Days 6 and 7, Tarik Saleh Bike Club 100 Challenge

Day 6 was busy with measly riding right at the end. I started with fresh fish market and farmers market buying of stuff for a combined family birthday party.

Vermilion Rockfish, got it and eated it

Then some shopping and walking around downtown with the wife. Saw a plating shop on state street, right downtown, looks like they do lots of bike parts. Joes plating on lower state:

And snapped a photo of this old welding shop sign, and grills!

Did some massive and fun eating of scallops, thresher shark, rockfish, crab legs and such and then went home with the family. Nearly did not ride, but my wife needed some stuff from the store, so I lit out at night for a 7 mile round trip to the supermarket. These days, most if not nearly all my rides are utilitarian, usually replacing a car trip. Going to work, going to the store, getting some take out, going to the PO. Many longer rides are just taking the long way (or the super long way) on an errand. This was my first utilitarian trip of the week, might be the only one, I have nothing against riding for riding sake, but I have not really had time to do this much in the last couple years, so big thanks to my wife and family for indulging me this week. The 7 miles put me at 74 for the week.

Day seven started with my brother and mom and I shepparding the kids on a ride around campus. The cousins on big kid bikes, Aida on a way too small balance bike, the adults on foot. It was great fun and Aida went much further than ever before on a balance bike.

Later in the afternoon I road the long low route to the harbor and met the family for a walk through the marina and dinner.

A bike rack air station on campus

Good car action

the Friday fits well in old style bike racks

After dinner my Brother, his wife, Elena and I went to see the Hobbit. It was pretty good. Not brilliant, but worth watching. My bro and I started with some severe conversation, then transitioned to the dream world of middle earth and stuff

I put in a total of 21 miles on the day, which puts me at 95 for the week. The last day is a travel day, but I should be able to sneak a 5 mile short ride in in the morning to get the 100 on the week, barely. I am not convinced I will make it home before midnight to get any riding in Los Alamos before the new year, but any which way I am satisfied with the week.

Seems like we have a bunch more participants, Scott from Spokane, Mindful Mule, and SeanM. That takes it to about 13 participants, plus 14 for me. Awesome. Or as my brother says, who are all these people again? CycloTourist seems to be trying to say he is DNF as he is sick, but I am not sure if it is possible to DNF the challenge. He put a nice comment in with a SB bike trailer pic. I accidentally deleted it, but here is his photo:

For some reason the comments have been coming through in bunches and doubles, let me know if your comment never appeared or some such.

Day 5, Tarik Saleh Bike Club 100 Challenge

Whoop, long day. Had some brekkie with the famly and then my brother and I took off for some Stand Up Paddle board lessons.

Which was good fun and all, I found it ridiculously easy in the smooth harbor and then fairly challenging in the (very light) swell and wake area just out of the harbor. I did not fall off until we hit cross wake, and then I fell a few times, my brother did not fall at all. Seems like I liked the longer narrower SUP than the beginner wider one, but it may be that the beginner one was not quite big enough for someone of my massive presence.

Car watching here on the streets is insane

I clearly had some balance problems that I was not expecting, maybe due to some knee issues and lower back issues, but all in all it was pretty fun and I would do it again. We got right up to a bunch of sea lions piled on top of each other on a buoy. Other highlight included paddling under some monstroso catamaran yacht parked in the harbor.

In unrelated news, I am enjoying all the rolling shamble bikes here in Santa Barbara, lots of great homemade trailers and basketed cruisers piled high with stuff. I saw this couple down by the harbor

I saw one other similar trailer up by campus. Both of these trailers were piled high with reeds or tall grass. Maybe for shelter building? Not sure what is going on, but it is a thing here apparently.
Later I rode down to my brother's house for pizza and movies for the whole family. My nephew has better hair than me, but I got him in the mustache department for now

Rode back in the dark, enjoying the humid cool weather and the peepers and abundant herons and suicide bunnies along the trail. Saw some nice crusty abandoned wheeled detritus on campus. Like these encrusted salmon brake pads on a half stripped gas pipe Bottechia:

The ride total was a bit over 20 for the day. Putting me at 67 total . Hopefully I will get a chance to sneak out for one more long day before I leave here on monday. Would also like to welcome UnkyBike MoBabo MichaelL to the challenge, riding on his fat bike up there in the artic north somewhere, he knocked out 51 miles on his fatbike somewhere in search of the a passage to warmer climes, he ate no sled dogs. JerryM in Los Alamos is holding down the fort riding his fixie in the cold. Andy Big Dummy Daddy is updating via his blog. Others are cruising along with notes via comments or email. I think that makes 10 people in on the challenge not named Tarik, so I am pretty psyched.

Mr Jalopy Sends photo evidence of some MTB adventures somewhere in LA

Well done everyone.

Day 4, Tarik Saleh Bike Club 100 Challenge

Got up late, made the baby girl some fried eggs:

had a nice brunch and a belated Christmas with the family and then put together the dirtiest folding bike in the world.

Featuring a melange of (most recently) belgian mud/cowshit, marin and east bay dirt, and uniformly distributed chain oil. This bike is really the ultimate in deferred maintenance. I usually do all the work only when necessary, always on the road, usually in a hotel room. I took the time to change the brake pads that probably had a couple more years left in em, but better safe than sorry:

The whole family went to the zoo together to engage in the christmas family ritual feeding of the Giraffes.

After getting back to my folks house, I left on a daylight ride on my favorite SB miniloop, foothills to the mission. Stopping by the mission canyon Fire depot

Descending Twisty roads

To the nice ocean and island views from the mission

Met up with the family for dinner at a restaurant with a cool old skip tooth cruiser parked out front

And then skipped out on dessert to ride back to my folks house in the dark via the coastal route bike path through campus. It was a really good ride on a really nice sunny day, the ride back was a little cool, but again, noting compared to riding on snow and ice in the dark!

The days mileage ended up just a bit over 25 miles, putting me at 47 total after 4 days and 4 rides on three different bikes. Hope everyone else is having fun riding about.

Day 3, Tarik Saleh Bike Club 100 Challenge

My original plan to get an early ride in Los Alamos in the snow before heading to the airport fell apart due to lack of time and organization, so we had a nice long trip to Santa Barbara, stretching over much of the day. Including lots of drawing

and some walking on the best airport carpeting in the world in PHX:

By the time we got to SB it was really late and I was too pooped to put together the Bike Friday. We had a nice dinner with the parents, put Aida to bed and I snuck out on my mom's pink flowered Dahon Curve 3 speed. Nominally, I was hoping to head to Trader Joes and get some beers for the holiday imbibing, but I could not remember where it was exactly, so I headed over to campus and down to the beach

and back

and saw this excellent bike repair center near one of the infinite fields of bike racks at UCSB

After a bit of noodling around the maze-like bikepaths on campus I emerged next to the Isla Vista Habit Burger and was disheartened to see it closed, I would have emerged with a shake for sure.

All told it was a mighty 10.5 miles on the Dahon Curve 3, which even though it was kind of chilly, (high 40's and humid), and I was pooped, and the saddle was way too wide. it was by far the easiest ride of the week. That puts the total as of Wednesday 12/26 at 22 miles. Over three rides over three days...

There are quite a few more people in on the challenge, in addition to Andy BigDummyDaddy and David CycloTourist. Now we are joined by:
Scott 5 Toed Sloth
Jason Cyclescribe
BikeWRider
JLeddy in Vt.
Someone of parts unknown named Builder,
and I think Los Alamos JerryM is also on board unless I misread the comments.

Also the original pin art creator and TSBC founding member Mr. Jalopy is in on the Challenge as well. He and his Coco's variety crew are riding around the hills of LA:

Anyhow, welcome everyone to the challenge, I am pleased with the numbers. Have fun!

Day Two, Tarik Saleh Bike Club 100 Challenge

Today we got up early, did Christmas, I got a nap in, sledded with Aida a bit and then we lazed about watching the flurries for a while. Most of the day was spent watching Aida swing on her new tree swing, which I installed in the living room:

See this set for more info... I stoked the woodfire up so it was nearly 85F in the living room and we sort of lost the will to do anything. Finally it sort of cleared up and I busted out a quick(ish) 8 mile ride on the Pugs on the perimeter to roundabout to walnut canyon to bridges loop.

I took the road route (about a mile and a half) through Quemazon neighborhood to the pipeline-perimeter intersection so I could get the loop done quicker. It was a nasty climb, but I was treated with some nice views of the area from the high point of the ride. It was around freezing when I left the house, but the temp was dropping pretty quickly and I was not quite dressed properly. So I pretty much rode as hard as I could to keep warm. The rest of the ride was on snow packed singletrack, choppily packed down by peds. It was pretty much ideal snow biking conditions. 12" wide singletrack that the pugs ate up. I got up to the top at about sunset, descended and rolled to the roundabout in somewhat sketchy flat light conditions. I did the walnut canyon rim trail in increasing darkness, but the moon and other ambient light and the snow cover got me through bridges trail back to home without me needing to turn on the lights until I hit the last couple blocks on the road to home. I will add that this was a really good ride. Despite lingering sickness of indeterminate cause, I pushed it and it felt good and I returned home after and hour and a half to find the ladies napping...

So that puts me at a massive 11.5 miles total thus far. I am totally going to cheat by going to Santa Barbara for the rest of the challenge, but I will pay for it by having to travel twice between now and New Years. I will have to be a bit sneaky to get my rides in on the travel days, but I am nothing if not resourceful.

I am pleased that Big Dummy Daddy and Cyclotourist have taken up the challenge. Remember all you need to do is:
1. Just ride your bike 100 miles from 12/24-12/31/12 and you have achieved the challenge.
2. Or just ride your bike every day from 12/24-12/31 and you also have achieved the challenge.
3. Or just try to ride your bike just a bit more than you might have otherwise and you have achieved it.
You can prorate the challenge if you did not see it until after it started, or you can just go for number 3, or whatever. Just let me know how you did and I will send you a TSBC pin.

The Tarik Saleh Bike Club 100 Challenge

Welcome to the Tarik Saleh Bike Club 100 mile bike challenge. There are three ways to meet the challenge.
1. Just ride your bike 100 miles from 12/24-12/31/12 and you have achieved the challenge.
2. Or just ride your bike every day from 12/24-12/31 and you also have achieved the challenge.
3. Or just try to ride your bike just a bit more than you might have otherwise and you have achieved it.
This may appear like another groups holiday challenge, but the TSBC is better and cheaper and infinitely more inclusive than anything they do. I have no roundel prize but I have pins.

I am going to try for all the three prongs of the challenge and will document it here! You can document it in the comments or wherever you want. If you want an achievement prize, I will send you a TSBC pin gratis, email me with what you did to do achieve the challenge and a valid mailing address and I will send a TSBC pin out to you. Remember, club rules are 1. Ride bikes, 2. Try not to be an ass. And in this case, at least ride a bit between Christmas eve and New Years and then tell me about it.

It has been kind of cold and snowy here and we have been slightly waylaid by stomach issues and holiday stuff, so I did not ride during daylight hours, but then just around dark this started happening.

And then Elena and Aida and I went for a walk and then ate dinner, put Aida to bed, then did christmas prep, and then I snuck out for a ride.

Today, a mighty 3.5 miles at night on the pugsley in a combination of fresh snow, plowed slop, trails, sidewalks and interstitial neighborhood pathways. I felt like crap, but the trails were fun. It was around 30 degrees F and really humid for here, some sort of post storm inversion layer. It was good.