Evolution of Man

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Internet Forums

Anyone that knows me knows that I’m a big proponent of internet forums. I maintain that when properly leveraged by a discourse community they can be an excellent tool to disseminate information, dispel rumors, and arrive at a general consensus on topics that are generally too subjective or unwieldy to be tackled elsewhere. Forums, as many internet users know, run the gamut in subject matter, format, and generally accepted etiquette and, as a result, the better of these forums seem to develop their own unique identity and character.

As you can imagine, while I visit and post on forums of all types I spend the greatest deal of my time surfing outdoor sports forums. Some of them are regional, others national, and some even international. While their subjects and geography may differ, they all suffer from similar forms of abuse from internet tough guys, trolls (a role which even I have admittedly taken up on rare occasion), and those who are simply too lazy or ignorant to demonstrate common decency and respect.

I (already having admitted my own complicity in some of the shabby behavior that takes place here on these forums) have grown dispirited by the devolution that allot of my favorite digital stomping grounds have suffered. After a point the same questions have been asked time and again, the same scenarios belabored to the point of absurdity, and the same members banned, slandered, readmitted, and again ejected shortly thereafter. It’s become rather irksome that a resource that was totally unavailable in the not-so-distant past is now taken for granted to a degree so great as to almost render it useless due to the redundancy of the trespasses made against it.

One would think that such a pooling of knowledge would only help to foster a self-sustaining growth of that knowledge, and perhaps even evolve to tackle greater questions and arrive at even greater conclusions. But you’d be wrong if you’d assume that to be the case. Rather, the lazy and ignorant (most often amongst the forums’ newly initiated) fail to recognize the value of the forum as the self-sustained entity that it is and consequently are oblivious to the fact that they may draw from the already existing deep pools of knowledge it’s home to. Rather, they degrade the forum by posting on some of the most academic subjects possible and re-trod ground that’s been covered, ad nauseum, by past similarly self-indulgently negligent queries.

It’s at this point that the greater powers that be, whether it moderators or more senior members, should bear the burden of preserving their past endeavors and excise this redundant extranium from their collective and point the inquisitor to their answer among the past stores of knowledge assembled long ago. However, this is where the greatest offense is often made when the question is treated with integrity it does not deserve, lending it credence, and thereby cementing right alongside the very same knowledge that had already once been shared in the past. The lazy and ignorant have received their justification, and the senior contributors have squandered time and cognitive resources that would have been best spend developing the forum past its status quo.

Why can’t we just delete this rubbish or let it fall to the back page? Why beat the same dead horse again and again? Don’t respond with smarmy remarks, suggestive emoticons, or repetitive advise (as immediately helpful though it may seem to the impatient and lazy). Ignore it and treat it as the non-contributory work that it is. Have more respect for what it is you built and keep your focus fixed on elevating the general level of discussion beyond what it already is. Our internet forums can remain a rich resource for us all if we just let all the detritus sink to the bottom, thereby keeping those topics with potential for development buoyant and lively.

Silent Partner

Goddamn I love top rope soloing.

As a member of an internet climbing forum I frequent often quips, there are two types of partners – the loud and silent. His witticism is especially, well, witty, because it refers, in particular, to the device branded by Wren Industries as the “Silent Partner™”. The device is Wren Industries’ particular interpretation of a solo climbing device but, when left un-capitalized, ‘silent partner’ provides a more generic and all encompassing view of the act of solo climbing. The ‘loud partner’, on the other hand, is the one with two hands, two feet, a mouth, and a whole lot to say.

I always have and always will prefer to climb with a partner. However, there is a unique sort of joy and sense of self-sufficiency to be derived from climbing alone. First, as someone that loves to get inventive, establishing a manageable and safe solo top roping system can be an enjoyable challenge in and of itself if approached with the right attitude. I am constantly refining and perfecting my own system but, as it stands, it’s a pretty foolproof system, although I always strive for a greater form of elegance and simplicity in its construction.

The joys of its engineering aside, the top rope solo system presents a versatility that is uncommon (if not totally non-existent) in a ‘loud partner’. You’ll never find a top rope solo system that has to work late, is sick with the flu, or is going to their sister’s birthday party. In fact, most times I leave mine in the car all day without water and food and yet still find it just as eager to climb as when I left it there in the morning. It seems to generally agree with me when I pick a climb and (while it certainly never encourages me past a thin crux or a sketchy roof), it also doesn’t have a laugh at my expense when I grease off of a 5.easy. It doesn’t get bummed when there is a long approach but, then again, I tend to be doing most of the schlepping. Most importantly, I get to spend most of my time out at the cliffs actually ON the cliff and never have I found myself queued up on a climb when out with the ‘silent partner’.

Since perfecting my setup I’ve been able to get out on the vertical at least 50% more often that I have been, and I think as I continually improve my schedule and setup this number is bound to improve. Relying on my own system has made me a better climber – both more at home on the rock in addition to bolstering faith in systems of my own design.

I still love you ‘loud partners’, but you’ll have to pry my ‘silent partner’ from my cold, dead hands.

How To Own Land

Find a spot and sit there
until the grass begins
to nose between your thighs.

Climb to the top
of a pine and drink
the wind’s green breath.

Track the stream through alder and scrub,
trade speech
for that cold sweet babble.

Gather sticks and spin them into fire.
Watch the smoke spiral into darkness.
Dream that the animals find you.

They weave your hair into warm cloth,
string your teeth on necklaces,
wrap your skin soft around their feet.

Wake to the silence
of your own scattered bones.
Watch them whiten in the sun.

When they have fallen to powder
And blown away,
The land will be yours.

Morgan Farley

Another Yankee Engineering Project

So once again the outrageous price of manufactured goods has led me to seek a homemade alternative to preserve not only my hard earned money but, more importantly, my few remaining shreds of dignity. Recently I ordered a pretty high end handlebar-mounted light for my mountain bike so that I could continue to ride after work even in spite of the rapidly diminishing daylight. I had an older, far less impressive light laying around that I decided I wanted to mount on my helmet to provide me light when turning my head to look at things that don’t fall within my new light’s forward facing beam. This is not an odd application, so plenty of manufacturers make mounts that allow you to afix a handlebar light to your helmet. However, a mount like this goes for around $35! If you look at the mount, it’s nothing more than a piece of plastic and Velcro!

Any idiot with two brain cells to rub together could make a far less expensive mount and still have days to spare before their mail order mount would even show up at their house. Luckily, I am just the idiot for the job. With the $4.32 worth of parts pictured below, and about 25 minutes of time, I was able to construct this nifty little mount. Sure, it’s not quite as pretty as the one here, but by virtue of the fact that it’s built to hold its own source of illumination, it begs the deep philosophical question – “if an ugly mount serves to secure the only light by which you would recognize the mount for its ugliness, then is the mount even ugly in the first place?”. Well, yeah, sure it is…but I saved 30 bucks.

Lose the Thermometer

Why when I’m out in the wilderness do I see thermometers hanging like cancerous little growths off of people’s backpacks and jackets? What’s the big secret? If it’s cold out, add a layer, if it gets warm, remove one. What’s so complicated about that? Okay, ‘big deal’ you may say. However, if you ask me, these little plastic cysts are symptomatic of something far more insidious. The thermometer is just a small outward expression of the growingly invasive control that metrics now have over the outdoor experience.

What’s that rated? Where’d you finish? Which model is that? What’s your resting heart rate? How long is the climb? What grade is the hill? How many repetitions? What’s your time on that? What does that weigh? How much did that cost? What’s the beta? Where’s the guidebook?

Anyone who takes even a passive interest in outdoor sports has heard questions like these, if not asked or received them themselves. These questions help us to graduate our adventure and, by quantifying it, to remove its claws. They seek to cast light into the dark corners of our experience and act as preemptive knowledge of our act and, having performed it, to describe it in the most precise terms possible. By taking our own capabilities and the obstacles against which we pit them and reducing them down to mere numbers, we can extrapolate the outcome of our endeavors to so fine a point as to almost make it unnecessary to undertake them in the first place.

This is not how I want my outdoor experience to be. Instead, I want to experience adventure and the outdoors on their own terms. I don’t wish for guaranteed success or an overly forgiving safety net. I certainly don’t want to spend my free hours hemming and hawing over the tools that take me to where I want to be, or to wile away my time hashing out the minutiae of my future plans. I’d rather not be glancing at a digital read out, monitoring progress to assure myself I’m having the correct sort of experience.

Instead I’d like to turn corners without knowing what lies ahead. Start up a 5 mile climb without getting my heart rate pegged. Reach the next belay not knowing what gear I’ll need to build an anchor. Just once in a while I’d like to move a weight or a make a pedal stroke and know that I’ve just made myself stronger based upon feel alone. How I’d love to return from a mountain and simply describe it as ‘awesome’ or ‘gnarly’, without paying heed to numbers.

Now don’t get me wrong here – I think precise empirical information has its time and place. I appreciate the advances, innovations, and hard work that makes it so readily available. I’m a father and I sure as hell want to do what I can to ensure that I am around to see my son through all the best years of his life. I’ll look at a map, check the forecast, read a topo, and stuff my compass and GPS in my pack lid before I cast off - ensuring that I’ve bought the best model of each. But I certainly won’t continue to anesthetize my outdoor experience by shaping and molding it into another artificial construct like much of the world around us already is. If I should be charting it on a graph or describing it using anything other than a few choice adjectives, then I’m not sure that I want to be there.

Regarding Your Rights as an American

A venturesome minority will always be able to set off on their own, and no obstacles should be placed in their path; let them take risks, for Godsake, let them get lost, sunburnt, stranded, drowned, eaten by bears, buried alive under avalanches--that is the right and privilege of any free American. - Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

On Simplicity

Those passionate about the outdoors can often find themselves troubled by the paradoxical nature of their passion. It’s hard to find someone that is truly passionate about their time immersed in the serenity of nature that doesn’t maintain equal concern for its preservation. The problem arises when one begins to realize just what a large accumulation of material wealth is often associated with enjoying their outdoor pursuits in the capacity that brings them the greatest joy. In fact, some often find that the material aspect of their passion at times rivals their passion for the activity that first spawned its necessity. Whether this situation arises out of happenstance or out of the modern desire for material gain could be debated, but what’s not up for debate is the fact that it runs counter to what it truly means to be an advocate for the wilds.

What does this mean to me? Well, for years I think that my interest in the implements that granted me access to the outdoors has, like many others, rivaled my passion for the activities themselves. One begins to realize such things when rifling through a closet full of layers in the pursuit of the perfect article that would suit the weather down to the very smallest unit of measurement by which it’s quantified. When the greatest adventure precedes the actual act of leaving the comfort of the indoors, then it’s become obvious that the original point has been lost. At my worst I might as well have headed down to REI and taken up residence in their floor model camp setup because that’s how far from the path I’d strayed.

I suppose closer introspection may be necessary to tease out the source of my obsessive acquisition of possessions whose alleged purpose was permitting me enjoyment of the outdoors. Specifically, let’s see how this pattern of acquisition panders to my nature: I think, most importantly, I have an extremely deep appreciation for ingenuity - especially when it comes to something that solves seemingly complicated problems through a simple and elegant solution. I can appreciate the time and mental gymnastics that goes into addressing the issues that subsequently furthers our collective resources as tool users (or, as the word might be evolving to mean, consumers). Of course, natural progression would dictate that once enamored by such innovation in principle, I’d like to act as an end to its implication. So, of course, I buy it. Why? Because I need it. Right?

Well, maybe not, and there-in lies the problem. When does there come a point when man pitting himself against nature has actually become man’s creations pitting themselves against nature. I mean, we see it often in the more ‘extreme’ of man’s innovations that we, as supposed preservationists, abhor – oil tankers, mechanized logging machines, smoke belching factories – the list goes on. These are all innovations that improved upon previous intentions to simply thrive within our natural environment…even though these new instruments seem very far from this purpose. I think by this point you, much like me, might wonder where it is we should be drawing our line in the sand? I think allot of that is up to the individual. This individual, for one, has already drawn such a line for himself.

In order to draw the metaphorical line I’ve had to take a back step to a time before my own when man’s (and woman’s, of course) capabilities were governed by a far smaller arsenal of tools and implementations. To be arbitrary about it might not be truly honest, so I think the regression should be one in human innovation in addressing necessities and not necessarily in chronology. So, what is necessity again? You may not recall because it’s a word and concept long perverted by the relative comfort afforded by our own ingenuity, but necessity is essentially what we need to perpetuate a breeding population. However, due to the gratuitous swelling of our craniums, let’s give ourselves a little more license and say that necessity is what we need to live comfortably. Ideas of comfort range for the individual, but this is me we’re talking about, so I will say being warm, dry, and well fed are necessities. I will further indulge myself by affording mental wellbeing, which is the requirement under which I will lump my passion for the outdoors because, I mean, who the hell ever climbed a snow blasted mountain because it meant being warm, dry, or well fed?

Now that I’ve established my framework, the next step was to begin to modify my life to operate within that construct. This basically meant it was time to get to paring down what I had. This was an actual process that included not only the material aspects of my life in their most literal sense, but also finances, and time. I took a close look at every aspect of my life – from cooking, to cleaning, and climbing to biking, from a car to raising Eli, and from work to personal hygiene. I identified how each of these aspects contributed to my overall comfort and then, in turn, what made each of these aspects work as they should without even the tiniest bit of extra to spare. Then came the fun part – getting rid of the extranium. When I say this was fun, I truly mean it. I berid myself of hundreds upon hundreds of dollars worth of possessions. Some I sold on eBay and Craigslist, others I gave away to charity and to those I knew who could use them. I absolved myself of paper and converted solely to digital, and even got rid of every last beloved book that I knew had no use for other than to occupy a space on my shelf. On the coat tails of getting rid, there was also some small amount of acquisition with the intended purpose of facilitating increased simplicity – acquisitions that served two functions instead of one, or took up less space instead of more.

What did this leave me with? First of all, probably one of the greatest senses of peace I’ve known in a long time. Not only do I feel far less mired in the things I currently own, but I also feel less inclination to add to my material wealth. Of course this means more money not tied up in material, and more breathing room when it comes to unavoidable future financial obligations. With decreased material possession also comes allot more time. And what do I with all this time? Spend it in the outdoors! Now I’ve come full circle and am back to the very topic with which I began.

Spending more time in the outdoors has allowed me a far better sense of everything it has to offer. No longer do my possessions act as a buffer from my outdoor experience. I now move faster, lighter, and far less encumbered than I ever have. I no longer experience the outdoors as a specialist because I am not longer entrapped in the prison of specialized gear that I had built for myself. Rather, I enjoy nature on its own terms. As an act of attrition, I’ve also begun to pay far more attention to how those things that do come into my possession get there. Are they born of practices similarly responsible to those they I’ve strove to engender? How does the means of their creation equivocate to their end purpose?

Alas, however, this isn’t a project measure by a beginning and end. This is a way of living embarked upon and hopefully refined and brought closer to perfection as time moves on. Sure, I can’t claim to have divorced myself entirely from material possession and nor do I think I will ever be able to. However, I can move as close to my basest needs, as I see them, as possible. It’s to this end that I hope to keep working. Perhaps I’ll write more on it in the future…who knows, maybe I will even learn to use less words…

Ahh, Yes, Mountain Biking...

Summer can prove to be a challenge to the less battle hardened of us outdoor warriors. We are often under siege by legions of blood thirsty insects all while being lorded over by an unforgiving sun who keeps stifling humidity in its employ. While the dog days of summer always dredge up pleasant memories that harken back to the days of my youth they are, unfortunately, some of the least favorite days of my adult hood. I much prefer the crisp cool days of fall, the sweet chill of spring, and the deep frost of a New England winter. However, summer is inevitable, so I make as much of it as I can. During those most oppressive days of the summer season I tend to hang up my rock shoes and lovingly stow the mountain bike in the basement in favor of my road bike, on which I can at least relish in the respite of a cooling head wind brought upon by swift moving forward progress. Unlike the stagnant confines of the forest, the moving air of the open road dissuades pesky blood suckers and the itchy, maddening heat brought upon by perfectly still moisture-laden forest air.

However, my time on the baking tarmac leaves me pining for the sylvan playground that I’ve been forced to abandon by my weak constitution and despicably unadaptive lack of fortitude. I long to return to her verdant bosom. No, not so much leafy boobs, but more like a playground of the natural world – unmolested and free of the linear perfection that governs the roadways that crisscross her loamy spread.

There is perhaps no greater antithesis to the constructs of Pythagoras and Euclid than a good ole stretch of New England single-track. While single-track in any part of the world earns a nod of approval from this particular rider, nothing will ever compare, for me, to the beautifully chaotic runs of trail that predominate the forested landscape of the Northeast. Much like the elvish throngs described in J.R.R. Tolkien’s master works, the New England trail builder works in orchestra with nature and wends their way through our deciduous tracts as a mindful interloper rather than a protractor-wielding engineer seeking to bend the landscape to their design. Riders here will find their single-track a playful exploration of our rocky and rooty landscape – rising and plunging over hill and dale in search of those features that elicit the widest grins and greatest whoops of joy.

It is this unadulterated joy that beckons to me from the bowels of her earthy depths. The miseries of summer have abated, and I’ve now succumb to these calls. The joys of mountain biking have finally once again taken a predominant role in my life. As I sit at my desk and stare at the rain pelting against the window, I daydream of drier days when I can once again return to the simple bliss I find in the bob and weave of my beloved single-track. While there is certainly a part of me that looks forward in eager anticipation of winter and the joy she brings, I can’t help but to think of the prose of George Harrison which surely echo the words of the many enlightened before him – “It's being here now that's important. There's no past and there's no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now.” Possessed by such wisdom, all I can help but to simply think is ‘ahh, yes, mountain biking…’

Mountains

Mountains are not Stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion...I go to them as humans go to worship. From their lofty summits I view my past, dream of the future and, with an unusual acuity, am allowed to experience the present moment...my vision cleared, my strength renewed. In the mountains I celebrate creation. On each journey I am reborn. - Anatoli Boukreev

Gymnast Rings on the Cheap

So for a while I've wanted some gymnast rings for doing dips on. They are better than a normal dip station because they require that you use your core muscles to stabalize you as you are doing the dip. Problem is, they start at $70 and go up. Seventy dollars for a friggin' ring? Unh-uh, no way.

I started poking around Home Depot and a couple of area hardware stores when I had a few minutes of free time to see if I couldn't come up with an elegant and wallet-friendly solution. Finally it came to me - PVC. I picked up a 10' piece of 1" Schedule 40 PVC from Home Depot along with miscellaneous and sundry hardware. Recollecting back to my days as a voyeur of many manufacturing processes, I decided that I could bake the PVC in the oven and then mold it around some sort of jig.

I cut a 24" piece and put it in the oven for 10 minutes at 350 degrees. The plan was to wrap it around a 10 pound steel weight plate until it had cooled and retained it's shaped. Problem was that as soon as I took it out of the oven and began wrapping it, the PVC began to deform and kink. What to do, what to do?

I went to the local playground late the following evening and filled a couple of 3 gallon jugs with play sand. I thoroughly taped one end of a newly cut 24" piece of PVC, packed it with sand, and then throughly taped the other end. I then popped it in the oven much like I had before and took it out after the 10 minute mark. It formed around the 10 pound weight plate beautifully - no kinks! I then popped it in the freezer for about an hour, took it out, removed the tape and sand, and threaded the nylon and steel ring though as you see pictured. I mounted it to the basement rafter and they work beautifully! Total cost: $7.83.

Quote

We will never cease exploring, and the end of our exploring will be to arrive at the place where we began, and see it for the first time.

Brutus of Wyde

What's Pedro On?

So a couple of years ago I was at EMS’s (Eastern Mountain Sports for the uninformed) tent sale and bought a Pedro’s floor pump called the “Domestique”. The fact that I picked it up for mere pennies on the dollar should have told me something, but I develop tunnel vision when I see a supposed deal. Well, anyhow, I got the thing home and pumped my tires, during the course of which I almost popped a blood vessel in my eye. No, seriously, in was the most incredibly taxing Herculean feat of strength I’ve ever had to perform just in order to get the needle to even crawl out of the double digits. I’m not a small guy and, for my size, I’m pretty damn strong. What gives?

Seeing that I like to get my workout DURING a ride and not before it, the pump became another neglected fixture amongst my belongings. Well the other pump that I had been using due to the Domestique’s inefficacy ended up breaking and I was again left to wrestle with this little masochistic piece of junk. One night I am pumping up my tire for the next morning’s commute and in the process of torquing it this way and that it shoots out from under me, sending my body ground ward. After righting myself and checking to ensure no one had noticed, I stomped over to my laptop and typed up a wordy condemnation of the Domestique to the master craftsman himself, Pedro. Well I got an e-mail back (interestingly enough from a guy not name Pedro) that says the Domestique is not really intended for pumping up high pressure road bike tires and is more for mountain bikers, recreational cyclists, and whoever else falls into that low-pressure lot.

At this point my brain recoils inside my skull at the seemingly impossible irony it’s just been introduced to. Let’s recap - this pump, named the Domestique, a term used to refer to a particular role of a cyclist in ROAD bike racing, is not designed to adequately inflate ROAD bike tires. Still reeling from all the mental anguish this has caused me, I try to think up a course of action that doesn’t involve me planting my face into the keyboard. I decide to fly in the face of what apparently goes for ‘reason’ at Pedro’s and make an appeal to the customer service rep that had e-mailed me back. I’m hoping he’s not as baked out of his gourd when he reads my e-mail as Pedro was when he dubbed this devilish little device the “Domestique”. Amazingly, the customer service rep can see where I am coming from and, in fact, said that he’d pass this information along to his marketing department. Actually he does me one better – he upgrades me to the “Super Prestige” pump for free and assures me this pump will not cast me to the ground like some sort of belly flopping dimwit. So even though the finer points of cycling nomenclature and marketing seems to fail Pedro, it’s at least nice to know he’s got great customer service.

Update on My SummitPost Post

I sent an e-mail to Fat Cyclist regarding the thread I started on SummitPost.org to which he had replied. Below that you'll see his response.

Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 11:10:18 -0400
From: Daniel
Subject: SummitPost Post - Thank You
To: fatty

Hi Fatty –

I’m an occasional reader of yours and also happen to be the ‘F.A. Heelhook’ on SummitPost.org who posted about “Fifteen Minutes of Shame”. I just wanted to take a second to let you know that your retrospective thoughts on your actions were admirable and, as such, my post was in no way intended to single you out. More importantly I was concerned about the judicial system’s attitude towards the affair as portrayed in your post. I thought that your reply to my original post on SummitPost.org did an excellent job of articulating, once again, your regret for your actions and your willingness to bring this fact to your readership’s collective awareness.

As an avid road & mountain cyclist myself it would be a bit ridiculous to apologize on the behalf of my fellow e-climber’s for their sweeping generalizations regarding my two-wheeled comrades, though it does disappoint me what the thread ended up degenerating into…as internet forum threads are often wont to do. What disappoints me even more, however, was what many of your readers failed to gain from your post. They seemed to overlook the lesson you took away from the incident and merely viewed it as a comical inconvenience you were subjected to at the hands of the judicial machine. The fact of the matter is that, while not commonplace, deaths have and continue to result from incidents similar to yours where the offender is not as lucky or careful as you were. As a father, the Peter Absolon incident (referenced in my post) is one that always sticks in my mind upon thinking of a family loosing a father and husband as a result of a young man’s momentary indiscretion.

I posted something to a similar end on my own blog (admittedly FAR less read than your own) in the hopes of bringing a similar message to my own half a dozen readers. I apologize if such a seemingly trivial action on your part has brought your unnecessary recrimination from the masses over at SummitPost, but I am grateful for the opportunity to share what you ultimately took away from your experience to the few non-climbers that I know. I think your suggestion of bringing this issue to light by way of your blog was a noble one and I don’t think it would be a lost cause even if it’s something that the court system wouldn’t entertain as a form of recompense.

Anyways, thanks for your time and your enjoyable posts.

Dan

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: fatty
Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2009 11:53 AM
To: Daniel
Subject: RE: SummitPost Post - Thank You

Hi Dan,Thanks for taking the time to send that email. I appreciate it.Like you, I was disappointed that some people took the wrong message away from my post. That's pretty common, though -- some people will just misunderstand. What I like to hope is that it's just a vocal minority doing that.And you're absolutely right: it's not your job to apologize on behalf of any group. Some people are nice, some people are jerks. What their hobbies are doesn't enter into it.If / when I get a chance to bring the seriousness of this matter to light again -- by writing or in real life -- I definitely will.

Thanks!

On The Joys of a Single Speed

Those of you have already read my post entitled “Tuesday Night Wrap-up” will already know that last week I snapped my derailleur hanger on a botched feature. For those of you to whom this means anything, I bought my current mountain bike (a 2008 Trek Fuel EX8) last year and haven’t had to adjust, tweek, or replace a SINGLE thing since then. This is almost unheard of in the world of mountain biking, where any foray onto even realtively tame single track leaves bikes dessicated and dilapidated. So point being is I guess I had this coming.

Derailleur hanger failure is common in mountain biking, and in fact it’s designed to fail in order to prevent you from snapping the far more expensive derailleur which it attaches to the bike. However, as Trek has been notorious for as of late, their parts are highly proprietary and finding a hanger for my bike proved daunting. I finally was able to order one from derailleurhanger.com (who would have thunk it?), however, it still hadn’t arrived and I really wanted to go riding Monday. So what did I do? Naturally I just jury rigged something so I could get back out on the trail. I converted the bike over to a solid single speed operation by shuffling some cogs around on the rear cassette and slapping it back on the bike.

So what of the single speed ride? Well, it was an experience to say the least. Tristan and I chose to go to Case Mountain in Manchester and, as the name implies, it truly is a mountain. It begins with a very stout climb up from the parking lot, a serious lung buster even when equipped with a full range of gears. It turns out that it’s a real death sentence with only a single gear and required me to be up out of the saddle and muscling the bike around for a solid 15 minutes. About 2 minutes into the climb I can hear the repeated screech of a rubbing rear brake disc, but I can’t stop because I’ll never get enough momentum to get started again without the risk of snapping the chain. So here I am fighting gravity with a sticky brake and far too high a gear. I finally make it to the top in record time and in a record amount of pain. Luckily for me this is the only major climb and the worst to come are just some short (albeit super-techy) inclines.

I’m bulling away on the bike the entire time trying to modulate my speed and maintain good pedal position with my single sorry gear while Tristan is struggling away with mechanical after mechanical. We some how make it back to the trailhead with all the pieces of Tristan’s bike still attached to the frame and decide that we are going to call it a day. We barrel down the steep descent, which at one point dumps me out hot on the trail of a bounding deer…my wheel mere inches from its hind legs. We finally return to the parking lot where Tristan forcefully drops his bike down to the tarmac in disgust and where I realize this may be the most pain my legs have been in since taking up the sport.

All in all a good ride.

The Judicial System on Rock Trundling

I had posted something on this same subject on SummitPost. It’s about a post I read on the “Fat Cyclist” blog regarding an experience he had after being caught trundling a rock off a cliff at White Rim. Now a post like that makes a climber cringe in a way that most non-climbers will never understand. Any climber whose heard the whiz of a passing stone as it reaches near ballistic speeds also knows the fear it strikes in one’s heart. Over the years a number of similar incidents have occurred with deadly and life altering outcomes. One incident in particular that sticks in my mind is the death of Peter Absolon, a great climber and father who left this world early after having been struck by a rock tossed over a cliff’s edge by a twenty-three year old man. These aren’t just kids out there screwing around in the woods…many of them are adults looking for a few seconds of hollow sophomoric entertainment.

Now if you read the thread that I started on SummitPost, there are several alternative views regarding the incident. I did concede that it’s necessary for climbers, at times, to remove loose rock when establishing routes that have seen little or no previous traffic. Doing so in a responsible and cautious fashion can seriously reduce the risk of ACCIDENTAL rock fall that could put future parties in danger. However, in the interest of remaining fair, this sort of rock trundling technically would fall under the same laws that ultimately led to Fat Cyclist’s day in court. What’s this mean for us? I guess in my own opinion it would mean using good judgment.

If there is no need to go lobbing a rock off a cliff, then don’t do it. If there is a real need to do it, then be damn sure the area is well clear of any soul and yell “ROCK!” like it was your job. As far as this incident is concerned? Fat Cyclist seems to have received an education from the ranger and seemed truly remorseful for his actions, even though his fine seems to reflect the judicial system’s poor grasp on the gravity of his actions. Similarly it would seem that allot of his commenters maybe missing the point as well. Perhaps a friendly but educational response of your own might lead the more receptive of his readership to change their stance on the issue and prevent any future incidents born of ignorance.

Tuesday Night Wrap-up

I slide into the parking lot sending up a plume of dry dust that eventually settles back down on my car, further adding to its sullied well-travelled mystique. I step out of the car and can already feel the chill wind and drop in air pressure that promises a healthy thunder storm riding in on its coat tails. Tristan arrives a few minutes later and looks upon my bike in horror as he realizes I hadn’t cleaned it from the ride before. Everything is coated in thick gobs of dried mud and the chain has a fine patina of rust upon it. The disc brakes scrape and rub as they too are covered in a film of woodland grime. I love my bike, it just doesn’t show.

After the exchange of a few quick words about the weather and the route of choice we are off through the grassy ridgeline that eventually dumps us at the base of the very first climb. The first half of the ride goes as it always does – lots of suffering up climbs, some good technical sections that are always a honor to clean, and eager anticipation of the challenging ridgeline to follow. We muscle up the last of the major climbs with burning quads and oxygen starved bodies. We stop for a minute to refuel but are quickly set back in motion by the swarms of flies trying to rob us of blood and comfort. We flow along, cleaning feature after feature, enjoying the silence of the wilderness as it hunkers down in anticipation of the impending storm.

I go to hit a small ladder up-and-over, when I suddenly realize the other side has been moved. I crash down awkwardly on the other side as I hear the SNAP of my derailleur hanger. Tristan and I almost immediately have my bike upended and are inspecting the damage. The derailleur has been completely amputated. I extract it from the spokes of my wheel and within a few minutes I am up and running again, albeit now on a single speed. The going is now far more challenging with the absence of any gearing options, but it adds to the fun rather than detract from it.

Tristan and I are hooting and hollering as we hit downhill after downhill, sweeping through the berms, launching off the features. We finally get dumped back out into a meadow where we hear the first claps of thunder. The breeze is even cooler and it bends the wild flowers and tall grass in all directions; a hypnotic interplay between the invisible and visible aspects of nature. We spy a deer in the depression to the left of us just as we feel the first drops of rain fall upon us against the background of wild flashes of lightening. We sweep through the meadow and are back in the woods once again. It’s much darker now and picking a line is now based more on intuition than sight. After muddling our way through the final section of darkened forest, we are on the final leg of our journey, passing back over the grassy ridgeline on which we started. Its pouring now, and Tristan and I are relishing in the beauty of our timing and how fortunate we are to have finished the ride in such a wonderful summer thunderstorm.

We get back to the car and load up our bikes, finding excuses to stand out in the cooling rain just a few moments longer before returning to our cars and, eventually, the comfort of the indoors.

A Partnership Forged in Absurdity

A tangled web of fluorescent green and orange ropes snake their ways in and out between his feet as he murmurs “what a fourth dimensional slumber fuck”. “What?!?!” I shout down. “These ropes are a fourth dimensional slumber fuck” he repeats, obviously perturbed.

A fourth dimensional slumber fuck. What an excellent phrase to describe the ice route we’re on. We’re pretty sure the route already has been named, but we’re equally as sure that the name couldn’t possibly match the utterly absurd genius behind a name such as “Fourth Dimensional Slumber Fuck”. So the climb is renamed; a title describing the maze of twin ropes that wrap and coil their way amongst one another, seemingly disappearing in a fourth dimension at times and reappearing at another, all the while engaged in their perverse orgy of writhing disorganization. Like all rope handling disasters, Jesse is ultimately able to disengage the two ropes from one another after a prolonged period of puzzled fumbling and profuse cursing. Fourth Dimensional Slumber Fuck…what a seemingly apt title to describe this situation, and maybe our climbing careers as a whole.

Jesse and I have been climbing together for many years now. We grew up together as children and always had a deep appreciation and reverence for the outdoors. Both having shared a brief stint in Boy Scouts, we both felt suppressed by its structure and formality and quit in favor of experiencing the outdoors on our own terms. Later I’d learn that our departure from the rigor of Boy Scouts would closely mirror the approach we’d take to our climbing career.

Fast forward a decade or so to the end of my Senior year in college. I’d been supplementing bong hits and keg stands with the writings of great climbers pontificating on life and death in the vertical realm. At this point it was still as much fantasy to me as J.R.R. Tolkien; a world I could only reach through the musings of some of my newly found favorite authors.

Its on a sunny afternoon that I meet Jesse for a hike which terminates on a beautiful granite cliff were a large boulder of the same composition is perched, known as “Wolf Rock”. We stretch out upon this herculean pebble and bask in the early afternoon sun. Conversation, as it has a way of doing between us, moves quickly between one thing to the next and finally we dance around to the subject of my most recent reading. Jesse picks his head up and glances over to me and instantly I know I’ve piqued his interest. “Dude, seriously? Its something I’ve been thinking allot about too!” The conversation picks up tempo and we begin discussing our thoughts and aspirations with a fanaticism matched only by the fervor you’d find amongst religious zealots.

Ultimately we decide that, like all things we’ve perused past to present, we were going to eschew professional instruction in favor of self education. Having observed time and again that self learned lessons are the best learned lessons, we decide there is no other way to go. It’s like Boy Scouts all over again…the hell with handbooks and merit badges to get in the way, this is the real world. To this end we rush off to buy gear the next day; a collection of aluminum and nylon we plan to put together into some sort of operational configuration. While basic physics is something that is not beyond us, our first top rope setup has us multiplying forces beyond the bounds of reasonable math. For many months we did it all…took dozens of falls in close succession dangling from American Death Triangles, ran whole ropes through belay devices instead of just clipping in at the point of actuation, rappelled off of a single chain of girth hitched runners, and set off into the unknown from belays protected worse that a high school kid with a 10 year old condom.

However, the learning curve in climbing is a steep one and every outing was a learning experience to be sure. We shocked, scandalized and terrified more veteran climbers than I can count but learned allot this way…receiving at least more than one lesson delivered in the clearly panicked tones of someone who clearly knew better. Since that time we’ve amassed a wealth of knowledge that far exceeds anything we could have gained from any REI sponsored course or a weekend out with “that guy at work that climbs sometimes”. We’ve become aces on rock and ice, mountains and crags, approaches and descents. We’ve starved, we’ve suffered, we’ve frozen, we’ve baked, we’ve yelled, we’ve panicked, we’ve succeeded, we’ve failed, we’ve nursed, we’ve puked, we’ve laughed, we’ve accused, we’ve ridiculed, but mainly we’ve had a shit load of fun independent of the overly analytical element of safety that threatens to anesthetize climbing and exploration as a whole.

Now-a-days schedules conflict and climbing together is not always a possibility. We’ve both got jobs, I have a kid, and we’ve got other hobbies as well. We still each put up routes on a routine basis and try to get a couple of weeks on big mountains each year. While I enjoy the diverse group of partners I’ve had, nothing quite matches the harmony and rhythm of a climbing partnership as long established as ours. While the wreck less abandon may have since been replaced with greater experience and a climber’s hard earned wisdom, the absurd foundations of our passion surely have not diminished and our time on the mountain is still a circus…maybe just a slightly safer one.

Shit Gets Real in 100 Acre Wood

14 Todd Hollow Road

While 14 Todd Hollow Road may just appear to be a street address to most, to me it was the location of my initiation into the world of the outdoorsman, the naturalist, and the writer. I was raised from infancy at that house, and was heart broken when I moved from there as a preteen. To give you a little background, the house was built, by hand, by my mother’s grandfather without blue prints, outside advise, and, most likely, proper permits. As a result, the house was imbued with a character that is largely absent from modern day homes which contributed to its playground-like qualities as a child. The basement, built by hand from the jack-hammered ledge it was carved out of, was home to a partitioned storage unit which later became my “shop”. The two upstairs bedrooms (one my sister’s, the other mine) were connected by the closets, permitting back entry…something that routinely gave rise to sibling antics. The property sported an immense four bay garage that rivaled the house in size, and was my father’s and my retreat. The piece de resistance, however, was the property. The house was situated on a large 2 acre plot of land that was abutted by a large 3 acre pond, and a 14 acre tract of woodlands that we were permitted free and unhindered access to. It was host to countless hours of play and adventure, and will always fondly dominate my memories of childhood.

Its difficult to catalog your thoughts as a young boy, so I’ve thrown any attempts at recounting the following tales in chronological order out the window. So, in that case, let’s start with the pond. The pond was home to countless creepy crawlies, and its dark detritus littered waters presented it with a very mysterious sense of eeriness. The water was of questionable quality, which resulted in many talking-to’s when being caught by my mother as I slurped greedily from the cold waters of the brook that flowed from it behind our house. Amongst the inhabitants of our pond, was a legion of snakes so numerous, that even the former Crocodile Hunter would have a mighty large task on his hands. For my mother who hates snakes more than any person I have ever met, this presented a unique challenge. Walking anywhere in the yard surrounding our home was a task fraught with constant hyper-awareness. If you ever met my mother and don’t think she can sprint on a Olympic level, then you’re dead wrong.

As our house was pretty secluded, playing with other neighborhood children was rare, so I spent allot of time “playing” (more accurately, fighting) with my sister. I did share a brief friendship with another little boy in the neighborhood, but it was cut short when I was banned from his house after setting their lawn on fire with a bottle rocket launched from his bedroom window. Anyhow, while I had my basement “shop”, my sister’s play area consisted of a yellow jacket infested shed. While larger, and considerably more opulent that my dirt floored “shop”, I was quite content with my digs. These spaces ended up serving as bases from which many a war was launched, after violations of the demarcating line running down the middle of the lawn were made. I remember one such instance in which (this was totally by accident, seriously), my sister was clothes-lined while riding her bike by a home made “traffic light” that I had strung across the driveway. I’ve also run her over with my bike, gotten a RC car tire wound in her hair, but in my defense, she did drop a 12 pound rock on the back of my head at one point.

Not all of the torments lobbed at my sister were physical, however. Even at a young age, I had a flair for the dramatic and, as such, had woven stories so horrendously terrifying, that my sister’s ventures into the 14 acres of woods surrounding our home were made with extreme fear. Can anyone honestly tell me they wouldn’t be scared shitless if they ran into a marauding bigfoot or the icy grip of a grim reaper, both of which inhabited the depths of the property? The house wasn’t free from horror, either, though. A carefully constructed rig involving fishing line and a floating fan power cord served to quickly convince her that our warm little nest was in fact plagued by ghosts.

While inflicting grief on one another was a past time treasured by my sister and I, nothing would top the mutual grief we both endured late one winter. Our front yard was home to a glittering jewel of an above ground pool where we wiled away hours upon hours of our summer days. It was the same pool that I had jumped in feet first wearing flippers and, upended by the act, was thrashing about madly screaming “I’m drowning! I’M DROWNING!” while being laughed at by parents and uncle. I was later informed it’s not really drowning if you can still scream. Anyways, there had been a particularly warm spell this one fateful winter that began to melt the water frozen within the bowels of the pool. This served to create fractures in the ice, a large and very sharp piece of which ended up spearing through the side of the pool, dumping its innards all over the front lawn. My sister and I stood with tears streaming down our cheeks as we watched the final trickles of summer aquatic fun pulse from our dying friend.

Unfortunately, however, all good things must come to an end. My parents began to realize that their property value was beginning to decline, and felt that it was time for a needed paradigm change to a more child-friendly neighborhood. It wasn’t the National Guard battalion plugging down our road to their training ground located at its end, or even the contingent of roving child-mauling dogs that was bringing down property values, however. It was Ally McBeal. Okay, well maybe not she herself, but she had something to do with it. So one house over from ours stood one of the dumpiest most run down homes I’ve ever come to see. Every neighborhood has “that house”, but in this case our neighborhood had it in spades. The house was supported by a large timber leaned against one side to prevent the structure from toppling over after a leaky roof had served to rot out a good portion of the supporting framework. Toppling over would have actually been the best thing for it, but apparently its proud owner didn’t see it that way. The owner I speak of is Gary Flockhart. Now at this point you may be asking yourself who Gary Flockhart is. Gary Flockhart is the unemployed owner of the condemned house that blighted our neighborhood. More importantly, he is Calista Flockhart’s brother, the actress who portrayed Ally McBeal in the television sitcom bearing the same name. In a tabloid article detailing the whole affair (and thusly casting much unwanted attention on our neighborhood), it was explained that Ally, whoops, sorry, Calista had made numerous attempts to help her brother out, but had failed when funds were diverted to the purchase of illicit substances. My sister and I didn’t really get it at the time, and thought our parents were trying to stymie our happiness, but in our later years we began to see the prudence of, what was, a tough decision.

However, the absurdity of the events that played out down the street from us never left a blemish on the fond memories I have, and always will have of that place. Oh and by the way, the Flockhart family was later evicted and that piece of shit knocked to the ground.

The Bagel

So, at work we have one of those conveyor style toaster that escorts your bagel or a baked good of your choosing between two heating elements. I have the settings for the speed & heat perfected so that my bagels come out perfectly every time. Like I do every morning, I put my bagel in and go to fill my water bottle. I return to the toaster and find that this guy I hate* had put in an English muffin behind my bagel and had lowered all of the settings. I make a futile effort to return the dials to their original positions, but its too late.

So the bagel emerges, half of it toasted to heavenly perfection, the other half a spongy pale white disappointment. Now I have a dilemma…do I re-toast the bagel and attempt a bold maneuver with the heat controls in an effort to homogenize the Frankenbagel? I ultimately chose not to and, out of spite, I max out all the dials on the toaster (still housing his English muffin) and walk away. I now sit here munching on the bagel, experiencing moments of extreme delight, interspersed with moments of intense loathing.

* I detest this particular individual not solely as a result of this incident, but rather a long chain of similar instances that display his blatant disregard for his common man. I have been working in the same building for four years, and for those four years I’ve been both a victim and a witness to this guy’s rude and inconsiderate behavior. He routinely fails to acknowledge people when they say ‘hi’ or hold doors, never holds doors for others, cuts in line, and is a general douche bag. The fact that he’d choose an English muffin over a bagel only serves to contribute to my lowly estimation of him. I have no idea what his name is or what department he works in, and nor do I care to.

E-Mail From Corey

From: Corey
Sent: Friday, April 24, 2009 11:56 AM
To: Dan
Subject: The breakfast ride

I had an awesome ride this morning. The kind that makes you walk in to work humming your favorite song and wearing the kind of grin that make others think you just took someone else's car joyriding. It started off with a couple frustrating events. First, I roll up to the bike rack at work to deposit my backpack and find that someone else, whose bike I've never even seen before, has forced there bike in to my rung on the bike rack, where my lock already was. This aggravated me grately, but I was able to make the lock reach my backpack anyway. Then I continue on my way up talcott mountain, but right when you pass the farmstand on your left and begin up the steep grade, a bug flys right in to my eye / contact lense. Mind you, I was not wearing glasses because I already packed them in my riding bag for Sunday and safely stowed it in my car. While im trying to rub my eye and get the bug out, I careen into the curb. Luckily I think I just scuffed the side of my pedal and didn’t crash or have to stop. By this point the bug is out of my eye, but im tired and frustrated and only 1/4 the way up the hill.

I make it over the top and cruise down to simsbury and down iron horse boulevard. I was expecting that bakery/breakfast place I wanted to check out was going to be right around the end of the blvd. I get to the end and start riding on rt 10 and see only trees around me, I get nervous that I missed the place because downtown simsbury is behind me at this point. Im almost to the point of turning around when I see a small shopping plaza and signs of civilization, so I keep going. I spy a sign designating the harvest bakery and pull in to the plaza and lean my bike against the bench. Before I even open the door, there is an ominous sign "$10 minimum on all credit card purchases". Of course all I brought was a credit card. I go in and start gazing at the glass counters full of cupcakes, scones, muffins and other delicacies. I wait patiently to be helped by the cute girl behind the counter as she rings up someone's bill. Then she asks if she can help me with anything. I begin asking her if she would make an exception to the credit card limit just this once, since that’s all I brought on me. She asks me what I want, so I see if they have any cinnamon bread or something of that nature since they are known for their homemade breads. She told me they only sell them by the loaf, but I could have some toast if I sit at the counter. I tell her that I just need something quick since I have to get back to work, so she says "there are more bike friendly foods over here". Meanwhile im telling her how I came out here to do some recon since I heard this place had great breakfast and I wanted to come here before work sometime and maybe for brunch on the weekend. She brings me over to the scones section and shows me a cinnabon bun scone, which I think looks delicious. I say I'll take it. She wraps it up and gives it to me, along with a take home menu so I can peruse their offerings. Then, the shocker. She says "I'll cover it this time". Woohoo! I thank her numerous times and say I'll be sure to come back often. I then ride home, even taking the bike path through simsbury, happily munching on my free scone. I barely even felt the ground rise as I went up and over talcott this time, my stomach was far too content.

I think we know the destination of the first breakfast ride. By the way, the scone was delicious.

Bike Nerddom Nirvana Achieved

So I cast off into the land of dreams the other night, a warm spring breeze blowing through my window and the merry tones of the dying party at the house next door. I note the pleasant soreness in my legs from the day’s hammer fest and sink them lower into the welcoming tender embrace of my memory foam mattress. I slowly sever my ties with the waking world in excited anticipation of the nocturnal picture show featuring me as hero, heart breaker, and hardcore bad ass. Even those dreams not featuring me as a larger than life protagonist will normally take on themes so utterly bizarre that they’re nearly incomprehensible by the waking mind. I mean, who hasn’t joined a biker gang whose weekend past times involves drinking bourbon from the bottle and watching winged golden retrievers play soccer outside the back window of their favorite watering hole?

I woke up the next morning to the scent of brewing coffee and the sizzle of eggs. As sat up and began to catalogue my night’s cognitive adventures I realized, much to my shock, there were none. I had had one dream, and one dream alone. I dreamed that I had bought a ’09 SRAM Rival gruppo to replace the ’08 Ultegra gruppo currently on my Madone. Then (and this is where the dream really takes on life) I was met with the decision of whether or not to sell the Ultegra gruppo on eBay, or to initiate a new build. I ultimately decided to purchase a Pedal Force RS2 frame and build it up as a crit bike. That was it. That was my dream. The dream theatre normally showcasing flicks about shagging super models and taking out opposing factions with effortless judo chops was now showing instructional reels on making prudent recreational purchases. What’s next, a friggin’ feature film on baking an apple pie? I feel that I may have achieved an all-time low where my dream life is commensurate, and may soon surpass, my real life’s degree of regularity.

The Saga Continues...

So the saga continues on my local MUP. Yesterday I was riding home from work which brings me around the back half of the loop so elegantly portrayed in my previous post. Unfortunately my map fails to capture the level of detail necessary to demonstrate the fact that there is a small climb present on the loop that finishes on a blind right hand corner obscured by dense brush. I like to hammer up this particular climb as it’s a waste to drop into the smaller ring, not to mention its just plain fun. As I am rounding this corner I almost run head on into a teenage girl of pretty generous carriage. I pull a death defying maneuver and avoid creaming her by a margin perceptible to only those with the keenest of vision. I mutter a curse under my breath which, much to my chagrin, was audible to the girl’s father now only 10 or so feet behind me. He unleashed a maelstrom of insults upon me, a mistake I am sure he later regretted. With this week’s prior events and an already ill disposition towards these bumbling peds, his words served to whip up a tempest within our dear and humble narrator’s psyche the likes of which no online venting could ever serve to quell.

What ensued was a akin to a sermon delivered from up on high. I quickly wheeled my bike back around and begin to animatedly explain the dynamics of the bike path, and how utterly both he and his daughter had failed to adhere to them. Much to my surprise, I must have located the one ped whose brain hadn’t been reduced to a thin sauce as a result of their primitively jarring and rattling means of locomotion. He began to see the wisdom in my words (believe me, this is a very rare experience in any arena of my life) and even went to the extent of apologizing for trespassing upon us cyclists’ hallowed ground. Content from having done my part to cast a little light into the darkest corners of the pedestrians’ collective store of knowledge, I wheeled off basking in the cool afternoon sun and my own ego stroking.

LOOK, dog!

Each day on my 12 mile commute to work, I travel over about 2 miles of a local MUP that bisects the angle of the two main roads that lead to my destination (see professionally rendered map below). These 2 miles are always hopelessly rife with frustration and hand wringing as I struggle to cope with the rambling mass of brain dead peds. The MUP, about 10 feet wide, is (in theory, not in practice) pretty well laid out and includes a dedicated uni-directional bike lane that takes up about a third of its total width. Each morning I ride the lane in the correct direction and do my best to keep as far over as possible. Each morning it never fails that some hoard of middle aged women, pony tails swinging side to side in sync with their wagging hips and flapping gums, trot four abreast in the bike lane leaving the ped path void of traffic. Each morning I give a friendly but loud “on your right” to alert them to the fact they’re encroaching on cyclist turf and, every morning, these same pony-tailed adorned skulls come whipping around bearing a look on their face like they’ve just caught me sodomizing their 11 year old. On those really special occasions I am met with a heart-filled “ahole!” or an alarmed “Jebus Christ!”, to which I merrily respond “it’s a bike lane, dipshit!”.

A new phenomenon has been introduced to the bike path as of late in that there seems to be a preponderance of peds accompanied by their canine pals. Now don’t get me wrong, I love dogs and, as a dog lover, I feel it’s a responsible owner’s duty to ensure their dog doesn’t pose a safety risk to itself or others. Besides the mild frustration of having to dodge our furry friends’ ‘leavings’ whose less fastidious owner’s couldn’t be bothered to collect, I have now become accustomed to dodging the beasts themselves as they range, unleashed, into two-wheeled territory. I handle their owners much like I handle any other imbecile ped and deliver a friendly “there’s leash laws for a reason, asspipe!”. Unfortunately, however, it would appear that my wisdom has went unheeded as is apparent in the episode in which I was involved in on this particular morning.

I was coasting towards the exit of my beloved MUP, breathing a sigh of relief at having survived yet another morning of assured peril when all of a sudden a ped and his dog appear from around the corner. I quickly realize that this particular German Sheppard was moving towards me at an astonishing rate, unbound by any sort of tether. Even more quickly I realize that this dog had every intention of gnawing on our narrator’s god-like pistons. As its jaws almost inevitably locked around my leg I was able to unclip and deliver a swift and authoritative shove to its right shoulder with my foot. Instantly confronted by a feeling of pity for what I had to do to this poor animal as a result of its owner’s negligence, I shout at the offending ignoramus that he better get his shti in order lest his companion someday engage a less sympathetic soul. The guy saunters off clearly embarrassed, so much so that he fails to even respond.

As my local MUP’s judicature, I feel personal responsibility for the enlightenment of my dull witted fellow users. It would seem, however, that despite my best efforts I’m clearly just not getting through to them.

On Getting Dropped by a Fred

The sport of road biking is inherently a dorky one and, as such, its divided into varying degrees of dorkiness. The racers are the cool guys, and the dudes & dudettes with all sorts of knick knacks bolted to their bikes and sporting white cotton gym socks are referred to as “Freds”. Freds are routinely teased but the cycling community is a close one, so its all in good fun. A road racer’s pride can suffer a small degree of bruising when being passed by one of these Freds, which is exactly what happened to Corey and I yesterday. I wrote a short little blurb about it on a forum I subscribe to, and I thought I’d share:

So I met my buddy on my afternoon commute yesterday and we decided that a 40 mile loop on such a beautiful day would be just the thing for loosening up sore legs after the previous day’s intervals. We’re tooling along soaking up the rays when we hear a whooping “How yaaa doin’?!?!” on our left. Overtaking us is this bike covered with more gadgets than I could even assess with a single glance, piloted by a rider clad in knee high red wool socks, a helmet from 1976, and a long salt and pepper beard blowing horizontally across his face. He drops in ahead of us so fast that I looked down to make sure I hadn’t flatted.

As I see him become smaller and smaller on the road ahead of us, his t-shirt fluttering madly in the wind, I smiled to myself and took pleasure in sharing the joys of such a wonderful pastime.

Edward Abbey's Benediction

I've always enjoyed this particular passage by Edward Abbey, and so I thought this would be an appropriate medium with which to share it:

"Benedicto: May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets' towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you—beyond the next turning of the canyon walls."

Abbey, for those of you who don't know, was a strong champion for the preservation of the wilds of the Southwest and a true lover of its intimate secrets. For a quick, but great read, I'd suggest checking out "Desert Solitaire", although you're bound to enjoy any of his other works just as greatly.

4000 Mechanicals: A Look Back at the '08 Cycling Season

I never thought it possible, but ESPN8, the Ocho, has put together highlights from Corey, Tristan, and my 2008 road biking season. What follows is a transcript:

Hi there folks, and welcome to highlights from Dan, Corey, and Tristan’s 2008 road biking season. I’ve got to warn all you viewers at home, though, there’s a disturbingly large number of mechanicals to follow –

The season is off to a slow start with just Dan and Corey muddling about the streets of Hartford County, but wait, what’s this? Tristan, off on a holiday from school, pulls up from the rear and joins the peloton. The peloton has found their rhythm and is moving along at an astonishing clip but….wait! What’s this? We don’t have confirmation yet but it appears that Tristan’s chain has literally snapped in two as he began up a short and shallow climb! It would appear that the team has stopped and is repairing the chain. But no, wait, I’m sorry, Corey is off again and has left the team to their own devices! The Euros would be proud to have such a esteemed rider amongst their ranks.

Okay then, Tristan is back up and running and the peloton has regrouped, but wait, what’s it this time? It appears that Tristan’s chain has snapped yet again! My god, can this really be happening? However, it’d appear that the chain is now fixed and the peloton is back on the move. They’re now enroute from the rolling hills of Hartford county to the steeps of Litchfield in, what appears to be, pursuit of a festival. Yes, that’s right ladies and gentleman, we’ve just received confirmation that they will attending a wine tasting upon beautiful Lake Waramoug. This affords us the rare privilege to see these men off their bikes and enjoying themselves. Look at those Herculean legs!

Alright, they’re back on their bikes and on one of their signature training rides that start off on perilous Route 189. Corey and Dan pull ahead and are cruising towards the next traffic light and, wait, it looks like they’re being confronted by a balloon-tired hick-mobile! The truck has raced ahead of the two, swerving to the right and has completely blocked their progress! This doesn’t bode well folks because, as you will see from the season highlights, this is just one of many encounters they will be having with motorists. It appears that everything clears up, and they’re back on the move.

It looks like they’ve now added Art to their peloton and are pumping their way through New Hartford, in the midst of 100-miler…but what’s THAT?!?! A bear! That’s right folks, a black bear has just sprinted across the road right in front of the team! It looks like they’re continuing on, unfazed, not a single finger venturing towards the brake levers. They’re now approaching Riverton and, wait again! What’s this? Tristan flats and the team is brought to a screeching halt. It appears frustration is growing as the team struggles to find a working pump between the four of them. Look, though, a good Samaritan at the store where they’re stopped has provided them a floor pump and saves the day! Back on the move and…AGAIN!!!! Tristan has flatted yet again! This doesn’t look good folks. The team has stopped and is conferring.........we now have word that the Tristan and Art are gonna be catching the sag wagon and Corey and Dan will finish the ride via an abbreviated route.

The team is back up and running again, and are making their way to Cape Cod for a double metric century. We can now see them hammering down the Cape Cod rail trails, harrying recreational riders in an attempt to pick up miles in order to make their goal. It would appear that monotony has set in though, and, in the words of Corey, the ‘pace line looks like Swiss cheese’. However, despite growing frustrations, the ride is gonna be a success as the team rendezvous back at the cottage where Jesse has meanwhile been resting up and building a caloric base for the 2009 season.

The crowning jewel of the season is approaching, the Tour of the Litchfield Hills, and the team is making preparations. We’re now with them as they make the torturous climb up the Hubbard Park hill in what is, frankly, dangerous heat and humidity. If I am to understand correctly though, folks, they won’t be doing this hill one time, but rather three! This is part of a routine known as ‘hill repeats’ which the team says helps to build their renowned hill climbing capabilities. And quite a time they are making of it…it looks downright torturous!

Okay, for those of you at home, its now the morning of the Tour of the Litchfield hills and the team is chattering casually by their cars. It’s a little chilly, but I’m sure that’ll be the least of their worries. With thousands of feet of climbing over 100 miles, the team really ought to be feelin’ it by the end of the day. It now looks like they’re lining up at the starting line annnnd, they’re off! The course starts with a grinding climb and gives the team no time to warm up. The rest of the day is wearing on the same, with climb after climb and a seemingly incomparable amount of descending. It now looks like Tristan and Dan have come upon Corey after having been separated and find that he’s fallen victim to a major mechanical failure, the source of which it appears he cannot determine. We now have word in that after a quick glance at the drive train, Tristan has indentified the problem as a fallen front derailleur as a result of not being properly tightened! We’ll go now to an interview we a taped earlier with his mechanic – “So I was, like, alone at the shop all baked outta my gourd and I’m thinking like, duuuuuuude, how sweet would it look if Corey’s derailleur was, like, all loose and shit?!?!” Hmmmm, well their you have it viewers, the source of the problem. Anyhow, the team is back on the move and approaching the finish line. They’ve just crossed the finish line, completing the tour which, much to our disappointment, will mark the beginning of the end of the season.

Dan and Corey make one last push, however, and are taking up training for The Three Boroughs race in September. It looks like Tristan will be joining them for training and the team is now meeting up with the AMC group ride for added challenge. They’ve dropped into a steady pace line and…WHAT’S THIS??? The ride leader has been clipped from behind and is now having a major meltdown right there in road, resulting in a pileup! Corey’s made out lucky, but it looks like Tristan and Dan have been caught in the resulting mess. Wait, though, it looks like they’ve quickly gotten their act together and are charging after the breakaway, no less than a half a mile ahead! They‘re running a smooth operation annnnnnnd they’re back with the main group! Amazing!

It now looks like they’ve made a decision to join the faster group ride and they are definitely in for it! They’re off and, wait, where’s Tristan? It looks like we’ve lost Tristan! Things aren’t looking good out there. The sky has tornado-like qualities, and Corey and Dan are concerned with Tristan, but the ride must go on!

We’re finally here at the season closer, the Three Boroughs race. This is Corey & Dan’s first true race and the excitement associated with the unknown is palpable. They’re somehow able to compose themselves and looks like their recon of the course will be cut short by the call to assemble at the starting line…..annnnd, they’re off! Pulling up the first hill and, oh wait, what’s this? This hill is way longer than they thought! They’ll have to revaluate their output to maintain a steady burn up this thing! But it looks like they’re now up it and sweeping through the secondary roads and…..oh jeez!!! It looks like Corey’s chain has fallen off! What is with these mechanicals, folks? Will they never end? It does look like Corey’s chain is back on and he’s rejoined the race! They’re crossing the finish line now and Corey has taken 4th with Dan not too far behind in 6th. We’ll now go live to Corey who we can see is walking his bike back to the car – “Why are you walking you’re bike back to the car, Corey, when you could just ride?” “The season is over, I’m not riding anymore”.

On the Passing of my Gloves: A Eulogy

I’ve been quite busy the past month or so, and so this post has fallen to the wayside. I think this is a task that commands my attention, so I’ve put aside some more pressing work in favor of some long over-due musing.

It was almost two months ago that I had attended the International Mountain Equipment’s annual Ice Festival in North Conway, NH. The festival lures in climbers with the promises of gear, beer, and vertically inspired fear. The climbing was great but, otherwise, the festival was kind of a bust. Jesse and my attempt to attend the “climber’s ball” was thwarted by our failure to pre-buy tickets, vendor turnout was poor, and even the beer was sorta warm. However, it got climbers out and on the ice, so that’s what really counts.

Fast forward to the end of the weekend when I am packing up and getting ready to make the drive back to Connecticut. I can sense something is missing, which is right in line with my maxim that ‘its not a matter of IF I forgot something, but rather WHAT did I forget?’. Pretty soon I realize that I am missing my favorite pair of gloves - my go-to hand coverings for just about all my favorite cold weather activities.

I can remember when I first received those gloves. It was the Christmas after graduating college.  As is my routine, I provided my parents with a very specific list of what things it was I needed, and a pair of gloves was one of them. As is her routine, my Mom bought me a different pair. I don’t recall what was so ‘wrong’ with the gloves I got…perhaps the stitching ran left to right when everyone knows a good glove’s stitching runs right to left. Or maybe, just maybe, I was being picky. Whatever the case was, I ended up not returning the gloves and adapted to what I am sure was a seemingly endless list of shortcomings.

Much to my surprise, the gloves didn’t unravel at the seams upon their first exposure to winter-sporting life or spontaneously combust on their foray into the world of my below-freezing antics. In fact, the gloves performed admirably. To be honest, I loved them. What else should I expect from Mom? Would she ever provide me with anything less?

My fondness for my gloves, however, wasn’t truly apparent to me until I stood peering into my pack and remembering that I had foolishly left them on the roof of my car the day prior. They had surely blown off, and the activity of the snow plows during the previous night would almost have certainly obscured their whereabouts. It was true that after three winters of abuse the gloves probably could have used to be replaced, but what I couldn’t replace was the memories attached to them. They had touched many summits, been there to usher Elijah around during his first ramblings into the beautiful quiet of the winter wilderness, and had touched rock, ice, and snow all over the United States. They had clung with me nervously to many a vertical face when the going had gotten tough, and had been there to clap my partners’ backs in celebration of objectives conquered.

It had become obvious that I would miss my gloves, but I was thankful for the memories and ten working fingers that they had left me with.

What I Did on My Hiatus

Seeing that I love to pass away so much of my time outdoors, I figured I could waste an equal amount of your time reading about it. It’s been a while since I last maintained a blog and even though I’m sure my life hasn’t grown any more interesting since then, you’ll just have to humor me and pretend that it has. In the past three years I’ve gone on a great deal of trips, climbed dozens upon dozens of rocks, mountains, and ice flows, biked thousands of miles, wasted countless work hours dreaming of future adventures, and drank countless beers in celebration of feats accomplished and to those yet to be undertaken. The time and space required for such a recounting would be unparalleled by even the most long-winded of fellow self-aggrandizing bloggers, so I’ll be kind and start my recap somewhere around November 2008.

I’ve made quite a few trips to the White Mountains in New Hampshire to climb, but for several years it’s been my desire to get up there for some good old fashioned two wheeled fun. Autumn rolls around and it’s obvious that the window for a road riding trip in the Whites has passed, but I’ve always found it’s never too cold for some fat tire fun (read: mountain biking). I begin to hear rumors of the mother of all New England downhills, called the ‘Red Tail Trail’. I regale Tristan with grand tales of the pure gnarlitude the Red Tail has to offer and, naturally, he can’t pass it up. I off-handedly add that the climb up to the start of the Red Tail is supposed to be a hellacious test of legs and sanity, but I down-play this aspect because, I mean, how bad can it really be?

Fast forward a half dozen weeks – I can barely hear the rush of 18 degree arctic wind pass my ears as I let out long, sharp wheezing breaths and lay prone over my handlebars. My legs are screaming, my half-numb fingers are aching, and I can scarcely remember the tales of forbidden downhill treasures that await us at the top. I look over to Tristan and he doesn’t look like he’s having anymore fun than I am. We’re currently climbing Hurricane Mountain Road, a 2.2 mile long, 15% grade paved monster snaking its way from Route 302 in Intervale to the trail head at the top of the mountain. I remember this road from reports I had read previously on the Red Tail Trail. In all the reports I read, the climb is merely a side-note, though a side-note rife with foreboding comments like “keep your nose on the rivet”, an insider’s term that means ‘dude, lean way forward over your handlebars because its really, really, really steep and your front wheel may just pop-up and you’ll go rolling backwards down the mountain, bike and all, like the foolish weakling you really are’.

Well, we get to the top….somehow. We ride down...HOLY SHIT! I get to the bottom and can barely speak a word through the grin that’s plastered on my face. Tristan seems to be having the same problem. We're finally able to stammer on in some sort of half-frozen pidgin mountain biker speak about sweeping berms, butter-smooth drops, and unhealthy doses of speed. Its amazing how quickly we forget about that punishing climb as we decide we’re going to do the ride again the next day. This time we take a different way up by the suggestion of some locals. This new trail, while tamer, is still not for the faint of heart. But forget everything I’ve said about the climb and mope up it no matter what it takes…you’ll thank me later.

So after that, for all intents and purposes, mountain bike season is over and ice climbing season begins. That leads to a whole new chapter of misadventures, which I’ll report on in my next recap.