Autumn Storm, Kawishiwi River

Yesterday as I was driving home from Ely there were some of the coolest looking storm clouds I've ever seen moving along the Kawishiwi River. I couldn't resist stopping and making some photographs!

The Mountains Loom...

The Mountains Loom..., originally uploaded by ParsecTraveller.

In this view, we see the incredible High Sierra jutting up from the desert. I took this photo on a drive back in July near Bishop, California.

On this particular drive, we left the hotel where it was 97 degrees. Upon reaching the trailhead at over 9000 feet, it was 70 degrees! Up at the lakes, clouds rolled in, wind blew, and we were forced to put on jackets. California is the place to be if you like climatic variation!

DC with Friends

Yesterday we drove to Washington DC to hook up with some friends. We met up with Wendy and Kristie and their children. I met Wendy in Orlando last year, but this was the first time I met Kristie in person. It is always so neat to me to meet online friends in person. She was such a sweetie.



I also love watching kids who are fully engaged in life. Fearless and bold and daring and soaking it all up. So it was a real treat to me all the way. DC was just icing on the cake. I wish I had more pictures to share, but since my speedlight broke, I am still trying to figure out how to take pictures when it is gray and drizzly and when we are indoors and it is dark. If you have any tips, I'm all ears.



Here are the few I did snap:





We hit the Museum of Air and Space, which was very nice:







Afterwards, we went to Capital Hill to eat at the Good Stuff Eatery where I had the best hamburger I've ever tasted. It was very touching to see DC at night.





I wish we could have had a longer visit because I would have loved more time with Wendy and Kristie. We are definitely going to plan a longer visit next time. Thanks Wendy and Kristie for making our day so great.

Grivel? ...What is happening there?

A few friends have climbed on these and everyone seemed to like them dry tooling. My buddy Jack Roberts was pretty excited switching from a Petzl sponsorship to Grivel this winter. I know from our recent conversations that he liked climbing on the new tools as well.



I see Will Simms is now on the Grivel line up. His buddy Jon Griffith off Petzl and on BDs.



"Never the arrow always the Indian."



Anyone climbing on any of theGrivel versions of this onehere in North America?









"Grivel has for nearly 200 years led the development of Ice Climbing equipment, but to move ahead in this rapidly changing “fast &furious” new age of technology and materials, we decided to make a radical improvement in our approach to development. This is the reason we decided to create a new dept. a real Laboratory for Development, a place where we can explore the possible and beyond. With all these recent changes in materials and design we chose to invest in this bright future, brought about by mixed climbing, competition and rising standards. To head this new department we have brought in a new face, Stefano Azzali a man devoted to climbing and climbing equipment, no stranger to high tech radical materials. Stefano’s work in this field of new technologies and avantgarde design qualifies him to lead “Grivel’s Racing Development”. (Grivel Reparto Corse) It’s almost second nature to a man coming from Modena, the home of design, engineering and above all “Speed”. We look forward to the future as we are proud of our past."

Leaf Season

Having returned to Boston from our stay on Cape Cod, we were greeted by the "Leaf Season" in full effect. It happens so fast! This is very new for Eustacia Vye, who has never seen Autumn before. I had to keep reminding her to pay attention to the road, as she continuously got distracted by the leaves. She thinks that the Fall season matches her colour scheme very nicely - I agree!

This is the fist time I have ridden my Pashley in over two weeks, and the absence made me hyper-aware of the differences between her and my Motobecane mixte. To my surprise, the upright sitting position took a bit of re-adjusting to: To be completely honest, I was somewhat frustrated with the bicycle's composed and stately demeanor after having grown accustomed to the faster and more responsive mixte. Also, I do not have a front rack or basket on the mixte, so another thing that took some re-adjustment on the Pashley was the enormous basket obstructing my view of the front tire.

Mulling this over as I went on various errands, I did not really begin to enjoy the Pashley again until our trip to the grocery store: With the basket and saddlebag fully loaded, the Pashley truly shines - a super stable, super comfortable, utterly luxurious ride. I would have been miserable trying to do this on the mixte.

It was a crisp Autumn day, and it felt oh so cozy to glide through the streets in my soft, flowing cream sweater upon the nicely broken in leather saddle.

I tried to capture the sweater here, but this wasn't my day for successful self-portraiture. Wearing it made me feel as if I were officially acknowledging and celebrating Autumn.

Tweed hat, bought at the Provincetown Army/Navy store - my current favourite cycling cap.

And an attempt at a "Panda shot". Not very informative I admit - but hey, it captures the moment. Happy Autumn cycling!

Second Chances for Custom Bikes?

As a (somewhat) reasonable person, I recognise that sometimes a deal is just not for me, no matter how good it is. But I can still feel disappointed, can't I? Peter Mooney is a famed local framebuilder who has been making custom bicycles since the 1970s, including his own lugwork. I love his frames and very much hope to have one of my own some day. And for a brief, dazzling moment, it seemed that such a day might come much, much sooner than I expected.



As usual, these things have a way of finding me when I am not looking, and in this case the "thing" was a second hand Peter Mooney bicycle. As soon as I learned of the bike's existence and availability, I was ready to bargain and prepared to sell or trade my other vintage roadbikes in order to get it. Going by the description, it seemed that the frame was my size - so it was only a matter of seeing it in person and test riding it.

But the stars were not aligned in my favour. Although the bicycle does not look allthat small in the pictures (compare it to my Moser), it felt very small once I tried to ride it. The size is 50cm (center of the bottom bracket to toptube), which is only 2cm smaller than the size I normally ride - so maybe there was something additional in the proportions that didn't feel right to me. Not sure what it could be, because the top tube actually seems long-ish, and the stem is long as well. Does anything unusual jump out at you, looking at this frame?

And I guess that is just the thing with a custom-built frame: It was custom-built for someoneelse,which is bound to make second-hand purchases tricky. And the fact that it was built for someone else (judging by the components, most likely in the mid-1980s?) also makes me wonder what is the story of this bicycle - why did the previous owner give it up?

The bicycle certainly has nice components - Campagnolo everything. And though it was clearly ridden, it looks to have been well maintained.

The elegant seat cluster with the white outlining is my favourite part of the lugwork. I hope the original owner appreciated it as well.

Who knows, maybe some years from now I will have a Peter Mooney bicycle of my own - in my size, in my favourite colour, and maybe even with custom lugwork (let's just say that I already have sketches for the lugwork!). But with this particular bike, I am glad that I was able to resist. It's a bad idea to get a bicycle that doesn't fit you, no matter how good of a deal it is.

If you are between 5'3" and 5'6" and are interested in this bicycle - it is in the custody of Vin at Old Roads, whose contact information you can find here. For the right person, it is a rare chance to own a bicycle by one of the great framebuilders. But what are your thoughts on getting a custom bike second-hand? I imagine that the more unique the original owner's anatomy, the more difficult it would be to find a new home. I wonder how many custom bikes get second chances, and what are the circumstances under which they switch owners.

Daytime at White Sands National Monument

After our night of camping at White Sands, my friend Roger and I also spent the whole day exploring the dunes. White Sands is such a unique environment... this is my 3rd visit to this amazing place and I doubt it will be my last. It was such a thrill to watch the light change as the sun rose higher over the dunes. The sky went from shades of pink to a rich, deep blue.



Above: In order to get the perspective seen in this shot I had to lay flat on my stomach on the sand. The camera was only a couple of inches off the surface of the sand.

One of the challenges we had during this visit to the dunes was finding areas of the dunes that were untouched by footprints. Due to some recent snow and rain that had fallen, there was some moisture in the ground and thanks to the colder temperatures the dunes were actually kind of hard and not the soft, loose sand that is normally found here. Because the sand was somewhat hard, footprints were not being erased as quickly as they normally would be by the wind. As such, there were many more footprints than you normally see here which made finding a "pristine" dune quite difficult. After a bit of hiking and exploring, we were able to finally find some areas that had not seen any recent traffic.



It doesn't take very long to get a sun tan while hiking amongst the dunes. With such a bright, reflective surface the sunlight actually bounces up from the ground and in a way you are being bombarded twice by the same amount of sunlight. After only a few hours of hiking in the dunes, our faces were starting to get red. Thankfully, though, this time of year the days are pretty short and before long the sun was getting low in the sky and once again it was time to seek out a location for sunset.

Below: I don't know if these are technically mammatus clouds or not, but they sure looked like them to me. I call them "Cloud Bubbles".



After a bit more searching we found another spot in the dunes that was relatively untouched by foot traffic. We each looked for some nice Yucca plants that we could frame in our shots and soon the last of the sunlight was working its way up the length of the Yuccas.



Before we knew it the sun was below the horizon and we were once again treated to a beautiful pink glow in the sky. This place is so amazing during the dawn and dusk times of the day! Truly one of the most unique natural treasures in this world... I can't wait for my next visit!