Myrna CG Mibus - Idyllwild

Our bike packing trip is complete and now, three weeks later, I'm finally getting around to writing up what is probably my last blog post about the trip. The first thing to address is the big question - do we want to go bike packing again?  The answer? Yes! We definitely want to do more bike packing and include camping into future adventures. Bucket list routes include (but are not limited to) the Katy Trail in Missouri and the Elroy Sparta Trail in Wisconsin. Secondly, a big Thank you is in order to the good people of Milltown Cycles, aka Milltown Premium Adventure Goods for equipping us with our bikes, our seat bags and for fielding lots and lots of questions about bike packing. Now here's our bike packing wrap-up report with info on equipment, weather, coffee and other stats! Not interested in bike packing? Well, this might be kinda dry stuff so you might want to skip down to the bottom to the Coffee section of this post and call it a day. Bikes : Owen rode ...

Both kids will be at camps next week so Owen and I have a whole week to ourselves. Instead of going on a relaxing vacation, however, we are going to load up our bikes and go on a bikepacking trip! We don't have a tent, sleeping bags or equipment to make food along the way so we are going to stay at hotels along our route. This sort of bike touring is commonly called "credit card travel" - as in you use your credit card to pay for accommodation and food along the way. That said, we will be packing clothes and other things so will get a taste for what it's like to carry things on our bikes. Our plan is to drop Ryan off at camp on Sunday in Shell Lake, Wisconsin. We'll leave our van at his camp and bike northwest to Siren where we'll pick up the Gandy Dancer bike trail that goes north along the Minnesota/Wisconsin border. We'll bike that to Superior then take another bike trail from Superior back down to Shell Lake. I figure we'll bike about 200 miles...

As of this moment we have about a foot of fresh snow on the ground. It's been falling since daybreak and still coming down. With great excitement I got on my biking clothes after lunch and headed out on Bear to ride in some deep snow on the still unplowed streets of my neighborhood. Owen joined me on his Mukluk. We rode for about 30 minutes and probably went 2 miles. We laughed a lot, got a good workout and had a blast! Here's what I learned on my ride today: Deep snow is hard to ride in, even on a fat bike But boy is it fun! Snow is slippery and you can skid a lot This results in a lot of laughing And some happy screaming And a few near falls I'm better at controlling a bike through skids than I thought I was But look forward to getting even better It's easier to ride in the ruts where a car has already driven Pedals quickly get packed with snow making your boots slip even though the pedals have those little pins (12 per side on the VP Vice Trail Pedals I...

It snowed! Not much but enough to get out on my Salsa Beargrease this morning and go for a ride with my hubby, Owen, and his Mukluk 2. First ride in the snow on my Bear!! It was fun!! Fatbike + Snow = Fun I've ridden in the snow before on my hybrid, an old Specialized Crossroads. Riding that in the snow is fun but riding a fat bike in the snow is funner! (yeah, I know, funner isn't a "real" word but riding a fat bike in the snow will make even an English major will do crazy things like use "funner" in a sentence) My ride was fairly short, about a half hour. It was partly sunny and pretty warm at 27 degrees. I rode through grassy snow and on the snow-covered gravel and on two-track in a little hideaway near my home. And I rode through some slushy stuff and over some ice. I didn't have to worry about losing traction or being all that careful on my morning ride. I just rode. Bear just plows through everything. I even rode with some speed when I hur...

Owen and I had so much fun riding River Bend Nature Center on Saturday (Global Fat-Bike Day ) that we decided to hit the River Bend trails again on Sunday. It was about 50 degrees Sunday afternoon and we rode for just over an hour with no set route planned - we just set out and started riding the trails. There's something like miles of trails in the nature center,  some with great big hills! So big that we had to push our bikes up a couple of them. Pushing a bike is another kind of exercise, I guess, and since exercising is part of the point of getting out on our bikes in the first place pushing the bikes was all part of the fun. Well, maybe pushing my bike wasn't fun but it was all part of the outdoor, nature ride experience and that was fun! I was a little sore after the ride and my knee and right ankle are a bit sore still today. For the most part, though, my wrist is doing well (I changed out my handlebar - see below) and I'm feeling pretty strong. Plus it wa...

Today is Global Fat-Bike Day! There are fat bike rides all over, including a group ride in Minneapolis that is likely still taking place - they planned to ride about 50 miles in the Minnesota River Bottoms starting at noon today. I nearly drove to the cities for that one but our family schedule today is awfully busy so Owen and I opted to ride some great trails in River Bend Nature Center in Faribault, MN, instead. We started the morning at Milltown, the shop where we purchased our fat bikes. There we got some info from Ben, the shop's owner, about where to ride and Ben adjusted my shift levers a bit (still tweaking to get them in the just-right position) A couple of guys came in to pick up a Surly fatbike that was in the shop and one of the guys told me he'd read my Beargrease Report - No Roads? No Problem! blog. Wow! He said he liked it, too. That sure made me feel good. It's fun to note that my Beargrease Report blog post has had over 1,250 hits so far! That's...

Today - after ordering our fat bikes in early September and waiting, mostly patiently, with great anticipation - Owen and I got to ride our fatbikes together for the first time! Owen's Mukluk 2 was in at Milltown when I picked up my Beargrease last Wednesday but he wanted to switch out the handlebar for one with more of a bend. Curtis had to order the handlebar so Owen had to wait to ride until the bar came in. So I got my fatbike on Wednesday and Owen had to wait for his. By Friday Owen's bike was ready but we couldn't pick it up until Saturday. We picked it up late Saturday but it was too late to get out on a ride. Finally today, after a busy morning at church and raking leaves this afternoon, Owen and I hopped on our fatbikes and headed out for a ride. What fun! We rode our grass taxiway (we live on an airport with a grass runway) with the kids and Rocket the dog running along with us. Then Rose, Ryan and Rocket stopped at the house and Owen and I kept going. We ro...