Shred Camp Day 2: North Fork to Flagline

Day one was supposed to have been the warm-up.  It was supposed to have been a mellow cruise to stretch our legs, acclimate to the high-desert trail conditions and build some confidence for a serious ride into the hills on day two.  Instead, we all rode about ten miles more than we wanted to and by the time Chris and I made it home from our after-hours caper down Phil's Whoops we had clocked over 50 miles in the saddle.  As we had already done a pretty good job of murdering our friends on one unnecessarily long and difficult day, we agreed to a slight scaling-back of the plan for day two of our Oregon Shred Camp.  The main objective still remained: scaling the daunting 4.5-mile climb from Tumalo Falls on the North Fork trail, then connect to the Metolius-Windigo and Flagline trails for a traverse through alpine meadows before a roaring descent on the South Fork trail.  This loop is a rare treat as a large section of the Flagline trail is closed until August 15 to protect fragile elk calving grounds.  The window of time between that date and the time the snow flies at 7,000 feet is short and we were compelled to seize the opportunity.  India and I might get a chance next year, but Chris and Laura may never get another shot if we didn't make it happen today.  It was going to hurt, but we were getting our asses out of town and into the boonies, physical torment be damned!  In the interest of fun over collecting maximum suffer points, we chose to load up the car and gas it out to the Skyliners trailhead rather than saddle up for the 20-or-so extra miles necessary to complete the ride from town.  This departure from our regular "we'll-just-ride-from-the-house-road-miles-don't-count-anyway" attitude felt a little unnatural, but was valuable practice at making smart riding decisions. 

India was happy to have fresh legs at the trailhead.

We pedaled our warm-up miles on the Tumalo Creek trail, heading westward towards the falls where we made use of the facilities, topped up our stores of water and prepared ourselves for the long climb out of the valley.  We headed up the gravelly trail to the overlook and paused to take in the scene. 

Laura reaches the Tumalo Falls overlook.

The View.  Sort of okay...

After soaking in all the natural beauty we could stomach, we pointed our machines westward and upward to continue the climb.  Our progress was slow, not because of our mediocre climbing abilities but because of all the damn waterfalls that kept popping up alongside the trail.  I'm not sure how we could be expected to descend fully into our respective pain caves when we're constantly being yanked out of the darkness to look at scenes of snowmelt cascading over basalt between the desert pines.  If you count the big-daddy of Tumalo Falls, we put our feet down to stare in oxygen-deprived wonder at something like seven different waterfalls.  Pretty frustrating, I'll say.  

Look guys, a waterfall!

Seriously, another waterfall?

Finally, the trail took a turn to the Southwest and we left the distractions of Tumalo Creek for a sparse pine forest and some quality time in the suffer zone.  The misery of climbing could really begin now that we had our sightseeing out of the way, or so we thought.  

India spins her way up through the forest.

Laura manages to fake a smile or I snuck up on her and scared it out of her.

Shit, is that another waterfall?  I can't go on like this.

We emerged from the tree-covered hillside trail into a marshy creek bed criss-crossed by a series of log bridges.  We practiced our bridge hopping and dropping skills, splashed the dust and sweat off our faces with icy creek water and proceeded onward.  We still had plenty of climbing yet to come before we reached the fabled calving grounds where we hoped to spot some elk still hanging around with their calves.

India demonstrates proper bridge riding form by looking ahead rather than at the natural beauty all around.  Look where you want to go.

We passed by a group of spandex-clad "fitness riders" standing around chatting as if they were sipping espresso outside of a cafe before the weekly club ride, took our left turn onto the Metolius-Windigo trail and continued the uphill grind into the sky.  

Chris managed the climb handily aboard his monster-truck 29er.

When we popped out of the forest into a broad expanse of alpine meadow, the scenic grandeur finally got the better of Chris.  He tossed his bike down in annoyance at the constant diversion from watching his heart rate zones and focusing on belly breathing.  We probably should have gone on a road ride...

India climbs above the meadow.

We traversed a few miles in this fashion, up and down between stands of pine and meadow floors, with a couple of creek crossings of various size.  

India gets hub-deep on this one.

We also found some snow.

With all of Mother Nature's distractions, we would have a snowball's-chance-in-August of enjoying the rest of this ride.  Turns out, that's a pretty good chance.

India and Laura traversing the meadowlands.  See any elk?

We also found more snow.  It required a serious class-4 snow scramble, but thanks to the superior vertical stiffness of my carbon-soled cycle-slippers I was able to manage it.

Shortly after we exited the meadowlands the hungers started to hit.  Even though we aren't so great at pre-ride planning, India and I are really good at bringing lots of food and a solid lunch on trail rides.  If we're carrying backpacks anyway, we might as well put something good to eat in there rather than subsisting on science food and trail dust all day long.  We found a sunny patch of grass, kicked off our shoes and settled in for a proper trailside meal.  

Mmm.  Turkey Sandwich.

We are also quite adept at murdering bags of chips.

After we had polished off our victuals and lounged in the sun a while longer, the group consciousness inevitably shifted towards thinking about beer.  Of course, none of us had the foresight to bring beer with us so we would have to continue our ride and descend back to the stocked cooler waiting in the car.  But that's why we came all the way up here, right?  Along with experiencing novel and more horrible forms of suffering on the 3,000-foot climb, we pedaled our asses out into the boonies for the indescribable ecstasy of ripping downhill through a high-desert forest on a foot-wide singletrack, pedaling not because you have to but because you can go faster, feeling the edge of traction drifting through corners as tree trunks zip past your handlebars while thought-vision blurs into a stream of gray, brown, blue and green where the only things that matter are the trail and the patch of rubber where your wheels meet it.  

I didn't take many pictures during the descent, but did take a break to document the ladies conquering a rocky drop-in.  

India demonstrates why you don't grab a fistful of front brake over the front of a drop.  Yikes!  The low-and-narrow bars of Fly - her twitchy XC racehorse - don't help either.  She managed to stay in control and rode away cleanly.  

Laura shows proper form, loose and relaxed with weight over the back wheel.  Georgia smooth.

After the rolling descent down the Flagline trail, the crew paused at the trail junction to discuss the finish of our ride.  After looking at the map, we elected to skip the South Fork descent and proceed West along Swede Ridge to end our adventure with a descent of the Whoops trail that Chris and I had ridden but not seen the evening prior.  Spirits were high, and a few more miles of extra riding (mostly downhill) sounded like a good idea.

Shred buddies at the Swede Ridge shelter.

Once again, I was too busy struggling to hold Chris's wheel on the descent of Upper and Lower Whoops to take any photos and plenty has been written about the radness of these trails.  We got rad, practiced our jump skills, and arrived at the bottom with stupid grins on our dusty faces.  

India doing her best Frida Kahlo impersonation.

India and I did some clip-hops over a pile of dirt, then set out to pedal the pavement back to Skyliners trailhead and collect the car and cooler while Chris and Laura enjoyed a well-deserved rest.  We returned with a trunkful of beverages, toasted our suffering ability and descending prowess, and loaded the car up for the windows-down cruise back to town for showers, beers and a brewpub dinner.  

Shred Camp Day 1: Bend

"These poor fools.  They have no idea what they're getting themselves into," I thought to myself as we rolled into the Portland airport Wednesday evening in our sagged-out sedan bristling with bicycles and stuffed with all manner of adventure supplies.  It was sometime after 10pm when we collected Chris and Laura from the terminal, tossed them into the backseat and headed east toward the dry side of the Cascades and the mountain bike megalopolis of Bend, Oregon.  Being a highly experienced trans-Cascadian midnight driver, India settled into the captain's chair and banged out the entire journey in one monster pull behind the wheel.  We arrived in Bend sometime after 2am, tossed bikes into the garage, knocked back a beverage or two and hit the sack for some well-deserved rest after a long day of traveling.  The beatings would commence promptly the next day.  

The plan was for a mellow, 15-20 mile cruise at Phil's Trails on the edge of town where we would explore the network of swoopy singletrack, get a feel for the dry, dusty summer conditions and loosen our legs up for a longer, more epic-er ride on the following day.  We suited up, adjusted tire pressure, installed smiles on our faces and rolled out.  

For those who haven't been to Phil's Trails, they are a winding spirograph of criss-crossing dirt where any ambitious rider could ride until exhaustion without being more than 10 miles from downtown Bend.  We headed in with no map, no plan and a full tank of excitement to ride some classic high-desert trails.  

I was looking sharp, as usual in my classic Loose Nuts jersey.

The ladies were feeling chummy and happy to be riding together again.  India and Laura have been shred buddies since they started riding off road way back in Athens, GA.

India rode some rocks...

then critiqued Chris's form over the chunky stuff.  Clearly, he's doing it wrong.

Laura got rad, then got a little too rad and stuffed it in a dusty corner.  High desert moon dust is good for the complexion.

We navigated with caprice and intuition, hoping to wander around for a while before finding our way to the top of Phil's legendary Whoops trail, a rollicking downhill joyride of jumps, bumps and berms that would be a perfect finish to our first day on the trails.  We didn't think we could manage to get ourselves lost in a  However, the trail gods were feeling mischievous and sent us down a track to the southern end of the network, far from the the Whoops trail and even farther from food and beverages.  We managed to have some fun along the way, but the going got rough somewhere close to mile 30 when supplies of water and food dwindled or ran out entirely.  The ladies were getting hangry, Chris and I were sharing the last drops of water in my hydration bladder and everyone agreed that we needed to get the heck out of there and to a brewpub in a hurry, Whoops be damned.  Just in time to salvage the last drops of morale and pedaling impetus from our dusty and bedraggled crew we found our way to somewhere that looked familiar, got the heck out of the woods and pounded the pavement back to our abode for a quick cleanup of bikes and bodies before the zombie trudge to 10-Barrel's fabulous brewhouse where delicious combinations of meat, starch, hops and malt were consumed with zest.  Chris and I made plans to return to the trails later that afternoon to get our dose of whoopiness, but returned to the house with full bellies and tired legs.  Siesta time called out to us and we were powerless to resist. 

When Chris rousted me from my slumber sometime around 5:30, I looked up at the sun-filled heavens and begged for a few more minutes of bliss in my laid-back lawn chair before our trip back to the trails.  When I finally got my ass in gear and into baggies, the sky had turned dusky and India reminded me to take lights.  "We won't be out long enough to need these, but I'll take them to make her feel better," I thought.  I had forgotten to consider the fact that the sun sets rapidly in the desert and the top of Phil's Whoops was 10 uphill miles away.  Chris and I kept the pace hot, racing the last bits of daylight until the morning's ride caught up with us and we were forced to slow it down or risk blowing up altogether.  Then came the 3-mile slog up a powdery fire road to the top of the trail.  If you've ever ridden mountain bikes with Mr. Chris Tavel you probably know that he hates climbing, especially on fire roads.  I'm sure there have been some terrible ascents in Chris's past but that evening's climb must have been among his least favorite of all time.  Ask him about it sometime.

When we finally reached the top in the last minutes of twilight and looked down the trail that twisted into the darkness between the trees, we knew we'd be descending in the dark.  Sweet.  We had left a warm house full of food, beer and pretty ladies, thrashed ourselves until we could hardly pedal anymore, dragged our asses up a double-track covered in 3 inches of chalky dust to the top of a ripping descent that we won't even be able to see.  Nice work, dumbass.  The temperature of the parched air was dropping rapidly and the forest wasn't getting any lighter, so we dropped in and used our zen master skills to navigate the swooping berms and invisible tabletops of the shapeless gray path through the black forest.  Whoops, indeed.  Somehow, we made it to the bottom unscathed.  I pulled the little 3-LED headlight out of my jersey pocket, affixed it to the handlebars thinking, "I'm sure glad India made me bring this thing," and we set about picking our way out of the woods.  After cussing our way down rocks and roots banging our shins, toes and knees on Ben's trail for who knows how far we came to a fire road, took a left and arrived at the pavement that would take us downhill and back to town.  Despite the warmth of our relief and the heat still radiating from the asphalt, the chill in the air bit through our short-sleeve jerseys as we mashed our big rings towards home, taking turns at the front like breakaway companions.  

We retured to a couple of mildly worried ladies with our tale of foolishness and pointless suffering, enjoyed a couple of beverages to take the edge off and made ready to hit the sack.  We had been in Bend less than 24 hours and already had over 50 miles in our legs.  So much for starting off easy with a mellow leg-stretcher on the first day...  We were all feeling pretty beat up and the prospect of a truly "epic" ride tomorrow had everyone a little worried.  To avoid repeating the mistakes of today, we opened the map, agreed on a solid plan and tucked the trail map safely into a hydration pack for trailside reference.  I assured our sturdy crew that the trails would be radder, the views grander and the whole ride generally awesome-er than anything that we had ridden today and went to sleep dreaming of elk in alpine meadows.  

The Trail Gods Made Me Do It: A Prelude to Shred Camp

Over the last three years or so of adventuring in the wilds of the Northwest, India and I have developed a persistent habit of getting ourselves in over our heads when we head for the woods on two wheels.  Through a combination of overconfidence, under-planning, audacity and plain ignorance we have set out on and somehow survived some truly absurd but occasionally revelatory bike rides.  

This April, we set out to ride the East Fork Hood River Trail.  We were itching for a mountain bike ride and the trail looked to be at a low enough elevation that it wouldn't be covered by snow.  Foolishly, we did no further research.  As we quickly discovered, the trail had been completely washed off the riverside by a massive flood that came through several years ago and dragged an entire campground away with the trail attached.  

We portaged our bikes upstream over under and through scattered trees in the flood zone hoping to find a clear section of singletrack on the other side of the disaster area.  We passed by the remains of trail bridges, campground picnic tables and other chunks of man's feeble infrastructure that the swollen river had tossed aside like so many Lego bricks.

Eventually, the fact that the trail truly did not exist anymore became clear.  By the time we stubbornly conceded this reality we had gone too far to warrant turning back, so we looked at the map and decided to make for a gravel road that paralleled the trail on the eastern side.  After a cross-country hike-a-bike through the trackless woods, we found the road that appeared to offer an easy exit.  Not half a mile up the road, we hit snow.  Then it got deeper.  

We postholed and pushed our bikes through the crusty slush and the boggy roadside ditches for at least four miles until we emerged to the highway.  

We have plenty of other tales of ill-concieved death marches that I won't bore you with today, but I relate this one little story to illustrate the fact that anybody who blindly follows India and I on a bike ride is a damn fool and had better have a taste for prolonged periods of suffering and discomfort.  Most of the poor souls who have had the misfortune to ride with us can attest to the fact that rides we strike out on tend to be longer, harder and more painful than anticipated, advertised or necessary.  Despite repeated adventures of similar style, we haven't learned to plan more carefully or do extra research but have adapted by carrying more food and water and increasing our threshold for misery.  It's a fact of our lives that we've grown to accept and have learned to compensate for.  

Unfortunately, Chris and Laura - our old friends from down south - haven't ridden with us in recent times and were at least mostly unaware of the terror they would soon face when they packed bikes and boarded flights to Oregon for several days of mountain bike rides this August.  India and I were left to plan the itinerary, placing our poor friends at the mercy of the cruel-hearted trail gods who drag our fingers in Ouija board fashion across dotted lines on maps.  What will soon follow is the story of those four days: Cascade Shred Camp 2012.  Don't forget your compass and space blanket, we might to be out a while.

Rapha NW Gentlemen's Race 2012

Last weekend, India and I joined a band of miscreants connected to the shadowy organization known as VeloDirt for a little bike ride up around Mount Hood.  This little bike ride happened to be the 2012 Rapha NW Gentlemen's Race and would take our team of six over a 121 mile course and up 12,000 feet of climbing.  The story of our day's adventure can be found on the VeloDirt website, penned and photographed by yours truly.  It was a great day and a resounding success on all accounts.  

More photos from the ride are up on the Flickr page.  Check out Jason's flickr as well as John Prolly's gallery for some other views of the day.

Tomorrow we head to Bend for a mountain bike vacation with some old friends from down south.  Look for stories and photos from our fat-tired adventures very soon.

Alchemy, Bicycle Construction and the Personal Legend

Preface:  Ira recently put up a blog post about my work at Ira Ryan Cycles that got me thinking about the path I've travelled to get to where I am now.  What follows is a brief account of my search and discovery of my personal legend. 

The first handmade, custom bicycle I ever saw and recognized as such belonged to Robbie Burton, a longtime Sunshine Cycles customer, passionate rider and all-around great guy.  It was a red and white Retrotec road machine that Robbie commissioned in honor of a good friend and riding partner who had passed away in a tragic cycling accident several years before.  Along with the weighty significance of the dedication, I was taken with the swooping lines, clean workmanship and smooth ride of the steel frame, even though test-riding the bike required me to use some serious contortionist skills.  Robbie himself said it best when he told me, "I'm just a weird-shaped dude, Ryan."  As my mechanical abilities and understanding broadened, I grew ever more fascinated with the concepts and process of bicycle construction and felt that learning to build frames would be a natural evolution of my skill set.   

When most people talk about "building" a bike or a new "custom build", what they're really talking about is "assembling" a bike.  Even if every component on the bike has been carefully considered, purposefully chosen and precisely installed all you're doing is bolting components onto a frame, securing fasteners and making adjustments.  I wanted to learn to really build a bike, to join metal with fire, to take a box of thin-walled steel tubes and fashion them into a one-of-a-kind bicycle using my hands, eyes and simple tools.  Despite my desire I was faced with a daunting problem: how to get my hands on this carefully guarded knowledge?  The glamourous world of custom bicycle construction seemed so far away from my humble workbench in the heart of Dixie.  All the builders whose work I saw in glossy pictorial volumes and on the internet were on the West coast, in New England or Colorado.  In addition to the geographic barriers, the skills of the framebuilding trade seemed to be jealously kept secrets, known only to a privileged few master builders and not available to people like me.  Many years would elapse before I got the chance to realize my dream. 

When asked why we moved to Portland from our old home in Georgia, the answer India and I deliver always contains two key elements: graduate school for her and handmade bicycles for me.  We had been living in Athens, Georgia for several years, fallen in love, moved in together, and gotten married.  Now the time had come for us to pack up and head out to start making a life for ourselves.  We had been reading The Alchemist and were all hopped up on the idea of "following our personal legend," so the wild lands of Cascadia seemed to be the perfect destination for the next phase of our lives.  What better place to find yourself than the woods of Oregon, under the towering pines immortalized by Kerouac and criss-crossed by a lifetime's worth of world-class singletrack?  On top of all that, Portland is a world-renowned hotbed of custom bicycle construction.  It wouldn't be hard to believe that sweet steel bikes really do grow on trees out here.  In classic all-the-eggs-in-one-basket style, India sent her one and only application for graduate schooling to Pacific University, was accepted, and the rest is history.  We loaded the car with mountain bikes and camping gear, aimed the headlights West and began our trek across the continent.  [More on that story can be found in the archives.]

My plan (if I actually had a plan) was to get a job at a bike shop wherever I could, save some money and take a framebuilding course at the United Bicycle Institute in Ashland, Oregon.  UBI is one of a small handful of trade schools for bike mechanics and offers classes in maintenance and repair, suspension service and professional shop operation in addition to framebuilding.  I started dreaming up grandiose scenarios in which I would attend a framebuilding course at UBI, build myself a beautiful touring bike, ride it across the country, return home to glorious fanfare having mastered the craft of bicycle construction and attained enlightenment on the open road, start up shop and quickly become the preeminent bike builder in the southeastern United States.  Sometimes I miss that kind of foolish idealism.  It wasn't long before I realized that the forks in the trail of my personal legend would only rarely be marked.  

Fairly early in the time of my tenure at Weir's Cyclery, my coworker Andy got a call on the shop phone from Ira Ryan.  I knew of Ira from photos of his bikes - mostly traditionally-styled road, 'cross and touring bikes - and always admired his clean, classic work and the fact that his bikes were built to be ridden hard, not pampered and babied like so many handmade bikes.  His classy headbadge and the fact that we shared a name didn't hurt either.  Right up until a few weeks before I was hired at Weir's, Ira was building bikes in a rented corner of the bike shop's basement.  He and Andy had become friends during that time, and Ira had called to invite Andy over to see the new shop in the garage of his recently-purchased home.  Andy said he'd come by with some beers after work and asked if he could bring the new guy along.  

After shutting the bike shop down at 7:00, we rolled across the street for a six-pack of some tasty Belgian ale, pedaled South into the Arbor Lodge neighborhood and skidded around a gravel corner into the alley where Ira let us in through the back gate.  We shook hands, exchanged introductions and cracked the caps off our beers while we took the grand tour of the shop.  It was at this moment that many of my misconceptions about the glamorous world of bicycle building were dispelled.  This was the workshop of a hardworking craftsman with callused hands, a keen eye, a sharp file and a tight budget.  Chips, flakes and filings of metal littered the floor, stacks of tubing bristled from shelves, bikes and frames in various stages of completion hung from the rafters and walls of the repurposed two-car garage.  Battered race numbers, images of high mountain passes, rugged roads and the great heros of bicycle racing covered the walls.  There was a sense of ordered chaos about the place.  Ira himself was genial, humble and friendly with no hint of the air of superiority I would have expected from someone in his position showing the greenhorned new kid in town around his shop.  We drank our beers and shot the shit around the kerosene heater as the clouded darkness of the Portland winter night settled in outside.  Before long I had drank my share and my belly was starting to rumble for some dinner.  Andy and I packed our bags, pulled on our rain shells and got ready to head out.  As I zipped my jacket and pulled on gloves, I offered my services to Ira should he ever need some help around the shop.  He thanked me politely as Andy and I pushed our bikes out the door and into the street, parted ways and headed for home.  

I didn't expect to hear back from Ira about work.  I was certain that he was doing just fine on his own and had turned down plenty of mechanics or assistants who had more to offer than I did.  A few weeks passed and I had just about forgotten that I had even made the offer until Ira called the bike shop and asked for me.  He had a couple of frames coming back from paint that needed to get built up and sent out on a short timeline and asked me to come in and help with the assembly.  I was a little dumbfounded, but agreed to come in that week on my day off.  Somehow I managed to rein in my nerves well enough to avoid scratching the fresh paint or cutting a steerer tube too short.  Ira and I got along well and he continued to call me in when he needed help with wheel builds, assembly, and miscellaneous other jobs.

The summer after I started working fairly regularly with Ira, my beat-to-shit rig of a cyclocross bike developed a crack.  With the fall racing season rapidly approaching, I started scanning the catalogs to find my new 'cross racer.  Most of the mass-produced offerings I could get my hands on cut too many corners, were bland and unappealing, over-the-top flashy, way too expensive or all of the above.  I didn't like my options.  I related my dilemma to Ira one day and he responded rather flippantly, "well let's build you a bike, then!"  I didn't need to think twice to agree.  With Ira's help and guidance, I built my first bicycle: a super-sick lugged cyclocross bike.  As I was still holding down a full-time bike shop job in addition to work with Ira and trying to find time to ride, the process moved along at a slow pace.  Still, the glassy sheen of hot flux and the feeling of using the torch to pull molten silver from one side of a lug to the other has stuck with me.  I also vividly remember the first lap of my first race on my yet-unnamed bike at the Cross Crusade in Sherwood.  On the back section of the course was a fast, double-track descent that was pockmarked with hoofprints from heavy horse traffic.  I heard the rapid-fire, metal-on-metal clatter of my chain lashing the chainstay, taking off chips of paint as I smashed over the hoofprints tight on the wheel in front of me.  I had a sinking feeling when I realized what I was doing to my bicycle's pristine orange powdercoat, cursed myself for forgetting to install a chainstay protector and apologized to the bike, let her know that things weren't going to be easy for her, that this was just a taste of the tough times yet to come.  After we came to that understanding, Fiamma and I floated around the dusty, bumpy race course with a kind of grace I never knew a bicycle could deliver.  She was smooth, sure-footed and inspired more confidence than I had ever had in a race.  Three laps in and I was pushing harder into corners than I ever had before, taking more aggressive lines, making bold passes and feeling like a champion.  I don't remember what position I finished in that day but I know that I crossed the line grinning like a fool, knowing that I had created something special with this bike. 

Since then, Fiamma and I have had some great adventures together, from moving into the Category A ranks of the Cross Crusade to the 127 miles of punishment of the Oregon Stampede to long rides in the cold wet of the seemingly endless Portland winter to the test of endurance and suffering known as the Rapha Gentlemen's Race.  I've also continued working with Ira and doing my best to make a strong contribution to Ira Ryan Cycles.  I like the idea of his customers riding their bikes over mountains and rivers, city streets and singletrack without having to worry about their wheels needing to be trued or mechanical problems caused by slipshod assembly work.  I strive to put my very best work into every bike and hope that the customers can feel the difference when they ride their bikes.  Also, I am currently in the process of building my second bike; a fillet-brazed cyclocross bike for India.  Despite all this, I'm easily caught up in small, daily struggles and lose sight of the big picture.  All too often, I fall into the stress trap laid out for me by a world whose workings I fail to understand and where I still struggle to find my place.  In times when I lose perspective, I have to remind myself to think back, consider where I started, how far I've come and remember that I am living my personal legend here and now.  Recapturing that youthful joy and idealism is not always easy in a grown-up world that seems tilted to make every day an uphill battle, but one good bike ride is all that's needed to remind me.  

Summertime and the Quarter-Life Crisis

So, due to an odd combination of circumstances I have found myself in a position that I haven't been in since high school.  After six years of battle in the trenches of bicycle retail and summers spent slaving in steaming southern kitchens before that, I've found myself unemployed.  

Since moving to Portland almost exactly three years ago, I devoted the vast majority of my time and energy to the sometimes impossible task of moving an old neighborhood bike shop into the future against the will of a jaded, middle-aged owner who seemed bent on the shop's destruction.  At first, I wasn't thinking about it that much.  I was hired in November of 2009 to head the service department, so that's what I did.  I buried myself in the monumental task of organizing the scattered mess of shelves, bins and drawers full of parts and tools, sorting the useful from the useless and assembling the shambles I inherited into something resembling a professional bicycle service department.  Arriving as I did on the end of a string of good mechanics that didn't stick around and bad mechanics who only seemed capable of botching repairs, I was immediately forced into damage-control mode, assuring customers that I wasn't like those who had come before and could be counted on to deliver their bicycle on time, on budget and in the best condition possible.  Slowly, the shop began to regain a reputation for honest, quality repair work.  

I was happy working at the repair stand and keeping an eye on other mechanics to be sure every job was done right, but as older employees moved on I was steadily saddled with greater amounts of responsibility.  Eventually I found myself managing the shop, tasked with completing or delegating every task necessary for daily operation except paying the bills and managing finances, still the responsibility of ownership.  I worked hard and came home exhausted after nine to ten-hour days swimming upstream, trying to make the most of the situation for the good of our current and would-be customers.  I was able to make a lot of positive changes and bring the shop many steps closer to actually meeting their needs, but was only able to do so much.  I could see huge possibilities and ways to define a niche, become a true destination shop in the Portland area and even for the entire Northwest, but kept running into the roadblocks put up by an owner determined to maintain the status quo of mediocrity without a thought for the shop's long-term health or potential for growth.  His only objective was to pay down the shop's debts and get out of the bike business.  Fair enough.  

I did all the spin-doctoring I could, answered customers questions about why the floor was so empty, explained to sales reps why we couldn't bring in any new product, smoothed over neglected credit reps  and tried to make up for the shop's shortcomings with my hard work, personality and that of my coworkers.  After enduring the beatdown and making excuses for several months, I was nearly at my wits end.  Business was picking up as the springtime sun began to show itself, and we were on track for a disastrous summer for the shop and my sanity if things didn't change, and soon.  At the end of the previous summer, after three months of constant toil at the expense of my mental well-being, I had told myself that I wouldn't endure another summer of work like that one but my overinflated sense of responsibility to our customers had kept me on the job and I found myself staring down the barrel of another selling season.  Something had to give.  

Eventually, I came to the conclusion that I either needed to buy the shop or put in my notice.  Again, my sense of responsibility to the customers and the neighborhood was a huge factor in my thinking.  If I couldn't make the changes as a manager, maybe I could as an owner.  I had always seen myself owning a bike shop at some point in my life and despite the strain my decision would put on my marriage and the truly massive amount of work I would be burdened with for the foreseeable future, it felt like the right thing to do.  So, I started down the path toward buying the shop.  Early in the mornings and on my days off, I sat hunched over business plans, financial records, market research, and loan applications.  I strategized, planned and struggled to make sense of the realities of small business ownership.  I've never had a head for business but was convinced that I could make the bike shop profitable through passion, hard work and common sense if I could only get the old owner out of the way.  Unfortunately, the only way I could effect that change was with a big, fat check.  Even in the shop's depleted state, the amount of money necessary to buy the place outright was a daunting figure and banks aren't exactly thrilled to hand out business loans to starry-eyed kids whose only collateral is a stable of bicycles.  I had reached what felt like an impasse and would either have to redouble my efforts and find the money to hire an accountant who could help me over the wall or walk away from the deal altogether.  I had done as much as I could on my own.  

The decision and its consequences weighed me down heavily.  Days at work seemed impossibly long and draining but I had convinced myself that I was working for my own future as owner-to-be and managed to disguise my exhaustion.  So much of my sense of self-worth was now wrapped up in the shop but I still wasn't in control of its destiny.  Beer after work and mountain bike rides on the weekend kept me going but only barely.  I knew that I was at a crux.  To get the shop moving in the right direction for 2013 I needed to take over the captain's chair by the fall of 2012 when new dealer agreements are inked with bicycle manufacturers and other vendors.  Time was running short.  

At the end of June, my family came to Oregon for a visit and India and I joined them for a long weekend in Bend.  I was so preoccupied with indecision and internal struggle over buying the bike shop that I was barely able to interact and be present with my family.  I was in another place altogether.  Finally, India and I got a chance to get away for a mountain bike ride and things started to make sense again.  All I needed was to go out and lose myself on the trail for a few solid hours before the lost sense of clarity began to return and I realized that buying the shop was not the right thing for me to do, that it would be a wrong-headed, selfish decision.  My ego was so wrapped up with the shop that I could see no other way to justify my existence and prove myself than to take it on.  I had convinced myself that I was doing it for the customers, which was part of the truth.  Below that level of altruism I was doing it to prove something to myself and to the world, to prove that I could do it better, that I was smart enough, had the skills and passion to make the shop profitable and successful; a shop I could be proud of.  In the process I had lost myself completely, lost the sense of humor, adventure and excitement that used to permeate my life and make every day worth living.  The time had come for me to leave the bike shop and recenter myself, to recapture the abiding sense of joy and peace that used to move me through the world.

These thoughts bore themselves out over the next couple of days and one more long ride on the amazing trails outside of Bend and I returned to Portland ready to put in my notice.  The day after Independence Day, I made my announcement to the boss.  He responded with ambivalence initially but reacted with anger and aggression three days later when I reminded him that I would soon be leaving for a week of vacation with India's family.  This vacation had been planned, approved and on the calendar since February when we booked our flights and even though I had already made all the preparations for my absence he informed me that that day - Monday, July 9th - would be my last.  So, depending on your perspective I either quit or was fired after two years and nine months of hard work.  I packed my things and unceremoniously headed out the back door after closing that night.  It was the end of an era, both for me and the shop.  My only regret is not being able to say goodbye to the handful of regular customers who made the job worth doing and reminded me why I had started working in bike shops in the first place.  I hope they don't wind up thinking less of me and have to imagine that they will somehow understand what brought us to this point.  

So, here I am.  Between careers in the middle of the Northwestern summer with long, sunny days to fill with bike rides, exploration and self-discovery.  Even though the situation has all the makings of a classic quarter-life crisis, I couldn't be more excited about the possibilities. 

This won't be like those carefree teenage summers when gas was a dollar a gallon and my biggest concern was how to round up $20 to fill the tank of Alex's boat so we could spend the day dragging each other around Lake Lanier, catching air on wakeboards.  There are bills to pay, rent to make, food to buy.  No job equals no money, and even though I'll be working for some framebuilder friends and doing the best that I can to build my writing abilities into a business, it will likely be some time before that work starts to pay off.  Severe austerity measures have been imposed and the value of little luxuries like a pint of beer at the pub or a food cart lunch just got much greater.  Though this could be seen as a setback, I'm excited about the opportunity to simplify my life and take the time to truly appreciate those little things that I may have taken for granted before.  Fortunately, we're good at living cheaply, bike rides are free and I have a highly supportive wife who is more invested in my mental and emotional well-being than the paycheck I bring home.  It's going to be a great summer, so crack open a cold one any way you like and raise a toast to today and the future!  

Oregon Stampede 2012

Another amazing edition of the Oregon Stampede is in the books!  This ride just keeps on delivering great stories!  Here's Ira's write-up with my photos:

http://velodirt.com/2012/06/the-oregon-stampede-by-ira-ryan/

Enjoy!