Breaking Out (Part I)

Weak? Yes. Slow? Sure. Happy and privileged to be out and about on two wheels again? Indubitably.

After all, there were no more excuses. No longer sick, no longer in the grips of snow, cold, or other wise foul weather, there was nothing to keep me from my appointed rounds. So I brushed off the old mud splatters from last year as best I could, knocking off big clumps from the brake pads and other confluences, pumped up the tires to the correct pressure, found my helmet, gloves, and other gear, packed my camera, mini-binocs, and other props in the trunk and took off to nowhere special.

Or, in other words, off to some of the usual spots. The important thing was not to find a new or unique route or destination, but to break out of the grip of winter, of physical winter and the winter mindset that comes with it.

Yes, on that first ride out I was doing nothing special; I was up to my old tricks: riding to the same favorite spots (Stone Arch Bridge, Boom Island, etc.) and doing the same old things (looking to see if the early cormorant was back in his perch overlooking St. Anthony Falls; checking out the view of downtown MPLS from Boom Island).

There's no need to describe routes anymore; they've been described quite thoroughly in previous posts on this blog. And, after all, there are a limited number of routes anyway (just various configurations of the same segments): Creek-Lakes-Greenway; Downtown-Uptown-Midtown; River West-Light Rail-Stone Arch-Boom Island; River Gorge East-Secret Bridge; Bluff-side West/Cold Spring-Fort Snelling-Mendota-Snake Trail-I35/Harriet Island-Crosby-Hidden Falls; Bloomington-Wildlife Area- Ft. Snelling State Park East-Mendota; and so on and so forth. Yes, those trail segments have been repeated endlessly by this biker/blogger.

What's different is everything: the day, time, season, weather, wildlife, people, events, wind; the psychology and outlook and feeling of the rider. And the pictures, perhaps.

Breaking Out (Part II)

Yes, as I was saying, What's different is everything: the day, time, season, weather, wildlife, people, events, wind; the psychology and outlook and feeling of the rider. In this case the difference was birds. I was pretty well guided by them for most of the ride. In the shady (and still partially snow-covered) old rail bed on the western bluff of the river gorge, a Cooper's Hawk swooped out of nowhere and sailed low, in the shadow of the crumbling limestone wall at my right, leading me southward.



Finally it lifted and found a perch above the trail. I stopped to look, and it didn't seem to mind. We stared at each other for some time, neither one of us sure what to make of the other. Then down the hill I went to check out if Pike Island was accessible. It wasn't, but I was excited when I startled a lone coot plying the flood waters of the forest floor. I continued to the Snake Trail. Wherever I stopped it seemed that friendly chickadees perched nearby, reassuring me with sweet, harmonious, and calming notes. Further down, heading toward Harriet Island in Saint Paul, a pair of eagles (immature balds, I think) danced and chased each other overhead; they were so close and so big and so agile. Yes, the routes were old but my bird companions were new and refreshing on this outing.

And on my second ride out I decided to try out something new and different (actually an old and overdue notion): I mounted my camera to the bike and shot some short video clips of select segments of the ride. These are raw clips, downsized from the original but unedited and unmanaged – purely experimental and purely for fun. They in no way reflect the experience of the rider. No, the subtle beauty and enjoyment, the true feeling of flight, the startling of the wayward coot in the flood waters at the bottom of the hill are not well replicated in these videos. That's the beauty of riding: you have to do it to know it.

Down to the Falls


Down to the River, Part 1


Crossing the Bridge (Minnesota River)


Smooth Sailing (Snake Trail)


Down to the River, Part 2


I-35 Bridge


Crosby Bike Tunnel


Crossing the Bridge (Mississippi River)

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum. The forum, in this case, was the growing gaggle of gawkers up at the top of the entrance to Crosby Farm (gawking at the flood waters from high above the gorge, I guessed). The funny thing that happened was, after being so focused on capturing the ride in video, I shut the camera off and began sailing along the newly improved trail segment, and found myself experiencing the pure joy of biking. I didn't feel weak or slow anymore. I was just sailing along without a care in the world. What a great feeling.

Of course by the time I was back in the neighborhood, getting close to home at the end of the ride, I was back to my old stuff. I found myself stopping to photograph strange accommodations, a stage set for experimental urban theater, the spot for a one-act play, maybe, that is yet to be written, yet to be performed.

To Fulong for Biking with the Nanmen Parent's Association

I skipped exercise, rode moto to Wanhua Station, nice sunny and warm day, eventually folks started to show up, though only a handful were recognizable, Bo-tsang and Li-mei, lots of new faces, including a shorter white woman who kind of looked like Utschig, some guys trying to speak to me in English. One of the kids was a girl about a hand’s length taller than Charlotte, I assumed a few years older, but Nini later said, no she was actually Charlotte’s age, what a giant she’s going to end up being.

After getting some coffee from the 7 in there we went to the platform and boarded the train, one of those “chu-jian” (stopping?) trains, which I believe replaced those old blue local trains that mde every stop, though the seats of this one were already taken by a bunch of Taiwanese retirees, in their 50’s or so, heading out for the day, I so hoped they’d get off at Taipei Station, but no, they remained and signaled those among them who were still standing to take the seats vacated by the handful of folks who got off. So we had to stand the whole way, or at least most of it, and hour and a half ride, it pretty much sucked, those older locals gabbing on in the local duck talk, almost giving me a headache, but I guess with the sunny weather and Charlotte being cool about it it was tolerable. I groped desperately in my bag for earplugs, finding none, but in the process I found the missing tooth, or rather the gold cap that had gone missing since last year, it had been tucked in a small pocket of the backpack and I had forgotten all about it, now teeth work can commence.


I observed, after eventually sititng down on the floor by the door, that those retirees were all wearing sneakers so I surmised that they would be going to Fulong to hike the Tsaoling Trail or something, but they actually got off at Houtong, the cat village, vacating several seats for the remaining 20-minute ride on to Fulong (I hadn’t realized these local trains could go that far from Taipei, something to consider for the future). With it being a happy sunny Sunday after several days, weeks, months of relative grayness, there was a kind of happy atmosphere and one of the obasans actually said goodbye to us. Now with seats for the standers to sit down in more happiness ensued, the sun was streaming in, another group of 20-somethings were receiving those 6-in-1 neck/head wrap things as part of their organized outing.

We all filed slowly down the stairs off the Fulong Station platform and went to arrange rental bicycles outside, the three of us having to make special arrangements as Charlotte couldn’t ride herself and Nini’s skills were iffy at best. But a three-person tandem wouldn’t be allowed in the former railway tunnel, so we opted for a tandem for me and Charlotte and a lady’s 6-or-so-speed bike for Nini. We all boarded the bikes and began to head out, but the puzzling thing was that we had to stop and park our bikes in front of some visitor center, all in the handicapped spaces, and some kind of kid’s activity ensued under a tree which involved participants fetching yellow jelly-bean-like plastic pellets with happy faces on them from a bowl as part of some competition. Charlotte stood by as if she would particiapte, but I thought it puzzling, what with such a nice day, the bikes already rented and plenty of bike paths available, that they should bother with such a static activity that could easily be done any other day, place or time. Oh well, that’s the way these group things in Taiwan often unfolded, lots of items on a list to follow without question, but I saw no reason at that point to not start riding the bike around the parking lot, and when I saw that the pellet game could easily continue for a another 20 minutes or so I decided to take Charlotte for a ride down the path beyond as I knew that foot suspension bridge was somewhere nearby, I was worried, what with a scheduled departure from Fulong at 2:30 for the return to Taipei, that we wouln’t have time for both the bridge and the tunnel. (Little did I know that they had planned a group photo there, leaving Nini in the embarrassing position of not knowing when we would come back, two other kids supposedly took off on bikes to fetch us but they never caught us apparently. I thought the group photo had already been taken in front of the train station, but I guess they needed the tree or the visitor center in the background as well). After some ups and downs on the trail, and with the pedal of the tandem scraping the ground constantly, we did find the bridge and quickly crossed it and returned, my feeling a sense of victory in achieving this despite the group mentality of the planners back there. (Nini later commented that they were a very conservative Chinese group, moving collectively as sheep in a flock, they probably didn’t appreciate lone wolves or tigers, that is, if they were allowed to think about it). When approaching and crossing the bridge Charlotte spied some folks in the river below in kayak-like canoes or something, she was interested in doing that instead, a future trip there for the three of us began to coagulate.




Even more inaction continued, there was some kind of visitor center there where we were shuffled into a screening room where we had to watch a 20-minute documentary on underwater geothermal activity near Guaishan Island off the Yilan coast, which I guess was interesting but still kind of out-of-place considering the ideal weather conditions outside, and then there was some older bearded tour guide who led them all on a guided tour of the exhibition, of detailed wood carvings made from driftwood that clogs the beaches after typhoons, a way to put it all to good use. None of the three of us felt compelled whatsoever to follow the flock, wandering around the museum on our own, observing the carvings, which included dragons, a traditional village, various vegetables on stalks, and an ox struggling to pull a cart up a hill, a farmer with arms outstretched behind it. Indeed, they were all expertly crafted by specialists who’d received years of training, maybe as that group of carvers from Jiayi County, and naturally I had to self-reflect on my own inability to have perfected such a skill in life, and several disciplines ran through my head—carving, knotting, knitting, needlepoint, a musical instrument, drawing and painting, ceramics, what have you. But the key word here for these disciplines is just that, discipline, and I never had enough of it to stick with anything for a long enough time for a spore to settle in, sprout roots, and become that mold that runs rabid over the bread and makes a perverted carving of it.

Meanwhile, having wandered off on the bike and avoided the guided tour, I was wondering if the powers that be, the leader or leaders, were not somehow put off by our rebelious, revolting behavior, resentful that we may be planting the seeds of discontent amongst their subjects, wanting to slam us to the ground with our arms tied behind our backs, to nip that evil sapling in the bud, just like they did to journalists in China who showed up to cover possible demonstrations of a Chinese offshoot of the Jasmine Revolution of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, which of course in goosestepping China never materialized. Nini had mentioned later that Bo-tsang, the leader of the parents association of Nanmen Elementary School (Charlotte’s former school which we had transfered her out of a year and a half before) had been kind of cold to her that day, though we weren’t really sure if that was the reason.

Other sites in the museum included some sailboards, hang gliders, a sail boat, and exercise machines in the back that we could try out, Charlotte had a good time on the rowing machine which I couldn’t quite figure out how to do. I should say to the uninformed that Fulong, a coastal village about 30 km east of Taipei, had long been only known for having the best beach in the north, but in recent years it had added a number of other attractions such as kayaking, hiking on the nearby Guling Historic Trail, and biking on several kilometers of bike paths, including one that went through a former railroad tunnel, the main attraction of this trip.

Outside again with the bikes still parked there after a good hour and a half, it was time for the boxed lunches, I flung the bits of meat through the air for the stray dog hanging out there to catch in mid-air. Finally we mounted the bikes and could officially, with legitimate permission, begin the day’s featured ride which involved going to and through the former railway tunnel, back past the train station from whence we came, which had been converted into a bike trail by the (then) county government. I had known about this tunnel for a good three yeasrs or more and had always wanted to ride through it but had been constantly thrwarted by my girls who were less interested and capable in cycling than I. That one-way tunnel had connected the railway from the north-east coast of Taiwan to the west coast via a two-kilometer tunnel through a mountain vein, as does the winder, current two-way tunnel, only a few meters to the west of the old one. The approach from central Fulong to the tunnel was mostly uphill, and after kind of racing Li-mei and her daughter on their tandem I still had to stop and backtrack to check on Nini, who fairly inept at bicycles, was struggling to get up the mild but long incline, getting off to push in places, though she did say she felt confident and was doing better with her balance. This was encouraging for future possible family cylcing trips to various places in Taiwan.

We rested at the entrance of the tunnel for a few moments before moving on into it, I was very impressed with the job they had done with it, the pavement included patterns of the original tracks and ties, lights were installed at regular intervals, and soft music came wafting through it, perhaps as a way to assuage visitors with any fear or claustrophobia they might experience going through such a long tunnel. Charlotte and I got fairly far ahead of Nini, though I did feel obligated to let her catch up at one point as I she had expressed slight anxiety in tunnels in the past, not having surrounding landmarks to judge distance and position by. She was OK and we got through it relatively quickly, a total distance, according to numbers posted every 100 meters, of the total 2150+ meters.

On the other side Guishan Island came into view, thus explaing the video they showed us earlier, “this is what you’ll see today” as a possible message, and some guy was playing ear-piercing saxophone tunes accompanied by his own PA system, one tune being “The 5:55”, an old standard oldie for Karaoke. Charlotte was pestering me to go down to the rocky shore below there, which initially seemed unlikely, but I did see a handful of individuals down there and when I saw folks disappearing down a trail nearby I consented and down we went. Charlotte was observing the large number of dead pufferfish there, Nini eventually joined us, and briefly I climbed some of the large rocks there, amongst other activites as breaking apart the brittle rocks there (likely remants of a more firey past of earth’s 4.5-billion-year history), and trying in vain to try familiar patterns in the rock textures, forced pareidolia has never seemed to work, it’s gotta stick out at you from the blue. A young whitie with acme was down there posing for pictures with his local hosts.



We were back up at the top and I noticed that the bike trail pretty much ended here, the nearby railway hugging the coast making it all but impossible to let the path continue on to points south. Above I noticed the roadway, hearing the roar of trucks on it and mistaking them for approaching trains, and I also caught glimpses of motorcycles cruising past, it looked a very appealing way to pass the days of one’s remaining portion of life, but the thought of my vibrating instrument panel on the Yamaha made the idea less appealing. After a climb up and look from the castle-like structure there we boarded up again and headed back through the tunnel, again, it getting somewhat cooler in there for some reason attributable to science.

Returning to the train station area was a breeze as we were going downhill all the way, even Nini was getting some top speeds going, and there were still shrieks of the crested serpent eagle in the sky above, those devils always flying in twirling pairs. We got the bike returned really quickly and got right on the train, very few of the others in the group seemed to have made it, though Nini did say some of them wanted to remain to ride some more, maybe to that suspension bridge—it’s also possible they avoided us as they were upset at our lack of adherence to the group, we may have been seen as interlopers, troublemakers, who the hell invited them?


Again, it was that local train making its way back, Charlotte resting on my lap, a young couple trying to keep their young boy happy, the father pouring the powder in the bottle and mixing it by rubbing it between his hands, maybe that would have prevented chronic wrist pain when I was simply shaking the bottle to and fro with one hand. Later an older, fish-mouth guy sat where a Buddhist nun had been sitting, I noticed that from the front the mouth looks like the St. Louis Arch, but from the side the line actually looks straight, like that curved footbridge in Gateshead England I believe.

We passed again a school that I had noticed before, young men playing basketball as before and back in Wanhua we took an later-afternoon stroll around the area, there were quite a few clothing shops there. With Nini and Charlotte gazing at garments I had no interest in I wandered on ahead and stopped at a police station where on the wall outside were the usual posters showing various missing people, and I studied the particulars of each person in detail as best I could. I was surprised that a number of the missing, as I had noticed before, were elderly people, surely no one would want to kidnap them and have them do slave labor or sex work, how the heck could they have wandered off without someone noticing? One was actually someone who appeared a total basket case, bedridden, with apparently no ability to speak or hear, yet this person was missing—how the heck did she, with that tube in her nose, manage to evade notice? Then of course there was the more heartbreaking poster, the one with the kids, though a number of them were listed as having been missing for several years, abducted at less than 10 yeasrs of age but now, supposedly if alive, in their 20’s or 30’s. One little girl of only two had been missing a year, and another of about 13 or 14, seemed to have blue eyes, a possible mixed kid, had disappeared in Kaoxiung, surely would have been carted off to work in the sex trade somewhere. I remember missing children posters had often emphasized they were “non-family” abductions which meant they weren’t cases of fathers or mothers displeased with a court’s deciscion for custody taking matters into their own hands, but something likely more sinister (though in some cases it could have just been simple adoption, the parents in living hell of course but the kid possibly doing OK).

The girls caught up and with my directions perfect we got back to the motorcycle, Nini totally surprised it was so quick, and back home we went to prepare for another cold and cloudy spell that would arrive overnight. I was asked to pick up pizza for everybody, and I tried like hell to make sure Charlotte’s hair was rinsed properly when I washed her hair in the bathtub, but Nini later said during the blow-dry that it still had some residue.

Cycling out of Sickness


.... that was the idea, that was the concept, that was the hope and the plan. As it turned out, though, after sitting out the last week being sick, cooped up indoors without a voice even as the early spring temperatures soared into the fifties, missing out on ideal opportunities to get out on the bike early, before the spring floods perhaps, even by Saturday afternoon it was clear that I wasn't fit to get back in the saddle yet. Noon became early afternoon, the plan festered, and by late afternoon the idea had lost its legitimacy. Yet I longed to get outside and, motivated by a desire to get to the library and pick up that Antipop Consortium CD I had on hold, combined with a vague itch to take a few pictures of the snow-melt transition before it was too late, I was able to summon the resolve for a walk. It was a great decision. The warm air, sunlight, and water trickling gently into the storm sewers made for a pleasant atmosphere and a true respite from my indoor world of cable news, government-sponsored mass murder and nuclear catastrophe. I only had a vague idea of what I thought I might photograph, but within a few blocks from my door the theme was clearly impressed upon me; I only needed to focus, select, and follow through on the grand opportunity. Yes, within blocks from my door I was seized by that peculiar sensual dissonance that arrives with the first days of spring in the Twin Cities. Before I can elucidate that concept, though, it's necessary to back up a few months, back to the beginning of winter and those first heavy snowfalls. That thick white covering brings a kind of purity, or perceived purity, a sensual purity, to the northern urban environs that nothing else can. It covers everything. It muffles the unpleasant urban noise, It reflects natural light, minimizing the lurid urban illumination. It brings a purity of spirit and purpose even; those out and about are there for a reason, and in spite of the subversion of several pillars of our convenience-based urban American life, people are out, not because it's easy, but because they want to be. People are quieter in winter. People keep their heads down, buried in their hoods. Dogs bark less often and with less brazenness. The automobile, the quintessential urban purveyor of stress and filth, is kept, if even just a bit, in check. That purity is joy. But it can't last, of course, and we begin to see signs of a different world.


So when the early spring temperatures soar into the fifties, the urban walker is gripped by an undeniable sensual dissonance. Yes, all the welcome signs of spring are there: warm air moving lightly, warm sun on the face, people emerging from their winter burrows to rediscover their humanity. But at the same time, all that snow is melting, drifts and bergs receding, retreating, uncovering the evidence: all that urban filth. People start acting squirrelly, almost desperately, behaving oddly before the looming full perigee moon. Yes, it's encouraging and exciting to see that four-month old snow finally disappear, but in the process it lays bare the grit of the urban existence. The glaciers recede, exposing the evidence of our lost civilization: depravity; flimsy, sick consumerism; passive-aggressive attitude toward our own environment.

[as always, click on the images to view them in their proper size]




Of course this will pass; summer green will change the equation, and searing heat will help degrade the detritus. But it's nothing like the purity of a snowy winter. And by the time summer arrives here, I'll likely be in a different place, a place so foreign that it might well turn on end my whole framework of these cycles, of purity and sickness and filth. I can only hope that I'll have a bike to help me navigate that new world, to help me make sense of it.

Dark February



The biker awoke before dawn. He put his slippers on. And he ... walked on down the hall. The blogger awoke before dawn. He put some coffee on. And he ..... walked on down the hall!

I've been waking before dawn a lot this year, two or three hours before dawn in fact. And with all of that extra time on my hands, one might think I'd get out on my bike. But you won't find me out on the streets. You'll find me on the couch, contemplating the dark world, waiting for that black blanket of sky to transform into ... a slushy gray blanket of sky. It's been a dark February, and those white mountains of Minneapolis are now studded with brown clumps, becoming irregular, jagged, brown forms themselves, capped with the crystallized residue of frozen waste -- exhaust vapors from passing automobiles and the blood, sweat and tears of winter bikers.

Yes, it's February, that time when I find myself, like so many others, getting a little tired, a little sick of the winter. The remedy is obvious, yet I still haven't straddled a bicycle in 2011, unless you count those clunky approximations at the gym that go nowhere and attempt to pacify with sets of rolling red digits.

But there was light at the end of my tunnel. I found relief from the February Blues along with some 8,000 others. And we found it not on two wheels but two planks of wood; not on the street but on a frozen, snow-covered lake; not in daylight but at night. Yes, with a couple of good friends and a thousand strangers I took part in the "Luminary Loppet," a simple circuit around Lake of the Isles on cross-country skis, our path lit by a thousand columns of ice.



What a night it was, with mild temperatures and no wind to speak of. After getting our "bibs" at the crowded registration area, we skied down the mall, down a short hill, and onto the frozen lagoon.


I heard a familiar voice and noticed that I was skiing next to none other than the mayor of Minneapolis. And by all appearances he wasn't here for any political reason; he was here, like the rest of us, for fun, for the communal celebration, for the moment, for the chance to escape Dark February.


Soon enough we were on the groomed trail (trails actually). It was like multiple lanes of traffic moving in one direction, along with snowshoeing pedestrians, and some plain old walkers. This created the same issues as driving does: slow-movers and sudden stoppers creating traffic jams; lane-changers without signals causing confusion; on-comers and off-goers causing jam-ups when not choosing an opportune moment to merge; wild teenagers weaving in and out of traffic unpredictably. All this made for a few snags and snafus, but that turned out to be part of the fun.

We skied around to various ice monuments lit from within by candles, such as the ice Acropolis and the ice pyramid and what looked like an ice Stonehenge. We even made a stop at a Canadian embassy ice outpost. It was effortless and timeless.



True, it wasn't profound and it was not extreme and it was not even quite sublime. Not quite. But it was, undeniably ... mellow. It was enjoyable and relaxing, and while not initially soul-stirring, I did actually pause to consider how ... especially in light of the ongoing events in Egypt ... how almost incomprehensible it was that so many people could crowd together in one place in the depths of February and all get along so well. I felt some strange sense of communion on that frozen lake, something that seems to be mostly missing from American life.




For a time I wondered if I wasn't really in Sweden. I felt proud and satisfied to be a Twin-Citizen, where people actually turn out for events such as this, and turn the doldrums of winter into a celebration of the season. We have these beautiful lakes and this beautiful snow, so why not honor them properly?

Sure, we had friends who skipped this event like so many others, with a typical ho-hum attitude. But strangely enough, when I told my Egyptian friend about it the next day, he positively lit up. "If you ever do something like that again, please take me with you," he said. "I really want to try that."