I like how ideas form in the mind. They get in there, roll around a bit, they grow and mature, and before you know it you have a plan. My latest plan combined two goals: do Rapha’s Festive 500 (500 km between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day) and complete a 500 km brevet (500 […]
Author: MikeMcGuffin
Taillight Thoughts
I recently read a discussion on my local gravel riding Facebook group regarding rear taillights. One of the super experienced local dudes, made a solid suggestion: go AAA battery powered. In my experience batteries are the way to go. I have not had a positive experience with rechargeable bike lights. For headlights I have a […]
Green Mountain Tahuya Adventure
My recent ride through the Green Mountain and Tahuya State Forests hit all of the high points for a great day of cycling: great company, great terrain, great scenery, great (albeit cold) weather and great adventure. Mike, Ryan and myself boarded the Seattle-to-Bremerton Ferry with a kind of cursory agenda to explore the spit of […]
A New Life For Mr. Moots
My Moots PsychloX RSL and I have gone through a lot together. We’ve ridden the streets of Paris, the cobbled climbs of Flanders, the rolling hills of Iowa and the smooth gravel of Idaho, but, most importantly, it’s been my cyclocross racing steed over the past five years. Like any Moots it’s a head-turner, […]
Bicycle Speed Shop
When it comes to writing, or I suppose life in general, I’m an advocate of a balanced approach – to every ying there’s a yang. Today I hope to provide some positive ying to yesterday’s negative yang. Mellow Johnny’s left me flat, but the Bicycle Speed Shop in Houston’s Houston Heights district elevated my two […]
A Trip to Austin
Currently I’m anchored down in Houston, and in an effort to pass a little time I decided to take my father-in-law on a five-hour road trip to Mellow Johnny’s Bike shop in Austin. I enjoy visiting bike shops, just as I enjoy checking out wood/metal workshops and artist studios. When done well these spaces have […]
Crank Stranger
After an hour-long drive down narrow fog shrouded Texas farm roads I followed the sign and turned right down the gravel driveway towards Huff Brewing. Riders were already heading out for a day of gravel riding east of Houston on the organized ride known as the Crank Stranger. Bicycling events are few and far between […]
Prison Run at Four Notch
For me bicycling is about community, and while spending two weeks down in Houston I was happy to find a loose affiliation of riders known as the Houston Gravel Grinders. Via the HGG Facebook page I met Mandi, owner of Race Ready Repair in Conroe, Texas, who invited me on a 44 mile gravel ride […]
Itsabitch
Fall is here, but that doesn’t mean that that bicycle adventure has to go into hibernation. As I so often like to say: adventure is outcome uncertain, and this ride certainly had a moment of uncertainty. I wanted a new and more challenging/interesting way to link up the eastern and western sides of the Snoqualmie […]
The Unpaved Masses
In the before times many of us two-wheelers here in the Pacific Northwest eagerly anticipated the drab, gray, wet, perhaps even hostile, coming of winter weather. This excited anticipation could be summed up in one word: cyclocross. We of the wet north not only tolerate cold, wet riding conditions, but we actually celebrate the mud […]