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About This Site

Welcome to my blog all about biking, but focused on biking for adventure. When your bike rides are focused on adventure, your speed and distance are nice statistics to know – but not your ultimate goal. First and foremost adventure biking is about great experiences – seeing places and people you might not have otherwise, learning great stories about these people and places while creating your own, enjoying all facets of the ride from the preparation and suffering to the relaxation during and after.

About The Author

My name is Vytas. I grew up in Ohio. My first bike was a bright red Raleigh skinny tire kid’s bike (mid 1970s). All my friends had BMX bikes with fat tires and I was jealous. I found some knobby skinny tires and “built” my first gravel bike, unknowingly.

When I was 13 I saw the film “Breaking Away” and decided, along with the friend I watched the movie with, that I wanted to get a road bike and train for the Olympics. I saved up from a caddying job and asked my parents to chip in, and eventually bought a Torpado Nuovo Sprint with a low end Campy drivetrain. For the next two years I rode over 50 miles a day in the summers. But then high school came along and I played in a rock band, rowed, and studied. I didn’t ride much.

After high school I moved to Berkeley, California for college and got back into riding. I would ride up Claremont to Grizzly Peak almost daily on the trusty old Torpado. My sister moved to town and brought with her a Bridgestone mountain bike – super high-tech at the time. Again I saved up and in 1990 I bought a 1989 model Nishiki Alien on clearance. It was absolutely sick. Full Deore XT (before XTR) and a super trick frame with raised rear chain stays, though fully rigid. My sister and I rode those bikes all over Northern California. I ended up mountain biking so much that I sold the Torpado.

After California I moved to New York City for several years. I tried to ride in NYC a few times and was so terrified that I brought the bike back to Ohio the next time I visited to leave at my folks’ house.

I ended up moving back to Ohio in my 30s and busted out the old Alien. Aside from “mountain” biking in Ohio I also threw the fattest tires on the Alien that I could squeeze in for snow biking (before there were snow bikes) and switched to 2″ slicks for a few centuries in Ohio and Michigan. In hindsight, I should have just bought a road bike for the centuries. A fully rigid mountain bike was actually kind of brutal, especially in the wind.

I moved to Portland, Oregon in 2011. Shortly after I took the Nishiki Alien to Hagg Lake and got my butt absolutely whooped. I decided I needed at least a suspension fork to ride the MTB trails around here. So I bought a 2004 Brodie One Ball on Craiglist for cheap. I just loved the frame. It was the perfect size for me and it had the suspension fork. Plus the frame has sliding dropouts that let you fit massive tires (26″ x 2.4) if you like, or go for a shorter wheelbase for something more responsive when climbing. I still got my butt handed to me at Hagg Lake. I eventually resolved this after buying a Specialized Stumpjumper full-suspension 6-fattie. Mwah hah hah!

Since then I’ve rebuilt the Brodie as a 1×9 fully rigid commuter bike, and more recently a 3×9 dropbar monster cross with 26″ x 2.3″ tires. And I bought a road bike, a 2014 Specialized Roubaix, for, you guessed it, centuries.

This past Spring, to celebrate 50 years on this green earth, I built up my dream bike starting with a Niner RLT 9 RDO frame. I will post an article about it with pics and details of all the particulars and why I chose them.

I try to ride 3,650 miles per year (10 miles per day average) and climb 200,000 feet. I have had this goal since 2016. I have missed it 3 times and made it twice. I am on track to make it this year.

I love long rides where there are few cars or people. But at the same time Portland offers rides that can really mix it up and give you countryside, forest trails, narrow city roads, paved non-motorized trails, and suburban back streets all in one ride. That can be fun too. It is really all about seeing your world while on the move – on your bike.