Wool: It's What's For Winter

It was 25 degrees here in the Fahrenheit-loving town of Issaquah yesterday morning (that's -4 for you Celsius people) and while that isn't cold by Minnesota standards, it's cold enough to make a cyclist appreciate things like tires with good traction, hot coffee and warm clothes. Especially warm clothes.

Despite all the developments in clever technical fabrics, wool is still a key material in my wardrobe. Even in warm weather, my favorite jerseys are short-sleeve merino wool but in the winter time I'm usually wearing a long sleeve merino wool base layer with a heavier wool jersey or a thrift-store wool sweater on top of that. The wool isn't really windproof but a thin nylon wind or rain jacket layered over the wool keeps me cozy in a wide range of conditions.

Wool layers are also key to comfortable feet and hands. When I buy shoes I always get a size that can handle a double layer of socks. I've found that two thin wool socks or a thin sock and a thicker one are more comfortable than a single sock. I don't get blisters with the double sock system and on long rides I can swap the inner and the outer socks on the long stretches between laundry stops.

My long-fingered gloves are always wool, either Swiss military surplus wool glove liners or an old pair of Swobo gloves. Depending on conditions I may layer these with conventional padded cycling gloves, nylon over-mitts or GloGlov reflective gloves. Wool is warm even when wet and if my gloves do get soaked, I can quickly wring them out and continue on. Every heavier, integrated glove I've tried eventually soaks with water, becomes cold and then takes forever to dry.

Some wool proponents will tell you that it doesn't stink. In my experience, this isn't quite true. Some synthetic fabrics seem to harbor bacteria and develop an over-powering toxic stench and while it's true that wool doesn't exhibit this noxious property, it's not 100% odor free. The scent of damp wool is distinctive and earthy, what my wife calls the "wet sheep smell." It's not a bad smell and Christine hasn't kicked me out of the house yet. In fact, when I return from my long rides I'll often find that she's taken one of my wool jerseys out of the laundry and settled it next to her on my side of the bed. "I sleep better that way," she explains, "It's cozy."

Wool is cozy. Like hot coffee or a warm bowl of soup, wool is comfort against the cold.

Comfortable Cycling Clothes For Damp Days

I'd always assumed that the number of people in the world who look to me for fashion advice was basically zero, but my friend Michael made me revise that estimate slightly upward when he suggested "you should write about what you wear." And if Doug in Duluth can write his "What I Wore Today" series in two part harmony ( part 1 and part 2 ) well then by golly I can ramble on about my clothes and if you find this boring you can just surf away to any of the eight-hundred and eleventy billion other pages out there on the internet and I won't be even a little bit offended.

But before I dive into talking about my clothes, I'm going to talk about one of my buddies from my younger days, my pal Ed. Ed was an empiricist, always experimenting with one thing or another. He was also the kind of twelve-year-old kid who would use words like "empiricist" in daily conversation and recreationally read the encyclopedia. While there are bookworms who never take their learning out of the library or out of doors, Ed was never that way. Every bit of book-learning would be double-checked against the real world and Ed's parents where the sort of folks who were smart enough to let Ed and his brother Dave set up a laboratory in the basement and not get too upset when things would sometimes explode or some reptile would get loose. Empiricism may be a sure path to knowledge, but that path is seldom smooth.

We all grew up in northern Minnesota, in a little town about twenty miles outside Duluth. This is a region not known for its moderate climate. In the warmer months we would ride our bikes most of the way to school, stash them at our buddy Todd's house and walk the rest of the way, but in the cold months we would take the bus. The bus stop was at the edge of Epherd's Woods, a block from Ed and Dave's place and Pete, Tom, Dave, Ed and I would gather there each morning and wait for the bus.

As it got later in the year, we all began showing up to the bus stop in warmer, heavier clothes. All of us, that is, except Ed. Ed had this blue nylon windbreaker jacket that he wore through the fall and into the winter.

"What's with the jacket, Ed?" I asked him.

"Humans are extremely adaptable beings," Ed explained, "Natives of Lapland can sleep on the ice without blankets, while denizens of the tropics can work for hours in the sun without breaking a sweat. As the weather gets gradually colder, I am gradually adapting to the cold. You bundle, I evolve."

While we all admired Ed's continuing attempts to better himself, we also could not help but notice that part of his "evolution" involved arriving at the bus stop later and later as the weather got cooler. His brother Dave, the control portion of the experiment, dressed like the rest of us with big boots, a heavy jacket, scarves, a cap, mittens, etc. Dave would trundle from their home to the bus stop, moving slowly, like an old-time diver in a pressure suit, while Ed, would wait until the last possible moment and then quickly dash the block from his home to the bus stop. We figured that one day Ed would cut things too fine and miss the bus, but Ed's mom was stern about shooing him out the door.

The experiment ended the day the bus broke down. In Minnesota in those days they pretty much never canceled school because of cold, saving our "snow" days for the days when a foot or two of snow would make travel truly impossible, Cold, even 30 degrees below zero, was just something you would deal with. And on this day, we waited at the stop for a bus that did not come in a timely fashion. Ed dashed out at his customary time, his eyes looking down the street for the bus that should be coming, his teeth clenched to keep them from chattering. The bus wasn't there.

At the stop we speculated as to where the bus might be and twenty minutes later when it did show up, the driver explained that our regular bus had stalled at the base of the hill and a replacement had to be dispatched. Ed by this time was as blue as his windbreaker and spent the duration of the bus ride curled into a fetal ball on the bus seat closest to the heater.

The next day Ed showed up at the bus stop wearing the biggest, warmest snorkel parka I have ever seen. Years later I would see the character Kenny on South Park and be reminded of Ed. Somewhere from deep within the cozy confines of the parka Ed explained, "Humans also evolve via artifacts."

And now, thirty-six years later, I'm thinking of my own artifacts of comfort, the clothes I wear each day. Like my friend Ed, I am an empiricist. What I wear is what has survived the tests of time and climate. These items may or may not be right for someone else, somewhere else but for this forty-nine year old fellow living and cycling in the Puget Sound and Cascade Mountain regions of the Pacific Northwest, these are the clothes that get the job done.

In contemplating my wardrobe I notice that mostly I don't have "bike clothes" and "normal clothes." I haven't had a car or a driver's license in years, so biking everywhere is "normal" for me and it would be "abnormal" for me to have clothes that don't work for cycling. Just as most drivers don't have special clothes for driving, I don't really have many special clothes for cycling. I do have a few bits of safety gear and a rain jacket that is cut to work well on the bike but most of my clothes came from places other than the bike shop.

I'm sure people in sunnier climes have more intelligent things to say about dressing for warm weather than I do and I'd be hard pressed to come up with something better than what Grant Petersen wrote here. Like Grant, I favor loose, button down shirts for summer riding. On very hot days if I know I'm going to work up a sweat coming into work, I'll cool down for five minutes or so (I'm usually the first one at the office), do a quick sink-shower in the bathroom and switch into a different shirt for the work day. But for many times with a cool, loose shirt, I don't work up an unacceptable level of sweat. Part of this is a function of living in the relatively cool Pacific Northwest and part of it is logging lots of miles. One of the convenient truths of bicycle commuting is that the more you do it, the easier it gets. As my friend Ed would say, you evolve. So a younger, out of shape me might have gotten to work a soaked, stinky mess, the older, maybe a little mellower me often finds the trip is "no sweat."

But it's the winter weather that people seem the most curious about and again I'll defer to people in more extreme places for serious advice about bike riding in the sub-freezing zone. Jill in Alaska, Doug in Duluth, or Scott in Minneapolis all have more intelligent and timely things to say about cold weather riding than I do. Even though I grew up in Minnesota and still think of it as a swell place, one of my adaptations took the form of migration. For the past 14 years, I've made my home in Issaquah, Washington. Not long after Christine and the boys and I moved here, I was on the phone talking with my father, who still lives in Northern Minnesota.

"How do you stand the rain, son?" It was February and it had probably been raining almost every day for the past few months in Issaquah.

"Dad," I replied, "what's the current temperature back there right now?"

"About four."

"And how many feet of snow are on the ground right now?" I further pressed.

"About four," he admitted.

"You don't have to shovel rain, Dad."

And that is one of the reasons I've chosen to live in the Pacific Northwest. Because of this choice, my wardrobe is optimized to deal with conditions that are often damp but rarely icy or bitter cold.

Starting at the top of my head, I have a helmet. I won't go into the big helmet debate right here other than to say it's the law in King County (where I happen to reside) that cyclists wear helmets when riding. And over the years I've found it to be a handy bit of gear. My helmet is sized to fit snugly over my cap and since I ride a lot at night, I've added a couple of lights and some reflective stickers to the helmet.

Under my helmet I always wear a cap. In rainy weather the brim keeps the rain off my glasses. On sunny days it keeps the glare out of my eyes. The brim also shields my eyes from headlight glare when I'm riding at night. For years I used cotton or wool cycling caps but my favorite cap now is a nylon runner's cap I bought at REI. In colder weather, I use a Buff as an earband. The Buff is a very light tube of Coolmax fabric that I can fold into various layers and configurations depending on the temperature. I thought it was kind of expensive when I first bought it but I've used the Buff for years now and if I ever loose this one, I'll go right out and buy a replacement.

My main torso layer is almost always wool. Depending on how cool the day is it may be a thin layer or a thick layer, anything from a Smartwool long sleeve zip t-shirt, a wool club jersey or a sweater from a thrift store. If the day is dry or the more common light Pacific Northwest drizzle, my over layer will be my Marmot DriClime Windshirt. The DriClime sheds light rain quite nicely and of course it's great as a wind-blocking layer. And if it does get wet it dries out quickly. TheDriClime is designed to wick moisture from the inner layer and I've found that many times I stay drier wearing the DriClime than I ever did with a true rain jacket. If there is heavy rain and I feel I need something more waterproof, I'll wear my Rainshield O2 rain jacket. The DriClime and the O2 combined weigh less, take up less space and work better than any single jacket I've ever owned. For conspicuity, I wear very light weight bright yellow Bicycle Alliance nylon vest over whatever jacket or jersey I choose to wear.

My hands are another place where I have a wool base layer combined with a more visible synthetic top layer. Military surplus rag wool gloves stay warm even when wet and can be easily wrung out if they get soaked. Every pair of "waterproof " glove I've ever tried has been problematic. Either the gloves would leak or they would be so waterproof that my hands would sweat. Once wet, the gloves would loose their ability to insulate, making things miserable, and the damp gloves would take way too long to dry. Wool gloves don't keep my hands perfectly dry, but they keep me very comfortable. Wool insulates even when wet (I wrote about this a few years ago) and that's why it forms the basis of my "comfortably damp" wardrobe. For a while I carried water-proof nylon shells to use with the wool gloves in heavy rain but I eventually figured out that the wool gloves alone were sufficient. I do wear Glo Glovs over the wool gloves most of the time. Day and night, the Glo Glovs help me when I've communicating with other road users via hand signals. And, in the interest of civility, I tend to use all my fingers when I signal.

From the waist down my base layer is a pair of lycra cycling shorts, what Scott Adams identifies as "dorky pants." Despite the fact that pretty much everybody knows that I am a dork, I do have a fondness for pockets and I got tired of all the chicks checking out my finely sculpted buns, so I over the dorky pants I wear a pair of REI Sahara Convertible Pants. The Sahara pants are made of lightweight Suplex nylon and feature plenty of pockets and zip-off legs. I have several pairs of these pants and wear them year round. The nylon dries really quickly but in heavy rain, or extreme cold I add a pair of Rainlegs as a top layer. As I noted in my 2006 review of Rainlegs, these things work well but they do kick the dork factor back into high gear. I guess I can't deny my true dorky nature. And if I'm going to be a dork, I might as well be a safety dork, so I wear yellow reflective ankle bands to keep the cuffs of my Sahara pants out of my bike chain and to further increase my conspicuity. By the way, if you find yourself slipping the word "conspicuity" into conversation, you too may be a safety dork.

My big breakthrough in foot comfort was when I finally decided that for the riding I do, cycling shoes are not the solution. For the past year I've been riding with plain platform pedals. My shoes are Keen Targhees that I wear over either a pair of thick wool socks or a couple of pairs of thinner wool socks. The Keens are pretty weatherproof, but if things are really nasty, I layer a plastic bag (bread bags work great) between the inner and outer sock. This system works better than any fancy membrane sock/shoe cover/cycling shoe combo I've tried.

Well, that's it. That's pretty much what I wear. But that certainly doesn't mean this is what you should wear. People live in different places, have different metabolisms, and have different tolerances for temperatures. We're all experiments of one, empiricists clothed in artifacts.

Wander Around Washington - Packing List

OK, some folks care about stuff like this. Here's a list of what I'm lugging all around the great state of Washington on my old green Gary Fisher HooKooEKoo.

In the front basket I have a small nylon bag. It used to hold a Fox Racing Shock (they send these things to shops in nylon bags, go figure! Anyhow, I'm a scrounger so I have a few of these bags hanging around):

First Aid Kit
Sunblock
Cafe Vienna Instant Coffee
Green Tea bags
a small plastic bottle of sugar (I use sugar in my tea)
3 granola bars
a big plastic bag of peanut M&Ms
2 Tiger's milk bars
Gummy worms
Cashews
(please note, I am not a nutritional role model)

the front basket also has two toe-straps to secure the load, a clip to hold a map and a Princeton Tec EOS headlamp.

The handlebars have a brass bell, A Serfas white front LED light that I often use as a front blinkie, and Ergon Grips.

Within the main triangle of the bike I have 2 28 ounce water bottles. I also have a Cateye Enduro cyclecomputer attached to the downtube. This helps keep me from staring at my computer and obsessing about numbers but I still can track my mileage easily.

The bike's saddle is a WTB Rocket V.

The bike as home made coroplast fenders.

An old Wald metal basket is mounted to a rear Blackburn rack.

On the back of the basket are two Planet Bike red rear flashers

Underneath the left side of the basket is a shortened Z-rest pad held in place by one nylon strap and one toe strap.

Underneath the right side of the basket is a nylon bag containing a Kelly Kettle, a small stash of twigs, matches and a butane lighter.

In the basket is:

2 one liter bottles (I fill these up if I'll be going through dry stretches of country.)

A heavy duty plastic bag containing: a Topeak Road Morph pump, 1 spare inner tube, 1 patch kit, 2 tire levers, chain tool, M8/10 wrench, M9/spoke wrench, Park AWS-10 multi-allen tool, 6" adjustable wrench w duct tape around handle, 8 speed quick link, a small length of spare chain, zip ties, TriFlo, brake cable, derailler cable, fiber fix spoke.

A cable combination lock.

A Seattle Sports drybag containing: 4 tent stakes, a silnylon tarp/poncho, parachute cord, a very old Goretex bivy, a mosquito head net, a Montbell #5 down sleeping bag.

2 custom bungee cords with carabiner ends.

A Dana Designs Kompressor Stuffsack/Pack containing: reflective sash, 2 reflective ankle bands, yellow nylon vest, Marmot DriClime windshirt, Rainlegs, O2 Rain jacket, legs for REI Sahara shorts/pants, Voler bike shorts, leg warmers, 2 pairs wool socks, 1 pair long fingered wool gloves, Buff headband, short sleeve button down cotton shirt, short sleeve wool t-shirt, long sleeve wool zip-neck shirt, 2 bandanas, 2 plastic bags (for waterproofing inside the stuff sack).

An old Camelbak Blowfish pack holds all my electronics and miscellaneous stuff. It doesn't have a water bladder in it, I just use it as a pack. While riding, it's held on top of the rear basket via two carabiners and a couple of bungies. The Camelbak contains: my 16 ounce Thermos, a Nokia N800 web tablet, a folding Bluetooth keyboard, USB cable a solar charger, an AC charger for the Nokia, headphones for the Nokia, an AC charger for my cell phone, an Olympus voice recorder, a compact AC NiMH charger, an AA based charger for the Nokia, spare AA and AAA batteries, a Kodak C433 digital camera, my passport, maps, ferry schedule, business cards, 2 mesh nylon bags, container of vasline, razor, Dr. Bronner's soap, toothbrush, tooth paste, Wet Ones wipes, chlorine dioxide (H2O purification) tablets, Vitamins B&C stress tabs.

Items worn on person (varies with temperature, this is stuff not covered above and what I'm wearing as I type this): Keen Shoes, wool socks, Voler cycling shorts, REI Sahara shorts, long sleeve cotton shirt, REI cap.

In my pockets: Aiptek Pencam SD, wallet, keys, cell phone, compass, Leatherman Squirt E4, Swiss Army Knife, Inova LED light, sharpening stone, magnesium firestarter w flint, Rite in the Rain notebook, 2 pens, 1 pencil, lip balm

Also Specialized bike helmet with mirror, Princeton Tec EOS headlamp, Bell tail light.

Cycling gloves.


Wow, that's a big list. I don't know how much it all weighs. I can tell you it's lighter and less than most of the touring loads I see out on the road.


OK, that's enough typing for one night. I've got to get up early in the morning to catch a ferry.

Thinking About Socks and Alpacas

I was going to start this post by stating that like most folks, I don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about my socks. While that's certainly true most days, I realized that there have been times in my life when I've thought a whole lot about my socks. These have usually been times when I've been miserable or, more importantly, times when I've been planning ahead to avoid misery.

Allow me to explain.

I have, at various times, done things that push me beyond my comfort zone. These include things like riding my Bike Friday from London to Edinburgh and back, or riding a fixed gear bike from Issaquah to Minnesota, or being the first person to ride a single speed bike from Port Roosville, Montana to Antelope Wells, New Mexico. On these and other adventures of varying degrees of stupidity, I've considered my socks carefully. When you are traveling light, you want the gear you bring to be up to the job.

On most of my adventures, I bring wool socks. In general, I'm a fan of wool. It's warm when wet and while some folks are allergic to it, I'm not. Over the years I've written quite bit on this blog about the virtues of wool, so I won't bother to repeat that here. Instead I'm going talk about something better than wool socks: alpaca socks.

Brain Davis apparently thinks more about socks than I do. I first got to know Brian through the internet and his nifty Fix It Sticks. Since then Brian and I have kept in intermittent touch and he's gone on to create several other products including the Weatherneck and the BackBottle. His latest project is a pair of socks made from Alpaca fiber. He sent me a pair to check out and I'm impressed. Well, impressed enough to do this blog post. They really do seem better than regular wool socks. Brian explains it better than I do, but they really are warm, not itchy, not stinky, and very comfy. I suppose you could say I've been bribed with socks, but a bribe only works if it's something of value and by gosh these socks are valuable. They've earned their spot in my kit for my future adventures.

Anyhow, like most of his ventures, Brian is Kickstarting this one. I know he'll succeed because they're good socks and he's a smart, hardworking guy who delivers on his promises. Here's a link to his Kickstarter campaign:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/briandavis/performance-alpaca-socks

Bike Talk: What's the best way to deal with the rain?

I'm starting a new feature here on the blog, something I call "Bike Talk". Think of "Bike Talk" as "Car Talk" with bikes instead of cars and one less brother. I may be just as (in)accurate with my answers as Tom and Ray and it's a decent bet that I won't be as funny. Since this is on a blog instead of the radio, you won't hear me laughing at my own jokes, so that's probably a plus. I'll take questions throughout the week via Twitter (@kentsbike) or email (kentsbike@gmail.com) and once a week I'll grab a question and post it along with the response here. I'll also take questions by mail. Just write your question on the back of Brompton folding bike with titanium rear triangle, wide-range 6-speed gearing, WTB Rocket V-saddle, and a Russ Roca Signature Edition folding cappuccino maker to:

Bike Talk Plaza
c/o Bicycle Center of Issaquah
121 Front Street North
Issaquah (my fair city) WA 98027

Today's question comes from Rohit via Twitter. Rohit asks:

"What's the best way to deal with rain in Seattle?"

This one's easy. First off, I should make clear that I actually live in Issaquah, which is about 17 miles east of Seattle, right at the base of the Cascade Mountains. One of Issaquah's claims to fame is that we actually get more rain than Seattle. And I can tell you, with the certainty based on years of biking in the rain, that hands down the absolute best way to deal with rain is to stop for coffee. My lovely wife, who is a year 'round bike commuter and doesn't even drink coffee, will tell you the same thing.

Unfortunately, given the persistent nature of rain in this green part of the world and the burdens we all bear, it is impossible to spend every waking moment in a coffee shop (trust me on this, there are days I've come close). So the intrepid rider must go out into the elements and that is where good clothing proves it's use.

There's a simple, wrong, cliché that states that "there is no bad weather, only bad clothing." I'd argue that there certainly IS bad weather. Bad clothing can make things seem much worse and good clothing can make things seem much, much better. My wise wife will tell you that when you look out the window at 4:00 AM and you have to ride to work, you don't say "oh, look at the good weather." You say "this bites." And then you put on your good clothes, get on your bike and go.

A good rain bike will have fenders to help keep you dry and lights so the drivers have a better chance of seeing you through their rain-slicked windshields. Christine and I both favor wearing caps under our helmets to keep the rain off our glasses.

For the past few years my favorite rain jacket has been the Patagonia Torrentshell. While not a cycling specific jacket, it's proven to be tough, light, well-designed and well-made. It has big pit-zips so it doesn't get too hot and it layers well with warmer layers when it gets cold. Christine and I both have nothing but good things to say about our Torrentshells and no matter how good the weather looks when we leave the house, we have our Torrentshells tucked into our packs just in case.

The O2 Cycling Rain Jacket is a great jacket for minimalists or those on a tight budget. While the jacket is made of a very thin, light material and it has no zipper vents or pockets, it does a good job. The thin material can be fairly easily torn but my first O2, jacket survived a year of commuting and my 2005 Great Divide Ride, so I certainly feel my $35 was well-spent on this jacket.

There are other good jackets as well. My friends Jan and Mark both have good things to say about the Gore Bike Wear jackets (I'm not sure which one, maybe one of them will chime in on the comments). Portland-based Showers Pass make very nice jackets that are favored by many foul-weather commuters.

For rain pant's I use some inexpensive coated nylon pants that I've had for years. Christine favors her REI Ultralight Rainpants.

For the extremities (hands, feet and ears) it's often not a question of keeping dry, but keeping warm. A band over the ears makes a huge difference in comfort and one of the best, most versatile bits of gear is a Buff. A Buff is simple tube of Coolmax or wool that can be folded into an earband or a beanie and it's a super handy bit of gear.

For gloves, a thin wool layer for warmth and a Windstopper layer on top has proven to be the best combination. Depending on temperature you can use one or both layers and if the lining layer does get wet, it can be wrung out. Gloves with integrated linings take damn near forever to dry when they do get wet. Wool, even when damp, is warm.

For the feet, the look that I first thought was so stupid when I first moved here is now my footwear of choice. Yes, I'm one of those wool socks and sandals people. If it's really cold, I may have a Goretex sock over the wool. Yeah, it looks stupid, but my feet are comfortable.

That's it for episode one of Bike Talk. As long as I keep getting questions I'll try to do this once a week or so.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson
Issaquah WA USA

200K Haiku

I've written my share of ride reports in prose, but for last Saturday's 200K, I decided to do something a bit different. I've long been a fan of haiku and I've even had a few published, so I figured why not write a few haiku to convey a bit about the 200K.

If you want a couple of good prose reports, check out these two:

Nat Pellman's: http://tinyurl.com/2fd5v2

and

Chris Lowe's: http://tinyurl.com/yrmaeq

---

Gary Snyder knows
randonneurs rise earlier
than students of zen.


Riding to the ride:
Uneventful except for
Two jaywalking elk.


Not much is needed.
One gear, one crank, two pedals.
Quick and persistent.


Rando wool fashion,
Even on Saint Patrick's Day
More blue shirts than green.


Ti bike, wool jersey
Leather saddle, GPS.
Still have to pedal.


Suburbs awaken.
More climbing past Dash Point.
Pack away warm clothes.


The river, the road,
the riders and their machines,
all in one valley.


The ride's real challenge?
The Black Diamond Bakery.
Too tasty to skip.


Road to Greenwater:
Randonneurs and frog voices
Return every spring.


Randonneur's pit stop:
Sandwich, Cheetos and Ice Tea.
Who cares what gas costs?


Randonneur ethics:
The fast leave water bottles
for those further back.


Feeling pretty smart
watching the rain drops roll off
plastic-wrapped cue sheet.


Rewriting Pink Floyd
wearing wool in the drizzle:
comfortably damp.


Rain and wet manure
remind me to be grateful
for Wayne's good mud flap.


Greg and Mary's true
secret chili seasoning?
It's 200K.

---

Closer to Fine

From A Trip to Evergreen

Douglas Coulter, the mad troubadour of the touring list, whose madness is one of the saner responses I've seen to these mad times, once wrote that all his tours are failures. If my goal is ultimate simplicity, I similarly fail on each journey, for my monkey mind gathers far too many shiny things and carries these burdens too far for too long. But, perhaps, a goal is only that which gets me rolling down the road, where my burdens resolve either into the strength needed to carry them further or the certainty needed to leave them behind. With thoughts such as these for companions, I pedal southward, into the wind. My gear today is too much, something I'll know for certain when I return home with unworn t-shirts and a laptop that I've lugged for miles and never used but in the words of the Indigo Girls, my kit is getting "closer to fine."

My gear today is minimal but more than sufficient. Using Colin Fletcher's metaphor of a house, my baggage consists of three main rooms. The bedroom sits on the bike's rear rack. A single waterproof compression stuff-sack contains my sleeping bag, bivy sack, Therm-a-Rest pad, tarp-poncho, ground-cloth, 4 tent stakes and my cozy camp jacket/vest. The jacket/vest, which is too warm to wear while riding, extends the comfort range of my 18 ounce sleeping bag down to the freezing point. The total weight of the bedroom is under 5 lbs.

Up front, a small handlebar bag contains the pantry and workshop. The main compartment holds whatever I feel like snacking on at the moment, today it contains Payday and Clif bars, while the smaller compartment contains a spare tube, patch kit, tire levers and chain lube. I have two water bottles in the main triangle of the bike and a Topeak Morph pump strapped behind the seat tube. Battery powered Planet Bike head and tail lights are sufficient to get me through the longest, darkest nights. For security, I carry an OnGuard Mini U-Lock on my rear rack. A bungie cargo net secures the load to the rear rack.

My closet is an Osprey Daylite backpack holding not only my spare clothes (a couple of t-shirts, a long sleeve wool t-shirt, a pair of wool socks and a second pair of shorts) but also way more technology than what any wanderer actually needs. In addition to my camera and cell phone, I'm packing my Eee PC in case I'm overcome with overwhelming web-withdrawal and my Peek Pronto connects me to all the email obligations I carry with me.

From A Trip to Evergreen

There's a school of thought that says I should be letting the bike carry all the weight and not use a backpack, but packs have proven to be handy to me over the years. The valuable bits stay with me when I lock up the bike and go into a coffee shop or wander around and keeping some weight on my back keeps me honest. The pack weight gets questioned every trip. In addition to the above mentioned items, the pack holds my toothbrush and razor, whatever book I'm reading, chargers for the gadgets, local maps and other bits that build up until I say "enough" and pare things down again. It's always a learning process.

The backpack expands and contracts as I layer clothes on and off depending on conditions. I wear a cotton cycling cap under my helmet and in cold conditions I wear a warm cap over the cotton one to cover my ears. Both my outer jacket and pants are convertible, with parts that zip off and dry quickly. It took me years to figure out that the key to wet weather comfort was not to battle to stay totally dry, but to have clothes that are comfortable when damp and dry quickly. My Marmot DriClime Windshirt is the best single garment I own and it is pretty much always on my person or in my pack. I carry the gets-damp-but-dries-quick theme down to my feet and found that the looks-dorky-but-really-works Pacific Northwest fashion of wool socks plus sandals.

From A Trip to Evergreen

On each trip I learn something. I've learned that by traveling light, I can travel far. With minimal gear, I need a minimum of gears, and touring on a fixed gear or single speed bicycle is not only possible, it's fun and instructive. In wind, rain, sun or whatever I can roll and think and learn something from every day, night, road and trail I roll down. The distance I have to cover is not far and I have sufficient time to hasten slowly. One of the wisest things I've ever read was written by the great sage Sheldon who asked "If you are in a hurry, why are you on a bicycle?" Since I am traveling at least as much to travel as to arrive, I have time to think and pause and photograph that which is odd or common or interesting. Each tour is not a failure, each trip gets me closer to fine.

From A Trip to Evergreen

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent

Random Thoughts from Portland

Working in a bike shop means that I work on weekends and my days off happen in the middle of what the rest of the world views as its work week. Last week my Dahon and I visited various friends in Portland. Rather than write up some sort of "I did this and this and this" report, I offer instead this collection of blurry snapshots and random observations from some guy on a little red bike.

Speaking of the little red bike, my Dahon totally freekin' rocks. Christine bought me a nice nylon bag for the bike and early Wednesday I rode from Issaquah to the Seattle Amtrak Station. Amtrak also totally rocks as a way to get from Seattle to Portland -- thirty bucks and about three and half hours each way. I unfold the bag, fold up the bike, put the bike in the bag, carry the bag on the train, and settle in for a nice train ride.

Portland is a bike-friendly town, with a huge number of riders and lots of bike-related businesses. It is the kind of town that not only has a bike map, it has a pocket-sized bike map that is easy to carry on your bike. It is a town that has signs everywhere telling you where the bike-friendly streets are. It is a town where biking to work is normal. And it is a town that expends a huge amount of energy and angst wondering if it is bike friendly enough, if its bike infrastructure is only serving white people of privilege, if Minneapolis really is more bike-friendly than Portland and so on. I often suspect that a large number of people in Portland think that people elsewhere think about Portland more than they actually do.

But when I'm in Portland, I do think about Portland and the Portlandia dream, which is very easy to mock. The real city is shaped by dreams of those who chose to move here or keep living here and as I ride down these real streets and talk with these real people, I can't help but be impressed by the ways people really do manage to make a living in this weirdly wonderful city.

Dan and Erik left Planet Bike a few years ago to start a company called Portland Design Works. They make lights and fenders and other bike bits and currently share space in a gigantic tin shed with a company that makes traffic cones and a bunch of other small bike business. I first met Dan via email back when he was at Planet Bike and they helped me get the Bicycle Alliance Get Lit program rolling. They continue to give back to the community while making nifty products. Dan tells me that they are finally at the point where they are hiring a third person and are going to be moving their operation to a bigger space. A space, by the way, big enough to enclose their velodrome. Portland is the kind of town where buying your own velodrome (they did get a hell of a deal) makes sense.

Dan and Erik show me prototypes of the new PDW fenders, which are metal and have a grey finish that will look good on a wide range of bikes. The finish looks identical to that of Shimano's current Ultegra components. The discussion of fenders leads us to one of the other businesses housed in the big tin shed, where I meet Shawn, the chief engineer of Ruckus Components. Shawn does something very few people do, he fixes and modifies carbon fiber frames. He also makes some very cool, very light carbon fenders for bike whose original designers never gave thought to fender clearance.

Portland is a town where a random guy riding down random streets will see three-wheeled electric cars and bike-towed mobile homes parked by the curb. It's a town where Cyclone Bicycle Supply uses a bike cargo service to deliver parts to bike shops. It's a town where if a guy has enough friends, it's virtually impossible for him to pay for a cup of coffee or a meal. It's the town where the egg you had for breakfast came from a chicken with a name and you'll constantly be asked if you're vegan and you may feel guilty that you're not.

Portland is a town where you can completely randomly get into a "how much wool are you wearing?" contest and the guy who wins is the guy who "is not wearing any non-wool." And you may feel guilty that you don't know the name of every sheep that was shorn to give you that wool. That undercurrent of sincere earnestness that lets me visit Portland and enjoy it, but still be very, very certain that I'm much happier living elsewhere.

Portland is a town where there are signs saying "Do Not Enter (Except For Bikes)" and people who will tell you how much bikes are oppressed here. It is a town where 78% of the drivers and 93% of the cyclists roll through stop signs. I tend to be a pretty law-abiding cyclist and I found myself rolling through Portland stop signs because they have about eleventy-billion of the things. It seems like every damn corner in every tiny neighborhood has at least a couple of stop signs. I am reminded of what some folks said about the old Campy Delta brakes "they are not for stopping, they are for modulating your velocity." Now I am not suggesting that Portland remove all its stop signs (I've heard they tried that and people kept running into each other) but I am pointing out that "normal" varies from place to place.

My friends Russ and Laura have made Portland their winter home, despite the rains, but for them Portland is less a home and more of a long campsite. They know perhaps too much about pedaling to ride too long on paths these pedaled and they are plotting routes to places they have yet to see. We speak of making enough to keep moving, of small bikes and big trains, of extension cords and the cost of data plans. We speak of going to empty places to find what it is we need to fill.

Some folks find Portland is the place they grow roots, while others find it odd or gloomy and move on. My friend Scott has been three years in this city and is still uncertain of the rain, still less than in love with the city. Portland is tolerant of many things and many lifestyles, but an immunity to the charms of the Rose City is viewed with the most extreme suspicion. But no place is the place for everyone.

I come here to roll down streets that welcome me and converse with people building up a city of which they're justly proud. But this is not my town, my place. It is a place I wonder at and enjoy. I take pictures and memories of conversations and ideas and I roll away.

I'll probably be back, but for now I have to keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

Cold Snap Cycling

At the point where water turns to ice, many cyclist turn sedentary. Sure, hearty souls who live in places like Minnesota or Alaska persevere in temps well below zero, but when you live in a more temperate climate you can make the very sensible case that if you wait for a couple of days, things will warm up so why not take it easy? And those slick roads, packed with SUVs and harried Christmas shoppers probably are not the safest places for a cyclist to be. This is why people buy rollers, indoor trainers or gym memberships. Or why they stay inside, packing on an extra layer of fat for the winter.

The high temperature today might reach the freezing point of water and Mike, Mark and I are riding. We are going where most of my "fun" rides go these days, east and up on trails and car-free, gated gravel roads. I'm the instigator of this action, the guy who sent the email referring to this as a "freeze your butt ride." I sent the email to 72 people. A vast majority of the recipients have good excuses or what is sometimes referred to as "common sense." Mike, Mark and I all have the things you need if you might be lacking in common sense. Things like warm clothes, studded bike tires and restless natures.

I have a Thermos Mug of coffee hanging from a carabiner on my Camelbak. The Camelbak is frozen but the coffee is still warm. I'm wearing multiple layers of wool, fleece and nylon and when I breathe out the moisture condenses in a cloud that quickly vanishes into the dry air. It has not snowed here, but the cold pulls the moisture from the air and deposits it in frost patches on the ground. Still water freezes, but the creek before us is tumbling swiftly and it's wider than I'd recalled. In August, the last time I was here, I'd splashed across it, hopping from rock to rock.

The rocks are slick now, many coated with a dangerous sheen of ice. Mike has the longest legs and the best rock-hopping judgment. He gets across and we pass the bikes to him. Mark and I have shorter legs and more cautious natures. Mark also as super-slick cleats on the soles of his shoes. After much debate of rock-to-rock paths and the addition of a handy board Mark found in the woods, we make it across. I manage to have my right foot slip off one rock and wind up wringing the damp out of one set of wool socks.

The day is bright and cold and while we are headed up Rattlesnake Ridge, we still are not quite sure where these old roads lead. The studded tires perform brilliantly and I'm thrilled with the way my new-old bike is riding. I don't have studded tires that fit my 29er Flight and when this 1985 Mongoose ATB Pro came into Bike Works last week and our Recycling & Reuse Coordinator priced it a $50 as-is, I knew I was getting another bike. After replacing the cables, housing, dry-rotted tires, and uncomfortable saddle, the bike was ready to roll. A couple of hours with some Chromax polish and the bike shone like a jewel.

We ride up, then down, then up some more. Then up a bunch more and we come the world's most uninformative road sign, two weather-blasted wooden arrows, one pointed where we've been, one pointing the other way. Years of wind and rain have erased any fragment of useful information. Mark's GPS tells us we are up in somewhere very blank. My map, brilliantly left back in Issaquah, tells us nothing. The time of day, the lowering sun and Mike all wisely counsel us to go back the way we came.

The descent is quick and cold. Studded tires rumble on the gravel but go silent when they grab the ice. Back at the creek, we cross using my method, using the bikes as a crutch and a third leg as we hop from rock to rock. We'd noted on our first crossing and now investigate the oddest thing, Maglights in the water. Fishing around with a stick, we retrieve not one, not two, but three different Maglights from the depths of the creek. How they got there, we have no idea. Actually we have a couple of ideas. One involves some four-wheeler, stuck and dropping lights and swearing. My more fanciful theory involves there being some upstream vein of Maglights and that we could make our fortunes by staking a claim to the mining rights for this patch of land. I'm sure we'll never know the true story of how the lights came to be in the creek, but I can tell you that these are tough lights. Two out of the three lit right up when we pulled them from the creek and I bet the third one just needs new batteries.

Mark flies past me on the post-creek descent, uttering what I momentarily suspect will be his last words, "oh shit, no brakes!!!" I guess dunking sub-freezing aluminum rims into an icy creek is a good way to coat them with ice. My old-school Cunningham-designed brakes are still working great and eventually friction reasserts itself and Mark manages to somehow get his Bianchi under control. The three of us pause to chip the worst of the ice off our machines and then continue down toward the world of men.

We roll down the freeway and the frontage road between Preston and Highpoint. The sun is setting as we roll down the gravel road by Tradition Lake and the trail underneath the power lines. Our lights pick out the rocks along the trail behind the high school and the beams glint and glisten in the frost.

In the cold, if you stop, you tend to freeze in place. But if you move, and keep moving, you find the damnedest things. Things like Maglights in a creek, things like sign posts that tell you nothing. Things that you don't understand.

There are odd things on the trail, weird things. Like the fortune cookie fortune we saw this morning, "Your mind will make your body rich."

We can't understand or explain everything.

It's better to be moving. I don't know why, but I know that it is.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent

Issaquah - Portland - Issaquah

It's not until sunrise that I notice that I can see my breath. Since I long ago got my basic clothing dialed in for pretty wide range of conditions, temperature is mostly just something I check on bank signs and not a thing I worry about. Sure, I'd checked the forecast and added an army surplus wool sweater to my torso and a Duofold layer under my nylon pants, but it's not until I see my breath forming little clouds as I huff up the hills that it occurs to me that the cold might be problematic. I'd left my snug place in Issaquah at 5:00 AM for a four day ride down to Portland and back. Since I was planning on spending much of Saturday and Sunday visiting friends in Portland, my thought was to pack the bulk of the riding into Friday and Monday. Hence, my early start this Friday morning.

My basic route, picked by Google using the ever so handy "avoid highways" option and tweaked by me, merged parts of a Seattle International Randonneurs 200K and a bit of RAMROD with a good chunk of the STP route. It was the bits in some of the higher country near Mount Rainier that had me worried. Snow could slow things down.

I reach down to take a sip from my bottle and realize it's an ice baby. The second bottle is similarly solid. "Holy Jill Homer!" I mutter, "it's cold."

What I'd thought was decadence turns out to be providence. I'd also brought along my Thermos Mug full of hot coffee and that turns out to be my main source of hydration for the next few hours.



There are patches of frost along the roadside and the frost in my mustache turns out to be more than just some metaphor lifted from a haiku. My Tringle-speed is shod with rugged Specialized Hardpack II tires and even though I can hear Jan's Germanic voice in my head chiding me "I cannot believe you choose to ride such slow tires," I value versatility over velocity. This morning, it certainly seems like a wise choice.


By 9:30 AM the bright sunshine has warmed the air and my bottles have thawed. I stop at the Kapowsin Texaco for a Cookies and Creme bar washed down with a pint of whole milk before rolling on through Eatonville. There's a good bit of snow along the Eatonville Cutoff Road and the roadside bison watch as I roll by.


I often describe my bike trips as a chance to connect with my "inner hobo" and in the town of Elbe, I see that perhaps I'm not alone in my desire for rusticity. While sleeping in converted cabooses would probably be fun, I think it has only the slightest connection to the true hobo life. Now maybe if they let you sleep under the caboose while the train rolls along at 120 miles per hour and every few hours some yard bull would whack you with a stick and toss you off the train...


There is more roadside snow on the road down to Morton and I decide for my trip back, I'll pick a route that sticks closer to the lower country to the west. After feasting on a turkey sandwich and a pint of milk in Morton I turn west along noisy Highway 12 and eventually turn south again, following the small roads that roughly parallel I-5.

It's dark by the time I cross the bridge at Longview and enter Oregon. A lot of the bridge traffic is logging trucks and the narrow shoulder is layered with bark and wood chips. I'm usually very relaxed on the bike, but navigating this span in the dark, even with wide tires, is the most tense part of the trip.

At 8:40 PM I stop for late supper consisting of a hot dog and a pint of milk and fill my now empty second water bottle with some orange-guava juice. In addition to my various food stops, I've been munching enroute on peanut M&Ms, PayDay bars and Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies. Have I mentioned that I am not a nutritional role model?

My goal today was to get close to Portland without actually being in Portland. At 10:00 PM I see a handy bit of woods on the edge of the town of Scappoose, so I roll out my bivy sack and settle in for the night. Since I've ridden 191 miles since leaving home this morning, I sleep soundly.

I'm up and rolling at 5:00 AM. Highway 30 turns freewayish as it runs into Portland but as I exit onto local roads, Portland's famous bicycle infrastructure guides me in.





At 7:00 AM I'm settled in at Peet's Coffee in downtown Portland, sipping a caramel latte and checking my email. Around 9:00 AM I roll over to Powell's where I park in one of Portland's fancy on-street bike racks and meet up with fellow blogging cycler, Joe Broach.


This is the first time Joe and I have had a chance to meet up in the non-cyber world, but it's just like having coffee with an old friend. Actually, I'm still working on my latte from Peet's but I let Joe buy me a croissant and he has tea while we chat about a wide range of bikish and bloggish things. Joe is a great writer and I urge him to write more about his life in Portland. I'd first started reading his stuff when he lived in Montana and when he'd moved to Portland, I'd hoped he'd write more about the transition and compare and contrast the two places. Alas, life has a way of filling the days and Joe's written fewer words than I'd like to see, so I give him a hard time about that. In the nicest, possible way, of course. The man did buy me breakfast, after all!

After talking with Joe for over an hour, I manage to check out some of the books at Powell's. I'm traveling light so I manage not to buy anything heavier than a Washington-Oregon map. I also skim through Jeff Mapes' book Pedaling Revolution. This one is on my "gotta get this" list and not just because I'm in it. I do the vanity read to make sure Jeff quoted me accurately (he did, the man is a pro!) and it was interesting to see Jeff's take on a commute we shared a couple of years ago and especially see his appreciative comments on the virtues of coroplast fenders.

From Powell's I head over to Clever Cycles. My buddy Colin works as a mechanic at Clever, a job he seems ideally suited for. Colin used to be the shop manager at Bike Works, and he decided to leave Seattle, I took over his old role. So we talk about Bike Works, the bike business and riding in the Portland area. Colin shows me around the place and even lets me test ride a Stokemonkey equipped Xtracycle. My own life is too minimalist to require either an Xtracycle or a Stokemonkey, but I can sure see the value of these things. The Stokemonkey is amazing, a true electric assist. You pretty much use it to get big loads rolling or push the big load up big grades. The sensation is like riding a tandem with the world's strongest stoker.


Also at Clever, I re-meet a kindred soul, Mike Cobb, the fellow who created the ever-so-handy Cobbworks bucket pannier.



Mike sold the Cobbworks business a while back and these days is crafting large-capacity cargo solutions for longtail bikes. But tonight, after attending the Alice Awards, he's hopping the last MAX train east with his bike and then riding up Mount Hood so he can compete in the US Snowshoe Nationals tomorrow morning. Since the roads are icy up there, he's making his own studded tire as we talk. And naturally, he'll be sleeping in a bivy sack tonight, Like I said, my kind of guy!

While I'm at Clever, Jayanthi, another of my pals from Bike Works, calls up. She's in town for the US Barista Championships (she's related to one of the judges) and she also stops in at Clever to see Colin. And next week it turns out that we'll probably all cross paths again at the Seattle Bike Expo.

I'd arranged to meet Scott "Large Fella" Cutshall at 3:00 PM at Clever, but since I have some time to kill and a phone call to make (more trip logistics), I wander around the neighborhood. I'm just rolling back toward Clever when a not very large fella on a lovely Bob Brown bicycle rolls up along side me and says, "you must be Kent Peterson." I admit that I must and that he in turn must be Scott Cutshall.


Despite the dire things I'd read on Scott's blog, at least at this moment he is not being pursued by angry villagers bearing Proofide-fueled torches. "Where to?" Scott asks and I point out that it's his city. "Show me around," I say.

So we roll down one side of the river, across a bridge and through downtown. We discuss bikes and bloggers and the reach and limits of the internet as a communication medium. When Scott talks there tends to be a chuckle in his voice, a twinkle in his eye and a self-deprecating tone that doesn't always come through in print. When Scott or I say something like "being a famous blogger..." we each have a hard time not cracking up. On a good day being a "famous blogger" might get you a free tour around town, a chance to have some interesting chats and maybe a meal or two. On super rare occasions, a virtually random stranger might figure out that you could use a plane ticket home and that'll give you some clue that maybe your words do matter, at least to somebody. And the flip side of this, the darker side, is that when you make some flip remark or are genuinely dark or struggling, those words matter as well and the actions that come from those words aren't always kind. "People sure get worked up over words!" Scott observes. I agree that indeed they do and describe to him my favorite comic strip, whose punchline is "Someone is wrong on the internet."

Scott's wife Amy is a nurse who works nights, so after some over an hour of rolling and gabbing we head over to Scott's place. Scott explains that in the Cutshall world, this is breakfast time and quizzes me about my "normal" schedule. I quote Willie Nelson and point out that "there is no normal, there's only you and me." My wife works early mornings and I tend to be more a morning person myself, so many nights I'm sound asleep while Scott is teaching Chloe, making lunch or riding.

Chloe and Amy are delightful and Chloe presents me with a project she'd just finished, a "Whimsical Charm of Safety", which I immediately strap to the rear basket of my bike.


Chloe is into Animorph books these days and she also knows lots about animals, digging through a field guide when the discussion turns to the red-legged frogs we'd heard singing in the Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge that Scott and I had ridden past on our ride.


Scott and I both are guys who, in the spirit of the character of Kasper Gutman in The Maltese Falcon, "like talking to a man who likes to talk." I think Amy and Chloe are wondering if we'll ever shut up.

I do manage to shut my mouth long enough to sample one of the famous humus wraps that the Cutshalls thrive on. I think if I ate those daily I'd loose weight as well, not because they're not good (they are!) but because they are filling while seeming to lack the caloric density of my normal heavy fuel. Scott is curious about said fuel and Amy and I describe for him the construction of a Payday bar.

After more chat on a wide range of topics, I get ready to head out into the evening. Scott, like Joe had earlier, offers me a place to stay but I explain that I really do value these trips as chances to dial in my gear, be out in the night and "get in touch with my inner hobo." Scott looks dubious, but I think he understands. Scott explains to me that for years he was so heavy that he never went out, spending all his time locked inside, reaching out only to read some words on a computer screen. And some of the words he found were mine, describing a life outside. I think he understands and I go.

I'm ten minutes down the road when my phone rings. The cell phone is something I'm still getting used to, but it helps set Christine's mind at ease and it is handy on adventures such as this one where I'm trying to connect up with a range of folks. When I see this call is from Scott, I think perhaps I've forgotten something at his place. Nope, he's just double checking. "You're sure you're OK camping out? This just seems weird, I mean we have plenty of room here and I feel like I just sent my buddy out to go sleep in a park." "This is weird," I assure him but "weird is how I roll." There is no normal, there's only you and me. "You know this call isn't for you," Scott says, "it's for me. I have to be sure." "Yeah, I know that buddy. It's fine, really. Have a good night and thanks again for everything."

Because I have an uneasy truce with "the Man" (I mostly don't mess with him and he mostly doesn't mess with me but I figure he may read this blog now and then), I'll choose to be vague about exactly where I roll out my bivy sack. There are usually trees involved, and shadows and I always sleep soundly.

In the morning, I head over to my buddy Michael Rasmussen's place. Michael keeps a few chickens in his backyard and he makes great hashbrowns and coffee to go with the eggs. In an earlier email Michael admitted he hadn't ridden his bike at all this year. I figure I can apply a bit of positive peer pressure and maybe get him rolling. At the very least, I'll get a great breakfast out of the deal.



My basically transparent plan works quite well. We have a wide ranging discussion while Michael cooks. Michael needs to head over to Beth Hamon's place to pick up a bike jersey and I'd been planning on seeing Beth before I rolled out of town. Still Michael almost convinces himself that he's cut the timing too close to bike there. His wife Jennifer talks him into leaving the dishes and I volunteer to change the flat front tube on his bike while he dresses. "I need you to navigate me to Beth's house," I lie but it's a lie we both take on as a catalyst for action.

Michael layers on his riding clothes and once he's on the bike and rolling we're fine. Sure he wheezes on the climbs but he's got a grin on his face. The wheezing isn't a result of this morning's ride, it's the result of all those mornings of not riding. Once he's on the bike, he remembers that.





We're at Beth's at 11:30. Beth wasn't expecting to see me this early in the day, but she rises to the challenge. I think she'd been envisioning a more relaxed visit in the afternoon but she offers me a cup of coffee while she tries to fit my early presence into her plans for the day. I tell her that I really just popped in to see her and that I'm planning on heading north a bit earlier than originally planned. The forecast is for snow and I want to get over the Longview bridge in daylight. Michael has to dash off, but Beth, her friend Lynne and I chat for a while before heading out to Beth's work shed where she is prepping her bike for cyclocross.




Hanging out chatting about bike stuff is exactly what I'd wanted to do on this trip, so this is the perfect ending to my stay in Portland.

The skies are clouding up and after saying goodbye to Beth and Lynne, I roll north at 12:30. I roll through north Portland, cross the St. John's bridge and connect up again with Hwy 30.


The spring time change happened last night, so it's still light when I cross the Longview bridge at 5:30 PM. I continue riding north, keeping an eye on the weather and settle in to camp in a patch of woods between Castle Rock and Vader at 7:15 PM. I've just got my bivy stretched out and my tarp strung up when my phone rings. It's Christine, "is it snowing where you are?" "Not yet," I explain, "I'm swinging wider around Rainier for the trip home," I explain, "sticking to the lower country." "Sleep warm," Christine says, and I assure her I will. There's a line from a Kathy Mattea song that says "On the chilliest night though I travel light, it is always enough, for I wear your love." In my case, this is certainly true. My down bag, bivy sack and Thermarest all do their bit, but my wool socks, warm hat and wool gloves are all gifts from Christine. On the chilly nights and days I really do wear her love.

There's a little bit of snow on the tarp in the morning and a bit more snow is coming down at 8:00 AM when I stop at the Little Crane Cafe in Vader.

Over a big breakfast of hamburger steak and eggs and hashbrowns I joke with the locals about the weather. "Yeah," one trucker comments, "a hell of a day to be driving, but at least I ain't riding a bike!"






One picturesque farm features Emus and goats so I stop for a few pictures, but mostly it's time to be riding for home. The day fluctuates between periods of clear blue skies mixed with times when the sky goes so dark I'm running with all my lights on and the air is white with whirling snow. Chloe's charm seems to do it's job because I make through every whiteout without becoming a hood ornament on some four by four. I get home at 9:30 PM.