The New Years Eve 2005 Flood

Whoa! Been raining on and off for the last week. Over the last 24 hours its been really coming down in Northern California and NW Nevada. The resulting runoff is causing flooding along the Truckee River and playing havoc with Evans Creek in our neighborhood. Here are a few pictures taken this morning (12/31/05). Happy New Years everyone! We're staying home this year and contemplating filling some sandbags.



Backyard view from the deck

View looking east (downstream) on Evans Creek

A neighbor's house that's flooded out (note the high water mark on the garage door).

Evans Creek behind the flooded house

Lakeside and Evans Creek

Entrance to the Green Ranch development. This is overflow from Evans Creek (probably about 6-10" deep).

Standing in the middle of Lakeside Street

Evans Creek flowing under the wooden bridge at Bartley Ranch Park

The Ranch Loop HIKING TRAIL at Bartley Ranch Park! The old irrigation ditch is overflowing into the trail.

A peek behind an office building on Lakeside Street. Notice the water overflowing the decorative rock retaining wall

Lakeside strip mall parking lot. No Blue Moon Pizza today!

The corner of Ridgeview and Lakeside. Note that the water is covering the wheels on the silver truck turning right off Lakeside.

Washoe Valley in the fall

Just got done watching a mellow surf movie called Singlefin:Yellow. The movie got me thinking about all the ways that people enjoy life. Cyclings one way that I enjoy life and it doesn't get much better then a crisp fall ride. The leaves will be off the trees when you read this but here's a few picts from a morning ride several weekends ago.



The route out of Reno to Washoe Valley follows the route of this year's Tour De Nez; Reno's very own professional cycling road race.

Because we're in a valley between two mountain ranges there's lots of seismic activity. Here's a local geothermal plant that produces electricity. That's snow on the 10,000 ft peak of Mt. Rose in the background.  


The route to Washoe Valley involves a little highway time. No worries as the shoulder is pretty wide. My goal is the reach the base of Slide Mountain which is in the background of this pict.

Ahh.... Washoe Valley. This loop takes me around alpine mountains on one side of the valley and desert mountains on the other. The road allows for some very easy fall riding.

A look out across the meadows and ranch land. The morning sun has not burned off the haze on the far side of the valley.

The Bowers Mansion. Once a home for a Comstock mining baron. Now part of a county park.

Fall is definitely a good time to visit (and a good time to ride).

Looking back toward Slide Mountain to observe my progress.

Now on the far side of the valley riding through the sweet smelling desert sage of the high desert. 


Note - If you've made it this far into the blog and you've never been out to visit then you should really take some time off. If you've been out to visit in the winter then give some thought to visiting in one of the other three seasons. I talk alot about riding bikes but the hiking here is pure bliss (ask Zoe). There's plenty of camping, whitewater, and lots of adventures for you.

By popular request here are some Zoe picts from the weekend. We spent Sunday with our neighbor and some friends at the Bartley Ranch Fall Festival. This county park is walking distance from our house and provides a nice place for kids to play and enjoy an autumn day outside.



Zoe and Christopher enjoying a haybale bench (Notice the cookies in the background. The smiles are for the sweets)

Hanging out on the back of an antique fire truck

Zoe and Corinne try out a school desk in the Bartley Ranch one room schoolhouse

This school stuff is pretty interesting!

Zoe thinking about which pumpkin to take home

Corinne and Zoe share a moment at the pumpkin patch

Dad's favorite event of the day - the eight piece accordian band plays "Roll Out the Barrels"

Zoe enjoys a hot dog picnic in the grass after a long day at the Fall Festival 

The Old Master

Pictures are cool but they don't always take the place of words. I've been a little lax about writing (and a blog is all about writing) thus I sidled up to the keyboard tonight to see what I could do.

Several weeks ago Ting decided to take a weekend shift. I got up early on Saturday to drive her to work and later go shopping with Zoe at our local farmers market. On the way to Patagonia I couldn't help but to notice several handwritten garage sale signs posted up and down Mayberry Avenue. The fluorescent neon poster board lured me in like a moth to a floodlight. After dropping Ting off at 7:45am I couldn't help but to backtrack my route and turn down a side street to the see what goodies awaited.

"Where we going Daddy?" "Why we stopping?" Zoe had no idea why I'd want to go to garage sale. True be known, I'd hit three or four garage sales over the course of the summer. My goal was to find a used road bike to fix up into a winter beater bike. By 8:10am I'd hit the jackpot!

The garage sale was run by a man in his late 40's who was selling off most of his elderly father's junk. In the corner of the yard was a bright yellow, early 1970's ten-speed road bike. I wandered over trying not to show too much interest. There was no price on the bike. A little closer inspection revealed a nice hand filed lugged steel frame that was close to the size I needed. "How much for the bike?" I sheepishly asked the guy running the sale. "Twenty dollars, It's a good bike that my dad used to ride around Europe for a summer". The man's voice had a defensive tone that seemed as if he was somehow trying to justify the extravagant cost of the cobweb covered bike. The price made my heart skip a beat. The bike was a Witcomb racing frame. Witcomb is an old brand made by a small shop in England. Later I learned that Ernie Witcomb had been building bicycles since 1949 and several had been raced by world champions over the years. "I'll take it" I said and whipped out my wallet.

Later on in the day, while Zoe was napping I crept into the garage to more closely inspect my purchase. Soon the cranks and brakeset were off and soaking in mineral spirits. Everything down to the ball bearings looked relatively unused. The only real flaw I could find was a small crack in the paint where the downtube met the headtube. Undeterred I stripped the rest of the parts off and polished up my newfound steed.

Over the next week I got in touch with local legend Roland Della Santa. Back in the 70's and 80's Roland was one of the premier bicycle framebuilders in the United States. He built bikes for Greg LeMond in the late 80's when he first went over to Europe. Roland only builds 30 to 40 frames each year. He works only with steel and does not dabble with "throw away" materials like aluminum and carbon fiber. Roland's bikes are like buying a classic Ferrari or a vintage wine. When he agreed to take a look at the crack in the Witcomb I jumped at the opportunity to visit him.

A visit to Roland's workshop was like a visit to any find craftsman's workspace. The shop was cluttered with brazing torches, milling machines, a sandblast cabinet and several bicycle frames in various stages of evolution. Old Campagnolo parts boxes lay on a workbench and boxes of Columbus steel tubing lined metal rack. A dusty Masi sat in a clamp waiting to be ridden again. It was cluttered yet comfortable. A place where a man could work alone on his passion. In a garage space sat an older Porsche and outside a VW bus in the process of being restored.

Roland immediately recognized the lug patterns and began giving me an oral history of bicycle framebuilding over the past three decades. He used his torch to burn off the old paint to expose the flaw in the Witcomb. The crack was a hairline flaw in the lug and could easily be filled with brass to strengthen the join. After several hours of discussion about cycling history and framebuilding Roland told me to call him tomorrow, as the frame would be ready.

The next day I met Ting at Zoe's daycare and carpooled over to Roland's house to see the frame. Roland was busy cooking supper and met us at the gate in his back yard. He raced back into his workshop and came back with my frame. The paint has been blasted off and the crack has been brazed and filed down. The only hint of the flaw was the shiny yellow brass against the gray steel tubes. Roland had made it possible that this frame would ride again. When I asked him how much he said it was a buck a minute so $10 would do it. I gave him a twenty dollar bill and told him to keep the change. Workmanship like that is slowly being lost in this world and I felt lucky to have met the man and seen him in action. Roland then proceeded to show Ting and I his prized San Marzano tomatoes that he was cooking down his dinner. He picked a half dozen ripe ones and asked that we try them out. With my bike in one hand and Ting carrying a bag of tomatoes we left Roland feeling indebted to the man. My garage sale purchase was turning into quite an adventure… (To be continued)

More on Witcomb
Picts of my bike
More on Della Santa

Exploring the Black Rock Desert

One of the great things about Ting's work is the opportunity for volunteer work in the outdoors. This past weekend we had a chance to head up to the Black Rock Desert to work with the BLM. The goal was to get together with some Americorp volunteers and work to close off some bootleg ORV and truck trails to keep from further scarring up the desert. The Black Rock Desert is an amazing place worth saving. There are many many historically significant sites from recent history back over 10,000 years. The cryptobiotic soil takes hundreds of years to develop and can easily be destroyed by a vehicle or even a footstep. Our goal was to camoflage some of these trails so that they might have a chance to regenerate.

I left my camera in the car during the work sessions but here are some picts from our playtime. The playa is a giant dry lake bed most famous for the yearly Burning Man festival.



Tent camping on the playa. No animals, no trees, no mosquitos, miles of flat, baked mud.

Zoe enjoying a tangy grapefruit in the morning sun

The playa is up to 30 miles across and 5 to 10 miles wide. The silt from this ancient lake is said to be close to 10,000 ft deep in places

Here's what the surface looks like up close. The cracks in the mud can go down 3 to 4 inches in some places. Every winter and spring the playa remakes itself.

Zoe can run for miles.... But she's never out of view

You can drive freely on the playa. Here we are chasing the BLM guys heading out to do some work on some bootleg trails. We're going about 80 mph with the hands off the wheel taking picts. There's nothing to crash into!

This pilot stopped by our encampment to say hello.

You can also ride around for miles. At night you can close your eyes and pedal for minutes at a time, floating over the surface.

Here's where things get gory. Sunday we went hking near the black rock mountains. I put Zoe on my shoulders but the off-balance feeling of 30 lbs of kid combined with loose scree and steep hiking caused me to have a bad bail. Zoe banged her noggin' and I sliced my finger open rather badly. Volcanic rocks are sharp!

Zoe examines the very rocks that caused all the damage.

The fault line that runs through the black rock desert creates lots of geothermal activity. Here is a natural hot spring in the middle of the desert.

Part of the old Emigrant trail from the 1849 gold rush goes through the black rock on the way to California and Oregon. This guy stopped at the hot springs and never made it much further. 

Ricky's Visit - Part II

After recovering from the Flume Trail we made the three hour drive down to Yosemite early Sunday morning. The goal was to find a campsite vacated from the weekend visitors then hike to the top of Vernal Falls then past there to the top of Nevada Falls. The round trip would take us about 4-1/2 hours with close to 2000' of elevation gain.

After the hike we returned to the campground which was promptly visited by a large black bear at dinnertime. Ricky got some picts but they are a little shady. Lets just say that the bear was as big as a motorcycle and pasted two campsites distance away from me while I was boiling some pasta! I started yelling and making noise (along with everyone else in close proximity) and the bear ignored my cooking and ambled into the woods...

Anyways...If you've never been to Yosemite then these pictures hardly do it justice.



The most famous climbing destination in the world - El Capitan 


Ricky hiking towards Vernal Falls

Serious rapids on the Merced River beneath Vernal Falls

Ricky at the base of the falls on the mist trail

The hiking is STEEP! The steeps are slippery...

On top of Vernal Falls looking down at our progress (Yes, those are people hiking up the mist trail!)

Our second waterfall - Nevada Falls. Pure force of nature which cannot be described in words or picts on the Internet!

Ricky provide a better idea of the magnitude of this waterfall

At the top of Nevada Falls looking into the canyon we hiked up

Liberty Dome and the backside of Half Dome

Back at the campsite (a black bear would come wandering through in another 1/2 hour

A look at at the Yosemite Valley and next years hiking goal - the top of Half Dome!