Howdy folks … Steve here. Well, it’s Monday morning, the seventh of December. The sky is clear, the air crispy cold, and the thick green forest outside my window is as beautiful as ever. The sound of the surf is now serenading me to sleep again at night in a heated home. I miss my tent’s raw adventurous feel, the smell of the creosotes, and the sounds of the coyote. Death Valley is again a memory to savor, a wild land of mystery and legend that has left another unforgettable imprint in my mind. All my visits over the years have been extraordinary, but this recent 2009 autumn odyssey will be the most treasured.
Jack Freer caught this awesome moonrise over the Funeral Mountains, not far north of Furnace Creek, on the way back from Red Pass and Titus Canyon.
The trusty Q is down in the garage, once again clean. The dust and grime has been erased from its shiny exterior, and no one would be any the wiser about where it just journeyed. I have a new respect for this trike, and now realize that it has the power to get me anywhere I have the determination to travel. At the onset of this expedition, some folks wondered if this would be a passing fancy, just a another expensive toy to experience then discard, such as the custom of our society from childhood.
It may work that way for others, yet as I write this post, my zeal for three wheels is only increasing. I couldn’t keep myself off it during the stay at mom’s, a time when I was supposed to be letting the Achilles completely rest for a change. I was rocketing around her subdivision like a little kid, the huge smile on my face only minimally interrupted when I really poured the power to the pedals for that ultimate high of doing 25 miles per hour in a 25 MPH zone, keeping pace with a car or two here and there.
The wild triker is once again at peace on his Q. No trailer, no excess weight, no uphills = top speed ahead!
My commitment to making my carbon footprint as minuscule as I can is strong, and the ICE Q allows me to contribute a sizeable gift to the air you and I breathe everyday … an endowment that is defined by what it is not, rather than by what it is. As I silently pass along the roadways, whether it be en route to a local store, or on my next cross-country adventure, I am content knowing that no toxic poisons are being distributed in my wake. After 43 years of cars, I choose to behold life from a new vantage point. I like what I see.
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This month, I will be starting a new book, one that I originally envisioned would focus on this expedition to Death Valley. I had it all planned out in my mind how it would come together. Then, I walked over to Terry Butler’s home Friday night to say hello after my extended absence, and some promising seeds of change began to take root. Terry is a scholarly man of wisdom and conviction, who has been most helpful to me during the months before my trek to Badwater. He opened my eyes to how success was to be defined in my quest, and has proven ever supportive. As a former university professor, he offered guidance in structuring and writing the book.
Professor Butler remains cool under his Tilley hat while on a cycling adventure with Steve this past September.
Part of the manuscript was going to include the stories of five inspirational people I met during my time pedaling and camping in the wilds of western America, folks who had taken their own daunting journeys of body and mind. He and I agreed that their tales would appear subsequent to my own, perhaps in an appendix. After a couple of hours of passionate and detailed discussion on such things as writing style and audience identification, I walked home in the night air to feed my hungry stomach. Can’t let any more brain cells die for lack of nutrition, after all.
Hours later, in the dreamy depths of darkness that precedes the new sunrise, I slowly came out of a period of REM sleep and began contemplating our discussion and the new book. Sometimes my best thoughts flow during these lightless early morning interludes, a time when it seems the unburdened mind is open to the purest and most productive thoughts. An epiphany struck Saturday morning before first light. Why not shift the focus away from me? How about if I transfer the spotlight onto a concept that would be beneficial to a larger audience? Terry and I had talked about how to benefit others through my writings, but now I wanted to expand on that idea even further.
I have already written two books about Death Valley specifically, and was intent on making this the third, but my desire morphed away from this foundational aspect, and my enthusiasm for the fresh direction has me excited. You likely know from reading this journal that I am bent on doing my part for this planet, however misguided the masses may consider that to be, and if I could get a book out there that would serve my goals in this regard, then so much the better. This cause is immeasurably more important to me than simply tooting my own horn in the pages shipped out from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
So folks, it’s being announced here first:
The new work will showcase the journeys of those who have risked going too far in their personal pursuits of roaming the planet, folks who have made decisions to travel by foot or pedal, intrepid Terrans who discovered how far they could truly go. It will highlight their challenging travels, why they did it, what they learned, and how they are impacting not only their own futures, but those of anyone who finds inspiration in their odysseys. I have found these people a personal encouragement to me, and I believe others will too. In addition to the five I currently plan on including, I will seek others I do not yet know. Of course, the Death Valley Tricycle Expedition will be part of the mix. My story will be told, but rather than an entire book detailing every last event, it will be an abbreviated version in keeping with the flavor of the new brew.
Paul Gareau, on a 15,000 mile bike trip from Alaska to Argentina, poses with Steve in front of Death Valley's Red Cathedral. Paul hit the 5,000 mile mark of his journey at Badwater.
Soon, I will be placing a brief notice on hiking and cycling forums, an offer for people who have personally traversed the countryside using human power to propel them over the miles, who have done what most would consider either impossible or foolhardy, who have come away changed for the better as a result of their travels. If they have an inspiring story to tell, one that will benefit like-minded explorers or would-be adventurers, a story of encouragement during these times of discouragement, it will be considered for potential inclusion in the publication. Anyway, that’s the plan today, so we’ll see how it develops.
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Regarding my gear and lessons learned, as foretold by friend Matt Jensen, I carried too many supplies on my journey, and found the resulting slow progress over the mountain ranges a hindrance. Only by doing a trip like this does one really learn what is needed and what could have been left behind. Modifications to my mindset and equipment paradigm are currently underway, and will begin with the liquidation of the Burley flatbed trailer and the Rubbermaid Action-Packer cargo trunk. It’s a $300 trailer and a $70 trunk, both with only 37 days of actual use on the road. I will happily part with the setup for the measly sum of 250 George Washingtons. Both are in excellent condition, despite the weather extremes they endured. Oh, and by the way, the trunk is indeed water and dust tight.
The flat space atop the trailer trunk will definitely be missed, of course, because it allowed me a place to use as a table. I could set my bowl of cereal there, or whatever else needed to leave my hands at the moment. That’s the big plus for a trailer, because when primitive camping, handy flat spots are not often anywhere to be found. But on the other hand, the trailer itself (including the two wheels and tires) adds weight to my rig, poundage that I had to haul up every incline and over each seemingly endless mountain pass. Even though it rolled with virtually no noticeable friction along the flat, it is still nice to not have an appendage behind the trike. Not only that, but the trailer has two tires, two more pieces of rubber that must be taken into account when avoiding obstacles, and two more treads that can fill up with thorns (as I learned the hard way).
Burley aluminum flatbed trailer with Rubbermaid 35 gallon Action-Packer trunk
The trike will be adapted to take up the slack that the trailer leaves with its passing. I already sold the Otivia cargo trunk that sat behind my head, not due to any defect or shortcoming, but because it did not meet a couple of my eccentric needs. First, I didn’t like having to use a key to access its contents. What if I lost the key? I kept a spare, just in case, but still, it’s one more step to get to your stuff. The trunk’s aerodynamic hard-plastic design also made it difficult to attach my Arkel panniers each morning because the front of it stuck out enough to cover the mounting rack, thereby making access problematic. And last but not least, I couldn’t set much on top of it while fixing breakfast or accessing the trailer trunk, due to its sloped design.
My mind is still mulling over the possibilities. Whatever I mount on the trike to replace what I am losing, will be a soft and flexible material, such as Cordura nylon. This I learned when I decided to put all my gear into a small car for transport home. Had I not had the hard-plastic Rubbermaid 35-gallon trunk and the Burley trailer, I could have rented an even less expensive Toyota Prius, and done more of my share of keeping toxins out of the air on the trip north in California’s San Joaquin valley. Soft bags compress as necessary to fill weird little spaces. Fixed size trunks do not. The ICE Q trike will fit in the rear of a Mercedes Smart car if broken down far enough. While I don’t plan on transporting the trike again by car (didn’t plan on it this time either), it’s nice to know that it will fit in any trunk if required out on the road.
I may also go ahead and have my welder fabricate a sun cover as I wanted to do prior to this trip. It would be made of lightweight aluminum tubing, and would attach to the two aluminum tubes of the recumbent seat, similar to where I put the tube that currently holds my tail light, head light, and flagpole. This would have a flat aluminum top, which could double as a small table to set food, or a convenient location to place my bathroom bag while brushing my teeth out in the wilds. This “table” would also keep the sun’s rays from relentlessly bombarding my head during the eight hours on the road each day, or at least when the rays are the strongest while the sun is overhead midday.
A sun shade would attach to the seat similar to this light and flag pole, which inserts 5 inches down into the seat tube. The Otivia cargo cache that appears here has been sold, to make room for a flexible container instead.
Without the trailer, my gross vehicular weight would decline, which is a good thing for long and steep uphills (of which the world is duly covered). One other negative aspect of the trailer is that the tires are slightly offset to the left-hand side (lane side) in order to maximize the turning design. This effectively makes my rig wider by a few inches, so any advantage gained with the Q’s narrow track design of only 27.5 inches is lost. With the trailer, I’m nearly as wide as a Greenspeed tricycle. This will stop me from easily riding through really tight spaces. Essentially, I will be much more maneuverable with just three wheels and the trike, which is about six feet long, instead of trike and trailer with their five wheels combined, which is about ten feet long. I am willing to lose the advantages of the trailer to gain the advantages of just the trike.
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Oh, I almost forgot to mention a very important improvement! You may recall that I had a mid-back spinal vertebra rub the skin a little raw during this expedition, which was due to how an anomalous ridge in the mesh seat just happened to be against the spine. I was not able to completely adjust this out of the picture during my weeks on the road, but a new product addition to the trike will take care of the problem:
Ventisit Recumbent Seat Cover, shown here on a bicycle, adds unparalled comfort to any cycle seat for the long haul.
Will Baird, the table-tennis player I met in Apple Valley, had a fantastic little cover on his hardshell trike seat that I knew I would have to get. It is made by a company called Ventisit, and is a recumbent seat pad that is nothing short of phenomenal. It is approximately an inch thick, and sits atop your regular seat, while providing plenty of soft material into which the spine is completely protected from abrasive wear. The company is located overseas in a country they call Nederland, so I plan on calling Dana Lieberman of Bent-Up Cycles in Van Nuys, California to order one state-side (he is a dealer). I will also be able to get his opinion of it prior to purchase. I believe it costs in the neighborhood of $100. Will Baird told me it was very comfortable.
Dana Lieberman has also triked through Death Valley, although he had a group of his triking friends along for the ride. Here Dana (second from right) poses with his pals at Death Valley's Badwater Basin, nearly 282 feet below sea level.
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On a humorous note, I have even thought about auctioning off my custom-adapted head dish towel to any souvenir-seeking enthusiast out there. Obviously, this item will be increasingly sought after, and will eventually be considered priceless. Not priceless because of the large monetary sum that could be commanded by it, but priceless in the context of worthless. Hey, it might even make a great product that any cyclist on overland trips could use. The specially sewn Velcro tabs I so craftily affixed worked flawlessly to keep it in place during strong head winds.
I could call my new product the “Death Valley Dish Towel” for unique user-appeal. One thing I know for certain, it kept me from frying my skin from the neck up day in and day out, under the unfiltered rays of the star that sits 93 million miles off the starboard side. So, any entrepreneurial manufacturers out there who think I’m onto something big (or not so big, as the case may be), don’t hesitate for a moment in assisting me in getting the new DVDT into the cycling market!
Notice how Steve has cleverly adapted an ordinary dish towel to serve as his on-the-cheap sunshade. Once word is out, this will be one hotly sought after item (or so we can dream anyway).
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All right folks, lunchtime is nearing, and I still haven’t worked out today, so I best wrap up this little eclectic post now. I may well sneak back to it later and include some more of my musings, but then again, I may not, as my work is cut out for me in the foreseeable future. You never know though, so check back often to find out (gotta’ keep that stats counter ticking, right?). See you on the road … pedaling or walking of course, as my newly acquired power model doesn’t allow me to have eye contact with automobile drivers (ha ha). Okay, later!
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Editor’s Note: To contact Steve about potentially including a story in the book, or to inquire about purchasing the trailer, please email him: wildernessrogue (at) gmail (dot) com. He’ll hopefully get back to you once he is done eating.
