Honduras

I just got back the other night from a little over two weeks of traveling. I spent the first few days in Florida, then met up with my friend Abby and we flew to Honduras with our bikes.

We had done a weekend bike trip together up on the Sunshine Coast in British Columbia late last year, and although the weather didn't quite live up to the name, we had fun. After that, we had been talking about doing a longer trip in Mexico or Central America in January, but Abby wasn't able to get away from work then. So I ended up doing a 10-day solo bike trip in Mexico in mid January to celebrate my birthday, flying into Puerto Vallarta, and biking south along the coast from there, hitting a bunch of beaches and fishing villages, doing some snorkeling, meeting interesting people, getting lost a couple of times, and camping out. (Maybe eventually I get around to writing up a more detailed post about that trip).

Anyway, after I got back from that trip, we started tossing around a bunch of ideas, and finally settled on going to Honduras with our bikes for about 10 days towards the end of February. I decided to extend my trip a few days by hanging out in Florida, since we would be changing planes in Miami anyway.

In the end, we didn't end up doing all that much biking, but still did enough to justify bringing the bikes (I took the Pugsley, she had a mountain bike). We also got in some diving and snorkeling, visited the Mayan ruins of Copan, made a run to the border and spent a few minutes in Guatemala. We also got plenty of Spanish practice talking to various interesting locals pretty much everywhere we went.

Anyhow, here is a fairly brief day-by-day summary of the trip:

Feb 23: I fly to Miami, ride my bike to South Beach from the airport, spend the night in a hostel there.

 

Feb 24: Ride bike to Everglades National Park, mostly following paths that parallel Hwy 1. Mostly suburban sprawl, not that interesting, until I leave the hwy near Homer. Stop at big fruit stand for fresh fruit milkshake and some fruit. Camp just inside the park at Long Pine Key.

Feb 25: Ride to Flamingo, exploring various trails and pull-outs along the way, camp. Talk to family (husband, wife, 15 y/o son) who biked from the Yukon.

Feb 26: Spend the day exploring near Flamingo by bike, foot, and pack-raft.

Feb 27: Head back to Miami, end up taking commuter rail last 20 miles or so, then ride over to South Beach to hostel.

Feb 28: Ride to airport, meet Abby at the airport (she took a red-eye flight from Seattle), fly together to San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Take taxi to Tamarindo Hostel, put bikes together, explore area close to hostel a bit by foot, have dinner at Estelina's, a few blocks from the hostel.

Feb 29: Ride to bus station, take bus to Tela. A clown gets on at one of the stops and tells jokes and does some simple magic tricks. We try to find a woman in Tela that helped a friend of Abby's several years ago. We find some of the woman's relatives and talk to them, but she died of cancer a few years ago. We bike out to Miami, a small Garifuna village on the coast, meet some of the locals, eat dinner in a comedor in a small hut which contains a kitchen, one table and several extra chairs, which are filled with chatting relatives of the woman doing the cooking. We camp on the sand under a palapa.

 

Mar 1: Bike back to Tela. Stop for some supplies at a grocery, help a kid repair his front bike basket with a zip tie after it falls off and spills some of cooking oil he had just bought. Then I notice my front tire is flat (due to valve stem that got broken while putting bikes together in SPS), so I replace the tube with a spare while Abby helps patch the tube I didn't get around to fixing after my flat in Florida, and then she talks with some drunk guy who stumbles over and seems pretty incomprehensible from what little I overhear while finishing up.

 

We ride along highway towards La Ceiba. Heavy downpour just outside of Tela, we stop to put on rain jackets, and are invited into a small, very poor house to take shelter for a few minutes, waiting out the worst of the rain. Continue riding once rain lets up a little.

Make a stop along the way for agua de coco at a roadside stand and a late lunch a bit further down the road at a roadside restaurant. Pretty nice ride along the highway, fairly scenic, not too much traffic, decent shoulders. We're not really sure where we'll end up for the night, but trust we'll figure something out. We end up arriving in San Juan Pueblo, which isn't on our map even though it is the larger than any other town we've passed through, just as it is getting dark. Eventually we find a cheap hotel. Have dinner, walk around a bit looking for licuados (fresh fruit milkshakes, but without the ice cream).

 

Mar 2: Continue along highway to Ceiba, briefly investigate steaming hot spring running into nearby river, stop for lunch at road side BBQ in El Pino, use internet. Bike past La Ceiba (not seeing much except "fast food row" along the highway) to ferry dock for boats to the Bay Islands. Vacillate over whether we want to go to Utila or Roatan, finally decide on Utila. Sit in the front of the boat, get soaked by splashing waves (fun, but there was a covered section, too). Find hotel at far end of town, sign up for SCUBA refresher course for the next morning at the only dive place we can find that is still open, have a fish dinner on the beach.

Mar 3: Utila. Do a "SCUBA Tune-up" refresher course (Abby didn't really need it, but I was glad to do it after not having been diving for ~15 years). It goes well, and the instructor tells us it was probably the smoothest and quickest one he's ever done. Have lunch at "Dump Town" (as Abby affectionately dubs it), a small, hole-in-the-wall basement place with comida tipica, ceilings so low I can't stand up straight. Go on a dive in the afternoon. Boat has trouble starting initially, they start it by using a screw driver to short across the starter. Abby and I go snorkeling during the first dive, since they are doing an advanced dive to a wreck at 100' feet, and we aren't certified to that depth. Snorkeling is good, but not as many fish as I saw in Belize, or Abby saw in Thailand. We eventually swim out to the moored boat, which they can't get started. So after much confusion, we get a tow back to the dock, switch boats, head out again for the second dive. First dive I've ever done in tropical waters, and it is great! We've been considering doing the Advanced Open Water course, but decide against it. But do decide to go diving with a different company the next day, and go get that arranged. Dinner and beers at place with Israeli food, which is pretty good.

Mar 4: Utila. We go out for the morning with Bay Islands College of Diving, doing another dive, on the north side of the island this time, again a lot of fun, and BICD seems much more professional than the other place we were at. I decide to go snorkeling at the second dive site, but Abby does the dive. We go out for lunch, the food takes forever to arrive, and when it does it is crappy. Then I head back to the hotel for a siesta while Abby goes to a handicrafts shop and ends up talking with the owner for a long time.
I head out for a bike ride, and we make plans to meet up at a beach later to do some snorkeling. We run into each other along one of the roads, and it is starting to get dark, so we head to a beach near a housing development. It doesn't really have good access for snorkeling, so we wade a bit, watch the sunset and waves, take some photos, ride back into town. Dinner at a touristy place, with fairly generic menu and live but mediocre music. My stomach has been bothering me a bit throughout the afternoon, and I don't have much of an appetite, only eat about half of my order, and a few bites of the "flaming brownie" with ice cream we order. We talk about leaving early the next morning, but decide that I will sleep in a bit, and Abby will go snorkeling in the morning with the dive boat, then we'll take the afternoon ferry back to Ceiba.

Mar 5: Abby gets up early to go snorkeling. I do end up sleeping in a bit, but only until about 8:15, but better than having to get up to catch the 6:20 boat! I then go for a bike ride, first out to the beach we were at last night, to look for Abby's sunglasses, which are sitting on a rock near where we where hanging out.

After a licuado, I head out to the airport, following a nicely paved road with absolutely no traffic, which ends at the runway. Then I follow a gravel road to the shore, and follow a rough, sandy, rocky 4x4 track along the shore for a while, before it more or less dead ends in the jungle. There are a few short, very rough roads made up of big chunks of coral, but they only lead a short distance into the jungle before stopping. I explore a few of them (glad for the Pugsley!), then head back, riding down a narrow paved strip along the runway, then back to town to stop at the bakery for some bread and juice, hanging out on the porch for a while to wait out a downpour.

 

We head to lunch again at "Dump Town", which Abby has learned is owned by the guy that was captaining the BICD dive boat, and his wife is one of the women working there. I still don't have much of an appetite, so just get something to drink while Abby eats. We catch the 2 pm boat to La Ceiba, ride into town and around a bit, find a hotel. Then we head out on the bikes to explore a bit, then lock them up and walk around, so Abby can search for a new swimsuit. We stop at a bakery as it is getting dark, then cross the street to sit in the park, and end up talking to some local guys. One, a grandpa, has a 25 year old Raleigh "chopper" bicycle, and I mostly talk with him, while Abby chats with the two younger fellows. They recommend we do a "train" tour (although it runs on the roads), and one of them takes us to talk to the "engineer", who is also a musician, and we chat with him for a while, but decide not to do it, since our bikes aren't in a particular safe area. So we agree to meet with the guys in the park the next evening at 6, and then do the train tour later. After collecting the bikes, we have dinner at a pupusaria, and my appetite has returned. Then we look for a pharmacy for some treatments for various skin issues (sunburn, itching bug bites, cycling induced chafing), then back to the hotel. The mosquitoes are pretty annoying, and I don't sleep very well, although much better once I get up to slather on some bug repellent.

Mar 6: We get a fairly early start, heading out for a day ride along the Rio Cangrejal. A bit out of town, we stop to get some water, and end up talking with a local guy, a doctor, who is building a hotel nearby. He takes us over to show us the construction site, explaining how it will look when completed, and we sit on cinder blocks in the shade of a tree and talk with him and his daughter for a while. The hotel will be called the Guacamaya (Scarlet Macaw), and will have a restaurant with an open courtyard with a big tree, and a live Macaw in the tree, with some sort of netting overhead to keep it from flying away. The daughter is an architecture student, and helped with the design. She has studied English at school, and her dad tries to get her to practice with us, but she is reluctant. But we hear quite a bit about their family. We continue on our way on the gravel road along the river, stopping again for a break and sodas at visitors' center, with a suspension bridge over the river. It is hot, and we've been climbing. We climb a bit further to nice restaurant/lodge, and stop for lunch and a longer break. The food is fairly expensive and mediocre, but they do have great licuados and excellent ice cream (and apple pie!), and the setting and atmosphere is very nice. Once we set out again, there is a bit of a breeze which makes it a bit cooler. We continue climbing along the river, and then do a big climb up away from the river. We pause for a while to rest and chat with a woman and her young son, then continue climbing up the steep grade to the summit, and decide to turn around there. The bike book (Cycle Central America) described this valley as "the most scenic in Central America", and although it is very pretty, we are a bit doubtful it is the most beautiful. Still, it is amazing clean for Latin America, with much less litter and trash than you generally expect to see along the road and river, maybe partially due to signs urging people to keep it clean?

 

 

A short ways down from the summit, we take some photos at a place with good views, then enjoy the bumpy descent, stopping at a small store for a drink when things level out a bit, and end up talking for quite a while with the various people hanging around the store. Then we continue on down, stopping at the big bridge over the river, and go swimming. We splash around for a while, jump into a deep spot off the rocks and let the current wash us down stream a ways, stand mid-stream on a gravel bar with the current sweeping past, and then just soak, snacking on peanuts and drinking a warm beer, admiring the views. A bunch of ants get into Abby's clothes, and it takes a while to clean them off. As we are leaving, 3 young soldiers come by and talk to us for a while, pose for pictures with their rifles. We don't end up leaving the bridge until about 5:50, and it is getting dark. We end up riding much of the way back in the dark, but luckily have lights, and there isn't much traffic. We don't make it back into town and the plaza until about 7, but the old guy with the "chopper" bike is there, and we talk to him for a while. The other two guys were apparently there earlier, but left before we arrived, and it seems the train tour fellow decided to take the night off, too. The old guy suggests a carnitas restaurant, and we go there. I get the carnitas, which is served in a basket over cabbage, onions, and fried plantain chips, then covered with sauce, which makes everything kind of look like a slop bucket. I don't think the food is all that bad (not that I think it is all that great, either), but Abby thinks it is awful, and her stomach doesn't like it either. Back at the hotel, I end up setting up the tent on the bed for mosquito protection. It is a bit hot at first, but I end up sleeping much better than the previous night.

 

Over all, this was probably my favorite day of the trip: biking in a nice place with good scenery and little traffic, a nice afternoon swim at a beautiful section of the river, interesting locals to talk to along the way. Having better food would have made it nearly perfect.

Mar 7: We had discussed riding from Ceiba to Trujillo along a (probably) rough road (based on the map) along the coast, but decided to bus to Copan instead to see the Mayan ruins there. So we rode out to the bus station, riding by the market, the old, rotting dock (used to ship out bananas in the past), and the Standard Fruit Company along the way. We arrived at the bus station about 9, just as a bus was starting to pull out for San Pedro Sula, and hurriedly loaded our bikes.

At a 15 minute food stop, we got some delicious but dirty baleadas (flour tortillas with a bit of refried black beans and cheese, Abby also found a hair and a piece of plastic in hers) and talk with a couple from New Zealand/Australia, the woman is wearing a "Bike the world's most dangerous road" t-shirt.

Arriving in San Pedro Sula, there aren't any buses to Copan from the small station our bus goes to, and we have to ride out to the larger bus terminal/shopping mall. We pass the NZ/Aus couple again as we are wheeling our bikes through the mall section to get to the bus terminal section. Abby and I take turns watching the bikes and bags, while the other gets food, runs errands. When I return to relieve Abby, she is chatting with a young boy, and I talk with him a bit, too. He asks me if the US is near Spain, and I draw him a rough map. He is there selling cookies to bus passengers, and tells me that he does it every afternoon after school, even though it is against the rules to sell stuff at the bus terminal like he does. As we are talking, a guy from the bus company comes over to tell me we should load the bikes, and the boy scampers off to find Abby while we get the bikes loaded. After waiting on and around the hot bus for a while, we finally get under way.

At La Entrada, a town along the way, the NZ/Aus couple gets on the bus. The rest of the way to Copan Ruinas is up into the mountains, the road and views reminiscent of the highlands of Guatemala. We arrive in town as it is getting dark, put the bikes back together, look at the guide books and chat with a hotel tout. Usually I strictly avoid all hotel touts, since I find them annoying and don't want to encourage them, but we end up following him to take a look at the place. The tout seems pretty slimy, but the owner of the hotel seems nice, and it is a very nice place, and inexpensive, about $10/night since it is the low season and not many people in town. Turns out the NZ/Aus couple also end up staying there, and we chat with them a bit more.

We have dinner in a nice restaurant, and the waiter patiently answers all of our questions about the menu and dishes. The food is quite good, if a little pricey, but still very cheap by US standards, and there is a lot of it. After finishing dinner, we walk out to the fair, which apparently lasts a few weeks, and is pretty similar to a small town carnival in the US. There aren't many people, only a few of the rides are actually running. We end up spending a few minutes at one of the shooting games. Abby goes first, apparently she's never shot a gun (or even an air rifle, which these are) before, but manages to hit a couple of the plastic soldiers with her first two shots. When my turn comes, I carefully aim, and squeeze the trigger and miss about 5 times in a row. I've shot quite a bit, and this should be a fairly easy shot to make, assuming the sights are correctly aligned and the gun is reasonably consistent from pellet to pellet. But those probably aren't valid assumptions, and I give up, ignore the sights, and just do some quick point shooting, managing to hit a couple of the soldiers. We collect our prizes (a small stuffed bear, a plastic snake, and a cheesy framed card with that says something like "te quiero mucho", and chat with the woman running the booth for a few minutes, getting a photo of her posing with one of the rifles. We wander around a bit more, then head back into town.

I end up watching most of The Incredibles (in Spanish) on the TV in our room before turning in.


Mar 8: Copan Ruinas. Abby is feeling rather fatigued today, but we decide to go out for a ride, end up pedaling unpaved roads and trails of varying quality to La Boca del Monte, a small village up in the hills. Along the way, we chat with a local guy on a bike as we ride along, about what is in the area, bikes, etc., then pause under a large tree for a rest when we part ways at a fork in the road. After a few mintues, we climb up to the village of Chilar, then down along a path to Boca del Monte. Abby is pretty tired, so We ride back into town for lunch of pupusas at a small comedor, and she decides to hang out in town. I decide to head out for another ride, we agree to meet back in the park around 6.

 

I end up climbing back up into the hills on a different road, spending a lot of time grinding uphill in my lowest gear, passing a group of horseback riding tourists. It is slow going, but it is a cool day, and there are good views down into the valley. I pass through some small clusters of simple houses (more like huts really), greeting people along the way. After a couple of hours, I am trying to decided whether I should turn around and head back the way I came, or see if I can find some other way to get back into town. I stop to talk to a family sitting outside their house, asking them where the road goes, if there is some sort of loop I can make. They tell me I can follow the road down into Cabanas, then another road from there to Santa Rita, where I can hop on the highway back to town. I ask about the distance, and figure I should be able to make it back by about 6 based on their estimates, so continue on my way down the backside of the hills into another river valley and down into Cabanas, a fairly sizeable town.

I stop for a soda and a quick break, admiring the central plaza overflowing with tropical plants and a minature church, ask a local guy hanging around on the street for directions, and he doesn't know exactly how far back into town it is kilometer-wise, but estimates it will take an hour and a half by bike. Another bystander, chimes in, agreeing, and since it is nearly 5, I decide to ride faster than I have been. The road into Santa Rita is gravel, but very good quality, and I fly along it, admiring views of the river and surrounding hills. I reach Santa Rita after about 15 minutes, then hop onto the pavement. There isn't much traffic, and I feel like I am going incredibly fast, after bouncy along on unpaved, sometimes very rough roads and tracks for the last couple of hours. I roll into town about 5:30, drop the bike off at the hotel, and meander over towards the park, exploring a bit along the way.

Abby shows up, and we decide to have street food for dinner, then get some information about possible coffee tours and end up with some drinks at a touristy bar, then head to a dance and the "Queen of the Fair" beauty pageant, which has been advertised to start at 8. We buy tickets, go inside, but it is completely empty, and we are told things won't really start until at least 10. So we head back to the fair again, and it is much busier than the previous night. We hang around, just people watching for quite a while, then after some discussion, decide to ride the Ferris wheel. This is similar to the one I rode in Guatemala, meaning it runs MUCH faster than Ferris wheels in the US, and is actually pretty scary at first. Abby seems to be absolutely hating it at at the beginning, but eventually relaxes, and jokes with the young girls in front of us. We survive, wander around looking unsuccesfully for a bathroom, then head back into town to the dance.



The "beauty pageant" is pretty silly, with 5 contestants. Due to the horrendously loud volume and awful acoustics, it is hard to understand what the announcer is saying. One of the contestants, the youngest, seems to be absolutely hating it. We can't decide if she is just horribly nervous, or has been forced to do it against her will. She slouches around on the stage with a sullen expression. Most of the others are ridiculously, artificially chipper, more like one would expect. There are 3 or 4 "events" separated by pauses for the contestants to change outfits and such, then the results are announced, and the dancing begins. The music is painfully loud, but we hang around inside for a while watching, and Abby dances a little bit as a I retreat outside in pain. I offer to go get my earplugs at the hotel so that I can tolerate going back in to maybe dance a bit, but we end up just goiong back to the hotel.

Mar 9: Copan Ruinas. We ride out to the Mayan ruins, arriving a bit before 8, and have the place almost entirely to ourselves for an hour or so, before heading back to the entrance to join a tour given by a guide we happened to meet in Ceiba, and who Abby ran into again by chance in Copan at an internet cafe. The tour is in Spanish, and besides us, there are a couple of middle-aged Spanish women, and a Honduran couple. The guide is enthusiastic and informative. As we are passing through the ticket control point and the guide is telling us about a visit of the Queen of Spain to the ruins, the ticket collector smiles, shakes his head, and conspirationally whispers to the Honduran couple: "He lies quite a bit, doesn't he?" The tour lasts a couple of hours. The site is different from the other Mayan ruins I've been too, with somewhat less impressive structures as far as number and size goes, but with more impressive scuptural details.

 

After the tour, we contemplate whether to try riding to La Entrada, but decide to stick around and take the bus from Copan to San Pedro Sula in the morning.

We have lunch at a place near the ruins which has pretty good food. Abby has been considering doing a coffee tour, but decides it probably isn't worth the price, so we head out for a ride to the Guatemalan border along the highway. There is a pretty big hill, with a long climb and a fast descent on the other side down to the border. We ask if we can briefly cross and are told there is a small village about 1 km away, so we ride through it and back to the border to hang out for a bit in front of store, snacking. I get a soda, then decide to get a Gallo (a Guatemalan beer) for old times sake.

 

We head back through the border area, and stop to use the bathrooms. While I am lounging around waiting for Abby, a Guatemalan money changer strikes up a conversation, and we end up talking with him for quite a while. Like many of the other people we have talked to, he lived in the US for a few years, working. In his case at a pizza place in Pennsylvania. After a while, we realize we are running out of daylight and decide to head back, giving him the bear and snake, the prizes from the carnival, for his kids. We've been meaning to get rid of them the past couple of days, but keep forgetting.

We climb back up the hill as the sun gets low in the sky. Of course the wind has shifted, so we have had a head wind both ways, but it isn't too bad. Abby pauses to take a photo of the landscape, but there are a couple of women crossing the road at the same place, and they are very excited to get their photos taken, although they pose with very stern expressions. It takes quite a bit of discussion to try to figure out how to get the photos to them, since they apparently don't have an address and don't ever receive mail. That was also a problem the previous night at the carnival, when Abby was trying to figure out how to get photos to the girls from the ferris wheel.

We head back into town, have dinner at a place the hotel manager recommends, Tejitas, and it has pretty good comida tipica at reasonable prices.

Mar 10: We get up to catch the 7 am bus back to San Pedro Sula, and then ride back to the hostel, stopping for a snack at Estelina's along the way. We are happy to discover that Abby's bike box has survived. We'd left it under a sketchy looking roof in a storage area behind the hostel, and beside vehement assurances that it would be OK even if it rained by the hostel's maid, we had been skeptical. Luckily, it apparently hadn't rained in San Pedro Sula at all. We leave the bikes, and wander around the city much of the afternoon in the heat. Visit a couple of markets and the central park, look for crazy colored spoke reflectors (we'd been seeing purple and green) at a couple of bike stores (no luck), stop at the post office to mail some postcards, make a couple of snack and drink stops along the way, visit a book store so I can look for some reading material for the plane, etc. I leave Abby at the handicraft market near the hostel, and return for a brief siesta.

About 5:30, before it gets dark, we pack up the bikes, and eventually go out to dinner at Estelina's, although when we realize they don't have beer, we ask the manager if we can bring in our own. He is pretty cool with it, just says we should buy empty paper cups from them and drink it from that so that he doesn't get into trouble. We head back to a small grocery, get some snacks for the plane, and in place of beer end up buying a small bottle of rum to spike the tropical fruit licuados. I get a banana licuado with my baleadas, and a couple shots of rum makes it even better.

Back at the hotel, the maid reserves a taxi for us for the following morning, and we turn in pretty early since we need to be up early for the flight.


Mar 11: Around 4 am the maid comes in and tells me our taxi is here, even though we had requested it arrive around 4:45. I groggily go out to talk to the driver, and discover that the taxi is a normal sized car, even though we had specifically requested a larger van or something so we could fit in the bikes in it. I discuss things with the driver and maid, he calls on the radio to try to get a bigger taxi, but is told there aren't any available. We try to see if Abby's box will fit in the trunk, decide we can probably lash it to the roof if we find some rope. I head back up to tell Abby what is going on, and we get dressed, grab our bags and head out to help load the bikes. We end up with Abby's bike somewhat precariously lashed to the roof, and mine hanging out the trunk, our bags in the back seat. The driver promises to drive slowly, and both he and I keep a hand on the box on the roof to make sure it doesn't get blown or shaken off. We make it to the airport without incident, wait around a bit for the counter to open, get checked in, pay our exit tax, get through security, and wait for our flight. I was kind of hoping to pick up a bottle of Zacapa Rum, which is impossible to find in Washington State, but the duty free shop is closed for inventory.

We mostly try to sleep on the flight to Miami (although I don't have much success), and luckily it isn't too full, so can spread out a bit.

In Miami, we decide to leave the airport for lunch, since we have a multi-hour layover. Unfortunately, United won't let me check in my bike until four hours before my flight, so I have to pay to store it at the left luggage office in the airport.
(For reasons dealing with using airline miles from different airlines, Abby and I had booked different flights on different airlines from Miami to Seattle. Since she was flying on the same airline on a single ticket all the way, she was able to recheck her bike without problems; I was actually traveling on two separate tickets, booked with two different airlines.)

After dealing with the bike, we hop on a bus that gets us fairly close to little Havana and then walk several blocks hauling our luggage. We end up at Versailles, which several people tell us has the best Cuban food in the area, even though we would have preferred a smaller place. Ironically, they also happen to have several locations in the airport itself, although all of the ones I saw there were more bakery and coffee places, and didn't seem to serve meails. Still the food is pretty tasty, and I also get a very tasty and reasonably priced (for Miami) mojito, and a decent slice of key lime pie for desert. The waitress that takes our order apparently doesn't speak English, and we end up ordering in Spanish, which is fine, since we still haven't completely adjusted to the fact that we can address strangers in English now, and keep starting to talk to them in Spanish anyway.

Then it is back to the airport, with a brief stop at a liqour store so Abby can pick up a couple of gifts, and I consider buying a bottle of Zacapa Rum since they have it, but decide it will be a pain to pack, and if I don't get it, I will have yet another reason to go to San Fransisco again sometime soon.

Abby and I part ways when we get back to the airport, since we'll be flying out of different terminals. I collect the bike, get checked in, wait a couple of hours for my flight to Denver, which is uneventful. By the time I get off the plane and grab a carryout sandwich at a place across from my boarding gate, my plane has already started to load, and I walk directly onto the plane into my first class seat, and am almost immediately given a class of wine.

Arriving in Seattle, I see that Abby's flight was apparently delayed a few minutes, and we have arrived within a couple minutes of each other. I collect my bike, and walk down to the her baggage carousel, start putting the bike together, see her in a couple of minutes. She goes to look for her friend, we load the bikes and bags into her car, and get a ride home. I'm pretty out of it at this point, not having slept more than a few minutes on any of the flights, and pretty much just collapse into bed.

Mar 12: I was planning to go into work, but upon awakening, remember that I am actually only supposed to be working half time this week, so only have to put in 20 hours, and don't really have to go in to work at all. So I fall back asleep, then laze around most of the day. I go out for a late lunch at a Chinese restaurant, and my fortune is "A new adventure awaits you this weekend". I'd been planning to not do much of all, but this makes me feel obligated to plan SOMETHING interesting to do.

In other bike news, I also stopped by R+E, since they have left a message for me about my Phil Wood hub from my Rodriguez bike that I'd dropped off before I left town. It's the hub that stopped working in Costa Rica last year, and I'd had to get a new rear wheel built up there. Turns out I somehow managed to destroy pretty much every internal part of the hub, although they really aren't sure exactly how that happened. The only thing that was still intact was the hub body. But Phil came through with the warranty and supplied a brand new replacement hub, only charging me a $30 service fee (not too shabby on a hub that costs $385 new).

Ringing in the New Year in Anchorage

More photos.

I decided to do something new for New Years this year, and booked a ticket up to Anchorage for the long weekend. Which meant of course I needed to bring the Pugsley along, since it was designed for that sort of thing.

On the ride out to the Seattle airport, the weather was somewhat appropriate, with snow and then freezing rain. That didn't last too long, before it changed to just rain. It was my first time flying with a bike that needed to be boxed, so I had to ask around to locate a box and figure out the procedure. To fit the Pugs in the box, I had to remove the pedals, handlebars, and front wheel, and also lower the seat. But no other disassembly required, given the large size of the box. Of course, for the outrageous fee the airline was charging for shipping a bike, the box should be large! (Note: bike fees vary wildly from airline to airline, from nothing up to $100 each way, so it makes sense to check them out before you book a flight -- and also make sure the airline doesn't have a oversize luggage embargo in place for the time period and place you are traveling!)

The flight was uneventful, and the Pugs came through unscathed. I ended up paying to store the box at the left luggage office, since the airline didn't have any boxes available at the Anchorage airport, and taking a taxi to and from the airport with the biked box would cost more than storing it.

Over the next few days I explored Anchorage by bike, following various trails (snow-covered, but periodically groomed for the benefit of skiers), back streets, and sidewalks. I can't say Anchorage is all that bike friendly, at least in the winter. The trails are nice, if you have a suitable bike, and if they happen to go roughly where you want. The roads are not so inviting, since there usually isn't much of a plowed shoulder, and watching cars skid and slide all over the road doesn't inspire a whole lot of confidence that you aren't going to get mowed down out in the road. So I often traveled on the sidewalks. That was an adventure, and probably requires a Pugsley or other fatbike, given that often the sidewalks aren't cleared, and they seem to serve more as a repository for snow that has been plowed from the street. The Pugs was able to handle pretty much everything I encountered, though I still had to watch out for patches of glare ice, especially while turning. I also encountered several moose, and had to make a couple of detours to avoid them. No wolf sightings, even though several people warned me about them before I left Seattle, since there had just been a story about wolf problems near Anchorage in the news.

I also got together with some local fatbike riders, who took me out for some rides: trails in the woods outside of town, out on the frozen mud flats amidst the ice chunks on the inlet, and up to Eklutna Lake to ride a trail along the lake, with excellent views of the surrounding mountains. These rides were a great introduction to snow biking on the Pugs, since I encountered a variety of different snow conditions to play with. Fortunately, the weather was pretty good my entire stay, the temperatures around -4 deg C (about 25 deg F), so not too cold, and little wind. A couple of sunny days, a few days of overcast, and occasional light snow flurries. I wore pretty much what I wear in Seattle for biking this time of year, except with warmer mittens instead of light gloves, heavier socks and boots, and a heavy fleece balaclava. My feet would often start to get cold after being out for a few hours, but otherwise I stayed plenty warm.



I also rode Critical Mass, which as a ride was actually pretty pathetic, as only about 10 people showed up and we just made one quick loop around downtown before heading to a bar for a couple of drinks. I did meet some interesting folks at CM though, including an anarchist vulcanologist, and ended up heading back to a local's home with about half of the CM turnout for some food, more drinks, and conversation.

Another night, I rode the trails out to Goose Lake, which was completely frozen over. An approximately mile long course had been cleared of the powdery snow covering the lake, and the Frigid Bits folks where having a multi-lap bike race out on the ice. I arrived a bit late, and wasn't sure how my wide but non-studded tires would do on the ice, so I didn't race. After the race, I did a lap on a borrowed bike with studded tires, and later another lap with the Pugs. The studs definitely had the advantage on the ice, although given there was a thin layer of packed down snow, the Pugs didn't have many problems either. There was also a barrel fire (in a nicely customized barrel with bike shaped cut outs) as well as a barbecue and plenty of beer, and I got to chat with a bunch of local riders and get some good information for possible future Alaskan trips. I also picked up a variety of fatbike tips.



New Years Eve was fairly low key. I headed downtown about 10:30 pm, since I heard there was supposed to be something going on down there, and had seen some setup taking place that morning. But it was nearly deserted, and apparently whatever had happened had taken place ealier in the day and was long over. So I headed out to a dive bar that a few people I'd met had mentioned they would be at, hung out there, and ended up riding back around 3 am, enjoying the mostly empty streets, spotting a couple of moose, passing occasional groups of drunken revelers.

*

Back in Seattle now, I get off my red-eye flight, and blearily collect my bags and reassemble the Pugs. Outside, I am greeted by the rain, a typical grey Seattle winter morning. I feel like I am zooming along blazingly fast as I ride into work from the airport, back to riding on the road on with smooth, bare pavement. A big change from crunching slowly through snow and having to worry about sliding on ice patches. But as I drowsily fly down the asphalt, pelted by cold rain drops, I'm already dreaming of future adventures in the North, out into the wilderness next time, into the real Alaska.

Bikerafting

I slept in on Sunday, one of the first times I've really done so for a while, and when I finally poked my head outside, it looked like a fine day. I decided to go ahead with a short trip I'd had in mind for some time, to experiment with multi-modal pedal and paddle trips. I've done similar trips in the past with a folding bike and an inflatable kayak or a packraft, but I'd heard it was possible to use the packraft with a full sized bike, and wanted to give it a try with the Pugsley. Add a packraft to the offroading capabilities of the Pugsley, and well, the sky is almost literally the limit. But there may even be ways to get around that limitation. Not sure how well that would work with a Pugsley though.

I loaded up a couple of Ortlieb Back Roller panniers (which are waterproof, with dry bag like roll top closures, so great for paddling as well) with camping gear, even though I wasn't planning to camp, and threw them on the rear rack of the Pugsley. I had another big Ortlieb duffel already packed and ready to go, containing my paddling gear: my new packraft, named Sundrop (for its diminutive size and cheerful yellow color, a mental antidote to the more common raindrops around here), PFD, inflation bag, paddle, drysuit, and sandles. That went on top of the rear rack. Then I pedaled off across Beacon Hill, setting off on a test run for some future trips I had in mind.

It was a nice, partly cloudy but warm day. I followed the road for a while then took a new paved bike trail, the Chief Sealth Trail, which follows the swath of power lines southwards from Beacon Hill. I'd actually stumbled upon it last year before I left, before it was complete or officially open, during on one of my longer bike rambles around town. It is a bit different from most other paved trails in the Seattle area, since it contains some pretty steep grades, and follows power lines instead of old rail beds. It does deviate from the power line corridor in a few spots to follow roads, but I just followed the slightly bumpy grassy slopes under the lines through some of these sections, since I hate confining the poor Pugs to the pavement when there are other options more suitable for what it was designed.

After the trail ended, I meandered through a tangle of streets, over the hills to Renton, navigating by the sun to avoid getting turned around as the streets curved this way and that. Eventually I arrived in an area I was familiar with, after passing such things such as a Polynesian Deli and a brightly painted Tibetan temple, as well of lots of residential neighborhoods that I'd never set tire nor foot in. I stopped for a quick lunch, then headed to the Cedar River Trail.

I followed the trail, scouting what I could of the river along the way, noting potential hazards and take outs. Past the golf course, I left the trail to take a bridge across the river, following Jones Road a while along the other bank until I found a bit of public land with river access. Turning my wheel onto the narrow, sandy path through the vegetation, I stopped at a small clearing with a recent fire ring, right on the shore of the river.

I pulled out and inflated the raft, then removed the wheels from the bike, and used a bit of velcro strap around the down tube and fork, in order to keep the handle bars fixed in a turned position. Then I strapped the bike to the tie downs on the front of the packraft, and stacked the wheels on top, strapping them to the frame with the shoulder straps from the panniers to make a secure package. I shoved the two panniers in the tapered bow of the boat, under the bike, one on top of the other. They are also tapered at the bottom, so it was a nice, snug fit.

Pulling on the drysuit and PFD, I tossed the duffel that had held the paddling gear and which now held my shoes and other small items into the bottom of the boat, and pushed off from shore, starting my drift down stream.

Given that the handle bars and rear rack were hanging off to either side, and my legs were bent much more than normal from the panniers in the bow, my paddle stroke had to be pretty funky, but with some practice I started to get used to it. I think next time I will remove the handlebars to strap them in a more out of the way location, which should improve things.

It felt good to be on moving water again, drifting under the sun dappled, fiery leafed trees above, and tired, battered, fiery red-orange salmon struggling up stream below.

The river was fairly tame, but there were a few bits of rougher water, and enough logs and other sweepers to keep me on my toes. The raft felt plenty stable, even with all the weight up front, but my funky paddle stroke made me quite a bit slower than usual, and packrafts aren't especially speedy in any case. That made for a few adrenaline filled seconds in some of the swifter sections, as I paddled hard to clear the current that was dragging me towards an over hanging tree or other potential hazard, paddling just as fast as I thought I could without thrashing about uselessly, mentally repeating the mantra "slow is smooth; smooth is fast."

That's something I first heard in my combatives and weapons training years ago, but the idea isn't limited to the martial arts, it also applies in many different physical endeavors where speed and efficiency of movement is key. Try to force yourself to go too fast, and all you get is useless, unecessary movement that not only slows you down, but also tires you out more rapidly.

So I forced myself to keep that in mind, as I hurtled toward the big, nasty log jutting out over the river, waiting to try to sweep me out of the raft. Finally it became apparent that I was going to clear it, and I relaxed a bit after a quick scan for other hazards.

At another point there was a tangle of fallen trees and logs blocking the entire river, and I pulled up on a bar to scout various options for getting around, finally deciding to portage over the bar, then push the raft under a tree in the shallows of a smaller channel, and then drag it over another log in an area of shallow water with little current.

For a change of pace, and to cool off a bit after the exertion of manhandling the raft, I pushed off from the tree and held onto the back of the raft, swimming behind it, propelling it forward with my kicking legs, my drysuit doing its job and warding off the cold water and potential hypothermia.

After a minute or so of that, I hauled myself back up into the raft, and discovered I could sit comfortably on the rear tube. From this position, I could paddle more comfortably, since I was farther back from the interference of the bike, and my knees weren't up where they caused even more interference. Not quite as stable as being down in the boat, but still plenty stable for flatwater.

As I started approaching town, I noticed that I had worked up an appetite, and started softly, but happily singing to myself: "Row, row, row, your bike, gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, I want some ice cream". Looking down at the poor, battered, nearly exhausted salmon, my only audience, I then changed my words for them, singing more sadly: "Roe, roe, roe you'll make somewhere up the stream, tiredly, tiredly, tiredly, tiredly, with fishes you will dream."

Drifting lazily down the river, trying to ignore the occasional pungent whiff of rotting fish, I waved to pedestrians looking down from bridges, and even had a few brief conversations with curious walkers on the riverside path as I floated past, finally gliding under the library building suspended over the river, I pulled out onto shore a short ways downstream.

Within half an hour, I had the bike ready to roll with the paddling gear packed, and set off to find that ice cream. And maybe a beer, too.

Waist deep in the muck

This past weekend I went down to my parents' place in Olympia to rummage through my storage unit and pickup some gear that I'm planning to use for some bike camping trips and such that I'm planning this fall and winter with the Pugsley.

I also took along my newly arrived lightweight tipi and woodstove, and had some fun testing them out in the rain in the backyard. They look like they should be just the thing for warming up and drying out after a wet day of paddling or cycling in the rain.

Late Sunday night, I realized there was some other stuff I should probably get out of the storage unit while I was down, so on Monday morning, instead of hopping on a bus back to Seattle, I hopped on my bike to collect the gear from the unit, planning to take another bus a bit later.

The weather had been pretty crappy all weekend, but now it was a bright, sunny, gorgeous, summery day, and I soon decided to take the day off and enjoy it outside. Looking forward to a dark, rainy Seattle winter, you have to take advantage of the nice days when they come along, and fortunately I get to pretty much set my own hours at work, so am often able to seize the day (or the fleeting hour in some cases) when the nice weather does occur.

Returning back to my parents' place on the now loaded bike after grabbing some lunch, I considered heading out for a longer ride. But then I realized I hadn't really fed my other addiction recently (bikes and boats, pedaling and paddling), and decided to head out onto the lake on my packraft, one of the pieces of gear I'd come down to Olympia to collect.

A packraft is a sweet little boatlet, a dinky inflatable raft paddled with a kayak paddle, which rolls down to the size of compact two person tent, and weighs less than 5 pounds. So it is great for hauling around in a backpack or on the back of bike, and is capable enough to handle serious whitewater, assuming you have the skill. But they are also quite fun on flatwater, and a truly take-anywhere boat.

I hadn't gotten around to repairing or replacing the broken shaft on my 4-piece paddle that I use with the packraft, and although I could have just borrowed one of my parents' paddles, I decided that I could probably pretty easily salvage most of my broken one to make a shorter paddle. So, I spent a few minutes scrounging up a hacksaw, a miter box, a drill, and a appropriately sized drill bit from the garage, and another few minutes cutting off the ragged end of the broken paddle shaft and drilling a new hole so the paddle blade could click into place. The new, shorter version of the paddle was only about 180cm long, as opposed to its original length of 210, but seemed like it might work out OK with the packraft.

I pumped up the packraft, pulled on my drysuit and PFD, grabbed my paddle and a bottle of water, and walked down to the lake. The plan was to explore the outlet, which is the source of river I had been considering paddling for a while. Currently the whole outlet area is a big marshy mess, but apparently in the past there was a more clearly defined stream until a big gas pipeline went in and caused big changes in the lake drainage area. So the plan was to scout and try to gauge the possibility of finding some sort of channel or bushwacking route through the marshy area so that I could possibly start a future paddle down the river from the dock at my parents' place on the lake.


The packraft isn't exactly the fastest boat around, maybe averaging about 2 mph on flatwater with no wind. But out on the lake there was a fair headwind, so I was traveling even slower. I also was having to modify my paddle stroke a bit beacuse of the shorter paddle, but after a couple of hundred strokes I got used to it, and it seemed to work fine. It was great to be out on the water, admiring the surrounding trees in their fiery fall colors, and I mostly had the lake to myself, other than a bunches of birds. I wasn't even minding the headwind that much.

After an hour and a half or so of paddling into the headwind, I finally reached the end of the lake and entered a calmer area in the lee of the trees. I ghosted along near shore, peering into the thick reeds and marshy vegetation, stopping now and then to listen for running water, trying to find the outlet. Eventually I detected some slowly flowing water and an overgrown channel of sorts, but too narrow and with too much vegetation to paddle. So I hopped out of the boat and started the difficult task of wading through the muck, pushing and pulling and sometimes carrying the packraft, trying to penetrate further into the marsh.

It was very slow going. The oozing, muddy bottom was quite soft, and at times I would sink up to my crotch in it, pulling myself free by placing my torso on the packraft and slowly wriggling free of the sucking mud. There was also a tangle of slippery, submerged trees and branches, and plenty of overhanging vegetation to further impede progress. After 15 minutes or so, I was covered in mud from the waist down, with several splotches higher up, was getting tired, had nearly lost my sandals to the muck several times, had nearly plunged headlong it the murky water on several other occasions, and had only managed to make it maybe 100 meters into the marsh. So I struggled back to the open water of the lake, swimming about a bit to wash the mud off my drysuit, and then scouted a bit more for any other channels without any luck.

Deciding it was time to start heading back, I turned the packraft homeward, now being pushed by a tailwind, making the return trip significantly faster, reflecting that although I hadn't been successful in finding passage through the marsh, I'd had a lot of fun messing about in a little boatlet and playing in the mud on a beautiful day.

Pugsley: Love at first ride

Over the past couple of weeks, I´ve been seriously considering a Surly Pugsley, a sort of "monster bike" with huge tires which allows you to ride on surfaces that wouldn´t normally be possible, such as deep sand or snow.

Although I was pretty sure I wanted to own for at least a while to test its capabilities, I was hesitant to take the plunge and drop a couple of thousand dollars on a bike I´d never even seen an example of in person. However, after talking to the friendly folks at Freerange Cycles in Fremont and getting a price quote from them, they decided they would order one in to have in the shop, which I´d be able to take a look at.

On Thursday afternoon, I got the call that the Pugsley had arrived, and within a few minutes I was out the door and on my bike to take a look. I took the bike for a spin after spending a couple of minutes admiring the humongous tires and all the weird stuff they had to do to the frame and fork shape get them to work with otherwise fairly standard bicycle components.

Given the size of the tires and overall weight, I was expecting it to be quite slow. Yes, it was a bit slow to accelerate, and yes, I sincerely doubt that you will ever see a Pugsley being raced in the Tour de France, but really it wasn´t all that different from a normal mountain bike, at least with the pressure in the tires at the maximum rated level. Unfortunately, there wasn't really any good terrain close by to test its true capabilities, but I got some idea of them by rolling over some curbs without even having to lift the front handlebars.

After fiddling with the saddle height and trying out a few different stems to get the handle bars positioned in a comfortable spot, I decided to buy it. I could probably have gone with one frame size bigger, but the fit seemed pretty good, and an extra 1.3 inches of standover clearance seemed attractive, given some of the terrain I'd be attempting. Forcibly bashing your crotch with your full body weight into a metal tube isn´t all that much fun after all.

That night, I took it out on a group ride, letting a bunch of people try it as we were waiting around to start. I didn´t have any problems keeping up on the ride, but then again it wasn't especially speedy. At one point we passed a section of road that had a bunch of apples on the pavement, fallen from the trees above, and those big tires just rolled right over them.

After quite a few stops for flats and mechanical issues with other peoples´ bikes, as well as a stop for food, drinks, and firewood at a grocery store, we headed down the dark, steep, forested trail to Carkeek. I think the Pugs was rejoicing that it FINALLY was getting off the pavement, even if it was a tame enough trail that road bikes and skinny tired fixed gears were riding it without too much trouble. On the final, paved stretch up to the fire pit, I joked with another rider that if I had known we were going offroading, that I would have put on the fat tires. "Those AREN'T the fat tires?" he asked incredulously, with a double take down at them, nearly twice the width of a standard mountain bike tire, then realized I was joking.

After a couple of hours around a campfire, complete with roasting marshmallows and wieners, not to mention plenty of beer, ginger vodka lemonade, and fiery drops of chipotle infused mescal to go around, I headed back home in the rain, happily listening to the hum of those freakin' huge tires, and not even minding the occasional chunk of mud they threw up into my face. It must be love.

The next morning on the way to work, I stopped at the Colonnade mountain bike park, letting out some of the air in the tires to run through the trails a few times, getting used to the handling on the tight switchbacks, narrow log bridges, and bike teeter-totters. There were also a few sections that approximated some of the big, chunky gravel common on some roads in Central America that had made biking difficult on my 2" tires, but the Pugs just rolled over it with no issues at all. I didn´t bother to pump up the tires when I left, and discovered with the lower pressure that indeed "it corners like a bus with a flat tire" at higher speeds. But at the max rating of 30 psi, it actually corners quite well on pavement. And those huge tires are great for fast descents on rougher pavement, since they just roll over anything and feel incredibly stable.

Later that afternoon, I headed out towards Golden Gardens, stopping to practice riding UP a couple of short flights of steps, with another quick stop at Freerange to pick up a Surly rear rack, since the Tubus rack I had wasn´t compatible with the tires.

When I reached Golden Gardens, it had started raining, and rather more heavily than the typical Seattle spit 'n' drizzle, but I didn´t really care, and rode out on to the beach, for once not sinking into the deep sand, but gliding over it! I played with tire pressure, probably going down to something like 5 psi (only a guess, since my gauge doesn´t register pressures that low), then had loads of fun riding all over the beach: riding in circles in the sand, chasing waves, riding over driftwood logs, riding over the deep, loose rocks on one section of the beach, feeling again like a little kid who is reveling in the joy of just having learned how to ride a bike.

I found you have to take care when cornering, since trying to turn too sharply on deep sand results in the front tire digging in. But otherwise, riding on the sand was surprisingly easy and fast. Not as fast or easy as riding on pavement of course, but much faster and more effortless than trying to walk through the same deep sand. I was having so much fun, I didn´t even realize that it had stopped raining until quite a while later.

Not so much fun was pumping the tires back up to pavement pressures afterwards. Those things hold a LOT of air!

So what adventures will Pugs and I get up to now? Stay tuned.

Cielita, a little piece of riding heaven

I´ve really been enjoying riding around on my new Bianchi San Jose, which I´ve come to refer to as Cielita, which means something like ¨little heaven¨ in Spanish.
The name comes both from her color, a ¨washed out blue¨ (cielo also means sky in Spanish), and the fact that I am having so much fun riding around on her. The nights have been almost perfect for riding the last week, and it is a nice change to be somewhere that I feel a bit more comfortable riding around after dark. In Central America (and Romania) I was always hesitant to do so, largely because of crazy road hazards like missing manhole covers and pit like potholes that are that much harder to see and avoid at night.

I also went for a longer ride on Sunday with one of the local bike clubs, which was a pretty decent ride. The weather was great, we got in some decent hills, and I got to chow down on ice cream in route, while the rest of the group fed their caffeine addiction at a Starbucks, and at he end of the ride we all had some very good beer at the Issaquah Rogue Brewhouse.

The downside is that by riding in a group, I found I had to pay more attention to the other riders than the scenery, to avoid bike pileups and such. One of the advantages
of riding solo. Still, I did get to admire some of the fall colors a bit.

In any case, I´m really liking the new bike so far, and haven't had to do a whole lot to get it set up comfortably. I swapped out the stock stem for something with more rise to bring the handle bars up to more comfortable level, thankfully at no additional cost, since the shop where I bought it did a straight trade for the stock stem.

After a few days of riding, I also swapped the stock saddle, with its center stripe of faux leopard fur, for a Terry Fly saddle I´ve had for a while. The stock saddle was actually fairly comfortable, but the furry stripe tended to hold a bit of water from the rain, and I don´t think leopard print is really my style. Maybe I will try to swap it with someone who wants to pimp out their ride a bit, or maybe add it to the Pugsley if I get one. Somewhow it seems like it might be a better match with the Pugsley, which already looks rather ridiculous due to the ginormous tires.

After some tweaking of saddle position and height, and a few days getting somewhat accustomed to riding on drop bars, the bike is quite comfortable, and pretty speedy, too. I am still not so sure about the stock tires, but so far they seem acceptable.

Since this is my main around town transport, and Seattle tends to be pretty wet and dark much of the time, I also added a set of fenders for rain and lights for darkness. To carry my stuff around without my back getting tweaked and sweaty from a bag or backpack, I added a quick release saddle mount for my Carradice bag, as well as small clip on rack to help support it without needing to lash the bag to the seat post, which both makes it quicker and easier to take on and off, and gives enough clearance so the back of my thighs don´t hit the bag while pedaling.

The gearing is a bit higher than I am used to running on a single speed, so my climbs home are a bit tough and slow, but I´m already starting to get used to it, and it is quite nice on descents, since I can go faster before I spin out. I´m still getting used to the brake position on the drop bars, still having a reflexive tendency to reach for where the brakes would be on a flat bar bike, so I may add a cross brake lever for the front brake. I don´t really need the rear brake, since I´ve only been running her as a fixed gear so far, although I do like the fact that there is a freewheel on the other side of the flip-flop rear hub, so I have that option if I decide to do longer rides or take her out on some trails.

But, for the rougher stuff, I have pretty much decided to get a Surly Pugsley, so the San Jose probably isn´t the newest addition to my bike stable for long.

Back to the "Real" World

I've been back in Seattle about a week and a half now, and back at work for a week. It has been busy: looking for a place to live, getting back into the swing of things at work, slowly trying to catch up with various friends in Seattle, and so on. But so far so good.

I've managed to find a room in Beacon Hill, nothing spectacular, but decent, and fairly inexpensive by Seattle standards. And it is a month-to-month rental, so I can always bail if it doesn't work out. The neighborhood looks interesting, even if I haven't had much of a chance to explore it yet. There is a decent sized grocery store, a few convenience stores, a couple of restaurants and a coffee place, a Tienda Mexicana or two, a donut shop and bakery, and a public library all within easy walking distance. Not that I've actually set foot in any of them yet. Well, other than the donut shop, which was too hard to resist, and had pretty decent donuts. Last night was the first night I spent at the new place, after moving some of my stuff up from storage in Olympia over the weekend.

From the house I can also get to Capitol Hill on my bike in 10 minutes, meaning loads of restaurants, pubs, coffee houses, movie theatres, etc. are easily accessible. To work is about 25 minutes or so by bike. It takes a bit longer going the other way because of having to climb the hills. But that is actually good, since it gives me a decent workout on the way home. And I actually wanted somewhere a bit away from work, so that I could get in a decent ride on my commute, and I've already been plotting out various routes to switch things up a bit.

Bus service also seems to be fairly frequent, although I have to change buses to get to or from work, going either via downtown or Capitol Hill. The downtown transit tunnel is finally open again, so at least that means getting through downtown by bus is significantly quicker than it has been for the last couple of years.

But back to bikes, it has been fun getting reacquainted with Seattle by zooming around on my fixie. My first real riding back in Seattle was the great Safety First alley cat put on by Ms. MaLora Ann, AKA Pirate Molly, AKA Bike Calendar Girl. I actually placed high enough to win a $50 gift certificate for a local bike shop, plus had an excellent time zipping up and down (OK, more like creeping up and zipping down) the hills of Seattle as I tried to remember the specifics of how Seattle streets link together after being away for a year. Many thanks to Molly Ann for putting it together!

And much of last week, I spent a lot of time on my own personal, multi-day Apartment Hunt alley cat, plotting my course between widely spread housing locations, taking me and my bike to several corners of the city I hadn't previously visited. Also great fun.

Plus I joined up with the slightly(?) crazy folks at .83 for a night ride, which first included a visit to Groce Out (pronounced "gross out", short for Grocery Outlet) to stock up on some brand of cheap beer no one had ever heard of, plus some kids' skeleton costumes which three of the riders somehow squeezed into, before I followed the long trail of red blinkies, ascending a quiet, forested road up Beacon Hill to a school yard, where we hung out drinking from a hollowed out pumpkin. Then onto Capitol Hill to the Elysian to sample the pumpkin ale, which of course they were out of, so we settled for porter and nachos, when we were told our table's second choice of stout wasn't available in pitchers for some legal reason having to do with alcohol content. The rolling party continued after a while, but I bailed at that point to ride back to West Seattle with a couple of others, back to my Sis's place where I was staying. Great fun to ride in a group again, although it took a while to adjust to the chaotic group riding style typical of these inebriated rides, and I tended to hang out towards the back. Overheard question of the night: "is it possible to get a BUI (biking under the influence)?." Apparently not in Washington, although it is in some other states.

Sadly, after enjoying these rides, my fixie, the bike I got for my 15th birthday and converted to a fixed gear commuter and around-town bike several months before leaving Seattle, the one I rode as a single-speed from Jasper to Glacier Park on the last segment of my trip, and the one I've been riding almost exclusively since returning, suffered a serious frame break the other day. It looks like it would be more expensive to repair than it is really worth, so I'll be retiring her.

Which means, of course, I need a new bike. Or two. After all, how could a single bike ever compete with one I've shared so many miles with over so many years? So, I just bought a new Bianchi San Jose, a single-speed/fixed gear bike, mostly for commuting and around town use. Not sure I'll actually keep it for long, but I wanted to try a bike with 700c wheels and drop bars, since I've never actually owned a bike with either. I've never really liked riding on bikes with drop bars, but then again, I've never ridden them for more than maybe half an hour, so have never gotten a chance to get used to them. So this bike is a test. And the San Jose can take fatter tires than many road bikes, meaning it should be a decent ride on hardpack trails and unpaved roads.

I'm actually thinking I'll have my "touring" bike (the Rodriguez) modified, replacing the vertical dropouts with horizontal ones, which will allow me to fairly easily switch it between gears and single-speed or fixed gear modes so that I have a flexible travel bike for quick trips out of town. Gears can be nice, if not strictly necessary, for longer trips, but nothing really beats the joy of flying on a fixed gear when in urban areas and in traffic. The Rodriguez already has S&S couplings and packs down pretty easily into an airline legal case to avoid oversize luggage charges on planes, trains, or buses, and I've been happy with the fit over the many miles I put on it over the last year. Once I do that, I probably won't need the Bianchi, but we'll see how it goes.

But I'm probably going to also be building up a Surly Pugsley (specs and more info here) for future adventures in the wilderness and the developing world which are currently percolating.

The Pugsley is definitely not your normal bike. It is the monster truck of bicycles, or maybe the Humvee of bicycles, with HUGE, cartoonish, tractor-like tires that look like they could roll over just about anything. It makes me smile when I look at. It is a post-apocalyptic bike-a-saurus. It makes me think of adding accesories you normally wouldn't associate with a bicycle. A machete would look quite at home, don't you think, and oh so useful on those muddy, overgrown jungle trails. Maybe a snow plow to help those poor bewildered, Seattlite car commuters make it back home when the white stuff occasionally falls? Maybe a rifle rack, just in case those polar bears are a bit too hungry when pedaling across the arctic tundra?

There is an old saying, "Don't take your bike to a car fight" (or something like that) but give me a Pugsley, and I might be willing to take on a car or two. Perhaps something like a Mini or Tdinky european cars anyway. I might not damage it much, but I could probably ride over it without hardly noticing the bump.

So, yeah, the question is: what exactly would I use it for, other than trying to crush cars? Well, all those third world "roads," tracks, and trails that I encountered during my travels which were too muddy or too sandy or too covered in thick, loose, chunky gravel for my measly 2" wide tires to deal with. Thinking back on it, many of the most enjoyable times on the trip were very much off the beaten path, and I'd like to get even further off it in the future. At least sometimes. Not to mention various wilderness areas in more developed nations. Say Alaska for instance. Just think of what could you do with a Pugsley and packraft. Of course the Pugs will be a pig on the pavement, and apperently it "corners like a bus with a flat tire", but that's OK. My style of travel definitely isn't about speed, and I've found being off the pavement is usually more enjoyable anyway.