Jim Hill Mountain ..

Steve persuaded me to join him and Seth on an exploratory ski trip on Jim Hill Mountain. Now I should have guessed with the term exploratory that this would not be a straightforward trip. But that did not cross my mind. So we left Steve's house around 7:30 am to park near Hwy2 on the road into the Steven's Pass Nordic Center.

We parked near a closed gate and skinned across the lot to a gated forest road. There was a skin track in the road and it was easy going up the numerous switchbacks. At one point the road took a right hand bend downhill and we contemplated our options. We decided to backtrack around the corner and head into the woods there as the undergrowth was not as severe. Within a hundred vertical feet we ran into our first obstacle of getting around some downed trees. After circumnavigating them, we attempted to stay a bit lower off the ridge to avoid the more wind damaged areas.

We traversed through some thick woods up and to our right and arrived below an area with many blow downs. It would have been arduous and time consuming to cross through it (if we even could.) So we passed under it and then continued on our course upward and rightward. The snow seemed good for skiing, but was deep and made for strenuous skinning on the steep treed slopes. We eventually made the ridge and crossed the tops of some open slopes before the terrain got too difficult for skis and we resorted to booting a hundred feet or so. We were hoping to ski off the right side of the ridge, but the terrain was steep (over 50°) and heavily treed. It wouldn't have been easy to even walk that terrain. We contemplated continuing in the hopes of finding a suitable ski path, but it was already after 2:30pm. We had maybe two hours of daylight left to get out, so we started to backtrack on the ridge to find a suitable descent route.

Seth dropping in the clearing (photo by Steve Machuga)
A little before the point where we started to boot was the decided upon descent route. We put the skis on and headed down. It was lightly treed at first but a fairly steep slope probably more than 35°. After only a few turns, I had to jump a downed log as there was no way around it. I was successful, but had to hit the brakes as soon as I landed. Then the trees became more dense and I side slipped and stepped down through a few sections linking a few turns and traversing where I could. I made a lot of downhill kick turn in tight spots. This probably progressed for a few thousand feet with Steve encouraging me the whole way down. I had some good moments like jumping/dropping logs without crashing. But I had some bad moments, especially lower down. I think the fatigue was getting to me and I crashed a bit including some real mix ups with my skis. I think my final crash had me sliding into a small tree like it was home plate.

Yes it really was that thick at times (photo by Steve Machuga)
We eventually made it to flatter ground where we donned headlamps and skins. After a short time skinning we found an old overgrown road and followed that through some alder. There was a moment when we had a clear cut above us and it looked like the road ended and Seth checked to see if the road switched back. It didn't and we continued through thicker alder before we quickly arrived at the road we skinned in on. Steve and I removed our skins, while Seth kept his on and his board split. From there is was the typical luge run down the now firm skin track until we hit the car. I was glad to have a good headlamp with a spotlight, because fast skiing at night is difficult without a fair amount of light.

Coming out by headlamp (photo by Steve Machuga)

Overall this was a fun trip. We now know this is not the way to go to achieve turns on Jim Hill Mountain. It was a fun outing and it pushed my limits in skiing. So next time I am in terrain that is more sedate I should be feeling more confident.

My pics are here.

Mouses, Mouses

Drats, we have mice in the hay shed, and storage shed. Again.

The Patron Saint of Bicyclists

"Here, this is for you."



I put out my hand to receive what resembled a brass bracelet, crumpled and oxidised with age.



"I've rescued a few of these off of trashed roadsters over the years. Lovely things they are..."



And that is how I came to possess aSt. Christopher bicycle medallion - a Catholic charm given to me by a Protestant, in Northern Ireland. "Behold St. Christopher and go your way in safety," reads the inscription.






The patron saint of travelers, St. Christopher has been popular with bicyclists in some cultures. In Ireland, various bike accessories with images of the saint can be found - most commonly bells. Medallions like this one are rarer, but this particular one seems to have been popular in County Donegal in the Republic and adjacent areas of Northern Ireland throughout the 1930s-50s. Every so often, the local priest would hold a "blessing of the bikes," with these medallions made for the occasion. Members of the congregation would bring their roadsters to be blessed, at which time the priest would affix the medallion around their seat tubes. The bikes and their journeys would thereupon be protected.





Soldered onto a bracket, the medallion is thin, lightweight and flexible, with a closure that makes it adaptable to a wide range of surfaces.





Local Catholics seem to hold differing opinions regarding St. Christopher. Some have told me he is a made-up saint, just a lucky charm for superstitious travelers. Others say he was indeed a real saint, but has been "retired" by the church. Others still remember people riding with such medallions on their bikes decades ago.



TheBlessing of the Bikesritual has been revived in recent years, mainly in the US. As far as I know, St. Christopher is not mentioned in the proceedings.

Hubbys Turn

Sonny was better for Lee than he was for me.

Foal in Jacket

Here is the foal in the jacket.

Wordless Wednesday :: Schooldaze ~ Tenth Grade

The Main Parallelogram

I am working on a step-through bicycle frame - a design which is simultaneously common and unusual. It is common if you look around the streets of Boston, which are teeming with vintage step-throughs. And it is unusual considering that no one I know has built this exact style of frame. Mixtes and modified step-throughs yes. But not plain step-throughs where the top and down tubes are parallel. In fact, this bicycle does not even have what can be called a main triangle. It is a main parallelogram.




The head tube and the seat tube are also parallel lines - each at a 72° angle. This double set of parallels makes for an interesting visual pattern.






For this frame I used straight gauge tubing, so that I could practice cutting and brazing unsupervised without worrying about butting and thin walls. The hardy tubing should also minimise flex and twist in the step-through design, as well as make it possible to store the finished machine outdoors and generally treat it as a beater bike.






The joints will be fillet brazed (lugless) - partly because I would like to practice fillet brazing, and partly because there isn't currently a reliable source for a step-through lugset. Fillet brazing requires using brass as the filler material and heating up the joints considerably more than you would with lugged silver brazing. Since I am using straight gauge tubing, this should not be a problem. The only thing I am a little nervous about is the bottom bracket. With a lugged bottom bracket, the tubes are inserted into hollow sleeves, allowing you to look inside after brazing and check whether the filler material has pulled through properly. With a plain shell like the one pictured here, this cannot be done. I've considered using a lugged bottom bracket while fillet brazing the rest of the joints, but ultimately decided against that. I'll just have to be especially diligent in this area.






My goal in making this frame was to get some practice with basic technique without having to worry about thin wall tubing, unusually wide tires or multitudes of braze-ons. However, it was also crucial to me that I ride the finished bike as much as possible as part of everyday life, and I knew that would not happen with a plain diamond frame. The resulting compromise was a single speed 26" wheel step-through with a raked-out fork. Basically very similar to the prototypical English "Sports Roadster," but with lower trail.






Getting the slanted top tube was in a sense straightforward, but not without its quirks. To start with I specced out the slope to match the angle of the downtube. Funny thing though: When the angles were mathematically identical they looked off to the human eye (several spectators confirmed this), so in fact the tubes had to be not quite parallel in order for them look right. Paul Carson taught me how to use his notching lathe, and none of the notches were problematic except for the top head joint. That one had to be adjusted repeatedly to make the angle look right - but finally it got there.




As the mocked up tubes are starting to look bike-like, those who see the beginnings of this frame tend to have an "Aha, I know what kind of bike this is!" type of reaction. It's been nice to get that feedback. While the first frame I made was done in the privacy of a teacher-student environment, now I am working in a shared shop space with loads of people around. Random people passing through will ask what I am working on, and repeatedly I find myself articulating not just the concept of the frame but the step-by-step process of building it. No doubt this recital helps me make more sense of the process myself.