I’m not sure I could survive without my bike. From short rides along the shore of West Seattle, to epic month-long bike tours in Chile, I love to ride. Here are some photos I took along the way.

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Watch a slideshow of these and additional mountain bike & cycling tours photos HERE

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I truly want to support businesses that feed my habits, which mostly include, but are not limited to, cycling, backcountry skiing and hiking. Unfortunately for me, these are all somewhat gear-heavy sports…I like gear and that’s a problem because gear is also expensive. So most of the time I just get to drool on my keyboard as I scroll through the latest, lightest, fattest, bad-ass’est big-boy-toys on the web.

This morning I received an email from backcountry.com, which means only one thing…winter, believe it or not, is not that far off. But the email wasn’t about some semi-annual sale (which I unfortunately did stumble upon, because now my keyboard is all wet); instead it was a reminder to update my ‘online profile’. No problem, I thought, as often times profiles are great ways to get your adventure photography website noticed (Don’t tell anyone!) Backcountry.com also recommended a photograph to complement my profile. Cool, another place to add one of my ski photographs. But just as I was about to do this I read the now-infamous terms and conditions. Here is the first paragraph:

Any comments, reviews, posts, feedback, questions, answers, notes, messages, images, video, audio, materials, ideas, suggestions or other communications you submit on Backcountry.com are not private or proprietary. By submitting User Content on or through Backcountry.com, you grant Backcountry.com an irrevocable, royalty-free, worldwide, perpetual right and license to use, copy, modify, display, archive, store, distribute, reproduce and create derivative works based upon such User Content, in any form, media, software or technology of any kind now existing or developed in the future

Basically, whatever image I use on my profile page is there for the taking. Does this mean I won’t post an image? Not necessarily…it just means whatever image I upload is going to be very small and contain a watermark. It bothers me to uncover things like this, especially for organizations that I truly want to support…

So, my photography tip of the day: read the terms and conditions if you’re posting images online and if you are posting an image, re-size it so small it would be tough to get even a 4×6 print out of it.

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It’s very easy to take certain things for granted. Here in Seattle we’re often so focused on traveling down to Mt Rainier, or somewhere in the Cascades, or maybe over the Cascades for some high desert warmth, that we often forget about this relatively small chunk of paradise to our west. Of course everything is relative. Olympic National Park isn’t necessarily small, it encompasses over 920,000 acres, 95% of which are designated as wilderness. If you’re willing to put in even a small amount of effort by hiking more than just a couple miles from the ranger station, you’re going to have A LOT of space to yourself.

But we’re not necessarily going to hike into one of the 60 named glaciers in the interior of the park. We’re packing the surfboards and sea kayaks (and the bikes for good measure) and driving to where the land meets the sea, where the Pacific ocean has, for thousands of years, molded the coastline into a stunningly rugged and beautiful piece of nature.

So stay in touch…and come back in a week or so for what I hope will be a dazzling display of photographs from Olympic National Park.

In the meantime, enjoy this sailing photo I captured as Jeannine, and hundreds of other brave sailors, sailed off below the looming Olympic mountains as part of the annual Swiftsure Yacht Race. The shot was taken just north of Victoria on Vancouver Island.

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I just put up a posting on eBay for a brand new set of Sram Rival brakes I am selling. These have never been used or mounted. Very nice set of road bike brakes – http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220269897228 for a very good prices. Contact me directly if you’re interested (no eBay fees!).

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…a ‘good’ ride has to be at least 5 hours in length!

So yes, I’m pretty much recovered from the BC Bike Race. Matter of fact, I’m beginning to get a bit antsy and looking forward to hopping back on my mountain bike. Having to use my time wisely though, I’ve decided to embark on a little cycling adventure rather than hitting up the trails.

Tomorrow I’ll leave a friend’s cabin on Cle Elum Lake for the John Wayne Trail (known also as Iron Horse State Park) which I’ll follow for 80+ miles over Snoqualmie Pass back to Seattle (total trip distance probably a hair under 100 miles to West Seattle). The rail trail, part of the old Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroads, was known as Milwaukee Road. John Wayne proclaimed that it “symbolizes for many the positive spirit of the West.” I like that. The rail was active as early as 1908 and was the last built of the transcontinental railroads.

Stay tuned for a detailed report and photographs from the trail.

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I've been spending a lot of time on my bike lately. In two weeks I head up to Victoria, BC, for the start of a 7-day mountain bike stage race, the BC BIke Race. I wish I could say I was physically ready to roll…hmmm. Although my base fitness is pretty good and I have no problem hopping on the bike for a relatively easy 4 hour ride, throw me in a race and all bets are off.

But this post isn't about me, although it is all about cycling. A good friend of my is organizing Climate Ride 2008, a five-day 320-mile road ride from New York City to Washington, DC, to create awareness about global warming and renewable energy sources. Although they are limiting this, the 1st annual, tour to 100 people (it's probably going to sell out fast so click here to SIGN UP NOW) I highly recommend checking out the website regardless as it contains a bunch of great resources, and links to, climate-related issues, websites, etc.

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Ok, so it rains in Seattle, we know that. It’s what makes the city so green and moss grow on our roofs. But come on, it’s June and most of us have probably forgotten some of the beautiful days we’ve had now that November clouds have rolled back in. This past Tuesday though was rather ridiculous. Sure as I made my way to the Search Engine Marketing expo in the morning a light drizzle provided my morning shower, but leaving the expo in the afternoon I couldn’t help but notice as the city disappeared under a blanket of dark clouds. I wanted to get in a slightly longer ride so instead of heading straight back to West Seattle I thought I would head north…bad idea….very bad idea.

Shortly after leaving the expo it started to rain hard, really hard, like Amazonian rain-forest, tropical downpour hard. And it didn’t let up. I cut my ride short, hoping if I rode south I could pedal right out of the storm. Not. It seemed to follow me wherever I went until suddenly, after nearly a hour of getting utterly soaked and chilled to the bone, I broke through the barrier and the rain stopped. Yes I was little worried that my body wasn’t going to deal with this round of immune-busting exercise, but more of a concern to me was the laptop I was carrying in my backpack. I just kept thinking, “Oh shit, this thing is ruined. All my work, folders of digital photographs…” Bad.

Waterproof backpacks…if you live in Seattle and commute any time of the year, you need one. There’s no way around it. You’ve probably heard of companies like Timbuk2 who carry messenger backpacks, but to be honest every time I see someone on a bike hauling one of these around, the rider never appears comfortable as the bag swings back and forth. So if you don’t have a rack and panniers, nor do you want a messenger bag (or want to attach something like a B.O.B trailer), a traditional backpack is the way to go.

I never thought I would endorse this bag due to it’s ridiculous price tag ($170) and  extremely fickle waterproof zipper, but I have to admit Ortlieb’s X-Cursion waterproof backpack proved invaluable during this recent rain storm. I rode for literally a hour in POURING rain and when I got home, worried my laptop was toast, it was, no joke, completely dry.

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Growing up I never really had a huge desire to visit any of the Hawaiian Islands, for whatever reason I’m not sure. But as I traveled and read, read and traveled, the allure of the islands grew on me a bit. So when Jeannine had the opportunity to help the owner of Northwest Womens Surf Camps plan their 2009 Hawaiian surf retreat I figured I would keep my mouth shut and just go with the flow…I mean, how bad could it be right

Welcome to Kauai…one of the most beautiful places in world and officially, from this day forward, one of the worst places to go for a bike ride.

Ok maybe that’s a bit harsh, for the folks at Kauai Cycle were very nice, although maybe a bit reluctant to befriend a stranger, a tourist, with as much enthusiasm as they about cycling. I mean, people don’t travel to the most northern Hawaiian island to go cycling. Furthermore, there just aren’t many roads, and the main HWY that circumnavigates 85% of the island is just that, a (two lane) highway that just about every car must use to travel to and fro. There is a beautiful bike path that runs right along the Pacific for a couple miles north of Kapaa, but otherwise if you want to ride you really need to be comfortable sharing the road with cars, trucks and a few tourists on mopeds.

We’ve only been here a couple days and I hope to get in some good rides, including the 4000 ft climb up to Waimea Canyon. But for now, after a couples days enjoying beautiful, albeit humid, weather, I have learned two things:

Not a good surfer? Too bad

Bikes (and bikers) just don’t seem to garner much respect

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This past summer was somewhat of an oddity for me. That is, I spent much of my free time building up my photography portfolio rather than cycling. Sure I was able to embark on some great cycling tours, but for the past 7 years most of my free time was spent training and racing mountain bikes, road bike and cyclocross bikes at the elite level.

As the temperatures dip and mornings are cool, I’m starting to get the urge to race a bit more, and with the cyclocross season kicking off last weekend here in Seattle, I think I may spend fewer hours snapping pictures on the weekends and instead head out for some cyclocross racing. While I’ll continue to work on taking photographs (and happily look forward to another ski season and the opportunity to work on winter photography) I’ll also be posting updates on how the cyclocross season goes. So please, check out my cycling website, which will include race reports, some bike & gear reviews and the occasional nutrition tip. 

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As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m pretty convinced the Discovery Coast Circle Tour is quite possibly one of the best bike tours no one knows about in North America.  Although I have created a photo gallery that includes some of the images from that trip, I wanted to provide a better sense of place for those viewing my images. So here is an interactive map illustrating the route as well as general locations of where I took my photographs. If for some reason the Google map causes problems, you can open a new browser by CLICKING HERE

View Larger Map

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