Pain Cave

Spent a little time in the pain cave last weekend! 80km on the dirt, on the cross bike. My buddy Ken led the ride and posted this video from his helmet cam. Cool ride mostly through villages and farm land. The rice paddies are looking amazing right now and you can catch a glimpse of them at the end of the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtWeNEAb90Q

Critical Mass #3 Bangladesh

So the critical mass in Bangladesh is three months old today. I missed the first two so I made a point to make this one. I am not sure about an actual count but there were over 200 riders! Bangladesh keeps surprising me with how progressive certain aspects are and how unbelievable backwards other parts are. I never would have thought that there would be a critical mas here and would have laughed if you told me there were more riders than I ever saw a the critical mass in San Luis Obispo.

I took the cargo bike and was going to take Lola but was glad that I did not! We rode a little over 12 miles and the entire ordeal took about 3 hours. There was lots of energy in the air and the number of cultures represented was pretty impressive. But I have to take my hat off to the number of Bangladeshi riders out there.

The Cargo bike was a hit and I became a shuttle for a couple of young kids that had run out of steam. The streets were lined with people pointing and clapping and cheering. There were riders blocking traffic and press photographers on motorcycles, guys with megaphones and all kinds of bikes. Here are some pics from the day.

The first riders trickle in...

 The big group amasses

Bike Parking

Couldn't resist...

I am thinking about importing a limited run of these. The demand would be epic...

Some live dancing and drumming. All part of the package.

Ken testing out the trail-a-bike during the mass photo.

I just rode single track!

So Bangladesh just moved up on my list and I owe it all to my newest aquaintence, Ken. My principal's wife Sara sent me "biker guy" Ken's email and sent Ken my email. Within hours Ken had emailed me letting me know that he would be out of town for a bit but when he got back he would contact me about a ride. He also mentioned a 15 day bike trek he would be taking to Nepal in April. All I could think was, "Seriously? 15 days in Nepal for the sole purpose of riding. This guy is legit!"

So Ken made it back and we set up a "Mountain Bike" ride which I was thinking would be lame dirt roads but that I was hoping would be more. We met at 7:00 am with 4 other riders and started the mad dash to get out of Dhaka. After about 5 miles of road riding Ken just hangs a left onto a trail I never would have seen. For the next 50 Km Ken led us on a dizzying maze of interconnected trails and paths in the delta areas outside of Dhaka. When I got home we had riden 70 Km, my legs were sore, and I was beat! I had ridden hills, hucked my bike off of 6 foot drops, crossed levy trails that were 6-12 inches wide, ridden through bamboo forests, seen ferrets, walked over bamboo bridges, had some close calls, and laughed like a kid again. One of the guys on the ride, Satish, took some pics and here they are:

TRAILS IN BANGLADESH!

And they were fun too. All the excitement of Mt. biking with a people factor. Kids would run out from their homes to yell greetings and wave. Some would just laugh! It was like a mountain bike race with people on the course cheering us on. Most of the trails were walking paths for people getting between villages, getting to the fields or from animals being led out to pasture. We were never far from civilizations but I felt like i was in nature. Cool sights fun riding and cool people.

Oh yeah, and it turns out I did not have the first Santa Cruz bike in Bangladesh... Yep, Ken has a SC Nomad... Bro-mance? I hope I don't come on too strong and scare Ken away! At least our bikes are different colors. Anyway, Thank you Ken for showing me some dirt, I needed it.

Ride Number 2

This weekend is Eid (the end of Ramadan) and so a lot of the people in Dhaka go out to their villages and celebrate with family. It has a similar feel to Christmas in that there is an overwhelming sense of happiness and family love. All the stores close, people are dressed up in their finest and the streets are quiet. Really. All construction has stopped and traffic is down to about an 1/8th of what it was. So I, being the heathen that I am, think nothing of religion during religious holidays and decide that this will be a perfect day to ride my bike! I found a route on MapMyRide.com and spent all day yesterday trying to figure out how to get the course on my GPS unit... Wasted time. I got it on there but it turned out to be useless as far as giving directions so I had to go off memory of the map. Surprisingly I did not get lost! Here is a map of the ride from my GPS:

This was a great day in the saddle. Amazing scenery. I was on this one lane road that weaves through the river delta areas and all these small villages. People all taking it easy because of the Eid holiday. The random English greetings were thrown my way included "Hi" "Hello" "Howareyou" and my favorite, "Thank You" People would just shout thank you as I road by. I like to think that they were just thanking me for being so inspirational... nothing to do with the fact that they have no idea what thank you means. Here are a few pics of the day:

The local way of running pipelines

The barge that pumps the water:

Finally a decent picture of the local fishing nets:

These saw mills are all over. Pretty cool.

Boats docked right next to the road:

The colorful boats: