[Giant]

On our last trip to Taiwan in December, I picked up my folding bike, a Giant Halfway 7S at a bike shop near our office [map]. The irony is that when I went to get the bike, it was raining, so I couldn’t ride it back and ended up having to lug it all over downtown Taipei. At least the shop owner was nice enough to throw in the carrying bag.

My first time riding a folding bike was when I tried out Elijah’s a few months ago and I was totally hooked. It removes the inconvenience of having to use a bike rack, so that you can ride wherever and whenever you want, making bike rides much more spontaneous.

Folding bikes tend to be more popular outside the US, particularly  in Europe and Asia. Additionally, almost all bikes are made either in China or in Taiwan. I figured I could look for some good deals while I was there. Just walking around town, I saw a lot more people on bikes, with folding bikes making up the majority.

Most of what people were riding were Dahon and Giant branded folding bikes. After checking the prices at local bike shops, it was pretty clear that the best deal was with Giant (a Taiwanese company) rather than Dahon (a US company that manufactures its bikes in Taiwan). The Dahon bike prices were comparable to prices that I could get in the US, whereas the Giant folding bike prices in Taiwan were 30-40% cheaper than in the US.

I did get to ride my folding bike once while in Taiwan. Rebecca’s nephews took me on the trail that went around the bay in Danshui. And it was easily the most fun I had while I was there. I have to say that riding a bike in a new locale (as opposed to by car or on foot) really expands on the enjoyment and experience of travel for me.

As for the folding bike itself, it has been great. At first, I was looking into which parts to upgrade from the OEM components. But after making some minor fit adjustments and riding it some more, I am happy with it as is. The one thing I might change is the seat which is a bit too cushy, but for now, it works just fine.

This past weekend, we went up to attend the Newsong Men’s Retreat. As we did last year, we planned to do some mountain biking. However, this time, Elijah got involved in the retreat planning and was appointed to lead a mountain biking activity during the free time. We found a trail that was just a few miles away from the retreat site at Thousand Pines near Lake Gregory and ended up doing two rides.

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On Friday afternoon, we drove up the mountain and went for a pre-ride before going to the retreat site to check-in. Turns out it was a good thing, because we realized first hand how challenging the initial uphill was with a 1500 feet climb in the first 3 miles. We didn’t have time to do the whole loop, so just made it to the first turnoff at the top of the climb.

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On Saturday afternoon, we had the official mountain biking activity, and we were pleasantly surprised to have a group of 11 guys ready to ride with gear and bikes. We were thinking that it would just be a couple of us like last year, but I guess there are plenty of guys who wanted to ride, they just needed some planning and organization. We got a bit lost driving to the trailhead, but eventually got there. We were a little worried about not having an adventure pass, particularly when we saw a ranger walking around talking with people in the parking lot. But he was really friendly and didn’t even bring it up. We’ll have to remember next time.

Once the ride got started, we began the initial climb and the pack started to spread out, eventually breaking off into 3 groups. With one group making the full loop, the second reaching the turnoff at the top of the initial climb, and the final group turning back down. Almost all of the trail was Recreational Vehicle / Fire Road, with wide lanes regularly covered in loose gravel and sand. This made it challenging, particularly when climbing to find the right lines. At the top of the ridge, there were some branch-offs that looked pretty technical, but would have to be saved for another day. The down-side return was a fast swooping fire road where we could get plenty of speed.

We were a little tight on time, but made it back to the retreat site just in time to get the last of dinner. And had a nice wrap-up sitting with a bunch of the riders on the outside deck. All in all, everybody had a good time, and now we have a good loop that we can do in the Lake Gregory / Arrowhead area.

While on our family vacation in Santa Barbara, I was able to squeeze in some bike commuting around town. And LOVED it. Riding around my own home turf is great and allows me to enjoy the commute to and from work. Similarly, riding while on vacation gave me a chance to experience the town in a more intimate and immediate way.

I uploaded the GPS track so that you can see where I rode on the google map above. Even though I only rode 3 miles or so, it was still a lot of fun to be able to move through the city on two wheels.

Here is the list of my stops and errands: Radio Shack (A/V coupler), Cost Plus (wine glasses), Ralphs (kids allergy meds), Lilly’s Tacos (duh). I was really happy with how well my new pannier worked taking it on and off the bike and carrying everything including my helmet and lock along with all the other items I picked up, without breaking the wine glasses .

Now that summer is here and Juliette is out of school, I can take up bike commuting to work again. This year, I toyed with the idea of getting a bike dedicated to commuting, possibly picking up a used bike to fix up. But turns out, Elijah had converted my very first mountain bike, which I had purchased from Performance over 20 years ago! He made it into a nice commuting bike with racks and slick tires. Everything has been replaced except for the frame, which he had painted a dark green. So I have come full circle returning to my first bike, now re-tasked as a commuter.

Of course, I couldn’t not get some new gear. So this time, I decided to try out using a pannier, and ended up splitting a pair of Ortlieb Packer Plus Panniers from REIs with Elijah. The irony is that when the panniers were delivered to the Santa Ana REI, we didn’t have a car to go pick them up. Anyways, Elijah ended up borrowing our dad’s car to go get them. Elijah configured them on my bike and got them dialed in just right. Thanks bro.

It takes a little bit to get used to riding with the pannier, especially just one-side, since the weight is unbalanced and makes the bike wobble. My first ride with them, I was following Elijah too close when a car turned right into a driveway in front of us, I hit the brakes too late and ended up jumping off my bike so that I wouldn’t crash into Elijah. So I technically didn’t crash .

It’s only been my first week back to bike commuting but so far it’s been great. I definitely enjoy the riding time, rather than sitting in traffic on the freeway and saving a bit of money on crazy gas prices is a good thing too. Hopefully, I’ll be able to make this a regular part of my week over the course of the summer.

This past weekend, I attended the Newsong Men’s Retreat at Forest Home. The retreat was pretty good with speakers from the Newsong leadership team. The retreat site is well equipped and the food was slightly better than most camp food. It was a good time to connect with the men at church since most of the time we are too busy to meet each other in the regular church setting.

One of the things that we were also looking forward to was using our free time to ride the Santa Ana River Trail, which is supposedly one of the epic singletrack rides in Southern California.

We got up early Saturday morning for our first ride to do the loop from behind the post office. We were able to find the trail fairly quickly, but unfortunately, it was not as ‘epic’ as we expected. The trail condition was really loose and there were several trees that had fallen across the path, so we had to keep stopping to climb over the obstacles or walk through unridable patches.

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In the afternoon, we took a friend along for his first mountain-bike ride. Aside from falling off the trail at one point, he did great. This time, we rode further up SART from where we turned off in the morning. It had some short interesting sections, but for the most part, it was pretty much more of the same as the morning ride. One thing we didn’t account for was how quickly it would get dark, so at the end of the ride, I pushed up the fire road to get the van and drove back to pick up the guys who were trailing behind.

There’s still another section that I would like to try the next time I am up in the area. In the end, it was good to get out to ride, but SART doesn’t really standout as a destination ride.

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With the fires finally getting contained, we can start to breathe the air again and assess the effects of the fire. After talking it over with Chik and Elijah during our Aliso Creek ride this past Saturday, I decided to try and do an overlay of our STT ride just before the fires with the areas that were burned.

It looks like most of the trail was burned all along the ridge. But if you look closely, it seems that Flagpole, a famous trail landmark, may actually be outside the burned area. But we’ll have to wait to see if that is really the case. You can try and find it on the right-most part of the loop. This is normally the spot that we meet up after the long climb up the ridge.

While we were riding Aliso Creek this past weekend, we could still see smoke rising from the remaining fires in Silverado Canyon and also on the backside of Saddleback Mountain. Fortunately, the temperatures have cooled down and there was even a little bit of rain in the afternoon, so it looks like this fire season is coming to an end.

Like everybody else in the area, I have been following the fires in Southern California and more specifically in Orange County. The OC Register has started putting together near-live coverage. They are providing updated fire maps via google.

On an intellectual level, I knew that the property loss has already been great, but it wasn’t until this afternoon that I realized it on a personal level. One of our favorite mountain biking trails called Santiago Truck Trail was just east of the Santiago fire, but as of this morning the fire had jumped Santiago Canyon Road and by this afternoon had burned across the ridge to Flagpole and down the Luge. I can’t believe it, we had just ridden this trail on Sunday right before the fires started later that afternoon.

Actually, trails getting burned happens somewhat frequently because after all, we are living in a desert. And, beyond the debate of whether we should be building homes near fire-prone areas, the reality is that we are living, working and riding in the midst of nature, which we must respect and appreciate in its entirety, both the wonders and the disasters.

Please continue to pray for the health and safety of the firemen fighting the fires and those families that have been affected.

I’ve been avoiding riding at Aliso Woods because I can’t stand the long flat asphalt part just to get to the dirt. A couple of weeks ago, Elijah showed me a way to get into the park from the back that drops straight onto the trails. We did a quick loop that day, but figured next time we would have the time and energy to do a longer ride.

Last Sunday, a bunch of us decided to do it. We mapped our ride: up Cholla to Top of the World, then down Meadows, and across Dripping Caves and back up Mathis, then back down Rock-It and out. Turned out to be one of our best rides with a great group of riders.

Before going up for our second climb, Chik gave me a Gu pack, which helped me not to be overly fatigued for the remainder of the ride. Gotta remember that for long rides in the future.

If you download Google Earth, you can save the KML file (right-click to save and open in Google Earth) and watch the ride as it plays out.

This morning, I got to ride to work for my very first time. Elijah was kind enough to meet me at my house and make sure I was properly geared and prepped. The ride itself was pretty easy and very enjoyable, considering most of it was on a bike path away from the traffic. We were even able to chat along most of the ride.

On the way back, there were a lot more people on the trail, walking and riding, which served to be a minor obstacle, but we just had to be careful to weave our way through all of them without causing any major disruptions or accidents.

One thing I noticed was that when I am riding, I feel more connected to the people and communities that I am passing through, in comparison to driving along the freeways, zipping from destination to destination with my windows rolled up and radio playing.

Considering how well this first ride went, I would like to try riding once or twice a week, at least during the summer while we have the extra daylight and also while Juliette is not in school. As for my equipment, I was very happy with how my bike and gear worked, maybe some minor tweaks and upgrades to get everything to a happy medium. But more importantly, just get out there and ride!

In case anyone’s interested, you can click on the picture at the top of the post and it will take you to Google Maps which shows the GPS track route that we rode on our commute. Also, if you’re really curious, you can right-click and download the KML file to open in Google Earth and literally replay our ride. Of course, it won’t be nearly as fun as actually doing it .

Earlier this year, I got a GPS unit for my bike. The reason (or excuse, depending on who you ask) I wanted to get one was because my bike computer of several years had not been working for the past couple of months. And there’s no way that I could live without a constant stream of data inputting into my brain, even when I am riding. And with a GPS, I’d be getting even more information!

I decided on getting the Garmin Edge 205 because it was designed and worked well on a bike. I was using it more to track my own movements rather than as a normal mapping device. And I didn’t need the higher end model which had an integrated heart-rate monitor and displayed altitude (both pieces of information that would distract and discourage me rather than provide me useful info to ride on).

So after a few months of usage, I had a good sample of data to start evaluating and displaying my rides (or “tracks” in GPS lingo). Initially, I had tried the Garmin software that came with the unit, but that was not a happy experience. I then looked for some third-party solutions, and found an open source application, GPSBabel, that enabled me to transfer and convert the proprietary GPS data to an open format GPX. I would then be able to view the GPS data in Google Earth.

Unfortunately, the conversion application didn’t work as well as I would like. The good thing was when I looked again at Google Earth, I found that the Plus version allowed for importing GPS data directly. I had to pay a little for the Plus functionality, but I figure it was worth it because it worked seamlessly and properly.

The next step was to figure out how to save and display the tracks that were generated from the GPS data. Fortunately, Google Maps could now display GPS data from Google Earth (as KML files). Here’s a screenshot of one track:

From there, I used one of my dormant del.icio.us accounts to create a feed linking to each of my mountain biking tracks. This way, I could post new tracks after each ride and even put down some ride notes.

You can see it all on the right side panel under MTB-Tracks or directly at del.icio.us/emmfan/mtb-tracks.

P.S. Wouldn’t you know it, the day I post this, I forget to bring my GPS on my ride.