Evergreening – Page 19

Evergreening the Blizzard of Right Now

It seems counter-intuitive that when this much snow falls (our Boston home has received more than 5 feet of the white stuff in the last 2 1/2 weeks) a two-wheeled vehicle would be better than a four-wheeled one, but that’s exactly what we’re finding. Studded tires add traction on the ice layer beneath the snow, and with the right clothing and only a passing interest in speed, there’s still a lot of fun to be had on a bike right now.

As an added bonus, there are almost no cars on the road, which means the little space that’s left is more than ample for the cyclist willing to brave the elements.

Disc brakes are another great advantage. Our Evergreens start with disc brakes as their default, also clearance for the kinds of tires that split the difference between trail and road.

A little bit of hike-a-bike is necessary on occasion, but getting into the woods this time of year just intensifies the feeling of freedom you get from riding a bike, not to mention the snow limned trees are beautiful, worth the trip alone.

a href=”https://sevencycles.com/7/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Snow-roll-photo-Rob-Vandermark.jpg”> a pack of winter riders

They say, optimists, that when life gives you lemons you ought to make lemonade. That summery advice doesn’t ring quite true right now, but we’re optimistic anyway, finding that there are shockingly few days when riding might not be a good idea.

The Company That Rides Together

OK. so it was 24F when we met at the shop, and ok, it was still dark, but it was Lily’s last day, so we pulled on our warmers and shoe covers and rolled out 13 strong. It’s not often we get that many of us out together on one ride, and it’s too bad that it took Lily leaving to bring us all together, but it was a solid reminder why we do what we do. Having this be a part of our work indicates that, somewhere along the line, we’ve made good life choices.

The Union Square Donuts that arrived just before 9am (thanks, Heather!!), when we rolled back into the parking lot, and the two vats of coffee that came along with them just stoked the joy of a Friday morning ride with friends. And ok, we’re all at our various machines and desks now. We’re working. But we know WHY we’re working, and it is good.

It’s sad to lose Lily to the Pacific Northwest, where she will no doubt thrive on the many trails, in the many donut shops and cafes, but we’re all grateful for the time we got to spend with her, and for the way she brought us together this morning to do what we do.

On the Road: Evergreening Austin

With the relative calm the holidays bring, we thought we’d go someplace warm and ride our bikes on trails and roads we’d never seen before. We got on a plane and headed for Austin…where it was colder than Boston. Oh, well. Adventures seldom work out as planned. Otherwise, we’d call them vacations.

A large portion of Austin is in a flood plain, so extensive measures have been taken to provide safe runoff for flash flood waters, which means an extensive network of wide culverts, intersecting and rambling across town below street level. Graffiti artists and vandals alike have decorated these subterranean spaces. Nature has intruded in interesting ways. Because Texas is in a prolonged drought, we spent some time exploring this alternative space, evergreening a place that is often not green at all, but still super fun to ride through.

Another great thing about riding in and around Austin is the variety of terrain, everything from primitive mountain bike trails to manicured and paved river paths.

Here is sunset in one of the many arroyos, dry creek beds, that spider through the countryside outside town.

Exploring the arroyos was maybe the coolest thing we did on this trip. They’d twist and turn, test your skills, force you to get off and carry the bike, and then reward you with a waterfall, like the one below.

The landscape surrounding Austin is one of those magical places where you can find yourself spinning through a desertscape one minute, broad stands of thickets the next, and then on under a sprawling hickory at the edge of green meadow.

We woke up on a sunny Christmas morning, snug in our sleeping bags, unzipped the fly and cooked breakfast on the fire. It was colder than we wanted it to be, but it’s funny how a campfire breakfast will put you right.

All photos by Rob V.

On the Road – The Blayleys in Ireland, Part III

When the Blayleys were last on the west coast of Ireland, the touring was a bit more seat of the pants. In the intervening decades, the tourist bureaus have organized, simplified and marked a vast number of routes that make seeing the grassy green sites a much less involved job. John and Pamela met John’s brother David, an archaeologist, to take in as many of the West’s sites as possible.

Catch up on the first two parts of this series here and here.

The Dartry Mountains range across the Northwest of the country in Counties Sligo and Leitrim. A series of limestone plateaus, the Dartries include Benbulbin, which features prominently in the poetry of Yeats.

Here are Pamela and David in the shadow of Benbulbin. Yeats is actually buried nearby in the churchyard at Drumcliffe.

Just inland from Benbulbin is Glenade Lough. A legend holds that a large otter-like creature called a Dobarchú attacked and killed a local maiden here in the 17th century. Neither John nor Pamela reported any sightings.

North along the coast from Benbulbin you find Fintragh Bay, just west of Killybegs, Ireland’s biggest fishing port.

North from Killybegs in Donegal is the Glengesh Pass. Things get pretty pastoral this far up, expansive sheep-dotted moors stretching away in all directions. The Pass itself is a little-traveled road that meanders through the mountains with swooping, whorling switchbacks and some precipitous descents that make for fine riding.

From Glengesh, John and Pamela headed straight out to the Atlantic Coast to see the Slieve League Cliffs, some of the highest sea cliffs in Europe, and were rewarded with the rainbow below, one of the few upsides of Ireland’s persistent rain.

The rain-slick return from Slieve League.

To see more of the fantastic photos from their trip check out their cycling 7. For those of you in New England, we also highly recommend visiting their routes page, which collects so many great rides it’ll take you years to ride them all.

On the Road – The Blayleys in Ireland, Part II

It’s been a hard couple of years on the bike for Pamela Blalock. In June of 2013 she was hit head on by another cyclist coming at her on the wrong side of the road, breaking her collarbone. Then, three months later she was hit by a truck, from behind. The resulting surgery left her with fused vertebra and, ironically, a whole litany of titanium screws and supports. She broke six ribs and spent four months in a back brace. She got back on the bike last April, but has been doing physical therapy and dealing with chronic pain continuously since then.

By the time she and John got to Ireland this year she had missed a lot of saddle time. In fact, the last of their annual trips to John’s homeland, she’d spent the whole time walking mile and miles through Dublin’s rambling streets and urban parks. She had dreamed of getting back on her bike. This year, getting from Dublin to the west coast, where they’d not been in nearly twenty years, was something of a redemptive pilgrimage for her, each ride a rich reward for pain endured and time passed.

In Scotland, the lakes are lochs, the most famous of which is Loch Ness, with its deep, dark water and its monster. The Irish equivalent is a lough, and the west of the country, Galway and Connemara are marked by two massive inland lakes, Lough Corrib and Lough Mask.

This photo was taken from the road above Lough Corrib. Old stone walls cut the farm fields into grazeable portions for the local sheep.

This is the road down to Lough Mask. Rolling banks of gray clouds hint at the sudden and torrential rain that leave you feeling you earned whatever view the day afforded.

This is the grass-corrupted double track to Westport in Connemara during a brief spasm of sun. These roads all rise and fall like the country’s erratic heart beat.

Here is the dark and wet portion of the Westport loop, fluoro vests keeping the riders from disappearing into the slate gray day.

The Sheeffry Mountains (the Irish translation is “Hills of the Wraith”) in County Mayo offer cyclists miles of these rough, narrow roads. This shot, taken in Sheeffry Pass, captures the elemental nature of riding in Ireland.

This the road from Ross Errilly Friary in County Galway, a medieval Fransiscan outpost among the oldest and best preserved such structures in Ireland.

The River Bundorragha south of Fin Lough, popular with fly-fishermen.

This is Kylemore Abbey, a 70 room castle built in the 1870s, by a wealthy London doctor. It sits in western Galway on the shore of Lough Pollacapall. It was converted to a Benedictine Monastery in the 1920s. Today the estate is surrounded by walled, Victorian gardens.

The Sky Road, west of Clifden, Connemara, Galway. On a clear(er) day, the Sky Road overlooks Clifden Bay and its offshore islands, Inishturk and Turbot.

Come back to see more from the Blayleyâ€™s Irish adventure, and their pilgrimage to the west of the country, or read more of their adventures on their own cycling 7.