Outdoor Travel Geek

  • foxy’s. finished. finally.

    The Foxy’s Fall Classic Century is my hometown ride. I’ve signed up for it numerous times, but for some reason or other I’ve never finished the 100 mile course. The last time I attempted it, it was a bent rear wheel that prevented me from finishing the long course. Other times I ended up riding…

  • the maine lobster roll

    After a whirlwind tour of Montreal, we headed back across the border to the US, crossing back into our homeland somewhere in Vermont. Vermont for the most part was forgettable to me, we had one meal in the state capital, Montpelier, which was a surprisingly tiny town where we ate a surprisingly terrible meal considering…

  • montreal at night

    The first part of our little week long road trip was planned out pretty well. We stayed one night at Caleb’s place near Cornell. Then we had booked one night at a hotel overlooking Niagara falls. From there we went to Toronto. After Toronto we had nothing planned yet. So we decided we would continue…

  • steam whistle brewery

    Across the street from the CN Tower is an old train roundhouse that has been converted into the headquarters of Steam Whistle Brewery. The brewery brews one kind of beer, a pilsner, and offers a brewery tour. This tour ended up being one of the unexpected highlights of Toronto for me. The brewery is near…

  • the CN tower

    The CN Tower is one of the most famous landmarks in Toronto. For thirty four years, up until the completion of the Burj Khalifa in 2010, it was the world’s tallest man-made structure. We arrived at the CN Tower at night, about a half hour before closing, but the guy at the ticket booth said…

  • st lawrence market

    When traveling I like to visit the local food market. So when I discovered that Toronto had a pretty famous one, the St Lawrence Market, rated as one of the best in the world by National Geographic, I had to check it out. The market is housed in what appears to be a converted brick…

  • waterfalls of upstate ny

    Upstate New York has some amazing scenery, and I was fortunate to be landing in the area near the peak foliage season. First stop on this road trip was to Ithaca, New York. I met my friend Bo at the airport in Newark, and from there we went to visit Caleb in Ithaca. He’s there…

  • jaoquin miller / redwood park

    Today I had plans to grab dinner with my friend Jason near Berkeley. Since I didn’t have anything planned for the afternoon, I decided to take my mountain bike for a spin in the nearby Oakland Hills. My original plan was to ride in Jaoquin Miller park, but I ended up riding mostly in the…

  • edible pedal 100

    This weekend I rode in the Edible Pedal 100. I only found out about this ride a few weeks ago, so I ended up paying a pretty hefty late registration fee to enter this ride. But in the end it was worth it– it was a pretty awesome ride. The ride started right around sunrise…

  • eastern sierra hot springs

    I had heard that there were a few good natural hot springs in the Eastern Sierra area on highway 395. But I had also heard that they were kind of hard to find, often on unmarked dirt roads, so I had never really bothered to look for them. This weekend, thanks to Iris and Masa…

  • convict lake

    This weekend I was originally planning to go to Yosemite with some people from my church. We had a permit for Half Dome, so a group of us were planning to do that epic hike. In addition I had some friends who wanted to do Cloud’s Rest. So I was looking at something like back…

  • swift creek trail

    This weekend I went backpacking with some old friends I hadn’t backpacked with in a while. We went to the Trinity Alps Wilderness. I’ve been out to the Canyon Creek trail in the Trinity Alps a few times (one of my favorite places to backpack), most recently during July 4th weekend, but this weekend we…

  • crater lake century

    This weekend I drove out with my friend Ray to Oregon to ride this year’s Crater Lake Century. Along the way we stopped in Medford to grab dinner with Osmond, who happened to be in town visiting some friends he met during his time in Rochester. The ride starts at the Fort Klamath museum, which…

  • cardiac (arrest?)

    I’ve been kinda lazy this month. It’s pretty obvious how lazy I’ve been from my workout calendar on MapMyRide. It was very sparse for the month. Aside from a few hikes and one short run I haven’t really gotten any exercise. That’s definitely not a good thing when I have a century ride in a…

  • angel’s landing

    This weekend Jack and I flew out to Denver to meet with Ray and drive back with him to California. On our way back we took a slight detour to Zion National Park in southern Utah to hike Angel’s Landing. On road trips there are many different conversations. At one point we talked about the…