I finally wrote up my Renegades Muster ride. Pix are all as above but some blah blah to string them together here.
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Hello friends, funny enough have never posted in this thread despite poopbarning being my preferred way of eXpErIeNcInG BiCyCLeS.
The Stagecoach 400 route: anyone done it? I’ve heard it’s worth doing. If I plan to do the last LA Tourist and then ride the route afterwards (so starting around April 25th or so) will snopack be fucked? Also: any other nerds here wanna do it with me? Making new friends on bike tour good, doing bike tour alone only ok.
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man that sounds fun, I’d love to join you for that but the timing just won’t work out for my semester
planning to start in Idyllwild or down in SD for the transit access?
edit: also would love a report of your recent huracan ride! another one on my bucket list, that route is like a tour of the exact part of florida where I grew up (clermont/mascotte/groveland/webster)
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Also!
Ah damn! Even if anyone just wanted to join for the LAT portion I’d be stoked.
I was thinking train down to SD but honestly I could probably be convinced to ride out and back to Idyllwild from LA if there’s a worthwhile route.
Huracan was sick! I haven’t been to Florida in at least a decade or two, and it was the first time I’d ever ridden bikes there. Surprisingly cool terrain, I felt like it was a good tour of what FL has to offer in bike riding, both good and bad (but mostly good). We did it clockwise, and did a lot of riding of mellow singletrack at night, which kicked ass bc the full moon was right in the middle of the trip. The big water crossing is actually not too bad, there’s a decent amount of bushwacking in parts but the majority is just rad forest roads and fun singletrack. Pretty sure I’m gonna go singlespeed it next year.
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What did you ride the FL trip on? I didn’t know we had a pretty active bike campeur here. I’m gonna try to get back into it this year. My Instagram account is not coincidentally paused in 2019, which has to be the last time I pedaled a loaded bike for any significant amount of time.
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Lol, same wrt instagram. I’ve also been out of the destination trips (last one in 2018 before I went back to school 
) but been doing a fair number of local finger-lakes-area 2-5 day dithers in the past few years and at this point I have some really great routes around here and Ithaca which I’d love to share with folks. But once I graduate in the spring I’m hoping to get back into traveling for tours a bit more!
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Oh yeah when you move to LA, right? I’m dreaming of being in a more bike trip friendly place without having to fly. Though actually I should shut up because NY and New England are pretty good. This actually reminds me that my last bikepacking trip was Jan 2020 and I probably had Covid while doing it 
I rode a Spesh Fuse for Huracan, it… is definitely a bike. Honestly it’s a great lil normie trail hardtail. I bought it as a placeholder but it’s been a good time so far, now that I’ve tossed a different group and fork on it. Eventually will probably replace with a Pipedream Sirius when they release the s6 but whatever.
And yea I haven’t done as much bike camping as I’d like for the past year or so, but basically all of my best bike experiences have been on mixed-terrain days, more often than not with bags strapped to the bike.
In 2021 I took most of the late spring and summer to ride from Baltimore to Butte on the Great American Rail Trail with my bud who continued on to the west coast while I hopped on the Divide in Butte and rode it down to Abiquiu with some new friends I met that first day.
60–100 mile days while still getting a full night’s rest every day is the sweet spot for me. Hoping to do quite a bit more this year. Anyhoo that’s the “about me” of this dating profile I guess.
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I’ve been following Tom Bradshaw on IG doing a 1400 km poopbarn in NZ. He said he got 820 kms or 100 hours out of 2 AXS batteries. That’s the first time I’ve seen anyone say what they got out of a system like that.
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I ran AXS on the divide. My pace wasn’t as consistent as a racers, but my battery died every 7 days like clockwork. The setup as a whole was flawless.
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Huh, hadn’t heard of this guy
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Very much the EF model of, “we don’t need to win, just make a splash”
He’s done all sorts of interesting shit. Was doing gravel and endurance racing as training for when he was a pursuiter. His wife is an astronaut. I think they moved to Texas for her career.
Stagecoach kicked my ass when I tried it. We went last year around March 11th, according to Google Photos, and didn’t have any issues with snow, though CA is having a crazy snow year I hear… We started in SD and ended up bailing in Anza. I rode my Kona Unit X and my partner was on a rigid Honzo. We were hoping on finishing within 5 days and ended up going way slower than expected. I think we got to Anza on the end of day 3, and my partner had a constantly leaking tire that wouldn’t seal (sand + cushcore apparently aren’t a great mix). we were pretty beat down too and thankfully got picked up by some family. it was such a beautiful route though, I would love to try again with more time.
that was all the snow we saw, iirc
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Texas is the reason.
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This is good to know; I’m planning on skipping the stick of the lollipop on the route but I am planning for some pretty ambitious days and almost definitely gonna be going solo, so should be an interesting vibe. Planning on being on 2.5 Ehlines on the Fuse, and packing a lot of water carrying capacity.
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I think 2.5s on a hardtail would be pretty great for most of the route! i’m interested to hear how it goes for you. i think most of the up to date information is through their instagram account @stagecoach400 and there may be a facebook group as well. I think the grand depart for the race is later this week too!
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Yeah, I’ve been following their IG! Hopefully snow/water clears up a bit and things wind up being a little less gnarly by the time I’m out there.
Also, signed up for LA Tourist #3 if anyone else is doing it
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