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 […]
Gravel
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 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 […]
Packing List Olympic Circumnavigation
What I brought, what I left behind and what I wish I’d brought