Flicker Down

Flicker down

There was a dead northern flicker lying in the snow the middle of Rocky Ridge this morning.

I don't know what killed it, but probably it hadn't been dead long before I came upon it; it's body was still limp and unfrozen as I moved it off the track, despite the day being quite cold and the snow firm and unthawed.

Finding dead things in the woods is always a bit unsettling.

Flickers are beautiful birds and one of the more common species of woodpecker in our woods.  Before today, I'd never had the chance to really examine one up close.  So, before I rode off, I hunkered down and took a good long look at its piebald plumage and strikingly orange cheek and tail-feathers.

These woods

I love these woods.

Since the very first time I ventured out into them, on a spur-of-the-moment solo ride which took me from my studio apartment behind the bus station down the service road that runs along the railroad tracks, up the old dirt road past Tunnel Springs, across A1 Mesa, and back down road L10 through the Lowell Observatory's land, I've loved these woods.

I love the breadth of these woods, the depth of them, too.

I love the sight of these woods, the vistas, tall stands of old growth, and dense thickets.

I love the terrain and the geology and the history of these woods.

Most of all, I love the seasons of these woods. I love being out in them when it feels like you're there the very moment that the seasons have changed in these woods.

This weekend these woods turned from fall-woods to winter-woods.

My fat-bike took me there.  It was wonderful.

Leaf Peeping

It feels as though family-time has come at a premium of late.  My work always conspires to pull time away from us.  But lately, because my wife and daughter are cast in another Flagstaff Youth Theater production (Narnia), our weekends have been somewhat compromised by long rehearsals the past few weeks, too.

So today we ditched church, including our monthly obligation to lead singing, and went for donuts and then for a lovely long walk in the woods together, just the three of us and the dog, to peep some leaves up toward Brookbank's Tank.  

We were rewarded with a near-perfect morning: 47 degrees, bluebird skies, a light breeze, and a million aspens exploding in color!

Pink Car Hill

My fondness for wandering around in the woods looking at stuff has not diminished as I have aged, in fact it's probably grown more intense as I've found that, as an adult, I can wander farther afield without concern for having the right "permissions" to do so... my wife understands my propensity to sometimes wander a little off track now and again when I'm out riding in the woods... my mother did too, for the record, but I think she worried more actively about her overdue, errant 10-year-old son than my wife does about her overdue, errant 46-year-old husband.

As a kid, the Prescott National Forest near Walker, Arizona, where we had a summer cabin for about 40 years, was littered with rusty old hulks of broken-down and abandoned early-20th-century to depression-era cars.  As we rode our motorcycles around in the woods, my family and I identified each locale and every major turn in the road by naming the wrecked car or rusting tractor or yellow-tallus mine-tailings or dilapidated cabin found prominently nearby.

Thus the woods are filled with this sound

The other day, while we were out riding together on the Arizona Trail, my daughter and I stopped off to the side of one of the trails we ride regularly to inspect a little check-dam she made a springtime or two ago.  She was pleased to find that it was working well, holding back a small pool of bubbly, dark-green water.  Nevertheless, she added a rock or two to the top of the dam to stem the water's egress due to the pool's rising tide.

And then, as she was crossing back to the bank where I was sitting, she slipped and fell in.

Two Hundred

I officially started putting real content on this blog back in 2009, hopeful, at the time, that it would become "a place for me to write, to practice writing," in order to keep my pencil sharp, so to speak.  

Prior to the founding of this website, through no fault of my own, I'd lost every single one of my regular, recurring writing gigs, those that paid and those that didn't.  Thus left otherwise without options, my choices were simple: either I was going to stop writing, or I would need to find a new place to be published.  And thus: I signed up for a blog: rockychrysler.blogspot.com. "A place to practice, a place to just write.  For lack of any other venue, like millions of other writers, by default This Blog will be the place."

And, I'm happy to say, it has been.

Archival Footage: C. H. Ellis

C. H. Ellis

In 1983, when I was 16, I wrote a term paper about my great-great grandfather for my sophomore Arizona Government class. Some thirty years later, I think it's still a worthy bio which recalls the life of an uncommon and compassionate individual, Dr. Clarence Harmon [C. H.] Ellis, who was my father's father's father's father-in-law (and the origin of my daughter's middle-name: Ellise).  

I am pleased to be one of his many descendants.

I scanned (.pdf) the fragile 30-year-old onion-skin papers that this report was typed on earlier today and have included the complete text below, with but a few necessary revisions and a number of freshly-added photos and links. 

Rainy day. Fat bike. Not another soul.

Rainy day. Fat bike. Not another soul.

Forked trail. Fat bike. Not another soul.

Mushroom patch. Fat bike. Not another soul.

Brown bracken. Fat bike. Not another soul.

Long puddle. Fat bike. Not another soul.

Wild flowers. Fat bike. Not another soul.

Tall grass. Fat bike. Not another soul.

Archival Footage: June was getting old

Flamingo Flakes by Billy Schenck

When I was young I wrote poems.  Mostly bad poems. I did not intend for them to be bad.  I had hoped for them to be good. 

But they were not.  

However, they are not too-terribly-bad either, I suppose, particularly when considering the shallow depth of the well from which they were drawn at the time.

I stumbled upon a few of them recently, in an tattered manila file tucked away in the back of a closet.

Below are some of the sad, angsty lines I wrote between 1986 and 1991.  Back when I was in my 20s and thought I knew it all...

---

Payson, Springtime, 1976

Heaven's not filled
with Earth's departed souls
now is it.
The faucet's trough-plink
old hand's country signal's bad
flipping static.
Stockyard's smell
all rotten bales.
It's not in pictures
horse's self-defecation drying
cracked open like this.

There's a horsepath near a Payson ranch
rutted rental-inches into the planet
showing papersack gravel laid open
beneath grass-woven soil.

None talk much
less run until they have sight of it
tail-to-nose waiting
sniffing clover and wild flowers
or walking in sleep toward it
transfixed on this appointed path
the yearling's new faces
the ancients' breathing sensing
again able to move limbs quickly
smoothly to the gate.

The yellow line of teeth
the bridled lips pulled back
wanting.

---

Fly Lady Bug

Sitting watching clouds fly past the moon

It must be hoards
just swarms of bugs
that are disappointed by this moon
and all moons.

To spend your days
flying gyres upward toward
the sky
just to have the light taken away each night
by a paleness only the clouds can see
sharply enough to fly past.

That's why you seek out
the street-light below where I am perched
ape-like on my balcony wall
to loop and dive and crash
around this sodium-vapor sun.

If I open the door
you'll follow me inside
to the bedroom
and loop and dive and crash
around my lamplight.
I'll find you there when I retire
lying dead on my sheets.
Empty shells with little wings.

I'll come inside and join you soon
someday later tonight
and we'll lie together
and you'll hold me
and I'll think: this is what I came here for.

---

Reason. And other functions.

I've been listening to my own voice
echo down stairwells
for so long

now let me rock
with my feet up on the bed
and crack nuts in my hand
while I listen to your voice

as you sit
knelt at the foot of the bed
late at night near me

I watch your eyes
in this blue darkness and see them
grey areas with fire behind them
like eclipsing moons

Your lashes make shadows on the floor.
They reach down beneath the floorboards
and under the window's sill
and pick dandelions outside

You talk about me how
I'm the kind of man who
gets paid
for doing what he loves most:

taking things apart.
And about Jack Nicholson
and how you know why he went to the Cuckoo's Nest

And about Sartre
and Python. Laura Petrie
Hitchcock's body
How growie things reproduce themselves
almost without gratification
and without
and almost always without

'Til it makes you look
like those are nearly tears
between your lashes
reflecting this night's brightness

When I know it's just sleep
or the lack of it there

And you make me wonder
as I listen to your exposition;

Will you understand me
when I lay down beside you
to whisper my love?

---

June was getting old

June was getting old
she said
looking softly down his arm to the floor
speaking slowly purposefully
that there is this thing, yes.
reading the same books
looking out through twinned eyes
always at this too-obvious-letters-written-man
who rode to forget
then forgot to ride
slept no further or sooner than
whenever you're ready to leave
spake ice-cream talk to you
before you ever heard it
sent love letters within himself
and imagined your tears dried by them
and you never knew
me
who talks mainly for joy
the who-you-are of it all
then for intimacy
finally for solace
who still waits 'til hope subsides
paces and yearns to prove indispensable
like drinking water for kisses
esoteric iodine tablets 

intended to remove
the browns from the greys
who hunts for words
and becomes galvanized into 

this being
alone
who never quite gets each dream 

to fall in place
in this great-green-dream-hopper
instead it yields bitterness
a kind of bile in the throat
kinked like a hose
spitting sputtering

out the smallest hole's 

path
of least resistance

Weatherford Road

Yesterday, I rode my fat bike up the old Weatherford Road.

The Weatherford Road, which begins just above and a little to the west of the Schultz Creek trailhead, and the Weatherford Trail, which begins up higher on the Pass near Schultz Tank, aren't really the same thing, although eventually they do rejoin one another, at the Wilderness boundary above Schultz Pass.

The old Weatherford Road used to be our primary bike-access from town to the trails above Schultz Pass.  But we hardly ever ride it anymore, probably because most of those trails don't really exist anymore.  Trails like Secret and East Orion were obliterated by the Forest Service years ago in an effort to protect spotted owl habitat.

Today, a couple newer trails, such as Newham (not to be confused with Oldham), Upper Dogfood (a wildcat trail), and The Spotted Owl (which is sometimes mistakenly called Secret or Orion Spring) cross the Weatherford Road above the Pass.  But only one classic trail, The Overlook, still remains accessible from the Weatherford Road, up high in the aspens, somewhat hidden beneath a few rotten logs, right where it always has been.

Much All of the road is now closed to motorized vehicles, so it feels forgotten and remote and, year after year, the trees encroach on it more and more.

When it was proposed as a tourist attraction back in about 1915 by local hotel owner, John Weatherford, he assured the Forest Service that the grade would not exceed seven percent, but here and in several other places it approaches ten percent.

It's pretty obvious that the Forest Service has not put any resources into maintaining the road for some time, even sections like this one near Newham, which technically remains open to motorized vehicles.  Every summer the rains dig the channels a little bit deeper.

The road, called The San Francisco Mountain Boulevard, was originally planned to be operated as a toll road aimed as an attraction at the burgeoning Grand Canyon tourist trade at the turn of the last century.  It cost over $100,000 in 1900s-dollars to construct and it was finally completed to the saddle between Agassiz and Humphreys Peaks in the mid-1920s.

The old toll-house is still standing and appears to have been carefully restored.

Weatherford and his fellow speculators never recouped their investment.  But the road, such as it is, remains to this day, but, since 1980, only horses and hikers have been permitted above the Wilderness boundary.

It must have been quite a  thrill to drive to over 11,000 feet on the San Franciso Peaks, and not altogether without risk, either.  Last time I hiked it above the Wilderness boundary, several years ago, there were still a few old abandoned vehicles wedged into the trees off the downhill side of the road.

In the late 30s, due to a lack of maintenance, the Forest Service canceled Weatherford's special-use permit, closing the Scenic Mountain Boulevard to motorized vehicles forever.

Nope. No berries. Not yet.

For the past few years, about this time of the season, we've gone down to a nice, kinda secret, quiet spot on Oak Creek to harvest blackberries.  This year we went too early and harvested maybe 12 ripe berries in all.  The rest were all still small and green, weeks away from being ready.  

Fortunately, we did arrive right after a rain, so the air was misty and cool and the creek clear and cold. We waded around for a bit and then drove down to Sedona for lunch.

We'll go again in a few weeks, sometime mid-August, I think.  The berries in our secret spot should be ripe by then.

Little cat feet

The trails near Schultz Pass, puddle-wonderful, enshrouded in fog, covered in hail, were uncommonly spectacular this afternoon.

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

Carl Sandburg

Archival Footage: The Settlement Of The Night Monster

What follows is a true tale, or at least as true a tale as I am able to tell of it these days, so many years later, about a trip I took to the Galapagos Islands with my grandparents when I was 10 years old in 1977. It is a tale based, at least in terms of its sequence and style, on this poem of recollection which I wrote for Beckian Goldberg's ENG 200-something Introduction to Creative Writing poetry workshop as a sophomore at Arizona State University in 1987.

The photos below are also mine, taken by ten-year-old me with my prized Kodak Instamatic camera.

---

"Yes, the night monster will settle there and will find herself a resting place."

Isaiah 34:14b

---

Santa Fe Island, Galápagos
27 October 1977

It was a sharp knife, much sharper than most ten-year-old boys would tyically be allowed to possess.

And it was the right knife, too, its stainless three-inch-long blade and array of Swiss-army implements perfect for carrying confidently in one's front pocket all day long, especially on a grand, far-away excursion such as this.

The fish, lying on its side on the deck, a large trolling-hook pinned in its lower jaw, also gauged the sharpness of the boy's knife; its wide, unblinking eyes betrayed its awareness, as it gaped and gasped in desperate need of oxygen. It needed to die, wanted to now.

"Kill me," the fish told him.

A very-sharp-knife would do the job quickly and easily.  At the lake, in summer, he'd watched his father gut small trout, which they'd caught with a rod and reel from the deck of their tiny red wooden sailboat, with the same sharp knife, quickly and easily. A jab below the chin, just behind the gills, a few grinding cuts against the grain of the fish's belly, and it was done.

"¿Qué estás haciendo?" the young deckhand yelled at the boy. "¡No mates ese pez!"

"What?" the boy asked, stepping back as the 'hand lunged for the knife, pulled it quickly from his grasp and then, instinctively, pressed the flat back of the blade against his thigh, folding it quickly into the hilt and jamming it angrily into his own pocket.  The boy understood very little Spanish.  But he knew, nevertheless, that he'd been scolded for his intention to use his very-sharp-knife to kill the big-eyed yellow-green dorado, the evening's prized entree, prematurely.

"If you'd killed it, it would have begun to spoil out there in the sun before we'd had a chance to prepare it for our dinner tonight," his grandmother would explain later that day, as she secretly handed the knife back to him in the small below-deck cabin they shared with his grandfather.

But for the moment, now knifeless and unable to carry out a mercy killing, the boy waited instead, sitting for much of the hottest part of the day beside the slowly dying fish on the deck, his back against the wall of the bridge of their small chartered ketch, Sulidae, waiting until the fish's large eyes clouded over and its agonal gasping ceased.

The afternoon sunlight reflecting off the rippling lagoon danced silently on the wall behind him. The placid, perfect half-moon bay, its water crystal clear and cerulean blue to a great depth, teemed with life: Gulls and frigatebirds filled the air, Sally-lightfoot crab festooned the black-rock headlands, herds of dark-skinned marine iguanas grazed underwater on algae beds off shore, and massive, fleshy sea lions riotously occupied each beach and rock outcrop, baying, mating, and whelping, day and night in an endless doggish chorus.  Somewhere inland, at the foot of the mountains, he'd been told huge land iguanas and other remarkable mysterious creatures were waiting.

---

Up close, its teeth looked as long as his own arm.

It took just one split-second moment for the boy to recall that he had been warned, earlier in the day, as they had all piled into the smal Zodiac that was to ferry them to the beach, that he was not to walk, and especially not to swim, too near the nesting pods of sea lions.

"Those males, the fat ones with the fangs, they will think you're a rival for their mates if you get too close," their tall, affable Australian guide had warned.  "They've only got one thing on their mind this time of the year, and you don't want to get in the way of that," he said grinning, as he pulled confidently on the outboard's starter-cord.  All the grown-ups in the bow laughed as the motor roared to life.

But the clear water of the cove was warm and simply too inviting, and before long the boy could be found swimming alone, well away from his own pod of humans who were sunbathing and chatting on the vast sandy beach, well out past the rocks and reef into the deeper darker blue waters of the lagoon. Young sea lions playfully darted in and out of his path, multicolored fish swam around him unafraid, the water fathoms deep. It was heaven.

Soon a large dark mass lurked beneath him, gliding stealthily from his left flank to his right, disturbing the trajectory of the sunfish and the sea lions, and just for a moment, thoroughly confounding the boy.

Without warning, a massive head exploded out of the water directly in front of him, mere inches from his face. Wild, whiskered, snarling, its was a thing full of teeth, threat, and animal-rage.

"Go back!" Its cavernously deep voice belched and then redoubled across the water.

A watery scream escaped the boys lips as he turned to swim for the beach in a blind-panic toward the faint hope of safety.

Unhurt but terrified, he reached the shoreline to be greeted by a cacophony of fearful screaming from the rest of the landing party, all of whom had heard the 'lion's roar.

---

He sought solace that evening alone, sitting at the small built-in desk in his cabin, a dull pencil in hand, feeling all-too-intimately the isolation and vastness of the equatorial Pacific. Writing unsendable postcards to his parents, he could hear his grandparents, as well as the various members of his extended family and their traveling companions, as they sat together on deck above watching the sun set behind Santa Fe island's impressive silhouette.

Miles from the nearest outpost from which his postcards could perhaps be sent, he nonetheless found it comforting to write to his mother about his day, downplaying what he'd experienced that afternoon, the others laughing about his terror and the scold he'd endured thereafter, writing instead in his best hand of the excitement and adventure of it all.

Despite being lost in thought as he wrote, he still was only mildly surprised when his grandfather came into the cabin unexpectedly.

"Have you seen my sweater?" the older man asked.  "It's a little chilly up on deck tonight," he observed while rifling through the cabin's small closet.  Turning back to face the boy as he slipped an arm into the sleeve of his sweater he remarked, "What are you up to, down here all alone? Everyone's having a nice time watching the sunset tonight. Why don't you come up?"

"I will.  I'm just writing some postcards right now."

"Oh, postcards.  Good.  To your folks?  Where will you mail them? I didn't see any mailboxes on the beach today."

"Ha-ha. I know.  I'm just writing to mom and pop because I feel like it.  I guess I'll mail them when we get back to Santa Cruz.  I just feel like writing right now."

---

"Feeling a little homesick?"

"Yeah," said the boy, stifling tears.  "A lot." As his typically stoic, commonly distant grandfather sat down next to him on the nearest bunk the boy admitted,  "I think I want to go home."

"I'm sure you do.  You're a long, long way from home right now," the older man observed.  "Much further away than I ever went when I was ten years old.  And, you know, I am proud of you. You've behaved so well, and you've been so courageous. It a big deal to come on a trip like this without your folks.

"In fact, I don't think most ten-year-old kids could do it.  But your grandma and I knew how much you'd love to be here. We were a little worried that it would be too far away for a boy your age to travel without his mom and dad.  But you've come so far, and you've been so bold. I'm really glad you're here with us."

"I'm glad, too," sniffed the boy. "I just miss my mom and pop right now."

"I know.  And that's okay.  When I was your age, the very farthest I ever went away from home was to summer camp in the mountains a few times.  And that was only a few hundred miles from home.  But here you are, thousands of miles from home, in the middle of the ocean, and it's taken you 'til now, almost two weeks, to get even a little bit homesick.  I'm so impressed!  Be proud of yourself," said the old man, putting a reassuring hand on the boy's shoulder.

The boy smiled, just a little, as he explained, "Whenever I go on sleepovers at my friends' house, and if I have trouble sleeping at night, I always like to think, if I need to go home I can just get up and walk there. But here, I know," he sniffed, "I can't ever walk home from here."

"Nope.  You sure can't." his grandfather smiled, compassionately.  "But you'll be home soon enough.  Hang in there, Juanito, you'll see your folks again before you know it.  They'll be at the airport to pick us up when we get back, and they're going to be just as happy to see you as you'll be to see them."

---

The next moment, the boy's uncle appeared in the doorway.  "You okay, Percy?" he asked, evidently concerned.

"Sure.  Fine.  Just came down for a sweater.  Been talking with John."

"Well, looks like you found a sweater," his uncle continued, making small talk while looking carefully at his grandfather's face, evidently concerned.  Sensing their conversation was over, as well as his chance to be alone to write postcards, the boy got up to go join the rest of the group up on deck, as his grandfather had suggested.  But the moment he stepped into the narrow hall outside his cabin he heard a faint noise behind him, as though someone had tossed a heavy pillow onto one of the bunks in his cabin.

"Percy?!" his uncle called out urgently. "Percy!" As the boy looked into their cabin from the hallway, he could see his grandfather lying back, awkwardly, on the bunk, his eyes closed, mouth half-open, unresponsive to the other man's calls.  

"John, go get your grandmother.  Something's wrong."  And the boy obeyed, walking into the adjacent bow-cabin, sticking his head up through the small hatch in the ceiling.

"Uncle Jim says something's wrong with grandpa," he told his grandmother.  "He wants you to come down, they're in our cabin."  Everyone gasped and headed for the main hatch and were soon gathered in the galley and in the hallway outside their cabin door.

The boy, however, sat in the galley along with several others, and watched as a half-dozen crewmen and their affable guide all rushed forward through the ship innards to peer in on his grandfather.  All but one crewman and the guide turned back as the captain began to shout orders in Spanish at all of them.  

Curious, the boy wandered forward himself a short time later, looking cautiously through the doorway between the arms and legs of his elders, to see the one member of the crew straddling his grandfather, now fully prone, face-up on the bunk, and another person, their no longer affable guide, holding his head with both hands, ready to breathe for him whenever the crewman momentarily ceased doing CPR.

It was so hot now. The crush of bodies and panic had raised the temperature below-decks to a sticky, stifling degree.

All the lights on board, but for the one small oil lamp in the galley and the lone light in his grandfather's cabin, had been turned off the moment the boat's giant noisy diesel engine had been engaged. The sails, too, were soon raised on their masts and the captain ordered the prow to be pointed toward the archipeligo's nearest hospital, in the small settlement of Puerto Ayora on the island of Santa Cruz, which the boy knew, from his years of study, was hours and hours away by night from where they were currently, across the open equitorial sea.

Everyone's dinner, those fresh-caught dorado fish-filets, sat seasoned but uncooked, ignored atop the galley stove through the night.

No longer homesick, but still just as alone, the boy wept quietly in a corner of the dark galley cabin.  But he cried only for a little while, and then when he did again, and later in the night again, it was more because of the stress of the whole affair than it was from any kind of fear or confusion.  Because he understood what was happening, and he knew what was to be the likely outcome of it all.

At last, a little later, he at last fell asleep, still just as alone, on the padded bench that ran the length of the galley's half-moon dinner table.

---

When he awoke the next morning, he found he was still lying on the galley bench. The sun, already up, with its diffuse light shining through the portholes above him, he found his head was now nestled comfortably in his grandmother's ample lap.  He stretched, quietly, looked up and caught her gaze.  Her lips pursed, her eyes red, she nevertheless tried to smile.  He had always loved her smile, and did once again, especially in that moment.

"Grandpa's dead" was all she said.

"I know."

"You were very brave last night," she told him.  And then a moment later, told him succinctly, "The doctors were here, a little while ago, while you were sleeping. They're going to come back in a while and take grandpa's body away with them."

They returned, when they came back, with a long white-pine box and several strong men to carry it.

---

They all left the island, together, later that day, traveling by bus up and over the central highland forest of Santa Cruz, from the settlement of Puerto Ayora to the small airport on the island's opposite side. The white pine casket, either because it was too large or too heavy for the luggage rack bolted to the top of the colorful Latin-American bus, was instead shoved straight down the passenger compartment's center aisle, providing a group of gray-haired locals with a fine platform for card playing while enroute.

Next to the dock, where they boarded a ramshackle ferryboat for the quick trip across the narrow inlet to reach the airport located on the tiny isle of Baltra, stood a lone blue-footed booby atop a decaying, barnacle-covered wood piling. Its once-bright feet faded and bestained with soot and grime from the many transport boats' fuel and exhaust, it stared hard at the boy as he walked the narrow plank to get aboard.

"What did you expect?" it asked from its rotten perch, permanent, immovable, forever fixed in his memory.

Just about a bike: Surly Pugsley [UPDATED]

Select images to enlarge

I've been riding my new Pugsley a lot since I got it. Almost daily, I'd say. 

And the simple fact of the matter is: There is a lot to love about this bike. And just a little to get used to. And pretty much nothing that's too-terribly-bad about it. Safe to say, of all my bikes, none gets rode harder or (quite literally) gets put away wetter than my Pugsley.

What follows, by-and-large, is the story of my Pugsley.

---

But first, before we begin, you need to know: I love my wife.

And not just because she's beautiful and funny and a great mother and a talented professional.

My wife is also super lucky. And it is this fact, frankly, that makes her extra-super-easy to love.

She is always winning things: caller-number-x prizes on the radio, auctions, pull-a-ticket-from-a-tub drawings, things like that.  It's a little uncanny. But it's also fun. Because, by virtue of our marriage, I get to hang around with her.

And it's always fun to hang with a winner.

---

Pugsley by Surly from Rivendell Reader #39
Reproduced with permission

In spring 2007 Rivendell Bicycle Works ran an article in issue #39 of their quarterly newsletter, The Rivendell Reader, about the Surly Pugsley, which, at the time, was basically a brand-new kind of production-bike, designed to be ridden over rough terrain and in sand and snow.

At that point in my life, I had worked for probably 10 of my summer "vacations" at a local bike shop and had, over the course of that time, through the shop's generous employee-purchase program, already bought two other Surly bikes, a Cross-Check and a Steamroller.

I am very fond of both of these somewhat unusual bikes and, even from the beginning, have always felt a real philosophical kinship with Surly's whole "thing," which is a lot like Rivendell's in a sense: quirky, utilitarian, and unperturbed by (if not openly defiant of) market-trends... but on a budget that's a bit more my speed.  Plus, as a gatherer and rider of many other odd bikes, each with its own very definite and discrete purpose, the Pugsley immediately made total sense to me.

Needless to say, I wanted a Pugsley from the get-go.

But, my fiscal bottom line at the time, and during the ensuing six years for that matter, made purchasing the not-so-cheap Pugsley impossible.  In fact, lately, I'd sorta come to the conclusion that a Pugsley and I were never meant to be together, despite my self-identified status as an ardent "follower" of all things Surly.

---

I browse around on Craigslist now and then, whenever the mood strikes, maybe a couple of times a month, usually looking at just two major categories which I find interesting: cameras (specifically looking at Nikon/Nikkor lenses) and bikes (non-specifically looking at anything that sounds old-and-interesting).  I almost never find anything worth making an offer on, and I even less frequently buy.  But I like to look once in a while, just to see what's out there... to me, it's a lot like the online version of driving around to garage sales just because you're up early on Saturday morning.

About two weeks ago I was on Flagstaff-Sedona Craigslist late one night, when my wife walked into the room.

"What are you looking at?" she asked.
"Craigs,"  I told her. "Bikes, mostly."
"Oh, yeah?  Have you searched for "Pugsley" yet?"
"What? No." I told her, somewhat incredulously. "There won't be a Pugsley on Flagstaff Craigslist! I've maybe seen, like, one fat-bike on our Craigs. Ever."
"Well? Maybe there will be one tonight. Why don't you check?"

So I did.  And there it was: Surly Pugley $900 (Greer).

Bam.  See how lucky she is?

But, again, somewhat incredulously, I observed, "Seriously. Only nine-hundred bucks? For a Pugsley?!  It must be thrashed."  But, after clicking on the listing, and looking at the seller's pictures of the bike, it became very apparent that it was not.  Not at all.  In fact it looked to be in near-mint condition.

I quickly sent an email to the seller: "What size is the Pugsley?"  And waited impatiently for a response, which did not come until the next morning.

"John-it's an 18" frame. Mike."

Bam again.

Mike and I haggled a little bit via email over the course of the day. Not so much about price as about logistics.  You see, Greer is a long way away from Flagstaff, a little over four hours driving.  In the end we agreed to meet half-way, in the little town of Holbrook, in the parking lot of the local Taco Bell, and for that he agreed to drop his price to $850.

My family and I drove over to Holbrook early the next day and arrived a couple minutes early.  Mike, a friendly-looking older guy, was already there with the bike strapped carefully to a rack on the back of his truck.  It looked even cleaner in person than it had looked in the ad online.

A quick inspection and a spin around the empty parking lot.
A brief exchange of cash.
Some small talk.
A handshake.
And done.
I loaded the bike on to the rack on the back of my van and we were off to the donut shop to celebrate!

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The Surly Pugsley is, plain-and-simple, an unmitigated hoot to ride and perhaps should get the award for being

the most just-plain-fun bike to ride that I've ever ridden.  Ever.  And that's sayin' something.

The stock spec on the Pugsley is super-impressive, most especially the Avid BB7 mechanical disc brakes and Microshift top-mounted thumb shifters.  Both of these simple pieces of equipment do exactly what they are intended to do without unnecessary complication and without fail every time.  They're sensible, functional, and field-serviceable, and, the shifters anyway, are darn good-looking, as well.

In addition to the very square deal Mike gave me, price-wise, for what I had assumed would be a bone-stock Pugsley, Mike had also made a couple of nice upgrades to the bike as well, installing a sweet Surly rear rack and spendy kevlar-beaded, 120-tpi Larry 3.8" and Endomorph 3.7" tires front and rear. Very cool.

I've made just a couple small changes myself to the bike in the first two weeks I've owned it.  I had a little problem with the stock black-anno Kalloy seatpost slipping a bit on each ride, so I switched it out to a less-fancy brushed-silver one, which, along with a good greasing of bolt, collar, and post, has solved that problem nicely.  Likewise, I put a Specialized Phenom saddle on it, and removed the stock flat pedals and replaced them with an old set of Onza pedals, which are both always my saddle- and pedal-of-choice.

And I don't care what you think of that.

Getting used to the Q-factor created by the 100mm bottom bracket shell has taken some time, but mostly because it makes coercing the bike through otherwise passable-but-narrow gaps between rocks and logs really challenging in a new, sorta scrape-and-grind kind of way.  The 17-degree sweep of the Salsa MotoAce handlebars also took a little getting used to, too.  And, albeit more mentally than physically, it's been a little hard to get my head around riding a bike that tips the scales at nearly 37.5 pounds.

Nevertheless, the bike handles in a far less-cumbersome way than I anticipated, when both climbing and descending... just as the old Rivendell article implied it would. It feels a lot more like a "normal" bike than I expected it to, especially at speed, when it jumps on to a set of invisible rails and simply charges down swoopy singletrack, feeling a lot more like a moto than a bicycle.

When climbing, it's best to just sit-in and spin upward.  With the tire pressure set at about 10psi, the bike will ascend just about anything you can stay seated for, no matter how dusty and loose.  The Endomorph is a decent climbing tire, although it's stopping power at-speed leaves more than a little to be desired.

In dry sand, as well as in our local, seasonal six-inch-deep June-moondust, the bike really shines, mitigating both trail-factors to the point of zero, essentially causing them to disappear beneath the tires' massive girth.

On humpy rocky techy trails at slow speed it's super cush and the fat tires inspire new-found confidence and capability at every turn.  When cruising down this same kind of trail, the bike handles heroically, like almost any other 26" wheeled bike, counter-steering well into loose quick turns, railing in the chicanes, and hopping surprisingly deftly, despite it's heft, over minor obstructions.  But, be advised: the Pugsley can get a little squirrelly at speed in the rocky-techy stuff if you allow the big soft tires to start bouncing around.

Bottom-line: I am thrilled with my new Surly Pugsley!  While not without its quirks, it's easily an all-around win in my book.

Y'all should getcha some!

UPDATE: 25 July 2016

Well, the Endomorph and the Larry didn't last long. After just a couple months riding my "new" Pugsley back in 2013 they were quickly replaced with a Nate and a Knard, both far superior tires for real riding around here, especially by comparison. The Endomorph was, in truth, a mostly terrible tire in nearly all conditions, and the Larry wasn't much better, being among the sketchiest front tires I've ever ridden, most notably in snow where it often wandered this way or that without warning, as if it really did have a mind of its own. The Nate and the Knard on the other hand are both exceptionally trail-worthy tires and, having ridden them for the last couple-three years, in all four seasons, and every condition imaginable, I feel confident in recommending them.

For what it's worth, the Endomorph is now mounted on my Dirtuni mountain unicycle, where it excels as a high volume, low pressure wheel for this super capable rig. The Larry should be in the trash, but it's not. It's hanging from the ceiling in the garage with all the other back-stock take-off tires that I will probably never use.

The hefty, stock Pugsley fork has been replaced with a carbon Fatback fork, which saved a few ounces, maybe pounds, but required waaay too much effort to upgrade, something I should have paid attention to before making the deal to buy this fancy fork from a friend. Had to re-lace and re-dish the entire front wheel because the Fatback is non-offset. And had to spacer the front brake rotor because the brake bosses on the Fatback fork are for front-standard brake mounts (duh) and the Surly wheels are using rear hubs front and rear, a difference of about 2-3mm. Fortunately, presta washers are more-or-less exactly the spacing I needed to get everything to line up, so I mounted one behind each bolt on the rotor and: voila! Worked like a charm.

The Surly rack has mostly been unmounted for years. Not for any other reason than I've had little need to install it. It's a lovely rack, beefy and well made, but I haven't needed to carry much on my rides the last three years that I haven't been able to carry on my back. And the rack as-is is not much good as a fender.  I cut up an old waterbottle and modded my own fatbike fender a season or two ago, and it works just fine; keeps the mud off my back, which is about all I ever ask of a good fender.

Also, about a year ago I replaced the flat alloy Salsa MotoAce bar with the big sweep with a 15mm riser carbon Easton Monkey Lite bar with a less radical sweep that I like a whole lot better. Saved a couple ounces here, too, I guess.  Drip-dried, the Pugs now weighs-in at 33.5 pounds.

Anyway, bottom-line: I still love my Pugs and I ride it a lot. It takes a ton of abuse and never seems to complain. It just goes and goes. Almost anywhere, in almost any conditions.

UPDATE: 04 October 2016

The opportunity presented itself recently to acquire for a very good price a second Pugsley (and a fourth Surly), a gently used (former rental) Park-Tool-blue model in a size befitting our 11-year-old daughter.

Needless to say, I did not turn away from this opportunity, and therefore soon took possession of said bike.

We are all quite stoked.

UPDATE: 20 May 2021

A buddy of mine knocked-off some rad classic Surly decals, from Surly's "Eat less dirt" era.  I've affixed a set of black ones to the downtube of my Pugsley. I think they look awesome!

Between my last update and now, I've replaced the Pugsley's old-school, narrow handlebars. Wider is better, so now my controls are set at a comfortable, modern 725mm which matches the front-end setup I'm running on a bunch of my other bikes.  I put a Thomson layback post on the bike not too long ago too, just to make things a little more comfortable for my bulk in the cockpit. I'm digging it. 

Oh, and there's also now a Salsa flip-off quick-release lever on the seatpost. I ride most of my other go-to bikes with dropper posts these days, and it was getting to be really hard switching back to the Pugs without one.  Rather than install a new dropper and lose the comfy position that the layback post has me in, I decided to just put a QR on so I could manually lower my seat for the downhills. It's working out okay. It takes a couple extra seconds on both ends, but I'm never going anywhere so urgently on the Pugs that I don't have the time to stop and do this whenever I need to. I put a tiny little silver scratch in the Thomson's black anno finish so I know exactly what height to put the saddle at when I raise it back up. I'm kinda smart like that sometimes.

Had to replace the giant Pugsley bottom bracket prior to this winter season.  The old one finally gave up the ghost, was almost fully seized, having been through a thousand iterations of being rid hard and put away wet.  Yuck!  Fortunately, you can still get new parts for the Pugs like the Sram Howitzer bottom bracket. It wasn't cheap, but Amazon had it, and it bolted right on easy-peasy and seems to be working fine. So yay! 

Lastly, I'm now running 3.8 Nates front and rear. For the variable condition winter riding (mud, snow, ice, dry dirt, all in the same ride sometimes) that we get around here these days I've decided this is the best setup yet... They dig in for solid traction, shed any kind of sticky shit quickly without clogging, and provide relatively predictable control even in the slop. Not bad, Nate. Not bad at all.

UPDATE: 20 November 2021

Suddenly single, slimmed down, and just as sexy as ever. Living her truth at a svelte thirty-three-point-three-three pounds.

3.0:1 gain ratio, 41.6 gear inches