About Dean

I’ve been a cyclist since I was a kid riding BMX bikes in the late 70’s and early 80’s. I bought my first “road” bike when I was about 14, a Japanese brand called “Miyata Maruishi”. I rode the hell out of that bike. When I was 15 I rode my first long-distance ride, a charity ride for the American Lung Association covering ~220 miles from Houston to San Antonio over a weekend. The following spring I tried – and failed – to ride the MS150 from Houston to Austin. Heat stroke on day one prevented me from completing the ride. I had dreams of riding my bike across the United States (freedom!), but my parents were definitely not OK with the idea.

I sold my Miyata Maruishi in college and didn’t ride for a few years. I bought my first Trek 810 (?) mountain bike around 1994 while attending graduate school. That bike never saw dirt once. I commuted back and forth to school on it for a while, but eventually the novelty of riding to and from school in a city unfriendly to bikes wore off. That too was sold off and I didn’t ride for a number of years.

When I moved to Seattle in 2009, I was dead set on buying a bike and commuting regularly. I bought a flat bar hybrid bike, a Kona Dr. Dew, as a commuter. Eventually I began riding longer distances, including a handful of centuries, so I started looking for something to ride longer distances. I sold the Kona in 2013 to buy a Salsa Vaya which I rode on my first, and only, double century, the Seattle to Portland (STP) ride. Sadly, I was unable to feel my right hand for days after that ride. Eventually the ever increasing numbness in my right hand when riding forced me off an upright bike for a few years. I sold the Vaya and moved on to a pair of recumbent road bikes for a few years.

I hated riding recumbent. After trying, and failing, to find enjoyment on a recumbent for a few years, I gave up. Around the same time, I found a surgeon who identified the source of my long standing right arm pain and numbness. Cycling wasn’t the cause, but the pain was exacerbated by cycling. Following two successful surgeries, I sold the recumbent and bought my first “gravel” bike, a 2021 All City Space Horse GRX in dusty pink named the Pink ‘Rona. 

Still deep in the COVID pandemic and itching to travel, I thought I’d like to try credit card touring. But instead, I bought some camping gear and strapped it to the Pink ‘Rona for my first bikepacking trip to Port Townsend and Whidbey Island. A few weeks later, I rode the Palouse to Cascades Trail from Rattlesnake Lake to Lake Easton and back on another weekend outing. I was hooked. The kid who wanted to ride bikes for adventure finally found the adventures he was looking for.

Since then, I’ve dove deep into lightweight camping gear and completed a number of overnight trips in Washington and Oregon. Hobbes was purchased in August 2023 to ride the Cape Loop of the Baja Divide, the most ambitious bikepacking trip I’ve planned to date.