Tour of Unknown Coast 2011

Another successful Tour of the Unknown Coast has came and went with hundreds of riders from all over the nation. An unfortunate hectic semester had tremendous impacts on my ability to train/ride so I opted out of a shorter ride for photographing the hammerheads on the century. At first I was feeling a touch sentimental when all the riders started lining up before 7am last Saturday, but by the time I hit "The Wall" and watched those who had been training suffer, I knew I was having just as much fun enjoying the beautiful day and documenting the masochism in front of me. It was much easier chasing them on the KLR.

It was a sea of green Adventure's Edge jerseys at the starting line for the 2001 TUC.

It was mostly tight packs of riders for the first 10 miles or so coming out of the start and heading into Rio Dell.

The Avenue of the Giants was still dark (as usual) at 8:26 am. I had to bust out the strobe to catch the quickly moving front pack. Unfortunately the flash mount I had on the KLR came off somewhere on the endless hills scaring a rider coming around a blind corner. Luckily Bruce of Ferndale was nice enough to find its owner (me), and my sincere apologies to the rider getting a scare. A free photo for you two if you hunt me down.

#326 from Bellingham, Washington was the speed demon for the day. He broke away from the lead group early on. Here he was starting the climb up Panther Gap solo.

This threesome road strong and consistent all day. Although they never caught the solo lead guy, they would all finish very strong at the end of the day.

Matt Deshazo was also riding strong all day. An unfortunate chain issue at the top of the endless hills determined his higher place finish. "It's unfortunate, but I know how I would have finished," was Matt's response. Very true.

Trying to change up the typical TUC photos (many people hang out all day at The Wall), I headed over the windy, twisting roads of the infamous Endless Hills. I was reminded of how it almost drove me to hysteria last year as it really did seem to be endless.

The sinuous roads climb endlessly away from the still visible coast.

A rider pedals along a ridge where a section of the route can be seen in the background.

Beyond the endless hills the fog rolled in thick as a rider squeezes out his last reserves of energy for the last 5 miles.

Select photographs of the event can be seen here at jmbarnesphoto.com. To purchase photos please visit my events gallery at jmbarnesphoto.com/events.

Racing supports riding

It's been a couple months since I've really had time to clean my room. In an effort to maximize space I did a routine organizing which consists of grabbing things from the more central parts of the room and putting them as close to the walls as possible. This was mostly done so I could put my touring bike up on the trainer in hopes of getting to spin some miles soon. What I had realized at the time of my organizing tantrum was exactly what I titled this blog post. I had a rather large pile of swag, but even better than swag, useful things that actually enable me to get out and ride more. I've been running on a tight student budget for awhile now, been tromping with the same crankset on my mountain bike since 1999 (yup that's 10 years), a shamy that's three years old, and rims that are busting at the seams. Now I'm not one to rush out and get the lastest new hip bike gadgets, but I've definitely come to realize how upgrades can make my bike work a lot better, which only fuels my desire to go ride more. It's a sick cyclical cycle really. What I'm getting at is this, I have a pile of great stuff sitting here from a couple local bike races that I participated in which really helps an economically challenged dude like myself out. This is a BIG shout out to Vic at Team Bigfoot, Jennifer at Adventure's Edge, and all the folks up at Revolution for really making the cycling scene around here kick ass. Cheers.