Bikes = Boats = Blake Island
Posted on June 30, 2009 -- Edit Post
Filed Under .83, Bike Kwak, Camping | Leave a Comment
For a change of pace last weekend, the .83 navy mobilized (in part) for Blake Island. This started as a kayak trip from Alkai to Blake, which is about 4.5 miles.
Nothing about kayaking across open water seems like a good idea to me.
I’ve never been a water person to be honest. Or to be more specific, never been an open water person. Lakes, rivers, streams, creeks and cricks – sign me up. Other than that… eh. Climbing into this little plastic dohicky and trying to stay upright or else, over distance… no thanks. But the hook for us as cyclists is because it’s more human/earth locomotion, so in a strange way boats are a strange distant cousin to cycling it turns out.
Anyhow it also turns out a fair number of us have real boats. Not just kayaks and canoe’s, but real sail boats. I don’t know how MY posse of drunken bike hooligan friends, how my little sliver of anti-establisment social strata found it within their means to become proper boat people, but lo and behold they have. Instead of buying a new car or a house and paying for parking and a $250,000+ house mortgage, they bought a $50-$75,000 boat and pay for mooring and bicycle where they need to go. Or car share. Or own a shitty car. Or flexcar. Or whatever. They have mortgage payment but it’s significantly cheaper than a house, certainly no more expensive than rent. Some of them live on their boats, some have an apartment. I think we have 4 or 5 proper vessels all told. Many of them are sail boats. A couple are are motorboats. Anyway, after you do the math you realize that depending on your priorities, it’s not that far out. And thus is born the .83 Navy.
This years trip was smaller than last years (which I didn’t make). Nick and I rode out on The October – Cass and Eric’s 32 foot sail boat that they live on. I had a friggin blast. We met Henry and the Dorothy Rose at Blake Island where the kayakers had already beat us there. We spent the day on board drinking and relaxing in the sun. In the afternoon we went ashore made camp and dinner and drank around the campfire until it was time for bed.
Role call – kayaks
- Derrick
- Ryan Lemke
- Gretchen (dual kayak)
- Sean (dual kayak)
The October
- Eric
- Cass
- Nick
- Me
The Dorothy Rose
- Henry
- Amanda (Henry’s gf)
- Ben (The angry hippie)
- Laura (Bens gf)
Despite my efforts to keep suntan lotion on, I managed to burn the living crap out of myself. I am an albino, or close to it, being a red head. I even asked others to keep an eye on me if I started getting red. No dice.
Regardless was a good time. We motored all the way out there from Shilshole Marina and back at a steadyish 5 knots, there not being much wind going out and there being nothing but headwind on the trip home. Lots of drinking and laughing and napping was had this weekend. It’s a rough life.
Oh yeah duh, pictures which tell the story unto themselves.
This weekend coming up, camping at Green Mountain aka Joeball Mountain II which we pre-scouted two months ago. After which there are basically 4 unplanned weekends till Dead Baby in August. After the last 4 or 5 weekends of back to back camping or being sick or whatever, hope to take a short break and recharge. Maybe visit Portland. Maybe do nothing. We’ll see. I’m sorta looking forward to the break.
Big thanks to everyone who made this trip what it was. Cass and Eric for The October, Henry for the Dorothy Rose, Nick for playing Steve Zissou, Ryan for your tent so I didn’t have to set mine up, and the rest. Good times.
Onward
Brandons Long Haul Trucker has been recovered!
Posted on June 25, 2009 -- Edit Post
Filed Under Bike Kwak, Theft | Leave a Comment
“The Auburn Police Department recovered my stolen Long Haul Trucker this morning. One Officer Wallace was driving along when he saw a dude with dreadlocks riding a green LHT with a Brooks saddle, and decided the combination was sufficiently unlikely to merit a little hassling. Wallace, (correctly) convinced that something fishy was up, called in the bike’s serial number. That came up clean, but the officer was undeterred! Led by the frame sticker he called Island Bicycles, which sold me the bike. Island Bicycles is a small shop, and I used to work there, and I had already told the shop owner Paul that my bike had been nicked. Paul quickly confirmed that the bike was stolen, and gave Officer Wallace my cellphone number. Wallace then called me, but he didn’t get through. So, again, not to be deterred, he called me a couple more times until I got out of bed and answered. He told me he had my bike, and that he had actually taken the dreadlock dude into custody. The guy that Scott found, with my bike? He’s cold in jail. And my bike is sitting down in Auburn waiting for me to pick it up.”
Congrats Brandon. Bike theives should be shot on site.
Suiattle, The Return – Now Langston Free!
Posted on June 21, 2009 -- Edit Post
Filed Under .83, Bike Kwak, Camping, Maps, Routes | 2 Comments
Role Call:
- Andre
- Alex
- Lee
- Kalen
- Clair
- Rogelio
- Jeni
- Monica
- Ryan
- Caroline
- Derrick
- Remington
- Me
My Photo Gallery
Alex’s Photo Gallery – Alex’s Blog Post
Andre’s Photo Gallery
Park and ride at 65th and Ravenna. Rolled out around 9:45 for Darrington. Monica had a fractured hand and couldn’t ride, so Rogelio carried her on the back of his Xtracycle and I carried her gear on my bike in one of her panniers. Derrick showed up with a fresh bottle of Boones Farm. We were a problem.
Derrick and Lee - check out the mountains behind them. We're in Darrington picking up supplies.
Stopped at the liquor store in Darrington to load up on essentials.
This was a REALLY short ride. Last year we rode in from Darrington making this a nice and easy 30 miler. This year there was a lot of sick and busted people so we drove until the road was closed, a mere 8.5 miles away from the camp site. At that distance, you can get pretty stupid about what you bring. We didn't cut a lot of corners heh. Borderline car camping.
The Suiattle River
Remington testing out the loaded Karate Monkey. Tellin you, this bike is 30 kinds of badass. My camping gear is in the red pannier, Monicas is in the black. I carried a small daypack too, but the only thing in it was a light weight griddle, some tent poles, and the booze.
Remington has the whiskey on quick draw.
Picture by Andre - look mom, I'm on a bike.
Alex and Lee
Good thing this is a short ride. Rogelio carrying Monica on the Xtracycle.
The famous bridge crossing.
We dropped bags at Downey Creek campsite and then Alex and I went further up the trail to Sulphur Creek to check out the site up there. There was a lot of downfall between Downey Creek and Sulphur Creek. All in all Sulphur Creek Campground wasn't bad, but there were already people in it so we stuck with what we had. The Lean-to and firepit make Downey Creek a damn fine place to camp.
We started drinking almost immediately. Jesus. Derrick kept reloading the Boones bottle.
Andre - so pretty!
.83 Bar immediately in full effect. Funny how this seems to follow us wherever we go.
Derrick fishing with Boones Farm. The color blue continued to get lighter and lighter as Derrick would load and reload the bottle with straight Monarch Vodka. Christ.
Alex
We kept throwing logs in and then tried to sink them with rocks. Rogelios pants had a catastrophic blowout and he was left in his pinstriped undies. And a sarong.
Eventually the Boones looked like this - Greyhounds.
Full Moon
For the life of me I do not know how you put these in your mouth.
This is the last picture I took that day. Andre doing something to that bottle of grapefruit juice. Apparently I passed out shortly afterwards. There’s more to that story but it’s all I’m reporting on my own blog. Self incrimination and whatnot. I will say I missed the apple rhubarb cobbler.
Photo from Alex - Monica
Photo from Alex
Photo from Alex - Derrick did catch a fish after all
Photo from Alex - Sunday Morning - lookout a few hundred yards up the river from our site
Morning after
Andre brought makings for ice cream sundaes, fortunately there were leftovers because I had them for breakfast.
The grate/griddle thing worked really really well. Breakfast was off the hook. SO MUCH BACON.
Downey Creek - I went down and filtered water under the bridge. Boy that creek is deep and moving fast.
Yes thats a vegetarian corndog being cooked in bacon grease on a griddle.
Unexploded dry ice bombs.
Weather held till then end, then rained on us on the way home. Very pretty. Fog on the Suiattle River.
Good times all around. If we were to make it back up there sometime this summer, I wouldn’t be put off by it too much.
Onward.
Friday – North Fork Snoqualamie River / Lennox Creek
Posted on June 15, 2009 -- Edit Post
Filed Under Bike Kwak, Camping, Maps, Rides, Routes | Leave a Comment
Friday after work, Lee, Alex, Andrew, Andre, Rory and myself met in North Bend to do some exploratory riding up the North Fork of the Snoqualamie River.
Alex has a very good blog post about it HERE that I will refer you to.
We got to the Lennox Creek fork around 7:30 and had a decision to make. The road splits here into three different directions and smaller groups explored the start of each of them. We decided to follow along Lennox Creek (which had as much volume as the Snoqualmie River at this point). Lennox Creek had the best scenery and comes tumbling down from the Snoqualmie Pass area in a very tight valley.
Wandered up towards the end of the road till just after sundown and made camp just off the road when it became apparent that no better spot would be had.
NOTE: Do not let hammock people pick your camp spots – or they start doing stuff like this:
Hammock people are weird. They are looking for trees X distance apart and don’t care what the ground is like. I have a hammock but haven’t used it yet – prefer my bivy sack. Of course my brain is now on “shucks why can’t I have both” mode – but that’s a different post. And possibly a different project. I digress.
Hammock camp - pic from Alex
So the boys climbed off the road and into a grove of trees to setup hammocks and filter water from Lennox Creek. I brought my small triangular saw and hatchet and Lee and Andre made a fire back up on the road where I eventually laid out my bedroll instead of down in the trees. We sat around the fire eating dinner and sharing a couple bottles of beer that people brought with them, telling stories and the like. It was a nice night.
Lennox Creek - Picture from Alex
I struggled some on the ride up – was sweating a lot and pretty low energy in general. Made food for dinner and wasn’t hungry for any of it so gave it away. Next morning woke up and was not doing well at all. Could feel myself running a fever and couldn’t stop coughing. Not good. Bugs were bad so we decided to skip breakfast – and coffee – and head back down to the cars.
This was a pretty easy ride and I was sucking it big. Got back down to the cars, drove into town and had breakfast at Twedes by 10:30am – the diner featured in Twin Peaks.
By the time I got home I had a 101.7 temperature. I pounded 4 Advil and crashed on my couch for the next 6 hours. Thats pretty much where I spent the remainder of my weekend. Lame.
The trip was pretty and I’m grateful I was invited – wish I could have enjoyed it more. Illin sucks.
The handlebar compression sack worked very well, and I learned some things. Affixing it to the handlebars securely was more difficult than I thought it was going to be – quick release compression straps will not work – they loosen too easily. But I now have a fix for that. The embracing cuff needs to be about 3 inches longer underneath the roll. Pocket tops need to be twice as long so they close when you put something in them. Other than that, it performed beautifully.
This week I’m just trying to get better – next weekend we’re going back into the Suiattle River with a decent group of people. It’ll be fun and, oh yeah, it’s my trip. I gotta get better.
Alex’s camera makes me want his camera.
Onward.
Tehschkott Bags – Handlebar System
Posted on June 11, 2009 -- Edit Post
Filed Under Bike Kwak, Camping, Maps, Sewing | Leave a Comment
There was a time when I took nice pictures. No, seriously. I had a knack for composition it turns out. Now, I take crap pictures. I blame digital photography. Something about peering through a viewfinder and pulling the trigger and hearing a satisfying “snicksnick” sound, like a little mechanical heartbeat as the shutter snapped open and closed in the fraction of a second… something about that worked for me. Now we have preview screens and color saturation options and remember when you just had to be good with color and contrast or you got crappy pictures? Something about that worked for me, and something about digital photography… well something got lost for me.
I’ve basically given up on taking nice photographs anymore and instead take 200 pictures of everything and string them together into what I hope is a narrative. No one picture really being particularly inspiring, but together they tell a story. So here’s the story. (or just skip to the entire photo gallery)
Remember this?
I really liked it and got me to thinking about a better way to do it. Turns out Eric at Epic Designs was doing more or less what I’d sorta figured out in my own head what this new and improved system would look like. Thing is, in my head the design is so simple, seemed silly to buy it outright from someone else. Should be easy enough to do it on my own – with a little help. So I enlisted the help of my most excellent friend Laura.
It’s not a complicated design but neither of us have done this kind of sewing before so it’s been a learning experience for both of us. In the process we also killed her ailing and aging sewing machine part way through version 2 and had to finish on a loaner sewing machine – which was actually a blessing in disguise. New machine = rad (Thanks Ro!). Old machine, uh, less rad. Regarding the handlebar system, this is version 3 and it’s basically done – or done enough for this weekends camping trip!
We’ll do a 4th and final version to make some adjustments – mostly aesthetic – but after that it’s finished. It works really really well and couldn’t be more pleased. Laura did a really great job and this came together nicely.
Tehschkott Bags!
This weekend: CAMPING
View Larger Map
Onward.
Wash…
Posted on June 9, 2009 -- Edit Post
Filed Under Bike Kwak | Leave a Comment
I’m sorta writing-stuck. It’s not writers block exactly, but sometimes I’ll get all backed up and just… stuck. And then nothing gets written about and the backlog continues to grow and the problem compounds itself. So this is just a dump to unstick things and get back to the regular habit of blogging again. Much is happening, and there is much more to happen. Better now then later. This will not be a pretty post I’m afraid.
Okay – here goes.
I can’t get the Tour D’Afrique out of my head. It’s this running theme under the layer of everything else I’m thinking about. I look at the Karate Monkey and all I think about is, what do I need to do to ensure this bike will endure 12,000Km of largely unfinished African road? How will I pay for any of it – pay the very large sum of money to go – pay to hold my stuff when I’m gone – what will I need to get started once I get back? Can I get sponsorship to help pay for it? Should I? Will I have a job when I get back? None of my thoughts are, what if I don’t make it. What if I can’t go. What if this doesn’t happen. In my head it’s already happening. Well, the logistics of it.
I’m reposting this. I don’t care. It’s rad.
Last two weeks have been busy, but not exactly accomplishing. There have been many notables. I sold my Surly Long Haul Trucker, aka the Bicycle Eater to a friend of mine in my bike club. There were several reasons for doing it, but ultimately I have the Pacer, and I have the Karate Monkey, and there is significant overlap between them. Sorta made the Bicycle Eater a little redundant. And the truth is, there’s nothing the Long Haul Trucker can do that the Karate Monkey won’t do better. I lose all my retro-grouch points with this move, but that’s alright. Bikes come and go.
My friend Ben in Nebraska was written up in his local paper. When he started riding he was 567lbs and an unhappy IT jerk. We were friends back then. Then he started riding, started dropping weight like mad, his life started improving vastly. I dunno. Ben’s a good friend, his story is a great story because he pulled himself out of whatever funk he was in and did something about it. Now he’s down to around 350~ and continues to drop weight, is super positive, and rides the flying crap out of his bike. It’s a cool story – GO READ IT. Though we both had different reasons for starting down this road, this guy is why I got into cycling. True story.
Oh, you can also read his blog – http://www.chubbysuperbiker.com/
Last week I had an unexpected week of vacation dropped on me. Well… alrighty. Didn’t get as much riding done as I’d hoped to, but the Wreyford Sisters and I did take a day and drive north, up towards Darrington and Rockport to do some exploring and pre-scouting of the upcoming Suiattle camping trip on the 20-21st of this month. When the day was done we’d put about 175 miles on the car, had only ridden about 3 miles, and got kicked out of a private community on a county road around a lake, and a military resort reserved for retirees and active duty personnel. Day was something of a wash, but it was pretty at least.
We live in beautiful country man.
The Wreyford Sisters.
Lessee what else. My friend Laura has been helping me with a sewing project. As stated before, Eric over at Epic Designs has a really great handlebar bag rig that I’ve been interested in. I just don’t want to deal with a 3-5 week wait period and spend what he’s charging for it. Now, when it’s all said and done I’ll probably have spent more money and taken more time doing this then simply dropping the cash and purchasing it from Epic Designs. But meh, I need a project anyhow and who knows, maybe I’ll learn how to sew out of it. Tomorrow Laura and I are getting together to do version 2 of it. I’ll take pics and post em. It’s interesting.
I’m still working on getting my camp kit down in size – refining it. More on that in a later post. On that topic though, a couple of us are going exploring up the North Fork of the Snoqualamie River this weekend which will be cool. I’m looking forward to it.
I guess that’s about it for now. Told you this was going to be an ugly post. Here, you can have a picture of Seattle at sunset to make up for it.
This post makes me feel dirty. Yuck.
Onward.
Portland Zoobombers get $10,000 downtown monument – the Zoobomb Bike Pyle!
Posted on June 1, 2009 -- Edit Post
Filed Under Bike Kwak, In-the-news | Leave a Comment
HERES A GREAT ARTICLE ON THE ZOOBOMBER PYLE
Zoobombers are a Portland phenomenon. They ride the local train called the MAX to the top of the Oregon Zoo, then take an elevator to the top of that top, and then bomb down the hill to the bottom where they catch the train back to the top to do it all over again. It’s pretty sick.
Oh, and they do it on little kids bikes.
Okay, let’s face facts. Zoobombers as a crew are loud and arrogant and… loud. Basically, right up our alley. Sometimes you love them. Sometimes you hate them. I’ve always had a blast with em but many can’t stand them. As a bike club my verdict is: they’re a hoot. I’ll drink and ride with em anytime.
Well here’s the thing – after the ride Zoobombers traditionally leave these little bikes in an pile across the street from Powells Books until the next ride. I always thought it was pretty cool and pretty kooky.
But apparently around 3 years ago the Zoobombers lobbied the city for somewhere safe to store the bikes because they were getting stolen. Mayor Sam Adams, transportation commissioner at the time, told the Zoobombers to develop an artistic solution to the problem – and lo and behold the Regional Arts and Culture Council gave them $10,000 to build it.
BOOSH!
Zoobombers couldn’t be happier.
pic from http://bikeportland.org - great blog!
It’s at NW 13th Ave and West Burnside.
Local residents are obviously split on the issue – some decrying city funds being allocated to hooliganism, others applaud the decision. Here at sweetbike – we give it a big fat thumbs up.
Here’s a local article about it.
Onward.
Holla!
Seattle Weather- Bike Snob NYC
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- The Stranger
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