One of those flat days

That's Patrick. He's carrying his bike because it doesn't roll with a flat. It's a combination of an old Araya 700c rim with a Pasala tire. When that tire is flat on that rim, it doesn't roll. It flops around. Check out his smile. This is picture was taken about 1/2 way through a mile walk to the road. We had to call for a pick up. That sucks. But Patrick's smile rules. It's great to be screwed and finally throw in the towel and call for a ride and see a smile like that.

Here's the run down of flats we had today on our ride to Cheney:

#1 - Me: On the way to meet Patrick, I run over a staple. I have a spare tube, so I don't bother patching the flat. As I'm changing the flat in the rain a buddy, John, comes wandering up. He's on his way to work. It's nice to change a flat and chat with someone.

#2 - Me: Patrick and I rode from downtown to Cheney today. Right at the end of the paved section of the Fish Lake Trail, as we were about to get onto Cheney-Spangle road, I get another flat; this one is a big hole. The tire has about a 1 mm gash in it. The only spare tube I have doesn't have a long enough stem for the deep V on my Trek, so I get out my patch kit, only to find I'm out of glue. The tiny knob of glue that's in there is dried up. Patrick has no patch kit. We walk the mile into Cheney and buy a patch kit at the LBS.

#3 - Patrick: Pinch flat. Snake bites. We're on our way back and we're taking the non-paved part of the trail: lots of rail rock and big stuff. I give Patrick my spare. As I mount it, I rip the stem on the sharp edge of the stem hole in the rim. So, I give Patrick the extra tube I have (the one with the short stem). Patrick loads up the tire, pumps it up and away we go.

#4 - Patrick: About 20 yards down the trail, the tire explodes. The tire wasn't seated properly. So, Patrick patches up the tire that had the snake bike/pinch flat and we're off.

#5: About 30 yards down the trail, the patch gives out. The snake bite is too wide for a small patch. So, I try patching the tire with the ripped stem. No luck. We patch another patch on top of the snake bike patch, and it holds. This is our last tube. As Patrick pumps it up, that sharp rim edge on the stem hole gets the best of the stem and we're done.

I hand Patrick the phone.

We walk. He gets picked up. I ride back to town.

We had a great time. It's nice to ride with someone who continues to be chilled out and smiling as we dig deeper and deeper into our hole.

Selling Patrick's stuff

Patrick, of Scoop fame, is a buddy of mine. He's selling two interesting cycling items. I told him I'd post them here because he's a buddy, but also, because this frame should be put to good use.

It's a 1983 Trek 520 (56cm). The 1983 version of this popular model was special. Unlike the 520's that came after it, the 1983 520 used caliper brakes (not canti's) and it was a low-trail bike. In fact, the geometry is pretty close to Rene Herse randoneering bikes from the 50's (parallel 73 HT/ST; 55mm offset; "square" HT/ST length. It's also got pretty nice tubing: Reynolds 501 (not 531, thanks SteveP); 9-6-9 butted profile on the main triangle.

I had this same frame and hacked it into a canti-wearing, 650B-shod porteur. A worthy project. But ultimately, I discovered that the porteur configuration wasn't for me. I ended up trading the frame (in part) for my new cycle truck.

Anyway, Patrick is selling this frame. It's $200 and a bargain considering you'll not find anything approaching the quality of a USA-made, silver-brazed lugged frame (with interesting geometry) like this in production today... for anything close to $200. But I'm a nut for these kinds of frames and I probably wouldn't sell it because I'd hate to have someone lowball me. It would be hanging in my basement, or loaned out. So buy this frame, don't haggle, and enjoy it.

Apparently, Patrick will ship this frame. That's another thing I wouldn't do. For a couple reasons, but I'm droning on long enough here, so I'll spare you the rationalization. By the way: the headset is shot.

Item #2: Ye old Xtree.

$300. That's a $150 (+shipping) savings on this one for local buyers. For out-of-towners: No shipping on this one. Includes everything that Xtracycle includes except the long cable and cable housing for the rear derailleur.

Interested in either of these gems? Email Patrick: psully82 AT hotmail DOT com.

193 days

I work at a software company. Like all software companies, there are engineer types everywhere. And there's nothing engineering types LOVE more than data. Numbers man. Numbers.

Numbers can be combined and compared to create wonderful pictures of data, known as charts. But the holy grail of data views appears to be the pivot table. I once had a boss who wrote a bunch of the code for the Excel pivot table when he was a lad. He was really into that. Thankfully.

Here are some numbers. Mostly worthless, but I've been keeping track so I might as well do something with them. No pivot tables. Sorry Brent.

These are the bikes I've ridden on my commute for the last 193 days I've come into my office. The obvious commuter-style bikes rise to the top. The trail, dirt, CX, load-haulers -- which I ride a ton as well, don't show up much here.

So, without further ado. In priority order:

59 days: The Lyons 747

The finest bike I've owned. Rides fast and cushy. Love it.

44 days: RB-T, also referred to as, the "Urban RB-T".

Once the new Elephant comes, this bike will be redundant. I don't know if I can let go of this frameset though. It's such a versitile work horse of a bike.

These top two bikes make up the Contador and Schleck of the standings. All others are distant chasers. Note the drop off...

18 days: The CX RB-T, also referred to as, "my only bike with a soul."

15 days: The Shogun. Fixed gear loveliness.

I bought it, built it up, rode it. Sold it to Patrick (of Scoop fame). Bought it back. Built it up, rode it. Sold it back to Patrick. Patrick still has it. But I wouldn't mind having it back. It's my favorite all-rounder fixed gear: equally happy on the High Drive Trails and for the (very) occasional commute. I have a an old RB-1 frame in the hopper that may replace this gap in the line up.

13 days: The Rawland.

This only goes to work with me when it's deep enough snow to put the monstor motos on there. Otherwise, it's a mountain/dirt/trails/overnighter bike.

11 days: The Hacked RB-1, also known as The Resurrecto.

I miss this bike sometimes. It's a fun bike. It was really fun on long dirt rides where you want cush, speed, comfort, and fast handling. It went to a good home, so it shall be resurrected again someday.


11 days: Trek 720.

Kitted up in this picture as a fixed gear in the ice. Now, this one sees a lot of use on the weekends as an 8-speed porteur. Good guest bike with the 8-speed hub in there.


9 days: The SH-80 Cycle Truck.

I ride this bike a lot on the weekends and early mornings with Maddie. We have a little seatbelt figured out on there for her now. While I don't do a ton of miles on the SH-80, I tend to use this bike more frequently than most of my other bikes for tooling around and quick runs -- it's set up with campus pedals and an easy/comfy riding position, so it's easy to grab when you're not in a big fat hurry. Lighting system and a new fork are forthcoming.

6 days: Kogswell.

A friend of mine gave me this frame. I had some forks for it, built it up, and rode it around for a few weeks. The frameset has just recently found a new home -- but will take some time to become a bike again.

The wheelset will go on my forthcoming Elephant.


3 days: Phil's RB-T

I gave this to a buddy recently.

2 days: CB-Zip.

Man I wanted to like this bike. But it rode like the tubes were filled with cement. Sorry Ken.

2 days: Bridgestone MB-2.

Hacked with horizontal dropouts. More to come on this. I just scored a 7-speed internal hub with a coaster brake. The bike is now waiting on some bars from Alex and we'll have a good guest-snow-all-rounder-cruiser-trail bike.

Mission: Road 200

This is what the end of a road looks like.

Pat Rick and I set out to get to the end of Road 200. Like all other roads not on the map in this area (NW chunk of Colville Nat'l Forest), the road terminated after a bunch of climbing.

Suits me. I'd rather find a loop or a connection to another road, but it's fun to explore these off-shoot roads. Patrick and I have bagged just about all of NW-pointing roads off of the main S Boulder Creek road -- for 9 miles. So we're about half way done with one side of the road.

 Then we'll work our way down the other side. It's a good project and requires someone like Patrick, who prefers no maps, no plans, no goals when he does this stuff. He's a perfect fit for road exploring.

I'm GPS'ing most of the routes. Once they are all laid out, maybe there will be some connections that are close enough to warrant more investigation and serious bush-whacking.

We rode for about 6 hours. We went 30 miles. 15 of those miles and 5.25 hours were spent climbing and bush-whacking.

Patrick: "I saw a road that connects to those birches over there."

Road 325. All climb. We'll be heading back there to
check out a handful of marked-but-not-mapped roads.

End of another road.

Post-ride ride. We put fatter rubber on the trike.
Maddie is going to be psyched.

Rain Ride

An unrelated string of events lined up in the last week or so that resulted in my being able to take an unplanned week of vacation this week. It's really a great treat to be able to take a vacation without going somewhere. Just not working for a week without extensive plans is righteous.

Today, I rode in the rain for most of the day. And I took my "good" camera. Lots o shots.

This is good rain too. Click the first image up above to see the sheets of rain hitting the street. But it's warm. It was about 55 all day, so riding around mostly wet is fun.

First off, I took the leap. I bought some Rain Legs. These are the height of bicycle nerdom, but they are great. They keep your thighs dry, which, if you're riding with fenders and a rain jacket, is the only place that gets super wet otherwise. I was happy to have them and based on initial impression, I'd recommend them. By the way, I bought them from WallBike. I've not seen Rain Legs at any LBSs here in Spokane.

I met Patrick, of Scoop fame, at his shop at 10:30. We rode down to his place in West Central and picked up his bike trailer. On the way we stopped at Sandifur bridge and saw a lot of water. A lot of water. Too much water.

When we got to Patrick's house, Elissa was there, baking cookies with Miyo and Ruby. I got a cookie that was still warm. Yum. As she handed me my cookie, Elissa did a double take and then promptly made fun of my Rain Legs, "oh my god! are you wearing chaps??" And all was right in the world.

Then Patrick and I went off to pick up a tree and find lunch.

After treeing and lunching, we said our good byes and I headed to the Eastern Washington Regional Office of the Washington Department of Transportation to meet with Melanie and Jody. They're engineers that are working on the "US 195 Hatch Road to I-90 Project." That's the one that touches Fish Lake Trail, the Latah strip mall area, and numerous other bits of suburban and rural properties.

I'm still processing. In the next few days I'll post a full report of my digestion of that project. But my immediate take-away is awe. I can't believe we (the royal "we:" our society) are even considering these types of projects at this stage of the game. The I-90/Hatch project is behind the North/South Corridor project (NSP) in terms of priority and funding and the NSP is mired in deep poo, so the likelihood that we'll see the I-90/Hatch come to fruition any time soon is difficult for me to buy. Anyway. Here's a teaser of what a Hatch and US 195 interchange could look like in some version of our future:

After my talk with Jody and Melanie (who, by the way, were super gracious and accommodating in allowing me to invite myself into their work day), I went off to REI to ride home with Liza. Yay.

In the picture on the left I think she's laughing at my Rain Legs. The picture on the right is a good "Bike Spokane" type promo shot.

The day ended with a BAB meeting downtown. The big news from that meeting is that SpokeFest is a strong "go" now. Lots of interest and some good sponsorship popped up over the last month or so and it's going to be really cool. This whole bicycling thing appears to be catching on.

Good day. I could get used to not working.

Going global

Click for big.

Patrick, of Scoop fame, was in Japan for most of the month of December. He bought a bunch of used cycling magazines. Most of them are touring, pass hunting, and utility bike related magazines. I don't know what the hey they say, but the pictures are so good, that it makes me want to spend a year touring Japan. I've been to Tokyo for about a week years ago and I loved the city, but the rural/country touring potential kills me: many hot spring baths, great food, tidy/nice culture. I'm dying here.

Anyway. Patrick was leafing through a used magazine he had purchased down the street from his parents house, when he saw this Cat Eye light ad. Turns out we know that street. It Monroe. And we know that dude on the bike. It's Jake for f's sake! I'm pretty sure he's not running a Cat Eye. But whatever. That's flipping cool.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that it's a Tobin photo. And that it was taken with the same batch of pics that went into the Inlander for the cover photo of a Joel Smith bike article.
Cool.

Reminds me of this.

In another magazine that Patrick brought back was an article by and about a super rad dude on a super rad drop-bar knobbie bike that did a super rad tour of somewhere super cold. I want to find him and invite him over for a week of hanging in the local Nat'l Forests. I think he would find it super rad.

Here's the cover of the Jake-Cat-Eye-ad magazine. Dig that bike. The tires don't make sense to me, but the rest of it does. If you knobbified and fatified those tires it would be ready to rumble. Seriously, the bike scene in Japan, at least as reflected by these magazines, is really refined. It's like they take the best of the French constucteurs and munge it with a Surly sensibility and finish it with a bit of Rivendellesque attention to detail and turn out a lot of cool and weird bikes.

For example, here's Liza's dream machine:

Seriously. Liza loves this bike. And she wants it. I can see that.

My 39th birthday

Friday birthday lunch at mom's. That's apricot btw.

Watching this morning's tour stage with Patrick at The Scoop.

Joe, Patrick, and I took a great trail ride this morning: an extended version of the Sunday morning SOS loop.

My 39 year old mug. Liza says I look smug. Actually, I'm just not the most photogenic guy on the planet.

Joe and Patrick minding the rules. It was busy at Bowl and Pitcher this morning.

Yay. Maddie made me a double-sided poster and a card. And was super rad to me all day today: for example,, when she brought me a mid-day beer, she delivered it with my favorite glass.

I sat down to string up a wheel. I started it on Friday, but it appeared the spokes were too long so I set it aside after stringing up the first set of spokes.

Thinking on it over a couple days, I figured it was just the odd combo of tiny rim with honkin' hub that made the spokes seem too long: maybe everything would work itself out when I tensioned it up.

Nope. The spokes are too long.

The issue? The Sturmey Archer specs page says the flange width is 58mm. And it is. But Spocalc wants distance from center of hub to flange. I just put 58mm in the flange field and should have put 29 for both left and right center-to-flange measurements.

Damn. So I ordered another (ahem, my third) set of spokes for this build.

Liza made a great big pot of puttanesca and some green beans with garlic scapes. I made a Caesar salad that was a bit disappointing. I'd give anything for the Caesar dressing recipe we used at Patsy Clarks a million years ago. I probably made 100+ gallons of that dressing when I was in high school and I'll be a monkey's uncle if I can remember the details.

The puttanesca was great.

Maddie provided entertainment with the mud pie. Beth is clearly riveted.

I'm a lucky guy.

Mount Spokane S240 wrap up

Patrick, Willy, and I left downtown at about 10:45 am on Friday. We made a quick grocery stop and we were on the Centennial Trail, heading east, by 11 AM. We took the Wellesely/Lehman hill to Forker to Mount Spokane Road route. Good times. With lunch along the way, we landed at the Vista House at about 3:30.

The climb to the summit of Mount Spokane is like a big hill with two hard climbs in it. The summit is 5700 feet. Roughly, the 3000-4000 ft piece is a hard section and about the 4200-4900 piece or so is also hard.

After laying around and eating at the Vista House, we rode about 300 ft back down the mountain and found a cool spot to sleep for the night. Patrick and Willy slept in the foundation of an old building, while I found some trees nearby to string the hammock between.


I lost my water filter last year and finally bought one for this trip. I got an MSR gravity flow filter. It rules. Why pump again? It's light, it's easy and you can do 4 liters in about 10 minutes.


Patrick and I rolled down into Spokane and were enjoying breakfast by 9 am this morning. Willy doesn't work until Monday, so he took off down a trail that drops down the east side of Mount Spokane and puts you in Spirit Lake. From there, he's off to Priest Lake. He's looking at about 100 miles of trail, dirt road, and back road riding today. Lucky.

He's got the GPS fired up. I can't wait to see the route he ends up taking. I'll be sire to report back here.


This is my 400th post. Mother of pearl.