Motherships: Bike Friday, REI, Avi and Violet, Amelia and Evelyn

Most everyone can point to some other people, places, or events as the source of inspiration for admirable or perhaps even crazy things that they do. For us, with long distance cycling there are quite a few such inspirations. It actually takes quite a few, to maintain a suitably high standard of craziness.

The first that come to mind are a dozen or more people whose blogs we have followed closely on Crazyguy. The list starts with Sue Gray, and her article "How To Create a Praiseworty Journal", and continues to Jeff Arnim, Art Birkmeyer, Tricia and Ken Graham, Michel Fleurance,and yes, John Byrne.

Other inspirational people are not bloggers, but are friends or family. I won't try to list them, because inevitably someone will be left out. However, from the start the Grampies have been trying to create experiences and stories that can be shared with their grandchildren. Now that the oldest, Avi and Violet, are getting big enough to tour as well, we will be trying not only to create and tell experiences, but also to share them. We began that with Grampies Go Panhandling, our epic 8 day crossing of Idaho. New proposals in the works include the Willamette River Valley and the Erie Canal.

Finally, there are inspirational retailers that we have often turned to. Just by virtue of its long history, we would mention Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI). The first bike trip I ever did, Seattle to Jasper, in 1979, began with a pilgrimage to REI's flagship Seattle store. Almost as venerable for us is Mountain Equipment Coop (MEC). Both REI and MEC draw you in with enthusiastic gear descriptions in their catalogues, and like Crazyguy on a Bike, the feeling that you are part of a supportive community. I may be making this up, but I seem to remember a MEC decription of a cycling jacket colour: "Putrid green, repels motorists". These are our kind of people.

So it is that in this brief period before actually pedalling off on the Southern Tier, we have sallied forth to touch base with three of our inspirational sources.

Leaving Victoria on the Coho ferry to Port Angeles

Oh, oh, maybe those Danish in Denmark were not so bad after all!

It is actually over 600km from our house to Bike Friday, in Eugene, Oregon, but REI and Avi and Violet are at least found along the way, near Seattle. We returned to Bike Friday because of two simple but crippling problems that developed with my frame. The first is a dropout that is mostly stripped, causing the rear rack to come loose, and the second is the failure of the little bridge that holds the kick stand, causing the bike, of course, to fall down.

To their immense credit, Bike Friday on hearing of these two problems immediately agreed to repair them and to then repaint the frame. This is consistent with their published lifetime frame warranty, but also there was no hint that we might have overloaded the bike, overtightened the rack, or anything like that. Rather there were just steps to make it right, as fast as possible. Bravo!

We showed up in Bike Friday's parking lot, where we had "wild camped" overnight, and were ushered inside by the first worker that arrived. So the kids were in the candy store! There was a lineup there of the new Silk model, which features a fibre "chain" and internal rear hub, a customer's tandem - sporting some titanium tubes, and a beat up Friday that had been around the world on tour. There were neat accessories on sale, and tires hanging from the ceiling. And soon, people around who could talk bikes all days. Needless to say, we were in our element!

Bike doctor Tim Link gets ready to admit Steve's frame for repair.

OK! Here is a strong candidate for our next tour with Avi and Violet.

This bike Friday travelled all over the world with famous cyclist Heinz Stucke.

All too soon, we left the frame to later be shipped back to us and headed off. We did not get too far, though, because Eugene also has an REI branch. We dropped by to pick up a new rain parka. The waterproof membrane on our existing coats has begun to flake off. Breathable raincoats these days come in 2.5 and 3 layer varieties. 2.5 layers is an outer shell plus the inner membrane, sporting a sprayed on "1/2" layer of texture that is supposed to offer some protection to the membrane. 3 layer is typically much bulkier and heavier, but has a full inside liner. There are varying names for the breathable layer of various manufacturers, and each may offer differing levels of waterproofness, breathability, and durability. Some of the names are of course Gortex, and then E-vent, H2No, HyVent, etc. The jackets we chose are sort of medium priced at $200 and are made by Patagonia. They say you can expect them to last about three years. In our hands, we would guess that at one year!

We are abandoning our cycling sandals and going with closed toe slip ons for this Winter trip.

At REI-Eugene we were once again in our element, happily nattering with staff about waterproof gloves that we have found and they have found are no such thing. We all agree, the only truly waterproof cycling gloves are $3 dish gloves, and that includes the $100 Goretex, guaranteed, gloves available at REI. Again reluctantly, we headed off. We needed to speed 400 km north, where Avi and Violet were waiting for us!

It had been over three months since we left Avi and Violet at the end of our cycle trip with them, and headed off for our spin around Europe. They had followed our trip and especially enjoyed receiving post cards. Now we brought them a few additional souvenirs.

Eight of the postcards the Grampies sent to Violet from Europe are still treasured in her room.

Avi models the tee shirt that came back from CERN

Violet scans shells brought back by the Grampies from the Mediterranean.

In the three months, Avi and Violet had moved from Montana to Washington, so there were major new things for them, like a new school and different house. On the other hand, we found them their same old entertaining selves.

From our point of view, there were new stores to explore, and the chore of getting to know a new neighbourhood. The vicinity of Seattle is very densely settled, and often choked with traffic. Balancing this a bit, we spotted chocolate (Valrhona)and cheese (Beemster) that otherwise we had only seen in Europe.

The car culture on the US west coast is startling. Admittedly, the jam up on the left was caused by an accident, but the main roads are generally choked with traffic at all hours.

Hey, why did we trek to Tain l'Hermitage in France when the same chocolate is sold here around the corner.

We took Avi and Violet around to several of the local stores but a main event at this time of year is Halloween. This "holiday" is eagerly embraced in the parts of the United States that we are familiar with. It really is not about any sort of religion, or even belief in the supernatural, but mainly reflects the fun of dressup. This year, Avi and Violet turned in to Superman and the Disney mermaid, Ariel. Ariel is based loosely on Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid. We visited the famous statue while in Copenhagen. Right now, we are happy to be with our own little mermaid!

Discussing trail food choices with grandma at the Trader Joe's store.

Grandma needs to get busy knitting mittens for winter.

Avi and Violet getting ready for Halloween. Halloween is a big holiday in this region.

Innovative carving and decoration at some houses

The next step is to go to Montreal (Dodie, anyway) to touch base with Amelia and Evelyn. Our first long distance cycle was to go to see Amelia for the first time. This time, though, we need to use an airline. Here are Amelia and Evelyn, in their Halloween costumes. See the care that Sabrina has taken to given them an authentic presentation. These kids are serious!

Epilog

More from REI

We capped off our REI experiences at the Portland and Eugene branches with a visit to the flagship store in Seattle. Up the hill from there is a tiny French bakery. We hiked up there to try to ease some of the culture shock of no longer being in Europe. Shockingly the 5 minute ascent of Capitol Hill had Laurie and I puffing. And that's before tucking in to the pastries!

Books at REI Seattle are appropriate to this region.

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