2023 - Our Rides in Words, Photos, Maps and Videos
- Thread starter Saratoga Dave
- Start date
Chargeride
Well-Known Member
The snow is just trolling me now.
Prairie Dog
Well-Known Member
- Region
- Canada
- City
- Red Deer
Yes, but you don’t want that nasty yellow snow, don’t settle for anything less than pristine flakes fluttering down like magical confetti.
Meanwhile, I’m throwin’ in the towel.
Mulezen
Well-Known Member
Actually you’re shoveling s@#$ against the tideYes, but you don’t want that nasty yellow snow, don’t settle for anything less than pristine flakes fluttering down like magical confetti.
Meanwhile, I’m throwin’ in the towel.
View attachment 148618
Jeremy McCreary
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- Carlsbad, CA
OK, now that we've started down this path: President Nixon was pacing the Oval Office, trying to think of a way to get back at Teddy Kennedy, a bitter politcal enemy, when he suddenly noticed "Screw Dick" written in big yellow letters in the fresh snow outside the window.
"Get me the FBI Director NOW!" he bellowed. Once there, Nixon pointed him out the window and ordered, "Find the SOB who wrote that! I want the name at 1700."
At 1700, a sheepish Director reappeared. "Well, who was it?" Nixon demanded.
"Sir, we took urine samples from everyone in Washington. The urine in the snow was Teddy Kennedy's."
"I knew it! I've got that bastard now!" said an elated Nixon.
"But sir, I also have some, uh, bad news."
"C'mon, what could possibly be bad here?? Kennedy's finshed!"
"Well sir, it was, uh, oh boy, uh..."
"Spit it out, man!"
"Sir, it was your wife's handwriting."
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BlackHand
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- Western WA
Signs of spring are starting to show around here. For the most part, the snow is staying where it belongs: on the mountaintops at either horizon.
The Cascades from a random intersection during yesterday's 28 mile ride up to Martha Lake and Lake Stickney.
A little change in schedule means I can bike commute again this week. Cold start right at 32F, but a pretty morning. I've ridden by Echo Lake hundreds of times but don't think I've ever taken a picture. Usually someone is there enjoying the spot, so I keep going by on the path and leave them to enjoy it. Had it to myself this morning.
Riding home from downtown, stopped to look down at the Montlake cut that connects Portage Bay, in the foreground, to Lake Washington beyond the bridge.
A little further on I was able to pull over mid span just in time to catch the LWRC crew before they disappeared under the bridge. The buildings bathed in the evening sun are mostly the UW campus.
50km for the day. Got home just as it got completely dark.
The Cascades from a random intersection during yesterday's 28 mile ride up to Martha Lake and Lake Stickney.
A little change in schedule means I can bike commute again this week. Cold start right at 32F, but a pretty morning. I've ridden by Echo Lake hundreds of times but don't think I've ever taken a picture. Usually someone is there enjoying the spot, so I keep going by on the path and leave them to enjoy it. Had it to myself this morning.
Riding home from downtown, stopped to look down at the Montlake cut that connects Portage Bay, in the foreground, to Lake Washington beyond the bridge.
A little further on I was able to pull over mid span just in time to catch the LWRC crew before they disappeared under the bridge. The buildings bathed in the evening sun are mostly the UW campus.
50km for the day. Got home just as it got completely dark.
Chargeride
Well-Known Member
That shot down the road to the lake is awesome
Jeremy McCreary
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- Carlsbad, CA
A service visit with a 4-hour window kept me close to home yesterday. The guy said he'd call when he was 30 minutes out, so I popped down to the Carlsbad State Beach for some bluff-top laps through the 1.6 mile-long campround. After 30-40 minutes with no call, rode down the Coast Highway a bit to get closer to the surf at North Ponto Beach.
Next thing I knew, I was on my first successful forebeach ride — the "forebeach" being the flattish part near water level.
My 2.3" hybrid tires are fine in intermediate sand/gravel ratios (SGRs) like the one at bottom center — even higher if the loose sand's not too deep. But you don't often get long stretches of that on forebeaches around here.
This day, however, the tide was low, and now the forebeach had rideable-looking SGRs as far south as I could see, with the lingering dampness of the sand only working in my favor.
Since this SGR pattern could have been gone the next day, off I went down the beach below the campground. Stopped 0.3 miles out for photos, never once getting bogged down. Looked like I could go another mile or so, but of course, the service guy called as I was saddling up to do just that.
Turns out, he didn't call ahead — he was already at the house! Grrrrrr. At least the mad dash home was a good excuse to ride PAS 5/9 the whole way.
Nerd alert: Below are some things I've learned about the beaches from here south to at least Cardiff. Took all but 1 photo on this ride.
Mixed sand/gravel beaches like these tend to self-organize into "cusps" — parallel ridges of pure gravel pointing sharply offshore. Varying amounts of sand collect in the valleys in between. The cusps here are largely buried in sand at the moment, but the pattern's still discernible.
The cusps are often more fully exposed. The strikingly regular cusps in this January shot a mile or so south were 23±2 paces apart. The sand was largely offshore then, and the SGR close to zero in most places. Riding pure gravels like these with tires like mine is like riding on ball bearings. Don't see fatties on them, either.
The complex and highly dynamic processes leading to cusped beaches are only partially understood.
Gathered some representative beach gravel around my kickstand for your inspection. You often see people stopping to pick up beach pebbles for a closer look, and many are taken home as little treasures and garden ornaments. I never tire of their shapes, colors, and textures.
But these aren't just pretty rocks. The very hard reddish ones here and in the tire photo record an amazing journey. They started out in a molten region of Earth's mantle, maybe 100-120 km down, leaked upward through the overlying North American plate, stalled 5-10 km below the surface, simmered there into highly explosive rhyolite magmas, and eventually erupted as mostly volcanic ash in NW mainland Mexico. Many millions of years later, they eroded out of their parent volcanic highland, tumbled west down a large river system to the Pacific (long before Baja had rifted away), were buried there under and with kilometers of coastal sand and mud, then hopped a ride north on the passing Pacific plate. Along their way to western SoCal, they were exhumed by uplift and stream and wave erosion to collect on our beaches as the rounded red pebbles before you. And all in a mere 155 million years (the last 3% of Earth history).
In short, these old rocks have been around the block! And now they're around my kickstand. How cool is that?
The other pebbles shown are also igneous but likely younger and from inland mountains closer to this latitude.
The nearly horizontal sandstone beds in the lower cliff face behind my bike accumulated in and around a shallow sea some 40-50 million years ago — about when the rhyolite pebbles above first reached the Pacific.
The fine diagonal striations in the lowest horizontal sandstone bed near bottom center are called "cross beds". They form in several different kinds of sand deposits, including beach and bar sands. Maybe not the case here, but it'd be nerdy fun to have active and fossil beaches juxtaposed across a 40-50 million year gap in time.
Next thing I knew, I was on my first successful forebeach ride — the "forebeach" being the flattish part near water level.
My 2.3" hybrid tires are fine in intermediate sand/gravel ratios (SGRs) like the one at bottom center — even higher if the loose sand's not too deep. But you don't often get long stretches of that on forebeaches around here.
Since this SGR pattern could have been gone the next day, off I went down the beach below the campground. Stopped 0.3 miles out for photos, never once getting bogged down. Looked like I could go another mile or so, but of course, the service guy called as I was saddling up to do just that.
Turns out, he didn't call ahead — he was already at the house! Grrrrrr. At least the mad dash home was a good excuse to ride PAS 5/9 the whole way.
Nerd alert: Below are some things I've learned about the beaches from here south to at least Cardiff. Took all but 1 photo on this ride.
Mixed sand/gravel beaches like these tend to self-organize into "cusps" — parallel ridges of pure gravel pointing sharply offshore. Varying amounts of sand collect in the valleys in between. The cusps here are largely buried in sand at the moment, but the pattern's still discernible.
The cusps are often more fully exposed. The strikingly regular cusps in this January shot a mile or so south were 23±2 paces apart. The sand was largely offshore then, and the SGR close to zero in most places. Riding pure gravels like these with tires like mine is like riding on ball bearings. Don't see fatties on them, either.
The complex and highly dynamic processes leading to cusped beaches are only partially understood.
Gathered some representative beach gravel around my kickstand for your inspection. You often see people stopping to pick up beach pebbles for a closer look, and many are taken home as little treasures and garden ornaments. I never tire of their shapes, colors, and textures.
But these aren't just pretty rocks. The very hard reddish ones here and in the tire photo record an amazing journey. They started out in a molten region of Earth's mantle, maybe 100-120 km down, leaked upward through the overlying North American plate, stalled 5-10 km below the surface, simmered there into highly explosive rhyolite magmas, and eventually erupted as mostly volcanic ash in NW mainland Mexico. Many millions of years later, they eroded out of their parent volcanic highland, tumbled west down a large river system to the Pacific (long before Baja had rifted away), were buried there under and with kilometers of coastal sand and mud, then hopped a ride north on the passing Pacific plate. Along their way to western SoCal, they were exhumed by uplift and stream and wave erosion to collect on our beaches as the rounded red pebbles before you. And all in a mere 155 million years (the last 3% of Earth history).
In short, these old rocks have been around the block! And now they're around my kickstand. How cool is that?
The other pebbles shown are also igneous but likely younger and from inland mountains closer to this latitude.
The nearly horizontal sandstone beds in the lower cliff face behind my bike accumulated in and around a shallow sea some 40-50 million years ago — about when the rhyolite pebbles above first reached the Pacific.
The fine diagonal striations in the lowest horizontal sandstone bed near bottom center are called "cross beds". They form in several different kinds of sand deposits, including beach and bar sands. Maybe not the case here, but it'd be nerdy fun to have active and fossil beaches juxtaposed across a 40-50 million year gap in time.
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Chargeride
Well-Known Member
Brought to you from our roving archeologist 
Tom@WashDC
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- Loudoun County, VA.
I used to imitate that laugh as a kid!You won the internets today!
Viking1
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- USA RV Living Full Time. Home is where we park it.
Just don’t EAT the yellow snow and ice!
Viking1
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- USA RV Living Full Time. Home is where we park it.
NICE!! MOPAR or NO car!!
Chargeride
Well-Known Member
I still have that laugh IRL
Chargeride
Well-Known Member
Its trying to snow...oh its given up.
Stefan Mikes
Gravel e-biker
- Region
- Europe
- City
- Mazovia, PL
"I'm gonna tell you 'bout a car that you won't like
You had best stay home, sir, better take your bike!"
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Mulezen
Well-Known Member
That’s ‘geologist’ to you. Charles Lyell, eminent Briton, would be disappointed in you
Jeremy McCreary
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- Carlsbad, CA
One beauty of geology is that you have built-in entertainment wherever you go. Another is that it makes you feel small in the good way that standing next to the ocean does.
Many of the true pioneers were from the British Isles, including Lyell, James Hutton, and William Smith, who made the first rigorous geologic map.
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Chargeride
Well-Known Member
How embarrassing, I was trying to make it funny and totally missed on both counts
Chargeride
Well-Known Member
Yes, but America sent one to the Moon.
Jeremy McCreary
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- Carlsbad, CA
Yes, and many later giants have come from the US— in no small part due to an abundance of telltale rock exposures of all kinds. No accident that earliest giants came from British Isles — many classic textbook exposures there, too.
Learned a great deal about Earth and the rest of the solar system by sending geologists to the Moon. The last 2 Mars rovers, Curiosity and Perseverance, are robotic field geologists AND laboratories on wheels. The US deserves lots of credit for that, too.
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