Category Archives: Materials and Gear

Ladies and gentlemen: this has been a few years in the scheming, but finally, here it is–my new bikey.

(hell yeah!!)

It’s a Soma Double Cross–steel, which I’m excited about–with disc brakes, which I’m also pretty excited about. I intend this to be my new travel and crap-weather bike, a bike with racks and carrying capacity and a little more heft (and a lot more fender clearance;) than my racey Trek.

I’ve been riding it for just shy of a week now, and it is amazing. Of course, any new bike is going to feel amazing, but still:) It’s exactly what I wanted out of a bike–which makes sense, since Mark at Upcycles helped me build it up from the frame. (A huge thank you to Upcycles for ordering the frame for me, finding all the parts I wanted, and giving up basically a whole Sunday to have a bike-building party with me. Super solid.)

So far, it’s done me pretty well in this crazy snowstorm we’re having, too:) The tires are only a little wider than on my Trek, but they feel way more solid in the slippery. A good omen.

I am seriously so excited about this bicycle. I cannot wait to take it on tour. And everywhere else too:) Is it too early to start thinking about better-weather bike adventures yet?? Who wants to go for a ride?? :)

Sometimes when you’re on a bike, you end up buying something bigger than what you expected and it doesn’t quite fit your carrying capacity.

In those cases, you improvise:

That’s right. That is a bigass whiteboard in my not-bigass trailer, propped upright by my backpack and tied in place with my jacket. And however hokey that setup looks, it made it all the way up the hill to the zoo.

I’m glad it didn’t rain on me:)

These are my running shoes:

They have gone many, many miles with me, through mud, grass, rocks, dirt, puddles, rain, even snow. They’ve run in Washington Park and Forest Park and Mt Tabor. They’ve run behind countless waterfalls in the Columbia River Gorge. All summer, I wake up often in the dark and they take me through Oxbow, Wildwood, and Eagle Creek before the sun rises and work starts. They’ve taken me through Ashland and Sacramento and Morgan Hill. They’ve run the hills of Tahoe.

Basically, they come with me everywhere.

Sometimes, they make me feel like I’m flying; sometimes, it feels like I can barely drag them over the ground. Sometimes, especially in the dark, they catch on tree roots and send me tumbling. They’re not magical, but despite the random tumbles it’s also true that I’ve never been injured in them the way I eventually have in most of my previous running shoes. It may just be that because they’re so minimal I don’t run on pavement with them, thus sparing my joints the extra shock of “civilized” surface. Perhaps any shoes run only on trails would behave similarly.

I have loved these shoes. But today, it’s time for them to retire.

As you can see from the picture, they’re a little bit shot. My foot sticks through the front where I’ve worn out the fabric. The balls of both my feet hammer the ground through the barely-extant bulge of stretched rubber that used to be a sole. They’ve never been much for padding anyway, which is why I like them, but I think the day has come for me to admit that these shoes are done.

I sort of hope that my life can be like these shoes–except longer;) I hope to feel, eventually, like I’ve worn out through good use, that I’ve squeezed every last drop of usefulness out of my time, that my days have taken me to all the beautiful places–physical, mental, whatever–that I want to go.

Heh–and then, when I wear out, I want to be able to replace all my parts and start over, just like buying new shoes:)

(My new shoes!:)

Tonight, I christen these new shoes, which are actually just a new version of my old shoes. May they also have a long and fulfilling life of much happy running:)