Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Ice Fog & Dill Pickle (2015-11-28)

I was hoping to get a good century ride in, but the weather wasn't cooperating. I ended up bailing and hanging out at my parents' place for a couple hours before going out again. The latter part of the ride was much more enjoyable.

This was my first ride featuring a custom Dill Pickle Gear bag I had ordered even before I'd gotten the Swift Industries bags I'd been using since July. It took a while to get done, and it sort of fell by the wayside until recently. The bag had arrived the previous week, but I didn't want to open it quite yet…until the night before this ride.

More after the break…

Friday, November 27, 2015

To Index…With Friction Shifting! (2015-11-21)

On a chilly morning only a week after two major storms and floods, I headed into the Skykomish River Valley. In the end, my only problem was the saddle position, which was too low and far back.

Related albums:

More after the break…

Friday, November 20, 2015

Don't go Into the Mountains During a Storm (2015-11-14,15)

My plan on this ride was to go off-road to avoid the drone of wet car tires. I ended up with more than I had gambled for with a flood warning and wind advisory, with the worst flooding taking place precisely where I was headed. After getting banged up a few times, I visited a friend. The latter half of my ride was an exercise in hypothermia, and I gave up after my worst fall. I phoned in a ride from my parents, then rode home the next morning after recuperating.

Related albums:

More after the break…

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Cross Kirkland Corridor (2015-10-31)

It's not connected at either end well enough to be useful in my longer rides, but since I didn't want to deal with the nasty weather during all my waking hours, I decided to check it out this time.

More after the break…

Thursday, October 29, 2015

5:15 Pacer to Orting (2015-10-24)

This was my Surly Pacer's first long ride, and it definitely was faster than my touring bikes!

There really isn't too much to this ride as I had to get back home for an event at a reasonable hour.

Related albums:

More after the break…

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Lost in the Woods (Cedar River and Green River) (2015-10-17)

I rode out on the Cedar River Trail and down the connector trail until it sort of "vanished." After that, I wandered in the woods for a couple hours before finding a bike trail to the highway, which got me to the Green Valley. From there, getting home was easy.

Related albums:

More after the break…

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Mount Rainier National Park (2015-10-11)

After having a final saddle adjustment done on my Double Cross, I did this ride. My plan was about 200 km, but since Saturday's nasty weather pushed this ride to Sunday and I had work the next day, I had to take the bus to save time on the return trip.

Related albums:

More after the break…

Gig Harbor and Olalla II (2015-09-12)

My first ride along the Kitsap Peninsula in quite some time.

More after the break…

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Bicycle Quarterly Un-meeting 2015 (2015-09-25, 26, 27)

I rode out with Mark to the BQ event in Cle Elum. Whenever I tried to ride with them, I had a hard time keeping up, and my pace was much slower than normal on my Surly Troll. As it turns out, my seatpost had been slipping ever since I had the bike fitted over a week ago and was 3cm too low!

Now I have to go to the next event on it to see if I'll have an easier time. Only rigorous testing will tell!

Throughout the trip, Mark proved to be a good source of information, inspiration, and a great riding partner. His trip wasn't done with the Cle Elum, leg, though, as his final destination of this ride was Portland.

Related albums:

More after the break…

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Trolling Snohomish County (2015-09-19)

With my new Surly Troll (built using parts from the old Trek 950) nearly complete, I took it for a spin up through Snohomish County. I rode with my father for a bit, too.

Related albums:

More after the break…

Friday, September 11, 2015

Looping the Lakes (2015-09-07)

After doing a Foothills loop, I did a shorter ride since I had the time.

Saturday's ride was a resounding success, so why not do another one of a decent length?

More after the break…

Thursday, September 10, 2015

Short Foothills Loop (2015-09-05)

To get adjusted to the new fit tweak and custom insoles, I did a shorter century. While the new tires were awesome of gravel, I did get drenched for an hour as I approached the end of my ride.

Related albums:

More after the break…

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Riding to the Gigantic Bicycle Festival (2015-08-22)

I wanted to check out the festival. I think I'll do the overnight stay next year, as it'll be more interesting.

Related albums:

For more information, see the Gigantic Bicycle Festival website.

More after the break…

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Middle Fork Snoqualmie (2015-08-15)

Another gravel adventure! I went up to the Middle Fork Snoqualmie campground on my Soma Double Cross.

Related albums:

More after the break…

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Getting Serious Again (2015-08-08)

After trying to get the fit on my bikes right on my own, I gave up and decided that I'd been wasting my time for too long. I had R+E fit my Double Cross and Aurora Elite, and now I'm adjusting to the new fit.

After riding my Soma Double Cross for so long, riding my Jamis Aurora Elite made me realize a couple things:

  1. My Double Cross definitely has a more flexible frame. It's most obvious when climbing, as the chainring hits either side of the front derailleur cage an the bottom bracket area flexes, and it tends to be a little noodly when unloaded, and kind of unpredictable when loaded. However, the frame combined with the wider tires makes the bike much more comfortable on rough roads.
  2. I prefer the modulation of the low-profile cantilever brakes on my Double Cross over the Avid BB7 disc brakes on my Aurora Elite. I was kind of freaked out when braking on the latter because they just didn't feel right.

Of course, both bikes are excellent in my opinion; they just have different design goals.

More after the break…

Monday, August 3, 2015

Cedar River Watershed Tour (2015-08-01)

After a couple of attempts to see what it's like in there by riding to the boundaries, I finally went on an official tour of it.

More after the break…

Friday, July 31, 2015

East Lake Sammamish Trail & New Fit (2015-07-25)

With the new fit utilizing new muscles, my range was cut a bit. I also only had so many hours to ride this morning. Thus, I just did a short exploratory ride along the East Lake Sammamish Trail, much of which still features a gravel surface.

I also didn't have a phone on me at all during the ride, so all the tweets are from after I got home.

More after the break…

Friday, July 17, 2015

Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic 2015 (mid-July)

Another year, another STP!

Since this post will cover several days, I'll do my best to jot down notable events from my journey and stay in Portland, rather than listing every last thing that happened. The tweets will have a lot of the details.

  1. STP Day 1
  2. STP Day 2
  3. Portland Day 1
  4. Portland Day 2
  5. Return Home

More after the break…

Friday, July 10, 2015

More Bike Fitting (2015-07-08)

A properly angled saddle helps a lot.

This is my third long ride in five days. As the focus was saddle adjustment, I'll be fairly terse this this post too.

More after the break…

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Testing Out Compass Tires (2015-07-04)

I rode my mountain touring bike this time, but it had some Compass Bicycle tires instead of the Schwalbe Marathon Mondials I'd been riding with.

Since I did two centuries on this weekend, I'm going to be more terse than usual with these posts.

More after the break…

Monday, July 6, 2015

Arlington Again (2015-07-03)

After leveling out Red Miles's saddle, I tried my wrench at fitting it again. I got it pretty close, but still need to tweak it again with fresh knees.

Since I did two centuries on this weekend, I'm going to be more terse than usual with these posts.

More after the break…

Thursday, July 2, 2015

Sequim IV (2015-02-27)

A long ride to Sequim on one of the hottest weekends so far. I had to endure significant crotch pain thanks to my worn-out saddle.

Related albums:

More after the break…

Monday, June 22, 2015

East of Duvall (2015-06-20)

I skirted both sides of the Snoqualmie Valley, finding some odd things.

I finally figured out the needed tactic for getting the fit right! I spent most of the ride figuring out what I needed to do and made the correct adjustments.

More after the break…

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

John Wayne Pioneer Trail (2015-06-06 and 07)

Crossing the Cascade Range by miles and miles of gravel!

Related albums:

After my big tour a couple weeks back, I realized that my free time is mine to spend; I don't need to follow a weekend routine. Thus, I decided to go out on a little Trek.

More after the break…

Monday, June 1, 2015

Washington ACA Northern Tier (May 2015)

My first real bike tour, riding with Kyle who was raising funds for his brother's hospital bills. This took me along the North Cascades Highway (SR-20) and over five mountain passes!

Total length: about 496 miles.

Since there'll be too much for me to remember everything, I'm going to just jot down stuff I can remember for each day and night. I was messing with my bike's fit the whole time, and finally figured out the right pattern to follow toward the end of the tour.

There are nearly 1,000 photos among the albums, and a number of them have long descriptions detailing how they're relevant. If you want more details of the tour, check those out.

Throughout the ride, I noticed a few things:

  • I'm used to sugar cravings from my other long rides, but this was the first ride where overwhelming salt cravings have ever hit me.
  • It's amazing how one sees several climate zones across Washington, and Kyle commented on that many times.
  • Wasps kept staring my bike down while I wasn't riding it.
  • Rural properties tend to accumulate a lot of destroyed cars and other trash.

More after the break…

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Foothills Loop (2015-05-09)

After a couple of incomplete loops due to bad circumstances, I finally managed to complete it proper. I finalized my fit adjustment technique, which has allowed me to make better progress than ever before on it.

Related albums:

More after the break…

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Conway (2015-05-02)

A ride with fitting along the way. The end result seems good.

Related albums:

More after the break…

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Centennial Trail III (2015-04-18)

Another go at it, working on a bike's fit.

More after the break…

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Wilkeson, Detour, and Too Much Caffeine (2015-04-04)

I really shouldn't have had that coffee so early, but at least the bike's fit has been solved. The detour around SR-410 finally did me in, unfortunately.

Related albums:

More after the break…

Monday, March 30, 2015

Another Bicycle Fitting Adventure (2015-03-28)

I think I got it right in the end.

Since I was focusing so much on the bike fit, I didn't get very many photos. Here are some older photos from the areas through which I passed.

More after the break…

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Snoqualmie Valley Trail (2015-03-21)

My first century involving a lot of gravel.

Related albums:

More after the break…

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Cedar River Trail (2015-03-14)

This was my first ride with a significant amount off of pavement, in which I rode along the outer reaches of the Cedar River Trail.

It rained for most of the time, and my lens and lens cloth were soaked after a while, so a number of photos are blurry thanks to the film of water. I tried to choose the best of the blurry ones so I wouldn't leave out some interesting sights. At least it isn't as obnoxious as some Instagram filters I've seen out there.

Related albums:

More after the break…

Monday, March 2, 2015

Easing Back Into Things (2015-02-28)

After not having gone on a long ride for a month, I pushed ahead. It was not an easy ride at the end.

After screwing up my bike's fit in order to get my sit bone onto my saddle's leather instead of the metal, getting myself really sick after riding with a cold necessitating a week off the bike, being too stubborn to get the bike fit since I plan to sell it in favor of something even fancier eventually, and trying hard one last time, I gave up a long ride for another weekend due to fear of injury. I did go on a sizable photo walk that weekend, though.

I put my foot down and got the bike fit the week before this ride, and boy was it needed!

More after the break…

Getting Back in the Swing (2015-02-14)

After my last ride left me rather ill, I haven't felt enough to ride all the following week. I managed to commute to work the second week, but this was my first long ride since then.

The last big ride ended up making me far sicker and more worn out at the end, so I decided to do a shorter one this time. I've done this leg so often that I'm not really inspired enough to dig up photos.

More after the break…

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Darrington (2015-01-31)

The word of the day is 'Stillaguamish.' Riding like this while sick is never a good idea.

Related album

More after the break…

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Granite Falls and Arlington II (2015-01-24)

Another excursion out in the Sonohmish County foothills. I'm not too happy with the blurriness in some of the photos, and will make sure to take multiple shots each time from now on, as I had been doing in the past.

And, of course, some related albums:

More after the break…

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

I wish I had brought my camera (2015-01-19)

I forgot my camera at home this time, so I don't really have any photos. My plan was to ride to Lake Chaplain, but I decided against it since I didn't have my camera. After I got home, I found out that the only way to access it is via gravel roads.

Since I didn't really take any photos, I only have maps from the ride. Here are some photos from the areas through which I rode, though:

More after the break…

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Carbon and Green Valleys II (2015-01-10)

Another ride through these areas, though I was too burned out from over-exertion caused by caffeine to ride everything I had planned.

Related albums:

More after the break…

Friday, January 9, 2015

Quilcene II (2015-01-03)

Headed out to Quilcene again to try my hand at panoramas.

Some related albums:

More after the break…

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Kitsap Loop (2014-12-31)

A short ride with its main portion from Bainbridge Island to Southworth.

NOTE: It's been a week since I did this ride, so I won't remember all the details correctly.

More after the break…

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Snoqualmie–Preston (2014-12-29)

Exploring a fairly far-out area in the Cascade Foothills.

I've been curious about how the Preston–Snoqualmie Trail ends for quite some time as there's always been a little bit of a tail past the end of the trail. As I was looking to do a ride that wasn't as long this time, this trek was perfect for doing so.

NOTE: It's been over a week since I did this ride, so I won't remember all the details correctly.

More after the break…

Monday, January 5, 2015

Centennial Trail II (2014-12-27)

Getting tired of rain and caffeine. Friction shifting is cool, though.

NOTE: It's been over a week since I did this ride, so I won't remember all the details correctly.

Relevant albums:

More after the break…