2012 IN PHOTOS (Part 1)

As 2012 draws to a close, I thought I'd share some pics from throughout the year. Lotsa, mostly, pretty much all bike-related. Here's January through June. Enjoy! 

JANUARY 

Saw about three dozen Snowy Owls just north of the border at Boundary Bay. Here's one on the wing.

Orcas Island 25K. We're heading over there in about a month for the 2013 edition. 

(We'll skip FEBRUARY AND MARCH. Everything I shot then was gray 'n' rainy.)

APRIL

I met governor-elect Jay Inslee at the top of Badger Mountain above Wenatchee.

Some CX-ploring at Sage Hills on the other side of the Columbia River above Wenatchee. Much of this area would be scorched by fires in the fall.

MAY

My latest book, "75 Classic Rides: Washington," came out!

Riding across the Skagit Flats with the Titanium Cowboys in the Skagit Spring Classic. 

Here I am as featured guest author person on the Chuckanut Radio Hour.

JUNE

Met with Seattle's Tom Meloy (seen here) to rip it up down at Duthie Hill Bike Park.

The Manson Loop of the amazing Chelan Century Challenge.

Titanium Cowboys at the top of McNeil Canyon during the Chelan Century Challenge. 

FAIRHAVEN RABBIT RIDE

If, like me, you're not doing Ski to Sea on Sunday, consider doing the Rabbit Ride, a fun sorta race(ish) ride that follows the 32-mile Colony Road Loop. (Hey, that's in my new book!) Here's how it works: every Sunday riders leave from Fairhaven Bike and Ski between 8 and 8:30 a.m. with slower riders leaving closer to 8, and faster ones closer to 8:30. Groups of no more than five leave every three minutes, the idea being that faster riders will eventually catch slower riders who, in turn, can hopefully hang on to the faster group. I've done this ride only once but had a great time and plan on being there this Sunday.

John Hauter, who owns Fairhaven Bike and Ski, told me he's also trying to grow the Tortuous Ride (Tortoise, get it?), geared for slower riders and/or those new to group rides. Whereas the Rabbit Ride is for those who ride in the 15 to 21 m.p.h. range, the Tortuous Ride is for those who generally ride 13 m.p.h. and under. Torturous Riders leave at 7:45 a.m. Sunday and basically ride the Lake Samish Loop, about 20 miles.

For more info, contact Fairhaven Bike and Ski or John Hauter.

In other news, I want to thank Village Books, Mount Baker Bike Club, Everybody Bike—not to mention the super terrific audience!—for a fun time at last night’s Chuckanut Radio Hour!



CHUCKANUT RADIO HOUR TONIGHT!

Excited about tonight's appearance on the Chuckanut Radio Hour!

AREA AUTHOR PSYCHED TO RECEIVE COPY OF HIS NEW BIKE BOOK

An advance copy of "75 Classic Rides: Washington" showed up in the mail today--very exciting! I think it looks great: glossy, color photos, great maps, epic routes--in the words of Loverboy, "I'm lovin' every minute of it." So, apparently, are Guy and Wesley from Fairhaven Bike and Sports, above. (And/or they're just being good sports and hamming it up for the camera.) 

Below, Chuck Robinson of Village Books and Chuckanut Radio Hour fame, appears thoughtful whilst checking out one of the book's routes. Chuck, by the way, will be riding STP (Seattle to Portland) for like the fifth time this summer. Sehr impressive!   



CHUCKANUT RADIO HOUR - MAY 24

I'm pretty psyched about this: Chuck Robinson, owner of Bellingham's venerable Village Books and impresario of the Chuckanut Radio Hour, invited yours truly to be the featured author-type writer-guy person on next month's radio show. It's a live Garrison Keillor-type radio show with comedy skits, live music, poetry performance and the like. I've been on in the past as guess essayist for show regular Alan Rhodes. The show's always a lot of fun and draws a big crowd to the Crystal Ballroom at the Leopold.

Co-sponsored by the Mount Baker Bicycle Club, the show starts 6:30 p.m. and costs $5. Read more about it here.

Love to see you there!   



AREA MAN ALL INTO PIMPIN' HISSELF

Along with a bicycle hill-climbing story story in the cool 5th-Anniversary issue of Adventures NW (congrats to Paul and Alaine!), I'll be on the Joe Show, KBAI AM-930, this coming Monday at noon. Not sure what I'll be talking about but no doubt it'll be outdoor- and likely bike-related.

Also, last Monday at the Chuckanut Radio Hour, a live performance taped at the Leopold, I read a sorta Christmas-themed essay I'd written. The show was taped (taped? are things really taped these days? I doubt it.) for TV and will be broadcast at 4 p.m. Dec. 18 on KVOS Channel 12. Truthfully, I'm not super happy with it. I like the piece I wrote but I was distracted as heck early on b/c I couldn't get the microphone at the right height. So if you watch it, it looks like I'm fighting with the microphone for the first minute, trying to decide whether or not to wear my glasses, whether I should hold my essay in my hand or leave it on the lecturn, etc. Kind of a mess. Oh well. 

Above photo is from a previous Chuckanut Radio Hour reading when I had no struggle with mic height.

Just for the heck of it, here is a piece I wrote and read on the Chuckanut Radio Hour last January. It's called "Cannonball", and can be seen on YouTube here. (No mic height struggles here either.)

Cannonball!

Last summer, when my 10-year-old son took swimming lessons at the Bellingham Country Club, they’d come to a point in the lesson when each kid got a turn jumping off the diving board. And this one kid—every time it was his turn—he’d walk to the end of the diving board and yell “Cannonball!” as loud as he could, so that every head in the place would involuntarily jerk toward the diving board.

And we’d all watch as this skinny, kinda gangly 10-year-old, would just sort of fall off the end of the board. On the way down, he’d make a half-hearted attempt to grab his knees, but he’d always let go. And when he’d hit the water, he produced an underwhelming “bloop!” of a splash, like when you drop a pebble into a pail of water. “Bloop!”

Next day, same thing. “Cannonball!” shouted to the heavens, an awkward semi-stumble off the end of the diving board, a splash that wouldn’t soak an ant. Day after day this went on, and each time I hoped this would be the day the he’d get it right.

Nah.

Then one day, it dawns on me: he is getting it right. Every single day. Just with his attitude: the way he approached the diving board—always an eager bounce in his step—and how he’d giggle while doggie-paddling back to the ladder after his attempt. Not at all dejected or with the slightest notion that he’d failed.

That’s the way to live your life. Yell “Cannonball!” to the world, give whatever you’re trying your best shot, and if it doesn’t work out, no biggie. Just enjoy the experience and remember: there’s always tomorrow.

Now, I envied this Cannonball Kid because I’m not like that at all. If I don’t know ahead of time that I’ll be successful at something, I won’t even try it. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been that way.

But then, I remembered “Purple Haze” …

Back when I was in high school, I was obsessed with Jimi Hendrix. And at the beginning of my senior year, I decided that in three months, at our Senior Talent Show, I would play “Purple Haze” on guitar in front of the whole school. There was just one problem: I didn’t know the first thing about playing guitar.

So I hired our town’s hotshot guitar player, a kid named Billy Tucker, to teach me “Purple Haze,” just that one song. Billy was a terrific teacher and like lots of guitarists I’ve met, he enjoyed copious amounts of cannabis and other mind-altering substances. This worked to my great advantage because Billy would lose all track of time and my 45-minute guitar lessons sometimes lasted two-, three-, even four hours. Which was key, because I needed all the help I could get.

Jimi Hendrix, you see, is not exactly intro guitar material. And trying to learn “Purple Haze” before you’d even learned how to play “Polly Wolly Doodle”, or any beginner guitar song, was like trying to learn how to ride a bicycle by racing against Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France. But I stuck with it and come Talent Show night, Purple Haze was in my brain. Some of it, anyway.

For the show, I wanted to somehow look the part, so I borrowed this rainbow-colored hippie dashiki shirt with billowy sleeves, a pair of suede Indian moccasin boots that laced up to my knees and had fringe around the top, and tied a bandana around my head. In my mind, I looked just like Jimi at Woodstock. But in reality, I probably looked more like some Village People version of Davey Crockett.

Some classmates who had a rock band agreed to back me up and one of them would sing the song. As for the actual performance … I won’t bore you with the details other than to say that it went about as well as could be expected for someone who wasn’t really musically inclined to begin with, and who’d only had about 10 guitar lessons, and then tries to play “Purple Haze” in front of the whole school. Among the more challenging moments was the guitar solo in the middle, during which my fingers wouldn’t cooperate with what I wanted them to do, and stinker note after stinker note shot from my guitar like sparks from a bottle rocket on the 4th of July.

In short, I played “Purple Haze” about as well as the Cannonball Kid did a cannonball.

But at the end, I rallied. “Purple Haze” ends with the same screaming high note repeated over and over again. It sounds cool and it’s so simple to play that even I couldn’t screw it up. So when we came to that point in the song, I raised the guitar to my face, and just like Jimi Hendrix, I played guitar with my teeth.

The place went nuts. And all my previous sins—the cavalcade of klunker notes, the cacophony of sonic crap that I’d produced—were forgiven. It felt amazing—like I’d died and ascended to Rock Star Heaven. And there was Jimi, and he smiled and gave me the peace sign.

So it’s January, the start of a new year—a whole new decade, in fact—and of course, New Year’s Resolution time. And so I’ll leave you with mine: to shout “Cannonball!” to the world more often—to take more risks, try new things, to just enjoy the ride and not obsess over success or failure.

And to always remember: that whenever things start going really badly, I can always just grab a guitar and play it with my teeth.

CHUCKANUT RADIO HOUR VID

Ten-year-old Baker McQ shot a video of my reading at last night's Chuckanut Radio Hour. Here it is on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU6CV-RipqA

JANUARY HEAT WAVE

Saturday's forecast was for rain (not showers), temps in the 40s, and a fair amount of wind so it's a no-brainer; I'll stay in. Turns out to be 62 degrees, mostly clear skies and only the gentlest of breezes--D'oh! I missed out. Luckily, Sunday turned out to be close to as nice so I hit the Lost Lake loop with Mellow Johnny Clark, Professor Steve Vanderstaay and nice guy newcomer, Dave, who's last name I quickly forgot. Saw Ryan Stiles and friends at the Upfront last night. Hilarious, and when Stiles asked Baker (our 10-year-old) to come up with a name for a made-up fairytale, Bake says "The Enthusiastic Screwdriver." Hilarity ensued, that's sure. Saw Cody Rivers' latest show this past Thursday--indescribably brilliant, is all I can say. (www.codyrivers.com)
Me, Dave, Clark and Vanderstaay. Below, a pileated woodpecker we saw just as we got back into town.

Lastly, on Tuesday at the Chuckanut Radio Hour, I'll be reading a humorous (hopefully) essay I wrote about trying to play "Purple Haze" at my high school talent show before I'd learned how to play guitar. Pretty silly. It's at the Leopold Ballroom in downtown Bellingham. (http://villagebooks.com/chuckanut-radio-hour).

CHUCKANUT RADIO HOUR - JANUARY

On January 12, I'll be doing a live reading of a humorous (I hope) essay at the Leopold for a live taping of the Chuckanut Radio Hour (http://villagebooks.com/chuckanut-radio-hour). To whet your appetitie, as it were, here's a humorous essay I read on the show about a year ago. It's called "Remomeling" and is the story of a man, a wife, and their little (annoying) home remodeling project. Please enjoy. 

It all began with a simple rearrangement of furniture.

“What if you move your couch over there?” suggested our friend Deb. She’s a kind-of Feng Shui-Declutter Nazi.

That sounded harmless enough so my wife, Jen, and I swung the couch over this way so it faced the front window, shoved the TV-cart thing in the corner, slid that chair over there. Ten minutes work and our lives were transformed. Woo-hoo!

But no. It doesn’t stop there. Scanning our living room, Deb reminds Jen how much we hate the carpet—it is pretty gross I admit (still, it’s not hurting anyone)—and quicker than it takes Jen to nod in agreement, they’re both down on their hands and knees with prybars and claw hammers yanking up carpet tacks to see what’s underneath.

What are they possibly hoping to find? Honduran mahogany floors fit for some fancy-pants photo spread in Sunset magazine? Come on, I love our house, but let’s be honest. It’s a low-slung bungalow that has apartment-grade carpeting written all over it. And that’s OK with me.

What they do find under the carpet is some icky, spongy, underlayment; enough dirt to cover the infield at Safeco Field, and below that, some vague flooring of unknown composition.

“Quick!” I say. “Put the carpet back. Something might crawl out.”

But no, Deb proposes we rip it up and replace it with laminate wood floors that we install ourselves. Let me repeat that last bit: That we install ourselves. Jen leaps up and down like a contestant on “The Price is Right” while I scan my memory banks trying to figure out whatever I might’ve done to make Deb suggest such a plague upon our house.

***

The problem is that, unlike, seemingly every single person in Bellingham who’s not me, I do not possess the gene that predisposes a person to find home improvement projects the least bit enjoyable. I’m not a do-it-yourselfer; I’m more a you-do-it-while-I’m-off-doing-something-fun-er. I’m not lazy; it’s just that when it comes to doing stuff around the house, I’m averse to any kind of work, activity, or exertion. OK. I’m lazy.

Still, I enjoy being married to Jen and if installing laminate floors is what it takes to stay that way, I’d suck it up. Thus, over the following weeks our lives were filled with ripping, sawing, measuring, pounding, drilling, cutting, installing; complaining, loafing, whining, clock-watching, faking injury—each of us bringing our own unique skills and talents to the project.

When it was over, we had fresh, easy-to-clean, sorta-wood floors and our home was purged of all gross, icky carpet. Purged too, I’d hoped, of any future home improvement whims.

Wrong.

“A claw foot tub would look perfect in there,” Deb says one afternoon upon exiting our bathroom. “Maybe a new vanity too, and some nice new flooring, and a bright sunny paintjob to match—what’d’ya think?”

I think you should have your mouth wired shut, is what I think, but don’t say.

Bathroom remodel it was.

***

Twenty years ago, when Jen and I first moved to Bellingham, we’d see this handwritten sign taped to the darkened window of a downtown tavern that had long since gone out of business. “Closed for remomeling,” it read, which tickled our undergraduate funny bones to no end.

The misspelling suggested a remodel gone horribly wrong. As did what we saw through the window: piles of sawdust, three-legged sawhorses tilted on their sides, holes punched in walls. I’m reminded of this because for a while that’s exactly how our house looked.

Bathroom remodels involve plumbing and thus a whole level of gross, disgusting, nastiness that makes me woozy and cross-eyed just thinking about. So we called in a contractor, who called in his plumber, who called in what I gathered was his fugitive nephew desperate for a few bucks so he could stay on the lam. It was a mess.

Our lives were closed for remomeling.

***

But you know, things always get better. That darkened tavern? It’s been reborn—remomeled as it were—as a vibrant retail-residential spot, a cornerstone of Bellingham’s downtown renaissance. And eventually, the contractors went home and quit treating our bathroom like it was their personal ATM, withdrawing money with the frequency of gambling addicts at a casino.

And I have to admit: our house does look great. Our fresh, wood-like floors give our home a charming cottage feel. The bathroom is impressive too. Even if, being a man, I’m not capable of appreciating the wonders of bath-taking the way a woman does. No matter. Jen’s happy; I’m happy.

All is well.

CHUCKANUT RADIO HOUR (AGAIN)

On Friday, I'll be pinch-hitting for Alan Rhodes at a live taping of the Chuckanut Radio Hour at Bellingham's Leopold Ballroom. Northwest treasure Ivan Doig is the featured author and for those unfamiliar with the program, it's kind of like B'ham's own "Prairie Home Companion." There's live music (the Quickdraw Stringband), a Poet's Corner (Emily Warn), another episode of the Bellingham Bean, and yours truly reading a humorous (let's hope) essay. It's a terrific show; I did it once before in April and had a great time.

Tickets are $7.50 and available at Village Books and at the door, I believe. Show starts at 6:30. (Or 7, I better find out.) For information, go here: www.thechuckanutradiohour.com

MOUNT ERIE RIDE

Ah yes, Mount Erie ...
... let me just say that this is probably the hardest frickin' hill I've ever ridden. (Perhaps contributing to that impression is that Scott Young, this other person, and I had already ridden 40 miles to get there, much of it into those Skagit headwinds.) Mount Erie Road climbs 900 feet in 1.7 miles, 600 of that in the last mile. And the leadup from the south climbs about 400 in probably 1-1/2 miles. Above, see Pinkboy Young doubled over the handlebars in exhaustion and me wearing an expression of a mouth-breathing goober whilst I try to catch my breath.
Afterward, Scott, the other person, and I stopped at the charming Lake Erie Grocery for refreshment. The retired gas pumps were stuck $1.45 per gallon. Below is Mount Erie, also renowned as rock climbing hotspot.


On the way back, we added a loop around Lake Samish and a mini-Donut ride out Marine Drive to total 100 miles. With 4,600 feet climbing. RAMROD, here we come!

CHUCKANUT RADIO HOUR

Huuuuge thrill. I'd written an essay about my father and read it last night during a live taping of the Chuckanut Radio Hour (http://www.thechuckanutradiohour.com/) at Bellingham's Leopold ballroom. Packed house too, like 300 people. Headed up by Chuck and Dee Robinson of Village Books fame (http://www.villagebooks.booksense.com/), the show is kind of a local rendering of "A Prairie Home Companion" complete with live music, comedy skits, readings, etc.

Doug Fine, author of "Farewell My Suburu" (http://www.dougfine.com/), a humorous tome about living green on his ranch in New Mexico, was the featured author/interviewee. Other performers being the venerable Robert Muzzy, the hilarious Alan Rhodes, the dextrous guitarist Walt Burkett and a bunch of others. It was really, really cool being onstage with so many talented local folks.

The show airs Saturday at 6 p.m. and Sunday at 9 p.m. on KRME, 102.3 FM. It's show 15, I believe, and I'm on just after the intermission, about halfway. But listen to the whole thing; the show's great! There's also a way to listen to it via the magic of the Superduper International Worldwide Innerwebber thingee but I've not figured it out. Here's that: www.shoutcast.com/directory/?s=kmre.
Big weekend coming up. Bake's school has a field trip on Friday down to the World Rhythm Festival (http://www.swps.org/) at Seattle Center. Saturday, it's the Washington State Elementary Chess Championships (http://www.chessenrichment.net/) in Redmond, and Sunday I'm hoping to do the Vance Creek Master C's race down in WayDownSouthSomewhere, Washington.

Below, apropos of almost nothing, is another video of one of my New Jersey rides from about 10 days ago.