Bikes – Page 15 – CanooterValve

Ride Around Clark County

Bikes Comments Off

May 072012

Somehow I’ve managed to love riding bicycles despite the fact that I haven’t been in acceptable physical condition since 1978. Unlike those unique individuals who can drink a case of Miller for breakfast and then bag a 100-mile single-speed mountain ride, I approach any ride over five miles with the wary preparation of the chronically unfit. I don’t mean to suggest I stretch or anything, just that I worry about it a lot.

I’m also fairly sure that sometime between 2005 and 2011 continued exposure to extremely unhealthy levels of stress damaged some kind of valve in my head that regulates sleep. My wife tells me this is related to cortisol levels, and I’m inclined to believe her, but I only know there’s hardly any point in the day when I could not spontaneously fall asleep. The only exception to this is night-time, when you’re supposed to.

At any rate, it’s been a pretty unhealthy few years there. I’ve tried to ride at least some almost every day, but all short rides, too many of them inside on rollers, and I haven’t done any significant road rides since I used to be able to ride bikes with my wife, back in 2004, before life got extremely complicated. It was with some trepidation, then, that I told my boss, Jay, I’d join him and the Portland Velo club for a group ride on the 2012 Ride Around Clark County in Vancouver.

Not doing the ride would have been absurd. For one thing, my boss asked me to go ride bikes. I’m not blind to how rare and fantastic a thing that is. Secondly, I’m moving there. The ride was going to roll through much of the neighborhood where I’ll be living, and there’s no better way to see it. Of course I would love to do it, yes, thank you, I’ll be there. Done.

The only thing was the miles.

And, to a lesser degree, the condition of my road bikes, which hadn’t been touched since being strapped to the roof of my car for 2700 miles, and weren’t flawless even before the trip started.

I didn’t have the impression that we’d be doing the 18-mile loop. Jay has ridden across the country. I hadn’t met anyone from Portland Velo, but they didn’t sound like dabblers.

Friday night I took an inventory of my diet over the past month since starting the drive across the country and setting up camp in my basement AirBNB room, and realized I’ve been subsisting on hamburgers, cookies and beer. This had the potential to be ugly.

As it turns out, a lot of people ride bicycles here. The photo up top is just the people who happened to be at the first rest stop at the same time we were. Turnout for the ride was huge, despite the cooler temperatures and occasional light right (which turned out to be just about perfect). The members of Portland Velo are extremely nice people with extremely nice bicycles. Just within the smaller group of twenty or so riders in our group, we had two Parlees, a gorgeous Indy Fab, and even a Tom Kellogg built Spectrum.

Some great bikes on this ride. There's a Pinarello, Parlee, Moots and Strong Ti bike in this photo.

We did the 65-mile loop, and somehow I survived. Partly it was scenery, and partly it was getting to ride with a really nice group of people, but I hung on. The self abuse diet caught up to me around mile 55, when the quads went (first right, then left), which meant the decision to give up standing, a resolution arrived at following a delicate negotiation between legs and ass. There seems to come a point for me when my legs have officially cramped, but I’m still able to pedal as long as I’m seated. In fact, it’d be more accurate to say I’m unable to stop pedaling without causing my whole body to cramp endlessly in on itself until all of me can fit into a space about the size of a Starbuck’s Grande cup. So I started the last ten miles or so developing a strategy for how I would eventually get off my bike and back into my car without ending up in the fetal position or alarming passers-by.

For whatever reason, though, the cramps mostly went away in the last few miles, allowing me something like composure during the process of loading up the bike. Well, as much composure as possible when you’re loading a ridiculously nice road bike onto a car that’s missing a rear window on the passenger side, and is completely caved in on the driver’s side.

Open Letter to the City of Portland

Bikes, Uncategorized Comments Off

May 042012

Cars Really R Coffins

OK, Portland. No cars. I get it. Please don’t hurt me.

For the second time this week, somebody tried to drive into what’s left of my poor Subaru, and this time–unless there’s some custom here of making left hand turns from “right turn only” lanes–you can’t blame the out-of-state driver.

Seriously, somebody needs to let me know how many Radiohead-inspired cerebro-trios from the 1900s do you have around here, because I’m running out of quarter panels on my car.

So I’m sitting at a light in a lane with straight ahead arrow. To my right is a Toyota Rav 4 sitting in a lane with a right turn only arrow. Light changes. I go straight. He goes left. What the fuck?

Fortunately, I now drive like a goddamn ninja, figuring at any minute a bicycle could crash through my window, or a reunited R.E.M. could come at me in a tanker truck, so you didn’t get me this time, Portland. Eyes in the back of my head.

I understand now why everyone rides a bicycle here. It’s because driving is just too risky. Impressive as it is, the large and ever-increasing percentage of those commuting by bicycle in Portland is partially the result of the rapid extinction of hapless drivers. At this rate, in two years the only people left to have accidents will be the triathletes.

The Home Front

Bikes Comments Off

May 012012

With a little luck, looks like this is going to be our new home. Not Mt. Hood, exactly–I think we’re going to take a break from living on mountains for a while–but Camas, Washington, a town outside of Vancouver, just across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon. Maybe we’ll find toxic waste everywhere or maneating slugs or something, but we’ve done a lot of homework at this point, and I think we might really love living here.

Posts may be even sketchier than usual over the next few days, as there are still some contractual wranglings to be done, but we’re pretty close. Soon, I’ll get to fly home to Pittsburgh to repeat the whole cross-country drive in a sweet rental truck with the governor set to 60mph max. Nebraska waits with its razor-sharp-toothed gaping jaws of relentless boredom. At any rate, we’re close enough to new home ownership at this point that I’m practicing channeling my sleep-deprivation hallucinations into genuine entertainment.

Now also begins the research. Yesterday, I noticed three guys on hardtails heading off from Lacamas Lake Park–one of them sporting a full-face helmet. Promising sign.

Solid States

Bikes Comments Off

Apr 302012

While I’ve been adjusting to a new life in Portland and spending every minute outside of work searching for a new home, some interesting things have been afoot back in the bike industry. Most notably, evidence of what basically amounts to a merger between Shimano and Fox continues to grow. I’d first written about the “unique electricity” between the two companies back on March 2nd, but at this point, they might as well have exchanged class rings.

Regardless of what any of us think of completely and utterly wired bicycles, the intersection of Di2 and Fox’s CTD suspension system should pretty much be considered the point at which the two companies effectively become one–at least as far as competitors are concerned. Given all the suspension patents being held by Shimano and the more recent evidence surfacing on Geoff Kabush’s Scott, the partnership is definitely trying to shake off SRAM. The most interesting part of all of this might now become SRAM’s response. In the past, SRAM has proven particularly effective at using Shimano’s innovations against them, turning the barrel of things like “Dual-control” right back at them and pulling the trigger. For all the grumbling, electronics have been receiving a pretty warm welcome from consumers, while SRAM holds to an emphasis on ultralight mechanical designs and simplicity. Shimano remains the 800lb gorilla of the bike business, but both companies are on pretty solid ground now, and both are capable of innovating.

Given that SRAM seems to prefer to grow by acquisition, if they were to go after electronics, it’s tough to imagine any clear targets, but more unique companies like Factor are certainly doing some interesting and very different things with integrated electronics.

One way or another, it seems like the next few years are going to be pretty interesting to watch.

Factors

Bikes Comments Off

Apr 262012

A Note from Your Author: Looks like my scheduled post for Thursday never posted, which I guess is as good as any way to take a day off, but here it is anyway:

I’m writing this one the night before it posts. By the time you read this, I may be divorced, dead, or even the owner of a new home somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. My wife, sick with a killer head cold, arrives in Portland around 11:00pm Pacific, which is 2:00am Eastern. When healthy, this woman tends to be a “morning person,” waking up at 5:30am every morning, but borderline comatose by 10:00pm each night. So this should be interesting.

Bright and early tomorrow, she’ll go off with one real estate agent while I go to work. Then, after work, as I’ve done twice this week already, I’ll head out with another real estate agent. Possibly later we’ll meet or something. Tough to say.

The plan appears to be spreading out across as much of the Northwest as we can, thereby increasing the number of homes that just won’t work for us exponentially. It’s possible we’re going for some kind of viewing record, though my inability to quit my job(s) to turn professional house hunter will no doubt thwart everything.

You may have noticed I rarely type words like “bike” or “bicycle” these days, but this shouldn’t be construed as an indication that they’re not on my mind. In fact, I’m helping launch one new company while experiencing the onset of “catalog season” at another. So I’m still ass-deep in bikes, as they say (they don’t actually say that, I think), and I’m paying attention to what’s going on out there.

Speaking of which, how ’bout Steve Domahidy’s new project! I knew Steve and Chris from Niner years ago while I was running Speedgoat, and I’ve gotten to know both guys a bit more over the years, and it’s no wonder Niner became the company it’s become. I have a small sense of the time and energy Steve’s put into helping develop that bike, and it’s hard to overstate the kind of focus it takes to pull that stuff off. Making bikes happen is a job, pure and simple. Like any other job, there’s shit you have to put up with, constraints, personalities to work with and around–it’s a job. It looks–at least anyone involved in making bikes prefers it to look–as if these things just spring to life with pixie dust and whimsy and somebody’s trust fund, but in fact there are deadlines, rules and regulations and endless reams of crap to track, and there’s accountability, which is like the opposite of whimsy.

The Factor bikes definitely rub some purists the wrong way, but the funny things is that they’re almost always the same purists who like to bitch about the UCI. And hipsters. And DH guys. Bitching’s easy. I nearly managed to make a career of it. Actually bringing shit into the world is hard. I emailed Steve to congratulate him today, because he definitely deserved it. The designs he’s creating fly in the face of convention, and I really think we should have more people doing that.

And more cheap five bedroom homes in the Portland and Vancouver areas.

Oregon to Washington Over the I-205

Bikes Comments Off

Apr 242012

One of my goals as a father is to actually be home for one of my daughter’s birthdays. I was stuck in Chicago last April, and this April I’m in Portland. The up-side this time around is that the whole family should be with me here at some point, provided we manage the logistics and all. And that I find a house.

To that end, this past Sunday I decided to follow up on my prior raw pizza visit to Washington State with a bike ride there. I’d heard you could ride right across the I-205 bridge from Portland to Vancouver–and by “right across” I mean bicycles ride right straight down the middle of the interstate. Such an ingenious feat of city transportation engineering I’d never encountered, and frankly, it sounded too good to be true.

Given my pizza experience, I approached the situation with a degree of cautious optimism and checked the route out first on Google Street View. This didn’t really clarify anything, but the route did look even more magical and wondrous, given that habit Street View has of ghosting out sections of road and obscuring obstacles like other cyclists, leaving only their helmets. I was left with many unanswered questions.

Where, for instance, did the road go once you reached the other end of the half-mile long bridge, and how the hell did you get up into the middle of all that traffic in the first place? I sort of imagined a way you could do it (which turned out to be accurate), but as is my nature, I still suited up as if expecting this all to be some kind of hipster Portland trap, wherein some intellectual derelict living under the bridge would ridicule my stupidity at falling for the joke, endlessly poking fun at my naivete while re-purposing my beloved La Cruz into an admittedly attractive garden trellis right before my eyes.

Still, one image from Street View caught my attention. It was this dude clearly riding his bike across the bridge.

Riding Across the I-205 from Portland to Vancouver

My inspiration.

If Guy in White T-shirt can do it, thought I, then I can, too.

So I did.

It’s really great.

Turns out, the route I’d been taking to work goes right up to the I-205 bike path. I’d been turning to head to work literally five feet from the path that led to the 205 ramp (image at the top of the post shows the bike lane as it approaches the 205).

You do, in fact, go under the road and then up a ramp until you appear, kinda wonderfully, right in the middle of a whole bunch of speeding cars and mountain views and Columbia River.

Now that's a bike lane.

While I did make note that deep section rims might not be the best long-term bridge commute option, the ride was nothing by gloriously fun. The north-bound route into Vancouver climbs pretty noticeably, but, being the first 75-degree day we’d had in a while, all the roadies were out letting you know what was what, so I just tried to pick guys in the distance to chase down with my 38mm steel beads and two week diet of Pop-tarts and beer. It wasn’t a bike commute; it was just a good time.

Once over you shoot down a ramp and follow a serious of dedicated bike lanes and extremely peaceful little sub-division routes. I was headed to Camas, only a dozen or so miles from Oregon, and everything about the ride was just great.

I think for the entire trip between states and over a body of water I had to ride on a section of road not clearly labeled as a dedicated bike lane for about 20-yards. Just incredible.

Here the old La Cruz reclines leisurely at a Starbucks along the way. Even the crowded strip malls had some bike lanes, and the dude who served me my coffee asked where he could get a Giro Atmos like mine. What kind of magical place is this, anyway?

I may even develop a taste for uncooked pizza.

Wherein I Experience Something Like Happiness

Bikes, Uncategorized Comments Off

Apr 192012

Just a quick note this morning, and not particularly entertaining, if I do say so myself. I was catching up on some important work last night and then staring at thumbnails of possible new homes for my family again into the wee hours. At this point, the house hunt takes on more of that “end of Rocky Balboa vs. Apollo Creed” vibe, wherein I’m just tapping shit on the keyboard all bleery-eyed and staggering from one property to the next. Can’t we just home-school the kids? Do I really need to be able to get into work every day? And most importantly, can’t somebody just pick out a house for me and then tell me where it is? I think I’ve stopping dreaming of owning a great home, and instead started dreaming about just no longer searching for one.

But one positive thing that’s slowly occurring to me is how much I like my work now. All of it. I’m sure just writing this will cause terrible things to happen to me, but I have to say, I’m working with some really wonderful people right now and for some really wonderful companies. “Companies,” yes. I seem to be hyper-employed at present. The way some people go bungee jumping, wrestle crocodiles, or eat at Pizza Hut, my own personal extreme sport seems to be finding as many jobs as possible.

To take a quick inventory, I’m working for an e-commerce company, a bike parts manufacturer, a magazine, and I seem to be operating a bicycle design company, which was sort of an accident born out of liking bikes too much.

But the weird thing is: it’s working. I’m getting quite a bit done on all fronts right now, and have to say, enjoying the hell out of it, too. It’s partly because I love the companies I work for and partly because I like doing stuff, and partly because I’ve been what psychologists call an “entrepreneur” before, and that gig makes my current twelve hour days seem downright easy.

Anyone misguided enough to read my stuff regularly knows the optimism is hard won here. I don’t come by joy or contentment easily–and I still wouldn’t say I’m “content” (whatever that is, exactly), but I’m genuinely enjoying what I do for the first time in a long time.

So there, I said it.

This all but guarantees tomorrow’s post will be pretty spectacular. Tough to say whether an enormous eagle will carry me far up into Washington State and leave me on a cliff wall to die of exposure, or if I’ll just get run over by a garbage truck, but it’ll probably be good.

In the meantime, to take my mind off of house hunting, I’m going to decide on a name for the still mostly imaginary bike design company I actually do need to start, if just to keep my emails better organized. It’s like how the Dead Milkman were an imaginary band before deciding to become real, only I have some pretty good reasons to add yet another job title to the current list.

And I do need to add some more job titles to my resume. LinkedIn sent me some auto-generated botmail this morning to let me know that adding another job title makes me something like 12% more likely to be considered by HR departments, which suggests the more jobs you have, the more likely you are to get even more, and apparently I won’t rest until I have at least a dozen projects going on.

So I’m off into my day to have a piano fall on me and break up this peculiar happiness thing, and I’m wondering if I should call the design company VeloWorkshop or VelocityWorkshop, which are domain names I have around, or just stick with Canootervalve for the company name. I’ll be taking a break from house hunting to ponder this on the ride in to work this morning, and will resume the regular schedule of skewed perspectives and personal mishaps usually found here tomorrow. Any opinions about the name thing, please let me know.

The Oregon Trail(s)

Bikes Comments Off

Apr 162012

I took a break from my near perpetual state of panic to go ride a bike yesterday. This meant crawling out of the basement where I’m staying and actually riding a bicycle outside–something I haven’t done since the long drive to Portland.

While my legs didn’t atrophy completely, my steady diet of cookies, Nutella and Deschutes Black Butte Porter (when in Rome) “heightened the sensation” of the initial 1,000 or so foot climb. I think my sense of “big climbs” is going to take some time to recalibrate.

Jason, my unofficial tour guide to Oregon life and the man responsible for getting me back on a bicycle, is shown here, chugging on up the long climb that starts the ride.

Where were we? Hell if I know. Somewhere in the direction of Mount Hood. I’ve made a life of having as little interaction with or knowledge of my surroundings as possible. This way, if I’m ever abducted and held for the ransom that is my bikes (Pivot, Indy and my Parlee Z3 are really the only truly valuable things I own), the kidnappers won’t even need to blindfold me. See how cooperative I am, potential future kidnappers? You’re welcome.

Here, my 429 briefly contemplates its new life in Oregon, deciding eventually that it must have died and gone to 429 heaven. Mt. Hood is centered behind those tree-covered mountains, but it’s obscured by clouds, poor photo technology, and my incompetence as a photographer.

There it is.

It’s tough to describe trails in Oregon without resorting to stupid exaggerations like “best ever” and “changed my life.” They’re really nice. I’d ridden in Southern Oregon before, but have always wanted to ride in the even denser, tighter and trickier Pacific Northwest.

The trails are incredible from top to bottom, and the amount of work local trail crews had in them was evident every inch of the way. What I particularly liked is that the initial climb wasn’t the only climbing you got to do. These trails didn’t just drop in and head straight back down the mountain. There was a fair bit of level and climbing, and that really makes the ride so much better.

Conditions were wet, but not particularly muddy. I discovered that I love the way Oregon mud smells. If you’re going to find out there’s something weird wrong with you, I highly recommend this quirk.

Waterfalls and bridges are pretty common on Oregon trails, and this section was amazingly fun to ride.

There was one rock garden I didn’t clean, which is the East Coaster’s equivalent of being slapped in the face with a white glove, so I’ll need to visit this place again, wherever it was. Big thanks to Jason for getting me off my ass and out into the woods on a bike.

Roadbrain

Bikes Comments Off

Apr 122012

It was brought to my attention that yesterday’s post was riddled with errors–both silly typos and more troubling, massive slabs of drooling stupidity. I’ve since edited the post, because the only thing worse that doing a lousy job is being content with it, but the sheer extent of what I screwed up made me wonder what the hell was wrong with me. After a little research, here’s what I think it was.

The Pittsburgh to Portland drive has been roughing me up, but Tuesday’s drive from Annawan, Illinois to Laramie, Wyoming knocked the living shit out of me. At just under 900-miles and something like fifteen hours, I’m pretty sure that’s the longest one-day drive I’ve done, and I’m only now realizing how much it cooked me. Definitely looking forward to finally seeing Portland.

Wednesday’s drive was 668-miles, definitely easier than the Tuesday slog, though deserts are no fun on long drives. Some of the credit goes to taking my time before getting on the road this morning, including the safest shower I’ve ever taken. When it comes to shower safety, I have to hand it to the Comfort Inn in Laramie. Anyone capable of falling in this shower really had to work at it.

I’ve finally gotten my morning bike installation ritual down pretty well. This shot also showcases my custom dry-erase board panel, which replaced the rear passenger window.

Everything was going pretty well until the weather started turning ugly and I hit this stretch of road descending toward Ogden.

The wind on this road–which is a genuine long-ass, steep and winding mountain descent–was so weirdly violent that I had to keep pressure on the accelerator just to keep he car moving down the mountain. Even at very steep sections, the drag was so extreme that I could’t put the car in neutral and coast (I know because I tried). It was one of the most bizarre driving experiences of my life.

Anyway, about 2200 miles in since I left home on Monday. Tomorrow should be a beautiful drive, and the shortest one so far.

My Clown Car

Bikes Comments Off

Apr 102012

At some point the really nice guy checking me into the hotel did ask how many there were, and if I did something with bicycles for a living.

Older Entries Newer Entries