire clearance like a “touring” or “sport touring” bike. Tire clearance doesn’t just give you room to run different size tires, it also gives you room to mount fenders on your bike.

Most bikes are sold without fenders but it rains a lot around here and fenders really do a lot to keep you dry. Lance doesn’t have to worry about fenders, when he’s done with his ride; he’s done with his work. When you are done with your ride, you are at work. It’s better if you’re dry when you get there.

Lance’s job is to go fast and everything on his bike is made to help him go fast. Riding your bike fast is not your job, you are riding to your job and some parts of your bike are there to help you be safe and comfortable. Lance has his handlebars lower than his saddle so he can crank out a lot of power and be lower and more aerodynamic. You might be more comfortable with your handlebars somewhat higher so you have less pressure on your hands. It might be better for you to be more upright. You may be less aerodynamic but you might find it easier to look around.

Speaking of looking around, I’m a big fan of the bicycle mirror. Some people have mirrors mounted on their handlebars, some people have mirrors mounted on their helmets. Some people don’t use mirrors at all but you probably wouldn’t drive a car that didn’t have rear view mirrors and I’ve found that a bike mirror is a very handy bit of gear.

Lance doesn’t have to worry about carrying as much stuff as you do. Lance maybe has to carry a water bottle and a Powerbar. Those are good things for you to carry but Powerbar doesn’t sponsor you so maybe you’ll carry tastier snacks. You don’t have that handy team mechanic so you probably want to carry a tire pump and a spare tube and a few other tools. You may want to carry a change of clothes, a rain jacket and maybe you need to carry some other stuff for work as well.

There are various ways to carry stuff. Some folks use a backpack and some use a messenger bag. A lot of people use a rack and some kind of luggage like a trunk bag or panniers. Other options are a handlebar bag, baskets or a bag that attaches to the bike saddle. A commuting bike doesn’t just carry you, it also carries your stuff. Figure out what you need to take and figure out a solution that works for you.

One item that you’ll probably be carrying is a good bike lock. When Lance finishes his ride, somebody makes sure his bike is safe. When you finish your ride, you are the one who makes sure your bike is safe. A good lock is essential and so is good locking technique. Different areas have different problems with crime but in general it’s up to you to make sure your bike and its various parts stay in your possession. Some commuters avoid lugging a huge lock with them by leaving the big lock attached to the bike rack at their office but if you opt for this technique you want to be certain that you never, ever leave your unlocked bike “just for a minute” to dash into a store. A minute is all it takes to lose your bike.

When Lance is racing, he knows everyone is looking to see where he is. When you are commuting it’s safest to assume people aren’t looking for you. So it’s best to do what you can to make yourself seen and heard. For riding at night, lights and reflectors are essential. Any time, day or night, bright light colored clothing is a good idea. Lance has to earn his yellow jersey but bright yellow vests are available at almost any bike shop. A bell or a horn is another thing that Lance would never have on his bike but it might be very handy item to have on yours.

So far I’ve mostly talked about things that you might want that a racer like Lance won’t need, but now I’d like to flip things around a bit. There are some things that make sense on a racing bike that might not make sense on a commuting bike.

Almost all bicycle racers use clipless pedals and special shoes. Lance rides in shoes with very stiff soles and cleats that stick out. Great for racing but bad for walking around. Now a lot of “serious” cyclists will tell you how much more efficient you are with clipless pedals and fancy shoes but maybe you don’t need all that for commuting. Many mountain bike shoes are almost as stiff as road shoes but they have recessed cleats so you can actually walk like a human while wearing those shoes. Other options are old-fashioned toe clips or Power Grips. With toe clips or Power Grips you can ride in more “normal” shoes.

Racing bikes may be geared for going fast but for commuting with a load of stuff you want to make sure you have gears that are low enough to get you up whatever hills you’ll encounter. Lance can climb big mountains with racing gearing. The odds are pretty good you’ll want lower gears than what Lance uses. Again, a good bike shop can give you guidance about selecting the proper gears. Don’t get caught up in having a lot of gears, some folks commute on one speed or three speed bikes and do fine. The key is having the right gearing for your commute.

As I mentioned earlier, some people commute on “road” bikes and some on “mountain” bikes and there are a lot of different kinds of bikes. If you are looking at commuting on a mountain bike, complex suspension systems are probably not going to do much but slow you down. In the case of a mountain bike, gearing that comes in handy for climbing a steep rock-strewn slope may be too low for your commute.

My favorite commute bikes are simple. No fancy suspensions. No super expensive carbon bits that cost twice as much because they are three grams lighter than last year’s bits. A good frame with good clearances for sensible tires and fenders. A good way to carry stuff. A bike that isn’t too pretty so thieves might take the nicer looking bike parked next to mine.

Bike commuting is not the Tour de France. You are not Lance Armstrong. You don’t need to be. All you need is a good bike and I hope I’ve helped you understand a little more about what to look for in a good commuting bicycle.

Flèche NW

Last weekend I rode the Flèche NW with a few of my shiftless friends. You can read all about it and see pictures at:

http://www.carsstink.org/peterson/Fleche2006/FlecheNW.html

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent

Busy, busy

I'm sure keeping busy, but one of the things I haven't been keeping busy with is updating the blog. Soon I'll be posting a story that will give some context to the above photo, but for now you folks can keep busy by inventing your own captions.

Kent

Bicycle Commute Workshops

Starting this Thursday I'll be giving a series of talks about bicycle commuting. The talks are free but space is limited so we're asking that folks RSPV to info@bicyclealliance.org. I'd like to stack the audience with at least a few of my pals, so if you're in the Seattle area and are free from noon to one on a Thursday, come on by. Here's the schedule:

April 6 - Bike Commuter Resources: Maps, Mass Transit, Lockers and Bike Buddies

April 20 - Commuter Bike Considerations: Riding to Work is Not the Tour de France

May 4 - Safety First: Tips and Techniques for Riding in Traffic

May 18 - Clothes for Commuting: Can You be Functional and Fashionable?

June 1 - Night Riding: Safe Riding After Sundown

June 15 - Not Your Ordinary Bicycle: Recumbents, Fixed Gears and Other Interesting Bicycles

The Ghost Town of Monte Cristo

I mentioned this trip on a couple of email lists last fall but I figure I might as well link this into the blogosphere. Some pics from at trip my pal Mark Vande Kamp and I took to Monte Cristo last September are here:

http://www.carsstink.org/peterson/Monte/MC.html

And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

Not every day is about big adventures. Some days I just do simple stuff like go to the bank, have a cup of coffee with my beautiful wife, catch up on some paper work, listen to the radio, feed the cat, watch too much South Park with the kids (I am not a parental role model), read a book, do laundry and other things that don't make for really exciting blog entries. It's been the kind of damp day that's good for doing things like this.

They say that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I don't think that's true but I don't have to go far to look for treasure. I've known for quite some time that it's all right here. The photo above is the view out the door of my apartment this evening.