Oregon Outback 2015

What is this willingness to suffer on a bicycle? 

A Shadow of Myself 

The hill we’re riding up is gradual and bumpy as hell and seemingly endless. My bike is loaded with gear, food and enough water for a couple of dry days. It’s heavy, my bike, probably about eighty pounds, maybe ninety. I’m carrying about eight liters of water. A few tools, some clothes, cooking pot and camp stove. Tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, inflatable pillow. Energy bars, sunblock and mosquito repellant. Some TP, soap, ibuprofen, a small set of scissors. Essentially I’ve got a miniaturized home on my bike, with enough amenities to keep me alive and in relative comfort for a week or so. 

My legs are going. Round and round in a small gear. They feel strong and fatigued, searching for some sort of rhythm with my breathing. The trail is erratic, though, little rocks big rocks, ruts and washboard, patches of sludgy red pumice; there’s no rhythm in dodging obstacles at this turtle speed. The worst part is my ass screaming at me, tired of being planted on this wedge while my legs churn. Sweat pours down my face and into my eyes. My hat, shirt and shorts are already soaked. My lower back is sore from leaning into the climb, and my shoulders ache from hunching over the bars. 

Big Sky

Smitherman is beside me. His face is grim, concentrating on the struggle up. He looks as  focused, mean and uncomfortable as I feel. Sweat runs rivulets of dirt down his stubbly cheeks. He looks at me, nearly doleful, and then it happens; his face peels into a big smile. And what a winning smile it is. He growls through his white teeth. 

We’re both hurting, suffering really, trying to get up this damned hill. It’s been too long that we’ve been at this, way too long, our bikes jostling through ruts and over rocks for miles. My hands are sore from gripping, pulling, pushing the bars. My right elbow has a sharp shooting pain.  But then this smile sprouts and it shines out through the pain. I laugh and ask him, Why the fuck are we doing this to ourselves? 

Rattlesnake in the Road

Indeed, this is the question. If I could see the faces of any of my other friends on this climb, their expressions would not have hidden the struggle they too were experiencing. Misery, brutality, pain and suffering — these were words thrown around by my friends and I while riding the Outback this year. There were other words, too, positive words, but they didn’t come during these most grueling moments. This question — Why do we do this to ourselves — was something I had a lot of time to meditate on. I don’t think there is one answer to it, and I think it’s different for everyone. I’m curious what others might say about why they put themselves through things like this. Is it for the beauty of the surroundings, the nature? The remoteness, or the escape? The sense of adventure, of exploration? For the ultimate sense of accomplishment? For the camaraderie of a shared struggle that empties you throughout the day and and fills you again while eating and talking around a campfire? Is it just so you can say you did it? 

Smitherman's Outback Bike

My friends and I struggled, yes, and there were fun parts, too: Screaming gravel descents, riding alongside running cattle, stream crossings (Jrdn and I both dumped into the water to great laughter), a deer that flew across our paths and leapt like a gazelle over a fence. And of course the shared time at camp. We saw regions of Oregon that are too vast and beautiful for words. And we all made it through safely. Riding back to Portland after the Deschutes campground, our trip ended up being around 450 miles total. Jrdn and Smitherman left Portland the week before a and rode down to Klamath falls to meet us, at least doubling their mileage. Because we left a week after the "official" ride, we only saw a couple of other people riding the route.

Hitchhiker 

I can imagine that there are many reasons we put ourselves through ordeals like this, and I think they change, morph and evolve from moment to moment. Especially while in the thick of a difficult climb, exposed in the sun, hot, everything hurting and the whole thing seeming very far from being fun. In moments like this I watch my mind going through story after story, which is me trying to convince myself to keep pushing the left pedal down and then the right, and then the left again. Each of the reasons listed above floats through, and any number of others. Philosophies come and go; Buddhist aphorisms about life and suffering; I could practically get down on my mental knees and beg myself Please Keep Going, or, sometimes, Please Stop Now. 

At some point when things get really hard the stories become laughable, obviously bullshit. Monkey mind in a frenzy, and yet I’m right there, still pushing on the pedals, one after the other. At this point, when the stories don’t help anymore, my mind is all stripped down and raw; this is when things get really interesting. 

And then I keep pushing on. 

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Here below, in no particular chronological order, are some photos from the trip.

GPS Assessment at a Crossroads

Sweaty Happy Ramen for Mitch

Jrdn & Smitherman Finding the Route

Around the Campfire

Break on a Bridge

Jrdn, Cup & Moon

Camp Beverage

Jrdn Preaching the Faith

Derek & Ian Before

Derek & Ian After

Columbia River Gorge

Jrdn & Myself, Sweaty at the Vista House

Ride On!

Headed Out

I'll be out of the shop from Friday 29 May through 7 June on a bike tour. We're headed down to Klamath Falls to ride back up through central Oregon on the Outback route. It'll be interesting seeing how it's different this year from last. I'll post images during and after the ride. 

We're headed out a week after the official ride, so hopefully all the people who have already gone left us some water to drink, and didn't clean out the little stores of food. 

First Bike Trip: Remember What To Bring

Santa Cruz Taqueria in St. Johns

This past Saturday morning at the Santa Cruz taqueria Mike and I ordered two burritos each. We ate one and packed the other, and headed out to ride the Crown Zellerbach trail.  There’s nothing wrong with having a burrito for breakfast. It’s bike fuel of the best sort. And what’s even better than having a burrito for breakfast is following it with another burrito at lunch. The Santa Cruz Taqueria in St. Johns has some of the best in town, and they’ve got an avocado sauce that makes you want to hug whoever’s working at the counter. 

The CZ trail starts in Scappoose, which is about 20 miles north of Portland on the west side of the river. Mike offered to drive to the trail head because he had to get back to town that evening. My plan was do go on my first overnight trip. 

On the CZ with Mike

The CZ runs along side the Scappoose/Vernonia highway for a ways out of town, then turns and heads off into the trees. It’s gravel, converted from an old rail bed, which in my opinion ought to be done all over the state. Why not make a whole network of trails that run out to the coast, inland, up and down the state? Imagine cycling for days and days from the forest around Mt. Hood to the desert to the ocean and never having to stress about traffic.  There are plenty of old unused rail beds and logging roads. But, we all know why they don’t do it. It costs money. Never mind that you or I might be certain it’s a good investment for all sorts of reasons.

This was going to be my first bike trip for the year. I don’t know how other people do it, but for me when packing for the first trip I feel a little muddy and kind of dim, like I’m not sure who I am or what I’m doing. I can never remember what all I’m supposed to bring. I tried to fix that problem a few years back by buying a big Rubbermaid tub and keeping all my touring gear together in one place. But each trip requires its own sorts of gear based on how long, where to, how cold or wet, etc. It can be hard to predict what sort of stuff you might need while out on your bike. There’s the fundamentals: You need to eat and to sleep. You’ll probably want to heat your food. You might want to brush your teeth and have coffee or tea in the morning. Maybe you like a little sugar in your coffee. 

Packing Light

I start with the stuff I need, and then for the rest I’m packing for contingencies. I like to talk to myself, ask myself questions: What if it rains. What if I get a flat. What if my zipper blows out. What if my camera battery dies. How many books will I really read. What if they seem to be cutting all the trees down in Oregon. Who’s going to know. Or care? And what am I going to do about it?

Packing for a bike trip is a balance between economy and comfort. You want to take the lightest and most compact gear you can afford, but at some point light and compact becomes detrimental to your own private views on creature comforts. Like for example a few years back I bought a tent, the Fly Creek made by Big Agnes. At the time it was the lightest tent on the market — it may still be — and if I’d had an extra couple of hundred dollars I could have gotten it with the carbon fiber poles and it would have weighed nothing at all. And talk about packing small — I could practically have put this thing in my pocket. Cool design, too, because of how simple it is. Really it’s not much more than a bivy sack. 

But for me there was one problem. It’s the kind of tent that opens at the end, the “head” end, and tapers down toward the feet. When I was inside, it felt claustrophobic and too much like a nylon coffin. If I thought too much about the walls of the tent I’d start feeling constricted and paranoid. Even exhausted after a full day of cycling I’d have trouble sleeping. If I did sleep I’d have terrible dreams, low budget terror flicks. It was like someone was slowly, very quietly wrapping my body up in plastic wrap, pinning my arms at my sides, making me into a mummy. I’d sweat cold. My breathing became restricted and short, panicked. I’d lie there and try talking myself down, but it never worked. The pressure would build and build and then I’d snap and yell and come tearing ass out of the tent gulping air, really kind of bothering the other people camping around me. 

Big Eddy Campground

I sold that tent to Mitch and bought myself a new tent, the MSR Hubba, which has a big wide door on the side, lots of breathing room. It’s still light and compact, but it won’t come close to fitting in my pocket. That’s fine, though, I’m willing to carry a little more weight for the added peace of mind. No dreams of being slowly digested by a snake. It takes time and experience to discover the gear that works best for you. 

If you’re considering riding the CZ trail all the way to Vernonia, be sure you know where you’re going. The actual CZ is only a few miles long, and at some unknown point    it ends and becomes an old logging road. The network of roads back there is immense in their mileage. I, of course, didn’t do my research before leaving Portland, and even though I borrowed Mike’s GPS when we parted ways, I missed the turn. Dirt and grass covered roads regularly split off the main gravel road to the left and the right, and if you don’t know what you’re doing you could get lost for a very long time. The last time I rode this trail was last year, and I went with some people who had the maps, so I hadn’t been paying too much attention to where we were going. This time, by myself, all the side roads looked the same. At some point, though, I suspected that I’d gone past my turn. There were views over the valleys that I didn’t remember from last time. The GPS was giving me trouble because I wasn’t sure how to access some of the functions. It told me that I was on some anonymous double-dotted line on the digital cartoon map, but I couldn’t locate that in the bigger picture. Worse, I’d hit a wrong button and it kept beeping at me, insisting I turn around, which didn’t help my growing unease and the sense of feeling lost. At some point I wanted to throw the GPS in the trees. But then the trees ended. What finally convinced me to turn around was when I arrived to a massive clear cut, nothing left but stumps and dirt. It looked like a gigantic garden tiller had come and upturned the earth, destroying everything. The gravel road wound through this wasteland for a couple of miles until at a fork I had a choice of going very steeply up or very steeply down. Both options seemed bad so I gave in to the annoying beeping and turned around. 

A few supplies

A few miles back the way I’d come and some twist of luck allowed me to find the turn on the GPS. I was convinced I was going to have to head many more miles back to the road and take that over the hills. This one bit of navigational help made having the GPS worthwhile. A mile or two down the turnoff and the road seems to end. Btu keep going. Over a mound of dirt and there’s a steep and rutted trail that takes you down to a dead end country road, paved. And in a couple more miles you’re in Vernonia. 

Sunset in Astoria

Quiet roads

I picked up supplies at the market (cider, food for the next day) and pedaled on to Big Eddy campground. Big Eddy is pretty much exactly the halfway point between Portland and Astoria if you’re cycling the old highways. The next day I was blessed again with perfect weather, and made good time riding on the rest of the way to Astoria. Such a gorgeous ride. I only saw one other cyclist the whole way. 

That night I stayed at the hostel and took the Point bus back to Portland the next morning. 

Mouth of the Columbia River from the Astoria Column

Some folks choose to get up early and ride all the way out to Astoria in one day. If you’re in shape for it, this allows you to pack light. There are enough places to pick up food and water along the way. I like to do this trip in two days. I’m not a hero, and besides, I wanted to camp overnight, kind of as a test run for future trips. The only way I can figure out what I’m doing wrong, and what I’m forgetting, is to get out there and do it. Kind of a reconnoissance mission for gear. And a trip like this has a low commitment. If I really botch it and forget to bring shoes or my sleeping bag or something, it’s not like I’m off on a multi-day adventure, or some big remote trip where my failures in packing gear will cause me great suffering or even death. It’s good to start small as a sort of practice for more intense bike trips. It boosts confidence, and reminds you who you are and how you can be. And it’s fun. 

Things to remember next time: head lamp, ibuprofen, a lemon (so refreshing in water bottles), flip flops, mosquito repellent, fewer books

Thinking With Your Ass

There are different wheel sizes out there

I don’t spend a lot of time in bike shops these days. When I do go, it’s usually to buy a part I forgot to order or to say hello to a friend. 

It happened the other day that I was in a bike shop actually shopping for bikes. The last time I did that was so long ago I can hardly remember, back in a different era of human history. A good friend of mine has a soon-to-be eleven year old son, Ethan, and I was at the shop to pick out a bike for him for his birthday. Ethan and his family are moving to Bend, Oregon this coming summer. When talking to anyone who’s spent time in Bend, there are mainly two things they talk about; cycling and skiing. I don’t know how it is for the skiers, but when people talk about their experiences mountain biking around Bend, their eyes get this far off look and they perceptibly begin salivating. They talk about it like it’s something out of a dream. Anyway, my friend William plans to introduce his son to trail riding, and to do so he needs a bike. The criteria for the bike were pretty simple: Suspension, knobby tires, good brakes, room to grow. 

William and I had talked about my building a bike for Ethan, but he’s just getting to the age where he (Ethan) is growing an inch or so every couple of months. Shoes come and go faster than the seasons change. We thought it might be smarter to wait on the custom bike until he’s gets to whatever height he’s going to stay at for a while. 

William’s wife, Natacha, met me at the shop. She, too, will be riding some trails in Bend with the family, and so would be looking for a bike. Nothing fancy or high end for either of them. We chose an extra small adult bike for Ethan. It’s basic, satisfies the needs, colors and graphics not too offensive, ready to ride at under $400. 

When looking at bikes for Natacha, who is about five-foot-eight, we looked at the “entry level” mountain bikes, i.e.. inexpensive. It still blows my mind that you can buy a perfectly good new bike for under $500. If you consider the price mark-ups at each point from the factory in Asia where the bike was made to the port and then distribution center(s) in the USA, including the paint, shipping costs, any tariffs, parts and assembly, and then there’s the mark up at the shop where the bike is being sold to the consumer — if you work backwards to the beginning of all those costs, all the way back to the factory, it means that the bike, complete and ready to ride originally cost under $50. Probably more like $20. That’s for the whole bike. For $20 I can afford one mid-quality top tube. I don’t want to bitch about the economics of bicycles, and cheap imports in general, but when I’m faced with the truth of it it’s somewhat mystifying. 

But anyway, while shopping for bikes we were helped by a very friendly salesperson, I’ll call him Stephen. When picking out Natacha’s bike, one of the first things that Stephen told us was this: “All the bike companies are transitioning over to the 650b wheel size. 26 inch wheels are going to be obsolete.” I did a sort of auditory double-take. “What?” I thought. “Are you serious?”

Looking around, it seemed that he was. Serious, I mean. All the newest adult mountain bikes on the floor of the shop had 650b, or 27.5 inch wheels. I don’t read the magazines, I don’t follow market trends. I’m around bike people enough, and have plenty of friends working at shops, so I’ve heard talk about the rise in popularity of the 650b wheel size. But not on this scale, or maybe I wasn’t listening very well. We’ve been talking about this wheel for several years now. Coming to find out that this once very niche market has gone totally mainstream and now in fact has supplanted both the 29er and the 26er wheel sizes seemed a little crazy. Like, if you’ve got a friend who’s always turned up his nose at grape Kool Aid, ever since you can remember he went for either cherry or lemon-lime, ever since you were little kids. And now, suddenly he’s got the tell-tale grape mustache, and all he ever talks about anymore is how grape Kool Aid is the shit, it’s the only beverage worth drinking, he won’t let his mom buy anything else, there’s nothing else like it, etc., etc.. It makes you shake your head because there’s something kind of sad about it. And in fact it might hint at some sort of, I don’t know, instability in your friend. 

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with 650b as a wheel size. I personally really like it for the applications that I use it for. To my mind, and in my opinion, for most people who ride bikes as commuters, go on light tours, or for whom a bike is very part time recreation, for anyone buying “entry level,” or even “mid level” bikes, and even many versions of the “high end” bikes, wheel size ought to be proportionate to the frame size. Smaller bikes, smaller wheels; larger, larger. That’s a general rule of thumb, not a law set in stone. In this way, you can nail the frame geometry and get the best ride quality and most desirable handling characteristics. There’s some room to play in bike design, of course, and the way a bike feels is very subjective. To my mind, again, the way a bike handles is way more important than the way a distant factory is tooled, and the consequent pushing and shoving of marketers. 

When the entire market shifts in this way, and broad claims are made, such as the one that “twenty-six inch wheels are on their way to obsolescence,” I immediately become suspicious. Was that just a blanket statement by a salesperson who was more concerned with selling his shop’s products? Or was his statement an example of the voice of the industry? 

These industry-wide re-inventions seems to happen in regular enough cycles that it might be possible to name it. There’s a sort of herd-induced excitement whenever anything “new” catches on in the bike world. In very loose historic terms, in the 1970’s and 80’s it was BMX; in the 90’s, mountain bikes and a little later downhill bikes; in the early 2000’s, 29ers were all the rage (before hitting the main stream, that was most of what I built); mid-to-late 2000’s hand made custom bikes became very popular; and somewhere in there plastic bikes started to really take off; in the early 2010’s it was fat bikes, commuter bikes, and especially in Europe and Asia, electric bikes. And now, here we are in 2015 and our wheel size has settled into the era of the 650b. That’s great. A new trend has arrived. No judgement, I’m just noticing. 

In all these words I’ve written about this I don’t offer much in the way of specific guidance. I really am just taking note. I think maybe my only real message is to keep your eyes open and think for yourself. When the market tries to push anything on you, take it with a grain of salt. Educate yourself and formulate your own conclusions. Which, in this case, is another way to say, get on a bike with 650b wheels and ride it. Your ass will tell you what it thinks.