Utilism

Jason Lee using a trashcan as a high-jump bar.

At its best, street skating is an urban art form, or at least utilism. It repurposes the concrete wasteland in ways that its architects and planners never intended. (Shit, the innovators of street skating like Natas, Gonz and Jason Lee even abused skateboards themselves in never-intended ways.) With a little creativity, fallow afterthoughts like drainage ditches and dams, handrails, and any awkward slabs of concrete transform into playgrounds.

(If you can't see how prepackaged most sports are, ask a serious tennis player to play someplace that isn't a fenced-in, crack-free tennis court, with the net set at regulation height. Any serious tennis player would make a confused dog face, panting "Where are the lines?!")

One thing that always bothered me, though, is that a skateboard's wheels are so small. While it takes advantage of the paving over of everything, its functionality is entirely dependent on overabundant concrete. A skateboard is useless without urban sprawl — unless you build a structure on which to use it. Then you have a wooden half-pipe or something similar, and you're basically playing tennis in a confined court. (Watch someone skate a halfpipe and you'll find your head turning side-to-side just like you're watching tennis.)

This is also why I think most of the new skateparks suck the creativity out of skateboarding. In reality, the obstacles are already telling you what you're supposed to do on them. You may learn new tricks, but the obstacle doesn't change. It's concrete. (Yes, double-entendre, hmm?)

Road bikes, while some pretend they explore, are also dependent on concrete. Mountain bikers fake being rugged and off-roady, but they're entirely dependent on trails. Just try to get a mountain biker to bushwhack through undergrowth on a ride.

This guy rewrites. While I don't really want to emulate him in any way, I think what he's doing is street skating on a bike. He's taken his tricks and influence from skateboarding as obviously as snowboarding has (I don't remember any natural handrails, boxes or superpipes in the mountains), but adapted them originally.

I dig: he's using a bike in way most industrial designers never imagined, in nooks and crannies no one else studies for their potential for play. Genius.

Just Be Glad You Weren't Walking

Chris is always smiling, always positive, and everyone likes him. I don't know how we're friends. He almost makes me wish I was from Africa, too, instead of the 51st state.

Chris hates eating. I still don't understand how this is humanly possible, but I've seen him push away food after climbing 25 miles up to Mt Baldy. His disregard for his taste buds shows, too. He bragged to me about hitting the gym and putting on weight; he's up to 136 pounds. (That was a braggadocio for him, that's how humble the guy is.) Needless to say, at his weight, Chris is built to climb. And what better way to parade your prowess than with the ultimate climbing wheels?

Chris directs motion graphics for a living (thecore.la), and I would assume from the wheels he just punctured on a ride to Palos Verdes that business is good — Campagnolo Hyperon Ultra Carbon wheels retail for over $3200. Don't worry too much about the wheels, though; that money is probably small potatoes next to what he's spent customizing his other raced-out ride, a track-ready VW R32.


Oddly enough, Chris was smiling again very shortly after he got the nail out and put a new tire on. Jimmy Cliff had it right: you can't keep a good man down.

Let It Snow

I look good in purple.

I am antsy for snow season. I miss listening to people whine about lift lines and ticket prices, when the backcountry is always free, untracked and uncrowded, if only they knew how to walk through snow.

Call a Chiro

Outside the commercial shoot in San Francisco.

Mt Baldy the Brutal is Conquered

Storm a'brewin' on that there mountain.

Pancake rattlesnake.

Snowballs -> Prison.

These cute li'l fanged fuzzies were everywhere.

Chris trying to hitch a ride up into the morning clouds.

Dam.

Last weekend, me and some of my fellow Westside Velo dudes made our way up Mt Baldy. (I also tried to invite Brian Dolen, but he claimed he might not have the legs; he made a smart call.) For the most part, Baldy isn't a terribly hard climb. It sounds tough because it's 25 miles of continuous climbing; but it's not that steep until it really has a chance to hurt you. Basically, you do 21 miles up to Baldy Village, the basecamp of the ski resort. That wasn't so bad. Then it gets absurdly steep for the final four miles of climbing into thinner air, up to 7300 feet. After 21 miles of climbing, those last four kill you — it's just burning legs and lungs and desperately trying to catch your breath but you can't. Some guys even had to stop for oxygen. Personally, I find that offensive, yet I understand. I've never turned back or stopped, because I'm afraid if I do it once, I'll do it twice; I don't want to start that kind of habit. But in this instance I understood. The last four miles were that fucking hard.

People often look at me sideways when I mention that I can't go out Friday night because I want to wake up and do something like this. Clearly they don't see what I see.

We climbed a traffic-free road into a secluded mountain range — practically in the middle of Los Angeles — to a ski resort. We saw rattlesnakes and tarantulas crossing the road. We challenged ourselves to our limits, and succeeded, accomplished. Sometimes I prefer making memories on the bike to the repeat cycle: seeing the same people at the same parties in different places.

Climbing a mountain is fulfilling on one hand; on the other, it's purely conquering an invented challenge, and one you choose yourself. It's not as if you have to scale the mountain; it's a choice. Yet in this Nerfed-out world, this is how we express wanderlust in the most classically human way. We now explore not to claim, not to conquer, but to achieve and discover... Almost to relive and reimagine what it could've been like the first time. Maybe it's simply a celebration of testing one's limits.

Go skiing without a chairlift sometime. You might rediscover the real essence and purity of sport, the way it was before skiing became snowy rollerblading.

"Gladiators! Nerd up." Tall Paul conspicuously absent.

Baja California Sur

Baja California Sur is the southern state in the Baja Peninsula. It's name means "lower California south." That type of thinking is what makes Mexico so... Mexico.

Not as big as they get.

Two weeks on the road and in the water gave me lots to ponder. The Baja Report: Operation 2WD (Two White Dudes) will follow as soon as I catch up with work. In the meantime, enjoy a picture of one of the lovely fish of Scorpion Bay, where sharks were seen but scorpions were not.

World Cup Final Ennui, Annoyance; Soccer Kinda Sucks

Who cares if he's bald in back? Zidane has the best hairline ever.

Laughing and smirking, I can't even take the world's biggest, most-watched game seriously. I'm not fan of American football either, but can you imagine one these Euro-floppers taking an actual shove with intent and force? They might not even know how to react to a non-floppable offense. "Why'd you hit me?!" they'd cry.

The flopping isn't so much an insult to the beautiful game as it is to acting. I mean, can you picture one of these soccer fools acting? I'm picturing Hamlet, after getting a minor, glancing cut from a poison-tipped sword in the final scene; Hamlet's flopping around on the ground, pounding the pavement with his fists, writhing like a trout on a hook, holding his wound. It'd be comedy or farce more than drama. I wonder how he'd deliver the Hamlet's last words, "the rest is silence."

That being said, it was still a lot better than the Italy-France final in 2006. Italians are good with food, but they play the worst kind of soccer. The only good thing about that game was watching Zidane headbutt that Italian dude. Even then, it was pitifully obvious the Italian overacted.

As a Europhile, for at least four World Cups I've wanted to like the game. But year after year, World Cup soccer is just as awful as I remember.

Me in Colombian Britain

Few people realize how arbitrary spelling is. There really are no rules, kids, no laws. You can spell the area grey or gray. I only mention this because I find it unusual that the country is Colombia and the river and province are Columbia.

My ol'buddy-ol'pal-ol'friend Bryce Duffy has the coolest barn/moderny loft I've ever known out in British Columbia's grizzly country, out by Glacier National Park. (Grammar is arbitrary, too: maybe I'd like to say "in by Glacier...") I guess he must've sold the photo for use somewhere, because he asked me to sign away the rights.

On a related note, sometimes I'm tempted to move back to Canada.

Malibu Colony Cutie

Saw this guy on the side of the road at Malibu Colony. Looks like a western diamondback rattlesnake that's been eating well -- good girth, good length, about 4-5 feet.

Too bad he got his rattler pinched off by a Ferrari or Land Rover. Now it's a rare stealth rattlesnake.

LCD, and I don't mean liquid crystal display

1000 words is too little. Thanks to Curtis at LafayetteBoys.com for insight into the inferno.

Gentlemen's Race: The Sequel

A very long peloton on PCH.

Note: The good photos were taken by Joe Pugliese, a photographer who competes with my other photog friend Bryce to take pictures of famous people. They're both excellent, expensive photographers, but Joe is a much faster cyclist and shot some photos of the event, which I've borrowed without permission since, as the Marquis de Sade once said, "Poor is the person whose pleasure depends upon the permission of another," and I'm pretty sure that creep meant it in this context.

This blathering blog entry profiles my recollections of the second of what I can only hope will be a centuries-long series of unsanctioned races disorganized by C. Casper Casparian. (What can the first C be short for? Cas Casper Casparian? That'd be great, because then saying his name would sound like you have a stuttering problem.) C-c-Casper calls them Old School Club Races, and I love these races for their brutal, no-holds-barred friendly competition to determine who is the alpha dog.

State Champ Hime Herbert reppin' I. Martin. Arf. Tuttle lurks in the "unattached" kit, a 180 from his world champ stripes.

Joe of Joe's on Abbot Kinney fame, The Funk and style king Jack show Westside Velo. Sorry I didn't do the squad as proud as I should've.

Being a remarkably simple person, I had a simple strategy based on my previous experience upon this particular parcours: don't wear black (I wore my styley new Westside Velo kit), drink more water beforehand, and save some energy for the latter part of the race when guys start hitting the wall, so as to stick it to them.

As we turned onto Mulholland and began to climb the coastal mountains after 26 miles on the Pacific Coast Highway, I did not rocket off the front only to implode. I didn't even try to stay with the fastest guys. I rode my own pace, saving energy for the final ascents of the race, which I notice tend to hand people's asses to their faces after 60-something miles. My plan was to catch a group that'd overextended themselves before the final climbs, and stick it to them right at the end because I had fresher legs. It's the little things for me -- especially little vendettas. I was well hydrated, eating right -- everything was on track. But as the miles went by, I found myself just getting slower. And sadder as a result.

Marc Thomas, wiped. He laid like this for 90 minutes at the finish.

Despite the scenery, the friends, the self-flagellating and the spandex, I was disappointed at the finish. Not so much with my effort, which I meted out precisely as I'd planned, but with my result. I finished roughly +/- 20th out of +/- 90 starters -- not terrible, but well short of my expectations. I didn't even get to stick it to anyone... I guess I impaled myself. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Marco looks like he had a tough day, too.

After the race I rode over Topanga and back into Santa Monica with Jack and le Funk, feeling more drained than I should've. I enjoyed a coffee (well, a Peet's Frappuccino bullshit they call a Freddo) with Jack, then I rolled home. Entering my gate and coasting up the familiar path to my front door, I noticed I was rolling much slower than usual.

The rest of the time I'd been pedaling, and just assumed that my lackluster legs were to blame for my lack of speed. But when I got home I noticed my back tire was unusually soft. I took out my trusty pressure gauge, and it read 30 psi. I'd started the day at a carefully calibrated 116 psi.

Had my tire been slowly leaking the whole time, sabotaging my race? Or was the leak a recent development? The devil is a slow leak; it will sap you as badly as roofies in your water bottle. (Maybe, haven't tried that.)

I don't know that I can blame tire pressure for my finishing place. But I'll try. If a slow leak was a culprit, what wickedness... Now instead of blaming myself, I can take solace that maybe it wasn't all my fault.

It's kind of like backing over someone, getting out of your car, and finding them dead. "I've killed them!" you'd wail. But then a lady standing there says, "No, he died of a heart attack ten minutes ago; you just backed over his dead body." It's still not a great situation. But you won't feel so bad, will you?

Maybe it's not quite like that.

Well, another 73 miles of speed racing, another 4200 calories burned before 11 am according to the heart rate monitor.

And of course the coda: my rockstorephotos.com permission-free borrowed image, or theft.

Does my back tire look low?

Cee-Lo, Simulacra: How'd I Do That?

It's a classic sound, with a timeless message delivered in an entirely original and contemporary way.

Cee-Lo has been a favorite of mine since Goodie Mob coined the term "Dirty South." Speaking of "Dirty South," funny how few people know the roots of that cliche or the etymology of anything: that rock'n'roll was a slang term for sex; Mountain Dew was slang for moonshine (and was concocted as a mixer for moonshine during Prohibition); Coca Cola is just shorthand for the coca leaf and kola nut that got people high as kites on this medical tonic before the formula gradually changed to high-glycemic corn syrup (pretty potent stuff itself) and artificial flavors developed in chemistry labs.

This lack of reference, context or perspective brings my thoughts back to Baudrillard's 'precession of simulacra', where we have so many, er, fakes that we begin to forget what's real -- like a kid who draws the Disney castle when asked to draw a castle. The child has no idea that Disney's is a functionless fake, a facade that represents what a castle is in a totally superfluous way, with no regard to a real castle's function -- eating peeled grapes behind thick walls that keep out barbarians, right? -- without knowledge of fiefdoms, lords, barons, vassals, serfs, and medieval European slavery. Disney's castle is actually a phony copy (not redundant, I swear) of a pretty modern German castle called Neuschwanstein. But how many people understand that, or have that referential context?

Anyway, enjoy.


(Video resized to keep my only blog reader content. He doesn't care for my bleedy style.)

More Herrick, Less Virgins

What can I say? I read old poetry. Unlike most people, I find the carpe diem theme a little tired and depressing, but necessary nonetheless. Maybe it's the old conjuring by abjuring thing: you can't say "don't waste time" without pondering the ways you waste time. Maybe that's also why I have Milton's "When I Consider How My Light Is Spent" committed to memory. 

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
by Robert Herrick
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today Tomorrow will be dying. The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, The higher he's a-getting, The sooner will his race be run, And nearer he's to setting. That age is best which is the first, When youth and blood are warmer; But being spent, the worse, and worst Times still succeed the former. Then be not coy, but use your time, And while ye may, go marry; For having lost but once your prime, You may forever tarry.

Flattened Fauna of Mandeville Canyon

Coyote not sleeping.

Mandeville Canyon is a tony area of Brentwood; guys like The Governator live there. Less importantly, it's about a mile up my street and has a climb of about seven miles. The convenient location and lack of traffic lights make it popular with road cyclists, and the top of Westridge Canyon, which shoots off from Mandeville, provides access to LA's most popular fire road and mountain bike trails. In short, lots of bikers use Mandeville.

The only thing that kind of stinks about the canyon is the impatient traffic. There aren't too many houses in the canyon, and residents want to enjoy their quiet, private cove where they can walk their dogs and ride their horses -- you know, enjoy the tranquility and slower pace.

Residents also make time to complain about the danger of cyclists riding side-by-side, or mountain bikers parking in front of their homes, and equally important issues. While the speed limit signs say 30, cars will blaze past while you descend at 30. Bicycles are not the hazard on this public road, and you'd think residents would appreciate the quiet of bicycles over the roar of another turbocharged Rover, but apparently not: last year one doctor living in this little Eden pulled his luxury car in front of a couple of dudes descending and slammed his brakes, sending one guy through his rear windshield, tearing off part of his face.

Ultimately, I think some residents of Mandeville are a little delusional and oblivious to the most obvious danger in their nook, because the amount of roadkill speeding cars generate there on a daily basis is always shocking. I pedaled up the road yesterday morning, and these animals were littering just one mile near the bottom. Surprisingly, no deer; but it's possible a coyote dragged one off the road.

Raccoon not napping.

The squirrel inside the squirrel.

Unidentifiable bird/feather mash-up remix.

Poetic Justice

I know this is somewhere south of a kick in the nuts on the great chain of comic genius, but there's something gratifying about seeing idiots get their just desserts. It's called poetic justice. With a dash of schadenfreude if you're feeling fancy.



Now, because I'm not a boorish Plebe, a sonnet I like from Robert Herrick pertaining to perving on chicks who're dressed like they just got out of bed with someone. (You have to read between the lines, the English were especially coy about their mistresses in the 1600s.)

Delight in Disorder

A SWEET disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness:
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction:
An erring lace, which here and there	5
Enthrals the crimson stomacher:
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbands to flow confusedly:
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat:	10
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility:
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.

Gibraltar Mountain. Or, It's All a Little Foggy

Gibraltar Mountain, looming above scenic Santa Barbara, is often called the Mont Ventoux of America for its steep, dramatic switchback ascent and gorgeous views of the landscape below. (FYunculturedI: Ventoux is a mountain in the south of France.) Of course, me being me, this is where the bumps in the road begin.

I was staying at the posh Montecito Inn (Charlie Chaplin-themed hotel, pretty cool) with my special something for a weekend wedding. The rehearsal dinner was at the Four Seasons the night before--very fancy--but I moderated my alcohol intake for the sake of the morning ride, because my priorities are fucked. That night, I dreamed of clear views of St Barbie and the Channel Islands, maybe a few blue whales flopping around in the channel for my amusement.

I woke up early, but not bright. The weather was dark and raining, about 55 degrees, very atypical Southern California weather in July. Nevertheless, I rode my way up into the mist above Santa Barbara, to the base of fabled Gibraltar Road.

No views from the base of Gibraltar today.

Once inside the clouds, I was reminded of a visit to Crater Lake that Brian Dolen and I made on a road trip to Bend and Mt Hood. I think the photos below demonstrate what we did not see.

Nothing to see at Crater Lake.

Same place, clearer day.

Crashed trucks littering the road to Bend.

That blizzard in Oregon wasn't a total loss, though; we learned that most trucks suck at bumper cars.

Having never taken Gibraltar Road, I didn't know how long or steep the road really was, and couldn't see more than 30 feet ahead for the first 30 minutes; I was just pedaling through the fog hoping I didn't meet a car head-on. After a long period spent inside of clouds, I came up into Rattlesnake Canyon, and my whereabouts became a little more clear.

Coming up into the sun.

Soon, I'd reached the tops of the clouds.

Above the clouds...

And figured out I was only about halfway up.

Looking back toward the Pacific, nothing but clouds below.

After a while, I made the top of Gibraltar, and continued west onto Camino Cielo toward La Cumbre Peak, the tallest of the Santa Ynez Mountains at 4000 feet. (Cumbre is brown-speak for 'peak', so properly translated it's The Peak Peak.) It was getting hot above the clouds, but I had this song from my childhood playing in my head:



Rather than descend back into the fog and stormy St Barb from The Peak Peak, I retraced and went east on Camino Cielo, which straddles the top of the Santa Ynez Mountains and offers views off of both sides.

Camino Cielo.

According to the Google Map I'd studied, I could take Camino Cielo east all the way to Romero Canyon, and descend back to the coast, then ride back west toward Montecito, making a big loop. Naturally I get going about 40 miles an hour along Sky Road when suddenly, after rounding a corner, I unexpectedly barrel onto a single-lane dirt road... I'm still writing this, so I didn't die or anything worse, but it was quite a test of balance and skill braking from 40 to zero, on dirt, with a cliff off to one side, on 1/2-inch wide, slick road bike tires. Google Maps doesn't show it, so allow me to inform you: Sky Road ends very abruptly and Romero Canyon is unpaved.

Abrupt change in road surface noted.

Oddly enough, I looked up to catch some breath and thank The God(s?) for not going over a cliff when I noticed vultures circling above me. I'm guessing they knew these roads (and where they end suddenly) better than me, and had previously profited from it.

Vultures: pretty from far.

I couldn't really make too many more wrong turns and still make the wedding on time, so I retraced my way back up to where Camino Cielo crosses Gibraltar Road, and bombed back down into the clouds from whence I rose.

During my ride up in the sun that day, I could often hear rattling when I would coast along--not unusual, since a ticking freewheel sounds a lot like a rattle. But something else was rattling at times, too. I think they were responding to my back wheel's mating call. And since I'd climbed Rattlesnake Canyon, I knew some serpientes were probably about.

Naturally I ran over a rattlesnake on the way down. There was no way to see it while dodging potholes on the descent, but I felt it, and by the time I'd come to a stop about 100 feet down the road, I could see it back up there, coiled to strike. The snake was fine, because within seconds it darted into tall grass. Snake in the grass... I wasn't chasing it.

Rattler not to scale.

The rest of the ride was uneventful. I never got any ocean or Santa Barbara views, just cloud-tops, then cloud interiors, then cloud-bottoms, which explains why these photos are so mundane and only a bit scenic.

The wedding was eventful, at The Ranch north of Santa Barbara, near where Michael Jackson used to live. I think Poppy got some ideas. Oh no.

Oh no.

Haze, clouds, fog, rain, precipitous cliffs, Biblical symbols and flashbacks... This ride could have been one grand metaphor for my own mental state. But it's not.

Sequoia and Kings Canyon: Getting to Know a Boy Scout

Humbling.

There's a saying in life (or at least among screenwriters who are above explosions as catharsis): crisis reveals character. I don't know if it was Plato, or repeat viewings of Showgirls and Dubya reading children's stories that drove the point home, but it is a handy key.

I met Tim while on a bike ride up to Ventura County one Saturday a few months ago. I was riding along by my lonesome; so was he. I asked where he was headed, we were going the same place and pace, and so we rode along and chatted for a few hours. (I know, it could be a gay romance novel.) That's one way I make friends with strangers now that semi-conscious flashes of Hollywood nightlife play a less frequent role in my social life. So I didn't know Tim any better than that: we rode bikes together a few times, that's it. First impression: he seemed like a cool dude.


Starting Out Shooting the Wrong Foot

On Thursday, Tim sent out an email proposing a weekend trip to take a bike ride someplace scenic, like Sequoia National Park. He planned to drive up to Visalia, get a hotel, then do a 120-something-mile climb up through Sequoia and back down to Visalia. I'd never been to Sequoia, and had been meaning to go. But based on my limited knowledge, this plan seemed haphazard and ill informed. I told Tim that Visalia is--how does one say this delicately?--not an ideal vacation destination, and that it was miserably hot in the Central Valley during the summer, well over 100 (sounds cooler as 37 for rational metric users) every day. Apparently he hadn't done much research, beyond seeing a road on a map that went from Visalia up into Sequoia for about 120 miles (sounds even longer as 193 k. Isn't metric fun?).

A hastily unplanned trip was semi-assembled Thursday night: we were to leave the wiggedy-Westside in the early afternoon to beat traffic and secure a camping spot at a cooler elevation of about 7500 feet. Make a fire, smores, all that.

On Friday, I got all my camping and bike gear sorted out, got the trusty old four-cylinder, manual-transmission Toyota 4-Runner out of hibernation in the garage, and waited. By 2, I started to worry. At 4, I accepted that we were fucked, and Google Traffic confirmed my worst fears. At the worst possible time, 5:15, Tim showed up. In his defense, he does not control his workplace. In my defense, I did not tear his testicles from his person like an angry chimp.

As we packed Tim's stuff into my truck, he told me I didn't need to bring my tent; his was big enough to share. I took this gesture as an olive branch for his tardiness, accepted, and left my four-person tent on my porch. Off we went.

Slowly. It took two-and-a-half hours to get from Santa Monica to Valencia, about 30 miles. In that time, I learned that Tim didn't drive stick, forgot the maps at work and didn't have food, so I'd do all the driving and guesswork/navigating and we'd be stopping along the way to shop. I was okay with that; I only had enough coffee in my camping gear for one cup. My like of coffee turned into a conversation about food. We're both pretty health-conscious (surprise), we'd both read Fast Food Nation and such and agreed on what garbage people will gladly consume. I also learned that Tim is a diet-conscious vegetarian who eats fish, milk and eggs, doesn't drink alcohol regularly, never touched a drug, and doesn't drink caffeine because it has severe effects on him. At around 11 that night, we stopped at In-N-Out before hitting Target in Visalia to get camp food. (In our defense, nothing better than In-N-Out was open, except for a suspect food truck--authentic and Mexican, not all LA cupcake-yuppie.) At Target, Tim grabbed a 24-ounce Mountain Dew from the point-of-purchase fridge that he finished before bed. A 24-ounce Mountain Dew has 110 milligrams of caffeine; a can of Red Bull has 80.

The 4-Runner climbed into the beauty of the Sierra Nevadas for over an hour; unfortunately we saw only as far as the headlights shone. But this was not a climb one would do on a bike in 100-plus heat. We got into Sequoia National Park after midnight, seven hours into what could've been a three-and-a-half hour drive. In the park, we found all campsites within the first 30 miles were full. A little after 1 am, we jacked a reserved car camping spot deep in the park. Fuck it.

Tim pulled out his camping gear. He unwrapped a new headlamp from its packaging, and began looking for batteries. It was a full moon--no big deal, he could see fine. Once he'd gotten the headlamp working, he unpacked a Marmot tent, a Marmot subzero-rated bag, Thermarest pad... Really nice gear, and it was all brand new, in the boxes, wrapped in plastic. (He must've spent a month's rent at A-16 Adventure.) After watching him struggle for a moment, I helped him set up his tent, and discovered it was a two-person featherweight backpacking tent--a very tight two-person tent, the kind where you have to sleep with your roommate's feet next to your head to fit. I honestly didn't care, but it was pretty funny when he discovered the tiny footprint of his fancy new tent. We heard yelling and a lot of car alarms going off about 200 yards uphill, but we couldn't see anything but flashing lights. Not our problem, we crashed.

This tent ain't big enough for the both of us.

Needless to say, mapless and all, we were both in the dark about many things. In the morning, we awoke to fresh, cool, cedar-tinted mountain air. We were in a grove of about 150 campsites called Dorst Creek, and apparently a bear had been roaming the area breaking into cars all night in a quest for food. Hence the alarms.

Boy Scout Becomes Him

We geared up to get rolling. Tim had forgotten to bring any cycling food, so I gave him two of my Clif bars to get him through the day. As we pedaled and chatted our way up and down various valleys and mountain sides, we decided we needed nicknames for this trip, for whatever reason. As mentioned, Tim never puffed the magic dragon, had barley sodas in his fridge from a party weeks ago, and I'd have been surprised if he'd kissed the forbidden flower or even tried a non-missionary position. Based on our brief conversations, I knighted him "Boy Scout" for his drugless, drinkless, innocent ways. He liked the nickname--typically the sign of a poorly-chosen nickname--but to me it fit. Boy Scout became him. I told him I was already PJ or "Puddle Jumper" based on an OCD-ish habit I had as a kid of never stepping in puddles. My dad called me that, so I'm partial to it. (I didn't mention I was also known to my brothers and others as "Puh-Puh-Puh-Pat" for my stuttering and other speech impediments as a child, and "Phantom Pooper" for reasons that shall remain undisclosed.)

Legs like tree trunks.

We rode about 20 miles to the main grove of sequoias, which contained the granddaddy of all trees, the General Sherman. It was breath-taking, majestic, awe-inspiring, etc, etc. Words won't do the experience of seeing it in person justice. It has all the detail and twisted wonder of the most spectacular bonsai tree blown up 10,000 times normal size. Big Sherm isn't the oldest sequoia at 2700 years old, but it's amazing to think this tree was already 700 and huge when Joe found out he wasn't the baby's daddy, Jerry Springer-style. Looking at Big Sherm is a little like pondering the stars--an ego-check to your fleeting, insignificant wastes of days during your speck of time on this floating particle of galactic dirt. And there's no cell reception there, which really drives the message home quite profoundly, since it's impossible to relieve your existential angst by diddling for emails or sending a flick via Blackberry messenger to let other people know "where you at?"

Not touristy enough, Tim.

Our little Boy Scout Timmy was as taken aback as I was by the silent majesty of this magical grove of dinosaur trees. Maybe more so, because he jumped the fence and touched the tree to--and I quote--"feel its energy." (He lives in Venice, so I guess I should expect him to want to get all up in a tree's chakra points, even if he doesn't do drugs. Someone has to tweak those Venice Beach stereotypes.) The giant sequoias themselves are almost as sensitive as Boy Scout, and only grow in very specific conditions with regard to sunlight, water, temperature, latitude, elevation and soil. So the groves occur only in very special pockets where the stars align for them, which is why they are such a rare yet massive treasure.

Of course, as we're passing Big Sherm for a second time on the way out of the grove, some dickhead Germans are smoking cigs at the base of the tree. Here we are at John Muir's altar, and they're both puffing away with their three-year-old daughter at their feet. I made a remark about the insensitivity of smoking cigarettes in one of the most precious, rare and endangered forests on earth, a place they'd donated Euros and tread halfway around the bubble to see, which received a nod of approval from an old lady on a bench nearby. "Told them!" I thought to myself. However, I was rebuked for my self-righteous buke with: "Are you a ranger? Then fuck off!" Typical Germans. Rules, moral and otherwise, apply to everyone but them.

Boy Scout heads for another tree tunnel.

Second Impression

We rode around all the major sights of this part of Sequoia, through the tree tunnel and all that unholy crud, then rode another 30 miles to the General Grant grove of sequoias. It was also awesome (strictly in the sense of inspiring awe), but suffered from being second place, literally and figuratively. Imagine you've never seen one of the famous European cathedrals. Yada yada, you're on the steps of the cathedral in Chartres. HOLY SHIT! It's truly a religious experience the first time. An hour later, you're at Notre Dame in Paris. Well, yeah, it's amazing, no doubt about that, but it's not the first place and the first time. (Maybe I should've gone for a sexual metaphor here instead of churches.) Anyway, the General Grant tree is as impressive as the General Sherman; it wasn't anticlimactic, just not as climactic or impactful. (I mix a mean metaphor.)

Turning around to climb back to our campsite after 60 miles in the saddle, the elevation proved too much for Boy Scout, and he limped home a while after me, then sat there in a daze, unable to move for about a half-hour. Such grand plans... Our 75-mile/3500 calorie day killed him, but just imagine he'd have tried that 120-mile trip? Since he didn't bring anything to drink, I gave him an orange soda to get some sugar in his blood, and made dinner.

She was hungry, too.

How prophetic the Boy Scout nickname would prove surprised even a jaded asshole like me. For dinner, he'd brought a can of baked beans. Actually, that was all he'd brought as a meal for this two-day cycling epic--one can of baked beans. Knowing this wouldn't cut it, and that he'd never ride tomorrow if I didn't pump him full of carbs, I made a whole box of mashed potato flakes. (Isn't baked beans and mashed potatoes an English delicacy?) As I finished cooking the potatoes (dumping the flakes in boiling water), Tim was struggling with the concept of can. Yoda may have coined "Do or do not. There is no try." But Boy Scout clearly had a "can I open a can?" Zen-thing going. (Ponder that, Confucius: Can I open a can? It's like a snake eating its own tail.) He was trying to stare his way into a can of beans. Chaucer would've had a field day with this.

"Do you have a can opener?" he asked. This struck me as an extremely odd question in so many ways:

1. He had a Leatherman multi-tool in his hand. 
2. How had he been planning to eat? 
3. What the fuck, man? 
4. He had a Leatherman multi-tool in his hand.

I answered the only way that seemed to make sense: "You're holding a can opener."

Only now do I realize that Boy Scout's multi-tool and knowledge of its multi-myriad uses may have been as new to him as his sleeping pad. (Only when packing to go home did I realize he'd never inflated his self-inflating sleeping pad.) Boy Scout did not know that every Swiss Army knife and multi-tool has a can opener; if the simplest of models only has three tools, it's the thing that's not a knife and not a bottle opener. I extracted the tool and handed it to him. Nope. I took the can, pierced the lid and got halfway around the rim, then handed the set-up to Boy Scout. Suffice it to say that I had to open the whole can. After that, Boy Scout considered eating with his hands, since he had no utensil. Fortunately I dug up a plastic spoon.

Thank God for tent vents.

I will say that his blood sugar was clearly low after bonking and spending eight hours in the saddle pedaling at altitude. I sympathized somewhat; I was not untired after the previous day's grueling drive and the same 75-mile ride. Boy Scout is a smart guy, but obviously his camping/survival skills are on par with my understanding of female psychology. He was clearly new to this game and trying to learn the rules on the fly.

Boy Scout was much more coherent after eating. For my part, I had picked up a box of Target brand red wine during our stop in Visalia, and I got a little less coherent. Naturally, at this time a very large bear dashed right through our campsite with a dozen happy, laughing Latino dudes running after it with flashlights and yelling, banging pots and making noise.

Not the bear.

I'd seen a bear. This was a long time coming, and I became a bit emotional. (It definitely could've been the 2008 vintage from the vineyards of Target that I'd consumed.) I'm not Timothy Treadwell or anything weirder, but I have always respected animals that can kill humans. I always hated fucking Nerf and the Nerfing of the world. Fuck Nerf. Let the bears and big cats live in the wild. Tough it out. Don't like it? Stay indoors.

Kings Canyon 

Go deep.

Clouds above, clouds below.

The next morning, I felt the effects of Target's version of Jesus' beverage of choice. Surprise. But Starbucks Via coffee packets are stronger than Alka-Selzer, and mountain men don't whine about hangovers (nor drink Target wine and resolve its effects with Starbucks). Today's route (which I finagled from some local cyclists the day before) would take us to Cedar Grove, an area in the depths of adjacent Kings Canyon National Park. We started out somewhere around 8000 feet up in Sequoias, and rode 20 miles down-mountain--wheeeeeeeeee!!! It was obvious we'd hit the bottom of the canyon after the first 20 miles, because for the next ten miles of this there-and-back loop, we were climbing again alongside the very rapid-filled Kings River (rapids are a sign of steepness) to Cedar Grove. I already had a feeling that Boy Scout wouldn't make the climb out of Kings Canyon.

Wheeeeee!

The road keeps snaking down like this for 20 miles. What goes down must come up.

Kings Canyon National Park is a huge park featuring a series of steep granite canyons carved by ancient glaciers. I think. The centerpiece is Kings Canyon itself, the deepest gorge in the US (suck it, Grand Canyon!) with vertical drops of up to 8,000 feet--that's like a mile-and-half down when you look over the ledge. Despite its rugged beauty, the park is pretty much off the map among national parks, because very few roads access it--well, one road accesses a small part of it. To plagiarize: "Vehicular access is even more limited than Yosemite as the dead-end canyon approach drive is the only road of any kind within the 462,000 acres of the park and so extended hiking is the only way to visit the wilderness areas."

"Hello, Moses."

Grizzly Falls. Grizz are extinct in CA. Sad irony.

By taking away roads, you effectively preserve the wilderness from the to-do list of about 99% of the population, which includes trusted resource stewards like oilers, miners and loggers. (Then again, if there were oil, they'd find it and find a way. Not having resources is also precious.) I mean, if there weren't a road to the sequoias, or through Yellowstone, how many people would hike even five miles to see them? I'd say about 1%. Look around you.

Don't even need to leave the car.

But I digress; I always do. We were on the only road. And the ten-mile climb up to Cedar Grove, after the 75 miles of undulating roads the day before, had taken its toll. Fortunately, they sold ice cream sandwiches at the campground at the end of the line. I ate one, and was ready to work my way back into and out of this massive gorge. But Boy Scout seemed to lack motivation; he was taking too much time which we couldn't afford to lose. I'm no sports psychologist, but mentally I could tell he doubted himself, which Yoda would've also detected. Boy Scout was thinking of trying, not convinced of doing. After backtracking ten miles downhill to the low point of the gorge, the 20-mile climb out began. And it was now around 11 in the morning and getting hotter by the minute. I began the climb. As luck would have it, Boy Scout got a flat.

This was no fault of his--flats happen. To his credit, he had a spare tube. What he didn't have was a pump to inflate said tube. He had a CO2 cartridge--probably the worst tool ever sold to a cyclist. They're great for one tire, but should you get a second flat, you're empty. And his CO2 cartridge was already empty. Luckily I had a pump and we changed the tire under the midday sun in 100-degree plus heat, using a lot of energy we could ill afford to waste. Though his tire got pumped, his morale had taken another swift kick to the mesolimbic system. He just wasn't going. He was struggling, and later told me he was seeing spots. I went as far as the only water stop on the climb, filled my bottles and knew he wasn't coming any further.

I left Boy Scout at this cougar bar. Shocking.

Once again, a recurring theme of my life's story appeared: I was on my own. For 17 miles. Uphill. LET'S DO THIS. And boy, did I suffer for those hot, unrelenting miles. But I was going to keep going whether it was 17 more miles or 200. That's what I told myself. And it felt like 200 miles. But I would not quit.

I wasn't concerned about Boy Scout, he'd hitch a ride in an RV or something. It's not like I could carry him, and I had my own very real mountains to climb. I only hope he'll be more careful about getting into situations he's not prepared for or can't get himself out of in the future. What would he have done if we'd hiked down into real backcountry? Hitched with a backpacker three days later? That's not really an option. He might've dropped $15K on a helicopter rescue, if he was with someone who could relay the message when there isn't any cell reception. Bottom line: Boy Scout hitched out of Kings Canyon and was fine, but later sent me his photos, and they leave doubts. Mostly about his "lifestyle."

This is a picture Boy Scout took after I went ahead. Curious.

Boy Scout's ride out of the canyon. Again, a curious lack of sleeves.

Aesop's Take-Away

I hope Boy Scout learned a lot, and a bit about self-reliance, rugged individualism, and all that mumbo-jumbo. In places where your character is still considered more important than your possessions--you know, places where people aren't phony facades projecting what they want you to see of them like a Facebook profile, but are judged by their actions--mountain men are the most respected. The West is not all paved-over with Applebee's--just yet. It can be a tough place where water doesn't fall from the sky. (In fact, water is fought over and hoarded like gold.) The West used to make and break men. There are reasons the tough, self-reliant cowboy and mountain man characters evolved in the West, and not in Poughkeepsie or Honolulu. I will not enumerate them here. It's definitely not about having lift on your truck.

I am not a poppa to preach to anyone; I am filled with poo up to my ears and seeping from my faults. But on this trip, I hope Boy Scout became a little less soft, a little more of a mountain man. Boy Scout may have been naive about camping or riding 120-something miles over the Sierras for his first taste of thin air, but that doesn't say anything but that he may simply have lacked experience. Crisis may or may not reveal anything; but I know experience builds character.

Call me a self-hating optimist, but I'm positive he learned just as much about my salty, idiosyncratic character as I did about him.

We're still on speaking terms after 140 miles and 20,000-plus feet on the bike in two days. To me, that's basically a good road trip.

Watching Boy Scout grab a Mountain Dew Code Red from the mini-mart on our last fill-up was a classic finish. Love live Boy Scout. I had a blast.

But, damn, this was like novella length.

Dick!