Is Winter here already?

Damn, that was quick!



Snow level is coming down in the Cascades. Feels like winter here today.

"SNOW LEVEL NEAR 6500 FEET "



http://chamconditions.blogspot.com//09/so-much-for-autumn.html



I'll be skiing when the sun pops out again.

Another Piece of the Puzzle

On my visit to the Columbiana County Archives and Research Center in Lisbon, Ohio last month I was given two more documents relating to the descendants of Dietrich Hoffman, my 5th great-grandfather. A previous visit (in July ..) had garnered an article on the legal publication of the Petition for Partition for a portion of the real estate.





Published on September 29, 1832 on page one of The Ohio Patriot, the article lists the heirs of Detrick Hoffman and states that 27 acres in the north west quarter of section 12, township 15, range 3 were involved. Although there were 10 heirs named, the petitioner was requesting his “one-sixth part of said land” indicating that there were only 6 children of Detrick Hoffman still living or deceased with children. (A full transcription can be found in this post).



The parties involved in the Petition were John Hoffman, Samuel Hoffman, Daniel Coler and Elizabeth his wife, John Swarts and Margaret his wife, Henry Hoffman, Samuel Hoffman, Jacob Hoffman, Abraham Hoffman, Samuel Fox, and Edward Rhodes and Sarah his wife.



Through evaluation of various records and information from another researcher, we thought the relationships of the individuals listed in the above Petition were:

• John, Samuel, Jacob, and Abraham - children of Detrick


• Elizabeth wife of Daniel Coler, Margaret wife of John Swarts, Henry Hoffman, and Samuel Hoffman - children of Michael & Mary (Coy) Hoffman


• Samuel Fox and Sarah wife of Edward Rhodes - children of Phillip and Susanna (Hoffman) Fox

One of the things that puzzled me about the above Petition was that only 27 acres of land were being sold. Detrick was in possession of 81 acres of land when he died in March 1826. The answer lies in the documents below...






Columbiana County, Ohio - Common Pleas Journal #6, page 165

August Term AD 1828 1st day 18th


John Hoffman & Jacob Hoffman vs Michael Hoffman, Samuel Hoffman, Abraham Hoffman, Abraham Fox, Samuel Fox, Sarah Fox & Susanna Huffman } Petition for Partition

"The Petition of John Huffman & Jacob Huffman by Mr. Blocksom their attorney presented their Petition for partition of 81 25/100 acres of land being a part of S12. T15. R3. in Columbiana County & produced satisfactory Proof that due & legal notice has been given the parties interested by Publication in the Ohio Patriot. A. W. Loomis Esq is appointed guardian ad litem of for Abraham Fox[,] Samuel Fox & Sarah Fox defendants in this case & Minors, who appears and receives notice and consent to the grantings of the prayer of the Petition, whereupon the Court grant the Petition [smudged word] that a writ of Partition [illegible word] to the Sheriff to proceed and apart [?]..."

It seems there may be a little more to the case on the next page, which I neglected to get... at any rate, the document shows us that Michael Hoffman was still living in August 1828. It also names three minors: Abraham, Samuel and Sarah Fox. The published petition of 1832 listed Samuel Fox as well as Sarah wife of Edward Rhodes. There was no mention of Abraham. It is likely that he died sometime between the time of the two documents (August 18, 1828 and August 23, 1832). So, it seems, that our original "assessment" regarding the heirs of Detrick Hoffman was correct!






Columbiana County, Ohio - Common Pleas Journal #7, page 53

April Term 1829, 3 day


John Huffman etal vs Michael Huffman etal }

"The Sheriff of the County made return of a writ of sale issued in this case with his proceedings thereon from which it appears that after giving notice as required by the statute of the time & place of sale by advertising & putting up written advertisements he sold the land in said writ mentioned at the Court House in said County on the 26th of January 1829, Except the widows dower mentioned in the writ, to John Fry for Seven Hundred ten dollars & that he brought the money into Court for distribution & thereupon the Court order the said Sheriff, after deducting the costs & expenses, to distribute the money aforesaid to & amongst the parties entitled to receive the same in lieu of their shares & proportions of said land according to their just rights. And said Sheriff here acknowledges in open Court a deed for said land so sold as aforesaid to said Fry."

It appears that John Fry would have purchased 54 acres, with the 27 acres mentioned in the 1832 published Petition being the Widow's Dower.



What these two documents also provide is a better estimate of the date of death of Susannah Hoffman, widow of Detrick. We now know that she was still living in January 1829 when the land was sold to John Fry but had passed away before August 23, 1832 when the Petition for Partition for the remaining 27 acres was dated.

RAIN! RAIN! Finally

On July 20th we had the first major rain we had had in about a year. My rain gage showed just under an inch. We have been needing rain despertly and finally we got some. The whole state of NM has been in a drought for several years that had got really bad this summer. But in July what is called the monsoon rains started slowly inching their way into the state. Each afternoon we would hear of some little bit of rain somewhere. Many times we watched the clouds come in and could see some rain falling in and around the Albuquerque, Bernallio, Corrales areas, and even in down town Rio Rancho but not exactly where we are. This is when we have big, beautiful white thunderhead clouds come rolling in with a lot of them over the Sandia Mountains. The ones in these photos arn't as good as some of them but they were the ones that brought us the rain this day. We didn't really expect to get anything but a few drops as is normal when it first started and then it turned loose and became a gully-washer. A male rain as the Indians call it.If you had been in an arroyo or ditch it would have been a nasty flash flood. It is amazing how much water can come down to only be listed as less than an inch on the rain gage. The photos showing big puddles of water were quickly soaked into our thirsty ground.
The next day we got some rain again but it was only a light rain, the kind we really need so it can soak in instead of running off. A female rain.
But no where in the state have we had enough to get us back up to a decent leval of water in the rivers, creeks, and underground water table. It has been good for helping with the fires but not enough to put out that big fire that is still burning west of Los Alamos.
We are hoping for more.

Re-Trying the Moustache Handlebar

Iconic of the Bridgestone XO era and later championed by Rivendell, the Moustache handlebar is perhaps more popular today than ever. The dramatic forward sweep, the sideways-mounted road levers and the bar-end shifters make for avisually distinct and intriguing presence. The design is easiest to understand if you think of it as a flattened out drop bar, with the brake levers installed on what would have been the hooks. Grant Petersen designed the Moustache in the early 1990s specifically for the Bridgestone XO bicycles, as a kind of a hybrid between upright and drop bars. Today several manufacturers produce their own versions (including Soma and Origin8), though likely the Nitto/ Rivendell model remains closest to the original.






I first tried Moustache handlebars three years ago, and I remember being surprised by the leaned-forward position they put me in. Unlike the handlebars you see on city bikes, the Moustache is swept forward, rather than swept back - putting the rider's hands way out there, forward of the stem. Depending on stem length and handlebar height, this can be quite an aggressive lean. Recently I tried the bars again: I've been getting questions about them from readers and wanted to refresh my memory.




Riding with Moustache bars again was fun; my riding style has changed so much since the last time. These bars are unique and remind me of no other handlebars I've ever tried, so it's hard to find a point of reference. The forward sweep is vaguely North-Roadish, with two notable exception: All the hand positions are forward of the stem, and the brake levers are in the forwardmost points of the sweep, rather than in what we are accustomed to thinking of as the gripping areas.






The shape of the handlebars feels pretty good, and I have no trouble squeezing the levers from their location (here is anillustrated guideto the hand positions). However, I find the setup counterintuitive. Squeezing the brake levers puts me in a forward-leaning position, whereas using the bar-end shifters puts me in a leaned-back position: the exact opposite of what I am used to. After all, when I squeeze the brake levers I am trying to reduce speed - and the aggressive posture counteracts that - especially when coming to a complete stop. It was interesting to experience the discrepancy between what my body wanted to do when stopping and what the bars wanted me to do. On my own bikes, I prefer for the brake levers to be in a location that allows my posture to be more relaxed.






A friend who rides with Moustache bars explains them as a variant of riding with vintage, non-aero drop bars (where you brake mainly from the hooks). He believes those who are used to that will find braking with the Moustache intuitive, whereas the likes of me who mostly brake from the hoods of modern drop bars - or from the edgemost gripping areas of swept-back handlebars - may have trouble with the setup. He could be right. Either way, it's a handsome handlebar that I enjoy seeing on others' bikes.

Mono Lake

Mono Lake near the town of Lee Vining in east-central California.October 11, ..

Velo Transgressions

I saw this bicycle yesterday, chained to the railing of a restaurant in Harvard Square directly under a series of neon "No Bikes Please" signs.

The restaurant responded by taping this note to the saddle:

"This, actually, is a bike, of which yon sign speaks.
(Please don't park here this weekend)".

Plenty of businesses would have (gleefully) had the lock cut and disposed of the bicycle, but this restaurant was nice enough not to. I wonder what was going through the bike owner's mind when locking their green-tired pride and joy directly under a "No Bikes" sign. It seems like the kind of intentionally transgressive act that gives cyclists in Boston a bad reputation.

This made me think of an incident a couple of weeks ago, when I wanted to go into a place of business, but the bike racks outside were full. I peeked inside with my bike and asked whether I could leave it in the lobby since there was nowhere to park it outdoors. The person I addressed was immediately filled with rage, and said something to the effect of "Don't even think of coming in here with that! You people think you can do anything you want with those bikes!" In the area where I live, I have noticed that bikes are often associated with transgressive behaviour. Some cyclists encourage this; then other cyclists reap the consequences.

Scottish Sport Climbs guide is here

Finally, we have the first stock of the new Scottish Sport Climbs guidebook by the SMC. It’s in the shop here. It has certainly been a long time coming. I first submitted a draft of the sections I wrote in November 2004! A lot of bolts have appeared across the lowlands, highlands and islands since then, so the book is a lot fatter than it would’ve been if it had been released at that time. So the wait has an upside.




Flicking through the guide as I took it out of the box, I was struck by the great selection of sport crags all over the country now. There are 1300 routes in the guide, on 100 crags. Who out of the slightly older generation of Scottish climbers would’ve thought we would have 1300 sport climbs in Scotland. That’s great! As you’d expect from an SMC guidebook it’s a nicely produced book with careful descriptions, good maps and plenty of nice pictures to inspire. So many of Scotland’s new routing activists have been very energetic over the past decade and the options now available for routes to enjoy has basically exploded. Now, there are sport crags for us to visit no matter what corner of Scotland you find yourself in or fancy travelling to. Also, the diversity of locations mean that I can’t see many days of the year where there won’t be some dry rock on which to clip bolts somewhere in the land.




Kudos to all who made the effort to open new sport routes, as well as all the authors and producers of the guide. It is so badly needed. Talking to the new generation of young sport climbers coming into climbing through Scotland’s climbing walls, it frequently nagged at me that so many are unaware of the lovely crags that are out there. Some of them in stunning, wild and far flung locations like Gruinard in the north west. Some of them just up the road from our major towns and cities.




The guidebook pictures brought back some nice memories for me of places like Dunglas just outside Glasgow, where I did my first 6b (Negotiations With Isaac)and 6c+ (The Beef Monster). I remember being very excited when Andy Gallagher asked me to give him a belay on the first ascent of Persistence of Vision (7a+) after watching him bolt it. A year after my first 6c+, my first 7c+ (Dum Dum Boys) was a liberating experience and straight away I wanted to get to the ‘happening crags’ of the day.




I found myself at Steall for the first time shortly afterwards, abseiling down Cubby’s project (Ring of Steall 8c+) and being totally inspired by how poor the holds were. The whole ambience of hard physical climbing in beautiful highland surroundings was where it was at for me. So in the following years, we made after school/uni/work hits from Glasgow to Glen Ogle, Dunkeld and Loch Lomondside sport crags, with weekend trips to Tunnel Wall, Steall, Weem and the Angus Quarries.




Once I got involved in exploring new routes, under the influence of Dave Redpath and Michael Tweedley, I immensely enjoyed tearing about bendy roads in Argyll developing crags like Tighnabruaich and eventually the Anvil.




One thing that I like about Scottish sport climbing particularly is that the easier graded routes in the 6s and 7s are often so much better to climb than those on the continent. In Spain or suchlike, the majority of the time, the hard routes on big overhanging sweeps of limestone are the most inspiring lines, while the easier lines can sometimes be either a bit scrappy or, dare I say it, a little boring. As with our trad, the variety of rock types we have in Scotland often make for much nicer routes in the lower and mid grades too. However, if you are into hard stuff, the two hardest routes in the book (Hunger, 9a and Fight The Feeling, 9a) give as good climbing as you’ll get anywhere. Both were climbed in good conditions in the summer and you wont find any queues or some barky dog wondering about eating your lunch at the base of the crag. The only negative on offer from Scottish sport climbing is, of course, the midge. Just remember that the wind direction is as important as the rain when you look at the forecast. Choose a crag exposed to a breeze on the day, and you’re sorted.




Enjoy the guide, enjoy the climbing. It’s here.