Truman

I named my bike last week.

You know that any form of transportation that achieves a name is truly special. I currently own a new Honda Civic. It DOES NOT have a name. I go out to it, it starts, it takes me comfortably and effortlessly to where I want to go. I never even think about it. No pangs of panic wondering if I'll ever get there, epic roadside wrenching, or trips to Smith and Edwards to find a few items that just might get me back from somewhere I likely should not have been in the first place. No big fro at work from sweating with windows down on the summer commute. It almost does not even exist as a car, more like teleportation. If that car has a personality I'm not aware of it.

The Civic is a stark contrast to Mud. Mud still lives if only in sweet fond memory. Mud was a grey 1987 Nissan Sentra 4 door babe-magnet-climber-mobile? My first car. I frequently felt that it should own me since technically it was bigger than I. I had been made aware of Mud's off road capabilities by my father who is arguably a regional expert piloting small Japanese autos into places only American 4X4s ought to go. I quickly applied his skills and was able to get to most of my local climbing spots only tearing two or three CV joint boots while off roading that first summer. Out of necessity I became expert at quickly replacing these boots and CV joints. Out of sloth I trolled Smith and Edwards until I found a case of "Lithium Airplane Grease." By regularly packing the torn CV boots with this stuff I was able to get an extra 5-10,000 miles out of my hammered CV joints before they needed to be replaced. I could get into and frequently out of very rough spots and only rarely get stuck. Fortunately the car was small enough that I could usually just pick it up if I ever did have problems. That did not always work though.

My worst stuck with Mud was in Alaska. A group of cannery buddies and I were on a break in between salmon openers and took a little road trip to nowhere along a 100 mile dirt road just south of the Alaska range. Of course the car smelled a little fishy as we drove along the dirt road with the windows up in the almost constant Alaska drizzle. The rain broke in the early evening and the sun came out to reveal a glorious little campsite just down a short road off of the main gravel highway. Did I mention that it was a nice steep hill and rather muddy or that it had been raining for about a week? Well I did not consider that either as I just wanted to stop rattling over washboards while gaping at Mt. Deborah. As soon as I nosed Mud down that hill I knew we were in trouble. We rather slid down to our campsite for a longer than expected camping stay. I tried to avoid thinking about the predicament that night as we set up camp and made dinner and I certainly did not mention my mistake to my fellow campers. I prayed hard that night that a good stiff wind would come up and dry things out.

It never happened, the stiff wind. We made an effort the next morning to pack up and drive out of there. I knew it was hopeless but of course I tried. About an hour of pushing and spinning in the deep black Alaskan muck had most of the team and certainly the car coated. I spent the majority of that day making trips with my backpack and collapsible snow shovel out to the main road to steal loads of gravel to add to the mud on the hill in an attempt to solidify it somewhat. About noon one of the guys mentioned casually that he was diabetic and needed to get out of here soon as he was out of medicine. No one came by on the main road to pull us out.... I kept hauling gravel in the backpack. Luckily the sun stayed out. Of course all afternoon I had been making repeated attempts at the hill with its fresh mix of mud and gravel. I was making some progress but mostly just coating the car with its namesake. Sometime in late afternoon while meditating under a heavy load of gravel I got the bright idea to rig a z-pulley system to pull the car up the hill.

I don't think the Z-pulley system helped that much but I will never forget the elation I felt as the image of my friends falling all over each other into the Alaskan subalpine scrub while dragging my beautiful new blue climbing rope through the mud burned into my brain as I crested the top of the hill. I don't remember if the diabetic kid had any problems after that but he might have been the one to start calling my car "Mud."

Some trips in Mud were messier than others. Meadow Utah. I don't think I could find it on a map but every trip down I-15 is like memory lane. Somewhere in those sagebrush flats with volcanic pimples I had a bad night. On a spring break trip to climb rocks in Nevada. Two friends and I were zipping through the night exhausted from a week of all nighters for final exams at Utah State. We might have been listening to the last staticky fragments of KJQ radio. Somewhere the radio stopped working... I had not experienced too many electrical problems with Mud yet but I was open to learning new things. Trying to focus on which big routes to climb I quickly changed the subject in my mind but could not fail to notice that the dash and headlights did seem to be growing very faint. The gravity of the situation hit me as soon as I turned on the blinker to change lanes. With a flick of the wrist the engine stalled....huh! that's weird...and ominous....I turned the blinker back off and the engine started again. I quickly did the math. Dead radio+dim headlights + engine stalling + middle of nowhere = at least a day less climbing this spring break. I pulled over and tried to think. Not easy to do on a brain that was fizzling after a week of blue book essays for Polysci 208 and History 510. I seemed to recall a recent exit with a Chevron station not too far back. I knew it was the battery or alternator, but what to do about it? Dad would know exactly what to do. I abandoned my friends as I decided to walk back to that "pretty close" gas station to use the payphone. I started off on a brisk jog in an attempt to save more time for climbing. After what seemed like forever I could finally see the Chevron sign. Like a homing beacon it drew me in. I went below a hill and as I came back up over the crest I could no longer find my beloved sign. It was a pitch dark cloudy night with minimal light pollution so distances were hard to judge. Without my sign to pull me in I slowed to a jog then later a trudge. I finally made it to the exit to realize that while I was under the hill someone turned off the lighted sign and closed up for the night. At least the payphone was outside. Dad of course had a great idea. "likely the alternator...wait until morning...push start the car...drive to a gas station...have them charge the battery...should get you to Cedar City or so...get yourself an alternator there..."

OK, that settled. I headed back to the car. I knew I had been walking for quite a while but in the dark with no watch I had no Idea how far I had come. On the thirsty trudge back to the car I counted mile posts. 9. One way.

We rearranged the gear and managed to sleep three people in a tiny car for the few remaining hours of that night. It did not hurt that Rebecca was not much more than 3 foot six or so. Of course we had a visit from the UHP boys after one of our backpacks laying beside the car was mistaken for a body by an also sleepy driver that night.

As soon as it was light we pushed Mud to a lurching start and sans the extra power draw of lights we limped to somewhere with a battery charger. We then were able to make it into St. George and an auto parts store right on the main drag. I bought a new alternator and a few tools and wasted a beautiful morning getting my fingers greasy instead of chalky. I still have that red handled phillips screw driver and it reminds me of the humiliation of being hunched over an open hood in the blazing sun in front of a sign that said "No Repairs In The Parking Lot" while being laughed at by a girl I was desperately trying to impress. This event seemed to set off a whole string of electrical mishaps for Mud.

The radio never worked really well after that. At one point the starter seemed to stop working too. I got by for several months on push starting alone. The funniest part was that Andrea couldn't drive a stick at that time and never did seem to master the finer art of "popping the clutch." She refused to learn and insisted on pushing, and she was thus relegated to being the brawn. I preferred to wear the greasy white tanktop I had worn while replacing the alternator as she pushed the car to sufficient speed to get the engine cranking. I'm sure there were many folks all over Cache Valley who looked on as this white trash guy made his poor girlfriend sweat while he relaxed in the front seat.

My brother, an evil genius mechanic in his own right, helped me to see that my starter was fine but the wires from the key to the starter were the root of the problem. He said I could spend enough outfit an expedition to Everest fixing the wiring or we could by pass the problem with some spare parts he had laying around and a little wire...not the baling kind however...from then on to get Mud rolling, you had to turn the key to "on" then reach under the dash to push a button that had once served a useful life in a demolition derby car to fire the starter motor. Later the cooling fan sensor went out so I made a similar arrangement after a long summer of driving around in 100 degree heat with the windows down and the heater on to keep the engine from overheating. Now I had two mysterious switches down low on the dash. I felt a little like the guy from Knight Rider with all the cool extra switches in my car. I might have even tried to call Mud Kit but during the exact second the thought went through my brain the engine stalled and there was a momentary massive electrical system failure. I never made that mistake again. I learned from Mud that CV joints and electrical systems are only the beginning of what can go wrong in a car that is well beyond its normal useful life.

Time was always a critical element for me. Trying to work, go to college, date a hot redhead, and be a climbing bum all seemed to tax me to the limit. Another thing that was taxed was Mud's transmission. One fall John Decker and I tried to fit in a drive over the Sierra and an ascent of Half Dome and El Cap into a quick weekend. I was pushing pretty hard that fall day to get Mud over Tuolumne Meadows down onto The Valley so we could get to sleep for an early start on the East Buttress. My first Yosemite climbing trip. About at the top of the pass I noticed another strange phenomenon in Mud. If I was pushing hard in 5th gear, the transmission would slip into neutral...I tried to not think about it too much as I had long Yosemite runouts and sandbag ratings to worry about and besides we could coast into the valley after about 5 more miles. The weekend was great and the climbing so intense that I forgot all about Mud's new ailment until we hit the tunnels heading out of the valley for the way home. By the time we drove to the summit the problem had progressed until the only way to keep the car in 5th gear was with stiff hand pressure on the shifter. The thought of trying to drive across the entire Silver State in 4th gear was more nauseating than some of those sketchy loose and sandy pitches high on Half Dome. I managed to rig a system with some bungee cords from a truck stop that would keep us in gear but it now took two people to shift from 5th to 4th. We worked out a system of signals much like the climbing standard..."On bungee?"..."Bungee on."..."Shifting."..."Shift on." We made it home just fine but I could not figure out a system to add to my collection of switches under the dash that would easily make the transmission work so I caved and replaced Mud's transmission. Then sometime later I replaced it again. I don't mean I had it replaced, I replaced it. Greasy and sweaty with frozen fingers in my in laws garage over Christmas break. I had no business wrenching like that as I never really knew what I was doing. Somehow it worked. Later that year Mud died, catastrophic engine failure... No hidden switch, airplane grease, or bungee cord could resolve this one. I smeared my face with lithium grease and said my last goodbyes while trying to hold back a muddy tear.

My next ride came with personality. It deserved a name from the start but it took awhile to find one that stuck. It also came with electrical problems and I eventually figured out that this poor little truck had logged some time underwater. As best I can tell, it was in the San Juan River. Red sandy mud was in many places that the sun just does not shine. And so we called it Fish. Fish was a mostly red truck with one green door that attracted Yosemite bears. Fish eventually took my young family and all of our possessions to Philly. The Fish never adjusted to life in Filthadelphia and was soon traded back to the open dirt roads and muddy rivers of the west for two cedar strip canoes. This post was not supposed to be about autos though, it is about my bike; the bike I just named Truman.

I bought Truman brand new at Guthries in Salt Lake City even before I got Mud. 21 speeds and even an elastomeric "shock." Truman went with Mud to Alaska but was not there when the diabetic kid needed a ride to safety. Truman has had its share of stories and mishaps. From secret slickrock bowls in "the basin," to most everything in Moab. I even punished it and myself on an insane day while we rode America's longest single stage road race from Logan to Jackson hole. I even passed one other guy that day during those 206 miles on a gravel section through Snake River Canyon. (He then passed me two minutes later once we got back onto the pavement.) It served time as an angry urban commuter as I made the trip past the 6 stop signs and 68 stoplights (not an exaggeration) between my house and Temple Podiatry School. It swapped paint with a cab and a few delivery trucks as I weasled my way through the tight slow traffic of downtown Philly while taking my cues from the messenger crew. I've replaced the wheels at least twice, the shifters and derailleur multiple times as well. More crashes than I care to admit. Truman was demoted to chief sawdust collector hanging in the rafters of my woodshop as a sleek cyclocross bike (yet unnamed) held my attention for the past 4.5 years.

Kentucky is not known as a mountain biking mecca. About 3 miles from my house is an area which until about a year ago was know as a 4'wheelin heaven. Apparently yahoos from the Buckeye State and other exotic Midwestern locales descended to "Livingston" Kentucky for the great 'wheelin on the sandstone slabs that lay under a few precious inches of fragile topsoil. Pink Hill, The Playground, The Stairsteps, and even a natural bridge are the highlights of the area. The popularity ... led to erosion... which led to closures... to all motor vehicles... Enter me. Perfect for mountain biking. Not quite Moab but certainly no congo lines either. I'll put money down that when I go for a ride this coming Easter weekend I don't see another biker or even a track other than my own.

With the terrain a little rough for the cyclocross bike and still a little too poor to spring for that sweet 29er full suspension I decided to clean the sawdust off of the yet unnamed mountain bike. The pedals were scrounged years ago for another ride and as there is not a bike shop in 60 miles so I had to wait several weeks to finally get new pedals. The tires then had to be replaced as they were completely dry rotted, so that took another week to mail order. I thought I had it all together and was bouncing around the yard on a test ride when the seatpost snapped off just inside the down tube. That was a major set back. It took about 10 hours of precious weekend and evening time, several minutes with a grinder, plus a few trips to the hardware store to resolve that one. It could have been much worse though, I can still sing tenor even if I don't sing well. By now it was so late in the year that I had to wait until Christmas to get headlights as it was almost perpetually dark while I had free time. Soon after the lights were charged and the kids were in bed I headed out for a quick trip. I only made it about 1/4 mile when a few pings in the rear wheel told me I was done again. Rear wheel, multiple broken spokes...not worth fixing. Another few months of saving and intense eBay bidding landed me a new rear wheel about two weeks ago.

Andrea was returning from Utah on a late flight last week so I decided to ride through the hollers and over the sandstone ridges of the former 4'wheelin mecca to meet her and the kids. As I zipped down the rough fast hills and over the sandstone slabs and drops I could not keep my mind from wandering to the hazards that lurked in the darkness. 1,200 lumens of weird blue LED light punching a hole through the night is somewhat unnerving so I pondered the dangers in the woods and those that were intrinsic to the bike itself. My luck held and without incident I came to the freeway exit where I was to meet my family and pulled into the truckstop/food joint that occupied the otherwise deserted exit 49.

As I walked up to the counter in full muddy bike gear to quench my thirst with an Ale81, the mountain of a woman behind the counter asked where I had, "beeen out on sshush a naaght." Every greasy trucker head in the joint slowly turned to eye this idiot who, " Yaaa meeaan tuh telll muh....yuwoo came ove the maountan by yerselff...in tthu darrk...on a baaacyle?!??" "Boowy haint yuuuh neeever heeeard ofv Deelivernnce?," his walrus of a pardner slowly drawled. I finished the slightly sweet local brew and slipped out to the safety of the warm dark night as the truck stop folks made abino banjo jokes and quietly squeeled like pigs. It's odd to live in a state where people who exercise are weird but having diabetes is considered normal.

As I sat against a lightpost gazing at the nameless bike waiting for Andrea, my thoughts wandered back to my prior fears as I was riding through the darkness. What will break next? Will it be catastrophic? Is the metal in the handlebars or stem fatiguing like the seatpost? Will I be hurt? Will the jagged metal edge of a broken stem go through the hole where my front teeth had oh so recently been? Will I end up toothless like my pals in the truckstop? I bought this bike in 1994. I slowly did the mental math, even with a steel frame, it can't last forever. Is there any hidden button or Lithium Airplane Grease, or bungee cord that could keep it going longer? Will it simply moulder without incident in a dusty garage? That's when it hit me.... I implored out loud to the southern night air...

"How will it end?"