new post for Philly Pedals!

I wrote a new article for a local bicycle website, Philly Pedals, about how to dress for cycling in ever-changing spring conditions! It was posted a while ago and I have no idea how I managed to miss it, but here it is… better late than never! While it is written about riding bikes, it really applies to all outdoor activities. Also, you know me, I'm not about buying tons of super specific gear or caring about "looking the part" when doing anything so you don't have to worry about "WEAR LYCRA" being a paragraph header. If you'd like to read my two cents about how to keep comfortable outside when the weather doesn't know what it's going to do from one second to the next give it a read! Totally good information for picnics, riding rainbow colored ponies, eating at an outdoor table when you should really have probably sat inside…

bike adventure in the pinelands

Two weeks ago we had a freakish and thorough break in the weather. The snow melted, the sun shined, the coats and gloves came off. We opened the windows to get some fresh air in the house and then packed up our bikes and drove to the pinelands! The pinelands are this really weird ecosystem that apparently only exists in southern New Jersey so they're protected and NJ made a fairly large state forest of it. There is a lot of mountain bike single track to ride, but since I don't have a mountain bike (yet) we brought our cross bikes and rode around on the fire roads. It's great because all the sand drains really quickly and the massive amounts of snow didn't make anything muddy.

It was great getting out there and seeing trees even if most of them were dead, and also riding without tons of gear on. We heard a tree fall in the woods (yes it made a sound) and heard the most berserk screaming hawk/eagle ever… we decided it must be it's mating call but honestly the thing just sounded insane. And as we rode through the sandy, abandoned and creepy trails Db told me stories he'd heard about people apparently using the pinelands as a place to bury bodies. Good to know, don't go to the pinelands at night ever.

snow snow snow still!

It's been an exceptionally snowy winter here in Philly, and considering I now live hundreds of miles south of where I gained my gauge on what a "snowy winter" entails, that's pretty impressive. While everyone around me is hating the shit out of this, I'm silently loving it and feeling sort of guilty that I'm taking pleasure from something that is driving everyone else insane. The first snow of the season was a solid three months ago and the whole snow thing is still really fun to me. Like riding around with studded tires in this? Very entertaining.

I guess I'm just a northern person, who knew. I used to actively hate winter.

On the other hand, when I'm not being amused at how shockingly well the Fang camouflages with the snowy streets, I am wearing my jean jackets around the house having little day dreams about walking outside without swaddling myself in 30 different wool garments. Jean jacket weather! I feel like rolling in dirt and drinking a beer in the park. Doesn't that sound like a good time?

i'm back!

After a long break full of adventure, treachery and all the holidays, I'm back.

I've been blogging all along but just not for myself, I guess there's only so much time I can spend playing on a computer any given week. I've been doing the blogging and some social media for the bike shop I work at and it's been really fun. Setting up my little photoshoot area and blogging only about things I actually like. If you want to check it out it's here (I don't know how to filter for just the one's I've written, sorry). I came up with the Stuff We Love (the one I linked to is about my fab R.E.Load backpack pictured up top) and Gift Guide series, and also made a shop Twitter. So far a mere 39 followers but hey, that's 39 more than we had before! Plus it's fun tweeting the pics I take for the blog and random riding adventures. I'm hoping to get my fellow shop employees into it so it's like a "shop staff" Twitter but so far it's still mostly me.

Anyways, that and a bit of knitting, a bit of painting, a bit of dyeing and a massive amount of bike adventure is what I've been up to for the past two months. Currently working up a 2013 year in crafting recap post for you and goals for 2014. I want to learn to do a handstand this year, go big or go home! I hope you guys all had a rad holiday season and have as much fun waving bye to 2013 as I will tonight.

leaf peeping by bike

Oh fall! I used to hate you and now I love you. How lucky is this? Philadelphia has the best parks and they're all really easy to ride to. This past weekend Db and I rode to Wissahickon to leaf peep! The weather was ridiculously awesome, long sleeves and sun the whole day. I wish we could do this every weekend. Here's one of my fave bridges (here it is in summer), and now for a hero shot! I just got a new saddle for my bike and this was its maiden voyage. Brooks England certainly knows how to treat my sorry little ass, it was worth every single penny. I hope you all had a fun weekend too!

1500 mile road trip! - Acadia! -

Sorry for the long breaks in posting! It's been pretty crazy over here for the last 6 weeks, lots of db traveling, visits and other both fun and unfun stuff. Hopefully I'm back on it now, it's taken me almost 2 months to post about our amazing and beautiful road trip!

So here we are, in Acadia National Park, Maine. It was completely awesome. The air smelled so clean and there were trees all the way to the beach! We watched the sunrise from the top of Cadillac Mountain, saw Thunderhole and rode our bikes to go tidepooling at Wonderland. Come on right? We also had the only "fancy" meal of our trip in Bar Harbor while sitting outside next to a mess of ferns and got to camp in two of the coolest campsites I've ever seen. It was the best possible cherry on top of a really fun adventure vacation and I want to go back... I would live up there for sure.

Sunrise. It was so cold on top of that rock!

Thunderhole being totally unimpressive but making lots of amusing fart noises.

Beach hike!

So into tidepooling! It was the only thing I was like "I want to do this on this trip" about (besides buying some Swans Island yarn haha) and it was VERY awesome. We didn't see any starfish but it didn't disappoint, and I caught crabs! How often do you hear that said with any excitement? I was so amped I used my Fabric Horse utility belt for shades/camera and wore my Mom's fabulous vintage ski shirt, by far my favorite article of clothing. It's windproof but still looks this awesome! I got to crawl around and stick my hands in the water touching weird stuff, it was great.

...This is what we saw. These are unfiltered, the colors were insane.

Then we rode our bikes back along the coast and into the woods to our campsite. We set a fire and looked the stars, we found so many constellations. Camp stove ramen and red wine. AWESOME VACA, I would recommend it to anyone. Acadia is where it's at.

1500 mile road trip! - part 2 -

Next up on our million mile road trip is VT and bikes! We went to Kingdom Trails in East Burke, VT to mountain bike. Db mountain bikes all the time so I was excited to see what it was all about... but also like "Why did I agree to do this? I'm going to crash and fall off a mountain." Also, confession, when I envision 'vacation I've been looking forward to all year' I imagine doing something different than usual ie: being clean, not endangering myself for fun, wearing cute clothes that aren't going to be ruined for sure. This was none of the above... I wore cycling shorts, you know, the kind with the padded butt. Anti-glamour! But it ended up being pretty fun. The first trail we rode down was way too hard for me, I didn't even imagine there were trails that wild, it was serious. I bet it's really fun if you're good at it or have no fear of serious injury. I ended up completely eating shit twice and one of the times I DID fall off the mountain. Db said he's never seen anyone do that before. I got stuck really quick and put my foot out the side that was downhill then just rolled away, it was ridiculous. After we got back (and changed into real clothes!) we nabbed a beer each and drank them in the woods. It was really fun.

Not drunk, just amped. Bikes, beer and woods are a really fun combo.

old pedals, new pedals

Ok, bike parts are exciting. Sometimes even as exciting as yarn and fabric. When I got these pink pedals from my old boss they were for my first geared non-kids bike which legit changed my life. It's been pictured here 1 2 3 times and has been the bike I ridden on every single bike related adventure I've ever had, seriously best work bonus ever. That bike has turned into my daily do everything commuter, and she's even earned a name, the Fang. Riding my purple fixed gear was fun and everything, but those bikes are like high heels; nice to look at, novel and good for going short distances inefficiently. Getting these pink pedals was sort of my official entry into the larger world of cycling. They were the last piece I needed to get rolling on my new, far more versatile bike. I now had a bike that I could ride for hours comfortably on long random adventures, that had fenders so I could ride it in shit weather which I did and do often, and had clearance for all sorts of tires so I can use it for road, cross and even put studded tires on for the winter which I have done. That bike has even replaced my car, it's completely amazing the things you can get done on a bike.

So while getting these pedals was the beginning of the end, cooking them feels like the end of the beginning, and I'm pretty excited about it. I ordered new slightly fancier versions of the same thing in, of course, a rad as hell color. I can't wait to wear them out, too. It means i'm doing something right. Plus they're orange, orange is so totally badass right?

mountain bike nationals

mountain bike season is over which is a bummer, but this past weekend db, uzo and i went to bear creek resort for the mountain bike national championships!

when db realized it was only about an hour and half from philly we were all in. honestly, it was awesome. it was so INSANELY hot that at first we thought we might have to leave because uzo would cook to death, but as soon as we got into the woods it was perfect. we climbed up the side of the mountain (which was fairly steep because it's a ski resort) along the trail for about 15 minutes and got to the lone wolf cycling heckle pit aka awesome screaming party in the woods where everyone was having an awesome time. it was right along a super technical part of the course so we'd cheer for people that were tearing up some crazy rocky trail while drinking beer and talking about various bike related topics. it was basically a party for sweaty, drunk bike geeks in the woods, so... it was great.

on the way home we finally got to go to vegan treats! seriously the best desserts i've had since moving here. i should've taken some pictures because they were pretty but we just ate it in the car in a downpour under a tree in a random neighborhood. we got donuts which were definitely the best donuts i have ever had. boston cream, triple chocolate, blueberry and mint chocolate. holy crap, so so good. i'm going to buy a donut pan and try making vegan donuts myself. heart shapes!

bikes, beer, the woods and vegan donuts. perfect combination.

memorial day

i love long weekends. always. they have such a good vibe about them. memorial day is like the unofficial summer kickoff, everyone grills and drinks beer and the party is all about being outside which i am so into. this year we were trying to figure out what to do since we live in a new place and everyone has plans but us. every memorial day since db and i moved in together we've had a bike adventure so we decided to make up our own scavenger hunt around the city via bikes this year.

on the list:

eat a vegan treat

go to a new park and lay in the grass (bonus if we get to climb a tree)

sneak a drink in public

go to a new record store

draw a hopscotch on a busy sidewalk and leave a stone next to it

take a selfie

ride on a dirt road

get wet

skip stones

we didn't succeed in hitting them all (we missed the last 3 but we'll do them sometime) but we did pretty well for a late afternoon jaunt into old city. what we did end up doing...

selfie! right before sneaking drinks. just because i'm not posting pics doesn't mean it didn't happen.

chilled in a new park! i brought a helicopter my mom gave me just in case we found a good enough park to shoot it around in. it was a wild success even though the stupid thing stopped working after 5 seconds, that almost made it funnier.

then db drew an expert hopscotch and we had a hopscothoff, made friends with strangers walking by and left a little encouraging note next to it when we left. this was one i was pretty bummed about because i forgot chalk and was convinced we wouldn't be able to do it and for whatever reason it was the best sounding one to me. well i'll be damned in the park we chose some kids just abandoned their chalk! it was meant to be. ...i'll spare you the blurry, strange pictures of us actually jumping around.

after hopscotchoff we went to a new record store a friend from work recommended called Repo Records. it was a good one, and i ended up nabbing Kid A on vinyl finally which is pretty amazing. we still haven't listened to it, but it's going to be awesome.

we also managed to get vegan treats in there! it wasn't in the same trip but we went to Little Baby's for ice cream/vegan ice cream with some friends and got probably the most epic ice cream toppings of my life, paprika pepitas. mind blown.

it was a fucking bomb weekend, i hope your memorial days were as much fun!

greebrier mountain bike adventure

last weekend we went to greenbrier state park in maryland for a mountain bike race db rode. the weather was absolutely perfect and the drive was pretty cool. this place was three hours from philly and on the way we drove by baltimore which was way way smaller than we were both expecting, got to see some intense hill/mini-mountain landscapes that were different from anything we'd ever seen before and and saw an entrance to the appalachian trail.

there were so many people racing and uzo and i got an epic spot on a hill to watch and chill in the sun while db was shredding. this was his first race in a higher cat and he was really happy with how he did. i saw him ride by all three laps and managed to time it well enough that a victory picture of him crossing the line (leaving his competition in the dust) was procured...
stomp that shit! anyways, i was really hoping he'd do something stupid like mark cavendish while crossing the line so i could have told everyone about it, but he's either too smart or too sad and lame to have thought about it... or maybe he was just thinking about the taco truck at the end of the tunnel. there's always next week right?

after he blasted by me and my ears recovered from the sonic boom, i wandered over and found him in all his muddy white jersey-ed glory complete with mud in his mouth which he didn't know about. pretty fucking hilarious. bikes are fun.

donut picnic!

i can't argue with this look of happiness caused by a donut in a park on one of the first warmish spring days a few weekends ago. we rode our bikes to federal donuts* in center city and got some overly delicate donut fuel for our ride to/around belmont plateau. it was awesome, db takes me to the best places. i love spring! i sometimes miss having a whole yard to lay around in but for now a little patch of grass in a square does the trick surprisingly well. this counts as "leaving the city" now haha, go figure. i've turned into a city person maybe? it's hard to not like walking and riding bikes everywhere while eating fancy donuts.

*so... there's music on that link which usually is a huge no-no for me BUT it's pretty funny, like i watched it twice funny.

flowers!

db has this tradition of buying me a plant or little something when i get a new job, isn't that so nice? i still have the first one he got me which was apparently 7 years ago, her name is Harriet. this time he wanted me to pick the plant myself... but i just looked around our living room at the 20 plants and was like, one more plant and this place will cease being a house and become a jungle. i like dancing the fine line right before my plant ownership gets ridiculous. anyways, i came home from my first week of work and these lovelies were sitting there waiting for me! living the life right? i get the perfect most ideal job ever AND surprise flowers? killin' it.

back in a bike shop people, it's just as much fun as art studio in college only i get paid. sweet.

cyclocross!

cross season is here! db and i went to our first race in pa this weekend. it was weird not seeing the usual crew but it seems like the cross crew is awesome and nice everywhere, pretty cool. if we're lucky this coming weekend we'll get to pop in on the race in providence! i LOVE columbus day weekend. it and memorial day are two of my fave holidays because you can do whatever the hell you want. oddly enough, we always do cycling/beer drinking related things on both of them. how can you argue with bikes and beer?

bridge to nowhere

epic ride through the lost world from last weekend, then we got caught in some hardcore rain. it was awesome. we finally found some tasty pizza here, too! maybe i'll talk db into going again this weekend...

labor day weekend

this weekend we decided to not go camping and to instead have smaller adventures each day. day one we decided to have our one beach day of the summer at the jersey shore...

it completely sucked, it was almost comically bad. no waves at all, the water was only transparent until it was 3 inches deep and even that was visibly dirty and it was a million degrees with no sea breeze. rhode island, apparently your beaches are way above average. we drove 3 hours to get to this place, which was without any sort of question the worst beach either db or i had ever been to. instead of pouting about it we sat and ate the soggiest more gross domino's pizza we'd ever had (which probably means it was also the worst pizza ever) and stared at the brown water we were too grossed out by to even consider swimming in and started planning how to save the day once we got back home. of course, the answer was beer. the answer is ALWAYS beer. we were seriously at Worst Beach Ever for less than 20 minutes... jersey shore, you are dead to me. the beer and a Guatemalan restaurant we tried saved the day for sure, we played checkers at the table and saw a huge cockroach outside while listening to Jay Z at made in america fest a few miles down the road. we even drunkenly took uzo to the dog park at like 10:30pm and drank more beers there. lots of beer = lots of fun.

our next mini-adventure was a 27 mile bike ride db planned through the city to wissahickon park and up forbidden drive towards a brew pub someone told him was good (see? always beer)

it was awesome. forbidden drive was gravel which was pretty epic and it was just legit huge jungle on either side for miles. i even rode up the longest hill of my life with minimal bitching. the bar we hunted down ended up being way hoity toity and we were sweaty and wearing cycling shoes, so basically everyone in there was jealous of how cool and stylish we were. when we were getting ready to leave we looked out the window and it was pouring. yay! it's getting dark, we had no lights and now it's raining! it was hilarious and we experienced something we hadn't felt since before we moved here, the feeling of being cold. short lived but novel. db even snapped a pic of me riding, i'm the black thing surrounded by other black things haha. it ended up being really really awesome, even with my almost immediate flat thanks to a huge piece of glass jamming it's way into my supposedly hardcore tire. as i was fixing it some guy walking by stopped and stared for a second and then made some comment about being surprised a girl knew how to fix a flat. yes sir, us females also have two hands and they can do more than cook you dinner. db pumped it though, i'm pretty sure he thinks i'll tear the valve stem off if i ever do it.

please db, make that face every time i take a picture of you.

a reasonable bag in an unreasonable world

as i've always thought "what's in my bag" posts were pretty amusing and pointless, i was inspired to do one to share with you guys after a particularly ridiculous adventure into center city. basically, walking around with my bag looking like this. it was an epic haul and about damn time we got to a yarn store and a bike shop. we've lived here for two weeks, which is about two weeks longer than that should have taken to happen.

so, crammed in my bag:
- patent leather pouch wallet thing. it used to have a really cool ball zipper pull which sadly broke off because i played with it way too much.
- dog poop bag (oh the glamour)
- keys, yes that's a squirrel bottle opener
- a business card from a particularly handsome engineer with his digits written on the back
- philly dog license tag (not sure why this was in there)
- spare sd card (this either, it's full)
- iphone
- my fabulous shades
- a skein of madelinetosh tosh sock in posy
- a pair of mks touring pedals for my mixte
- philly bike map!
- adorable small dog to assure everyone we encounter is friendly
- my trusty camera which i used to take this pic

far less glamorous than most what's in my bag posts but whatever, i'm not one of those girls who carries three different pretty mini perfumes in their bags anyways. it may look cute in a picture but where would i have crammed the bike pedals? plus i think caring about how you smell and caring about bike pedals might be mutually exclusive activities anyways, right?

best bike ever REVEALED!

Well here she is, only the coolest thing I own. This is the after picture and here is the before, did I not say this bike would end up being the pinnacle of awesome? I'm still planning on putting a rack on the front for carrying Uzo (and booze OBV) and sewing up some panniers for the rear, but since the major transformation is complete it seemed like time for the grand unveiling!

Here are my changes
- Switched the black rack to silver one
- Sweet ladies Brooks saddle
- I liked the original cockpit so instead of tearing the bar tape off to take it off and put new handlebars in I just got a new stem so switching it back to original if I ever want to is easy. The new stem is a vintage Nitto I nabbed at the AS220 bike swap this weekend for a wicked deal! It looks so good.
- Cruiser bars
- Elk hide bar wrap db got me as a gift to add the last bit of class. I feel bad but seriously, nothing beats leather and it's super nice. I thanked the elk and db.
- Clementines box! It's temporary but surprisingly cute. It was totally perfect for carrying the fruit we didn't eat and the frisbee we didn't play with haha. Luckily, it was just as effective at carrying the wallet that paid for our gigantic ice cream cone :)
- Net I made of leftover yarn from my oatmeal sweater today while I was waiting for db. It came out good right? I just made it up, it's way easier to make a silly little net than you'd think.
- Lastly, and likely most silly, are the cork bar ends! Db whittled them down so they'd fit. One is from a bottle of Veuve Clicquot and the other? Cook's Spumante, drink of the gods. Nothing like a little class/trash mix :)

So there it is, what I spend my valuable free time thinking about sometimes. Worth it! This spot was where db and I shared that enormous ice cream cone right off the bike path. It was awesome. Maybe more pics of our Memorial Day adventure tomorrow...

phillaaaay

so these are the six most entertaining pictures from our BIGGEST ADVENTURE EVER!!! eric and i, db and i and db and eric have all gone on monsterous adventures in pairs, but the three of us togerther have never made it further than my gparents' summer house in nh. this obviously had to change...

so the 3 of us ventured south to good ol' philadelphia and nj to chill with bart (who's origins will remain a mystery because he's akin to the likes of the chupacabra and other mystical creatures) and see the lay of the land. the discoveries were profound. basically nj is both by far the most horrifying place on earth in parts and in others was somewhere leave it to beaver could've been filmed. and philly? i'd hit that.

photo-journey!

day 1:
NOT getting pulled over for cramming four adults into bart's totally rad pickup


philly cheese steaks at jim's, mr t has eaten there so it must be pretty good. apparently chubby's will give us chubbies though and we should go there next time. the cheese hoagie at jim's was way better than any sandwich i've ever had in providence... i ate the entire enormous thing and db and eric were on vom watch riding behind me for a while. jerks.


at the schuylkill river being rebels, taking our bikes past the "no bikes" sign


day 2:
hike in the pouring rain to hunt for nature and Pinies. we only found Nature the toad and he didn't piss on our hands or maybe it was just raining so hard we couldn't tell.


smokey = WAY off


the ride home. i also had my gameboy pocket which somehow escaped being documented. pokemon all the way!

basically
philadelphia is cool, has lots of parks, bike lanes and friendly... fellow tourists.
nj is what made andy and larry wachowski write the matrix by giving them a pretty good idea of what the whole post apocalyptic earth will look like when we finish destroying it in a few years, but also pretty cool in other parts which was fairly shocking.

adventure success

thar she blows!

So this is the before pic of the new whip! Nabbed this lovely lass at Legend after a year of waiting for me safely in the back NFS corner. I helped to set it up and designed a rad (in my opinion) window display around this bike last summer. I have always wanted a mixte! I wanted this bike immediately upon seeing it because it's my size which is pretty uncommon, it's in perfect condition (seriously) and it has all the technical bs required in a frame to make my end game vision for it possible. All that time I thought it was going to be a shop bike because sometimes they keep the especially cool ones. Well on my mad perfect mixte hunt I hadn't found a damn thing half as good as it, so longer story short, I stopped into the shop at close one day, had a beer with the guys and rode it home. SO EXCITED! I can't wait to get rid of that black rack though, silver all the way.

With any luck the after picture will be even more epic, this thing is so rad.