Trails and Climbs - Far and Near

GDR'er

Mr. Blaine is out. A few days ago David hadn't SPOT'd for about 24 hours and had only a short check-in where he mentioned a stomach problem. He dropped out of the race a few days ago with a high fever. I was thinking of keeping the GDR-links here to see the race through, but when I learned that David wasn't in the running, I sort of stopped keeping track of the other racers. So, if you want to keep track, you best book mark this link: http://greatdividerace.blogspot.com/

However, I am interested to see how Jen Hopkins does. Jen is also a single-speeder. And a woman. Both of these attributes put her in a special class for record-holding in the GDR. She and David were in the same neighborhood for a day or two as they rode. She's holding up well.

Mr. Blaine: you gave it a go and I'm certain you'd be rolling over the finish line next week if not for your fever. I would love to know more about your ride, and I hope you provide a ride report on your blog. My hat is off to you sir for the attempt.

A couple days ago

I rode around the Gov't Way/Palisades Park area. Last time I did this specific ride was with Joe about 4 years ago. It includes a climb up the side of Rimrock. And not the "climb" we normally talk about when we're talking bikes, but a real "climb" where you have to climb about 15 feet of ledge-rock. The alternative is to back track a mile or so of steepish-single-tracky-rocky-old road. And after earning my way up that stretch of hill in the 90 degree heat, I'm not turning back for a stinking rock wall.

The picture above shows the base of the climb. With two people this is easier, but I figured out a way to climb this by put the bike in front of me as shown here. Then, you pick the bike up, set it up the hill an arm's length away. Hold the brake. Climb up closer. Repeat. It works well as long as you can sort of stand on the hill/ledge. When the drop becomes too steep, as it does here at the end, it's a "hope you have good footing and throw-a-bike" kind of deal.

Here's how the bike "landed." Nice Spokane view there in the back ground.

This last picture shows where the road ends. I think many years ago the road went where the erosion/cliff deal is now. Today, there is a trail that leads you up to a bunch of big rocks, which put you at the base of the climb. And that's the easiest climb out of there.

By the way, the picture at the very top of this post is down by the river, just below SCC. There is a great trail from the Centennial Trail. Here's my guess of where it's at:

View Larger Map

This is an old timey trail. I think I first rode it when I was about 16. It was my first intro to "mountain biking." Course now, it's way more fun on a drop-bar'd fattish tired road bike.

Speaking of Flats

My brother-in-law is in town for a week. He brought his bike, which he's just starting to kind of ride more. He got a flat today on his way up the south hill. He had all the stuff to change his flat, but had never changed a flat on a bike before.


Some other cyclist stopped and helped him out. Cool. If the anonymous cyclist is reading this: thanks for being a cool cyclist.


I always try to stop and make sure broke down cyclists have what they need. I'm pretty good at it, but I'm going to be better, because my BIL, who is quiet and probably didn't go on and on with thanks, was really thankful. It's a nice way to bring new cyclists into the fold as well.



SmartRoutes

If you want to know what Spokane would do with $50 million dollars for a transportation mode shift to include more cycling/walking, read the SmartRoutes plan. This plan was just released today and will go off to the US DOT for the 2010 Transportation funding cycle.

A bunch of people threw in on this plan to pull it together in the last couple months. The main driver was Eve Nelson at SRTC. It was a herculean effort to make this happen. Nice job Eve.

Italian dude with his folder. Liza took this picture a couple years ago. She asked him if he would mind if she tooka shot of his bike.He said he didn't care, then he struck this pose.

Great Divide Update


Mr. Blaine is hanging in there; he's about in the upper middle of the pack. Sounds like stomach issues are plaguing him. The number 2 rider dropped out today as did another rider. From the GDR update page, it sounds like this is where things go from miserable to gruelling.

Exploring Dirt Roads

The plan. Click to go to Bikely and see the route.

I like finding new dirt roads and exploring areas that are not traveled frequently. These two goals go hand in hand. On Friday, I'm going to check out a stretch of forest that I've looked at a lot online, but have not actually ridden much. The section in the picture above is about 18 miles of logging/back roads between Freeman and Green Acres. From the looks of it, we'll see some good climbs and lots of dirt roads and hopefully some nice views.

Sometimes it's hard to find a route through these kinds of areas. If you go to Google Maps and look at this area, this route is not apparent unless you toggle between Map view and Satellite view. Those are apparently two different data sets of the same area.

I wish Google Maps or Google Earth had an easy way to export paths to a Garmin-compatible format (gpx). Instead, I have to load up the route into Bikely, then output as KML (because the gpx that Bikely outputs is not compatible with the Garmin software I use -- it used to be, but something changed), then use some freeware to convert KML to Garmin-happy GPX, then dump the GPX onto my GPS unit. This will give us a basic route to follow.

If you look at the satellite imagery of this area you see a bunch of dirt roads, so it's important to have something to get through them. I used to have a bunch of maps and carry a compass, which I was only sort of good at using. But now, with GPS, any Nimrod (sorry Tarik) can get lost and die in the middle of nowhere when the batteries die!

Blaine Update

• Check out 100km; Jason is doing some good updates there.
• Mr. Blaine is holding his own plus some. According to the Leader Board, David was first into Wise River checkpoint yesterday.
  
• I worry for his rest.
  

Following the GDR

A GDR race named Simon.

Picture sniped from the GDR update site. Click pic to go to the site.

I've spent a bit of time watching progress for the GDR race. I don't really know David Blaine that well, but it's still more exciting to keep track of the race when you have even a wee bit of a connection to one of the racers.

So, going into Day 3, one racer has already dropped out at 26 hours into the race. His rack broke and zip ties would not fix it.

Check out the links I added up there on the right. I think they are the most interesting.

Here's a run down what they offer:

GDR Update

For daily updates go to GDR Updates. A couple days ago they posted a quick bio/pic of each GDR rider. This is good stuff.

Click on the pics for high resolution pictures where you can see a good close up the bike/gear the riders are hauling. I spent about an hour pouring over those pictures yesterday.

Gear and bike choices for this kind of event are all about trade-offs. I think David's approach of optimizing for simplicity is the way to go. It seems you should minimize the uncontrolled variables. I look at some of these double-suspended mountain bikes with index shifting and carbon bits and I'm skeptical. More complexity means more tools/parts, which means more weight, bulk, and general packing fussiness, which I would think are the biggest enemies of such a race.

Man, that's some serious arm-chair quarterbacking.... apologies. As someone once said: these guys have chunks of guys like me in their stool.

GDR Leader Board

Anyway, For a run down of who is where in the race, check out the spreadsheet at GDR Leader Board. Right now, Mr. Blaine is in 3rd place -- but really, it looks like there are 5 guys at the front within a half hour of each other.

David's SPOT Finder

SPOT shows near-real-time-updates of where Mr Blaine is at. You can also look through the time stamps to get a feel for his speed and rest. He did well last night. Looks like he slept for around 7 hours or so. That's good sleeping. I wonder how his rest patterns will evolve over the course of the race.

Tuesday Bike Stuff

Item #1 - Jonathon Chung

Jonathon is from Taiwan. He's been riding around North America since last August. He's traveled 7400 miles so far. I've been signed up as a host on the warmshowers list for over 2 years now, and while I've taken advantage of others' hospitality, Jonathon was my first guest. Yay.

What a cool guy; very gracious.

Some facts:

• 50 lbs of gear
• Started from the mid-west, went to Toronto, then down the east coast, through the south to San Diego, then up the west coast to Vancouver BC. Now he's on his way back down to LA via the Great Divide.
• His visa expires in August so he's flying back
• He's replaced a spoke, 3 rear tires, the rear cassette, and the rear derailleur. Not bad.
  

Item #2: Bad Lands Summer Twilight Series race at Lincoln Park

My friend Taylor (no. 240) came in 3rd in the "B" class. The first 3 finishers were all within a foot or so of each other as they blasted over the finish line. What a great race. It's fun to watch and learn about racing and the Lincoln Park race is perfect because it's such a small course. You can walk around and see the different sections and the challenges in each section.

Taylor (in blue) and the dude in red broke away from the pack early in the race for a $2 preme. (Cha-ching!) The guy who won the race ended up breaking from the pack in the last few minutes, but otherwise the pack stayed back by about 20 seconds for the entire race after the preme. For the majority of the race, Taylor pulled the guy in red up a slight grade at the back side of the course, while Taylor drafted the red guy on the down grade.

Next Lincoln Park crit is July 15th at 6PM. Put it on the calendar now. This is a great after-work no-money-fun event.

Item #3 - BAB'ing

I wish I could've stayed to watch the C's and A's race, but I had to get down to East Central Community Center and pitch my favorite route to the neighborhood council. The route goes through Playfair, which is going on the auction block very soon.

My mission was to get the neighborhood to make sure bike/ped access is baked into the plan regardless of who ends up with this key connection. The neighborhood ended up passing a resolution that supported access to Playfair as long as it didn't disrupt the sale -- so it's sort of a good thing, but I would've liked a stronger statement with some bite.

Item #4 - Mr Blaine update

According to SPOT, it looks like he's bedding down outside of Libby MT tonight on the southern tip of Lake Koocanusa. The race starts on Friday.

Item #5 - FBC Ride tomorrow night

Meet at Benidittos South at 8. Ride at 9.

Loren and David

That's Loren. I've known Loren for over 20 years. Nice guy - a kind and gentle soul. I caught him today just as he finished riding his bike up Monroe. The steep part of Monroe. The crazy steep hard part. With a full team's worth of baseball crud slung over his back. Strong guy, that Loren.

Here's the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: it's Huckleberry's! There's a rainbow there. Damn phone camera.

New links at the top right. Mr. Blaine is heading for Montana on Monday. A week from tomorrow, the Great Divide Race begins. Check out the SPOT link. David can push out regular notifications of where he's at on the course. Pretty cool.

I'll attempt semi-regular updates of David's progress here.

Good luck to you sir.