First time Overnight by bike

in which seemingly dumb decisions turn out just fine...

I've been longing - for years - to do an overnight bike trip. I decided this was the summer but with the approach of the new school year, my window was narrowing, until last week when I reached the "now or never" point. To tell the truth, I was scared to go, and finding excuses why I couldn't/shouldn't. But T - bless her - kept prodding, and I knew I'd regret letting my fears of the unknown keep me from this dream. So with a good weather forecast and three days open, I finally packed the panniers. I had a lot of options and still didn't know for sure until the morning I left which I'd choose. I was intrigued by Leafslayer's recent Lolo Pass/east side of Mount Hood trip, but was a little worried it might get too hot on the east side, and frankly wanted a little less solitude for my first trip, especially since I'd be alone.

In the end, I decided to ride the Max light rail to the end of the line in Hillsboro, and head to Astoria and the Oregon Coast via Vernonia. That would give me a chance to ride the 20-mile Banks-Vernonia trail. And if the loaded riding and 1000' climb to Stub Stewart State Park did me in, I could call it good there and head home the next day. This was the route, from the Portland Bureau of Transportation's great bike route site.

Pictures from my trip are here, as well as day-by-day description of my route. I started writing that description here, and realized that where I went/what I did was not the essence that made this trip so special for me. In hindsight I probably rode too much and didn't stop and linger as much as I should have. But I know myself well enough that it doesn't surprise me when I push myself too hard - I ended up covering exactly 300 miles, driveway-to-driveway, in three days. And no, that was not planned, just a kind of freak round number coincidence. I realized that without company - someone to talk to and share the experience with - I was free to do whatever I wanted, and what I really wanted to do was ride. And without having to get home - or anywhere, really - by a certain time, I also realized that someone in reasonably good fitness can ride a lot in a day, even carrying a load. Yes I was tired at the end of each day, but it was a good tired, a satisfied tired, not a dropping from exhaustion tired. For the most part I was glad to be on the bike, and my destinations came when I was glad to get off the bike. In that way, this first bike camping trip was exactly what I hoped it would be.

One thing that finally got me out the door was deciding this first trip would be a learning experiment. Since I've backpacked and climbed quite a bit, I had the gear and experience to travel self-contained. I just hadn't done it by bike. I knew I could always turn around, and if I had some irreparable mechanical breakdown, it wasn't like I would be out in the wilderness. I could get home somehow. The hardest part - truly - was getting out the door. The rest of the trip just unrolled from that first pedal stroke, and it alll went remarkably smoothly for something with little real planning.

Here's a short list of what worked

My Bike: I took my regular commuter, a 1986 Nishiki Riviera GT. Friction shifting, 27" wheels. The ride was smooth, and I had no mechanical issues at all.

Luggage: I have a Bruce Gordon rear rack that carried 2 smallish "vintage" Overland panniers. On front I have a Nitto rack that held an Acorn handlebar bag. Other than strapping my quilt and flip-flops onto the rear rack, these carried everything I needed with room to spare. I forgot to weigh it all before I left, but I did when I got home, and figured that with the food I took and ate, I was probably just under 30lbs when I left home, not counting water.

Sleeping: I took my homemade Ray-Way 2-man tarp tent (left the bug net at home), a ultralight Thermarest 3/4 inflatable pad, and my homemade Ray-Way quilt (strapped on top of rear rack.) I had tons of room under the tarp and slept very comfortably. I had to scout sticks for the tarp the 1st night, but for the second I found a long piece of 1/2" pvc along the road and used the saw on my Leatherman to cut two 4' lenghts which I strapped onto the rack and took to camp with me. But that night I ended up stringing the tarp between 2 trees. For backpacking, I use walking poles to pitch the tent. For future bike touring I can see the value in getting about six 18" sections of aluminum tent pole to avoid the nightly stick hunt.

Cooking/eating: I took my Snowpeak Gigapower stove, which with the cartridge nested inside a Snowpeak titanium Trek 700 pot which nested inside a Trek 900 pot. I could use the smaller pot to brew a bunch of tea and have dinner going in the larger pot. Everything nested together in one nice light compact little bundle. For both dinners I ate Trader Joes Indian food retorts over Uncle Bens boil-in-a-bag rice. Both packages fit in the larger pot at the same time and took about 10-15 minutes to heat. Very tasty, very filling. For breakfast I went with Russ and Laura's suggestion of PBJ wrapped in a tortilla. I also brewed a big pot of tea first thing each morning. During the day I didn't really stop for lunch, but would stop late morning somewhere for coffee and a pastry, then throughout the day munch fruit/nut trail mix (raw nuts), whole wheat fig bars, and maybe stop and get a banana. I felt like I was regularly shoveling food in, which is why I really like handlebar bags.

Water:  I'm kind of a camel. I tank up on tea in the morning and sip throughout the day.  I consciously decided for this trip to only mount one water bottle. I had a pretty good idea I'd never be more than 30 miles from a store or park where I could refill, and only carrying one bottle would force me to get off the bike and maybe also meet some people. For the most part it worked. Surprisingly, the driest section of the ride was the last leg, between Yamhill and Hillsboro, when I was coming back into town. I leaned over the fence and filled up at a nursery irrigation sprinkler.

Clothes: I wore my Keen commuter sandals with light wool socks for riding and they were great. Off the bike I wore flip-flops. I decided for this ride not to dress like a cyclist. It was an NLR (No Lycra Ride). mostly this was an experiment in comfort, but I also had a theory that drivers would see me differently if I dressed like a tourist on a bike as opposed to a cyclist. most of the time I wore lightweight nylon Patagonia Gi II shorts and a puckerwear SS shirt. In the cool of the morning I wore a lightweight Patagonia R1 longsleeve wool zip shirt with my Marmot DriClime windshirt and some nylon running pants. I was as comfortable on my bike as I've ever been - this worked for me. I also had along my old Burley rainjacket; it stayed in the bottom of the pannier.

And I took Bagbalm and used it liberally. It worked - 'nuff said.

As an experimental ride, this was a roaring success. Getting this under my belt has given me a tremendous confidence boost to continue ranging out on overnighters. I scared myself away from returning over the higher and more remote pass up the Nestucca River, opting instead for the longer but more moderate Little Nestucca route. But already, a week later, I'm planning on how and when I can go back and ride that road.

I want to thank Kent (Mountain Turtle) Peterson, Michael (Leafslayer) Johnson, and Russ Roca & Laura Crawford (The Path Less Pedaled) who all, unknowingly, provided inspiration and encouragement with their practical and down to earth trip reports and touring advice, most of which can be summed up by saying, "Don't worry about the bike, don't worry about the gear, just get out there and ride." I did. I will.

In Praise of Ritual

If you are oppressed, wake up about
Four in the morning; most places
You can usually be free some of the time
    If you wake up before other people.

William Stafford, from "Freedom"

When I say to my wife "variety is overrated" and she rolls her eyes at me as she searches her library of cookbooks for a new recipe, that's a telling snapshot of one of the differences in our personalities and one of the great ways we balance each other. I like routine, and while I admire spontaneity, it doesn't come easy to me. I'm also aware that one man's ritual is another's OCD.

I'm a morning person, by necessity and temperament; bike commuting forty-five minutes to school and showering in time to be in my classroom by 8 A.M. means my days start early. I suppose I could sleep until the last moment, throw on some clothes, grab a pop-tart and roll out (for that matter I could do what nearly everyone else does, stay up late watching crap on TV, buy a second car, and drive to work every day). I prefer my ritual.

For nine months of the year, Monday thru Friday, I wake at 5:20, eat a breakfast of organic steel-cut oats, toast, tea, and grapefruit juice. I take my time with this part - it's a ritual, after all - since it's the only time of the day that I'm present and awake and the house is quiet, so I read as I eat. I find this short time is a good time to read short things. For instance, while the bible is a big book, it's easy to read 3-4 chapters a day over breakfast, and get through it in a year. I've done that a couple times and probably will again, but I'll need a new translation to keep it fresh. Recently I've been starting each day with poetry. Several years a go I picked up a copy of the Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry from a free pile left behind by a retiring art teacher colleague. As a recovering English Major, I'm plenty familiar with all things Norton, but I also realized that with the exception of smatterings of Whitman, Eliot, Yeats, and a couple others, modern poetry was an unfilled gap in my education, so I started reading. Three years, 1500 pages, and countless footnotes later, the gap is filled. I enjoy poetry, and looked forward to this ritual; one could do a lot worse than starting each day with oats, good poetry, and a ten-mile bike ride. I'd often think about a poem or run a couple lines in my head like a mantra as I turned the pedals. Usually I didn't, but still found the poems often set the tone for the day. Some poets were hard plowing - like reading Leviticus/Numbers/Deuteronomy in the bible. I know Ezra Pound is a giant of The Canon, but when the explanatory footnotes take up more page space than the text, you know you're in deep waters and you start looking for shore (ie, who's next?) Others, like Hopkins or Snyder, were pure delight, and their poems were the ones that stayed with me all day.

Finishing the anthology probably puts me in some obscure and exclusive group that numbers less than a dozen fools who read The Whole Thing including introduction, author profiles, and all the footnotes. I tell my own students life is too short to read bad books. This was not a bad book, and a ritual I'm glad I did. Next hole to fill: War and Peace?

In Praise Of Unnecessary Errands

The edge of the world
is just across the threshold
the unknown that close

When I was 18 and working as a cook at Old faithful Lodge in Yellowstone Park, I once rode my bike  - a red Montgomery Wards 10-speed - to the town of West Yellowstone for a burger and a milkshake. That was 62 miles round trip, and a couple thousand feet of elevation gain coming back. I was so tired after the climb past Firehole Cascades that I pulled over at a riverside picnic spot and took a nap on a table. But it was a really good burger, and probably one of the most memorably scenic rides of my life.

This last Tuesday I rode 25 miles round trip to buy the new Gillian Welch CD (which I highly recommend, btw). It's not that I needed to ride 25 miles to get it; I could have given my money to the faceless BigAppleiTunesStoreCorporation without leaving my seat. Or I could have done what I normally do and take a short ride in support of my Local Independent Record Store. But I had a gift card from my mom and no pressing business, so I went for a ride. I got some fresh air, saw some good scenery, explored a new trail, supported some artists who I think make the world a better place, and came home with two really fine collections of music (I also picked up Pat Metheny's new CD, What's It All About. Bonus points - name the 60's song he covers that contains the title line, the actor who starred in the original version of the movie, and the actor who starred in the recent remake.)

I don't much like driving, and despise having to run errands by car. But running unnecessary errands by bike, like picking up some great new music, or finding out if the pour-over coffee at Coava really is better than french press (I think it is), or checking out the new food cart pod on the Springwater Trail - those kinds of errands feel more like a blessing, like something that makes my day richer. I am thankful for unnecessary errands that get me out the door and into the world, and that add to my community rather than subtract from it.

Read, Ride, Repeat.

In Laudem

"In Laudem" is Latin for "In Praise of," and I want to use it as a jumping-off point for an exploration of things and experiences for which I am thankful. I had a mini-epiphany yesterday and realized that ignoring the richness of each day was an invitation to discontent. It's a hazard of busy-ness and perhaps a crime against the community - family, friends, neighbors - I share my life with.

Edward Hirsch, in his book Poet's Choice - a collection of poems and commentaries that originally appeared as columns in Washington Post Book World - says that "praise restores us to the world again, to our luckiness of being. It is one of the permanent impulses of poetry." In the same chapter (a discussion of Gerard Manley Hopkins "God's Grandeur" which I wrote about when I began this blog) he quotes Auden, who says, "there is only one thing that all poetry must do; it must praise all it can for being and for happening."

So in that spirit - In Laudem...

Ronde redux

One day in April
De Ronde Portlandia
Hell of the Northwest

For the fourth year in a row I've joined a growing group of local riders for the word-of-mouth "unofficial" De Ronde Porlandia. I wrote about the ride two years ago here. The appeal is hard to explain unless you're the kind of person - like me - who finds a certain joy in climbing hills. If you know the meditative feeling of slowly gaining altitude, you get it. And for me it doesn't matter much whether it's on foot or on a bike. I remember a couple long days on my Nepal trek back in 1980, switchbacking with a full pack up out of valleys for 5000' to reach some ridge top campsite or village. The rhythm of breath and step, the burn in the thighs and salt in the eyes - it's all a reminder of how well the body knows its work. I've climbed lot sof mountains with lots of wonderful people. As a Mazama climb leader I had the pleasure of helping lots of folks make their first real "climb." It seems to me climbers can be divided into two types; the "dashers" who just want to get to the top, and the "plodders" who enjoy moving up the mountain. I'm in the latter camp, and I prefer the company of those who aren't feverish for the summit.

Not many would call "De Ronde" a fun ride, but if you like to go up, there is a joy in sharing the burn with six-hundred other grimpeurs.

The build-up starts in early April when someone forwards the announcement that once again, there will not be an official Ronde on the Sunday following the Tour of Flanders (the inspiration for de Ronde and source of the kitty mascot.) This year the UCI didn't coordinate their schedule with the unorganizers, so the date fell on the weekend of the Amstel Gold, which was perhaps more appropriate for reasons which have to do with certain teams and their malted beverage sponsors. In short, de Ronde is about climbing, but it's also about beer. The day of the ride was mostly clear and windless, with highs forecast for the upper low 50's - perfect. I rode from home, and by the time I hit the NW industrial area, it was like a gathering of the clans, with kitted-out riders converging from all corners of the city. 
I chatted a bit the last few blocks with a long-legged rider on a single-speed Bianchi. He'd never done the ride before. No fooling? De Ronde has been done fixed, but I hear the guy left his knees on Council Crest under a rock somewhere. On this ride, the derailleur is your friend.

College Place

Brynwood

The last three years I rode the Nishiki tourer - it's got fenders and is my only road bike with a front triple. That 26x28 combo comes in handy on this ride. But I also felt like I needed the lower gears to push a heavier bike uphill, and lots of guys ride it all on a compact double. Which I don't have. But I thought maybe the Trek 560 might be fun to ride. It was, but 38x26 was my lowest gear. I was able to ride Brynwood and College, but not without pulling into a couple driveways and spinning short recovery laps gasping like a fish. Still, I was happy to be on something a little more sporty. Besides, steep hills have been tackled on steel for decades.

I heard rumors of a keg at the top (unfounded), but with the team affiliation of the person definitely not responsible for this ride, beer was obviously on a lot of riders' minds.

The person definitely not responsible for organizing this ride

Beer

More Beer

 
Like years past, finishing time was about four hours, and the party on top all smiles.

Hosed

The sun peeked out for a day or two earlier in the week. March set a couple records in Portland this year. Most days with precipitation (30 - the previous record was 27) and latest date to hit 60 degrees for the first time in the year - I think we barely squeaked it in on March 31. but we're back in full wet wintery/spring 40's and wet mode now. In commemoration:

April 14

Low gray sky cold rain
A shivery soggy joy
I'd still rather ride

April 15

Worms on the trail
it's OK I'll weave my way
while you find new homes

Read, Ride, Repeat.

Thaw

Redwing's five-note song
in morning's merciful light
bids winter farewell