When a Dead End Is Really Just The Beginning

Even though we had family staying with us through the long holiday weekend, I was able to get out for some type of ride each of the last four days and still maintain my stellar reputation as the hostess-with-the-mostest's obedient other half who does exactly what he's told. (When he's not riding.) Needless to say, I'm enjoying a fabulous state of mind right now. (No, not because the in-laws have left. C'mon! It's the riding! ;-)

Today's ride was the way funnest of the four. The mental slate was blank (fancy term for brain dead) and after tossing around a few ideas, I decided to go in search of Spokanarama's stretch of the Ben Burr Trail. I did a quick Google search. Nothing. And that's as close to asking for directions as I get, because, well, I'm a guy. So I bid the IL's farewell and headed off into the glorious fog.



The section of Ben Burr trail that I'm familiar with is between Liberty Park on the west and Ray Street (roughly) on the east.



It ain't paved and it pretty much Dead-Ends into a residential chain-link, where you can then drop down on single-track through a wooded section and get back onto pavement. Instead, I skirted the north side of the fence. On the other side of this property, I was truly at an eastbound Dead End, so I cut south on what looks like an easement and landed back on the street. I crossed Ray and Freya and wound up in this neighborhood.


View Larger Map

At which point I pretty much forgot all about the BBT thing. I was in my rideabout mood and while I've passed through this neighborhood lotsa times, I've never stopped to play.

What's cool about this neighborhood is that is that it's all up and down and a whole bunch of the N-S streets are steep, rutted, dirt jobs.



And it's full of empty lots you can ride through.



A lesser man would dismount at this point. That's mister lesser man, to you.



And the more you ride here, the happier you are to see the next Dead End sign.



Because you start getting more and more confident that there's fun on the other side.



But then things get serious when you get to the NE section of the map, cause that's where there's some undeveloped land. I didn't see any 'no trespass' signs, so I invited myself on in.



Man, if I lived adjacent to this, and assuming the owner was cool with it, I'd build the coolest-ever track and live the life of a king. Right in the damn middle of the city!

But maybe the best part of this find is that it's a killer route between 14th/12th and Hartson/8th. One of my staple W-E routes involes scooting down Carnahan between these two streets. But going up Carnahan sucks big, so I take a different route going E-W. Now I don't have to.





On the way home, this stairway stood between me and my house on the hill. Fortunately, I'm fully trained in shouldering techniques, so I hoofed it on up.



Anyway, I give. Uncle. Can somebody tell me where the newly paved section of the Ben Burr is at?

Signing off for Nov. Cya in Dec.

First Snow

. . . ready or not . . .

Rainy Day Project

Since I was under the weather this past weekend, I couldn't ride and I couldn't build. So I needed a project. Here's what I came up with:

Candy

Tonight I visited the trading post and secured the provisions I will need to survive the next few long winter nights. Pretty sure it's gonna get worse before it gets better. I feel like garbage. On the bright side, Beer-Quil shooters seem to help, if only temporarily.

My Take On Tonight's Meeting

Tonight I attended the Master Bike Plan Open House. For some reason, the meeting became this week's focus of my bike life and so in my usual obsessive fashion, I printed and read documents and maps and killed time surfing the city website, getting a little immersed in trying to understand this process and what the plan means for Spokane and it's cycling community. Even with a little preparation, I didn't really know what to expect. I had been to one previous open house, but that wasn't enough to get things clicking in my head.

A lot of people showed up with the idea of commenting on specific routes and specific preferences, and of course there were the requisite idea guys/gals, along with those who want immediate results. And I love that everyone showed up and I'm not complaining in any sense because it's so great to see the passion and involvement in our burgeoning cycling scene, but that wasn't at all what tonight was about.

Tonight was about a collection of really smart, seriously thoughtful people with tremendous vision, who have been passionately involved in moving cycling in Spokane progressively forward, holding a meeting that was a necessary part of a process that spans many years. Laying a foundation for change. The specifics will be more easily achieved and more fully defined within the excellent framework that is being established. If you don't already get where I'm coming from, I believe that these folks are on exactly the course that can best achieve results. Seriously intelligent and focused, man.

I'm sad to say that I am feeling a tremendous pull towards involvement. Sad, because I have a lot on my plate and my history of over-commitment puts a lot of strain on things. But I sense that this is truly a unique group of movers and shakers in a truly unique time of change in the Spokane cycling landscape. Spokane's cycling stars are sort of aligned and energized and how can you not be a part of that in some larger or smaller way. It's just the place I'm in, but it feels like put up or shut up time for me personally.

I Like This Video

See what you think.

Grossed Out and Full Of Questions

A couple of local blog posts by David Blaine and Jacque got me thinking about the west end of town this week, so this morning I flipped a two-headed coin to help me decide between yardwork and a ride. I hadn't been on the Fish Lake Trail for a couple of years and wanted to see what it looks like these days, so I started at the current far west end - 13th and Lindeke.

It was the first real chance I've had to take the monkey off pavement and I was being blown away by how well those massive tires were just rolling over everything in their path and the stability of the whole setup, and I was also seriously enjoying riding in daylight. So by the time I came to what looked like this muddy section, I was feelin' my oats and decided to just power through it. It wasn't until I got to the other side that I became aware of the stench. The smell and the texture of the goop were just so out of place that my mind was having a hard time processing it.

I rode on to the Fish Lake Trailhead. The ride was full of wonderful scenic distractions, but I still couldn't stop thinking about the mud bog. Was that horse shit I was smelled? I know enough about horse shit to know that it smelled like horse shit. In fact I could still smell it because it was all over my bike. I was denying it for all I was worth, but the realization that I had ridden through a pond of liquid horse shit was setting in. WTF.

By the time I came back through, I was beginning to accept reality. It was at this point that I began to feel very sorry for one of the riders before me that obviously hadn't made it through.

But to be honest, I didn't have much time for sympathy, because I was overloaded with questions. How and why is this poop pond sitting in the middle of the FLT?

I got off my bike and headed off trail. The liquid poop mess was coming from the uphill side of the trail (seriously good detective work here). There's a house (horse ranch?) directly above the cesspool and there is goop all over the hillside. I don't know enough about the operation of a ranch to know if there is some common method of dealing with manure that involves suspending it in liquid and then flushing it down a hill next to your ranch. It is hard for me to imagine that this a-hole could possibly be oblivious to what he is doing, so is it intentional? Is he anti-FLT and this is his form of protest? Hmmm. Wow. Hmmm.

I decided to take some deep breaths and let it go. (Actually, the deep breaths were involuntary. But I did let it go.) I came off the FLT and since I was in the neighborhood, I decided to figure out exactly how flawed the advice was that I offered Jacque, regarding his route to work. He's been trying to pedal a trailer full of fireman's gear up the Sunset Hill without ending up plastered to the grill of a Yukon. David Blaine and I volunteered basically the same alternate route.

But as I was looking at the map, I realized that I had never ridden all the way straight up Rosamond, which judging from the map, feeds right back into Sunset Hwy at the top. Sweet! I must have missed the Dead End sign.

You can keep going, sans pavement, but probably not if you're pulling a trailer.

I did complete the loop and suspect that this is headquarters for talking down 747's.