Did you say "Moab?"

Arriving at the airport, very early. 10-6-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney

“ Sometimes I wonder if the world's so small

Can we ever get away from the sprawl.” - Arcade Fire

After cancelling plans for an early summer flyfishing and hiking trip to Boulder, Colorado, I thought I'd not have an opportunity to do any travelling this year.

I had been fortunate enough to rent a car and find some quiet spaces in Wisconsin, but getting an opportunity to see something new seemed untenable and very unlikely. With the 2020 Presidential election going in full gear, and work slowing down a bit, it seemed like there was a window of opportunity for some time off, and early October became a potential time frame.

NCAR; Boulder, Colorado, 10-6-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney

Blue Lake, Indian Peaks Wilderness, Colorado. 10-7-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney

I tied some new flies, borrowed some camping gear, found a local Colorado fly tier on Etsy, purchased some of his flies for insurance, readied myself for a third Covid-19 examination and crossed my fingers.

A couple of days later, there I was, settling into a one person tent in my cousin's backyard, reveling in the first of nine days of camping, fishing and cycling. Having rented a car from Denver I had enough time to stop at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and appreciate its amazing gemology exhibit before forging on into Boulder. 

After a day trip to the Brainard Lakes Recreation Area and a hike into the Indian Peaks Wilderness to see Blue Lake, we made the long drive through SouthWest Colorado to Moab, Utah.

Campsite, Boulder, Colorado, 10-8-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Leaving Summit County, Colorado; 10-8-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Sunrise, Willow Springs Road, Moab, Utah. 10-9-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Thanks Chuck! Moab, Utah. 10-9-2020. Photo by Peter McKinney.

Arches National Park, 10-10-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

If you have ever mountain biked there, you already know what I am going to say about riding over the massive rocks, through the deep sand, next to the steep vertical faces, admiring the expansive vistas, noticing the lizard tracks in the sand, learning to pay attention to the painted trail markers on the slick rock trails and the sand.

It's great. 

Arches National Park, 10-10-2020.

Arches National Park, 10-10-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

The Three of us, Arches National Park. 10-10-2020. Photo by Peter McKinney.

Petroglyphs at Arches National Park, 10-10-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Dead Horse State Park selfie, 10-11-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

I stopped on the return drive to stay at an Airbnb, (something else I have never tried), and spent three days and two nights in Carbondale, Colorado, fishing on the Roaring Fork and Frying Pan Rivers. I did not capture that massive late summer brown trout I was hoping, (hyping?) for but I did have an exceptional stay and revisited some favorite fishing spots. I felt fortunate catching a few fish and enjoyed a leisurely drive back to Boulder with some fishing on Crystal Creek.

If you ever visit the Roaring Fork Valley and Carbondale, I suggest visiting The White House Pizzeria. I tried the Pad Thai pizza and it was very good. 

Roaring Fork River Access, 10-12-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Roaring Fork Rainbow Trout, 10-12-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Frying Pan River, 10-13-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Frying Pan River Valley, 10-13-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

So where does that leave me - back in Boulder and ready for a 6,000 foot ascent on a borrowed bicycle, back to the Mitchell Lake Trailhead, through Ward, Colorado. A favorite ride for local cyclists through Left-Hand Canyon. I saw a number of cyclists the next day, either grinning enthusiastically on their descent or wordlessly nodding as they ascended.

Thanks Pete! Mitchell Lake Trailhead, 10-14-2020. Photo by anon.

The total ride distance was just over fifty miles, the elevation gain was more than 6,000 feet, the total time was about 3 hours and forty minutes, with a solid hour of descent. 

Huge appreciation post here to my cousin who took me out that night to meet some of his mountain biking friends, and his wife whose hospitality and culinary skills were graciously shared during my visit.

So that’s it I guess, I didn’t have insurance on my rental car, I fell over quite a few times while mountain biking and lost a few good fish.

I did hike into the Indian Peaks Wilderness, set a PR for ascent and descent, caught one nice 20” brown, fished 6 different bodies of water, visited Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park and got a breather from the daily grind.

Unfortunately multiple wildfires were present during my visit and engulfed the canyon I rode through mere days after I left.

It wasn’t an easy fix but if you can swing it, I’d highly recommend taking that time off.

Minneapolis, 10-15-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

July 30th update

"And you wanted to be my latex salesman."

What can I say, it's been a minute.

Five months? Six months? 

It's not like a bunch of stuff could have happened in that time, right?

Ha ... anyway I am alive and well, getting through the pandemic, the civil unrest, the usual accoutrements of not owning a car, riding a bicycle into disrepair, keeping my head on straight and finding employment.

I was furloughed, like a lot of Americans, and re-hired a week before George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis; eventually the National Guard arrived and this year of unprecedented surprises rolled on as if it was all scripted.

In April I rode a hair over 1,000 miles - I broke another derailleur hanger on a cold and snowy afternoon ride on Easter Sunday, and spent a week getting my 2012 Felt F75x back into ridable condition, only to mistakenly replace a Campagnolo chain without using the master pin ... for those who are not familiar, that led to some problems and I would not recommend it.

After the temperature warmed up a bit and it stopped snowing, there was some good fishing; during Minnesota's lock-down, I tied over a gross of flies, ranging from big wooly buggers and deceivers to itty bitty bead head flash back pheasant tail nymphs. So far they have all been productive, except the deceiver patterns, which I improved slightly with a secondary size 12 hook tied to the bend of the size 6 hook carrying the body of the fly.

The hottest days of summer have come and gone, and hopefully there won't be a lot more 90 degree days with 70 percent relative humidity. On my bicycle commutes I see more and more tents in the city parks and green spaces of Minneapolis, and I try to be grateful for the living situation I have, such as it is. 

While getting tested for the Corona Virus today, (I have no symptoms but after working for the past six weeks I thought it might be prudent), I listened to the memorial service of John Lewis. Between all of the people talking about his origins and influence on people, I was constantly struck by the courage he had to continue his march to Montgomery.

"You have a moral obligation, a mission and a mandate to do what you can to help make our own country, to help make the world, a better place."

RIP John Lewis

Cycling through Minnetonka, 4-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney

Martin Olav Sabo Bridge, Minneapolis, 4-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney

Uptown Minneapolis Mural, 5-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Washington Avenue Pedestrian bridge, Minneapolis, 7-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

On the Saint Croix, 7-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Minnesota River Bottoms, 4-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Michael McKinney and a very large Tiger Musky, Minnehaha Creek 5-2020. Photo by anon.

Quarantine lock-down fly tying bench, 4-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Sourdough loaves, 4-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Smallmouths on the Mississippi, 5-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

More winter cycling, Version 2o2o

Back in 2008, when I had a job as an overnight baker, a guy I worked with used to watch me biking home at 6:00 AM, sometimes through the snow, and he'd say, "I have to see this shit!!"

I think about that sometimes. More than ten years later, I get the same response from people.

I can't say I've ridden every day of the year, or what number of days ridden during the winter qualifies as having earned enough credit to call myself "a year-round cyclist", but I don't think it matters. When I sold my car it wasn't to save the environment or to influence people into advocacy. I wasn't trying to address the infrastructure of city planning or earn a merit badge in any glorified scout group.

I simply couldn't afford a car.

So now, when people try to encourage me by telling me how I'm somehow ethically better than the truck driver who cut me off, or the distracted woman who veered into the bike path, or the bystander who gapes in slack-jawed bemusement at my conundrum because I don't need a car, because I make ends meet without relying on fossil fuels, because I somehow cheated the system out of a stressful car ride into a daily workout that benefits my mental health and the environment, I remind myself I live in a city populated with more cyclists, more boutique cycling studios, more nationally recognized cycling wholesale distributors and more Tour De France champions than any other city in America.

It's not a responsibility as much as a privilege, and dealing with the expectations of that is as much a learning process as learning how to change a flat tire at 8:50 in the morning when you have a scheduled 9:00 AM breakfast meeting two miles away.

Anyway, this is my February 2020 winter cycling update.

Minneapolis Skyline from the North Cedar Trail, photo by Michael McKinney

Selfie on the Martin Sabo bridge, Minneapolis Greenway, Photo by Michael McKinney

Bde Maka Ska chairs, Photo by Michael McKinney

Winter sunset, Minneapolis, Photo by Michael McKinney

North Cedar Trail, Minneapolis, Photo by Michael McKinney

Lyndale Avenue bike bridge, Minneapolis, Photo by Michael McKinney

November update, I went to New York

"Teach a man to fish and he eventually breaks his fishing pole."

- Winston Churchill

Okay you don't need to google that, I'm pretty sure Winston Churchill never said it. I did however, break both of my fly rods this year. One broke mid-cast and the other broke during a messy release. Fortuitously both were under warranty and were able to be replaced, though I missed a couple months of fishing at the end of the summer.

During late June I participated in an informal fishing contest sponsored by a local fly fishing shop. Given ten days, participants caught as many different species within the area as possible. I was pretty far out of the winnings, but had fun and got a lot of fishing in.

The relative importance of participating was maintaining my schedule and routine during the competition, as if every day is an opportunity to wake up at 4 AM, drive to Wisconsin, fly fish for 12 hours, drive home, ride my bicycle to the YMCA, swim a half mile, catch the paper, do the puzzles, make dinner, have a beer, wash the dishes, do the next day's New York Times Crossword puzzle, fall asleep, wake up and go to work the next day without pretense.

I'm not "saying" that's how it went, because it wasn't, it was only one of ten days.

The whole thing smacked of effort, as they say.

So around about mid-summer, I bought a round trip ticket to New York. I've been happily employed as a retail associate for almost a year now, and a vacation seemed warranted. Luckily I was able to get the time away from work and I started planning my visit for late October.

I flew to Newark airport on a Monday, and walked, and walked and walked. I walked across the Brooklyn bridge, I walked through Soho, Chelsea, Chinatown and the World Trade Center Memorial. I found the Fearless Girl statue, facing down the New York Stock Exchange; I walked past the Flatiron building, wrapped in scaffolding 22 stories high. I took some pictures, had a couple slices of pizza and got home in time to meet my hosts before they started their Tuesday morning.

Tuesday I went to New Haven, Connecticut and saw the Peabody Museum. On Wednesday I went to the Meat Packing District, visited the Whitney Museum, purchased a three day Citi Bike membership, found the 14th Street YMCA, swam and had more pizza. 

Thursday I started early, riding a Citi Bike past the UN Building, through Central Park and stopping at the Guggenheim museum. I've never seen anything like Central Park, or the constant throngs of people in and around the city. The Manhattan Riverfront Greenway was safer than riding in the street, and every view of the Hudson and East rivers was worth the effort.

With half the day remaining I made it to the American Museum of Natural History and The Metropolitan Museum of Art before they closed - eventually riding my way back to the Chelsea YMCA to swim again before having a late night Chinatown dinner and beer with my host.

These two museums, the Natural History Museum and The Met - are grandiose in scale. I only had enough time to see one specific room of The Met, and happily viewed paintings of the Abstract Expressionist style before going to the roof and watching the sun set over Central Park. 

Friday morning I saw the sunrise and got on the New Jersey transit to Newark before 8 AM.

While I was there my streak of New York Times crossword puzzles went past five hundred days. As I sat in the courtyard of the Natural History Museum and finished the Thursday puzzle without googling the answers or querying a blog for hints, I thanked whoever I could for the opportunity to be there, accomplishing something I had struggled with for so long.

So there it is, a couple of big events in the past four or five months. I think I skipped a few things, but most of it is in there somewhere.

Thanks for reading.

Manhattan, NY, 10-23-2019. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Manhattan, New York, 10-23-2019. Photo by Michael McKinney

Minneapolis, MN, 9-22-2019, photo by Michael McKinney

Peabody Museum, New Haven, CT, 10-22-2019. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Manhattan, New York, 10-25-2019. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Manhattan ,New York. 10-24-2019. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Saint Croix River, MN. 8-1-2019, photo by Michael McKinney.

Manhattan, NY, 10-23-2019. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Manhattan ,NY, 10-22-2019. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Manhattan, NY, 10-24-2019. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Minneapolis, MN, 8-23-2019, photo by Michael McKinney.

Manhattan, NY, 10-21-2019. Photo by Michael McKinney.

The inevitable mechanical issue

Awhile back I got into some trouble ... isn't that how all of these posts start?

"Awhile back I got into some trouble and yada yada yada, here is what I learned, I hope it is useful, take it or leave it, not to preach, etcetera etcetera, passive aggressive voice, should have learned my lesson but here I am" and so on and so forth.

So let's start with the Big Wheel. I didn't have a lot of toys as a kid. Star Wars figures in my neighborhood, and in my peer group, were the status symbol. I had a few, but also random oddities ... a Thundercats figure, a Tron figure, some Gobots; I was more Catholic in my tastes, you could say.

So the story goes I had a circuit I would ride on my Big Wheel, out my parents driveway, down the block, up a neighbors sloped driveway, skid turn, ramp down, back towards the parents driveway, over a grassy knoll, onto the concrete driveway of home, skid turn and start over. It was a dead end so how many times I could do it was more essential than watching out for passing cars.

Eventually, I got ambitious and tried a larger hill leading to my parents house. After a few tries I incorporated a skid turn, (remember the e-brake on the right hand side of the old all plastic Big Wheels?) and there begins a series of long and complicated crashes.

Skateboards, bikes, rollerblades, roller skis, skis, snowboards, cars ... just about anything that rolls down a hill I have crashed, with the exception of an oversized tractor tire. Don't ever try that. I strongly do not recommend that. Also wear a helmet.

Anyway, so what?, you crash and you get up and that's it. But not so with a decent working bicycle.

Sometimes the bicycle needs repair and then what? I have posted various DIY efforts on this blog before, and I am not sure anyone is really paying attention; sometimes I get it working sometimes not. I made a huge mistake in 2010, and therein lays the trouble I got into.

On a forty or fifty mile ride in Northern Washington County, past Big Marine Lake and William O'Brien State Park, I got a flat tire.

After breaking two tire levers, ripping two replacement tubes, cursing in frustration for forty-five minutes on the side of the road and eventually succumbing to a spiral of failure, I rode home on a flat tire. About nine miles on the aluminum rim of a new-ish wheel set.

Don't ever do that.

8 Years ... 8 very long years, with a lot of cycling miles later, I wore out a different wheelset. It took a little more than 10,000 miles over 5 years, but I needed to go back to that damaged pair of wheels, and I did. They were never right. The rear axle had been damaged and it occasionally oscillated so badly (usually going over 20 mph) that the rear hub would vibrate like a 1980s pager. So yeah, that was aggravating and embarrassing.

Couple that with trying to find out why it was not working without acknowledging I had ruined them made it worse, so here is an apology to those I harangued. The good news, and there has been a lot of it lately, is that life continues. Time passes. Sometimes the only person who rememberers how or why you came to be upset 9 years ago is you, and maybe explaining it isn't going to help anyone. What helped me a lot more was acquiescing and allowing someone to throw out that wheelset before I could try salvaging them one more time.

I enjoyed another 30 Days of Biking this spring, getting through another characteristically unpredictable Minnesota Spring with maybe a little less drama and fewer contradictions than how I came to be riding a bicycle year round to start with. The fishing has been a bit off due to high water (the Mississippi has set a record for being at flood stage for the longest period of time in recorded history, breaking the 1927 flood that shows up at the end of 'Oh Brother Where Art Thou?').

To be certain the potential for crashing is greater while cycling in the Twin Cities than on a dead end street in the suburbs; bike trails and multi-modal commuting are real world alternatives to making a poor decision or applying a little too much ego sauce on your plans and failing gloriously, "...in a cavalcade of anger and fear."

Did you know that while pitching the only perfect game in World Series history, Don Larsen threw a strike outside of the strike zone, and the umpire called it a strike?

I guess there is a lesson there about ethics and standards of operation, perhaps deviation from accepted norms and even the normalization of deviance, somehow, but I don't follow baseball.

March 7th, 2019. Photo by Michael McKinney.

April 5th, 2019. Photo by Michael McKinney.

April 9th, 2019. Minnehaha Falls, MPLS. Photo by Michael McKinney.

April 10th, 2019, Nicollet Mall, MPLS. Photo by Michael McKinney

May 4th, 2019 at the Fulton Fondo.