landscapecycling

evil anti-cycling microbes

2009-01-06T14:48:00.007-05:00

For years now, I've been making excuses for not riding as much as I want to (or should) because of a long string of sinus infections. In my worst year, I think I had six or seven infections, and most of them kept me off the bike for a couple of days to a week. The first theory was that allergies were setting off the infections, but now it looks like that's not true.

The latest one has lasted three months, and still isn't gone; I'm starting on my fifth antibiotic since October. Now, it's starting to look like I haven't had lots of sinus infections--I might just have had one long and incredibly treatment-resistant one that has never gone away. I may the lucky winner of a case of chronic sinusitis. (I'd rather have the equivalent cash value.)

Clearly the tiny civilization that I'm harboring in my sinuses has turned anti-bike, and decided to take it out on me. Perhaps they're still bitter about the election results. Their evil plan to keep me from riding has worked pretty well in the last few months--I've gotten out, but I've never really felt right.

But the time has come to turn the full force of modern radiology on them--I'll be getting a CT scan in two weeks. This seems dramatic (not to say silly) for a mere infection, but at least I can see how reality compares to all those "House M.D." episodes I've been watching.

Anyway--my New Year's Resolution is to eradicate the usurpers of my breathing passages and get back to riding every day.

(How is this related to landscapes and cycling? I dunno. Maybe I'll post a panoramic view of my sphenoid sinus or something. No?)

basement bike project #2: the mixed-terrain mutt

2008-12-03T13:45:00.001-05:00

A while back, I was reading the "cyclocross" section of the late Tom Cuthbertson's Bike Tripping. Not long after he described the insane roughness of 'cross courses, Cuthbertson used the phrase "cyclocross tripping for fun," and I knew the book was going to be a keeper. When I read that phrase, I thought "that's it! That's what I want to do."

For a long time, the bike I've most wanted has been a light-but-strong road bike with room for wide tires (38mm or so) and (probably)cantilever brakes, for use on "mixed-terrain" rides. Now and then I'd see a bike like cyclofiend's "C. Xavier Hilsen" that would really flip my switch. But now that the Heron Wayfarer is no longer available, and since I haven't won any Free Custom Bike lotteries, I had pretty much given up on the idea of getting that kind of bike anytime soon.

But then the "turn the parts pile into bikes" idea came along (see Episode 1 here), and I realized that I could cobble together some sort of mixed-terrain bike with the Schwinn Super Le Tour frame that I was given a while back. It's not ideal--it originally came with sidepull brakes, takes a 0.833" stem, only has a bolt-on derailleur hanger, and seriously needs a paint job--but it's a double-butted 4130 frame, the tire clearance is passable, and the frame is in decent shape. And I figure it's better to have a good-enough bike and enjoy it than to pine for the perfect bike that may be years away.

Since I'd often been frustrated with setting up cantilevers, even if they do look nice and (eventually) work well, I figured this would be a good time to try centerpulls. If they're good enough for Homer Hilsen, they're good enough for my mutt-bike, and should work better than sidepulls for mixed-terrain riding. So, with that decision, I dove into the pile and, bit by bit, as time permitted, started assembling the bike. Until last night, it was hanging from a hook in the basement and very slowly evolving from a bare frame to a working bicycle.

The first test ride was my morning commute--always a dangerous idea--and it was a big change from any of my other bikes. The bars felt low, and the bike seemed a bit twitchy at the front, but that's OK for a bike that will see some trail use. After a few adjustments--front derailleur limits, seat position--it should be ready to get muddy.

And here it is:

[click for bigger, if you want to see the rust and paint chips really well]

More pictures here.

I wish I could say that the parts pile was noticeably smaller and tidier after all this....

The ingredients:

* 1980s Schwinn Super Le Tour frame/fork/headset
* rummage-sale wheels - rear Mavic MA40 with Campy freewheel hub, front Ambrosio with Campy hub (These are my first Campy components. The rear wheel needed a minor rim repair and new grease for the bearings)
* WTB 700x38 All-Terrainasaurus tires+ - found these on ebay after reading jimg's rave reviews
* Shimano XT derailleur on bolt-on hanger - seems like some sort of heresy
* Fuji 110bcd double crank with 48/38 rings (all I had; will probably change to 48/34 soon) and a nice NOS Vuelta bashring/chainguard+ from ebay)
* Shimano 600 14-32 six-speed freewheel - the 7-speed I wanted to use was too wide, and jammed on the inside surface of the bolt-on hanger. 14-32 is a bit low, but I should have a 13-34 Megarange 6-speed soon, which would work well with a 48/34 crank
* MKS pedals bought from Tim Fricker, with MKS toe-clips
* 45cm Nitto B115 drop bars - my favorite
* "Schwinn approved" Dia-Compe centerpulls from somewhere or other
* Shimano 600 aero levers and Nashbar interrupter levers
* various original components - 0.833" SR stem (I really need a taller stem, but can't find one in that size), Suntour Symmetric top-of-downtube shifters, Suntour ARx front derailleur, 25.4 seatpost with original shim
* take-off seat from Bike Friday tandem - this will probably be replaced

+ = the only bits I had to buy, all from ebay in this case

land access and topographic writing

2008-12-01T19:15:00.004-05:00

The British writer Robert MacFarlane wrote a very nice article in the Guardian a few years ago about the dedication, and time, needed to produce the best nature and landscape writing.

The best topographic writer I know of working right now* is Tim Robinson. His books on the Aran Islands and Connemara prove MacFarlane's assertion that "lyricism is a function of detail, and not of abstraction." Robinson's repeated walks across those landscapes, which led to both maps and books, are the foundation of his absorbing work.

But what if Robinson had been forced to base his maps and books about all those fields, rock platforms, bogs, beaches, cliffs, woods, pastures, streams, islets, and ruins on what he could see while standing on the public roads, visiting public parks (if there are any there), and entering private lands where he either knew the landowners or could secure formal permission to visit? (Fortunately, he does seem to have a good relationship with other residents).

This may seem like an extreme scenario, but it seems to be what faces landscape writers and artists in the United States, where there is absolutely no public access to land outside of public rights-of-way and parks. Land access is a fuzzy issue in many countries, and the expectations are based on respect and caution. In Scandinavian countries, all land is essentially open to foot access, provided that walkers maintain a respectful distance from homes, crops, and livestock. But in the US, stepping off public land is literally a crime--even if no damage is done, and even is the "trespasser" is only a respectful observer (of the landscape, not of the private details of individual lives).

Of course, part of the issue is the sheer density of people, and landowners' reaction to that. In places dominated by wilderness or extensive grazing, walkers pose little threat. And on land occupied by cultures who do not so painstakingly delimit ownership, binary "yes/no" access rules probably aren't felt to be necessary. Even in the part of Virginia where I live, I have heard from older residents that land access was much more casual through most of the 20th century, but that it has tightened up as more outsiders have moved in.

Probably this issue will be fuzzier than I've made it sound. In many places, some landowners might be more open to uncontrolled access by writers and artists--although that may require even more time and committment, before the work can really be done, just to get to know people, and with no guarantee that enough access will be granted to make the work possible. In others, perhaps on small islands or near very small towns, walkers may not yet be seen as a threat--Henry Beston's wanderings around his "Outermost House" would probably be much more diffiicult now tha Cape Cod is so developed.

But all this isn't meant to say that topographic writing is impossible here. It's just a problem to be overcome, and the solutions are probably as tied to place as the research and writing must be.

* Please suggest others--I'm always looking for more good writers in this vein.

basement bike project #1: the woods/trials bike

2008-11-24T14:20:00.012-05:00

For a long time, I've been curious about bicycle trials, which is the opposite of my usual cycling interests. Rather than long exploring rides, it's about bike control over short, extremely tricky "sections" that might include rocks, trees, walls, and other obstacles, and that require difficult leaps and drops.

After finally seeing a competition, I had the same reaction to bike trials that I had to my brief dabblings in rock climbing and whitewater kayaking--they're things I like (or would like) to do, but ideally not as ends in themselves. My imagination tends toward trips, rather than actions--experience over time and distance, rather than intense athletic feats. If I climb a rock wall, I want to do it because it's the way to a great hike. If I go kayaking, I'd rather drift for days down a river than have an intense afternoon in a boulder garden.

Bike trials, especially the free-form urban riding that you see in videos, has the air of skateboarding--just a bunch of guys messing around, being daredevils and not really going anywhere. Most trials bikes only have one extremely low gear, and no seat--you can't go very far. Some have to have at least six speeds to qualify for certain competitions, but nobody shifts much, and it's not as if they put panniers on the trials bike and ride to the competition. (Although hauling a trials bike on a cargo bike would make for an interesting day out.)

But the thing is--riding trials looks like a lot of fun. Not so much the pogoing around on concrete walls and stacks of pallets, but scrambling around out in the woods and on rocks--the kinds of places I would ride to anyway. And the people I met at the trials competition were very open and friendly, more supportive and friendly than competitive.

So I started to wonder--what kind of bike could you take for real rides, but still use to make easier trials moves out in the woods? Any sane person would just say "mountain bike" and leave it at that. But a properly-sized MTB frame doesn't leave much room for trials moves (there's a reason that real trials bikes have no real "top tubes" or seats).

The usual advice for somebody just starting with trials is to use a too-small mountain bike until they're sure they like it well enough to buy a trials bike. I had also just read about Geoff Apps's "Dingbat" bike, which was a 24" trials-influenced version of his off-road cycles designed for the trails in his part of England.

So I decided to build up a homebrew Dingbat out of my basement parts stash (aka "that mess downstairs") and a small MTB frame. With a bit of luck, I found a free 14.5" Trek 800 frameset (I'd normally ride an 18-19" MTB, and my old MTB commuter was closer to 22"). With a seat, it'd be a passable MTB for messing around on trails with the kid. With the seatpost pulled out, it'd leave enough standover for minor trials moves. (I still need to find a way to clip the seatpost to the bars so it can be carried along.) In the end, I had to buy some pieces to make it work, but in general it was a very cheap project.

After the bike was almost done, I found this useful page on how to set up mountain bikes for trials use. And here's a blog post from another middle-aged guy, in Malaysia this time, who went through setting up an MTB for trials.

In many ways, my new bike is just plain wrong. It doesn't fit what I would normally want for a bike, it's not ideal for any one activity, and it's certainly not the typical iBoB homebrew-trad setup. The word "underbike" should never be uttered around this thing. And, to be honest, it's ugly. But it's been fun (read: "frustrating, but fun in hindsight") getting all the pieces to work together. And, as one commute ride proved, this isn't going to be a bike for long-haul trips--more for playing around in the woods and at campgrounds. The end result isn't much like the Cleland Dingbat, but you work with the inspiration and the parts you have.

Come to think of it--after all this blather, what it looks like the most is an oversized BMX bike. Ah, well.

So here it is, in woods mode and trials mode:

[click for bigger]

[click for bigger] Edited with a new picture. Thanks to jimg and cyclofiend for the advice--it's simpler and safer to just drop the seat than to take the seat and post out and carry them elsewhere. I had thought that wouldn't work, but it does.

The ingredients:

* 1992 Trek 800 Antelope MTB frame, 14.5" size, free
* Single-wall rear wheel with high-flange hub from my 1983 Schwinn Cimarron (this is the component that worries me the most)
* Front wheel with double-wall Sun rim and XTR hub (!) -- $5 at a used-stuff sale
* Tioga "Yellow Kirin" 26x2.35 tires with heavy sidewalls and small square knobs - my first-ever purchase of "downhill/freeride" tires, but for $12, they'll do as a substitute for $60 trials tires
* Nitto riser bars (22.2 clamp!) from the Cimarron -- they were ridiculous on that bike, but they're perfect for this one. Thanks to Bens Cycle for still carrying the elusive 22.2-to-25.4 shim
* 12cm SR road stem (was too long for Univega road bike)
* Suntour XC Comp triple crank with a single 34t ring
* Blackspire bash ring--a nice used find, since the new ones for 110bcd cranks seem to be very hard to get.
* Shimano Megarange 13-34 7sp freewheel and Shimano LX rear derailleur, both from the Cimarron
* Tektro v-brakes and cheap Avid v-levers (I tried to use the high-profile cantis from the Cimarron, but with this tiny frame, both feet would snag on the brakes when I pedalled. The original brakes and levers from the frame were wrecked.)
* Chinese friction thumb shifter
* take-off seat from the Bike Friday tandem
* 400mm (!) seatpost - new

from the museum of topographica (1)

2008-11-18T14:01:00.006-05:00

Attached is a report on a newly-found item of interest to the museum's collections on landscape photography, mapping, and topography (in both senses).

Item 2008-001.
Year created: 1917
Author/creator (if known): James W. Bagley
Title: The Use of the Panoramic Camera in Topographic Surveying (United States Geological Survey Bulletin 657)
Format: Paper document - sewn and glued signatures in paper outer cover
Size: 14.7 cm x 23.1cm
Acquisition comment: This item came up in a online search for a different book, but I couldn't resist an obscure, obsolete government document on panoramic landscape photography, topography, and mapping.

[click for larger]

[click for larger]

[click for larger]

cyclocross courses

2008-11-14T10:53:00.005-05:00

It's cross season, and I'm hoping to massively increase my attendance to TWO whole events this year. Well, parts of two. So far, I've been to part of one--the annual "Urban Cross" event here in Charlottesville, which is on the site of an old factory that is being redeveloped. The course has some nice elements--a sandpit that degrades entertainingly throughout a race, some deceptively-smooth-looking gravel, a set of railroad-tie steps to ascend, etc. I'll put some pictures up on Flickr soon.

But the more cross races I watch, the more I think of the line from Tom Cuthbertson's "Bike Tripping" (one of my favorite cycling books--"there have been cyclocross races on courses through which some of the riders could stay aboard the bike, bu those weren't serious cyclocross races."

Now, let me first admit that I would probably collapse and die if I tried to take on a cyclocross race, and that I certainly don't have the skills of most of the riders. I have huge respect for anybody who takes on these races. But I've been surprised that most of the courses I've seen in person or online look more like grass-track racing with slopes than the mud, rocks, stumps, narrow trails, rough roads, etc that I expected from the real enthusiasts' descriptions of cyclocross and those great pictures from the French races back in the 30s. Large portions of modern courses just seem to be lines and lines of tape marking out back-and-forth routes across yards and sports fields.

This isn't really meant as a criticism--I'm just wondering why course design has changed this way. Maybe it's that there aren't many places where you can get access to have a race and ride in conditions like that. If you have to use a public park, you're probably not allowed to create a big mudhole or to route the riders through a big swampy puddle. Private land is probably hard to find because of liability and insurance problems.

If anybody has examples of rougher, more varied courses, it'd be fun to see them. It'd also be interesting to have cyclocross "scrambles"--point-to-point races over rough terrain, rather than laps. Of course, that's less spectator-friendly, and makes the land-access problems even more difficult.

[Note to blogger spell-checker: "cyclocross" is a word, so you can stop with the little red underlines.]

that northwest downhill thing

2008-11-11T10:35:00.005-05:00

I google-tripped into one of those videos of mountain-bikers in the northwest flying downhill between tree trunks with moss everywhere, and all I could think was "watch out for the Ewoks!!!!"

Next t-shirt: "I endo'd on Endor."

notice of blog quality standards violation - ref. # 2008-00012D

2008-11-06T19:26:00.015-05:00

Landscapecycling LLC's central office received the following e-mail this morning:

NOTICE is hereby given that the blog post quoted below has been found in violation of the expected quality standards of written Internet communication (reference ISO communication standards) by the Federal Communication Standards Agency. Specific objections are included below.

Further violations may result in fines, confiscation of computer equipment, and/or listing of the author's name, home address and other personal information on publicly-accessible print and online violator registries designed to provide citizens with warning of the violator's location and violation history in the interest of community safety.

The author of this blog shall post the full contents of this notice on the blog within 24 hours under penalty of law.

Inspector 47-B

the longlow aesthetic [violation: unnecessarily pretentious and recherche title]

How can a bicycle be beautiful? [Opening with a question--violation of false-creativity standards (Section 13)] It's no more than a spindly arrangement of structural materials and small moving parts. Seen from the side, it's mostly not there--it's hard to take an autofocus picture of a bicycle, since most of the area within the wheels and frame is empty space. [Probable plagiarism--sentence will be referred to Copyright Inspector. Also, repetition violation type 2: failed attempt to reinforce point by unnecessarily restating idea.] But whether or not they are visually beautiful--and some are--bicycles can become attractive through the kinds of experience they suggest or recall. [Clumsy sentence violation]

For me, the bicycles most likely to cause this reaction are traditional-looking steel bikes of a certain type, but this is not an exercise in nostalgia. [Questionable-assertion violation.] Light, nimble road bikes with tires and brakes that can handle anything from paved roads to single-track paths will always be my ideal, no matter what else I also ride and enjoy. Rivendell Bicycle Works used to call these bike "longlows"--road bikes, but with long wheel bases and low bottom brackets. Stable, fun bikes that offer long days of exploration and enjoyment, rather than twitchy racers.[Major received-idea violation--attempting to curry favor with audience by restating idea popularized by more experienced persons. Cf. standards regarding unnecessary repetition of ideas contained in existing works. ]

It's an aesthetic based on implied experience, on the promise of something more than routine transportation and less than high-adrenaline thrills. On expanses of time spent moving through and experiencing a landscape.[Style violation--clichéd attempt to achieve style through use of incomplete sentences] And it can be applied to more than just bicycles. Several years ago, when I toyed with the idea of taking up kayaking, [Poseur violation: Our research shows that you took one 3-day whitewater class, did five or six flatwater kayak rentals, and gave it up. Affected expertise is considered a quality violation]it was neither the whitewater boats nor the long-distance ocean tourers that caught my imagination. The one boat that called the most was the Prijon Yukon Expedition--it's not pared-down like a squirt boat, and it's not designed to cross an ocean. It's not even all that pretty. But it promises long days on wild rivers, and some fun in the rapids when you need it. [see previous comment]

No doubt the longlow ideal could be applied to any vehicle or tool that offers a chance to find, or recapture, the feeling of immersing oneself in a place and an experience, of being on the road through somewhere, and of that being enough.[Major violation: Using platitudes and affectations of wisdom rather than a viable ending paragraph. Any repetition of this category of violation will result in immediate loss of communication privleges.]

Overall rank: B3 Highly Questionable Post. Felonius abuse of communication standards, writing privileges, and reader expectations. Future monitoring and standards enforcement recommended.

Explanatory notes from inspector (optional): Overall, this post demonstrates wanton waste of a viable idea through shabby, easy, ill-considered writing practices. You have been warned.

the longlow aesthetic

2008-11-05T22:15:00.002-05:00

The Walter Mitty Press, as part of its court-ordered pro bono public-service program, hereby offers number 1 in a series of works by temporarily off-the-road cyclists. These riders are enrolled in an experimental writing-therapy program designed to reduce the quirky moods, daydreaming, and occasional odd physical tics generated by ongoing, involuntary periods of ridelessness.

How can a bicycle be beautiful? It's no more than a spindly arrangement of structural materials and small moving parts. Seen from the side, it's mostly not there--it's hard to take an autofocus picture of a bicycle, since most of the area within the wheels and frame is empty space. But whether or not they are visually beautiful--and some are--bicycles can become attractive through the kinds of experience they suggest or recall.

For me, the bicycles most likely to cause this reaction are traditional-looking steel bikes of a certain type, but this is not an exercise in nostalgia. Light, nimble road bikes with tires and brakes that can handle anything from paved roads to single-track paths will always be my ideal, no matter what else I also ride and enjoy. Rivendell Bicycle Works used to call these bike "longlows"--road bikes, but with long wheel bases and low bottom brackets. Stable, fun bikes that offer long days of exploration and enjoyment, rather than twitchy racers.

It's an aesthetic based on implied experience, on the promise of something more than routine transportation and less than high-adrenaline thrills. On expanses of time spent moving through and experiencing a landscape. And it can be applied to more than just bicycles. Several years ago, when I toyed with the idea of taking up kayaking, it was neither the whitewater boats nor the long-distance ocean tourers that caught my imagination. The one boat that called the most was the Prijon Yukon Expedition--it's not pared-down like a squirt boat, and it's not designed to cross an ocean. It's not even all that pretty. But it promises long days on wild rivers, and some fun in the rapids when you need it.

No doubt the longlow ideal could be applied to any vehicle or tool that offers a chance to find, or recapture, the feeling of immersing oneself in a place and an experience, of being on the road through somewhere, and of that being enough.

a day

2008-11-04T15:03:00.007-05:00

not much sleep.
car stolen.
co-workers were threatened with violence (not by me)
racking tubercular coughs (doc says don't worry about it).
three weeks without cycling, and with a headache.
work projects going nuts.
enjoyable training-class trip cancelled (not allowed to sign up for any more due to budget cuts).
twice stepped on slugs. once in socks, once in bare feet.

Obama better damn well win.

temporary loss of sanity

2008-11-03T22:30:00.011-05:00

Forgive me, fellow cyclists, for I have sinned in thought. My only excuse is that three weeks off the bike (and seriously off my game generally) with an invincible sinus infection have driven me insane.

But for those few weeks (and, truth be told, intermittently for quite a while before that), I've been spending a lot of time thinking about taking up...ahem....er....motorcycling. There. I said it.

Never mind that it's been more than half my life since I last rode a motorcycle. Never mind that I don't even have time for cycling, never mind a new activity. (There's no question of motorcycling replacing cycling--I'm not that crazy.) And never mind that I can't afford a motorcycle, that gasoline is expensive, and that my greenie spoutings would sound pretty hypocritical if I took up a motor-sport. Never mind that cyclists are the first bunch of people I've really felt connected to in a long time. I just keep getting drawn back to thinking about riding motorcycles. The problem is, the d*** things are fun and take you to interesting places (just like bicycles; range is the difference).

What this really comes down to in practice, since I lack the main ingredient for the sport, is spending time on an online forum (as usual--my ancestors were apparently all obsessive researchers). And the interesting thing is that my motorcycling interests are very similar to my cycling tendencies--I'm most drawn to back roads, looking around, and simple equipment. No giant flatulent cruisers, no overpowered street racers for me. The motorcycle version of 'cross and touring bikes on trails and rough roads is called "dual sports," and involves a similar kind of "compromise" bikes that do lots of things well enough. And just as with bicycles, I'm more interested in peoples' travels and experiences than the details of their machines.

With luck, I'll soon defeat the evil bacteria colonizing my sinuses, get back on the bike, and come back to my senses. And I have a nearly-finished bicycle project lurking in the basement to reassure me that I haven't totally lost my mind. Not that the bicycle project makes any sense, either, but more about that once the last few parts are finally installed.

waterscape swimming

2008-08-21T17:35:00.007-04:00

Thanks to an online discussion about the new 10km open-water swimming event at the Olympics (sounds exciting--sorry I missed the coverage), I found a link to a news piece at the Outdoor Swimming Society site about "swimhiking"--travelling waterways with a waterproof "swimsac". No need to go back to where you left your towel and clothes--just take them along.

There's also a nice Guardian article on the same topic:

It looks a bit far, but I nod and follow his lead. Hayes has been swimhiking since 2002, when he decided that combining his two favourite activities, swimming and hiking, was the perfect way to get fit and explore the countryside. "With swimhiking you are freed from the constraints of hiking. On foot, rivers and lakes become a barrier, but if you swimhike you can go much further, or at least in more directions," he says while doing front crawl.

I really like this idea--it has the same feel as landscape exploration by bike, but a completely different setting. It also recalls all the stories--and daydreams--that I used to love, about escapes and clandestine, sneaky travelling. As the subject of the article says, "What I love about swimhiking...is that you are mixing land and water, so you feel a bit like James Bond and Tarzan."

I wish I had come up with this idea--but then, having grown up in South Florida, I would have felt a bit put off by the alligators.

landscapes - a distinction

2008-07-02T22:38:00.000-04:00

Found this again recently:

The beaded lizard is part of the landscape. Seldom is it part of the scenery. A distinction to bear in mind. Scenery is what you look at. Landscape is where you live and die.
-- David Quammen, "The Beaded Lizard: Sanctuary in Tucon", in The Flight of the Iguana

not rv, but r/v

2008-07-02T22:15:00.005-04:00

The Cabin Fever Press, an imprint of Walter Mitty Publishers, is proud, or at least compelled, to bring you the following Bicycle Thought Experiment, in a special delayed release (aka finding the lost draft in Blogger....):

It is a sure sign of bicycle deviancy when three weeks of no bike commuting starts to lead to more odd cycling thoughts, rather than fewer.

This time, it was a book that set things off. I've been idly leafing through Galen Rowell's In the Throne Room of the Mountain Gods, an account of a 1975 expedition to climb K2, the second-highest mountain in the world. I'm not generally interested in Big Expeditions with hundreds of porters, etc., but this book was claimed to be an honest report on the pitfalls and complexities of such a venture.

But the most interesting part (so far) for me has been Rowell's encounter with George Schaller, a conservationist and field biologist who wrote one of my favorite books, Stones of Silence. In contrast to the massive K2 expedition, Schaller was travelling with one box of food, one Pakistani companion, and one porter/assistant. And rather than attempting to launch a few climbers up a rock, his "expedition" was there to study the possibility of creating a massive national park around K2.

I might also have been influenced by my five-year-old son, who recently decided that he wanted to "play explorers, because explorers are better than pirates." We were on a boardwalk near the Chesapeake Bay, heading for a playground. So I told him that the boardwalk and/or the playset could be his "research vessel" (rather than a pirate ship, as previously planned).

Thinking about all this, I began to wonder if and how explorers (in a more Alpine/small-scale style) and field scientists might make use of bicycles to increase their speed and mobility, or maybe increase the range for any given amount of food and supplies. Rather than trains of porters trampling the routes and disrupting the local economies, could people get around under their own power more easily if they rode bikes? What's the two-wheeled equivalent of a research vessel?

Of course, lots of people have done very rugged tours by bike, so this is not a new idea, but it's not one I've put much thought into before (or, to be honest, am ever likely to need for my own use). But it's fun to imagine, at least.

not seen while riding

2008-07-01T17:07:00.003-04:00

[cheating here -- this is a repost of something posted elsewhere a couple of years ago, but this topic was on my mind again]

A few nights ago, I was watching an archaeology show on TV (I know, bad dog). The site was in farm country in England, along a nice narrow country road that had probably been there for several hundred years (although the asphalt was surely not earlier than 1740). Of course, looking at this road, I'm thinking, "what a great place to go for a ride." Turns out that the scenic field by the road, which at first glance only contained grass and sheep, also included a 15th-century house with 12th-century artifacts underneath, scattered bits of Roman pottery, two Iron Age roundhouses, and an Iron Age circular earthwork or henge of some sort. Most of the contours of the field were formed by medieval plowing, and hadn't changed much since. From above, you could a medieval and a prehistoric path down a tall hill to the settled area. All great stuff for a might-have-been medievalist and archaeologist.

All this made me think of Kent's Boiling Frog Road trip report:

"It is easy to succumb to the illusion of independence on these trips, so
I try to guard against that. I am not alone on these trips, these are not
journeys of discovery through new lands. These are trips of rediscovery
and I'm rolling in the tracks of ghosts"

...and of John Stilgoe's _Outside Lies Magic_. But Stilgoe was talking about figuring out a place from what you can see while you ride. Even if you're inclined to look around while riding, it's fairly mind-boggling to think of how much history (human and natural) you *aren't* seeing (or maybe can't see) as you pass by. I find myself wondering about the waves of settlement, de- and re-forestation, etc., when I'm out, even on the short rides I tend to do these days, but a lot of it is still guesswork. Oh, well, food for the imagination, I suppose.

Time to get outside.

yeah, thanks for the advice. next?

2008-06-18T14:07:00.005-04:00

Normally, I wouldn't buy two large-circulation cycling magazines in a year, never mind in a week. Normally I stick with Bicycle Quarterly and occasionally the Lauterbrunnental Leaflet, sorry, I mean Rivendell Reader.

But this week I bought both Bicycling (because a couple of my Flickr contacts are featured in it), and BIKE (because even though it's an MTBing magazine, all the features seemed to be about touring--more about BIKE later).

Normally I wouldn't buy "Buycycling" at all, given the overwhelming amount of "be like the pros" attitude, and articles that are hard to distinguish from the ads (although the magazine deserves some credit for promoting bike commuting). And I wasn't encouraged this time, on opening it to find that the inside-front ad (in a cycling magazine...) was for the Hummer H3 (no, I won't link that), and the following ad showed "PARIS ROUBAIX--2008 winner Tom Boonen on his S-Works Roubaix"--boy, that's unfortunate timing.

But since Nat from sweetpea bicycles and other builders whose Flickr streams I watch were in it, I picked it up. And noticed that one of the cover stories offered ways to "Find More Time To Ride." OK--I'm a would-be cyclist who's a parent and who rarely gets to ride more than a commute or a kid-bike ride to the park--I could use some advice on finding more time to ride, right?

Well, I'm still looking. Here's a summary of what Bicycling had to suggest--in an "article" that turned out to be a 1/5-page sidebar to an piece on Efficiency:

1. Get up earlier and ride for an hour. Well, that doesn't work if you have a kid to get ready for school, does it? "Sorry, dear, can't feed the kid and take him to school today, I'm going to get in shape instead. Why don't you just go in late so I can have fun?"
2. Climb 13 miles instead of riding a flat 21 (for example). That presumes that you have time to ride those miles to begin with, doesn't it?
3. After a ride, lube your chain and over-inflate your tires, so you can leave quicker the next day. See #2. I won't get into the tire-pressure argument (except to say that my 95psi tires are at 65 and 75 psi on purpose).
4. Schedule rides with a friend. I understand the argument--it's harder to skip out on a friend. But--see #2. Also presumes you have local friends to ride with. Don't see those advertised in Bicycling.

So--no help there. And OK, so maybe this just reveals that I don't have, in Grant Peterson's term (from a different topic), "bicycle priorities." Or that I'm just a poseur.

But there must be more people who are struggling to find time to ride because they have responsibilities and commitments. If you're going to sell us advice, give some advice that actually helps.

tdf summer reading

2008-06-10T14:33:00.013-04:00

Brest is not only the start (or Grand Départ, if you're into it) of the 2008 Tour de France, or the midpoint of the 1200km Paris-Brest-Paris randonneuring event. It also was once known for women with beautiful eyes but bad teeth; had a ghetto for the persecuted "cagot" caste until at least 1810; nearly seceded, and had to be recaptured by the republican army, not long after the Revolution; was fifty-four horse-hours from Paris in the late 18th century; and once had an official time that was 27 minutes behind that of Paris, which made people miss their trains.

All this comes from Graham Robb's book The Discovery of France: a historical geography from the Revolution to the First World War, which I mentioned a while back. Robb writes that “[t]his book...is the result of 14,000 miles in the saddle and four years in the library.” (I have to admit to being very envious of Mr Robb's working life--ride, research, write, repeat.)

The book is full of entertaining stories and illustrative factoids like those above. But it's not a loose collection of facts--everything supports Robb's idea that what we call "France" has long been anything but a unified whole. As he says, even "[t]he nation's most successful foreign ruler, Napoleon Bonaparte, did not see 'France' as a foregone conclusion."

As you would expect from a historian who researches by bike, Robb doesn't miss the role of bicycles in the discovery of French landscapes. "Bicycles" has four listings in the index, and "Tour de France" has seven. But Robb is not taken in by the past century-plus of Tour marketing. As he points out, the "Homeric" accolades for Tour riders "give a slightly warped view of common experience," since in fact tourists "had already pedalled happily over the Pyrenees" long before the Tour attempted it.

Even some other non-cycling characters will seem familiar to cyclists. In talking about the changing animal life of France, Robb quotes a period description of chamois hunters, who seemed addicted to long, self-destructive hunts in the mountains: "A wild and haggard air makes them stand out in a crowd, even when they are out of costume. It is probably this evil physiognomy that makes some superstitious peasants believe them to be sorcerors." Just imagine Michael Rasmussen's bony, staring face as he sweated up some Pyrenean climb, and you'll get the picture.

That same chapter mentions the Tour again, in discussing the changes to wildlife populations as the human population grew:

In 1910, when the Tour de France first crossed the high Pyrenees, newspaper reporters imagined, half hoping, that marauding bears might affect the outcome of the race by eating some of the riders. The riders flogged themselves across the mountains on rocky roads long since deserted by the bears. At Nimes, on the seventh stage of the tour, a frisky dog caused a serious accident, but the only lethal animal attack came from a jelly-fish on the rest day in Nice.

Of course, there's much more than cycling in the book. A range of characters--geographers, travelers, peasants, bandits, journeymen, shepherds, pilgrims, rulers--populates the cities, swamps, farmlands, mountains, forests, and grasslands that Robb explores.

The Discovery of France is an engrossing and entertaining book, and one of the best things I've read this year. And for anyone who follows the Tour de France--especially for us landscape voyeurs who use the Tour coverage as a travel guide for imaginary future trips--the book is an excellent introduction to the variety and oddity of French landscapes and history.

wv-va trip photos

2008-05-31T12:03:00.007-04:00

edit: fixed link--now goes to a larger image

Pictures from our birding trip/weekend vacation in the Monongahela National Forest in WV, and in Highland County, VA, are here...take a look.

az trip photos

2008-05-31T11:59:00.005-04:00

edit: fixed link--now goes to a larger image

Pictures from a trip to Tucson and surrounding desert and mountains are here. Feel free to take a look.

tagged...

2008-05-22T09:14:00.004-04:00

Becky tagged me as one of the next in a blog-game with the following rules:

"Pick up your nearest book and go to page 123. Find the fifth sentence, and post on your blog the next three sentences. Acknowledge who tagged you, and then tag five more people." OK--here we go:

"My readers may now partially understand why a travelling naturalist of limited means, like myself, does so much less than is expected or than he would himself wish to do. It would be interesting to preserve skeletons of many birds and animals, reptiles and fishes in spirits, skins of the larger animals, remarkable fruits and woods, and the most curious articles of manufacture and commerce; but it will be seen that under the circumstances I have just described it would have been impossible to add these to the collections which were my own more especial favourites. When travelling by boat the difficulties are as great or greater, and they are not diminished when the journey is by land."
-- Alfred Russel Wallace, _The Malay Archipelago_

I've been reading a lot of travel accounts by 18th- and 19th-century naturalists over the last few years. Dismaying (even disgusting) as many of their social attitudes can be, they wrote fascinating travel stories, and recorded the natural world fairly early in the process of colonization and exploitation.

Some of them were also nuts. I'll post more soon about Wallace and his journeys. Unlike Darwin, whose voyage was on a relatively large British Navy vessel, Wallace was on his own, dependent on small, overloaded local boats to make wild ocean passages between islands. More than once he was nearly lost at sea in some leaky canoe while trying to reach a remote island where he might--or might not--find some interesting species to collect.

OK--who's next? No idea who would be into this *and* would be likely to read this post, but maybe:

Beth H
Jason N
The Fiend
Joe B
Bill C

"there is a point at which the trip becomes idiocy"

2008-05-06T21:42:00.007-04:00

One consistent sign of spring here, along with the flowers and migrating birds, is the annual library-fundraiser book sale. Every year I say I'm going to cut back, but it's hard to resist entirely.

One of the best finds this year was a nice copy of Tom Cuthbertson's 1972 book Bike Tripping.

And so far my favorite section of this "how to go riding" book (as opposed to "how to train" or "how to fix your bike") is the chapter on "Bike Trips for the Fanatic Fringe." The advice on riding penny-farthings and ice-biking is entertaining, but the best bit starts with the section on "The Dirt Road Trip":

"If you like hiking out away from the crowd, and seeing lots of wildlife that stays away from the crowd, and if you have a bike that is sturdy and limber, you might try riding on some of the lesser used or even abandoned backroads in your vicinity"

The following section, "Cyclo Cross," talks about racing, of course ("There have been cyclo cross races on courses through which some of the riders could stay aboard the bike, but those weren't serious cyclo cross races"), but most of the section is about what he calls "cyclo cross tripping for fun."

"When you are partaking of the sport on your own, you can make it as difficult as you want. The race courses often involve negotiating cliffs, hedges, roaring creeks, ice, mud, and other natural obstacles. There is a point at which the trip becomes idiocy, even for a hardened veteran."

A couple of pages of advice on picking a bike (and this was well before the mountain-bike boom) and surviving the rough terrain follow, but the section ends with a reminder of how enjoyable it can be to stop on a ride like this and just enjoy the quiet.

I may be mainly a commuter in cycling terms, but this is the most inspiring "get out there" cycling book I've read so far.

ladysmith iBob (et al) ride

2008-04-16T09:57:00.031-04:00

For a few years now, Virginia and DC members of the I-Bob list have met up in April in Ladysmith (Caroline County), between Richmond and DC, for a low-key, social 40-mile ride. I first went in 2006, and couldn't go last year. Fortunately this year the date worked and my family were very accommodating, and so I headed off on only my fourth group ride ever.

* * * * * * * * * *

It's always difficult, when given a rare day out on my own, not to try to do everything that appeals. In the woods and fields of Caroline County in spring, it's very tempting to add birding and photography to the ride--the trees are leafing out, and migrant birds are singing in the woods and along the slow, swampy rivers.

But I learned on the 2006 ride that stopping to find a tiny singing warbler means falling behind the group and having to pedal like mad to catch up--even a fairly relaxed group disappears into the distance very quickly. So I swore to myself that this would be just a ride--stick with the group, enjoy the ride, don't try to do everything. Which is a change, when you're used to riding alone and having the freedom to stop and start (but lacking the company).

So of course just a few miles into the ride, I stopped at a river crossing to take a picture and try to find the first Northern Parula I had heard this year.

And guess what? The group disappeared into the distance very quickly.

And of course you always catch up just before a hill...

But once I settled down and stuck with the group, everything went smoothly, short of a patch about 10 miles in where I felt completely winded and felt like I'd have to turn back. But a few miles later, I was OK again, and didn't struggle again until about a mile from the end.

Here and there during the ride I ended up in front of a group, where I probably didn't belong, but just tried not to wobble around dangerously. Next time I'll work harder at staying back out of the way.

It was very nice to get out with 15 like-minded people, all of whom were very friendly, and tolerant of wobbling tyros taking too many pictures while riding. It was also quite a bike show, and I should have taken more pictures. In a relatively small group, it was surprising to see so many nice roadish steel bikes--Rivendells, an Oswald, a Big Fish, a Bob Jackson, a Waterford, a Serotta, and probably others I'm forgetting. But bikes aside, the experience of riding with such low-key, friendly group was the best part of the trip.

* * * * * * * *

Arriving in Ladysmith from I-95 will mislead you about the surrounding landscape--from the highway you mostly see deciduous woods, although there are now many more warehouse-sized commercial operations--tractor dealers, RV outfitters, antique outlets--on large, visible lots cleared and graded out of the woods.

But once off the highway--even if still within hearing of it--there are a few repeating elements that patch together a landscape. Our route went through many patches of mixed woods, most with young trees--clear-cutting is relatively frequent--and quite a bit of pine.

But change happens quickly; this patch of woods in 2006:

Now looks like this:

For me, the river crossings are highlights of the trip--the scrubby woods and swampy floodplains are shady and full of life. In April, migrant warblers and vireos sing in the riparian woods. This time I heard a few Northern Parulas, and a White-eyed Vireo near a river crossing where, in a group and facing the only real traffic of the trip, I couldn't even slow down to check things out, never mind take picture.

There are also scattered ponds and wetlands along the way--some of the old ponds had lots of large downed trees this time, perhaps from a storm. You'll sometimes see patches of standing water in the woods, or brushy, wet fields, although not enough plants are leafed out in mid April to get a good idea of what's there (but a real botanist could figure it out).

Most of this land, probably including almost all of what is now woods, has been farmed a long time (since the colonial period?), and there are still working farms with older farm houses along the route.

Others have been abandoned.

The National Park Service maintains the small "Stonewall Jackson Shrine" in Guinea Station. Little is said about Jackson, but the signs for the single remaining plantation building there do a good job of pointing out that a lot of the agricultural wealth of the area was built on slave labor.

There aren't any real towns along the route, although there are scattered groups of small, mid-20th-century or earlier houses along the road, and every road junction has a name, such as Villeboro:

Newer houses are more ambitious

and more are on the way:

Eventually the incomers will be faced with the "untidiness" of real rural living, and fears over lost investment value will lead to complaints about the ways people keep old things that might be worth something.

Fortunately, for now there are plenty of quiet, pleasant places for the people who live there, and for the occasional visiting cyclists.

Complete set of photos here.

doyle does it again

2008-03-21T15:53:00.003-04:00

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle may have been a bit of a loon, but I give him a lot of slack for creating the Holmes stories. They're my "guilty secret" reading when I need some mindless entertainment.

Turns out that Doyle is a good source of cycling quotes. I've had the following bit from "The Priory School" (click here and search for "priory") as my gmail .sig for a while:

"A good cyclist does not need a high road. The moor is intersected with paths and the moon was at the full."

...which is fun for those of us who like to get off the smooth pavement (not that I do much anymore.)

But today I saw another Doyle cycling quote that was new to me:

"When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking."

Good advice.

now think that one a little harder

2008-02-29T17:26:00.007-05:00

I've been reading Charles Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle. Off Chile, he watched an eruption in the Andes that was repeated at other volcanoes at great distances up the range that same day.

It is difficult even to conjecture whether this coincidence was accidental, or shows some subterranean connection. If Vesuvius, Etna, and Hecla in Iceland (all three relatively nearer each other than the corresponding points in South America), suddenly burst forth in eruption on the same night, the coincidence would be thought remarkable; but it is far more remarkable in this case, where the three vents fall on the same great mountain-chain....

Of course, once you understand plate tectonics, this is less remarkable, not more. But in Darwin's day, without that understanding, it must have been baffling. The South American volcanoes, of course, are all on the same plate boundary. That improbable "subterranean connection" existed, and at a scale probably not imagined in Darwin's time.

But just a few pages later, describing the sensation of an earthquake, Darwin writes:

A bad earthquake at once destroys our oldest associations: the earth, the very emblem of solidity, has moved beneath our feet like a thin crust over a fluid....

So close, but yet so far....

(Thanks to Dr Clayton Forrester for the post title....)

un tour; france

2008-02-25T17:16:00.014-05:00

Marco P [edit later--no, not THAT Marco P] recently posted a very nice bike on cyclofiend.com that matches my tastes very closely (cyclocross-tourish). When I wrote to him about it, he kindly sent a link to an account of his rides in and near the Alpes Maritimes, with nice pictures of the arid, mountain landscapes and interesting old villages.

It looks like great riding country (if you have the legs for the climbs). But that kind of arid, rocky country in a long-inhabited country like France always make me wonder about landscape history--how much of what you see is the result of the arid climate, and how much comes from hundreds of years of woodcutting and grazing?

Which reminded me that I had meant to find a copy of Graham Robb’s The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography From the Revolution to the First World War (review here). It's supposed to be a very readable book, and one that points out how what we call "France" has long been a set of diverse landscapes and cultures. Even better, the reviewer says that "The Discovery of France draws its material not just from the usual array of scholarly sources, but from the author’s own back-road explorations on his bicycle."

Just to rub it in, the review quotes the author saying that “This book...is the result of 14,000 miles in the saddle and four years in the library.” Ride, research, write. Sounds like the perfect working life; sign me up.

rough-stuff fellowship photo site

2008-02-20T17:00:00.003-05:00

The Rough-Stuff Fellowship, a British cycling organization, was "formed by cyclists who wanted to get away from roads and cycle on tracks, and byways." My kind of stuff.

One of their local groups, the South Lakes Group, has a really nice gallery of photos from their rides that's fun to check out.

not seen while riding

2008-01-29T17:07:00.001-05:00

"It is easy to succumb to the illusion of independence on these trips, so I try to guard against that. I am not alone on these trips, these are not journeys of discovery through new lands. These are trips of rediscovery and I'm rolling in the tracks of ghosts"

...and of John Stilgoe's _Outside Lies Magic_. But Stilgoe was talking about figuring out a place from what you can see while you ride. Even if you're inclined to look around while riding, it's fairly mind-boggling to think of how much history (human and natural) you *aren't* seeing (or maybe can't see) as you pass by. I find myself wondering about the waves of settlement, de- and re-forestation, etc., when I'm out, even on the short rides I tend to do these days, but a lot of it is still guesswork. Oh, well, food for the imagination, I suppose.

Time to get outside.

the limits of "landscape"

2008-01-28T14:29:00.000-05:00

Working from the theory that undermining your own fresh starts (i.e., blog-title changes) as early as possible is a good way to simulate (no, there is not a missing "t" in that word) creativity, and that quoting better writers is better than saying nothing at all, here's a link to a thought-provoking article by Rebecca Solnit.

She begins (with a phrase that I might get tattooed somewhere):

I LOVE A LOT OF THINGS that I think are at least a little problematic, from my car to cowboy movies, and landscape might be one of them. That is, landscape as a particular and peculiar mode of perception that prizes aesthetics and the visual, renders places and even nature itself quite literally flat and static, and often fails to see much else that might be out there. Landscape paintings and photographs perpetuate this habitual way of imagining what’s out there, acting as blinders of a sort. There’s nothing wrong with them, except when their version of the world becomes the limits of our imaginations.

says what it is

2008-01-25T18:24:00.001-05:00

"The Transect" is now "landscapecycling"

cycling thoughts

2008-01-25T10:17:00.000-05:00

Lots of random stuff piling up in the cycling corner of the mental warehouse:

Riding and Writing
Cyclofiend and Beth H (inventor of the term "plainclothes cycling," which really needs to catch on) have been talking about cycling in the vein of older CTC club rides in the UK. More relaxed paces, sociable trips, day-touring instead of imitating racers. It all sounds perfect to me. And, as Beth and the 'fiend have pointed out, this approach to cycling could bring a lot of people together who are put off by "training," hammering, and all that. In fact, inspired by their discussions and re-reading the "British Lightweights" issues of Bicycle Quarterly, I've been inspired (again) to start up some sort of magazine focused on mixed-terrain rides, using bikes for exploring and wildlife-watching rather than just going fast, etc.--the kind of thing that I thought that "Adventure Cycling" would be about.

Cycling Heresy
Weeks ago, my employers very kindly gave me a $50 gift certificate for the business of my choice. This time I picked my LBS. But--and forgive me if I'm violating some sort of cyclist's code here--I don't really *need* anything. I mean, I need little things, and I'd really like the perfect bike (lightweight non-oversized steel road/daytour frame with wide tire/fender clearances and cantis, please) and a couple of nice generator-hubbed wheels. But in between those extremes, I don't need anything. I was going to use the money to get a 17/21t Surly Dingle cog to make a 2-speed fixie project. But it doesn't make sense to work on a specialized bike for a different kind of riding when what I really lack is not bikes, but time to ride.

thoughts from the labyrinth

2008-01-09T20:52:00.000-05:00

I'm reading Tim Robinson's Stones of Aran: Labyrinth, the second in an amazing pair of books about largest of the Aran islands, off the west coast of Ireland. It's difficult to pull out single quotes from this long book that capture the depth and variety of his investigations into this landscape, which seems so simple, even barren, in photographs.

But in the rare glimpses into the author's own personal life, there are short passages that are very thought-provoking for people interested in exploring, investigating, and writing or making art about places.

From a time when, during a time of world crisis in the 70s, he suffered an inexplicable anxiety about the presence and schedule of schoolchildren near his house that affected his explorations of the island:

There were other sources of unease, too. Vietnam was approaching its crisis; <....> now here i was on the bomb-crazed pavements of Aran, picking flowers. Art is a guilty business, a desperate search for self-justification outside the sphere of justice, and I was not even producing art.

From a passage on delicate, small-scale beauty of the setting of a tiny, ruined medieval church, "about nine paces long and four across":

Whenever I think of revisiting the church, I fear to find a tarmacadamed path driven through the little fields, and the stiles replaced by iron gates, for the rough little old ways I have described will not bear the traffic of today. We are too many; what is to be done? This quarter-acre of stones is a vulnerable as a porcelain cup left out on the road. Beauty flirts recklessly with destruction; even a book like this can only risk an attempt at beauty because it can be wrapped away like a cup in the ruggy stuff of fact and learned reference. But the book is perhaps the only sanctuary. All I can do is point out what is there, and in doing so preserve, at least, an image of it.

And for wannabees like me, who too often forget that flowing prose requires rough work, a reminder of what I really know, but never act on:

Research is easy; however severely it taxes the eyes in libraries or the body in the field, it is a distraction and a relief. Remembering, noting, filing, identifying, querying, confirming - one has resources that can be squandered on such preliminaries. But for the finding of a form of words, there are no resources. Education, vocabulary, even wit, imagination, sensibility - these are teeth tensed to snap together, pressing out too-ready formulations; the mind aches with the stress of holding them apart, preserving the space in which words can think themselves into shape.

test report: a new cycling niche

2007-11-26T09:51:00.001-05:00

Thanksgiving weekend 2007 on Observatory Hill in Charlottesville, Virginia, will someday be spoken of with the same reverence now reserved for those early days of clunkers flying down the hills of Marin County. That weekend will be remembered for one of those spontaneous bursts of brilliance that inevitably lead to a brief golden age of DIY culture, followed by a good twenty year of profitable marketing by the cycling industry.

So what is it? Nothing less than the invention of something even more niche-y and downright terrifying than tandem mountain biking--it's Mountain Trailer Biking! (Or MTTBing, for those in a hurry for the inevitable acronym.) That's right, riding rocky, slippery singletrack while towing a child on a trailer bike meant for smooth paths and quiet streets.

What you need:

1) An early-eighties mountain bike converted to commuter use, complete with rack and fenders. Do NOT remove any commuting gear. Just let that mudflap drag. Singlewall rims and only slightly-knobby 1.75" tires that are overinflated for the purpose tend to increase the excitement. 28x34 gearing is essential for getting to the top of the hill while dragging the kid.

2) A child's trailer bike. No brands mentioned--warranties are at stake here.

3) An adult to ride (1). Demonstrable lack of sense is a plus.

4) A child to ride (2). The grip of a limpet and a propensity to occasionally yell "woohoo!" (thus proving both that they are enjoying the ride, and are still on the bike) are helpful.

5) A wooded hill with piles of wet, slippery oak leaves hiding the roots and rocks of (a) narrow singletrack trails, or (b) an old dirt road eroded down to a layer of ragged, football-sized rocks.

Somehow all these elements came together at once, and a new niche was born. There's nothing quite like the excitement of yanking an already overlong, twitchy bike around downhill trail bends when you've got an extra bike length of heavy-duty steel and a 50-pound kid attached out back.

On the other hand, climbs can be unexpectedly exciting, too. Sometimes there's a sense of implausible momentum carrying you forward as you coast uphill and look for a route around some huge rock or root. At first you blame it on the sheer momentum of the vehicle. But then you realize that the copilot is...pedalling!!!

Now all we need is somebody with a video camera to post a snippet on YouTube, and we'll be off. Someday, somebody else is gonna get really rich off of this.

go read this book (#1)

2007-11-05T15:09:00.000-05:00

[first in a largely theoretical series of really short book reviews]

I just finished re-reading Alan Booth's _The Roads to Sata_. Booth was an English actor and writer who went to Japan to study Japanese theater and never left. The book is an account of his 3,300-km, four-month walk the length of Japan's three main islands--Hokkaido, Honshu, and Kyushu. I've read a lot of travel narratives by many different kinds of writers--hacks, wonks, novelists, naturalists, whoever--and this remains one of my favorites.

Booth (who died in 1993 from cancer) had lived in Japan for seven years and was fluent in Japanese, which opened up encounters that would be impossible for those who don't speak the language. Like many really good books, _The Roads to Sata_ flows like water, belying the amount of work that must have gone into writing it.

The book is full of amusing conversations and lovely concise descriptions. And Booth comes across as honest and completely human--no agendas, no attitude, no affectations. He's at least as likely as anyone else to be the object of humor, and doesn't shrink from reporting the down sides of what sounds like a dream trip.

Every few years I unpack this book and re-read it. It unfailingly leaves me happier, not in a "gosh, wasn't that funny" sense, but from the sense of having enjoyed something perfectly crafted.

a cycling landscape-archaeological cartographer

2007-11-05T15:02:00.000-05:00

Sounds like dream career #47.

Apparently there's an article in the current Granta about OGS Crawford, a British cartographer of the early 20th century who did great amounts of archaeological fieldwork by bike. He was an expert in the use of aerial photography for finding sites, and went nowhere without his WWI aviator's cap.

More once I track down Granta 99....

claustrophenia

2007-11-05T11:32:00.001-05:00

noun; (1) sense of disordered or slowed mental functioning in persons who generally prefer to be outdoors, brought on by too much time spent indoors, and characterized by diminished verbal output (e.g., writing) on topics of personal importance, as well as by random fascinations with topics not considered important since earlier and long-abandoned life stages. origin: claustro- (cf. claustrophobia) + -phenia (cf. quadrophenia)). Treatment usu. consists of going outdoors and staring at natural features on the most distant visible horizon. Increased frequency of treatment is correlated with more successful recovery.

one more kilometre and we're in the marsh

2007-09-06T09:31:00.001-04:00

Even though it's largely about racing, I'd recommend Tim Hilton's One More Kilometre and We're In The Showers to anybody who enjoys reading about cycling. It's an enjoyable and very personal account of British and European cycling, and Hilton's background--a son of British Communists, a lifelong cyclist, and an art critic--gives the book depth and a unique character.

But for all of his interest in racing, Hilton obviously pays attention to the landscapes he cycles through. In fact, his book provided the quote in this blog's header. Here are some snippets from One More Kilometre.... that suggest Hilton might have material for another fine book:

For three years in the early 1960s and for a longer period in the 1970s I made a survey of the Oxford marsh, the vast slough of central England, whose flooded meadows and sedgy grassland continue to interest me.
The rivers that water and maintain the slough are principally the Cherwell and the Thames. Their confluence is at Oxford itself, where me may find a canal, many ponds, and an underground stream.

* * *

In the 1960s I could not find another undergraduate who was a racing cyclist....My rides were solitary. I went from low-lying land to hills, from wet to dry, from misty to breezy, out of Oxford via the Windrush valley to the Cotswolds; or through the Vale of Thame to the Chilterns, or past Kinston Bagpuize and Wantage to the Berkshire Downs.

* * *

A picture of that country [the Oxford marsh--ed.] is known to everyone. Think of the chessboard land in Through the Looking Glass. That's it, Otmoor. Its one lane, often flooded, is the moor's northern boundary. Moor or marsh or bog, this sinister ground has never known the plough. Little wonder that the sullen and idle peasantry of the place rear children who throw stones at racing cyclists. Or their parents might have been dons.

* * *

Most cyclists are topographers by nature and remember the past as though the years were roads we ride every day. I learnt the lanes of the Oxford marsh so well as an undergraduate that I can still draw maps of them by memory.

I wonder what ever became of that "survey of the Oxford marsh." If it never took written form, I hope it will.

the endless* summer

2007-09-04T09:24:00.000-04:00

*offer not available in all locations. offer may vary. subject to some limitations. see our ad in Lifestyle Monthly for details.

Perhaps because it was the traditional end-of-summer weekend, the Independent Film Channel was showing Bruce Brown's "The Endless Summer II" on Saturday. There was lots of great surfing footage, of course, but with Bruce Brown, you also get a motivational quote. This time, it was: "If you're willing to take a leap of faith--get off your butt--who knows how many great things are waiting in the world out there?"

Which I agree with--in theory. That's the idea behind most of the things I enjoy doing, and I always expected that a good part of my life would be built around that idea. That turned out to be a little unrealistic--which is mostly my own fault--so while I enjoyed the movie, I couldn't help thinking, "That's great, Bruce--sounds like fun. You guys go ahead. I have to go to work on Monday."

Seeing me recording ES 2 led to requests from the kid to watch our tape of the original "Endless Summer." When I went to get the tape, he quickly prepared himself for the experience:

ES 2 was a lot like ES in structure, but a lot has changed, and the two main surfers in the "cast" show it--one is a throwback longboarder, and one a shredding shortboarder. Among the surfers they meet up with are some high-stakes professionals. Professional....surfers. It always strikes me as remarkably unmellow. This time around, there are surfer resorts, surfers in every country with a coast, and a 1,000-unit development in one of the unknown, almost wilderness spots from the first film.

But while ES2 gives equal time to the shortboarders (usually signified in the soundtrack by the replacement of Fender Twins with Marshall stacks), it still seemed to favor the longboarders and the "soul surfers." Which made me think about parallel differences between cyclists. Shortboarding and shredding might match up with competitive or extreme riding and cyclists in it for the pain. And longboarding might be parallel to cyclotouring and--what? "Soul cyclists?" Nice idea, but "no thank you" to the label. But the differences in style and temperament seem to come out in both sports.

* * *

Which makes me wonder--where is the "Endless Summer" of cycling films? There's "A Sunday in Hell" (I just missed a showing in town last month), but a film about racers suffering through Paris-Roubaix wouldn't have the same motivational "get out there!" feel about it.

It'd be great to see some films about cycling as exploration, done by cyclists, and for both cyclists and the (interested) public. Even better to see some done by self-contained cyclists carrying their own video cameras. And not just to be more greenish about it; travel documentaries with crews almost inevitably lead to scripted events and reshot encounters that leave you with the suspicion that you're being manipulated.

Some films and shows I've otherwise enjoyed--including the ES movies and Michael Palin's travel series--very oddly have camera crews in place on both sides of a "spontaneous" encounter. In some of Palin's shows, I could swear that he's occasionally "meeting" someone who's reenacting an earlier encounter that didn't work for the cameras.

* * *

In the original ES, Bruce Brown says something like, "If you had enough money, and enough time, you could follow the summer around the world," to have the ultimate surfing adventure. Of course, it's not really necessary to go around the world. Even mellow surfers can fall into the trap of bigness. Do you really need to follow the summer around the planet to have a good trip? Wouldn't it be better to have more films, done by more different kinds of people, showing trips that more people with less money and free time could conceivably emulate? Should I ask any more rhetorical questions?

So--anybody out there ready to take a leap of faith, get off your butt, and go make a cycling movie? And still get back in time for work?

done fiddling (for now)

2007-08-30T10:25:00.000-04:00

OK, I think I'm done fiddling with the title-block image up above there. Back to actual writing soon....

First Club Ride

2007-08-27T09:59:00.001-04:00

For almost two years, I've been on the e-mail list of one of the local bike clubs. Two winters back, I found out that they did gravel-road rides in the cooler months, and hoped to go along. In all that time, I never could.

But recently the club started offering once-a-month road rides that not only start in town (avoiding the drive to rural ride starts for us city dwellers), but decided to start the rides about a quarter-mile from my house. It was an offer I couldn't refuse, and we found a way to make it work.

I'd never done a club ride before anywhere, and in fact had only ever done one group ride (the April '06 VA bob ride; pix here). So it was hard to know what to expect, and I probably spent too much time wondering about it. But as it turned out the group was welcoming and low-key, and we just went for a ride. One rider (with a beautiful yellow lugged Eddy Merckx, with a Brooks Swift) saw my seersucker shirt, cotton shorts, Carradice bag, toeclips, etc., etc., and said something about the "Grant Petersen approved" gear, so that was a good sign.

The options were for 35, 39, or 47 miles, with 3,000 to 4,900 feet of climbing. Plus the club website asks for people to make sure they can handle 13-14 mph for 30 miles plus before joining a ride. Seemed possible, even if the routes were hillier than I'm used to.

The ride started out on the same route as my Father's Day ride. Right away, the group split up, with about 7 up front, and 2 people determined to take it easy dropping back. Looking back, I should have stuck with them, and later considered waiting for them, but never saw them again.

For the first several miles, everyone was warming up, and I could keep up, or at least catch up. But then we hit the climb from the North Fork Moorman's River up to Red Hill Road--it's about 1.25 miles, and has about three bends that act as false summits. Pretty soon I was spinning along in the Super Secret Bailout Gear (34x34) and sweating a lot--it was overcast, which was good, but the humidity was about 105%. Somewhere up ahead I heard another rider call out "when is this damn hill going to END?!?" and would have laughed, given enough air.

Nick, the ride leader, rode back down to get pictures of people climbing the hill. As I passed, he called out "just ride your own ride, Scott," which was good (and friendly) advice.

After a brief regrouping stop, we headed for South Garden, and soon I was falling behind again--the group was well above that 13-14mph pace. No problem--I knew the roads and was happy to let them go. Plus the inevitable "riding in the heat" headache was setting in. At about 10 miles, I planned to wait for the next regroup (16 mi) to take some ibuprophen. By 10.5 miles, I needed to stop immediately, so I pulled off in the gravel driveway of an old brick church. Caffeine tea, ibupropen, more tea, and on the way again.

No-one was waiting at the next intersection, which was a relief; I assumed I was permanently dropped and reverted to my usual slow climbing and occasional stops for pictures, as the route was heading through the farmland between South Garden and North Garden. But when I got to the regrouping/store stop, everyone was still there, waiting and hydrating, so I felt bad for poking along. By now it was still overcast, and if possible more humid.

***

After the stop, we followed plank road toward the split point for the routes. Up until now, I had been debating between the medium and short routes--there was no way I was doing the climb over Israel Mountain on the 47-mile ride. Turned out no-one else wanted to either.

On the gentle climb westward, I soon got dropped again. I was looking around and taking pictures of the surrounding farmland, which is backed by forested ridges. Very scenic, but...

"Are they not fresh and beautiful?" I cried with all the enthusiasm of a man fresh from the fogs of Baker Street.

But Holmes shook his head gravely.

"Do you know, Watson," said he, "that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there."

One of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine, and of being a planner and landscape nut, is that you don't trust scenic views. This one in particular will soon accommodate nearly a hundred new homes scattered around the farms and woods. Most of them might not be visible from the road, but they'll have an impact, and those pastures and woods will be a lot less rural soon.

***

After the next turn, most of the group was ahead; two of us were together at the back, being slow for different reasons. By now I was settled on the short route--the headache had receded somewhat, but I had picked "have some fun, and live to fight another day" as my plan. Ironically most of the group took the short way back, and they were all faster. But it was very pleasant riding, mostly along wooded roads, and we had a blast of a 32mph+ descent back toward the east.

Heading back toward town on Dudley Mountain Road, the stream-valley hills weren't quite as bad as on the parallel Old Lynchburg Road (our route of town), but I was still getting left on the "flat" parts. At one point, I saw that I was doing 20mph and still falling away, so I just backed off and did my own pace for a while. Dudley Mountain runs along the side of a forested ridge, and is pretty quiet, without much traffic. I once did a night ride out here, which I would do again with a better light. Never again with a one-LED CatEye....

From there, we had one more regroup (i.e., everybody waiting for me...), and took Old Lynchburg back into town. Of course it had one more drag of a climb for us, after which one guy split off for home, and the rest of us went back to the start.

In the end, I got in 35 miles, and a nice chance to ride with some friendly people. Maybe after a few more, I'll be able to keep up enough to spend some more time in the group.

Thought process for the day:
Before ride: I'll do at least the medium loop, and hopefully the long one
At start: I have no idea what I'm going to do.
7 miles in: Am I going to make it up this hill?
10 miles in: My head hurts. I'll just drag around the short route on my own, if I can.
20 miles in: I think I can do the short route and feel good. Why go longer and wreck the rest of the day?
35 miles: That was fun...I feel pretty good.
Home and showered: Dang, I should have done a longer ride.
Four hours later: My head hurts again. Need to fix this headache problem.

Leave 'em wanting more, they say. (Good advice for too-long blog-posts, too...sigh.) But if I'm left wanting more, even after a difficult ride, that's a good sign.

Only a few pictures for this one; there's a set here.

***

Afterthought - does a longish report about a casual weekend ride like this seem overdone, given that to many people this would be just one among thousands of rides? Would a few pictures and fewer words be better?

why blog? or, who do you think you are?

2007-08-27T09:42:00.001-04:00

I nearly deleted this blog recently. Just couldn't figure out what is was for, and it seemed like a cheesy attempt to fake having a life that was of interest to others. A lot of people who object to blogging as self-important will ask that second question above--"who do you think you are?" Or, "why should anybody want to ready your blatherings about your tepid little life?"

That was pretty convincing--for a while. "Y'know, oh mental voices, you're right. There is nothing interesting enough about my life to justifying foisting this on the entire internet."

But then, after several weeks of this (including a lot of time spent arguing with myself about this blog to avoid dealing with real problems...), I had an uncharacteristic few seconds of a positive outlook, and a different thought occurred.

I'm not publishing this for the entire world to read, so there. There are really two reasons for this blog: (1) to share stuff with people of similar interests (see the links and blogs to the right for some of them), and (2) to indulge in some writing and photography for my own enjoyment, rather than for work. Even if I am a dullard in a gray flannel suit, what's so wrong with having a fun outlet? Most of the world will never see it, and those who do can either enjoy it (which makes it all more fun) or ignore it.

So life goes on, and so will this blog. If anybody's reading it, thanks, and enjoy it. If not, that's OK, too, because just doing it for it's own sake is fun.

A Bike and A Good Map

2007-08-27T09:34:00.000-04:00

A few years back, bob-list denizen and desert rat Craig Montgomery [see one of his ride reports here] posted about an article, "Essential Tools for Discovering Place: A Bike and a Good Map." It's still available on the web.

The author, Michael D. Barrett, says "[t]he bicycle is the ideal tool for getting behind the facades any place might present to the casual traveler." Well put.

Read the whole (brief) article here.

Landscape writing - time and more time

2007-08-27T09:23:00.000-04:00

Edited repost from April, 2007

Here's an interesting article on landscape writing from the Guardian website.

In "the first of a series of articles about writers and landscapes," Robert MacFarlane says:

"The best writing about landscapes - deserts, skies, forests, mountains, tundra, glaciers, prairies, forests, moors - has come from an intensity of commitment...."

and

"This - the dedication it demands - is one of the difficulties of writing about natural places. Another, contrasting difficulty is that landscapes have had too much written about them in the past. For centuries, they have provoked in their viewers an urge to communicate their magnificence. The result is that landscapes have become coated with thick layers of dead language."

So, good landscape writing demands lots of fieldwork, and, MacFarlane says, "is almost always modest, exact and attentive." Time on the ground, and time in the writing--it makes sense, but it isn't an easy recipe for would-be landscape writers [or photographers, for that matter; the same requirements apply] who have day jobs, real lives, and not much spare time.

So how do you manage life to create the time needed? "Dedication" seems easy in the abstract, picturing some writer who in your imagination is a writer all the time, who never has to be a worker, or a parent, or an engaged member of society. It's all too easy to believe that it's too late, that the course had to be set much earlier in life; I hope that's not true. At 18 or 21 I never could have articulated the interests that drive me now.

How many people have interesting and useful things to say about landscapes, but will never get the chance because they just don't have the time that allows them to be "dedicated"?

MacFarlane's focus on dedication and time parallels a theory, or at least thought, I've had for a while--that the secret to being a interesting nonfiction writer is only partly about dedication to craft. It's also partly about having a life that's interesting enough to both yourself and others to be worth writing about. (Unless you're effacing yourself and writing about someone else.) One way to do that is to be an expert on something; another is to have a focused life. For those of us who are generalists, or who come at a certain topic from lots of directions, it's harder to see how this works.

Father's Day weekend ride (aka "ouch")

2007-08-27T09:11:00.000-04:00

Repost (edited) from June 18, 2007

Route map and pictures are here:

For Father's Day, my wife very kindly asked if I wanted to have some time for a ride. I hadn't done anything other than commute rides in a long time, and I jumped at the chance. Well, slowly stood up at the chance--I'd been wiped out by a stomach bug (the most recent in a series of bugs) a few days before and still wasn't feeling great. I didn't want to miss a ride, but as it turned out I probably should have taken a rain check.

It turned out that the weather was going to be better for riding on Saturday, so I went out that afternoon while the kid was visiting a friend, rather than waiting for Father's Day. I headed south of of Charlottesville toward a fairly rural part of the County, hoping to ride some quiet stretches of gravel road I'd seen before. Getting out of town, I could tell I was dragging, but tried to ignore it.

Old Lynchburg Road, my route south, turns suddenly from four lanes with a wide median to two narrow lanes. Unfortunately there's still a large subdivision to pass at this point, and the traffic moves too fast. Past that point, there's a place where another 90-some houses will soon be built on a wooded ridge to the right. Right at the dirt road onto that land, there was a road-killed deer; signs of the future. Just down the road at the rustic-looking entrance to the "Forest Lodge" estate, there will eventually be an entrance to a development with about 3,000 new houses.

With all that on my mind, my mood wasn't the best for the short-but-steep hills that I was struggling with. But fortunately the road is very shady, and the traffic was getting lighter. Except for a puzzling series of about 50 gunshots that turned out to be from a private shooting range, the route was pleasantly quiet through the woods. There were a few little knots of houses here and there, but there was more forest along the way then I had remembered.

Somewhere along there I crossed over the rocky North Fork of the Hardware River, then started up a hill. The climb on that side of the river was much longer and steeper than what I had just come down, and once again I was surprised at how slowly I was getting up it. (Passing by a new subdivision and a farmette for sale didn't help the mood.)

At the intersection with Red Hill Road, I stopped for a map check, then realized that the ground and the shade trees were all covered with poison ivy. Fortunately I hadn't really gotten off the road. Heading east on Red Hill, I got break with a steep descent on smooth pavement. The fact that this was more worrisome ("coming back is gonna hurt...") than fun should have told me something.

But in a couple of miles came the turn to the first section of gravel road (Secretary's Sand Rd), and I was starting to feel better. This was the first real ride on my 1983 Univega Sportour, and I wanted to see how it would do off-pavement. The road passed a nice view to the southeast, then started down a "gravel" descent (gravel roads here are usually clay hardpack with a few remnants of old gravel scattered loosely on top). The dirt surface was moist, but the Univega felt pretty secure and comfortable on the drop down to an old bridge over the South Fork of the Hardware River.

The next stretch of Secretary's Sand climbed up onto a low ridge of mixed hardwoods and pines that shaded the road very nicely. Quite a few birds were singing off in the woods, including an ovenbird (a ground-nesting warbler). Along the ridgetop I was pretty much alone in the woods. After the next river crossing I got passed by a Hummer (where were they going?) on a steep climb that I tried to blast up using momentum, but soon had to just grind up. Once up that, and past a rare set of isolated houses, there was another ridgetop section through the woods to a crossroads labelled on the map as "Powell Store." No store, unfortunately--just two houses.

The next section of Secretary's Sand was wide and paved, and passed by widely-scattered houses--some relatively new, others old or even abandoned. These little knots of settlement are odd. It seems like there's a long history to them, probably from estate workers living near their work long ago, but they never get dense enough to be real villages; they just straggle along the road, even the houses that clearly predate motorized transport.

On this stretch I was flagging a bit, riding on wide pavement and with not much forest shade. Up ahead I saw a large bird crossing the road, and hoped it was a turkey. But it turned out to be a turkey vulture, and more flapped out of the trees as I went by. Sure enough, they had a meal--somebody's beagle had been killed on the road and was lying off in the brush, covered in flies.

At the next turn, there was a nice coast downhill, with woods full of singing wood thrushes to the left, and a farm with freshly-cut hay to the right. After just a mile, I finally reached the turn to a section of gravel through the woods that I had really been looking forward to.

But as I turned onto the gravel and started a moderate slope, I could tell that my ignoring my weak legs earlier had been a bad idea. After a couple of minutes grinding up the slope, which was not all that steep, I had to give up and walk to the top. It's a bad sign when your thoughts turn to how ridiculously conceited your dreams of longer rides are.... I tried to excuse all the stopping by taking pictures of the nice, mature woods that the road passed through.

The next stretch was downhill or flat, and I rode again through a really pleasant stretch of woods with some nice, mature trees. But it's a sign of how out-of-it I was that I can't remember what most of the trees were; from the size, the biggest ones were probably yellow poplar.

But the road was quiet and completely in the woods, and I was trying my best to enjoy it. So I gave a friendly wave to the driver of a jeep coming the other way, whose response, in a lecturing tone, was "mumblemumbleroadsmumblebikesmumble," which I would like to think meant "this is a great road for bikes," but actually sounded a lot more like "these roads aren't for bikes!" Typical attitude for some around here--lots of people, even well-off, secure ones, seem to feel they have authority to declare who belongs and who doesn't. But it was a public road, and I felt too crappy to argue, and just went on.

The next few miles were pretty scenic, but I wasn't appreciating the scenery as much as normal. (Still, somehow I managed to take a huge number of pictures on this ride; old habits are hard to break.) The gravel road crossed a paved route, then headed up (more up!) past an old estate with an amazingly long view over the ridges to the west. Past that, it was a long grind up over a ridge with much younger, scrubbier woods. Again I had to walk short stretches, but at least it was quiet. When I was riding, my elbows and upper arms were stinging at each bump, but the saddle area was fine thanks to the Avocet Touring saddle that had recently replaced the painful original Univega saddle.

Over the top, I dropped off the other side of the ridge, rolling through the woods and down the loose gravel at about 25mph, scaring the #$@#$ out of of several squirrels, two deer, and a black-and-white cat who had unwisely chosen to sleep in the middle of the road. (It was in front of the only house I had seen since the estate.) It was a fun descent, just verging on "what the hell am I doing?!?"

Now came the part I was least looking forward to--a short stretch of Route 20, a two-lane route between Charlottesville and Scottsville with far too much 65mph+ traffic. It was the only way I could get back across the Hardware River to loop back home. So I got onto it and off again as fast as I could, but not before, just as the shoulder ran out, some fool in a Mercedes screamed "get off the road!" into my ear while passing.

At the turn back onto Red Hill, I checked traffic both ways, then tried to accelerate hard off of Route 20 before anyone came along. At this, my calves cramped up, and I could see a steepish climb ahead. So I took a five-minute break in the shade by a long, low, very institutional-looking school with lots of forbidding signs out front (not that I was planning to trespass or sell drugs there, but what if I needed water?).

At this point, I still had 11 miles to go to get home, and there's not much to say about those miles except that I got through them. There was a lot of creeping uphill at 7 mph in my lowest gear, and there was a good bit of walking up that steep part of Red Hill Road that I had flown down earlier--it just defeated me, and I couldn't turn the pedals anymore, even in a 27" gear. The day was pleasant, and the woods were lovely, dark, and not too seriously fragmented, but my enjoyment was seriously tainted by how little energy I had to move myself along.

Back in town, I had to stop again just a mile from home to wait for my legs to stop cramping after a climb that I've towed my 40-some-pound kid and his trailer up before with no problem. But soon I was home, with 36 miles behind me.

In some ways, the plan worked out really well. I managed the route I wanted to do, found some very nice quiet roads through forested countryside and farms, and found that the Univega worked well for the kind of mixed-road riding that I had tried to set it up for. (Although I could have used a triple that day rather than the compact double, and some better handlebar padding would prevent sore arm muscles and elbows.)

The main lesson of this ride was that no matter how long it's been since I've had a ride, it's not a good idea to ride too soon after being sick. Wishful thinking about recovery won't make the legs work or prevent a bonk. But already it's easier to remember how nice it was to be riding in the woods and listening to the birds than to recall the unpleasantness. And I'm hoping to find a safer version of the route that avoids Route 20 so I can drag some others along sometime this fall.

The Return of the Lunchtime Loop and Cyclobirding

2007-08-25T10:39:00.000-04:00

[repost from April 27]

Spring is well underway, and it's finally time to revive the Lunchtime Loop--a 5 mile ride from downtown Charlottesville to the MUP on the Rivanna River, and back up the hill and through town to work again.

I'm also warming up for the cyclobirding season. This is the complex sport that involves riding somewhere, listening for interesting birds, and trying not to crash as you brake suddenly and dig out the binoculars. I haven't put the handlebar bag back on the Cimarron yet, so the binoculars were in the saddlebag; minus five style points. Fortunately I gained a few back for quick, smooth deployment of the essential kickstand.

At the first trail stop today, the pedestrian I had just passed looked rather alarmed when I stopped 50 feet in front of him, rooted around in my bag, and pulled out a large black metal....pair of binoculars. He then let out a very relieved-sounding laugh. Memo to self: work on better public image.

There weren't any warblers along the trail yet, but bunches of white-throated sparrows were hanging out in a flock. So it seems that migration is still in the early stages. Probably the best bird was a white-eyed vireo--a wetland/floodplain species that isn't really uncommon, but is sometimes hard to get a look at. This one perched in the open, and then flew right past me. Unfortunately the old binoculars that I keep at work are complete $#!^, so they were no help. I can't believe I ever got into birding using binoculars that bad.

On the way back up to town, I saw that Steephill Street, my former rough-stuff test track, has been marked as a private road. So that's the end of that. Steephill isn't as steep as many other streets around here (you can't see the river from Riverview Street, either), but it's a lovely short stretch of washed-out, potholed asphalt and concrete that made a nice change from the smooth streets and trail.

why "transect"?

2007-08-20T11:45:00.001-04:00

I recently deleted all the posts in this blog, and was considering either deleting the blog entirely, or replacing it with a new one with a different title. Long story, but I had a lot of questions/problems about how and why I was doing this, and couldn't think through them until I dealt with some real-life stuff. Now I've circled back to just continuing with this one. I may post later about the reasons for the hesitation.

For now I'm re-posting the first "transect" post as a reminder of what this thing is supposed to be about. Thanks for reading.

Why "the transect"? It sounds a little cold, and too purposely obscure. Maybe a little snooty.

A transect is, in the most useful online definition I've found (thanks, Wikipedia), "a path along which one records and counts occurrences of the phenomenon of study." It often refers to a path for ecological studies. I first started paying attention to the idea from stories of forest studies I heard in a forest-ecology class at UVa. And, of course, there's Michael Fay's well-known "Megatransect" across western Africa to survey for conservation areas.

Lately, "the transect" has been an idea that has helped pull together a lot of the things that interest me, so it seemed like a good blog title. For some time now, it has been clear to me [warning, "me/I" overload approaching] that most of my personal and work interests are tied together by various definition of "landscape." A transect through a landscape is a way of experiencing it, and that connects lots of things that occupy my mind:

* Landscape art--largely photography, but other forms, too, including experiental/conceptual "walking art" like that of Richard Long.

* Travel, and narrative travel writing, that combines interests in nature (ecological landscapes) and cultural landscapes.

* How sequencing and narrative affect landscape art and travel writing--so, transects again.

* Cycling and walking as my preferred subsets of landscape-oriented travel and experience. You might see rides and hikes as casual transects through landscapes.

* Landscape change, ecological history, and human perceptions/experiences of place and of how places change.

* Landscape ecology--the study of the ecological structure and function of landscapes--and how to apply it to planning for conservation. I'm not a scientist, but as a land use planner interested in conservation, the connection between landscape ecology and my work seems very interesting, and critical. I just wish I had more time to spend on this.

So all these things are tied together, and somehow--at 39 years old--I need to figure out what I'm going to do with them when I grow up.

And that's why "the transect." We'll see what comes of it. Future posts should have pictures and/or stories, rather than self-involved nattering.

...

2007-08-09T12:15:00.001-04:00

open again--sign removed.