Port Gamble redux

Our Willie on this cold marble traced
Is all that’s left of thee to love here
Yet the chain that death has broken above
Shall be linked by angel hands
Give me an old cemetery filled with history any day.  (more…)

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Sweet little bike

A gorgeous afternoon for bicycling… Althea (Bainbridge Notebook) sends this photo after her ride to Manitou.  “I love my sweet little bike.”  Send me a picture of your bicycle!  Or, better yet - you and your bicycle!  (I too had a lovely ride, 45 miles so far this week.  Tomorrow’s forecast is wonderful, I may [...]

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A blanket apology

I’m sorry.
(more…)

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Spring cleaning

Imagine yourself on a perfect sandy beach, half naked and covered in suntan lotion. Roll around in that perfect sand… feel how it sticks to your body…how it works its way into every nook and cranny.
Ok, without rinsing off, grab your trail shoes and go for a 10 mile run. How’s that feel? A wee [...]

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“on the coattails of God…”

I was four years old when I got my first bike and fell in love with cycling.  A bike was more than a workout tool.  It was a place to sink my sorrows, to dream.  It was a place to break through boundaries, to get myself out of this box or cage.  It was a [...]

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Northwest touring book

Rummaging through the bicycling section at the public library this weekend (which is woefully small, I must say) I found a 1995 issue of “Biking the Great Northwest” which offers 20 tours in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.  Each trip is detailed in the book along with maps, mileage logs and an elevation chart.  (more…)

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East side, west side…

Damn the weather - which kept me from riding yesterday with it’s barrage of hail, snow, sleet, rain.  This morning it was ride or bust.  Set out around 9:30 and headed over Baker Hill’s east “face” (yeah, it’s mountainous) - always a good warm-up.  Continued around the point, through Lynwood, and by the time I got [...]

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Back to the hills

It was business-as-usual today on Bainbridge south-end hills:  Baker, Fort Ward, Toe Jam (photo), Hall’s, and Blakely (in that order!).  Under threatening skies, I managed to make the 26 mile route with no rain.  In fact, it was a great ride, good to be back on the hills that make riding everywhere else on earth [...]

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Two-wheeled wonder

Two wheeled wonder:  The glory of lungs, legs and steel
This article is excerpted from Seven Wonders for a Cool Planet, by Eric Sorensen and the Sightline Institute (Sierra Club Books, May 2008). 
The bicycle is a masterpiece of physics. It harnesses human muscle power directly to that old-time marvel - the wheel - and yields [...]

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Channeling my inner ten year-old (ouch!)

I often say that bicycling makes me feel like a ten year-old who gets to go outside and play.   Somehow coasting along with wind in my hair brings back the joy of that particular age, the last stretch of true innocence and freedom before the complications of adolescence set in and change our lives forever. 
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