Cycling and the Beach

If you live in a beach town, it is easy to hop on a cruiser and pedal to the shore, have a swim, more or less dry off, and pedal home. But what about incorporating the beach into long, strenuous and hilly touring style-rides? This has been our dilemma when taking trips to Maine this summer. In the absence of folding bikes (and frankly, I don't think folding bikes would be appropriate for the terrain here), we strap our roadbikes to the car, and get around entirely by bike once we arrive to our "base" location. In rural Maine, everything is far away from everything else - at least by Boston standards - and it is normal for us to cycle 5-10 hilly miles from one destination to another, multiple times in a day. We often pass our favourite beach in the area, but swimming can seem like such a project when your bicycle bags are already stuffed with photo equipment and other things, and the beach has no changing rooms.

Plus, when a 10 mile ride with plenty of uphill lies between the beach and the nearest town where you could freshen up, believe me that you don't want any sand to be stuck in your body's crevices, and neither do you want to pedal in a bathing suit. The Co-Habitant has tried wearing his swim trunks on the bike, and regretted it.

So here is my solution: I bring a bathing suit and a thin Pashmina or wrap instead of a towel. These take up almost no extra space in my saddle bag. Once at the beach, I remove my shoes and socks, wrap myself in the pashmina, and change into my bathing suit underneath it. If you don't have a pashmina or wrap, a long oversized t-shirt can work as a "changing tent" as well. After swimming, I "air dry" while either walking around or sitting on rocks (rather than sitting on sand); then I reverse the "changing tent" process. After this, the bathing suit can be wrung out, placed on a rock to dry off a bit, then placed in a plastic bag and packed away into the saddle bag together with the pashmina. After de-sanding my feet and putting my socks and shoes back on, I am ready to keep cycling. All this is a surprisingly low-hassle process.

Of course, one thing to make sure of before you stop at a beach like this, is that your water bottles are full. Also, never try to prop up your bike on the sand using a kickstand; carefully lay it down instead (drivetrain side up). Even if it seems as if the bike is stable on the kickstand, the sand's consistency changes with the wind and the tide, and the bike can easily fall. Oh, and if you go swimming, leave your bike as far from the water as possible - the tide can come in faster than you think!



Swimming in the ocean and cycling are two of my favourite activities, and it feels wonderful to combine them. Interestingly, the ocean water seems to be a great complement to high-intensity cycling - relaxing the muscles and giving me extra energy to go on. Anybody else have this experience?

15 Swoonworthy Velo-Valentines

Just over a week ago, I announced a Give-away for Valentine's Day - inviting readers to submit bicycle-themed Valentines for a chance to receive a beautiful, bright red Bobbin Birdie. Over 70 submissions were made, and I have looked at and read them all at least twice. All were beautiful and thoughtful, and I sincerely thank everybody for sharing them. I would now like to present 15 Valentines that, with difficulty, have been selected as the final entries. They are numbered (in no particular order) and your feedback is welcome. While this is not an outright "readers' choice" vote, your selections will be taken into consideration in the final decision. Thanks for looking, and enjoy!




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1. "Be Mine" Submitted by Park Girl: "'The bicycle, the bicycle surely, should always be the vehicle of novelists and poets' - Christopher Morley".




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2. "Together We'll Go Far ... On Love & Bicycles." Submitted by Stephen Lee Ogden.




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3. "Bicroscopic Valentine." Submitted by Jessi: "Portraits sourced from the Commons, Bobbin Birdie bike, and original photograph of silk threads under glass slide, taken with a Nikon 1970's microscope mount. Everything but the silk fibres are halftoned, because that is how I roll."





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4. "Diamonds are a girl's best friend. But my valentine is a mixte."Submitted by Mindy: I wanted to draw a picture of my bike, because I do love my mixte! The text still works even if you're not familiar with the mixte/diamond frame thing (see what I did there?)."







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5. This evocative poem was submitted by Robin.




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6. "A day with... is better than a day without..." There is another side to this card, and it is shownhere. Submitted byWillie Bailey.



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7. "Hip hoppin' & Bobbin' for you, Valentine!" Submitted by Julie: "My dog, Bonnie, is a little shy and eccentric, and is always the star of our "family" greeting cards. She was going to make a Valentine anyway, but she decided to go with a flashy Valentine theme in hopes of winning her dear mother, me, a pretty new Lady Bike."




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8. "All I want to do is make tricycles with you." A collage submitted by Michelle B.




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9. "The story, context, high-res sharable files (including vector) for anyone who wants to have fun and make their own for someone can be discovered here." Submitted by nandapocentric.




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10. An embroidered Valentine! Submitted byyn0405:"My entry, inspired by the little Birdie"




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11. "The two things in this world that are true: my sturdy lugged frame and my love for you!" Submitted by LT: "When I read your latest post this morning I thought immediately of my favorite old family photo, so I added a few bits to the photo to make it a vintage-themed Valentine."




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12. A poem submitted by William B. The text reads:



"Said the front tire to the rear

Follow me; I’ll lead my dear.

Round and round we’ll roll together.

‘Cause when you push I steer better.

If miles from here the road’s not fair

We’ll just let out a little air.

I will not shimmy, I will stay true;

That is the promise I make to you.

At dusk, to emphasize our genders,

We’ll slip into some silver fenders.

Your tread is slick; your spokes are fine;

You’ll always be my valentine."




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13. "Sending you... Love." Submitted by Margaret.






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14. "I wanna ride with you."Submitted byAinsleyW:"Happy Valentine's Day!! Here's my entry, designed specifically in the likeness of mine and my sweetie's bicycles."





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15. Submitted by Audrey W., the poem reads:




"true love

discouraging, tiresome
amassed frustrations
quick release–
escape
restore sanity?

true love, loyal to
youth, to health, to
the beating-
heart

celebrating curves,
bearing pain and
bliss–
eternal"





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So, what do you think? List the numbers of the Valentine(s) that appeal to you in the comments, and your feedback will help determine the recipient. There are no rules by which to judge the Valentines, these things just sort of have to "hit" your love receptors. How much work went into making them is, of course, worth considering as well. The recipient will be announced on Valentine's Day, February 14th. Please feel free to contribute to the comments up to the eve of that date. Thank you everybody for looking, reading and participating. Have a lovely weekend!

Greetings from... Oregon!

Mount Hood (as seen from “a few” miles away near Columbia Hills, Washington).
Arcadia Beach.
Manzanita Bay.
This and the following photographs were taken at Nehalem Beach State Park.

All photos were taken on September 21, ...

Thomas Edison and Henry Ford Winter Estates

We missed another get together with good food and good people in order to get out and do some sight seeing yesterday. It was the warmest day for some days to come, and I was getting very stir crazy!



We headed down to a neat place south of us. Thomas Edison and Henry Ford had winter estates in Ft Myers, Florida. Their homes were on the same piece of land and Edison had a lab there also. We've been here a few times before, but we had not seen all of the museum yet. It had the usual cool Edison inventions that I enjoyed seeing. I think the first two pictures were my favorite things to see this visit:



and a picture of Helen Keller and her autograph which reads: To Mr. Edison Not loudness but Love sounds in your ear my friend. Helen Keller

For those that don't know, he was almost completely deaf.



Some of his inventions:





I love all of the cars on display there:



My very favorite thing here by far though is the Banyan tree. All of this is the same tree, and I didn't begin to capture all of it because it was raining by the time I took these shots:





Living the life in chilly Florida!

A Most Excellent Adventure :: Sawyer Glacier Number Two

Friday, August 27th - - You may have noticed that I've been saying Sawyer Glaciers rather than Glacier. That's because there are two of them! Twin glaciers. Two “branches” of the same glacier that were divided by a mountain as they came down to the ocean. After spending about two hours at Sawyer Glacier the Captain said we would go on over to “the other one” for a little while. How cool was that?

The first thing we noticed upon approaching Sawyer II was that there wasn't as much ice floating around, compared to the first glacier. Captain Steve said that it wasn't because this one wasn't calving but because there is more wind in this cove and the wind blows the ice out to sea.

If you look very closely (double-click on the image to view a larger version), there is another tour boat in front of the glacier. It is in the middle of the half-circle of rock that is just to the right of the center of the face of the glacier.

The boat isn't as close to the glacier as it appears. They usually stay at least a quarter of a mile away from the face of the glacier.

This one section was so much more intensely blue compared to than the rest. The pressure must have been tremendous to cause it to compress so much.

There were a few seals swimming around, but not nearly as many as at the first glacier.

The snow at the top of the glacier.
Within a few minutes of our arrival the clouds parted a little and the sun came through in spots. It was fascinating to watch the colors of the snow and ice change as the sunshine moved across the face of the glacier.

Again, as with the first glacier, there was quite a bit of activity with falling chunks of ice. Steve kept telling us to keep an eye on two specific areas, one of which was to the right of the intensely blue ice.

As if on cue, the glacier released some of the ice from its grip and down it went!
More ice cascaded down as the waves started building.
A very short time later, the wave reached the boat and we rolled with it for a few seconds.
And then, another big mass gave away and fell...
Which caused another, even larger wave.
Captain Steve told us all to either sit down or grab hold of the railing as we were in for a short but wild ride! He then moved the boat so that it was heading in the same direction that the wave was going. It was an exciting few seconds! We lingered a few more minutes but then Steve said we had to go.

Our stay at Sawyer II wasn't long but it was truly amazing and awesome! From a distance, there doesn't appear to be much change in the face of the glacier. But if you look closely at the left side, you can see where the event occurred. It had been a fantastic day – no rain, whales, seals, beautiful scenery, incredible calving – all shared with strangers who for a short time became friends experiencing amazing sights. It was indeed, a most excellent adventure!

The ice return

Laura and I decided to take the trip toour local cliffsto see what we could climb. We found that the ice has mostly recovered from the warm snap,although most of the longer routes need a little more time to be safe. The weather forcast calls for cooler temps this week and by next weekendmost linesshould be in great condition. We ended up getting a late start and only did one line, but we sure did pick a good one. The line was about 150' long and had some serious funkiness to it. The bottom was nice and phat (but took much removal for good reliable sticks).As I got towards the middle of the route the pillar got worse with very new unreliable surface ice. A nice rest made above this section made the final push to easier ground very doable. The upper section was very thin and didn't take very good screws. The last 20' of steepness was a horrorfest of hollowed out shit from the previous freeze. The final topout was an overhanging lipconsisting of sloppy mud on my right andon my left was a 300+lb block of oldice with nothing but 10" of air between it andthe wet rock.Not really sure what was holding it in place. My last piece of gearwas 15+ feet below me. It was my last long screw into a blob of ice not fit for the using.It made it toabout the 4th thread. After a serious hesitation, mental prep.and almost sharting in my goretex, I commited to the final moves of mud and deathblocks.It seemed like an eternity, but I made it to the tree and slung it with pride.Iwas happy to be standing in 3" of muck and water for my belay. I cringed as I peeped down over what I had just overcome. I swapped golves to bring life to my hands. They were wet and cold from being onthepitch for 1hr. and 15min. I'm sure Laura was freezing from her extended belay session, so I quickly put her on and got her climbing. She did very well coming up the steep section and made quick work through the easy section. The top proved to be tricky for her as well as she rolled herself onto the top, muck and all. No style points, but success was ours. We setup a rap madeour way to the ground. Wedecidedone was enough and opted to head home. Our day was not without incident though.I ended up gettingnailed by a UFO on the back while cleaning upropes. It left a nice knot on my back. Wrong place, wrong time. All in all it was a great day. Wedubbedtheline G Gully WI5- with fullpucker rating for the topout in current conditions. Here's a few photos from today!