Scott's Sketchbook

CdA Bikepack Fandangle

The area that Keith and I were setting out to ride was completely unfamiliar to us. I had mapped out a route that looked good on “paper” but with no real knowledge of what were getting into. The satellite imagery suggest there was a good parking area to leave the car, water along the way, and some potential camping spots. This was Keith’s first bikepacking trip, and being relatively new to riding in general, I kept the mileage to a conservative level.

We set off at about 11am for a 12-13 mile easy start. After an initial 4 mile steady climb we began a long and relatively quick 7 mile ascent. As we were approaching mileage where I had mentally noted we should start looking for a campsite, I began studying my computer map.

Where were we turning?

Wow that 11 miles sure went by fast.

What was our avg speed?

How fast were we trucking now?

OH SHIT. GIANT HOLE IN THE ROA…

I knew that the next bit was going to suck. And hurt. There was no avoiding it so I just braced for the inevitable. BWADAP. the front wheel struck the hole and I went flying off the bike, not completely because my feet were clipped in, but I (the collective we) was airborne.

After laying there for a minute performing a systems check on my body, I held my arm up in the air with a thumbs up signaling to Keith that I was not dead, knocked out, or terribly wounded. Upon further examination of the bike, it became apparent that the front tire had about an inch-long sidewall tear—and then noticed how bent the rim was. It wasn’t taco’d, but tostada’d.

All good. We had miles in front of us and as long the bike would roll, my jacked up skin wasn’t going to ruin the entire weekend. We pressed on and found a great campsite about 10 minutes later. After setting up tents, I got into the cold Little Coeur d’Alene river and cleaned out my leg and arm scrapes–which was quite fun.

Now looking at the time, it was only 1:00. What the hell were we going to do for the next seven or eight hours until bed time? It was decided to pack our shit back up and press on. We had plenty of daylight and energy left, so we ultimately ended up climbing the big pass for another 10 miles which led us to one of the best campsites we saw all weekend.

Setting up camp for the second time in one day, we settled in and relaxed for the evening. I fired up my HT radio and made a couple of contacts, one with a person who was camping in the valley down below and another with a guy who was over in Hayden Lake, about 10 miles away.

The next morning we took off and finished out the last 4 miles of the climb before descending back down into the valley before, once again, climbing back out to get the car. Stopping partway up for lunch, it was a long slow trudge without much shade… but I enjoyed it. I think Keith enjoyed most of it. 😉

End of the day, the weekend was a total success. Keith performed on the bike better the bike than I had expected and we concatenated our three-day trip into two. Our packing lists were good, but we both learned a few things (as one always does) in the field. And while I had a nasty wreck that I’m still healing from, I was able to get my bike back into working shape to ride out the remainder of the trip. And I have a spare set of 650b wheels that I can switch out in under 10 minutes.

GC training (sorta)

A friend group is doing a R2R (Rim-to-Rim Grand Canyon) hike in a couple of weeks and invited us out on one of their training hill climbs today. We punched out about 15 miles and 3000 ft elevation loss/gain. Beautiful day for it and a much needed break from the busy couple of weeks I’m in the middle of at work.

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A quick trip AZ (trying out SOTA)

While visiting family in Arizona, I couldn’t help but to have a go at my first SOTA activation. My old stomping grounds of South Mountain Park, where I grew up hiking, mountain biking, and later trail running, seemed like an appropriate range. I found a peak on SOTLAS that wasn’t familiar to me but had plenty of 2 meter activations and devised a rough plan.

With my new callsign in place, K2VFZ, I created a SOTA Alert the day prior for 146.58 @ 10am. My mother dropped me off at the trailhead at 6am and I was off to get in the majority of the elevation gain before the desert heat spiced up. Reaching the AZ at about 8:45am, there was plenty of time to monkey with the radios. I started without a spot, just calling out on 146.52 using a Signal Stick (I could see the city of Phoenix at nearly 180-degree field) and heard… nothing.

Switching antennas, I unfortunately didn’t have any mast (ordered but not in poss.) or tree at my disposal so I draped the 2m slim jim over the edge of the rock/cliff where I was positioned. Subsequent calls returned nothing and I decided to make a spot for the x.58 and tried again, and again, with no luck.

Throwing ideas at the wall, I pulled out the HF radio (which I had never used) and plugged in the 10/20 end-fed antenna that I (again) draped over the edge of the cliff. After creating another spot on 28.470 ssb I called out several more CQs with no responses.

Admittedly, I was a little surprised that I didn’t have a single contact on 2m. This was my very first time, though, and I’m about as new to this as it gets; chalked it up to a learning experience enveloped with a nice hike.

+++

Notes & Lessons Learned:

As mentioned, I’m not really sure why I never made a contact on VHF.

Admittedly, the j-pole cliff hang wasn’t great.
- That needed to be somehow erected, though at that location there weren’t many options.
The Signal Stick antenna should’ve been enough. Maybe?
- I had line-of-site to much of the city of Phoenix. But I didn’t hear anything (even when calling for a radio check on 146.52).

My HF antenna “setup” was just an absolute disaster.

Draping it over the cliff is not getting it up in the air.
- Ordered a SOTABeams Carbon 6 mast and have also put together a tree-hanging kit as a backup.
The 1 meter length of RG316 coax is not enough of a ground/counterpoise.
- Not even sure that’s the right explanation, but I’ve gathered that was sub-optimal. I have since ordered a 25 ft length of LMR195 coax.
Matching unit just laying on the rock next to me should’ve been (vertically) suspended.
- I’ll probably us my camera tripod or perhaps trekking pole to accomplish this next time.
Still unsure about the need to trim/modify the antenna wire to achieve 10 meter tuning.
- The X5105 has, from what I gather, an exceptional built-in tuner… so I don’t think I need to do anything to the wire as long as I tune after setup. Maybe I should’ve gotten the random wire antenna?

+++

8.21 miles

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Taliensen West

Frank Lloyd Wright, though a Wisconsin native, loved, lived-in, and gifted Arizona many years and contributions of his incredible architecture. Myself, as the son of a structural engineer and an Arizona State University alum, I feel very familiar with FLW and his achievements. We were privileged to tour his Talisien West home-slash-studio

Dicks-A-Thon

Nearly every year, I meet up with my college buddies somewhere and we go to an Arizona State football game. This year we met up in Seattle and, true to my nature, I found a running event to do. The Dicks-a-Thon is a 26 or 14 mile run around hilly Seattle where you go navigate from one Dicks Drive In to another, eating burgers along the way. I opted for the half-marathon route as, it was a game day with friends and I had places to be (and more beers to drink).

As if that didn’t sound like enough of a digestive challenge, we all arrived in town the night before and were out drinking until about 1am. That didn’t make the run particularly amazing, but it surprisingly wasn’t too bad.

Pretty sure I’m gonna do it again next year!

Web Overhaul

Blogging is dead. Long live the blog.

I’m no longer taking freelance work* so there was no real need to keep a professional site going for design stuff. If you arrived here via https://mackey.design you’ve got the correct online presence.

This is the new manifest—an untidy home to anything I deem worthy of the time it takes to upload & type.

*but if the price is right…

Haystack Rock & Terrible Tilly

Drove out to the Oregon Coast for ‘spring break’. The weather was shit and it was too early for puffins, but we ate some great fish-n-chips and went for a couple of nice hikes. Plus, setting up the camera + tripod on the rainy beach with 30mph winds was entertaining for everyone inside the restaurant watching me.

Rebecca’s Private Idaho

Corrie and I (and a few hundred others) dodged the smoke from wildfires raging in Idaho and Washington to ride our bikes in beautiful Ketchum, ID. The gravel was supreme, the climbs were long, and the headwind was bastardly. Pedals turned and beers earned, as they say.

I should be better and snapping pics whilst on the bike (as in, I should do it).

RAMROD, RAGNAR, BAINBRIDGE

Prepped for a busy couple of weeks in July. Starting out with joining a team to run a few 8 mile legs of a RAGNAR up in Bellingham, then down to Seattle for a solo bike trip out to Bainbridge Island (itinerary below) and finally the RAMROD.

Friday 7/22

3:00pm – ride to Mill Creek

Saturday 7/23

6:00am – Mill Creek to the ferry station in Seattle

11:25am – take ferry to Bainbridge Island

12:00pm – check out the bike shop/museum and probably grab a bite

1:00pm – ride a section of the Chilly Hilly route up to Eleven Winery

??:??pm – easy 4 mile cruise to the hotel

Sunday 7/24

7:00am – another section of the Chilly Hilly route towards the ferry station

8:30am – breakfast at Blackbird Bakery

9:45am – ferry back to Seattle

10:15am – Seattle to Element Cycles in Redmond

12:00pm – RAMROD packet pickup & BBQ

1:30pm – back to Carnation

And like that, it’s all over. A lot of solo time on the bike; burning through miles, thinking about life and thinking about nothing. Drinking wine by myself in a hotel room while my bibs dry in the bathroom shower. Being honked at. Getting waves. Sweating the days and crashing hard at night.

The front-end of this trip was a RAGNAR run north of Seattle where I did 28 miles within a 24 hour span. The backend was the RAMROD where the ride was something like 150 miles with 11,000 ft of elevation.

I’m cooked.

Medical Lake Loop

Out for an early-season training ride. I’ve been cooped up for a long winter/spring and needed to get out and feel some pain and cool wind. A 60-miler should do it.

Albion Loop

Road cycling is freeing. The constant wind in your face, views flying by quickly, but no so quickly that you can’t digest them, the effort and the low-grade fear of vehicles.

Every ride is a true to life experience.

There’s a loop around here some refer to as the Albion Loop that starts in Pullman, rolls the hills of the Wawawai Highway, climbs Klemgard hill and drops down into the valley to speed through the small town of Albion. It’s just under 25 miles, takes a hair over an hour depending on wind, and is a real no-brainer.

When I’m in cycling shape, I’ll do this ride once a week. It’s great for training and tremendous at clearing the mind. Simple enough to do with zero planning but there will be two or three sections that really make you work, and think.

If you ever find yourself in Eastern Washington and would enjoy a quick ride, do it. Also, hit me up and I’ll do it with ya because I honestly can’t ride it enough.