Category: Cycling

I bought a new bike Saturday, first new bike in over two years. It has fat tires.  Over 4 1/2 inches wide, they are twice the width of standard mountain bike tires, probably four times the width of my 700 x 23c road bike tires.

This morning I took my new bike to the desert for the first time. I was born again as a ten year old kid.  While not particularly fast, the fat tires could roll over or through just about anything: washes with sand and gravel, desert pavement with its ball bearing like surface of eroded granite, stones, larger stones, probably even fallen Saguaros.

Sunday morning in the desert is my ride slow ride.  Ride slow, ride early, feel the first rays of light glow on the balanced bolder, smell the fragrance of the dew on the turpentine bush, listen to the first Curve Billed Thrasher herald the sunrise.  Red tailed hawk sits high in a Blue Palo Verde – no, there’s another and another.  They take flight. I’m alone, and I’m not alone.

About the bike – it wants to ride slow.  It wants to ride easy.  The frame triangle is aluminum, front forks carbon fibre.  No shocks. No front derailleur, rear cog has a wide range.  I didn’t count the gears.  Going downhill on dry pavement, I quickly spun out.  Grinding up steep climbs, the gears were adequate.  The tires are tubeless, saving about eight pounds of inner tubes and slime.  The weight of the bike is similar to my hard tail two niner.

And it’s not about the bike.  For fifteen years, since we first bought our house here, I’ve been riding desert trails, desparately  trying to avoid the sand, gravel and washes that lead to hell.  Today I rode a bike that was made to ride those washes.  It was fun!

 

Having arrived in Arizona barely a week ago, I had been looking forward to my first mountain bike ride in the Sonoran Desert.  Riding from our house at sunrise, there is just enough light to see rabbits scampering among the Hackberry bushes, nighthawks swooping across the painted sky and a coyote stealthily skulking whatever coyotes skulk.

A mile and a half from our front door is a network of a hundred miles of trails, ranging from old jeep roads, chewed up dirt bike courses, and single track groomed especially for mountain bikes.  My Sunday morning rides are almost always at a casual pace that allows me to notice the fresh fragrance the damp Turpentine bush brings to the air, and the sound of the first Curve Billed Thrasher who heralds the sunrise.

Ten miles from home, I arrive at the main entrance to McDowell Sonoran Preserve, a parking lot with perhaps a hundred cars and a ramada with perhaps twenty five people milling about waiting for the start of a guided hike.  The trails near the entrance tend to be more crowded with small groups of mountain bikers, hikers and occasional horses. My visit to this part of the preserve is brief because I prefer the solitude of my own thoughts and prayers.

 

Yesterday I rode with Brad and more then 6000 other cyclists on the Levi’s Gran Fondo, 101 miles along winding roads through the wine country of Sonoma County.  The ride was epic.  I’ve done a lot of centuries, and longer rides, never one like this one.

The mass start meant that it took nearly a half hour just to get all the riders over the start line.  We were riding in a pack, four or more riders abreast for more than twenty miles to the first long climb.  Even that climb was not enough to separate the pack. We climbed a steep grade along rough winding roads through forests and eventually an open ridge.

The technical descents required clear heads and good riding skills to hold a line through the curves.  About 16 riders crashed along the course and had to be evacuated with broken bones.  One rider died when he missed a turn and flew over a cliff.

Scenery was utterly breathtaking.  Highlights for me were riding along Kings Ridge, with views of the Pacific Ocean, and a long winding open descent from the ridge to the ocean.  At about mile 65 we received a reprieve from the climbing, riding south along Highway 101, with a kicker tailwind.  I hummed Pachebel, listening to the sound of the wind and the waves striking the beach.  Then a left turn took us over one more steep climb back to the start at Santa Rosa.

 

While working today, I thought of riding my bike.  On my bike this afternoon, I was at work. Consider this project.

A construction crew is creating a building.  It is an object composed of other objects, with names like board, nail, and pipe. They have attributes like soft, square, or pink. Some buildings suck when they are created without a plan. Other buildings rock because they have been cleverly designed.

Computer code creates objects composed of other objects with names like integer, array and function.  They have attributes like bold, visible, and pink.  Some code sucks and other code … well actually all code is crappy in the eye of another beholder.

To deconstruct a crappy building requires a permit, dump truck, a crew and a crowbar.  Fixing crappy code requires a pinky finger and a backspace key.

Easy ride on the island this afternoon found me stopping frequently to take pictures. An open house sign invited me to investigate and dream of living on the water over looking Madison Bay.  Later, a long line of parked cars led to the Autumn Harvest Festival, where a band played folk music while turkeys gobbled, children oodled, and booths served noodles.

After a morning of writing code, this afternoon found me exhausted – the kind where I’m too tired to sleep.  No way I wanted to go near my bike.  I tried taking a nap on the couch.  Bartlett curled up and took a cat nap between my legs.  I stayed awake.

Sometimes it really helps to make a promise to yourself.  Tired as I was feeling, I pulled on my bike clothes, stumbled out the door, slowly tightened the straps on my cleated shoes; hopped on the Davidson and coasted down the short driveway.

Transformed! Five minutes I was climbing a gentle grade in the cool autumn air, no longer tired. Big leaf maple glowed in the afternoon light, puffy cumulus clouds moved across the blue sky and I rejoined the living world.

Five days ago I last rode my bike.  Instead, I have worked sixty hours at my day job – writing code. More than passion, it’s an obsession. Maybe I write good code. Maybe my old buds at Microsoft would say it sucks. Anyway, my bike misses me.

Mornings I wake up tired. Several cups of Italian roasted French press coffee turns tired to buzzed. Martha asks a simple question about what’s for supper and I respond with the look. Twelve hours after that first cup of coffee she finds me emerging from my cave. A glaze that feels like stale applesauce covers me from head to toe. Drink beer, eat supper, go to bed. Wake up at 3am, new day begins.

Promise: tomorrow I’ll ride my bike.

 

 

Geezer Sunday promised the usual slow social ride with friendly banter.  At the second re-grouping stop, I made the mistake of asking one geezer what he thought of Carly Fiorona. Vigorous discussion ensued.  Another geezer shouted “No politics!”, and quickly rode off in a huff.

Geezers were not really disagreeing because, like most islanders, they’re all liberals.  After about ten minutes, riders began heading up the road in pairs.  Finally I departed, leaving three debating who was the farthest left winger.

Several miles up the road, I caught the rest of the group that had stopped at the next regrouping point.  When asked about the other three riders, I replied that I had left them there talking about Carly and for all I knew they were still there talking.  Another lively interchange about politics ensued -the election of a Republican portends a very dark future.  I quickly made my escape, dashed up the road to find the first geezer who had fled this second discourse, and initiated a friendly talk about apple pie.

How would this end when we arrived for coffee at the Treehouse Cafe?  Maybe people were mad at each other.  More likely everyone was mad at me for stirring the pot. Saved by a windstorm, we arrived at the Lynnwood Center to find the power was out.  The cafe was dark inside. No coffee, no bacon, no more debate.

I rode home alone, took a quick shower, used my iPhone app to learn the outage would be repaired before 11am.  The lights came on at 10:30.

Lessons learned: sometimes I say dumb stuff.  I already knew that.  It’s safer not to say anything, rather than risk saying something dumb.  I already knew that too. Maybe I didn’t learn anything.

May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted, hurling a lateral blast of rock, steam, and gas over the ridge five miles to the north. David Johnson, the volcanologist tending the station on that ridge perished in that blast.  Today, the ridge is named after him.

Tour de Blast is an 84 mile ride, climbing along Route 504 from Toutle to the Johnson Ridge Observatory.  Clear skies on Saturday provided breathtaking views of the crater and surrounding mountains for cyclists riding along the ridge.

I love long climbs like this one. Strava reports we climbed 9600 feet.

 

 

The OMB required service at the shop in Seattle yesterday. Because the shop needed to keep it for several days, I strapped my fixed gear on the back with bungee cords. That’s how I got back home.

OMB stands for Old Man Bike. It’s actually a Piaggio MP3 250, built in Italy. The owners manual has both Italian and English sections. The scooter has two wheels in the front to provide extra stability, but it still leans and steers like a motorcycle.  It’s top speed of 60 mph leaves the bike a bit underpowered, but still suitable for freeway driving. The OMB provides a  great means of scooting around Bainbridge Island, and a huge advantage commuting on the ferry because, like bicycles and other motorcycles, it gets to skip to the front of the loading line.

Footnote: I really did not ride my fixed gear across Puget Sound to get home.  Forgot to turn off Strava when I got on the ferry.