Side Effects

I knew that a last minute rash decision to get out to the States to join Kelv & Bert was going to involve some wallet bashing - what I hadn't realised that it was just the start. Ever since I left them in the Grand Teton National Park, I've been agonising over whether to buy a bike, or if it was just a "phase" that would gradually drift away. I figured that I could just buy a cheap bike and "see how it goes", but then if I didn't get on with it how would I know how much of it was down to cycling, and how much to the bike... All day today I've been trying to justify the vast expense of a tricross, and all the associated gubbins that I, as a non cyclist, would have to buy just to get going - helmet, toolkits, pumps, spare tubes, lights, water bottles, racks, panniers, oils, locks, gloves, glasses, unflattering lycra outfits.

At 16:30 I nipped out of the office early to go and try a Tricross at a local Specialized dealer, who had built one up in my size. One lap around the local park totally sold it - I knew I couldn't go home with out it; negotiations began, loads of cool gear was piled up on the counter, and I finally got away at about 1900 an hour after the shop should have shut.

Unfortunately I couldn't take it for a proper run tonight, as I had guests coming over, but it will get it's first proper outing tomorrow, and I can't wait. Katie already calls it "the bitch", as she says I've been giving it more attention than her this evening - surely competition is healthy??


"The Bitch" looking for attention
A table full of "necessary" extras - I'm sure they totally saw me coming, but I'm chuffed to bits with all of it, and can't wait to be out there on a ride with you all!

Hopefully next time we all meet up I can do better than the 12 miles I managed in the peak district (on the flat) before putting it into the back of the car, and driving back from the pub!

Brighton, UK

You have 4232 unread emails. Its good to be back. No, really it is. I left Kelv Tuesday in Vancouver and headed out to the airport loaded down with my months purchases. The 9 hour flight gave me plenty of time to mull over the 1500 bike miles and 500 car miles I’d spent with Kelv and James.

After landing at Gatwick I had to pop into work in Crawley to get my house keys which was a rude reality slap in the face. Luckily I’d got the day off so went straight back to Brighton, built up the Swobo and headed straight for the beach. Blue skies, waves rolling in, sun shining… it actually beat the Pacific! Lying there for a while and later cruising around the seafront felt like I was still on the other side the planet. It was time to put the Swobo through its paces. I headed for the biggest hill on the sea front, where the under cliff path links to the upper cliff path just past the marina and about 15% for 150m. That should do. It was tough no doubt but achievable, even in trainers and not SPD’s. Feeling confident I decided to give the bike a trial with panniers on and ride into work.

Yesterday I transferred the rack and pannier from the Tricross over to the Swobo for my first ever ride into work. Myself, Meat and Sammo rode out of Brighton under blue skies headed for Crawley 25 miles away. The true meaning of singlespeed was brought home to me on the climb to Devil’s Dyke, but once I’d warmed up and ate some breakfast everything was going fine. It’s a great tourer setup as long as you aren’t in any hurry. Top speed is about 22-25mph before the pedalling rpm gets too much. It flies uphill and descends pretty decently as well, about 38mph max coming down Devil’s Dyke. Coming home we rode the Downs Link, an old railway line which runs all the way to Shoreham. It performed as well off-road as onroad with the fat Vittoria tyres coping well. I'll be getting some tips from my Dad in Wales next weekend about riding Fixed. He thinks I should probably get a larger chainring as its geared a bit low. We'll see. All in all an awesome purchase for £300!

Probably need to say a little about our tour steed, the Tricross. We were both amazed with the bikes performance. 4000 miles on Kelv’s £700 Sport model and just a new cassette, chain and one tyre. You can’t get better than that. I think I must have helped sell about 5 on the trip when I saw people eyeing them up in bike shops. The custom build I had from Specialized was spot on and the well engineered gradients of the US roads didn’t pose a problem for the 34x27 setup, even with the panniers. No granny action on this trip. In fact I was kind of disappointed by the lack of tough climbs. Bizarrely 6% was the steepest gradient we had to contend with on the whole trip. The toughest climb was probably Flesher Pass in Montana, but that was more to do with the 35 deg C heat.

Kelv is still alive as far as I know, though he’s put his bike aside for a while and put on his new Brook’s running shoes. Last I heard he was headed to Toronto on Tuesday…

No More Bertie

Bert has just left for the airport so it's back to solo mode for me. Already feels funny without him around. Not to worry, cool city to be explored. Not leaving my bike anywhere though!

Vancouver, the city of broken glass

we've made it to vancouver after a day of watching bert go mad in shoe shops, he would fit in well in sex and the city, it can't be long before he starts looking at prada

unfortunately our hire car was broken into within an hour of being parked in downtown vancouver, they only stole one of bert's panniers which contained some clothes, his camera, and some other stuff, luckily they didn't take his other pannier loaded up with new cool stuff, and we both took our passports, documents, wallets and the laptop in my rucksack so that was safe

bummer

we're now crashing on the floor in jo's place, one of heidi's (my little sister) friends in vancouver, and we've been for some beers in Denny's! We are stylish people it is true.

vancouver is awesome though, great big steep snow covered mountains rising up just behind the city and a really strong asian influence, i can't wait to explore, it feels kinda like singapore

do you guys want this blog to continue now i'm not on the bike and bert has gone home? let me know, am happy to keep babbling

thanks for all the end-of-ride comments, it was well cool to read them all the way across

"I Don‘t Think So. Beagle"

So we reached the Pacific, by hire car instead of bike, after saying I was gonna ride across America but getting a lift with James for a few hundred miles across Wyoming. Disappointing huh?

No.

Not at all.

Not for me.

You gotta understand the mindset. It’s not about the end at all, it’s about the journey. I know that’s a bit of a cliché but it’s true.

The point of this trip, riding across america, was not to ride every inch of the way, I don’t care about that, I’m not trying to break a record and I got nothing to prove. The point was to have an interesting and fun journey, to have new experiences, to break out of a stale life orientated around a job.

Man has it succeeded in that.

It feels like it’s been going on forever, looking back to the first few days in Florida, or the Gulf Coast, or Brandon’s, or Oklahoma, or the plains, seeing a tornado, first snake, tumbleweed, reaching the rockies, each one feels a lifetime ago. Then there was a cool and much-needed holiday road-trip week with james and bertie in da truck. Then riding through walls of snow 8 feet high, past bison, wolves, geysers in the prehistoric landscape of Yellowstone. 60 miles of wilderness between a few houses and a gas station became the norm rather than something to be feared. So much has happened I need to sit down for a while and get my head round it, I haven’t really had time to absorb it. I know that sounds a bit mad but life on the bike is quite busy, especially when riding with a crazed fool that enjoys trying to sabotage your line and force you onto the shoulder when you‘re not paying attention.

If you’re still focused on the idea of riding every inch of ocean to ocean then I gotta say that reaching the rockies was that moment for me, crossing the plains was by far the hardest part of the trip, they’re quite hilly and man they are windy and isolated, oftentimes my only company whilst riding at 8mph would be a cloud of dust on the horizon showing where a pickup was speeding along a dirt road. I actually started planning in bigger roads just so that there would be a car along once in a while in case something went wrong. The isolation of the plains could be a little unsettling, you don’t need much imagination to start imagining things that could go wrong, empty wide open spaces are an easy place to disappear, or be disappeared, and a couple of times I got a little spooked by someone or something and snuck my big folding knife out of the bar bag and into my pocket, just in case.

After reaching the rockies the character of the trip, and my drive, changed, I no longer needed the ‘ocean to ocean’ motivation, I had achieved more than enough, learned enough about myself, dug deep enough for long enough, to not need it.

So reaching the pacific after nearly 4000 bike miles and a few hundred by car is just another step on the way through this journey, another incredible moment amongst many. The journey is a continuum now, not a point.

It was kinda strange to follow lewis and clark’s footsteps for most of a thousand miles to be greeted by a tacky tourist seaside town, just like a british one, or the costa del sol. The Pacific Coast looks almost exactly like the west coast of Scotland, if you didn’t know where you were I honestly don’t think you could tell the difference for a while.

The dry thin air of the high plains gave me some sinus problems, I had a gentle nosebleed for most of a month, leading to an extreme snoring outbreak that bert has been stoically putting up with. Now that we’re back down low in moist air that really does feel thicker this has cleared up and bert was treated to a silent night. To compensate, I started talking in my sleep, apparently having a conversation with someone, after turning down their offer with a “I don’t think so” I finished with a firm “Beagle.”

I have no idea either.

We’ve hightailed it back to Portland, which was the scene of the real end of the trip. It seems fitting that the trip ended spontaneously in a drunken night of wine, shots and rums wandering round a strange but bike friendly city barely able to talk going in straight bars and gay bars and getting in trouble for accidentally jumping the toilet queue and talking to random strangers and drinking with the rickshaw guy and swapping shirts ‘cos he liked my “we still hang bike thieves in Wyoming’ t-shirt and riding the rickshaw, too drunk to see straight, through an intersection, barely able to steer, the rickshaw guy shouting at me to steer right steer right and just managing to, then neatly parking it next to a police car, we don’t remember how we got back to the hotel but I slept on the bathroom floor in a nest of towels after puking and wondering why there were lots of people in the other room which was bert talking on the phone to his workmates in their office. We were both still puking at 4pm the next day, the hotel staff had to bring a delivery menu up to our room as we couldn’t make it out of the door.

That’s how a trip like this should end, not in a long gritty slog over major hills into the teeth of a wind so strong you can barely walk or talk, along a busy dual carriageway full of trucks and cars with no hard shoulder in the cold grey wet rain.

Seaside, Oregon

We've finally made it to the Pacific, though not on 2 wheels but in the hire car. Neither of us feel any regrets at all for completing the trip in this fashion, we just simply ran out of time. We'd budgeted a day to ride the 110 miles from Portland to Seaside, but driving the route today there was no way we'd have made it in less than 2 days. Bizarrely the road out towards Astoria was one of the hilliest we've encountered in the whole trip. That combined with the headwind, busy main road road and narrow or non-existent hard shoulder would have made it a very gritty end to the trip. Instead, we've taken a leisurely drive after a mammoth shopping spree in Portland this morning.

Portland rocks. Pure and simple, its the best place I've been to on the whole trip. We explored most of the Pearl district today and some of the east side, hunting down bike shops around the city. I bit the bullet and bought a singlespeed. My God its good. A Swobo Del Norte. It's a solid build with a switchable rear hub, fixed one side and freewheel the other. It also will take panniers & mudguards (I'm planning to ride it on the Ireland tour later this year) and it'll take 32mm tires so it can be used offroad. Its a beast, solid and mean looking. It felt great cruising around Portland on it whilst Kelv jogged alongside in his new Brook running shoes.


I could get used to riding it round this super bike friendly city...

Seaside has been a bit of a let down, the weather is overcast, its cold and the main town is like Skegness. Not quite what we expected. The beach however is great with fine white sands and scattered groups huddled around beach fires lighting up the 5 mile seafront. Tomorrow we're going to clean up the Tricross' and take them for a spin out to Fort Clatsop before unfurling the Welsh flag as we hold them aloft standing in the Pacific. If the weather doesn't improve we'll likely head back to Portland. Monday we drive up to Vancouver.

Its strange but the trip doesn't actually feel like its over, even though we've made it to the coast. If anything it feels like a new one is about to start. I'm so motivated by cycling now that I can't wait to get back to the UK to get out on the bike(s). The Tricross will be converted back to offroad use ready for tackling the South Downs, the Swobo is going to be upgraded with new bar tape, toeclips and a single front brake ready for practicing riding fixed on Brighton seafront, and the Trek is going to get a nice new set of racing wheels ready for the Devil Ride. Bring it on.

I've got a big blog brewing (no I don't need the toilet), about all the little things I've forgotten over the last month, but nows not the time. I need booze and tunes. Tonight I need bed :0)