Fear not, The Bike Hermit is doing an excellent job of upholding his title, but he does confess to enjoying several of our Wandering Wheels Adventures this past year.
Like kids in a candy store, exploring the Owyhee Desert (just out the back door) has given us a new appreciation for an area of Idaho we have virtually overlooked for 23 years. We’ve been experimenting with several different bikes on these adventures. Depending on where we ventured, we’ve ridden the Rivendells (Chief and Sky), the Surly LHT (Cruella de Ville), the Surly Disc Trucker (Jalapeno), the Surly Straggler (Meredith) and our newest additions to the stable – the Surly Big Fat Dummy (Etza’a) and the Surly ECR (Mustang Sally). After last weekend’s adventure we both agree that, for us, the best choice of Desert bikes are Etza’a and Mustang Sally. Sky King is still tweaking her load for the Surly ECR and will be posting more about racks, panniers and frame bags as she decides what works best for her. Suffice it to say, The Bike Hermit is really getting the Surly BFD dialed in, the back platform and panniers prove to serve not only as a carrying device but make a great table or bench and can do double duty as tent stakes. Surly Big Dummy and platform are excellent as shelter support
Okay, back on track to the title of this post. Everyday we continue to meet other bike wanderers and every trip seems to bring someone new into our lives. We are constantly awed by other riders ideas, bikes and gear. We’ve been humbled while observing the creative bike packing and gourmet meals produced by many.
We are beyond being impressed by the photography and video skills of our fellow bike adventurers. Perhaps, best of all, we’ve learned to eagerly anticipate the video productions of our trips produced by our friend, Aileen Frey. While we have shared many of them on our Facebook Page, we haven’t shared them here. SO…
We invite you to sit back, grab a beer and live vicariously through her lens
Recently we received the BikeCharge Power Pack by Tigra Sport and the BikeCharge Power Converter by Tigra Sport for review. The Power Pack is a storage battery with USB output for charging electronic devices, and a micro USB input. The Power Converter converts the A.C. power from a 6 volt dynamo hub to D.C. so that the hub can be used to charge electronic devices or the Power Pack.
UNBOXING
My first impression of the Power Pack is that it is a nice, compact size, relatively light, and appears to be robustly made. There is a rubber cap to seal the ports on the business end of the battery which is held on by means of o-rings. I like that…simple and durable. There are three other caps included in the package, each of which has a different configuration of openings providing access to the USB out or the micro USB in, or both. I can see the advantages of being able to keep dust and moisture out of the unused ports, I just wish there was a more elegant way to do it, especially since I will lose most of the caps the first day on tour.
The battery snaps into a hard plastic cradle which rotates an a base which in turn mounts to a tube on the bicycle (frame, handlebar or stem) and is held in place by a heavy, rubberized band. The attachment system is very solid and I can’t imagine that it will rattle or that there is any chance of it falling off. It might be nice if the part of the base which is held against the bike tube was padded rather than simply hard plastic.
There is a charge indicator light adjacent to the ports on the end of the battery. A short USB cable is included.
The battery has a capacity of 2600 mAh and will charge a device at 500 mAh at 5 volts. The battery is solid and compact. Shown with bracket for attachment to the bike.
Bracket, battery, cover caps and USB cable are included.
One end of the BikeCharge Power Converter sprouts a short cable which plugs into the dynamo hub, and the converter itself is attached to the bicycle fork with zip ties. Out of the other end of the converter a second cable emerges and is terminated with a USB port. The converter is light but it is large, much larger than the other converter I am using. The two bare wires at the end of the cable which attaches to the hub are meant to be inserted into the plastic plug on Shimano or Sanyo hubs but for my Schmidt hub it was necessary to crimp two piggyback fittings on the end. Over voltage protection is built into the unit for when the wheel is spinning fast.
The converter is on the fork leg and the power pack is on the head tube..Piggyback connectors on the Schmidt hub.
IN USE
I have only had the chance to use the Power Converter one time but it appears to work well. With any converter I think it is best to use them to charge a battery which can simultaneously be charging a different device or which can be used to charge the device later. This way, when the bike stops, the charge to the device won’t be interrupted. At USD $29.95 this converter is an inexpensive way to get into charging electronics with a dynamo hub. I wish the output cable with the USB port attached was shorter. At almost five feet, there is a lot of extra cable that needs to be tucked in or zip tied on.
I really like the BikeCharge Power Pack. Like I said, it is small and robust and it charges my Droid phone quickly. The rubber end caps are a little cumbersome and might be rethought in order to use just one cap with some sort of system to keep it tethered to the battery. I will probably eventually lose all the caps. I also like the little bracket to keep the battery attached to the bike so I don’t need to find a pocket on a bag to hold it while charging, and I won’t need to fish around looking for the battery when I need it. At USD $69.95 the price is competitive.
The distributor also has a product called LightCharge Hub which is intriguing to me. This is a smaller converter/charger which features dual modes; in addition to the USB port, a separate leg goes to the bike lights , so with the flip of a switch a person can power their lights or charge a device, eliminating the need for piggyback connectors on the hub and the resulting mess of wires. I may need to get one of those for my own use!
We will be listing these products in the Bike Touring News store even though we may not stock all of them. The distributor has a drop ship program which we will be taking advantage of. I can remember back to just a few years ago when the means for recharging electronics with a dynamo hub were limited, and the ones that were out there were complicated and expensive. The story of everything related to electronics, I suppose. Now, if you have a dynamo hub, there are a number of inexpensive ways to keep the phone and tablet charged even when in the middle of nowhere.
In the Northern Basin and Range ecoregion, the availability of water is one of the main challenges to traveling by bike, and while for our day trips we have been able to carry enough water, trips of more than one day require careful planning.
I put this Surly Big Dummy together to use as a mule or packhorse to be able to carry enough water, food and camping gear for some extended exploration of the desert. The Big Dummy got the call for reasons other than its ability to carry lots of supplies though:
The roads out here range from smooth, well graded gravel with washboard sections to loose gravel to double track trails. Sometimes we end up on cow trails and game trails and have been known to make the occasional cross-country jaunt. The extended frame of the Big Dummy just has to smooth out the boulder fields and washboard roads; and I could fit enormously fat tires on it for traction and cushion. Originally I wanted to use Surly’s new Dirt Wizard 26″ x 3″ tire but got tired of waiting for them and ordered two Maxxis Minion DH tires in 26″ x 2.7″. Maxxis actually make a front specific DH tire as well as rear specific, but the rear specific doesn’t come in a wide enough version for me, so I have front specific tires front and rear.
It’s actually a good thing I didn’t get the Dirt Wizard tires because I don’t think the chain would have cleared the rear tire when in the granny gear with the Surly Mr. Whirly Offset Double crankset. The Maxxis tires are brilliant though. They have large side shoulder knobs which give the tire an almost square profile and which cling to the edges of ruts and boulders for confidence inspiring handling. The rear (front specific) tire so far has given adequate traction on the loosest surfaces.
Surly’s Rabbit Hole rims are two inches wide so they flatten out the footprint of the tires even more. Surly Rabbit Hole rims with orange rim strip.(note also the 8″ front rotor and the bolt on Surly Ultra New front hub) Just a couple millimeters to spare between the tire and the chain in the lowest gear! There is a little extra room at the rear of the frame with 2.7″ tires. This is the front specific Maxxis Minion DH 2.7 tire on the rear. They cling to the most precarious terrain!
I am using Hayes El Camino hydraulic disc brakes to keep this animal reined in. Normally I wouldn’t want such a non user friendly setup on a back-country rig but I had them laying around and I do appreciate the stopping power. That reminds me; I need to bleed the front brake again.
The Jeff Jones H-Bar® Loop Bar seemed like an obvious choice for the cockpit. A nice, wide, ergonomically sweeping bar with lots of hand positions. For shifting I am using the IRD Power Ratchet thumb shifters. This version is friction only and I am still learning how to shift cleanly to not land in between gears. The levers have a hinged clamp and so I was able to mount them up on the loop part of the Jones bars in an attempt to create more useful space on the lower part of the handlebar. I may move them back down though because the spot where they are now actually is a comfortable hand position and they sort of interfere. Rather than the extra long ESI grips made for the Jones bars I chose to double wrap the grips and so far I like it that way.
The rear rack frame and bags are the newer Surly proprietary design. The bags appear to be well thought out and are compartmentalized for convenient packing. I have yet to load this up for any extended trips but before I do that I will be changing the 26 tooth inner ring on the Mr Whirly crank for a 24 tooth ring for a little extra oomph on the low end. I’m really looking forward to getting this thing out in the wilderness for some extended bikepacking and camping trips.
Here is one of my favorite Youtube videos. The pianist is good…he knows what not to play. Sometimes, the ear hears notes he doesn’t even hit. When he take a chorus, he starts to swing- almost tongue in cheek- before falling back into straight ballad time. A little pedal point, basic harmonies and just the right amount of dissonance. Trust me, this is not easy.
Every year Quality Bicycle Products, or QBP, produces a trade show for their dealers featuring vendors who sell their products through QBP. Your humble reporter was invited this year to the frozen wasteland that is Minneapolis. By the way, those who refer to Portland, OR as Minneapolis West are not even close to the mark. So, stop it. There is a relatively limited mass transit system here and, even though the local beers are quite good and a welcome relief from Northwest Hop Bombs, beer higher than 3.2 % alcohol is only sold at liquor stores or bars. And it is cold here. So cold it hurts. Cold enough to kill you in short time. Actually don’t even use Minneapolis and Portland in the same sentence anymore.
But, I digress- back to the trade show.
I have lusted in my heart for a Ritchey Road Logic bicycle for as long as I can remember. I’m not sure why. The only one I ever rode felt unforgiving and, while not really exactly twitchy, it was, shall we say, very responsive. In fairness, I was already spoiled at the time by the feel of a nice, relaxed touring bike geometry and bigger cushy tires.
I think maybe it’s the Tom Ritchey legacy and the fact that he made his own frames with proprietary Ritchey Logic tubing. So imagine my excitement when I came to the Ritchey booth and saw that, after a hiatus of several years in which he made only his Breakaway bikes, Ritchey is now having the Road Logic, P29r, a 650b bike (not 27.5, thank you very much) and the Swiss Cross made again. Not by Mr. Ritchey personally but by very experienced frame builders in Taiwan who have received training by Ritchey and use the same proprietary tubing.
Classic, understated, sturdy, simple tools.
Cogburn is a brand being distributed by QBP. They make a camo fat bike which attempts to attract a new customer to biking; the sportsman. The thing that has interested me is the rack they have for carrying weapons- bows and arrows, rifles and/or fishing poles. Could also work for skiis.
This thing appears to be adaptable to most racks and the carry brackets can be moved around to work with different cargo. Neato!
Another item I have been curious about is the rack and pannier system from Thule. Got to see the setup here and I have to say it looks pretty nice. Thule makes their own rack which mounts without eyelets so it will fit on about any bike. It’s sort of gnarly looking in my opinion but the
bag attachment will work on any rack with 10 mm rails so using the Thule rack is not mandatory. Whew. The bottom of the bags are held tight by a rare earth magnet built-in to the Thule rack and sold after market for other racks. The quality seems high and the details are well thought out. Available from Campmor
Old Man Mountain 26″ Sherpa Rear Rack on Surly ECRI was a stumped for a little while recently when a customer asked about a rear rack for her new Surly ECR. Most standard rear racks are either not tall enough or not wide enough to clear the massive 29×3 Knard tires. I figured Channing at Old Man Mountain would have some ideas- since he already makes racks to fit regular fat bikes- and I was right. He suggested mounting the Old Man Mountain Sherpa rack to the rack eyelets on the ECR rather than trying to use the typical, hub axle mount. It’s as if this rack was designed for this bike when attached this way! I used the 26″ Sherpa rack and ended up with a couple centimeters clearance between the bottom of the rack and the top of the tire. The stock extender bar made to go from the rack to the threaded holes in the seat stay needs to be replaced with the longer, 12″ extender bar. The fit kit brackets on the bottom of the rack legs are about 27mm thick so I found some M5x0.8 bolts in a 35mm length at the local hardware store and used those to attach the rack to the threaded holes on the dropout. With those two easy modifications the 26″ Sherpa rack is a good option for the ECR. For those who prefer a little bit larger, beefier rack with lower pannier rails, the Old Man Mountain 26″ Pioneer fits too as long as the longer bolts and extension bars are used. These fittings on the bottom of Old Man Mountain racks provide proper spacing and support for mounting the rack through the hub axle with the included, extra long quick release skewer.
M5x0.8x35mm bolts from the local Ace Hardware will replace the quick release skewer and bolt into the eyelets on the drop out or frame.Old Man Mountain sells longer extension bars for semi-custom applications such as this.Old Man Mountain Pioneer rear rack on the ECR. Fits Fine!O.M.M on the ECR. Plenty of room.
The Bike Touring News store now has Phil Wood bottom brackets for your Long Haul Trucker (or even brand x touring bikes!) builds. Phil Wood has gained a reputation over the last 40 years or so for being the standard in durable, strong and serviceable bottom brackets. Here’s a short pictorial guide: The Phil wood bottom bracket and retaining rings. The rings come with thread lock and they are required for installation.
On a new frame the bottom bracket shell threads should be chased before installing the bottom bracket. Phil Wood retaining rings have no outer flange to rest against the the outer surface of the shell, so the paint does not need to be cleaned off nor does the shell need to be faced.This is a thread chasing tool for bottom brackets. A person could probably get away without this step on a new frame.The drive side retaining ring threads in to the shell, just partway to start.The Phil Wood bottom bracket tool is specifically designed for the retaining rings and is required for installation.Two bottom bracket tools, one on each side makes the job much easier. The bottom bracket is slipped in from the non-drive side before the non-drive retaining cup is threaded in.Here is a pair of Phil bottom bracket tools. Using two makes final adjustment much, much easier.On of the unique and clever benefits of the Phil Wood bottom bracket design is the ability to move the cartridge left or right up to 5mm in order to get the chain line perfectly dialed. Here the bottom bracket is more or less centered since there is about the same amount of thread left exposed on the cups on both sides of the shell.The proper length of bottom bracket spindle will be a function of the shape of the crank, mostly. Too short a spindle and the chainrings can hit the frame, too long and the chainline could be awkward and the Q-factor will be increased. This is a 68×108 bottom bracket with a Sugino XD2-500T triple crank set.New (2013 or so) to the Phil Wood product lineup is the BB Cup Mudguards designed to friction fit into the retaining cups and to keep the splines free from muck buildup. On this 108mm bottom bracket the bottom of the spindle taper doesn’t clear the mud guard and when the crank is tightened onto the spindle it binds. Clearly this idea needs some work. Phil Wood & Co. has been selling bottom brackets without mudguards for 4 decades though so they are not a requirement.
If you follow any of our posts you have already noticed we aren’t afraid of touring on dirt and gravel roads. In fact in the last few years we have probably covered more miles on dirt than on pavement… AND we cover most of them on loaded touring bikes. Certainly, riding a fully loaded touring bike on dirt/sand/gravel is not the same experience as the rider on a “fat” bike or a “mountain” bike. Sometimes our descent will be slower or we may have to walk a few stretches but overall we rarely shy away from following that enticing road and going exploring.
The last few weekends have found us seeking sunshine in the Big Jacks Creek Wilderness Area, south of Boise. Evan Worthington, the Owyhee Wilderness Ranger from BLM took the time to share his knowledge and passion for the area at a recent Wandering Wheels meeting (a loose group of people who like to ride bikes). What makes the area special for biking is the existence of many cherry stems- from the BLM website:
“Cherrystems are spurs of roads in Wilderness areas that do not themselves have wilderness status. The boundary of a Wilderness area extends up one side of a cherrystem route, around its terminus and down the other side of the roadway, to allow for motorized or mechanized activity on the roadway that is prohibited in the Wilderness area.
The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 also designated a few cherrystem routes that cross entirely through the Big Jacks Creek, Bruneau-Jarbidge Rivers, and Owyhee River Wilderness Areas.
All cherrystem routes are signed and open to motorized and mechanical transport unless posted otherwise. Please stay on established cherrystem routes to protect adjacent wilderness.”
Photo by Aileen Frey
Evan also blessed the shop with several excellent maps of the area so if you live near by feel free to come in and plan adventures. The recent ride involved a section of road that is best described as double track. Some sections were rocky, others quite sandy and a few of the descents would be described as somewhat challenging regardless of the type of bike a person was riding.
Roads really aren’t my topic though. My topic is what bike can I, do I, choose to ride for Adventure Cycling. My answer is – it really doesn’t matter – much; I am taking a big leap of faith that if you are reading this, your bike of choice probably isn’t of the road racing variety. Taking a bike with a tire narrower than 32 mm may lead to frustration but other than that we say don’t underestimate the ability to try the intriguing dirt road on your current bike. (see Chris Kostman’s Rough Riders Blog) Understand that the riding experience will not be the same as a full suspension mountain bike and personally, we think that is fine. Our group of back road adventures often will have a wide variety of bikes – Touring style, Mt. Bike Style, Fat Bike Style, Adventure Bike Style. Some cover ground faster than others but everyone who shows up to ride realizes we are in a group and nobody seems to get their bike shorts in a twist about waiting for others or having others wait for them.
Things to consider and to include on your adventure:
Sky King and Sky putting the Grand Bois Hetres through the paces.
Tire Width & Tread – A width of 32 mm is a minimum. Skinny tires don’t do well in soft dirt, sand or deep gravel. Tread – while I have ridden my Gran Boise Hetre’s on many dirt roads & also have used Schwalbe Marathon Supremes I do need to pay attention to loose/deep gravel and have walked sections others have been able to ride because these tires aren’t heavy on the tread. Don’t over inflate either! If anything start out in the mid range of PSI for your tire and adjust accordingly.
Some good tire choices: (l. to r.) Surly Knard 700×41, Bontrager 29×2.1, Schwalbe Big Apple 700×2.35
Pedals & Shoes – I have the Shimano A530 which is a two sided pedal, giving me the option to clip or go clipless. I typically ride clipped in and will clip out if I am concerned about needing to put my foot down quickly on a tricky descent but ride with many who don’t use a clipped in style. Some use a BMX style pedal. The 45North pedal with the hi traction pins are great for those who don’t want to be clipped. The Power Grip is another alternative.
Bags & Bottles – For day trips or overnighters I never ride without at least one bag on my bike. We have had many discussions about to ride or not to ride with a front bag. The front bags we like and offer for sale rest on the front rack so the weight is on the tire and not weighted on the handlebar but others will argue that the weight of the bag affects the handling. Once again I will just say riding a loaded touring bike on dirt/gravel is going to be a different ride than a bike with suspension sans bags. If you ride in heavy brush or trees, using panniers can be an issue. Frame bags aren’t just for Mt Bikes and work quite well on touring and adventure bikes. Several of our biking buddies take their hydration packs for back road rides. I don’t happen to own one so I always make sure I carry plenty of water and we often will throw the water filtering devices in the seat bag if we know we will be in an area that has water. For day adventure rides I take a saddlebag. This last trip I used a Frost River Gunflint Trail and had so much room I carried extra clothes for a few others.
The Gunflint Trail bag on the Nitto M15 rear rack. Note the riveted and sewn leather attachments.
Be Prepared – Day trips or overnighters; always bring more than you think you’ll need. Getting stuck out in the middle of nowhere and not having the right tools, clothing, food is not going to be any fun for anyone. We always have the essentials – tube, patch kit, pump, tire irons and other simple tools. In addition- strike anywhere matches, flint tool, tactical flashlight, emergency blanket, first aid kit, chemical toe warmers, jacket, hat, gloves and pants (based on the season) and extra food – fruit, nuts, gorp, sardines or whatever you’d appreciate if your ride takes a sudden unexpected turn.
Riding a touring or adventure style bike on loose gravel, deep sand or rocky roads does take some practice. Learning to power through deep sand and to not back off when hitting the unexpected were two things I had to concentrate on when I began to leave the pavement. Rough roads can be tiring on the hands and the arms, but at the same time perhaps that reminds you to stop, take a break, enjoy the scenery and remind yourself it’s about the journey, not the destination.
My happy little trip to ride bikes on lightly traveled roads and to commune with the hermits of yore in the silence of the Death Valley desert is completely ruined. The last few days of December is one of the busiest times here and the campgrounds are full, while automobiles (bumper to bumper at times) crowd the roads on the way to must see tourist attractions; Badwater, Artist Drive, Golden Canyon and so forth. My expectations arise from my visit here in February a few years ago, when the campgrounds and roads were more or less deserted. Your high, unrealistic expectations- not the crowds- led to your disappointment, grasshopper. Good job, Little Rock Crusher. Your work is done.
Panamint Springs Resort at the north end of Panamint Valley is as I remember it though…quiet, inexpensive campground, showers and a restaurant with a fantastic selection of beers (160 or 180 different beers depending on which sign you read…..many/several, at any rate). A gallon of gas here is only about a dollar less than a campsite! There is no phone service and only a sketchy internet connection, actually- none during our stay. This turns out to be OK for our purposes! Roughing it at Panamint Springs Resort Panamint Springs Resort. You can tell it’s a resort because of the palm trees.
Even better, the Panamint Valley Road towards Trona is closed due to damage from flash flooding earlier in the year. We ride around the barricades and continue through the desert for 15 miles to the junction with Trona Wildrose Road, which is also closed with barricades. We head back to Panamint Springs Resort stopping along the way to eat some corn tortillas with summer sausage and cheese and to listen to the quiet. Even in this total stillness, it is not completely quiet; We hear the blood pumping in our veins
And the synapses firing in our brains
There is a “ringing” in our ears.
The wind can be a factor here as we discovered in the last five or six miles, which took probably an hour for us to cover. But that only made the beer and burgers at the restaurant at Panamint Springs taste even better. Did I mention they have 160-180 different beers? The road to Wildrose campground Sky King enjoys her new Gilles Berthoud bicycle!
Sunday morning we pack up the bikes for an over-nighter and we sail, with the wind aft and with the sheets eased out,
towards Trona, but this time we hang a left at the junction and start the climb to Wildrose Campground. From here the road slopes up at an average of about 6 degrees; 3000 feet in nine miles. The wind shifts until it is blowing off the snow fields on the slopes of 11000′ Telescope Peak directly into our face. Oh yeah, and in the last few miles the road surface varies from broken asphalt to dirt, to loose, deep gravel through which we are obliged to dismount and push the bikes. Mentally tough ride, this. Once we reach the campground we strip down and rinse off the sweat before the sun is blocked by the western ridge and the temperature drops. We take a hike and scavenge pieces of wood from broken pallets which are left over from a metal roofing project on the park service buildings. Once we burn through that we are driven into our tents by the wind which now feels as though it originated in Antarctica. I have camped in lower ambient temperatures (our water bottles don’t even have ice in them in the morning) but the wind chill is brutal. Chief and Bernard
Wildrose RoadWildrose Road
The aforementioned roofing project has apparently been abandoned for some time. It appears that the new roofs are complete but half full pallets of material are still laying around and one pallet has fallen or was blown off the edge of the bank adjacent to the building and pieces of roofing are fanned out across the driveway. Empty pallets litter the area. I mentioned the fact that area roads have been closed due to flash flooding. We were told these floods happened in June and it is now the end of December. The only apparent work that has been done on the road inside Death Valley National Park is the placement of some traffic cones along the edges of the most severe drop-offs. In October of 2013 we were in Baker, NV one of the main entrances to Great Basin National Park. The park had just reopened after being closed for two weeks due to the government shutdown. The town of Baker and the businesses there were all but deserted. In other news: The US military is proceeding with the production of the F-35 fighter jet which is seven years behind schedule and hideously over budget. Vanity Fair wrote about that in September 2013. Congressional representatives in almost every state have 1400 good reasons to love this project; that’s the number of sub-contractors providing 133,00 jobs in 45 states. Miraculously, the government shutdown and sequestration has not affected those jobs or the funding for this project.
Developing and building a new fighter jet is fine, I happen to think fighter jets are one of humanity’s coolest inventions. But if the idea is sort of a neo-New Deal, then I wonder if there might be a better way to spend the money and put people to work. Things such as, say, maintaining national parks, or bridges, or building schools, or even making bike paths. Maybe National Parks can be considered a superfluous luxury in a society but on the other hand they might be considered a mine canary which, when it begins to wobble a little as it can now be seen doing, signals a declining quality of livability.
By daylight on Monday morning the wind has moved on. The shining blue sky sun quickly warms us to the point we can take off layers. We are in shorts and shirtsleeves by the time we mount the bikes for the ride back…..the same section of road which took 2 1/2 hours to climb yesterday we now cover in 50 minutes. Back at the campground before we left we spoke to a couple vacationing from Minnesota. I think Minnesotans have some weird need to prove that the extreme cold is not problematic. They told us stories of ice fishing and camping on the ice in wall tents heated with wood stoves when outside the temperature is minus 40. Since nobody wants to get up when it’s that cold in order to stoke the fire it drops to maybe minus 20 in the tent by morning. I’ll pass on that adventure.
A fighter jet from Edwards Air Force Base makes Panamint Valley its own personal half pipe as it caroms down the valley a few hundred feet off the deck. I wonder out loud if it’s too late for me to become a fighter pilot. The remaining eighteen miles back to Panamint Springs is basically flat. The temperature is in the mid 60’s, the sun hangs in the boundless blue sky and the wind, such a bully yesterday, is feeble. Back at Panamint Springs the shower rooms are pretty basic but functional and clean. The stout metal framed screen door to the men’s room doesn’t even latch. For some reason this makes me happy. Paradoxically, it makes it feel safe and it’s comforting to know it never gets very cold here.
Dinner again at Panamint Springs Resort where they boast a great selection of beer.
Tuesday we decide to just explore the area on bikes with no firm agenda. In the morning we ride a mile or so up Highway 190 and take a left onto a dirt road towards Darwin Falls. In the PM we go back east on Highway 190 and turn on an unmarked road and ride another several miles across the playa towards Panamint Dunes. There are two or three groups of people camping out here even though there are no apparent designated camping sites. I wonder if there are permits issued by the Park Service for camping out here or if the people are just poaching. It doesn’t look very pleasant at any rate since it gets dark at 6PM and I’m pretty sure they are not supposed to build fires. Lower Darwin Falls
So, that’s it. On Wednesday we pack up the car and start for home. It’s sort of sad to be leaving but it’s been over a week since we left and it will be good to get back. Overall the trip was a great success. We got some nice riding in and were able to sleep under the stars in this “Gold Tier” International Dark Sky Park. Now I know that late December is not the best time to visit if one seeks quiet, but the Bike Hermit only had words with two different parties, so all’s well that ends well….and Panamint Springs Resort has a good beer selection.
(NOTE: I wrote this before our recent, astonishing trip to ride bicycles in Death Valley.)
At the end of our second complete calendar year since starting the Bike Touring News blog and store I can say; “I think this might work!” Enough people appreciate the value of what we do here that we have been able to pay all of our bills. That might not seem like much to you. In the past week different customers in the store have said “….what a great hobby” and “…I assume you are semi-retired?” to which I replied; “Sure”. The fact is, we still need to work and I am grateful to each and every customer for helping to support us by buying from our online store or by appearing at the physical shop with their wallets. If you are one of these people, then thank you.
At first, I was a little unsure about how the blog and online store should relate to each other, in fact the blog came first and hence the store actually is a sub-domain URL of the blog. But going forward (I hate it when people say “going forward”) I think it makes sense to think of the blog as the marketing department of our company. Our tagline is “Empowering The Bicycle Traveler” and we want to do that with information as well as physical goods. Your feedback is important to that effort. We can sit here and look at Google Analytics all day and read forums to try to figure out what people want and/or have questions about. Or we can blather on about stuff that is interesting to us. But please let us know in the comments if there is anything you want to learn about or see or if you have any suggestions for either site.
Now for some holiday cheer:
My wife’s father passed away Sunday last. He was 88 years old and he died, officially, of congestive heart failure …really he died of old age and apathy. She had cared for him for the past seven years- ever since his wife, her mother, my mother in law, died from cancer. My wife had taken care of her mother in the final years too, since her husband had already given up and since her other daughter couldn’t be bothered, and since her sons lived out of state. None of this is surprising. I could have written the story 20 years ago when they moved here to be closer to us.
How do I feel about all this? (It is about me, after all.) I feel relief that it’s over. His care was an ever increasing drain on her time. I feel resentment towards him. I think he took advantage of her generous spirit. I feel resentment towards her. She sacrificed a lot of time taking care of her parents. How do I rather she had spent her time? I don’t know.
I married my wife because I loved her and wanted to be with her. I still do. I didn’t marry her because of her parents but I definitely inherited that, which is OK- part of the package. I was never close to my parents and I rarely miss them, but my wife loved her parents deeply and I respect that. It’s only been a few days since her father died and I’m impatient to see what not having him around means for her. I observe her even more closely and interpret her actions and moods even more inaccurately than I normally do. Do I really care about her though, or am I more concerned about what his death means for me. I feel as though I’ve been supporting and understanding, but it’s been over ten years for Christ’s sake. If I don’t really care about him and my concern for her goes only so far as what it all means for me, then why was I crying today? I have to admit that his death has affected me. There is more of a sense of finality because he was the last of our parents…..as she said moments after he died; “we are orphans now”. The existential angst has been a little overwhelming today. Will I end up in diapers, unable to speak or move, vaguely aware (or acutely aware…who knows?) of familiar voices around and have no way to communicate my desire for a beer, a little water, or oblivion? Seems nightmarish to me, though some might say; “he went peacefully, surrounded by loved ones”. I will die…. violently, peacefully, suddenly, unexpectedly, accidentally or by my own hand…. I will die. But right now I want to go ride my bicycle in the desert.
