My New Ride

Frequent readers of this blog will know (infrequent readers are learning this for the first time) that I prefer to bike to work.

I've been having some issues with my road-style commuter bike as of late, which has been down for maintenance more than it has been up and running.  After giving it some serious thought and consideration I started to realize that it was the wrong bike for my route.

With all the curbs, greenways, potholes, and almost constant construction at work, despite being on asphalt the entire commute, my route was closer to off-road than on-road.

A road bike was not going to work.  What I really needed was a super reliable rugged off-roader as my daily ride.

So armed with this new theory I headed off to a local bike shop, Carolina Pedal Works, and consulted the experts.  They recommended that I look at the Surly line of bikes, as they are known for being rugged and dependable.  I settled on the Surly Ogre model, and put one on order.

Last night I picked up the bike.  It looks like this:

This bike is a real BBR - a big beefy ride.  Super wide tires, solid metal frame, and plenty of space to mount the extras one needs for commuting:  racks, panniers and a trunk bag for carrying spare tubes and rain gear, fenders, kick stand, safety lights.  It even sports a custom paint job.

I didn't like the colour options the bike had from the factory (black, or a crappy brown), so I had the shop powder coat it with an awesome orange.  I've always wanted a colourful bike, and now I have one!

I gave this bike a test run on todays commute, and it performed better than I expected it would.  A comfortable ride, and a great hill climber.

This bike should serve my needs as a commuter over the next few years, and allow me to handle pretty much any condition that North Carolina can throw my way.

Now, its time to hit the road!

I want to give a special shout out to Kurt at Carolina Pedal Works who patiently worked with me to get me the exact right bike to fit my needs.  If you have any bike needs, I highly recommend this shop.    Two thumbs up!

Black Friday in Dupont Forest

Yesterday, as much of North American engaged in the retail hysteria that is Black Friday, I continued the tradition that I started a couple years ago (Stories here, and here), and went on a day long excursion to enjoy the outdoors, the way the Good Lord intended.

Personal note:  This year REI had a campaign that expanded on my tradition by closing all their stores on Black Friday and paying their employees to go outside.  I like to think that it was my influence that brought about this epic campaign that they called #OptOutside.  Thanks REI! (disclaimer: I don't actually think this, but its still awesome, and my hats off to them.)

This year I mixed things up a bit, and went on a combination bike and hike in the beautiful Dupont Forest, in the mountains near Asheville North Carolina. So early yesterday morning I loaded the Geobike of Destiny onto the Geovan of Destiny, and headed into the mountains.

Dupont is home to an incredible series of scenic waterfalls, and I wanted to check out as many of them as I could (as well as find some geocaches, cause thats how I roll).  My first stop was the Bridal Veil Falls.  From the parking lot I rode my bike along the access roads to the base of the falls, and subsequently parked my bike at what may possible be then most scenic bike rack I've ever had the pleasure of using.

Dupont forest has been used for a couple films over the years, most famously for The Last of The Mohicans, and several of the arena scenes for Hunger Games.  Katniss escaped the fireballs in the first movie by jumping into a pool at the base of these falls.

The base of the falls is nothing over spectacular, except in scale.  It is your basic "lots of water sliding down a relatively shallow rock face".  The top of the falls are supposed to be a lot more scenic, but there was no obvious way to get there. There was too much water, due to the epic amount of rain we received lately, to climb the falls, and the park maps did not show a trail that went all the way, but there was an earth cache up there, so I figured there must be a path, so I got on my GeoBike of Destiny, took to the single-track trails, and worked my way over to the top of the falls.

It looked promising when I got to Bridal Overlook trail, however that trail leads to an overlook (and not a good one) that ends at a cliff.  I backtracked and found an unmarked trail that lead to the falls.

This section of the falls has a large opening behind the water where one can hang out without getting wet.  Apparently in The Last Of The Mohicans, this is where Daniel Day Lewis goes to Mohic (I assume thats what they do, I've never actually seen the movie).

You can get a better idea of the overhang with this shot here.

Once I was done with the Bridal Veil Falls, I biked back to the Geovan of Destiny and drove to another parking lot - one more suitable for accessing the other waterfalls.  It was from there that I set out on foot.

This actually proved to be a mistake as the trails are quite bikeable, however the first trail head said "no bikes allowed", but apparently that was just that one small section, and I could have taken the access road a bit farther down to a covered bridge were I could access a bike friendly trail that would take me to all the waterfalls I wanted to see - oh well, live and learn.

The first set of falls was High Falls, named because they are high (I assume). They are actually quite impressive in both height and volume of water.  The scenic covered bridge sure didn't hurt.

The trail leads to the bottom of the falls, where one gets the full impression of the power of the falling water.   There also appears to be fish (or at least fishermen).

The final set of falls I explored is Triple Falls, named in the grand tradition of the blatantly obvious due to it being a series of three falls in quick succession.  They are rather scenic.

The falls are another location that was shown in Hunger Games, as this is the place where Katniss discovered Peeta disguised as a rock.  Very exciting. The park installed a series of stairs that leads down to the rocks between the second and third tiers of the falls.

Looking downstream one can see that there is quite the drop before the river flattens out again.  I highly reccomend taking the trails instead of swimming it.

Following my own advice I took the trail down to the base of the falls.  Along the way is an overlook that provides the best fire of the entire set of Triple Falls in all their hyper-violent murderous dystopian future (if you believe the movies) or awesome power of nature (if you believe in reality) glory.

I'll let you decide.

On that note it is time to end this tale of adventure.  Did you folks #OptOutside on Black Friday?  If so, tell me about it in the comments below.

Achievement Unlocked: Geovan Of Destiny reaches 100K

Hard to believe we've put 100,000 miles on the GeoVan of Destiny.  Its been to 38 states, 6 provinces, and way too many awesome adventures to mention (most of 'em are recorded in this blog: Google it.)

We have many more adventures planned, so hopefully she will last for a few more years to come.

Scenes From A Snow Commute

 I love winter.  I can't get enough of it.  This is mostly due to the fact that here in North Carolina I only get 5% of the winter that I had gotten used to having when I was growing up in Canada.

Also because I get to mix it with my other passions that I have developed since I've moved to North Carolina. In this case, cycling.

Not to mention the world gets very pretty when its covered in a nice layer of fluffy white stuff.

Last night was one of the few snowfalls we have gotten this year, so I was anxious to get up this morning, hop on my bike, and ride to work.

I only brought along my cell phone (a Moto X) to capture some of the views.  It isn't my best camera, but it ended up performing better than expected.

So, in no particular order, are some scenes from my wintery commute to work.  We'll start with this old house that sits at an intersection in my neighbourhood.

This is Lower Creek Baptist Church.  Normally I turn just before I get to this church, but I decided to drive by to see it all decked out in snow and frost.

This shot is looking up the hill on Powell Street.  At the top of the hill is the back of Lower Creek Baptist Church.  At the bottom, where I took this shot from, is the entrance to the Greenway - the local bike path I use for part of my commute.

My bike, dubbed the Geobike Of Destiny, at a trail marker along the Greenway.

If you stood where the bike is in the above photos, and looked right, you'd see this next scene.  It is the trees beside United Presbyterian Church.  I love the look of the snow covered trees.

This is the corner of Harper Ave and Pennton Ave. (the truck is on Harper).  From the end of the Greenway, I take Pennton Ave most of the way to work.

This is the town snow plow (as far as I know it is the only one, tho I could be wrong).  This shot was taken further down Pennton Ave.

This is the entrance to the Greenway.  For reference, I was in the middle of this crosswalk when I took the photo of Powell Ave (scroll up a few photos).   My route takes me the opposite way, however.

This last shot is taken from the Greenway, looking back from where I come from.  This part of the Greenway skirts around a corn field.   As you can see from my tire tracks I was the first person to use the Greenway this morning.

So that was my adventure for the morning. Because I left the house early I also arrived at work early (tho not as early as expected as I ended up stopping for a lot of photos).  It ended up being an awesome ride, and will satisfy me until the next snow fall, which may not be until next year.

The Good Ol' Bike'n'Hike

If I seem a little lethargic and worn out today, there is a valid reason.

The picture to your left is a screenshot of the Google Fit app running on my phone yesterday.  As you can see I vastly exceeded my daily goals.

I had plans to meet some geocacher friends in Greensboro at 6:15PM to do a night cache.  Since Greensboro is over 100 miles away, I decided to make a day of it by geocaching along the way towards Greensboro.

I looked at the maps and saw two trails that looked like fun along that route.  One was a 2.2 mile (one-way) trail that wound thru some of the hills of the piedmont called the Girl Scouts, Hornets' Nest  Council Trail, just east of Statesville.  The other is a series of trails at the Piedmont Environmental Center in High Point.

Either trail could qualify as a good days geocaching adventure in and of themselves.  To make things a little more daunting, I also needed to save some endurance for the night cache, which promised more hiking.

So as any rational human being would do, I decided to do it all.  I figured I could bike the first trail using the Geobike Of Destiny, and hike the second trail on foot.  My logic being that the thing that gets the most tired after a day of hiking is the bottom of my feet (being a fat guy has disadvantages in this area), and biking the first half would keep me off my feet, thereby giving me more endurance.

I was not proven entirely wrong.

So I started my day just before sunrise, piled my gear into the Geovan Of Destiny, and started down the road.  At which time I was greeted with this rather stunningly nice sunrise, which seemed like a good omen.

When I got parked up at the first trailhead, I pulled out my bike and headed down the trails.

There were 17 geocaches along the route.  A geocaching couple I know hiked this trail the day before, and DNFd 3 caches, which I didn't bother trying to find.  One other was a puzzle cache I did not get the chance to solve. As a result I found 13 caches along the trail.  Along the line my GPSr hit its own milestone: 1000 cache finds using this device.

The first 2/3rds of a mile along the trail has a lot of hills, and windy bits with steep drop-offs on one side. I am not a super-awesome trail rider so this setup made me nervous, but I pressed on. The remaining part of the trail was thankfully mostly flat-ish, so the going was easier.

By the time I hit the hilly/windy bits of the trail on the way back I had gotten much more comfortable on the bike, and managed to make the return trip quickly and easily.

The ride successfully completed, I then drove an hour over to the Piedmont Environmental Center to start the hiking portion of the day.   The second physical cache I found there had this jaunty smiley face ball in it, which also seemed like a good omen.

Good omens are fickle beasts tho, as somewhere along the way I slightly sprained my foot by stepping on a root incorrectly while DNFing a cache,  I ended up DNFing 3 caches, but found 7, so it worked out quite well.

I also got some wonderful views of a river, like this one:

When I was one with the trails it was almost 2:30PM.  Some of my friends had hit town early so we all met up to eat a late lunch, then did some park and grabs until it was time to do that night cache. The lunch break and a couple hours of easy caches allowed me to rest up enough to tackle that night cache.

So all in all my theory of biking and hiking to extend my endurance mostly worked.  While biking and hiking use different muscles in my legs, and the fact that biking keeps weight off my feet,  definitely extended my range. However my legs are now recovering from both a grueling trail ride, and a decently challenging hike, all at the same time.  So please forgive me if I don't get off the couch for the rest of the day.

Actually, according to the Google Fit app, I don't have to exercise again for the rest of the year - so I have that going for me - however tomorrow I will be bike commuting to work, so I better make the best of this day of rest to recover from what was a wonderful, albeit exhausting, day of geocaching.

Cheers!

Black Friday On The Neuse River Trail: 2014 Edition

Today I continued the age old Black Friday tradition (that I started last year) of taking a long bike ride and doing some geocaching along the way.

Last year I started at the northern section of the Neuse River Trail in Raleigh NC. and stopped 2/3rds(ish) of the way down.  This year I did the southern 2/3rds of the trail.

I got my wife to drop me off at the beginning trailhead, and I headed off.

The morning was cool - 25f or so, and it barely rose about 40f all day.  Just like last year I headed south on my mountain bike and started grabbing caches.

Actually, first I had to go north a ways to snag the very first cache.  The cache was actually across the Neuse River, over this rather cool looking pedestrian bridge.

Having found that first cache, everything else was on a general southward trajectory.  I actually did several caches across the river, crossing over similar types of bridges.  One brought me to this awesome weir.

This was the first cache I found on the trail I didn't ride on last year.  It was up on a rocky outcrop, and gave some cracking good views of the trail, and the river.

There is a bench at the bottom of the rocks from this cache, and that is where I ate lunch.

After lunch I continued south.  Eventually I crossed over from Wade County to Johnston County.

I realized as I crossed the imaginary line on the trail that this was the first time I had rode a bicycle across county lines.  Not sure why, but it felt like something I should note.

A short while later I came across this rather pretty looking view of the river.

So I stopped to admire the view for a while, as one does.

When you get to the end of the trail, it quite literally ends.  No fan fare, no gradual transitions to city streets.  Just a berm, and a superfluous stop sign.

Actually there is a parking lot a bit father back down the trail and off to the right.  That is where my wife picked me up.

Today I rode 25.01 miles, and found 31 geocaches.  Another great Black Friday spent out on the trails.

... and I still didn't have to step inside a store.

The End Of The Road

Thanks to Google AutoAwesome, you can now see me literally hit the end of the road.

Fortuitousness

Sometimes fortune smiles on the unfortunate.

Case in point: On the last day of our adventure at the COG Mega event in June, my bike, the Geobike Of Destiny, developed a flat tire.  This was the second time this happened that trip, and I was out of spare parts.   I had a whole week left on our trip, so I was looking at a week without a bike... 7 days is a long time for me to be without two wheels.

While on the way home we randomly decided to stop for a cache.  The cache is in a garden shed in their backyard (with clear instructions where to go, so while it felt weird walking into a strangers back yard, I was also confident it was the right yard).  As we walked up I noticed the cache owners were home, and we said heya.

We proceed to find the cache... one of the largest caches I have found to date.  It was also one of most well stocked caches: stuffed animals, books, knick knacks, life jackets etc.

The lady CO (sorry, I forget your names - I suck that way),  insisted we grab some items from the cache, even tho we didn't have swag to trade.  One of the items was a bike tire repair kit.  I immediately grabbed it, and told the CO how fortunate it was we dropped by, and explained the situation with my bike tire.

She smiled at me and informed me that the male CO (more personal name recall suckage, sorry again!) was a master bike mechanic, and ordered me to fetch my bike, which was on the back of the Geovan of Destiny.

10 minutes later I had a patched front tire, an adjusted rear tire, a lesson in bike repair,and provided with parts to help do emergency patches in the field.

This was, by far, the more fortuitous impromptu cache stop I have ever made, and confirmation that geoachers the world over are some of the best folks in the world.

If you have the chance, I highly recommend their cache: Shedding the Past: A Whole New Cache on Scene (GC2HNAM). The 107 favourite points are well deserved, and I can speak with personal experience that the cache owners are fantastic people.

Milestone: 3000

Today I hit a milestone:  3000 geocache finds.   Go me.

Another shot of the lucky cache.

I was riding the Geobike of Destiny at the time, so this shot also seemed appropriate.

Enough celebrating.  I'm off to find the next 3000! (This may take a while - don't wait up.)

The Geobike Of Destiny

Frequent readers of this blog will remember that I tend to bike a fair bit.  I am also a geocacher.  Over the past little while I have been working on kitting out my mountain bike to be a better ride for geocache trips.  You've likely seen it in various forms in other posts on this blog.  Lately I've added a few additional features.

I took it out for a test hunt this morning and it seemed to work great. So I am ready to unveil my completed geocaching bike.  I present to you... the Geobike of Destiny:

The bike is a Specialized Hardrock mountain bike. The mountain bike isn't as fast as my commuter bike, but the fat, knobby tires allow me to go offroad, which is a requirement for geocaching.  I've already taken it down some trails, and across fields, with great success.

Some of the features I've added are:

A) A GPS mount for my eTrex 30, by RAM. It is on a swivel mount so I can position it perfectly while I am riding, and it is an easy on/off so I can transition from rider to pedestrian quickly.

B) Two bottle cages, so I can carry extra water for those longer cache trips

C) A trackable tag.  Wouldn't be a geocaching vehicle if it wasn't trackable.

D) A seat post mounted rack.  I'll be able to mount various trunk bags and panniers on this so I can carry even more water and supplies for those all day cache runs. 

E) Kick stand.  One of the more annoying things when using this bike for caching is that I had to find something to lean it against.  Now I can stop anywhere and not have to worry about it.

So that is the bike.  I expect a lot of good adventures to come from this kitted out ride.  If you see it on the trails, feel free to discover it.