September 17, 2008
~ somewhere out there ~
As someone who has no sense of direction, I frequently find myself wondering where in the world I am located. Normally, however, I am in the presence of someone who is aware of our location, and so I find little cause for concern. This weekend was a different situation.
Josh and I have been on an Owyhees kick, as evidenced by the fact that all of my recent posts contain a reference of an Owyhees adventure. This past Saturday, we treked out to somewhere in the Owyhees for a bike ride. The first little misadventure occured while we were trying to get to where we would begin the ride and we found ourselves on a scary person's private property. The signage in the Owyhees needs a great deal of improvement, to put it mildly. Also to put it mildly, I was concerned that the luncatic hermit living in an isolated part of the Owyhees was going to shoot us dead and prop our decapitated heads onto poles as a warning to other trespassers. You may infer from my writing of this post that we came out of that encounter only a little ruffled, thank the little baby jesus. Following the encounter with crazy-man, I found myself driving my car over terrain poorly suited to my vehicle's schematics. Yet again, I was more than a little ruffled. But we managed to get our persons safe and sound to a spot at which to commence our ride.
As I said, signage in the Owyhees could use a bit of improvement. Josh and I are both decently observant people, yet both of us failed to notice this sign at the start of our ride. Though, if we had noticed it, we might not have been quite as awe-struck when we came upon this...
A herd of wild horses. In my Public Land Policy class, we've briefly discussed wild horse management policy, so I am somewhat familiar with it, but to my knowledge, I've never before seen wild horses. And on this ride, we came upon a few herds and it was quite remarkable. For the duration of the ride, I was singing to myself the U2 song about wild horses.
When we encountered them, we weren't sure the best response. One, we had no idea how they would react to us - - we've got experience running into stock animals like sheep and cattle, but no wild horses. So we kept our distance and allowed them to retreat, then slowly rode past until there was a good distance between us.
There were a lot of interesting relics and geological features along the ride. Above, some kind of headstone. There was also a particularly nifty volcanic rock section (no photo, unfortunately). It was sometime after we rode away from this headstone that we grew increasingly uncertain about our location. We stopped several times for Josh to consult the map.
We rode and rode. Eventually, we did two sets of steep descents and hike-a-bike ascents. And at the bottom of the second descent, Josh and I had paused to discuss something of great import, when we were silenced by the rather startling sound of all the air in one of Josh's tires suddently whooshing out.
That was disconcerting and sad-making.
We then hiked the bikes up a really steep hill and I got comfortable while Josh worked on fixing the tire. This took some time. Josh also took the opportunity to consult the map for the umpteenth time. From our vantage point, we were able to see two canyons and were wondering which canyons they were, as that information could have helped Josh to ascertain our location. After a while, a dude on an ATV sputtered by and was able to tell us that one of the canyons was Jump Creek. We asked the dude for advice on which way we should go, as we were at an intersection in which one road went down and another went up. We both felt uncertain about his advice, and decided to backtrack back to the car. Josh later consulted additional maps, including Google Earth, and realized that the dude had given us very bad directions and that if we had taken his advice, we would have been poorly off.
Once the tire was fixed, we had to re-hike-a-bike back up the steep hills we had just traversed and set off back from whence we had came.
For me, it was a spectacular ride. I was feeling really good and had a blast. I had also put my cyclecomputer on the bike, so I can say for certain that we rode 31 miles, our average speed was 8.6 mph, and our max speed was 27 mph. Not too shabby. It was about 3.5 hours of riding, but we had lots of stops, so we were out for at least an additional hour. For the drive back, we decided to take a different road so as to avoid driving by crazy-private-property man, and we discovered a much better route to access that part of the Owyhees.
Photos for this entry are at my Somwhere in the Owyhees photoset.
September 9, 2008
~ bruised apple ~
I finished my first pair of mittens this weekend. They are the "Yellow Harvest" mittens from the Fall 2008 Vogue Knitting. The yarn is Noro Silk Garden (the same yarn from a scarf I knat a few months ago, which I ended up not liking very much...so I harvested the yarn to knit up my "Noro Harvest" mittens). As far as a pattern for first-mittens goes, this is a good one - - well written with several nice details that are fun to work. Morning temperatures have recently dipped into the chilly zone for my walk to work, and so I have had the opportunity to wear these mittens both yesterday and today and have found them lovely.
In mountain biking news, I have been getting in a lot of riding now that the weather is cooling off. Last Friday, Josh and I rode a most awesome foothills 'loop' - - up Bogus Basin, up Corralls, up Scott's , down Scott's, down Trail 4, and down Crestline/Kestrel. The ride was somewhat monumental for me, signifying that I am overcoming my fears about steep drop-offs. I don't believe I wrote about this, but last year when I had the bike with the grabby breaks that exacerbated many of my fears about steepness, heights, and drop-offs, Josh and I went on a ride on Scott's Trail and I experienced something of a total panic attack about the drop-off along a steeper part of the trail. As this year is a different year, with a different bike, and a different attitude, I have been feeling very accomplished at overcoming my fears and anxieties - - which is particularly significant because so much of mountain biking is about mental attitude. I've been riding trails which I had become rather wimpy about, and challenging myself on much more technical terrain, discovering that most of the time, things just LOOK hard, and that when I relax and pedal/roll over something, I find that it is much easier than expected. So anyway, Scott's trail was the final test to myself that I am totally OVER the crashes and negative mental attitudes that got me down last year. To clarify, there's nothing about Scott's that is really hard (it's a nice intermediate trail) but a few sections of trail had qualities that would freak me out. Anyway, so on Friday when we were doing our awesome loop, I was mentally preparing myself to ride down Scott's. I kept giving myself all kinds of encouragement, reminding myself that I've ridden much more difficult trails, and that this was nothing, NOTHING to get a panic attack about. And as I was descending, I told myself to focus on the trail, relax, breath...and I kept thinking that the scary sections of the trail must be around the next turn, so I stayed relaxed, breathed, and focused on the trail in front of me. I was still expecting the scary section of the trail to be around the next turn when I realized that I had made it to the bottom. HUH? The trail on which I had experienced a panic attack, I had now ridden without a single hesitation. I am serious when I argue that mountain biking is primarily about mental attitude, and secondarily about fitness. After descending Scott's, there was still a LOT of downhill left, and I had a blast bonzaiing down the mountains.
On Saturday, we returned to the Owyhees and tried to ride from 'our parking space' to Succor Creek. The previous weekend when we went out there, we encountered a couple on an ATV picking up litter, and had a conversation about how some of the roads we were riding would take a person out to Succor Creek. And so this weekend, we tried to do just that. Of course, I had gotten all complacent in the cooler temperatures and convinced Josh that it would be okay if we left in the afternoon, rather than bright and early in the morning. BAD MOVE. Aside from being a bit on the hot side, I found the roads a tad sandier than I prefer. It was still very ridable, just took a bit more effort to plow through. Before I would feel comfortable giving it an official review, however, I think I need to ride it again. I realize that my being kinda too hot was detrimental to my fully appreciating the ride - - also, I now realize that I did not consume many calories during the lengthy ride, and so I possibly lacked energy that I might have had if I had been more responsible with my caloric intake.
So, it takes about an hour to drive out to 'our parking spot' in the Owyhees. Since joining the modern era with the acquisition of my iPod, I have placed all of my compact discs into a compact disc book-holder-deal, which I have placed in my car (for, you know, road trips). Despite the plethora of music available during this particular road trip, Josh and I opted to listen to the Flight of the Conchords cd THREE TIMES IN A ROW. Needless to say, we have since had the catchy tunes stuck in our heads. In fact, I am pretty much in a constant state of mentally huming the tunes to myself, both awake and asleep, and it is kind of annoying.
September 2, 2008
~ burning the midnight oil ~
This past weekend proved to be a most excellent three-day weekend. Clearly, three day weekends are far superior to two day weekends.
I'll begin by highlighting Saturday evening's fun, a BBQ chez Amy. In spite of the good company (Amy, Elizabeth, Leah, David, Josh, and Eric), the good atmosphere (the backyard lawn), the good food (chorizos, potato salad, fruit salad, roasted veggies), and the beverages (beer), no one had a very good time. In fact, it was so terrible, that we have decided never to have a BBQ ever again. What made the experience pretty much unbearable was this puppy-dog who was running around trying to swindle everyone's beer. Note, that below photo was a shot from the gods - - it appears as though David was giving the puppy beer, when in fact the puppy was the perpetrator, having suddenly lunged at the beer bottle. Through the course of the evening, so much beer was spilled as a result of puppy (and subsequently licked up by puppy) that we surmised he had become rather tipsy. Photos of the horrendous evening are available here.
Saturday was also the day when Josh and I had yet another adventure in the Owyhees. Unfortunately, it's been a while since we were down there - - but we decided to do a refined version of the Sage Creek Loop that we did in June. We've been out there enough that we're really getting to know our way around. This was the first time in the Sage Creek zone when we didn't have to spend time figuring out where we were going and back-tracking because we went the wrong way. We did a perfect loop that I approximate was 2.5 hours. Ultimately, I bet Josh and I could make some money by developing a mountain biking Owyhees book - - Josh was even talking about opening a bike shop in Marsing (maybe not the best idea in today's economy). Anyway, the loop took us over lots of ups and downs, some unridable ups that we had to hike-a-bike, and some pretty challengingly technical downhills that I felt very accomplished after riding successfully. I've developed a lot more confidence on the more technical downhills - - the Owyhees are great for that. The Boise foothills, all groomed and smooth, are wonderful but can hold a person back from developing confidence on not-groomed and not-smooth trails. I love the Owyhees - - so much potential adventure. Photos from this ride may be viewed here.
I've been getting a good amount of riding in, which adds to my feeling good on the bike. On Sunday, Josh and I rode Sidewinder, which is a nice fun quickie ride. Funny story about that ride... I had been having a bit of trouble with the shifting on my bike. On the ride in the Owyhees, the front gears were very malaligned - - Josh did a complete gear adjustment on the trail, but they wouldn't function properly. I took the bike into the shop to have the mechanics fix it. Got the bike back on Sunday and Josh and I rode Sidewinder. The front gears were working, but the back gears were not. Josh spent more time trail-side trying to adjust them, to no avail. We rode anyway. As I was grunting up one of the climbs, the chain broke. Josh was the mechanical hero, as he was able to fix the chain with his semi-broken chain tool and we were able to finish the ride. That night, we hung out at the bike shop drinking beers, Josh fixing my bike for good, and me knitting.
And finally, I know how you have all being eagerly awaiting my knitting report.
I've finished Inishfern. TAHDAH!!! My improvised top-down asymmetrical seamless raglan. The cables both diminish and transform into different cables. It is fitted with a flair at the waist. And the button band - - an opportunity for improvisation! After trying a number of options, I found that I liked the expanding garter panel with a set of cables - - the buttons are set by the cables, as opposed to traditional button holes. Tradition, smadition! Below you may see more clearly the cabled button band - - also, note my vintage buttons.
In other knews, I know I've been going bananas obsessing about mittens. This explains why I randomly cast on for Ice Queen over the weekend. I have to roll my eyes at myself - - not only do I have several projects currently in progress, not only do I have my sights set on several patterns, but Ice Queen is a very random and spontaneous cast on. I suppose that it happened after I was reading about how cowls are the new scarves, and I realized that the pattern might be a good use for that lace yarn I procured for a failed project a few months ago. And so...Ice Queen. I've taken the Cascade Elite Silky Alpaca lace yarn, doubled it, and also included a strand of the green angora from a thrift store sweater I recycled. Very very soft and very very warm. As evidenced by the below status-photo, I am knitting it much tighter than the pattern, so as to make for a more warm cowl.
June 24, 2008
~ Sage Creek, Owyhees ~
Another fun adventure was had this weekend in the Owyhees. Josh and I met up at the insanely early hour of eight o'clock on Saturday morning, procured some coffee beverages, and headed to the southwest. As of this writing, we have become expert Owyhee-ophiles. This ride was to take us along some of the dirt roads that we have ridden on previous occasions. This time, however, we stuck to the lower roads that veered in the general westerly direction and made a loop out to Sage Creek. This is the same area as can be found the Wilson, Poison, and Jump Creek trails/roads. While Wilson Creek appears to be the most popular of these for mountain bikers, as Josh articulated, Wilson Creek is overrated because "it's just a bunch of cow pies."
And so we set off! The temperature was predicted to be HOT that day and I was greatly pleased with the thick clouds blocking the direct sunshine for the majority of our ride. Indeed, everything worked out perfectly, weatherwise. Only until the very end of the ride did I begin to feel a little on the overheated side of things, but there was sufficient wind to help cool me off. As we rode along the roads, we were frequently confronted with the decision of WHICH ROAD TO TAKE, as the number of possible routes seemed infinite. At some point, when we were confronted with that decision, we noted a structure in the direction of a particular road veering to our left. This structure aided our decision-making process, as we had to check it out.
Exploration is such fun! We never came to a firm conclusion on what the structure was, but we had a number of hypotheses. Suffice it to say that this structure was in the middle of nowhere, abandoned, in ruins, and had been picked over by both animals, humans, and firearms. In addition, there was a ravine-thing just behind this structure, into which a number of appliances had been thrown (refrigerators, televisions, etc.) and shot at by guns. Strange. I also located a very large pile of rusted tin cans which really appalled the environmentalist in me.
From there, we continued along our merry way. We stopped to gaze over a mini-canyon and enjoy a nutritional supplement, at which point, we made friends with two black cattle. These friends of ours trotted along the side of the road in front of us for some time. Soon after we left them in the dust, the clouds above us began emitting condensed H2O, which was a lovely sensation in the increasing heat. We paused a few times so that Josh could consider the map and ensure our proper location, which I appreciated.
At another point, we came upon a batch of water which we were obliged to cross. As I was in the lead, I attempted to charge straight through it, but met with resistance at both the depth of the water and the squishiness of the mud beneath my tires. I might mention that stagnant water in an area where cattle are allowed to graze freely tends to be rather pungent and I felt somewhat soiled after immersing part of my person in it. In addition, a great quantity of mud and rocks found their way into my shoes, which I failed to appreciate.
I'm not certain the distance that we covered, but it was a good three hour adventure (with lots of pausing). After the ride, we drove to Homedale for some lunch.
More photos available on my Flickr photoset.
April 14, 2008
~ passing lots of mofos ~
The Barking Spider race was this weekend. Despite not training as much as I had wanted to, I did pretty well. My race time was 58 minutes, which I felt really good about, especially if you consider that my time was a mere six minutes behind the time of the man who won. Out of about 50 beginners, I came in 9th and was the first female to cross the finish. The results of the race are posted here. Below is a photo of me crossing the finish line, taking first place in my category.
I had actually become quite nervous about the race. I didn't sleep at all the night before and I had lost all of my appetite the morning of the race. The grumbly in my tumbly was unbearable. And then, right when I gathered at the starting line, it was 30 seconds to go, and I suddenly had a very strong urge to pee! Once the race was on and I was riding my bike, trying to navigate myself around all of the mofos in my way, everything felt really good. Below is a photo of me right after we started the race (I'm on the right in the blue jersey, white helmet).
My first strategy once the race started was to quickly get ahead of as many people (aka, "mofos") as I could. Somehow, I wasn't paying attention when I gathered at the starting line, and I ended up way in the back, and I wanted to make sure that I could pass the mofos while I had a good opportunity. Otherwise, I was concerned that some parts of the race would not be conducive to passing the mofos. Below is a photo of me in the process of passing a mofo (behind me, all of the mofos I had managed to pass right at the outset).
Perhaps by now it should be obvious that some kind of competitive beast managed to possess me for the duration of the race, despite my assurances that I am not a competitive person. A strange experience, I must say.
So, the course has lots of ups and downs - - and I tended to shine on the climbs, where everyone else seemed to really slow down. At every hill, there would be a long line of bikers huffing and puffing their way up - - and for me, I found that to be a grand opportunity to pass the lot of them. On the one hand, I have a strength to weight ratio working in my favor, on the other hand, I'm just a good climber. Over the years, Josh has taught me a lot of techniques for climbing that I gathered many of the other racers did not have - - such as, on an extended climb, recovering during the least strenuous point of the pedal stroke.
Of course, as gravity is working in my favor on the climbs, it works against me on the downhills. I passed and repassed a few of the same people over and over. On a number of occasions, there would be a downhill right after I passed someone (say, a dude who weighs 50 pounds more than I) and he would zoom past me going down, and then I would pass him a minute later going up. Eventually, a form of comradery was established and a very brief humorous salutation was exchanged.
About halfway through the course, there was an extended climb with a decently strong headwind, and a very long line of bikers. It was during this climb that I located a dude who was going at a good pace, and so I tucked myself behind him and drafted off of him so that I could get a nice recovery in. He was passing a lot of people, and I was right behind him, passing them. Many of the people that we passed, by this point, were racers in the sport class (who had started a few minutes before us beginners) that we had caught up to. After a while, I passed the dude I was drafting off of, and then he passed me on the downhill, and I believe that he was one of the 8 dudes to finish before me.
When I went through the finish line, I was very excited to learn of my standing in the race. I had a bit of a spectator grouping - - Josh, Elizabeth, and Laura were on hand to watch my first race! We partook of several celebratory beers after I finished and it was a lot of fun. We waited several hours until the awards ceremony, where I scored a water bottle and a huge jersey for a team that I'm not on (how dumb is that?@? - - I'm not going to wear a jersey that's way too big for me for a local team that I don't ride with). Afterwards, we made our way to a Mexican restaurant in Kuna and had enchiladas. Anyway, here's the link to my flickr deal - - you'll note the photo of the nasty sunburn I got on my calves...didn't think to apply sunscreen there.
March 24, 2008
~ young grasshopper ~
In anticipation of my upcoming mountain bike race, I took advantage of the warm weather this weekend and practiced riding the race course three times - - on Friday and Sunday with Josh, and Saturday with another female mountain biker. While I am not exactly in top riding form, what with all of the not-biking I've been doing, I managed to greatly impress myself this weekend - - primarily in the way of taking in a deep breath and riding those sections of the course that caused me to hesitate out of fear. Those shots above depict exactly that - - sections that I had to work up some guts to ride. Naturally, the photos don't do justice to the actual trail conditions - - I felt as though I was surmounting one ginormous challenge after another.
The first two photos are essentially the same. They show me riding a part of the trail that was very sandy, somewhat steepish, with a tight downhill swooping turn to the left. I took in a number of deep breaths in an attempt to get the guts to ride this - - what I continue to learn after successfully riding obstacles that make me hesitate is that most of the time these obstacles look worse on the approach than they actually are. I hiked myself back up to the top of this part of the trail several times to try and try again - - and as I was finally riding down the length of the trail, I had to scream because I was so excited that the trail was FUN and not horrid and scary. Imagine that! Something that appeared terrifying was loads of FUN!
The third photo depicts me overcoming one of my biggest fears - - drop offs. This particular one begins with a little uphill jaunt over some boulders and then a few step-steps down, all the while with the trail sloping towards the drop off. I successfully took in deep breaths and rode it three times, having fun each time, feeling very accomplished - - though, the deep breath was still very necessary even on the third time.
The fourth photo probably doesn't look like anything. And it's not, really. It's simply the epitome of a scary-looking approach that turns into no big deal to ride. What it was, was a steepish downhill with a sloping trail with lots of loose stuff on the top. But what it really was, was a really fun section leading into a superfast awesome fun downhill.
Anyway, the full course is 10.5 miles and I felt pretty good riding all of it this weekend. I've still got a few more weekends to practice before the race. Speaking of the race, I have absolutely no idea what to expect out of myself. My athletic competition history is virtually none. Though, in middle school, I was on a volleyball team - - we didn't win a single game, so I have a lot of experience being a good loser. Actually, what I gleaned from that experience was to not take athletic competition seriously. So this race, I'm doing it as a goal for myself - - but I have no idea what my attitude will be during the race. Anyway, this year I'm hoping to jump up to the next skill level of biking, and I feel that so far I've done a splendid job of that.
In other news, a photo of my Textured Tunic - - of which I am very fond. I've worn it several times and I love the way that it hangs, I love the feeling of the cotton, and I find it simply attractive.
Then, one of my current projects: Iceland. Here's the start of the sleeve. The yarn is surprisingly easy to work with, despite some reviews that it tends to split, and it is quite soft. I also like the color a lot. The leafy pattern is remarkably userfriendly, even though its a 20 row lace pattern. I began the Iceland about four days ago, so it appears to be a relatively quick knit. Of course, by yesterday, I was needing some good ol' stockinette to relax me away from the lace. So I began another top-down raglan...it will be very similar to the Tunic above, but I'm working it in some fine alpaca and will incorporate some cabling.
October 16, 2007
~ the hollowness of the doors ~
I admit it... the restroom situation at my new office makes me uncomfortable. It, the restroom, is located in the middle of the suite, and because of the thinness of the walls, the hollowness of the doors, and the acoustics of the suite, it is possible to discern EVERYTHING that takes place in the restroom. Which makes me feel a little uncomfortable. Early this morning, I completed a thorough exploration of the first and the second floor, which yielded no restroom alternatives. Later today, I will wander the third floor which may afford a more acceptable restroom opportunity. Although, I have heard odd things about the third floor. In particular, some people have claimed that occasionally there are nude senior citizens on the third floor, and that, too, makes me a bit uncomfortable.
In other news, this weekend it was GLORIOUS. On Saturday, Josh and I were determined to squeeze in a mountain bike ride between the time that he got off work and our scheduled dinner/movie date with Elizabeth and Edvin. Initially, we were going to do some version of Hulls, but the thick cloud of gnats made cycling nearly impossible. All was well on the beginning of the trail, but as we got deeper into the mini-canyon, the gnats formed a thick wall, and riding through the wall brought numerous gnats into our eyes, our noses, our mouths, and all throughout our clothing items. To be honest, I have never experienced such a thing before. So, we turned around and decided to ride Shane's instead.
We made good time up to the top of the trail, at which time the sun began to set. I was a bit nervous about riding in the dark - - an activity which Josh does with some regularity, but which makes me feel a bit nervous. My first night ride! And it was awesome. Once the sun began to set, it got dark fast. But there was enough light pollution from Boise that I was able to discern the direction of the trail, albeit not the features of the terrain. It helped that I've ridden this trail so many times that I have it virtually memorized, but I was keeping my body relaxed on the bike in case I hit an unanticipated bump or rock. Ultimately, I think that I may have been riding faster than normal, what with being unable to see the terrain, I just let the bike go and I put my trust in my skills and the wheels. It was loads of fun.
Then on Sunday, Josh and I went out to the Owyhees and rode some of the area across from Barking Spider. Please see the above photos. The ride was great fun, and would have been even greater fun if the trails had been a bit more hardpacked. From the second and third photos above, it is evident that the trails were highly sandy (Josh even fell off his bike because of the sand!). We ended up hiking our bikes for a substantial amount of time and distance...through valleys, up and over mountains...I was getting a bit cranky about all of the sandiness. But when it was fun, it was a blast! I rode down some things that would have usually make me rather afraid, but I've got a new-found confidence and lack of fear with my new bicycle. It's so great, no longer being afraid.
June 11, 2007
~ cramping quads ~
Is it true that when one does an extra-ordinary amount of difficult physical activity, that one is the most sore two days later??? I guess I'm not so much "sore" per se, but rather that one of my quadriceps is seizing up into these painful cramps. I hypothesize that it is acting up because of an unusual quantity of bicycle riding I engaged in this weekend. After all, on Friday I did a 17 mile ride, and the next day, I rode 25 miles, both on the mountain bike.
The second of these long rides was to the old ghost town of Silver City. After 12.5 miles of riding uphill and getting overheated enough to stick my head into a creek to cool down, I was happy to arrive at the dusty gates of Silver City. Josh and I had driven to the end of the pavement and then ridden bikes the rest of the way (12.5 miles rest of the way). The ride was not as difficult as I had expected. Not nearly as steep and the road was in much better condition than I expected it to be. The road, however, was hardpack with a thin layer of loose sand, and I had a near-wipeout-miss. The ride was made difficult by the heavy backpack that I was carrying. I hate carrying things on my back and I actively seek to avoid it under most circumstances. However, it was necessary for me to carry extra water, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and some other supplies, and I had no other means to carry them except for aforementioned backpack. But, oh man!, it was so heavy and it felt like it weighed an extra 30 pounds and was dragging me down, cramping up my shoulders and back.
Silver City itself wasn't quite what I had expected. As a ghost town, I had imagined abandoned buildings and tumbleweeds rolling through the streets. I also wasn't expecting to see as many people as there were. Not only are the buildings in use, some people actually live there, but most of the buildings are being renovated and restored. There were also a lot of people there, it was a popular place! Most everyone was driving an SUV or ATV and we had several people exclaim to us, "Did you ride your bikes the whole way up that road?!!!"
As some point, we were down by the creek that runs through the middle of town, underneath a large wooden building, when a dude in an ATV came by and offered to let us see the inside of the building. As we were on the wrong side of the creek from the front door, he allowed us to sit on the hood of his ATV (me, holding on for dear life!) while he took us across the creek. Inside the building, we discovered a veddy veddy old Mason Lodge. There were all kinds of odd things here and there, peeling wallpaper, and dusty cult trinkets. Probably the most interesting find was an old globe that (you know, because it was old) had different nation states than what we know today.
Silver City is in a valley in the mountains. After we had ridden ten miles up and up and up the mountains, we had about 2.5 miles to descend into the town. On the return trip, my legs were cursing me for making them continue to work. I kept telling them, my legs, that they didn't have much more work to do, that it was almost over, but they were having none of it, being all cranky and pissy with me. After that climb, there was a good long downhill which I took the opportunity to practice braking techniques. At the very end, there was another climb right before the spot where we had parked the car. I must have gotten some sort of adrenaline rush on the downhill, because I suddenly had more energy than I had on the rest of the ride and it was probably the funnest part of the whole ride for me. It was one of the steeper grades, yet I was easily going twice as fast than my average pace up the rest of the climbs.
Incidentally, I've got a computer hooked up to my computer, so I do know for a fact the distance and speed at which I was riding. My fastest speed on that downhill was 28 mph, which felt pretty fast to me. On the ride the previous evening, the mere 17 miles on the Boise front, my fastest speed was 32 mph, which I was peddling down Bogus Basin Road in an effort to catch up to some downhill riders we had chatted with up on the trail. I thought it would be super funny if I zoomed up to them and said, "Hey guys, how's it hanging?" while passing them. Unfortunately, right as we caught up to them, one of the dudes crashed on the pavement in a spectacular tour de force and I had the opportunity to see his muscle tissue poking out from under his knee and an arm with a lot of missing skin. Somehow, his friends kept on riding, so Josh and I kept the dude company until his friends had the sense to come to his aid. I felt a little bad for how happy I was that it wasn't me who had crashed, 'cause I bet it sucks to be him, but hey, at least empathy doesn't imply that you physically experience the same trauma and pain as another. Empathetically, I felt for his pain, but I certainly didn't feel his pain.
Oh, but to return to the title of this post, Cramping Quads, I'd like to direct your feelings of empathy towards my quadriceps which are crampy and seizing up with tightness. Boo!
April 23, 2007
~ Poison Creek, Owyhees ~
This past Saturday, Josh and I drove out to the Owyhees for a mountain biking adventure. He had been obsessing over the Poison Creek area on Google Earth for several weeks, certain that he was seeing what could be some excellent mountain biking opportunities. One aspect of the Owyhees is that they are relatively unmarked...which is to say, there are random roads and trails branching out everywhere, but there are very few signs, and it's best to wander the area with a detailed map and a good sense of direction. A few weeks ago, when we had a mini-vacation in Marsing and went on an ill-fated bike ride in the Owyhees, we were trying to ride a certain direction which Josh felt would take us on an excellent adventure. Unfortunately, on that ride, we had no map, we routinely encountered dead-ended roads, routinely found ourselves on roads which were not easily ridable, and became caught in a severe wind and rain storm. Since then, Josh has gone over the area on Google Earth numerous times and has procured a detailed map of the area, so we were much better prepared on Saturday for a second try.
We parked the car at the same location as we had the last time, off a dirt road that branched several times over, with the only identifying feature (as far as I can tell) being an abandoned and collapsed stone house. After mounting our trusty hardtail steeds, we proceeded to peddle up a random road to our left which was not one of the random roads on which we had peddled before. This took us up and up and up, a climb that I felt was more difficult than it should have been, only because of the immediacy of the climb (usually, I have a few minutes of riding before such a climb). Throughout the climb upwards, the sky remained cloudy and foreboding, the wind was cold, but the weather never warned of impending doom. Instead, there was a strange optimism in the air...as though things might clear up.
At some point, we encountered a flock of sheep and their respective sheep dogs and shepards. As I was threading my way through the gaggle of sheep on the road, I made a mental note that sheep are not the most intelligent of all creatures. We rode slowly through, an effort to avoid inadvertently herding them (re: not the most intelligent of creatures), and tried to act calm while riding by the sheep dogs. Sheep dogs...a far cry sharper than the school of sheep they monitored. I was a tad perturbed by the presence of the sheep, as they existed along the stretch of road which was the first downhill portion. At the time, I was wanting a good fun adrenaline downhill zoom, which was thwarted by the big balls of would-be yarn.
At some other point, we came to a lookout area where we stopped to ingest some granola bars and rest. The view was particularly stunning. I should mention, right about here, that the batteries in my camera were dangerously low...and what was I doing? I was taking photos of cute flowers and not saving my batteries for possible amazingness. After resting and reenergizing, we continued on our way with an increase in both downhill opportunities and amazing view opportunities. The road became less "maintained" at certain points - - the downhills were severely rutted (by which I mean that there were ruts several inches wide and several inches deep) and the ground became loose and rocky. We had to stop several times just to take in the beauty of the Owyhees. We stopped at a certain particularly stunning point which overlooked Jump Creek Canyon. I took a single photo of the canyon and then became preoccupied trying to photograph a certain flower, and then my camera turned itself off. From this point, the sun came out, the day became glorious (by which I underscore several times), and the views of Jump Creek canyon became ever more stunning. I will refer all of my readers to Josh's flickr account, which I linked a few posts ago, for some incredible photos of our journey. You may access my meager photos by clicking on the cow at the beginning of this post.
As we continued peddling along, Josh routinely consulting his map to ensure that we would not get lost, we found ourselves on some singletrack that was to take us to the beginning of Jump Creek. The trail took us along the ridge and, I'm beginning to be a broke record, it was an awesome experience. Just before the bottom, the trail became unridable and we had to walk our bikes down a rather steep, loose ground, and rocky trail. Yea, hiking in cycling cleats is not the most comfortable or ideal way to travel. At the bottom, we proceeded to wander into Jump Creek canyon all the way to the waterfall. During that trip, we had to hike our bikes most of the way, carefully crossed the creek by navigatign the wobbly stepping stones in our cleats (yikes!) and then had a lovely experience at the waterfall. However, we agreed that Jump Creek Canyon is more spectacular from above than from within.
After making our way out of the canyon, we had just a few miles of washboard gravelly road to return to the car. At this point, I was wishing that I had some rear suspension, as the washboard gravelly road was rather unpleasant to ride on after having ridden for three hours. By the end of the ride, we were both hungry, so we drove into Marsing for some food. We stopped at the White House drive in (next to the trailer park that we had stayed in a few weeks before) and had some affordable yummy food.
April 17, 2006
~ Barking Spider ~
Taking advantage of the break in the clouds over the Owyhees, while all of Ada and Canyon Counties were grey, I drove out to the Barking Spider racecourse on Saturday with Josh. The weather was perfect and I got my first sunburn of the year.
We were all alone except for some people on dirt bikes...a lot of people on dirt bikes...making a lot of noise with said dirt bikes and kicking up a lot of dirt. From the parking lot, we rode North with a tail wind around the initial part of the course. As I rode around the other side of the first loop, the tail wind turned into a strong head wind, and I performed my first major downshift. The initial part of the course was relatively flat with some gravelly "woop-dees". After crossing a cattle guard, we rode over some inclines, encountered some sandy pits, and I had a skills lab on a few "roller coaster" dealies. This initial part of the course formed a loop which brought us back to the parking lot, at which point we crossed over onto the other side and rode up a steady mild incline with a strong-to-very-strong headwind. We rode up to a point at the top and had a bio and photo break.
Then we began the decent. This took us down some rocky steepes, some "woop-dees", some incredibly delightful side-sweep dealies (for which I have failed to remember the term), some sandy pits (in which I lodged my front tire and flipped over my bicycle in slow motion and sustained a deep tissue bruise), some roller coasters, and some canyon-sorts of things.
We arrived back at the car after riding this 9-mile course and ate some lunch. Then we headed out once again and rode a variation of the initial loop, followed with an adventure into a section of the trails that neither of us had ever explored. These trails were nice because the wind wasn't as strong. Additionally, the downhill was so much fun that I could have died. I handed Josh the camera and have these amazing photos of me riding.
I now have my first sunburn of the year, on my wrists, marking precisely the location of my gloves. It was such a fun adventure and I'm feeling inarticulate in trying to describe it. With the weather no longer being in the winter vein, I have identified the goal of going on adventures, hopefully weekly.
