A Journal of Movement
All that’s slipped through the cracks.
People love lists and why shouldn’t they. If we want to make a decision about something we need some concrete facts, plus, when you write stuff down with numbers next to it, it looks orderly and scientific, so it must be reputable! If you’re already on the fence, here ya go, this should pull you over one way or the other.
Continue reading “10 Reasons to Adopt the Bike and Go Car-Free.”
It’s amazing how much planning and preparation can go into an idea you’re not even sure will succeed. Starting an expedition from your front door, you never really know how far you’ll make it. To sputter to a stop, achieving failure before you even make it out of the neighborhood is always a possibility, and a constant fear. This trip has been in the works for some time: evolving, growing, changing. First we were riding west, then south, now north, every idea and adventure has been thought through, and what we’re left with is what we’ve got. Hatched in the mind of Alta, the possibilities and prospects of this trip seemed endless, climbing, skiing, desert, mountains, anything is possible. Now we’ve made it out into the world, out of one reality and into another. Ever so slowly we will separate ourselves from this reality, from friends, family and the rest of society. It’s taken a week but we’ve made it this far, to a friends house in Ogden ready to start our ride. Last minute errands for gear, a food drop, and other non essentials and we managed to schlep our junk show onto the train and catch a ride out of SLC. I’m not above this level of help. This is not a trip, an adventure, a vacation or a sufferfest, it is my life and it will be all of those things. Getting JB on this trip will be rewarding but separating him and myself from our previous reality at Alta will be challenging. We’ve got over 25 days to get to Boise and enough gear to have some fun along the way. City of Rocks is our first destination that I’m hoping will take two to three days. The impressive Sawtooth mountains await along with another 200+ mile ride to Stanley. Wilderness and solitude call as we stand on the edge of the Utah valley. We’re finally hitting the road today and I just wanted to pass it along here, keep in touch if you can, your words of stoke and encouragement mean a lot to us. FACETAGRAM will be in full effect @natureofmotion. It’s amazing how much planning and preparation can go into an idea you’re not even sure will succeed. Starting an expedition from your front door, you never really know how far you’ll make it. To sputter to a stop, achieving failure before you even make it out of the neighborhood is always a possibility, and a constant fear. This trip has been in the works for some time: evolving, growing, changing. First we were riding west, then south, now north, every idea and adventure has been thought through, and what we’re left with is what we’ve got. Hatched in the mind of Alta, the possibilities and prospects of this trip seemed endless, climbing, skiing, desert, mountains, anything is possible. Now we’ve made it out into the world, out of one reality and into another. Ever so slowly we will separate ourselves from this reality, from friends, family and the rest of society. It’s taken a week but we’ve made it this far, to a friends house in Ogden ready to start our ride. Last minute errands for gear, a food drop, and other non essentials and we managed to schlep our junk show onto the train and catch a ride out of SLC. I’m not above this level of help. This is not a trip, an adventure, a vacation or a sufferfest, it is my life and it will be all of those things. Getting JB on this trip will be rewarding but separating him and myself from our previous reality at Alta will be challenging. We’ve got over 25 days to get to Boise and enough gear to have some fun along the way. City of Rocks is our first destination that I’m hoping will take two to three days. The impressive Sawtooth mountains await along with another 200+ mile ride to Stanley. Wilderness and solitude call as we stand on the edge of the Utah valley. We’re finally hitting the road today and I just wanted to pass it along here, keep in touch if you can, your words of stoke and encouragement mean a lot to us. FACETAGRAM is in full effect @natureofmotion, I’ll be throwing pictures up there when we can. See y’all on the other side. I’ll be throwing pictures up there when we can. See y’all on the other side.
The Rising Tide.
In the last year, there’s been a growing trend in bike-to-climb and bike to (fill in the blank) adventures being pursued by professional climbers and athletes and making it into the media. I don’t claim to have any influence over this occurance, it’s an awesome thing, a sign of the awareness our generation is bringing to the table. Seeing this type of stuff in the media is truly inspiring, getting people stoked for bicycle powered adventures is only a good thing. There are also trends going on in the bicycle world I have been trying to influence. My generation is among those who helping to define a new era by choosing to not own a car or hold a drivers license. We are in a unique and optimal position to be able to go car-free, use a bike for transportation, and take part in extended adventures. Although I’m not often obnoxious about getting friends to change their habits or get rid of their car, when I see an opportunity, I capitalize. Engine troubles, transmission problems, and maintenance issues are great times to encourage friends to drive their shitty rig’s off a cliff. For the most part this is received with polite laughter, as in, I’ll laugh at your joke you crazy car-less psycho, but if done well and to the right kind of individual, even this technique can reap rewards. Other angles and tactics can be effective as well, the most useful of which is truth. Looking someone deep in the eyes and telling them the truth has proven to be very effective. “Yo bro! You’re blowing it!” This site is simply a mouthpiece for my musings, a journal in which I feel too critical to even write often, but one I try and keep up to date none the less. But this is also another way that I’m trying to spread the word, to provide a positive and encouraging example of what a bicycle life could look like. With that in mind here’s a look into the current adventure-bicycle scene, and the smaller world I’ve been able to affect. Cheers! Continue reading “Evolution Through Revolutions.”
Nothing fancy here, just a bunch of pictures. No need to spray a drawn out trip report or step-by-step account of our adventures. We climbed, we played, we ran errands, we did all the shit everyone else does, only we rode our bikes.
Sometimes it takes a while for things to sink in. Often times you realize the way as it unfolds. The last month of my life has been an incredibly trans formative time, but the lessons and insights are lost in time. To retrieve them requires quiet contemplation and presence, things that have been sacred but scarce for me recently. Over the last month I’ve moved from the east coast by plane, lived in cities, embarked on what was essentially a bicycle powered vision quest, been thrust back into the world of professionalism and academia, then raced off to the desert to shred a motor-less dirt bike. It’s been wild and crazy ride to say the least. Continue reading “Return, Reload, Absorb…”
A few weeks ago I had the privilege of speaking with Kyle Dempster about his 2011 trip to Kygyzstan and the resulting film, The Road from Karakol. In 2011 Kyle took his bicycle and cycled around the mountains of Kyrgyzsan climbing and adventuring, eventually riding through China and into Pakistan to climb some more. Kyle is an award winning alpinist who’s at the leading edge of modern climbing. It was a treat to get to talk to him about his experiences in Kyrgistan and what he thinks about the environment’s role in the evolution of alpinism and the incredible miracle of Cycling Alpinism! Enjoy!
For the past six months my primary modes of transportation have been skis and the ski lift. While the latter isn’t human powered, I like to think of it as a form of underutilized public transportation. Between this and my occasional forays into the nearby backcountry I’ve been keeping a pretty low profile, skiing a lot but not really talking about it much here, there’s something about the familiarity of your backyard that keeps me from bringing along a camera or posting videos from each of the thousands of runs I’ve skied. Alta’s a special place where there’s an endless amount of amazing skiing to be had and it can all be accessed by starting right out your front door. My friend Chris Bangs of the Human-Powered Mountaineers is a little different though. Coming from his home of Bozeman Montana he’s got a little bit of an approach to get the the mountain of his choice, an approach that sometimes covers well over 100 miles and he covers with the use of a bicycle and skis, keeping his trips 100% human powered. Take a look at some of the short videos he’s put together about his project he’s calling the 7 summits of Bozeman. An inspiring individual and a bit of an eye opener into what’s truly possible in winter human powered mountaineering. Continue reading “Human-Powered Mountaineers go skiing.”