Serenity in Shoulder Season

Wet, Wild, Windy, and Magical Bikepacking Tour of the Scottish Highlands

Build it, and eventually, they will come...

Long before the iPhone became a vital organ for survival and long before I ever properly mountain biked, Apple had a hand held device called the Newton. Many companies had so-called personal assistant devices (palm pilot, handspring, etc..) that were more of a pain than a help. You had to learn how to write so that it would recognize your notes. The internet was in it's blinky tag infancy, no wifi so you had these crappy cards that were a sort of crappy bluetooth/wireless mess, hardly any cross-application support, nor sharing of data from any sort of cloud. Apple's Newton was amazing compared to the others. So well ahead of the curve. Unfortunately, the Newton too was well ahead of the curve of technology and it would be killed off by the return of Steve Jobs at the helm of the Apple ship. 20 some years later, the technology finally caught up (software, wifi, bluetooth, touch screen tech, ram, processor speed, etc..) and we are living the actuality of what the Newton dream had been long ago. Build it and eventually they will come...

I was thinking about that last Sunday as I was ripping my dropped bar rigid 1x mountain bike down a steep rocky trail. Traversing rocks, deep snow, some mud, more rocks, more snow, and lots and lots of rocky dry trail with a huge shit-eating grin on my face.

The thing is, rigid drop bar mountain bikes have been done times and times before. I am definitely far, far, far from the first. But I do feel that right now the technology has finally caught up to the initial promise of the drop bar mountain bike. We now have high volume tires with modern treads and tubeless capabilities. We have clutch derailleurs that lessen chain slap and helps keep the drivetrain running smoothly in the rough. We have gearing options that are workable across myriad terrains. Frame geometries have gotten better and more specific. And disc brakes have found their way into the realm of all biking. Build it and eventually they will come...

With the current trend of longer, slacker, lower mountain bike frames with shorter than short stems, wider that mega-wide bars, and longer travel in the mountain bike world, the options for a rigid singlespeeder are pretty slim. Add in the plethora of adjectives "gravel" and "adventure" muddying all sorts of bike-linguistics and it is easy to find oneself lost. That is where the dropbar 1x mountain bike comes in. It's the new rigid singlespeed (for gravel, for adventure, for bike packing, for what I've always called "mountain biking" = getting from point A to point B however the most fun and least paved way is).

Not only does it rip and put a smile on your face on the trails, but that long pavement or gravel road ride to and from the trail into that stupid headwind is a whole lot more pleasant with the drop bars than fighting it with flat bars.

Spring Is Coming

Years ago, I spent a couple summer weeks scraping and painting an old barn for a co-worker for some extra cash to help pay for life. I was in college and had a part-time job for a video and audio production company and I operated their new digital audio and video editing bay. Richard was a producer and often used me out on the field as his key audio recorder, as well as main recording engineer for all of his voice-over talent for the CD-ROMS we were producing.

I would ride my old Honda 250-CM out to his place in the country. Scrape and paint for a few hours in the afternoons after class and work. Nights in the mid-west seem to last forever in the summer. Dusk would come around 9:45 or 10 PM most of the time.

Richard would come check on me. Offer me some lemonade or tea. Then disappear into his house. Only to re-appear as I was cleaning up the tools and putting things away for the night. He would always make sure I cleaned the brushes properly. "An artist always cares for his tools" he would say. Then we'd walk across his garden and he'd send me home with some fresh veggies and hot peppers grown from his garden.

He had an old golden retriever that I can't recall the name of anymore. It has been such a long time since I've thought about those days.

I remember seeing him helping out his elderly dog. Out the screen door, across the old wooden porch, down the worn wooden steps, and out into the yard to relieve himself. Bent over holding the weight of the rear legs and end of the old dog. Richard loved that dog, hated to see him lose his ability to walk. To stand. The dignity. But Richard wasn't ready to say goodbye and not ready to give up hope that the old dog still had a few good days left in him.

One evening, whilst walking across the garden towards my bike, Richard asked me what my favorite season was. I answered "fall". I love the bright reds and yellows and oranges against the late summer greens. The smell of fall. The pumpkins and approaching caramel apple season. Spiced ciders. The cool and bug free nights around a campfire. Finally relief from the heat and humidity of summer. The return of the trails in the woods from the rapid weed growth of summer.

Richard listened then said his favorite used to be fall as well. When he was younger that is. Now, now he looked forward to Spring. The flowers blooming. The return of the green from the brown and white of fall and winter. The birds. The blue skies. The early Spring rains. Spring had now become his favorite season.

Why, I asked. Because it is the return of hope. The return of life.

Spring is coming.

Year of the Dog

 A dropbar mountain bike named after a Chocolate Lab (Baxter) with custom geo, specifically designed around dual wheel sizes (27.5x 2.25-2.24 & 700x35-37), and a supple custom Retrotec fork. The Whaxter is aptly born to run in the Year of the Dog. Fitting.

"The Dog is a true companion, associated with loyalty, honesty, intelligence, and a strong sense of right and wrong, as opposed to the Rooster, which has a tendency to be demanding and a tad persnickety. Dogs are known to be swift and passionate believers in their own personal philosophy and does his best to protect high-integrity people and support their cause."