u/Small_Breadfruit6654

Dude, I can whine. I can be a whiny little bitch about so much in life… I equally have a ton on gratitude too. I am balanced but I could perhaps use a little more discipline. I’m loose lipped, I share my opinion and sometimes it’s sharp and even unnecessary. I have a tendency to expect things to be straight forward and easy sometimes. My expectations set me up for my own failures.

When I go bikepacking, I’m doing something I love, so when my legs are screaming at me, my body is fatigued, I’m hungry and tired… I feel this overwhelming sense of euphoria and suffering at the same time. It’s work, it’s not always easy, the rain, wind or the wildfire smoke can run you down mentally. However, you press on, you know this is what it’s all about, the exposure to the elements seems to bring out a primal energy, the loneliness turns into an intoxicating sensation of peace and personal growth.

The joy through the suffering changes my perspective of what suffering actually means to me. It cycles its way into my daily life, my work, my experiences with my kids, my family and friends. I become more resilient to the pathetic things that make me a drama llama. I can find joy in discomfort knowing what It does for my soul.

It’s going to be ok. Just remember, that it’s going to be ok. Press on, pray, pedal, realize suffering is a part of this, life requires it to become a better version of ourselves.

You will become a better person through your challenges. Maybe soon, it’ll take a whole lot more to break you down. As it should, so we can rinse and repeat and do it again.

I’m so thankful and blessed to be able to experience this joy and suffering.

This past weekend I decided to finally get out for my first bikepacking trip of the year. I have a lot of hobbies, kids and responsibilities that have had priority over life. When I got a call from a friend who told me I needed to join his group going to a music festival out in Darrington Washington, I was a bit hesitant. I’ve never been to a big music festival, not since Warped Tour back in 2001. When I learned that Railroad Earth was headlining Saturdays main stage, I knew I had to try to make it happen. I figured since I lived 40 miles away from the venue, I could take rail trails the entire way and it was relatively flat, it was a no brainer. I’m purchased my ticket and on Saturday morning I hit the trail. I live along side of the Centennial trail in Snohomish County. Once getting to Arlington, there’s a trailhead to the Whitehorse Trail. That heads east all the way to the Darrington Bluegrass festival venue, which is a shared event space.

This was my first time running single speed while bikepacking. I was running a 30 tooth oval chainring with a 21 tooth rear cog on a Wheels Manufacturing XD adapter. It worked amazingly, but I was limited. You could say it’s a fairly low gearing setup. I started to spin out around 9 mph. At first I had some regrets and thought to myself that I could turn around and go back home to put a smaller cog on the rear. I reminded myself that this was the whole point. I’m not going for speed, it’s not a race and for me, the single speed setup was intentional for taking my time. Going my own pace was important, and later on my way home it proved to be helpful heading up the hills back towards my house.
I was recently diagnosed with a strange form of diabetes called LADA (latent autoimmune diabetes in adulthood), type 1.5 diabetes for short. I was still learning how to manage my body and blood sugar balance. I absolutely was thankful for the low gearing while climbing those hills at the end of my ride, I actually had a glucose crash and bonked out during that section. After washing some skittles down with some water and protein I recovered and made it home fine.

The music experience was incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it. Usually I go to the forest to find peace and quiet. This was not the same, but I embraced it. I embraced the whole experience. Bluegrass, jam bands and EDM until sunrise. It was a sacred place in the forest full of the kindest people. Hugs and handshakes all night long.

The next day, I got up at 9am, a bit behind my own schedule. I picked up a coffee and hit the trail.

Part of the Whitehorse Trail runs directly through the Oso Landslide Memorial site. on March 22, 2014 a massive mountainside broke apart into a landslide that buried 49 homes and killed 43 people. Riding through the trail takes you through the old properties which have the old addresses posted on signs. It’s an incredibly emotional experience and brought tears to my eyes when walking the the memorial site. I would highly recommend stopping by if traveling by car on highway 530 or via the trail.

As a note, the county has posted many closure signs along the Whitehorse Trail. Mostly due to erosion and washouts. I do not condone the actions of ignoring them, but if found my way through. I really hope the county decides it’s time to fix the issues along the route because it’s an absolutely beautiful trail with potential to host easy bikepacking trips, gravel rides and could be beneficial to building up communities such as the town of Oso and Darrington which is very much shaping up to be a very pro mountain bike destination with North Mountain trails and skills park.

Board: Yow Teahupoo
Location: Western Washington State USA
Ambiance: Heat Waves and Wildfire Haze

A friend on a T700 and myself on my KLR 650 S, headed out to get our tires on section two of the WABDR. We live in the puget sound area and saw it best to start at Ellensberg.

We began by heading out to the farmlands looking for Umtanem Rd. After a grand entrance of deserted road and teasing views of Rainer, we got a decent warm up on very mellow dirt road. We passed the road that would have been babyhead hill, wanting to save that challenge for another day. It was a beautiful ride, and once we got to the Wenas wildlife area and got through the gate, it’s only got crazier from there. The area is remarkably beautiful and so quiet, but the volume in difficulty turned up quite quickly. One thing you must realize is we were packed for overnight moto camping, we were only doing one night but we had the gear for multiple days. Needless to say, a heavy bike, made heavier… for fun. The reports don’t explain that these climbs we’d have to make on Cleman mountain were pretty much another version of Babyhead. They were steep, long ascents with softball sized gravel that were completely unstable. I’ve climbs some short pitches similar to this on a different trail, but nothing like this, they were so long you couldn’t and wouldn’t see the end of them if you tried to walk it. You just had to go for it. My bud went first, I watched as the ass end of his T700 danced and bounced from left you right, on the Cardo he was saying things like “oh shit”, “whoa”… I decided that if I kept looking, I’d probably wimp out, so I rolled the throttle back and let her take me up. The occasional ping from rocks flying and hitting my frame and skid plate, at one point my ass Supermanned off the saddle and my legs flew into the air. It took me a moment to get back on the pegs and stand. Standing was very difficult at that angle of attack. It just felt better to focus on line and throttle maintenance. Too fast and your tire would wind up in the air, to slow and it might lug down and Kill the machine. I run a 16T front sprocket for hwy riding, so I became very fond of 1st gear while on these ascents. 2nd gear was a distant dream.

Aaron followed me on one of the pitches, I could hear him having a hard time wrangling his bike, very briefly I could see him in vibrational distortion in my mirror, then he went quiet. He popped back on and all I hear was he went down. I told him I was going to pull over at a flat spot. Little did I know that would be about a quarter mile up hill where he couldn’t see me. Then my Cardo lost contact with him. Luckily about 4-5 minutes later he came rolling up the hill with an injury to his ankle. He felt good enough to keep on so we jammed the rest of the way to the top in silence and some complementary cussing.

We were spent, but in good spirits. Taking a loaded big bike up that direction of Cleman mountain was one hell of a test of will and power on these bikes. I’ll probably never do that again.

After getting dinner in Nile, we decided it would be a better idea to skip our plans to climb and camp at Bethel ridge. Instead we headed south to Rimrock lake and camped there. We spotted a wildfire from our camp spot and watched two helicopters dump water to attempt to put out the flames, we later learned that while we were attacking the hills at Cleman, and F18 went down and that’s what started the fire. Luckily the pilot was able to eject and avoid a certain death.
A wild weekend, full of challenges, views and unbelievable moments.

Don’t underestimate a lowered KLR, this stub-legged little donkey can sure climb like a Billy goat when in tractor mode.

Two Wheeled Utility Tractor. The Mule working her magic in my favorite chore.

Tall bikes are silly, ridiculous, and a labor of time and work. I’m not sure why I was even embarking upon such a journey, maybe it was just that I’ve never seen one in real life, or my curiosity to ride one made me crazy.

When it was finally finished, suddenly it went from a bicycle, to a spectacle. A common method of transportation and recreation to filling all the passersby’s faces with big smiles. High fives from little kids, endless questions about “how do I get off that thing?”, and the shocking gasp when passing someone who’s not expecting such a contraption.

This silly project makes me smile, laugh and interact with my community more than I expected. It’s fun in more ways than I expected. I’m now finding myself wanting to embrace and explore this part of the journey. I need to take it out more, I need to ride it in public more. I feel like a kid again, but more importantly, I feel like I’m helping others see that youthful side again. It’s not always about bills, taxes and work. We gotta have fun, we gotta push the envelope of creativity and seek passion and joy and we gotta share that with the world, because the world really really needs that right now.

Much love

Finally made this dream a reality. Double decker with two old Trek Mountain Tracks. I’m probably not yet finished, considering chopping rear triangle to add some tubes to extend the rear out for a better and safer balance.