The journey started before we had even gotten to the park; mostly thanks to poor planning and having a truck that was born only two years after myself. On I-80 East heading toward Tahoe, Morgan reminded me “You know this rain is going to turn into snow right?” “Yeah, well, it’s too late to go down I-5 now,” it probably wasn’t, “we’ll see what happens”. What happened was we got snowed on like crazy, and struggled to put on chains, and somewhere along all this my engine died. When, I’m not really sure thanks to a slick roadway and a 105 HP engine hauling gear and bikes up a grade meant I had no idea if my engine was dying or it was just the conditions. Nevertheless beyond the snow in the Nevada plateau it became obvious something wasn’t right. A tow truck, a snowy ride to the oldest bar in Nevada, and becoming de-facto mayors of Minden, NV for a day, we were back on the road.
A night in Bishop then on to Big Pine Death Valley Road. Now being the slackers we are, we were not really on the bikes until well after lunch. It’s January, the sun goes down early. We should have thought of that, but we didn’t. So into the diminishing sunlight we kicked around the tallest sand dunes in America at Eureka Valley, which meant, surprise, riding in sand (Morgan opted out of 3″ tires, mostly out of laziness). Then up Steel Pass it was. About halfway up, as the open grade turned into the mountains I hear a faint rumble behind me. I wonder what that could b–HOLY SHIT!!! by the time I heard the sound the fighter jet was right over my face. I had stopped, and still managed to fall off my bike from the sheer shock. These assholes would be plaguing us for the next two days. From the top of Steel Pass we watched the sun fall over the Inyo Mountains and then headed down toward Saline Valley.
Eureka Dunes
Oh yeah, the word dunes should imply sand, thankfully it wasn’t all that long.Steel Pass.The sunset from near the top of Steel Pass.
Finding a campground in the wild west that is the Saline Valley hot springs area was a little tricky, but we got it all set up and took a dip. Good lord, every fucking bikepacking night should end with a hot bath in the backcountry. How comfortable that was. We ate some food then laid out. At some point in the night some creature walked right past our campground. It made no qualms about it’s presence. I caught no sight of it, but only heard it’s manic grunting, according to Morgan it was some sort of hog (to me the panting made me think some sort of dog, like a coyote, the kind we heard yipping all night) and in the morning the bastard had taken my bowl. Maybe he was hoping to get fed every night like all the domestic dogs he watches at the campground.
In the morning we once again lazily packed and headed out for our aggressive 60 mile 8000′ day. It was a slow drag up, we could see the road we were heading out on reach for miles and miles up out of the basin. We saw some curious trailer perched up way up a hill side near what looked like an abandoned mine or something. We stood there for a good half hour trying to figure out what it was and how they got it up there. Clearly a logical use of our time on such an aggressive day.
Saline Valley Warm SpringsLooking back on Steel Pass.Count the brakes…I’ll wait…
Mysterious mine, this was near the perched trailer we couldn’t figure out. If you know anything about it, please share!
A few hours up the climb and we sat for lunch. Morgan and I decided it was time to split. Me to ride ahead and get the truck and meet him at the junction of the road and dirt. This was for two reasons, at the rate he was moving, it would be a long day before we hit the car, and also, the paved 20 mile descent would be pretty gnarly on a brakeless fixed mountain bike. Did I mention he was riding a fixed brakeless mountain bike? (Morgan ran out time to put on a brake, or a freewheel, worse decisions have been made, some on this trip I suppose). So we split.
I spent the next two hours aggressively attacking the mountain. Eventually slipping into the trees and crushing the leftover snow from the previous few nights. I touched the pavement just as the sun disappeared, and the snow began. Descending Big Pine Death Valley road in the dark is something else. The road is a dramatic drop and in the dark, with pelting snow it’s hard to tell how fast I was actually going, but it was the very first time I felt my Chupacabra tires speed wobble, so I’d imagine pretty fast. I raced to the car. Got in and just as I pulled back up to the turn off Morgan’s light was bouncing the final fifty feet of dirt. We couldn’t have planned that any better at all.
Looking back down Saline Valley (you could see this road climb up forever from the basin).
Snow in Death Valley!The only forest we saw on the ride (at the top of North Pass).
After another night back in Bishop, canceling the plan of driving further East into the park, we drove down toward the developed part of the park deciding if we wanted to do the Hunter Mountain/Racetrack loop, but after all we’d been through we decided against it and just camped out with a few beers in Panamint Springs. The adventure of course didn’t end there as my alternator belt snapped on the way home. Good job.
Going back to try and recreate a moment is a practice in futility. Looking back on my 2012 summer tour across the country always seems so special to me and ever since I’ve wanted to recreate that feeling. Over the last few summers though I’ve been caught up in other stuff, starting in 2014 with my Trans Am race across America, then going north to south racing the Tour Divide in 2015, a trip to France in 2016 and then taking a year off of going anywhere in 2017, I had never taken the time to go back and just do a simple bike tour. No mandatory miles, no riding myself beyond sleep, bring a tent, bring a stove, that sort of thing. With a family vacation planned in Seattle, a trip back down south from there sounded nice, to Portland or K-Falls and all the way back if time allowed.
Starting a bike tour for me almost always means leaving an urban area. That is the worst part. Leaving Everett were some narrow suburban roads with a lot of traffic, less than ideal, but I through a series of bike paths I eventually made my way into North Bend, WA, the beginning of the Iron Horse Trail, a 287 mile rail-trail that crosses Washington state from East to West. I wouldn’t be taking it that far, because at some point I’d have to work my way South. The thing with rail-trails is that they were built to accommodate trains, that means the grade never exceeds 3%, this sounds great doesn’t it? Well, having to go from about 400 ft about sea level at North Bend to 3,000 ft at Snoqualmie Pass never exceeding 3% meant a steady grind. Did I mention it was all gravel? Yeah, so I had that going for me. I’ve never been much a fan of rail-trails for the reason that they don’t tend to have massive views or interesting riding, but this one was a matter of convenience of connecting the city to the mountains. It was a long grinding day, that by sunset in Alice Creek CG I was thoroughly beat, no hard climbs, just a steady climb over 40 miles and I was ready for sleep.
Iron Horse Trail
I didn’t ride this, this was off the Iron Horse Trail.I’m glad I had trial running shoes and flat pedals so I could take side trips to waterfalls like this.So many railroad tressles.Alice Creek Campground
Day 2: Alice Creek Campground to Middle of Nowhere
Snoqualmie Tunnel
Day two started with one of the things I was most excited for; The Snoqualmie Tunnel. At over two mile, this 104 year old former rail tunnel is one of the longest non-motorized travel tunnels in the country. It was pretty nice to get out of the sun into the cool tunnel and see only a small opening of daylight at the end. Then once on the other side it was a short hop to the Summit Lodge at Snoqualmie Pass, a lot of things were closed being a Monday, but probably for the better as the little shack in the gas station had an enormous vegan tofu noodle bowl, paired with a craft brew at the brewery was a killer lunch. A pleasant surprise and exactly the kind of thing I was hoping for being on this kind of bike tour.
If you are passing through Snoqualmie Pass on I-90 stop and get this noodle bowl…seriously.
Heading out of town I followed the reservoir through the actual Iron Horse State Park, eventually turning off the bike path towards Stampede Pass. The road to Stampede Pass was freshly graded and the bottom was nice and shady. The first climb over 3% since the previous morning and the fresh grade made it a little tough going, trying to keep my rear tire from slipping out. Along the road, even this late in the year, when things tend to dry out, there were some colorful yellow and purple blooms of flowers. The pass was unmarked and again, for the first time in what felt forever I descended down toward the Green River valley.
Iron Horse State Park; there were plenty of good campgrounds along here too.Wildflowers along Stampede PassDescending into Green River Valley.
At around 4PM I reached the base for what I imagined would be a tough climb, but my imagination was somewhat limited for what was to come. I contemplated setting up camp along this quaint river, where some locals have setup target practice and make shift firepits, but with another 3 hours til sunset I figured how hard could it be to make the summit, which according to my map was only 8 miles, which even in a walking pace seemed doable. If I only knew….
I started into the steep climb, comparing the elevation to distance I figured it couldn’t stay this way. I was able to ride for a bit, hop off and push, ride a bit hop off and push, then the trees disappeared and the road was left on an exposed ridge side, with the low sun beating down on my back, I stripped everything but my cycling shorts and pushed up the hillside. I was glad for the choice of trail runners and flat paddles. After an hour, I was still pushing, two hours, still pushing. I could see the faint outline of a bike tire and I was wondering, who in the hell rode this on somewhat skinny slicks? I sure as hell couldn’t ride it on my loaded touring bike. I just wanted to quit on the day, but being on an exposed ridge side there was nowhere to set up. So onward and quite literally upward. I finally hit a flatish turnout, I pulled over, tried setting up, but the rocky ground was too much, so I laid out, my stomach now a mess from pushing in the heat and sun. No choice but to keep on pushing. A little bit further and the road bent around the hillside and I was finally out of the sun, which was on it’s final arc anyway. The late sun setting a gorgeous purplish haze over the Cascades. A touch further and there was a pullout in the trees with soft soil and a place to call it a night. I had clocked 8 miles in 2.5 hours. Fucking ouch.
I tried to sleep in a little, to shake off the exhaustion of the day before. Good thing my profile for the morning was a big fat descent to highway 410 outside Mt. Rainier National Park. Over the last little bit of climb to an unnamed pass and I was bombing the loose gravel toward the pavement. One turn, and there it was, a huge view of White Boss, Mt. Rainier. That climb the day before made itself worth it for this expansive naked view of Mt. Rainier. I continued my descent, hit Greenwater River (not to be confused with Green River the day before) washed off the crust and dust of that long push the day before mounted up and had some fun curvy paved descending before hitting the town of Greenwater.
Mountains on mountains on mountains.White Boss.
Some prepared food, a beer, ice cream, coffee, and cell service got me back into the feeling of riding my bike. The pavement helped take off the pain of the day before now too. I puttered along the paved road, seeing all the mountain bikes on the back of cars and wondering if I made the right decision taking the Cross Check instead of a mountain bike, but then I had to remember what I was here for, sight seeing and enjoying the days, not pushing myself physically every day, which the mountain bike would be. Knowing this I skipped a long climb to a fire lookout, found camping along the turbulent Greenwater River and called it a night.
My favorite “hack” of the trip; ask your neighbor for a handful of ice, put it in a bowl and have a cold beer for the night, also would work with filling an insulated bottle/mug at a gas station before camp.
Getting into the rhythm takes some time, by Day four things start to feel normalized a bit, I knew how to pack my bike, how to time coffee with breakfast, etc. So riding should feel a little normal right? Wrong. I knew I had a longerish day with a good deal of climbing to get to Longmire before camping out in the National Forest outside of the National Park proper, but it was mostly paved, nothing beyond my skill, but by 10 AM, after skipping the turnoff to go up the mountain, I was still moving slow. What was going on? Finally reaching a lookout over Mt. Rainier I could see what was going on. That smell of campfire that I had woken to was not just the general smell of a campfire, but was the forest fires East of where I was blowing over and causing my lungs to burn. As much as I wanted to push on, I knew that riding in this weather would be taking years of my life, so I made the decision to turn back around to Greenwater and make a new plan.
There wasn’t much of a plan other than, get low, get out of the smoke. The problem is the valley floor of Central Washington in August is not exactly a pleasant place to be. A long descent into Enumclaw brought the temps up twenty degrees and I needed air conditioning, ice cold Coke, and of course ice cold beer, and I found it, along with a giant plate of nachos, a strange craving I’d been having. Killing some time soaking in the wifi, I found a new plan to make it to the Colombia River Gorge along some lower National Forest roads, but unfortunately that involved riding highly trafficked county roads, my least favorite and part of the reason this tour was focused on unpaved gravel roads and not paved roads.
The flatish paved roads made easy work of the miles though and I put in 80 big miles to Alder Lake outside of Eatonville, WA. Arriving at Alder Lake I was nervous of finding a campspot, I rolled through the tent site and it was packed and full of loud children. Frustrated I had to figure out what to do, I didn’t quite feel like free camping, but some rolling around and I found a walk-in section of quiet private sites on the hillside, even in the middle of this big campground I could find some solace.
From Alder Lake I worked my way to the gas station town of Randle on US-12 (which maybe only second worst to county highways are US highways). From here I turned into the Gifford-Pinchot National Forest on the backside of Mt. St. Helens. Paved yes, but quiet. I spent most of the time riding in the middle of this isolated two lane highway covered by leafy deciduous trees. Finishing the day with a healthy climb that I made quick work of trying to out ride the bugs (the bugs brought me back to my post Trans Am tour near Lake Placid getting chased by black flies all day). The descent brought me to Eagle Cliffs CG. Upon arrival I asked the man working the counter about camping, they were full, but had a specific biker site, which was rad. I bought two large beers, ordered a pizza (that was surprisingly really good) and spent the night showered, enjoying pizza beer and some reading. Maybe it turned out this improvised road tour wasn’t so bad after all.
The plan was to ride to Ainsworth State Park, camp at the hiker biker, ride into Portland the next day. Easy enough right? Well… I woke up head out get some good views of Mt. St. Helens with more quiet paved National Forest road climbing. Then descend down into Carson for lunch at a brewery. Then on to the Gorge. Hood River was filled with PCT hikers. I shared some stories and beers with them before trying to head along what I thought would be a nice bike ride along the gorge to Portland. Jokes on me. The Eagle Creek fire from the year before had still closed EVERYTHING along this corridor except for I-84. I was confused by the fact there was no fire, but everything was closed. I made it to Ainsworth to be turned around by the ranger telling me it was closed (and I am extremely pissed to say that the campground was open, thanks for telling me dude). So it was miles and miles and miles of I-84 into Portland.
Hindsight being 20/20, I should have taken the coast as I wanted, but I remember the coast from 2012, I remember the constant alertness of tourists driving RVs along narrow roads. Instead I opted for the quiet solace of National Forest roads and was turned away by smoke from more fires. To me it’s starting to feel like the West Coast season is getting shortened to late spring early summer and anything after June is a no-go because of fires and smoke, which is a shame, and sadly with our current state of affairs, it’s not as if any of this is going to change soon. I currently write this as smoke looms over Oakland from another wildfire; we haven’t seen rain in months and it’s starting to feel like another one of those dry winters into dry summers meaning next year won’t be much better. I guess I’ll spend time on the coast next summer.
Mountaineering. There’s always been something intriguing about it. Maybe it started from cycling, the thought of getting on top of a mountain (be it Mt. Tam, Mt. Diablo, Mt. Hamilton, or Mt. St. Helena here in the Bay or the many I summitted on bike tours). I had been wanting to try a more remote challenging peak since my friend Jessica has been pushing me into it. After wanting to do a cross country MTB race in Pollock Pines, CA, Jessica recommended we go up, race, then on Sunday climb Pyramid Peak. It sounded like a big weekend but one I wanted to do.
On Saturday we hit the race (which was a great race from Clipped in Races called the Sly Park Shootout, a bermy, smooth fast race, I even happened to race pretty well). Afterwards we hit the ranger station, something I should do more to find more information, because we got some good information. We told the ranger our plan to hike up Pyramid Peak, but needed a place to sleep. She recommended the newly acquired Forni Meadows, which looked pretty close to the base of the peak we were aiming for, we might be able to ride to the meadow, camp, then push our way up the mountain sans bikes the next morning.
We roll into El Dorado National Forest to do just that. Not expecting to bike pack, we fill up our large bags as full as we can with food and water for the next day along with camping gear and we begin our push. A push it was too as we are both single speeders and the pitch was steep enough, not withstanding 50 pounds on our back. We pushed for a while not really sure where we’d end up or what we’d see. As we got deeper and higher we realized the terrain we had to cross toward the peak might not be passable. We both did the thing where we didn’t want to be the wet blanket;
“Do you think we should keep going?”
“I don’t know. It seems like it might not be feasible. But maybe it is.”
“Let’s push on.”
We’re both avid outdoors people who have traveled quite a bit alone. We both remarked on how, if we were alone, we would have turned back way sooner, but the fear of being the one to bring disappointment means we pushed each other further. Finally we got enough sense to turn it around. A quick downhill back to the car and we refigured our plan. Ok, now we go straight up Lyon Creeks Trailhead as far as we can ride, ditch the bikes, camp somewhere, ditch the camping gear, summit. Sounds great. We ride out a couple miles, the trail seems better for foot so we decide to ditch the bikes. We find a great hiding spot off trail behind some trees. Then we realize we didn’t have keys for our locks, probably not a deal breaker, but Jessica left her shoes; that’s a dealbreaker.
We once again packed up and headed to the car…again. The sun was now just about down so we just curled up in the back of the F150 and called it a night. We had hit the reset button twice already. Of course that wouldn’t be the end of our woes. In the AM we went to move the car from the Forni Meadows trailhead to the Lyons Creek Trailhead, it didn’t take long for us to notice that the tire was flat. Ok fine. We’d just change it and get going, it was early enough. Then we couldn’t even figure out how in the hell to get the spare to release from the undercarriage of the truck. Even with the help of some locals we had to resort to roadside assistance. Unfortunately cell service was a touch down the hill. So there we went. We called. We explored some stream. They called back. The best they could do is a three hour help. That’s not going to work. She recommended calling the local authorities. Good lord, the last thing I’d want to do on an adventure trip is talk to a county sheriff. Before giving up on the tire, I decided to google our problem. Apparently the 1996 F150 has a special tool to release the tire that is under the hood. I would have never figured that out.
Back up the hill. Change the tire. Return the jack we had to borrow. Finally around 10AM we are on trail. We hiked up along beautiful wildflowers to Lake Silva. We sat and Jessica pointed across to a craggy pile of rocks and explained that’s our way up. The trail ended and we were now climbing up big rocks toward a ridge. How different it was to be pushing my body up big rocks than just riding along. After about an hour we gained the ridge and started walking toward the summit. We stopped a lot, the sun was strong, but the wind was refreshing. It never felt too hot, but we were playing it safe, especially as I felt the elevation attacking my lungs. After another rocky pitch, we were on top of Pyramid Peak. None of it was sketchy or too hard, but we were there.
Our plan was to check out the Crystal Range Traverse from there, going down toward Mt. Agassiz and Mt. Price. This involved more downclimbing large rocks, but this time much steeper, and downclimbing took a different approach. Again, everything new to me. We dropped down to a ridge with exposure on either side. I grew up being terrified of heights. Going up a fire lookout? No way. The State of Liberty base was high enough for me. Then I began working in theaters and rigging on an 80 ft grid. That quickly put my fears behind me, but being out in the windy open with a narrow dropoff toward the Desolation Wilderness on one side and a snow covered cliff on the other was pretty jarring for me. I took my time, crawling at times to keep myself from panicking. Along this ridge we hit what we knew would be the proving point of the day, a class 4, meaning more difficult than everything we’d done all day. It involved a few hand holds and pull up with a large dropoff. I looked at it and with my heart already racing knew there was no way. We looked at it a little bit longer, but I had already known I couldn’t. So we turned back. Up the Pyramid Peak and began our way down again. We made it all the way back to the car just as the sun was setting. Nine and a half hours in the wilderness and my feet and legs were toast. We had another 3 hour drive involving getting pulled over and a closed taqueria but we finally ended the weekend in Oakland just after midnight. I felt like I lived a whole week in the span of two and a half days.
Well, it seems a post I had earlier on a different venue than here caused quite the stir. Such a stir that the editorial team decided to pull the essay. There were definitely some things that were unclear and there’s some things I’d like to clarify, but before I even do that I’m just going to post the whole essay as it originally appeared. So here it goes:
Last week, Bicycling magazine posted an article in regards to Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson’s intention to race Tour Divide next year. As bikepackers we should not allow Gary Johnson to lineup in Banff next summer. Gary Johnson’s policies are an attempt to close public land forever from American hands.
Johnson has been a longtime member of the Libertarian Party, a party which values private property, private industry, and the free market above all government interference. This insistence on privatization risks putting public lands into private hands. While Johnson believes in protecting National Forests and National Parks, he has shown intent “…to give control of those BLM [Bureau of Land Management] lands to the state and sell that land to the private landowners, and actually put that on private property tax rolls, that makes a lot of sense.”1 This is where Gary Johnson’s desire to race Tour Divide is problematic.
The Bureau of Land Management has seen it’s fair share of headlines lately after an armed militia in Central Oregon occupied an unmanned Widlife Sanctuary building in protest against the BLM. Originally a combination of the Grazing Service and the General Land Office, the original intent of the agency was to fulfill the tasks of these two former agencies, redistributing federal land and to lease land for grazing rights. In it’s 70 years the Bureau of Land Management has extended it’s duties to a multitude of land use policies, generally their mission is stated “[t]o sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of America’s public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.”2 The BLM saw over 61 million visits for recreational use over their 250 million plus acres in 2015. 3
I’d like to point out that in BLM’s direct mission statement they state the enjoyment of public lands. This is what mountain biking is; an enjoyment of our public lands. BLM land is used for mountain biking across the West, such as Bend Oregon’s Horse Ridge Trail or Moab’s Brand trail. In 2015, the BLM saw over 6 million visits for “non-motorized travel” under which mountain biking falls. The agency’s commitment to mountain biking can be seen through their partnership with the International Mountain Bicycling Association and MTB Project to post detailed mountain bike maps on their website.
While Tour Divide mostly runs along National Forest land, there is one big exception, The Great Divide Basin in Wyoming. For any of you that have completed Tour Divide, you know how special this place is to the route. While sometimes described as one of the most brutal sections with harsh headwinds, it can also be the most beautiful, where the night gets so dark people have seen Aurora Borealis sitings this far south. This section of the route from Pinedale to Wamsutter is all Bureau of Land Management land. If Gary Johnson and the Libertarian’s got their way, this land would be chopped off and sold to the highest bidder, which would mean no more access for Mountain Bikes, let alone the other various users. It would be land forever closed to public access.
Tour Divide would not be the only race to be affected if Gary Johnson got to see his version of America. The Comstock Epic is a 500 mile race across Nevada, a state which is 68 percent BLM land, as just another example of how detrimental to the sport a Libertarian rise to power would be.
While Gary Johnson will most likely not be in the White House this time next year, and his policies will not actually see the light of day, we as a community need to send a message, that this dangerous rhetoric of giving away our land is unacceptable. This public land is the land where we bikepack; the land where we camp; the land where we race; the land where we train. In defense of public lands that are mine, yours, and every Americans, we should not allow Gary Johnson to toe that line in June in Banff.
For some reason, this got a whole lotta sorts of people all twisted up. Within an hour the Facebook comments had gotten out of hand, with some especially good ones;
All joking aside, comments seemed to fall into three general categories.
“This is a free unsanctioned race you can’t ban anyone!”
“Maybe we should let him do it so he can see the beauty of public land and change course.”
“Keep politics out of bikepacking!”
OK, so going down the list, number one. Definitely. There are no race organizers, no one can necessarily ban Gary Johnson from racing, but that wasn’t quite what I was aiming at. I definitely failed as a writer on that one, that one I take full responsibility for. This was not me saying with my full authority, that I, and I alone should ban Gary Johnson (or anyone with that kind of authority). More so, my argument was that it would behoove the bikepacking community as a whole to come together and tell the Libertarian candidate to stay at home because we do not invite him based on his desire to privatize our public land we recreate on.
“BUT WE SHOULDN’T HAVE A LITMUS POLITICAL TEST TO LINEUP TO RACE”
Absolutely not, but why would we embrace someone who has so coldly stated that they want to destroy our sport? That they want to limit access which limits where we ride and closes out our sport turning our once thriving public land into private land. Think of anyone who has ridden from Argentina to Prudoe Bay only to find Chevron won’t let you touch the water. Now let’s imagine that you now reached Pinedale, WY and all there was was a gate and a highway you now have to ride to the border. Everyone already complains about Gary Johnson’s home state of New Mexico and it’s irritating endless highways.Why are we trying to close ourselves out? Yes, there are definitely some bikepackers who I disagree with politically, but none are running a presidential candidacy whose entire end goal is to close off access to public land. This is not a reach. This is pretty straightforward reasoning on why Gary Johnson is a symbol of the privatization of the West and how we need to boycott him to send a message that we will not allow our public lands to be wrested from us.
2) “Maybe we should let him do it so he can see the beauty of public land and change course.”
Yes! I would love Gary Johnson to hit Wyoming, shed a tear like a racist Native American caricature in an anti-pollution commercial and say “I shall aim to destroy the West, No More Forever”. But let’s get real. This is not GJ’s first rodeo. He’s competed in triathalons and is already an avid mountain biker and road cyclist (sure he probably is more so one of those annoying fitness type racers, the kind that tells you more about their power meter than anywhere cool they ever went, but I digress). The point of the matter is that he has already been in contact with active outdoor scenes and none of these people have influenced his overtly private property politics at all. This rhetoric feels very pie in the sky and I don’t necessarily buy it.
And of course my favorite. The elections over, let’s forget politics. No. Sorry, but you can’t decide when to turn politics on and off. You can choose to ignore it, but you cannot tell people when to. This is about access and advocacy. This is about closing off our public lands. If a developer were in your hometown saying they want to tear down your local trail network you would be active, you would be telling them to leave your community. You would be protecting what’s rightfully yours, something you cherish, something you fight for. That’s what we should be doing here. This is not some “I don’t like his politics so I don’t want to hear him”. No. This is “his politics are a direct attack on our sport and I want him to hear US“. Those saying that this is divisive nonsense are not seeing the real dangerous divisiveness; turning our public trails into private property. So, no, Gary Johnson, unless he makes a radical shift in his politics, he is a hypocrite on the trail and we do NOT need to invite him. We can tell him to stay home, and we should.
I already posted about the best part about NAHBS weekend, but there was an actual bike show. The best part about the show wasn’t the bikes or the eye-candy, but seeing all my buds. Good thing I’m still terrible about taking picture of friends, so here’s some pictures and thoughts about them pictures.
There were so many bikepacking bikes at the show. I almost bought me a Breadwinner B-Road way back when (then I remembered I can’t afford a custom bike yet)I liked seeing the new components and accessories on display. This was a cool new Portland Design Works rigid dry bag system.I’ve always dreamed of this setup, especially the more I get into racing (and as Stevil at All Hail the Black Market always says, bike racing sure involves a lot of driving). Maybe someday soon.Ritchey is releasing some cool new bikes this year, I don’t think this is any production bike, but it looks like a modern update on the old school camo Commander.I’m always late to whatever’s hip, but I’m looking into getting a rack for the touring/commuter bike. Pass and Stow had their own booth along with a bunch of their racks in other booths.Peacock Groove had by far the best booth. No fad bikes here; well, unless you consider fat bikes a fad, which I don’t, or cargo bikes a fad (what are you high?)Devil’s in the details on this fat mini-velo. 20″ fat wheels! Sweet!Well decorated booth with some robutts. Thanks robutts.Well, this win’s for second best motorcycle at the show (next to the Breadwinner Yamaha). Electric cargo bikes make sense to me.Custom rack flair.More component bling.I’ve heard nothing but good things about these bottom brackets. I wanted to throw one in my Carver, then I exploded it right before Tour Divide and had to put in an “Emergency Phil Wood” which probably doesn’t need to be upgraded.Cal Poly fabricated nearly this entire bike. I don’t remember what they DIDN’T fabricate, but there wasn’t a whole lot (it was easier to say what wasn’t than what was).Disc bling.
For a straight forward road bike, this was probably my favorite. Biwakoguma Bicycles from Japan built this lovely classic looking road build with an absolutely stunning paint finish.Triple triangle beauty.Galaxy. Appropriately named.Even the matching hat was stunning.
“So, I’ll be taking this, since it has my name on it.” *Stares back with bewildered look* “How many morons have made that joke today?” “Actually you’re the first” I truly am king moron at times.WTF Bike #1Dominic picking up WTF Bike #2; sub 10lb stainless steel “I’m Going to Break On You” race machine, from English Cycles. We laughed, but in retrospect, this bike is dumb in the least fun way.Squid! There were quite a few Squid bikes at the show. I love their wild paint jobs. Living in the Bay Area it’s always fun to see a few Squid’s out on the CX course every fall.More component excitement! This is probably what I’m most excited for, a modern outboard bearing White Industries Eno crank!
That’s all she wrote. I probably didn’t even see the whole floor. There are people who posted more timely better looking photographs, but hey, I already have a job. Check out more on my Flickr.
The week leading up to the North American Handmade Bike Show in Sacramento, many of my friends were posting Facebook plans on how they were getting to the Sac Convention Center. Some planned an early start so they could spend more time in Sacramento (not sure what for), some planned a reasonable 9 AM start to finish before nightfall, some just drove, some took the train. I was waiting til the last minute to make my decision, then my buddy Morgan messaged me asking if I wanted to ride with him at noon and camp out somewhere along the way. Wanting to stop at what is probably my favorite bar in California on the way, I thought this was perfect.
We were supposed to meet at noon, but going to a hockey game the night before, getting breakfast with the girlfriend, and not packing til the very last minute, meant that we hit the road closer to 1 30. That’s kind of the pace I was going for anyway; zero hustle.
I stopped to use this bathroom on the bike path in Walnut Creek. Someone had been clearly smoking right before I got in there. Damn teenagers. The smoke made a cool effect that the camera didn’t pick up, at least the weird yellowing lighting was interesting.
We meandered our way through the extensive bike path network of the East Bay suburbs. We survived the few interactions with traffic, and Morgan’s Garmin’s brilliant routing to make it to the Antioch bridge just as the sun was hitting the horizon. We switched on our lights and began the journey into the Delta.
I love that every direction you go you can see Diablo. It’s not that close to home, but it makes me think I’m never that far.
This was about the only part of the night that sucked. It was about 16 miles from the bridge to Rio Vista where we planned to get dinner. I’m not sure if we didn’t eat enough, didn’t drink enough, or it was just the headlamp daze from staring at the light in front of our wheels. I turned my head off and ignored the growing gap between me and Morgan.
Morgan knew of an Italian restaurant in Rio Vista, where we stopped for dinner. It felt like one of those places that Gordon Ramsey tries to fix (but never actually does) on Kitchen Nightmares, with kitchsy shit all over the wall and a giant menu. My pasta was great because it was food, but canned or frozen vegetables wouldn’t have wowed, pretty much any other time. How do you have a restaurant near where almost all American produce is made and have canned and frozen stuff? But, touring vegan for many a year, I don’t expect much when out on the road. Call it my snobbish city-folk tendency.
As we were sopping up the last of our meal I pulled out my phone to see how far we were to Locke. Google Maps showed two different routes, a faster one that was 16 miles and a slower one that was 15 miles. That didn’t make any sense to me so I pulled up the turn-by-turn. It was pretty straight forward, go north on CA-84, take the Real McCoy ferry, ride 220 East, then take the J-Mack ferry to East 220, continue to River Road, etc. Morgan’s eyes widen up, “We have to take the ferry”. Mind you it’s 9 PM at night. I confirm, the ferry is 24 hours. This is the dumb idea we needed to close out the night.
Going north on CA-84, we got some of the local flavor. Every half mile was a big crew cab pickup on the side of the road, country folks sitting around a fire drinking beers. What better way to spend a Saturday night on the Delta? We hit our first ferry, the Real McCoy, we shared it with a pair of cars. As we pushed off we pulled out some more whiskey for the brief river crossing. Once we hit the opposite side the first car rolled off the ferry, Morgan stepped on his pedal before the second car got out and the CalTrans employee starts yelling “STOP! STOP! STOP!” Morgan obliges, “You’re gonna get yourself runover,” we laughed. “No, I’m serious, this island is filled with nothing but druggies and drunks.” We break out in laughter and follow the second car onto Ryer Island.
All the best decisions were made that night.
We didn’t see any cars on Ryer Island. Most cars continued north on 84 it seemed, while we continued over toward Locke. With full bellies and good laughs the headlamp daze was gone. We hopped on the J-Mack where we were the only people on the ferry, crossed over toward Ryde. From Ryde it’s a short ride to Locke, we hit town, turned right onto the derelict Main St, saw the lights on at the only business open this late in this one block town, Al the Wop’s.
Let’s get some camp beers! Oh, wait, they only sell beer in big ‘ol ‘I’m goin’ fishin” packs. Oh well.
The first time I was at Al the Wop’s was a similar circumstance. A friend and I rode out to camp the Delta in the summertime. That was when I fell in love with this establishment. We of course were sore thumbs in the local bar. Even for being a Saturday night the place was pretty quite with about a half dozen or so people lining the bar. “You just missed the ghost special!” Johnny O, the lively bartender hollered at us in his raspy voice as we rolled our bikes in the front door. Apparently there had been a ghost hunters show on about the opera house across the street from the bar. Locke, CA was built in 1861 for Chinese workers who were draining the delta swamps to make it the levied system it was today. The town’s population swelled and saloons and brothels popped up for the workers. Story goes that the opera house was one of these brothels and that if any of the women talked out of line they would be dumped into the river. People claim they can hear this girl yelling in the opera house from time to time. The locals didn’t buy it. I would have if I watched the show, because why watch those shows if you’re not going to believe them?
The Wops. Seriously, best bar in California.
The thing that is great about these small town bars is that everyone is up for a conversation. Especially if you’re from out of town. We chatted it up with the locals, as Morgan put down his first empty glass Johnny O offered another and Morgan promised, “you’ll have to keep ’em coming til you throw us out.” We made good on that promise. Even as we were the last two in the bar for most of the night.
This was the drink special that Johnny O concocted for the ghost program. He had just enough to make two more for us, up front it tasted like booze, with an after taste of booze and a slight hint of booze.
“Hey, you seen a black guy running through here?” that was our alarm in the morning. I look up the embankment from where we camped and see a police officer, he noticed us and yelled down “Oh, hey! Sorry for waking you guys up!” Morgan and I were both perplexed as we looked at each other. Then as we looked up the embankment with our back to the water we heard a child’s voice “Look dad, bikes!” in surprise we turn around and it’s a father with his toddler daughter. They had apparently gone canoe camping out on the Delta somewhere. What a bizarre way to start the day. We packed up, still drunk, and headed up the road toward Sac.
The little girl on the canoe was freaking adorable. “We went camping on Scout Boy Island!” “Boy Scout Island,” her father corrected.
The adventure was over when we left the Delta. Twin Cities Highway left us from the magically strange place that is the Sacramento River Delta into the flatlands around Sac. By the time we hit town, we agreed we could go home and call it a good enough trip. But we did actually make it to the bike show, which would turn out to be the worst part of the trip. Which is that surprising? I’d rather ride a $400 bike than look at a $10,000 one.
Most bike reviews are reviewed on loans. Reviewed over a week, or at best a month. But what better way to give a frame a true rundown, than running it down the whole length of the Continental Divide?
So, first off, why the Carver Gnarvester? Well, I got all caught up in the fat bike craze when it started, but I always thought they looked sluggish and maybe not as much fun, then 29 Plus came out and it made a whole lot of sense. It’s still arguably in it’s infancy (and may be phased out by B+ sizing, but that’s for another day), so there weren’t many frames (still aren’t), besides the Krampus and a few custom frames. I spent a good deal looking for something to clear massive tires. I hunted the internet for a long time and couldn’t find much out there. Then I came across the Gnarvester, which was not only 29+, not only had sliding dropouts, not only had 142 thru axle spacing, not only titanium, not only a standard 73mm BB but frankly had some fun trail looking geometries, as the frame is based off the titanium 420, Carver’s “rowdy” hardtail.
The Gnarvester did me well in the little bit of mud we had.
I had two major concerns about this frame when I was looking at it, the lack of a front derailleur capability and how it would handle with smaller lighter tires.
Either way, I went in and got this frame. The versatility of the sliding dropouts and the durability of the titanium had me thinking I could hang on to this frame for a while. I built it up to start with 3″ tires, which were fun, but I think the Vee Rubber tires are rather unimpressive (I actually like my current Ikon 2.35s better). The bike handled the trail riding I do in the Bay very well with the 3″ tires fully rigid. I hit Cinderella Trail, one of the few technical downhill trails in the Oakland hills a couple of times and I could throw the bike around pretty well and to get to the top I could climb the bike real well. After setting it up for the first time I PRed one of the popular XC loops in the Oakland hills, Redwood Loop, by a long shot.
But how did it fair on a 2700 mile mountain bike ride? Fantastically. There were some fit things I didn’t really have dialed (skinny bars and a long stem didn’t work, as much as I liked it on short rides). But the frame was very comfortable, the titanium absorbing the rough stuff, even with 2.2 tires. The 1×10 setup was plenty to get up and down, I did find myself spinning out on some descents, but it was so rare that I don’t feel the lack of front derailleur held me back. The bottom bracket height felt low to me, but only because I had been used to the height with 3″ tires. I might benefit from shorter cranks in the future, because the lower bottom bracket had me pedal striking on chunk (I like to pedal through stuff). My only complaint, is that the sloping top tube makes fitting a larger frame bag difficult, but it just meant I had to carry less and be inventive.
If I went back to Tour Divide I would not hesitate to bring this bike, but I don’t know if I’m going back to Tour Divide soon, instead I might throw more stuff on the bike and take a two week bikepacking trip and I am very confident this bike could handle it. And that’s what I like most. Starting from a Surly Cross Check, the Swiss Army Knife of bikes, I wanted something just as versatile and the Carver is a very versatile bike. My stable won’t need another hardtail for years to come.
Those who have seen the documentary Ride the Divide are probably familiar with Adrian’s vegan diet on the Tour Divide. I distinctly remember watching a bleary eyed Adrian aimlessly wandering the aisles of one of the tiny convenience stores along the route trying to find something animal free to eat.
Fast forward to Tour Divide 2015, Lima, MT. The town, if you can call it that, is not much more than a truck stop on I-15 in the Montana Basin. It’s early morning towards the beginning of the race. The gas station opens at 7 AM. I am waiting eagerly with my lycra’d kin, waiting for the door to unlock to resupply for the day, as there wouldn’t be much on route til Flagg Ranch near Yellowstone. I knew my options, mostly high fructose corn syrup garbage, or hydrogenated oily chips. Not many healthy options, Cliff Bars and bananas would be about the best I could get.
The doors opened, the crowd of cyclists pours in. Everyone else’s options were just as slim in this four aisle store. I see them grab for jerky, creme filled pastries, and of course all the stuff you never realized wasn’t vegan (dry roasted Planters peanuts have gelatin, why?). I have to move much slower than that, I go for Lays’ Classics to start, get my salt, move over to the candy, find some picked over Cliff Bars, but some. It’s still not enough calories for a full day. I start grabbing little candy and bar things I’ve never seen before flip them over and start reading ingredients lists. This is what it is. After a while you start to become pretty good to scan for words like “casein”, “lard”, “animal shortening” or whatever it may be. I find a few more things, but still don’t have enough calories. I start going for the heavy calorie hitters, Keebler Vanilla Wafers, Apple Pie snacks, more chemical than food, but energy is energy on the Tour Divide. I reach the counter with my haul and begin packing up and out.
Sugar is easy to find on the Tour Divide, too easy. By the time I hit Pinedale, WY my mouth was sore from all the sugars eating away at my mouth, but that’s the Divide on a vegan diet. There are some shining moments of good vegan food; the Breckenridge Whole Foods, the hippy cafe in Del Norte, and even the gas station in Abiqui had some great vegan treats, but for the most part, it’s gas station junk food for miles on end. Compared to the Trans Am, which I also completed vegan, this race was much tougher, mostly because the resupplies are fewer and farther in between, but it’s possible. I promised when I gave up animal products that I would never let it keep me from doing things I wanted to do, now with two big trips putting me out in the back country living on gas station food, I made it work.
I promised this time would be more about bikes than the last few. Gabriella went to school in Olympia and still has some good friends in town, so I decided to do an overnighter in the Capitol State Forest (where I’d been before) to let her have some time with her friends.
The cool thing about Capitol Forest is that you can link single track all the way across the forest. Sure there’s a decent amount of horses, but if you come in the water, horses aren’t allowed on single track. There’s actually three different ways to cross via singlet rack with endless fire roads.The Carver doing what I intended it for. Only wish I had 3″ tires.
The view I woke up to at my campsite. I had to settle on a more DIY site as horse trailers occupied every site. Some people were friendly and inviting, others, not so much; someone’s gotta keep the hate alive.This was one of the rare flat sections of trail. The single track was a lot of tight climbing and descending, The climbs were real tough and the descents were over far too soon. I only made it about half way of how far I wanted to go.Rain forests of the Pacific North West are a great place for macro photography. I’d love to come explore with a macro lens someday.
Open patches like this remind you that this is just as much a conservation effort as one of commerce.
Gabriella’s friend Spencer was our host in Missoula and after showing us around the local bar scene (which is a happening one), he took us out on his raft the following day.
We floated down the Clark Fork west of Missoula. Even for a weekday there were quite a few other rafters out.It wasn’t Arizona hot, but the sun was shining hard that day. About halfway through we grounded the boat on a beach and took a dip in the cool waters.This was our vessel. It’s fun to kind of try out these other sports besides cycling. One of these rafts costs about what a good quality mountain bike costs nowadays.
On our way towards Idaho we stopped at the 50,000 Silver Dollar bar, which you guessed it, their bar is full of silver dollars.
Worn Treads 