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.

Wheel build, interupted

The Deep V on the Shogun finally gave up the ghost after many years of faithful service. After a bunch of procrastination, I finally got a new rim ordered and some spokes and set down to build up the new wheel today.

First step: get the hub out of the old wheel. Liza serenades while sipping a bourbon -- this makes the tedious job of de-spoking a Deep V much better. She's singing "Tonight You Belong to Me."

Second step: lace it up. Doh! It's a 32 hole hub. That would be a 36 hole rim. Dammit. Thankfully, one of Liza's best tunes is "Always Look at the Bright Side of Life."

48 lbs of ice

Another post about running. Sorry.

For those of you waiting with bated breath... I had a minor running break-through yesterday with Mr. Bloom.

It was this: we ran for over a half-hour. And I ran through some knee stuff that's been wigging me out and it all worked and my brain complied.

That's it.

In other news, someone has named a bit of the River Trail.

Lucy's Trail

This is right after the Mega-Church section of the trail (heading north). It would be cool to see the Mega-Church section signed too. In fact, it would be cool to see all the trails signed like this.

Running mind games and other random stuff

Running is a total mind game for me right now. It's not physically that difficult to go and run a few miles, but mentally it's ridiculous. I need a break-through. I need to run more and farther and get through this crappy funk.

I want to try that beer in the picture above. It's like $25, so I'm hesitant. Some sours are too sweet/fruity for me. The Bruery is reputed as a solid brewery... and the description on their page is intriguing.

Glen did a small batch of bikes with unicrown forks. These are sweet forks. These photos are before the disc tabs went on them.

Praying mantis on my tent a week or so ago... giving thanks, no doubt. I'm wondering if that guy was attracted to the tent because of the similar color?

Liza is carrying her famous rhubarb pie here, but I like this photo for the color of the bike, which looks like goldenrod - one of my favorite colors). In real life, the color is yellow-er and less rich.

First day of 5th grade. Our buddy Theo started kindergarten.

Maddie and I made this bitchin' bundt cake a few weeks ago. It's chocolate zucchini with a triple-sec icing. It was my Grandma's recipe -- she had it at some high-zoot restaurant in D.C. back in the '70s and spent a year reverse-engineering the recipe. It's an excellent way to burn through some zucchini. At some point, I'll put it on my mostly-dead food blog.

Is two a "trend?"

This is the second Panaracer Pasala that has blown out a sidewall on me in the last few months.

The first one happened as I was riding. This one happened as I blew it up after mounting it. Judging by the monster hole in the tube, it looks as though I caught the edge of the tube between the rim and bead.

These are the cheapest Pasalas out there, so I'm not too crazy with angst, and pilot error is clearly the core issue here, but should that sidewall just rip out like that? I've never had other tires do that, and given the large number of flats I repair in a year, I end up pinching a tube between the tire/rim every now and then.

Whatever. I just put in an order for some Maxxis commuter tires. Well officially, it's a "training" tire, but it's a mostly-slick 28mm with a bit of puncture protection. I've become a Maxxis fan. I dig the Locusts for all-rounder trail/CX tires, the MaxLites for single-speed city cruising and Maddie-bike applications, the Aspen for dry trails, and the Ignitor for most mountain biking. Anyway, these new ones, the "Re-fuse" tires, will live on my 747 in fender-commuter mode. I'll report back on how they do.

Snyder Bike Hang: September 12

Rocking the Rawland in Ferry County

Buddy Jon is running for re-election for District 2 City Council. He's up against an old-school conservative guy with good name recognition. Given the balance of power across the Mayor's office and the Council, this year's race is particularly important -- it's critical that Jon holds his seat and the Council can have a 4-person progressive vote.

So, to this end, Liza, Maddie, and I are hosting a house party/bike hang at our house on Sept 12.

The goal is to raise some money for Jon and give folks an opportunity to meet and talk to Jon. If you are a bikey person in Spokane, I encourage you to come by and have a listen. If you like what you hear, consider donating a few bucks to Jon's campaign.

No one (except the deep pockets that own this racket) like the $ part of campaigning. In fact, it seems that reasonable, decent people are generally disgusted by the whole thing. If you're one of those, I'm with you, but until that system changes, it's the system we must operate under.

Racing the Twilight Criterium

In any case, Jon is the kind of politician we want in Spokane: he's smart, progressive, an excellent listener, and a super hard worker. This is all true. I shared an office with Jon for over three years and I got to know Jon as well as I know anyone. He's quick to consider alternative opinions and always down for an adventure.

We've been on a number of rides together. One of my favorite day rides ever was with Jon and Patrick in the Colville Nat'l Forest. Jon is a daily (yes, even in the winter) bike commuter. You can read more about his daily riding and his commuter bike here (pdf). I tell you this because many politicians give lip service to "being green" or "alternative transportation," but Jon lives it daily. When he argues for transportation alternatives, he does so with deep policy knowledge, but also from a perspective of first-hand experience of what it means to be a cyclist, pedestrian, and transit rider.

Posing with daily driver: Kogswell 

While the alternative transportation stuff means a lot to me -- and I believe cities that include policy and infrastructure for "active transportation" are just better cities to be in -- Jon is not a one-trick pony. You can see some of the stuff Jon's done in his last 3.5 years on the council here and here.


Bike Hang Deets

• When: Sept 12, 6:30 PM.
• Where: Our house. If you don't know where that is, send me an email. john at phred dot org.
• Food: we'll have our standard "feed a big crowd" pile of pinto beans, pork, salsa, chips.
• Beer: River City Brewing Girlfriend Golden Ale.
• Glen, from Elephant Bikes, and Matt, from Matthew Larson Wheelbuilding, will be here with some examples of their work. These can be hard guys to pin down outside of their shop or at races -- so if you're never in either of those places AND you want to chat with these guys, come by and interrogate them.
• RSVP: that would be ideal, but don't let a lack of protocol stop you from dropping in. 

Trail-riding on the Kogswell. With a broken spoke.