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
A couple of Fridays back I had to drop the old car off for service down in the way other end of Santa Fe. I took the opportunity to bring the pugs to do some arroyo honking back up to town and have some fun while they replaced the fuse box on the Golf.
in the wild intersitials of Santa Fe
I used to ride the arroyo a bunch before Aida was born. Elena would drop me off in south santa fe hell while she did some errands and I would ride up the arroyo to the bike trails and head downtown for some coffee and such and then she would pick me up on the way back home. Lots has changes since then. The Lamy trail between Siringo and downtown is completely paved now. The Rail Runner, passenger rail from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, was added in the last few years. As such, all the interesting stuff and single track on the trail is gone. Including Hunter and the Zia Caboose, for those of you who were long time readers. The path is really well used now, which is good, but the old path was good too. For old times sake, check out old ride reports Santa Feans with mad sand skills, Lack of Big Rides, Caboose Home, Return to the Zia Caboose, Return of the son of the Zia Caboose, Boring Same old Folding Bike Santa Fe Post. Anyone know what became of the Zia Caboose and Hunter? I think he was set up along the tracks diagonal across second from the Brew Pub for a while, but no sign of the caboose or even where the hell it would go.
Wheeled Detritus! my favorite thing to find.
Anyhow, when I have ridden the arroyo before, it was mostly hiking and riding, only really riding during monsoon season when the sand was a bit more packed. It is rough going on a normal MTB, and virtually unridable on the picnica. On the Pugsley, it was completely feasible. Just like the snow, lower the pressure until you can ride. Between the Santa Fe auto maul and Rodeo drive, it is pretty soft slow going, above Rodeo all the way to Siringo, it was pretty ridable. Hard work going up arroyo into the wind that day, but pretty easy coming back down. It was dry enough that I am pretty sure it was more or less unridable on a normal MTB. It was pretty smooth on the pugsley. I fell over in the deeper sand a couple times, but for the most part the section from Siringo to Rodeo was completely ridable and eerily clean of crap. There must have been a big arroyo clean up day. Good job peoples, the arroyo looked grand in this section.
Cruising down arroyo
There was still good stuff here and there to see. It was hot and smokey from the big fire down in the Gila, so I did not take quite as many photos as usual of the sights. But there was some wheeled detritus and other good things along the way.
Land Cruiser and pick up with engine in it parked at the Second Street Brew Pub
Once I hit the Lamy trail and went through the railyard, I got lots of comments on the pugsley. Mostly of the "look at those tires" variety, the winning comment of the day was from a slightly inebriated looking fellow fixing a car in a parking lot. He ran up toward me yelling "does it float?". I did get the chance to talk to Santa Fe fixture Ray for a bit. We chatted about bikes and some other stuff. He graciously let me take a pic of him and his service dog and his Worksman Trike. He loves the wheels as they don't need truing. The wheels did sport some damage was from someone backing into him in the Trader Joes Parking lot.
Ray and his rig
I stopped in the other Second Street brewery Railyard edition for some lunch and a beer. It was pretty fun to watch all the cyclists pass through the railyard on the way to wherever on a fine Friday afternoon. I picked up a growler to deliver to the fellers at Mellow Velo. It sort of fit in my musette, but I used another bag to kind of tie it in there.
Pugsley, Raleigh International, fully loaded Surly LHT. A great rackful of bikes.
When I got over to Mellow Velo, I delivered said growler checked out David's latest acquisition, a Schwinn Hollywood, to go with the coveted Schwinn Flying Star. Dammit, covet, dammit. I was also able to watch the shop van get painted in its new Wonderbread/Mondrian livery.
A side
flip side
So anyone want to give me their Flying Star or Holywood?
After chatting a bit at the shop, I took a nice easier ride back from whence I came and picked up the car. Total riding was probably about 16 miles or so, maybe 6 or 7 in the arroyo. It was a good day.
I picked up 700 billion goatheads getting out of the Arroyo back at the automaul. Fortunately I had slimed the tires that morning. Fortunately surly thought to put removable cores in their fatbike tubes. I am not really sure if any of the goatheads actually made it through the tires, they are pretty thick, but I will probably spend some time with a pocket knife prying out thorns before winter. While I was removing thorns in front of the service area, most of the mechanics came out to check out the Pugs. I probably should have let them ride it, but I was worried that the tires were going to go completely flat due to all the thorns. They are still holding air two weeks later, so maybe next time fellers.
A small fraction of the 700 billion goatheads
I drove back through town stopping at Trader Joes for supplies and was delighted when a previously unknown to me blog reader stopped me and introduced himself. Whats up Rick? This has happened to a few times and it always makes me really happy. It is hard to find the time to blog about stuff anymore, and I always wonder if it is just me, my ma, the seven of you who comment regularly and random google searches providing all my traffic. Stuff like this tends to spur me to slightly greater blogging heights. Anyhow, if you see me and know me through the blog, please say hello, then I can take your photo and have something to blog about. I will even hook you up with some Tarik Saleh Bike Club stuff if I have some with me.
Me and loyal(?) reader Rick in Trader Joes
After I loaded up with frozen pizzas and coconut oil infused dessert products, I headed home to the family. I grabbed Aida and plopped her in the trailer and rode downtown for the Red Elvises show at the duck pond. Aida really liked it.
Once in my youth I had a chance to trade a sweatshirt (nice HS track team sweatshirt, champion) for a VW rabbit pickup. Alas, I lived in Oakland, the car was in Nevada city and i had no way of getting up there and an unknown mess of things if I got up there. I guess I have a soft spot for these high mpg rattle trap junkbombs since then. There are not too many around anymore, but I spied this one in the UNMLA parking lot, I suspect it was being actively lived in. Bumper was strapped on, spare strapped to the roof, camper cap, hood strapped on, some sort of bicycle hunting prize strapped to the roof. Biodiesel stickers on the windows. How could it not be good?
Here is a cleaner example of the specie spotted in Oakland last year:
One of my favorite tags on this blog is the wheeled detritus one. All sorts of marginalized former rolling stuff. I found some good bike piles in santa fe last week.
At least two bikes worth of detritus front of the Santa Fe Library: click for big
With some stick welded repair on the down tube: click for big
On DeVargas St, downtown: click for big
If you like this sort of thing, there is a nice little picture book called Bicycles Locked to Poles by John Glassie. Basically abandoned and half stolen bikes locked to poles. The tragicomedy of the human condition is exposed as you page through the book. Oh the pathos!Or, just as easily, you could recreate these photos yourself if you live in or near any city/big college campuses.
Its no Bicycles Bella Cosa, but it has its own charm, especially to those of us who really appreciate the bicycle in ALL its forms.
I spent a bit of time last weekend visiting one of the truly unique places in los alamos, The Black Hole. I was looking for a more sturdy bench vice for the workshop and, while the black hole pretty much has everything, they don't got that. I spoke briefly with the owner, Ed Grothus, and he kindly told me to "do whatever I want" in regards to photographing stuff and putting it on my blog. Afterwards he went back to recycling cat food tins. Thanks Ed!
click for big
The Black Hole is a repository of "nuclear waste" as Ed puts it. He pretty much bought lots and lots and lots of salvage from Los Alamos National Lab, and offers it for resale. It has so much stuff in it, so haphazardly, I can't really get my head around it. I am pretty sure I want to buy lots of stuff from there, but every time I go I get overwhelmed with the sheer volume of crap and come to the realization that I need nothing. Good for me.
In true moscaline fashion I bring you a small fraction of the wheeled detritus available at the mighty black hole. For a less specific overview, see more photos around the interweb at Jsn's boozehound labs and this flkrpage.
It is probably worth clicking all the images for enlargement as it is impossible to display the magnitude of chaos from a small cropped image.
A pile of burnt relics from the cerro grande fire click for big
I really like checking out bikes locked up around towns I visit. Santa Barbara has some good ones including this very tweaked bike downtown. I interpret the top tube decal as "Crapton" as it fits so well.
See the wheeled detritus label for more crap locked to poles and suchlike, and the nice dutch bike in italy for a more styling bike with a front end crunch.
Hmm, the big difference between my crushing fitness last year and my middling pain this year seems to be 10-15 lbs and a distinct lack of long 2-4 hour rides.
One example of the truth is an extremeley painful 5 mile time trial that gains some 1000 feet in the first two mile that I do somewhat regularly on the fixie. I think my fast times last year were in the 15:45 range, this year? 17:28 or so. I think I have one last race in the series next week to see if I can get within a minute of last years time. I doubt I can, especially as I am in the midst of move number 12 or so in the last 10 years.
Another example is the stunning bonk I endured in the Los Alamos Fat tire festival this year, compared to the relative ease in riding really well last year.
I am slowly gearing up for what I hope to be a good cross season followed by an XC ski season (with snow???) this year. Maybe I will see my weight in the 185 range by christmas? Or maybe not.
Anyhow, last week I had my first epic solo ride of 2006. I posted some pics over the last week of the arroyo and santa fe river and dale ball trail portions of the ride. Basically my car needed a big servicing so I had 7 hours or so to kill in santa fe. I brought the MTB and rode from the santa fe auto mall way in the crap down on cerillo up to the lamy trail to downtown, stopping for coffee on the way. Up the singletrack along the santa fe river to upper canyon, to the Dale Ball trails, where I rode for about 1.5 hours. Back down to the lamy trail, over to the 2nd street brewerey where I had mighty buritos and beers, further down the lamy trail to Siringo, onto the bike path that leads to the arroyo that goes back to the santa fe auto mall. It was largely off road in the urban interstitials, maybe 35-40 miles total? I was wiped out, but in a good way.
The Lamy trail is a nice network of dirt road, double track and single track along the railroad spur from Lamy (on the amtrack line) to the Santa Fe Station. I think if you start in santa fe it is 15 or so miles one way to lamy. There is lots of good views, interesting hobo camps and businesses along the tracks. It appears there is a pretty active railroad car dismantling business that has sprung up over the last year or so. Lots of neat old rr cars up on blocks and work crews with cutting torches taking the cars down from the top.
RR car up on blocks at the old filling pump: click for big The car says "do not hump" on it. Must be a hobo thing. Or a santa fe thing. They seem to use "speed humps" for what I call "speed bumps". They are usually well marked in parking lots with "Hump" painted in big letters on the road and a yellow sign with "speed hump" on it. Damn hobos.
Wheels and axles probably going for scrap: click for big
Nearby I saw my pal Tony walking his dog, both at the beginning of the ride and on the way back 5 hours later. Tony is blind and has a nice walking loop that he does 4-5 times a day from his house in a nearby neighborhood, along the singletrack on the lamy trail for a long block and along back through the neighborhood. I met him 3 years ago when I was fixing a flat on his stretch of trail, he stopped and chatted, offered to help me fix the tire with patches and a pump he had back at his house. Tony is amazingly agile on the trail, negotiating a steep arroyo crossing that is sometimes washed out with aplomb. I think his yellow lab is named Francis or frannie, and has the halmark calm demeanor of the assistance dog. Good dog.
Finally, in the arroyo on the way back to the car dealer I took some pictures of the detritus, especially the wheeled detritus.
click for big
click for big
I really liked the shopping carts with buried in sand, crushed by the flows, weeds sprouting within and have some more pics, but will save those for another post. Got to go set up the workshop...
The arroyo behind the hell that is santa fe automall on cerillos is the same arroyo that crosses under Rodeo and goes behind the hell that is Sams club, which connects to a really nice bike path that hooks up with the lamy trail at Siringo and gets you downtown after a fashion. Very useful. If you can ride deep sand pretty well, or know how to pick your lines.
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And another note, alot of the rip raring riprarian singletrack along the banks of the mighty Rio Santa Fe is underwater right now. Which means that, although the singletrack is not a contiguous link from down town to upper canyon and the trails there, the river is probably runnable by kayak. Go urban extreme sports.
click for big sunken single track
The largest single drop waterfall between Paseo de Peralta and Upper Canyon Road: click for big
Finally, I have seen the fields of goatheads growing all over the Lamy trail and the other arroyo trails tucked here and about in Santa Fe and we are all screwed this fall when they go to seed. Good lord. Acres and acres of em. Get yez some sealant tubes for your own sanity.
