Panniers on Bikes with Short Chainstays

Since receiving the woven pineFastrider pannierlast summer, I have been using it as my main transportation bag. On the up side, it is enormous, waterproof, classic looking, easy to attach and detach, and secure. On the downside, it was designed for appropriately enormous Dutch bikes with long chainstays, and not for bicycles with road geometry. The pannier looks like it's ready to swallow the mixte whole, and ideally I would like something smaller. But for a bicycle with short chainstays finding the right pannier can be tricky.

The chainstays on a bike are the skinny horizontal tubes between the crankset and the dropouts. In the picture above, it's the one with the strip of leather stuck to it. Different types of bikes have chainstays of different lengths. The more racy and aggressive the bicycle, the shorter the chainstays. The more relaxed and transport-oriented the bicycle, the longer the chainstays. For reference, the chainstays on myBianchi roadbike are 410mm. The chainstays on my Rivendell touring bike are 445mm. And the chainstays on my Gazelle Dutch bike are 485mm. When chainstays are long, the rear wheel of the bicycle sits further away from the crankset, which means that whatever bag you've got mounted on the rear rack is a safe distance away from your heels while you pedal. That is why transport bicycles are designed with long chainstays: You can attach enormous shopper panniers to the rear rack and not worry about heel strike.



Now, my Royal H. mixte was not designed as a transportation bicycle. It was designed for light touring (not too much luggage), and it was designed to be ridden upright in hilly areas. The chainstays are 430mm, which is somewhere in between classic road and classic touring geometry and appropriate for what this bike was meant for. So in theory, all is as it should be. However, in practice I've been riding it for transportationmore than I had anticipated - just because it's such a fun bike, and the dynamo lighting is so excellent.



If it were just the aesthetics alone, I'd keep using the Fastrider pannier on this bicycle and not bother looking for alternatives. I actually don't think it's that bad, though my helpful readers have suggested that it looksmeh-ish on the mixte. But the real problem is that I do get borderline heel-strike with this set-up. Not enough for it to be dangerous, but once in a while my heel and the bag will not so much make contact as sense each other's presence. If the bag were just a tad further back or smaller, I'd feel more comfortable.



With this in mind, I ordered two panniers from the D'Azur line by Basil, in hopes that one of them would fit and I'd return the other. The Basil shopper pannier (above) is nearly 2" narrower than the Fastrider equivalent, which in theory should have been more than enough to eliminate any hint of heel strike. Unfortunately, the opposite was the case. Because of how the Basilattachment hooks are positioned, this bag actually sits further forward and lower than the Fastrider - resulting in an unridable degree of heel strike. If you scroll up and down between this and the previous picture, you can see how much closer the Basil bag is to the pedal, despite its slightly smaller size.



Themessengerpannier did not work either. This bag is the same width as my Fastrider, but considerably shorter, so I was hoping it would sit higher up and my heel would not reach it. But again, the placement of the attachment hooks positioned it quite a bit lower than the Fastrider, as well as further forward, making the heel strike worse rather than better.And so, I will be returning both of the Basil panniers. They are well made and attractive, but I need a pannier small enough to work on this bike+rack combination. And I mention the rack, because I could solve this problem by replacing the existing VO Constructeur rack with a super long rack that would allow me to push the panniers further back... but I don't want to. I like how compact, light and elegant this bicycle is with the current rack, and after all it was not intended for commuting. There has to be a nice pannier out there somewhere that will fit a bike with 430mm chainstays and a constructeur rack, and I am determined to find it.



Well, technically I did find it: The OYB Swiss Army pannier is a perfect fit for theconstructeur rack, and it goes nowhere near my heels when I pedal. Alas, it is about 1/2" too narrow to fit my laptop. I've tried stretching it, but it's just not sufficient, so I use it as a camera bag. I also tried (and returned) the Linus single Office pannier. While it did fit my laptop, the attachment system was difficult to use and did not feel secure: leather straps with snap closures.



It seems that the trick to designing panniers for bicycles with short chainstays, is to make the pannier vertical rather than horizontal, to mount the hooks lower on the bag (so that the bag itself will sit higher), and to keep the size as small as possible. But while some touring panniers are designed in this manner, I have not been able to find a suitable one for commuting - by which I mean a single pannier that attaches and detaches easily via strong and secure hooks, is large enough to fit a laptop, and looks classic, ideally made of canvas or leather in a grayish/greenish/brownish colour scheme. If you are an artisan who would like to give this a go, get in touch! And if you commute on a bicycle with short chainstays, what is your pannier solution?

Two of My Favorite Guys

Karen sent this picture to me, of Josh and Ken. Are these some good looking guys, or what?

This and That

You can get with this

or you can get with that

Sometimes I wear a helmet



sometimes I wear a hat



Sometimes I work from home

with my lovely assistants



Sometimes I go on rides

in the cold wearing mittens



Sometimes I ride with others

sometimes I ride alone



Taking wacky pictures

with my camera phone



meeting nice people



eating hot soup



climbing hills along the

Concord-Lexington loop



Now let's all get cozy

with a warm cup of java



Or how about a crazy

wool balaclava?



Enjoy your weekend

and the beauty outside



No matter what you're into

it's time for a ride!

Blue Sage

Blue Sage sometimes called Russian Sage. It is really drought tollerent here in the desert but really, really hard to take photos of as blossoms are so tiny. It is blooming right now and starting to give me baby plants as it spreads well from seed.

Forty-Nine Palms Oasis

The signpost for the Forty-Nine Palms Oasis trail, located in the north-central part of Joshua Tree National Park, identifies the three-mile round-trip as moderately strenuous. And I would have to agree with that description!

The trail goes up one side of the mountain, circles around to the other side, going up and down (of course) then goes down into a canyon where the oasis is located.

A view from along the trail to the Forty-Nine Palms Oasis.

There may have been forty-nine palms at the Oasis at one time, but no more. These are Desert Fan Palm trees, which can grow to 75 feet in height and live for 80 to 90 years. The Cahuilla Indians (pronounced: Ka-wee-yahs) used palm thatch to make their homes wind-and- waterproof. The leaf fibers were woven into ropes. Baskets were made with the palm fibers and sandals from the palm leaf fibers.

There weren't many flowers in bloom yet at Joshua Tree, but the few that I saw, were gorgeous! Found along the trail, this Canterbury Bell was about 12 inches in height and was nestled against the rocks.

A closeup of the Canterbury Bell. Beautiful.

Heading back. You go up, then down, around, up, and down... definitely a good workout!

Rain, rain, and more rain

By Saturday the ice went from great to unsafe. Joel Torretti, Josh Hurst and I made the best of poor conditions. Josh came all this way to climb so we did. We even put him to work. We decided to equip a new line at Upper Meadow Amphitheater. A short ice start leads to steep roof climbing, from there leave the rock, punch the curtain and finish on the last 15' of the ice pillar to the top OR continue left passing 1 more bolt to the left hanging curtain. Despite a single attempt by Josh and numerous attempts by Joel and I the line still remains unclimbed. (Josh was feeling under the weather with a head cold and busted ribs from a fall on Caveman extension the previous day). If he weren't in bad shape I'm sure he'd fired the line with little trouble. The line is strenuous and powerful. When completed it could be the hardest mixed route in SWPA. With all the rain in the forecast I doubt the finishing ice pillar will still be upright, thus rendering a true ascent impossible until ice reforms at the lip. Dont let that deter you. The route stays day and can be worked on rain days. Keep the season alive, go give it a go. Today we went back to work the line some more and possibly equip another. Instead we were lucky enough to witness a very cool natural event. As the morning temperatures rose an ice dam broke further upstream. The small, tame Meadow Run became quite intimidating in less than 2 min. We quickly gathered our gear and headed for higher ground up in the ampitheater. we sat and watched in amazment. Large ice debris and class five rapids lasted for 20-30min. then slowly the water receded. Quite a cool thing to see happen. Even though it was warm and rained we still had a great weekend, climbed hard and laughed most of the time. (Hope your ribs are feeling better Josh)!

Static Point Lost Charms ..

Julie and I headed out to Static Point on Saturday to do the only route there we could complete. The 5.9/5.7 A0 Lost Charms. It supposed to be six pitches of 5.7ish climbing with a 5.9 move which can be aided by grabbing an old Leeper buttonhead bolt. (Yipe!)

It was our first time to Static Point, and we found the approach a little vague. (In reality, the approach was pretty straightforward.) Approach beta differs for this crag, but most of it is pretty similar. However, recent work in the area means that you cannot drive the road to the boulders blocking further progress. Now the road ends earlier with high berms blocking progress. This involves more road walking and once you hit the boulders it is a mile in on the overgrown road. The turn off the road to reach Static Point is obvious, but there are a few rabbit trails that we sadly followed just as others had before us. The real trail seems further than it should, and was marked by a cairn, and a pipe 1/4 full of dirt. Other pipes were just decoys.

We eventually made it to the base of the climb which involves a small bit of 4th class scrambling on slabs to get to. Julie led out the first pitch which was supposed to be up and right, and we wound up at the Spencer's Spaceport anchor. I led up and left to get us back on route. The second belay had a bolted anchor at the bottom of the "Pillar". Since it was after noon and we were on a big ledge, we opted to eat lunch. Julie led out on the next pitch up and across the "Bridge Flake" which had a few exciting moves just before gaining the flake. (The topo actually listed that section as 5.8.) I led out on the next pitch which had a barely finger crack on it and set up a belay at the top. Julie got to lead the crux pitch up and over "The Great Flake" and set up a belay after. I followed up to her location and then back down a bit to a traverse left and then up to a set of bolts. There is supposed to be another pitch that takes you to the trees, but we opted not to go, as there were some guys rapping from Online off a dead tree up there. We weren't interested. We rapped Online with 3 double rope raps. (Actually, most of the bolts we rapped on were older hardware, and I was under the assumption that Online had been rebolted.) Perhaps we rapped some other route.

Overall the route was enjoyable on great rock. It was not as run-out as I was expecting. It takes decent gear, and I was happy we packed double of aliens from blue to yellow. (The finger crack pitch I would have liked a third blue alien, but made a nut work.) It is fairly easy for the leader to French the 5.9 move, but as the follower, I would have found it difficult to remove a biner/gear from the bolt after making the move. I also think that it is probably about two moves of each foot, and not just "one move" of 5.9. It is a short steep featureless section just below "The Great Flake." Once through the move, my heart was pumping and remained that way through the rest of the pitch. (I didn't find a large creaky flake very confidence inspiring.)

I didn't have a camera. (Jennifer has it in NJ.)

Following the Bridge Flake

More of Julie's pics here.

Flamingo Gardens

Today we headed over to Flamingo Gardens. It is one of those places that we said we were going to visit when we lived here, and never did.



There were some animals here and beautiful gardens. We rode a tram and got to hear about the different plants and trees there. It was very interesting!

Mystery Photo #9

** Update ** Color version of photos added July 29, .. to help with analysis. Also added link to fM's post, see below.

This is the eighth post (and 9th photo) in a series of unidentified photographs from the Charles Wiseman Family Bible. See this post for background information. Click on the "Mystery Photo" label at the bottom of the post to see all of the photographs in this series. As always, you can click on the pictures to enlarge them.





Paper photograph on card stock. 2 3/8 x 4 1/16. Printed on back: J. E. Walton, Photographer Vevay, Ind.

Depending upon when this picture was taken, it could be Susanna Wiseman, daughter of Charles and Naomi Bray Wiseman, who was born August 2, 1850. Susanna married James Scott on April 8, 1882. Or, it could be Elizabeth Detraz, born June 27, 1871 and daughter of Eliza Banta and Julius Detraz. Elizabeth married Charles Wiseman, Jr. on December 23, 1895. They all lived in Vevay. Or, of course, it could be someone else. . .

** Update July 29, .. **

footnoteMaven has posted Dating Old Photographs :: Becky's Mystery Photograph #9 which provides a great (tremendous, awesome) methodology for analyzing old photos. You have to check it out if you have any old pictures that have not been identified. fM also provides a list of resources/books she is using for help in creating a database for a project on Washington State and Territory photographers. A HUGE Thank You goes to fM!

A bit more informaton about the pictures, based on fM's methodology:

• Category: Card Measurement ~ the picture is 2 5/16 x 3 11/16 and the card is 2 1/2 x 4 1/8
• Category: Card Thickness ~ No calipers on hand ;-) but using the method suggested by fM and described here, the thickness of the card was 8 sheets of 20 bond paper or .032 inches thick, which puts it into the 1880-1900 date range.
• Category: Color of Card ~ The front of the card is off white/light tan with a hint of yellow. The background of the image is a bit darker than the card itself. The back of the card is white, not a bright white, but definitely white.

If there is just one thing I've learned in this process it is to scan all photographs, even monochromatic, in color, to take advantage of all clues hiding within the picture. It takes more time to get a good color "match" and you have to keep in mind that every monitor will display the pictures somewhat differently, which means not everyone will see it the way you do. Now I need to find the time to go back and rescan some of these Mystery Photos and apply fM's methodology, find the resources she mentioned, and see what information I can pull from these photos, as well as that big box of unidentified pictures my Dad gave me a few years before he passed away!

Blue Ridge Parkway :: Reflections

The air was crisp on Sunday morning. Frost still covered the grass in the shady areas.

What it is, I don't know, but there is “something” about reflections in calm, clear water. An image within an image. Real. Yet not real. Seeing what is or isn't there.

Sunday morning, November 15th.
Julian Price Memorial Park. Blue Ridge Parkway.

Looking Back is Moving Forward

This is a guest blog by Ben Clark that I am happy to reproduce here.








Ben Clark on 24,688' Annapurna IV's North Ridge. Clark and Josh Butson were the first to lay ski tracks on this notoriously unstable route. Photo credit: Josh Butson


Carving one last wet, heavy mid afternoon turn into camp last May, I stopped, clicked out of my ski bindings and took a step back from 10 years of working alpine routes in the Himalayas. I began this 10-year career with an Everest summit on my second expedition and then attempted 13 more peaks in the Himalayas. My partners and I would dispatch routes in a bold style that, depending on whether you read the NY Times or the Adventure Journal, either brought us closer to death or closer to life in this humbling and crushing mountain range. I have a biased assessment on the position of life or death. I made it through physically unscathed and can reflect on experiences “in the field” with great partners, good memories and only “some” bad luck. But a lot of my friends, and some of my mentors did not fare as well: some died, some quit, others didn’t know when to stop. It is with that disclosure that I begin to wax sublime on some of my more memorable moments and a couple of caveats to explore if you think this is an interesting topic:

1. All I wanted to do was see the world. From the age of 20 until 32 that manifested into mountaineering and channeling all my efforts, extra money and time into the Himalayas.

2. This was not a hobby for me. It was an obsession that drove almost every decision I made during that time. It had to or I would not have survived what I was doing. No mountain was worth giving up the chance to explore another one for, so I had rules that I followed and when I committed to climbing a peak, made it happen despite a real job.

3. I love this sport whole-heartedly and it makes me hurt deep down in the pit of my stomach when I think about never doing it again. But not as bad as the thought of making a fatal mistake and hurting the people I love.

So here you go, a snapshot of what I have to contribute on life, death, risk… and why I personally chose to take time this year to consider what I was doing.

It was a chilly October and my right butt cheek was smeared against a frigid corner of bare granite, knee grinding into the opposing wall over a single toothy crampon point that held my weight while a heel sloped downward and my achilles fought for reprieve. In this precarious position 90′ above Josh, my partner on the wall and belayer, I had a left leg flagged out into space pressing away from the corner. It was desperate, my quivering right arm clutched an ice tool hooking an 1/8″ nub of bare rock while my left arm extended into a steel pick scratching a surface of thin decomposing snow and ice. In the still air at 17,000′ I yelled down to Josh to untie from the rope between us, “Josh, take me off!” He responded: “What???” I repeated what I knew he had to do: “Take me off, I will kill us both if I fall.” At that moment, severely exposed and wildly wrong about adequate protection (I had placed none) in the vertical corner I was inching upward in, “26 year old me” knew if I made one error I would die from a fatal 1200′ fall and violently rip Josh off as well, the two of us tumbling to death six days from a road that led to a town where people spoke only Mandarin, in a Chinese valley where no one knew we were. This was difficult terrain to be soloing but I knew I could execute the moves to safety because I never allowed my emotions free reign to seize and paralyze me in the moments where my life, death and the future was suspended in balance like this. I had nothing to lose, which helped. After all, I would leave nothing behind but about $700 in my bank account, no debt and an e-mail to my parents from a smoky bar in Rilong — a forgotten relic of a town in the far Eastern Himalaya that crumbled in an earthquake in .

But I didn’t fall that day in 2006. And we still had an epic time getting off that mountain in the dark, in a major storm with two ropes and barely any protection for adequate anchors in the featureless compact granite. We took risk and we executed, death was an option, just never acceptable for us. But I want to phrase that carefully; I did not see this as cheating death, I was cheating odds, which is a different game and mindset. Even though I love nature and alpine environments, luck was the most prevalent explanation for living and also the most seductive element of adventure granting clouds and snow, sun and summits and fate or failure. When we got home to Telluride, Co. from that trip, all I wanted to do was have a conversation with my local mentors Charlie Fowler and Chris Boskoff about how awesome the trip had been, how confident I now felt putting up a new route in the Himalayas. They too were in China on an expedition, but they never came home, an avalanche swept over them a few weeks after the storm we had survived. They died doing what they loved.



Jon Miller belays Josh Butson as the team reached the site of a 5 night stay at 21,600' in a fierce Himalayan maelstrom on Baruntse. Photo credit: Ben Clark

In , with three more aggressive years to hone my experience and an appetite for dangerous runouts, I was in the lead on a new route on the NE face of 23,390′ Baruntse in the Nepali Himalayas. Josh, Jon and I had committed to what we thought was a six-day alpine style push with the bare amount of equipment to climb the mountain by a new route, summit and then ski down the other side. This was my dream climb and the route I would say had the most influence on me than any other route I ever touched. I wanted to traverse it more than any ground on earth. But on that day as I led, ice climbing on a shiny spine of ice cleaving a wide open face capped by dangerous icefall on either side, I peered across valley to the 8000′ south face of 27,940′ Lhotse to watch the jet stream explode against it in a 3000′ tall mushroom cloud framed by an eerie alpenglow. I scarily uttered through chattering lips with 2000′ of air nipping at my heels: “Living people do not see things like this.” That night, on a ledge we chopped out and sat on for five days, I hunched over with my frost nipped feet warming on Jon’s stomach holding his hands so he could lean forward and puke into a Ziploc bag. Josh melted water in a stove almost hanging in space on the edge of the tent. We settled into an uneasy realization of what we all knew may be true — this could be it if the storm built steam and blew our tent to pieces. We had reached a point of too far, not yet no return, and would have nothing but time to worry about our fate as Jon’s stomach ailment deteriorated into a serious condition.



21,600' camp on the NE face of Baruntse, aka "the good times clubhouse." Josh Butson, Jon Miller and Ben Clark spent five nights here in a storm that everyone down below thought killed them.

But the storm built only so much steam and we lived. After 10 days on the mountain we rappelled the route rescuing Jon and in three months I was in Salt Lake City, Utah at the Outdoor Retailer show talking to an athlete manager of a company that supported me as an athlete. Recounting this tale and then discussing the fate of a new friend I had made that year who had reached out to me for advice before my trip — Micah Dash, we remembered Micah’s adventurous spark, which was extinguished with two others by an avalanche in Sichuan while we were on our climb. The last e-mail I got on day six of our approach to Baruntse was about Mt Edgar; “Did I know anything about it?” The news of why he hadn’t responded to my last e-mail hit me just one week after returning home from Baruntse and somehow the stock sentiment made me pale this time. He died doing what he loved.

In May , with my wife at home pregnant with our son, I broke trail in 3′ of snow up a large valley on 21,506′ Chulu West with Jon, Chris and Gavin. We climbed three awkward pitches of rock the day before to get into position to be the first people to ever ski this valley and were hit by a major electrical storm that delayed our start and lay fresh snow over some dangerous terrain up high. At just after noon that day we stood looking at the last steep pitch leading to the summit ridge, the sun was intense, heat was picking up and large chunks of cornices had crashed into the slope and triggered a couple of sizeable avalanches. At that moment, my mind drifted to where it always had, where I knew that there was a good chance that if we set foot on the slope it would avalanche, but I wanted to go anyway because I have tempted fate many more times than just what is above and it has worked out. That is what it takes to make it to the top.

But this time it didn’t work out, we did not “succeed” and tag the summit. We talked about it. We talked ourselves out of it. Why? Because I don’t want to die a suffocating oppressive death after being ripped to pieces and then buried beneath a ton of snow. We would not settle for eight more ski turns and a stale eulogy. I did not want to be someone who “died doing what they loved” because if that were the case, then I would die hanging out with my family, sleeping, eating ice cream, pizza, editing a film, listening to a great song — just sayin’. Luckily, by committee, everyone elected that we should “just ski”… novel right? We didn’t actually have to increase our risk of death to pull that off and have fun. My God, why did it take me so long to learn that? Just skiing there was “extreme” enough and I was so engrossed, so used to laying it out there that I could not even see that was an accomplishment. It had become routine to pioneer, dangerously so.



With occasional views like this, why wouldn't you at least be curious to explore the Himalayan high Country? I snapped this photo right before skiing off the summit of 20,201' Thorung peak.

In 15 peak attempts in the Himalayas from Dhaulagiri in Western Nepal, the summit of Everest in Tibet and the far reaching slopes of The Savage Sister in eastern Sichuan, I had come close or had completely risked it all every time, every time except this one. I have broken an ankle, rescued a friend, run out of oxygen on summit day, been in an avalanche scenario and watched friends fall in crevasses, lose feeling on the right side of their body and cry, cry in the anguish of physical and emotional defeat. I have given up myself in the dark hours of a stormy night and understood the process that leads one to freezing to death alone and undisturbed by that choice. This time everything went right, including my attitude toward it all… so I quit, the moment I finally got “a head.”

Situations and tolerances vary for everyone and across latitudes and longitudes. Education is the best backup to support your judgment when taking risk. There will still be moments after you have gained that medical and snow science knowledge when you are in the mountains and your tolerance will negate what you have learned or the situation will fall outside what you were taught. If you proceed at that time you must knowingly commit and pursue your present goal with little more than faith that the consequences you are anticipating are truly manageable within the system of variables you are engaging with. That is adventure; it is in that space I loved so dearly, where I learned to be present on the line between here and now and tomorrow or never. Don’t forget though, that the system you are engaging is greater than the slopes around you and you may have to speak to someone’s mother, father, wife or brother about the mistake you don’t think you are about to make, even though most of the time you won’t. But if you do, if something goes wrong, if you nearly cost someone his or her life or are there when something out of your control goes completely wrong, I can only tell you that in my experience, it is a far lower low than any altitude high you may ever reach.

Every now and then, it makes sense to press pause. On our iPod, during a movie, in a heated debate… sometimes we just need a break to process all the excitement and the stimulation. There is little room for pause in real life or the types of scenarios above. There is no skill that will comfortably guarantee survival either, for that there is only luck. I think that is why they call it risk and nothing else. I think that is why I always encourage others to go if that curiosity drives you. Considering what I have survived, I would go forward in some instances where others may have stayed home because I felt it was necessary to explore boundaries. I don’t regret that I did, but I’m not continuing onward today. I have already gone and I have come back. And on this side of things, I am enjoying a state of pause, reflection and peace with my decisions.






"Of course it is worth it"- Ben Clark skiing powder on the North Slopes of 20,201' Thorung peak with 21,506' Chulu West behind him. Photo credit: Hari Mix





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