I just had to relate my impressions of what strikes me as one of the most strangely beautiful and sad places in Oregon. How many Portlanders are even more than dimly aware that just south of the city is a waterfall that, were it not also one of the oldest and grimiest industrial sites in the state, would be a national caliber natural attraction. I biked down to West Linn and Oregon City the other day to see this place for the first time. All i can say is Wow.
Imagine the awesome spectacle of a major river, the Williamette, thundering in full late-winter flood over a jagged rock precipice. An amazing sight indeed. But also imagine it surrounded on both sides by a pair of ancient, gigantic, Seuss-like paper-mill complexes, and a town that looks like a wayward peice of small town industrial Pennsylvania. That's Williamette Falls and Oregon City.
Oh my, yes, its true. As of this last Sunday I am a car-free individual. Selling was a fairly painless process as my friend Sierra needed an immediate replacement for her ancient and dying Pinto wagon. My trusty Nissan Sentra filled the bill.
Not sure when i will next own a motorized vehicle but if/when i do, i really like the idea of biodiesel. More and more people are doing it and with good reason. The "technology" is proven, releases no fossil carbon, in fact can run on pure vegetable oil. I've met several people now who have made this switch.
Ah, but bikes: those run on nothing more than the food i stuff into my mouth!
I'm no math genius but i think that comes out to... let's see... INFINITE MILES PER GALLON! Wow!!! THAT'S What i'm talkin' 'bout!
Other big news: Today i bought a Burley Nomad cargo trailer. One very nifty device, i already took it on a partially loaded 10 mile spin and i hardly noticed it was there.
So Dan, you ask, what is this Person Powered Pedaling and Pedestrian Pilgrimage from Portland to Portland anyhoo? Ah, so glad you asked. Here's the plan as it now stands:
late March depart Portland on bike, ride south along coast to about San Louis Obispo (by late April or so, ) head east across into Arizona, across Arizona (with stops to admire various beautiful places) into New Mexico and up into Durango, CO. Store my bike there, make my way to Denver (via a hiatus to the Northwest for a wedding I am participating in on 7/5), then hike the Colorado Trail from near Denver to Durango, then get back on my bike and ride back across the wild west to Portland again, via Burning Man in northern Nevada.
That's it in a nutshell. Madness perhaps. And i wish there was a way to both hike the Colorado Trail AND go to BikeSummer in New York. But those are at conflicting times and places. And obviously my whole summer will be one big bike (and hike) summer.
Having never done a long bike tour (or, um, any bike tour) naturally i wonder how much pre-trip conditioning to do. I've asked lots of experienced tourers what they think and i've gotten almost as many ideas. But they seem to boil down to two basic approaches:
A. be a hardcore lycra biker gooberhead and train like a maniac with a program of mile and rpm counting that would confound Einsten, or B. since i'm already a daily in-town bike commuter/traveler, just keep doing that, add on some more miles but basically let the first week or so of the trip be my get-up-to-speed period. A couple of friends said they did nothing more on starting out on cross-country tours than modest 35 mile days and work up from there, no big deal.
My approach will involve adding miles and weight (to the bike, not me) in the next month but without being too obsessive about it. That's how i started my Appalachian Trail thru-hike (in decent shape but not some kind of triathelete) and it worked fine.
Portland's a great place to get in bike shape anyway, all kinds of nice routes around town and up nifty hills like Rocky Butte, etc.
Now if i can figure out a way to do this trip and also catch a ride on the uber-cool sounding Biodiesel Bus excursion to Bikesummer in New York. But you know, you can't do everything.
I've just about decided to take part of my nice fat tax refunds and buy me a nice little bike trailer rather than panniers for my trip. I've talked to several people who have used a trailer for touring and loved it. I'll still use a handlebar bag for convenience. The basic choices in bike trailer are a B.O.B. brand single-wheeler or a 2-wheel Burley Encore. I really like the Encore, its Burley's smallest but still holds plenty and only weighs 10 lbs. Plus Burley (as many of you know) is a great little cooperativley owned company in Eugene with a well-deserved reputation for some of the best bicycle products out there. Some day i'm gonna own one of their recumbents.
Another big plus on the Burley Encore is that it will be PERFECT for hauling stuff (including paintings, that should be interesting) around town, a VERY important thing in light of the fact that i will soon be deliberately car-free for the first time in almost 6 years. In selling the car i will kill 2 juicy birds (pardon the metaphor) with one stone: become (except for the occasional rental) car free AND finance my trip.
Speaking of paintings, the opening of my show at Cafe Paradiso in Eugene went well, i got some nice comments from people and there were familiar faces there too. The nicest surprise was a group of 4 friends from Portland who came down. My friend Paul Nama has one of those Toyota hybrid-electrics and he filled it with Shawn Granton, Carla Forte, and Bruce Orr. Groovy kids one and all, i could write another couple pages just on all the cool things they are up to.
I've got some photos of my paintings up in the photo gallery, check 'em out. Out in the physical world i am showing paintings all month (February) at the Cafe Paradiso in downtown Eugene. I hung them this morning and the opening is Friday 2/7/03 5:30 to 8:30 PM. Stop by if you get a chance. Of course you can stop by my room in Portland anytime to see what i'm working on. But not from April 'til September of this year. That's when i'll be out on my big-ass adventure.
Have you ever heard of Imbolc? (Prounounced "embok".)It's an ancient celebration of the midway point between winter solstice and the start of spring. Same day as groundhog day.
I'd never heard of it before but my sister Kathy and her partner Sue's neighbors in Eugene have a firey celebration of it every year and i came along this evening. The highlight was a big bonfire of everyone's Christmas trees, and you burn something of value. I didn't have anything special with me so i burned a fresh crisp dollar bill. Felt good. I also wore a funny hat and ran around the fire a few times. I wasn't even drinking.