I suppose this means it’s time to start spoutin’ off again.

I’d like to do it with a better camera this time.

On some good advice that these days of winter are for relaxing a bit and letting the muscles grow supple, I spent last week riding to the Metro, taking the Red Line downtown, and reading my book for a little while in the morning and evening. I figured it wouldn’t be as frantic over the holidays as I remembered, and it wasn’t. In fact, it was pleasant enough that I’m doing it again this week and reading some more. This is the first time in two years I’ve taken the Metro to work instead of riding my bike. It feels a little bit like I lost something, but that something might have been a chip off my shoulder rather than anything important.

Other than that… what’s to say? It’s not that life hasn’t been interesting, after all the holidays have been a swarm of family and friends and events and food, the kids astonish and nourish me in new ways just about every day, there’s some bike and non-bike projects in the works, and there’s no shortage of current events to ponder aloud (or at least to ignite vehement reactions). I just haven’t been interested in writing about any of it.

Unless I become suddenly inspired, this right here’s the year-end wrap-up:

• I should finish the year with about 4050 miles and 131035 not-feet* of climbing.
• Number of rides is a less precise stat, because I’ll list a ride like “Farmers’ Market and Back” as a single ride, whereas the ride to work and the ride home are two, both because they’re broken up by a whole day of sitting and because it makes it easier to use different routes. The number of rides I’ve recorded for the year stands at 558, but there’s a few days left yet to cross 560 for the year.
• My weekly averages came out to approximately 10 3/4 rides a week for 77 miles and change. The biggest week was 189 miles and a little over 11400 not-feet of climbing, which was the week in August of the Livestrong Challenge. That month was my biggest with almost 625 miles.
• I put over 1575 delightful miles on Cledus (the Long Haul Trucker) this year, which is pretty cool. Cooler still was that Nigel, my Trek 930 based Xtracycle, racked up 1925 miles, and logged over 61k not-feet to Cledus’ 54k. No wonder I had to replace his Fat Franks this year, they got all wore out from kicking everyone’s ass all the time.
• I’m not sure how many miles we put on the car this year, but I’m almost positive it was well under 4k miles. Gotta verify it, but that’ll definitely deserve its own toast on New Year’s Eve.

* MapMyRide.com’s elevation statistics are horribly inaccurate, I’m certain that a year’s worth of GPS data from the same rides would yield an entirely different number. But since MMR was my method of measure throughout the year, it is at least consistently inaccurate. Or it’s not.

So there’s the tale of the tape. Pretty good year! I don’t know if I’ll beat those numbers next year, or if I’ll keep numbers for that matter, but this was worth doing and knowing. Even though it sure felt like I was piling on miles before and during the century, those only accounted for 500-600 of the total. The vast majority of the miles I rode this year were just to work and back, with a regular ride to the market on Saturdays. Pity the cyclist that thinks of those miles as “junk”!

Other things to remember and be thankful for this year:

• I lost a good bike. I miss you, buddy.
• I gained a couple more. I love you all.
• The Bike Clinics at Mt. Pleasant Farmers’ Market (and then at Bloomingdale, 14th and U, and H St.) were incredibly successful this year, more than anyone could’ve guessed. Estimates indicate we may have helped as many as 800 people get their bikes back on the road, and that’s pretty darn cool.
• Every day my wife proves to me how smart I was to marry her, and my children demonstrate to me that there’s nothing that could have adequately prepared me for the experience of raising children.
• And then there’s y’all. Or yinz. Or youse guys. Whatever ya call yourselves, thanks for tuning in. I’d probably write this stuff down somewhere, and bookmark these Internet oddities, but it’s much more satisfying to talk to you than just to myself, and there’s less annoying reverb.

I think that’s enough to call it a year, don’t ya think? Feel free to drop a comment about something awesome or not so awesome that you did, or were just in the path of, this year. And when it gets close to midnight on Thursday night, when I raise a glass to the end of this year, consider it hoisted in your direction.

Cheers!

Twilight comes late enough to feel like summer, but the waning daylight is evident, and it’s dark when we put the kids to bed. The transition from summer to fall, however, hasn’t been so much a cross-fade as a knife-switch. It took a while for summer’s dog days to arrive, finally coming in August, but in the span of the last 3 days, it’s gone from sleeping-on-top-of-the-sheets hot to it’s-a-great-day-for-football mild. I half expected to come outside this morning, watch every leaf on our street turn red in thirty seconds, and crash to the sidewalk all at once.

This year’s three-month bivouac at the pool is winding down, and once again the last days inspire both panic and relief. The pool itself is a delight, but it’s the grounds and the community that keep us in its orbit all summer long. We let the kids off leash to run with their toddler cohort, cook on community grills while our kitchen remains cool and un-thrashed, get to enjoy a beer (and sometimes more than one), and mingle with our friends in a pleasant meadow. We don’t even have to arrange to meet anyone. I mean, where else are they gonna go?

On the other hand, it tends to dominate the season. In early June, The missus was frantically trying to get the kids and I out the door. I hesitated, looked back, expressed my need to do something about our unfit-for-habitation living room and said I’d meet them later. “What are you talking about?” she said in disbelief, “The pool’s open! We’ll clean in September! Let’s go!” So, in that sense, we’re looking forward to blowing the dust of our project list and seeing what else there is to do.

One big project did get off the ground, though. The Wife’s other gig has been kick-ass this season. We’ve been blessed with berries and peaches and bread and all sorts of delicious local produce. She also came into this season hell-bent to realize a vision, a bike clinic, staffed with volunteers, who’d teach people about bike maintainence, do some repairs, and generally encourage people to get their bikes on the road. I have to admit, I was skeptical that it could work (and leary of being sucked into it since I already take over the kids on Saturday mornings while she’s market-managing). But lo and behold, smart, motivated people jumped right in, got folks signed up, and the results have been stunning. I worked one Saturday with 2-4 other volunteers, and didn’t stop from the opening bell until an hour after market closed. We’d helped over 30 people tune their bikes, and several of those folks have turned around and become volunteers since then. Meanwhile, some enterprising yoots down ’round the Bloomingdale Farmers’ Market have started up their own bike clinic, which we stopped by on Sunday morning, and it was totally hoppin’.

I gotta say, I’d be proud just to know my wife if I wasn’t lucky enough to be married to her.

Cledus and I had an incredible summer together, logging over 1700 miles and climbing almost 60,000 feet since Memorial Day, bringing my totals for the first two-thirds of the year to over 3100 miles and over 100,000 feet of climbing. Our many miles together culminated in my first ever century, which was far and away the baddest-ass thing I’ve done this year, and raising money and riding for Team Fatty made it even more meaningful. I’ll likely do more centuries, but I’ll always regard that one with a special fondness.

So into fall we go. With school starting, children to transport, backpacks to haul, and layers to carry, the swift-strike of a commute I make on Cledus will be replaced most mornings with the happy rolling melody of Nigel’s fat, creamy tires chewing up bricks, asphalt, and gravel with gusto. To tell you the truth, it’s hard to be sad about the transition when they both put such a big grin on my face. And while I’ve certainly enjoyed racking up road miles, the completion of the big ride and the crisp shift in seasons will mark a return to a more balanced palette of adventures. I’m itchy to throw plastic at metal, which I mostly gave up for training, and longtail camping trips up the C&O are definitely in order now that mosquitoes are no longer part of the experience and there’s enough snap in the air to make the first cup of coffee extra awesome.

Speaking of longtail projects, we’ve convinced more of our friends to take the plunge! They asked what it would take to make it happen, I pointed them towards a beautiful mid-90’s Trek 930 being sold nearby, they wisely jumped on it and pulled the trigger on an Xtracycle kit. And, get this, I’ve got the green light to make an appointment with the powder coater to make the whole rig Taxicab Yellow. (I’m trying to track down checkerboard decals, too, let me know if you’ve got a line on ‘em.) It’s going to be beautiful, and hopefully we’ll get it on the road quickly so we can get them out on the trail sooner than later. They’re excited. I’m excited for ‘em.

All this makes it sounds as if I’m done with road miles. Not so! In fact, another transition is in store as we ride into autumn. I had to face the fact that it’s just not the time or place for me to own a kick-ass single-speed mountain bike. I don’t ride singletrack here, as much as I think I’d like to, so the 4one5 has been relegated to the occasional urban assault, which consists mostly of delighting myself with bunny hops off speed bumps and tearing up the neighbors’ lawns. It needs to be on real trails, wearing knobbies, eating dirt. Meanwhile, I’ve developed an itch for a real road bike. Nothing too fancy, mind ya, but something a little more lithe and a little less linebacker than the Cledus. We’ll have to see what happens.

There’s one more big sunny barbecue left before it’s time to get the long sleeves and hoodies out (or, in the case of my San Francisco brethren, to put them back and get ready for things to warm up). And then it’s harvest and costumes and turkeys and reindeer from there on out.

So whatcha got planned for the end of summer?

A little over a year ago, I stumbled across a great cycling blog, though it already had an eager following of many thousands of folks in the cycling community. The proprietor, Elden Nelson, is an avid cyclist, on and off-road, and a wonderful humorist. I enjoyed every post, and over time gradually got to know a little about him, his riding buddies, and his family.

I also came to know, through his writing, about his wife Susan, her struggle with cancer, her family’s commitment to fighting it, and the cycling community’s response to their calls to help. I was inspired to join the fight, which is why I’ll be riding my first century in the Philadelphia Livestrong Challenge two and a half weeks from now, and why I’ve been asking for your support. I’ll be riding to fight cancer in the larger sense, but specifically, though I’ve never met or spoken with the Nelson family, I committed to this almost a year ago to fight for Susan, and for the Nelson family.

Susan passed away this evening. If you’re so inclined, you might drop a note of love and support. My thoughts and prayers are with the Nelson family tonight, and we’ll keep fighting.

[UPDATE]: This is a beautiful eulogy to Susan. Riding for Team Fatty on her behalf will be an honor, of which I’m probably not worthy, but I’m sure proud have the opportunity to do it.

My mom’s in town, and with an extra hand to wrangle children, I had an opportunity to tackle some tasks this weekend…

This part was awesome.

Saturday morning, the wife and I got up together, had some coffee, and headed off to the Mt. Pleasant Farmers’ Market. I helped with some setting up of InstaShelters for the musicians and bike clinic, then got on the bike and started the first of two laps around the northern part of the city.

I’d stripped Cledus of fenders, lights, and other luxury commuting accessories, getting him down to a svelte sub-30 pounds. Actually, I don’t know how much weight was saved, but the placebo effect was noticeable. I dropped into Rock Creek Park, took the trail to the Capital Crescent Trail, got into some tunes and found a nice pace for the first lap.

I was tempted to fire it up a little, but remembered my commute from earlier in the week and exercised restraint. Last Wednesday, I’d hopped onto the tail of a paceline with some superheroes on the Georgetown side of the CCT, spent five or ten minutes with them, then decided to overtake them. I wasn’t racing or throwing down any gauntlets, I was just listening to Blondie and Debbie wanted me to raise my cadence. But I became aware as I did that there’s no way that a guy wearing a teeshirt and Dickies, riding a steel touring bike with platform pedals, can overtake 5 roadies in skinsuits on skinny tires without making a statement. And so, with great pride and questionable judgment, I stood behind my inadvertent statement and pushed Cledus hard for about 15 miles, feeling their imaginary heat behind me the whole way home.

Racing with unsuspecting commuters is pretty fun and a great workout, but the effort had eaten me up pretty quick, so this time I got comfortable and paid attention to the gorgeous day and the thick, lush woods. After about an hour and a half of steady pedaling, I’d come full circle to home, where I slugged a quart of milk and re-filled my water bottle. 5 miles later I was back at the market inhaling a pint of Tree and Leaf blueberries, and some outstanding peaches.

At about 45 miles I was feeling some fatigue, but I could still keep the chain from slacking, still keep the cranks spinning, and anytime I needed to I could still get off the saddle and fire it up. Once I hit Sligo Creek Park, I left the trail at the first opportunity to ride the road. It’s fairly twisty, and the speed limit’s 25, so I figured some nice smooth asphalt and a little pressure from traffic would be good for the pace (and it was).

A little while later I was home, hammering another quart of milk, filling the water bottle again, and then headed back to the market. Once market was over, the whole family headed over to Wonderland for burgers, Yuenglings, and pink lemonades on the patio, and then home. My total for the day was 61.5 miles, and even with the half hour of crawling Xtracycle pace from early in the morning, I averaged about 14 mph.

A moment to reflect.

Saturday’s ride made for 180 mile week, hopefully put me on pace for another 500 mile month, and brings the year to around 2160 miles.

I’m not quite ready for 100 miles with climbs yet, but I will be. And I’m a long ways away from anything remotely resembling this kind of crazy (Christ, she’s smiling, such a bad-ass).

But it wasn’t that long ago when I rode up to the Metro station on my bike and decided I’d rather ride all the way to work (all five miles!) than take the train. Soon after, Sylvie and Nigel joined the stable, which allowed us to eliminate most of the short car trips, bring the kids with us, and bring home four flats of strawberries when the opportunity arose. Do you have any idea how many daiquiris that is? Let me help you with the math: it’s a helluvalotta daiquiris.

My life with bikes in it is awesome. I wish it hadn’t taken me so long to discover this, but I’m grateful to know it now, and I’m not wasting any more time.

This part was also pretty awesome.

Sunday was pretty clear, thanks again to help from Sainted Mother and Lovely-and-Talented Wife, and the bike room had been left in a catastrophic state since last weekend’s workbench odyssey.

Well, not complete disarray, necessarily. The kind of mess the room was in demanded that everything be disassembled, sorted into heaps, and put back together. Last weekend we’d gotten two steps into that process when I realized a workbench would be part of the solution, and then set about not quite finishing it. So the homogenized heaps of parts and tools have been on the floor, slowly disintegrating and mixing as the two-year-old discovers the nifty doodads they contain. Kind of like Brownian Motion.

It was pretty clear that the workbench drawer and pegboard tasks would need to be completed before order could be restored. Given the late start and the overhead involved in deploying my backyard-workshop, I knew it was gonna be close.

Home Depot went quickly, and without much pain. Mounting the drawer slides into the workbench took some effort, but went mostly without a hitch. Building the drawer itself went really, really well. In fact, I’ve gotten good enough with my homemade jigs and modified router bases that levels of squareness I wouldn’t have thought possible several months ago have become “almost good enough”. I was totally annoyed with Home Depot’s pine stock when two of the boards I was using for the drawer sides were clearly off by at least a thirty-second of an inch in width.

It was hot and sunny, I was pouring sweat and could feel the skin on the back of my neck getting crispier with each passing hour. It cooled down enough, later in the afternoon, for the gnats and a few mosquitoes to come out and play. But by five o’clock, the drawer was built and installed, and by seven I’d framed and mounted the pegboard to hang on the wall behind it. The pegboard’s layout will change, I’m sure, and there’s still a bunch of heaps to put away, but they’ll all have homes in no time.

Behold, a decent workspace!

This is going great.

This part was not so great.

It seems, at this point in the tale, that the whole weekend from the waking moments of Saturday to the waning moments of Sunday were perfect, what could go wrong? Nothing, really. But a tale without some pain and adversity isn’t terribly interesting, so here’s a little spice to finish it off.

My two-year-old son is a joy, I love and adore him, his two’s are going really well and so far haven’t been at all terrible. But last night I was playing keep-away with him, passing his book of cute animals from one hand to the other, letting him jump over me to get it before I passed it back. He was enjoying the game, smiling and laughing giddily.

But over the course of our game, in say five minutes, he punched and kneed me right square in the balls no less than five times, laughing the whole goddam time. When we got to lights out, I gave him a hug and a kiss and said, “Good night buddy, I love you… quit punching and kicking me in my goddam balls.” I mean, five times? It’s hard not to take that a little personally. Ya know?

So, that’s all I got, how was your weekend?

…and we’re back in five… four… three..

Greetings, hot rodders and race fans! It’s a joy and a delight to be back at the… um… Eye Jar? What the hell is an Eye Jar? Anyway, I just flew into the Internet and boy, are my arms tired! Thank you, thank you very much!

First up, for friends and family who’ve been watching the news: the good news is that I was not on or anywhere near the tragic Red Line crash last night. It’s a terrible accident, I’m grateful of course that I wasn’t on that train, and my thoughts are with the families of the dead, and the injured.

The bad news is that I am still putting in 50-100 miles a week on the streets of DC, and the folks I share the road with are eating, rocking out, smoking, talking or texting on their phones, and doing whatever they can to entertain and pleasure themselves rather than piloting their cars and trucks. Sometimes they drive a little bit liquored, sometimes a lot. So statistically, I’m actually I’m in a lot more danger than a Metro commuter. Sorry about that.

Summer’s entrance has been dramatic and wet, full of thunder, lightning, a little hail, and the odd downed tree, but it’s held off the kind of heat that makes us sleep above the sheets, fingers and toes spread, with the ceiling fans on full. Strawberries have been in season, and a couple weeks ago we came into about 4 flats that were just a few days from overripe, so we’ve been enjoying cold, weak daiquiris on a nightly basis since then. But happy funtime’s over, it’s time to get to work.

When I signed up last year to join Team Fatty for the Livestrong Challenge, I had lots going on, but I figured I could keep those plates spinning until about two months before the Philadelphia ride, at which point I’d need to get serious and busy about fundraising and training. The Philly ride is on August 23rd, exactly two months away, so it looks like today’s the day. Over the next couple months, I’ll be putting in a lot of miles, but I’ll also be asking for your help, raffling off things I love and value, maybe even hosting some kind of fundraising barbeque. I’m still working out the details. If all else fails, I’ll be selling my body on the street, raising the remainder the hard way… fifty cents at a time.

Hopefully, with your help, it won’t come to that.

Let’s see, what else has been happening. Oh! Well, when last we spoke, Clovis had been abducted. I hope somehow he escapes his captors, finds a boy (perhaps named “Timmy”), and enjoys his new life running through forests, meadows, and singletrack in the country somewhere. I also hope the bastard that stole him falls into a fissure in the earth and goes straight to Hell.

Since then there’s been some happy additions to the family! Time to break out the pictures…

Shortly after Clovis was stolen, I put in a bid on eBay for a Soma 4one5 singlespeed mountain bike. It was practically new, built up with good components, and I thought about making it into a sexy Xtracycle with an Alfine hub. But since it showed up, I’ve been riding it every chance I get, and it’s been like one of those horrible touching movies where an adult and a kid are thrown together and have to make the best of it but instead of the adult teaching the kid to be more grown-up the kid teaches the adult something about him or herself. There’s no way this bike’s ever going to haul cargo, it’s a light, springy race horse. However, I seem to have picked up a new love, and I predict I’m going to be making my way off the road and onto the dirt a lot more often.

Then, last weekend on Father’s Day, The Wife and I packed up the kids and headed down to First and R St to get coffee and breakfast at Big Bear Cafe, and perhaps pick up some goodies at the Bloomingdale Farmers’ Market. While we had coffee and chased our children, a gentleman we’d met previously came over and excitedly told me he was glad to see us. He and I had talked about bikes and messengering when we’d chatted before, I’d ridden for Elliot Bay in Seattle in the early 90’s, he’d been with Bucky’s. He was leaving in a few days for India, on assignment for the Dept. of Agriculture, and hadn’t found a home for his bike. Rebbie and I had both ridden our haulers, and I figured I could easily tow a bike back home, so we headed over to his house to have a look.

That, dear friends, is an aluminum, epoxy-bonded, 105 equipped 1989 Trek 1400. It weighs nothing. It has very, very skinny tires for someone accustomed to deciding between Big Apples and Fat Franks. It feels very fast. It needs some lovin’, but it’s in fine shape. Naturally I agreed to give it a good home and get it healthy.

Meanwhile, another bike came out of the shed, a somewhat worn, but still quite lovely, Schwinn Le Tour III. Of course I had to ask about what was going to happen to it, of course they said they were going to leave it on the street and someone would take it. I just couldn’t let that happen, because I’m a sucker like that, and I have a little thing for mixtes, so we towed that one back too. She needs some work too, but man, she’s a beaut.

There’s a lesson here, and the lesson is: if anyone’s going to the animal shelter to adopt a pet, it absolutely can not be me, or we’ll end up with 20 dogs and 40 cats.

So that’s what’s on tap for the summer, and likely into fall: some fundraising, lots of riding (by road, trail, and singletrack), and a whole lot of wrenching. And before all that overhauling can take place, the bike room needs dramatic improvements, which will involve some rudimentary carpentry. Good thing too, that’s about the only kind of carpentry I know. Looks like I have my work cut out for me.

Have I mentioned that it’s good to see you again?

PS: I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how awesome my Father’s Day was besides just adopting two new bikes. Did you get hipster cysts, new gloves, and an awesome new bike-tire wallet for Father’s Day from your family? No? Did they cook you up a delmonico steak and put some brie on top for you? They didn’t?

You gotta remember, people: if you succeed in lowering their standards, they’ll love you that much more. Work on ‘em, and better luck next year.

We’ve returned from the West Coast safe and sound, and what a wonderful trip it was.

We had a splendid time at Sorenson’s Resort, just south of South Lake Tahoe and right up the road from Kirkwood, with lots of family. We spent a great day snowboarding, a couple more doing some cross country skiing in fresh snow, played lots of Scrabble, ate a bunch, and enjoyed several early happy hours. We even spent some quality time in a hot tub, listening to a fork of the Carson River below, while the snow fell in big fat flakes all around us. Glorious 8000 foot fat dry snowflakes.

We headed back to the coast and relaxed for the rest of last week. I played a bunch of disc golf at the world-class DeLaveaga, the kids and grandparents got to spend a bunch of time together, we hung out with friends (though not enough of ‘em and not for nearly long enough), sank a pitcher or two at Zeitgeist, and had delicious chile verde burritos in Santa Cruz. The weather was awesome, and the mountains, typically bright, sandy brown with patches of sun-bleached green scrub, were covered in lush dark green foliage. It’ll be fuel by summer, but it’s lovely in spring. I also saw more people in Santa Cruz on bikes than I see commuting in D.C. on a typical day.

But perhaps that will change now that we’re into the meat of Spring. In our absence, the wildly fluctuating 67-degrees-this-week-17-the-next weather has settled into a partly cloudy 50’s and 60’s with nourishing light rains. I was pretty sure that coming back after 12 days off the bikes would be kinda rough, but it hasn’t been. Perhaps it was the cross country at high altitude, or hiking around the course all week, or maybe we just needed a rest, but I’ve been feeling strong pushing Nigel’s cranks around town so far this week.

So it’s back to work, and the bikes need a spring cleaning, and the market season’s about to begin, and it’s just weeks until the warmth yields to heat and we move family headquarters to the community pool for the summer. There’s a lot of planning to be done, tough choices to be made, actions to be taken, bales to be lifted and barges to tote. Winter’s over, the cherry trees are blooming, and we’re ready to rock.

It’s good to be home, anything important happen while I was gone?

(Pictures from the trip after the jump, enjoy!)

(more…)