The Adventures of Supermoon

About a month ago I went camping in Moab with friends, but rather than spend the waning minutes of day light setting up a tent I decided to build a fire jump. After dinner our attention turned back to the pile of rocks creating a sketchy-at-best ramp, and since it was dark by this point we used a collection of cell phones to poorly illuminate the take-off. After pulling on a full face helmet I decided to give the jump a shot at about the moment our campsite neighbors rolled up intrigued by what was about to happen. The jump was a success and we continued hanging out well into the night before deciding to ride together the next day.

Riding in Moab

Approximately every 14 lunar cycles the full moon occurs at the same time the earth and moon are closest to each other in orbit. This makes the moon appear larger than usual in the night sky and is known colloquially as a Supermoon.

Last Thursday one of my new friends from Moab, Mike, contacted me about a Supermoon climb to the top of a 14er (Colorado term for a 14,000 foot tall mountain) and then a mountain bike descent down. I thought that was a great idea and met him and his friends for the next Supermoon, Sunday night.

Our hike up quickly turned into a slog as our bikes had to be pushed, lifted, and eventually just carried up the side of the mountain. I thought of my bed, and how even the sleeping bag in my car would be luxuriously comfortable. ‘Why do these adventures always sound so cool when they’re really exercises in pain tolerance,’ I wondered. After a few exceptionally steep grades we hit snow and decided to ditch the bikes there. 

My bike spent a lonely night just below the snow.

No longer lugging 30-50 pounds of gear allowed our pace to speed substantially. Mike’s friends, equipped with skate shoes, jeans, and hoodies, set a blistering pace up the trail in a way only Summit County locals can. I was wearing my goggles backwards on my head so the band covered my ears and wearing every piece of clothing I brought when we hit the summit at about 3am. One of Mike’s friends graciously gave me a down coat that was keeping his backpack warm, improving my mood considerably.

Shorts seemed appropriate in the parking lot... less so at the summit.

The way down was glorious. We slid down large patches of frozen snow and easily plodded from one boulder to the next as we got lower, all under the largest moon of the year. To the East a faint glow of daylight pushed over the mountain ridges, brightening our physical and mental outlook equally. By the time we reached our bikes the sky was illuminated enough to ride without artificial lights so we coasted down the mountain enjoying the natural beauty of the raw and wild trail.

Sunrise over the Rockies

The road goes on forever, and the party never ends.

Saturday provided a break in the clouds so I packed my bags and took off from Antwerpen. Jeff had shown me this incredible network of bike paths that spiderwebs across northern Europe in a sort of international connect-the-dots game. It's incredibly simple - all I had to do was go to the website (here), click on the point where I wanted to start, click on the point where I wanted to end, and then print off the cue sheet. I taped my cue sheet to my front rack and started off towards my cousin Greg in Eindhoven. 

So serene

I was slightly disrupted leaving the city of Antwerpen because of construction, but I met up with two old men pre-riding a Trappist brewery tour and they were looking for the same route as I. Once I got into the countryside the only times I got lost were when I missed a sign while sprinting through a yellow light (if you can ever consider what's done on a touring bike to be sprinting), and once when I couldn't believe the route went down a singletrack dirt path. The route followed a canal bike path almost the entire way, and I think the largest hill I went over was actually a bridge.

How do Belgiuns become world-class cyclists if these are their hills?

When I got to Greg's, 130km later, he was in the middle of fixing his friend's Dutch around-town bike. I was presented with the choice of checking out his relatively small town of Eindhoven, or rallying immediately and taking a train to Amsterdam. One of the things I learned in Colombia is that if you're going to spend a night in a big city, it should be a Friday or Saturday. It was Saturday so I got a quick shower and we were on our way.
Then Amsterdam happened. We got home at 8am.

Days abroad can not be wasted, so I woke up a few hours later and started checking out Eindhoven. Greg and I rode around town for awhile before passing the stadium where the local team, PSV, was playing. We posted up at a tent across the street with food and beer, and stuck around until just after canisters started exploding in celebration of a goal.

Greg pointed to a concrete tube connecting the stadium to the train tracks and explained that if the hoodlums get too crazy the visiting team uses that to get out safely. Fortunately there were no riots after this game.

That night we hung out in the town square. Bars lining the street set up huge seating areas in the square where you can get the full menu, but sit outside. It was a beautiful spring night to sit and catch up with Greg since we hadn't really hung out as adults ever.

I thought I'd leave Eindhoven Monday morning, but with the clock continuing to advance I decided it would be better to wait a day. I did some grocery shopping, checked out the feasibility of going to Norway or Sweden, and hung out at a bar called AltStadt that had free Wifi.

I think Greg and I were riding the only bikes in town without a chainguard

On to Antwerpen

Riding Belgiun backroads

When I went to sleep after leaving Paris I saw lots and lots of red lights blinking about a kilometer or so away. Upon seeing the landscape in daylight, I realized they were all windmills. I was slightly disheartened realizing I was starting a ride across France's windy countryside, but it turned out much better than some of my previous windy touring days.
There were lots of small towns, and lots of war memorials, and lots of pedaling, but generally my second day was uneventful. My biggest surprise was finding I had crossed an international border into Belgium without so much as a street sign. All the license plates went from having an FR designation to a B, and that was it.
I rode a few more kilometers and then found a huge field to sleep in, right behind an American chain hotel. I woke up in the middle of the night feeling rain start, and quickly pulled my tarp over my gear and myself. The rain stayed light through the night but by morning it was raining steadily and socked in. While I generally try to eschew American institutions abroad, a rainy morning is no time to be proud. It's amazing what a little bit of bandwidth can accomplish, and after a few Google searches and VOIP phones calls I rode to the train station where I was wisked away to Antwerpen.
I was headed to Antwerpen to see my friend Jeff from Pennsylvania. We met 10 years ago when I shadowed one of his work days for a high school project and he hasn't been able to get rid of me ever since. On one was home when I arrived - apparently a highway bridge collapsed, there was a major gas leak, and a steel factory exploded spewing molten metal all while he was trying to take a friend to the airport. Some combination of this shut down the main highway in Belgium leaving them to drive around in circles for about four hours with two children in the car. Yikes!

Poured to the top, without spilling a drop!

This is a bar with character

I spent a few days hanging out with Jeff and his family. I crushed some cobbles, checked out a dirt jump park built through a WWII anti-tank fort, and sampled a restaurant style that is both awesome and troubling at the same time - the "frituur" where literally everything except your drink is deep fried. Mostly though I just enjoyed the Belgiun culture and tried to stay dry.

Dirt jumps in the shadow of a WWII anti-tank fort

I don't know how Belgiun people stay healthy with these restaurants around

Bonjour de Paris!

I skipped the last two weeks of ski season and hoped a flight "across the pond" as people love to say. I always thought calling an ocean a "pond" was stupid, but after flying across both the Atlantic and Pacific, I have to say, the Atlantic is tiny. I booked myself a long layover in London so I spent 16 hours exploring the city before continuing on to Paris.

Tower Bridge in London

After a few days in Paris with family, I hastily google mapped a route north towards Belgium. As soon as I took off I realized the directions were terrible. On top of that, Paris has multiple names for a lot of their streets (like Manhattan's "6th Ave" is also known as "Avenue of the Americas"), but none of the names are actually marked. Europe has a tradition of putting signs on corners that tell you what attractions are down different streets, but that was worthless since I don't know the city well enough to get a bearing off of tourist attractions. Instead I made a habit of asking where I was every kilometer or so, and eventually made it towards the edge of town.

Rollerblading and breakdancing are still cool in Europe

As I rode out of the city the neighborhood got worse and worse. A fully loaded touring bicycle sticks out just about anywhere, and I was getting nervous as I continued to search for my route. I turned on to the street N2 in northern Paris and went for about 15 minutes without seeing any signs confirming I was still on the correct street. I asked someone on the sidewalk and they told me I was not on N2 anymore. Disheartened, I asked two more people and they also claimed I was not on N2, instead saying it was way back where I came from and they didn't know where it went, or where the next street I was looking for went.

My GPS was dead, I couldn't find my location on the map, and I was starting to panic. I decided I needed to get the GPS working because riding back through where I had just come from was not an option.

When I wrote directions on a piece of cardboard and wedged it into my front rack, I should have known I wasn't adequately prepared

I picked the store that looked most likey to have batteries - an unpolished middle-eastern grocery store with all the madness and mayhem stereotypically associated with a bazaar. Terrified that my bike would disappear if I left it for a second, I parked it so the wheel was visible out the door and ventured into the shop. Just as a point of reference, I was held up with a knife in Pablo Escobar's hometown and I was substantially more worried for my safety in this moment. I made eye contact with one of the employees and held up an old battery, feeling waves of elation when he curtly nodded at me and reached behind the counter for a pack of new ones.

Once the GPS was on it instantly confirmed I was on the route I needed, and I continued riding out of the city as kids throttled wheelies down the center of the main street on two-stroke dirt bikes.

Paris goes from the scariest neighborhood I've ever been in to a field within about 2 kilometers.

Navigating in the country side was just as difficult, but at least the GPS was working and it was further between turns. I was still jet lagged and just so elated to be out of the city I continued riding until midnight, when I finally pulled off and slept along the driveway going into a battlefield memorial.

(click to enlarge)

Burning Dinosaur Bones

Last weekend was one for the record books. Never before have I packed car racing, dancing to awesome live music, and hovercrafting (is that a verb?) into one 48 hour period.

It all started by watching a clip of Top Gear in which the hosts postulated that one could get into car racing for less than most people spend getting into golf. I myself find golf to be incredibly boring, let alone a waste of land and an irresponsible use of water resources, so I’m a fan of most things that make fun of it. The style of racing the hosts decided to pursue was Rally Cross, and after a few minutes I really wanted to try it. A quick Google search on the sport revealed that Rally Cross is typically a test of precision driving with time additions added every time a car hits a cone or misses a gate. There is a Colorado race series that doesn’t require any car modifications (no roll cages or race harnesses) and entry fees are less than a bicycle race. Sign me up!

With the last race of the season was on Saturday, November 3^rd, 40 minutes east of Denver. I decided it would be nice hang out in the city the night before so I didn’t have to get up as early. I took the opportunity to explore the Denver nightlife with my friend Alex, and it turned into a night of epic proportions. Herb’s Bar was just supposed to be our first stop, but each consecutive song by the Moses Jones band made it harder and harder to leave. My friend Bombay Beats, who has been teaching in Spain and the Dominican Republic for the past 4 years, came by and before we knew it the bar was closing. As we were walking home Alex started talking to a girl on the sidewalk and next thing we know all of us are in her and her boyfriend’s baller apartment rocking out and continuing the festivities. Alex’s roommate and I left around 3am, leaving the others to rock out as they saw fit.

After getting to bed around 4am, I woke up late and rushed to the last Colorado Rally Cross race of the season where I met up with my friend Maggie. The course was set up with a series of cones in a dirt field with turns tight enough that most of my time was spent in first and second gears. I was in the first wave of the morning, and after passing tech it was time to race. I didn’t even know how to properly get to the start line, but with a bit of friendly coaching I started to get a feel for it. I felt so cool and had a huge smile pasted on my face between each of the 4 runs. During downtimes between waves, drivers are asked to work the course. I was posted next to Jason, one of the fastest drivers in my category who was absolutely crushing my times. He agreed to let me sit shotgun in his next race laps so I could try to emulate his lines and driving style. I have never seen a stock car do the things he was demanding of his, but once I realized what was possible my lap times started dropping. They didn’t drop enough and I finished somewhere near the middle.

Saturday night was spent laying on the couch, talking with Maggie and my roommate’s friend AJ who just got back from a few years abroad. Sunday was looking to be pretty lazy too until my roommate Adam walked in and announced he was the temporary custodian of a hovercraft. We walked out to the street and for the first time in my life I saw a hovercraft up close. In a bit of irony it’s painted camouflage, for duck hunting, though I’m not sure how a vehicle could be more obvious with a huge propeller and a deafening 250cc two-stroke motor. I rarely have a hovercraft delivered to my house, so naturally we took it to some backroads and tried it out. It wasn’t functioning perfectly, but it worked and it was a blast. We’re planning on taking it over water sometime soon.

Thus concluded my amazing weekend. Live music. Dancing. Racing cars. And hovercrafts. Boom.

 Getting ready to take a hot lap!

 Vroom!

  Getting the engine to fire up at altitude was a bit tricky, but eventually Adam figured it out.

 Success!

Rental cars and hotel rooms

I spent a lot of my time in Boulder living on the corner of two dead end streets in a neighborhood affectionately known as the Hapgood Hood. There was an even mix of families and students, and in the duplex across the street lived a young man named Dubz. He lives in San Diego now and decided to get married, so my old roommate Alex and I made the trek west to congratulate him on this momentous day.

Most of my “vacations” have involved worrying about weather patterns at high altitude, hoping my thumb is attractive enough to slow a passing motorist, or bumbling around a foreign country. I rarely cross paths with hotels and rental cars, but there’s a first time for everything and over Memorial Day weekend I took a pretty standard vacation.

We got started in San Diego swapping our underpowered Focus rental for a bright red Mustang. Now, I don’t have any illusions about a Mustang being a sports car, and I’m pretty sure they de-tune the rental cars anyway, but while it handles like a boat it does go really fast in a straight line. Trust me, I know because I left every stop light by putting the pedal to the floor. It wasn’t long before we learned that the car gets more fun with traction control turned off, and that was the beginning of the end for that set of rear tires.

The first day we ventured down to the water and found an ocean choppy with wind and storm swell, pummeling anyone who dared enter. Alex gave it a solid attempt but eventually tired and surrendered, joining me on the beach. Not to be deterred we borrowed suits and boards from my old neighbor and partner in crime - code named “Ninja” because he knows karate, drives a Kawasaki Ninja, and two Canadians couldn’t remember his real name. The three of us went down and found much nicer, better formed waves on our second and third attempts. Paddling around on a long board was perfect for me because it was fun and active but didn’t engage my hip at all. Alex caught a few waves while Ninja and my old neighbor Collin showed us how real San Diegans do it.

And then of course there was the wedding. I’m not much of a pomp and circumstance kind of guy, but I will say it was beautiful and picturesque.  They were married under two palm trees in a beautiful resort on an absolutely perfect day. The food was good, the bars were open, and I’m pretty sure we woke up half the guests walking back from the reception to our rooms.

Monday I had a beautiful picnic lunch with my friend Kendall before Alex joined and we headed to the Scripps dive locker for a BBQ on the beach. We cooked and drank some beverages just outside my friend’s office window which is located 20 feet from the sand and 40 from the water. I don’t know how he gets any work done. We took our leave there and headed to PB where we had a second BBQ at Ninja’s - complete with guns, horseshoes, adult beverages, smashed tables, and a microscope trained on plant cell nuclei. It was every bit as weird as it sounds. I wanted to capitalize on every last bit of time in San Diego so I ended the night with a friend at a bar in Hillcrest that had a rainbow flag permanently curled around the Bud Light tap.

And thus concluded one of my only standard vacations. I thoroughly enjoyed having a relaxing weekend - looking for lightening not because I thought it would kill me above tree line, but because it was pretty. Most of my trips will still have adventure and danger, but now I know that a trip with rental cars and hotels doesn’t have to be boring.

Tom

I spent the year and a half after my accident with an accepting view, figuring car accidents are part of life and even more common when riding motorcycles and bicycles as frequently as I do. However as the reality of not being able to walk for six weeks, not being able to drive my manual car, and not being able to ride a bike for three months started to sink in I became a little more resentful. The other driver was trying to shave two minutes from his commute and as a result my life was radically altered.

These thoughts were in my mind as I left the hospital Saturday afternoon and saw a hitchhiker standing on the shoulder. Having hitched plenty myself, I always pick up people if I have room so I pulled over and the man ran up. He hopped in the back seat which I thought was odd, but it soon became apparent he didn’t smell great so I was fine with a few extra feet of separation. He had tanned, worn skin, and the teeth he still possessed were crooked and misshapen. I thought he might be a long time vagabond, the kind that talk nonsense the whole trip and ask for money and want door-to-door rides, and I was a little disappointed I had picked him up.

Within the first few minutes he proved very courteous - shy almost. We went through the initial where are you going/what takes you there questions but he didn’t seem interested in pontificating about his life and usually went back to staring out the window after answering a question. He even declined when I offered him part of the sandwich Steph and Malin had brought me earlier in the day.

After asking a few more questions I found out that he was headed to the VA (Veterans Affairs) hospital in Denver to evaluate his cancer treatment options. He had been diagnosed at the hospital in Grand Junction, which was closer to his home, where they told him that he could fight it and live a painful five years, or ignore it and live a relatively normal three.

I couldn’t imagine being confronted with a set of options like that and suddenly realized my youth, relatively good health, and general luck were invaluable.

He seemed at peace with this choice, in almost a zen-like calm. I asked about family and he said he had a few children, one lived near his house and another lived in Denver whom he was going to stay with while visiting the hospital. He had been with his wife since they were teens – they had been married shortly after meeting while working in his family’s ice cream shop. The more I learned the more I wanted to know but I also tried to be deferential to the thoughts that must have been flying through his head.

I know the isolation that can hit when hitching – wondering who’s going to help with a ride while looking at the weather and setting sun and judgmental glances. I have no idea what it must feel like to face one’s own mortality, and I hope I never know those feelings on top of each other.

Talking with Tom put my problems in perspective. I had just been cared for and visited by awesome friends, I was scheduled to make a full recovery, and no one’s told me I’ll be dead in three years. I still wish people would look a little harder for motorcycles and bicycles, but all things considered I’m doing pretty well.