Sweetwater Sunday

March 2, 2025

We have the whole day to get packed to go. More than we need, so there’s time for us both to get out and do something else with the day as long as we get an early start. My plan is to make one last pass to both Silverbell Lake and Sweetwater. I can’t quite believe that for all the times I’ve been out there I haven’t seen either the green heron or night heron, so maybe I’ll get lucky at the end. I get a really early start this time, leaving home just past seven and pulling up at Silverbell Lake about twenty minutes later.

There had been talked of giving Rachael another ride up to the other side of the Tucson Mountains so she could walk home from there, but in the end she thought it was safer to put her miles in locally with another walk over to Reid Park.

There’s just one snag with the plan though: my bike. Last night we were talking through our packing plan, trying to remember what we did coming down seven weeks ago. In particular, we’re trying to remember why we have this large plastic bag we picked up at the Alaska desk in Portland to check some of our luggage. We remember it differently, but actually we both remember it incorrectly. We didn’t know the actual reason until Rachael found a photograph of our packed luggage in the journal. We needed it because we couldn’t pack the front wheels into the suitcase because I couldn’t remove the pedals because I apparently left the spanner back in Barcelona - a fact that we didn’t discover until Sunday night when it was too late to buy a replacement.

That was such a stressful episode that it’s remarkable that neither of us remembered correctly. More remarkable though is that we’re facing a similar situation today. Last night, after Fair Wheel Bikes has closed for the weekend, I was unable to pull the handlebar stem from the bike - and if I can’t do that, the bike frame won’t fit into the suitcase. These two fiascos make matching, decidedly adverse bookends for what has been otherwise and excellent tour.

Fortunately, Rachael found a bike repair shop that’s open today, so I’ll take the bike down when they open at 11 and hope they. Can bail me out.

In the meantime, let’s see how the birding went. The short answer: it was outstanding. I started with Silverbell (which is the correct order, because there is a one way street connecting them If you go to Sweetwater first you need to drive several miles back toward town to get to Silverbell next.

I’ve got the bike in the back so I can drop it off at the shop when I return to town, so I make use of it by biking around the lake instead of limping. On foot I probably wouldn’t have completed the loop because it would take too long. As it turned out though looping wasn’t really necessary, because almost as soon as I got out of the car I was astonished to see a night heron working the shoreline not fifty feet in front of me.

I completed the loop anyway and was rewarded on the opposite side to see a pair of them (including this bird, I think) as well as several other pleasing sightings.

It’s nice to pad the account with a few more miles at the end.

I’m pretty sure this is the same bird. He flew off in this direction while I was watching him.

At Sweetwater I pull the same trick, hauling the bike from the back of the Jeep and taking it for a loop of the bike-accessible third of the refuge and then out on the loop to peek in from the margin. Here too I strike gold when I see a dark, midsized profile of a bird perched on the platform above the final settling pond. I can’t believe it when I zoom in and realize it’s the green heron. Both of them this morning! I take a dozen shots from the dark side, and then test my luck by circling back around to the other side so the sun’s behind me and he’s illuminated. He stays just long enough for me to fire off a dozen shots before flying off.

And there’s more. Biking back to the car I see a raptor flapping up to a perch atop a utility standard straight ahead; and like both herons and the snowy egret and the vermillion flycatcher and the Wilson’s snipe, they’re all patient enough to give me fine shots. A really sweet end to our stay here.

The morning ends prematurely and stupidly when the battery dies unexpectedly on me. It must not have been fully charged, and I foolishly didn’t bring a backup with me. I’ve still got a half hour to work with though so I head to the area where the sparrows hang out, thinking I’ll pick up a few last birds with the phone’s camera - but I can’t bring it up. Amazing - apparently there’s a way to lock the phone camera, but I can’t figure out how to unlock it so I just head home, feeling like I’m leaving money on the table.

One last shot. Somehow I managed to get this one in before getting locked out from the phone’s camera.

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Rachael’s walk (I’m out of time, I’ll elaborate later).

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RC, if that’s the guy’s name, has a bike up on the rack when I arrive. I explain our predicament and the need for a resolution today, and he accepts the work. He writes up a work order, tells me it will be $15, takes my name and number, and says he’ll call when the bike’s ready for pickup.

Almost three hours later I still haven’t heard back. I’m concerned that we’re running out of day or that there’s been a missed connection so I drive back down and check in. He’s still working on a bike that he says is a priority order and says it will be a half hour or hour more. They close in only another hour and a half, so this is starting to feel tense. I find a place on the deck in the shade and just wait. No matter what happens, I don’t want them to close and lock my bike up for the night.

So how did it go? Well, let’s save that for tomorrow. Might as well give you a reason to come back.

Waiting and hoping, RC Bicycles. It’s a nice spot to sit, but it’s another reason to like Fair Wheel Bikes. Waiting is more pleasant with a friendly dog for company.

Mourning dove, Great tailed grackle, Neotropic cormorant, Swan goose, Snow goose, American coot, Ring billed Duck, Shoveler, Mallard, Red-winged blackbird, Green heron, Great blue heron,Black crowned night heron, Snowy egret, Rough winged swallow, Tree swallow, Harris’s hawk, American wigeon,Green winged teal, Cinnamon teal, Ruddy duck, quail, Vermillion flycatcher, Wilson’s snipe, Pied billed grebe, Gila woodpecker, Vermillion flycatcher, Abert’s towhee, House finch (29)

Today's ride: 3 miles (5 km)
Total: 1,143 miles (1,839 km)

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Steve Miller/GrampiesReally nice bird shooting this day! But the reason for this note is to say thanks for mentioning the pedals/pedal wrench. We had been planning to make sure our pedals really would come off, for the possibility that the bikes would need to go in a bus somewhere down the line. This afternoon we have a bit of time, so on reading your post I went out and had at it with the wrench, which we do have. Yup, one pedal (put on last year by a gorilla mechanic) did not want to budge. But I fought with it long enough that it gave in. It's often a matter of getting the crank just so you can apply maximum force.

Your difficulty getting the stem out is one you have had before. As you've described it, that's where you do need the gorilla mechanic. Bike Friday is very prone to this problem, eh.
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1 week ago

Kelly IniguezTo Steve Miller/GrampiesI recently sold a bike to a 75 year old friend. Perhaps with age you learn to work smarter and not harder. Having my own pedal removal story from years ago, I learned to be liberal with the lube when installing pedals. They generally come off with a minimal amount of work. Blair came equipped with not only a full size pedal wrench, but a rubber mallet. He went tap, tap on the wrench, and that was it! No brute force needed!
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1 week ago

Scott AndersonTo Kelly IniguezI’m the same way. I liberally grease the pedals whenever I install them, and don’t tighten them much past finger tight. Its been nine months since they were installed though, and a lot of tightening happens.
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1 week ago

Scott AndersonTo Steve Miller/GrampiesI’ve got the mechanics down for removing the pedals, and can always get them off with the heavy duty spanner we carry along. I just need to remember to not walk away and leave it on the ground when I’m done! Seems like a simple enough rule, but in my defense I could hardly see things down on the ground because my vision was so bad at the time. I’m glad I wrote so much down at the time, because it’s getting hard to remember how awful that entire month was now.

Pulling the stem is a real problem though with the newer Bike Fridays. The first NWT’s we got back in 2009 had a leverage point where you could pry the stem up from below with the spanner, but now there’s no option but to muscle it free. Another change I don’t like is that I miss the old split handlebars, which were much easier to pack into the suitcase.
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1 week ago