A little off-topic item. I don’t usually write about music and stuff I like to listen to but there is no way I’m not going to mention Pearl Jam and their recently released album: Backspacer. Love it!!! Go buy it!!! I’ve always been a huge fan of the band and Eddie Vedder especially. It sucks though that they by-passed NYC area during their recent world tour… Oh, well… Maybe in 2010. Fingers crossed…
BTW, check out Eddie Vedder’s soundtrack Into the Wild, too… That type of music just keeps cranking my pedals during my long days out there biking a lot easier;)
When I read Jon Krakauer’s book in the late 1990’s about Chris McCandless and his journey that ultimately brought him to Alaska’s hinterlands and his death I was hooked. Amazing story… I always wondered if there ever will be a movie made. When I hear Sean Penn got behind the project and Eddie Vedder was to write music, I knew instantly that the movie’s gonna be GOOD.
Check out this video short: Journey as Destination - Traversing the Roof of the World by Bicycle (Vimeo). Shot by David A during his cycling trip in Tibet in summer/fall of 2007. It brought back lots of memories. Even now, three years later, I vividly remember most of the places David cycled through… His trip started out in Kashgar, Xinjiang, and continued for three months riding all the way to Dali, Yunnan. I, on the other hand, was already under way for three months before arriving in Kashgar in late September of 2006, enjoying cycling through northern India and Pakistan. Our roads split in Saga. He seemed to make his way toward Lhasa and farther East whereas I turned sharp south and rode down to Nepal and back onto Indian plains.
Enjoy it, it’s worth it! You will better understand what it means to “enjoy” Tibet on a bike… Makes me wanna go back again. Thanks for sharing, David;)
I uploaded some pictures from my Tuesday’s solo tempo ride in Westchester county. I rode on the South and North County trailway. What an amazing ride with nice and cool weather in mid 50s and colorful display of falling leaves everywhere. I made it to the Croton reservoir, turned around and headed back to the city. A little over 83 mile with a few short breaks for picture taking and re-fueling at Dunkin Donuts.
I have put a set of pictures on Flickr!: South & North County Trail (2009). Plus, if you want to trace the route, check out my ride with all the info (speed, heart rate and elevation profiles and a Google map, too) on Garmin Connect: NJ/NY - North & South County Trails. Now, if you prefer to see the route in Google Earth you are in luck. Just download the NJNY - North & South County Trails.kmz file and have fun with it… BTW, you can pull the file directly from the Garmin Connect site, too.
For more on the Westchester County trailway system visit the amazing resources below:
I’ve been busy lately with work and other projects. I apologize for my failure to put up the Tour Divide 2009 ride write-ups. I still have more pictures to upload, too. It’s been really nice outside lately. New York area is enjoying a beautiful and cool Indian summer, so I’ve been riding my Salsa Fargo and exploring places in Bergen (NJ), Rockland (NY) and Westchester (NY) counties. But I promise as soon as weather turns for the worse, I’ll catch up.
Aside from my recent travels and mountain biking (the ‘real’ fun stuff), I have some other stuff I’d like to share:
First, a few days ago, I found Cass Gilbert’s travel/photo blog about his trip from Alaska down to Tierra del Fuego in Argentina. I’ve been following his travels for a few years, mostly his biking trips in Indian Himalayas (my favorite playground) where he used to run a low-impact bike touring business. On this trip, he seems to have a great time, judging by photos on his new blog: While Out Riding. Right now, he is on the Great Divide Mountain Biking Route making his way through lots of snow somewhere in Montana, or Idaho. I clearly remember these places and it is hard to believe there is so much snow this early in October. Must have been one of those early ‘freak’ snow storms. He really is a HARD-CORE tourer/biker;) In any case, subscribe to his blog. His pictures are unbelievable!!!
Second, I put a link in my sidebar to a book I greatly recommend: The Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life. I see it all around me almost every day when my friends and co-workers, even myself sometimes, worry about unimportant ‘things’, pay too much attention to stuff that is so irrelevant or avoid dealing with problems rather than simply solve them before they start stressing us out… It shouldn’t be that way and that’s what the book is about. I’m still reading it. It doesn’t have any new mind-blowing, secret or mystical advice. It’s just a collection of simple ‘common sense’ ideas how to overcome clutter and negativity in one’s mind. I found most of the advice extremely practical and from my own experiences on a ‘journey to simplify my life’ very much true. Leo Babauta, the author of the book, also writes on his great blog: Zen Habits - Simple Productivity. I check it out regularly. From time to time it’s good to be reminded that life shouldn’t be unnecessarily over-analyzed in our minds. I guess anyone marginally familiar with Eastern philosophies knows that already.
Yesterday, I got a message from Joe Polk @ MTBCast.com that I am the winner of the John Henry Giveaway contest. I’m really stoked and excited;) I don’t remember winning anything in my life… I think the Universe is trying to tell me that there is no way around not doing the TOUR DIVIDE race next year;)
This will be a welcomed addition to my Felt F65 and Salsa Fargo 29er bikes. I checked out the beautifully manufactured steel frame at Siren Cycles website and it is a work of art. I’d love to try it out and see how it compares to Salsa Fargo as they are both designed for the same markets - long distance cross-country touring and racing. BTW, I love the Paragon sliding dropouts;)
Now, just to remind you guys: Leadville 100 MTB race (a.k.a. The Race Across the Sky) is tomorrow. I passed through Leadville, CO last week and cannot wait to see/hear/read about the rematch of the last year’s race between Dave Wien and Lance Armstrong. Lance looks lean and mean (from his Twitter pics) and after winning the 12 hours of Snowmass Colorado MTB championship he means business. If luck is on his side (no mechanicals), he’ll be hard to beat. With decent weather the winner might even come under 7 hours again, even break the last year’s record of 6:45:45. But I wonder if someone else decides to sneak up on the two heavy favorites and snatch the trophy away… I’m rooting a little more for David Wien. Lance has his 7 Tour de France wins, I want Wien to get his 7 consecutive Leadville 100 trophies too;) Whoever wins, it’s gonna be a helluva interesting race. Definitely a huge publicity boost to MTB marathon racing in the U.S. Some links for more:
Enjoy the race;) I hope that one day I will line up on the start and ride this race as a personal challenge…
RESULTS (08/15/2009): No surprise here, LA demolished the field and won in a new course record of 6:28:50, David Wiens ended up second in a little under 7 hours. (Singletrack.com: Armstrong wins Leadville in record time) It was really fun following it on Twitter as the webcast was a complete waste of time, at least according to folks who subscribed to it.
Got back on Friday, just before midnight. I rode from Banff in Canada to Salida in Colorado in 20 easy days, with some short days and one complete day off in Butte, too. My plans to wake up and start pedaling early flew out of the window right from the start;) Usually, I started some time between 7:00am and 9:00am local time. I based it on how hard and how much climbing I had ahead of me that day. The goal became to cycle close to or over 100 miles. Plus, time-wise I tried to spend about 8 to 10 hours in a saddle.
As 2 years ago, I again finished my Divide adventures in Colorado. This time it was unintended. I felt the three weeks spent mountain biking on the GDMTBR were about enough. Besides, Colorado is so hard to pass through too fast: good food and coffee, nice bike shops to hang around, plenty of fellow cyclists. Despite eating all the time, I returned home 10 pounds lighter, 167 lbs which is closer to my optimal weight.
Salsa Fargo performed perfectly. This bike was created to eat up miles on a route like this. First of all, in my mind 29″ wheeled mountain bike is the future of off-road touring. There is no way, I will go back to anything smaller. The rolling efficiency of two-niners allows for faster and more comfortable riding. I had no mishaps whatsoever!!! I only did one tune-up in the Outdoorsman bike shop in Butte. Just to clean up drive-train and re-adjust shifting for cable stretching. The combo of Salsa dropbars and Syntace aerobars was a winner, too. Not a slightest trace of pain in my wrists, unlike in 2007 with flat bars and Ergon grips. No flats either!!! I think my Slime tubes might have been an overkill though. WTB Nanoraptor tires had plenty of grip on this route. The only complaint: the rear tire was getting worn out a bit too fast, after almost 2,000 miles. Not sure if this is normal. Epic Designs bags carried all of my equipment and distributed it properly and held up fairly well in rain.
For now, I started uploading pictures to my Flickr photostream and you can also see my GPS logs over at Garmin Connect (if that doesn’t take you directly to my activities just search for the username: “richdrogpa”). At Garmin website, you can see my daily routes mapped out and HR, elevation and speed data plotted over time.
Welcome to my blog where I share outdoor adventures, travel experiences and random musings from home and faraway places alike... My current plans: 1. [Summer-Fall 2010] Vagabonding alongside the Silk Route: It’ll be me, my bike and wide-open spaces of Western China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan for 2-3 months... 2. [2011 or 2012] Motorbiking from Alaska to Patagonia: Just started thinking about it. Plan: Find a used thumper and hit back roads exploring this classic route all the way from the Deadhorse in Prudhoe Bay, U.S. to Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. Plus, practice and improve my Spanish, too...
