Bike Camping, Battle Ground Lake, 27-28 January 2017

It's been three months since I camped. Last time it was on Lopez Island as part of my Islands tour. Since then, the weather seemed either too wet, or too cold and snowy to pull off camping. But after all the rain in October and November, and the snow and cold in December and the...

Alternate commutes.

I've lived at my current house in Woodlawn for three years. The distance to work is just a little under 6 miles (10 km.) Over the three years I've refined my morning bike commute into the most efficient and fastest route possible. I'm generally okay with it, as it sticks mostly to low traffic streets....

The return of the Crested Butte, an almost new bike?

Oh, the Raleigh Crested Butte has had such a long and strange saga. When I got it in October 2012. It was a garage queen, everything original and hardly used. I did some minor tweaks and adjustments over the years, like racks, handlebars/stem, and tires, but for the most part the "bones" of the bike...

The thaw occurs.

It was bound to happen. Portland can't stay that cold that long (usually). The much promised thaw began to happen, despite the snow's best efforts to stick around until May. It started with whimper on Tuesday. It started to rain (some areas got freezing rain) but the temp was in the mid-to-upper 30's. There was...

Snow, begone.

Ugh. As I write this on Sunday, the snow from our surprise (and surprisingly epic) snowstorm on Tuesday night is still around. Things were supposed to start thawing on Saturday, but that hasn't happened, since the temps are still at or below freezing. We're looking at The Great Thaw starting on Tuesday, when daytime highs...

Snow. No, we really mean it this time.

Last time I saw you fine folks I said it was snowing. But little did I realize at the time how much it would snow! And granted, it doesn't take much to shut down this city (an inch!) but this time, it was waaaay more than that. The forecast for Tuesday night called for some...

Sick and ice. (And sick of ice?)

It's shaping up to becoming "one of those winters". While those with a short attention span (or haven't been here that long) are saying this is the "snowiest winter ever", it has seen its share of snow. And it's not exactly about quantity of snow, as most of the snows have been fairly small (see...

Looking ahead 2017

Hello friends, yeah I know that the "rule" is to write these "goals" types of posts before the New Year, but I'm always a little late with these things. All apologies! And I'm not writing a year end wrap up for 2016 either. While there were some good moments, it's a year I don't want...