I am unforgivably behind on updating my blog. This post is in regards to a mountain biking adventure that Josh and I had two weekends ago in the McCall area. As the adventure is no longer fresh in my memory, this post will be significantly less verbose than is my norm.
The first portion of our mountain cycling adventure was to ride the Loon Lake Trail. Almost four years and one month ago, we rode Loon Lake as a loop and it has stuck with me as a trail that I wanted to ride again... except to ride it as an out-and-back because, well, the second part of the loop is not for me....
The Loon Lake out-and-back was AWESOME! and really a lot of fun. Mountain biking on actual mountains, through actual forests, is a wonderful experience. What is more, ever since Elizabeth and I rode in Sun Valley, I have noticed a significant improvement in my mountain cycling skills. Something about getting out of my normal element has become the tipping point for finally moving up a skill level. Particularly on the descents, my riding is more smooth and flow-y and I have more confidence riding over more challenging technical terrain.
Click on the below ride summary to see the details.
After the bike ride, Josh and I cleaned up and then ate dinner at a Mexican Restaurant (yum!) before going on a romantic walk along the lakeshore. We walked to a park as the sun set and laid on the grass, looking for the first stars to shine in the night sky.
The next day, we went to a local bike shop and got some advice about where to enjoy our next mountain cycling adventure. The LBS attendant directed us towards the Brundage ski resort, which was an option we had earlier considered and rejected, but with the recommendation decided to check it out. We started at one of the Bear Basin trailheads and meandered around. For the most part, this mountain cycling adventure was awesome. Not AS AWESOME as the Loon Lake ride, but sufficiently awesome for me to have a huge smile on my face for most of the ride and to frequently call out "WHEE!" If I recall correctly, my two favorite trails were Grand Traverse (which featured these super fun slalom burm/switchback thingies) and West Face.
Click on the below ride summary to see the details.
After this ride, we went to Ponderosa State Park and donned our swimsuits for some fun at the beach. We built, and then crushed, a sandcastle. I did a thorough beach-sand exfoliation, which felt really good. And then we relaxed in the shade, each reading a book. After a few hours at the beach, we drove the 'scenic driving tour' and went up to the lookout, before going back into town for some WONDERFUL sushi at a local sushi bar.
Over sushi, we compared and contrasted the mountain biking in McCall and Sun Valley, and concurred that, although we had had a fantastic time mountain biking in McCall, Sun Valley is better.
Two weekends ago, Elizabeth and I did a two day mountain biking adventure in Sun Valley. Then last weekend, Josh and I likewise did a two day mountain biking adventure in Sun Valley.
Let me just sum up what I think about mountain biking in Sun Valley in two words: "It's awesome!"
First, I would like to write all about my adventure with Elizabeth...
Elizabeth and I did a Sunday / Monday adventure. Having never ever biked in the Sun Valley area before, I checked out a guidebook from the library on area trails. From an analysis of the guide, I decided that our first ride in the Sun Valley area would be Trail Creek/Corrals Creek. Unfortunately, I did not realize until we were attempting to locate the trailhead that the guidebook I had checked out from the library is eleven years out of date. So out of date that the trailheads have actually changed. After driving around and around for a time, I finally parked at some place where it seemed other outdoor recreators had parked and I asked a seemingly-friendly hiker how I might access the trail. She seemed really weirded out by my question and could not provide me with helpful information. As I was taking the bikes off of the car rack and getting them all ready to go, I decided to ask a mountain biker who had just arrived on the scene, who appeared to be getting ready to go on a mountain bike ride in the area. He knew right away what I was asking and was able to provide me with very easy to understand directions about how to ride the trail I was aiming for. He also advised me to "stick to the higher trails" because they are the more fun ones.
And so, Elizabeth and I set off on a very fun and awesome ride up Trail Creek and Corrals Creek. This ride is definitely a great ride to do if it's your first time riding around the area. It features lovely wooded trails, fast 'sagebrush slalom' riding, and a nice mix of rollercoaster uphills and downhills. Unlike riding in Boise's foothills, this is really MOUNTAIN biking!
Click here for some ride detail. Note, this detail is actually from the ride I did on the following week with Josh, but it is the same ride.
After the ride, we went into town and had a treat at Tully's Coffee. I enjoyed a wonderful slice of blueberry pie and an iced coffee, and consulted the out of date trail guidebook to figure out where to ride next. The plan being that we would ride two different trails that day.
Based on my second analysis of the guidebook, I chose a 'ride' called Lake Creek which is a dirt road that went to a lake. I would now like to quote word-for-word from the guidebook regarding this trail...
If you're in need of a casual and fun ride to introduce yourself to Wood River mountain biking, this is a good start. Pack your fishing rod and add to the experience by enjoying a picnic at the lake.
Sounded like a good ride at the time.
Unfortunately, it totally sucked. Everything about it sucked. The road was boring, yet rough and uncomfortable to ride on, and we just kept riding and riding along this boring and stupidly difficult road. We discussed abandoning the ride, but the prospect of the lake kept us going. Plus, turning around is tantamount to defeat, and Elizabeth and I were not going to be defeated by this stupid road. Once we finally got to the lake, we found ourselves disappointed in what appeared to be nothing more than a large pond. We sat on some rocks for a while and then went to ride back, when we realized that Elizabeth had a flat tire.
At the time, this seemed great because Elizabeth needed practice fixing flat tires, having just switched away from her puncture-proof Armadillo tires. So we got comfy and Elizabeth tried to fix the flat tire. It went fine, except that neither of us could find the hole in the tube. Whatever. We gave up and decided to pump it back up and get back to the car.
So she took out one of her CO2 canisters and couldn't get it to work very well. She used it completely up and the tire was barely inflated. So, I then pulled out the pump I had mounted to my bike frame, and tried to pump the tire up. Incidentally, I had never before used this pump and I acquired it sort of by random (and for free) after SOMEONE lost my bike pump. Until the moment of trying to inflate Elizabeth's tire so that we could ride back to the car, I hadn't actually verified that the pump worked. And it didn't. And I became very frustrated. But Elizabeth had another CO2 canister and we were able to pump up the tire and go on our way.
I descended the road at a more aggressive rate than is normal for me, an effort to release the frustration that I had experience about the stupid pump. After getting back to the car, we decided to stop by one of the bike shops in town and get myself a new pump and Elizabeth some more CO2 canisters. Which is what we did. We also bought an up-to-date trail map of the area, which has proven to be extremely useful in trail navigation.
That evening, we had dinner at a place called Grumpy's, which is an affordable bar/restaurant that the not-affluent locals frequent. Elizabeth had a burger and I had a chili-dog, and we shared an order of fries. We also drank beers. And talked a lot. After leaving Grumpy's, we wandered to an equally not-affluent establishment called Lefty's and consumed some more beers. After some hours, we stumbled to the hotel and eventually went to sleep.
We started out the second day of our adventure a little later than intended, possibly a result of the quantity of beer we consumed the previous evening. We had breakfast at a coffee shop before going out on our next mountain bike adventure.
For the next adventure, I decided that we would ride the Adams Gulch Trails, which were recommended to us by the guy at the bike shop as well as a hiker on Trail Creek who I had talked to. Before leaving the hotel, we noticed that Elizabeth's bike tire was flat again. No problem! It was to be good practice for her feeling confident in fixing flat tires.
So we went to the Adams Gulch trailhead and proceeded to try and fix her flat. After an extensive search, I located the hole in the tube. We then tried to patch it. However, it was at this point I learned that the glue that comes with patch kits degrades over time. Before leaving Boise on this trip, I located three patch kits in the apartment that I share with Josh and brought them on the trip. These patch kits were quite possibly very old. Anyway, long story short, I couldn't get the glue to hold and WOW, was I ever frustrated! So, we pull out our only spare tube and forget about patching it. This was a brand spankin' new tube. And Elizabeth successfully got it inserted into the tire correctly and we go to pump it up.... and nothing. At this point, I am using the floor pump, and we're pumping and pumping, and freaking pumping until we can pump no more, and the tire will not inflate. Our frustration, however, was inflating quite effectively. I take the tube out and examine it carefully, and eventually locate a big hole near the valve. A big hole on a brand spankin' new tube! I was so fed up with all of this that I abandoned the "Hey, this is a great opportunity for Elizabeth to practice fixing a flat" positive attitude and tried my hardest to fix the flat myself with the degraded glue, all the while mumbling "Serenity now, serenity now." And the glue wouldn't do anything. Finally, in absolute frustration, I threw the flaccid tube as far as I possibly could (which was not very far, because it was just a flaccid tube) and announced that the universe did not want us to ride the Adams Gulch trails that day.
I would also like to point out that during this entire time, many many people passed by us as we struggled with the supposed-to-be simple task of fixing a flat tire, and no one asked us if we needed help or if we had everything we needed. It should have been apparent that we were extremely frustrated and did, in fact, need help, and did not, in fact, have everything we needed. Perhaps this is a Boise/Sun Valley difference - - but in Boise, if a cyclist is fiddling with his or her bike, it is standard etiquette to ask if he or she needs help or if he or she has everything that he or she needs. Granted, we could have asked one of the hundreds of mountain bikers who crossed our paths if they had a functioning patch kit or a spare tube, but the issue is really the fact that no one asked us if we needed help or if we had everything we needed. THAT is the issue.
So we got back in the car and went to a bike shop in town to get a new tube and some new patch kits. As calmly as I could, I explained to the bike shop attendant that the universe was doing everything it could to have us NOT ride the Adams Gulch trails (to which he responded with sympathy... apparently, he could sense that we had had a bad morning) and asked for an alternative trail recommendation. He directed me to a loop on the Fox Creek Trails.
The Fox Creek Trails, for me, were awesome. We started out by following the directions the bike shop attendant had provided.
At some point, I deviated from the recommended route because I was curious about another section of trail. This section proved to be much more technical than the other route, and while it was challenging for me in a good way, it was way too challenging for Elizabeth and not much fun. There becomes a point when a trail is just too technically above one's skill level to be able to enjoy the experience. Having experienced that many many times, I really knew how Elizabeth felt and I felt terrible for dragging her on the trail.
Incidentally, the below photo is me conquering the shale on Fox Creek. It was this sort of consistent technical challenge that made the trail not too fun.
Eventually, we made it back to Fox Creek and completed the loop that the bike shop attended had recommended to us. The rest of the loop was awesome and Elizabeth and I are going to return and ride that loop again. There was a section with switchbacks that brought us up to an amazing view, following by a long and flowy descent. Click here for the ride detail. Again, this detail is from the ride that I subsequently did with Josh.
After the ride, we went to Lefty's where we got some lunch before returning to Boise. I was so jazzed about the trails in Sun Valley that Josh convinced me to return this past weekend for a second adventure.
And so, this past weekend, Josh and I went on a similar mountain biking adventure in Sun Valley. Similar in that we had some awesome times, but dissimilar in that we did not have any frustrating mechanical moments.
Josh and I started out our adventure by riding the Trail Creek and Corrals Creek trails. It was awesome and we had a splendid time. Click here for the ride detail.
After that ride, I took him to Tully's where we both enjoyed a slice of blueberry pie and iced coffees.
Then I took him over to Fox Creek, where we rode the exact same route that Elizabeth and I had rode. I would like to take this moment to congratulate myself on challenging my technical comfort level. This route had some significant challenges for me, many of which I successfully rode. I felt very accomplished. Click here for the ride detail.
After that ride, we went to the accommodations in which we were staying, cleaned up, and had dinner at Lefty's. There was a folksy band playing, and we sat there, drinking beers, for a good time. Then I took Josh over to Grumpy's where we enjoyed some beers and talked. And then, feeling the need for yet more beer, we went to Whiskey Jacques (which is sort of a piece of Sun Valley history) and had some beer on their rooftop patio, all the while, discussing very important topics.
The next morning, we had breakfast at a cute cafe, whose name escapes me. Breakfast was delicious and, when I go on my next Sun Valley adventure, I will dine at this establishment again.
That day, Josh and I set out to ride the infamous Adams Gulch Trails.
The Adams Gulch area has a lot of different trails, with which one may make many different loops. Josh and I decided to ride one of the biggest and most technically challenging routes (trail number 177 to 142, if you're interested). On the trail map, this route has three black diamonds at different sections, indicating advanced technical terrain.
We rode and rode and rode. We crisscrossed streams and creeks. We traveled over sections of trail with crazy steep drop-offs, where the trail was off-camber and covered in shale. I found myself feeling, albeit a bit overwhelmed and exhausted, very proud of myself for how much of it I was riding.
It was during one of the black diamond sections that Josh went over his handlebars (he's okay and totally unhurt). I, of course, had walked most of that section, but it was at that point that we decided to turn around, since there were two more black diamond sections ahead of us and lots and lots of grueling climbing over crazy technical terrain.
Surprisingly, the descent was loads of fun! And I write "surprisingly" because the climb had been so challenging and grueling. But the descent was a total blast.
It was during the descent that we found the super easy and fun trails to ride, Lanes and Sunnyside, which would have been excellent for Elizabeth. In hindsight, the universe may very well have been trying keep Elizabeth and I away from Adams Gulch... because I would have taken her on trails 177/142 which I had been eyeing on the map, and that could have been disastrous, particularly because Josh went over the handlebars, and he knows his way around technical terrain.
I can't even get over how flowy and awesome these trails were! They were so much fun and I cannot wait to return to the area. Click here for the ride details. You might find it interesting to click on the Terrain or Satellite tabs for the map.
Before I get into this post, I wanted to properly draw your attention to the above map and ride data, which I included in my previous post about the Hardtrigger ride, but which did not show up on Google Reader. With my new cyclecomputer, Garmin provided some embedding code for a quick snapshot of my ride data and map, however, the code is not compatible in Reader. I've figured out a workaround and it should work for the future, but I was disappointed to discover that the data for my awesome ride did not go through to my Reader folks. Anyhoo, click on the image and it will take you to my Garmin site, where you can check out some interesting graphs and an interactive map, etc.
Now for today's post... Marsing Mini-Vacation
As I indicated in my previous post, Josh and I celebrated my 30th birthday in Marsing and riding bikes in the Owyhees. We actually drove up on Friday morning and stayed the night through Saturday.
Marsing is a fun little town, and has more going on than one might initially think. For example, despite its population not quite cresting 900 people, it has a number of places to procure a cup of coffee, a taco stand, an actual Mexican restaurant, a nicer restaurant, a diner, a biker bar, several thrift stores, a hardware store, a grocery store (equipped with hunting and fishing gear, of course!), a senior center, a smattering of religious establishments, a field office for the Bureau of Land Management, and even a motel.
Ahh... the motel. If you recall, Josh and I took a mini-vacation to Marsing a few years ago and found that the motel, coined the "Whitehouse Motel", was not what we had expected. Josh and I normally stay in one or two star accommodations, usually picking either the cheapest hotel or the second cheapest. In fact, no one could ever argue successfully that we are hotel snobs. Or even very picky, for that matter. Mainly because we prefer to spend our travel money on dining and other experiences of DOING things rather than on the hotel. Another reason for our selection of the cheapest hotels is because one can sometimes find a gem among crapholes. Take, for instance, the Whitehouse Motel in Marsing Idaho.
Arguably, the Whitehouse Motel bears a somewhat misleading name. For whatever grand structure the name "Whitehouse" conjures, the Whitehouse Motel is, quite simply, a doublewide trailer. Below are a few photos from the previous trip.
The Whitehouse Motel is, however, $36 a night, has plenty of hot water and has insanely comfortable beds. Also, the plywood roofing produces soothing sounds during a wind or rain storm, which we have experienced during both our stays there.
Unfortunately, the Whitehouse Motel is not as clean as I would prefer (and I have realistic cleanliness standards when it comes to my one star motel accommodations) and the water smells like sulfur. Really, really bad sulfur. And definitely not drinkable.
Other than that, it's a great (and only) place to stay in Marsing.
On Friday afternoon, Josh and I did a mountain bike ride over by the S. Jump Creek area of the Owyhees. It was just an out-and-back and wasn't anything to write home to Mom about. But it was a good warm-up for the next day's Hardtrigger 25 mile ride.
We set out with no expectations about the ride. Friday was very cloudy and windy, with severe storms going on in the Valley (that was the day there was a funnel cloud in Boise!!!), so Josh and I expected that we would have to cut a ride short. Of course, because my life is nothing if not ironic, we didn't apply sunscreen before the ride because it had been absolutely dark and cloudy all day. Then, not long into the ride, the sun poked out. And the previously cold weather turned to hot. And I had to take off my long sleeve jersey because I was baking, and proceeded to worry about being fried in the sun.
We rode for about an hour in the sun, and I did not get a sunburn.
It was, however, incredibly windy. So windy that I was literally blown off the trail several times.
There were also a lot of cows, a prelude to our Hardtrigger bovine experience. At some point, while we were climbing a section, we crossed paths with a very very pregnant cow who was so pregnant that she couldn't scamper away from us like the others and instead she had a massive diarrhea explosion in response to our presence.
We turned around shortly thereafter, in part because of the cows, but also because the road was difficult to ride with the deep hoof prints from the cows, because I was worried about being in the sun for so long without sunscreen, and because of the strong winds.
Behold my data and map! Click on it to see more.
After the bike ride, we got cleaned up and had dinner at the Sandbar, which is the slightly nicer restaurant in Marsing, down by the Snake River. We ate there on our previous trip, dining on delicious steaks. This time, I dunno, it was a little disappointing and I don't feel like dwelling on the experience.
Then we had a lovely stroll through the park along the river (where we had a few run-ins with some geese) and through some cute neighborhoods. We ended up at the biker bar where we shared a pitcher of Coors Light, downed some shots of tequila, chatted with the bartender (who took a shot with us), and played shuffleboard.
After a good night's sleep, we had eggs, toast, and hashbrowns at the diner next to the motel and then did our big Hardtrigger ride. After the ride, we rushed home to clean up in time to make a friend's wedding reception, where we mingled and had a lovely time.
My 30th birthday was on Saturday and Josh and I did a loop in the Owyhees on our mountain bikes. We went to the main Wilson Creek BLM public recreation area and parked in the second parking lot and headed west, meandering along the roads until we got to the Hardtrigger area. On a previous bike adventure to the Wilson Creek zone, after riding to a high vantage point, I looked across mountains and valleys and saw the Hardtrigger area, which looked like it would have promising mountain biking. Hence, on this ride we specifically sought to ride Hardtrigger.
And I found it mostly awesome. The climbs were strenuous and satisfying. The geography was stunning. Very stunning. I had to stop every-so-often to take some photos, and just admire the scenery. It was a beautiful area.
Not long after crossing a cattle guard into the Hardtrigger area, I rode around a corner and came face-to-face with a BIG, BLACK, and VERY MUSCULAR BULL. I dismounted and smiled, so as to not give away the fear I felt. I'm confident that the bull noted my smile as both non-threatening and friendly, as he slowly wandered off. Josh came around the corner and I told him of the bull. We then rode slowly on, riding side-by-side so Josh could defend me against my bovine foes.
Before entering the Hardtrigger area, we did not realize that it was rangeland and is currently being used for cattle grazing. We rode for several miles through the area and there were bovine creatures everywhere. It was mostly mamas and cute calves, lots and lots of mamas and cute calves, but there were a significant number of bulls and steers, with and without horns.
Being gored is an experience I hope to never have. And Josh feels the same.
As such, we rode through this area fairly cautiously. When we came upon mamas and calves on or very near the road, we would stop until they ran off... sometimes this would take a moment or two. There were several large soon-to-be mamas that we tried hard to not scare, and paid special attention to not anger the bulls.
Without even looking at the genitalia, I felt reasonably confident in identifying the bulls. At some point, we rode around a corner to find a bovine on the road, staring at us. Based on the overly muscular and solid-looking body and the cold, hard, and almost aggressive stare, I deduced it was a bull. When I cautioned Josh in his approach, he said "That's just a cow, I'm not afraid of a cow!" Then the bovine creature moved and the ginormous male genitalia, swaying to and fro, gave Josh reason to pause.
Eventually, we arrived at a juncture in which we had a way to leave the rangeland. While the plan was to explore the Hardtrigger area to its fullest, the sheer number of bovines and our cautious riding provided us with less fun in riding than we had desired. As such, we took the way out, and descended down Coyote Grade road.
The descent was so fun and delightfully fast. I was all smiles. Eventually, we turned on a road to head back towards the car. After consulting the map, Josh led us down a trail through a canyon. The trail was a little above my confidence level for riding, so I walked my bike for most of it. The canyon was beautiful.
On my previous post, I mentioned that Josh had given me an incredibly awesome cyclecomputer for my birthday. Check it out! Throughout the ride, I was able to monitor cadence, altitude, speed, temperature, etc., etc. and can later analyze my performance as well as have a map. I can keep track of my rides, can race against my best times, and can establish various training programs. So neat!
This weekend, Josh and I explored the dirt roads to the west of Wilson Creek Road. We started from the first BLM parking lot and biked west parallel to some power lines. At some point, we crossed an intersection and rode along a poorly defined path in a northwesterly direction. From there, I couldn't begin to describe our route. We crossed many intersections and navigated many roads, from smooth and fast to rocky and challenging.
I stopped to admire the flowers on more than one occasion.
I felt very accomplished with my riding. As per my last posting, my legs have been feeling strong. I rode up and over all kinds of steep rocky sections that required additional effort, and rode down several rocky challenges. At some point, however, I came around a corner on a descent and noted an offcamber section of road with several rock obstacles. I slowed way down in order to decide which line to take. Should I veer to the side, more towards the offcamber section but away from the rocks, or go straight down the middle where it was less offcamber but had the rock obstacles??? I decided on the latter.
As I was removing myself from beneath my bicycle, I became aware of some intense pain in my right thigh, upon which I had fallen with all of my weight onto a pile of rocks. I also had a gouge in my hand from bracing my fall against another pile of rocks. And this minor flesh wound, which was the only thing to take a photo of. Several days later, the bruise on my thigh is BIG, BLACK, AND HARD, but thanks to ice packs, ibuprophren, and arnica not too painful anymore.
We continued riding for a while, my leg becoming increasingly stiff. At some point, we came upon an interesting sand formation. It appeared to be sand that had at some point clumped together after, say, a flood. There were also rocks and other particles clumped together with the sand. Over time, it appeared that wind and rain have eroded the sand into some cool and interesting shapes. In the above photo, I am massaging my hurt leg while considering the sand formation.
We cut the ride a bit short because of the pain in my leg, but even still, we had a few hours of riding under our belts and had explored an area to which we plan to return.
In considering the above photo, what are your thoughts? Is it time to get a new camera??? That image is straight from the camera, no modification done. Grainy images are becoming the normal output from my camera and I find myself increasingly disappointed in them. This one was taken as the sun was set, so perhaps my camera is fine, I dunno. Sigh...
The photo is of the view from the top of Rocky Canyon Road, which is where Josh and I rode our mountain bikes last night. If memory serves, we left sometime after 8:00 in the evening and it took us a little over an hour to reach the top. The temperature was in the high 50s in the Valley when we left, and once we got to the top (with the significant elevation gain) it was a lot chillier. While bombing down the road on the descent, my fingers and toes went numb despite my two layers of gloves and booties. It was nevertheless a great ride. Rocky Canyon Road was in excellent condition, the surface greatly improved from the recent rainstorms. I had a blast on the descent, listening to Neko Case at a ridiculously high volume and topping off at 30mph (as I indicated in my previous post about gravity and speed, that's fast for a lightweight).
The title for this post, incidentally, is in reference to how I've been having some excellent rides lately. I rode Rocky Canyon Road on Wednesday as well, and felt so strong and amazing. I am very excited about finally being able to have plenty of time to get my cycling legs in shape, and to also have plenty of time to engage in my other spare time activities (see below: knitting & gardening).
In other news, I have several finished knitting projects that I'm excited to show off. Speaking of grainy photos, here's a glimpse of something I recently finished. I know, I know, you can't really see it because the photo is so bad. I've been waiting for the sun to poke out so that I can try taking some better photos of my projects, but the sun has not been cooperating.
I was particularly pleased with how this project came out. It's a mini-sweatervest thing made from yarn that I repurposed from a different project. You may recall my Neaty from a few years ago... well, after a few years of very regular use, the yarn had pilled so badly that the sweater looked ratty and horrid. The yarn was Berroco Jasper, a single ply wool that is wonderfully soft, but apparently not suited for a workhorse sweater. As a result, I unraveled the entire sweater and salvaged what yarn I could - - so much of it was felted that I couldn't rescue it - - but I salvaged enough to make this sweatervest.
Anyway, I will write more about it once I can take a decent photo. I have other projects to show off as well.
On another note, speaking of rain and a lack of sunshine, in the left-hand corner of the above photo, you might have noticed some sweet leaves from a tomato plant... This year is going to my first real attempt to have a garden and it's not starting out very well. I mentioned in a previous post that I had not had my act together during the final semester of school to start seedlings, and instead purchased some plants from a local organic nursery. Well... I was nervous about the weather and did not plant them in the ground for a few weeks. The weather this "spring" has been strange, as evidenced by how it snowed last week (the mountains outside of town got 16 inches of snow, crazypants!). Anyway, I was trying to use good judgment about when to plant my plants in the ground and couldn't really decide. The snow melted and the weather reports indicated no frost, so I decided to go for it. I planted on Monday. Then, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday all saw torrential rainstorms and hardly any sunlight. My poor tomatoes look so sad. I feel that I am a sucky farmer.
Finally, the 30th anniversary of my birth is coming up and I continue to discover more grey hairs atop my head. Today at work, while I was washing my hands in the restroom, I noticed three new ones. I exited the restroom and asked a cool female who works in the same area as I if she thought I should dye my hair. She incredulously said to me, "You're only 29 and your hair's going grey!!!"
And to be clear, I'm not lamely complaining about "getting older." I fully understand the biological reality of aging and I also know that grey hair runs in the family, particularly on my mother's side. It's the combination of turning 30 while my hair turns grey that feels a little much. And that I just graduated with my masters degree... and I was planning on an awesome celebration, but my enthusiasm for the celebration went flaccid as the weather continued down the path of cloudy and rainy, depressing days.
Anyway, life sucks and is just not worth living.
That said, I'm super excited about this weekend. Come rain or sunshine, Josh and I have decided to seize life by the nads and go on an awesome adventure on Saturday. Stay tuned...
Please allow me to spend a few moments congratulating myself on successfully completing my masters program.
On Saturday, I got to wear a silly outfit and sit amidst over a thousand other people in silly outfits, feeling very hot and uncomfortable for several hours, until finally I was pushed through the quickly moving procession of graduates receiving diplomas. My celebratory mood, however, was tempered by the fact that I had not yet received my final grades and I was convinced that I wrote sucky final papers and was going to fail out of the program because my professors absolutely despise me. My celebratory mood was also tempered by my boredom. If there's anything that all of my previous graduations have in common, it is boredom. There were a few entertaining moments that punctuated my boredom, to include...
- a presenter from the State Board of Education who seemed really very drunk as he improvised his speech
- music from a local bagpipe ensemble
- reading through the commencement program fifty-bazillion times
- sparkly glitter falling from the ceiling!
Afterwards, I met a gaggle of friends for some celebratory mojitos and then went to a coffee shop with my sister, who was kind enough to buy me an iced tea.
Later that day, Josh and I met up with the same gaggle of friends for a beginner mountain bike ride. We took Elizabeth, Edvin, and David up and over Kestral, Crestline, and part of Sidewinder, as well as hitting some fun obstacles. Everyone did well and had loads of fun. Afterwards, we enjoyed dinner and many (really, way too many) beers at the Sun Ray Cafe.
Incidentally, the photo at the beginning of this post is of some baby owls we saw on our ride. Hoot, hoot.
On Sunday, I woke up feeling weird and hungover from all the beer, yet managed to drag myself to the coffee shop at 8:30 where I enjoyed an unexpected social engagement with Wendy, fellow knitter and yarn hoarder. After she left to go to work, I nursed my hangover with some coffee, knitting, and the second installment to the thrilling fantasy novel I've been reading on my Kindle. Some of you have asked what I am reading. While I have not been completely forthright with this information because I was embarrassed by my reading selection, I realize that even the silliest of all fantasy novels still counts as reading, which is, as they say, "fundamental." And so, I will have you know that I am reading A Clash of Kings which is the second installment to the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin. There, whew, that wasn't so bad... Anyway, it is very exciting.
Later that afternoon, I ventured over to my local neighborhood organic greenhouse and purchased some wee plants for my garden. With school, I did not have my act together to start from seeds, hence the wee plants. I procured some tomatoes, peppers, squash, zucchini, kale, lavender, basil, borage, dill, thyme, and peppermint as well as a variety of seeds to experiment with (both for vegetables and for flowers). I then spent a good amount of time pulling weeds and fussing around in the dirt. It was glorious.
That evening I went on a mountain bike ride up Trail 5, where I attempted to conquer the whole trail. My attempt failed; there is one steep, off-camber and sandy pitch that I have not yet successfully climbed on my bike. I am close, however, so close...
Today, I received the final grades for the semester and learned that I did not write the suckiest final papers to fail out of the program. Rather, I wrote papers that earned high marks and the professors wished me congratulations on successfully completing the program. Go me.
Ride: Salmon Creek, Owyhees Distance: 25 miles Max Speed 24 mph Ave. Speed 9 mph
Josh and I ventured out to the Owyhees on Saturday and did a Salmon Creek Ride. We came at it from the backside, via Upper Reynolds Creek Road. We parked at a turnoff on Upper Reynolds Creek Road and descended down into the valley on our bikes before hitting Salmon Creek Road and the Hardtrigger wild horse management area. It was nice and sunny that day and we both came away from the Owyhees with our first sunburns of the year.
This is the third time we've ridden Salmon Creek and we have yet to ride as far as we would like - - the first time it was ridiculously muddy and it was nearly impossible to ride with all of the sticky mud that had coated my wheels, and the second time I was getting over a bad case of bronchitis and wasn't up for a super long ride. This time we were able to ride about 12 miles in before encountering mud and snow on the trails. We pressed on for a while, but turned around once we realized that the mud and snow were only getting worse. At this point, the fun-to-exertion ratio was sufficiently out of proportion that it just wasn't worth the bother to continue.
It was otherwise a good ride - - some difficult climbs punctuated by flat recovery sections and fast descents. And the scenery was beautiful, as was the sunshine.
I will write that I was disappointed by the final descent along Upper Reynolds Creek Road. As indicated above, my max speed was 24mph, which was disappointingly slow due to the strong headwind that was holding me back on my final descent. It was sad.
One final noteworthy aspect of the ride was that we passed by some sort of military training exercise. While riding back along Upper Reynolds Creek Road, we passed by a tank, marching soldiers, and some sort of medical support carivan. The below photo is me passing by the marching soldiers.
On Saturday, Josh and I went out to the Wilson Creek area for a hike in the Owyhees. We started from the main trailhead and trekked along some various trails eastward, towards Reynolds Creek. We lost the trail a few times and had to bushwhack to our way to the next trail. The inversion over Boise had caused depression to accumulate, however, the clouds broke over the Owyhees and we were able to experience some glorious sunshine. The light was particularly stunning that day.
We hiked to the top of one of the buttes to take in the view and admire some interesting geology. There were odd boulders with distinctive striping. Later, we discussed how the Owyhees contain many fascinating geological features.
A few ridges later, we happened upon a trail that Josh hypothesized would lead us to the China Wall, a trail we have been trying to find. We hike and hiked, and just has we were coming up over a ridge, someone called out, "Hey, it's Josh and Jennifer." I was totally weirded out that someone would recognize us in the middle of the Owyhees. It was a group of friendly mountain bikers who were just coming out of the China Wall. We stopped and chatted and they suggested that we hike the China Wall and that we would be able to get back to the Wilson Creek Trailhead from there.
It was an awesome hike through the Reynolds Creek Canyon, along this rocky trail-bridge ("China Wall"). I was curious about the history behind this trail and I discovered that the trail is formally known as "China Ditch" and informally as the "China Wall," and that it was built by Chinese laborers who were diverting water from Reynolds Creek for irrigation purposes. The trail took us down to the bottom of the canyon, with what seemed like the cliffs of Mordor rising above us.
Eventually, we hiked out of the canyon, where we were faced with several trail options. We decided to follow the bike tracks from the group of riders we had chatted with, a plan that proved very wise. Tracking their tire prints allowed us to navigate back to the trailhead with great ease.
During the hike, we also decided that we would return the next day with our mountain bikes, and with Elizabeth.
The bike ride was awesome. We rode a few different trails to access the canyon area, most of which were in pretty good condition. The trails were rougher than the previous day due to horse travel; Josh and I felt bad because Elizabeth isn't accustomed to the rough trails in the Owyhees, but she seemed perfectly fine. One trail traversing the backside of a butte was particularly muddy and we had difficulty riding to the top. I worked up a sweat and got my heart racing because I was dead set on riding it - - meanwhile, Josh and Elizabeth were hiking behind me, having faced reality in a more timely fashion. Otherwise, the trails were dry.
Descending into and through the canyon afforded us an opportunity to practice some technical skills.
Riding along the wall was fun. More photos on my photoset
Photos from some nighttime excursions, hiking and biking.
On Friday night, Josh and I did a hike around the foothills. The trails were frozen but the air temperature was comfortable. We brought lights, and chose to hike in the darkness.
Fog limited what visibility there was and rendered the night eerie.
Later, we used our lights to search for nocturnal creatures.
Below is a photo from a night ride through the snow several days ago. The snow had good traction that night and we had an excellent ride.
Josh and I are not the wealthiest of individuals: notice how Josh affixed duct tape to his booties rather than purchase a new pair.
Mountain biking through the winter months went up a notch this weekend for Josh and I as we set out on our first real snow bike excursion. Some have suggested that my inspiration has come from Jill in Alaska and her winter adventures, but it is much more than inspiration that her blog provides - - it suggests that the winter months can be unique opportunities to pursue the same outdoor activities that one does in the warmer months, and that one only needs different gear and an attitude adjustment. For me, the problem with winter sports is that I have been unable to pursue them directly outside my front door. Cross country skiing is a winter sport that I could really get behind, except for that it requires that I drive to somewhere that is good for skiing. Driving, in general, is something I try to avoid doing and driving in the winter, in particular, is something that can really take the fun out of an activity. Just the pure fact that I cannot engage in skiing unless I drive somewhere has been the major barrier to my developing a strong interest in skiing. Mountain biking, in contrast, is something that I can do without driving anywhere, what with my living less than a mile away from the foothills trails. And if you think about it, is mountain biking really so different than cross country skiing? (other than the driving thing). I wonder why a general attitude about mountain biking is that it is for the non-winter months...
As I've previously written, having the proper gear for winter biking is a science. And Josh and I have pretty much figured it out. When I last wrote, we continued to have trouble with our hands and feet. I hinted at the bottom of my last post that I was thinking about procuring a pair of handlebar sleeve mitts/pogies... and I did! This past week, I conducted an extensive local and online search. I was unable to find anyone locally who sold such an item and I was unable to find mountain bike pogies for under $60. As I've already spent a good wad of cash on winter gear recently, I was hoping to find something more affordable. I ended up locating a very affordable option from a hunting shop in Bonners Ferry. They are essentially pogies for ATVs or snowmobiles (and are endorsed by the National Rifle Association). They are windproof, insulated, and cost a whopping $30. I also received excellent customer service - - the man I chatted with on the phone was very helpful, and I ordered two pairs on Thursday and received them on Saturday. Josh and I had planned to go on a big snow bike adventure, and I was delighted when the pogies arrived in the mail.
We rode Bucktail/Shanes to Rocky Canyon Road and up the lower part of Orchard Trail. Riding through the snow, both climbing and descending was very SLOW. My cycle-computer needs new batteries, so I don't have any official stats, but I think we were out for three hours. (of course, we were not riding for that whole time). I am satisfied to report that the pogies worked very well. During the climbs, I removed my gloves entirely and rode with my hands contained in the pogie-cocoon of warmth. During the descent, my hands did get cold - - but I believe there are specific reasons for this (one, I rubbed cold snow all over my hands prior to starting the descent because I had gotten something sticky on them (the learning here is to tolerate the sticky and not rub snow on your hands), and two, because my gloves were too tight and cut off blood flow). The cutting off of blood circulation has been a key reason for coldness, and ever since I bought these gloves I've wondered if they are too small. That evening, I went out to REI and exchanged the gloves for a bigger pair. Also, I was able to warm my hands back up on the descent. It is also worth noting that the temperature was 22 degrees.
As for the feet, I had great success. I wore one pair of Smartwool cycling socks, wrapped a chemical toe warmer over my little toes, wore my normal cycling shoes, insulated with a bootie, wrapped all of this with a plastic grocery bag, and then finalized with a windblocking bootie. (in the above photo, you can see the plastic grocery bags sticking out of my booties). This worked very well for warmth. THE PROBLEM was that snow and ice clogged up my cleats and pedals every time I put my foot down (which was more frequently than normal because I kept losing traction on the slippery snow), and after three hours this got to be very frustrating. I have resolved to switch to platform pedals and ride with hiking boots for the snow season.
Speaking of traction, I am concerned about losing traction with flat pedals, but I don't know what else to do. Traction was a big issue on this ride. In the above photo, you can see something that is so rare, it is astonishing I actually captured it in a photo. The photo is of Josh walking his bike up a little hill after losing traction. This is the tiny hill/dip on Shanes. That Josh had to walk his bike up this measely hill evinces how slippery the snow was at times. SHOCKINGLY, I was able to maintain traction better than Josh. I attribute this to running my tires at very very low psi. Before we left on the ride, Josh and I both put studded tires on our bikes. As we were filling them with air, I said something about wanting to run low pressure. I have been reading about snow biking on the internets (for example, at IceBike) and a general piece of wisdom has to do with really really low psi. When I filled my tires up to 25 psi, Josh acted as though that was too low - - then when I let most of that air out on the trail, Josh had a very small freakout about how I did not know what I was doing. He later recanted, and affirmed that this was one time when I was right and he was wrong. Anyway, throughout the ride, I had significantly better traction. Yes, I was still slipping out, but Josh kept remarking about how I wasn't struggling as much as he was. When we began the descent down Rocky Canyon Road, Josh noticed very clearly that I was able to ride along and maintain a little stability, while he was fishtailing all over. He then let out a lot of his air, and agreed that it was much better. He also mentioned that maybe he should ride fatter tires. (in the below photo, check his skinny tires).
Biking in the snow required a lot more effort, obviously. We rode the flatter/lower portion of Orchard Trail before turning around for the descent. The descent was interesting. I tried to find the right balance of keeping my speed in check and not hitting my brakes. I tried to steer the bike down the trail, but did not steer away from how the snow was making the bike travel. It was the dichotomy of being in control of one's mountain biking but being relaxed to allow the trail and snow to carry me and my bike along. It was fun, but it was definitely unnerving to surrender so much control. And it was not at all scary. Going down Rocky Canyon Road was the same - - riding faster but keeping the speed in check and going with the flow of the snow. We ended up connecting back to Shanes and Bucktail for the last portion of the descent. This proved to be an excellent route because (1) descending Bucktail through the snow actually required expending some energy which was helpful in retaining body heat, and (2) we succeeded in having some awesome flow along the singletrack.
Also of note is that during this ride, we were able to ride out of the inversion. In the below photo, the grey portion on the horizon is actually the inversion smoke. We hit it once we got to Shanes and smelled a very distinct nasty smokey smell and my throat started to get sore.
On Sunday, Elizabeth and I rode Corrals during what I thought was supposed to be the warmest time of day... 2:00. The temperature was 28 degrees when I left my apartment, and I wore an extra baselayer to keep me warm - - by the time that I arrived to our meeting place at the corner of Hill and Bogus Basin Roads, I was feeling overheated. I removed my outer windbreaker in anticipation of the climb up Bogus Basin, and we proceded to hammer up. While we were riding up to the trailhead, I started getting really cold. I decided that I needed to generate some body heat, so I rode away from Elizabeth and put in a good effort to warm up. By the time that I arrived at the trailhead, my arms were FREEZING. I then re-dressed myself in my windbreaker and we rode up Corrals, generating body heat. In hindsight, now that temperatures in Boise are barely scraping above ten degrees, I suspect that the increase in cold that I experienced on this climb was an actual increase in cold and not merely a perceived increase. Anyway...
Along the main road of Corrals, we ran into my Dad and his dog. We stopped and had a lengthy conversation, during which point I began to lose some of my body heat.
Then we continued riding along. Once we started riding up the backside of the mountain, there was snow and ice on the trail. And it was slippery. At one point, my bike suddenly slid out from under me after hitting an icy section, but I was magically able to catch my fall.
At the top of Corrals, I was delighted to see that someone had established a festive Tumbleweed Tree with holiday ornaments.
Around about the time that we got to the summit, it started snowing. Also, despite having just climbed up the trail, we were shivering. We stayed to admire the view only briefly before beginning the long descent. As can be guessed, it was awesome and loads of fun. I took Elizabeth down Trail 4 and Hulls, both of which she had never ridden before - - and I was very impressed with how confidentally she rode the trails, rolling over all kinds of rocks and offcamber sections. It's difficult to believe that she's been mountain biking for less than a year.
Aside from all of the awesome fun we were having, we also got really really cold. When I arrived home, I checked the weather again, and the temperature was down to 25, with a feel like rating of 15... and I think what we were experiencing descending through the wind chill on the foothills was considerably colder. I'm anticipate that my next gear acquisition will be a pair of pogies / handlebar mitts.
Mountain biking in the cold and dark of winter offers unique thrills and challenges. One thrill and challenge is the opportunity to spend a lot of money on gear. Another thrill and challenge is doing what you love (ie, mountain biking) regardless of the pain and suffering.
As a sidenote, one drawback to mountain biking in the cold and dark of winter is that it does not lend itself well to photos, which explains the lack of blogging around these parts.
Normally, winter coincides with enhanced depression, gym attendance, and feelings of cabin fever while we live vicariously through our fond memories of wild outdoor adventures when the weather was warmer and sunnier. My committment to riding through the cold and dark of winter coincides with my realization that mountain biking even when it totally sucks outside is infinitely more fun than going to the gym. In fact, with the right gear and attitude adjustment, mountain biking when it sucks outside can be downright awesome.
I have been consistently going on several night rides a week; the cold weather hasn't stopped me. As I augment my cold weather gear selection, I hope for my winter riding to increase in both fun and quantity.
On Wednesday, I went on a group ride hosted by the bike shop folks. Most everyone who had committed to riding cancelled because of the weather - - the temperature registered at 28 degrees, with a "feel like" rating of 23. Arguably, while this is freezing it is not too cold to ride. Okay okay, my fingers became painfully cold on the descent, but otherwise I felt great.
On Friday, Josh and I jetted out on a bike ride right after I got off work. The temperature was 27, with a feel like rating of 18. BRRR, right? Wrong. Dressing for the weather is a science that I almost have figured out (see above, re: spending lots of money on gear).
We rode up Sidewinder, Fat Tire, and down Trail 5. The sun was set by the time we reached the top of Sidewinder, at which point I illuminated my new helmet light, the Stella 200. BING!
We then proceeded through the traversing turns of Fat Tire and I had so much fun. The darkness beyond the focus of my light was eerie, and the snow crystals on the trail were magical. I imagined the mountain lions lurking in the distance, too afraid to pounce because of our powerful helmet lights.
Bombing down Trail 5 was too awesome and fun for words. I had my light pointed at the perfect distance in front of me, and it felt so smooth. My vbrakes maintained sufficient braking (though, I was worried for a bit as I sensed them icing over). I remained totally warm and cozy in my nest of cold weather gear... except for my fingers. On the descent, my fingers became very cold. It's a science, dressing for cold weather night rides.
Today I took Elizabeth on a training ride. We agreed to ride today several days ago, and I had taken the time to mull over where to take her. I suppose that there's two ways of thinking about teaching someone to mountain bike: you can take the person on exclusively beginner rides and wait until they are totally comfortable with the easy trails before introducing them to slightly more difficult trails / / OR, you can introduce them to more difficult trails before they've become totally comfortable with the easy trails and just focus on being really encouraging. I've taken the latter approach.
So today, I had Elizabeth ride up Trail 5, along Fat Tire, and down Sidewinder, arguably not at all a beginner ride. Trail 5, in particular, has some pretty beginner-unfriendly climbs, yet Elizabeth rode them with sweet determination. Fat Tire, with its side drop-offs, rocky hillsides, and tight turns, is also not very beginner-friendly. Yet Elizabeth rode it.
For the most part, the trails were in good condition. Most of Trail 5 was especially glorious. Because the majority of the trail faces into the sunlight, the snow was gone but it was still frozen. Above is one of the few snowy parts of Trail 5. And even when it was snowy, traction was good. Fat Tire had a lot more snowy sections and also had some goopy muddy sections, but was mostly frozen. Sidewinder had mostly fantastic trail conditions. But as we started descending lower, the trails stopped being frozen and there was more sloppy mud.
It's also worth mentioning that, after a bit of coaxing, Elizabeth rode this small rocky section on Sidewinder. I was such a proud trainer!
As for the temperature, it was 45 when we left (with a 'feel like' temperature of 37). During the descent, my fingers and toes only started becoming cold and numb along Freeway and dropping over to the Military Reserve, mainly because we got more into the shade at that point. But my temperature comfort level for the ride was awesome.
Whereas mountain bike rides bring me significantly more joy than exercising at the gym, I have committed myself to riding despite the approaching cold and darkness of winter. Almost a year ago, I began reading Jill's blog and have been very inspired by the extreme conditions under which she continues to ride. Considering myself no wimp, I plan to ride in my comparatively less extreme conditions.
On Saturday, I spent quite a bit of time at REI selecting some extreme cold weather gloves, wool socks, and headgear to use for winter mountain biking. I also threw down some money at the bike shop on a better lighting system. I've been jetting out on rides right after I get off of work, but I keep getting caught in the dark. My single handlebar mounted front light doesn't give me sufficient depth perception - - so I got a powerful light for my helmet, which will allow me to see in the direction that I'm looking (which isn't always the direction that my handlebars are pointed) and having the two lights should help with depth differentiation.
That evening, after Josh had repaired two flat tires on his bike, we rode halfway up Rocky Canyon Road. I checked the weather before leaving, and it was at a 'feel like' temperature of 25, perfect for trying out my new gear.
The climb was great. I felt energized and the crisp air was invigorating. During the climb, Josh and I noted the ice on the road. He asked me if I felt comfortable descending on an icy road, and I said that Jill in Alaska rides on icy roads all of the time.
The decision to turn around at the halfway point was due to Josh forgetting to don his winter booties to keep his feet warm. His feet were already getting numb and he spent a few moments trying to stomp some blood back into them.
The descent was more freezing than I anticipated. My fingers and toes got really really really cold, despite my new gloves and my wool socks. I also crashed hard on the ice coming around a corner. I think I may have touched my breaks in the icy turn, but I don't know - - it happened so fast, as they say. I've now got a monster swollen bruise on my hip and lots of little bruises everywhere else, and my neck is really sore. But I couldn't be happier about not having to deal with an open wound, particularly on my knees (poor knees).
Anyway, Josh and I are going back to the drawing board for cold weather gear.
In other news, on Friday Josh and I rode the Tablerock Trails after I got off work. The sun was setting right as we got to the trails, and howling in the near-distance we could hear a pack of coyotes. We also saw a herd of deer. And at some point when I descended around a corner, there was a big dog standing in the middle of the trail. This is partly why I wanted a better front light system, to see the wildlife.
On Saturday, I went on a group ride along some of the Wilson Creek trails in the Owyhees. As my date, I brought Elizabeth. Also in attendance was Karen, Peggy, Dan, Paul, and another dude. Paul was our navigator and was able to show us some exceptionally awesome fun trails in the area.
We parked at the first parking lot on the right on Wilson Creek Road, before the cattle feed lot, and rode up a narrow dirt road that branched off from that parking lot. After just a brief stint on that road, we veered left onto a faint cow path, which was covered in thick sage brush and the skeletons of bramble weed bushes, both of which continually got caught in everyone's bikes.
After a while, we found ourselves on a piece of legitimate singletrack that took us through something of a canyon area. Here, the sage brush was very thick and overgrown along the trails. I received quite a good bit of exfoliation along my legs thanks to the branches scraping along my flesh. The trail itself was turn-ney and decently interesting. It had some abuse from cattle grazing, but was still very ridable.
Eventually, this trail took us back to Wilson Creek Road, where we had couple solid climbs before the next trailhead. Climbing, for me, can feel so good and satisfying. In the above photo is the beginning of the first climb up the mountain, and the group beginning to tackle it.
By the time everyone reached the summit, it was necessary to don windbreakers - - there was a chilly wind blowing and the sweat built up from the climb served to make everyone pretty freezing.
At the summit was a trailhead off to the left which we rode. There was a trail marker, I believe for TW300 or something. This trail was totally rock and roll to descend. It had plenty of roller coaster action, lots of fun turns, and some fun-but-challenging obstacles. There were a few steepies (see below) and some awesome rock steps. Overall it was so much fun and I am looking forward to returning to the area.
Afterwards, I took the group to Freddy's Taco Stand in Marsing. More photos on my photoset
Ride: Poison Creek Road, Owyhees Ride Time: 3 hours 7 minutes Total Distance: 29.4 miles Max Speed: 27.4 mph Average Speed: 9.4 mph
On Saturday, Josh and I decided to venture down to the Owyhees for a fun day of mountain biking. It's been quite a while since we last went that way; the most recent episodes were unsuccessful due to some terrible road/trail conditions. After the recent rain brought better trail conditions to the Boise foothills, I hypothesized that conditions in the Owyhees would have likewise improved. My logic proved correct.
We decided to ride Poison Creek Road because we wanted to maximize our chances of having a good, fun, and awesome ride. In exploring these Owyhee roads and trails, there can be a lot of hit or miss. Poison Creek Road, we have learned from experience, is a definite hit.
The wind was blowing strong on Saturday. For most of the climbs we had a tail wind, which made a lot of the climbing feel easy. There were a few hard climbs where we averaged 3 or 4 mph, but for most of the ride we were sailing along. All of this means, however, that the descent required more effort to keep the speed going. Gravity also helped and hindered us differently - - for instance, at one point on a mild grade slightly downward, I was pedaling with considerable effort alongside Josh who was coasting and even tapping his breaks to remain parallel to me. There was some awesome downhill moments, though because of the wind I only topped out at 27 mph - - Josh said he hit close to 40 mph. Gravity, hmph.
At the end of the ride, we went to Freddy's Taco stand in Marsing. This is our standard post-ride meal for when we're in that region of the Owyhees. The food is very affordable and incredibly delicious, made more delicious from the effort exerted on the ride. I got two beef tacos with rice and beans (for $5.50) and a strawberry soda - - YUM!!!
Autumn is a glorious time for mountain biking. I love the crisp air and the changing colors. As much as I adore summer, the heat and the dry, dusty trails can get old. In the last few weeks, we've had a little bit of rain which has been wonderful to improve the trail conditions in the foothills. They had become so dry and dusty that I developed a preference for riding elsewhere.
Big weekend adventures have peetered off a bit, but I have continued to ride. Here's a small update.
I continue to take myself on solo skills practicing rides over in the Tablerock Rock Garden area. There are a number of challenging rock obstacles that I have been tackling. Once I conquer an obstacle, I make myself ride it for a second time to make sure that the skill sticks.
Last weekend, I went on a cardio ride with Elizabeth on Sunday morning. She wanted to conquer the full Dump Loop as a cardio milestone in her training, and to even the playing field, we both rode our mountain bikes. Though, my bike is significantly lighter than hers, so I don't know how it was an even playing field. Anyway. We started the ride at 9:00 a.m. when it was 31 degrees, and it was 42 degrees by the time that I returned home, around noon. Brr! Magically, I dressed perfectly and was never too cold nor was I ever too warm. I wore two pairs of angora socks, booties, tights, my expensive Castelli long sleeve jersey (which was really so worth the money!), a windbreaker, cold weather gloves, and a skull cap. Elizabeth wore only her cycling shorts and a jersey, and while she is much more warm blooded than I am, she seemed to be FREEZING the entire time. After the ride, we went to the SunRay cafe in Hyde Park for some lunch. I had coffee, tomato basil soup, and an AMAZING sandwich with pastrami, pepperoni, and a garlic muffaletta. YUM!!!
I've also taken up a new mountain biking partner, Karen who works at the bike shop. She has an incredible amount of mountain biking racing experience behind her and it's been a whole new experience riding with her. Two Friday's ago, I took the afternoon off of work and went on a ride with her and Josh. Then, this Saturday, Karen and I rode some of the trails in the westerly foothills, ending up at the Velodrome. There was a bike demo event for Trek and Karen knew the female overseeing all of the 2010 bikes, so we all had a lengthy chat. During the course of the conversation, it came out that this female is dating a famous Tour de France commentator and Karen and I could not get over that juicy piece of information.
By the end of that ride, Karen had pulled out five goatheads from her tires. She runs tubeless and never had to deal with the pain of changing a flat tire. Witnessing the effectiveness of tubeless tires, and Karen advocating for them, I am thinking about going tubeless myself. Just last week alone, I had to fix four flat tires after riding in the foothills. This year seems to have been particularly bad for the goatheads and I am so tired of fixing flats. GAR!
In other gear news, last week I switched from Schimano XT (with an XTR derailler) to SRAM X9. I have been having so many issues with my shifting; I'm hoping to have a significantly improved experience with SRAM. So far so good.
I was particularly excited to go for a mountain bike ride today after work. I am so looking forward to fall riding! The summer and its heat and blistering UV rays can get old after a while. I've also decided that I need to ride solo more often. Riding with people is great, but solo rides offer a more contemplative and self-focused experience.
I did a Tablerock ride today. There are challenges afforded in that neck of the foothills that are less common in the more westerly hills. Slippery, rocky sweeping climbs, an off camber switchback or two, and rock obstacles make good challenges for me. I'm at the point where I need to overcome some technical skill barriers and improve my confidence, and I won't be doing this if I keep riding the same old same old Military Reserve and Central Foothills trails. I think if I consistently spend time alone trying to master the terrain that gives me trouble, I will improve my skills. And I say "alone" because I can get flustered if I screw up on an obstacle around people - - but riding alone, I can try riding an obstacle over and over until I do it, without feeling self-conscious that someone might be watching me. This is another nice thing about the Tablerock trails, there aren't very many people on the trails.
That fall is here is evidenced by how my garden is dying, with the frost having arrived the day after I took the following photo of my flowers. I'm super excited about trying to have more of a garden next year. Now that everything is all wilted and dying, I think there's no more use in trying to be a farmer for a while.
Last Saturday, Josh and I did a ride up at Idaho City. I don't have any photos to share and it's been so long that I don't remember the stats. I believe it was around 20 miles. There were some pretty grueling climbs that we huffed and puffed up. I felt very satisfied with my effort on the climbs, making it up most of the really steep ones. At some point, we got caught in the middle of all of these ATV/hunting trails that criss-crossed over the mountains. We kept having to make arrows with sticks and rocks to mark our way because it was such a labyrinth of paths. I also saw a herd of elk. Afterwards, we had lunch in Idaho City.
On Sunday, I took Elizabeth up to Bogus for a training/practice ride. We did Deer Point, Elk Meadows, Mores Creek, and back along Ridge Road. It was a lot of fun and I was very impressed with Elizabeth's riding. It's also fun taking on the role of drill sergeant / coach. I said, "Elizabeth, you will ride this trail in your middle ring!" And she said, "Yes, Ma'am!" A salut would have been appropriate, but I think she was busy steering her bicycle.
Ride: Grimes Creek fire road Distance: 21.5 miles Elevation Climbed: 4,000 feet Average Speed: 8.2 mph
Today I took the day off work and Josh and I rode up the fire road at Grimes Creek - - an excellent ride. The smell of pine was in the air and the spirit of adventure ran through our veins. We have hiked and showshoed up this road several times, but taking the bikes allowed us to travel farther and gain a new appreciation for the area.
Eventually, the road took us to over 5,000 feet in elevation and we rode along the ridge before going along the other side of the mountain and around again.
Below, we were on the ridge, looking over both sides of the mountain. The views were amazing.
And here is a view of the back side of Bogus - - to the right we were able to see Placerville.
During the ascent, it was hotter than we expected. We kept pouring water on ourselves to stay cool. On the descent, however, stormclouds had brewed above us and we experienced a substantial downpour. I had water running down my face in floods, and some of the rain drops were so big that they almost hurt.
At some point on the downhill, I rounded a corner and immediately executed a ninja-response to avoid hitting a large rattlesnake in the road. I rolled within inches of its fangs and then turned around to take a photo. Josh was there as well, and during the few seconds that we snapped this photo, we heard some rustling in the bushes nearby and scampered back onto our bikes, fearing that it was the rattlesnake's even bigger brother rattlesnake.
At the bottom of the mountain, we dipped our toes into Grimes Creek. The water was cool, but not too freezing. We spent several minutes sitting on the rocks and washing the sweat, mud, and sunscreen from our skin. It felt wonderfully refreshing.
It was a much better way to spend the day than going to work. Once we got back into town, we got pizza and beer at the Lucky 13, still dressed in our dirty cycling spandex.
Route: Orchard Trail to Ridge Road, down 8th Street Distance: 24 miles Elevation Gained: 4,000 feet Climb Time: 2 hours
The ability to hop onto the bike, right after shutting one's front door, and do a sizable ride after work is an awesome quality to living in Boise. On Sunday, Josh and I did a good ride in the evening. After shutting our front door, we rode over to the Military Reserve trails, rode up Central Ridge and connected to Rocky Canyon Road, up Orchard Trail, all the way to Ridge Road, and connected to 8th Street via Trail 4.
When we set out and started riding the Reserve Trails, I was feeling uncomfortably hot and my legs were slogging. I used this section of the ride to get my legs warmed up. This portion of the ride was also unpleasant because of the vast swarms of flies/nats/flying ants that we kept riding through. Bug swarms happen in the foothills, but I don't think I've ever experienced it this bad before. After hitting a cloud of bugs, I'd have them covering my skin, in my jersey, up my nose and mouth, in my hair, and it would be futile to swipe them away because another cloud of bugs was approaching. That I did not intake any extra calories on this ride I attribute to the number of bugs I ate on this first section.
Once we hit Rocky Canyon Road, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was mostly shady and that the temperature was cooler. I fell into the rhythm of pumping my legs and began to feel good. Once we hit Orchard Trail, Josh said that I had been setting a good pace. I gave credit to the hard intervals on the spin bike that I've been doing at the gym.
As a sidenote, this "training" at the gym is going well. I've discovered that Rammstein and Rage Against the Machine provide effective training music - - as they compel me to set the resistence on the bike higher and to also spin my legs faster. Something about training at the gym that I've embraced is that it's not necessary to "pace oneself" or "save some energy for the end" as it is during an actual ride. In this way, it is evident that these "gasket-blowing" intervals on the spin bike have been making my legs stronger for actual rides.
Orchard Trail to Ridge Road has some particularly grueling climbs. That my "training" at the gym is effective was evident while riding these climbs. I found satisfaction both in my ability to continue to tick the pedals over as well as Josh's comments about how awesome I was doing. Riding up a long, hard climb is very satisfying - - when you reach the summit and look down over everything below, knowing that your legs got you there feels good.
Once we hit Ridge Road, it was smooth sailing over to the Trail 4 motorcycle connector trail. That trail was very awesome and fun. It traversed the mountain, had some technical features, and afforded a stunning view over the mountains and valley below. We even saw a herd of elk.
I lost my mojo at some point on this trail and crashed my bike twice where there was no good reason for me to crash. The first time, I must have had too much weight on my front wheel as I lost traction on a very slightly off camber section. The second time, I dunno, I think my handlebar actually got caught on some bushes. So dumb. But all was fine. When we arrived home, Josh was for a second concerned about my knee and leg, but I dismissed that concern because the only gore on me was mud.
Because we got a late start, we were pushing daylight on this ride. We enjoyed the sunset on Trail 4 and rode down upper 8th Street in the dark. My night vision sucks and I wished that I had brought a light for the downhill. Upper 8th Street is severely rutted. Navigating the ruts while descending 4,000 feet in the dark was challenging. Especially after having crashed twice AND that my legs were feeling tired from climbing so much, I did not have the needed confidence to enjoy this downhill. The only grace was that the sand on 8th Street is white, so it was possible to discern the darker ruts from the non-ruts. But discerning sandy sections and off camber sections was difficult.
It was 10:30 by the time that we arrived home. I enjoyed a glass of orange juice before going to bed for a deep sleep.
I wanted to ride somewhere different last night - - tired of the same old, same old - - and I remembered that sixteen miles away is a mountain with loads of trails that I never ride. Ironicly, I make the trek up to Bogus to hike the trails somewhat regularly, and I always make a mental note to myself about how I should take my bike up - - but then my mental note gets lots amongst all of my other mental notes, and I continue riding the same old, same old foothills trails sixteen miles below. But then yesterday, I was checking out SWIMBA's website and saw that they were having a group ride at Bogus Basin and I recalled all of those mental notes in my brain about how I should ride those trails. And so I made it happen!
Josh and I are accustomed to setting out on rides later in the evening these days, to try and escape the heat and the blistering sun. Plus, we kinda have this after-work routine that involves dinner. As a result, we didn't get to the trailhead until about 8:00. A storm was moving in, so it was dark and blustery. Pretty cool, actually.
We rode Deer Point and Elk Meadows. Distance-wise, it was a short ride - - for one, I kept stopping to take photos in the poor light, and for two, we had to turn around prematurely because we weren't up for riding in the dark and because it seemed like there was a storm moving in.
Distance aside, the fun factor of this ride was excellent. Josh and I don't do much "MOUNTAIN biking" - - rather, we do a lot of hills and high desert riding. Here are some of my observations about mountain biking:
Mountains are taller than hills,
Because mountains are taller than hills, their trails tend to have a lot of switchbacks going up, to make it easier for hikers and bikers to reach the summit,
Ridng around switchbacks is fun!
Mountains have things like trees and bushes,
Sometimes those trees and bushes on the mountains form a certain density, called a "forest",
Riding through the forest is fun!
By the time that we were riding up Elk Meadows, there was a definite chill in the air. The sun was also starting to set. Feeling excited about future exploration of these trails, we turned around for a fun and fast downhill.
The main reason that we turned around, however, was not because of the chill or the impending darkness, but our bedtime. Josh and I are trying to do this morning workout routine. We've been surprisingly successful. We haven't made it everyday - - after all, sometimes shit happens and you can't get your butt to the gym at 6 o'clock in the morning - - but we continue to make it most days. Personally, I think this is making me a stronger rider - - getting a focused intensity on the spin bike in the morning is good preparation for an awesome fun evening bike ride to enjoy the outdoors.
Monday came too soon this week. Josh returned from Kansas yesterday evening and I didn't sleep well last night, so we decided to postpone our semi-successful morning gym experience until tomorrow. Oh, incidentally, we've started a new morning gym experience. Last week, I went three mornings and did intervals on the bike and upper body weights. Of the two remaining mornings, I only woosed out once, as the other morning I had to go to work at 5am.
Later this evening we did a loop around Table Rock. I always forget about riding these trails, but I think I'll be pedaling over them more frequently from now on. I was pleasantly surprised by how nice they were - - despite a few ruts, they were in good condition and not very many people.
Well, today there were a number of people who were hanging out trail-side, watching the Indigo Girls concert at the Botanical Gardens below. That was sorta neat - - mountain biking with a live concert in the background.
Once we got to the top of Table Rock, we parked the bikes and enjoyed the view. Josh has a new bike, by the way.
We also enjoyed a silly moment. With the popularity of the 'jumping shots' not quite out of style, we employed the automatic timer on the camera to shoot our own version. From this photo shoot, I have about ten photos (that will never be displayed on the internets) of us not quite timing the jump right, and they are very funny. I'm a little peeved that Josh managed to jump so that his head was out of the frame, as I'm the one left looking weird. ...Whatever.
As the sun was setting, we made our way down the hill. I was leading the way, and at some point, Josh decided that he was going to speed down a short cut and come out ahead of me as a surprise. Unbeknownst to him, however, I had taken the wrong turn at an intersection. He was stopped at the place where he was going to surprise me for a while, wondering where I was, until he heard my chain rattling off in the distance and had to try and locate me. Meanwhile, I had been riding along, thinking that I didn't recognize where I was. I came upon an intersection and stopped because I had no clue which way to go. Josh found me there, feeling puzzled. We ended up going up this one trail for a bit and then plopped down on the ground to listen to the Indigo Girls. We enjoyed a few songs and then rode down in the dark.
I've been in a really good mood these days. There has been the perfect mix of exercise and relaxation, hanging out with friends and alone time.
This afternoon, I took myself out on a bike ride and did a Trail 5, Fat Tire, Sidewinder loop. It was a good ride - - though, way too hot. I checked the temperature before going out, and it read at a mere 95 degrees. Considering it's been over 100 for a week and that we've been breaking heat records, I thought that 95 seemed cool in comparison and perfect for a ride. As I was grunting up Trail 5, however, that 95 degrees seemed much hotter and I had several moments where I thought I was going to pass out. I had two big water bottles full of water that I used to pour all over myself, but the heat was almost unbearable. The sun felt like it was beating down and reflecting off of the sand on the trail, making it doubly piercing. There are a few trails in the foothills which I have found to be more oven-like in the summer; trails that capture and reflect the heat more -- and I think Trail 5 is one of these. There were several times I thought about turning around, and possibly just doing a Shanes loop or something, but I had set out with the intention to do this particular ride and I didn't want to give up over a little heat. So I kept at it.
The aggravating part is that this is actually a fairly short ride, with some decent climbing and a couple steep pitches, coming in at 11 miles. But with the heat, it was much harder. Once I got to the top of Trail 5, I found some shade under a brambleweed bush and tried to cool off for a bit. It doesn't show in the photo, because of the shade, but my face was almost as red as my jersey. Though, you can kinda see the veins popping out on my temple.
Once I hit Fat Tire, I was home free and felt so good about myself for persevering through the heat. I was kinda wobbly on the descent because my muscles were quivering from the mild case of heat exhaustion. But it was still fun.
I did not see another person on the trails while I was out, probably because it was so hot. This made the ride seem like more of an adventure - - as though I was farther away from civilization. While I was sitting under the brambleweed bush, I stared out over the familiar hills trying to see if there was anyone else on the trails. It was weird being all alone out there, in a neat way.
On another note, does anyone know what the plant is in the below photo??? I believe it may be the source of a horrible itchy welty rash I've suffered from for a few weeks.
Here's a peak at something I'm designing, a stranded jacket. As you can see, increases are worked into the color pattern that build upon the existing motif. The process of developing the colorwork was fun, given that I enjoy tinkering around in spreadsheets.
Spending several days in San Francisco has left me with a renewed appreciation for living in Boise. Don't get me wrong, I loved San Fran - - but it's wonderful to be home.
I've ridden in the foothills almost everyday since being home. It's easy to take it for granted, but the immediate access to outdoor recreation is something I would hate to give up. In addition, the network of trails continues to be developed - - just this past week, a brand new trail was carved linking trail 5 to Sidewinder (I believe it's trail 42/"fat tire" on the map). Josh and I did a trail 5, fat tire, sidewinder loop on Friday and it was fun.
On Saturday, the plan was to do a big foothills ride. Because we got a late start and that it was hotter than expected, we turned around sooner than planned. We did a 20 miler from the Reserve area, took the connecter trail up to Freeway, up Trail 4, up Corrals, and up Scott's. The plan was to continue from the top of Scott's up 8th Street to Ridge Road and down Hard Guy, but 8th Street was scorching when we got there. I had a water bottle that I used to squirt water onto my arms, legs, and head to keep myself cool, which I had also refilled in a creek, and I used the last of that water getting to the top of Scott's. Josh refilled that water bottle with some of his drinking water, but the possibility of overheating was very real at that point.
I've recently decided that my ancestors must have been royalty who never had to do anything physically exerting - - because I don't sweat hardly at all and I overheat very easily. Which is unfortunate.
Anyway, the downhill was awesome fun! I had particularly good flow for most of it and got some thrilling jumps in. Corrals was also in better shape since I last rode it, which made the flow better. The only time when my flow sucked was when I was going down that connecter trail to the Reserve area and I hit a sandy patch the wrong way and did a Superman nose dive into the ground. At the time, I was upset that I hit my knees (evidenced by the blood running out of one knee and the other knee quickly swelling up) because injured knees haven't been my favorite things in life. However, except that my one knee is oozing puss and the other is really swollen and bruised, they're fine and I even went on a small hike today without any problems. The worst part about the crash was cleaning the wound in the shower and trying to scrub the dirt out - - ouch! Below is a picture of me after the ride, note the blood running down my leg.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, that IS my garden that I'm standing next to! There's a tomato plant, pepper, beans, and squash. In the background is my weed garden, which I haven't been able to conquer despite HOURS of work.
Josh and I did a bit of a mountain bike tour of the Fossil Creek ORV zone in the Owyhees this weekend. Fossil Creek is more Eastern Owyhees than where we usually explore, closer to Murphy off of Highway 78.
The Owyhees were particularly stunning out that way.
At about ten miles in, we came upon an old and abandoned corrals.
Apart from the stunning scenery and the opportunity to climb around on the corrals, the ride wasn't particularly awesome. We rode along this ATV style road which was mostly flatish and was rocky rugged. None of that is a deal breaker, but it just wasn't awesome. We had pretty much the same view of the Owyhees for most of the ride and rode along this mostly flat rocky road. During a mountain bike adventure, I personally like to feel like I'm going somewhere - - you know, taking in a variety of scenery and riding over a variety of terrain. I also found the 'downhill' rather disappointing, as it was slow and the rugged terrain made my hands hurt. Anyway, after the ride we went over to Given's hot springs for some hot water fun and then had dinner in Marsing.
Despite having a full-blown bronchial infection, as I promised myself I would, I went on a good ride yesterday. Josh and I did a 20 mile ride in the Salmon Creek area. If you remember, Josh and I had previously tried to ride Salmon Creek during an epic Wilson Creek adventure, but that route was way too muddy. On Saturday, it was a perfect day to ride Salmon Creek. It was warm, but not too warm, the trails were dry, and it was beautiful outside.
We parked the car outside of Reynolds and rode up Salmon Creek Road. Up until the intersection with the creek, the road is a normal dirt road, but at the creek it becomes more of an ORV road and goes up into the mountains. Next time we do this ride, the plan is to drive farther and park closer to the creek. Riding along the dirt road was fine, but it was so much more interesting, pretty, and fun once it branched off into the mountains.
Because of my bronchial infection, I had poor lung capacity and my energy was low, but I had a good time anyway. It was so glorious outside that my mood was automatically lifted. The wildflowers, in particular, were stunning and added a lot of color to the high mountain desert.
Unfortunately, I don't have an Owyhees adventure to recount to you this week. At about 10:00 pm on Friday night, my car was the victim of a drunk driver. It was parked outside of Josh's place while we watched a movie and I discovered it all crushed and totaled when I left to drive myself home. As I approached the car, I had a sense of foreboding because I could see from a distance that there was a note on the windshield - - and notes on windshields, under such circumstances, are rarely good news.
The note was left by an observant person who was able to identify the make and color of vehicle as well as the license plate. I had Josh come outside to see the carnage and we walked around the block to try to find the vehicle... as Josh lives in the sort of location where it is reasonable to assume that someone driving around there at night would live in the area. Sure enough, about a block away, around a corner was the vehicle, same license plate, same dark green paint (which had transfered to my car), and corresponding damage. Seriously, only a brilliant individual with unsurpassed intellectual faculties would have crashed into my car, sped away from the accident, and then parked their damaged vehicle around the corner where they would never be found. Genius.
Obviously, I called the police. Josh and I spent over an hour in a law enforcement adventure. After showing the police what we alleged was the perpetrating vehicle, 'code one' backup was called, and they banged on the door of the driver's apartment. Apparently, they weren't able to bust through the apartment with their guns ready, like in the movies, and the person never answered the door, so the backup was sent away to do something useful. The remaining officer seemed to take the crime very seriously, as he said to me that his intention was to bang on the person's door every day until he catches the person. Wow. Later, while he was writing out his police report, a car drove out from the area where the alleged vehicle was, and the police wondered if it could be the perpetrator, and he sped after the vehicle until he realized that it was not the perpetrator, at which point, he executed a u-turn and returned to complete his paperwork.
Meanwhile, Josh and I played crime scene investigators. This was particularly entertaining with Josh having procured a flashlight with which he would use to shine light onto dark spaces. Everyone knows that crime scene investigators use flashlights. He was also wearing flipflops and we ran up and down the block, to and from the alleged vehicle, with him running sillyly in his flops with his flashlight, many times. At one point, he removed a flop and threatened an imaginary criminal. It was nice to be able to be silly and laugh during what was an otherwise not-laughing-matter situation. And in all seriousness, I am so glad that the person hit my car rather than a living creature.
Anyhoo, the conclusion to this thrilling tale, aside from me spending my Saturday morning on the phone with insurance companies, is that the perpetrator confessed the next day. There was speculation that this person wanted to avoid a DUI and so waited to come forward until fully sobered. As a result of all this, I am inconvenienced.
More importantly, however, Josh and I were not able to go to the Owyhees today. We discussed renting a car, but (1) I did not get home until after 1:00 am due to the law enforcement adventure and so I was feeling tired, and (2) we didn't want to spend the money. So instead, we rode the Watchman Trail in the foothills.
Josh rode this trail a few days ago and had a blast. He was able to warn me that because the trail traverses the hills, it has consistent sideways dropoffs, which are my worst fear. Shudder. I still can't explain why I get panicky over sideways dropoffs, but it has proven to be a good opportunity for me to work towards overcoming a phobia. And I have to say, I was very pleased that I was able to keep the panic in check today and ride through 99% of the scary parts.
The ride was an incredible amount of fun. We rode up to Shane's, connected with Rocky Canyon, up Five Mile Creek to Watchman, looping all the way to Three Bears and back down Central Ridge. It was a little over 17 miles. More photos on flickr.
Much to my dismay, yesterday was the Barking Spider Race. Why I thought it was at the end of the month, I have no idea. But, because of my failure to accurately consult the calendar, I have no race report to share. Instead, I give you an epic bike ride.
On Saturday, Josh and I went out to the Wilson Creek area for a day of adventure. We parked at the main BLM parking lot and pedaled up Wilson Creek Road. Rather than taking the turnoff to the Wilson Creek 'trail', we continued along the road to summit Horse Race Ridge and then descended towards Salmon Creek. It was nine miles from the parking lot to Salmon Creek. Except for a couple brief descents, most of it was a moderate middle-gear climb. I don't know what sort of altitude we covered, but the drastic change in air temperature at the top of Horse Race Ridge suggested that we had climbed pretty high. Also, that we were not too far away from snow reinforced this hypothesis.
At the top of the Ridge, we took a moment to put on a jacket for the descent towards Salmon Creek. And wow, it was FREEZING! The temperature for the Valley was supposed to be around 61 degrees, but the Owyhees were significantly colder than that. Even while I was expending all kinds of energy to ride to the top of the Ridge, I felt a constant chill.
When we arrived at Salmon Creek, we were alarmed by the quantity of ice-cold mountain snow water. The plan was to cross Salmon Creek and ride along this sort of ORV road, but the water made us hesitate. If it had been warmer, there would have been no hesitation, but the chill in the air gave us second thoughts about the possibility of making contact with the frigid waters. Nevertheless, persevereres though we are, we managed to get ourselves across the creek without getting too wet. We did this by crossing at a more narrow spot which had a dense assortment of thorny bushes. As such, we both scratched our legs up quite a bit.
From there, we set out on Salmon Creek road. At first, the road was decently dry but it gradually got muddier and muddier. After a time, I began noticing that I was having difficulty getting my wheels to turn over. I dismounted and found that I had an incredible amount of mud between my wheels and the fork and that the mud was sticky enough that my wheel was essentially immobilized. I spent some time trying to get rid of the mud, but it had become clear to me that it was time to turn around. I had about ten pounds of mud clinging to my bike and the rear wheel wouldn't move. Josh even went to help me dislodge my wheel, and became noticeably frustrated. He said that he would try to ride my bike to get the wheel unstuck, and I said "Ok, I'll ride your bike down!"
Now, because Josh rides on skinnier tires than I, he was having none of these mud issues. By the time that I was mounting his bike, I had so much mud stuck to my shoes, that I was only barely able to clip into one of the pedals, balancing on the uneven mud of the other shoe. Adding to the ridiculousness of the situation was that Josh's bike is WAAAAY too big for me. I could barely reach the bottom of the pedal stroke without banging my coochie on the top tube, and as I was coasting down with the pedals in the parallel position, I could barely get my butt on the saddle. This is to say nothing about how my torso was completely stretched out reaching the handlebars, all the while balancing precariously with my muddy cleats. And it was actually fun!
When we got back to the creek, I decided it was not worth the effort to try and avoid getting wet, so I just walked across. ...Getting my feet completely wet. Josh merely rode across.
We rode back up to Horse Race Ridge and decided to try to make it up to the top of Wilson Peak. I had a few doubts about this plan because my shoes were full of ice cold water and my toes were going numb (and remember, there was a significant chill in the air). But we did it anyway. The whole time going up, my feet went through various stages of painful coldness. Finally, I decided that I would go no further. Josh continued to the top, where he captured some stunning photos of the landscape, while I sat on the ground and tried to get some feeling and warmth back in my feet. I took off my shoes and socks, which were both sopping with cold water, and put my gloves on my feet. I sat for a long time in a semi-lotus position, trying to warm my feet with my thigh fat, but this was not entirely effective because of how cold my entire body was. Eventually, I laid down, shut my eyes, and listened to the sound of the wind. When I heard Josh riding down on his bike, I lifted my leg and waved with the glove on my foot.
From there, it was about 12 miles of super fast downhill back to the car. I finally put some batteries in my cyclecomputer, so I was able to track our speed and distance. The first several miles, the road was pretty rugged in a way that reminded me of Rocky Canyon Road. Because my hands were so cold, the vibrations against the handlebars hurt them so much that I decided to grip my handlbars as hard as I could and ride like there's no tomorrow. Hey, beats the hell outta achy hands! During these miles down, I was concentrating on the road in front of me, but a few times I glanced at my computer and noted speeds nearing 30 miles an hour. Okay, pretty fast. That the road was so rugged, there was naturally more friction against the tires and so it wasn't really THAT fast. After a few miles, the road smoothened out and the reduced friction meant that I could ride a lot faster with a lot more comfort. I checked my speed a few times, but pretty much let it go. Josh sped past me at some point and I decided that, except for the fact that he weighs 50 pounds more than I (thereby having gravity on his side), there was no reason why I couldn't go just as fast. At this point, our top speed was 36.8 which I found to be very thrilling.
Total mileage was 23.22 for the trip, and we rode for just under 3 hours.
On Saturday, I rode the Wilson Creek loop with Josh and Eric. According to those with whom Josh has spoken about riding in the Owyhees, THE PLACE TO RIDE is the Wilson Creek loop. A few years ago, we tried to ride this famed loop, but we did not have proper directions about its route or access point, and we ended up riding this shitty (literally and figuratively) cow path that paralleled the creek. Yesterday, Josh and Eric consulted the trail reference guide Mountain Biking Idaho and we followed the directions for the (I believe) 13 mile ride.
We parked at the main parking lot and then rode up the gravel/dirt road for seven miles. Personally, this climb was my favorite part of the whole ride - - I was feeling particularly good and energetic, and the effort felt very satisfying. At first, the road was gravelly and rocky, which was somewhat taxing, but after a few miles it became this smooth red clay-like substance that I found quite pleasant to ride on. After seven miles, we encountered the trailhead (pictured above).
From there, we rode around this big mountain on a kind of ORV road. I entertained myself by taking a lot of photos while riding my bike, most of which were a tad blurry (shocking).
And after a while came upon a herd of wild horses.
And soon thereafter, we began the descent down 2,000 feet in 4 miles (approximatelyish). While I can see how Josh and Eric had a lot of fun on the downhill, I found it to be consistently beyond my skill level to really enjoy. On the positive side, I was able to ride a lot of stuff that was challenging and felt very accomplished about that. One the less than positive side, I got a bad blister on my foot from all of the hiking in my cycling shoes. The mountain biking guidebook wrote that the downhill "will challenge the best" and compared it to a "mini Moab".
Just for kicks, I filmed a five second movie of Josh descending. I recently had to get a new camera because I broke my old one, and I am still figuring out how to do this movie thing. The image quality is poor, but whatever, it's kinda fun to see.
After the descent, we had to ride along some quote/unquote "singletrack" (which was really a cow path) through a cow pasture to get back to the car. The smell of fresh manure was quite pungent and I became sick to my stomach. I believe the ride was 13 miles (I can't recall what Josh had read in the book) and it took us about 3 hours. It would have taken much less time had we not stopped to take in the stunning views as much and if SOMEONE (points at self) had not done so much hiking. That evening, the three of us ordered pizza and watched an espionage movie from the '70s. Good times.
I wonder if anyone is tired of these posts about mountain bike adventures in the Succor Creek area... I am certainly not tired of riding the area, nor am I tired of the stunning views.
On Saturday, Josh and I returned to the area for yet another Succor Creek exploration. This time, we rode along Camp Kettle Creek road in an Westerly direction. A few preliminary remarks are necessary... First, while driving along Succor Creek Road, we were slightly delayed after a somewhat traumatic and very noisy moment in which a wrench on the road punctured my car tire and Josh performed the quickest tire switch ever. It was kind of a bummer because I do not derive much joy from buying new car tires. Secondly, after mounting my bike, I discovered that my sit bones aren't in mountain biking shape. Despite riding the bike at the gym, apparently the rugged terrain of the Owyhees took its toll, and my sit bones were in a good deal of pain for the ride. Luckily, I was able to perch myself on my inner thigh fat, taking some pressure off the sit bones. Seriously, I've found my inner thigh fat to be quite useful in mountain biking. Thirdly, there was some sort of storm moving through the area, resulting in some spectacular cloud formation as well as VERY STRONG WIND. The whole ride going out, we had a ridiculously strong headwind.
So, the ride out was a bit difficult because of sit bone pain and the strong headwind. And the wind wasn't "bad" it just meant that we couldn't ride that fast. Otherwise, Camp Kettle Creek road is definitely a place that we will return. One interesting discovery was Devil's Gate (entrance pictured above) which was a creepy rocky cavern, made more creepy by the grave marking where someone had died.
Camp Kettle Creek road featured a combination of rocky and more technical riding as well as very fast and smooth riding. There was one hill that we had to hike our bikes, but otherwise it was very ridable. It seemed to be a road popular among motorcyclists and ATVs, which can make for some very fun mountain biking - - with the whoops and banked turns that dirt bikes make.
The ride back, with more downhill action AND the strong tailwind, was very fast and very fun. It was around 6:15 when we started riding back and the temperature had fallen somewhat, so my hands and feet were really cold.
I've been loading all of my Succor Creek photos into one photset, so there are more photos there.
On Friday, while I was taking my standard noontime walk over my lunch break, the gorgeous weather compelled me to call my work and ask to be released for the day. Glorious weather makes me so happy - - it was warm and beautiful and sunny. To be honest, I've been pretty depressed for a while and Friday's weather was glorious.
Having some extra free time, Josh and I decided to go back down to the Owyhees and try to have a more successful experience in the Succor Creek area. Which we did! I'd like to find a mapping tool to track our rides in the Owyhees, but until then, for this ride we took the first dirt road after the cattle guard along Succor Creek Road to the East.
The ride was a lot of fun! It had such variation in ups and downs, with a few hard climbs, and fast downhills. Plus, the landscape was stunning. We descended down into that canyon that we viewed from the previous ride, and crossed the creek (which had kind of a strong current). Unlike most Owyhees creek crossings, the water here was not stagnant and putrid from cow piss - - instead, it was cool and refreshing.
Oh, in the below photo, I am reminded of why I am a very bad girlfriend. You will note that Josh is not wearing a helmet. We drove all the way out there for Josh to realize that he forgot something very important. Of course, when he exclaimed that he forgot his helmet, he acted as though it was HIS decision about whether to ride anyway. I, on the other hand, contemplated the matter and seriously considered driving the hour and half back to Boise just to get the helmet...but by my calculation, we wouldn't have enough time to return and get some riding in before the sun set. Plus, that would be an awful lot of driving. Plus, I reasoned that Josh is very skilled on the bike and that I have not known him to ever crash. So I made him promise to be careful.
It was a very awesome ride. And I believe about three hours.
Afterwards, we went to a restaurant along the highway for dinner. We were going to have dinner in Homedale, but there is apparently no other place to eat in Homedale besides the drive-in we've been to a million times... shocking. We then decided to take a detour and go to the motorcycle bar in Marsing (which serves food). Unfortunately, when we arrived there was no place directly out front to park the car and we didn't have a lock for our bikes, and we weren't about to park our car at the back of a busy motorcycle bar with two nice mountain bikes available for the taking. So we continued down the highway, where we located the Orchard House restaurant near the vinyard that had parking places out front, where we could watch the bikes from inside. The restaurant proved to be a bit on the fancy side, but we both really really enjoyed our prime rib dinner. Yum!
Josh and I finally made it out to the Owyhees this weekend, crossing the border into Oregon and riding around the Succor Creek area. Accurate maps of the Owyhees are a limitation to planning the perfect bike ride - - in our experience, nothing beats continued exploration to find the good places to ride. There are so many dirt roads branching all over, most of which go nowhere, that riding in the Owyhees can be quite the adventure.
After departing from the car, we rode up the road for a while until we came upon an 'open mine'. Our attempts to circumnavigate the mine were unsuccessful, and we returned from whence we came. We then rode down the other direction, hitting the main rocky road for a bit, and then veering off on another road. Here we had some good riding moments. At some point, we came upon a guy shooting a rifle and we rode away from him, up a butte where we encountered another deadend in the road. We took in the view before riding back down, where the guy shooting his gun gave us a recommendation about where to ride. He directed us down a bit of singletrack that would have been cool if it had not been made virtually unridable by cattle grazing and rocks. We turned around yet again.
We rode around for a bit before setting off along another road to explore. Here, we encountered a big group of people shooting guns, and I was startled by how LOUD the guns were. Despite all the gunfire, this road proved to have some good riding opportunities, affording us some satisfying climbs and really fun downhills.
In total, it was about a two hour adventure. On the way back, we stopped at a drive-in in Homedale for some food. I had a very very delicious hamburger with grilled onions on sourdough, which may have tasted particularly wonderful after our riding adventure.
Per the obvious, I've fallen out of blogging, something I hope to rectify post haste. I've got lots of exciting knitting adventures to share with you, but that will have to wait for the next post (and I'm certain you will all be waiting on pins and needles to read all about my knitting!). Right now, I'd like to recount a few outdoor adventures and direct your attention to my view that nature can offer some lovely scenery.
Swan Falls, Snake River Canyon
Several weekends ago, Josh and I treked over to Swan Falls to explore the area on our mountain bikes. While it wasn't the greatest bike ride of all time, it was a beautiful day. The trail we rode was not in the best condition for bikes, mainly because the area has cattle grazing (a lot of cattle grazing, as I inferred from the quantity of manure and cow-prints), but I had some fun moments pretending I was a moo-cow and riding along the cattle-made paths. Also, I am deathly allergic to sage brush, but I think it is a very pretty high desert plant variety and the area was covered in sage brush. At some point, we pretty much gave up on the trail and turned back. We rode our bikes along the dam and crossed to the other side of the river, where we noted a trail in better condition (which we wished we had noticed at the beginning of the adventure). We also read some of the placards about the history of Swan Falls and then loaded into the car to return to town. On the drive back, we took a bit of a detour over to Kuna Cave. I'm not a fan of enclosed dark places, so spelunking has never been appealing to me. Also, we were wearing inappropriate footwear and had no flashlight, so we did not go down, but we saw the mouth of the cave and then turned around. All in all, there was some beautiful outdoor scenery that we experienced that day.
It is almost mid-November and Josh and I are still riding our bikes. The chilly temperatures are not keeping us away from the trails, nor is the darkness. I recently bought a new front light for my bike because we keep getting caught after dark riding on the trails. It's so hard to change one's ways when the sun goes down by 6:00. Last week we rode Hulls and Trail 5, getting caught in the dark right at the end both rides, and then on Saturday we rode Three Bears. Granted, we've been putting in more time at the gym, but I think it's so awesome that we're still going mountain biking in November and am hoping to keep it up as long as possible.
Orchard Trail
Saturday was a good physical activity day. In addition to riding Three Bears, we also went on a nice hike up Orchard Trail. We were biologists and discovered some gross varieties of insects, including a huge disgusting spider that we think was a brown recluse. Yuck! But it was lovely up in the hills and I took a few pretty photos.
As the subject of politics can sometimes elicit excitement and alter behavior, I went on a road trip over the weekend to Missoula Montana with Josh and Eric. The origins of the trip go back a few weeks when we were staying up past our bed times discussing the impending presidential election. Liberals in Idaho frequenlty confront reality when wanting to 'get involved' with politics beyond the local level. It's unfortunate that anytime I might consider volunteering for the state democratic party about, oh say, the presidential elections, I am detered because it seems like an incredible waste of time. During the political discussion of a few weeks ago, Eric mentioned that the Idaho Obama Campaign is encouraging potential volunteers to head to Montana because it has more democratic leanings than Idaho.
And so early last Thursday morning, we loaded up three adults, their crap, and their mountain bikes into my fuel-efficient vehicle and drove to Missoula. The drive was long, but it wasn't horrendous by any stretch of the imagination. We arrived in Missoula at about 4:00 pm and made our way to Eric's brother's house, where we would be staying. If you recall, Thursday was the night of the Vice Presidential Debate, so we declined a family dinner engagement and went to downtown Missoula to watch the debate over some beers. There was a bit of a snafu in the communication between Eric and the Obama Campaign dude, in which the latter had informed the former that there was to be a debate watching party, when that information was untrue. We made our way to the Union Club, thinking we were going to be watching the debate with other bleeding heart liberals, but other bleeding heart liberals we did not find. Instead, we got some grub from the bar kitchen (I had a chilli hot dog with fries, if you are curious) and watched the debate. The bar ended up getting really packed with other debate-viewers, so we were far from lonesome. Afterwards, we wandered around downtown.
The next morning, we rose and went back downtown for breakfast. Upon the suggestion of a local, we went to a very small place on Higgins. The goodness of the breakfast was slightly overshadowed by the crowdedness of the place (as Eric had to sit alone in the corner for some time due to lack of available seating). Afterwards, we wandered around that part of town, venturing into a few shops, including a bike shop and some kind of strange novelty shop. We also explored Eric's old neighborhood, including a walk by his old house. The males also got their swing on. After extensive wandering, we went to a coffee shop where I had lunch of a roasted red pepper sandwich and barley salad. I also took the opportunity to visit a yarn shop that was reported by various internet folks as being the best yarn shop in Missoula. Once I walked into the shop, however, I was to feel slightly uncomfortable as the shop owner was discussing her ill health and impending death with a friend. I was unsure what the most polite behavior would be in this instance, so I just kind of walked the circumference of the shop quietly and slipped out.
Then we went over to Rattlesnake recreation area and went on a fun mountain bike ride. I must say, the mountains outside of Missoula make the Boise foothills pale in comparison. Eric led us on a ride that took us way up the mountains and afforded us a lovely view.
The downhill was great fun, punctuated by a herd of wild turkey sighting. We ended up doing two loops. The first took us up the mountains at a fairly steep grade and wound us along the side of the mountains. The second was up some of the roads at a more moderate grade and down some singletrack with switchbacks. Both times we ended the loops with a fun jaunt through what I called Sherwood Forrest, a section that had truly sweet winding singletrack in which the autumn colors were striking on the adjacent trees.
The ride was a lot of fun and left me wanting to take a longer trip to Missoula to have more riding in its mountains. Afterwards, we picked up a large quantity of pizza for Eric's family, as a token of appreciation for letting us invade their home. We had every intention of hitting the bars that evening, but found ourselves watching "Empire Strikes Back" instead. I have to say, watching a Star Wars film with commentary by a five and four year old is a quality experience.
The next day, we went to a bakery downtown for breakfast and coffee. Afterwards, we went to the Obama campaign headquarters and spent half an hour in an asinine training, as though canvassing is rocket science. We got our clipboards and went to a neighborhood near the University to do our political duty. Eric went by himself and Josh and I teamed up. I thought the volunteer coordinator was full of doo-doo when he estimated it would take us 3.5 hours, but he proved to be right on the money with his estimate. Josh and I were able to get several people registered to vote and got quite a few absentee ballot requests completed. We also had a good conversation with a Republican leaning Obama as well as a few Independents. Therefore, if Montana goes blue this election, it will be ALL because of us. We rule.
By the time we were done canvassing, at around 2:30, we were all starvin' marvin. Eric directed us to a drive-in where we procured some delicious drive-in food. Of course, I couldn't allow us to have a normal / boring drive-in experience. I had to go an drop Eric's burger down the front of my person and onto the car floor. The server person was nice enough to get him another free of charge. Then, as I was exiting the car, I managed to drop the entire tray that was loosely affixed to the window and which was supporting multiple uncovered containers of ketchup, all over the ground. The resulting ketchup splatter caused me to have a large quantity of ketchup all over my clothing, compounding the preexisting ketchup and mustard stains that I aquired when I dropped Eric's burger onto my person. Anyway, I was just keeping it interesting for everyone.
The next adventure was to Blue Sky Brewery for some free beer. If you've ever been to a local brewery, you can imagine how that adventure went. We all had to try on every single Brewery hat, had to play with all of the beer openners, had to put the beer cozies on our heads, and in general defied our maturity level. Afterwards, we returned to Eric's brother's house for some R&R. That evening, Eric went to a family BBQ and Josh and I had a date in downtown Missoula. We went to a sushi place, where we enjoyed some fairly good sushi, and then wandered all around, having various silly moments. We explored the river area, having a great deal of fun running on some grassy mounds and eventually went to a bar for some wine. We returned to the homestead where Eric recounted the shenanigans of the family BBQ.
The next morning, which would have been Sunday, we had a hearty breakfast with the family, which included pancakes, scrambled eggs, and sausage made from a deer that Eric's brother shot and killed. We then loaded our persons, our crap, and our bikes into the car and set off for Boise. The drive back took longer as a result of more lengthy stops, including a lunch stop at Kooskia.
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.
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.
This past weekend, Josh and I went camping in the Anderson Reservoir/Trinity Lakes area. I'd like to begin by directing you to Josh's blog entry that contains a nice summary of the events.
The Anderson Reservoir/Trinity Lakes is a lovely area. That photo above is of the canyon right at the base of the reservoir. And a big reservoir it is. To get to where we would camp, we had to drive on a scary road to the end of the reservoir and then through the forest and mountains to some campgrounds approximately 13 miles before Trinity Lakes (some high mountain lakes). Our camp spot was lovely.
Soon after we arrived, we went on a mountain bike ride up Fire Road #101 which took us up a gradual climb to the top of some mini-mountains. After the bike ride, we went down to the stream adjacent to our camp, and washed the dust and sweat off our persons and spent several hours splish-splashing around in the water. This was one of my favorite activities of the trip. We cracked open a few beers and had a splendid time playing stream-side.
Interestingly, we opted not to have a camp fire. I realize this is normally a prime joy in camping, but for some reason we weren't feeling it. Instead, we went on a nice evening walk - - primarily so that I could massage the terrible intestinal cramp that I had developed - - played some smashmitten and boggle, and retired to the tent for some reading at a ridiculously early hour. I read half of an exciting science fiction short story about a kid who stumbles upon an abandoned alien space ship and takes it for a spin. It was apparently one of the year's best sci-fi short stories, some years ago.
The next day's primary activity was a big mountain bike ride up to the Trinity Lakes area. According to Josh's calculation, we climbed about 2300 feet in elevation. We rode up a gravel mountain road, which featured an interesting mix of turns and straight-aways, smooth dirt and rugged rocky surfaces. The first part of the ride was through the forest, and then it took us well above the tree line to a higher mountain zone. After two hours of consistent climbing, I began to wonder how much farther it would be to get to the lakes. It was about this point that the road began featuring some more challenging rugged surfaces that took a bit more effort to pedal one's bike over. Also, without the trees, we found ourselves more directly in the sun's rays. All of this, in addition to the fact that my leg muscles were starting to feel the burn, compelled me to feel a bit cranky. At some point, a truck passed us and Josh took the opportunity to ask how much farther it was to the lakes. The man said that the lakes were still a ways away and that the road was really rugged and that we wouldn't be able to ride our bikes up there. This last statement really irritated Josh because the guy clearly underestimated the utility of the mountain bike. Soon after that, we found the turn-around spot. It took about 2.5 hours to ride up, and about 15 minutes to bonzai down. I must say, wow, the downhill was incredibly fun. We had the whole road to ourselves and we bombed down SO FAST. Before we began the descent, Josh commented that we would probably be using our breaks a lot, what with all of the ruggedness and turns. In reality, the breaks were hardly used. I did opt to navigate the particularly rugged stuff slowly, and those sections I really enjoyed - - it's amazing what sort of terrain a person can roll right over on a bike, I didn't even bother navigating around huge rocks, I just rode over them. On the smoother surfaces, I kept my fingers off the breaks and was flying down the mountain. So thrilling! I wish that I had my cycle computer on the bike so that I could have known how fast I was actually travelling - - Josh seems to think that it was faster than ever before and I have to concur. Of course, as irony would have it, Josh later consulted a map and discovered that we had stopped not too far from the lakes.
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.
Took Elizabeth on a mountain bike ride yesterday. As you can see, she had a wonderful time! After putting in a lot of thought about which trail to take her on, I decided to start on the dirt path in the Reserve Area, up the intermediate-level switchback, out and back on Shane's-the-backwards-way, and down Central Ridge. Last year, we did a couple rides on Crestline. However, in my experience, getting up and over the beginner mountain biking hump requires that one develop a true sense of joy from the experience. Crestline is okay, but it's not the most scenic trail, and is so full of runners, hikers, and dogs that one must always hold one's bonzai back a little. I have a big fondness for the Shane's / Central Ridge trails because it was on them that I truly began to LOVE mountain biking. Not only is it more scenic, but there's a lot less foot-traffic and dogs to worry about, and it's got some lovely singletrack that winds around the hills. Thus, I decided to share some of my favorite trails with Elizabeth and I think that was a good move. I made her try to ride the intermediate-level switchback uphill grunt and she successfully rode almost all of it, which I thought was very impressive. I was also impressed at how fast she was riding on the downhill - - for whatever reason, I hadn't thought of Elizabeth as a thrill-seeker, but we had a good time on the cowabunga! down Central Ridge.
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.
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.
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.
On Saturday, Elizabeth and I went on a big wonderful hike in the Owyhees in the Wilson Creek area. I was particularly proud of myself that I was able to successfully navigate us to the trailhead without too many wrong turns. About three weekends ago, Josh and I engaged in a big mountain bike adventure in the Owyhees, which included a bit of riding the Wilson Creek area. Due to the rugged and unorganized features of the trail that we rode, we assumed that we had failed to locate the actual Wilson Creek trail. As such, prior to embarking this weekend to the area, Josh recommended that I take Elizabeth to this other trailhead, which we were certain would be the real Wilson Creek trail. It was not. Elizabeth and I spent a few minutes hiking on some singletrack until it branched into an ATV road which ultimately took us to the main road in a very roundabout way. I tried to explain that this is all a part of the Owyhee experience...uncharted and unmarked, with different makeshift trails and ATV roads intersecting everywhere, and the constant probability of getting lost. During this part of the hike, we encounterd some horse riders who directed us to the "real" Wilson Creek trail, which was the trail that Josh and I had ridden bikes on. Apparently, it forms a great big loop. Elizabeth and I navigated ourselves to that proper trail and had this glorious hike through some amazing Owyhee scenery, which you may view in the photos above. During the hike, we saw a big lizzard and had a number of really gross and fascinating conversations about what she's been learning in her anatomy classes.
In other news, on Friday, I spontaneously acquired a new mountain bike. To make a long and involved story "short," Josh was looking at this Stumpjumper hardtail last Thursday and felt that it would be a better bike for me than the HiFi that I've been riding. He had developed a theory that the HiFi was too much bike for me and that I should ride a bike that centered my weight lower to the ground to increase stability. What is more, this Stumpjumper has v-brakes and not disc brakes, which was particularly exciting for me. So, it was absolutely random that he called me on Thursday and planted the seed of this new bike in my head. I let the seed take root over night as I pondered and researched it. Initially, I wasn't enthusiastic about the idea, but on Friday, I took my lunch break and went to the bike shop to see this new bicycle and it became an agonizing decision for me. I was not at all concerned about the money, as the only reason that I work is so that I can afford those things that make up a lifestyle that brings me joy and happiness, however I was concerned about the prospect of buying yet another bike that wouldn't be perfect for me. There is an agonzing uncertainty when it comes to trying to find the right bike. And bikes aren't the sort of thing that one can purchase, ride around for a bit, decide it's not the right bike, and return for a different bike.
On Friday, as I was test-riding the Stumpjumper, it was apparent that I would not be afraid of the bike. I have written extensively about my strong disc brakes that lack proper modulation and how I exist in a constant state of fear with regards to these brakes. And this fear has been justified and reinforced by the simple and plain fact that I have crashed a number of times on this bike as a direct result of these brakes and the fear that they have caused. I understand the concept that one must have correct form and skill with regards to using one's mountain bike, but at the same time, I feel that the mountain bike should be a user-friendly tool to enable me to have fun on the trail rather than being an obstacle to overcome. And so, I decided to get the Stumpjumper. Even though it is a "downgrade" in terms of going from full suspension back to a hardtail, I decided to sacrifice cushy suspension in favor of not being afraid.
The pro-con list that developed during this decision-making process was rather extensive and complex. In the end, the decision became easy when I imagined riding my favorite trails and no longer being afraid. And I am confident that I made the right decision in getting the Stumpjumper. On Sunday, I had the opportunity to take her out on a ride. Josh and I did some old favorites, Sidewinder and Shane's Loop. The first point to make is that I haven't had so much fun on a mountain bike ride for months and months as I did on this ride. The difference was palpable. I also haven't ridden as fast, both uphill and downhill, for months. I felt so comfortable and relaxed on the bike, what with the sheer lack of fear, and I cannot begin to articulate how CONFIDENT I felt! For the first time in what seems like a LONG time, I felt in control. The ride on the downhill felt tight, controlled, smooth, seamless, nimble, stable, and incredible. I was able to let go of the brakes and just fly down the trail, knowing that I could slam on the brakes at any given moment if necessary. Whereas on the HiFi, I always made a concerted effort to keep my speed at a controlled pace because I was concerned that if I had to brake suddenly that I would fly over the handlebars. And this, I feel, is the primary advantage of weak v-brakes...being able to let loose yet still be in control. What is more, a primary difficulty that I had with the HiFi and downhill form was the concept of putting weight onto the front wheel. As I was afraid of flying over the handlebars, you know, because I flew over the handlebars and crashed several times, I would try to keep my weight as far off of the front wheel as I could. Proper downhill form requires weight on the front wheel to ensure stability and traction, which can feel very counter-intuitive if one is afraid of flying over the front of the bike. On the Stumpjumper, my lack of fear of crashing over the handlebars allowed me to comfortably put weight onto the front wheel during my downhill, which increased my feeling of stability and control. All in all, the experience was amazing and to further my feeling that this was the right decision is the generocity and understanding of the bike shop bosses who let me basically walk away with the new Stumpjumper in a quasi exchange for the HiFi.
I have not felt as though I have anything interesting-for-other-people to write about. For a while now, I have been having trememdous difficulty getting up in the morning. This has been the case throughout the duration of my existence, but it's much worse these days. Today, I got out of bed 7 minutes before I had to leave for work. When I arrived, my office mate mentioned that I looked like I had just rolled out of bed and I said, "Pretty much." I also had a super busy weekend and did not complete all of my weekly "getting my life together" items, such as putting the apartment back in order, so my life has seemed like a big mess (quite literally). Nevertheless, life has remained good.
I experienced a big epiphany over the weekend. You see, I have become somewhat obsessed about the concept of becoming a homeowner. I've even started a high interest savings account for this long term goal and am throwing in all of my extra money each month. There are a few barriers with this goal, however. The first is the price of homes in the location where I want to live. As I feel location to be tantamount to everything, I would want a home right off of downtown in the North End. Yet, as I have been combing the North End, where every third home is currently for sale, I am appauled at the price that these homes are "worth." For example, there is a crappy, run down, what appears to be a crack house, a few blocks down from me that is going for almost a million dollars. It's big, but it's super ugly and looks like it's about to fall to pieces. The best deal that I've found is a 900 square foot SUPER CUTE place that's almost $300,000. The average price for a modest sized (2 bedroom) home is about $450,000. In short, not likely to be anything that I could afford, what with the working at not-for-profit organizations. And I don't much feel like living farther away where I would have to return to commuting and not having downtown at my beck and call. The other major barrier to this goal is the notion that I'm not committed to living in Boise for the rest of my life. I've given a lot of thought to moving somewhere with a mild climate year round. These sorts of places, such as Santa Barbara and San Louis Obispo, tend to have very high home prices, so the likelihood of my being able to become a homeowner there is much less than in Boise.
The other day ago, it occurred to me that it's ridiculous to live somewhere that I'm not completely satisfied with in order to save money to buy a home that I might never be able to afford. Also, you know, life happens. Saving Money=Good, but something tells me that I'll never be able to afford a half-a-million-dollar home. And since compromise is not one of those activities at which I excel (which is to say that I have no interest in those homes/doublewide trailers miles and miles away which I could afford), I'm pondering alternatives to my living situation which might allow for me to both have and eat my cake.
In other news, wow. My degree in political science has done nothing to help me navigate the politics within my organization. I mean, HOLY HEAVEN AND HELL ON EARTH, who knew that my job would be reduced to little more than thumb twiddling due to the political deadlock that ensued over my and my boss' attempt to get for me the tools necessary to perform my job?!! Little did we know that in order to get afore-eluded to tools, that we would have to take it to the upper echelons of the organization, a political card that we decided it wasn't worth playing. I am hoping that my masters program will assist me in knowing how to navigate these kinds of politics and bureaucracies better in the future, as I am confident that politics are deeply entrenched in this non-political organization. To sum up my feelings on the matter, SHEESH!
Here's a "brief" mountain biking update (feel free to skip, for those of you not interested):
On Saturday, Josh and I completed a big 24 mile mountain bike ride. We rode up Bogus Basin Road, up Hard Guy, up Ridge Road, and then had an 11 mile descent down upper 8th Street. I had to pause on several occasions in order to pour water onto my head and exposed skin areas. The temperature was pretty hot and I continue to have issues with overheating. Josh has procured a cyclecomputer with an altimeter, so we were able to determine that we completed about 3,000 feet of climbing. Riding down Ridge Road was both fun and scary challenging. There were a bunch of loose sand areas, lots of ruts, and some rugged rocky sections. Nevertheless, I prevailed. Another interesting bit about this ride was that I had the opportunity to use my new hip-mounted Camelbak, my effort to carry more water on extended rides without having to use a backpack. Hip mounted Camelbak, I am a fan!
On Monday night, I participated in a women's mountain bike skills clinic, taught by some local women mountain bike racers. We began by learning "quarter punches" (a technique to lift the front wheel) and going up and down curbs. It was pretty basic stuff, but I have wanted to improve my technical skills for a while, so I was fully engaged and participating. Then, we started to ride up a trail to find some rocks to practice on. The problem was that this group of over 20 women had such variance in skill level and biking experience, that we all ended up waiting for a ridiculous amount of time for the brand new/never riden a bike before people. I was of the opinion that they should have grouped us up a bit by ability level, but as there were three instructors and over 20 participants, that would have been difficult. Anyway, we'd ride 50 feet, wait five minutes for everyone to catch up, ride 50 feet, wait, 50 feet, wait. In over an hour and a half, we were able to travel about three miles. Which is why I made the decision to leave and go on my own bike ride. I rode off and continued to practice my new skillz. Eventually, after a little miscommunication mishap, Josh met up with me and we went off riding up Red Sands. We stopped at an intersection where there was a connector trail turning off from Red Sands going down towards Your Mom and practiced going down something super scary. This trail began as a turn to the right, was banked going into the turn, with about four big ruts cutting across, then it dipped down dramatically, was crossed by another rut filled with loose sand, had a big bump, and then the trail continued down very steeply and was off camber in the opposite direction of the way that it had been banked. I practiced trying to ride down it a number of times and couldn't pass the first turn. One of those times, I bailed and fell over and knocked my knee hard. Said knee is currently all swollen, bruised, and painful. Even though I wasn't entirely successful, I felt good that I was trying. Then we contineud to ride around a bit.
Last night, we rode Sidewinder, and I had a blast. Josh had performed some minor surgery on my brakes that afternoon, filing down the brake pads, in an effort to make the front brake less powerful and to give it increased modulation. It seems to have worked well - - I now have a wide spectrum of braking power with the front brake, and the possibility of grabbing it too hard and going over the handlebars, hopefully, reduced. I have decided that Sidewinder is a good trail for me to practice my form and technique. It has a number of mild challenges that would allow me to work on some skills and regain my confidence at going fast, yet there is nothing scary or unnerving about it. Also, it's short enough to make it a great trail for later in the evening, when the temperature has cooled down sufficiently. Last night, we didn't dare venture on a bike ride until sometime after 8pm because it was just too hot. We were coming down the trail right at sunset (around 9:15 or so) and it was a wonderful time of day and temperature to ride in.
I have found that when one has the opportunity to embark upon a spontaneous mini-vacation, that it is generally in one's best interest (of having a splendid time) to take advantage of that opportunity. Last week, Josh and I had such an opportunity - - he had the rare, so to speak, chance to take a three day "weekend" (being that his normal weekend is Friday and Saturday, it became a three-day with the additional day off of Thursday). It turned out to be a perfect week for me to cut my hours short by two days, despite the short notice of taking Thursday and Friday off on Monday. We then had two days to come to an agreement about how to spend our mini-vacation. Now, I don't know about all you other couples out there, but occasionally Josh and I find ourselves engaged in heated negotiations to agree on something. With regards to the mini-vacation debate, we each had our hearts set on a certain place, only for the other person to articulate a number of reasons in disfavor of that location. Eventually, the night before we were planning to set off on our adventure, we found agreement on the location of Salmon, Idaho.
According to Mapquest, the drive from Boise to Salmon is estimated at 5 hours and 11 minutes. Josh and I had established approximately 3 hours as the maximum time allowance for driving, so it's surprising that we decided to travel somewhere with almost twice the travel time. To compensate, we decided to stop at about the halfway point for a big bike ride. We stopped several miles before Stanley and completed a 20 mile loop around the Knapp Creek area of the Sawtooths.
The Knapp Creek Loop was pretty fun. When we arrived at the trailhead, there was a big bright yellow sign indicating that the area was "BEAR COUNTRY" and advised trail users to make noise so as not to startle any bears. Now, I have read enough reports about people in Idaho being mauled by bears to take a sign like that seriously. Which is why, for the majority of the ride, Josh and I were singing and humming nonsensical tunes for to not startle bears. For me, however, it was a nice change to fear being mauled by a bear than to be afraid of some aspect of the bike ride. Indeed, there was nothing about the ride that could have frightened a 'fraidy pants like me. It was labelled as a beginner/intermediate ride, the only reason for the intermediateness about it being a wee little bit on the technical side and the length (20 miles being nothing to shake a stick at). Personally, I was loving the wee little bit of technical action on the trail - - one does not see much technical spots on the Boise foothills - - and it was a nice challenge that made the ride more interesting. Another interesting factor about the ride were the number of creek crossings we faced. There was quite a bit of water running down those mountains, sieved nicely into streams and creeks. The first major creek crossing I peddled my way through no problem, despite my feet and ankles dipping fully into the water. The other major crossing was more of a river which was far too deep for peddling. Wow, ice water from the mountains can sure make one's feet lose all circulation quickly!
The last few miles of the ride got a bit old for me - - we left Boise at 9:00 in the morning, started our bike ride at 1:00 in the afternoon, and that was a long time for me to go without a full meal. At mile 17 of the bike ride (which was around 2:45), I was officially about to faint from starvation. We had all kinds of energy bars and calorie drinks, but I needed FOOD. After returning to the car, we quickly made our way to Stanley where we had a big meal. The last leg of the drive was a bit more tedious and uncomfortable, as our butts were in the process of withering up and dying from sitting in the car for so long.
But we made it! The night before, we made reservations to stay at the Greyhouse Bed and Breakfast (see above photo), which is 12 miles outside of town along the Salmon River. We stayed in one of the cabins for a very reasonable rate. Our cabin was nice and odd. It was a good solid cabin with a comfy bed...and it was decorated with a simply ridiculous amount of fish motifs. There were stuffed fish everywhere, several on the bed as pillows, some on the chairs as cushions, and even some sticking here and there for mere decoration. The walls had a wide assortment of fish in various format, everything was fish, fish, fish. Whatever, the bed was comfy and there was plenty of hot water.
After settling into our fishy cabin and taking showers, Josh and I decided to drive on over to Salmon for some groceries. It was about 8:00 by the time that we hit the road again. We took a quick tour of the town, which is super cute, and stopped by a grocery store for some food items, and beer. We then sat on our porch at the cabin, snacking and drinking our beers. It was very nice.
The next day, we rose at 8:00 and had breakfast with our fellow bed and breakfasters. We also procured a map of the area and began to ponder our adventures for the day. After breakfast, we went back to the town for some real exploring. We walked up and down Main Street, visited the Lemhi County Historical Museum (where Josh and I were both conned into picking up solidified hair balls from cows' stomachs - - those Salmonites have questionable senses of humor). Josh took the opportunity to question several individuals about possible mountain biking trails. There were several options and, ultimately, we decided to ride Twelve Mile Creek for the reason that we would not have to drive to get there (it began a block down from the Greyhouse Bed and Breakfast).
Twelve Mile Creek is a forest service road that travels up and up into whatever wilderness area. I think that we were forewarned that it is a rocky road, but it's difficult to know how much weight to give various warnings. You know, Josh and I have been warned about mountain biking on this or that trail by all sorts of non-mountain bikers, only to discover that there was no need for any kind of a warning. This Twelve Mile Creek forest service road was just like the warnings we heard... ROCKY - - and I don't mean there were some rocks on it, I mean that the entire road for miles and miles is nothing but big loose rocks, such that it was quite a challenge to ride. And it was HOT. The grade did not seem like much, but after looping around the first switchback, I glanced down into the bottomless void from which I had ridden, and realized we were climbing much more than it seemed. We stopped at several of the streams coming down the mountain and stuck our heads in the icy water to cool down - - did I mention that it was HOT?! We made it about 9 miles up before we gave up - - we were hoping to arrive at some scenic meadow area, but with each switchback going higher and higher, our hopes diminshed. And the rocks were making for something of an unpleasant climb. It was not the nice technicals of the ride the previous day, it was frustrating rockiness that was just a pain in the bottom. So after 9 miles of butt pains, we turned around. I had been a little wary about the prospect of the downhill on such a rocky, deceivingly-steep road with a massive drop off into a deep void off the side of the road (see: fraidy pants). So I started my descent focusing on my proper biking form, not looking at the scary drop off next to me, and trying to not wipe out on the rocks. At some point, I thought about how one could really fuck one's self up by crashing on such a road. Somehow, in spite of all these scary factors, I was having fun! I hit a massive rock head on, unintentionally, and it was absorbed into my shocks and my descent continued uninterrupted. As I continued down, carefully engaging my breaks at the proper times (not in corners, not as I hit big rocks, not as I rolled through loose sections of rocks) and let my wheels carry me through the sketchy sections, it became really awesome. Soon, I let go of the breaks all together and only used them to keep my speed from getting out of control. According to my computer, I was going 15...18...20...22...25...27 miles an hour down a steepish rocky road, faster than a car would have gone, with my shocks absorbing all of the rocks so that my ride was cushy and comfy. For a good while, I was even seated, with the rear suspension making for a smooth ride. After a while, I started riding over the bigger and looser rocks, just for practicing. At the bottom, the straightaway before the highway, I was going almost 35 mph, which is pretty fast for me. It was a great ride!
That evening, we went back into town for some dinner at a place called the Shady Nook. I enjoyed some blackened salmon and sweet potato fries and Josh had some kind of alfredo pasta thing and french onion soup. We then wandered around down by the river where Josh impressed me with his ability to skip rocks. I hypothesize that the skipping of rocks is some base animal instinct that dudes have retained over the ages in order to attract a mate. The rock skipping ritual lasted quite some time, it was as though Josh was showing of his vibrant plummage.
The next day, Saturday, was the end of our mini-vacation. We had breakfast at the Greyhouse and loaded into the car for the drive back. We opted to go the LONG way so that we could see Craters of the Moon. We biked a 7 mile loop around the area, and saw lots of volcanic stuff. I'd never been there before, so it was nice to have that opportunity.
Also during the drive back, we opted to stop in several of the small towns along the way for a quick walk around. In Mackay, pop. 500, we found a number of yard sales to peruse and managed to skedaddle out just in time to miss the town parade. I don't parades. We had lunch in another little town, Carey, I believe. Also, I had quite the giggle as we passed through Arco, the first community in the world to be lit by nuclear power!
The great misadventure of the trip was while we were driving along this remote highway after leaving Mackay, at 65 mph, and all of a sudden Josh (who was driving) looked in the rearview mirror and screamed "Your bike is gone!" I practically had a heart attack as I looked back at the trunk rack to see no Minty Fresh (what I named by brand new expensive bike). Immediately, we turn around, thinking that the bike must have flown off the rack (because it was on the rack when we left Mackay). The amazing irony being that this was a brand new fancy pants rack that Josh arranged for us to use specifically for this trip. For years, I've used this trunk rack that my dad found at some thrift store for $5, and it has served me well (no bikes flying off). This rack that I've had, however, has just seemed like an accident waiting to happen. The manner in which it fastens to the car is questionable, and Josh and I are always going to great pains to secure the bikes to the rack. So for this big trip, Josh wanted to have the piece of mind of using a high quality brand new bike shop recommended rack. It attaches to my car so much better, and it has wonderful pads and straps for the bikes, to hold them securely. So it was quite the shock to look back and see that my bike was no longer on the rack! As we were driving back from whence we had came, I was scanning the sides of the road, expecting to see my brand new (expensive) bike, having been crushed and run over by the traffic, all bent up, broken, and sad. Boy, was my heart rate up. We did not drive for very long when we began to wonder if perhaps the bike was somehow dragging along behind us. Josh pulled over and I ran to the back, where I discoverd my bicycle dangling by the cheap cable lock that we had used to lock the bikes to the rack while in the thief-ridden town of Mackay. Somehow, the straps securing the bike to the rack came undone and the bike flew off the rack, but the lock held. I cannot find the words to describe my relief that my bike was not only NOT bent, broken, and sad along the side of the road, but that it appeared to be undamaged. I was so glad that we had randomly decided to put the crappy cable lock on the bikes, which would have done nothing if a thief had really wanted to steal our bikes, but which managed to hold the bike up enough so that it wasn't even dragging along the road as we sped along at 65 mph. There is not even single a scratch on sweet Minty Fresh!
Whew!
Anyhoo, here's a link to my flickr set on this mini-adventure.
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!
It has finally arrived, my brand new Gary Fisher HiFi Deluxe GS women's specific full suspension mountain bike. I have been awaiting this day for months, and quite frankly, I thought it would not come for several more weeks, what with it apparently being unavailable in the country. But yesterday, Josh from The Bike Shop called to say that my "special order" had arrived. I had already scheduled to take the afternoon off of work to study for my stats exam, which is this evening, so I had something else to take my mind off of studying.
For months, I've been pouring over online reviews (such as this one from a female mountain biker) and mountain biking forums (such as this one) drooling over what I hoped would soon be mine. My skill in articulating overly verbose explanations of things fails me when it comes to the complexities of mechanical dealie-bobs, so for engineering design details I will refer you to the above linked review and forum where those sorts of things are expounded upon at length. I am still working on understanding them myself, so I read them regularly. See, people have different strengths, and wrapping my mind around mechanical dealie-bobs is not one of mine.
Yesterday, Josh and I spent some time in the back of the bike shop after he got off of work, tweaking the fit and whatever else on my new bike. It turned out to be more of a procedure than I anticipated. I've become much more mechanical-oriented in the past two years, so while Josh was switching out the handlebars, I successfully performed complex mechanical operations such as installing water bottle cages and removing the tires and tubes from the wheels. When I thanked the owner of the shop for the special deal on my bike, he said that now I'm charged with the responsiblity of teaching Josh how to ride a bike. I suspect that he was impressed with all of the grease on my fingers and the finess with which I handled the allen wrenches. Once the bicycle was set up to the fern-specific specifications, we set out to ride Hard Guy.
Interestingly, Josh and I rode Hard Guy the day before, on Sunday, when it was windy, windy, windy. There were times during the descent that the wind was blowing so hard against the side of my person, that I was concerned about being blown off the trail. Josh described what he saw as "the leaning tower of fern" while I was attempting to counteract the forces of the wind by leaning into it. There were times when it felt as though my helmet was acting like a parachute - - the wind was lifting it from my head and I had to make something of an effort to pull my head down.
Last night, the wind was a gentle breeze that just plain felt good. This past winter, I didn't stay in cycling shape, I hypothesize, because I performed my exercise on the elpitical rather than in spinning class, so my legs haven't felt up to par. I expect that this will change quickly and that I will be up to snuff, and exceeding my past snuff in no time. Also, I've had a bit of difficulty relaxing on the downhills ever since my crash...I've been a bit tense.
Anyway, I absolutely LOVE my new HiFi. It is wonderful having so much suspension under my person. My ascent and descent last night on Hard Guy was significantly smoother. Also, I've heard that there can be difficulties with full suspension bikes being heavy and squishy, thereby reducing power and speed on climbs. The HiFi is pretty light (27 lbs) and I didn't notice any squish. I found that the mid-level setting on the rear shock was quite nice - - the washboard sections were easy on my sit bones, but firm enough so that there was no bobbing. The front shock doesn't have a lockout, which I do think is a shame. While we were riding up Bogus Basin Road, I had the shock turned to the most-firm setting, and there was a significant amount of bobbing when I stood up. I am considering having the pressure increased to compensate for the lack of lockout...after all, there's a lot of room in five inches of suspension.
I'm not the biggest fan of the disc breaks. At the moment, they're not adjusted to my satisfaction. There is a great distance that one must first pull before experiencing any breaking effect, but once the breaking effect is achieved, they are ridiculously sensitive. Also, the front and the rear break seem to be adjusted slightly different, which was very noticable on the descent, as I periodically almost hurrled myself off the front of the bike. Luckily, these are all things that can be adjusted. And I'd also like to state for the record that I am not complaining, instead I am observing. As already articulated, I absolutely LOVE my new HiFi.
After the ride, Josh and I went to Lucky 13 for some beer and cheezy garlic bread. When we arrived, the establishment was filled with gads of other mountain bikers drinking beer. It was truly astonishing the number of bikes leaning against the outside benches and trees, unlocked and perfectly safe under the watchful eyes of all the enthusiastic cyclists. I perched my HiFi along the bench on which I rested, and attached joy to it being out in the world and having a great fun time. Here's a photo of the sweet HiFi in its new home.
On Sunday, I took advantage of the nice, but overcast, weather and rode Three Bears. I wasn't feeling 100%, so I went at a somewhat casual pace. I started out by going up Buck's Trail and Shane's, and then traversed over and dropped down onto Rocky Canyon Road, where I went up and up to connect with Three Bears. There are two extra steep sections of Three Bears which always take an extra effort - - sometimes I make it up them and sometimes I don't. On this day, I failed to peddle to the top of one, but succeeded on the other. I paused at the top of Three Bears to take in the stunning view. This is the time of year when the foothills are particularly beautiful - - with some patches of greenery and desert flowers. I rode down Three Bears, connected to Shane's, and down Central Ridge. I wasn't in my normal wicked downhill mountain biking mood, so I took the downhill rather easy...Indeed, I only did one jump on Central Ridge, where I normally jump off every protrusion in the trail. Yet, it was a fantastic ride. This photo is a view of Rocky Canyon Road as I was dropping down off of Shane's. I always find this view particularly stunning and it always amazes me that this is what I've got in (what I consider to be) my backyard. You may view more photos here. As evinced by this photo, Rocky Canyon Road is spectacular. While I was riding up the three or four miles to the Three Bears trailhead, I found myself lost in thought, thinking about life stuff in the lush and rocky canyon.
For my work, I have been living and breathing these workshops which are designed to give teaching skills to a specific group of non-professional-teachers. It has been very interesting, but kinda overwhelming in scope. One of the topics is teaching to different generations. Within that topic has been discussion regarding the work habits of these generations. Baby Boomers generally feel loyal to their employers, for example, while Generation Xers are loyal to their work but not necessarily their employer. Me, I am on the cusp of the Gen x and Millenial, and while I tend to identify as a Gen Xer, on the issue of work, I generally feel a lack of loyalty towards the whole gammut. My loyalty, rather, is focused on my lifestyle. One part of my lifestyle is being able to live right downtown and work within a five minute walk of where I live. This also goes for my schooling - - as I declined applying to a program which would require me to commute several miles away, and instead opted for the five minute away bicycle ride university program. Additionally, living within a five minute bike ride of mountain biking trails and at a hub of quality road biking is very important to me. So, while I want to have a good employer with coworkers that I like and work that is somewhat mentally stimulating, I don't have any further stipulations on my work and employer beyond their support of my lifestyle. This is evidenced by how I have recently contemplated pulling a 180 turn on my work and doing something completely different just for kicks. I have determined that I could be happy doing pretty much almost anything, as long as it falls within the broad spectrum of "doing good towards others" and satisfying my lifestyle needs.
Several years ago, I took an honors philosophy class on Albert Camus, and during one of the lectures the professor commented that it makes no difference where one lives because life is the same everywhere. At the time, I thought that was the dumbest thing he could have said, because of course location makes all of the difference. This was a few months before I decided to move to Monteral, when I thought that location was important. Now that I've been around a bit, I have determined that it actually does not matter WHERE I am living as long as my lifestyle needs are met. Sure, I've determined that it's handy to speak the language of the other residers of the location - - not being able to effectively communicate with everyone around me has been a barrier to my total living satisfaction. At any rate, I have a greater appreciation for that which the professor communicated about location not mattering as much as one might think, because one is still the same person irregardless of their location. This means that one retains the same level of proactivity regarding their own personal happiness, at least, if you're me. Of course, this assumes that things like individual liberty and freedom remain constant....as, clearly, one would be less happy if one's liberty and freedoms were resitricted in one place over another. So, that turns it upside down, and it DOES matter where you live because of variables enabling a specific individual's happiness. ANYWAY, I've been giving thought to doing random things, like randomly switching career paths to mix things up a bit, and moving to other locations for a higher quality of life. And this was what I was thinking about on my bike ride up Rocky Canyon Road yesterday.
In other news, I have finished knitting the Nantucket Jacket and it is awesome. I have not yet taken a photo of it to share, but Josh has, so you may monitor his flickr postings...if you care. The jacket was a true joy to work on, these past months. I sized it for the small pattern, and even knat it on smaller needles because I have a particularly small torso, and still, it is too big. A bit ago, I realized that it has a crocheted edge, so it was a good chance to learn some new skillz. I must say, I don't see myself becoming a real crocheter any time soon. Sure, it was fun and okay, but I wasn't super into the experience. But maybe I shouldn't judge too quickly. Anyway, maybe I'll post a photo sometime soon, if I get around to it.
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.
On Friday, there was a random moment of gloriousness which Josh and I seized after I got off of work to go on a mountain bike ride. We rode some of the trails around and behind Table Rock, which I have scarcely ridden before. To summarize the ride, it was rad! I was feeling particularly energetic after a day of sitting in front of the computer, and utilizing my muscles in the fresh air felt so good. The trails had a good mixture of hard climbs and technical areas to make it interesting, but it was a very doable and fun ride. One of the great things about living in Boise is the immediate access to amazing outdoor recreational opportunities. Now, I'm not sure if my non-Boise readers truly understand my use of the term "immediate." To clarify, by "immediate," I mean that I can exit the front door of my downtownly located apartment and be mountain biking within three minutes. If you take a moment to examine this photo to the left, you'll notice me relaxing on a pile of rocks above the city, after having riden my mountain bike around some very awesome trails. One of the spectacular aspects of mountain biking outside of Boise is the view of the city that may be experienced from a variety of altitudinal perspectives. It consistently provides me with a renewed appreciation of where I live.
After our ride, Josh and I consumed several glasses of cheap vino at a local drinking well which has recently come under new ownership and has turned non-smoking in the process. I cannot quite find the words to express my impressedness with the fact that we now have a few drinking establishments that are non-smoking. This means that I can go out and spend the evening at a bar, but I don't have to worry about reeking of cigarette smoke or having a sore throat the next day because of inhaling second hand smoke. It is wonderful! What is more, Penguilly's (the non-smoking), is known for being a venue for good live music. Last night, Josh and I enjoyed the tunes of this rockin' "bluegrass" band and it was so awesome! The bar has this fantastic "Western" (as in, the Old West) feel to it, with the dark wood paneling, huge photos from old Boise days, and mounted Jackalopes!, but now I don't have to experience it being engulfed in a plume of cigarette smoke.
After drinking much more than I've drank recently, I hopped onto my bicycle cruiser and headed home (a nice four minute bike ride - - another great thing about my current living arrangement). On my way, I had to navigate the numerous drunk pedestrians congregating around the downtown bars and I was the receiver of numerous intoxicated comments about my amazing bike handling skillz in a crowd of drunk pedestrians. Call me anti-social, but I don't understand why so many people feel the need to comment out loud to strangers about stuff that isn't their business. Like, for example, my ability to safely and skillfully navigate a bicycle through a crowd. There was a group of drunk dudes sitting on a bench shouting out "Easy!.. Easy!.." as though they didn't think that I could slow down to almost a full stop while navigating the crowd. pfft! Piece of cake. ...even if I was slightly intoxicated.
Anyroad, I've finally gotten around to uploading my photos from the Zoo which we visted a few weeks ago.
This weekend, Josh and I went on a mini-vacation to Marsing, the Gateway to the Owyhees. We have been through Marsing numerous times, having thrown some money down at their eating establishments after a hike or bike ride in the Owyhees. While Marsing might not seem like the most amazing place to go on a mini-vacation, it holds a warm place in our hearts and is much more quality than a superficial view conveys. We left Boise on Saturday morning, after procuring some good coffees for the road. Josh had made reservations at the only hotel in Marsing, the Whitehouse Inn. I suppose that from the name, I had expected something slightly more grand than what was the reality. Somehow, the name "Whitehouse Inn" compelled me to assume that we would be staying in a beautifully renovated historic building with a view of the stunning Owyhee mountains. Yet, as I pulled up to the front door, I was a tad surprised to find that the so-called Whitehouse Inn was nothing more than a trailer park, with trailers that had been sectioned off into multiple "hotel rooms." After seeing our portion of the single-wide trailer, I was greatly relieved that we would at least have our own restroom. While I may be harshly judgemental, I'm not much of a snob and I don't insist on existing always with a silver spoon crammed into yee olde netherparts. At the same time, I found that staying in a converted single-wide trailer was to be one of several white trash experiences.
After settling into our accommodations, Josh and I hit the town. We walked "downtown" where we got some very affordable soft tacos from Freddy's Taco stand (a joint that we've eaten at a few times before). Freddy's Tacos is wonderful. It appears to be a family-run establishment that offers affordable food at incredible quality. Ah, just the thought of my tastey tacos makes my mouth salivate. Josh, who is WAY more social and outgoing than I, chatted with some local Marsingians, found out how to pronounce some Spanish words, and through the interaction I was able to get my hands on some homemade salsa for my tacos. I probably applied too much of this homemade salsa, but it was amazing! Zing! Then, we located a park and had all kinds of fun. We swang on swings, teeter-tottered, slided, and I managed to persuade Josh to let me into his fort which he was protecting by throwing rocks and twigs at all of the enemies.
Then, we went down by the lovely and radioactive Snake River. Marsing is also a check point for motorcycle enthusiasts. At the river, there was some kind of motorcycle congregation which we took pains to avoid. The ground was littered with goatheads and I spent several moments plucking them from the soles of my shoes. The most notable landmark in Marsing is Lizard Butte which is basically a hill with some volcanic rock that looks like a giant lizard. It's pretty cool. As you recall, Easter was on Sunday, and while neither Josh nor myself are big followers of Easter, we had planned on joining the locals at the top of Lizard Butte at sunrise for their Easter Sunrise Service. While we were walking along by the river, we took the opportunity to people watch some of the locals as they were fishing in the lovely and radioactive Snake River. Now, it's not as though I am this neat-nick clean-freak, but the polluted waters of the Snake River is not the source from which I would like to get my fish.
That afternoon, we utilized Marsing's Gateway to the Owhyees, to enter into the Owyhees for some mountain bike riding. We went to someplace a bit west of Jump Creek and explored some motorcycle roads. It was a lot of fun. At some point, we rode up to this plateau to take in the view. Josh noticed, in the distance, that the wind was causing a mighty dust storm. And by the look of the clouds, and the smell in the air, it was apparent that we were about to be caught in a sudden torrential downpour. We immediately started to ride back to the car, but the wind was so strong that it proved to be a harbinger of the difficulty that lay ahead. Twice, the wind coming at me to the side was so strong that it literally blew me off the trail and the rain came very quickly. Rain plus strong wind made every exposed part of my person freeze, and then the wind would whip up the sand against my leg, which stung my frozen flesh. What is more, our lack of structured exploring made me feel slightly concerned that we would lose our way. Nevertheless, we made it back safely and returned to our trailer section for a shower before going out to eat.
I find this article about a cyclist being cited for being hit by a car rather interesting. On the one hand, I didn't realize that if one rides a bike on the sidewalk, that one is responsible for a different set of rules than when one rides a bike on the road...I wonder if this means that there are a whole slew of pedestrian rules that I am not familiar with. And the implications... It seems that perhaps one should need to have a pedestrian license just to walk or ride a bike along a sidewalk. How do we determine competency to travel via sidewalk? For some reason, I thought the law was that if you are a driver in a vehicle and you crash into something, that you are responsible, regardless of whether that which you crashed into was operating based on the laws of the road or the laws of the sidewalk. Does this seem fucked up to anyone else?
In other news, this weekend I had the opportunity to experience the fruit of satan and have been tempted beyond the point of return. If anyone is agonizing about what to get me for my birthday, I must mention that a gift certificate to Josh's bike shop would come in handy, as I have decided that I am going to purchase for myself, to celebrate the anniversary of my birth in June, the Gary Fisher HiFi Deluxe full suspension mountain bike.
Here is the full scoop...
Currently and for the past two years (which comprises the totality of my mountain biking experience), I have been riding a Gary Fisher Tassajara, a wonderful hard tail mountain bike that I have grown very fond of. During the past two years of blogging about my mountain biking experiences (which I am sure are very entertaining), you may have failed to learn about some of the pain and discomfort that I have felt. This pain has tended to occur while I have ridden down particularly choppy, rocky, gravelly, and did I mention choppy?, steep downhills. If you have never ridden a bicycle down an extremely choppy downhill section of a trail, I don't know how to describe it in such a way that you would fully understand.
Imagine, if you will, riding a bike down a mountain. It's pretty steep, so there's a good angle that you perceive from your handlebars, to the ground that your wheels are touching, from the distance that you will reach in a nanosecond of time because you are traveling fast. Your butt is pulled behind the saddle so that your bicycle doesn't begin to perform summersaults down the mountain. Add to this, a trail that is similar to a washboard, with thick deep ruts that you best avoid getting your tires in, loose rocks that threaten to disrupt your traction, and all sorts of other obstacles that you should avoid if you want to remain in one piece. Now, during such a mountain biking experence, if you were me riding my Tassajara, your body would be jerking violently at each bump, rut, rock, and washboard drop off, jerking uncomfortably so that it sometimes sends you into something of a panic because it is unpleasant. What is more, this jerking sensation stimulates an intuitive response that you are invovled in something dangerous, regardless of how under control you actually are. This sensation of danger causes you to feel afraid of what you perceive to be impending doom.
My Tassajara has a front shock. And while the bicycle is my size, the front shock appears to not be for someone of my weight, as I have never received more than an inch of travel from it. Other people have gotten more travel from it, but even if I slam all of my weight down upon it, it gives no more than a single inch. Which is not much if you're going down a steep and choppy trail. In fact, I have often thought that it wouldn't be much different if I had no front shock. At the end of last year, after giving this a lot of thought, I decided that this year I would invest in a better front shock. I've spent a month or so looking into this and doing some price checking. For those of you who have never considered upgrading your shocks, it's pretty expensive...like almost $1,000 expensive. If you think that it seems slighly unreasonable to put a $1,000 shock on a $700 bike, you would probably understand my hesitation about this. At the same time, I feel that having better suspension would greatly improve my enjoyment of mountain biking. I feel that, during the past two years, I have engaged in mountain biking enough that I could be thought of as a "recreational mountain biker." I feel that, because of my vested interest and enjoyment in mountain biking, that it is conceivable that I will continue to mountain bike well into the future. Additionally, mountain biking, for me, isn't just an outdoor recreational activity that provides an outlet for exercise. It has become an incredible source of joy and enthusiasm, as well as a wonderful social opportunity. Thus, it seems reasonable that I would invest some money to maximize my enjoyment in mountain biking.
During this process of trying to decide about the front shock, I have consulted my main bicycle information resource at length. This resource, whose name is Josh, has provided me with all kinds of things to think about. What is more, he has done a good job at complicating this decision. As he is somewhat familiar with my finances, he has not been overtly trying to persuade me to do one thing over another. Which is irritating because I am left to make up my own decisions. At some point, he planted the seed into my mind that perhaps I should think about upgrading the entire bicycle to a nice full suspension one. For some time, I was resistant to this idea because I did not fully grasp the benefits of full suspension. Josh articulated that a good full suspension bike would come with a much better front shock and that most of the components would be high quality as well. Nevertheless, I remained a disbeliever in full suspension.
On Saturday, Josh and I went on a three hour mountain bike ride which we entitled 'Tour de Foothills.' We rode up Bogus Basin Road to Corrals, up and up and down and up to Upper 8th Street, down Trail 4, down Freeway, across the Military Reserve to Buck's Trail, up Rocky Canyon Road, up Three Bears, and down Central Ridge. By Josh's estimates, it was a 20 mile ride that was pretty intense, and a lot of fun.
For this ride, I had "borrowed" a Gary Fisher HiFi Deluxe from Josh's Bike Shop in order to test ride the full suspension. There are no words from the language of English that adequately convey how amazing and wonderful it was riding this full suspension bicycle. For one, there was no pain or discomfort during the steep choppy downhills. Because of the lack of jerking discomfort, my person did not perceive the situation as dangerous, and so I did not experience a single moment in which I was afraid of plummeting to my death. Because of both the lack of pain and fear, there was nothing getting in the way of my fully enjoying the downhill. This means that during the sections of downhills that I have never before experienced joy, that I found joy, happiness, and had a lot of fun. What is more, the handling of the bicycle was simply amazing. The shifting was perfection, the turning was heaven, and the bike enabled me to experience moments of mountain biking zen in which I mountain biked with no effort, it was so natural. Another notable mention was that the bike enabled me to ride terrain that has been much too extreme for me to ever ride successfully before. There is a section of Three Bears, for example, that is very very steep with huge rocky drop offs, and I have never been able to ride hardly any of it and have actually fallen on it a few times. With the HiFi, I made it almost all of the way to the bottom and was not afraid in the least, which is worth mentioning because I frequently feel like the biggest scardie pants and I become paralyzed over steepnesses and heights that don't seem to bother others. The fact that I enjoyed riding what used to make me shit myself is impressive.
In sum, because of the loss of pain and fear, coupled with the drastic increase in fun and joy, I feel that the time is ripe for me to purchase the Gary Fisher HiFi Deluxe. June is not only my birthday month, but it is also a month in which I should receive a raise, along with a few extra dollars for various things, so a perfect time to award myself with a fantastic birthday present. Some of you may feel that this is foolhardy and not the best use of my dollars, but I place joy and fun above financial responsibility and I am confident in my ability to come up with the money because my desire is so great. If I must, I will even get a second job.
As you can see from this photograph which I snapped on Friday, a small snowstorm thwarted my plans for going on a mountain bike ride. Snow is good, however, for another outdoor recreational activity: snowboarding. If you examine the photo, you will note that it was taken from about 1,000 feet elevation on Bogus Basin road. On Friday, instead of mountain biking, Josh and I went snowboarding. The snow was an interesting consistency - - a combination between slush and snow with a skiff of fresh powder. It was by no means the funnest snowboarding, but it was pretty fun...and much better than being down in the valley where it was raining.
On Saturday, the sun was out and it was glorious. After enjoying some morning coffees, Josh and I went on a big walk to absorb some vitamin D. We went a little bananas in the photographing of things with sunshine, but sometimes it's nice to be overly-enthusiastic about nice weather. That afternoon, we went on a big road ride out to Kuna and back. It was about 40 miles which we rode in three-ish hours. I know that the idea of riding a bike out to Kuna doesn't sound like the most appealing activity, but it was lovely. And if one has an open mind about the concept of beauty, I would say that I experienced many beautiful moments on the ride. I will say, however, that I was getting pretty tired and feeling a lot of pain by the end of the ride. I'm not exactly in optimal riding shape, and I was ready for the ride to be over about 45 minutes before it was. That evening, my energy crashed and I was not good for much except for reading about the hijinks of celebrities and receiving an update on spring fashion.
On Sunday, I spent most of the day trying to work on my two research papers which are due in one week. Incidentally, one is going well and the other is not. The one that is not going well, however, is for the class which I received the highest grade in the class on the last paper, so I am not all that concerned. I was still exhausted and without energy from the road ride of the previous day, and my mind didn't want to think about anything. So, I spent a lot of time sitting in front of my computer not accomplishing much. I did have a lovely intermission during the afternoon when I met some friends for a picnic - - and after sitting outside with them for two hours, I discovered that I received my first sunburn of the year. That evening, Josh and I made it on a mountain bike ride. We rode Freeway, which is a very mild beginner trail, but as I was leading the way downhill, I decided to fly down Red Tail, a more advanced downhill. It was an incredible amount of fun. This trail had become extremely rutted, which posed some interesting challenges on some of the steeper decents, but I found plenty of humps and bumps to launch off of. This photo to the right depicts one of my more hardcore moments (and I say "hardcore" ironically...as it is not hardcore, but I felt a twinge of bad-assedness).
Day Six, the final day of the trip to Austin, October 20th, is rather fuzzy. This may come as a shock to each of you, but I haven't been creating these amazing detail-packed blog entries about my vacation from mere memory. Indeed, during the vacation, I took notes about the activities in my journal and from those notes composed these fantastic entries. The last day of the trip, unfortunately, I did not take any notes and I do not have the greatest of memories (which is why I am a voracious note-taker). Last night I popped by Josh's residence to deliver some pain killers and chicken noodle soup for his cold or flu, as well as a knitted gift for his birthday (Happy Birthday!!!), and we were discussing the final day of the trip and trying to remember certain details. What was particularly irksome was that we could not recall where we had had coffee that morning. Never fear, however, because this morning it hit me!
Friday morning began with us riding bicycles down the greenbelt area, across the Colorado river, and over to a coffee establishment called Flipnotics. This place is also a hipster clothing store and had a big patio with wireless internet and flowers. After getting our coffee, we initially sat outside. We moved seats several times because we couldn't get everything exactly perfect, and we ultimately sat indoors. If memory serves me correctly, we had a little bit of a late start that morning and I think that it was around noonish by the time that we left.
Our plan for the day was to go on a big mountain bike ride, exploring all of the trails around the Barton Springs area. Which was a lot of fun! Riding a bicycle on these trails was unlike any biking I have ever done during my entire one and three-quarter years' experience of mountain biking. Firstly, their trails were much more consistently technical than anything I've ever ridden. I was quite proud of myself for being able to ride as much as I did, and I was able to ride most all of it. Riding in the Boise foothills, truly technical parts of trails are pretty rare and I'm usually too much of a weiner to challenge myself over much of it. That whole "I don't want to fall and hurt myself" thing. But in Austin, there wasn't a choice. It was either ride my bike, have a lot of fun,challenge myself, and take a chance on falling and getting hurt, or don't ride, don't have fun, and don't take any risks. I chose the former. And it worked out beautifully. I had so much fun and I felt so proud of myself for being able to clear so much of it. Secondly, the trails in Austin were dense with folliage and trees. In Boise, the foothills have "high desert" qualtiy to them, which implies that folliage is almost nonexistant except for some knee-high sagebrush and brambleweed. In Austin, it was like a jungle, with the trees hanging low over the trails. So not only were the trails themselves more technical, but the trees growing all along either side of the trails and sometimes hanging over the trails, which meant that it truly was a full-body strategic riding experience. While I was popping my front wheel over rocks, I was also negotiating my handlebars around tree trunks, and bending my torso down low to avoid hitting branches.
From what Josh was telling me, the mountain biking in Austin is much more similar to mountain biking in most of the country, whereas in Boise it is somewhat exceptional. While I was feeling like a major accomplisher, Josh was feeling like he was back home in Kansas, it being the same sort of mountain biking that he first started riding on. Additionally, the trail system in Austin, while it was definately well-maintained and well-traveled, did not seem to be as well-mapped as in Boise. At several junctures, it was not readily apparent which way the main trail went. So on multiple occasions, Josh and I found ourselves on these offshoot trails which led to strange areas with deadends. Thus, our biking was quite the adventure. We found mini-canyons and caves, streams, and had a lot of fun.
At some point, we realized that we were starvin' marvin and we asked for some directions on how to get to some civilization. From these directions, we got outside of the wildernessy area of Barton Springs and was on some far end of Greater Austin that wasn't even on our map. We asked someone if there was a place to eat nearby, and he looked down at our bicycles, smirked, and said that we had to go up a certain hill to find any eating establishments. This certain hill was one that I had seen two minutes earlier and thought to myself, "Oh my! That's a crazy steep hill. Good thing we won't have to ride bikes up it." And I kind of gulped. As I approached the hill on the bike, switching for the first and only time into my granny gear, I kept the thought of impending food at the forefront of my mind to provide me with some pseudo calories. Needless to say, Josh arrived at the top before I did, but I still felt that I did a pretty good job on my climbing. At the top, one of the first things that we saw was a big sign that said "Chilis" and there was no need to even have a conversation. We went there, a chain restaurant that we could have found in any city, and had a fantastic huge meal. We also took advantage of the opportunity to cool down. Afterwards, we wandered through some of the shops, including a Nordstrom's Clearance Outlet where I considered buying a fugly pair of Prada bootties.
We continued riding for a time and then turned around and headed back downtown. From here, my memory is a little fuzzy, so hopefully Josh remembers what we did. I think that we rested at the hotel for a while. But eventually, we got all dressed up and walked down to Red River Street. We had hoped to eat at Moonshine again, but there was too long of a wait. Instead we went to yet another Mexican food place (yea, it might be a long time before I crave an enchillada). I wasn't in the mood for Mexican at all but we were kind of in crunch time and needed to eat something and this was the only place that didn't have a wait. Plus, it was right across the street from Stubb's Ampitheater, where we were going to be seeing Built to Spill play that night.
The concert was great! I am a fan of the Built to Spill. The opening band, which was named...something???...can't remember...wasn't all that remarkable. Josh and I found a place to sit, and we ended up having to keep our guard up to keep our spots, but it was a decent ways from the front and we could see Doug Marsh bright and clear.
I did not sleep very well that night. And we had to get up at 4:00 in the morning to get to the airport. Yet again, I failed at interpreting the bus schedule. I was certain that we could take a bus to the airport, but I had neglected to read the weekend schedule, on which there is no bus running that early in the morning. So we had to take a cab. And we had kind of a miserable airport experience. I was so exhausted, cranky, and very uncomfortable. Our connecting flight was delayed and I was blowing my discomfort out of proportion. I was so happy when I arrived at my home.
~ Le Tour de Fat and other bicycling experiences ~
Yesterday, to put it mildly, was kind of an epic day. I was experiencing a hangover at 9p.m., had had my fill of silly costumes, wanted nothing more than to ride a bike with an extra pivit or with automobile tires or with wheels winding about my head, and was feeling embarrassed about my performance in a dance competition, not to mention my various wounds (such as a stubbed toe and lacerated leg). But before yesterday, came other sets of epic experiences. I have spent the past six weeks studying for the GRE, so as to apply for graduate school. I refer you to my previous post on how I felt about that. After taking the exam on Tuesday morning, I slumped into a depression for the rest of the week which was in no way related to the GRE. I had been feeling very blue. So, both of the items, the GRE and the saddness, contributed to my lack of posting for the past month.
On Friday, Josh and I rode Hard Guy. I had intended to make Hard Guy it's own post, but it leads so well into this post, serving as the nexus between my depression and the fact that today my facial muscles are seriously sore because I smiled too much yesterday. So, the air quality in Boise has been unhealthy at a pretty consistent rate lately, which has made me felt disinclined to do things (such as mountain biking) which incline me to breath heavily while outside. That, and also the aerial spraying of pesticides which "they" say isn't harmful to humans (my allergies have been going crazy since they began spraying). A wind storm came through on Friday and seemed to clear the air a bit. Josh and I seized the opportunity and rode Hard Guy. Neither of us had ridden for a while and we both observed a lack of feeling at the top of our game, yet the ride was fantastic. Additionally, I'm still timing myself on this ride, and on Friday I rode it faster than at any other time before, exactly five minutes faster, which made me feel incredible. Also, because there is so much pollution in the air, the sunsets have been stunning recently. Josh and I took the opportunity to take photos of us riding, in a vain attempt to photograph us "catching air".
This brings me to my main thesis: I feel that bicycling, in all its forms, is good for the spirit.
Yesterday, Josh and I attended Le Tour de Fat. It started with a cruiser parade in the morning. Josh and I donned our silly halloween costumes of a duck and dragon (which are good stock costumes to have on hand, you know, on the off chance that we need a costume for something but have no money to invest in costuming) and met about 500 other costumed cruiserers at the Rose Garden. We rode in parade style through the Greenbelt, down Warm Springs, and made a loop around downtown. It was a lot of fun. Many people went all out with their costuming and many of the bikes themselves were wonders to behold. Thus, I took many photos of the parade.
After the parade, Josh and I abandoned our costumes and got some lunch. We returned to the festivities around 2:00. We began by enjoying some beer and trying to ride some very wonky custom bikes. The bikes were so fun. There were two with wheels that wound all about the cycler, one which had an extra pivit on the frame so that the frame would swing around itself, one with big automobile tires, a two person bike in which the stearing was controlled by the peddling, a trike positioned backwards, a recumbant with the wheels that would wobble around, a bike with uneven axles and full suspension, one in which the frame was a huge spring and could pull apart and back, along with many others. I found that my ability to ride the wonky bikes increased proportionately to my intake of beers.
We met up with Sara Turbo and her friends Amy and Jeff, and had all kinds of fun talking, imbibing, riding bikes, hulla hooping, listening to the bands, throwing a frisbee to a dog, and the like. At some point, during an intermission in the music, there was a request for some volunteer contestants. Josh and I ran up to the stage, unaware about our role as contestants. Thoroughly inebriated, we learned that we would be participating in a dance contest. As the dude with the microphone gave us instructions, we discovered that we would not be dancing with eachother. I looked across and noticed that my dance contest parter was not the apple of my eye, but some other dude. I then proceeded to make a complete fool of myself along with sixteen other people, in front of several hundred.
At 7:00, we went to a locally-owed theater and saw Little Miss Sunshine over some turkey sandwiches and chips. By the end of the film, Josh and I both felt like we had hangovers, and it was 9:00 in the evening, presumably before most parties even get started. I went to bed at 9:30 on that Saturday night after such an epic day. A day which was filled with so much joy and fun that today my facial muscles are sore because of all the smiling. For more photos, a good 119 to be exact, please see my flickr page.
I've finally gotten around to posting my photos from the camping trip to Upper Payette Lake onto my flickr dealie. If you depress your mouse button on the above photo, your browser should be directed there. I've decided to refer anyone interested in the narrative of the camping trip to Josh's Camper's Log as I feel that it does a very nice job of capturing some of the camping moments.
Anyhoo, last night Josh and I found ourselves in something of a pickle as we tried to decide how to spend our evening together. See, we work kind of incompatible hours, and Friday and Tuesday are the two weekdays that we have the possibility of spending a decent chunk of time together. Which is why I like to embrace my Friday evenings...that, and you know, celebrating the end of the work week. So, part of the problem of deciding what to do was the fact that it was over 100 degrees outside, which basically precluded doing anything outdoors. Josh was attempting to persuade me to go to a movie with him. I, however, was hesitant because I feel that I've had a disappointing several months of trying to go to the movie theaters. A few weeks ago we saw the latest Pirates of the Carribean movie and Josh was so bored that I think he fell asleep (we also saw the LATE showing) and I just sat there and sat there and sat there wondering why the movie wouldn't end. I thought it was terrible, it duplicated so many of its scenes and gimmicks, and the plot failed to substantiate the duration of the film. So we left before it was even over. A few weeks earlier, we saw that Nacho Libre film by the director of Napoleon Dynamite. I believe that I already provided the internet with my thumbs down review, but aside from the fact that I was so annoyed with the teen boys behind me talking for the entire movie, the movie sucked. And we walked out of that one before it was over too. Which makes me feel like both of those experiences were just a waste of money, and I am of the opinion that wasting money is lame. So Josh had quite the task ahead of him if he thought he could convince me to go to another summer blockbuster...
Instead, while I was in the shower after having a workout at the gym, I was brainstorming things to do. I didn't feel like sitting down at an establishment (like a bar or restaurant...or movie theater) so I began to think about what sorts of places would provide airconditioning as well as amusement. And it hit me! A video game arcade!!!
So we went to PoJo's Arcade and played a variety of shoot'em-up games, motorcycle racing, and other standard arcade games, as well as several rounds of that Japanese dancing game (which is quite a workout!) and bumper cars. We left around 10:30, which is my bedtime. By the time that we got to my apartment, I realized that I had locked myself out of my apartment. Which was this complete freak occurrance. I was stressed out because it was way too late to call my landlady to let me in (I've been thinking recently - about the last year - that I need to get a spare key, but I've been putting it off...). Josh and I wandered into the alley behind my apartment and he shimmied up the concrete wall and managed to open my alley window (which was totally latched and locked from the inside) and hoisted himself through. While I was delighted to get back into my apartment, I was alarmed at how easy it was to break into my place of residence.
This morning I got up at 7:00 and went on a two hour road ride before the heat hit. I think it's almost 105 degrees right now. Which is fine because I've already got my exercise in and now I can just relax at an airconditioned coffee shop all day playing on the internet.
This weekend, while Josh and I were camping at Upper Payette Lake in the Payette National Forest, we took a day trip to bike the Loon Lake Loop. We drove about ten miles from our camp to the Ruby Meadows turnoff from Warren Wagon Road. From there we asked for directions to the trailhead, as it was not readily apparent which way to go, and along with directions we also received some information about a WWII era bomber lodged at the far end of the lake. In my googling of Loon Lake information, I discovered someone who had taken photos of the bomber, which can be viewed here. We, incidentally, opted to not hike to the far end of the lake to view the bomber.
The first half of the loop, to Loon Lake, was amazing. It began as a road suited to ATVs and motorcycles, though all access, with fun banked turns and the sort of rollercoastery bumps that off-road vehicles tend to produce, which happen to be super fun on a bicycle. The trail took us through the area that was burned in the 1994 fire, and the effect was a graveyard of trees. Eventually the trail turned into a well maintained singletrack which had a pleasant combination of mild technicals and rolling intervals of ascents and descents, into meadows, forested hilltops, and rocky mountain slopes. There were several wooden bridges to cross as the trail wound through the meadows. These bridges were constructed with a series of wood panels jutting upwards into the center of the bridge. This created an effect similar to a rut. At some point, while I was navigating my bicycle tires in between the wooden bridge rut, my front wheel scraped the edge of the wooden panel causing a loss of control. I sensed that I was about to flip face-first onto the wooden bridge so I attempted to prevent falling with the use of my trusty left leg. As I was trying to catch myself, in a manner involving the wild flailing of limbs, I was stumbling along the bridge with my bicycle firmly attached to my right foot until I launched off of the bridge into the unknown. At either side of the bridge there was some thick tall grass, and it was impossible to see what was beneath the grass (whether water, rocks, mud, etc.). Fortunately for me, there was only soft ground, which provided that the only thing hurt was my pride. As I was hoisting my person back onto the bridge, Josh and I had a good guffaw.
We continued peddling until we reached Loon Lake, a name which I found pleasing, almost as pleasing, in fact, as the lake itself. Though, stunning would be a more appropriate description. Once lakeside, we relaxed and consumed some carbohydrates. I removed my socks and shoes, though not in that order, and noticed a very prominent dirt line divided my dirt and dust coated legs from my non-dusted and non-dirted feet. I placed said feet into some water, which I found somewhat freezing, and splashed them around.
For the second half of the loop, we took a different route to get back to the car. I have chosen to delete the second half of the ride from my memory. All that I will articulate is that I would not recommend that route to anyone with severe- to worse-than-severe phobias regarding narrow technical trails at the edge of steep rocky cliffs.
By the time that we reached the car, I was very happy to have reached the car. Frankly, I was kind of pooped. Back at the campsite, Josh and I inched our way into the lake for a refreshing wash - - and boy, did it feel great to rid my person of all the mud clumps, dust coating, dried sweat, congealed sunscrean, and smashed bug bodies. For the duration of the evening, I was in a daze of sheer exhaustion.
Tuesday has become, and will continue to be I hope, the day when I ride Hard Guy. Last Tuesday was my first time. I was experiencing a surprisingly high level of energy and rode the entire trail in under three hours. Josh has a few photos of the ride on this entry of his blog. Hard Guy is located in the area called (by Ridge to Rivers) Crane Creek / Shingle Ridge. Refer to the trail system map shown below and note that the highlighted area indicating the approximate location of Hard Guy. According to the Ridge to Rivers website, Hard Guy "is a long and winding route to the Boise Ridge. Due to long site lines and wide tread it's a good option for horseback rides by staging out of Miller Gulch. If you make it to the top you are rewarded with great views and a first hand look at the transition between high desert and forest ecosystems. Watch for raptors soaring the ridge during fall migration."
Yesterday I rode Hard Guy for the second time. On the way up, I decided that I would track my fitness using this trail. As this is a new trail for me, a longish trail, and a challenging trail, I determined that Hard Guy would be the ideal trail to track my improved fitness based upon the length of time it takes me to ride it. For a variety of reasons, Josh and I decided to have a time check from the trailhead, disregarding the ride up Bogus Basin Road and part of Corralls, tol the point of stopping, either the "halfway point" or the end.
Last night I rode to the "halfway" mark. This point is well past the halfway mark, however, I do not intend to bring along my GPS equipment to determine that which is exactly the halfway point. Plus, the point which I am calling "halfway" has a distinctive tree which is a good spot to rest and refuel, so it is likely that I won't forget where "halfway" is. It took me precisely 56 minutes to ride from the trailhead to "halfway" last night. My energy was at medium, I hadn't slept more than two hours that night, and I hadn't had much vigorous exercise in the days prior to the ride. All variables which I feel are important to take into account when tracking my progress. Please refer to the following sample spreadsheet to get an idea of how I intend to track my progress on Hard Guy. This is a draft and I will most likely be modifying it to make it more specific. Josh and I discussed how it would be interesting to track a whole slew of variables, such as amount of social interaction, stress load, fun-having, etc., and have a guage for happiness, but that would require more thought than I am willing to put into the project at this moment in time.
Anyhoot, the ride. Hard Guy is a fun trail. In Josh's guide books to mountain biking Southwest Idaho, Hard Guy is listed as an "advanced/expert" level trail. Since I am neither an advanced nor expert level bicycler, I have determined that the trail is only as hard as you make it. Granted, I feel that it is too difficult for a beginner rider, but for a solid intermediate such as myself, Hard Guy is good fun challenge. The trail, incidentally, winds through a large plot of land that is currently being used for the grazing of cattle. I am not entirely sure, but my guess is that these are free range cattle. Yesterday, this particular variety of livestock was everywhere, grazing, taking naps on the trail, and Josh and I had to carefully navigate our way through and around. At one point on the decent, I was flying down this steep pitch (which Josh had earlier described as a part of the trail he likes "to go really motherfucking fast on") and I had to slow down drastically because there were four calves walking along the trail with their mommies and a bull hanging out on either side. The calves, noticing my approach, began running away from me along the trail. How does one herd cattle on a bicycle? It was an amusing experience, though a bit terrifying. Josh, meanwhile, was way behind me and apparently caught the end of this scene. There were quite a number of instances in which I was approaching several large cows and bull(s) and, because I didn't want to startle any of them and induce them to girate right into my person, I made a point of calmly calling out a friendly "Hello" to alert them to my impending presence.
At some point early on in the trail, there is a "creek crossing". It comes at the bottom of a dip and is rather unpleasant due to its lack of actual water. Considering the quantity of cattle in the area, the consistency and smell, I have deduced that this particular "creek crossing" is kinda gross. I mean, well after riding into and out of it, being dried off by the heat and wind remnants, I was still noticing a distinct cow piss smell about my person. Unfortunately, there is no way around this obstacle and my creek crossing skillz aren't good enough for me to emerge without it splashing all over me.
Another shitty thing that happened to me last night, pun intended, was when I was riding home through the North End neighborhoods and I felt a conspicuous splat upon my leg. At first, I thought that Josh had thrown some projectile object at me. The impact was strong and it stung a bit. Then I looked down at my knee and I realized I had bird poo on my leg. A bird had defecated and it landed on me! I wasn't feeling so clean and fresh at this point, what with being splattered with cow piss and bird excrement. Here's a lovely photo of my lower half post-bike ride.
On Saturday, Josh and I drove out to Bruneau with our mountain bikes. We forgot sunscreen, developed sunburns, and, despite no lack of effort on our part, failed to locate any good mountain biking trails. I may have come off as a little cranky, yet I did have a lot of fun. When we got to Bruneau, we were struck by how unhelpful the rangers were in directing us to some trails. The first thing that we did was to climb the tallest dune.
This was quite challenging. We both wore inappropriate footwear for hiking up a dune and quickly removed said footwear (which tends to be the norm, I believe). It was steep and sandy. I found that it was easier to hike up backwards. Once at the top, we admired the view, ran up and down the edge of ridge, and caused some sand avalanches onto unsuspecting insects. For the descent, we located the steepest portion of the dune and ran down it. This was quite an exiliarating experience. With one leg rotation, we decended a surprising length of dune, and once we started to run we could not stop, the possibility of falling proving more thrill than fear.
And that was that. We located some sunscreen at a visitor's center up the road (but the damage had already been done) and drove down to the edge of the Snake River to locate a wicked mountain biking trail. We unloaded the bikes, changed into our spandex and protective gear, and headed down some kind of restricted sportsman's access road. I became quickly cranky after seeing the dead body of a snake, which indicated to me that we might be venturing into snake territory, and after being somewhat-severely scratched, cut, and poked by these massive bushes with thorns growing all over the road. Incidentally, today my cut legs are all swollen and I have multiple thorn splinters in my legs and hands. Another thing that was making me cranky, was that the sportsman's access road we were riding on was anything but a wicked mountain biking trail. Eventually, we turned around and rode down the highway in search of another possible wicked trail. We located another sportsman's access road which seemed to travel parallel to the River and rode it for a time. This was much better, no fear of snakes and no thorny bushes, but we came to a dead end. Again, we turned around in search of the elusive wicked mountain biking trail. This time we headed towards the horse park of Bruneau and, being careful not to surprise any of the horses, rode down an overgrown road. This area was carpetted with very dead versions of the thorny bushes and I felt some satisfaction crunching over them with my tires without being cut. A persistent difficulty, was that the dead thorny bushes branches kept getting lodged in my spokes and it was kind of annoying. Soon the road became unridable because there were simply too many thorny bush corpses to ride a bike through, and I came up with the brilliant idea of "Hey, why do we need a trail? Let's just ride this way" and by "this way" I indicated towards a space with less thorny bushes, no trail, and lots of sand. It proved really brilliant, my idea, except, you know, the opposite of that and eventually we turned around for the final time and rode back to the car.
In sum, Bruneau is not an area to find wicked mountain biking trails.
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.
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