My Return To The CDANF

Ever since my trip into the Coeur d'Alene National Forest with John, Alex and Larry 4 weeks ago, I've been trying to figure out a way to go back. And ever since my first S24O two last year, I've known that at some point I'd need to do one solo. This weekend, both of those things happened.

The reason I needed to go back to the CDANF was because the first trip was a fantastic experience and going back is pretty much all I've been able to think about for the last four weeks. I'd have preferred company, but no one else could make it and I knew that provided me with the opportunity to go alone, which is important to do at least once because when you have only yourself to rely on, you have to do all your own planning and bring every piece of gear you might need. It forces you to cross all the t's and dot the i's and in return, hopefully, you achieve a new level of confidence and competence. If you don't get attacked and eaten by a pack of wolves.

Of all my fears about going into the forest alone, the two most prominent were 1) an animal attack and 2) crashing and getting injured to the point where I couldn't get out on my own power. While the area I'd be riding in isn't all that remote in terms of distance, there are surprisingly few people around once you get into the hills and there's no cell service. I managed to rationalize and deal pretty well with my apprehension about getting hurt, while blowing my animal fears wildly out of proportion.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about the forest and scouring maps and looking at terrain over the last few weeks. Just kind of trying to get my head around diffent ways to get in and out by car and what to do and where to go when I got there. For this bike camper at this stage in getting to know the area, the North Fork of the Coeur d'Alene River and the road that runs along it are the central nervous system of the forest. Here's the River Road Map. If you click on the terrain view, you can see that the river road is flat and low and from here, there are a multitude of routes you can take up into the hills and then loop back down again. Although John, Alex, Larry and I had planned to "tour" the forest (i.e. ride with our gear from campsite to campsite), our trip naturally evolved into a "base camp" style trip, whereby we set up camp on the river and day-tripped from there.

Day tripping makes a lot of sense for a couple of reasons: First, the typical climbs and descents on any of the routes are much more enjoyable without the extra weight. Especially the descents! And secondly, water, particularly at this time of year, is really tough to find above about 3000-3500 feet. If you camp at higher elevations, you will have to carry enough water uphill with you for all your overnight cooking and drinking needs and that can be a lot of water.

That said, I would still love to design an S24O that involves driving in, riding with a light set of gear to a 5000'-ish peak, spending the night there and descending back to the car the next morning.

For this trip, that was too much planning for that and more risk than I wanted to take on a solo trip. So I planned kind of a hybrid. I would leave work at 3:00 on Friday, fly out I-90 to the Kingston exit, then drive 10 minutes up the river and into the forest, where I would park at the Bumblebee Campground. This would be the quickest way for me to get into the forest and on the bike. From there, I would leave the River Road with a loaded bike, climb into the hills and then descend back down to the river at a point farther upstream and camp there overnight. Here's the Friday Night Ride Map. If you click on the summary tab, you can see that it's basically a nine mile climb followed by a nine mile descent. Here's are some pictures from Friday . . .

All set up and ready to go. The bike with rear load weighed 34 lbs, while the panniers and handlebar bag added 27, for a grand total of 61 lbs. Not including water. Holy hell. Way heavier than what I'm shooting for, which is 55. But some overkill stuff for the security of travelling alone and a couple of luxury items put me way over the top. Every trip is another assessment of gear and I'll continue to whittle away at the pounds.



I parked at a no-fee campground. That's me on the far left next to the portable toilet. This felt like a safe place to leave the truck. Coincidentally, Courtney, a friend from work was in the group on the right. I didn't find out until I returned on Saturday.



Once off the river road, the climb started immediately. The road was pretty rutty and rocky to begin with, but gradually improved as I climbed deeper into the forest.



I'd gotten away late from work, it took me longer to drive out than I'd thought, and I was getting a later start than I wanted. That gave me a sense of urgency and put me a little on edge regarding my aforementioned fears. I decided the last thing I wanted to do was surprise a momma and cub/calf of any kind, so I started singing. Song of choice? "I've Been Working On The Mountain". It's hard to sing while you climb and the words quickly devolved into "Mountain, mountain, working on the mountain." Which quickly devolved into "Mountain, mountain." Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Repeat.

During one breathing session, I heard some sort of faint grunt. "MOUNTAIN!" And POW, a small bear shot out of the brush beside the road abbout 30 yards ahead of me, flew about 10 yards up the road and then launched himself over the bank, crashing down the steep embankment. We scared the hell out of each other. I never even saw his head, just his hairy haulin' ass. Needless to say, I bumped the singing up a notch from here on out. But that was the only animal I saw all trip long.

Three hours ago I was sitting in a cubicle looking at a monitor and now I was deep in the forest hanging out with bears and looking at this. That's pretty rad.



This is Laverne Saddle, the top of the climb and the beginning of the descent. That's the road I just came up.



The roads on the descent were sweet. Unfortunately, the 27 lb front load was just too much for any kind of respectable handling and I just had to relax and mozey my way down. Without gear, I'd be bombing this for sure.



Cool bridge over a creek near the bottom.



River road. Now to find a camp spot.



I looked for quite a while, but all the more established sites were taken and it was getting dark fast. I found this flat spot next to the river, but also right next to the road. Any time a car would come down the road, the dust would just about choke you.



I decided to plow into a deeply wooded section a ways down the road. In here it was even darker and I had to work fast to set up.



With no threat of rain, I was able to leave the fly off the tent. I could see the stars through the tree branches and the sound of the river was wonderfully close.



During our last trip, Alex and John exposed me to gravity water filters. These rock so hard that I had to get one.



With the work finally done, I was free to enjoy the rewards of packing my three friends up and over the hill. I made freeze-dried lasagna by headlamp and dined under the stars.



The plan for the return trip was the same as on the way in: Up and over the hill and back down to the truck at Bumblebee, but by a different route with a little more elevation and a little more distance. Here's the Saturday Morning Ride Map. If you click on the summary tab, you can see that the route consists of two climbs. I was prepared for the first. More about the second one in a minute.

The ride turned off the River Road onto Forest Service Road 422 for a short time and then onto the infamous Road 812. This is the road we were supposed to come out on during our last trip, but instead took it in the wrong direction, adding unexpected distance and elevation to our day.



This is my new and improved navigational cockpit. It was totally sweet and the GPS saved my ass no less than two times from going down the wrong road.



The first climb was roughly 10 or 11 miles at a reasonable and fairly consistent grade. I was able to stay in the 6-7 mph range during most of this climb. There were countless awesome views on the way up.



Stull Saddle. From here I would continue on the first climb for a while and then finally crest and descend down to Skull Saddle.



I enjoyed the view down this transmission line because they've clearcut underneath it and it's cool to look at the exposed roads.



Damn nice view from close to the top of the climb.



I finally crested and started down to Stull. After all that work, this is the shit road I get??? What a ripoff. I had redistributed some of my weight to the rear, and along with the losing weight of the beer and food I ate from the front, the handling was WAY better. But I still had to pick my way through this kind of krap, or it would shake me and my equipment to death.



Fortunately, that only lasted about a mile and then some of the drug I crave appeared and I was able to get my fix.



At Skull Saddle, I began the next ascent. I knew about it, but it had appeared on the map to be more gradual. Instead, it was brutally steep. 3 mph stuff. My legs were toast from the previous climb and I was out of water and dehydrated, so I basically just got through it. Getting to the top of a hill never felt better.



There were a few nice sections on the descent, but it was too steep to let the bike run and fairly rocky, so I picked my way down. I'm not complaining. There was no such thing as bad downhill at this point.



I cruised the couple of miles back down the River Road to the truck in the warm sunshine, satisfied, knowing I had made it. I had a nice surprise waiting. Apparently, I hadn't read the fine print about where I could and couldn't park. But it was a warning, not a ticket, so no sweat.



All in all a great adventure in a great playgound. 40 or so miles with what looks like 4600 or 4700 feet of elevation. I continue to be amazed at how few people there are at higher elevations. Excluding the river road, I passed exactly two cars (one group travelling together), one motorcycle and one ATV. The trip was demanding in terms of preparation and it's a mentally and physically challenging environment. I've got my fill and I'll savor the accomplishment. For a while. My next S24O might be a bit more relaxed. But I'm already churning ideas for my next visit to the CDANF.

Night Before Christmas

Totally cannot wait for tomorrow.

Summer Parkways: What We Saw

But first, a word about Lance. In serious cycling circles, it's not chic to be a Lance fan. I've always been a Lance fan, so I guess I'm not a serious cyclist. Whatevva. Jealous weiners. How can you not love that an American rules the record books in a sport that we're supposed to be lame at because we don't have the pedigree.

Is he an arrogant dick? Of course. It's requisite for competing at that level. But we have super mondo non-PRO recreational arrogant dicks right here in Spo. And if you want to talk king of dicks, just look at Cavendish or Contador. They put the words in all caps.

Today, the superhuman became human. The end of an era. I'm a little sad but rather than be all WAY sad, I'm reflecting on all the great thrilling moments he's given us. Killing Marco (RIP) in the surreal moonscape and giving Jan 'the look' and blowing him off the back, just to name a couple of the most famous. I have totally devoured the OLN/Versus TdF coverage, which was truly revolutionary, and I couldn't put down a certain book about a guy coming back from cancer to rule the sport. Those USPS days were just the f'ing best ever. Some of those early morning live telecasts are more than memory - they are taste and smell that will forever define for me an event that occurs thousands of miles away, across an ocean, that I will never attend or understand but that I think I know all about. Dude, that was some fantastic shit.



On to Parkways . . .

Patty's been pouring a lot of energy into helping organize the annual Spokane Scottish Highland Games. Parkways was an opportunity to help get the word out. She met up with some of her peeps that came out to march on a hot day and blow their pipes.



She bent the hell off the ears of anyone willing to listen. You gotta love the passion.



This band was pretty damn sweet. It was seriously tempting to just park our butts there and screw the whole motion concept.



Mobile recycling station. Rad.



Movin' and groovin' in the streets.



We bumped into my nephew Matt. He's an avid cyclist/free spirit who just figures out how to make shit work for him. He buys into about zero percent of the bike marketing hype. I think he'd love summer bike camping and I'm turning the screws.



Him? Blades. Her? Folder. What a couple.



Cutest kid of the day. Scarred for life by some idiot stalking him and taking his picture.



Two Wheel Transit tent at Corbin . . .



Climbing wall at Corbin . . .



Movin and groovin at Corbin . . .



Jacque, rockin' her Schwinn Fairlady. (She lives in Seattle now, but we were lucky to have her back in Spo for this event - she was in town for another in the endless string of oral surgeries to put her back together from her accident.)



Bike decorating constest participant . . .



I ran across Greg and Nikki who were volunteering at an intersection. We couldn't help ourselves and staged an impromptu Xtracycle mini-rally/love-fest.





Patty, Jacque and Matt at the end of the road . . .



Summer Parkways #1 was cool and fun to be a part of. Uncharted territory. I think that most people didn't know much about what to expect and showed up with a "What Happens?" frame of mind. Now, wheels will be turning (pardon the pun) with the possibilities. #2 will be different.

Wow. Thank you to all the organizers and volunteers for your vision in bringing this to Spo and adding another significant dimension to our growing cycling scene.

Our Summer Parkways Hardware

We're bringin it. Game on, dog. CU there?

Back To The Business Of Racks

You know that I got all crazy gung-ho psycho into rack-building a while ago. Well, you just can't keep that energy level up very long. Or spend that much time holed up in the shop, neglegting your responsibilities. So the rack shop has been idle as of late. But with the Elephant now in stable, it's time to bring it to life again.

Before I could do any actual rack-building, though, I needed to do a little shop maintenance. The soft jaws on my vice have taken a tremendous beating. They were quickly put together and light-duty to begin with, so that didn't help. If I happened to slip when I was filing, I'd jam my knuckles into the ragged edges and I'd had enough of that.



I saw the jaws that Alistair made for his vice and immediately thought it was a great idea. So I blatantly copied it.





The other thing that needed to be fixed was the backup shoe on my homemade bender. It wasn't stout enough to begin with and had bent from the pressure, so I straightened it out and beefed it up with a gusset.





With that done, I was free to go to work. I had decided that I needed to order some 5/16" x .028" tubing, as opposed to the 3/8" x .035" I'd been using on everything up to this point. But the 5/16" is more than twice as expensive as the 3/8", which totally sucks. Bottom line, though, is that there's no way I'm turning the Elephant into a tank, so I bit the bullet.

This rack is no work of art. My homemade bender is designed for the 3/8" tubing and doesn't really cut it with the 5/16". Bigger problem though, is that I've been waiting a long time for this kind of riding weather and now that it's here, I'm not all that motivated to spend gobs of hours in the shop. Being outside on a bike in the summer somehow seems better than being inside looking at one. Life is about choices, as they say, and for this project I chose not to obsess.



It came in at just a little over 6 tenths of a pound, so mission accomplishd on the weight thing.



It's about the most basic rack ever and I'm not exactly sure how I'm gonna use it. It's painted with black rattle-can primer because there are hacks in its future for certain. It will be interesting to see how it evolves and gets used. For now, it gets me on the road with some way to carry a little something.

My New Elephant

The last few days have been all about getting to know my new bike. I'm not in any super big hurry to get everything all dialed in because there's a ton to get dialed in and I'm really savoring the process. You just don't get to do this very often and it's really fun.

This whole deal began last fall, when I started talking to Glen Copus about how I wasn't all that happy with my Specialized Tricross and about how maybe could I take the components and have him build me a new bike that works better? Glen has this bike resume that is just freakin amazing and he builds Elephants. Talk led to more talk and I got all jacked up and the maybe turned into definitely when I wrote him a check in December.

I'm still in the way early stages of learning about frame geomety and what all the angles and dangles do for you and so I pretty much told him how I wanted to use the bike and he took it from there. This is not like all NASA-exact, but for all intents and purposes, here's the geometry of my new bike:


And here are the pics of the finished product . . .




Glen is also an authorized S&S Coupling dealer/installer. They pretty much allow you to break your bike in half so that you can travel all compact. I decided that I needed couplings on this bike. I'm not sure why at this 5 minutes, but I'm confident that I'll evantually embrace the decision.




I had Glen braze eyelets everywhere so that I can hang racks all the hell over it. But not for a while.




Tire clearance? Check. With room for fenders, although I don't care to think about fenders right now. But when I do wanna think about fenders, I'll be happy there's room for 'em.





Brazing details . . .




Signature Elephant wishbone seatstays:



And matching fork crown. It's worth noting that most Elephants of late have been going out the door with carbon forks. But I wanted steel, so Glen tooled up and got back in the fork-building business. I'm sure I was a PITA, but I'll betcha anything he's glad to be equipped to be building steel forks again.



I was gonna go with a King headset, but Glen mentioned this FSA with integrated cable stop and I thought it was pretty cool, so it happened.



The bike had a 30T small ring and he swapped that out for a 26. National forest-driven modification. Hugely significant to me.



What it weighs:



Shot of the killer logo:



I was gonna do a ride report, but this post is way too long and you've probably already dozed off, or maybe that's me, so I'll save it for next time. I'll just tell ya though, that we did a bunch of dirt and pavement this weekend and the bike is rocking me.

Attrition

Sometimes shit just wears out. I hate it, but I console myself with the idea that I'm living life to the fullest and very few material items can keep up with the hurt inflicted by the blazing lifestyle I've adopted. Still, it saddens me to know that my trusted friend of all these years has popped its last top.

On the other hand, $7.25 just bought me another 10,000 or so openings and the peace of mind that I will never be stranded in the desert, surrounded by nothing but sand, dangerously dehydrated, with a capped cold one in hand and only my teeth to rely on.

So I guess I don't really have much of an issue after all.