BFF for my BFFs

(tap tap)
Hello?
(tap tap tap)
Is thing on?
Can you hear me?

That's my kankle.

The Black Friday Fun ride is still on. Historic info on this ride is here.

The plan: Leave the Scoop at 10 AM. It will end at my house. Where I"ll have beer and bourbon and maybe some food.

But Glen is hosting the ride. And if you've not seen Glen since the last BFF ride, then you're in for a surprise.

Photo by Phyllis Benish.

Check him out. Holy hell there's a dude that's killing it lately. Unless you follow CX stuff closely, you'd never know that he came in 2nd in the State CX Championship, Geezer Class, a couple weekends ago. I like to say "Geezer Class" because it's funny, but more precisely, it's Masters 50 Men's. That's a competitive pile of dudes. He won by being fast, but also by being Glen smart. It's a good story. He's promised to tell it during post-BFF drinks.

Also: if you are worried about keeping up with Glen on the BFF ride, you should. But he's handicapping himself by riding the Pugsley and hauling a saw. And if, you don't want to go on the BFF ride but you still want to hang for the bourbon beer part, you can do that too.

Also, while we're on the topic of tooting Glen's horn -- go buy the latest issue of Bicycle Quarterly. You'll note that the NFE is on the cover. Jan gives it a good review too.  The NFE stock project is going gang busters already. I'm thinking this review will make it more gang bustery.

Anyway: go on the BFF ride for those of us that can't. It's always one of my favorite rides every year. Traditionally, it's a ride that I like to do with a CX bike, but this year I was planning on taking my mountain bike. Fat bike works too.

Black Friday -- the 5th year

We're on again for the Black Friday ride.

The plan:

• Leave the The Scoop at 9 am
• Do the first chunk of the NW passage +Mega-church section of the river trail.
• Land at River City Brewery at around 11:30

That's it. You can read more about this ride by browsing the commentary from past years' rides. 

I think we'll see some fat bikes this year. I'll be on my mountain bike, which is a change -- as I've always ridden a 'cross bike. 

And we rode

The Black Friday ride happened and it was hard.

Too hard. I was blaming too much Thanksgiving cheer. And I think that played a part. But really: my milquetoast commutes have slowed my cruising pace and I rarely go all-out on rides anymore.

I need to do harder rides so that when rides like this pop up, they are more fun. While I enjoyed hanging and riding with the BF'ers, it wasn't as fun as it should be, mainly due to my wheezy, cooked-to-soon, tired arse.

The trails were in good shape. Icy stiff pine needles in some sections make for challenging cornering and climbing.

I took one picture.
This is it.

We went bluff to 57th to Pines development to White road trail climb to Eagle's Ridge cliff to Few driveway-down-to-the-cemetery, over the creek, following the creek trail to pop out at the junk yard across 195 through Vinegar Flats under Highbridge to Sandifur to river trail to Mega church (expect a post soon asking the person/people who are paving the Mega Church section of the river trail to frigging stop!) to Nunnery trail across the bridge up Patrick's climb through the city to River City Taproom.

Gage, who has done this ride, and is also the owner of River City Red, opened up his tap room early just for us. He's got an excellent space there and great beers, which are priced super affordably, especially the "Child's Portion" four-ounce pour: $1. Hello.

Here's Hank's take on the ride, with more pictures.

Until next year.

4th annual Black Friday ride

This is a fun ride.

You can see carryings on about past BF rides here.

The basic deal is that it's a trail ride on Black Friday. Unless it snows like a mutha as it did on year one; then it's not a trail ride. 

A little dusting is ok. Rain is fine too.

Anyway, the ride is a fairly brisk pace and sort of technical. Here's my canonical BF ride description and disclaimer post. Please read it if you've not ridden a BF ride before and plan on showing up.

Here's the plan this year:

• Leave The Scoop at 8:30 am. For planning purposes: I wouldn't assume that The Scoop is open.
• Same route: the first part of The NW Passage.
• Much better ending plan this year: we're landing at River City Brewing's new brew pub down on 1st and Cedar. Gage says it will be done. Or close enough for us. Goal is to get there at around 11:30.

High Drive/Bluff trails Tuscan Ridge development

I remember the"Tuscan Ridge" development thing popping up a couple years ago. The idea is to cram 100 condos on the High Drive trails below 57th and Hatch. See red triangle below:

Click for big.

This development would clobber the trails that connect the core High Drive trails to 57th and to the lower set of trails by the other developments. One of my bread-and-butter loops (Corvair section from middle trail) would be destroyed by this development. As well, it would screw up the routing for the Black Friday ride. But perhaps most offensively, is the fact that it's called "Tuscan Ridge." Any design that includes the label, "Tuscan," is bound to be awful: so in addition to blocking off critical trail connectivity, this project would do so with the painfully exurban mono-styling we expect to be assaulted with as we travel to the edge the city limits... but dropped in the middle of the HD trails?

Harsh.

That just destroys connectivity.

So apparently, there's an option for Conservation Futures to buy this land. The Friends of the Bluff group has prepared a slide deck (pdf here) that nominates this land as a potential target for Conservation Futures funds. The deck describes why this property is appropriate for a Conservation Futures purchase -- and is worth a read.

Apparently the Conservation Futures process includes scoring each nominated property. One element of scoring is public support -- so, the more public support a given property has, the better its score.

So: if you ride these trails, or you are just offended by "Tuscan" design in suburban sprawl, or both, or something else: then write a friggin letter of support!  (Actually, griping about the Tuscan design would probably not be a rhetorically effective bit of persuasion -- stick to the trail connectivity, natrual issues, and wildlife concerns...) Send letters of support to kent.moline@gmail.com by September 24. More info on FB page here.

The High Drive trails are an amazing urban trail resource and should not be messed with! I've carried on verily on this blog with HD trail posts. I even have a label. Dig it.

Black Friday Ride v3

Whoa. It's November. How did that happen?

The Black Friday Ride is happening. It's a total crapshoot weather-wise. Last year was insane in its perfectness. The year before that: a tad white.

The plan:

• Leave The Scoop at 8 am.
• Home or Benni's by noon.
• Route: 1st half of the NW Passage is the goal. But if it's deep snow, who knows.
• Bike requirements: should be able to handle swoopy, not-super-technical trails. There are a couple sections of rocky/rooty stuff.
• Cyclist requirements: should be able to handle swoopy, not-super-technical trails. There are a couple sections of rocky/rooty stuff.
• For a more thorough, hand-wringy, fussy description of the ride, check out my weird invite post from a couple years ago.

Black Friday thankfulness ride

Get ready for some really crap pictures.

I consider myself a pretty thankful guy. I have a lot to be grateful for.

But as I sit here, post-BF-ride, sipping on perhaps one of the best beers I've ever had, I am feeling particularly thankful.

Best expressed, bulletily -- as most lists are:

• The weather. What the F happened here? I've been watching wunderground all week. At best I was hoping for some slushy wet cold misery. It was cold when we left Rocket Market at 8:10, but it was approaching 40 already. And by the time we finished -- glorious: sun, clear, amazing, silly weather.

Jake, Gage, Jon, Kory, Geoff, Dylan, Joe2, Silly Weather

• The BF turnout. Off the top, I missed Glen, Pat, Bill and Justin. Verily. And I wouldn't have minded seeing Ben, Wade, Nate, Steph, Hank, and a few others. But wow. We had: Coffee Joe, Joe2, Kory, Jake, Dylan, Gage, Geoff, Craig, The Eberlizer, and Chris. And me. That's 11. And I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting someone. What a great thing. I'm not a "big pack" riding guy, but this was great.
• Spokane trails. I've carried on a lot about how lucky we are to have such great trails so close in. But with a bit of frozen-ness over damp, the trails were nice and ridable today. So that was a bonus.
• Jake and his insane output. I'm actually not that thankful for that. But when Jake says: "there's another way up this [already hard, already too long] hill. It's a bit longer and harder, but it's fun..." that's where I should say, "Sounds great. Hey Dylan -- you should try that!" Instead, of course, I get all puffed up and what comes out of my mouth, is something like, "sounds great, let's do it." Chasing Jake and Dylan up the hard, long way up the hard long hill destroyed me early on. They shat me out the back 1/2 way up and I'm not sure I ever really caught my breath until our group was cut in half by a train.

Joe, Craig.

• Trains. The scenario: the pack is at point A. Point B is about 100 yards away with a train track in the middle. Of course a train is coming. The pack sprints. All but 2 of the pack make it before heeding the panicky non-standard whistle blows from the train's engineer. It could have been longer, but it was thankfully long enough for us to get a proper break while waiting for the 2 smart ones that didn't dash in front of the oncoming freight train.
• The Sun. This is a re-hash of bullet #1. But the weather got so good, it's worth reiterating.
• Funerals. By the time we got to the 2nd part of the ride, we lost Jake, Coffee Joe, Craig, and The Eberlizer. We kind of lost Gage. But just for a bit. We climbed out of that hard sandy steep road across from People's Park and Gage, who was riding a single speed manfully and valiantly, had blown up. He was done. We said our good byes and limped to the cemetery, where thankfully, a funeral procession was just getting started. Being the super respectful lot we were, we took this opportunity to have another long rest while the procession pulled away.

Geoff, Dylan.
Finishing the Mega-Church section of the River trail.

• Chris. As we swooped into the lower part of the cemetery, Chris asked where we were going into the trails -- he wanted to stop by and pay his respects to a dead friend and then catch up with us. The beauty of that deal is that my mom was buried, quite conveniently, just a few plots away. So we took a quick "paying respects" break. I'm thankful to say hi to mom on the day after Thanksgiving, where we sort of stumbled and mumbled our way through the 2nd year without her.

Chris

Kory

Joe2

• Ben, Ann, and the MortBorns: totally unrelated to riding. But TG worked for us this year thanks to great friends that took us in. All my life, I've been in the family gathering that takes in the akward family-less friends on Thanksgiving. Liza, Maddie, and I were the family-less nomads this year and we got hooked up. Including Thanksgiving leftovers... wow.
• Thanksgiving leftovers. No commentary required.

• Crazy good beer. I'm thankful for the Reno guy that tipped me off to the Russian River sour in the comments of this blog. Thanks Reno guy. That put me on the hunt for "Supplication."
• Dylan. He's the guy that came over from Seattle to visit family. He came on this ride. He's a PBP'er and  CX'er and he's strong and super-nce and cool. Open up page 56 of the latest BQ and you'll see him hanging with the heavies in France. He's the guy with the beard. Anyway, he brought me a 6'er of rad sours. Including the Supplication, which I am enjoying immensely now.

Gage.
He just keeps pushing.
And showing up.

• Gage. After we bombed the cemetery trail, we re-grouped under TJ Meenach. The plan was to ride up the trail for a bit to loop the little bit of rad river trail back to the TJ Meenach. (I realize that only makes sense to about 14% of the people reading this). Before we started the climb, Gage said his goodbye's (again) and peeled off. At this point, we were down to Me, Kory, Chris, Geoff, Joe2, Dylan. After we did the loop, Geoff and Kory peeled off, while Dylan, Chris, Joe2 and I climbed up that brutal little bastard of a trail (I call it the Pat Rick trail) at the bottom of Doomsday. As we get to the tippy top and we are riding the trail overlooking the river, who shows up? It's Gage again. He had some slightly confusing-to-me story about how this came to be, but there he was again.

I'm thankful for more than that, but that's the top-of-mind list at the moment. I can't imagine anyone got through all of that....sorry so long!

2nd Annual BF ride

Last year, I really wanted to do the NW Passage ride for our 1st Annual Black Friday ride. It's just so perfect. So, I laid out the plan.

As we got closer to the ride, it became pretty apparent that it was going to be a snowy event.

And it snowed.

So we did a snow ride instead. Which was fun and sort of gruelling in its own way (think short distance, deep snow, high aerobic output), but I still feel sort of cheated out of the NW Passage ride.

So. We'll try again this year.

For specifics, refer to last year's plan. But swap out the right date (Nov 25th). And the time (8 AM, not 7)) and the meeting place (Rocket on 43rd instead of The Scoop).

All the other stuff is the same. What I mean by that is all the carrying on about the type of ride and what you should expect if you come on the ride.

Screw it. All up:
-- Nov 25th - *leave* Rocket at 8 AM.
-- Trails/hard ride
-- Assume about 3.5 hours.

Dylan -- if you are in town, and need a bike, let me know.

Black Friday ride update and general carrying on about snowy cold riding on Thanksgiving morn

I can't get around on the trails. I tried just riding through the snow of Cannon Hill Park last night and it was not rad.

And there's more snow a-fallin, so it won't get easier. But it's going to be warm!



So, ride has been downgraded from a trail ride to a ride-whatever-we-can-get-through-ride.

And we'll leave at Scoop at 8:00-ish.

I made a store run yesterday on the Hakkapeliita-shod CX bike. The streets are basically compact snow that acts like ice. With studs, it's like normal riding. Except yesterday it was about 3F.
My thinking was that it would be lovely to have gears -- since my proper winter bike is a single speed. But, I never really cleaned up the CX bike after the last cross race I did, which was rainy wet lame sandy. So in about 3 blocks of riding yesterday in the freezing temps, my CX also became a single speed. I wanted to blame the brifter, but my guess is that there's water in the cables under the bottom bracket and water in the housing by the rear derailleur. And probably water in the brifter. And any water anywhere certainly froze solid.


Last night was a Benniditos/Park Inn run on the winter bike. That was lovely.

I'm trying to talk Liza into hooking up the kicksled to the winter bike today before we get the turkey on the grill. In any case everyone who is able aught to do a pre-Thanksgiving meal ride.

Rocking the kicksled

Great day today. The first good snow commute was fun. It's days like this, where it's nice and cold and the snow is light and powdery where I love riding a bike like the Rawland. The deep snow likes to engulf the wheels, so disc brakes are nice. I have the big honking 2.3" Neo Moto super turd knobbies on there -- they do great in the snow.


I concede the disc brake superiority now in 2.5 scenarios: deep snow (and that weird icy, wet, 'tweener stage of freaky rim-encrusting-slushiness that happens here about once every two years but happens at least once a winter in Portland) and fast trail riding.

But whatever. I fell once on the way to work today. Re-opened a scab from last summer on my knee. Dang. Other than that, the commute was fun.


I love wintery snowy nights. This is the second night in a row that Liza and I have been able to get out and enjoy the snow. We've made two trips to the grocery store. With one more trip, we'll have all we need for Thanksgiving.

Fresh fallen snow, even with some nice packed stuff under it, is not the best kicksled scenario. We really need a little warmer temperature to melt the snow a tad, then a good cold blast to harden it. That's perfect kicksleding. But we had a good workout tonight. And it was beautiful, and cold, and quiet.


With the snow still falling and the temps nice and low tonight, cross-country skiing looks promising tomorrow. I suck hugely at cross country skiing, but I plan on working on my form. I have the day off and a few hours to hit the park. I shall get better!

About this whole Black Friday thing. Every time I look at the weather prediction it changes. I've seen predictions for a bunch more snow. I've seen predictions for really low temps.



As it looks now, if the snow doesn't get too deep, we may be able to get a few miles in without blowing up. But if it's deep snow, we'll transition to something else. Either skiing, sledding, or just going to the boozer and talking about what we could do.

Black Friday ride

Last August I mentioned a Thanksgiving day ride. Barb commented that doing it on Black Friday instead might be a better idea. She was right.

So I'm not crazy about rides where many random people show up that I've not ridden with, so I don't know what I was thinking, but friends keep asking me about it so we'll give it a shot.

It's not like I don't want to meet new people. But I don't like huge group rides because if everyone is trying to be nice and amicable and patient, then you end up waiting forever for stuff: the random flat, the friend of a friend who is on his way, the weird-o mechanical failure, an unfortunate spill, etc. Then people feel bad because they're holding everything up and some people just want to go and it can be weird. Maybe we can find a way to avoid that weirdness.

Anyway, the plan is to leave The Scoop at 7:30 AM on Black Friday. We'll do the NW Passage loop.

I don't know if the Scoop will be open at this time on this day. It's just a handy spot to leave from.

Apropos of the weirdness mentioned above, let me just throw some stuff out here:

• This is a mountain bike ride. I would call it moderately technical and moderately fast. You should be comfortable bombing around on stuff like the Highdrive trails and Riverside at a moderate speed. That said, this ride doesn't require a dual suspension bike. A CX bike or hard tail will work fine. I'd definately have some tread/knobbie on whatever you ride though.
• I hate the idea of a drop ride: where people who aren't keeping up, are dropped and left for dead.
• I also really don't like the idea of a no-drop ride if there's a lot of people going different speeds.
• Maybe I'm over thinking this. Probably. But what we may do is group at specific spots. Like, the first section would be to drop down into the flat behind the cul de sacs and meet on Hatch and Tomaker. Wait. Regroup, then do the Pines section, then meet at the bottom of White Hill. If that makes sense. So, we're not doing a turn by turn wait, no drop thing, but we are regrouping. Whew.
• Another idea -- let's say the freaks show up. Guys like Ben and Jake for example. They can take a fast and knarly group. I could take a moderate group. Then we'll find a stopper-and-smeller-of-roses to lead the rose-smelling group. That could kind of work.
• There are many bail out options. If you're worried that you ate too much tofurky and won't be able to keep up, but you dig the idea, then at least join in for the first few miles, which is all down hill.
• Not sure how far or how long we'll go. I'll need to be back home by around 1 or so, but enthusiastic folk can keep going. It may make sense to ride until 11:30 or so and end up at Benniditos. Or something.
• This is just a ride with friends... at your own risk, as they say -- don't go showing up and hurting yourself and suing me. You should be self sufficient in the flat-fixing, mechanical department and all that.

Man, I can really kill the idea of a fun ride huh?

Fallizing

This weekend has been a whirlwind of family activity and apple-related goodness. The apple hunt on Friday was pretty good. My two favorite trees were barren, but my buddy Patrick found a couple to replace them and my parents' tree had a banner year. I've had pieces from two apple pies. I made 40 pints of apple sauce. And 5 pints of apple butter. And I've still got about 20 pounds of apples to process.

Liza says we're also getting a pile o tomatoes this week too. And the plums will be ready in a week. And Joe tells me that he's got pears for the taking. Yikes.



Here's some random stuff.



My new Deep V is already dented. I'm bummed. I think if I try to fix it I may break it. I think I'll bring it to Glen of Elephant Fame and see if he can work some magic before I destroy it. I've been running the black CX'y RB-T on the high drive trails just about every morning. I've been really enjoying it and I've progressively been getting more and more comfortable bombing down a section that I used to pick through sort of carefully. I know that's where this wheel found this dent. Erg.

The good news is that the wheel is still true. These rims are tough.



I gave the daily commuter a shake down today. I really neglect this poor bike for how hard I treat it. But not today. I repacked the rear hub (even put new bearings in it. Thanks Willy). I put a new chain on it. And I put new brake pads on it. I don't know of a single bike shop in town that stocks Kool Stop Salmon brake pads for cantilever brakes (smooth posts).


I rarely order from the online price divers, but I this year, I ordered my brake pads from some online-mega-whore-shop. With shipping, I paid about $9/pack for 10 packs. If I order through an LBS, it's a pain for them and me and then they charge me around $12. So there.



Maddie took this pic.

Newman Lake Loop and Welcoming The Hipsters to Spokane

Liza and I had plans to take a mini bike tour this weekend, but some stuff happened and we had to cancel, but we still had Friday cleared. So, we decided to do one of my favorite loops: The Newman Lake Loop. The link there goes to the bikely map of the loop -- just shows the interesting bit, which is up Lehman Road, to Forker, over the hill via Temple Road and down to Newman Lake.

This is a great ride that I've not done for over a year. Last time I went it was April of 2006 and there was a ton of mud. A truck had just been abandoned on one of the tough sections of road back in ought-six (left picture). The truck is still there, but it's been heavily vandalized (right).

Anyway, this ride is another great "fat-tired road bike" ride. It's mostly road, with a nice 5 or 6 miles of dirt -- some county road, some logging road, and a wonderful section of Summer-Only road. A hard climb. A harder descent. And nice views.

We got back into town at around 2pm and had a snack at Madeline's Bakery there on Main and Post. What a great spot to watch folks. I sat there one morning about 2 weeks ago and was really surprised by the number of early morning commuter cyclists I saw. At 2pm on a Friday, it's a whole different show. We saw a bunch of sidewalk riders -- one girl in particular who appeared to be time-trialing on the sidewalk, against traffic, and slaloming through groups of pedestrians. A lot of older BMX dudes. And one righteous dude on a BMX who was doing power skids and bunny hops while slaloming through walkers on Post. Liza was cheering him on -- especially when he wheelied or did other cool stuff.

But then we saw them. They have arrived: the fixie hipsters. Two of them -- complete with spoke cards, top tube pads, deep v's, the clipped and flipped drops on one bike, and... wait for it... the ultra-short "cause I gotta fit through tight traffic" chopped riser bars on the other bike. I've pretty much become a disciple of Mr Bike Snob of NYC with regard to most of the fixed bikes I see in the online galleries. You never see them around here -- until now.

So here I am calling the kettle black. I love riding fixed and I even have a deep V rim on one of my bikes, but my fixed gear bikes are really dorky. I have brakes and everything. So there. I'm cool cause I'm lame. I'm probably jealous because I'm the nerd that doesn't match anything on my bike or what I wear to my bike or even with the other clothes I'm wearing at the time. And I wear SPD sandals. With wool socks. All nerdy by any standard.

The truth of it is I welcome the hipsters. We have a pretty narrow and sickly bike culture here in Spokane and the hipsters are a critical component to any healthy bike culture. Spokane is usually about 5-10 years behind all other cities when it comes to fashion and fads, so this timing is about right for the fixed hipsters to move in.

That said, it was still a shock to see these well-kept hipsters grooving down Post on their boutiquey fixed bikes. I'm happy that I will have to get used to seeing more. Welcome hipsters. Welcome to Spokane.