summer session

We seem to have just entered another one of those phases. When it’s really hard to be a bicyclist. When every car seems to be against you as they pass too close and ever too fast. Maybe it’s some sort of beginning of summer madness. Everyone shooting around on new routes doing different things than the last several months. I don’t know. But it’s hard. Because I can see it. I study it every day. Every day. Traffic. The car-bike relationship. And right now it’s whacked. And it’s tough to let it go. It builds up through the day.  And what is the cure? Certainly voicing an opinion or plea to any one driver does nothing – it’s no good for either party and no good for the cause. So, what? It’s tough, too, because I feel like as I’ve been learning all these years about the plight of the bicycle that somehow all those drivers have been absorbing something, too, but it just doesn’t seem to be the case. It’s as if with every car passing me the driver is seeing and trying to figure out how to negotiate passing a bicyclist for the first time in their lives despite their having just done it a couple blocks back and probably at least ten bikes (and growing) every day. They really are different worlds, the bike and the car. And it’s sad that people have such little respect or concern for the health and well being of their fellow humans as they’re all traveling down the same road to the more or less same neighborhood to do more or less the same thing when they get home at more or less the same time plus or minus a minute or two depending on their particular mode of travel.

(To be fair, there is some polarity happening out there, too. More and more there are people that are patient. So, thanks, to them.)

Just find some mellow and keep on mindfully riding on I suppose… 

 

jazzman

Riding home late at night… I heard a saxophone flowing out from a parking garage. I thought for a moment that it was just some sort of canned music – I know of one parking garage that plays music so it wasn’t a completely left-field-thought. But there was a certain quality to this sound that gave me pause, thinking it was live, real. So I arced around on the deserted four-lane road (2+2) to investigate, rode around the gate-arm and started circling up through its floors. The garage was completely empty at this time of night. It reminded me of the days way back when my friends and I used to take skateboards up to the top of parking structures so we could speed down the spiral structures, the “road” surface in those structures always being super smooth and fast.

Up around the fourth floor I found my jazzman. He didn’t seem particularly enthused by my arrival. In fact, I think he was terrified of me. What kind of upstanding citizen would be riding around in the middle of the night on a bicycle in a parking garage stalking saxophone sounds?! To his credit, he kept his tune going without missing a beat. I tried to give him a positive thumbs-up and an enjoying smile but he only eyed me wearily. Oh well, I tried to make contact, and I wasn’t going to butt-in where I wasn’t wanted, so I rode back down the spiral and out into the night. I hope he put it together that I was just digging on his sound.

Early Breakfast Run With Carl

Waking up in a strange place… you start to piece together where you are – a hotel room – and what’s outside, what‘s been calling to you, what woke you up: a desert mountain. You watched it through the previous evening from your poolside recliner with a cool drink in your hand, priming your dreams. Quickly but quietly you throw on whatever clothes you can find at the top of your bag in the dark room and step out into the cool morning, a waning half moon hovering overhead. The morning mountain takes its place in the now, another layer over the memory from the night before, from the vision that called you out of bed. You’ve never been here before and you don’t know where you’re going, but you go, you just go, and you breathe and you run and you let yourself be led – and soon, after a few twists and turns you find yourself at a trailhead. The sun is cresting the eastern horizon, just warming up for its one hundred degree day, but there’re still shadows of cool behind the ridges of rock on the ascent. At a comfortable turn around point on the trail, a saddle, the golden valley stretches out forever, and you turn to notice a memorial plaque secured to what must have been a very special place: “Carl Rose, 1914 – 1988, He loved this place” – of course he did, you think, as a tear starts to well up. A quick peace sign to the heart for respect and love and then you’re running back down the trail, suddenly knowing this place, loving this place, too, and knowing you’ll be back again the next morning, to run with Carl again. And somehow those cups of coffee and continental breakfast bar back at the hotel feel a little more real or appreciated or shared, even though you’ve still got it all to yourself. 

 

I’ve been through the desert on a [bike] with no name

One day you’ll saddle up early in the morning and ride into the sunrise, continuing relentlessly through the day’s heat and sun, taking the road all the way to the end until it turns into dust before a desert sunset.

And when it’s done, you won’t quite know why you did it or exactly what was gained, but something will have been satisfied, something deep down will be content.

Perhaps long afterwards you’ll hear it’s song playing through your head again and know something more, something of the why, of the satisfaction, something of time and distance and space… something of a journey, of a ride… of a life.

 

take two of these and call me in the morning

I’ve been having difficulty sleeping lately. And tomorrow at dawn I’m leaving for the longest, hottest, hardest ride of my life (tale pending). So I want to be able to sleep as well as I can beforehand.

Sometimes I lay awake at night going over the last minute details of the day(s) ahead. Just last night I was thinking through the contents of my seat bag. Everything checked out until I got to thinking about the inner tubes. Although there are two in there, one of them being my only backup for at least a year for rides near and far, I unraveled a few concerns. The one I’d been carrying with me had already been patched. I can’t remember how long ago. In fact, I can’t even remember the last time… wait, I better not say that. Anyway, today I inspected the inner tube and there were these tiny little wrinkles I guess you’d call them or cracks. I’m mostly sure that the inner tube is fine – that it would work – even if it had a slow leak it would get me going – probably.

As for the other inner tube, well, that one had been sitting around in the shed for a long time, too – tucked inside an old tire. It looked fine – no cracking. But the valve on that tube is slightly shorter – just enough to create a minor problem for the 1 cm deeper rims I’ll be riding tomorrow. Again, this tube would almost surely be fine and do the job if needed.

But it’s these little doubts that keep me awake in the night. They creep in after you think everything is fine and done and ready to go. So, purely as a sleep aid, I bought two new inner tubes – I’m pretty sure they have no known side effects. 

floating through epiphanies

Almost every night as I’m riding home I experience the grandest bicycling-induced thoughts. And I say to myself, Yes!, this should go right on the blog, this is what I’m talking about, this is the real deal, the essence of ride-life, or maybe even just life… then, I get home and put the bike away and enter the arriving-home-routine and before I know it, think about it, the vision is gone, nearly impossible to retrieve. But really, the epiphany, these epiphanies, their specifics, shouldn’t need to be shared. We all have our epiphanies, our visions, our experiences to enjoy and live with/through, almost impossible to express fully, like trying to relate a dream. The important, sharable moment, though, is that epiphanies happen, epiphanies happen on the bike, and it’s a great reason to ride, to ride, to ride…

race-state

Racing really throws a wrench into the system.  It (life, the world, the mind, the body, everything) is just not the same on race day. The weeks before and the days after aren’t exactly the same, either – erratic oscillations between extremes of mental and physical and psychological and probably some other –ical states. I think it’s what is called crazy. I’ve been a total wreck. And during the race! Man, then it’s like time and space do not even exist – total detachment – just pound and mountain, pound and mountain, pound and mountain… then eventually you surface again and you feel good again and you want to run! and you know why you went to the trouble. 

 

tranquil moments before the mountain run

As my friend used to say, “tranquilo campeon” – loosely meaning, “hello my friend, I recognize your power, and our power, and we will work strongly together when the time comes, but now we wait, still, a little bit at a time, a trickle, and when that Sun breaks over the ridge on the sacred morning, then we will unleash everything and charge up mountains with Lion’s heart and sprint down ravines with Deer’s legs and give everything up to the Spirit, to the Mountain, knowing she will be proud and knowing just a little of what it fees like to be champions, to be mountain warriors, to be runners…” This being my rather long mantra-imagery leading up to this weekend’s Mount Wilson Trail Race.

running ahead

I had a dream about trail running. I love trail running dreaming. I was running along through low chaparral just below a rolling ridgeline. Someone, perhaps my spirit guide, was running just up ahead, when all of a sudden, the trail disappeared. Not like it petered out or we lost it but it just vanished from under our feet. My guide kept on running, hovering, it seemed, just over the sagebrush. This was a lot for my mind to wrap around. How does one hover-run? I’d felt like I was flying when running before but never actually lifted off. This was a big leap of faith to follow.

I mean, it sounds obvious, but without a trail to follow, running through the mountains would be an altogether different experience. But there have always been trails to follow. Animals, humans that have gone before us. We follow the past and become the future. That’s all there really is to do, actually. And the hovering is just that moment of faith in the present, knowing the next footfall will come, that makes it running, living, dreaming…

Cool Brown Spring

Early ride through the fog monster to find the sun and spring up on Brown. I haven’t been up there for a while. But I was easily reminded of why I should get back up there again soon. It’s still, and always, my cool, awesome, soul mountain friend. 

currently reading

The Sailor From Gibraltar
by Marguerite Duras, 1952

misty dawn

There was a little rain in the morning. Drizzle, really. Or just mist, at least. Heading up the foothills, again, again, the rain grew heavier, as is normal. But still it seemed just mostly light, and looking closely up into the clouds I could almost sense the approaching light, the sun, a bit of warmth seeping through. It wasn’t cold, really. And I didn’t expect the rain to continue, which is why I was continuing up through the foothills, in the rain, without a rain jacket, in shorts, and a fleece pullover.

I actually thought the mist would have gone by the time I got going but it only increased with elevation. But it was fine, it was good. And in fact, even though I’d neglected to bring my trusty rain cape along for the ride, I went over the circumstances in my mind and I decided that even if I’d had it with me it wouldn’t have been much use to me riding up the hill, where the trapped perspiration would likely have equaled the falling precipitation. And at least without it there was still some breeze for evaporation.

Eventually, just as I was almost there, or at least almost to the top of the last ridge, after which I could cruise easy for a while and rest before the final push up, this particular destination way the heck up there at the base of the real mountain region, the wilds, it started falling more like rain than mist. But I was still sure it was going to be a beautifully grey day in just a matter of moments. And in fact, within just a few blocks the drops were gone and I was starting to dry out with the wind, speed.

Again, again today…

night light bright

In the past two weekends I’ve had two headlights stolen. Or taken, maybe I should say. I mean, it’s hardly stealing, really. It’s about as petty a theft as you can come by. These lights aren’t worth anything, really, maybe a couple bucks on the black market (ebay). Or maybe they’re just being used on bikes around town here. Hopefully they’re at least going to be used on a bike somewhere. Taking a light off someone’s bike is pretty petty, though. And both times it was at night. How can you take someone’s light at night? You must be a bicyclist, right? You must know why that light is there? It’s there so I can get home safely. And sure, it was an easy steal, I mean all you had to do was unclip it – 5 seconds, tops. And yes, I could unclip it and put it in my pocket every time I park my bike somewhere in the world – every day! But jeez, what a chore. Luckily, for me, I was able to find an easy replacement in the garage – being essentially free, having bought it years ago, that money forgotten. I think I ended up using that replacement light three times before it was taken. Then, luckily for me, again, there was one more super old light in the garage that magically still worked. So now it’s on there and will hopefully stay on there for at least a few months. In the process of riding home in the dark for a couple of nights a realized that I don’t have a front or rear reflector anymore, having just been relying on lights, it’s been fine. But while rummaging through the bicycle junk box in the garage to find old lights I came across a bunch of reflectors, too. It used to be, when we were kids, that it was really uncool to ride with reflectors on your bike. It somehow meant that you hadn’t bothered, yet, to customize your bike and it was all about custom. And, we never really rode around at night much back then anyway so it didn’t much matter. That mindset stuck with me for a while, and unintentionally persists on my bikes today. Now, decades later, I’m starting to think that maybe reflectors are pretty cool. Which, necessarily, proves that they’re still really uncool, but now that I can’t be bothered to keep up with and/or care about running with the cool kids, I’ve got options. And, more importantly, I’m pretty damn sure that no one is going to steal reflectors off my bike. So I loaded up the Mule with reflectors every-which way I could imagine.

Am I becoming that crazy old reflector man?

fix a bungee

downtown from above and below

With the world washed clean from the previous days' rains, and even a little snow at the top (at Orchard! in April!), views were blue and puffy and sharp and shiny, and running back down the mountain trail a three-dimension-alized downtown popped out in the distance from a backdrop of pacific ocean influence.

Then the CicLAvia came to downtown, maybe a hundred thousand strong, riders and skaters flooding the streets all day, with no cars to worry about, just to explore, and people watch and bike watch… and ride, ride, ride…

two happy evening rides

Last night on the ride home, a little late, dark, around 8:30pm, on a colder than anticipated evening, I’d suited up in my ever-handy plastic rain cape and wool gloves/cap for the ride home, thinking I’d like to have the protection against the cold wind, when just as I set off, the sweetest little rain shower passed over, leaving heavy, yet fairly dispersed, raindrops pat-patting on my slicker for the briefest of moments, only enough to get that rain smell from the pavement. And yet, enough, too, to get umbrellas popping up from pedestrians and some sort of vibe from inside the cars, worried perhaps, for the poor cyclist caught in the storm. I, however, was suddenly joyful, riding in the lovely rain. I realized I’d been a little too good at avoiding it this season. Was this my first rain ride? In what will likely be one of our last rains for many months (except for tomorrow)? Well, I can hardly remember if it was the first, but it felt like it was, it felt great, and happy-smiley.

Then, this evening, having already gotten home a little early, I got a message from a friend asking about a bike part I’d offered to him for his new bike build. I didn’t really feel like heading back out again for I was already cozy at home but then I got to thinking how it feels to be so close on a bike project and waiting for something to arrive or wishing you could just finish it up right now and go ride! So, reinvigorated with this remembrance, I shot back out for a quick Pony Express time trial Uptown to handoff a pair of brake levers that have been sitting idle in the garage for a few years now, dreaming of a job, a ride. It was still just light out, no need yet for supplemental lighting and cool enough that I could really jam-on-it up the hill. It was a quick exchange, just a few offers of beers and talk of a future trail running date and then I was out the door again, still warmed from the ride up, and still light, for a cruising, cooling ride back down the fair hill, home, where the jazz was still on the radio, welcoming me back from another good ride.

sticky locks and creaky pedals no more

My u-lock lock recently failed. Which is to say, became untrustable. Suddenly jamming on me. I tried adding oil and grease to the lock as this worked great about a year ago. But no luck this time. It still sorta works but I just don’t want to have to jimmy with it every time I lock which is a lot. And I certainly don’t want it to lock any of my bikes permanently to a post. Although, now I’m tempted to see just what it would take to cut through a u-lock. Destroying that old lock with a hacksaw might prove to be an extremely fun activity. It was a long life, though. I think this was the model that you could pick with a Bic. I agree that a u-lock is best but I decided to replace it with one of those sexy new Knog locks. We’ll see how it goes. The Knog fits pretty much the same as the u in my rack so that’s a nice carryover.







And while I was at it, and to hit the free shipping threshold, because as much as I’d like to use the LBS it just never works out for me, they’ve never got what I need and they treat me like a dirty child – I don’t get it, but that’s another story…. while I was at it, I put new pedals and toe clips in my basket. The toe clips have been duct taped together for I can’t remember how long – 3, 4, 5 years? And the pedals were coming apart at the seams and sagging outwards – creating what Ergon would call proper form, although I don’t buy that. I’m all for their grips but don’t agree with their line of thinking about pedal ergonomics. Their thinking is that when you sit on a high chair and let your feet dangle they naturally lean outwards, the outer part of the foot hanging lowest. This may be true, seems true, but for me that doesn’t translate into needing/wanting a pedal that sags outwise intentionally. And in fact, I have an amazing idea that will win the next Le Tour – pedals that lean inwise! You heard it here first.





There’s nothing special about these new pedals. They’re cheap and easy. But, being new, they feel real nice. Even though they might be set up a little tight in the bearings. Maybe that will loosen in a few thousand revolutions. And I’ve lost some mastery in flipping my feet into them just because they’re not identical-identical but very close and that new pedal swing geometry fit will be relearned quick-fast in no time.

margarita mountain

If only there were a Margarita Mountain with creeks and springs flowing yellow with Cadillacs. (Kinda reminds me of that Big Rock Candy Mountain hobo song.) There’s not but there’s a margarita mountain of the mind and I found it, ran it, over the weekend. As much as I’m a fan of getting out into the mountains just for the experience of soaking it all in and being present to the land of the moment, there are times, too, when a run up a mountain can become nothing but a struggle of training, overtraining. Still, a lot to be found, though, a lot of depth of mind to absorb up on the mountain even if you’re too tired to appreciate the rosy light of the late afternoon filtering through the trees or the unheard croaking of frogs down in the creek valley. And what I found in the depths of my mind while I forced myself up and up and on was the most serene of settings – dark and cool and filled with happy people enjoying the end of a long week. That’s where, I’m a bit embarrassed to say, I went in my time of need on the mountain, the only thing that was driving me onward, some personal version of Cheers in my head, where I knew, once this damn run was over, I’d be speeding directly towards for tall pitchers of margaritas with the rest of those running along with me. The best and/or most interesting part of it all is that once I finally got up and down the mountain and over to the dark cozy margarita bar, and once I’d gotten drink in hand and halfway sunk, well, all I could see then was the mountain. A replay of the run, running through my mind all evening. A nice little gift from the mountain, who, I think, understood my struggle that day and appreciated it and let me take a little morsel home to savor and to remind… you were on the mountain…

I CAN HEAR YOU

I know you’ve heard them. It seems mostly to hover around the roadies. It’s as if they’re yelling at each other. Actually, that’s exactly what they’re doing. And I get it. I understand. You want to converse with the person you’re riding with. And when you’re going 10 or 20 or whatever miles an hour there’s a lot of wind in your ears and it seems natural to speak up.

I happen to live on a bit of a bike route. Not heavy bike traffic but enough that it’s pretty normal to see/hear a few mini-pelotons riding by daily. It’s kind of fun… for me anyway. I like to hear about your new Sram Red-Black Edition derailleur and how you managed to adjust it so it would be compatible with your older 9-speed cog (is that even possible? doubtful) – which by the way (don’t worry) you’ll be upgrading posthaste – the order has already been placed at Temple City Bike Shop…

But, what of the other people out there in the world. I know it seems like there must only be a few of them left at this point – I mean, who isn’t cycling!?

And then there’s the profanity. Don’t get me wrong, I love a well placed fucking swear word. But when you’re riding through a quiet residential neighborhood and you’re bitching to yer mate about that god damn car that blew through the intersection or the recent hike in your club fees, maybe little Janie and Jimmy playing in the yard don’t need to hear all about it.

I mean, honestly, how ostracized do you want cyclist to be?

So lately, when riding with others, I’ve been trying to speak a little more softly. And, don’t worry if there’s a lull in the conversation while you navigate a single-file section of roadway. I’m sure your cycling buddy can pick up where you left off a few moments ago. Or, at least fill in the blanks with gibberish before charging forth on his or her own monologue.

currently reading

The Backbone of the World: A Portrait of the Vanishing West Along the Continental Divide
by Frank Clifford, 2002