#30DaysofBiking: Seattle Area Rain

Some people think that it rains all the time in the Seattle area. I can tell you for certain that this is not true. Take today for example. It was not raining when I rode the bus from Issaquah to Seattle. It was not raining when I met up with @OrigamiGirl and she returned my Dahon, which she'd borrowed so she'd have a bike for the #30DaysofBiking when she attended a wedding in San Diego. It was not raining when I left the bike parked in the safe and dry Seattle Bike Port and went to lunch with my friend Dave. It was not raining when Dave and I walked back from lunch.

And then it began raining. It was raining when I left the Bike Port and rode through the International District. It was raining as I climbed the hill to the Bike Tunnel. I presume it was raining while I was in the bike tunnel, because it sure as heck was raining when I got out of the bike tunnel and rolled onto the I-90 bridge. It rained as I rode over Mercer Island, over the Bellevue Slough, up the Factoria Hill and the edge of Cougar Mountain. And it rained all the way into Issaquah.

I'm inside now, drier and warmer, with a mug of hot cocoa. And as I look out the window, I see it's stopped raining.

It doesn't rain all the time in the Seattle area.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

#30DaysofBiking: East Lake Sammamish Trail & Bike Lane

North of Gilman Boulevard and south of the freeway in Issaquah, there is a small field where the sheep graze. It is at the southern end of the Lake Sammamish Trail, a fine gravel path that follows the old rail route north to Redmond.

You are not supposed to park at any time on the corridor, but I park anyway, just for a moment, to read and wonder about a missing wallaby.

I fear for a sweet guy in the subwilderness of Sammamish. There are coyotes and cougars in these hills and speeding cars on these roads. I hope Mac is simply out having a great adventure.

Many cyclists ride machines so optimized for asphalt that they can never ride anywhere but on a smoothly paved road. There are plans to pave this trail, but I'm not sure every problem of mobility needs to be solved with speed and asphalt. I'm perfectly happy this morning on a bike with wide tires and a slower nature.

The trail bisects some very expensive land, for we humans love to look out on the water and have nature in our back yards. The freeloading geese enjoy the same views for free.

The connector trail just south of Marymoor links the trail to the Sammamish River Trail but plans also include completing the trail along the old train corridor through downtown Redmond. Today I follow the trail to the end, then backtrack through the park to downtown Redmond and the thrift store. For the price of a cup of coffee, I get this week's novel. I think of the line from Erasmus, the one Christine and I had on the bookmarks back when we ran a used bookstore: "When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes."

Going back home, I start to take the faster way, the Sammamish Parkway. There are bike lanes heading both north and south and it is the place where one can ride for speed.

The path is only a few feet from the bike lane and the rushing road, but the riding is quite different. The lane is louder and while I may be going faster, I feel slower. I don't want to linger here with my fat tires. I see the value of moving swiftly and I think I should be riding something faster, something with aerobars perhaps. I'm the slowest thing in a world moving quickly and I'm reminded to speed up. I'm not sure I want to speed up.

On the trail, I'm a fast thing in a world moving slowly and I'm reminded to slow down. Aerobars would be a useless accessory, but a bike bell helps me make friends with the joggers and people walking their dogs. On the trail, I still have time to wonder about wallabys.

There is nothing wrong with racing and I have many friends who love going faster than I ride these days. And some days I'm in the mood for fast riding.

But not today.

I leave fast lane to the faster folks as I turn my bike's fat tires onto the gravel path that leads me home.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

#30DaysofBiking: Where to find chicks in Issaquah

I learn something new on every ride. Today I learned that a lot of chicks hang out at The Grange in Issaquah.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

#30DaysofBiking: Subwilderness

I live in Issaquah, a little town east of Seattle. The town is in a valley with low mountains on three sides and a lake to the north. Most everybody calls it suburban and I suppose if you just look at freeways and parking lots, big stores here that are just like big stores somewhere else, it looks suburban.

But there are still places we've managed not to pave. We say we're saving it for the salmon, who still swim up the creek each year.

I don't think of my home as suburban, I think of it as subwilderness. And I think the salmon are the ones who are saving us.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

#30DaysofBiking: Prescription

Prescription:

Out the door, up the road, onto the trail. East, under the highway then up some more. Past the parking lot, past the gate, along the gravel road. Turn at the power lines. Tiptoe around the wet. Listen to the frogs. Roll south, then west, then down, then home.

Repeat as needed.

#30DaysofBiking: Warmer, Brighter, Drier

Warmer, brighter, drier morning. This is not the same as warm or bright or dry but the rain is not coming down, the trail today is less of a river and more of a trail.

I bike locally, surveying the season. Years in this town, years in these woods and each day has something new to show me.

#30DaysofBiking: Not Far Distant

This is not far distant, a few pedal strokes really, past a sign that says "NO PARKING" and a gate at the edge of the asphalted world. The path is rocky, the morning fog still ghosting in the branches. The small voices of a billion droplets are the loudest chorus here, louder than the thousand urgent things awaiting my return. I'm not here long, long enough to pause until the cold reminds me to move on.

Urgency comes in many forms -- the work we've taken on, droplets obeying gravity, a chill fog working its way past layers of nylon and wool. Sometimes you are not parked, but paused, at a place not far distant. And then you wake from something even more restful than sleep, stomp the cold from your feet, the chill from your legs and roll down a bit further down the path.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

#30DaysofBiking: The Waste Land

April is the cruelest month but kindness does not trigger the same memories or impose the same rhythm on the day. Too early, too dark, too cold at this moment -- I wait for the earth to turn a bit, for the sun to brighten the eastern clouds.

Now is not the time to rush into darkness. I wait in my room and reread a poem I've never fully forgotten or remembered.

what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms

The day is here now, revealed not by bright color but by infinite shades of grey -- the snow settled on my neighbor's roof, woodsmoke curling skyward, frost trying to hold back the eager buds of spring.

That tiny bit of color, there despite the snow, the frost, the grey despair.

Blood is shaking my heart -- red, not grey, living, not dead. By this, and this only, we exist.

I brush snow from the saddle. It is brighter now, the world containing The Waste Land is more than a wasteland.

I undo the lock, hop on my bike and leave behind an empty room.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

#30DaysofBiking: The Return of the Octocog

Today's #30DaysofBiking ride begins with a bus ride from Issaquah to Seattle and then a hike up Capitol Hill to my friend Mark Canizaro's place. I'd loaned Mark my Octocog while he was having the frame of his Bianchi Volpe powder-coated and now that work is done and his bike is back in tip top rolling condition. I don't just grab my bike and head for home, for Mark and I are civilized men of letters. We pause for a few hours to discuss the many problems of the world in a place where the tables are made of dark wood and Italian machines press precise amounts of heated water through precisely ground beans to make beverages precisely engineered to take the chill away from a cool spring day.

Suitably prepared for our journeys, we head out on our machines. These bicycles, like all bicycles, are marvels. Inert until we put foot to pedal, our meager efforts transform metal and rubber, grease and chain into something more graceful than ourselves, something fast and smooth and flowing. It is a good day to ride.

Mark rides with me as far as the I-90 bridge where we part company. I head east over the bridge and Mercer Island and then back to Issaquah while Mark, his bike and BOB trailer head off on his mission to gather groceries and then return home.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

#30DaysofBiking: Blue Sky Grocery Run

It didn't stick around long, but there was some blue sky in Issaquah this morning. I needed to get groceries so I was out and about with my bike and my camera and I have the evidence posted above. If you squint or embiggen the picture, you'll see what I saw on the ride over to Trader Joe's, a bald eagle floating on the wind.

My Dahon is off traveling with @Origamigirl and my Octocog is still on loan to my friend Mark, who needed a bike to ride while he was getting his Bianchi frame powdercoated, so the Urbana has been seeing all my #30DaysofBiking miles. It's proven itself to be an excellent bike about town and it is truly in its element on a grocery run.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah (where the clouds just rolled back in!) WA USA

#30DaysofBiking: Rainy Day Ride to the Coffee Shop

Damp. Damn Damp.

Coffee. Hot Coffee.

Rainy days are slow days at the bike shop. It's a different story at the coffee shop.

Floor Wax or Dessert Topping?

People ride bicycles all over the world, in a variety ways. There are light, fast, carbon racing bikes ridden by people who wear lycra clothing and whose shoes make a clicking sound when they attach to the pedal. There are stately upright bikes ridden by stylish citizens who don't work up a sweat. There are bike messengers delivering the last bits of paper and other artifacts that somehow still can't be downloaded in our increasingly digital age. There are people on bikes hauling water from wells in Africa, snow bikes tracking across the tundra, BMX kids doing tricks at the skate park. In a million places, in a million ways, people are riding.

And yet, for all its virtues and versatility, we who love bicycles and advocate for their more widespread use often find ourselves, as a recent article in the New York Times stated "Caught Between Sidewalk and Street." We may have started with a useful metaphor or a compelling image and told ourselves that this is how we change the world. And in truth, we are right, we do change the world with our images and stories, but no image or story is the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And if we're not careful, we find ourselves run over by our own rhetoric.

"Vehicular Cycling" is a concept that has some value, but taken too far it quickly passes from sense to insanity. I realize that on the streets where I live and ride most drivers are not looking out for bicycles, but for other cars. Not wanting to be in blind spots, I ride where I will be seen.

But riding where the cars are does not make me a car. If, like the woman in the Times article, I find myself in traffic yelling "I'm a car, I'm a car", I would certainly understand if someone thought me insane. A bicycle is a vehicle with a lower top speed and a much less mass than a car. To ignore these basic facts, these laws of physics, is not a wise course of action. Thus "taking the lane" may be legal and it may be my "right" but I may not choose to debate that point on every road with every harried soccer mom in a two-ton SUV. In my experience the most "effective cycling" is pragmatic cycling and if a quieter street or a separated bike path gets me where I need to go, that is where I will be.

Some folks argue quite eloquently for "everyday" cycling without special clothes or safety gear such as helmets, but their rhetoric can also go too far and the message can go astray. I find a lot I agree with on the site at: http://cyclingauckland.co.nz/ but I find "Wheeled Pedestrian" loses me by saying "Cycling. It’s as easy as walking, but faster…."

Riding a bicycle is not as easy as walking. It's different. I don't have to think about locking up my bike when I walk to the market. I can't coast when I walk. I can walk places that I can't bike and I can bike in places where I wouldn't wish to walk. The wheeled pedestrian metaphor isn't making me think of cycling in a new way, it's making me think of ways the metaphor is wrong.

One place I diverge from some of the "wheeled pedestrians" is that I often find some personal value in placing a helmet on my head. While I don't advocate mandatory helmet laws, the "you don't wear a helmet while walking" argument never sways me. I carry a lot more potential energy when I'm in motion on my bike than I do while walking. I'm not a "wheeled pedestrian", I'm a person on a bike. And a person plus a bike is not the same as a person plus a pair of shoes.

In selling our mode of transport, we sometimes sell ourselves short. We ride a vehicle, but our vehicles are not cars. We can slow to walking speeds, but we are rolling, not walking. A person on a bike is neither a driver nor a pedestrian. They are a person on a bike.

In the early days of Saturday Night Live, Dan Ackroyd and Gilda Radner debated whether Shimmer was a floor wax or a dessert topping. Chevy Chase explained that they were both right, Shimmer is a floor wax and a dessert topping. It's delicious and just look at that shine!

My bike isn't a car and it's not a pair of shoes. And I'm pretty sure it would make a lousy dessert topping and it does nothing to shine my floors. But, as Grant Petersen noted, a bicycle is rideable art that just might save the world.

Bicycles are unique machines that amplify our human effort. A person on a bike can be faster that a person on foot, freer and more graceful than one trapped in a wheeled box.

I don't know the proper place for every bike in all the world, but I do know the right place for one bike, right now. It should be out in the world, with me turning the pedals.

Enough writing for now, I have a bike I have to get rolling.

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

#30DaysofBiking: Back and Forth to the Bookshop

The gap in the clouds is fortunate, welcome and not to be wasted. I roll out early, fueled by coffee. A deer is having breakfast at the old farm site, pausing to watch as I pass. There are ducks in the damp ditches and quail on the trail. I'm on the trail of a new old book and the used bookstore in Redmond opens at 9:00 AM. I pace myself so I don't arrive too early, a skill made simpler by watching the pace of deer, duck and quail.

The bookshop has the right kind of old book and near it, by the coincidence of the alphabet, is a writer new to me, who wrote a novel I find novel and so I leave with two books instead of one. Life insists on being more interesting than my plans. But the plans do get me rolling.

#30DaysofBiking: Where The Rain Goes

It isn't actually raining when I leave home at 7:15 AM but it's been raining for minutes, days, weeks, and months before and the rain will surely find me before I find my way home. Sunshine is simpler, requiring less layers, less wool, less resolve but repetition and ritual can overcome inertia.

Inertia: the tendency to be inert.

But a body in motion tends to stay in motion. Calendars and clocks should remind us of the simple truth: a world turning, moving, not inert.

Momentum is what happens when Inertia gets up off the couch.

And so I'm out the door and down the stairs, bike in hand and then the bike is on the ground, the butt is on the bike, the wheels are turning because a damp choice has been made.

The damp world is in motion, water moves when given any chance. The river isn't resting in the bed today, it's moving the rocks around. Tomorrow never looks just like today and when I go where the rains go, I remember that.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

#30DaysofBiking: The Power of Gimmick & Repetition

I'm going to ride a bike every day in April. This isn't a big deal, it shouldn't be a big deal. I'm the guy who rides thousands of miles, right? Paris-Brest-Paris? Been there, done that. Great Divide Mountain Bike Route? Yeah, that too. 36 miles per day in bike commuting? Well, not any more...

You see, I walk to work these days. It's so close that walking is the best way to get there. I walk home for lunch. And often, on my days off, Christine and I walk everywhere we need to go. And sometimes, like this year, the weather in the Puget Sound area is exactly like an Oatmeal Comic.

As much as I love biking, and I do love biking and I still ride quite a bit, I'd fallen out of the habit. I'd ride, but I haven't been riding every day.

I miss my bike commute and I miss the repetition. The getting out there in all kinds of weather. I didn't need a kick in the pants, but I did need a nudge. A tiny, trivial nudge. A gimmick.

On Twitter, where a million droplets of nothing become something, I found that gimmick. It's called #30DaysofBiking. You can sign up here. It's easy, you just pledge to ride some (around the block counts) every day in the month of April. It's a gimmick.

But here's the thing. Gimmicks work. I found this out back when I was the Commuting guy for the Bicycle Alliance of Washington and in various conversations over the years with hard core bike geeks. A surprising number of passionate bikers got their start because of some gimmick like Bike to Work Day or some bike commute challenge. I refer to these things as gimmicks not to disparage them but because they don't seem essential to riding. But again, gimmicks like these work.

I think #30DaysofBiking works because it uses Jerry Seinfeld's Productivity Secret. Do something, every day. It'll become a habit.

So, I'm getting back in the habit. I've already been out riding today. Not far, but I was out and about. I rode to the bank. I saw a rabbit scoot off into the darkness. I saw the new spring lambs grazing in the shadow of the freeway. The rain this morning was light and my jacket is good. My lights work great. So do my legs and lungs. The bran muffin at the coffee shop tastes too good to possibly be good for me.

But the riding, I think that's good. I'll be out there, every day. What the heck, I'm going to post here, every day this month. At least a few words and at least one picture. #30DaysofBiking.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

The Allant: Trek's Best Bicycle?

I work at the Bicycle Center here in Issaquah and we sell Trek bicycles. Trek makes a wide range of bikes, from carbon Madones that go really fast when some guy named Lance is riding them to the laid back Pure cruisers with wides seats and cushy tires. And Trek makes mountain bikes, kids bikes, sport-fitness bikes, the classic 520 touring bike, commuter bikes and well, we've got a pretty good sized shop and we don't even come close to having enough space to stock every bike that Trek makes. We can order anything Trek has in their warehouses and have it in a shop in a week, but like any business we have to pick and choose what we have in stock and on display.

We have one spot in our shop that is the prime spot -- the front window display. And there is one bike that owns that spot -- the olive green women's Allant. Trek did something very, very right with this bike. It's a women's bike that's not pink or purple. The bike is pretty but not overly girly. The Allant is a practical city bike with a light aluminum frame and a good range of gears so it works well in our hilly part of the world. The tires are a good width for city streets or a gravel bike path. It comes with real metal fenders, a front rack and and kickstand. It is both comfortable and fun to ride. And pretty much as fast as I can build them up, they roll out the door. At less than $600, it's a good bike at a great price. And yes, I'm biased. I sell Allants. I sell a lot of them.

I've seen women drag their husbands into our shop, point them at the Allant and say "this is what I want." When we don't have the Allant in the window, we have women coming into the shop asking "where did that bike go?" I even had one woman say "where did my bike go?" She'd been saving up and was thrilled when I told her I was building up another Allant.

We tend to stock the 15" framed Allant, which works well for women from 5 feet to 5 foot six or so. We order in bigger models for taller women, but it is so nice to have a bike in stock that works for a small adult. Iruru, who is pictured at the top of this post, is five foot nothing. See the smile on her face? I see a similar smile on the face of almost every woman who tries the Allant.

The men's Allant is similar but it's black and comes with a rack on the rear instead of a front. The men's version is a very good bike and it sells well, but the men's Allants don't fly out the door the way the women's bike does.

I'm thrilled that bikes like the Allants exist. For too long it seemed like the entire bike industry had plenty to sell you if you wanted to race on the road or thrash bomb down a mountain but nothing if you wanted to ride to the store, ride with your kid or go to the coffee shop. Trek makes a bike that's great for the kind of biking that a lot of people do every day. It's called the Allant.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

Wireless Cycle Computers and Interference

Today a customer came into the shop complaining that his cycle computer was giving wild readings whenever he turned his LED headlight on in flash mode. "Yep," I said, "it's RF interference. I've seen wireless computers freak out under power lines and by the anti-theft scanners at store doorways as well. The internet knows about it." The customer had tried his own search plugging in the names of his cycle computer and light together with the word "interference" and had come up empty but a quick "RF interference cycle computer" brought up pages of results showing a variety of lights and computers exhibiting the problem.

The customer was less than thrilled with my initial idea of making a little foil shield but Mike managed to make the computer behave by moving it to a location on the handlebars further from the light. Poking through a few of the pages revealed by the internet search revealed a few interesting tidbits.

• Wired computers pretty much don't have this problem.
• The newer, fancier cycle computers using the ANT+ digital protocol don't seem to have this problem.
• There are still idiots on the internet and a lot of wrong info.

The final bullet point is illustrated by the page at:

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090221044009AA3z7oF

The question asked is:

Is it true that wireless bike computers don't work if you have LED lights?

and the group wisdom is:

No it doesn't happen and the logic seems to be: I've never seen it, therefore it doesn't happen. My favorite is the guy who adds "Source(s): 6 years as professional bicycle mechanic."

We could apply this "logic" elsewhere. For example, I've traveled for 30 years and never been to Portugal, therefore Portugal does not exist. Or, I've ridden a thousand miles and never had a flat tire, therefore flat tires don't exist.

So, doing my bit to add a bit of signal to the noise that is our beloved internet, I'm posting these words:

Some LED lights when flashing do interfere with some wireless cycle computers. I've seen it. If it happens to you, try increasing the distance between your computer and your light or maybe work up a shield or switch to a different cycle computer.

And remember, no matter where you are or what time it is, someone is wrong on the internet.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

The Plural of Anecdote...

My blog pal Vik posted some interesting thoughts on safety over at his blog and I strongly suggest you read through his post. Now you may or may not agree with what Vik has to say but he's a thoughtful guy and he's very open to the possibility that not everyone will agree with him 100% of the time on 100% of what he says.

I actually agree with Vik a very large percentage of the time and I certainly agree with the bulk of his latest post but I'm going to pick at a nit that I don't think is a nit. I think this nit is actually key to explaining why certain subjects like helmet use and helmet laws or segregated cycle paths and vehicular cycling seem to generate vast amounts of conversation and passion, yet very few people ever actually seem to change their minds on these matter based on these conversations.

I think the problem is in the understanding of the anecdote. Vik describes people who "quote a statistically invalid anecdote to support their un-logic" and then, like the good engineer that he is, he trots out his better data. And he may toss in some anecdotes of his own, like the story of his cousin's wife who died on her first attempt at sky-diving. But he's using that as an example of a personal, invalid data-point he's tossed out, because he's logical and logic is better.

And that, I think is the crux of the problem. Because the data that's out there, the data that matters, is not the data on the efficacy of helmets or probabilities of a cyclist being struck from behind. The data that matters is what has been learned about how human beings assess risk, react when startled, and most importantly, make decisions. We do not, in general, use data to make rational decisions. We use data to rationalize what we have already decided. This may not be logical, but it is very human.

The phrase often used to dismiss anecdotes is the infamous line "the plural of anecdote is not data." The interesting back story to that quote reveals that the original line actually was the opposite "the plural of anecdote is data" but I'd argue that the plural of anecdote is narrative. Narrative is how we structure our lives. Our brains do not retain data, our brains retain stories.

Every human society has a story-telling tradition going back thousands of years and while I certainly will not dismiss the accomplishments of logic and engineering, I think that those who dismiss the anecdotal, dismiss too much. Engineers may dismiss anecdotes, but people remember anecdotes every day, retell them and propagate them. Data sits in tables and appendices to reports. Anecdotes roam and rule the world.

I think Vik is certainly right about fear and the culture of fear. Too many scary stories are being retold every day. For data to effectively counter the fear, data is not enough. We need to tell a story, a compelling story that will be remembered, saved and propagated. Data should support this compelling story, but data alone is not enough.

I have no cease-fire for the helmet wars and I'm not going to tell you what color jacket to buy. And I've got a little library of data and reports that I dig into now and then. When asked about safety I still tend to point people the very handy website How Not To Get Hit By Cars. And when someone tells me of their fear or tells me some scary story, I try, I really try, to listen. And then, most often, I tell them some story. It usually involves someone being happy on a bike.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

Jackfruit by David E.X.N. Nghiem: A Review

Disclaimer: I was provided a review copy of Jackfruit by the author at no charge.

Why we do what we do is one of the core questions in the heart of each of us. In the case of David Nghiem, he finds himself drawn to Latin America with his bicycle on a journey that he chronicles in his book Jackfruit. An engineer by training, Nghiem has experiences and finds evidence that contradict the common views of history and technology. His attempts to find meaning in symbols, to visit ancient sites and to learn how the people of today live in this part of the world, form a narrative of highs and lows and some questions that remain unanswered. While this book may be too mystical for some, I have no doubt that it is a sincere representation of the author's experience.

Nghiem describes the terrain, the hardships, the artifacts and the people, but the bulk of the story is carried on in conversations. In Peru, for example:

"Why did you come here David?"

I looked at him. Ernesto now had a strange, searching, expression that I hadn't seen before on his face.

"You know, that's the same question my father asked me before I went. I told him - I told him that I didn't know. I just had to go."

Ernesto smiled. "It is always that way. The legend of Paititi is that only those who are selected may see the city. Otherwise, it appears and disappears at will, confusing those who are not worthy. It is for those who come here beyond their own will."

Beyond their own will? What the hell... I started to get a strange buzz up my back. It's the kind of feeling I would get whenever something major was up.

"David, do you think you are the "Escogido'?"

"Escogido?"

"The name the old Quechua woman called you was Acclhaska. Do you know what it means?"

"It means searcher, right?"

"No... it means 'Chosen One'."

At times Jackfruit certainly reads like an episode of the X-files, with unexplained lights and electrical storms whipping in from nowhere the instant a magical talisman is accidentally destroyed. But, to extend the X-files comparison, Nghiem is more a skeptical Scully than a willing Mulder who wants to believe.

While Nghiem goes to interesting places and has some interesting conversations, in too many places his writing is awkward. Nghiem has a knack for including too much detail in some places and not nearly enough in others. I know, for example, how many times he had to run to the bathroom one night, but I have no idea of the contents of his panniers. In trying to convey an idea of the size of the 200 ton stones of the temple ruins at Sacsayhuaman, Nghiem writes the following:

To present a relationship, the US aircraft carrier Nimitz weighs about 97,000 tons, the battleship New Jersey is 15,000 tons, a typical destroyer class ship is 5-7000 tons, and a 4 story nuclear reactor can be 670 tons.

Despite the mind-numbing level of detail in that sentence, I reached the end of it with no real idea of the size of those stones. Perhaps a good old-fashioned comparison such as "big as a house" would've been better in this instance.

While some paragraphs are smothered in detail, in other places the book reads as if vital bits of information have been left out. One night, after encountering "Dead, hacked opened, mutilated and gutted bodies of dogs, at least eight or nine of them laid on the road, and their guts were all over the place", Nghiem makes it to a hostel. That night "the woman's warning, and the memory of the dead dogs haunted me." While a few paragraphs earlier I'd gotten a flashback of Nghiem's parent's experiences in Vietnam, I vainly flipped back through pages looking for the woman's warning. I never found it.

I have no reason to doubt Nghiem's veracity when recounting the local people's distaste for various vile practices of the World Bank and the U.S. government, but perhaps too many of the books 400 odd pages are spent in diatribes against imperialist corporations. What hostility there is towards gringos is never expressed towards Nghiem, however. He makes friends and works very hard to learn Spanish after an amusing and awkward experience with a young woman in Peru. At the beginning of the book, he knew only about 80 words of Spanish, but by the end, he is fluent.

The best parts of Jackfruit are the people. Nghiem is befriended by the man who designed Thor Heyerdahl's boat, the national bicycle champion of Honduras, Peace Corp workers and a remarkable boy with Down's Syndrome. The true friendships Nghiem forms shine through in the pages of Jackfruit.

Jackfruit is not a how-to manual that will tell you how to tour Latin America and there are far more questions asked than answered within it's pages. It is by no means a perfect book, Nghiem is still more an engineer than a writer and despite some strong scenes and moving passages, the book feels unfinished. But all our journeys ultimately only take us a bit further along the road and we are not here to be perfect, but to be human. At it's core, Jackfruit is a very human story.

You can read more reviews of Jackfruit on Amazon and you can read more about Jackfruit and David Nghiem's latest adventures at:

http://davesnewadventure.com/

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

Cateye Loop & Orbit Bike Lights

I often say that bike lights serve two important functions: helping you see where you are going and helping others see you. While on a dark, lonely trail or road a good headlight (I use and like the Planet Bike Blaze) is needed to light your way and reveal what might be lurking in the darkness, on a city street or a foggy path a lights main function is to make sure that you are not the one lurking in the darkness. That is where small, simple lights like the Cateye Loop and Orbit are handy.

These Cateye lights are what I call "be seen" lights. They are bright, cast a wide beam and they are eye-catching. Last Saturday was damp and grey and drizzly (hey, it's March in Seattle, what do you expect). I didn't need lights to see by, but I did turn on my Cateye loop lights, so my bike and I would be more visible in the gloom.

Like pretty much every Cateye product I've ever used, these lights seem quite well made. Both the Loop and the Orbit lights have so far held up well in the wet and they mount solidly. The Loops feature a small elastic band so they can be wrapped around any round tube. By adding a couple of zip-ties, I secured the red loop to the massive rear fender of my loaner Urbana.

The Orbit lights attach to the spokes of your wheels and the rotation makes them very visible. Since the Orbits shine out sideways, they greatly increase your visibility to crossing traffic.

Both the Loop and Orbit lights are small & light. They use CR2032 batteries with a claimed life of 30 hours in solid mode and 50 hours when set to flash. I haven't verified this yet (I haven't had them long enough to change the batteries) but those numbers seem reasonable for the little lithium batteries. By the way, buying single CR2032 batteries can get pretty expensive, but since I have various devices (like my Cateye Enduro bike computer as well as these lights) I bought a pack of 50 CR2032 batteries for less than twelve bucks.

Your local bike shop probably carries Cateye lights or they'd be happy to order them for you. If you can't find them locally, you can order them from Amazon. As always, if you do order anything from Amazon using a link from my blog, a small percentage of the purchase price goes to me, since I'm an Amazon Affiliate. And I don't think it biased me, but you should know that the Cateye guy gave me this set of Loop lights because I chatted him up at a bike event. Anyhow, I use and like the lights.

One final note: The Cateye lights ship in a "Try Me" mode where they shut off after a minute. Deactivate this mode (by pressing and holding the light until it flashes quickly and shuts off) and then the light will behave normally (where a single press toggles the light between solid, flashing and off).

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson
Issaquah WA USA

Pictures from the 2011 Seattle Bike Expo

Good people, good bikes and good times at the 2011 Seattle Bike Expo.

Instead of driving...I won a pack!

A backpack is something I use every day. While my Ergon pack performed wonderfully on the Tour Divide, I don't need all the complex suspension and hydration systems when I'm going to the store or the coffee shop. For trips like this, I'm more likely to grab one of my smaller packs, something like my Osprey Daylite which is pictured above.

The Osprey is a great little pack, but when I cram it full of six books, there isn't a whole lot of room for snacks and spare clothes, so I decided to look for something a bit bigger. My lovely wife is completely happy with her somewhat larger Osprey Helix so I figured I'd check out what else Osprey had for sale. I wanted something maybe a bit different that the Helix, so off I went to the Osprey website to find the pack of my dreams, the baby bear's porridge of packs, something neither too big nor to small, the pack that would be just right.

While I found a plethora of packs there, I also found the Osprey blog and a contest. The contest was to complete this thought: "Instead of driving I..." The top ten winners would get to select from a range of very cool Osprey packs.

"Ah Ha!" I said in my best "the old man from a Christmas Story" voice, "Powers of the mind!" I set to work crafting my entry. I suppose if I'd been sly I wouldn't have blabbed to folks on Twitter and email about how they too could have a chance to win a pack, but I'm more chatty than sly. I told Christine, I told my kids, I told my biking and Twitter buddies.

I wrote my entry, hit submit and than waited out the days for the contest to end.

And I gave away the end to this story in the title of the post.

Yes, I won. I won! I won! I won! I danced around our apartment when I got the email, explaining to my long suffering wife that it's not just a pack, it's a major award. I think she's very grateful that it's just a pack and not a lamp in the shape of a leg.

You can read all the winning entries on the Osprey Blog.

This was my entry:

“Instead of driving I walk, bike, bus or take the train where I need to go. I’ve learned that what I need I can carry and what I can’t carry I don’t need. I have a small bike that carries me and when I get to the bus or train I can fold up the bike and carry it aboard. I have a pack that’s big enough to carry what I need for a day and life really only happens one day at a time. I have enough time to get where I’m going and what I need to enjoy the trip. Why would I want to be in a box, looking out at the world when I can be out in the world instead?” — Kent Peterson

This winning entry also caught my eye:

“Instead of driving, I step out my door to be greeted by a thermometer reading -40. Celsius, Fahrenheit, doesn’t really matter at this point. Hopping on my bike I cruise by a moose and her calf hanging out by the side of the road and get greeted by the sun rising over the Alaska range as I pedal into work appreciating that I live in a pretty cool place and discovering it is possible to break a sweat even at 40 below.” — Peter

That's Peter Peterson, my bike riding scientist son.

Those powers of the mind, I guess they run in the family!

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

Tarik Saleh Bike Club

I'm not much of a joiner, but when Mr. Jalopy proposed the Tarik Saleh Bike Club, I knew I wanted in. Tarik is one of those awesomely cool dudes who rides bikes around particle accelerators, races when he hasn't trained, trains when he isn't going to race, does fun, goofy stuff 'cause it's fun and goofy, and is the kind of guy who will drive across an entire sun-baked state just to pluck some very dirty, sunburned bum on a bike from the Mexican border and then drive back across the state to plop said bum & his bike on a plane back to Seattle but not before he's stuffed the bum full of very good food. And Tarik also owns a Bridgestone Picnica. Guys with folding bikes are cool. Trust me on that one.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, the Tarik Saleh Bike Club. Not only am I in, I'm cashing in. You can join up and join in by getting your own button from my Cafe Press Store. The white buttons are in the store. The nifty silver one pictured above comes from Mr. Saleh himself. I'm hoping he'll chime in or post on his blog as to how folks can get one of those.

The white buttons you can get from the Cafe Press Store. Proceeds go to me, but I'll spend the dough on Tarik the next time I see him. But only get a button if you can abide by the rules of the club. They are good rules. There are only two of them. Tarik made the rules and he's a good guy (see first paragraph).

Here are the Tarik Saleh Bike Club rules:

1) RIDE BIKES

2) TRY NOT TO BE AN ASS

Words to live by. If you live by those rules, I think you may be already in the club even if you don't have a button.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Proud Member of the Tarik Saleh Bike Club" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

Urbana Bike: First Impressions

Yesterday I picked up an Urbana bike in Seattle. Christine and I will spend a month reviewing this bike in depth, using it to get groceries, run errands and for general fun riding. This first post is not in any way meant to be a review, it is more a collection of my first impressions. We are getting no compensation for reviewing the, but we do get free use of the bike for a month.

My very first impression of the Urbana came from the Urbana website, which has a clever page under the Pick Your Hood tab where you select your bike based on terrain, climate, use and your color preference. All Urbana bikes have a single frame size and style, but the other options decide what the bike will have in terms of gearing, brakes, fenders and luggage. When Haniya at Urbana initially emailed me to see if I'd be interested in reviewing one of their bikes, I went to their site and selected a bike for utility riding suitable for the rainy, mountainous Pacific Northwest. I told Haniya I didn't care about the color.

I took the bus into Seattle to pick up the bike and merged the trip with a lunch meeting with a friend to discuss books and a coffee meeting with another friend to solve the problems of the world. In my various comings and goings I put about 25 miles on the bike in weather that ranged from sun, to wind, to hail, to good-old northwest rain. It's only one day of riding, but it was fairly diverse riding and I felt like I'm getting a sense of what the Urbana is all about.

The Urbana is a tough bike. Although the frame is a step-thru design, the Urbana doesn't strike me as being a particularly masculine or feminine bike, it is more industrial. The black paint job almost makes the bike look like a big U-lock and the fat tubes and solid re-enforcing plates going down to the bottom bracket say this is a bike built to take on some very mean streets.

The Urbana has clearance to fit big SKS P65 fenders and massive 26*2.60 (68-559) Niddepoule tires. Since the rims are a standard 26" (559) mountain bike size you could go with any number of standard mountain bike tires, but the Niddepoule tires are probably my favorite thing about the Urbana so far. While I've pointed out previously that there is no one perfect wheel or tire size, these puffy tires (which are rated to take anywhere from 20 to 40 PSI) just soak up bumps. Together with a slack headtube angle and a steel fork, the Urbana rides like it has suspension. It's plush and the bike just ignores potholes.

The tires are big enough that I couldn't fit my mini U-lock around them, so I wound up looping a cable through the wheels and my U-lock through a frame and a fence when I secured the Urbana. I was also wondering if the 2.6 wide tires would fit on racks used by the Seattle area bus system. Thanks to the practice rack at the downtown Seattle Bike Port, I verified that the Urbana fits fine on the bus rack.

The Urbana is by no means a racing bike but it's a good bike in traffic. The 8-speed Shimano Nexus hub shifts flawlessly except the twist action is the opposite of the 3-speed twist shifter on my 3-speed Sturmey-Archer equipped Dahon. So aside from the fact that I had to keep re-calibrating my brain, the shifting was flawless. And despite the 40+ pound weight of the Urbana, I was able to scoot up all the Seattle hills and ride the 20 miles back to Issaquah. In fact, I had a funny experience with the Urbana on the ride home.

Stopped at the light at the base of what I call "Honda Hill" in Factoria, I chat with a fellow bike commuter who is also stopped at the light. "What's going on with that back wheel?" the fellow asks pointing to the rear hub. I explain that the big hub contains an eight-speed transmission and that the big, finned aluminum disk is a dissipates heat from the rear hub brake. He comments on the bike and it's tires, "It looks like you're hauling some serious weight in those wheels." "Yep," I reply, "they're like riding big, puffy marshmallows." And the light turns green.

Now I'm always pretty quick from a stop and I'd downshifted at the red light (a nice feature of hub gears is that can shift them when stopped). So I'm in a better gear than the other guy is and I zip through the intersection and start climbing the hill. And of course, when I go to shift I shift it the wrong way because I'm used to my Dahon. So I hit a harder gear instead of an easier one but I figure I'll try to tough it out and hold my lead as long as I can up the hill. I held through the next light. And the next one. By the time I hit the intersection at 150th, I was really hoping the guy would catch me so maybe he'd ask the "so, does that thing have a motor?" question and I could do the "yeah, you're talking to it!" smart-ass response but alas, he was too far behind. So, unlike some designed-in-flat-country-and-can't-climb-worth-a-damn urban bikes, I have to say that I've found that the Urbana can climb. The frame is stiff but the tires make the ride plush. Punch the pedals and it goes. It's a good combo.

That said, this isn't a bike for distance riding. The riding position is upright and you can't really crouch down to fight the wind and engage your glutes the way you can on a racier bike. I'd only adjusted the seat height when I got the bike and I probably will do a bit of tweaking of the cockpit length by playing with the angle of the BMX-style bars and the position of the saddle rails in the seat clamp, but this is an upright, cruise around bike.

And it's a lot of fun to cruise around on. Over the next few weeks Christine and I will put the bike through it's paces by using it to do exciting things like get groceries, ride to the park and the coffee shop. I'll intend to take it on some logging roads and dirt trails it will probably go on at least one camping trip.

Stay tuned and keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

Sell Me A Story

Years ago I went to see Tim O'Brien, the author of The Things They Carried and many other fine books, speak about writing and read from one of his novels. When asked the inevitable "how did you become a writer?" question, Tim responded by saying "I have a job were I make up stories and people buy them. How could I not take a job like that? Let me tell you about one summer in the sixties..."

He goes on to tell about a fellow named Tim O'Brien growing up in a northern state, who has plans and dreams and one day he gets a draft notice telling him to report for duty. He tells of a trip to a wilderness lake, one that borders Canada and of that young man there with a canoe and the draft notice in his pocket and thoughts in his head about the choices we make and the lives that we live. Leaving that canoe on one side of the lake or the other would make difference on that day and all the days that follow...

"Wow," Tim says, glancing at his watch, "it's getting pretty late. Are there any other questions?" The reading room at Elliott Bay Books erupts in a chaotic chorus all asking the same question "What did you decide on the shore of that lake? Did you go to Canada or Viet Nam?"

Tim smiles broadly at this room full of people who buy his stories, "I have a job where I make up stories and people buy them..."

I have a job where I sell and repair bicycles. Unlike Mr. O'Brien, I don't only sell a story. At the end of the day the thing that I say will roll and shift and stop on command has to actually roll and shift and stop on command or I will lose customers, credibility and sales. I stay in the bike business by doing my very best to make sure the stories I tell about the bicycles are true.

It is also very true that the most important thing I sell is a story where the customer is happy on their bicycle. What makes my job easy and fun is that I honestly believe that bicycles are easy and fun and good. To make sure that the customer comes to that same conclusion, I work from one basic principle: the most important character in the story is not the bicycle and it certainly isn't me. The most important character in the story is the customer. And that character isn't just a character, that person is the real person who will make this story real.

The two most important things I do with a customer are ask questions and listen to answers. I know a bit about bikes, but I know very little about the person who just walked into my shop. Asking the right questions is something of an art. For example "What kind of bike are you looking for?" isn't nearly as good a question as "what kind of riding do you see yourself doing?" The former question elicits a one or two word response, while the second question reveals much more.

Any dialog is more than questions and answers and anyone who knows me will tell you that I am a guy who tells a lot of stories. I think we all do this, stories are how we make sense of our lives. Stories are one important way that we relate to each other. Together the questions and the answers and the people in the conversation tell a story and our lives are shaped and changed by the stories we tell and live.

A while back a pretty big guy came into the shop and we got to talking. "I don't suppose you have any bikes for a guy my size..." he said. "Me personally? Nope," I said, "I'm a scrawny little guy. But they're making some pretty beefy bikes these days, not just feather-weight race machines. Let me tell you about my friend Scott..." And I proceeded to tell him about my friend Scott, who weighed 500 pounds when he decided to start biking and who had to stop and rest multiple times just to get around the block. But Scott kept riding and these days he weighs about 170 pounds.

And now the story goes a little further because now this guy who is smaller than Scott was and bigger than Scott is has gotten himself a bicycle and is out there riding. Because stories can and do make a difference.

In my days working for the Bicycle Alliance of Washington I learned not to waste my time trying to convince people who don't want to ride in the rain and dark that it can be fun to ride in the rain and dark. Instead when somebody would say "I'd like to bike commute but I don't want to ride in the dark," I'd say "Don't do it!" But then I'd point out that the days are long in the summer so maybe they just want to try bike commuting on summer days. If they wanted to avoid the rain, I'd suggest watching the forecast skipping the rides on the damp days. If their commute was too far to bike, maybe they'd want to try using the bus for part of the trip. The key thing was listening to the objection and not dismissing it. Some times these people never became bike commuters, some became part-time bike commuters but a surprising number after taking that first step find they enjoyed biking to work. And then they realized they might not need to stop riding to work just because of some rain or some darkness. They'd come back, sometimes months later and ask about lights or rain gear. When you start a story, sometimes it goes on longer than you think it will.

Let me tell you another story. Years ago, when I worked at Sammamish Valley Cycle, a fellow comes in and answers my "what kind of riding do you see yourself doing?" question by saying that he's going to be riding across the United States and he's looking for a bike. He's a small guy (and by that I mean he's a bit shorter than me). We don't have a touring bike in stock that will fit him and while I do tell him about the Marinonis we can order, I also tell him about the Adventure Cycling Association, Rivendell, things he should look for in a bike and various used bike possibilities included older non-suspended mountain bikes or older touring frames. I mention Bike Works and I can't now recall if he nodded and said he knew about them or if I was giving him new info, but I also told him that at his size I thought a 26" wheeled Rivendell Atlantis would be a great bike to look at and the Bob Freeman had them in stock in Seattle at Elliott Bay Bicycles. We wind up talking for well over an hour and eventually this guy, whose name is Bill, goes on his way.

Later, I get a call at the shop. It's Bill. He's at Elliott Bay and he's test ridden the Atlantis. He likes it. "Do you think I should buy it?" he asks.

"If you like it and it fits you and you can afford it, sure. It's a good bike," I reply.

"But I feel guilty, you spent so much time with me..." Bill explains.

"Look," I say, "Bob's got a good bike there. Buy it and don't worry. If you want you can come back here and I'll be happy to sell you a whole bunch of touring bags and other stuff for your trip."

And that's how I met Bill Lippe. Bill did buy the bike from Bob at Elliott Bay and some bags from me and took his trip across the U.S. He also got quite involved in bicycling in the Seattle area and over the years various people came into Sammamish Valley Cycle, bought bikes and said "Bill Lippe sent me." Quite a few years later I wound up sending my resume and application for an interesting job at Bike Works, the funky little non-profit in the Columbia City neighborhood of Seattle. I'd done some volunteer work at Bike Works before and I knew a lot of the staff through some joint projects they'd done with the Bicycle Alliance of Washington. I'm pretty sure I wound up getting the job through my merits, but I also know that I probably got the interview because I had a strong recommendation from the Bike Works Board President, a fellow named Bill Lippe.

When you start a story, sometimes it goes on longer than you think it will.

I have a job where I tell stories about people and bicycles. People buy the bicycles, ride them and are happy. How could I not take a job like that?

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA