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2012-09-30

A Mountain Loop Tour

Late Saturday morning I loaded up my bike and took off for the mountains. The plan was to head out to Granite Falls, pick up the Mountain Loop Highway, and spend the night somewhere around Barlow Pass. The following day I would continue along the highway to Darrington and head back to Everett to complete the loop.

The way out of town is an unremarkable ride along the shoulders of two state highways. It doesn’t take long to reach Granite Falls, where the Mountain Loop Highway begins.

I’ve driven the highway into the mountains countless of times – many of my favorite trailheads are located off of it – but this was the first time I had pedalled it. The highway itself doesn’t get too high. The highest point is probably a little under 3,000 feet, but I was starting from sea-level, so there were a few hills to climb. I shifted down to my granny gear and prepared to spin my way up, past the quarries and mines and the masonic park that always gives me a slight feeling of discomfort. The National Forest begins near the top.

After entering the forest the highway follows along next to the south fork of the Sauk, which makes for a pleasant, flat-ish ride, with very little motorized traffic to interfere. Most of the established camp grounds are closed this time of year – “closed” being National Forest Service code for empty and free.

I had initially intended to spend the night somewhere along this stretch, but it was only mid-afternoon. I decided to head a bit further and camp around Barlow Pass. The pavement ends at the pass and the highway loops down and out of the mountains along a narrow gravel road. When I reached the pass the Sheriff was there, sorting through his ring of hundreds of keys, attempting to locate the one to unlock the gate at the start of the road to Monte Cristo. Apparently a young boy was hiking out there with his family and cut himself on a piece of old mining equipment. The search and rescue team were on their way up but would need to get through the gate. It must have been some cut to warrant the response.

There was plenty of light left at the pass. I amended my plan once more and took off down the unpaved section of road, deciding to camp somewhere in the woods below. The road is in pretty decent condition, by Forest Service standards. There aren’t too many potholes and the gravel isn’t layed on too thick. It makes for a bumpy ride, but my skinny 700x25 tires handled it fine. I pulled over for a quick dinner at 6PM and then got back on the road, intending to ride till 7PM. That would give me about 30 minutes to make camp before it got dark.

At 7PM I found myself near a picnic area with a short trail that led into the woods to a small clearing with a table and enough room for a tarp. I pitched camp there and went to bed not long after.

The morning was chill. I rose with the sun. After fueling up with oatmeal I shook the frost off my tarp and packed everything back on the bike. I only had a couple bumpy miles to pedal before reaching the pavement again.

I was perhaps too optimistic when I packed only fingerless gloves. The cold air caused a sharp pain in my fingertips. I stoked the furnace a bit by breaking off a few hunks from a bar of dark chocolate that I kept readily accessible in my frame bag. Either the chocolate or the rising sun worked.

At Darrington I reached the end of the Mountain Loop Highway. The next leg of the trip would be along SR 530. It was the stretch I was looking forward to most. I had never ridden it before, but each time I drove along it the road struck me as a wonderful stretch of pavement to pedal. It travels through the foothills of the Cascades, along pastoral scenes set against mountain backdrops. Horses and cows outnumber motorized traffic.

The road lived up to my expectations. I cruised along the meandering highway until reaching Arlington in the late morning. There I stopped at the Shire Cafe (in the same building as the Mirkwood game store, Mordor tattoo, and Rivendell hair salon) for a breakfast burrito – enough fuel for 53 miles. A block away I picked up the Centennial Trail.

I pedalled down the trail, though the woods of the county, before cutting west out to Marysville, from where I went over the sloughs and the Snohomish river to complete my loop back in Everett. In town I detoured to the waterfront farmer’s market to conclude the trip with an apple and baguette of victory.

This is the best ride I’ve yet to do all within Snohomish County. The route looked roughly like this. I think that my mileage was closer to 130 miles. The trip could probably be done in a full day, but I enjoyed it as a leisurely overnight trip. It took me 26 hours, door to door.

2012-09-17

micro, books, bicycle

Currently reading: Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Richard and Nicholas Crane.

If you’re at all interested in bikes, lightweight backpacking, or a combination thereof, you must read this book.

In 1986, Dick and Nick rode lightweight, steel race bikes from the Bay of Bengal across Bangladesh, up and over the Himalaya, across the Tibetan Plateau, and through the Gobi desert to the point of the earth furthest from the sea. They were sawing their toothbrushes in half and cutting extraneous buckles off of their panniers before “bikepacking” (or “ultralight backpacking”) was a thing. The appendix includes a complete gear list and relevant discussion.

The book is currently out of print, but used copies can be found. A PDF version is available here.

This article was modified 2012-12-22.

2012-09-16

micro, bicycle

I've long been an 8-speed man on my bikes.

More gears seem unnecessary, but the market has other ideas. I wanted to upgrade my brifters. There were practically no options, so last week I made the jump to 9-speed. Now I’m running an 11-32 9-speed cassette and a 30/42/52 triple chainring.

This article was modified 2013-04-03.

2011-05-01

bicycle

Whidbey Island by Bike

I’ve toured Whidbey Island before by bus, car and foot, but never by bicycle. I decided to remedy that today. It was forecast to be warm and sunny (only the third day of the year I can say that about), so I woke up early to make the 9:00 AM ferry sailing.

Whidbey is a pleasant mixture of forest and pastoral farmland. I decided to confine my explorations to the south end of the island, as that’s the area I know least.

I logged about 45 miles in the saddle over a leisurely 6 hours, plus about 2 hours of breaks, including lunch in Langley.

More photos are on Flickr.

A map of my route is also available.

This article was modified 2012-09-30.

2011-02-20

review, bicycle, gear

Lighting My Ride with Twofish

For the past few years I have been using a cheap headlight from Cateye on the front of my bike. When turned on to the blink setting, it did an acceptable job of making me seen, but it did very little to light up the road. Last January I decided that I wanted to replace or supplement it with a better light.

I looked at the lights carried by various bike shops for a while, but none of them impressed me. The high end bike-specific lights are bright, to be sure, but they tend to be much more expensive than a hand-held light of comparable output.

I thought it would be neat if I could somehow attach a normal light to my handlebars. Not only would this be cheaper than purchasing the equivalent bike headlight, but the light would be multifunctional: appropriate either for my bike or my belt. None of my own hackish attempts to mount a normal light on the handlebars satisfied me, so it was with relief that I heard about a company called Twofish.

Twofish – not the cipher – is a company that makes a series of mounting devices for bikes. The two products that I purchased are the Lockblock and Bikeblock.

The Lockblock is a piece of rubber with perpendicular “U”s on either side. Each side fastens to an object with a small piece of hook-and-loop webbing. The Bikeblock is similar, but the two “U”s are parallel, and each side fastens to its respective object with a single continuous piece of hook-and-loop webbing. Lockblocks are to be used when you want to mount an object perpendicular to something else, such as a light on handlebars. Bikeblocks are appropriate when you want to mount the object parallel to something else, such as a pump to a frame. I bought three of each.

My first use of the Lockblock was to replace the Cateye headlight with my old Novatac 120T. The difference was immediately noticeable on my first night-ride. The 120T lights up the road, both bringing me to the attention of motorists and bringing potholes to the attention of me.

But I still thought it could be better. I wanted a second light.

Research showed that the Fenix LD20 was a popular choice to use in conjunction with Lockblocks. It blasts out a fair number of lumens and I liked that it ran on AA batteries rather than CR123s, so I picked one up.

The combination of the Fenix LD20 and Novatac 120T really light up the road. The Lockblocks hold both lights securely, and they make for a safe commute on long winter nights.

Although I was happy with this setup, I wanted to try using the parallel mount of the Bikeblock to add a helmet light into the mix. The Bikeblock fastens easily and securely across the vents of my Giro Stylus. Between my two lights, the shorter profile of the Novatac 120T made it more appropriate for a helmet mount.

I’ve been running the 120T on my helmet for about a week now. It’s nice to have the light point wherever I’m looking – and the ability to flash inattentive drivers is appreciated – but the light does add a noticeable weight. It’s annoying enough that I don’t keep the light on my helmet during the day, but so far I’ve been steadily putting it back after the sun sets. I haven’t decided if I’ll keep it up there, or if I’ll ditch the helmet light idea. I think that as winter turns to spring and the days lengthen, the Bikeblock will come off of my helmet.

I also use a Bikeblock for its intended purpose – to hold a pump to the bike frame. This is much more secure than my previous method, which consisted only of two pieces of hook-and-loop webbing.

Twofish’s mounts offer a serious challenge to the standard bike-light market. I’m pleased with both the Lockblock and Bikeblock and cannot see any reason to move back to a bicycle-specific headlight.

Novatac 120T Specs

CR123
Low: 0.3 Lumens (240 hours)
Mid: 10 Lumens (14 hours)
High:120 Lumens (30 minutes)

Fenix LD20 Specs

AA
Low: 5 Lumens (100 hours)
Mid: 30 Lumens (15 hours)
High: 81 Lumens (5 hours, 57 minutes)
Turbo: 180 Lumens (2 hours, 16 minutes)

This article was modified 2012-09-30.

2010-07-14

bicycle, ablution

Bicycle Chain Cleaning

Those chain cleaning tools sold at most outdoors stores tend to pretty useless in my experience. They run around $30, but end up being cheap and ineffective pieces of plastic. I’ve given up on them in favor of cleaning my chain manually via a method discovered on Sheldon Brown’s chain maintenance page (any man with a beard like that must be infallible).

All that’s needed is a chain tool, a bottle, some sort of degrease-ing dish soap, and water.

The process is simple. Break the chain with the chain tool and drop it into the bottle. (I use an old Gatorade bottle.) Then put in a small dollop of the soap. Fill up the bottle with water, shake it around a bit, and let it sit. The water becomes black immediately. After it has sat for about 15 minutes I’ll dump it out, rinse off the chain, and put it back into the bottle with fresh soap and water. I do this until the water stays clear, which generally takes about 3 cycles.

When it’s done, you should have a chain that’s relatively clean-ish. Dry it, toss it back on the bike, lube up, and start cruising! If the chain was really dirty, you might also want a cheap brush to scrub it down.

This article was modified 2012-09-30.

2010-06-23

bicycle

Exploring Seattle with Google and a Bike

I went on a lengthy bike ride around the Seattle area yesterday. There were a couple of errands I wanted to run in the city and I thought I’d use them as an excuse to test out Google Maps new bicycle directions feature, which I had yet to use.

The Interurban Trail runs through Snohomish and King Counties, forming a highway for human powered transport. At least, that’s the idea. Parts of the trail are on old railway routes and parts are on normal city streets. The part of the trail in King county is great, but the Snohomish county trail is very poorly signed and notoriously difficult to follow as it moves between trail sections and streets. If you’ve never ridden it before, you’re guaranteed to lose it. Since the trail parallels I-5 and 99, it’s difficult to actually get lost – just keep heading north or south and you’ll eventually get where you’re going – but it’s nice to be able to stay on the trail itself as the Interurban’s route is generally the friendliest to non-motorized vehicles.

I was very impressed with Google’s ability to keep me on the trail. The directions only once told me to turn onto a non-existent road. Other than that, they proved accurate. I also had with me photocopies of the relevant route directions taken from Biking Puget Sound. The directions from both were very similar, but where they differed, I found that Google’s route was superior.

Of course, the whole trip couldn’t be on the trail. I had to get on the Interurban at the beginning of my ride and off it at the end. For that bit, I was also happy with Google’s directions. The route on and off the trail was not as direct as the one I would have chosen myself, but Google seemed to go out of their way to keep me on smaller streets with less traffic. It’s clear that Google takes topography into account, as well, as the streets that Google suggested were flatter than those on the more direct route that I would have chosen.

The downside to Google’s route was the number of turns. The directions were 7 pages long for the full trip (both to my destination and from the destination back to my starting point). I think the longest section I had without a turn was about 2 miles. I would make a turn, pull the directions out of my pocket to see how long I had on this stretch and what the next turn would be, shove the directions back into my pocket, go on for a bit, make the turn, and repeat the process. It was a bit inconvenient, shoving the directions into my pocket and pulling them out so frequently, and the directions got crinkled and difficult to read. I need to figure out someway to mount them on my handlebars. The other problem with the directions was that, because much of the Interurban is on the old railway that doesn’t have street names, Google would occasionally give a direction like “Turn left in 58 feet”. Turn left? Turn left where? In this driveway? That business parking lot? The lake? With the infrequent signage on the trail itself, I would often miss these mysterious left turns. When that happened I would look a couple steps ahead on the directions till it had me turning onto a street with a number. I could make my way to that numbered street along normal roads and soon find myself back on Google’s route.

Overall I was pleased with the directions and will definitely be taking advantage of Google again for future trips – though if it’s in an area that I have no familiarity with, I would probably want to supplement them with a good road map for added security. I’ll also be curious to see how they do in other cities, or outside of urban areas altogether. I’m told that the team who developed the bike route feature is based in Seattle, so it would make sense that that city would have the most accurate directions.

In Seattle I made a bit of a tour. I went past Woodland Park and cruised around Green Lake a bit before stopping in the center of the universe to refuel. From there I went over the Ship Canal and decided to torture myself by pedaling up the hill to Queen Anne before heading down to Pike Place. At the market, I paid a visit to Left Bank Books to browse the zine collection before heading over to Metsker Maps. I have something of a map fetish, so Metskers is one of my favorite shops in that area. I spent 45 minutes in there pouring over various topos that are difficult to acquire anywhere else.

Outside of Pike Place I saw somebody with what looked like a TAD FAST Pack. I don’t see those around very often, so I went up to the guy to congratulate him on his taste in bags. But on closer inspection I saw it was one of those cheap Japanese airsoft knock-off designs.

After walking the bike around downtown and doing more people-watching, I started to head back north. I decided to take a different route and go the long way around Lake Union. Eventually I picked up the Burke-Gilman Trail and ended up back in Fremont. From there I made a slight detour over to Ballard (nope, it isn’t free yet) and visit Second Ascent. They’re one of the best independent (i.e. non-REI) gear shops in the area and usually have a good selection of used gear. Once there I spent another half hour looking at maps – this time aided with some of the guide books they had – and happened upon a nice 50-ish mile loop in the Glacier Peak Wilderness, which is something that I’ve been looking for lately.

From Ballard, it was back to Fremont where I made a quick stop at PCC for some dolmas and a couple of cookies before retracing my route back home.

The route that I took was supposed to be 50 miles, but for all my detours and added explorations, it was probably closer to 70. My butt cheeks hurt, despite my padded panties.

This article was modified 2012-09-30.

2010-05-19

water, review, bicycle, gear

humangear capCAP

I bought one of the newer 27oz wide mouth Klean Kanteens back in March. My favorite bottle is still the old 40oz Klean Kanteen that I keep in my EDC bag, but I’ve been wanting something a bit skinnier that could fit in the bottle cage on my bike. I also was looking for an excuse to try out one of the newfangled wide mouth Klean Kanteens. I prefer a wide mouth opening on my bottles, but my 40oz Klean Kanteen (despite being beat on fairly heavily for the past few years) is in too good a shape to justify replacing it with a 40oz wide mouth. A new 27oz wide mouth bottle that would fit on my bike (not to mention in most car cup holders) and so supplement the 40oz bottle was easier to talk myself into!

To go along with the wide mouth bottle, I also purchased a humangear capCAP. This product of questionable capitalization addresses the same problem as Guyot Design’s Splashguard: how to drink from a wide mouth bottle while moving without ending up with half the bottle’s contents on your face and the other half up your nose. The capCAP allows the user to take advantage of the wide mouth for filling and cleaning (as well as water filter integration), but also provides a smaller opening for drinking.

The wider cap has indentations on it making it easy to grab and turn. The smaller cap, in addition to the indentations of the larger cap, is made of rubber, which makes for an easy grip while wearing gloves. The rubber has a tendency to pick up small amounts of dirt and sand, but so far I have not found this to be an annoyance.

My habit in unscrewing bottle lids is to hold the body of the bottle in my left hand and unscrew the lid with my right. The problem with doing this with the capCAP is that attempting to unscrew the small lid tends to start to loosen the larger lid as well. All that’s needed to rectify this is to hold the larger cap in my left hand rather than the body of the bottle itself. This forces a change of habit, which took me a couple weeks to get used to, but I now grab the larger cap with my left hand while unscrewing the smaller cap without thinking. I haven’t had a problem with it since.

When using the capCAP with my wide mouth Klean Kanteen, I find that it does leak slightly. If the bottle lays down on its side for a bit, a couple drops of water will escape from underneath the larger cap. The threads on the bottle’s lip must not match up perfectly with those on the capCAP. If the bottle was to be thrown loosely into the body of the pack where it could shift around and potentially get a drop or two on some form of paper, I would opt for the more secure closure of the standard Klean Kanteen lid. But when the bottle is in the cage on my bike or stored upright in a pouch on my pack’s waist belt, this small leak is no problem.

The capCAP can of course be used on other wide mouth bottles. I also use it on my 32oz HDPE Nalgene as well as my 32oz Guyot Designs Backpacker and have not noticed any leaking with those bottles. It’s a pretty neat product that I think makes a great addition to any wide mouth bottle.

Here are the weights of various lids, measured on my scale:

humangear capCAP: 1.3oz
Klean Kanteen Stainless Steel Loop Cap: 2.2oz
Guyot Designs lid: 2.2oz
Standard Nalgene lid: 0.6oz

This article was modified 2012-09-30.