Finally, a bike shop

Well, as you all know, the Bike and Build adventure is done and finished. The trip, however, did not satiate my desire to do great things. Rather, the trip ignited it. In keeping with that theme, I've decided to keep writing in this blog about any and all bicycle related adventures. Hopefully someone will read this blog every so often; you need not be a bike and build alumni-but if you are, HI!- you're welcome to put in your two cents about what I have to say. But as I was saying, this blog will be devoted to my experiences on the saddle of a bike. I plan on always being a cyclist in one form or another, and hope to do many other long distance tours on a road bike. My next planned adventure is a ride from Boston to Provincetown this summer with some Bike and Builders and a few other friends who seem interested. However, the fall semester promises to offer up some new experiences in the immediate future.



I've decided to branch out a bit and try my hand at mountain biking this semester. Up until this point my experience has been limited to one ride at Fountainhead Park back home. It was, to say the least, one of the most challenging rides I've ever done. I distinctly remember the feeling of exhaustion after the ride, as well as the constant fear of eating dirt or breaking a bone during the ride. I'm told that the course is actually pretty challenging, but I'd still consider myself a novice when it comes to mountain cycling. I figured the best move for me to make would be to take a class on the subject, so that is exactly what I did. This morning I had my second day of mountain cycling class, a kinesiology course designed to "explore the holistic, spiritual, and physical benefits of mountain cycling". Or so says the syllabus.



This morning began at Shenandoah Bicycle Company, a cool little shop nestled between Dave's Taverna and an auto-body shop downtown. I've been a few times-one particularly memorable experience was buying my cycling shoes for the trip- and it was nice to finally be back inside a bike shop. It wasn't quite so nice biking through the rain a few miles to get there, but ehhh, I've seen worse. Funny now how bike shops give me those warm fuzzies now...ahhh consumerism. But anyway, we were there to learn a little basic maintanence for our bicycles and to make certain that they were in good working condition. I'd considered bringing Jonas to the shop, since I figured I didn't need to learn much about basic maintanence. After all, I already knew how to basically maintain my road bike. Plus, Jonas is frankly much faster than my mountainbike, who I've decided to name Rocky. Yeah, original huh?



Anyway, I'm very glad that I decided to bring Rocky in despite his slight slugishness as compared to his lighter, slimmer brother. As I found out today, mountainbike mechanics are just different enough from a road bike's to merit a little hands on learning. It's the little things you know, like the lack of Presta valves on my tires. I never knew how much I'd miss those skinny little things until I had to use my fingernails to slowly-and I mean SLOWLY- let the air out of my tires so I could check the tubes. Even the break release on my mountainbike is a little different than my roadbike.

I guess that those things should be different is obvious. They are, afterall, bikes designed to do different things. As much as I grudge Rocky's slowness a little, I have to admit he can take a beating on a trail way better than Jonas could. I'd be in real trouble if I tried bringing a road bike where I'm going. Still, after spending an entire summer doing routine maintanence on my bike and feeling like this maintanence class would be a snap, I found myself very frustrated that I couldn't change a mountain bike flat with the ease I could my road bike's. It really is all about habit building, and obviously I'm going to have to learn new habits to deal with the mountain bike.

Still, it was exciting also, especially seeing the people in the class that had never had any sort of experience maintaining their bikes suddenly get what they were trying to do. It was a nice reminder of my summer, where many of us began knowing almost nothing about our bikes and ended having a pretty intimate understanding of them. I can't wait to see where everyone is after this class! And of course, I can't wait to get out there and ride!

Peace out Hombres!

The end but not The End

I'll be trying to do this last post justice, recapping the experience of my lifetime to this point.  We hit the Puget Sound three days ago.  My bike has been packed up and shipped, hopefully to the correct address.  Everyone I had known for the last two and a half months has scattered, either back home to the east or around the Seattle area.  Myself?  I'm writing from Bremerton, a small town nestled in a peninsula west of Seattle.  I slept alone, in a bed, for the first time in a long time last night.  I didn't wake up prematurely because of someone else's alarm.  It was at once glorious and awful.  I've been keeping tabs on bike and builders over the last few days, and the overarching feeling seems to be a unanimous melancholy.  I can't speak for anyone else, but as expected I feel incredibly lazy.  Seattle's been a lot of fun, but God do I miss my bicycle!  I can't wait to put it back together and go for a nice long ride.  

But let me give you a slight recap of our triumphant ride into the city!  We began the morning full of pep, and with more screaming involved than I ever anticipated so early in the day.  Rather than feeling sad as I expected, it seemed everyone had more enthusiasm than we had when we left Providence so many weeks ago.  So much enthusiasm, in fact, that some people tipped over on their bicycles.  Well, Katharine did.  Two minutes into the ride.  It was great.  From Everett we rode through a labyrinth of busy suburban streets, all characteristically pointing towards civilization.  Finally, after months of small towns we were finally witnessing the trappings of a big city.  Admittedly it was a bit of a culture shock, and we were still in the suburbs.  

The bike path was the highlight of the ride for myself and I'm sure many others.  It's funny though; after months of riding on roads with cars, the bike path probably proved more dangerous.  There were a million cyclists on the path into the city, many of them no-nonsense types that were flying.  And there were thirty of us, going relatively slow and really not paying enough attention.  I'm surprised that there weren't any collisions.  Especially since we were so in awe of our surroundings the whole time.  

The whole ride I was insanely jealous of Hana, who lives in Seattle and gets to experience the Sammamish Park Trail on a regular basis, because I've never been on a more gorgeous bike trail.  And I've been on a lot.  We spent the majority of the ride hugging what must have been Lake Sammamish, cutting through millionaire suburbs with wildflowers and blackberry patches all over the place.  By the time we saw the Space Needle in the distance I'm sure all of us wanted to move to Sea-town.  The bike trail spat us out somewhere around Fremont, where the ride took a very interesting turn.

We knew beforehand that the ride into Seattle would be somewhat by the seat of our pants.  Up until getting into the city proper we'd managed to pretty much stay on course.  That all changed when we got into Fremont, where we were greeted by draw bridges and stairwells.  Let me tell you, it was quite a sight seeing thirty cyclists walking their bikes down five flights of stairs.  From there, it was only a few bumps and scratching our heads sessions from Alaskan Way, the road that would take us to Alki Beach.  

Like the rest of the ride through the city, getting to Alki Beach was...confusing.  However, after reconvening back on yet another bike path, disrupting cyclist and pedestrian traffic, and allowing sweeps to lead (essentially making us "Sweepless in Seattle",get it?), we managed to make it to the Sound.  With the backdrop of roaring applause from our family and friends, we proceeded to strip down to our chamois and jump into the Puget Sound.  A bike and build tradition?  Yes.  Probably a bad idea?  Probably.  But I've never screamed so loud and hugged anyone so hard and it all felt worth it.  

They-they being bike and build alumni-told us not to expect any profound moment after getting to our destination.  They told us that every day was significant in and of itself and that if we went looking for some cathartic mind expanding experience we wouldn't find it.  They were right about the significance of every day.  I'll carry the whole trip with me for the rest of my life.  But I still think that Seattle stands alone for me, that I truly understood the depth of my affection for the group as I was embracing them in the Sound.  We're a dysfunctional group of people for certain, and the trip had no shortage of bumps and squalls.  But when we leapt into icy cold water, we were family.  My mind goes back to a man we met in a baptist church in Ohio, who told Brook and I that we were his brothers and sisters, and that we had to be that for each other.  And so we are.

Who Da Ho?

Idaho. Those sort of corny jokes litter our cue sheets these days. You guessed it, we're back in Idaho, a gnarly little state that is definitely not all about potatoes. Well, I mean I'm sure part of it is. But not where we are. No, it's more about awesome scenery, mountain passes, and quaint little towns that I'll be pressuring my parents to retire in. Wallace Idaho, check it out. Seriously.

We left Montana for good this morning, riding some sixty miles from Superior MT into Wallace, a beautiful mining town nestled between pine covered hills. We also finally entered into Pacific Standard Time. I'm now three hours behind all you suckers on the east coast! In short, today's ride was awesome, with a little bit of mayhem thrown in there. We climbed another mountain pass by the name of Lookout. I wouldn't call it easy, per se, but an elevation of only 4860 feet does make it one of our lighter climbs. The descent, however, was a gorgeous and moderately hairaising one all the way down in Wallace. Let's just say that there were a lot of aptly named "death grates", those are big vertically oriented grates that would easily cause us to flip over our handle bars if we hit them. Not good news when you're going about forty miles an hour in traffic. But now that it's said and done, it's only fun, not frightening.

We've got a lot of beautiful rides to look forward to. Our next, into Cour D'Alene, will take us about twenty some miles down a beautiful bike path, and ultimately to a lake that is plastered all over the state's postcards. I'm looking forward to booking it into town tomorrow so I can get a little time to even out my rider's tan. Thankfully, the ride should only be about fifty miles, so getting in some lake time won't be much of a problem. Yeah, fifty miles is a short ride these days. It's weird, I know.

We're pulling up to the home stretch, only a few days away from the Washington border. I think it's safe to assume that we all have mixed feelings about finishing our little pilgrimage. I for one am looking forward to sleeping in a real bed and all. Then there's my mini vacation in Seattle. That'll be epic. Still, it'll be weird to not be spending every single day on the back of a bike. I keep wondering what I'm going to do to fill the hours of my day. Bike? Eat? Sleep? Well that's what the last two months have been filled with. Pretty simple life, ehh? I guess it's true what you hear, that a simple life is the best life. I have a feeling the transition's going to be pretty tough.

So all of you, wish me luck as I gear up to gear down. Way down. Because soon I'll be back to my sleeping in a bed, going to class, hanging out, and maybe getting in a thirty mile ride every few days. If I'm lucky. I'm going to miss this experience terribly. Just like my legs and my tan lines. But like they also say. All good things...

Peace out hombres!