It was midway through May when our friend Carl Uebelhart moved out of his apartment, put all of his stuff in storage and boarded Amtrak with his bike, bound for Portland. The idea was to attend Drupalcon, crash with some friends for a week or so, and then pedal back to Santa Cruz. Maybe take the train for part of the trip. That's not what happened.
This is the first entry from Carl's travel journal, posted on a website he built while on the road. There are a half-dozen more posts chronicling a journey that so far finds him touring around the San Juan Islands. As of yesterday his plan was to head over to Vancouver Island today. We'll see.
Updated July 9 (see bottom of page).
Cross Checking Around the PNW
Home is Where the Context Is
WHO
Me.
And everyone I have met and will meet while on the road. You’re wonderful!
WHAT
I’m riding a 2011 Surly Cross Check, though a trashed real deraileur after taking some single track too fast left me with a Deore MTB in the back. Initial upgrades included Avid Shorty 6 brakes, a Blackburn Touring Rack, and swapping out my Ritchey Speedmax tires for a 700×32 Randoneur in the back (stronger) and a 700×32 Bontrager Race Lite (faster) in the front. Typical 1W + Super Flash Planet Bike light set. Security provided by Kryptonite Mini U-lock and OnGuard locking skewers.
Since coming up I’ve picked up some funky Bontrager Nebula Interchangeable fenders (aluminum) on sale (it is the PNW), added in a 24T front ring (along with a 118mm BB), and swapped my 11-25 9 speed cassete for a SRAM 11-32 (which the 2013 cross check wisely comes with). Storage consists of two Ortlieb City Back Roller panniers w/ a lightly packed Bolinas Boreas pack on top of them. I probably should have front panniers for weight distribution, but I don’t have any issues controlling the bike and this lets me carry my gear with me if I need to lock for a bit. Simplicity > Speed.
I’m also lugging a spring 2011 15" MBP around to do work, photo processing in LR4, whatnot.
Oh yeah, this site is a dirty crazy quick jeykll layout because I like typing in Textile and I don’t want to spend too much time in front of my laptop if I’m not getting paid for it. ;) If anyone knows of an easy way to just link to a flickr page and get a lightbox for the main image on that, lemme know, cause I don’t want to mess with API keys or finding the static address of each image.
WHERE
The PNW. Most likely Mt. Vernon > San Juan Islands > Vancouver Island > Vancouver > Hood Canal > Portland > Oregon Coast (+Eugene) > California Coast to Santa Cruz? <3 the PNW in the summer, don’t want to live there the rest of the year – this works!
At this pace I might just Amtrak back down at some point in Oregon. We’ll see.
WHEN
June to… Julyish? August? /shrug
WHY
I was going to be in Portland, thought it’d be fun to ride my bike back… then thought of how close I was to Vancouver, BC… then thought how it’d be fun to head there via some of the neighboring islands. I really enjoyed the San Juan islands, had some work coming in and more lining up, and it quickly turned from “bike tour, rawr” to “living out of panniers”. Which is more interesting, though less exciting.
So why not?
The First Day
San Juan Island
Orcas Island (This is some of the best stuff.)
Carl's San Juan Islands Flickr set.
More later.
July 9 update: Report from Vancouver Island.
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