One last hurrah for summer

Hung Mai August 6, 2016

I don't exactly remember when my first trip to Portland was after I moved to the PNW, but I do remember hearing my friends and co-workers hype it up after I had settled into life here and began looking for adventures. My cycling buddies loved it for its bike-friendliness. My non-cycling friends loved it because of the food, drink, and tax-free shopping.

Since that first trip, I've tried to return at least once every year. In the past, I've tried to time the visit to coincide with various shop garage sales, but there didn't seem to be one happening this year. I've also wanted to visit the famous beach(es) of the Oregon Coast and see some big-ass rocks.

After roping Tobin in, finding a sweet AirBnB, loading up two bikes into the back of my tiny Civic (without a rack), off we went after work on Thursday evening. I'd given him plenty of grief for traveling on a long weekend across the border without a Nexus pass, but I was actually the one who came this close to screwing up the trip before it had even begun: we were sitting in line at the border crossing talking about something or other related to travel documents and as I'm opening my passport to the photo page in preparation to present to the agent, I notice that my passport expired back in April. Merde. I'd actually considered not bringing my Nexus card considering that I wasn't going to be able to use the dedicated lane, but am glad I brought it along anyway.

Once through the border, we made our obligatory stop at Aslan Brewing in Bellingham for dinner and then continued the long drive down the I-5. There aren't too many exciting details here as we arrived in Seaside, OR around midnight, checked into our motel, and promptly hit the sack. We were greeted by a nice salty mist in the morning, a far cry from the sunny weather that had been forecasted. After rolling down the boardwalk to get some mediocre coffee, we decided to hit the road and make our way to our planned destination: Canon Beach.

Sure, there are beaches in Vancouver. There's even a cool rock, but it's not really that big. And there's only one. Maybe it was vacation placebo effect, but the sand felt "beachier" there. The views of the coast coming in and out of view as the lighting shifted with the clouds and the mist was spectacular. The ground was firm enough closer to the water that we were able to ride along. We resisted challenging tourists to "beach crits." Sure, the combination of salt water and sand probably wasn't ideal for two guys riding steel bikes, but whatever. Prudence be damned. Sometimes you just want to act like a kid again and go splash in the water. Totally worth it.

Our original plan was to stay in Canon Beach until dark, light a bonfire, make smores, sip bourbon, stargaze, and sing Kumbaya, but decided we'd rather get a head start on the drive to Portland so we wouldn't have to do it in the dark. We didn't have a firm itinerary for the weekend aside from two planned rides, the first of which was the Forest Park / Skyline Loop. If the Seymour Demo Forest road had a ménage-à-trois with the climb from Mulgrave School to First Lookout and any of the trails in Stanley Park, this is what you'd end up with: 5.5km of relatively packed down dirt and gravel climbing upward at an average gradient of about 5% with absolutely no vehicular traffic allowed. A little slice of heaven just outside the city limits. From there, the route takes us through rolling rolling rural roads before dropping us back down some nice twisty descents (including tunnels!) back into the heart of town.

Our only other planned outing was to go climb Mount Hood. This part of our trip could have gone...better. My over-zealous planning for an early morning start in order to: a) avoid any vehicular traffic on the drive to the mountain as well as up the climb itself and b) to ensure we still had an afternoon to spend in town meant setting the alarm for 6AM and getting to the base at 8AM. Avoiding traffic on the climb was actually a moot point since we'd planned on ascending a O ld Leg Road (a service road used for the OBRA uphill TT Championships) instead of the Timberline Highway route. What we didn't account for were the temperatures associated with a starting elevation of 1,379m. The plus side is that I was greeted by a perfect combination of misty roads punctuated by golden hour light, resulting in one of my favourite things: #angelboners. Instead of risking hypothermia, we ended up driving up the highway route and parking at Timberline Lodge, descending a good chunk of Old Leg Road and then climbing back up. It wasn't quite what we had in mind, but probably better for, you know, not dying.

Finally, I leave you with this collection of random images from the trip that didn't quite fit into their own galleries, but can roughly be divided into some distinct categories:

Tobin using Google Maps.
Tobin drinking things.
Coffee.
A rather inadequate collection of #baaw
Our AirBnb hosts' cat: Apollo.

Half-baked.

Hung Mai July 16, 2016

I try and make my way up Mount Baker to Artist Point at least once every season. Given this year's snowfall, I'd been eagerly awaiting the upper road to be opened to the public, but travel during the last two weekends has kept me away, so I missed opening weekend on June 23.

There's a constantly updating shot list I keep in my head and after seeing this image from Kristoff Ramon earlier this season, I knew I wanted to head up to do my own take on it.

Giro '16 - Stage 6. Credit: Kristoff Ramon.

The forecast for today was supposed to be sunny, but that was definitely not the case. As we left Vancouver, we were greeted by an intermittent drizzle that turned into a steady drizzle as we neared the border. By the time we got to Sumas, it had turned into a steady light rain. My friend turned to me from the passenger seat and asked if I wanted to keep driving. Plan B was to start the ride at North Fork Brewery, but as the rain continued, we moved on to Plan C and starting from the base of the climb at the Glacier Ranger Station.

Our luck with weather on this trip never seems to work out completely, but we were thankful that the rain dialled itself back to drizzle and even stopped for a while as we ascended. The top of the mountain was completely socked in though, so all we saw up top was 50 shades of grey. The mist and the temperature at the top meant that nobody wanted to stand around for long, let alone set up for any of my photos, so we quickly turned around and started the descent. Visibility wasn't terrible and despite the damp air and roads, the way down wasn't as treacherous as I thought it'd be.

Oh well. There's always next year.

The Island

Hung Mai June 18, 2016

I'm kind of ashamed to admit that I've been living in Vancouver for almost four years and have never spent any meaningful amount of time on the Island. My only trip to date was to visit the Naked Bicycles workshop last November for my fitting, but that doesn't really count because my entire day was spent on the ferry, in my car, or in Sam's shop. I'd never gone over for the Robert Cameron Law race series or any of the fondos either. With a surplus of vacation days to use, I decided that last week was as good a time as any and booked a four-day weekend visit.

I didn't really have a set itinerary for this trip; there were no events or races going on and the only research I did beforehand was asking all of my coffee connoisseur friends for their recommendations. I knew I was going to do the Broadstreet Cycles Thursday chill ride and the Victoria Wheelers Saturday ride. Other than that, My plan was simply to roll around and explore.

The benefit of leaving on Thursday morning's first ferry meant that I was able to enjoy empty Vancouver roads, avoiding all of the morning rush hour traffic and giving me the opportunity to make the most of my first day of vacay. The downside: waking up at 5am to guarantee enough time for breakfast, loading, and any of the last-minute hiccups that always happen when travelling.

I'll be honest: I didn't take many photos of actual riding. When I'm rolling around here in Vancouver, I'm usually with people or groups that I know well on roads that I'm intimately familiar with so I have no hesitations reaching for my camera. I was a stranger on strange roads with strange people during this trip, so I decided to play it safe, especially on some of the more *brisk* rides. Despite what these images may lead you to believe, I did, in fact, ride my bike and did not just drive around placing it in front of things for the photo op. There are also a bunch of photos on my Instagram feed of some of the coffee stops I made to Second Crack, Bows & Arrows, Hey Happy, Habit, and Caffe Fantastico.

So instead, I'll leave you with this random collection of photos from the trip. What was pleasantly surprising was a bit of a resurgence of my eye for capturing images beyond all things bicycle. A little bit of street photography here, a little bit of architecture and urban there. Some land/sea-scape thrown in as well. One of my favourite things about traveling is finding cool graffiti so be warned, however, that there's still a surprisingly high percentage of my bike against a wall.

Long story short: I'm sad that it's taken so long for me to do this. I'll be back.

Grand Failure Leavenworth

Hung Mai May 26, 2016

No trip south of the border is complete without a stop at Aslan Brewing.

May-Two-Four, as it's affectionately known in Ontario and referred to everywhere else as Victoria Day, marks the unofficial start of summer. Long weekend, score! So what does one do when one has all of that extra time and a somewhat promising forecast? Go ride bikes, of course.

I remember making a post on Facebook at some point during the last year asking the Vancouver cycling community what the coolest gravel rides were, and Gran Fondo Leavenworth popped up on the radar. I ran it past the guys and with the news that the event usually sold out, we were all soon registered.

I won't lie, we were all a little bit nervous about this one. Between illness, extended work hours, and just a general lack of long miles with intense elevation gain, we all had moments of self-doubt about being able to finish the ride in the allotted time to receive a recorded finish, especially when the organizers were quite explicit about recommending that riders pull the plug if they didn't make the 51-mile aid station by 1PM (from an 8AM start). We're all too stubborn to admit when we're in over our heads, so off we went.

Making sure we're stocked on the essentials.

The drive down to Leavenworth was uneventful. Scott had picked up a new hitch rack, which made cramming three people, baggage, and bikes (and obligatory supplies/junk food from Trader Joe's) into his Honda Element even easier than usual. I had heard stories and seen photos about this little theme town from friends who had gone down for Tour de Bloom, but upon seeing it for myself, I still don't get the appeal. The weirdest thing was seeing a sign for Mongolian Grill written in Gothic font in the town centre. Anyway, after checking in, unpacking, and stocking the fridge, ET and I headed out for a short leg opener while Alex, Calvin, Scott, and Julie hung out in the hotel and cracked a few open.

Holy shit, wind. I guess I should expect it in this region of the Cascades, but it still came as a rude shock. I just hoped that it would die down a bit for the tarmac sections of the ride. Spoiler alert: I was wrong. Speaking of weather, the overall forecast was also up in the air, even the night before the event. We were worried about the chance of showers and having to deal with slick, muddy, screaming off-road descents. Despite checking three independent sources, the consensus about POP was non-existent. I had brought knee, leg, and arm warmers along with a vest and emergency shell, but did not bring full-on rain gear was by no means looking forward to spending 8 hours out there if it came pissing down.

Proper planning prevents piss-poor performance. Possibly.

Checking, then double, and triple checking, the next day's forecast.

We awoke on Sunday to overcast skies and a cool breeze. Radar showed a light system moving in, but (thankfully) the rain never materialized. I still left with knee and arm warmers and my vest, with the pocket shell stuffed in my jersey just in case. We arrived at staging with enough time to drop off our feed bags for the 51-mile stop, empty our bladders one last time, and then rolled out at 8AM. Things started off with 20KM of neutral roll out. So sketchy; there were guys constantly across the yellow line in order to gain a spot or two. Why? It's not like we're going anywhere. No photos from this since I had no desire to take my hands off the bars while people were constantly accordion'ing over the little rollers.

A ritual that every rider is familiar with.

As soon as the lead moto pulled off and we hit the first stretch of dirt, hell broke loose at the front of the group as the racers gotta race. We hung back and tried to stick together as a group, but with each of us having our own climbing rhythm and pace, the implied solution was simply to regroup at the top of the first climb. And boy, what a climb it was: the surface was nicely packed dirt and gravel, though there were some slow spots where the rain earlier in the week hadn't quite dried up yet and left stretches of wet sand that could easily bog you down. The descent was almost perfect by off-road standards, again nicely packed and not very rocky, making it easy to both let the throttle open as well as scrubbing off speed as we approached the turns. A lot of it was double-track surrounded on both sides by forest, but every now and then, when the road hooked around a corner, the trees opened up and the cliff dropped away to reveal the valley below. While the views were great, the trees opening up also meant the wind was coming through again. I was grateful to have warmers and my vest with me, but was still shivering coming down.

Smooth sailing on the way back up the second pass.

Having stayed behind to do my thing as photographer, my friends were long gone down the road. While I was bombing down the first descent, another rider on an MTB had some words of encouragement to share: "Duuuuuuuude, you're totally killing it on that bike!" I felt good! Cyclocross has helped immensely with my comfort getting loose on sketchy surfaces, but we all know that comments like that are a jinx. As I neared the bottom and was scrubbing some speed, I felt my rear end start skipping over the gravel and looked back to confirm that I had indeed flatted my rear. No problem. It was nice and sunny and I was glad for the respite from getting bounced around. With a new tube in, I rolled down the last of the descent and met the rest of the group at the first water station.

It was time for a welcome return to tarmac, although that also meant a return to climbing. Nothing savage and much more gradual than the first climb and with a similar packed dirt surface with a top cover of fine, loose gravel. The road up was also much more open than the previous road. If I had to describe it, I'd consider it more "winding" than "twisty" and since it wasn't closed in by trees, afforded great panoramas of the terrain and slope ravaged by a recent forest fire.

Once again I was bringing up the rear of the group, but soon came across Scott, who was hard at work fixing his first flat. The organizers had warned us about the second downhill, placing it firmly in the "MTB descent" category with lots of rocks and ruts and heavily washed out from recent rains. The past two seasons of cyclocross have helped immensely with my confidence getting loose on sketchy surfaces, so I didn't find it too bad changing lines to avoid all the hazards, but woe unto those who let their attention drift. I soon came across Scott, who was busy patching his own rear pinch flat. I stood around being not helpful and watched other riders streaming by, only to walk back over to my bike to discover my rear had developed a slow leak. After tracking down the hissssssssssss of escaping air, I discovered that I had suffered a sidewall cut. It was bootable, so I stuck in a Gu wrapper, threw in my last spare tube, and proceeded semi-gingerly down. Not five minutes later, we came across ET and Alex who had blasted up the climb ahead of us almost literally around the corner.

Chocolate flavoured sealant. Helps with punctures AND prevents bonking!

This would be where our paths diverged. ET, who's been dealing with persistent ankle/Achilles issues had hammered the second climb knowing that he wasn't going to bother attempting the third climb (a reverse ascent of the first climb) if he wanted to be able to walk the following week. I, on the other hand, had a tire that was no longer 100% reliable, no more spare tubes, was rapidly approaching the 1PM suggested cutoff time, an endless supply of other excuses, and a strong thirst for beer. With five guys sharing a single bathroom back at the hotel, I also wanted to be a team player. By throwing in the towel now and SAG'ing back to the staging area, two of us would be able to shower and get changed and not have to worry about rushing or holding up the group. I was totally going to take this one for the team. We told the others to go ahead without us and ET and I started our slow(er) trip down, stopping for plenty of photo ops.

Once we were back on asphalt, we figured it would be an easy(ish) 12KM(ish) to the 51-mile aid station and a ride of shame back in a truck. Nope. Wrong. Instead, we were greeted with a wicked headwind with even more wicked gusts. ET graciously decided to pull the entire way, probably because he wanted Fly6 footage of me making suffer-face, dripping snot, or trying to adjust my cap under my helmet. I think he was successful in capturing all three. Note: riding one handed with wind gusts these strong is not a great idea. I don't advise it. It leads to things like almost being blown across the lane into a passing truck.

The organizers had made a last-minute change to the course the night before to detour around washed out roads, which meant that the mile markers they had so thoughtfully provided with the event bible and which I had so meticulously applied to my stem were now off by a few miles. As we struggled to push into the wind and the odometer kept ticking upwards, no aid station was in sight as we rolled through the town of Entiat. Worried that we'd missed it, I pulled into a gas station where I saw one of the SAG moto drivers chilling out with an ice cream cone. At this point, I noticed that my rear tire had started going soft again, but since the aid station was just under 2KM away, I thought I'd be able to make it. Just as I was about to pull back out into traffic, I looked back and it had gone completely flat again. The SAG driver was nice to offer a spare tube, but I took it as a sign to call it quits for sure.

An exaggeration of the wind conditions. But only a small one.

ALL THE FOOD.Image courtesy of Alex — ALL THE FOOD.
Image courtesy of Alex

Last two riders to leave the aid station and continue on.

We briefly crossed paths at the midway aid station. While the three others were shedding layers and getting ready to push for the last summit, I was busy stuffing my face with the Egg McMuffin and Coke (and jerkey. and sour gummies. and Swedish fish) I had thoughtfully stuffed into my drop bag. At 2PM, the aid station started tearing down and we hitched a ride back into town where we completed our ride of shame back to the hotel for beers of shame.

My multitool was rattled to the point of un-screwing itself on the descents.

Some thoughts on equipment choices:

Cyclocross bike was probably the best call. Sure, there were a few brave/foolish souls who opted for road bikes with 28s, but I doubt they had much fun. Those who chose MTBs were probably laughing on the descents, but cursing as soon as the road levelled out or turned upward. 33 slicks or semi-slicks with low-ish pressure (ideally tubeless) would have been ideal.
I should have opted for a slightly beefier tire to be safe. While my Compass Stampede Pass Extralites have been used to great success at events such as Oregon Outback and there were plenty in the pack also using the same tire or the 35mm Bon Jon Pass, I would have traded a bit of suppleness and road feel for a sturdier sidewall. I'm sure my incident was a fluke, but it would have been great not to have to pull out because of an equipment failure.
Low gear: my 1x setup with 40x36 was alright, though I was forced to get out of the saddle at in a few spots. 38x36 would have been better. Watching ET spin up pitches with gradients well into the double digits makes me wish I had a dedicated adventure bike with a 2x setup running 46/36 and 11-36.
My 'cross bike position needs to be refined. Spending the past few weeks on my Naked has been eye opening in terms of how my body should be positioned. My CX setup is perfect for riding on the hoods or the tops since that's where I spend the majority of my time in a race, but descending during this event in the drops felt super cramped in the cockpit and my neck was being forced to reach in an (even more) unnatural position. Gotta sort this out before August.
Whatever your personal feeling are on the whole disc/canti debate, I was glad to have a hydro disc setup. It was nice having the confidence to let the bike run downhill and know that I had plenty of modulation and stopping power at my fingertips. Literally. There were certainly people who finished the ride on road calipers or cantis, but it was nice not having my forearms pump out or my hands turned into gnarled claws.

And now, miscellaneous photos from the trip!

Sadism, by any other name.

Hung Mai May 14, 2016

Second attempt at the annual sufferfest social today. I got swept up by descending riders short of the Mount Seymour summit, but I chose much needed rest and Coke instead of letting my pride get the better of me. For those of you counting at home, that's Mt. Seymour: 2, Hung: 0. In more uplifting news, I did manage to finish the other four climbs, even if the last one up Cypress was at a snail's pace. The slog up to Powerlines has never felt so demoralizing.

I'm pretty sure I was the butt end of a few jokes for carrying a musette bag full of food (I hate stuffed/saggy jersey pockets, especially since one pocket is constantly occupied by my camera), but constantly reaching into my Marry Poppins sack of snacks was probably what kept me going. With the day's heat, I couldn't stand the thought of trying to chew and digest bars or other solid food, so gels and chews kept the motor running. The good news is that this ride was a good test ground for my nutrition needs for next weekend's Gran Fondo Leavenworth, as well as proof that my legs are okay with this kind of mileage/elevation.

The cloudless sky and unrelenting heat allowed me to experience a whole new level of suck. Time to go stuff my face with everything in my fridge.

Everyone's still smiling, but for how long?

Westwood Plateau, summit 2/5. Shade was a precious commodity today.

Teamwork makes the dream work. Hydration stop on the way to Mt. Seymour for the third climb.

HUUUUUGE turnout today. The group is still intact at this point, though that would change after Seymour. For comparison, all of last year's participants fit on that traffic island in the foreground. Navigating intersections was...interesting today.

The group had been thinned out savagely by the time it hit the fourth summit, Grouse Mtn. parking lot.

Chris and I kept each other company and motivated as a two-man grupetto up the fifth and final climb up Cypress. Even after all that, you've gotta make time for some #baaw action to document your success.

Too tired to care about symmetry. My legs were disabled by today's effort.