Trail Riding at Riverside State Park

Well. There they are. Joe's super fancy nice Karate Monkey and my mountain-afied Rivendell Atlantis. We met up this morning and rode out to Riverside State Park to do the initial shakedown ride on our newly built-up bikes. A few thoughts on some of the stuff that plodded its way through my brain on the ride:

• RSP is a wonderful place. We met downtown at 6AM and were on the trails by 6:40 or so-- we would've been earlier if we didn't noodle around on some trails around People's Park. The point: we're lucky to have such an amazing network of trials so close to town.
• Riding rocky single track is a whole different ballgame with 2.1" knobbies when compared to 35mm semi-slicks. It's just more fun.
• Riding 2.1" knobbies on smooth fire trail and pavement (the combination of both likely made up about 85% of our mileage this morning) is tiring and hard to get used to. Now I understand why so many folks drive their bikes to the trials. It's still cheesy. But I understand the temptation now.
• A quick ride on the Karate Monkey confirmed something that I wasn't ready to concede: 29ers do appear to roll better for these conditions. In general Joe's bike is just bigger and feels right for the kind of riding we were doing. I'll need to spend more time on the KM before I am completely sold on the 29er idea. There are many differences between the bikes we rode this morning to attribute just to tire size. Plus, I know it's silly on the face of it, but really, 650b (584mm) does make a bunch of sense to me as a good mountain bike size. The Rivendell folks are building a 650b mountain bike. And Pancenti was showing a 650b mountain bike at NAHBS.
• Mountain/Trail riding is all about the bursts of energy. I forgot about how in tune you need to be around shifting. You really need to anticipate your shifting if you want to stay on the bike over a series of steep descents and climbs. Aerobically, I was quickly peaking, then resting, then pushing. It will be fun to figure out the aerobic plan around trail riding.
• Trail 25 at RSP is a great route. It's a giant circle that feeds a bunch of smaller trails. There is a newbie section there that Joe and I found. If you've gone to RSP and have ridden 25 all the way and without a person in the know, then you know what I'm talking about. A bit of sand. We'll leave it at that for the next set of rookies.
• A guy could spend many many hours learning the trail system at RSP. This is an exciting prospect for me as I have tired of many of the local road routes I do.
• Trail 204 -- going downhill is about the most fun I've had in a long while. Just a long straight descent with no obstacles.

If you are interested in joining us, Joe and I will be meeting Monday mornings throughout the summer to explore RSP. We'll meet at 5:30 AM on Monday mornings -- at Rocket Market in Carnegie Square. The idea will be to be back down town by 8:30.

Bloomsday Weekend

I went down to the new convention center this morning and set up the Bicycle Advisory Board table for the Bloomsday convention. Dang me and my habit of forgetting my camera. I hauled our stuff down on the Xtracycle and was able to ride it right onto the convention floor. After setting up and handing the table off to another BAB'er, I set off to pick up Maddie from school.

The traffic downtown was insane. Crazy insane. I think Bloomsday is now up to about 50,000 runners. All runners must go to the convention center on Friday or Saturday to pick up their race packets. The majority of the people, of course, drive their cars to pick up their packets. Parking is basically non-existent, unless you want to pay a $5 event fee to run in and pick up your packet. Therefore, most folks drive down with a partner and drop the partner off. The driver then (theoretically) circles the block and then comes back and picks up the partner. Well, it looks like approximately 2 or 3 thousand people decided to try this when the convention opened. Traffic was pretty much solid on all down town streets. Division was stacked all the way up to 5th Ave!

On the day of the actual race, the Spokane Bike Club will watch your bike in a secured location; the buses run special routes to get folks from outlying areas into the core; and the entire downtown area is blocked off. It's wonderful.

How about we do that for 3 days next year? Make the entire weekend a no-car event.
This would give folks a temporary alternative vision of what our city core could look like: walkable and human-scale -- a place you want to be. A place that encourages people to walk and cycle and enjoy.

OTM May: A Look at a 2 Year Old Department Store Bike

There’s a neighbor kid named Ryan who rides around on a beat up department store bike. Ryan came over the other day looking for some help to fix a couple issues with his bike. His visit was timely. My Out There Monthly column this month discusses why you should buy your bike at a local bike shop (LBS). In the article, I try to make the case against buying a department store bike. Of course, I'm too long-winded to provide a proper and full argument in the column, so Ryan's visit provides a perfect excuse to spill a gob of virtual ink on the subject here.

First off, in most cases, you can spend the same amount of money or less on a used bike that is many times better than a department store bike that will perform much better, but folks just don’t know this. If you do the math and look at the cost of most used bikes (even when you spend some money to fix it up) and compare that to the cost of buying and maintaining a cheap department store bike, most good used bikes provide a much better value over the long run.

Second, there’s the whole buy locally thing – the money staying in the local economy thing. That’s an easy one that most folks agree with.

Third, even if you don’t visit bike shops often, they provide a necessary component to both the small business and bicycle culture ecosystems. Personally, I detest the mall experience. Any store that is fronted by a football-field-sized parking lot is not likely to get my business.

Small businesses that sit on a street in a neighborhood or in part of a business district appeal to me. They make cities and neighborhoods interesting and diverse. They encourage walking. Bike shops are one of the last standing small businesses that typically go into store fronts. Support them. Most cyclists are pretty cool folks – especially the ones that ride to work daily. Or to the store or to school. You may bump into one of these folks at a bike shop. There is a small and fledgling bike culture in Spokane. Be a part of it. It starts by riding when you would normally drive and it’s enhanced by going to the LBS and giving them your business.

Ryan's department store bike will be 2 years old at the end of this summer. Obviously, the bike has not been maintained. But I don't know of many 12 year olds that maintain their bike beyond dealing with the inevitable flat tire. Any bike built or bought for a 12 year old should be expected to perform pretty well for 2 years with minimal maintenance. Ryan is not heavy. He's into "jumps," but certainly not the extreme type; he's more of a curb jumper than a roof or cliff jumper.

Some kids stow their bikes away in the shed and get them out for a run up and down the block occasionally. When they’re done, they put the bike away and go on to the next toy. That’s the extent of the abuse a department store bike is built to withstand.

Ryan, on the other hand, is a lot like I was when I was a kid; he’s always on this bike and uses it to get around the neighborhood, hitting the driveway jumps along the way.

Here's a list of what's wrong with his bike:

• The right grip-shifter is smashed and inoperable


• The rear derailleur pulleys are broken and worn to nubs. Both pulleys are missing more than half the teeth. Therefore the chain jumps around on the rear cog when he pedals, further destroying the chain, pulleys, and rear cog. This also puts a ton of friction on the drive line, which doesn’t exactly inspire longer rides.


• The front derailleur is nearly frozen. Shifting from the smallest chain ring to the middle chain ring is just barely possible, though according to Ryan, he stopped shifting all together a short while ago when shifting became too much of a hassle.


• Both wheels are out of true so badly that the brakes cannot be adjusted to stop properly without rubbing drastically on the rims. Therefore, the brakes are barely functional, and certainly not safe for a quick stop.


• There is too much play in the rear hub. Are those bearings I hear in there? Something is crunching and clumping as I turn the rear wheel on the stand.


• There is too much play in the bottom bracket.

Liza spent an hour or so with Ryan triaging and fixing the worse bits on this bike. She trued out his wheels enough to take some of the slop out of his brakes, but it was still pretty mushy. At least the brakes will now stop the bike quickly if he needs to.

Once we realized how busted up the shifting was and the cost to replace and repair the broken bits, it just makes sense to remove all gearing. I suggested just removing the derailluers and running the middle chain ring and a lower gear. Ryan said he would think about it.

As I look at this bike and I think about all of the department store bikes out in the world today, I think a great program would be to find a big glob of money to fix them so they are ridable. Basically: if you get rid of all the brakes and gearing bits, you have a ridable bike.

Find a cheap source for 26" coaster brake rear wheels. Most of these bikes have horizontal or semi-horizontal dropouts. When the Ryan-bikes of the world hit that 2 year mark and become nearly unridable, rip off the gears and the brakes and replace the rear wheel with a coaster brake version. If you found an extra glob of money, make it a 3 or 5 speed hub with a coaster brake.

Hi, My Name is John and I have a Bike Problem

A few small experiences have been tempting my "want to try another bike" problem. This was supposed to be the year of the non-boondoggle, where I didn't spend a bunch of money on bike stuff. To skirt the rules a bit, it's looking like it may be the year where I sell off my bling bikes to finance not-so-much bling.


I sold my Rivendell Quickbeam. That money went to Maddie's tandem. My buddy Joe traded me his old Trek 720 frame set for a Nitto rack. The 720 is a replacement for my Quickbeam and I'm just fine with it... no regrets at all. The much celebrated 520 "do everything" bike is looking more and more like a solid replacement for the Atlantis as the tourer and load-hauler 'round town. My prediction is that I'll see the revival of the RB-T as the "go-fast" bike for me. I miss it and I just haven't been able to replicate that springy feel in other bikes.


For any ride under 5 miles, I've been riding the Fuji Turd bike for the last few weeks. I put the hurkin' fat rubber on it last week and transformed it once again. I also ran into Jon the bass player and bike rider. I don't know his last name. But I ran into him just after he had just finished an epic trail ride all over the Hangman Valley and into the Cheney-Spokane road area. His tale of all trails for mile after mile got me thinking that I have a lot of unexplored territory to cover right out my back yard. And there a number of folks who can show me around that territory. I've also been eyeing David Blaine's blog and his adventures in the back country of north Idaho. My buddy Joe is slowly building up a Karate Monkey for trail riding. I keep throwing the chain and having generally freaky-scarey experiences on my 720 when I go on certain steep rocky trails off High Drive. Now that I'm riding this absurdly fat-tired Fuji, where I can roll over a curb and barely feel it, I am feeling the urge to try fat-tired mountain biking. I'm even thinking about a suspension fork. The seed is planted. I will now stew. And think and re-think and over think.


Some options I've thought of:

• Liberate the MB-2 that is burdened by the Xtracycle. The retro-grouch in me says, "this is the way God intended for mountain bikes to be built -- with a rigid fork." If the MB-2 wasn't engulfed by the Xtracycle, I would definitely give the bike a shot. But hooking up the xtracycle, and the lever-actuated center stand, and the lighting system and all that goo makes me not want to deal with it at all. The X is destined for loanership to friends.
• I like the looks of REI's entry into the single speed market this year, which mysteriously, is only in the paper catalog and not on the REI site. It's a steel frame. It's simple. It's clean with no shocks, and it's orange. Yowsa. But I think I want gears. I've done my share of grinding on single speeds and fixed on trails in the last few years and I'm ready to spin up the steep stuff.
• I like Surly's Instigator. I like it because like most Surly bikes it's pretty versatile for a mountain bike. It doesn't have horizontal dropouts, which I like for a mountain bike. But it can take disc brakes or canti's. It's steel, which is a must for me. They make a nice rigid fork for it, but the frame is designed for a front suspension fork. If I bought the Instigator, I'd likely try it with the rigid forks first, along with absurdly fat tires, then ease into the suspension forks if I felt I needed them. It's been about 8 years since I rode a suspension-forked bike, and I didn't care much for it.

Once I decide on a frameset, the shifting will still have to be friction thumbies. The saddle still a B-17. There's some stuff that just doesn't require changing. I will fight the urge to put fenders on it. I will fight the urge to put a rack on it. I will keep it pure in the "trail" way.

We'll see what happens with the other bikes and what kind of cash flow I can generate if I get off my arse and start another round of bike selling. I've got time to think on it.

This just in. Missoula is small and flat, but it's a cool event regardless.

Poor Man's Pugsley

Full frontal shot here.

I should never say never, but I don't think I'll ever buy or put together a Pugsley unless it lands in my lap or is otherwise given to me. But I have been interested in the super fat-tired bike version of the Hummer since I heard about the development a couple years ago.

Local bike shop owners: will one of you please build up a couple Pugsleys and rent them by the day? Pretty pretty please?

Until then, the Fuji Turd bike has evolved yet again. It's becoming such a great bike. I just scored these insanely mongo tires on Craigslist. At 35 psi, these guys will just about roll over anything. No skill required to ride this bike. Before I put the "summer" tires on here (note lack of fenders too -- just no room), I updated my site on the evolution of this bike. I've really been feeling the love for this one of late.

Liza also made a page on her new Super Course.

There's talk of a Saturday night (4/28) Centennial Trail ride. If you're interested please contact me.

Daily Driver

I see this bike every day on the way home from Maddie's preschool. I was a bit early today in picking her up, so I stopped and took a cell-phone-photo.

The bike is an old AMC single speed. I really am a sucker for the cantilevered frame. It's just such a nice, sensible, classic look. This bike seems typical of most cantilevered frames: stamped dropouts, cool stacked-plate fork crown, generally cheap steel components. Looks comfy though. It seems longer than most of the cantilevered framed bikes I've seen, but maybe that's just an illusion. I like the steel fenders and the chain guard too.

I've watched this bike sit in the elements now for just about a year. It's not moved. It's just slowly dying. In the past, I've attempted to liberate bikes from these types of situations. A few weeks ago I saw an old Schwinn Varsity in a junk pile. I don't like Varsitys at all, but a lot of folks come to me for bikes and if nothing else, it could make a cheap fixed gear for someone to play around on. I left a note on the door of the house that said something like, "if this is going to the landfill, I'll take it and give it a home. Call me..." No response on that one.

I really don't want to buy bikes like this -- I don't want to give anyone money for them. Even though this bike has sat out for the last year, I fear human nature is such that if I went knocking on the guy's door and and inquired, the bike would become much more valuable to the owner. What is now a bike rusting slowing in a heap of junk will become a "classic" or "vintage" ride. I just want it to ride it. I want to pump up the tires and see what it's like to coast down a long gentle hill on this long wheel based-beauty. I don't want to sell it.

It was basically a department store bike back in its day. It was one level above junk or toy status, and now it's just an old junk-toy bike. It's not a valuable bike in monetary terms. But it's worth riding and liberating from the junk heap. After I rode it for a while, I'd throw a basket or a rack on it and give it to just the right person.

With the fenders and the ability to carry stuff, you've got a perfect daily driver for someone who lives downtown, in the Valley, or in Brown's Addition where hills are not an issue.

Spinning Spokane

I have nothing to say. But Liza and I took a spin out to the city of Spokane Valley today and had a nice ride together. I took 4 pictures. Two of them are sort of interesting. So, 50% interesting is pretty good for me.

Which one should lead?

This is my favorite because of the clouds:

But it doesn't exactly say, "come ride in beautiful Spokane!, where the roads are barely paved and there's a 7-11 on every corner!" But then, seen another way, a guy could say: "Come to Spokane, where the roads are wide open. Who needs bike lanes, when you can have a whole car lane!?"

Then there's this beauty:

That's an over the shoulder shot, which explains why the nice Pontiac or whatever is the main player in the photo and not Liza. Or the nice trees. But check out the girl holding up the wall in the back ground. And the building behind the bridge is nifty too. Kind of cool. It would rule if the stinkin car wasn't hogging the whole show.

And who says Spokane needs spinning anyway? I think cycling here rules.