Demon Ride

It has been sometime since I've navigated silent forests in the black of night. Tuesday night I geared up, and took off for one of my local haunts; light and gear in tow, adventure on the mind. It is funny really; millions of years of natural selection have programmed us to be wary of the dark, originally for very good reasons. Danger often lurked outside the protective glow of the campfire, hungry beasts much more adapted for the night than us waited for our mistakes. Those of us who heeded the warnings lived to pass on this gene, a healthy fear of darkness. However, we no longer live on the Savannah, and there are no lions in Bellingham but I still feel the pull, the suspicion that behind each tree lays waiting a danger, something unknown and sinister waiting for me to stop, for my light to go out. The beast, though imaginary, serves as my drive. At night in the forest I ride hard, I flow with speed between the trees and through the corners always staying a few feet ahead of the monster. I love the Demon Rides.

My Only Day Off

Well, an entire week of school gone and I'm ready to be done for the year. Is it time to graduate yet? I have a killer schedule set up so that I can work as many hours in the week as possible. Monday I have 494 Media and Sports at 9:00am, Anthropology 121 Linguistics at 11:00, 494 Dialogue in Community Development at 12:00, Anthropology 389 Cultural Resources at 3:00 and 370 Persuasion from 5:00-7:15pm. Wed is the same minus the last class and Friday is the same minus the last two classes, but add Mountain Biking 117 at 1:00-3:00pm. I found out that by taking a 100 level Anthropology class this semester and another one next semester, along with some more upper division coursework next semeste in Anth, I can get a minor in Anthropology so I'm going for it. Next semester I will need two Upper Division Anth classes along with the 100 level to graduate with a minor. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday I am working at the bike shop, building and selling bikes. I made my second, third and fourth bike sales yesterday afternoon and built three bikes, so I'm keeping up well. It's tough with this schedule to get anything done as far as school is concerned though, all I want to do when I get home is sleep.

Friday and Today both I rode 5 laps on the UH trail. It hasn't been raining lately so the trail is very fast and dry. Sadie's riding is looking very good lately too. She attacks the descents and ascents as fast and furious as I do, but she still lacks the overall power to kill those last two hills on the extention. She's making huge progress on those two hills though, making it past the hard part but not quite set up to finish the hill.

Back from Idaho

On Saturday Sabrina and I returned from Idaho and thus ended our weeklong break. It sure was nice getting away from work, the grind, and Bellingham and seeing family, most of whom it had been many years since I last saw. On Thursday, our last full day in Idaho I got to go to Schweitzer again, but this time the weather was great and I made about 10 runs down the hill.

I can't say I'm looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. Already I miss the silence of Northern Idaho, the absence of constant background noise. In Bellingham there is always noise, deep bass from car stereos, loud neighbors, engines, voices, sound is all-present all the time. It is interesting, for myself, noise is a stressor and contributes to exhaustion. Perhaps growing up in Alaska, where everything is quiet is why I find myself at odds with the noise in Bellingham.

Idaho, Montana Trip

Sabrina and I are currently in Clark Fork, Idaho seeing family. Clark Fork is a small town (550 people) in the northern most part of the state that really exemplifies the northwest with its tall mountains and lush green forests. We had this trip planned for a long time, and its been good seeing family I haven't seen for at least 12 years. Yesterday we headed over to Montana, to an Aunt's property on Bow Lake and had a reception for Sabrina and I's marriage, being that my Dad's side of the family is Irish American, the 50 people that showed up was a rather small percentage of the total.

Today Kaleb (brother) and I headed to Schweitzer, a local ski-resort that converts it's chairlifts to bike lifts in the summer. The weather was cold, it was raining, and at the top of the mountain the thermometer read 40 degrees. But, we didn't care, we were so excited to be on a chairlift with our bikes that nothing would have stopped us. We did 3 top to bottom runs on a mix of single and double black diamond downhill trails. If I could only choose one word to describe it, I would say 'fast'. I don't think either of us have ever went that fast through such gnarly terrain. If the weather hadn't nearly finished us off, we would have rode more.

We'll be in Idaho till around Thursday, so let the good times roll!

The Storm that Never Came

It was supposed to hit the Big Island at noon on Tuesday. At eleven, a possessed Nate gathered his gear to hit the trail, laughing maniacally inside as he thought about riding in the gathering storm. As he rode out, he could hear a bit of rumbling in the dark clouds overhead. A light drizzle began to soak his shirt. I'm ready, he thought.

Lap one, the drizzle has become a light shower, as he flies around the corners starting the downhill half of the second lap. He drifts to the right side of the trail and attempts frantically to clip out of his new pedals which the previous owner had adjusted too tight. Just in time, he flies through the air free of the bike through sticks and logs, breaking them like twigs. The bike's okay so he rides on.

Lap two, the rain has done its work and the trail is as sloppy as ever. He again flies through the first downhill section, making a last minute decision to detour to the trail he built with his own blood, sweat and tears. Bad decision. His rear tire cuts a deep gouge in the grass as he lays the bike down at full speed. Not a bad wreck, he thinks as he rights the bike to continue on, only a gash in my knee.

Lap four, going the other way now, he shifts to an easier gear to make it up the last short hill before the long sweet downhill, and snap! The right shifter is dangling by its cable, knocking against the tire with each revolution. Time to go home.

12 Lapper

Well, my wish has come true. Thursday morning Chris Seymour called me and told me to come in tomorrow at noon and get started building bikes for him. We'll see how this works out long term, but for now this is exactly what I wanted, a job which demands my attention to tasks which I want to learn and become proficient at anyway. Isn't that what everyone wants in their careers or jobs, to actually enjoy the work your doing rather than making money to live your "other" life. Well this is my first step to actually living my dream of dying poor while owning a bike shop. Another good luck to me for my awesome job! That is if I last after Chris comes back next week.

Some pictures of the twelve lap ride here:

Chasing the Devil

I heard rumors, whispers through the tops of the trees, hushed voices making mention of a forbidden trail hidden amongst the hills of Galbraith where the mist permeates so thick that one loses all sense of orientation. Nah, not really, I just read about it online. The trail is called Devilcross and is a nice short gem of singletrack with a couple natural steep sections. My Saturday ride was largely spent searching for this trail tucked away near the top of the mountain, and after finding it, clearing some ferns and sticks from the corners, I rode it a couple times. I like the top of the mountain, you can really get away from the noises of the humans below, even the incessant roar of the highway becomes lost in the trees.

Near the top	A view of Whatcom Lake
A corner on Devilcross which edges next to a cliff.	The end of Devilcross, a nice steep.

War

In America, the leading cause of death for people aged 15-45 is vehicular accidents. Our culture's obsession comes with a high price. I'm gradually come to realize that this statistic is something I need to be continually aware of as a cyclist, and each close call with drivers only further serves reifies this fact in my mind. Last night while running errands on my bike I was hit by a large container of liquid thrown from a SUV speeding past me, an action which could have resulted in serious injury or worse. I was lucky. This time. The rage has not let-up even after a night's sleep; I keep replaying the scenario in different variations. What if it was my wife who was hit? A friend? What if they would have hit me in the head? Would they have tried that had they not been in a vehicle?

I've been saying it for a long time now, so I'll take a minute and quote myself. The automobile acts as a loud speaker for the idiocy inherent in this country’s citizens. 45,000 Americans are killed each year in auto accidents. 1.8 million are injured. When is it enough? 100,000 a year dead? 200,000? A million? Automobile related infrastructure is increasing at an exponential rate, more and more cars are being purchased every day, simply walking down to the grocery store is becoming a dangerous proposition. What is wrong with us? How are we going to explain this to the next generation?

Cars are a huge problem, but the aren't the only on:

Read More Here

The first ride of the rest of my life

Yes, if you had checked earlier it did say only eighteen and a half laps completed in the trail this year. And if your math is superb, you would know that there has been a twelve lap increase since ealier this morning. Today, we decided to hit the trail again, this time however, be brought along the camera and took turns riding the trail. Sadie put in five and a half laps first, while I sprinted about trying to snap off shots, ducking through shortcuts to catch a glimpse of her ride through the next section.

After the thirty five minute wait it was my turn to shred the trail. I took a last gulp of Cool Citrus Cytomax and was off, heading counter-clockwise for my first six laps. It was morning so the dirt was soft and the roots were slick so I pushed my bike up each of the hard hills. These six went by like clockwork with no stops. I grabbed the bottle again as i turned the bike around and took a long pull and headed off again, clock-wise this time for the second half of my nearly epic ride. This direction, while faster, take seems to take a little more energy for the first climb, maybe it's because of the lack of downhills to coast, but as I neared the top, I still felt relatively fresh, as if I had only done one or two laps before. These laps went off without a hitch and I made it up the hills nearly everytime, missing twice out of six, and once only because a vine caught my handlebar on the way up past the giant rock.

I finished the last two laps with the "victory route" down the trail that Sadie and I built, burning the corners with fresh enthusiasm as I was riding new territory for the first time today.

The final time for my twelve lap adventure was 1:02:10, averaging 5:10.70 per lap. My goal to achieve this year will be to make 20 consecutive laps (no rests) averaging five minutes or under for a total time of 1:40:00. And a single lap time of 4:00 flat.

Good luck to me, cause I'll need it!

The Count

I've decided, with some help from Doeman, to keep a tally of the 1 km laps I complete in the UH trail system. Generally a lap is to be considered "good" if one either completes it in under five minutes, (for experts like Doe and me) or if one completes the trail with no dabs (footfalls), which if done generally means a sub five minute lap anyway.

Some facts about myself and the trail-

The amount of energy it takes to complete a 5 minute no dabs lap, while only 1 km, is akin to running a six minute mile for someone who generally runs a seven minute mile.

There are three "hills" on this trail and depending on which way you rode, you will have to climb either one or two of them. These hills are what separates this trail from nearly any other, it is cause for celebration when an amature completes any one of these without dabbing, and for the expert, it is no cause for shame to push the bike up one of these hills a few times per session.

A light rain will cause the tire upon the roots to become as skates upon ice, a heavy rain will cause the tires to become as corks amoung the ocean's swells..

My personal best on this trail is a smokin hot four minutes and twenty seconds, fast enough that the movement of the air still makes it hard to go counter-clockwise.

Working Hard or Hardly Working

Here is a pretty cool website: www.walkscore.com. You enter in your street address and your neighborhood is given a ranking on how friendly it is for walking. Areas that have close shopping, walking/biking paths, and parks score high while areas that only have automobile related infrastructure score low. I think its pretty clear that living in an area where you could accomplish all your errands just by walking is desireable. I personally enjoy my 10 minute walk to the grocery store, its a great way to relax and think about things while getting an errand done. The website lists other benefits such as lower death rates from autombile accidents (in walkable neighborhoods), higher air quality, and a study in Washington State which found that "the average resident of a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood weighs 7 pounds less than someone who lives in a sprawling neighborhood."

In conclusion walking is fun, a good exercise, and a great thing to do with friends, I know a lot of my best memories are from walks with buddies, and I hope to have many more such trips!

Smart Trip Celebration

About 3 weeks ago Sabrina and I received a letter in the mail informing us that we are 2 of 387 Smart Trip members to log over 200 smart trips and are invited to a small celebration and speech by the mayor. For reference, there are over 4,000 participants in the program so we aren't doing too shabby. For the uninformed, the Smart Trips program encourages people to eliminate automobile trips by using the friendlier alternatives of walking, biking, and taking the bus. We log our trips into a calendar on their web site and are eligible for prizes and other giveaways on a monthly basis, however we've yet to win just yet. There was a decent turn out, maybe 100 of the 387 members showed up, and to my surprise it was a pretty general crowd, a good sampling of Bellingham, in fact I spotted no dirty hippies at all. This offered further evidence to my hunch that the environmentally conscious crowd is not made up of a motley crew of granola eating, dirty, body odor factories, its just a bunch of people who care, and would like to see a real change away from the automobile orgy that is American life.

After the speech we were all given 15 dollars in gift certificates to spend at the farmers market (which was where the speech was held). I personally thought it was an awesome gift, so Sabrina and I bought food, drinks, and some other odds and ends. After we finished at the farmers market we walked across the street to Boundary Bay, a local brewery/restaurant where I enjoyed a brew and Sabrina had an appetizer. All in all, it was a nice way to spend Saturday morning and also celebrate my b-day.

	Top right: A sea of white shirt wearing smart-trippers. Top left: The normal bike racks were packed, so anything became fair game for locking. Hell yeah! Right: Yours truly enjoying a birthday blonde.