Bike Shopping

Now that I've transplanted to Ferndale I need a back-up bike for my commuter bike.  There is no bus service  here on Sundays, the rest of the week buses run about an hour apart, and the last run in the evening leaves Bellingham before 6:30pm.  Besides, there's no bike shop in town - there are at least six shops in the big city, but nothing outside of Bellingham city limits.  If my bike needs work that I can't do myself, or if the shop needs to order a part, I could be semi-stranded for several days.

A couple of times I've almost felt my bike was being held hostage in a repair shop.  A tech once insisted on keeping it for three days while a part was on order even though it was safe to ride, and once he told me "I know it's your only way to get to work" in a sort of ominous tone, as if he'd take it away from me if I gave him any trouble.  At one shop I arrived just in time to find my bike, still with the call-tag on the handlebars, in a line-up of old bikes being loaded on a beater pickup truck that appeared to be heading for a scrap-metal dealer.

So I've been looking for my ideal touring bike, and checking Craigslist and second-hand stores for a decent used bike, and if I keep shopping much longer I'll be ready for the recumbent I've been thinking about.

Today, after doing some quick study online, I went to look at a Free Spirit mixte offered for $125 on Craigslist and sold from a thrift shop.  I think mixte frames are kind of classic and elegant looking, sporty without being too racy, sturdy enough to hold up for commuting, grocery shopping and light touring.  My online sources said that in the '70's Peugot made very good mixtes, and Sears sold a piece-of-junk mixte called a Free Spirit, but that Nishiki also made a good quality one of the same name.

Unfortunately, this one turned out to be a Sears, and besides, rather than quick-release wheels it had bolt-ons that didn't quite fit in the dropouts.  Which reminded me of a very important lesson I learned with my second bike.

After my Univega got run over by the Ford, I bought a pink Schwinn World from a sports consignment store that went out of business soon after.  It was heavy, but it seemed about the right size and felt OK when I rode it around the block, and I figured it would be safe from theft or vandalism, since no self-respecting street thug would be seen messing with a coral pink ladies' bike.  But the first time I had to take a wheel off to fix a flat I discovered that the fork was too wide, or the spindle in the hub was too short, for it to fit all the way back into the dropouts.  There was a little gap between the spindle and the end of the slot, and I had an awful fight getting the wheel on straight, then clamped down hard enough to stay straight.

Actually, neither wheel would stay on straight for long after that.  I lost the front wheel one morning on my way to school - it had seemed to be weaving a bit so I was watching it as I coasted down the driveway.  As I picked up speed on the street it began wobbling quite a bit.  My block was on a short but steep hill, and I could easily coast to more than 25mph at the bottom.  Being a nervous type I slowed and pulled over, just as the quick-release lever broke off, while the nut and spindle shot off to the right, about thirty feet into the blackberry bushes.  The back wheel didn't go that dramatically.  I had a lot of trouble with the wheel rubbing the brakes, making for laborious riding and daily adjustments of both wheel and brakes.  Finally one night on the way to an evening class, I made an up-hill right turn into a parking lot, and the wheel sort of creakily leaned to the left, bending the dropouts and rear derailleur both.

So when the guy at the second-hand shop told me that bolt-on wheels are supposed to fit that way, I said "no, that bike isn't safe to ride," and walked out of the store.  I don't know who puts bikes out for sale like that, but they should be stopped.

Heat Wave

Around Puget Sound it's not unusual to go without a sunny weekend until the Fourth of July, so this summer is not exceptional.  The sun did come out for the holiday weekend, though, and I spent enough time riding my bike to end up with an interesting new assortment of tan-lines.  My skin tones now range from blue-veined mushroom-white through various shades of tawny to hot-pink.

Today I had to run some job-search-related errands by bus and foot.  When I saw bright sun and blue skies at eight in the morning, I decided to leave my bike at home so I wouldn't get too dusty, sweaty and rumpled on the way to my appointments.  I had to dig through my wardrobe a bit to find clothes that would be more or less presentable to potential employers yet comfortable for walking around town.  To my relief, when I got to the bus stop, a digital sign outside the bank across the street showed the temperature at 70F, tolerable even to a native mushroom like me.

4th of July

Here's Mt. Baker again

When I first moved to Whatcom County in 1995, my impression of Ferndale was of a blue collar, possibly a bit redneck, farm and factory town.  No doubt that was a shallow opinion, but the town has grown and changed since then.

The Coast Millennium Trail passes through downtown, and bike lanes are being completed this summer.  There are new gyms or health clubs, and also a surprising number of chiropractors and physical therapy offices in town.

   The corner of First and Main Street,

with flying flags,

pink and purple petunias,

and new bike lanes.

The dreaded Mountain View Road hill climb

Most of the new business district is concentrated near the freeway.  Main Street crosses the Nooksack River, to the old business section where most parks and city buildings are located. Past the Post Office, Main Street becomes Mountain View Road on the way out of town.  I hope the bike lanes will eventually continue on this road.

. . . and the view from the top of the climb.

Cherry Point

It's an eight mile ride to Cherry Point, starting from the Haggen Store at Main St. and LaBounty.  Ride Main St. across the bridge and through town, where Main becomes Mountain View Road, with a short but steep hill climb followed by a few miles of small rollers.  At the entry road to the Alcoa plant, turn right on to Rainbow Road, and continue to the stop sign where you cross Kickerville Road on to Henry Road.

You'll see the bay at the end of the road, which curves down to the beach.  The water is chilly and the beach is rocky, but it's a peaceful and secluded spot for kayakers, beach picnickers, bicyclists and eagle-spotters.  The roadsides are lined with thimbleberry and blackberry thickets and though it's still too early for berries, the woods are noisy with birds.

If I recall right, several years ago a park and marine preserve was proposed for this site, probably as a condition of using 180 acres to expand the shipping terminal to handle 8.2 million tons of cargo, including materials like potash and coke.  Now a much larger project is being considered, over strong local opposition.  The new proposal requires 350 acres, to ship 54 million tons, including coal which would be brought by train through Ferndale and shipped to China.

The advantage to working weekends is enjoying quiet, uncrowded sunny Tuesdays.  After Cherry Point I rode to Birch Bay for ice cream and more beach walking.  Birch Bay Drive used to be a popular teenage cruising spot, and for a while it seemed to be getting to be kind of a biker hang-out, but now it's mostly retirees and parents with kids, co-existing with some bikers and cruisers and cruising cyclists.

Happy cows, with the Canadian Rockies in the distance

A missing paragraph . . .

I got my coffee and returned to the station.  This time an older woman at the ticket desk gave me the line:  "no bikes on this train" and she meant it.  She pointed out that my tickets didn't say "bike" on them, and I asked how I should know what the tickets are supposed to look like - there was a "B" designation somewhere on them.  She said there was no room even for a boxed bike.  She suggested going by Greyhound, or shipping by UPS, but by then the train departure time was only forty minutes away, too late to make other arrangements for my bike.  When she started to say something about "you bike riders . . . " I replied "hell, I can ride to Bellingham."  She refunded my ticket, and I headed for the Ladies' to change clothes.

Correction:  The Cascades train is actually an hour behind the Coast Starlight.

Bikes & Trains

About five years back, on impulse, I took a day-trip by train to Mount Vernon with my old pink Schwinn. Amtrak Cascades has wall-mounted bike racks on board, and can take about six bikes. Reservations are required now, but that day I got lucky. I had about five hours to hang out and shop in Mount Vernon. I probably had time to ride to LaConner and back, or tour the tulip fields, if they'd been in season, but I didn't know it at the time. The round-trip fare was around $50, an expensive impulse, but there was no transit bus service then. Now taking a bike on Whatcom or Skagit Transit costs $4 round-trip, so Amtrak is a bad choice.

Last summer when I went to Bike School in Ashland I took my bike along. I needed it for class, and it was necessary to travel between Klamath Falls and Ashland because while there is some shuttle bus service over Highway 66, the timing didn't work for me. (I wrote about this ride in an earlier post back in September 2010.)

I guess my first mistake was with Amtrak's online reservations system. When I first entered the type of ticket - one adult with bicycle - I got a message saying "no bikes on this train." I backed out and tried other travel dates and combinations of trains, or boarding in different cities. The "no bikes" message came up a few times, but I kept experimenting until after a while I stopped seeing the bicycle option on the ticket type. Assuming they'd got the point I meant to bring the bike, I kept trying until I hit on workable dates, times and transfer points. I booked at least three months in advance, and (unintentionally) pre-paid by debit card rather than charge card.

Train connections from Bellingham are awkward. The Cascades route runs between Vancouver BC and Portland, Oregon. The Coast Starlight, which only allows boxed bikes, runs between Everett, Washington and southern California; the routes overlap between Everett and Portland, but the Coast Starlight runs about an hour behind the Cascades. So to get from Bellingham to Klamath Falls, the closest train stop to Ashland, passengers must transfer between the Cascade route and the Coast Starlight at some point, requiring an overnight stay between Everett and Portland, and a second layover in Klamath Falls. At first I was aggravated at this bad timing and inefficiency, but I wasn't pressed for time so I decided to slow down and enjoy the layovers, which would give me several hours to hang out, shop, sight-see and have a meal or two in Seattle and Portland. I planned to stay in hostels in Portland and Seattle, plus two nights in a hotel in Klamath Falls before hitting the road, or the tracks, in the morning.

When I picked up my tickets at Fairhaven Station I asked the ticket agent about bringing my bike, and also confirmed by phone several days before my departure date. Both times I was initially told "no bikes on this route." After some dispute and explanation of my travel plans, the customer service agents always said OK, bikes are allowed, but be prepared to box it. The pattern continued as I traveled:  when I boarded in Bellingham and transferred in Portland, then on the return trip, in Klamath Falls and Seattle. At every station I was told "no bikes on this train." Each time I would argue and explain, and eventually pay $5 for a carton to box the bike.

Back in Klamath Falls on the return leg, I stayed in the same cheap motel, but got a smaller room with a broken refrigerator inhabited by roaches. In the morning I went to the station about an hour early at 7am, and once again was told "no bikes on this train." After the usual discussion, I paid $5 for another box. This time I rode the Coast Starlight to Seattle, planning to stay overnight at a hostel in the International District near King Street Station. The train was due in about 9pm, but we were delayed for an hour in Tacoma and arrived after 10pm. At the station I asked a skinny young man who was unloading baggage whether I could leave the boxed bike overnight to put on the morning train to Bellingham, and he said "no bikes on the train." By that time he was the only Amtrak worker in sight and I didn't have the heart to dump on him. Besides I was a little uneasy about security in the baggage area, so I unboxed my bike and remounted the handlebars, and rode to the hostel where they had a locked storage area.

The morning train departs a bit after seven, and I was so worried about oversleeping that I was up and out by 5:30am, heading for Starbucks on the waterfront. I stopped at a red light below the Alaskan Way viaduct, across from Colman Ferry Dock, just in time to meet a flock of brilliant white LED headlights swooping out of the exit from the ferry terminal - the first morning bike commuters coming off the Bainbridge Island ferry, and all of them grinning at me.  It made me homesick for Seattle.

{...something went missing here. To sum up, this time I was emphatically not allowed to bring my bike on board, even boxed. After another argument I said I could just ride my bike all the way home.}

Bellingham." She refunded my ticket, and I headed for the Ladies' to change clothes.

It's about a one hundred and ten mile ride. Being a Pacific Northwest native, I'd packed a rain jacket and leg-warmers all through the 100F weather in Ashland, and I was right because in Seattle that morning it was foggy, drizzly and 55F.

I didn't have a map, and was never very familiar with that part of town, and I didn't bicycle when I lived in Seattle, so I followed some vague homing instinct. I headed north through the Interbay neighborhood, across the Ballard Bridge and on 15th Avenue NW to Holman Road, then Greenwood Avenue, then I zig-zagged around a bit until I got on Aurora/Highway 99.

Somewhere up around Lynnwood, after about thirty miles riding, shelters for the Swift commuter bus appeared along the way, and I stopped to look at a schedule and ask a man at the stop about the service. The buses are the long articulated ones, with bike racks inside on the turntable section in the middle of the bus. Fare was about $2, and the bus would take me all the way to the Everett Transit Center. There are morning and evening commuter buses between Everett and Mount Vernon, but nothing during the day; still I figured I could take a thirty mile ride on the bus, then bike to the Skagit Transit Center in Mount Vernon and catch a commuter bus back to Bellingham. Apart from the gap in mid-day service, the commuter bus connections are surprisingly good, lucky for me. Soon the bus service may rival Amtrak.

Again, I had to guess at the bike route once I got out of Everett. The day finally turned warm and sunny, and I stopped at a Fred Meyer for food and drink. At the bike rack out front I got directions from a very friendly and helpful man with an expensive carbon Specialized, who advised me to take a curving farm road through Stanwood that would avoid a busy highway and hill-climb, which is what I did.

The road only looked vaguely familiar and for a while I was worried he'd sent me ten or twenty miles out of my way, but eventually I came to a familiar intersection in Silvana, then to Conway, then to a flat, straight access road parallel to I-5, which I knew headed in to Mount Vernon near the transit center. I was pretty sure the Bellingham bus left at about twenty past the hour, but wasn't sure how far I had to ride to get there.

I was hot and tired and eager to get home to my cat, so I put my head down and hammered as hard as I could - OK Jens Voigt would do better, but he doesn't ride a 25 pound hybrid with 25 pounds of baggage. I held out for five or six miles until I got to the transit center, with ten minutes to wait for the next bus home.

I guess I shouldn't have assumed Amtrak's online reservation system was giving me what I wanted. And I guess their customer service reps are trained to be agreeable and just tell customers what we want to hear - a trick I might want to remember if my barista job leads to a career in customer service - leave it to someone at the next station to deal with trouble. The best advice I can give is don't count on being able to keep your bike with you along the way when traveling by train. If you want your bike to end up at your final destination at the same time as you do, it's probably best to just ship it.

Do-over

Something went wrong when I imported the photos in my last post.  I had a second try, and created a new page (on the tabs above, next to "Home").  It looks much nicer.