We took a family trip with friends over Labor Day Weekend to the Route of the Hiawatha bike trail along the Idaho-Montana border. The trail has 10 tunnels, 7 trestles and breath-taking scenery. I've made a short video of our adventures along the trail.
The trail is pretty rocky and definitely not for slick tires on road bikes! I put knobby tires on my bike to handle the rough ride. The trail is also very dusty. Our bikes and our clothes were completely covered in dust by the end of the day. The dust on clothes was easy to get off, but the dusty bikes were another matter altogether.
I rode along admiring the beautiful views and accumulating ever greater quantities of dust on my bike. Then, it occurred to me that this same bike would be in my office at work in just a couple of days. Like many faculty, my office is not big. I have a great view of the Palouse but precious little space to advise students. Add a bike into the space, and it feels tighter still. I keep a towel in my panier to wipe down the bike after it rains; otherwise, I have a drippy bike and pools of oily water for students and colleagues to splash in. By the same token, a dusty, dirty bike is like having a horribly dusty piece of furniture in the office. Nobody wants to look at it or touch it for fear of getting filthy themselves. This wouldn't do at all! I spent Sunday morning "dusting" my bike so that I could have a much cleaner office the following week.
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