Today: Ruminations on rigid steel single-speeds, full-suspension bikes, and 29" wheels

Well, I did it. I finally got back on the steel stallion. And two very good things happened. Not only was it absolutely therapeutic to ride again, for the first time since the lung collapse three weeks earlier, but I was reminded how much I love the single speed. On occasion, when the opportunity presents itself, I pull my Redline Monocog 29er off the garage wall and kick around some of the local trails. My dad offered me the bike last November, which is a different story. At the time, I was skeptical and thought if I didn’t like the bike—and I assumed I wouldn’t—that I would just trade it in for credit at Recycled Cycles.

During last year’s gray November and early December days, I trail tested the Monocog. After that maiden voyage, I struggled to understand why anyone would ride single speed or rigid. The gearing felt tall especially on the climbs. The trail feedback left me achy and sore. But I kept with it. Actually, because I was lending my other bikes (the Giant Anthem and the Specialized Stumpjumper) to the objects of my cycle evangelism at the time, I spent a lot of time riding the single speed. This worked well because it allowed me to better equip the newbies for success by lending them the forgiving full-suspension bikes. And I loved it because the challenge of riding a fully-rigid single speed allowed me to stretch myself physically even though we were riding at a slower pace than would have otherwise represented exercise.

I learned or relearned a very interesting lesson over those first few months. Arms and legs will suspend a rider just as effectively as full suspension provided the rider rides in a standing mode. Riding in standing mode, also addresses the gearing element. The extra torque coming from a standing compensates for the lack of gears. What is interesting to me is that I can ride just as fast—if not faster—on the tight windy, Western Washington trails, as I can on any of my bikes. It’s just a different style of riding. Riding full-suspension works best in the saddle. Riding rigid and single speed is best in the stirrups. I will say this about the single speed, I do notice that my arms are far more fatigued at the end of a jaunt on the single speed then even on my hard tail. One time last year, near the end of a ride, my hands just let go, launching me over the bars and into a berm on the downhill side of a small rise.

 
I recently gifted my Stumpjumper to a good friend. And the longer I go without a full-suspension bike, the more I wonder about the legitimate application of any full suspension ride outside gnarly downhill or long-distance cross-country setting. And even that may not be entirely accurate when you consider that I have ridden Tiger Mountain and my longest cross-country rides more often on a hard tail than astride a full-suspension bike. When you roll the 29” wheels into the mix, it may just be that for my style of riding a full-suspension bike may no longer be necessary. But that doesn’t mean I don’t still lust after some fully-suspended goodness!

Today: Minor Chords

Over the years, I have experimented with the guitar. I love music, more to play it or to sing it than to listen to it. Not that I can do either. Because I can't. Still, it bothers me a little that as a society we have outsourced music to artists and musicians and thereby effectively cut ourselves off from what I feel is a key source of peace and an effective tool for coping with the challenges of life.

I began my flirtation with the guitar during high school. And while I harbored a sincere interest in giving expression to the feelings within my soul, my primary motivation for learning the guitar may have been a desire to impress members of the opposite sex. Perhaps due to lack of viable prospects on that front, this flirtation never really matured into a full-blown romance. In fact, some years later, following my mission, I sold my guitar for $50 in order to facilitate the purchase of bike parts. Even now that feels a little sacrilegious.

Fast forward a decade and a half, amidst the gloom of another Seattle winter, I realized I needed some sort of distraction. Mike Ward, a good friend and a consummate musician, lent me a guitar and some good advice on self-directed learning.

It didn't take long before I was back at the same mediocre level I "achieved" during High School and not truly advancing anywhere. The challenge for me is choosing to make time to improve, that and trying to learn strumming patterns and chords from YouTube. As they used to say in el campo misional, this approach to learning an instrument is menos eficaz.

Most nights my guitar sits beckoning in the alcove upstairs. And so with absolutely no understanding of music theory and little to no direction, I remain a three or four-chord wonder. Really, I have pretty much mastered G, C, and D, which suits me just fine because I’m a major chord kind of guy. 

Not so long ago, Rachael and I were discussing a song she liked. I remarked how I really didn’t like the sound of the minor chords in the song. Granted, I am not really sure I know what a minor chord is. Recognizing this, Rachael spent a few minutes futilely attempting to explain the beauty of minor chords in terms that someone with my unsophisticated musical sensibilities could understand.

Finally, still searching for expression, she just said, “I love them because they are meaty. I can sink my teeth into them.” The conversation moved on, but that phrase hung in the air for a few days. I ruminated on its significance and let it simmer on the crowded backburners of my mind.

A short time later we watched the movie The Hedgehog, based on the New York Times best-seller, The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. In her fictional account, Barbery masterfully weaves humor and profound kindness into an underlying tragic plot ultimately ending on a transcendent note. It kept us talking for days. Ultimately, we realized that, like minor chords, here was a movie into which we could “sink our teeth.”

Following those two experiences, Rachael and I began to detect “meaty” or “minor chord” experiences all around us. Last night, after my second full day in the hospital and with at least two more to go, my folks offered to take the kids home so that Rachael and I could talk by ourselves for a few minutes.

My children are very good children, but the sheer number of bodies combined with Carver’s so-called “special needs” and Ivy’s . . . personality . . . age . . . something (?), rendered this undertaking no small task. The kids loved it. Grandpa treated them to McDonalds. Rachael and I just sat and talked with no distractions. No food, no dishes, no vacuum, no mess (but the hose in my side), no clothes to fold, just the bubbling of my chest drain and two friends becoming reacquainted. Around 8:00 p.m., when she left, Rachael turned in the door to say ‘good-bye.’ This was a “minor chord” moment. It hurt to see her go.

Earlier in the day, when I could stand the solitary confinement no longer, I wandered down the halls chest tube dragging, hospital gown waving. In nearly all the rooms around me, lay individuals usually older and far worse off than I. Since emerging from emergency room, I have received a near continuous string of well wishes by text and e-mail. I have even received visitors a few times. 

To say that this hospital stay is a bummer, would be a gross understatement. Beyond the inconvenience of being separated from Rachael and the kids for a few nights or missing a weekend with my parents, this experience potentially represents the opening of a new, less-active chapter in my life.

With the probability of recurrence very high, my ability to endulge in coping activities like mountain biking, backpacking, and running appear very much at risk. On top of that there is the looming financial burden associated with my protracted stay in Hotel Valley Medical.

And yet, the kindness of friends, the opportunity to receive service, as much as I hate being the object of the service, tempers all this bitterness. Earlier this morning, I wrote the following in my journal: "I am so grateful for this experience and the depth and the richness it brings to life. I can’t truly explain it all. Beauty isn’t all about pleasure and happiness. Beauty is found in texture and struggle." Minor Chord experiences make life more complete. They enhance the good times and lighten the dark times.  

Today: Hospital Gowns, Law School, and Accidents

At the time of this writing, it has been almost ten years since I graduated from law school. That’s long enough to forget a lot of things, including many of my feelings about the day to day experience. I will say, however, that as I remember it, law school was generally a very happy time for our family. We didn’t have much in terms of means, but we had enough, we had good friends, we were centrally located between our families, and more than anything we had the promise of the future to motivate us. The older I get, the more I believe that true happiness is a function of hope and promise and less a function of the circumstances through which one is passing.

I sit here “festooned,” as it were, by a drafty hospital gown on a grey metal folding chair in a drab hospital room. It is a room like all hospital rooms I have visited—pink on grey cabinentry, stainless steel accents fluorescent light, hard laminate flooring—with one difference: I’m the one stuck in it. I do have company though. On the floor at my feet, ever bubbly, my vigilant chest drain chatters away. And of course, I feel inseparably connected to my new traveling companion: a half-inch diameter hose protruding from my side.

 

I suppose if I dwell on the situation too long, it might begin to feel a little like solitary confinement. But of course, that isn’t fair. The nurses visit me all the time, even in the middle of the night! No, life is good. In fact, this experience reminds me a little of law school.

The law school environment has a great deal to offer. The way I see it, if you surround yourself with distinguished professors and accomplished cohorts, you can’t help but have an exhilarating experience. Granted, at least in my case, that exhilaration mostly originated from the knowledge that I was in way over my head.

Even with all the "exhilaration," there were times in the middle of every semester where the coursework simply lost its luster. Yes, there comes a point, perhaps in any endeavor, where the days seem to roll indistinguishably together. No one can escape that, not even in the ivory tower. I’ve been feeling a little that way of late. I’m just itchin’ for a change, a move, a new challenge something to shake things up a little.

That brings me to Tom (not his true name), one of my closest friends in law school. (The fact that he chose to befriend me speaks volumes to his charity and kindness.) Anyway, Tom remains one of my favorite kind of people. Well-grounded in the faith, he shouldered heavy responsibilities in his ward while going to law school and raising a growing family. A life-long resident of Utah, Tom participated in a variety of hardy outdoor sports. He ran like a Carl Lewis. He was a backpacker, a mountain climber, and a skier of the telemark variety. With all that to keep his attention outside, Tom clearly preferred the outdoors to the classroom.

 

Not that he was a slouch academically. Tom consistently scored at the top of the class for all three years. He came to law school having pulled down a difficult degree in Philosophy. Very sharp in all respects.

 

Both Tom and I chose the Thinkpad A31.

The J. Rueben Clark Law School required that each student purchase a laptop. I suppose the administration expected that we would use the laptops to take notes and complete exams. As it happened, the year I began law school was the first year that the law school offered wireless internet throughout the building. Of course, this advent led to all sorts of unintended malarkey. People played online games and read the news. Some used instant messaging to slip answers to students getting grilled by the professors as part of the Socratic method.

Tom took school seriously and apart from reading the news occasionally left the interwebs alone. He did have one guilty pleasure, however. A true mountaineer at heart, Tom used Summitpost.org and the avalanche reports as a literal window to the outside world during class. Because the wireless could be a little spotty in the classrooms, Tom would open up a dozen or more instances of his browser each one focusing on a different peak, minimize the windows, and then—as if methodically eating an orange—slowly tick through each one over the 50-minute period.

 

The J. Reuben Clark Law School sits on the eastern edge of BYU’s campus. At least when I attended the school, Heritage Halls (on-campus housing for first-year students) was situated immediately to the north of the law school. A little farther up 900 E., still heading north, were Deseret Towers (long since gone and the married student housing). After that you’d come to the MTC and the Provo Temple.

Tom moved his family to the on-campus married housing part way through our law school experience. This made it possible for Tom to leave their white Buick LeSabre at home. Instead, Tom would coast his ill-fitting older mountain bike down the long sweeping hill from the Temple and married housing past Heritage Halls and onto the law school campus. Obviously, the trip home was a different kind of experience. After all, what goes down, must come up . . . ? 

So anyway, one day during our third year in the school, Tom came in looking a little more tired than usual and perhaps a little stiff. Out of habit, I asked him about his evening. He then proceeded to tell me how he had been hit by a car on the way home from school. Tom had been riding his bike past the Heritage Halls parking lot when a young, student plowed into him with her car. She hit him so hard that he rolled up on to the hood of the car and the bike was damaged.

I sat there completely dumbfounded. My jaw ajar, I looked at him trying to find any indication of trauma. Nothing. Tom wasn’t one to show emotion. He had a sheepish grin on his face when he told me, “All I could think, when she hit me, was ‘finally something exciting is happening to me!’” Words to live by from a wise man who has gone on to accomplish great things.

I’ve thought about those words a lot over the years. Today, as I sit in the hospital and stare out at the dripping soggy bleakness and contemplate another day of inactivity followed by a long recovery, it could be easy to mope a little. But I don’t feel that way. Yesterday, as the Urgent Care doctor—clearly enjoying something a little different—explained his diagnosis to a room full of nurses and two very engaged medic teams, Rachael turned to me and said: “Finally, something exciting is happening to us.”

 

And you know what? I was thinking the same thing. That is, at least before they carted me off to the A-car. Trouble is, I never thought to ask Tom—all those years ago—if “something exciting” was supposed to be a good thing or not.

A Revisionist's History: I Will Fly

All that talk about the Grand Caravan reminded me a little of a different vehicle: the Plymouth Volaré! I contend that the Volaré—the down-sized Chrysler station wagon of the post-embargo era—is the spiritual predecessor of the Grand Caravan. Both vehicles were designed and manufactured to more effectively haul families and gear. Both vehicles, once reaching a certain mileage, wound up among the ranks of service vehicles littering constructions sites and industrial parks the nation over. Not that this can be proven, but I have my reasons for believing it.

 

Before leaving on an LDS mission with my Grandmother in the late 80’s, my grandfather sold dish soaps and supplies to restaurants, bars, and other roadside eateries sprinkled throughout Southeast Idaho and Western Wyoming. Most summers growing up, I would spend a week or two living with Grandpa Howell in Idaho Falls, or in later years, Boise. During those early years, when Grandpa stilled lived in Idaho Falls, he would often take me with him as he ventured to scenic locales like Bone, Ririe, Swan Valley, Jackson, and Driggs. I don’t remember much about these trips. But I do remember a few things. . . .

One time grandpa bought me a sandwich at a convenience store. Still naïve enough to believe that all prepared food you pay for must be good, I consumed more than half before Grandma Howell pointed out that my sandwich was moldy. Grandpa Howell insisted the green moldy flecks were "spices." As I recall, I finished the sandwich. One time as Grandpa Howell maneuvered through a windy, dirt, “short curt” through the mountains, the car rolled a little too closely to the edge. While Amy and I stared on with mixed horror and fascination, Grandma Howell came to the rescue vocally expressing her concern.

 

The one common thread through all these experiences and many others was the Plymouth Volaré station wagon. Over a period of several years, I remember Grandpa Howell driving both a Plymouth Volaré station wagon (complete with faux wood paneling) and a Dodge Aspen sedan (a badge-engineered twin to the Volaré). I traversed many a mile ensconced in their luxurious, vinyl-swathed appointments.

 

As a career, soap salesman doesn’t rank high on the relative compensation scale. No doubt with an eye to supplementing income, Grandpa Howell would often bring home his clientele’s discarded commercial dishwashers. He would clean ‘em, repair ‘em, and resell ‘em to his clientele. Even as a boy, I admired that. At least until he would ask me to detail the stainless steel dishwashers with an S.O.S. pad in the driveway. What was truly impressive though was his ability to shoe-horn those dishwashers into the back of the Volaré. Somehow, with the tailgate up, the cavernous maw of the Volaré managed to swallow the dishwasher. I want to say that Grandpa also strapped a dishwasher to his handy, chrome-plated roof rack, but that may be entirely fictional.  

 

Born in 1929, my grandpa was the product of the depression—as if that were not already immediately apparent. Resourcefulness, pragmatism, and frugality, these things ran deep in Grandpa Howell. To carry the family through the tight times or perhaps to free up valuable income, Grandpa used a sledge to crack the concrete pad in his garage. Then he excavated a potato cellar beneath the floor, covering it with an oil-stained piece of plywood to prevent an unintended trip into the inky blackness below.

 Only once did I manage to muster the courage to descend into the pit. The cool, the dark, the moist and a spare patch of relatively bright light from the cobwebbed garage window above left a clear impression on my young mind. I vaguely recall that the potato farmers in Grandpa’s ward or stake would allow members of the Church to harvest the potato “remnants.”

I’m still not sure how I managed to swing this, since potato harvest was usually in the Fall, but I once joined Grandpa on his potato harvest. Lending the whole event an air of near criminality, all this went down at dusk. Again, reaching back into the dustbin on this one, I remember Grandpa driving his Dodge Aspen, the sedan, out into the fields. We filled the trunk and the entire backseat with potatoes. It was a stupefying volume of the potatoes. It must have weighed several hundred pounds. By the time we finished it was dark and light from the dome-lamp spilled out onto the dry dusty field. Staggering beneath the load, the Aspen’s wheels sank into their wells while the headlights shone skyward as we bounced back to town.

 
I’m not sure if there is a moral to this story. But, I will say that if any man ever deserved a pickup (before the age when the pickup became America’s best-selling vehicle for 30 years running), Grandpa Howell was that man. As the owner of a 20-year-old anemic Nissan pickup and the former owner of a Dodge Grand Caravan, perhaps I inherited an ounce of Grandpa Howell’s Depression-era Good Sense.

To The Dearly Departed: 2002 Dodge Grand Caravan

It was a handsome car, as far as prosaic family haulers go. The aggressive belt-line crease lent the car an air of lean athleticism. Our Caravan was clad in silver with black trim and privacy glass, which aged well in my eyes. Of course, Rachael will tell you that my taste in vehiculars is suspect at best. And frankly she may have a point—my taste in cars, like my taste in music, never truly advanced beyond the 90’s. On the inside, the car struggled to find that same timeless appeal. Not that Chrysler measurably fell short of the commercial standard for the age. It did not. Knobs and buttons were laid out in a thoughtful fashion. And yet. . . .

Allow me to describe it this way: when we sold the car last week, the buyer ran a CarFax right there in the front yard as the rain fell around us (a feat not even possible when the van was built 13 years ago). Falling rain, yes. CarFax, no. Turns out, our Grand Dodge Cara-wagon began life as a rental vehicle in Los Angeles. And that pretty much sums up the trouble with the car.

We got the base model mini-people-hauler, complete with navy-blue carpets and carnival-grade plastic appointments. Granted, cheap plastic and color schemes do not a bad car make; they are strictly aesthetic concerns. But, blue carpet shows dirt, which means I vacuum once a week. A task I religiously observed every Saturday. Cheap plastic scratches easily and shows wear unless episodically saturated with copious amounts of Armorall. And this we did not do.

A lover of pragmatic machines, I loved the van. Few cars can compete with a minivan for sheer practical applicability. One minute it hauls people, the next it becomes pickup with a camper. Combine with that the reasonable price tag tied to a Caravan, and suddenly you’re staring at one of the greatest wheeled values known to man.

As I remember it, shooting from the hip now, the van cost us $8500 before the credit we received for the Taurus. In the intervening seven and one half years since that purchase, we drove the van a solid 80,000 miles. Much has been made in the press about the unreliability of American automobiles as compared to their Japanese counterparts. As a young man, fiercely loyal to the country that nurtured me as a youth and continues to offer me liberties of belief and mobility, this rankled.

Now somewhat older and the owner of a ‘95 Nissan XE, my position has softened. Today, I freely acknowledge a clear disparity in build quality and many times in engineering and design. In some cases, American manufacturers simply do not build the type of vehicle I would like to drive. (Think: compact wagon, manual transmission.) And yet in most cases, at least for the last several years, I’m not sure that the disparity in quality and design merits the discrepancy in cost. The act of buying our Caravan put that proposition to the test.

Fortunately for us, the wisdom behind our position has been borne out. In rough numbers, I figure the van cost us at most $13,000 over eight years to own and to maintain (not including gas or oil changes). Since comparably aged and equipped import minivans fetch between $12k and $14k used (with more miles), I feel like we made the right decision from an economic standpoint. Okay, so I’ve waxed didactic and in so doing stand to obscure to true magic of this minivan. What is important for our purposes today is that the van was fairly reliable. When it wasn’t, I was able to handle most of the repairs on my own with a little help from my friends YouTube.

These repairs included replacing the tires, thermostat, blower fan capacitor (twice), serpentine belt, belt tensioner, rotors and pads, alternator, battery, and water pump. Mechanics helped with rear drum brakes, a couple of oil leaks, and the air conditioning (twice). All told pretty minor stuff.

It is not my purpose in writing to justify my position on purchasing American-manufactured automobiles. I offer these thoughts as a memorial to a great vehicle that schlepped our family and gear for the better part of a decade and did so economically. Ultimately, the ever-expanding size of our family (until Ivy, that is) and the growth of our children combined with our interest in gear-heavy outdoor activities (i.e., camping and cycling) led us to begin looking for a larger, more powerful, and more substantial vehicle.

We invested in roof racks, bike trays, a car carrier, a hitch, and a hitch-mounted rack. All this allowed us to extend the van’s hauling capacity as the kids grew and absorbed more of the available space in the van. And yet, the tell-tale reverse rake, wobbly cornering, and increased squealing from the back seat all portended an end of an “transportative” era for our family.
 

One day, I will spend a few minutes memorializing the reasons behind our purchase of the Caravan’s successor. But out of respect for the dearly departed, today is not that day. O Caravan for your years of faithful service we salute you. We do not blame you for your cheap plastics, periodic minor repairs, and waning handling. We lay that at the feet of Detroit with all her troubles. In short, our Dodge Grand Caravan represented a convenient, economical set of wheels for a young family. It’s great gas mileage and sliding doors will be sorely missed.

Dear Caravan, adieu.

 

 

Today: Urges

 

As a full-throated, bare-chested enthusiast of mountain cycling, and as the owner of—not one, but three—“mountain cycles,” I find myself assailed at times by these inexplicable urges. . . .

 

• Urges to seek out the nastiest, rockiest, rootiest horse trails known in these parts.
  
• Urges to leave the mountain cycles, what with their accommodating trail geometry, their knee-preserving crawling gears, and their wide tire munificence, hanging forlornly on the garage wall.
• Urges to mount my 25’s with the reflective whitewalls on the road cycle and then maneuver the road bike through the bottomless mud holes and slimy leaf-strewn obstacles on those horse trails.

That was Friday evening. The urge satisfied, the thirst slaked, I wiped down the steel tubes and hung my century-distance steed back on its hooks in the garage.