I’ll see myself out
My solemn Tarck Vow is that I will fix my bartape tonight.[/quote]
Pics or it didn’t happen.
The midwest looks pretty sweet Doug. I just finished up a 110 mile loop in Montana with some friends. Started in Whitefish, rode to Glacier National Park, up to Polebridge and back down (this loop.) (We did it in reverse from what’s on bikepacking.)
Thought I was on a properly equipped bike with 42mm gravel ready tires, but nope. Everyone else was on a mtb bike with squish tires.
The best part was we were on the oldest road in the park for all day Saturday, but it’s been closed to cars for 5+ years. Saw way too much fresh grizzly poop for comfort, but no actual bears.
(dusty as hell on some of the roads)
Hey, did you go with a lady @molly.sugar? That’s my buddy’s friend (ladyfriend, if I dare say?) and she just did a 110 mile loop in Montana.
Yep! Molly was on the ride! She’s super rad!
Well, y’all certainly put the boys to shame this weekend. This weekend we did a luxury bikecamping trip, complete with beer and every useless camping gadget you can imagine, to the top of Rollins Pass. 12 miles up to camp (plus 3 more unloaded miles), 12 miles down. (but it was high altitude and straight uphill so that makes it ok, right?)
It was Skyler’s first ever bike camping trip (Molly’s frienderino) and he doesn’t have a proper bike, so we let him use Ladybiek’s Krampus:
Loading up
Here’s me with the new setup (fuck panniers)
We rode up the pass with no hamlets on, because it was about 3mph uphill, and if you managed to fall off the side it’d kill you regardless
Our friend Sam rode this old bianchi up, which is a radical bike but not suited for this chunky rock road
Your rando bag isn’t big enough, 40oz of cold beer on the left cage.
Camped right at treeline at Jenny lake, had to sit out a bit of rain
Post-rain snacks
After the rain we unloaded the bikes and rode the next 3 miles above treeline to Needle’s Eye Tunnel
This is an old train route, ended up going defunct in the early 1900/10/20s or something because of weather. You could drive through this tunnel until 15-20 years ago. It’s closed because a boulder fell on a car.
Walked around the top for a bit. In the background, to the right, is the road we climbed.
All packed up and ready for the descent, decided to pump the tires all the way up to 14psi for that one. Tubeless 29+ is pretty fucking sweet.
I think I’m close to having this setup dialed in, but I’d like to trade that buttrocket up for a larger one, just to get some weight equalized.
i love rollins pass. wish all the cool shit was still up there to see, like the old hotel and such.
the opening of the moffat tunnel resulted in teh end of the railroad going over rollins pass.
We arrived late Friday at the trailhead, right next to the tunnel, and stayed the night there. What I didn’t realize was how incredibly loud the ventilation fans are. It sounds like a fighter jet taking off, but lasts for 20 minutes or so. Every time a train would go by, those fans would kick on and wake us up.
Crazy that the tunnel even exists.
One time I rode a freight train through a long ass tunnel in Pennsylvania (I think it was Pennsylvania) and we thought we were gonna die from the diesel exhaust fumes. I don’t thing that tunnel had any exhaust system at all.
you posted on FB promoting it as a “simple easy weekend route”
but split off to avoid the namesake pass and made it a three day out-and-back instead of finishing the loop? 
I woulda thought you’d be the properly equipped one too
were they not overdoing it by riding 29+ MTBs on old roads?
you posted on FB promoting it as a “simple easy weekend route”
but split off to avoid the namesake pass and made it a three day out-and-back instead of finishing the loop?
I woulda thought you’d be the properly equipped one too
were they not overdoing it by riding 29+ MTBs on old roads?[/quote]
We were in a time crunch to get back to the train and I was having trouble descending on the rocky portions (lack of skill/confidence/equipment,a combination there within). I had been warned that the descent down Red Meadow would be big rocks/deep gravel, so I made the choice to do the detour avoiding the pass.
With the alternate route I did, the mileage was the same on Day 3, but it made the entire route completely do-able on my bike for most portions, except some of the single-track that we ended up on and some water crossings. I think you/more experienced people on a similar bike to mine would be fine.
I can’t say if they were overdoing it or not. I wasn’t riding their bikes. But their gearing/ability to descend quickly over chunky stuff made me jealous that I wasn’t on a MTB.
We gotta get Marley sponsored!
Is Breadwinner still sponsoring the Komorebi riders?
2nd week of the Denver Camp Coffee pre-work rides was a hit again.
These aren’t really long rides, just people who want to meet up on bikes before work and exercise their coffee skills. Did we steal this idea from Portland and LA? Maybe. Do I care? lolnope!
13ish k’s into a planned 40k’s ride. I’m checking the route here. Then my son got over the constant headwind and had a slight melt down, so we headed back to the car.
I went for a ride today and yesterday, from Richmond, VA to Charlottesville, VA, and back again. It was pretty decent, some parts were really great, a few parts really sucked.
I’d planned to go for a hike/camping this weekend, but it fell through, so I figured I’d try some getting some more miles on the bike than I usually do. I had a pretty regular SF-Santa Cruz-SF ride when I lived around there, and wanted something like that, but in Virginia. It looked as if RVA-Cville-RVA was about the same, controlling for the less intensely hilly regional geography. I asked an experienced VA tourer how to get there, who suggested Hwy 6, and I added in 15 and 53 (big gotdamn mistake, get to that in a minute) to get me into Charlottesville. They all looked like smaller rural highways, and that was all the planning I did.
I loaded up my bags the night before, and early the next morning I rolled out of bed and immediately wasted like two hours doing chores and goofing around on the internet. It was almost eleven am when I got going. I should mention at this point that summers in Virginia are no joke. Temps in the 90’s, soul-destroying humidity. I was hoping the route would have a lot of trees to provide shade, and they helped when there.
This is a pretty standard rural highway, minus the constant fucking avalanche of SUVs and pickup trucks. Note the complete lack of paved shoulder and narrow, narrow lanes.
So i just kind of rolled along, the first fifteen miles were no fun because I was on Patterson Ave in the west end of Richmond and then Tuckahoe. Whatever comes to mind when you hear “charmless suburban US boulevard”, I assure you that it accurately describes this road.
After that, though, the road got narrower, there were lots of old barns and small, semi-abandoned towns that I really should have taken pictures of, and then I turned off of Hwy 6 and onto 15. Ahhh here we go. Less roadkill, more wineries. This is rich person rural area, with huge manicured lawns and private lakes and probably a lot of other stuff I don’t know about (helicopter polo? horse dancing? one can but wonder). After twenty or so miles, I stopped at a country grocery, refilled my bottles, and bought a bottle of fizzy water and some fruit. They had a little grassy area off past the parking lot, with a couple of picnic benches under some small trees. I ate nectarines, sipped my Perrier, and watched people try to navigate the roundabout the VDOT had apparently not finished putting in. It was nice in the shade, the fruit was vastly better than a third or fourth clif bar.
And then I got onto Highway 53. A fireman I’d spoken with while stopped at a light (on Patterson!) warned me away from this route, “too many S-curves, really crowded”. For some reason I ignored him, and oh man was that a mistake. The road was tiny, full of people blasting around blind corners in cars half again larger than those for which the road was built. As a bunch of bike riders, you’re all probably familiar with how mentally taxing it is to get passed constantly on roads like that. You can never relax.
As I got closer to Charlottesville, I figured out why this road was so hellishly crowded: this was the main route around / through Monticello, the Thomas Jefferson home / mansion / plantation(?). Picture riding through Yosemite, only the main road is full of constant blind turns. Ugh. My fault for not doing my homework on that. So, pulling into town dehydrated and frazzled, I sorted out a motel room, flipped on the tv, and drank a terrifying amount of water. Once I managed to pee a couple of times, my head had cleared enough to wash and dry my kit and go find dinner.
shorts hovering ominiously above the air conditioner
The next morning, I loaded up my bags again, this time tucking the espresso concentrate I’d bought the night before into my feedbag. Somehow I’d forgotten that this was a mainstay of my west coast long rides - really any kind of coffee concentrate helps immensely in propelling me down the road.
bags, legs, lil bottle of coffee
Between the coffee and the choice to take hwy 250 instead of 53, the miles really flew by on the way home. It was a cooler morning, too. The previous day’s constant drip of sweat from my cap down onto my nose and sunglasses was delightfully absent, and it took far longer for a crust of salt to form on the shoulders of my jersey. I’d been thinking about a conversation I’d had on this forum about long distance saddles, and while I’m probably going to try a C17 at some point, the Fabric saddle i have on the bike now was surprisingly comfortable.
As I got closer to Richmond again, I considered taking a really promising highway:
But decided against it this time.
So that was my weekend of bike riding. Revelate’s Feedbags work well for readily accessible stuff, and the tangle bag inside the frame is good, but would benefit from some way of being pulled in towards the back -my legs brushed a bit. The feedbags bumped my knees when out of the saddle, but not terribly. For a more laid-back setup, this worked well. This feels like the best use of this bike - I’ll keep my Broakland as a fast road bike, and keep pushing the Saila further into sport touring territory.
this is the bike pretty much as ridden this weekend, x-posted from PYB:
Rode TLine2Town, Crosstown, and Pioneer Bridle.
Near:
Far:
Trail Dog:
Moon dust beausage:
Dumb Quik edit of riding:
[youtube]Q0DO2VM2i60[/youtube]
^^ sup mid-atlantic humidity. sounds fuN!
I rode out to the “mountain” nearest DC and did a nice hike. It was cloudy. I rode a bit of singletrack, which was rocky.
Went for a short ride last night with another Tarckr, got sweaty and drank beers by the river.
Only snapped a couple shitty pictures so heres one.
This weekend I explored a bunch in some Cook County forest preserves, both on my Endpoint and on foot.
Poached a bunch of overgrown, riverside singletrack:
I really need to get one of those little folding saws. These trails could be great if I cleared some deadfall and overgrowth.
Found this curiosity deep in he woods:
Did you press the button?