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

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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