Viva Knievel!

Evel Knievel Days in Butte was a blast. Along with assorted motorcycle daredevilry, we were treated to an appearance by Evel himself. Well, he was on the other side of a big dirt landing ramp and we didn't actually see him... but we heard him over the PA system. I'm fairly convinced he's still alive.





Pictures can only do the event so much justice. Above is the freestyle flying-through-the-air event, and on the right is the amazing "Wall of Death." There was also the Globe of Death, and the crashing through the walls of fire of death, and plenty of other tomfoolery.













My friend Sam Louden contributed a poem for Evel Knievel days, which is below. And below that is a video that sums up the day better than I ever could. Check out how the teenage chick abandons her boyfriend for Sam!

The Last Weekend

Go to Butte on the Last Weekend
Of July to see the leather, see the hides
Revealed, tanned and inked and wrinkled
Before their times from radical hard
Living and liquor,
Tobacco and sun.
Crass and creed-less, the faithful gather to celebrate
dare-
Devilry—defying death by dying slow:
Melanoma, emphysema, hepatic cirrhosis,
Pulmonary fibrosis—the final wreck,
The tragically anti-climactic terminal crash
Of Evel Knievel. Betwixt choppers and scooters,
Kids do shooters in t-shirts from Hooters.

Evel Knievel Days! Hooray! Drink and smoke,
Dance through the crowd from spectacle to spectacle—
Jumps and bikes,
Fire and cleavage—
With the throng who is by far more spectacular
In and among America’s strength: the redneck liberal
Quaffing booze from a mason jar;
The conservative Democrat, loving guns
And sucking heavy metal water from a mason jar;
Hyped-up teens quick to mate and speed
To guzzle meth from a mason jar;
Hard-edge biker-woman—shameless
Rough and ready to drink blood from a mason jar,
Blood from a baby to preserve her youth;
A baby happy to drink her milk from a mason jar;
Everybody dehydrated and hyper from the complimentary
Energy-drink imbibed in or out of a mason jar.
Evel Knievel, chemical daze under wildfire haze;
Mullets and rattails amaze on those high holy days.

Sam Louden dancing

It's Evel Knievel Days 2007 in Butte, Montana, and I just can't get enough of the irrepressible Sam Louden's one-of-a-kind dance moves.

People notice things

Like the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, for example. In today's "What's Up With That?" section, Chronicle staffer Brook Griffin noticed my Christian Science Monitor article about Ron Gompertz, owner of Bozeman's EcoAuto.

The Chronicle's website doesn't show the article without subscribing, but it's just a blurb so I think it's okay if I stick it here.

Monitoring Gompertz: Ron Gompertz is in the news again. The Bozeman resident and chief purveyor of tiny, fuel-efficient cars, is featured in the July 9 edition of the Christian Science Monitor in the science and tech section.

The story follows Gompertz around town in one of his 1,500 pound cars drag racing with diesels on Main Street and telling a complicated and convoluting life story.

The gist of the story centers on Gompertz selling environmentally aware vehicles in a state that doesn't really care about being that environmentally friendly. At one point Gompertz is even quoted as referring to Montanans driving big trucks as a "Neanderthal kind of thing."

While this kind of thing probably won't sell any more of those tiny cars, it was an interesting read. Those who want to know more can check the article out at www.csmonitor.com, click on the "sci/tech" button.

Should I take this mentioning of my article as a compliment? Of course!

This time, with chutzpah

This is Ron Gompertz, owner of Bozeman's EcoAuto dealership (photo by Anne Sherwood), and subject of my second Christian Science Monitor article.

When doing a scientific experiment, it doesn't count if you achieve success just once. You have to do it twice, in case the first time was a fluke. So I'm pretty proud of myself for having two articles in the Monitor.

This article is also important because it represents the first collaboration between myself and Bozeman-based photographer Anne Sherwood, who primarily shoots for the New York Times. I met Anne through a mutual friend several years ago; this past winter we met again, which was strange in that it was like we had always been close friends. We were familiar with each others' work, and we both expressed interest in collaborating. We both share an interest in exploration, adventure, and meeting fascinating people (like the dude in this article), so I think we both hope this will be the first of many collaborations.

Something EVEL this way comes

by Ray Sikorski

(This article originally appeared in the July issue of the Tributary magazine.)

Ah, July in Montana. There's nothing like frolicking in meadows of beargrass beneath the purple peaks of Glacier, floating languidly down the Madison on a hot day, and watching maniacs on motorcycles crash into walls of fire in Butte.

Yes, Evel Knievel Days are back. Once again the Richest Hill on Earth will measure its wealth not in copper, zinc, and manganese, but with the mother of all mother lodes of vicarious thrills and adrenaline. This year's lineup, taking place in Uptown Butte July 26-28, boasts teams of Superbikers, Balls of Steel Stunts, a Wall of Death, world record attempts in the firewall crash and jumping motorcycles over cars, and it's all presided over by the red-white-and-bluest American icon of all time: Evel Knievel himself.

To those of us of the male gender brought up in the glorious 1970s, the mind has a hard time conceiving of a greater bacchanal. And yet, observant early visitors to the www.knieveldays.com website noticed one other event: Evel Knievel, the Rock Opera.

Whoa. The mere thought of it: Evel, resplendent in his leathers. Motorcycles flying through the air. Blazing electric guitars. The larger-than-life history of Butte's favorite son, world premiering in rock ‘n’ roll glory at the Mother Lode Theater.

Alas, it was not to be. Our Lady of the Rockies may bring miracles, but even this was out of her realm. Budgetary constraints have prevented the show from going on – in Butte, anyway. Jef Bek, founding member of Los Angeles' Zoo District Theatre Company and writer of the show, is forging ahead with the production of the rock opera, opting instead for a fall world premiere at the Bootleg Theater in L.A.

Like other boys of a certain era, Bek got bit by the Evel bug – hard.

“I remember getting big slats of wood and cinder blocks and riding my Schwinn and actually talking kids into laying down, and I was actually jumping people,” the 44-year-old composer relays via phone. “That was kind of fun.”

Later, a close encounter with a tree stump put the kibosh on plans for further gravity-defying glory, but the star-spangled superbiker was never far from Bek's mind. After successfully working as musical director for Chicago's New Crime Productions, Bek wanted to compose something of his own.

“If I were to write my own musical, what subject would I write about?” Bek asked himself. He wanted something to take place in the early '70s, as an excuse to write the kind of classic rock that he loved, and he wanted a subject that hadn't already been overdone. “It just kind of hit me: Evel Knievel. He's dramatic, he's rock 'n' roll, crazy... I just thought, man, that would be brilliant.”

The idea got put on the back burner once Bek moved to L.A., but it was always simmering back there. The events of September 11, 2001 brought it back to the fore. Bek saw people becoming more and more divided along political lines as the prospect of war became more ominous, but he remembered things being different back in his youth.

“I want to write this show about an American icon, that reflects a time when you could be rebellious yet proud to say you were an American,” Bek recalls thinking. “You say Evel Knievel to the farthest left-thinking person and the farthest right-thinking person, and you get the same response: 'Evel Knievel, wow!'”

Bek went to work on the music and lyrics for the rock opera. Of course, he still needed official authorization from the man himself. Demo CD in hand, Bek flew to Florida, hoping for the green light. Knievel and his wife, Krystal, picked Bek up at the airport in Knievel's red-white-and-blue pickup. “I'm happy to report that yeah, he was driving pretty aggressively,” Bek says.

The aggressive driving may have made him happy, but it didn't relieve Bek of his apprehension. After all, he had painted an unapologetic portrait of the man, pulling no punches with Knievel's well-documented taste for booze, women, and violence.

“I go into some dark areas, because if it's just a fluff piece where every song is just about how wonderful Evel is, it's not very compelling.”

Knievel, now in his 60s and ailing from his numerous injuries and illnesses, popped Bek's CD into the truck's player. He seemed to like the music, Bek reports. For one song, in which Linda, Knievel's first wife, sings a bittersweet love ballad, Knievel pulled his truck into a convenience store and parked. He paused, listening to the music, then turned to Bek and said, “Jef, you nailed it.”

The show was on.

Production has been going on ever since. The show will include a live band with two guitars, a bass, drums, and keyboards, 16 singers, including eight principles and eight background vocalists (“I like a lot of voices,” Bek says), and a rear-projection video screen onstage to simulate the motion of speeding motorcycles.

“You picture Evel Knievel center-stage on a motorcycle singing a song, and behind him is this video screen that shows road movement, but going the other way so it kind of gives the impression that he's riding.”

While the world premiere is now slated for L.A. in the fall, Bek hopes the show will make it to points beyond – including Vegas.

And what about Butte, the town that inspired Evel to jump his way to glory?

The production may not arrive any time soon – but Bek might. Despite not taking the show with him for Evel Knievel Days, he just might make a trip up on his own.

“To be honest with you, I've never seen a motorcycle jumping a bunch of stuff,” he says. “I may come. I'm thinking that's a good idea.”

Hopefully he’ll remember to bring his Schwinn.



“Evel Knievel, red, white, and blue/ Evel Knievel, we wanna ride with you!” Crank the tunage from “Evel Knievel, The Rock Opera” by clicking here.

Finding Nima

At last, my article about Nima Sherpa has finally appeared in Outside Bozeman! Those of you familiar with Sonoma Valley may know Nima from the Meritage Restaurant and Martini Bar. Along with being a really first-class waiter, Nima's also an accomplished climbing Sherpa on Everest - plus, he's spent time in Bozeman, too. Perfect for an article in Outside Bozeman, no?

Beyond Organic

Green String's string theory goes past green

I had interviewed Bob Cannard, Jr. for an article for the Sonoma Valley Sun a year ago. His Petaluma farm stand opened since then, and I thought it would make a good article. While I was in California I paid it a visit, and the result was this article that appeared in the June 20-26 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

The Big Article

We're all looking for a big break, right? Well, I just may have gotten one, in the form of an article I sold to the Christian Science Monitor, a paper of international renown and repute. Here it is:

Sound Lands on Google Earth

Not only did it end up in the Monitor, the article was also picked up by USA Today, the ABC News website, and was reported to have been at the top of Google News. It's no exaggeration to say it's been seen by millions of people. I was pretty happy to make $400 on the deal, which is a lot more than I'm used to... but someone said, "Shouldn't you make more, taking into account the circulation?"

I don't know. Hopefully it will translate into something I can make a living off of. Naturally, I'm trying to milk my success for all it's worth, querying like mad, using the credit as a selling point for the innate wonderfulness of my prose. Oh, I've got lots of ideas. Are you an editor? Do you want to hear them? Just ask!

I had an interesting conversation with my housemate Craig today. He's a jazz guitarist, and we discussed the value of writing versus music. I posited that writing is valued more in our culture than music, in that everyone who graduates high school is expected (hopefully) to be able to write a coherent sentence, while only a small percentage can write a line of music. Ironically, that means musicians are valued more when it comes to performing. After all, we all can put a few words together, right? But only the talented among us can make music, or so it seems. So, anyone who knows a few songs can get a $50 gig playing in a bar, whereas a writer may takes years to earn the same. But in all fields, anyone who truly excels can rise to the top and make scads of dough.

Hopefully I've been at this gig long enough. Baby needs a new pair of shoes!

UPDATE: Things are going well - just landed an assignment for the "Unusual Westerners" section of the High Country News.

Down and Dirty at the Prom

(The following was originally published in the June 2007 edition of Bozeman's Tributary magazine.)

Down and dirty at the Prom
The bump and grind meets a one-man media circus

by Ray Sikorski

At last, I had a date to the prom.

With Bozeman Public Schools Superintendent Michael Redburn.

Okay, maybe this was wishful thinking on my part. Redburn said I could attend the Bozeman Senior High School Prom on May 5, in the interest of journalistic freedom and the public's right to know. He also said I couldn't interview any students, I couldn't take pictures, and I would have to stand in a special observation corral put in place so parents could keep an eye on their kids. He also said he'd really rather that I not attend at all.

Perfect!

Naturally, my intentions were noble. Last year's prom had sparked an explosion of controversy over the way the students danced. Parents Melea and Dean Mortenson had written letters to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle demanding something be done about the bumping and grinding they had witnessed students doing on the dance floor, moves they considered overtly sexual and inappropriate for teens at school-sponsored dances. Voices were raised at school board meetings, yet “dirty dancing” persisted.

And I didn't even know what dirty dancing was. The craziest dance we ever did at my school was the “Rock Lobster,” in which we held our noses and slowly wriggled “down, down, down...” to the tune of the B-52's undersea shanty, only to explode in innocent glee to the final, rocking verse.

I asked Bozeman High senior Sean Smith about it; Smith had written an opinion piece for the Hawk Tawk newspaper defending students' right to dance the way they wanted to. According to him, for the moves in question the female leans back and rests on the male behind her, and they move their bodies in a way that some have described as simulating anal intercourse.

“I personally believe it's innocuous,” he said. While Smith said he had never seen the groping of breasts and hiking up of skirts that some had described, he admitted that, “There's definitely is a fair amount of physical contact.”

Smith cited a survey of high schoolers taken last year, which said that 80 percent of students support no restrictions on dancing. He added that there's little point in trying stop something that's difficult to enforce, while much more egregious acts go on that parents have little knowledge of.

“They don't see what goes on at student parties,” Smith said, referring to students getting drunk, removing clothes, and “seeing who you can hook up with.”

Superintendent Redburn echoed the sentiment that alcohol is a far greater concern than dancing – although he said that the dance moves have been a concern of administrators long before the letters started appearing in the newspaper. Redburn said that there are levels at which chaperones can deal with inappropriate dancing, although there's not always agreement as to what constitutes inappropriate.

“There are students that push the envelope,” he said, explaining that those students would be approached and asked to back off, with possible behavioral follow-ups in school later on.

“Our intent is to keep this event a fun activity for kids,” he said. To prevent the heightened attention from interfering with the event, administrators sent a letter to parents explaining rules of conduct for the prom, which including a ban on cameras – not only for your correspondent, but for all students, to prevent the possibility of photos ending up in a newspaper. Obligations under federal privacy regulations were cited as the reason.

Paranoid? Redburn will be leaving his post at the end of the school year, to take a teaching position at MSU. Were the extreme measures to avoid a black mark on his record? I don't know. I do know he seemed very happy to see me, all cleaned up in my jacket and tie, as I made my way up the stairs of MSU's Strand Union building for the big night. He personally escorted me to the long hallway north of the ballroom for the “Parent's Corral,” which would be my post for the evening. There, I would have a view not only of the prom, but of the parents intent on keeping tabs on their kids.

Perfect! Right?

Well, yes and no. I could see all the students milling in, wearing their formal best. I could talk to the parents, whose opinions of dirty dancing ranged from “I'm not happy with it” to “Stuff goes on, it's always gone on for years” to “How did you dance when you were that age?”

The problem was I was about 50 yards away from the dance floor; I needed a telescope to size up the action. Was lewdness going on? I saw five students in something that looked like an inverted conga line. Was that what all the fuss was about? Or maybe that couple, where the boy was slyly sliding his palms down towards the girl's derriere; she immediately removed the offending digits to a more respectable location. But that move's been around since dancing was invented.

Without being able to interview students, my options were limited. A duo from the Bozeman Police Department showed up, who said their job was primarily to keep an eye out for alcohol violations.

“The way they dance is not a legal issue,” said school resource officer Trent Schumacher.

I had little to go on. The camera ban had been watered down to not taking any crowd shots; kids happily flashed away in the hallway. Maybe rules were being relaxed all around.

I ventured beyond the fence of my corral. Parents were doing it; surely it would be okay for me. But, despite there being hundreds of kids to keep an eye on, I felt certain that I was the one being watched most closely. No sooner had I advanced into forbidden turf when Redburn appeared nearby. I retreated to my corral.

Not much going on there. I went into the hallway. Surely there would be no issue with merely talking, right? I had a job to do, after all. It wasn't fair to set me up so I couldn't even see what was going on.

I started talking to two students accompanied by an adult, but before I even got their names Redburn was on top of me, accusing me of being a one-man media circus, threatening to banish me from the dance, and pointing me back to my corral. I asked if I could even interview adults. He said no, it wasn't a public event and people didn't come there to be bothered.

God, it was just like being in high school.

I went out to the parking lot, where no one would hassle me. A gaggle of teens seemed open to questions.

“I was almost going to pull mommy mode in there,” said Danielle Salcido, who attends Bridger Alternative School. Salcido, 19, said she used to grind, but since becoming a new mom her views have changed.

“That was cool when I was like 17, but not anymore,” she said. “They all look like they want to be strippers or something. ... Seriously, if I saw my daughter dancing like that, I'd pull a shotgun on the boy. I'd be like, 'Get away from my daughter!'”

Salcido admitted that she was in the minority among students.

“That's just gonna lead to one thing, and that one thing leads to another, and then you end up pregnant,” she said. I asked if she was speaking from experience.

“Yes, I am,” she said.

“[It's] one thing when you're in private, just with a couple people ... you're with your close friends so it doesn't really matter. But when you're in prom and dancing like that, it makes you look really terrible,” she said. She added, “Half of them in there are probably on something.”

Jeremy Saunders, 19, said that many of the kids just want to show off for the chaperones. Salcido's friend Katie Mahony, 19, said “It's just a bunch of horny kids on Ecstasy.” She added, “I think it's disrespectful to yourself.”

The next morning I felt used and discarded. Some date! My experience with Redburn left me feeling irritable. What a cad.

I had placed calls to the Mortenson family prior to the prom, with no response. I figured I'd give it one more try.

Dean Mortenson picked up the phone. Yes, he had stopped by the prom; he went near the end, and verified that they were doing the same kind of dancing to the same kind of music as he had previously witnessed. He also said that most of the evening he and his wife had been at an alternative dance they had arranged at Clubhouse, the glow-in-the-dark miniature golf place in the mall. There, a group of about 30 students enjoyed black-light dancing, air hockey, video games, and refreshments before filtering out to the after-prom party at the high school.

Mortenson said he realized that the school wouldn't change its ways, and arranging an event for students who cared to dance in a more old-fashioned way was the only way to assure a reasonably wholesome environment.

“We tried and we ruffled some feathers,” he said. “I think Bozeman High School is a really good place. We just had a problem with the type of dancing that goes on at the prom. Some parents, or maybe most parents, may be okay with it, but I'm not. I don't want to come off as the moral police or the bad guy. I guess I'm surprised that more people aren't more concerned about the type of dancing. Maybe they are and they just don't have an alternative.”

Mortenson, a father of eight, admitted disappointment at the low turnout for the Clubhouse dance. “I think we could have had quite a few more people come if we had advertised it more, and I think we will next year,” he said.

Yes, the age of innocence will return. All I need now is a date.

Bozeman writer Ray Sikorski is the author of “Driftwood Dan and Other Adventures,” available on amazon.com

More climbing: The Tetons

Okay, let me just get this out of the way: We borrowed a canoe, we were all psyched to use it, but then I called the rangers and they said Jackson Lake was still frozen. So we didn't bring the canoe. Instead, we went through the annoying minutiae that comes with every backpacking trip, deciding what to take and what too big and what's too heavy and what's absolutely essential and what we should leave home (poor Snoopy!), because we'd being hiking and bushwhacking to the base of Mount Moran.

But when we got there, it turned out the lake wasn't frozen at all. But now we didn't have the canoe. Plus, we learned there was still a lot of snow of the trail, and we'd be postholing the whole way to the foot of the Skillet Glacier. No fun! Then Craig looked at the mountain and decided he didn't like the way the snow looked, so we decided to do something else instead.

And maybe it was just bad vibes. We went a little ways up Cascade Canyon to check out Baxter's Pinnacle, which we set aside for the following day, and to do a little free-form rock climbing on some random cliffs on the canyon's north side. We saw a helicopter overhead - Craig thought it was some kind of scenic flight, but I told him, no, that sort of thing didn't go on in the Tetons. If you see a helicopter in the Tetons, it's always bad, and you can always read about it in the paper the next day. Later, when I was climbing, Craig saw the chopper fly by again, this time dangling something that looked like a body bags.



But we didn't worry about that. We did our fun little thing on the cliff, only mildly annoying each other when we were choosing a descent method (Craig thought it looked like rain and was in a hurry all of a sudden).



Instead of backpacking into the base of the Skillet Glacier on Mount Moran, we car camped at Spalding Bay on Jackson Lake. Well, almost. Snow blocked the final 500 or so feet, so we had to carry the stuff the rest of the way. What a beautiful night! Full moon, moon shadows, strange critters howling in the distance, colder than heck, the whole enchilada.



The next day: Baxter's Pinnacle. This was a five-pitch climb that I understood to be rated 5.6 - easy, same as Skyline Buttress in the Gallatin Canyon (below). Well, the first pitch, which Craig led, was super easy. The second pitch, which I led, was not so easy - seemingly at least 5.7. Craig, who got stuck carrying the pack with our shoes and water, had a short fall right before the belay point. But no biggie - it was a beautiful day, and we were ready for more.

Craig led the next pitch, which was a beautiful 5.6 chimney problem; after that it was easy-breezy to the massive and sttep summit pinnacle. Oh, and it rained. Pretty hard, too, but we decided to wait it out. Sure enough, the sun came out bright as ever, revealing not only a rainbow below us, but a bald eagle soaring right above the final pinnacle.

About that pinnacle: We didn't know how to get up it. The climb was supposed to be a 5.6, right? Well, there was nothing on that block of rock that looked remotely 5.6-ish. We discovered a little traverse that led to the west and north sides of the rock, so we decided to check it out... but we couldn't get up those sides, either. Oh, we tried, with Craig doing a noble job on the northwest corner. But no cigar. It was raining again, so we decided to rappel down to the base.



Later we learned that the summit block actually starts out as a 5.9, before turning back into a 5.6. The route Craig tried was a 5.8. Oh, well. Do we really need to carry the big, fat "Climber's Guide to the Teton Range" with us everywhere we go? Maybe so. I had copied down some notes from it, but I failed to discern's the climb's subtleties. We considered ourselves triumphant anyway. What the hell.



Oh, about the chopper? When we got to Jackson, we read the front-page headline: Two climbers killed on Grand Teton. We were witnessing the body recovery. They were local guys from Kelly. It happens a couple times every summer in the Tetons. I guess this year's just gotten off to an early start.

Climbing: Skyline Buttress

I figured I ought to write about a recent outing just to show you that not all my adventures end up in disaster. Last week Craig and I made an attempt to climb Skyline Buttress, a rock climb in Gallatin Canyon south of Bozeman.

The climb is rated 5.6 - not very hard, but we're still novices and this was our first major multi-pitch climb. Just getting to the base of the climb was a bit of an adventure, especially since Craig called the ol' "You go that way, I'll go this way" move, splitting us up... and then decided he'd go my way, but I was looking for him above me...

Ah, well. We made it to the base of the climb eventually.

And I don't really have much in the way of trauma and drama to report (if you want that, see below). The day was beautiful, the climbing was easy, and neither of us fell. We placed protection the way it's supposed to be placed, we learned a few things about setting directionals (using slings so the rope stays straight) and tying into anchors from others on the rock, and we watched people doing way crazier things than what we were doing. The climb was great fun, especially the chimney section and the tunnel section, which required us to pop out of a small hole in the top of the rock. We decided a better name for the climb would be "Santa's Revenge."

I suppose the end got a little spooky, when it started to sprinkle a little and I climbed a pinnacle that I decided really wasn't part of the climb. I ended up downclimbing it, with its wobbly rock, in the rain.

But other than that all was well. We made it back to our packs for sandwiches and pudding, and watched the climbers on Sparerib. Possible future climb? We'll see.

Railbike adventure, ho!

The railbike odyssey continues. I finally decided the test tracks at Wallace and L Streets in Bozeman were destroying my bike. Sure, the first couple of times it was important for me to take care of some necessary tweaking, but after repairing the thing time and time again I finally realized that I was dealing with the worst set of railroad tracks in the state of Montana.

So, onto bigger and better things. Was my bike ready? Who knows. It wasn't ready to take another beating at the test tracks, that's for sure. I had originally considered riding the abandoned line from Wilsall to Livingston, but after a bit of research I realized I'd have permission issues with some of the landowners along the rail line. I needed a place without such constrictions, preferably on National Forest or BLM land. I needed... Homestake Pass.

Here's where Montanans take a deep breath, look at me dubiously, and mutter, "Wow." Homestake Pass is the route I-90 takes over the Continental Divide to Butte, Montana. It's known for steepness and treachery.

The rails running alonside it, however, aren't steep at all. After all, it's rare that any railroad has more than a three percent grade, Homestake included. It takes a big, swooping northward turn before coming back toward the interstate, making the pass in double the distance. Plus, the rails were gorgeous compared to the test tracks: straight, gleaming, clean, and totally gap-free. If it weren't for the large sage and juniper bushes growing up between the rails, it might even be fun.

Yes. Now, the Bentley railbike was not designed for wimps. Two- or three-foot plants, I could ram through them, no problem. Those weren't the problem. It's the four- and five-foot trees that were the problem.

Of course, if you see a big tree growing up between the rails, the common sense thing to do is dismount, lift the bike off the tracks, carry it past the tree, and realign the bike back on the rails. It gets old after a while, but it's the only sensible thing to do.

Other than getting rather repetitive, that wasn't the problem. The problem was the in-between-sized trees, the three-and-a-half-foot junipers in-between the tracks, or the taller ones growing right alongside the rails. For these suckers, I had a choice: dismount and carry, or go to full-throttle ramming speed for the railbike-juniper battle royal.

Knowing me, which do you think I chose most often?

Suffice it to say (as usual), the railbike didn't fare too well. Oh, it won the occasional battle, with me emerging triumphant on the far side of the tree, bushy branches flying from my spokes. But more often than not it sent me crashing to the tracks, right on the delicate front-end guide.

A note to those of you who just can't help taking notes so you can try this at home (not recommended): My two most recent modifications to the front-end guide were smashing successes (literally). 1) Lowering the skateboard wheels with washers was something that should have been done originally, and really helped keep the guide on the tracks. 2) Replacing the guide-springs with a less-tense pair not only made it easier to align the device on the tracks, I think it helped keep the sideboards from splitting from the multiple times the bike sloughed off the tracks.

In fact, the sideboards - both of which had previously split and I had reinforced - were fine. It was the main horizontal board of the front-end guide that split. Yep, cracked right in half... but there were enough bolts in the thing for me to keep on truckin'.

And truckin' I did go. At certain points the bike rode quite nicely, just like in the pictures on the Bentley website: merrily clacking along, swaying gently as the tracks sped beneath my wheels. Then, Clunk!, as I thud inelegantly the seven inches to the rail. Thank God for that foam testicle-protector I put around the top tube. Usually it was plants knocking me off the rails, but I noticed that when the track banked left - which seemed to be most of the time - my rear wheel had a really hard time staying on the rail, even if there wasn't a weed to be found. Conversely, when the tracks were straight and level I had no problem staying afloat.


Which was exactly the case for my first trestle. Honestly, it scared the shit out of me. Sure, it was plenty wide, and if the bike came off the tracks there was little chance of plunging over the railing-less side. But just the idea of riding a hundred or more feet over a gully, staring right through the tracks at it, with no one around for miles, was a bit nerve-wracking. Suffice it to say I went slow. Really slow. Like, barely moving slow. But, as you can see from the picture, it was dead-straight and the most weed-free section of the entire trip. I made it across without incident.


The second trestle was just as long and high, but it had the added bonus of a left-leaning (!) curve at the end. I made it through the straight part with slightly more confidence than trestle number one, but, yet again, the left-leaning rail sloughed off my back wheel at the end. Fortunately I didn't plunge through the tracks to my demise.

I went a little ways farther past the second trestle before running into a whole slew of trees growing between and next to the rails. It was growing late and looking like rain. I looked at my GPS unit to figure out how far I'd gone: 2.87 miles. Yikes! I hadn't even made it beyond the big hairpin back toward the top of the pass. And I had hoped to make it to Butte.



Oh, well. I considered going further - for about a second. I was tired of lifting the bike past trees. Plus, there was the cracked board in the front. I'd be done for if I kept going.

So I turned around and headed back down. Which was great! Even though the grade was gentle, downhill was way more fun than uphill... and, now that the track was mostly right-leaning, I seemed to have no problem staying on the rails. I clacked merrily for about a mile, removing only for the really big trees, ramming through the little ones, and cruising over both trestles. Then... I don't know what happened. I must have hit a gap in the rail or something; all I know is I came to an immediate stop, my left shin ramming the outrigger pole, my front wheel bouncing off the track.

And that was pretty much that. I had split one of the wooden arms holding the front-end guide in place (I had broken this board once before, by the way). Sadly, I removed the front-end guide and outrigger from the bike. There would be no more railbiking this day.

It was raining hard now, and I wasn't dressed for it. I duct taped the contraptions to each other and tried carrying them as I pedaled down a faint trail next to the rails. But the weight-distribution was all off, and that didn't last for long. Instead, I walked the bike and the contraption the mile and a half back to my car.

So now I have a dilemma: Do I rebuild this dagblamed thing for the nth time, or do I just let it sit in the garage, rusting away? After all, there's plenty more rails that need to be explored. And I still have some more wood, and some more metal bars to reinforce things with. And, I'm still the only one in my neighborhood who has one.

Or, maybe I'll just set aside a day to ram my bike into trees and parked cars. It'll have about the same result.

I'm on deadline

I love the sound of that: I'm on deadline. I'm on deadline! Everybody kind of stands back and goes, "Oh, sorry, I didn't realize you're on deadline. Clearly you're an important person doing important things. I'll just meekly stand over in the corner. I won't bother you. You do your work."

It's kinda like, "Back off man, I'm a Ghostbuster!" Or, better yet, "Back off man, I'm a Ghostbuster AND I'm on deadline!" Wow. Imagine the power.

Okay, gotta go. I'm on deadline.

Rail Bike - It works!

Yes, the rail bike worked! Here's its first trial run.



Pretty hot, huh? My friend Sam took the footage; that's his daughter Olivia. Of course, at the end of that run the tracks disappeared, the front strut device dropped, I ran over it with my front wheel, and broke one of the maple sections. So it was back to the shop.



I braced the broken maple, made a few modifications, and took it back out later in the afternoon. Again a great trial run! But turning around and coming back, the front device dropped in a gap in the tracks, and that was all she wrote. Both wooden struts were demolished, as well as two of the three wooden discs that hold up the outrigger wheels.

I'm psyched, though. Hopefully I'll get this back on track (ha ha) by tomorrow.

Peak-a-boo

Nice peak, huh? Looks like it'd be pretty fun to climb, right? Craig and I were going to ski the Banana Couloir, which sounded pretty appealing (get it?), but we ran out of time. But we made it to the pass, so that's pretty good. Here's some pics:

Ready for liftoff

The railbike is ready! Trial run is scheduled for tomorrow. Wish me godspeed. Please.

Goodbye, Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut has died, and the most fitting tribute I could think of was to watch my old video copy of Rodney Dangerfield's "Back to School." Vonnegut plays himself in the movie; it's just a tiny part, but it's classic: Dangerfield's character hires Vonnegut to write a book report... on Kurt Vonnegut. The report gets an F. They cuss each other out over the phone. Hilarity and hijinks!

So it goes, so it goes, so it goes. I imagine playing that part was a nice moment in Vonnegut's life, one in which he could poke fun at himself and his improbable life as a revered writer. He was my favorite way back when, and still is one of my favorites. I remember defending him to a friend who claimed he was a hack... but no. He wrote in a style that was similar to the style of children's books, but he used that to illustrate the technological highs and human lows of our lives. My bookshelf still proudly displays all his books. Naturally, he was an influence on me, both as a writer and for his insights into life. There never was anyone like him. I hope he'll be remembered as one of the best.

Flat Stanley Goes to Bridger

Flat Stanley is this kid who was smushed by a bulletin board, and he wanted to go on a trip so his family folded him up and mailed him places.

Which sounds rather abusive. I received Flat Stanley in the mail from my 7-year-old nephew James, although I don't know how James got him. Found him on the street, squeaking for help? Anyway, James sent him to me to have some adventures with, and that's something we're never short of around here.

Housemate Ross and I decided to head up to Bridger Bowl today for the last official day of the ski season - and why not take ol' Flat Stanley with us? He seems like a good sport. Probably not dressed properly with the tie and all, but hey, no one up there really cares.

So away we go! Might as well pose at the entrance sign:



And, of course, if you're going to ski, you're going to need a lift ticket. We don't want any embarrassing incidents! Fortunately, I work at Bridger Bowl, and I'm entitled to a few freebie passes for my friends. Kitchen manager Tina was more than happy to help us out with a voucher...



...and then ticket-man Jeff got us all set up:



Not only did we get an all-day lift ticket, we got Stanley a Bridger Bowl tattoo for his leg. That should loosen him up a bit! The lift line ticket puncher couldn't help but admire it:



And then we were off. I'm not sure if Flat Stanley has ever ridden on a chairlift before, but Ross and I didn't hear any complaints from him:





We put Flat Stanley in Ross' backpack for safekeeping. After all, we were headed to the steep and dangerous "Fingers" area, and Flat Stanley doesn't need to be any flatter.



At Bridger Bowl, the chairlifts don't go all the way to the top of the mountain, so if you want some really nice, steep, untracked powder, you're going to have to carry your skis to the top. Ross was nice enough to carry ol' Flat Stanley, too:



And then it's go, Flat Stanley, go!






Flat Stanley made several runs on the mountain... and he even made a bunch of new friends!



Ah, yes, after a hard day on the slopes, there's nothing like a nice, frosty apres-ski beverage. Yum! It looks like Flat Stanley's getting the hang of life out here after all.

Easter Skinday on Mt. Ellis

Here is a picture of my backyard. Why show a picture of my backyard? Certainly there's no adventure to be had back there (excluding Ross' trampoline, that is).

Ah, but look closer, dear readers. Off in the distance, directly over the birdbath, Mt. Ellis hovers over our fair city. And you know what? I've never climbed it all the way to the top. Yep, that thing's been tapping me on the shoulder for years, but I've only managed to make it up to its lower summit twice.

It's not like it's inaccessible or hard to climb or anything. Quite the contrary - backcountry skiers regularly ascend its southeastern flank to ski down fluffy, untracked powder. So, this past Easter Sunday, that's exactly what my housemate Ross and I planned to do.



For such an undertaking, one needs very specialized backcountry ski gear: skis with bindings that release at the heels for uphill travel, and adhesive skins to affix to the bottoms for uphill traction. Of course, once you're all decked out with the requisite gear, it's also kind of nice to have some snow. Since it is, after all, April, there were a few patches at the lower elevations that could have used some sprucing up. Here I demonstrate how to cross a creek when you're too lazy to take off your skis. Note the brightly colored outfit - yet another benefit of buying gear in thrift stores!





It took Ross and me two and a half hours to reach the ridge between lower and upper Mt. Ellis. Well, it took me two and a half hours; Ross spends his summers on a Hotshot crew fighting forest fires in the summers, and he's like bionic or something. Fortunately, he doesn't seem to mind waiting, which he was doing patiently by the time I huffed and puffed my way up the steep skintrack to the ridge.

(Note: If you look carefully past Ross' head, you can make out Mt. Black, which Craig and I climbed two weeks earlier.)



From the ridge it was an easy skin up to the 8,331 foot summit. What a beautiful day! But we couldn't stand around like a bunch of tourons drinking in the view; Easter dinner was scheduled for 5, and we were hungry. So down we went.






Of course, it wouldn't be a Ray outing without at least a little bit of adventure, so it was pretty much mandatory for us to get stuck in a bunch of impassable trees for a while, having to clambor out of deep snow just to get going in the right direction. But that didn't last for long; most of the run was mercifully aided by the laws of gravity, with enough long, open runouts to keep us happy. Of course, the snow was deep and warm and heavy and a bit unmanageable. Really, it was a bit of a struggle to turn in, but hey, I was just happy to be there. We made it home at five o'clock on the dot, got our fill of Easter vittles, and then (with about four glasses of wine in me) I made my counterclockwise circumnavigation of Mr. Boulder (see below). Then I went to bed, with every bone in my body aching.