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Epilogue (Part 2)

"My bike ride"

Hi, and welcome back to my bike blog.

Flying with a Bike Part 2

Flying with a bike and no car is logistically very difficult. I put my bike into storage at PDX airport on Tuesday afternoon (thanks for the help J-Lo!), and drove back to camp with the camp car. On staff departures day, I went with another staff to Eugene, OR, where Lizka and her family hosted me for one night, before I took the bus back to Portland, arriving at the airport by cab at around 9:00pm. My flight was at 6:00am the next day, and the storage would be closed from 1:30am onwards. That meant that I had to pick up my bike, and sleep at the airport until the check-in counters would open up at 4:00am.

And so..

I slept at the airport, woke up at 4:00am to huge lineups, boarded my flight, and watched the places I biked through from the air.

Portland:
Mount Hood:
Salt Lake City:

After watching some movies, and sleeping, I landed in Toronto, got picked up by my mom, and finally got back home.

I was hoping to donate the bike box to my local bike shop, or to see if anyone needed it. However, at some airport, it inspired the ire of the TSA, who unpacked it, inspected its contents, and did a Neanderthal job of repacking it, causing the box to bulge and the innards to poke holes through the cardboard. Still, if anyone in Toronto wants a topologically interesting bike box, hit me up!

Unpacking

Throughout this blog, I've referenced locations of things on the bike multiple times. For the benefit of any who wants to waste 30 minutes of their time watching crappy vertical videos of a bumbling bicyclist, I have recorded some unpacking videos for your pleasure. Sometimes things are out of the frame, and sometimes I point to things that aren't there, or am missing some detail. So I'll be adding notes after each video to give more detail about the items you see in them.

Anyway, here are the videos:

Unpacking Video 1 from Assaf Bar-Natan on Vimeo.

Not much to add here. The GPS is called the InReach mini On to the next clip. The kickstand is a piece of garbage that I kept forgetting to toss.

Unpacking Video 2 from Assaf Bar-Natan on Vimeo.

Fun story about the sandals - putting them on the side like that made it so that every time I opened the bag, they would fall out. I was pretty good at putting them back in, until I forgot to do so in a gas station in Portland. I had to backtrack about 15 minutes to get one of my sandals back. The quick-dry pack towel was a good thing to have in handy to wipe off sweat, and to replace a shower when I couldn't find one. The sleeping pad would leak, making it great to sleep on but nearly useless for sleeping in on. A great motivator to wake up early and head out!

Unpacking Video 3 from Assaf Bar-Natan on Vimeo.

So this clip got interrupted by a phone call, meaning that I had to do a bit of backtracking in the video. Sorry!

Unpacking Video 4 from Assaf Bar-Natan on Vimeo.

I ended up losing that black water bottle in Portland somewhere. It's been with me for a few years now. I hope it's packed away in some bag... Also, it's true. I don't know the difference between "inset" and "inlet." Finally, for those wondering, my Canadian SIM card was stored inside my old phone.

Unpacking Video 5 from Assaf Bar-Natan on Vimeo.

This is a good place to point out that every piece of electronics that I carried was USB-rechargeable. As for the lube comment, I put it on everything. Squeaky chain? Lube. Weird pedals sounds? Lube. If it doesn't fix the problem, at least it makes you feel like you tried.

Unpacking Video 6 from Assaf Bar-Natan on Vimeo.

The asshole comment is a Rocky Horror Picture Show reference, that in retrospect, not all of my friends understand. Some more reasons to bring a pin (or something really sharp) include: opening up phone SIM trays, using the pin to keep things together, and having a pop-culture reference to get some knowing nods from random strangers.

I didn't want to open my wallet, because it was completely full of old receipts, but in general, it's where I kept my stamps and my bike lock key.

Unpacking Video 7 from Assaf Bar-Natan on Vimeo.

I forgot to post the above video when I first posted this epilogue. I really can't overstate how useful the accessible pen was.

Unpacking Video 8 from Assaf Bar-Natan on Vimeo.

A word about soaps: I only bought soap once this trip. The rest was stolen from hotels. That's why there's a bunch of small pieces instead of a cohesive bar. Update on the bike lock: I did not use it at all.

There are some other things not mentioned in the video, such as the water bottle that is in the background of every video, and the GPS that is mounted on the handlebars themselves. I also didn't talk about the bell. I'm sure that throughout this blog there's many pictures of these things.

Latourell Reflections

Upon rewatching these videos, I decided to look in my notebook, and found something I wrote two weeks into mathcamp while visiting the Latourell Falls. I've copied and pasted it below:

Driving in a car, I still notice the mile markers. My fingers, still numb on the new kind of steering wheel, I lean back and think of the sights. No need to turn and look - I've lived them before. Hills are not a factor. I smile as the car barely squeezes through narrow roads. I'll need to find parking. I still have the mentality of a cyclist.

Every exit gives me a rush of joy. A kind of inner sense of expectation, making me lift my head from the trance of the road. Maybe there's a gas station? Shade? Water? A post office? 16km away - that's pretty much there, just another hour. The day is almost over.

I notice the rumble strips. The ones that made roads good, or bad. I think about the obstacles that made roads good, or bad. Shoulders, pavement, traffic. I think back to Idaho, where the rumble strips would rhythm my ride. I change lanes to the right, and slowly let the car veer off the road, just to feel those I-84 rumble strips again.

They don't feel the same.

There's something I thought a bike ride would be. In retrospect, it feels much flatter; lacking depth and more grounded in reality, now that it's actually happened. Music takes me back to concrete experiences. I did not experience a bike ride, but I experienced my bike ride.

(colour is altitude in this map)
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