adventures past

The photo caption woke something in me. A memory; something familiar but I wasn't sure. I was browsing through old issues of the local newspaper when I saw images of workers cleaning a beach fouled by an oil spill in New Zealand. Jon had his laptop out so I asked if he'd bring it up on a map. Sure enough, we'd been there.

Not only had we been by Papamoa Beach when we cycle toured in NZ back in 2004 (so long ago), but we were so struck by the beautiful setting that we stopped riding after only 13 kilometers so we could spend the day on the ocean before heading inland.

We were one week into our four-week trip and the previous day's ride had been long and hilly and fraught with stress as we entered Tauranga in the company of double-trailer semis and logging trucks. With relief we'd found a campsite at Mt Maunganui and a great restaurant just a block away. Across the road was the ocean - or more accurately, the Bay of Plenty.

The next day, we pedaled down the coast not sure how far we would ride, but keeping our eyes open for the next place to stay. The pine trees and the water lured us in. As we rolled into the Papamoa Beach holiday park, the wind was picking up. While checking in, we debated a tent site or a room. That's when the rain started. We took a room in a cabin that had a view of the water. The rain subsided as we walked a few blocks for lunch and groceries, a bottle of wine. Later we spent time walking on the beach watching the big waves come in with the storm. Jon went for a run.

Reading over our notes brought me back to that trip, the high dunes we crossed between our cabin and the ocean, the ferocity of the storms which originate in the Antarctic to pound the coastline, drench the inland and provide winds to power you or demoralize you, depending on your direction of travel.

Now the coastline has been fouled. It's not that I care more about a place just because I've visited it, but this disaster hits the part of me that loves visiting new places and learning about different parts of the world. I feel more connected as I recall that the young woman who checked us in told us that her grandfather had planted the pine trees we were admiring. How much will her livelihood and that of so many other Kiwis be impacted? What about the wildlife; the penguins and other sea life? My heart goes out to them.

The clean-up has been in progress for a couple weeks now, but Alaskans know that initial clean-ups often only take care of the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Messes are quick to make; but sometimes they take a generation to clean up. That oil is going to be in the Bay of Plenty for a long time. What a shame.

utah images, part two

A bunch of the Dirt Divas did a five-day organized trip with the same guides as last year. I wasn't quite sure where we were or where we were going, but the company's motto "Go with the flow" suited my mindset. My goal was to ride my bike, see some sights and hang out with friends. Oh, and to maybe drink a little. Let them handle the details.

We began on the upper left (off the map) and finished
at the "You are here." Because of our group size, we were
limited to camping outside the National Park, but the
guides found great campsites with canyon views.

First day. Our campsite is just around the corner.

Canyon hike after riding to our second camp on Day 2.

A potty with a view. Tough to tell, but this is pretty close to the edge.

Day 3, on our way to Hans Flat and the Flint Trail.
Sunblock, anyone?

The gang. Thanks to Lily who works at the ranger station for taking this photo.

An we thought our house needed some structural work!

Guide Ben, looking into the canyon; that's where we'll
be after descending the switchbacks in the morning.

Still life with bicycle. I still love riding my Giant Trance Advanced.

Miner cabin near the Flint Trail.

Flint Switchbacks. Click the photo to see the van. Brin had to do five-point
turns to maneuver the corners. Glad I had new brake pads! I learned last
year, it wouldn't be a canyon ride without switchbacks!

End of Day 4. Long day of riding, some steep descents, a short hike
and our first campsite attempt thwarted. Home is where the tent is,
though without Jon this year. There was more room in the tent but
I'd rather he had been there. Just not the same without him.
Even the guides missed him.

Early morning on Day 5. Brin gets the coffee started as we wake up.

Twenty-three plus miles later, a view of Lake Powell. The van and
lunch are just around the corner. As is a cold beer and my cotton
skirt. Someone said I'm always the first one to change out of
my cycling shorts. Kind of a no-brainer.

utah images

Just a few images from the first few days of the trip:

Lori on Hurricane Rim, being chased by a thunder storm.

Bev on Hurricane Rim.

Cactus on Bev's shifter. Not a good landing, but we made it
back to the car and had our picnic before the thunderstorm.

Lori, Bev and me with Fixie Dave at Little Creek Mesa.
Let the slickrock riding begin!

f

Fixing a shifter with a bungee. One hook inserted into the
top, the other into the bottom where the pin was missing.
It held and the brake worked great. Ride salvaged!

Lori on slickrock at Klondike Bluffs; steeper than it looks.

Dinasaur track at Klondike Bluffs, north of Moab.

equipment check, part two

Fate, coincidence, serendipity. Call it whatever you wish, but the beginning of this trip has been all that.

It's hard to make a long story short and maybe that's not the kind of storyteller I am, but this story begins last fall on the last day of a trip Jon and I took to the Southwest. Maybe it starts the day before when we were riding at Gooseberry Mesa and my riding was all off. I was crashing into ledges instead of going up them. I was bailing out of things I should have been riding. It was not a good day. But we camped on the mesa that night, since it's once of our favorite places to camp. In the morning Jon suggested that I should have a better ride to end the trip; a good ride; a ride on the JEM Trail, just below the mesa. My spirits lifted, I got my gear together. Jon dropped me at the southern trailhead. As he was doing this, we came across another rider. A guy on a fixie. Named Dave. He was posting signs for an upcoming bike race & said he worked at the local shop, Over the Edge. Off we both went on our rides and when I returned to Anchorage, I looked him up and made a facebook friend request.

It wasn't that he was a total stranger in my mind, for he is one of the few riders to even attempt to race the Great Divide - the Continental Divide trail from Canada to Mexico. So, he knew at least one person I knew.

A year later, earlier this week, my friends and I were in Hurricane. We stopped at the shop to get information on what was good after the recent rains. After a short ride that included one tumbling friend and a jumping cactus, we headed back to town. Not before a thunderstorm rolled in delivering a deluge of rain and booming thunder. The local cafe had just closed for the day and we were looking for a place to get a hot coffee and some free internet. So, we stopped in the shop. "Hey, aren't you Dave? We met last year...." I mentioned facebook. I asked where we could get wifi while we figured out what to do. "Where are you staying tonight?" he asked. "We were going to camp, but with this, I don't know." Soon he was typing at the computer and pulled out a map and directions to his place away from the town center.

It's rare to get this sort of offer, I think. But not all that rare among people I know. Jon and I love hosting people at our place when we can. We love the story sharing and just having someone else around once in awhile. So my two friends were pretty excited about the offer, though reasonably skeptical at first. When we found the house, though, we were pretty excited at what felt like expansive surroundings - especially since the previous night we had all assembled our bikes in a small hotel room, squeezing ourselves between the beds and even into the bathroom to find space.

We had just begun making ourselves comfortable when Dave arrived. We shared a meal and beers as rain blew against the dining room window. After a bit of discussion, Dave offered to take us on a ride I've been wanting to do for a couple years: the trails at Little Creek Mesa. Little Creek is the mesa just south of Gooseberry but word was you need to go with a local/guide to really have a good time without getting turned around and helplessly lost. We headed out for the ride and spent the afternoon riding, learning a few tips and wearing ourselves out. But I had one little issue.

My front brake had too much throw in the lever, almost touching the grip before the brake fully engaged. I'd noticed it earlier in the season but forgot to mention it to Jon before the tip. Dave looked at it and recommended new pads. After the ride, we swung by the shop and picked up pads which Dave installed back at the house. He made a little adjustment on the reach and I took the bike for a test ride. It felt better and the levers felt even. The next morning, Dave headed off for work and the three of us were on the road by 8:30, headed for Green River but hoping for a ride just north of Moab before driving back to Green River.

At Klondike Bluffs, I pulled the bikes out of the car - just two of us were going to ride - and put my wheel on. The brake felt good until we started to ride and I pulled it a few more times. It was't working. I had no front brake (I thought). Upon closer examination, I found that the pin the lever pivots on was missing! Oh crap. I showed Lori who said that's happened to her before and someone told her to find something, anything, to put in to keep the lever in place. I suggested going back to the car and looking for the part. Lori suggested a bolt, but my pin had no threads. We ended up grabbing a mini bungee cord putting one hook in the top, wrapping the cord around so it was snug, then putting the other hook in through the bottom. Worked like a charm and the brake actually felt better than it has for the last few months thanks to the new pads.

But I needed to fix the lever before this five-day trip that starts Sunday. So after finishing the ride and feeling certain the shops farther down the road, in Moab, would be open, we packed up and drove south, something I didn't want to do. I was tired, sweaty and had friends to meet for dinner. Upon arriving at Poison Spider, we saw the parking lot was roped off and there was a party going on. It was part of a celebration for Outerbike, a public bike demo event held in the Moab area.

After getting the parts from the service guy, Randy, I asked about a couple people I knew. Yes, he told me, the one guy still works there but is at the 24-hour race. The other guy, he didn't know, so he asked another person. "Sure, he's around. He's on the floor." Someone else chimed in: "he's outside, there." Finally I saw our friend Pete. I snuck up behind him and gave him a big hug. He turned around: "Rose! Is Jon here?" I told him why I was there. We laughed and I shared my stories and plans. Then he kept pointing out or reintroducing me to people I'd met before. In fewer than five minutes, I had talked briefly with a handful of guys I know from Anchorage or other parts of Alaska.

Small world, yes? And I was thinking to myself, had I fixed that in Anchorage, I wouldn't have done it here. Had I not had Dave make a little lever adjustment on my brakes, the pin may not have fallen out and I would have never taken that detour to Moab. But life works that way. It seems that so often for me, people, events converge in the most extraordinary ways, that I can only think that forces around me do conspire to make things happen. Usually in a good way. And the energy it creates is a happy buzz that can be contagious.

Dear readers, having a little tech issue getting pics posted. I'll get some up here after I figure it out or when I return home to my usual equipment. Thanks for reading.

equipment check

We've had several beautiful days this past week, with sunshine on gold-yellow leaves and the smell of decaying leaves in the air. Snow has begun creeping down the mountains. Despite the perfect conditions, I hadn't been on a bike since last Sunday. Instead, I've been resting a sore shoulder that has endured a busy summer of riding, shoveling and miscellaneous trail work.

This evening after the shop closed, I planned to meet a couple friends there so Jon could help them box their bikes for a mountain bike trip a bunch of us girls are taking to Utah. I figured I'd box my bike as well.

Before meeting them to talk about the trip & do the boxing, I decided to head over to Kincaid to ride on the new singletracks and see how the shoulder responded to trail riding. I didn't give myself much time and the new trails twist and turn so much that it was easy to lose my sense of where I was on the trail system. Occasionally I'd cross one of the wider trails that were designed for cross-country skiing and take note of where I was, or I'd take a turn and end up on one of the long-used social trails. What I really wanted to do was to not worry about where I was but to just enjoy that experience of exploring new trails while the leaves were beginning to cover them in their bright mosaic.

picture yourself on a trail in a forest...

Eventually, I looked at my watch and realized I was to meet my friends in about 10 minutes, yet I was on a section of trail that was new to me, so I wasn't quite sure where I was relative to the parking lot. I rode past an old VW, long ago abandoned in the woods. At an intersection, I turned right but still wasn't sure. Then I met another rider and decided to backtrack and take the other option. Soon I was on the Jodhpur Trail, recalibrating my brain for a quick ride back to the trailhead.

I could have been out there all afternoon. Had I started earlier, I could have biked those trails one way, then the other, exploring every spur. I didn't want to box up my bike. The riding was perfect. But there's always a hitch. My front shifting was getting ever worse as my ride went on. I had to turn my shifter one click extra to move up from my granny to my middle ring. Then two clicks extra. I made a mental note to have Jon look at my shifting before I boxed the bike.

Good thing I went on that ride, for more than just my mental health, too. Turns out, the cable had frayed where it was attached to the derailleur. By the time my ride ended, only a single strand was left.

connected with one thin strand...

glad I caught this!

Once again, timing was everything; I was relieved I'd done the ride - and that I stopped riding when I did. And since I never did get around to boxing my own bike, maybe I have time for one more ride before we leave. You know, to stretch that new cable.

cabin weekend

The Fargo with Bob trailer.

The day after my birthday was the beginning of the fifth annual cabin weekend with my mountain biking group, the Alaska Dirt Divas. The twelve-mile pedal on the fairly easy Eklutna Lakeside Trail was made a tad more challenging when hauling gear in Bob trailers or in panniers. But it's well worth it in order to haul out our personal gear plus fresh produce and other goodies for meals.

Riding out to the cabin.

This was the second year we've rented the Serenity cabin for three nights. I love having a couple days to lounge around, do dayhikes or just get to know each other better. I used some of my free time to sit on the deck or in my bunk working on my fiction. I especially enjoyed the deck time on Friday when I could sit in the sun with the sound of the river and the falls keeping me company. Wind on Saturday sent me inside to my corner bunk where I put in my ear plugs and was able to write by the light of the window while people chatted not 10 feet away.

I hoped people wouldn't think I was being anti-social. Thank goodness my friends seemed to understand that when the inspiration was there, I should be left alone to work with it. - Thanks, girls!

Besides having time for writing, I loved strolling on the river bed near the cabin. The smooth rocks that have been tumbled under the weight of the glacier sometimes seem to call out to be stacked into balanced sculptures. It's a good way to pass the time and leave something for other people to look at. It also lets me be creative without using words, just making forms.

My favorite rock stack.

Hiking trail on the way to the glacier. I like how this path
is bordered by trees and rocks. It gives me inspiration for
how I can use all the big rocks we excavated to make paths
through the yard and build borders for gardening.

After packing up on Sunday morning, the ride back to the trailhead was different from most years. It was the nicest day of the weekend with little wind and clear, sunny skies. (By contrast, last year we rode back in wind and sleet!)Barely a ripple showed on the water. Our group of 11 traveled mostly together, taking breaks near the water, delaying the trip home where we would to return to our lives and families and, invariably, backlogs of email.

We'll just hang out here a little while longer...
Dora, Michele, Jo-Ann, Stacey, Kass.

where it goes

Mid-way through the exterior project.
Imagine: moss green with cedar trim.

Where has the time gone? The birch leaves are a brilliant golden-yellow on this gray day. The rain yesterday left enough dusting of snow on the front range peaks for me to want to wrap another layer around my shoulders even though I'm sitting in my living room. Fall is here ahead of the calendar, as is typical in Anchorage. Because fall is catching-up season in Alaska, I'll give updates on previous posts.

People have asked about the beach biking trip I had planned with Jon and a few friends. That fell through the day before we were to leave when our support driver had a work emergency. Jon and I both felt a huge weight slip from our shoulders because we'd been working until dark the previous days trying to finish insulating the foundation so we could have the perimeter of the house backfilled before we left. Though I was momentarily disappointed, never have I been so relieved to cancel a trip. The timing was all wrong. As it turned out, a storm blew in from the Gulf of Alaska and our friends in Homer (the destination town) said the weather was cold and wet that week. We could do the ride another time, and maybe under better conditions.

Mount Redoubt. Instead of biking here...

I was insulating and backfilling here.

Since Jon had the next five days off, we were able to finish the backfilling and move on to the above-ground walls. We've been researching siding and trim, trying to figure out which materials look best and will last longest with minimal maintenance. It took a few weeks, but I think we've decided on the siding. The challenge is getting it in from the distributor in time to get it onto the house before the snow flies, which was my goal. (Yes, I'm good at setting goals for Jon, but I will have jobs in the project - I love painting, so I'm in charge of trim.)

So, here we are, three weeks into September. Leaves falling. Chill in the air. I'm looking forward to seeing what this place will look like all decked out in siding and with snow in the yard. Jon said the color scheme we've picked (with him giving me the final word) reminds him of a cabin in the woods. That's what I'm going for. Sounds inviting. I'll show you when it's done.

Lest you think I've had no bike rides, I have biked on the new trails being built in Kincaid Park and even managed to enjoy an afternoon of mountain biking with some friends on the Matanuska Lakes/Crevasse-Moraine trails. Beautiful fall rides! I need more of that.