Alex Wetmore is always busy with something…

For the next week I’ll be taking a class with Brian Schulz at Portland’s Shop People space building a skin on frame kayak.

I’ve just finished the first day, and went from having this:

gunnels

to this:

top is done, ribs are cut

The joints are all simple locked mortise and tenon joints with two locking pins:

mortise and tenon

So far the class has been a lot of fun.  I probably won’t “live blog” every day, but maybe I’ll do a mid-point update when the frame is complete, and a final one when I’m paddling the boat in the water.

Finally, the space where I’m taking the class is really cool.  Shop People is sort of like San Fran’s “Techshop”, but on a much more DIY level.  Anyone can join for $150/mo (plus space rental if you need your own space) and you get access to a big wood shop and a small metal shop.  There are all sorts of projects going on here, from custom guitars to weird gravity machines to beautiful art.

This is the first stem that I’ve built.  I did this one jigless, just counting on accurate miters to hold everything in place.  That worked pretty well, except that my front clamp was about 1mm off center (fixed that with a file, but that made it slightly narrower than I wanted.

Some details:

• 1″ x 0.058″ extension (9cm long), 1.125″ x 0.058″ spacer, 1.125 x 0.051″ clamp.  I’d prefer to have more material on the clamp in the future, and may buy some thick wall 1.25″ stock to turn down.
• roughly 95 degree angle (not measured precisely because it doesn’t really matter)
• roughly 9cm long (same reason)
• integrated cable hanger and spacers
• non-stainless bolts for strength
• the cable hanger fully pierces the top and bottom of the stem

double miter for the clamp and front

Checking the miters. Not done yet, there is too much of a gap under the handlebar clamp.

Brazed up. No burnt flux here!

I haven’t fillet brazed in quite a while, and was very happy with how these joints came out.   They didn’t require too much cleanup.

I built this up just in time for a late snow in Seattle:

My new mountain bike: Kona Explosif, Rockshox Reba SL fork, Rohloff, BB7 Disks (click for more images and closeups)

I found many of the parts (frame, fork, front wheel, disk brakes) at the Seattle Bike Swap for very good prices (under $300 total).  The frame called out to me immediately since it has sliding dropouts that work well with my Rohloff hub and nice steel tubing (TT Platinum OX).  The fork was never used and cost about 1/4 of it’s original price (thanks to Andre for finding that one).  The front wheel is the stupidest front wheel that I own: Shimano XT with aluminum nipples and straight spokes, but it was cheap, also new, and had the disk mount that I needed to work with this fork.

I’ve enjoyed more mountain biking in the last year and expect to get a lot of use out of this bike.  It’s a size larger than my previous Rocky Mountain.  I think I’ll prefer that, the top tube is much longer (over an inch longer) so I’m running a short stem and won’t be hanging way out over the front wheel.

This buildup was really quick and I took a lot of short cuts that involved zip ties, but I doubt that I’ll really change it anytime soon (except for removing the studded tires and going back to normal knobbies).

Also, if your only rear disk wheel is 700C and you really need to build up a MTB quick, you can run it:

700C rear, 26" front

It looks stupid, but worked fine and got me to work and back on a day when snow and ice were in the forecast.  I swapped the rim out for the 26″ one after a day.

The most important bit of progress is that the bike is rideable, and I’ve been commuting on it for a week.  It isn’t done, it needs a front rack, stem, and tail light (all will be custom), but rideable is a huge step.

It is a nice compliment to Gifford, pretty much the only bike that I’ve been riding for a year.  Gifford is utilitarian, the station wagon of a bicycle fleet.  The Ivy-T is much sportier, currently weighing in around 23# with fenders, battery powered lights, and a frame fit pump.  If I can keep it near 23# with generator lighting and the front rack I’ll be very happy.

Ivy-T in rideable, but not yet finished, form

The Diacompe GC450 centerpull brakes work very well. They almost never squeal, do a fine job of stopping, and are light and nice looking. I'm surprised, but the 27 year old brake pads (never used) even work well.

Brandon Ives did a nice job brazing the lugs (with silver). My fork crown, done in brass, is a little messier.

Here are some photos showing some of the fork building steps.  I don’t have a photograph of the fork raking because I raked these fork blades months ago at Alistair Spence’s shop.  I don’t have a fork bending form yet.

First the crown was brazed to the steerer. This is done first so that I can turn the crown race down on my lathe (easier without the fork legs attached).

I remove the flux and clean up the crown by hand. The aluminum rod sticking out is a part of the fender mount, and works with an eye bolt to keep the fender in place. It will be cut trim at installation time.

Dropouts are brazed in and cleaned up. I made these dropouts myself on the CNC mill.

I use this fixture to check the frame angles and set the fork blade length. The fork blades are uncut and the front axle height is setup until the angles are correct. The difference between the front and rear axle height (142mm front, 150mm rear) tells me how much fork blade to remove (8mm in this case).

The fork blades are not yet brazed during this operation. A dummy headset (made by Alistair Spence) is in place.

seat tube angle

head tube angle

The fork and trimmed down blades are set into the fork fixture for brazing. This is my second generation fork fixture, I'm going to sell these as a kit later this winter.

The blades are brazed into the fork crown.

The flux is soaked off in hot water and everything is cleaned up. The top hole on the inside of the fork crown is open as a vent hole and will be used to run the wire for the front light.

The fork alignment is checked on my alignment table. I had to tweak one fork blade slightly. Rake was left at 63mm.

Finally, here is a photo of the fender mount in use.  I learned about this setup from Jan Heine.  The fork crown is drilled in the back, and there is a blind hole in the front.   A piece of aluminum rod (fender stay) is put into place.  The tension of the fender’s eyebolt holds it in place.  It looks very clean, it is light, and it was easier than making a threaded fitting in the bottom of the fork crown.

I’ve been traveling a lot this fall and winter, but I now have a couple of months at home.  I’m back to work on the Ivy-T, building the fork.  A full photo essay of the fork build is coming, but here is a teaser shot of the fork’s dropout in an almost finished state.

Homemade dropout, using Keith Anderson TOTO insert

Christine and I just returned from a 10 day trip to Norway.  December obviously isn’t the normal time to go to Norway as a tourist, but I had a week’s worth of meetings for my job scheduled in Oslo.  We took advantage of the fact that I’d already be over there and stayed for an extra 4 days to do a little exploration.

We spent most of our time in Oslo.  I had meetings during most of the daylight hours, but Christine took advantage of any sunlight (only about 5 hours a day) and explored the city.  We were both impressed by the quantity and quality of museums.  Our favorite museums were the Munch Museum, which celebrates the work of Norwegian artist Edward Munch and the city hall which is covered with interesting artwork on the interior.  Christine also really liked the Folk Heritage Museum (I didn’t go) which had a lot of classic Norwegian buildings, including a really elegant wooden stave church.

Oslo is a great city to walk around.  Everything was very accessible via public transit or foot and the city core is compact and vibrant.  The shopping areas generally had pedestrian only streets which were full of people day and night.  Sadly the exchange rate isn’t very favorable, so we didn’t buy much of anything there (most items were 2-3x the US price).  We were there in the middle of winter, but I saw a number of bike commuters (all using studded tires of course) and there were bikes locked up everywhere.

Oslo Palace

View of the Train Station from our Hotel Room

Oslo Sculpture Garden

Oslo Sculpture Garden

Oslo City Hall

Details from the Stave Church at the Heritage Museum (photo by Christine)

Fram Museum, Oslo (photo by Christine)

On Sunday we headed west on the Oslo to Bergen train.  Our destination was Flåm , a tiny little town on the fjords and the middle of a tourist route called “Norway in Nutshell”.  To get there you take a 4 1/2 hour train ride to Myrdal (a town that is mostly a train interchange) and then take a train called the Flåmsbana that goes through kilometers of hand-dug tunnels and down the face of a mountain to get into the Flåm valley.  It drops about 1000 meters along the way and has beautiful views the whole way down.  It is pretty incredible that they were able to build it at all, and more amazing that they built it mostly by hand in the 1920s.

Flåm is a pretty busy tourist town in the summer, but at this time of year only one hotel was open and everything shut down by 6pm (restaurants included, so we ate a late lunch).  The hotel made up for it by being attached to a microbrewery that made west coast US-style beer (a nice change from the pilsners found elsewhere) and having plenty of that on hand.  They also gave us one of the best rooms, with nice views out onto the fjord.

On our second day in Flåm we took a bus over to Gudvangen, and then took the ferry from Gudvangen back to Flåm.  The two towns are linked by very dramatic fjords.  It was -15C outside, but we still spent a good portion of the trip on the deck of the ferry just enjoying the views (followed by brief intermissions back into the cabin to warm up).  The pacific northwest is blessed with great scenery, but nothing that compares to what we saw from the ferry.

I noticed little roads cut into the mountains along these fjords from the ferry and really started to get excited about doing some cycling here one day in the future.  I need to look into the logistics, but I think I could take my bike from Oslo to Myrdal on the train, then do a few day route through the fjords, probably linking them up by ferries.  Hopefully my next trip there will be in the summer or early fall.

View from the Flamsbana Railroad

The Gudvangen to Flam ferry

View from the ferry

A frozen waterfall

Undredal, Norway

The two of us trying to stay warm in -15C weather on the ferry

Sunset (at 3:45pm) from our hotel room

Flamsbana Railroad

Sunrise (at 10:15) from the train back to Oslo

Wooden railroad bike, used when building the Flamsbana

more photos

Tried and liked is an Internet-BOB list tradition for the last few years where community members post about products that they’ve tried and liked over the last year.

I haven’t bought many actual bike products this year, so my entry is going to be heavily clothing related.

Riding Gifford, Wearing Mountain Hardware Knickers, on a Rough Stuff ride. This photo covers a lot of what was great this year.

Sorry that this entry is text dense and photo light.  I’m writing it at 5am in Oslo, Norway, and haven’t had a chance to go find photos.  I’ll write more about Oslo soon.

Riding a bike that I made

A year ago at this time I had just finished building Gifford, the first bike that I made from scratch.

A year later I’ve ridden almost nothing else.  For the last 6 months I haven’t even owned another road bike (I do have a mountain bike, folding bike, and tandem…and a road bike on the way).  I look forward to having a lighter and zippier bike back in the stable, but I know that if I were to drop down to one bike which one it would be.

I’ve had this bike for a year and thousands of miles and I don’t think I’d make any changes.  I can’t say that for any other bike that I’ve ever owned.  It also feels great knowing that I made it, and knowing every little detail of how that was done.

REI/Novara Verita Cycling Jacket

I haven’t had a real bike rain jacket in years.  You might ask how that is possible in Seattle?  I’d use my favorite Ibex Breakaway when it was misty (most of the time) and the paper-like O2RainWear jacket when it was really dumping.  The O2 jacket won on low price ($40ish) and it’s light weight and easy packing.  It breathed as well as anything else that I had tried.  I just got sick of patching up the jacket, or disposing of them every couple of years.

I was at REI looking at expensive jackets from Gore and Shower’s Pass when I found this one from REI.  It is cut a lot like that papery O2 jacket: tight enough so that it doesn’t flap around, loose enough to wear a heavier Merino sweater under it, long enough in the tail.  It is made of a much more durable fabric and breathes even better.  It adds a rear pocket and lots of reflective piping that really works well in the dark.  The orange color is an attention getter too.

This jacket (and the O2 one) have no ventilation at all.  No pit zips, no back zippers, nothing.  10 years ago I was convinced that ventilation was the key, but the newer fabrics seem to do pretty well without it.  I like how much lighter the jackets are without all of that stuff too.

Alite Monarch Camping Chair

I actually bought this in 2009, hopefully I didn’t put it on last year’s tried and liked.  I think I only used it once last year, but I spent many evenings sitting in my Alite chair this year.

This is a very comfortable chair that weighs under a pound and packs down pretty small.  I had it on most of my kayak, car, and bike camping trips this year.  It is much more comfortable for me than the normal L shaped foam chair and packs smaller.

This chair isn’t for everyone.  It only has 2 legs, you need to be comfortable leaning back and using your legs as the front two legs for balance.  I sit that way on 4 legged chairs, so it works well for me.  It is also made pretty borderline light, so I think the 200lb weight limit is a serious one.  I see many of them in the returned area at REI (which can be good if you want a discounted one).

MyFitnessPal

Early this fall I weighed myself and for the first time in my life my weight rounded to 200lbs.  That kind of freaked me out and I decided to get serious about losing weight.

MyFitnessPal is one of many great applications that make it very simple to count calories using your smart phone (they have versions for Android and iPhone).  At first I just ate as I always did during a normal week, but took good notes using MyFitnessPal to keep track of how much I was eating.  Then I spent 3 weeks being very serious about logging every calorie (even if I just had a brownie sample at the grocery store).  That was a very useful exercise and gave me a great mental model of what is high calorie and what isn’t.  I lost 10lbs in those three weeks.

I’ve stopped using this tool on a regular basis, but I’ve still lost another 5lbs just by being a bit smarter about what I put in my body.  During the same time I’ve been biking less (mostly due to excessive travel), so I should be in worse cycling shape.  However when I do get on the bike I feel faster.  I look forward to seeing how this really pays off in the spring (when I’ll hopefully be back at my “good” weight of around 175lbs).

Rough Stuff Cycling

This isn’t new to me, but 2010 is the year that I concentrated on it.  I love riding the logging roads in the Pacific Northwest.  Once I’ve spent my cycling days having days of tough climbs, fast descents, and great views it is really hard to do anything else.  A brief recap of 2010: Jack Pass, CdA NF in June, Kachess Ridge in August, CdA NF in September, Stampede Pass in October.

I never got into mountain biking because I had a hard time handling all day very technical rides, and didn’t like driving my car long distances to ride my bike shorter distances.  The rough stuff rides are less punishing, so I can manage a 50 or 70 mile day without feeling dead.  That lets me keep the bike to car time in check.

One of these rides per summer month feels about right, I hope I can keep up that pace next year.  I promise to do a better job of keeping the roughstuffnw.org blog going too.

Pacenti Quasi-Moto Tires

They are light.  They are fat.  They are knobby, but not too knobby.  I think they are the perfect dirt road tire.

CNC Machining

I really need to write a blog entry or two about my CNC adventures.

I bought a tiny little CNC milling machine in Feb 2010 for my birthday.  I can’t say that I’m 100% productive on it yet, but when it is working well it is a great little machine.  It is a lot of fun drawing something on the computer, pressing go, and seeing it get created.  Here are some dropout prototypes that I recently made on it (the really shiny bits came from Keith Anderson Cycles, I made the dull bits):

Custom dropouts, CNC'd in my basement

Ibex in, Icebreaker out for Merino Wool Shirts

For most of the last decade I’ve had an Icebreaker T-shirt on as my base layer.  I first bought Icebreaker clothing on a trip to New Zealand in 2000, and came home with tons of it on a trip in 2002.  They really introduced me to lightweight wool T-shirts that are comfortable in all conditions.

About 3 years ago Icebreaker moved their production from New Zealand to China.  Quality seems to have gone down for me, and the price did not.  Icebreaker representatives at the factory store in Portland claim that no country but China can sew the lightweight material, but Ibex proves them wrong by making even lighter shirts and having them sewn in the US.

This year I haven’t bought too many wool shirts, but whatever I have bought has been from Ibex.  It’ll stay that way in 2011.

Mountain Hardware Pants — Good and Bad

For the last 6 years I’ve mostly worn one pair of shorts.  They are made by Mountain Hardware and are a tough synthetic canvas that still doesn’t show any signs of wear.  They have an integrated belt which has let me adjust them to fit me over the ~20lb weight swing that I’ve had in that time.  I wish I’d bought 2 or 3 pairs, I’d never need to buy other shorts again.

Last winter I bought a pair of Mountain Hardware 3/4 Ridgetop pants which are sold as climbing pants.   To me they looked like cycling knickers.  The price was half the price of most cycling knickers, so I gave them a try.  They are great, the fabric feels really good and they fit great.  They have nice little details like a keyholder in the left pocket, deep pockets that don’t drop things, and an adjustable belt just like the one on those shorts that I like so much.

I needed some new cycling/hiking/biking pants last spring and decided to check out all of Mountain Hardware’s offerings since I liked those shorts and knickers so much.  Here is what I found at that time:

• Piero Pants — These are 95% of the way there, but don’t quite make the cut.  The waist is stretchy and there is no integrated belt.  Out of the washer they fit nicely, 3 days later they’d be falling down my waist.  The pockets were really shallow, so I kept losing my cell phone when I’d sit in chairs.  They have the magic heavy canvas of those old shorts, but the details are all wrong.
• Matterhorn Convertible — The fit wasn’t the same as other MH pants, they didn’t work for me.
• Mesa Pant — The online copy makes it sound like these use the same fabric as the Piero pant, but they don’t.

Mountain Hardware has since killed off the Ridgetop 3/4 pant.  If you can find them at a closeout place (Sierra Trading Post or the like) scoop them up now while you can.  I bought a second pair.  They’ve replaced them with the Ridgetop pant, which are the same thing in full length.  I got a pair of those and they are good, but I still wish for them in the tough fabric of the Piero pant.

They don’t make shorts with that fabric.

When Mountain Hardware makes something well they really do a knock out job.  Stock up then, because they won’t make it nearly that nice for many years.

Fall Colors, Valley Green

 I grew up in Philadelphia, and used last weekend’s Philadelphia Bike Expo as an reason to fly home, visit family, and hang out with other bike nerds.

The show was great.  The name is very similar to the local Seattle Bike Expo, but the show felt very different since a primary organizer was the custom bicycle builder Bilenky Cycles.  The show had the normal mix of local bike shops, bike clubs, and organizations that fill the Seattle Bike Expo, but around half of the exhibitors were other custom builders where the Seattle Bike Expo might have 3 or 4 custom frame shops.

I didn’t take too many photos at the show, but I did talk to a lot of the builders.  A few memorable ones were Drew Guldalian from Engin Cycles, Peter Weigle, Doug Fattic, Ahren Rogers from Bano Bikes, and Jeremy Shlachter from Gallus Cycles.  Drew had a fun party in his shop on Friday Night and then a great booth with a photo backdrop from his shop at the show.  I enjoyed a talk that he gave on Saturday afternoon about his business model and why it was beneficial to build bicycles and have a bike shop as one business. 

Peter Weigle and I talked for about 15 minutes at his booth.  He must be one of the nicest guys in the business, and freely shares information and little tricks and tips with myself and anyone else that will ask.  I enjoyed his work at the show, which included two modified/restored mass produced bicycles from Raliegh and Motobecane, plus 3 of his own bikes.  Most framebuilders aren’t interested in that kind of work, but I’ve always found to appealing to make minor or major modifications to an existing bicycle to make it better.  I was sorry to miss his talk on restoring bicycles.

Doug Fattic showed me his frame fixture, which I didn’t take any photos of.  It is designed to allow one to design the bicycle frame on a flat surface in a way that would normally require CAD.  I enjoy drawing my bikes in CAD first, but can see why his approach makes a lot of sense for someone who is more tactile in nature.

Here are a few photos from the show.  Sorry about the general image quality, I just wasn’t taking many photos or being careful at this show.  Click on any of them to drop into the gallery with other photos.

A very nice mixte from Banjo Bicycles, with custom racks by "The Rack Lady". These racks are very ornate, but in a way that I find really appealing.

Front rack closeup

This Weigle frame was for sale at the show, but rumor had it that the bike was sold before the show even opened. The buyer is very lucky, it is a wonderful bike.

Peter Weigle explained to me that his centerpull brake bridges come down so far to add extra support for the back of the bosses. This really made sense since I had just installed similar bosses on my Ivy-T frame.

I usually don't get that excited about lugs or bilaminate construction, but got really excited about this bike from Johnny Cycles and the detail work on it.

Seat lug closeup from the Johnny Cycles bike.

I wish I rode mountain bikes enough to order one of these 953 lugged frames from Drew at Engin Cycles. There is a lot of work in making one, but they final result looks great.

The show was in center city, and on Saturday I was staying with my father who lives in Glenside, a suburb that is about 20 miles north.  Philadelphia has a great park called Fairmount Park (one of the largest in-city parks in the world).  More than half of the route to my dad’s house can be done on the trails inside the park.  During my summers in college I’d ride from center city to Glenside almost every weekend, but I hadn’t been on that ride in at least 15 years.  It was really nice to make the ride through Fairmount Park as the colors were peaking.  I realized how much I’ve forgotten of Philadelphia geography when I got lost in a few major points and had to resort to using my phone GPS to find my way.

The Bike Friday service department had just done a bunch of upgrade work on my Tikit frame before this trip.  I haven’t ridden it much in the last year, but this trip reminded me of how nice of a bike it really is, and I love having it when I go back to the east coast.

Riding through Fairmount Park on my Bike Friday

Later in the week I spent a few days at my brother’s house.  He and his wife are rehabbing a 100 year old house in Fishtown, a couple miles northeast of downtown.  I love going back and seeing the progress that they are making on their house, and how that neighborhood is changing.  When I was in high school Fishtown just wasn’t an area that I felt comfortable in, it was pretty run down and rough.  Now I visit Greg and Naomi about once a year, and every time that I go there are half a dozen new resturants and other local businesses that have opened within walking distance of their house.  It is great to see the area turning around while keeping the original houses and some of the original grit.

Greg and Naomi's fancy new kitchen tile, plus a couple of the many cabinets that Greg and I assembled for his kitchen. It'll look great when it is done.

I ended my trip with a walk through Valley Green with my mom and brother, and once again enjoyed the color.  What a great park!

Seattle’s rainy fall started today, which can only mean one thing: time for me to build a bike.  In the last year I’ve ridden all but about 200 miles on my new bike Gifford.  I like having a slim stable, but I also kind of miss having a second bike.

A few months ago I posted about getting this frame from Brandon Ives of IvyCycles.  The frame came to me with most of the hard work done (the front and rear triangles were done) and ready for all of the detail work.  I love the detail work, so this is a great partnership.  The brazing that he did looks great, hopefully I can keep a high standard on my part of the bike.

I call this bike the Ivy-T because it is heavily inspired by one of my favorite mass produced bikes, the Bridgestone RB-T, but built by IvyCycles.  The frame geometry is more or less a copy, just resized slightly to fit me better.  We used lighter tubing and better lugs that the original, but it is still Ishiwata tubing (this bike has 019 (8/5/8), the original used 022 (9/6/9)).  I still need to build the fork, but the bike will get a low trail fork that looks similar to the ones on my other bikes.  I’m going to use this fork crown:

Mitsugi Crown from Kirk Pacenti (bikelugs.com). The link takes you to the stainless version, but I'm using the normal steel one.

In the spring I was lucky enough to find a set of Dia Compe Grand Compe 450 centerpull brakes.  They came complete with braze-on studs, and had never been installed!  I’d been wanting a set of these brakes since first seeing them on a bike that Mitch Pryor (MAP Bicycles) brought to the 2009 Oregon Handmade Bicycle Show.  Centerpulls never really got my attention before, but I love the way these look.  They are a nice mix of refined and mechanical at the same time.  I watched eBay for a while and never saw any go by, but then these ones showed up on the BOB list.  I jumped on them.  Mitch was very helpful and emailed me original documentation for these which showed where the studs should be installed (the critical dimension is 62mm between the studs, although anything between 62mm and 65mm looks good to me).

Over the last week I made some curved bridges for the frame and brazed on the studs for the rear brake.  Here is are the photos from that process. 

I made this 3" radius bender using a circle cutting jig for the router and some scrap plywood. It was made in two halves with a chamfering bit.

This is what the bender looks like when assembled. To use it I just clamped it into my vise, trapping the end of my 3/8" tubing underneath. I pulled the other part around by hand.

I made this simple jig for holding the studs in place. I took this photo after tacking the studs, I wanted to check alignment before finishing the brazing.

I took this photo just after putting the torch down, but before removing the flux.

The flux has been soaked off. I'm pretty happy with how this brazing looks, I'm really out of practice. You can also see the curved bridge here.

Tons of clearance under these very pretty brakes. They are listed as 55mm reach, but I've never seen a 57mm reach dual pivot with this kind of clearance. The curved bridge hides nicely behind the brake arches.

I was really worried about having the gap between the brake arms be consistent and small. A little misalignment of the studs is barely noticable with cantilevers, but could cause big problems or look terrible with a centerpull.

One final shot of the installation, where you can see how the springs work.

Before installing the bridges I indented the chainstays slightly for increased tire clearance.  I hadn’t planned on doing this originally, but the brakes fit larger tires than I expected (my 38mm wide studded tires fit), and the chainstays were the limiting factor on tire clearance.  These photos are for JimG, who has asked me in the past for photos of my chainstay indenter.

I intend the chainstays on my 3" vise. Sometimes a skinny vise is useful!

Post indention, before bridge installation.

This is what the indenting form looks like. I made it from 5/8" rod, filled down to a reasonably nice shape, and brazed to a small piece of angle iron.

I’ve started a new blog called Rough Stuff Cycling Northwest for sharing routes and reviews of backroad rides in northwest US.  It will differ from this blog in that I’m inviting others to provide content to it as well.  The welcome entry goes into more detail.  If you’ve enjoyed my trip reports from rides in our National Forests then I’d recommend subscribing to that blog.  The first entry is about a ride that some friends and I did yesterday over Stampede and Tacoma Passes pretty close to Seattle.  If you’d like to contribute to the blog please let me know and I’ll make you an account.

Jan Heine has also started a new blog related to Bicycle Quarterly called Off the Beaten Path which should be interesting.  His first post talks about his ride on a backroads route between Seattle and Portland and I look forward to seeing what else comes.  I think that this will be a great addition to the print magazine.