7 Day Coast Post

Sorry it has taken so long to write another blog post. I have been having too much fun and meeting many interesting people. Expect a very complete trip report sometime in June. I am writing this exhausted on a phone before bed, so there's no way I can cover 7 full days of Oregon.

After 7 days I have logged 410 miles and my legs feel pretty good. The worst day was my first day when my legs hadn't adjusted from the long train ride. My longest day was 95 miles and my shortest day 43 miles.

The weather has been incredible. It was uncharacteristically sunny and warm with a tailwind for six days! It stormed today and I am currently drying everything out. The forest is incredibly green and the size of the trees here blow my mind (how will I react to the redwoods). I realized very quickly that I can't take every picture worth taking or I would never get anywhere! I have had campsites alone, steps away from the ocean and tucked deep into the woods. Very few other cycle tourists this time of year so I am enjoying the solitude. I am sleeping very well with the ocean soundscapes!

I am in Bandon OR and should be about 2 days from the California border. I appreciate the support and concern from friends and family. I feel safe and comfortable riding. I find confidence and good hand signaling are the best method to prevent passive aggression in drivers. I can't wait to share with you my pictures and experiences soon!

Pacific Coast Tour

I am now a college graduate and the reality of it all has not yet sunk in. I am writing this from a train car somewhere in Eastern Washington waiting for the trip of a lifetime, so it seems reality will have to wait just a little while longer.

Graduation day was a success and the giant exhale after receiving the diploma came with some unexpected emotion. There is no doubt the degree was hard to earn, but I believe Michigan Tech prepared me well. I will miss the friends and professors, but I thank them for the experiences that made it so enjoyable.

My next adventure is a bicycle tour from Portland, OR to Fort Bragg, CA. I will follow hundreds of miles of Pacific Coastline and travel through the redwood forests. Each day will be roughly 50 miles of riding with no daily stopping points certain. I will be using Adventure Cycling maps 2-3 on this ride.

It is inspiring watching America transform from southern WI bluffs to never ending plains and eventually snow-capped mountains outside my train window. I have been in the same seat nearly 44 hours and have been constantly captivated by the scenery. I met a retired man from Chicago heading west to visit his brother. We shared stories and set aside the rivalry to experience the sun set over Glacier National Park.

We are almost to Portland where I will assemble my bike and kick off the station. I will spend a few hours experiencing the town and then head to my first campground 1/4 the distance to Astoria. People are asking why am I biking and why alone. I guess I am not exactly sure, but Ernest Hemingway got it pretty close.

It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of the country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.

~Ernest Hemingway

I want to thank my family and friends who have been so supportive throughout college and preparing for this trip. I will be safe and I will have fun!

I will add pictures soon.

Peter Jenkins - A Walk Across America

 I have never met Peter Jenkins, though after reading the book A Walk Across America, I feel like I have spent 2 years walking from New York to Alabama with him and his dog Cooper. Peter Jenkins, was an art student at Alfred University from a wealthy family in Connecticut. He married a girl from back home, but after she moved to be with him at Alfred the relationship fell apart. Peter was devastated and started to blame America. He felt that he needed to leave the country to clear his mind. A close friend told him to give it one last chance and that is where he got the idea to walk across america.

Peter left in October of 1973 from New York. He walked through Pennsylvania to Washington D.C. where Peter met with National Geographic and was given a camera and film to record his trip for a later issue of the magazine. Peter continued through West Virginia and Virginia alone with his thoughts and his dog. He met a mountain man named Homer who lived a life of solitude in a small one room cabin. Peter thought this life may have been the answer he was looking for, but continued on to finish his discovery of true America.

Peter walked every day until he ran out of money. He knew that this would happen and was prepared to live and work wherever he ended up until he could afford to move on. Peter was able to live with a gracious black family in North Carolina. He worked at a sawmill and learned a lot about the plight of southern black people and poor small town workers. He gained a spiritual routine at the black church that the family attended. After saving enough money,he moved on and stayed at a farm commune in Tennessee. He did not agree with the lack of individuality at the commune so he continued south to Alabama. In Alabama he met the friendly governor and his future wife who would continue with him on his trip west.

According to Peter Jenkins, "I left in search of God and country and discovered both." I am inspired by the independence and determination of Peter Jenkins and hope to eventually make my own walk someday and discover America for myself.

For more information about Peter Jenkins and his journey, check out the book A Walk Across America and the second book in the series A Walk West.

Finding Silence

Graduation is five weeks away and there are only a few exams and assignments left before I walk across the stage with my diploma in hand. I have a job and an apartment waiting for me in Peoria. Caterpillar has already planned the projects that I will be working on for the rest of the year. How should I feel about ending a routine of semesters, exams, and holiday breaks for a routine that will continue for decades until retirement? I know that in a few years when I am settled and comfortable, I am at a great risk of falling into a monotonous 'hate my job' routine without excitement or adventure. 

But that won't be me...

This video inspires me to keep my work and life balanced. I am passionate about trail running and the feeling of escape that it creates. I have plans to run and bike all over the world and working hard will help pay for it. I do not fear the loud working world because I know that silence and adventure are never far away.

A review of Steven Johnson's, How We Got to Now

When you read about new technology in magazines or read about rumors and leaked information from the next best thing, do you think about everything that had to happen in the world for the inventor to even see his creation as a possibility. Steven Johnson, author of the book, How We Got to Now, shows the world that today's luxuries and technological marvels could only be developed through slow but incredible advances in every day items. I read this book over Winter Break and would consider it a must- read for all engineering students leaving college ready to turn there own ideas into products that will better the world. Steven Johnson's goal with the book was to show what needed to happen with the development of six innovations to create the rapid growth and wired life we have today. The six innovations discussed are glass, cold, sound, clean, time and light.

As an aspiring noise and vibration engineer, the innovation in sound was the most entertaining. The section begins with discussion of cave acoustics and how archaeologists noticed that the cave paintings of the earliest people were done in the most acoustically pleasing areas. This means that since the beginning, sound was more than just for communicating but also for worship and entertainment. The chapter continues through the first developments of wave study and playback devices as well as the phone and communication genius that shaped today's industry. The chapter ends with a thought provoking comparison of how sound in military and medical uses can be used for good and also terror with human fatality.

Check out the book, How We Got to Now, for the full story and gain a complete engineering perspective!

Where I'm going and Where I've Ben

 My name is Ben Kolb and I am a graduating senior mechanical engineering student at Michigan Tech. I was born and raised in Green Bay,WI where I developed my outdoor enthusiasm and Cheesehead allegiance. Most of my free time growing up was spent outdoors: fishing, camping, running and biking. Michigan Tech was a place where I could continue these interests and do so while challenging myself in a prestigious mechanical engineering program.

While at Tech, I became involved in Velovations, a cycling organization that engineers new products with bicycle industry sponsors. Projects that I have worked on have helped commuters and couriers of rural Kenya as well as winter commuters that struggle for traction in Houghton blizzards. I have also spent time in the organization working on bicycle vibration issues for major brake and frame manufacturers in the industry. The experience I gained during these projects has helped open my eyes to the exciting possibilities of a structural vibrations career after graduation.

Caterpillar took a chance on me after my 2nd year at Michigan Tech, giving me an opportunity to be the fatigue lab intern during the summer of 2013. When the job description involves breaking components with hydraulic presses capable of 550,000 pounds, it is impossible not to have a good time. The people I worked with were friendly and the trails and forests of the Illinois river valley were surprisingly serene and adventurous. I returned during the summer of 2014 as a Machine Dynamics and Shake Table intern where I worked with many of the same people from the previous summer. The group's role within the company was to validate light structures such as enclosures and guardrails using structural vibrations and full machine testing at the proving grounds. I will be returning to this group as a full time associate engineer upon graduation.

Maintaining a work-life balance will be very important to me as I leave academia and enter the real world. I am passionate about trail running and bicycle touring and have ambitious goals that will hopefully push me out of my comfort zone and past my personal endurance limits in the near future. I believe human power is the best and most rewarding form of transportation and that the distances that humans can physically travel by their own power is limitless. In my 22 years, few things have been more certain than the realization that more miles is always more fun!

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