$1.18 Dahon Carrying Case

The Internet had told me that the big blue shopping bags sold at IKEA would work as a Dahon carrying case, so last night after work instead of heading straight home I piloted my fun little red bike south to the Renton IKEA. On this Saturday night the store is packed with people, many of whom look like college students getting entire dorm rooms worth of furnishings. My mission should be a quick in & out to get a couple of the fifty-nine cent bags but even though the bags are right by the entrance, I have to weave my way through the giant money-shaking rat maze of a warehouse store. It's easy to resist things too big to lug on my bike, but gadgets that pack flat and have terse umlaut-laden names beckon at every turn. I mostly stick to my original, frugal plan of attack, waylaid only by the füd at the in-store restaurant. I'm a sucker for those $4.99 meatballs and 99-cent choklad nöt bars.

Eventually, I break free from the this florescent shrine to global capitalism, buy my bags and head back out into the night. It's a lovely night and by shifting a block or so off the main roads, the roads clogged with all the folks seeking the fastest way home, I meander in the moonlit night. My headlamp picks out a raccoon couple who I'm sure know far more than I ever will about what can only be seen clearly in the dark.


These pictures attest to the success of my trip. Two fifty-nine cent IKEA bags make an excellent case for a Dahon Curve D3. The second bag upside-down forms the cover to keep the bike safe from prying eyes. It's not a bike, it's just a bag of stuff. Nothing to see here, move along. Perfect for the Jedi Mind Trick of getting my bike into all kinds of places.



Keep 'em rolling,

Kent

Trail Work Is So Rewarding

We all know it's fun to ride on mountain bike trails, but those trails don't just happen. I belong to a great club, made up of great folks, who, among other things, make trails. This afternoon I was part of an Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance work party doing trail construction up at Duthie Hill. When Bob lifted up a log, he found this little guy staring up at him. After I took these pictures, Bob relocated the little fella to a damper, safer place off the trail and we got back to work.


It sure is fun to zip down the trails, but in the slow work of building something you get to come face to face with this wonderful world.


Keep 'em rolling,

Kent

Bike For Pie 2009

Sometimes we can love something too much. Take, for example, the annual Bainbridge Island Pie Ride. This is, in my opinion, the greatest cycling event ever. Folks ride around a beautiful island and there is PIE. The Squeaky Wheels folks have been doing this for six years now as a volunteer-run event and it's wonderful. Sure, it's tricky to gauge demand and sometimes the weather can be kind of threatening but in past years they've managed to force extra slices of pies onto riders who don't protest too much. This year, the weather turns out to be perfect and even though the Squeaky Wheels predicted that they might get twice as many riders as last year, they got blind-sided.

There were at least triple the number of riders this year. Maybe quadruple. You give away pie and word gets out. It doesn't help that some idiot with a blog wrote about the Pie Ride here and here and then emailed a bunch of his friends and used that stupid Twitter thing to say:

"My favorite ride of the year is this Sunday: http://www.squeakywheels.or..."

The ride was fabulous. The Squeaky Wheels did a great job. The pies were great and disappeared quickly. A police escort was used to secure more pies. Every pie on Bainbridge Island was secured and consumed. Pies were brought in from Poulsbo. Those also vanished quickly.

Plans are already underway for next year, plans involving advance registration and incentives for folks to bake and bring pies to the ride. The bond between pedaling and pie is a strong one. The Pie Ride will go on.

News from the Poetic World

It would be simpler, I suppose,
to live in a world purely prose.

When I was younger I believed that everything could be explained, should be explained, in a purely rational and logical manner. Kurt Gödel, Lao Tzu and a universe that places duct tape where it needs to be, convinced me that the world is more complex than that. So I live and love in a world where I've learned some facts through fiction, where the real news comes from poets instead of pressmen and I've learned that there are some things I must constantly relearn, some things I must unlearn and many things I'll never know.

William Carlos Williams tells us that "it is difficult to get the news from poetry" and Christopher Morley noted that "the bicycle, the bicycle surely, should always be the vehicle of novelists and poets." And it is on my bicycle that I find the time to think, to explore, to see the world at a pace that suits me. For I am still an impatient man, an unreasonable man, whose not quite willing to accept the purely pedestrian pace and range given me by bipedal locomotion. I take both a lesson from and issue with Priestley as I ride my graceful gadget to the wild places, the roads less traveled by that make all the difference.

Every trip brings something to my attention, or removes something from my attention that I've been paying too much mind to. And I never know what lies around the next turn in the trail, even on trails I've been down dozens of times and that, perhaps, is why I keep returning to some familiar places, to see the changes in the world and in me. But other days, like this day, I'm drawn to some place old to the world yet new to me, where I can be at least a bit lost as I follow my wheels where they seem to want to go.

Today, this morning actually, it's the old roads up the west side of Rattlesnake Ridge. There are no rattlesnakes on this side of the Cascades but the name is more evocative than "rattling seed-pod ridge" so that is what's stuck to this chunk of rugged terrain.

My map, as always, is not the terrain, but it is enough to draw me here, to this wonderful network of old logging roads and powerline cuts and winding gravel tracks that lead up to towers that blink day and night and relay voices up and over the solid stone. I pass by the gate that bars the cars, pause by the rusting remains of a once-powerful machine slowly being returned to the earth it once moved. The blackberries are thick here and heavy with fruit. My second breakfast is free for the taking.

I'd told Christine this would be a three-hour tour, but possibly three hours in the Gilligan-sense, so I might not be back until noon. I'd left at seven, it's close to ten when I turn around with many trails left unexplored.

It is down and fast and the way home, like the way up, involves one exit's worth of freeway riding. One exit is enough for today's lesson.

And that lesson is one I've known and forgotten and of which, apparently, I need to be reminded. For when you live in a poetic world, a world of duct tape miracles and soul-freeing beauty right in your backyard, you must remember that there are certain rules, rules not of logic but of poetic justice, which should not be ignored.

"The first rule of flat club is that nobody talks about flat club." Or something like that. If Tyler Durden was a cyclist, I'm sure that's what he would have said.

What I said, stupidly, I said yesterday on this blog. I said (wrote actually) "I hesitate to write this, lest I rouse the wrath of the tire gods, but I've had zero issues with these tires. None. No flats."

"Thwack, thump, thwack, thump." My dad would call the sound coming from my back tire "a hell of racket." A rationalist would call it the screw I'd just run over. I call it the universe sending me yet another wake-up call. I know how the world works, but I forget sometimes. I just have no idea why it works this way. But it does.

The screw keeps the air in until I make it off the freeway. At Preston I stop, fix the flat and take pictures. As soon as I remove the screw, the air wooshes out. I think this is the kind of flat that True Goo would do a good job of sealing but my two brand new True Goo tubes are on my kitchen table back at home.

And now I'm home, reminded again that I live in a strange and wonderful world. I have a tube to patch, some hail Remas to mutter, some balance to restore.

I get flats all the time. Remember that, you read it here.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent

Barely Broken In

See the tire above? It's the front WTB ExiWolf Tire that came stock on my two month old Redline Monocog Flight 29er. If you look close, you can still see that the knobs are still crisp. The matching rear tire shows only slightly more wear. These tires (and the bike) have 2027 miles on them as of this writing. Mountain miles. Dirt miles. Singletrack miles. And a bunch of pavement miles, as I've been commuting on the Flight pretty much every day since I got it.

I hesitate to write this, lest I rouse the wrath of the tire gods, but I've had zero issues with these tires. None. No flats. No inconvenient losses of traction. None. Gravel, mud, roots, rocks, pavement, curbs, litter, these tires just roll over it all.

See this saddle? It's the stock WTB Rocket V that came with the bike. Still a little flashy for my tastes, still perfectly comfortable after a couple of thousand miles, still comfy at the end of long days.

I don't have pictures of the brake pads in my Avid BB5 brakes or the chain or pedals or all the other parts of my bike that are still going strong after the first couple of thousand miles, but they are going strong and I'm damn pleased with the Redline. Simple. Strong. Reliable.

And did I mention that the bike is so darn much fun to ride? It is.

I've got some upgrades waiting for someday when the stock stuff wears in a bit more. A less flashy Rocket V. WTB Nano Raptors will replace the ExiWolfs eventually. (A set of Nanos is 12 ounces lighter than the Exis, and the Nano is still tough enough to be the most beloved tire on the Great Divide Route). Kool Stop brake pads will eventually go into the disk brakes and the Nanos will have also have TrueGoo tubes in them.

Eventually. Once I get around to wearing out the stock stuff on this bike. Which seems to be happening quite slowly now. Things will wear quicker when the rainy season comes.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent

Adrian Short is a brilliant observer

I usually try to avoid helmet wars and while this post is the probably the idealogical equivalent of a pint of petrol, a dry wind and a spark, it's too good not to pass on:

http://adrianshort.co.uk/2009/08/24/456/

Thanks to Adrian for speaking sense and my formerly large friend Scott for pointing me to Adrian's words.

The Compact Comforts of Home

My camping kit has evolved over the years and I get asked about it from time to time. I decided this morning to document just what it is that I lug around in that red stuff bag on the front of my bike. By the way, these pictures were shot at a spot in the woods that is a fifteen minute bike ride away from beautiful downtown Issaquah. I live in a rather nice part of the world.

The stuff sack itself is a medium Granite Gear Compression Drysack, which I attach to my bike with a couple of nylon straps. The bag rubs a bit against the head tube of the bike, so I've layered some duct tape on the head tube to cushion against the abrasion.


Here is the contents of the bag, all laid out. From left to right along the bottom of the picture there is the compression bag, an REI Minimalist Bivy, a Small ThermaRest ProLite Pad, and my MontBell #5 Down Sleeping Bag. In the upper left corner of the picture is a Space Blanket cut in half and rolled up around 4 tent stakes, an Equinox Ultralite Poncho/Shelter, and an REI Spruce Run Jacket/Vest.

While in the past I've used a variety of fine camp gear, such as the Hennessy Hammock or Henry Shire's brilliant TarpTent, I've found that for my fast/light/camp anywhere trips, the bag plus bivy plus poncho/tarp gives me the greatest versatility together with the fastest and simplest set-up and take-down.


If I'm not expecting heavy rain, I often don't bother deploying the poncho/tarp. Conversly, if it is raining, the tarp is the first thing pitched and the last thing taken down. I can pitch it with only a single raised tie-point, but the bike, a slender branch, a fence-post or darn near anything can serve to secure the tarp.


The bivy is bug and critter proof. On warm nights, I'll sleep on top of the sleeping bag and use the Spruce Run Jacket as a pillow. In colder times, I wear the jacket to add warmth to the bag. The combo of the sleeping bag plus jacket I count as one of my brighter ideas. Having a light camp jacket is so nice in the morning and cool evenings and it extends the comfort range of my sleeping bag down below freezing.


That's it for the camp gear. I don't have a precise scale, but my bathroom scale says the whole thing weighs about four pounds. Some time in the future I'll cover what I carry in terms of repair tools, food and other stuff.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent

Petzl Tikka XP

For years I've used and recommended the Princeton Tec EOS as a bike or helmet light and while I still think it's a darn good light, my two EOS lights both conked out a few months ago, after giving years of faithful service on many a dark road and trail. Interestingly, both lights failed in the same manner, they refused to shut off. I tried swapping batteries, I tried whacking them, nothing. As a failure mode, it's a good one, much better than being stuck in the dark. I think the switches finally just wore out.

While I strongly considered just getting another EOS, I took the opportunity to see what else was out there in terms of a similar light. I've been using Planet Bike lights on my bikes for the past few years, but I really like having something on my helmet. The helmet light is handy while riding since it shines on what I'm looking at. Please, if you use a helmet light don't look straight at others and blind your riding companions, convenience store clerks, other road and trail users! But the helmet light really shines, so to speak, when hunting out places to camp after dark.

Like many folks these days, I Googled around looking at options. This favorable review of the Petzl Tikka XP together with many favorable reviews on Amazon prompted me to buy the Tikka XP. I've had the light for over a month now and here is what I've found.

The Tikka XP is almost the exact same size and weight as the EOS and shares the one annoying feature of the EOS, it uses 3 AAA batteries. Batteries are sold in even numbered packs and most chargers charge an even number of batteries, so devices that use an odd number of batteries bug me. But I haven't found a good helmet light that uses an even number of batteries, so I've learned to deal with this. I have a small Planet Bike Tail Light that uses just one AAA cell, so when I charge up cells, I charge the three cells from the Tikka XP together with the single cell from the tail light.

Like the EOS, the Tikka XP puts out a good bit of light and has multiple brightness settings plus a flash setting. The flash is a bit higher frequency than that of the EOS and, in my opinion, a bit more useful. The Tikka XP has a few added features that I've found handy.

On the side of the light is a little recessed LED battery indicator that blinks green, orange or red depending on the state of your batteries. Batteries last a really long time (see this review for discharge curves) and the brightness of the light is good enough that I mostly run it on one of the lower power settings.

The controls are easy to work by touch. In addition to the primary button which cycles the light through it's various modes, the Tikka XP has a boost switch, which makes the light kick out a brief, ultrahigh-powered beam, just the thing for the "what the hell was that?" moments when you here the rustle in the bushes just outside of camp.

The final useful feature of the Tikka XP is a beam diffuser. This is a textured plastic bezel that slides in place to morph the beam from a sharp, narrow spot light to a softer, broad area light. I use Tikka XP as a spot light while riding but when walking around, setting up camp or reading, I use the light with the diffuser slid into place.

I was able to thread the straps of the Tikka XP through the vents of my helmet without modification to either the light or the helmet and the pivoting mount has proven to be solid and nicely adjustable.

After a month of use, I have to say I'm very happy with the Tikka XP and I'd recomend it to my pals.

Note: I am a member of the Amazon Associates program. Whenever you go to Amazon via some link on my blog and buy ANYTHING within 24 hours, a percentage of your purchase price goes to me. It doesn't cost you anything extra, but some of that money does go to me and I use it to do things like buy helmet lights or Peanut M&Ms and next summer I'm planning on racing the length of the Great Divide on my bike. And that costs money. So thanks. And, obviously, it's not in my best interest to give bum advice and talk you into buying something that is of no use to you. So I try to be fair when I talk about stuff and up front about the fact that I make a bit from my online ramblings.


Petzl Tikka XP Headlamp

Forest Road 6700

It was another little red line on a map that brought me here, a tiny series of dashes on page 72 of my Washington Road & Recreation Atlas. Here is Forest Road 6700, a spotted serpent on the map that promises an adventurous alternative route down off Steven's Pass.

And so I pack 280 miles into two days of riding. I carry too much stuff, of course, but that is part of the learning. My camera proves its worth again, while my GPS only tells me useless things like "you are here." I know that, that's why I'm here.

The mountains and the trees are huge, the roads are small and sparse. A view from some summit shows a tiny, sand-colored line far below, the path ahead. It loops back to home eventually.

Morgan Hauls

Morgan stopped by the shop today with a broken shift cable. She was hauling a bit of stuff, so rather than bring her rig into the shop, I wound up replacing the cable out where she'd parked.

Death Sentence

Susan Nelson died last night. I don't think I ever met Susan in what we call real life, the space where Elden and I would chat while I wrenched on his bike at Sammamish Valley Cycle or where we'd gasp and joke on some particularly heinous climb on the Issaquah Alps. It's possible I did meet Susan one day at the shop or at the end of some ride and I don't recall the event. It's certainly possible, because my memory is imperfect at best and life is so packed with wonders that one person can't possibly recall them all. But I do know that I got to know Susan and her wondrous family and spirit through Elden's stories and his blog.

Once upon a time Susan Nelson got cancer and she fought it back. The cancer went away and she and Elden and the kids won. What they won was time, time we call life and they lived that life. But life, as we know but seldom say, is a 100% fatal condition. Cancer came back for Susan, spreading into her brain like dandelion seeds. I recall reading her doctor's poetic description as relayed on Elden's blog last year and thinking "death sentence". I'm sure a similar thought went through Susan's cancer-pocked brain but again she fought. And she won more time. And she did more, much more. She rallied the troops.

We are all on this earth under a death sentence. Perhaps your faith sustains you with a true vision of a life beyond this one or perhaps you honestly believe one shot is all we get. Perhaps you believe we keep coming back to this world until we get it right or maybe you're a nihilist and you believe in nothing. In that final case I can only agree with the Dude and note that "Oh, that must be exhausting."

I believe that life is exhausting and death comes for us all. While the George Costanzas of the world may neurotically obsess on their eventual demise, Susan knew that we are here for each other. We live and love while we can. Maybe we do things that seem odd to others, like tell funny stories about bicycling on the internet or inspire people with photographs and stories from the far north. Maybe you tell somebody how you saved your own life with a bicycle and hummus wraps. Maybe you make jewelry. Maybe you ride your bike to raise money to fight cancer. Maybe you remember to tell the one you love that you love them.

We are all here under a death sentence. My sincere condolences go out to the Nelson family in this time of loss but I want to thank Elden and Susan for sharing so much of their lives with us and reminding us that it is the sharing of ourselves, of our time and our efforts, that ultimately shows the ones that we love that we love them. Thanks, Susan. Thanks for fighting. Thanks for showing us how to live.

Rock Ring Wrench

The Hozan C-205 Lock Ring Wrench is one of my favorite tools. Yeah, it works well for removing lock rings but my favorite thing about it is the fact that there, cast in chromed steel, is evidence that communication is not always perfect and a few things do get lost in translation. As a kid, I used to have trouble pronouncing the letter "L" and I remember my teacher making me repeat the phrase "Larry likes to lick licorice lollypops." That probably explains my fondness for the Hozan Rock Ring Wrench.

Cyclos Montagnards

Last week my friend Mark Vande Kamp refused my email invite to join me for a ride to Roslyn. It turns out he, Ryan Hamilton and Jan Heine were a bit busy that day. Details here:

http://gallery.phred.org/WA1report0907.html

Alice Creek S24O

Life has a way of filling up the days. First there is that whole making a living thing and in the time that's left you have to balance time with family, friends, alone time and adventures. The S24O or Sub-24 Hour Overnight, invented (or at least named) by Grant Petersen, is a great way to squeeze a bit of outdoor living into a civilized life.

My pal Mark Canizaro is the only one whose schedule can mesh with my odd "leave around 2:00 PM Monday back early afternoon Tuesday" plan. The forecast calls for temps in the nineties, so our plan is to head for the high country. Last year, Lake Moolock was still iced in in July. An icy lake sounds good, the hot climb not so much. Our fallback plan is to stick to gravel roads along the north fork of the Snoqualmie River.

It turns out we need a fallback plan for our fallback plan -- the timber company which owns the land has shut off all recreational access due to fire danger. We should have seen this coming with the hot, dry summer we've been having.

Our fallback fallback plan involves a rootbeer float for me and a chocolate shake for Mark at Scott's Dairy Freeze in North Bend followed by a ride up past Rattlesnake Lake and then out along the John Wayne Iron Horse Trail to Alice Creek. The official camp sites are high in the dry hot sun along the trail, but a small trail just a bit west of the groomed camping spots leads to the cool, rocky banks of the trail. It's actually cool enough by the creek that I trade my sweat soaked hot-weather shirt for my cross-dressing camp sweater. I scored this large woman's SmartWool sweater from REI (Return Everything Incorporated) at their scratch, dent and return sale. Eighty bucks marked down to eleven because it has a tiny hole in the front. "For eleven bucks, I'll cross-dress in the woods," I told the clerk.

This is a no cooking trip, just sandwiches and various munchies. Chlorine Dioxide Tablets take care of the water purification and we settle down to sleep just as the sun finishes setting.

In the morning, we trade bikes for a bit and mostly coast back to North Bend for a big second breakfast at Twede's. It's still early enough and shady enough that we get to see and photograph a large owl in the trees above the Snoqualmie Valley Trail. We're back in Issaquah 22 hours after we'd left, with 84 easy miles on the odometer.

Mechanical Support on the Seattle Century

I have a backpack full of inner tubes, a bag full of tools and spare parts, but I don't have a seatpost clamp. I'm working as roving mechanical support for the 2009 Seattle Century but the fellow with the broken clamp needs what I don't have. We're just outside Bothel and I can give him advice, "Hose clamp," I say, "head into town and find a hardware or an auto parts store. A hose clamp will get you to the end of the ride."

I've been up since before sunrise, leaving with the bulk of the century riders at 7:00 AM. Along with David McClean (working the 50 mile loop) and James Whitesides from uBRDO (another roving 100 mile mechanic) we're riding with an eye toward helping the broken down. So far, the folks with flat tires have been prepared and have their problems well in hand.

At Redmond my cell phone rings twice in five minutes. Melanie, who is roving the course in the Bike Works van, first calls with a report of a fellow with a flat tire, a bolt-on wheel and no wrench. James sprints off to the rescue. Minutes later, I take the call about the fellow with the broken chain on Novelty Hill Road. "I'll be there in ten minutes," I say. My stock of master links comes in handy, a Wipperman link patches the fellow's busted Shimano chain just fine.

At the Cherry Valley stop I see the busted clamp guy is doing fine with a new hose clamp and while I'm scarfing an ham sandwich the guy with the chain rolls in and tells me his repair is working great.

I see big splashes of orange paint marking the course, bigger than the labels Mark and I had laid down earlier in the month. Ruth and the others fill me in on what happened. Some local anti-cycling yahoos had not only taken down some of our "hundreds of bikes on road" warning signs, they'd gotten the creative idea of making their own fake marks, sending some of the early riders up a huge, dead end hill. I guess there is a small percentage of folks whose idea of fun consists solely in trying to wreck the fun of others. Ruth did a quick restoration of the true course and most riders were unaffected.

The Seattle Century is known for good food and I make sure to get some pie at Remlinger Farms stop. Everybody seems to be having a great time. The weather is not as hot as we'd feared but warm enough that a bit of light rain is welcome and not worrisome.

What does worry me are the fire truck, police car and ambulance that pass me, sirens blaring, as I ride down Snoqualmie Valley Road. A couple riders touched wheels and as I ride past the medics have things well in hand. One rider is down, but she's talking to the medics. I call and chat with Melanie and Ruth, who route support out from the nearest control. There is nothing I can do at the scene other than be in the way, so I roll on.

On the climb up to Preston, I come across two women stopped with a flat. When I ask if they have what they need, they reply that they do, but they don't know how to change a flat and are about to call in for support. "Don't bother," I say, "I'm the guy they'd send." I fix their flat, showing them the tiny nail that they'd run over and walking them through the basics of flat repair.

The Preston stop is sponsored by Talking Rain and I hydrate with flavored water that is supposed to give me "Power" and "Energy." I think the peanut butter sandwiches and cookies actually provide more power and energy than the drinks, but on a warm day it's good to stay hydrated and the water is pretty tasty.

I'm not riding the whole course today. Since the route goes right by my home in Issaquah so I'm ending things there, skipping the last bit on Mercer Island and the finish line feast, but partway between Preston and home, my phone rings and I backtrack to Talking Rain to do a quick derailleur adjust for a fellow.

I'm home by early afternoon. It's been a fun, mellow day on the bike and from what I could see, most of the century riders seemed like they enjoyed the ride. After weeks of exclusively riding the Monocog Flight, riding the Shogun with it's skinny tires felt a bit odd. Heck riding with people feels a bit odd compared to the solitude of the trail. But bikes are fun, no matter how fat or thin the tires.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent

Like Father, Like Son

My son Peter (aka the Phrozen Physics Geek) is currently doing is post-grad work in Fairbanks, AK. He just sent Christine and me this note, with the above picture attached:

Thought you guys might enjoy my latest accesorizing of the hummer. I thought about getting one for Dad's new 29er but I figured it would be better if he came up and earned it.

Peter

Ride to Roslyn

Weekends are the busy time at the bike shop, so I take Mondays and Tuesdays off as my virtual weekend. I figured out years ago that I like riding my bike, so I've managed to set my life up in such a way that I get about 38 commuting miles in each normal workday. While this gives me a decent base of miles, practicing for the Tour Divide is something that requires some longer days in the saddle. For example, in setting his amazing 19 day single speed record this year, Chris Plesko averaged close to 150 miles per day. Every day. For 19 days. No matter what the weather. Through mud and rain and heat and flooded roads. You don't get ready for something like that by just riding back and forth to work on suburban streets.

I've been dialing in the Monocog Flight, riding it on my commute, tweaking the luggage and packing in some morning rides on Grand Ridge and Tiger Mountain. Monday I stayed close to home, squeezing in 20 miles on local trails while Christine was at work, but Tuesday I took the bike out for a something a bit closer to Divide Conditions. The weather was too nice and the air was too thick, but the Cascades are the best approximation I have for the Rockies. And they are in my backyard.

I was out the door at 5:00 AM and back home by 10:00 PM. My trail took me up and over Snoqualmie Pass to the little town of Roslyn and then back home. Roslyn has a great network of trails north of town and yes, it is a dead ringer for Cicily, AK. Even though this was just a day trip, I rode with my Divide gear, including my sleeping bag and bivy. I ate Divide-style, pouring food in at mini-marts and cafes. For the record, the ice cream cones at Cafe Cicily are even better than the cheeseburgers at Snoqualmie Summit. The trail dust clung to my sun-blocked skin and on my return home Christine commented, "you're like a kid: you're dirty so you must be happy!"

174 miles under ideal conditions doesn't begin to approximate Divide riding, but it's a start.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent

Marking The Seattle Century Course

I'd volunteered to help mark the eastern portions of the Seattle Century course with Dan Henry marks and caution signs, figuring I could talk a few of my pals into helping out. Brad "Bikes with Babes" Hawkins had to bail out when child care logistics got too complex and most of my other friends had lame excuses involving jobs, boats or being on the other side of the planet. My local buddy Jeff Youngstrom offered the use of his XtraCycle and despite coming off a weekend of working the finish line at STP, Mark Canizaro said he'd show up at Marymoor Park for route marking duty.

I picked up the XtraCycle at Jeff's at 8:00 AM, rode it the couple of blocks to my place and loaded it up with paint, stencils, signs and a staple gun. The bike is too big for me, so climbing on and off it is a bit awkward, but once I'm on it, I'm fine. I'd allowed more time than I normally would to ride the dozen miles up to Marymoor Park but the XtraCycle is surprisingly fast. The slowest thing about the bike is all the time you spend explaining it to folks when you are stopped, it's quite a conversation starter.

Route marking is a slow business. At each turn and various spots along the straight sections, Mark and I stop, unload a stencil and spray the letters "SC" with a circle and a line indicating the direction of travel. On busy roads, we tack up signs informing drivers that there will be "Hundreds of Bikes on Road, July 25th." We also put up some caution signs for the cyclists ahead of some steep descents and busy, blind intersections. And, of course, we have to stop a couple of times for coffee and to take some pictures of things like a frog the size of a dinner plate. At one point, near Preston, we clean about a hundred construction staples from the road shoulder.

It takes all day to cover the area from Redmond to Duvall, Cherry Valley, Carnation, Preston and finally back to Issaquah, a total of about 45 miles of the hundred mile course. Other folks will map the rest and right before the ride someone will double check all the route marking.

On July 25th, the day of the ride, I'll ride the course as a roving mechanic. This year's course has less masochistic climbing and more rational routing than last year's inaugural effort and Mark and I did our best to make sure the route is clearly labeled. I hope to see at least a few of my blog readers out there.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent

How Are You Going To Carry Stuff?

My pal Mark Vande Kamp wrote me saying "I'll be interested to see how you work out all your gear toting. There doesn't seem to be as much room on that frame, but maybe it's just the contrast with the bigger wheels." Mark is right, the 15 inch frame is pretty compact. The photos here show my first cut at a full back-country ready kit. If money were no object and I was less of a DIY guy, I'd probably have Epic Designs or Carousel Design Works custom make me some bags. But a big part of the fun of tackling something like the Tour Divide is trying stuff out ahead of time to see what works. And I had some coroplast and zip-ties lying around...

The big red blob up front is a waterproof compression stuff-sack containing my tarp, bivy, sleeping bag, Thermarest and Primaloft jacket. It's held to the bars with a couple of straps that also hold a small bag that'll hold small snacks, sun-block, bug repellent, water purification tablets and things like that.

The grey bag in the bike's main triangle is just big enough to hold a tube, patch kit, small tools and chain lube.

The rear coroplast bag will hold food (I can pack an astounding number of Peanut M&Ms in there!), spare clothes, maps, My SPOT transmitter (I gotta get one of those) and whatever else I figure I'll need to get me from Banff to Antelope Wells. I'll also have a small hydration pack on my back.

Tomorrow, I'll be busy marking course for the Seattle Century so it won't be until my next virtual weekend (Monday and Tuesday July 20th and 21st) that I'll get the bike out for a full mountain camping trip. Stay tuned for more reports from the field.



Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson
Issaquah WA USA

I don't train, I practice

I often get asked how I train for long cycling events, things like Paris-Brest-Paris or the Great Divide Mountain Bike Race. My answer, which I went into in some detail in David Rowe's ebook, The Ride of Your Life, is that I don't train, I practice. Today, I went out and practiced with my new Monocog Flight 29er. It's a short trip, only 83 miles, but the little trips add up and are where I learn what I hope I'll need to know for the longer trips. Later, I'll add more weight to the bike in the form of camping gear and extra water bottles but for now it's fun to run with a light bike on familiar trails.

Today's route takes me east and up into the mountains to a place I call Boiling Frog Road. The bike feels great and I'm seeing why 29er enthusiasts are almost as annoying in their zealotry as recumbent riders. I'll have to work on not being one of those 29er preachers. I need to get one of those "Nobody Cares About Your 29er" shirts. For the record, the only problem I'm having with the 29 inch wheels is remembering not to carry too much speed into the turns. It's easy to get the Flight wound up to about warp 8 and those big wheels like to keep going the way you point them. On a little wheeled bike, I tend to go a little slower and I can snap the bike a bit more at the last minute. I've already got my reflexes so they are 99% 29er and I that last percent is coming along nicely. Heck, I've only ridden the bike for a couple of days!

I also practiced another Great Divide skill, taking pictures of my bike leaning against all kinds of stuff and photographing the weird or pretty stuff I see along the trail.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Monocog Flight: The Dial-In Begins

I put the bike together yesterday morning before work and rode it home last night. Some things I know right away while others take time to discover. The frame looked tiny out of the box and the wheels looked huge. But the pieces fit and the measurements need not be measured in inches or centimeters, my body knows what has to go where. Butt, hands and feet all know where they should fall.

Out of the box, the bars are too wide for me and my riding, but a pipe-cutter is one of my favored tools. Bar-ends and riser-bars may not be the fashion, but they are what my hands have learned to grab on climbs and twisty trails.

The stock pedals are big and pinned, just what I would have chosen. The saddle is a Rocket, perhaps too shiny, but time will settle that. This morning's rough trail settles the saddle a bit to low, my legs sense it and I stop, inspect, reverse the seat clamp and torque the bolt down with a bit less caution than I had yesterday.

Rough trails always remind me of how much I have to learn. Perhaps that is why I seek them out. Lynyrd Skynyrd and all those 29er enthusiasts are right, "big wheels keep on turning", ruts and roots that would stall a 26er don't even annoy this big wheeled bike. When the bike does stop it, takes more to get it rolling again, a reminder that momentum stopped is what we call inertia.

Enough typing now, I have to get back to the trail.

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Val Delivers!

I could go on and on about how cool Seattle Bike Supply is. Sure they love Bike Works' mission and give us quantity price breaks even when we're too small to quite make the quantity purchases and yeah they throw in helmets "for the kids" with darn near every order. And they carry a lot of great products including some stuff you can't get anywhere else. I'm especially fond of those Redline bikes, even though I'm not a BMXer. But mostly SBS is cool folks doing their jobs well. Tim Rutledge and Val Kleitz of SBS responded with both enthusiasm and speed to my "so I'm racing the Tour Divide next year and I'm looking for a bike..." email.


Today, Val pulled up on the Dread Nought, his custom cargo bike, with a care package for me. "It's not complete bike," he explained and after a second or so pause he added "I couldn't find the disk rotors. It's everything but two 160 mm brake rotors. " I assured him I could put my hands on some rotors.

It's a green 2008 Redline Monocog Flight. "It's old parts we had laying around the warehouse," Val corrects me. Tim had already explained to me on the phone, "Just do what you did in '05. Ride the hell out of it and tell the story." The invoice read "$0.00".

Not a problem guys. Thanks is way too small a word.


Val had recently cracked the frame on his old commuter and he's not the only guy with a warehouse full of old parts. Tim would prefer seeing Val commute on something newer (I hear those Redline Conquests are really nice) but Val is old school. Val picked out an old Fuji we had laying around. He tried to pay for it but somebody else beat him to the cash register. Funny how things work out.



It was slam dang busy at the all day today at the shop and I'm taking the 4th of July off to eat ice cream and hang out with my wonderful wife. Sunday, I'm back at work and I've got tons to do. I think I'll be going in early. I've got some bikes to get ready. One of 'em is green. And it's mine.

More later. Keep 'em rolling.

And thanks again, SBS guys. You totally rock.

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson