Milltown's Bikepacking Event - a recap

Owen and I have done some bike packing of the "credit card travel" variety where we slept in hotels instead of camping. We like credit card travel but want to branch out and actually go bike packing for "real" where we carry tents and sleeping bags and all. But, since our camping experience are mostly limited to camping with our families when we were children, and our most recent tent camping experience was, let's just say, rather stressful, we know we have plenty to learn.

We have many questions about bike packing from "What's a bivvy sack?" to "How do we carry all of our equipment on our bikes?" So we were super excited to learn that Milltown Cycles was offering a bike packing "how-to" event for beginners.

The event sounded perfect for us so I signed Owen and I up right away. I also decided to bring our kids, Rose and Ryan, because they've been wanting to go camping for some time and actually have more recent camping experience than Owen and I do.

We were not disappointed! The bike packing event was great fun and we learned a ton.

Here's what happened....

Last Friday, we packed up all of our camping gear (some on loan to us from one of my Northfield Women's Gravel Crushers friends, Katy) and drove to River Bend Nature Center where the event was to be held. We arrived a few minutes late but found our way to the outdoor amphitheater where a nice bonfire and the event's speakers waiting to teach us all about bike packing.
Awesome bonfire
The evening started with a great talk by bike packing guru, Dave. Dave works for Quality Bike Products and has an extensive knowledge of what kinds of gear to use and how to pack it on your bike.  Dave's talk was informative and fun. He had his fully packed Salsa Fargo on hand so we could see what a bike all set up for bike packing looks like. Dave answered all of our questions and was super helpful. Dave keeps a blog where he shares information about bike packing. Find it at: www.bikepackingdave.wordpress.com.

Bikepacking Dave and his fully loaded Salsa Fargo
A shot of Dave's Salsa Fargo
After Dave's talk, we gathered around the campfire while local coffee roaster, Cody of Stoke Coffee, brewed up a cup of coffee for us and taught us all sorts of things about making great coffee while we're out bike packing. We all got to try the coffee Cody made and asked some questions - Cody knows his coffee! Cody's coffee roasting business, Stoke Coffee, is local and he sells his beans online, at farmer's markets and at our local co-op, Just Foods.
Ryan is taking in all that Cody from Stoke Coffee has to tell us
about making coffee (Ryan likes coffee)
Then we started roasting hot dogs over the bonfire and Curtis from Milltown made up three different kinds of camp food from Mountain House for us to try. He made it all on a little MSR camp stove. I've never had dehydrated camp food - actually, I haven't had much of any kind of camp food - and I was pleasantly surprised at how good it tasted!

Well fed and full of information, we were all getting tired so we trekked back to the camping area and set up our tents with aid of headlamps and flashlights. Bikepacking Dave stuck around until we were set to call it a night. I think he might have been amused at how uncoordinated my family was at setting up a tent but we managed much better than the last time our family went camping! Rose, who backpacked for a week in Montana, is our most experienced tent-setter-upper so she directed Owen on how to set up the tent. I mostly observed because I think that "too many cooks spoil the broth" saying must apply to setting up tents, too, so I figured I'd do the most good out of the way. Once the tent was up, Ryan and I got our sleeping bags set up and things arranged inside the tent.
Our camp
Dave headed for home, we said our "good-nights" to the other campers (four others stayed the night) and soon it was time to go to sleep. It got down to the mid-30s that night but we stayed pretty warm and slept well.
Rose and Ryan - all tuckered out
In the morning, we all gathered for a breakfast of donuts, juice and meat sticks and I broke out my little Esbit pocket stove and made some coffee. Milltown had great giveaways of bike packing equipment for those who attended the event and we were lucky to win two travel pillows, a first aid kit, and a super cool Nemo sleeping pad that I think Owen will take with him on the Tour Divide next summer.
Rose is delighted with the handy packable first aid kit
Ryan shows us that the Nemo sleeping pad is so small and lightweight
he can easily carry it over his shoulder.
After breakfast, we packed up our tents, chatted a bit, loaded up our vehicles and talked some more. All too soon, it was time to head on home.

Thanks, Milltown, for hosting such a wonderful event. We learned a lot and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and now feel better prepared to go on bike packing adventures and on car camping trips with the family. Good thing because Rose and Ryan are already asking when we can go camping again!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Change in Plans

Image
My kids, Rose and Ryan, started a theater day camp today called Young People's Theater Workshop (YPTW). YPTW is a program put on through the Northfield Arts Guild  during which the kids, grouped by age, write a play, rehearse it, and then perform it at the end of the three week session. Rose loves the camp and this is her fourth year. In her first year I saw a huge change in her confidence from the beginning of the session to the end. She has grown each year since and I expect she will benefit from the camp again this year. Ryan has never been in YPTW and has been somewhat reluctant to go. But, to save on gas (it's a 30 mile round trip to town), make our schedule easier and give me time to work, Owen and I decided that Ryan should give YPTW a try. Given how good the program has been for Rose, we're hoping Ryan will benefit from the program as well. I dropped the kids off this morning and right off the bat Ryan found two friends from his class at Greenvale. He found...
Read more

Making tracks

Image
I just looked out my office window and saw my snowshoe tracks in the snow. For some reason they surprised me. Seeing them I had concrete evidence that I actually have been getting out on my snowshoes every day. That I've actually been going somewhere. And, for some reason, I find this comforting. I've been fighting my 30 Days of Snowshoeing commitment and am kind of mad at myself for creating the challenge for myself. I haven't wanted to get out every day and snowshoe. It's cold outside. I don't like putting on my snowpants, my hat, scarf, gloves, jacket. Perhaps because I'm doing the challenge alone, unlike the 30 Days of Biking challenges where hundreds of other people biked every day and helped motivate each other, I don't really feel like it matters that I'm doing this. And I've lost momentum and motivation and simply want to sit inside and read a book. Or sleep. Or watch Monk and Cake Boss on Netflix. But I keep snowshoeing. Every day. Ev...
Read more

A Little Bike Schooling on the B Ride

I'll be honest with you, my two main motivations for riding my bike any distance are coffee and conversation. A good workout is also a motivator but going really fast is not. I'm more of a slow and steady - okay, really slow and not that steady - sort of bicyclist. But for months now I've wanted to join in on a group ride. From what I've heard people ride their bikes, chat away the miles and stop somewhere for a cup of coffee mid-way or at the end of the ride. Sounds like my kind of ride. Right? Maybe not. Most of the group rides I've heard about promise average speeds of 18 to 20 miles per hour or more and go 40 or more miles. Some sound brutal and talk about hill climbs and sprints. Granted, these are the "A" rides, rides geared towards competitive riders, riders who want to push their limits. "B" rides are supposed to be slower, "C" rides even more so but I've seen some C rides that sound too fast for me, some B rides with leng...
Read more