A New Road and a New Park and Many Bikes

I took a vacation day today to take a ride and do some volunteer work.

In the AM, Joe and I took a ride out towards Cheney. Our intention was to hit the Columbia Plateau Trail but we decided to loop around earlier and ended up exploring some new areas. I love it when we find a new road.

I forgot my map, which is a good thing, or it would've been a ride on familiar and same old routes. Joe is a perfect riding partner too -- he's always down for whatever whim seems to catch me. Want to go longer? He's cool with it. Want to cut it short? No complaints. We rambled around out east of Marshal on known roads, then ended up on Keeney Road, a new and unknown-to-us-road. A nice dirt roller. I was pretty satisfied just finding a new road when we stumbled across a county park.

The park is a small area that was likely a farm at some point. It's got a small lake on it and lots of wetlands. Lots of birds. This would make a nice picnic destination. The entrance is on the corner of Keeney and Washington Roads, very close to 195.

We got home at around 11AM and then at about 4PM, I picked up Joe and we went to a local car dealer where we are fixing up a huge pile of bikes for an annual kid bike drive that is being directed by a local TV station. Pedals 2 People is running the wrenching part of the drive, which I now know, is the most significant effort in the drive.

There are about 70 bikes out there. All of them are absolutely the cheapest of the cheap. These are donated bikes that are just in awful shape. We've got just under two weeks to get these bikes in ridable shape. It's a huge task and more than a bit daunting. If you can help, even by just cleaning up bikes, if not actually wrenching, we could really use your help. Look for the "KHQ" entries on this calendar to see when we're out there. Feel free to contact me if you have questions: johnspeare@gmail.com.

Rest Stops and Community

My buddy Jon, at Outthere Monthly, recently introduced me to a great little bar on Sprague. It's the Checkboard. It closes at 9PM. It's got a pool table, some nice old booths, a nice set of stools and generally feels like a place that hasn't changed much in 50 years or so. It's tended by a sweet elderly lady and what I assume is her husband. It's got good cheap beer and no fussy stuff. Jon's comment on the bar when I last had a beer with him there, was something like, "in any other city this would be filled with hipsters..." Maybe so. I like the quiet crowd of older locals that have typically been in there when I've visited.

After a meeting that ended at noon yesterday, I took a ride out to Hairy Gary's to pick up a light and check up on a rack he's building for me. Last year, I discovered the Yardly Bar and Grill, which is about a 1/2 block away from Gary's. The Yardly is squarely in the middle of an industrial neighborhood and tucked away on a quiet corner surrounded by dirt lots and big hunks of metal. By 2pm on Fridays, it's nearly full with the workers from the area pouring in to celebrate the weekend. It's got the best fish and chips in town by such a long shot. I found out yesterday though that you must ask for the "panko" version to get the best. Otherwise, you get good enough.
After a huge lunch of fish and chips and a pint of Kokanee, I figured a visit to the Checkerboard was in order on the way home.

I like stopping for beers at interesting places as I tool around the city. Mostly, I stop for the community and camaraderie. My favorites are Benedittos and the Baby Bar. But going to other parts of town and finding small local places like the Yardley and Checkerboard is a great way to discover the micro-communities in Spokane.

Downtown Bike Bathroom. Pumpers. Family Bike Camping

If you're downtown and need to use a restroom, but you don't have a bike lock -- go to the bathroom next to the gondolas in Riverfront Park. You can ride your bike right in there and take care of business.

Can you pump up a tire? Then Pedals2People needs your help. Go here and find the events with titles that begin with "KHQ". Then show up and help us out. We're also doing a free bike tune up day at West Central Community Center this Sunday.

Wanna go on a family bike caravan and camp out at Riverside State Park? I'm thinking June 23rd 22nd; leave the fountain at noon. If you're interested email me.

Pride Parade 07 and Mobile Sound

Pedals 2 People had a great turn out for our section of the Pride Parade yesterday. No one counted, but the guess is about 25-30 cyclists showed up and rode with us. Mike here took a bunch of pictures, hopefully we'll see those soon.


Our sound system wasn't nearly loud enough, so that gives us something to work on. After the parade I saw a guy with the most righteous bicycle mobile sound system I've ever seen.

Behold:
Click for big and you'll see that the cabinet is covered in sequins. He's got good volume, and obviously impeccable taste. Anyway, this guy's name is Chris, and as soon as he started talking ohms and wiring in series and deep cells, I knew we found our technical advisor.
Lesson #1: get rid of the deck. There really is no reason to haul around a car stereo; he wires his MP3 player directly into amplifiers, which then go directly to speakers.
I'm excited to get our system dialed in now. We have a 2-channel 2x40 amp for the mains and the 4x6 speaker and we have a bass amp with a single bass speaker for the low end. Our marine batteries held up great. We'll see how they do when we get some good volume.
I'll document the process and final product here, as it's been hard to find basics on the web for a bike mobile sound system.

Steep Hills

Ben and I spent the day tooling around the north east-ish part of Spokane and the Valley. The picture there is on an old blocked off piece of road that runs between Evergreen and Sullivan just south of Trent.

I showed Ben one of my favorite climbs: Lehman road on the bit between Wellesley and Bigalow Gulch. That's a hard hill and it got me thinking of other short and steep hard hills in the area:

• There's Forker, off of Progress and up to Pleasant Prairie. That's next to the Lehman climb, but much less enjoyable due to gobs of traffic.
• Greenwood, from Gov't Way up to Rimrock. That's a lung burner.
• Monroe Street from 4th to 8th: a short and steep climb.
• Tower Mountain: prolonged pain; actually all those little mountains there have some insanely steep parts. I think it's 44th AVE off of Glenrose that just basically goes straight up for that last 200 yards before you hit the private property wall at the top of Browns? mountain.
• The last mile or so going west bound on the Springdale-Hunters pass. This is a classic; because it's a hard climb for the 10 miles before this and this last mile is just flippin hard.
• That little chunk of Maple St b/t 16th and 19th. If you don't ride this, then you're probably thinking of the wrong piece of street. It's a weird diagonal offshoot from highdrive. And it's damn steep.

I'm sure I'm missing a bunch; but these are the ones I ride sort of regularly; at least a couple times a year each. I don't know how steep they are, but they are severe.

Hills and cycling are fun to talk about. And it's interesting to see how cyclists evolve with regard to hills.

Here's how I did it.

When I didn't ride much, hills were all I focused on: where are the hills, how hard are they? Lots of flat rides and rail trails.

Then I started riding a bit and I figured hills are just part of it, but they still sucked and I went through huge efforts to avoid them; long routes around the steep hills.

I rode enough and eventually I had what I call my "hill epiphany." It was on an unexpected long steep hill near the end of a long day of touring. I just put my head down, started spinning, and got into the zone. For me it happened here: about 5 miles of very steep grade on a hot summer day with a fully loaded bike.

After the epiphany, hills have never been the same again. They're still hard, but there's a sort of an interesting challenge to them. I'm still slow as crap, but there's a very slight improvement year over year. Maybe when I'm 80, I'll be an impressive climber.

The Bike Fairy Came Today

Remember the post where I was going on about that yellow cantilevered frame that was sitting in a heap -- the one I see everyday when I pick up my daughter from daycare?

Well, I just got this email from the home front:

...that yellow cantilevered bike showed up on our stoop this afternoon. it's missing the shifter and cable, but it has a SAhub. the rear brake cable is frozen, the kickstand is pretty stuck.front wheel is out of true. not sure what's going on with the cranks: you can pedal backwards, but they also spin when you move the bikeforward. a cool frame.

one more for the garage.

liza

who said blogging doesn't pay?

Baby Steps: the birth of a cycling non-profit

Alert readers of this blog may have noticed a new link that quietly found it's way onto this page about a month ago. For the last few months Liza, my buddies Ben and Jon, and I have started to realize a dream I've had for a couple years. We're starting up a non-profit cycling thing in Spokane called "Pedals 2 People." The idea is to end up with a community cycling center. In the last month or so, we've added a couple more friends, Beth and Katleen. This is what we're calling our "steering committee."

We are in early days. We've got a heady mission statement that you can read on our site, but really, we're finding our way.

Our goal this summer is to do as many different events as we can to see what we're good at, what folks need, and what we actually want to do. At the end of the summer, we'll get serious about honing our mission and hopefully pursuing federal tax-exempt status.

It's clear Spokane is ready for such an organization. In the short time we've been an entity, we've had a lot of interest -- all by word of mouth.

The month of June begins our coming out. Here's what's planned:

• June 9th: The OutSpokane Pride Parade. We'll be cycling with friends and wearing our shirts.



• June 16th: Local Flair Street Fair, put on by Fresh Abundance. We'll have a booth.

• June 17th: Free Kid's Bike Repair at West Central Community Center (11am-1pm). We need help on this. Contact me if you are available and know how to do any of the following: pump up a tire; change a tire; adjust brakes/derailleurs; hang out and help.


• Mid-Late June (tentative): Official "wrenches" for the KHQ annual bike drive and give away.
  
• Ongoing: Thursday night slow summer rides on the Centennial Trail. (That's tonight). 6:30PM at the Carousel.


• We're also collecting bike donations.

Our site is slowly coming together and soon we'll be blogging regularly. If you want to help/volunteer/do anything, we'd like to meet you.

Part of this whole deal, perhaps the most important part, is building community around all types of cycling. Join us.