Last weekend was a long holiday weekend so Jesse and I wanted to get out of town for a small adventure. My irritated back from the previous week seemed to be under control and while my foot still didn’t seem ready for much hiking or rugged mountain biking, it DID seem ready for a dirt…
Tag: bikepacking
This Body. Four Weeks. And Memory Lane.
The sun was setting. I put music in my ears and continued to pedal into the darkness. I had been pedaling since 5am, a time of day during which my water hose had froze within minutes. In March 2014 I had recently started bikepacking with the goal of racing the Tour Divide (TD) that summer….
Recalcitrant Rattlesnake
There was in fact a recalcitrant rattlesnake on our ride, and I had *plenty* of time and opportunity to take a picture of it, but was so focused on convincing it to get off the trail that I completely forgot to take a picture of it! The police are not legitimate agents of safety in…
Honey, Get the Duct Tape!
A few weeks ago Jesse and I did a big clockwise loop from home over the back way to Ojai, exploring a long ridge and new trails, before descending to the bike path and home via Ventura. Honestly, we were pretty exhausted after that ride. Fast forward a couple of weeks and I said Hey!,…
Bikes Are Freedom
Bikes really tie it all together: fun, friendships, relationship, mental health, transportation, and work. The day after I last wrote, Jesse and I took a good hard look at the pandemic situation locally and made the very difficult decision to go back on complete isolation from others. Even the local hospital was getting very full…
Three Hundred and Two Days
Three hundred and two days ago I boarded a plane in Australia, routed through New Zealand, where I secretly rather hoped to get stuck, and finally landed in LAX. In New Zealand they were already handing every single passenger an information card about Covid and entering quarantine if you were staying on the island, but…
Bikepacking Presentation (New Zealand and Australia), Yosemite, and Cooking
The Santa Barbara Bicycle Coalition invited me to give an online presentation of my travels to New Zealand and Australia,which I did a couple of weeks ago. If you are interested in watching the video it is linked here: Heather’s Presentation You’ll need to jump ahead to almost the 5 minute mark for the start,…
This Strange Life Does Not Feel So Strange to Me
I wake in the morning to the sound of birds and Jesse brings me a hot cup of tea. Why tea? I have lived with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) for maybe eight years now. I have the diarrheal form (it presents as constipation for some people) and mornings are hell. It takes five to eight…
Memories, Bikepacking, and Keeping Public Lands Public
I was invited to write about my experience on the Wild West Route in summer of 2018. This route was developed by a wonderful nonprofit, Bikepacking Roots. Bikepacking Roots not only develop great bikepacking routes, but also work hard to educate people about the value of our public lands and advocate for these lands to…
What Do You Want From Each Day?
All summer I had so much fun riding my bike for a few hours at a time and no motivation to go bikepacking. I didn’t want to deal with all the time and effort of digging the bikepacking gear out of my car and getting it all on the bike– a process that I knew…