Snow Biking Bald Eagle State Forest. First Powder on the Pugsley

In late November on the week of Thanksgiving we got our first snow for the season. I was so excited I left for work Tuesday morning, in the beginning of the storm, on my fat bike, even though there was barely an inch on the ground. It was completely unnecessary, as the weather in the valley shifted to rain and then sleet and freezing rain. While the snow didn't look like much in the valley, up in the mountains of Bald Eagle State Forest it was piling up.

When we got out to R.B. Winter for our Wednesday night ride, there was 3 or 4 inches of snow on the ground when we started. There had also been some serious ice earlier and this made some of tight sections of trail through mountain laurel or young pine nearly impassible as it all folded under the weight of the ice and into the trail. Despite the difficulty making progress through the tight sections, when trail was clear enough to ride I got my first taste of what my first winter on a snow bike was going to be like. In a word, awesome!

Rylan on the fire road climb to No Name Trail (yes that's what it is called)

Before I got into mountain biking and even cycling in general, I was an avid downhill skier. I enjoy being outside in the snow and the cold doesn't typically bother me. The thing I like the least about downhill skiing is that there is the down time of the lift ride, or the hike if you are back country skiing. Actually, I preferred back country skiing because the journey to the top was an enjoyable experience in an of itself. My favorite part of snow biking is that there is no down time once you start. You aren't reliant on gravity to supply your good times, though it sure does help! I often realize when mountain biking how similar it is to downhill skiing when I'm not pedaling, you weight your legs to carve through a turn the same way, and you pump and float your way down the trail in the exact same manner. On a snow bike in the snow, the ride is a lot smoother and softer than without the snow. It packs into the cracks and crevices in the rocks and smooths out what typically would be very bumpy technical sections. Trails that were once slow speed technical super gnar take on a new a playful character of flow and speed. Some of the feel of speed is a little exaggerated by the lack of traction and slightly out of control feeling, but you can get moving on the straighter downhill sections and it's a blast.



Thanksgiving morning Rylan, Johny, and I took the bikes out again for a short ride. We had a little more fun just messing about this time and we ended up with some great pictures. The ice on the trees had not melted off yet so there was still a lot of stuff block tight sections of trail. Overlook Trail and Old Tram were fairly difficult.

Old Tram at the intersection of Rocky Corner Trail

Things got a little more fun and continuous once we headed down to R.B. Winter State Park. The trails down there are much more open and there was a lot less stuff smacking us in the face. First we bombed down Boiling Springs to the park.

Boiling Springs Trail

 Then we headed up Old Boundary Trail

I make the strangest faces when riding my bike and being photographed

And bombed back down Sand Mountain Road to Boiling Springs again because it was that much fun.

Then it was time to head down to the beach to have some fun.

Finally we bushwhacked around a little bit before head back up to the Overlook and bombed back down McCall Dam road.

That's how our morning ride went. it was a good time with a lot of picture taking and goofing around.

My impressions of snow biking on singletrack are that it's pretty much the most fun you can have on two wheels in the winter. Going out in a group is essential. When the snow is fresh and nothing is packed down, breaking trail is hard work and it is good to have a few people to take turns with it. Don't believe any advertising claims you hear about how you are going to just float over deep snow on a fat bike. It's true they do a better job than a regular mountain bike, but anything more than 4 or 5 inches of snow is going to be difficult pedaling and going to require new riding skills that aren't needed for other types of riding. The extra effort is worth it as the scenery of a snowy forest is fantastic and all your familiar trails turn into a completely different experience. Give it a try! I bet you'll like it!

Fat Tires at Raystown Lake

This past weekend I got to go experience something awesome. I am the proud owner of Surly Pugsley and I had not really gotten a chance to take it out on a ride where it was the de facto proper bike for the journey before my ride this weekend.

This is not a toy...well, ok, maybe it is.

My coworker Rylan, former shop mechanic Johnny, and myself took our fat tire machines to Raystown Lake, the home of the Allegrippis Trail System. The Allegrippis Trail System is certainly not known for its gnarly nature and soft terrain. I've heard it described as a 30 mile long pump track. It's fast, flowtastic, twisty, and smooth. Though we rode some of the trails that day, the highlight of our trip was exploring the recently exposed lake bottom around the edge of the lake on our fat bikes. The Army Corps of Engineers has lowered the water level of the lake for shoreline rehabilitation. the result is some riding and scenery (and temperatures!) that seems like it's right out of one of those dream trips you might read about fat biking the coast of Alaska in the spring.

This is actually in Pennsylvania.

When we got there we had an opportunity to bomb down some of the fast flowy single track to get to the shore line. It was a balmy 24 degrees Fahrenheit when we arrived with winds gusting to 30 mph, so the shelter of the trees on the ride down to the lake was much appreciated. The night before we had gotten a dusting of snow which really added a cool visual element to the ride.

Johnny and his Krampus, Me in the background.

Even though there is nothing about the Allegrippis trails that requires a fatbike, it's still a blast to ride one there. The "whomp zzzzzzzzzzzzzz" noise of 4 inch tires being pumped and aired out over the rhythm sections is addictive and a forty pound bike holds momentum extremely well. Before I knew it we were at the overlook.

Fatbikes at the Overlook

We then headed down Ray's Revenge to the first access road and bombed down to the lake on it. We were greeted by a small cove, an expanse of sandstone beach, and the edge of the water. Rylan got a little rad off the bank while we were taking a short break.

Pictured: Radness

Then it was time for a little hanging out and picture taking.

Goofing off.

Then we were off down the shore line. We ended up in the next cove over after a bunch of hike a bike. the shore here was just too steep off camber to ride with enormous sandstone outcroppings and tons of downed trees. It became ridable for a little bit near the inlet and Rylan got a little too adventurous and got him self stuck, twice. The second time he managed to fall over in the mud and sink his foot about a foot deep in the mud.

Pretty sure that wasn't the line there bud.

Props to the Mavic Drift shoes we both were wearing, I had a similar experience racing cyclocross and we're both happy to report they are as close to waterproof a shoe can get, no wet feet today.

Still dry inside.

 After that it was a bunch more hike a bike until we decided to go hunt for another, more rideable section of shoreline. So we hiked straight up the side of the point to the bench on Ray's Revenge with 40 lb bikes on our backs. We got a chance to zip down Ray's Revenge to Sidewinder to Hydro Loop. We launched into Hydro Loop counterclockwise looking for a good place to go ride some more shoreline. We found a good place to get on and off the trail to the shore and passed it by to see if we could find another place to get out on the shoreline to ride back to that point. We found another way down to the water's edge, but the shore between points didn't look too rideable, so we backtracked to the other point and launched out on the shoreline for about another 2 miles of shore riding and bushwhacking. This was our most productive section of the ride for accumulating lake treasure, including the choice finds below.

My new boombox.

Rylan's new shades!

Not pictured are an American Flag, Rylan's Mariah Carey CD, and seashells...lots of seashells. There were more bike pics

Fat bikes on Mars! We found the water!

 After our shoreline adventures it was singletrack back to the car for a total of about 18 miles and 2100 ft of climbing.



We had a blast and I wish we had more time. Riding the shores of Raystown Lake with fat bikes with the water level this low is not something that you get to do everyday but the opportunity to do so won't last for long. When the water level rises again this experience will be lost. So go ahead and get your hands on a fat bike and have your own adventure!

Singlespeed Mountain Biking: Like a Power Meter, Except Rad

When I started riding bicycles for recreation as an adult, it was as a roadie. I was interested in things like timing myself on the local road climbs, FTP (that's Functional Threshold Power, for you unwashed lot known as mountain bikers.), heart rate zones, and interval training. I enjoyed the local hammerfest group ride. I borrowed a power tap wheel from another local cyclist to try it out. I trained with it, I raced with it, I got faster with it. Does it work? Sure does. Ask the people I ride with. In less than 6 months of riding, from when I bought a bike, to my first race, I had a W(FTP)/Kg of above 4 and had no problem dropping the field in my first road race and nearly soloed away to victory, and then still won the bunch sprint with only about 2 minutes of recovery.

Does this guy look like he's fucking around? No, no he does not.

Looking back on that performance, I feel that I could not have accomplished what I did as fast as I did with out a power meter. Why? Is nerding out over the numbers and statistics after every ride and following strict training plan absolutely a requirement to be fast? Nope. You know what you need to get fast? Suffering. Suffering and a general understanding of the concept of recovery. Now the caveat to this is that the less time you have to ride, the more regimented your training is going to have to be in order to work in enough training stress to get fast. This is where the more scientific approach to training is going to be more effective. But the real value in a power meter? Once you know your personal power curve, it's a bullshit detector. When you know you can hold 300 watts for an hour, you know that you are bullshitting yourself when you feel like you're suffering holding 240 watts on the front of the pace line. Crank it up wuss, just cause everyone behind you is huffing and puffing doesn't mean you get to be lazy. A power meter enforces suffering. Once you know your data, it won't let you half ass a work out, because it knows when you are feeding yourself a line of shit and that little number is going to tell you about it.

"MOAR WATTS WUSS" -power meter

photo credit: Brett Simpson

The problem is that power meters are expensive. Like 4 digits expensive. Like more expensive than a lot of beginning rider's bikes. A lot of people can't justify the money, and while all that data is pretty nifty, it gets boring analyzing it after a while. Another problem is that training by power doesn't work as well for mountain riding because your efforts are often dictated by the terrain rather than the pace you want to maintain. As much as you might like to do a threshold interval set, this here trail is like the "you must be this tall to ride" sign before you get on the roller coaster, and those rocks are the rough looking carnie that's about to bounce your out of shape ass right off the trail. Finally, using a power meter can literally suck all the fun out of riding. When you spend your whole ride staring at your SRM, you might as well be at home on your trainer.

Who do you think is having more fun?

So what is a mountain biker to do? Fortunately the power meter is not the only suffering enforcing device on the block. Enter the singlespeed mountain bike. While also a bit pricy compared to a book on training, it's also a hell of a lot more fun (sort of, in that sick cycling kind of way), and more importantly, it's also a new bike. If you're anything like me new bikes are a good thing. New bike day is like Christmas but it can happen more than once a year if I have the cash, making it better than Christmas. If you want to minimize cost, you can just get an old, quality, but outdated mountain bike from craigslist and convert it using a chain tensioner, single speed cog, and spacer kit. If it's heavy as hell, good, it'll make you that much stronger. If you want a super bling, 16 lb single speed, get one, either way this is gonna hurt. Set it up with a gear that you can just barely climb an extended 10% grade on. Boom, you're done, now go ride that sweet beast out on some single track. Are you ready to get fast? Because it's gonna happen.

When you have one gear, you have the same two choices you have any time you ride a bike. Ride or walk. Walking is for pussies, so avoid it if possible, but take comfort in the fact that if you have to do it, you are riding single speed, and therefor only have to take shit about it from other SS riders. You will probably be faster on your single speed at first compared to your geared bike. Having one gear means you can't be lazy. In order to keep those cranks turning over at an acceptable rate uphill you have to crank out those watt-thingies I was talking about earlier in the post. Once you get to the top of said hill and coming down, your single speed will force you to rest because that climbing gear...you know...the only one you have? It spins out pretty quick going down. Hey look! You're doing intervals! Your trail buddies will never let you live this down! We'll keep this between you and me though, nobody else has to know. It'll be a few minutes before they catch us.

Oh how you'll suffer on your new single speed, but you probably will be less aware of it because you have no choice if you don't want to walk. Outside of the fact that a single speed forces you to suffer there are other benefits that will make you a better rider that are a little more subtle. Riding single speed is a much more pure experience than riding a geared bike. They are quiet. No clicking, grinding, or crackling, just a soft whir from the chain working over the cogs. You will never run into a sudden uphill section and say "Fuck me, I'm in the wrong gear!" You'll just stand up and power over it and make that sucker your bitch, or you'll spin out and stall, OTB, slide, etc, and you can just blame it on not having gears and try again next time (or go back and try again this time, we'll wait). Rock gardens become a new and different beast on a SS. You'll learn to carry momentum better because once you get slowed, grinding that gear you're running in the gnar is gonna suck. It's ok though, because you aren't worrying about what gear you should be in, you'll be much more focused and you'll probably recover and power out of the rock garden no sweat.

So bottom line, do you want to get faster and be a more proficient cyclist and have blast doing it? Get yourself a singlespeed mountain bike and lets go ride!

The El Mariachi Ti, my newest project. The Swiss Army Knife of Mountian Bikes.

I have some very nice bikes in my stable for the most part I am very happy with them. One, however, does not quite stack up with the rest of them. Right now with the warmer months gone and winter fast approaching I've been gravitating to my Giant XTC 2 hardtail, my race/trail/single track bike. There's no snow yet so haven't brought out the fat bike as my main mountain steed, and while the Fargo has been serving me well as a gravel road base mile machine, the position it puts me in is just not ideal for shredding my rugged home singletrack. My XTC is not a bad bike, it's just not a great bike. My TCR Advanced, Pugsley, Fargo, and Torelli are all sweet rides that I would qualify as great. So why not a sweet single track machine?

Why not indeed. I was visiting my favorite local bike shop and and part time place of employment, Earl's Bicycle Store, when the final kick in the pants happened. I was browsing through our distributor's web page as usual, drooling over high end bike parts, when my riding buddy and co-worker Rylan pointed out that there was a left over 2013 Salsa El Mariachi Titanium frame in XL (21") available for an obscenely low price, even for a guy with a shop hook-up for bike stuff. And there was one, the only one left. The last one...
 

Sweet Jeebus that's beautiful

My reason for jumping on this frame while I could was that I was considering a second build in addition upgrading my XC hardtail. One of my coworkers made the mistake of bringing in his 18 lb rigid carbon singlespeed bike. I was intrigued by the idea of riding singlespeed and wanted try it. I rode our weekly group ride in one gear and was kind of amazed at how much fun I had. It was a lot of work and suffering, but the simplicity of it was intoxicating. I had ridden my Fargo (it's rigid) on some tamer singletrack and I also wanted to try rigid more seriously as a way to improve my technical skills. With the El Mariachi's Alternator drop-outs as a chain tensioning system, I could have one bike that could be rigid or run a suspension fork and 1x10 like I currently ride or single speed. All these conversions can be accomplished in a very short amount off time thanks to the use of full length derailleur housing guides and a 10 speed rear hub and single speed conversion spacer kit. My goal for this build is to get to the low 20's weight wise singlespeed rigid without using any major carbon fiber parts, things like carbon brake lever blades probably will be unavoidable, but I'm staying away from carbon seatposts, stems, bars, etc. I instead will be opting for titanium parts where possible. Though more expensive I feel it will give the bike a unique character. As of right now this is the build. I merely transferred the parts on my XTC over, except those that were not compatible. Here's my starting point:

Frame: Salsa El Mariachi Ti (XL 21")
Headset: Cane Creek 40
Botton Bracket: Sram GXP
Fork: Rock Shox Recon Silver TK Tapered 15mm Thru Axle
Brakes: Shimano Non-Series M446 160mm rotors
Brake Lever: Shimano Non-Series M445
Rear Derailleur: Sram X9 Type 2 Short cage
Shifter: Sram X7 trigger shifter
Cassette:  Shimano HG62 11-36
Chain: KMC X10
Crankset: Truvative Stylo 1.1 w/stock ring
Chainguide: MRP clamp mount top guide
Seatpost: Thomson Elite Setback 440mm 27.2mm
Saddle Fiz:ik Tundra manganese rails
Stem: Giant Connect
Bar: Giant Connect Riser Bar
Grips Giant lock ons
Wheels: Giant S-XC2 29er
Tires: Continental X-King ProTection 2.4
Tubeless with Giant rim tape and Stan's valve stems and sealant.

Bead Blasted Beauty...

So as you can see, it's currently a really bling frame with a bunch of junk parts hanging off it. it weighs in around 27 pounds geared and 25 pounds SS in this state. I took it for a ride twice this week. On Tuesday a few of us went up and rode some trails at Geisinger. This single track averages around 200 ft per mile of climbing no matter how you ride it so I got a feel for how it climbs and I like it. I think it will be just fine once I get the build dialed. Geometry wise the rear tire hooks up just fine when climbing and there is no drama, just need to get the weight down. Geisinger is relatively smooth trail and we only did about 7 miles so I didn't really get a feel for the ride quality on rough stuff or for longer rides, just hints.



The next night we went out for out weekly group ride at RB Winter and got to taste Ti in some rough stuff and I have to say, steel may very well be real, but titanium is freaking magical. The rear end of this frame is so cush in the rough stuff compared to my alloy XTC I thought I was losing air in the rear a few times. Where the XTC was a brutally stiff and harsh race machine for the short run, this is a frame I could go hard on all day and get off still smiling. Meanwhile this comfort does not seem to come at the expense of  lateral stiffness. I felt more confident descending on this frame than my XTC. There was no noticeable frame flex climbing out of the saddle, even in the instances where I really had to gut it out through technical uphill sections.

Overall, I don't think I could have made a better choice for my new XC frame, especially considering my preference for endurance riding as opposed to shorter course racing. I already have some upgrades planned to bring the spec up to the level of the frame and hopefully knock some weight off. I'm building a set of white Stan's No-Tubes 32h Crest ZTR rims on blue Hope Pro 2 Evo hubs with DT Swiss Revolution spokes and red alloy nipples. I'd like to upgrade the boat anchor Recon to a SID, replace the stem with a Thomson X4, and replace the bar with a custom Seven Cycles Ti Flatbar (unless they will do a riser bar for me). I'd also like to do a Chris King headset and bottom bracket eventually. I'm treating this frame as a lifetime bike, because Ti is timeless. At some point I will find a rigid fork. I may break my anti-carbon stance on this one and go with a Vanna White Niner RDO carbon fork.

So that's it for now...stay tuned for more bike pr0n and further thoughts on this frame as I get better acquainted with it.

Currently listening to: The Vines - Ride

Being Hard is Only Half the Story

Most serious recreational cyclists are gluttons for punishment in some way or another. Whether it's the heavy lactic acid burn of a good hill climb or bombing a rocky downhill knowing there's a 50 percent chance you'll eat it hard enough to draw blood, on road or off road, pain is an integral part of the sport. We hold hallowed the "hard men." Those who will ride come hell or high water. Those who crash and get back up and immediately charge on. It's a carefully nurtured and cultivated mindset. No whining, no quitting, no mercy. What is it though that makes these qualities so sought after? Why do some riders push the envelope. Why is it that some choose to brave foul weather for a training session rather than surrender to their turbo trainer cave? Why do some riders push on through a race when they are broken, battered, bruised, and without a chance in hell of winning in that condition? Why do cyclists choose to ride the more difficult route? Why do crazy people train for and compete in events like Trans-Iowa, a 310 to 340 mile race on the worst gravel and minimum maintenance roads in Iowa?

The reason being a "hardman" (or "hardwoman" for that matter) is so revered, is that cycling is really about the journey, not the destination. Not all journeys are exciting. Not all journeys are trying and filled with adversity. All journeys have a story, but not all stories are worth telling. I commute to work every day, but 95% of the time, it's an uneventful ride with nothing exciting to talk about afterwards. However, when I go out on a 50 mile bikepacking trip on my fat bike, riding well into the night, there's always a story or two to tell afterwards. Even my commute can get a little interesting if the weather turns on me. Tonight I was testing out a new light setup on my way home. I was blasting down the rail trail just completely lost in all the sensations that come with riding in a downpour at night. The raindrops and the water droplets flying off my front wheel put on a sort of hypnotic light show in the 1480 lumens of light blasting out of the front of my rig. The droplets from my front wheel cut slicing arcs through the diagonal streams of water pouring from the sky. Every now and then a drop would catch the edge of the front of my light and explode in a liquid shower of sparks. The rain felt amazing on my face, cool and refreshing against my hot skin. "Why don't I do this more often?" I thought, and then the crack of thunder reminded me that when it rains here, it tends to storm. I fortunately know the difference between hard and stupid, and quickly headed towards home. It was a much more interesting and entertaining ride home then heading home right after work while it's still light out in nice weather.

So in the end, I feel it is not really the quality of being able to endure that is valuable in and of itself. It is valuable because it allows one to achieve what they may not have otherwise and experience things both internal and external that they never could otherwise. Even experiences like complete failure are valuable. If I never try to push myself past my limits, how will I know where they are? Coming off of a recovery week I guess I might be feeling a little gung ho before this weekend's long ride. I'm psyching myself up I guess. This weekend I think I'm going to try to squeeze in some sort of insanely long road ride. Trans Iowa isn't for quite a few months and registration doesn't even open until next month, but it's never too early for base training.

Get the most out of a cycling festival: Recap of The Great Gravel Gathering

The instant I heard about it I was stoked. It was happening right in my backyard. It was the nation's first ever gravel road cycling festival. The Great Gravel Gathering was being put on by Mike Kuhn and High Speed Cycling in Milheim, PA. When I first heard about the event I didn't really do too much gravel road riding. the most gravel I rode was the fire roads that connected my favorite sections of choice singletrack in Bald Eagle State Forest. At that point I hadn't done any bikepacking either. I had recently decided to acquire a Salsa Fargo and I got it in and built up the week before the festival. That's where my journey began.

I was hanging out at Earl's Bicycle Shop building up the Fargo and chatting with my buddy and coworker there, Rylan. We both had decided we were going to go to the Great Gravel Gathering and I let him know I intended to bikepack to the event. For those of you unfamiliar with the activity, bikepacking is just like backpacking, you just use a bike. I would say the primary difference between bikepacking and touring is that bike packing is more about the ride than the destination, so often times you travel lighter than if you were touring and may put more miles on in a day than you might if you were touring. Anyway, Rylan said he would consider bikepacking out to the event with me. Since I had a shiny new bikepacking machine and gear, I thought I'd better go on a little one night trip to shake down my setup and make sure I was prepared for a three day trip. This is where the Great Gravel Gathering really began for me, at least in spirit.

The view from a power line cut on Skyline Drive 

My route for the shakedown cruise on the Fargo encompassed some things I had been meaning to ride for a long time but just didn't have the machine to do it properly. I wanted to ride the trail from the Susquehanna river near Montgomery, PA up to and across the top of the ridge to Ravensburg State Park which is about a 30 mile stretch, 20 miles of which are climbing. The route consists of Armstrong Road, Skyline Drive, Summit Trail, and Vandyke Road. All of these except Vandyke are closed to motor vehicles and terrain varies from unmaintained pavement to somewhat rough singletrack. It's a little too much for a cyclocross bike but a monstercross type setup would be about perfect. There are some fantastic views up there, especially on Skyline Drive, and the one vista on Vandyke Road is a stunner for sure.

Vandyke Road Vista

After completing that section of my ride I dropped down rt 880 to rt 44 and went up to Jersey Shore. I stopped and got a bite to eat (just an entire pizza and a dozen wings) and rode up the Pine Creek Rail Trail. I rode up half of it then turned around once it got completely dark. I then rode back to Bald Eagle State Forest to set up camp near Duncan trail. I managed to get lost once in the dark when I turned down what looked like the correct logging road and ended up deadending into straight up bushwhack. I ended up with 167 miles that day on a 60+ lb bike. The next day I woke up and rode home in a sort of long and windy way through Bald Eagle State Forest.

 

  So after I returned home from this solo trip I shared all of my photos and stories with Rylan and I think the adventure got him motivated to try it out himself. He decided to ride out to the Great Gravel Gathering with me and bikepack the trip, and then have his wife pick him up on Sunday. We planned out a very scenic route, got permission from our boss Earl to leave early from work that day, and then the day of met up at the shop to ride out to the event. We decided to start our adventure with burrito's from Mercado Burrito in Lewisburg, the most bangin' burrito joint in all of central PA.

We had a great ride out to the festival and I learned a very important lesson. Bikepacking is WAY more fun with friends as opposed to solo. It's much cooler to be able to share the experience with someone else than to just appreciate it yourself. Whether it's stopping at a vista and getting swarmed by thousands of ladybugs or just the simple pleasure cruising the mountains with the leaves changing colors, riding with a friend makes all of those experiences you have that much better. It was really cool to ride with Rylan for his first continuous half century ever. The fact that he did it on a 60+ lb bike, and then did it again the next day was awesome and I was glad to be able to ride with him when he did it!

When we arrived at the festival, we met up with some mountain biking friends that had driven out. We met up at Texas Chapel to watch Tour Divide finisher, Brett Simpson's presentation describing his race. We then got some dinner, stayed around, and met some new friends. I got to sit down for a good relaxed chat with Brett, who over the course of the weekend, probably ended up talking me into training for the Tour Divide race in 2015. After dinner, Rylan and I set up our campsite and crashed out hard.

The next day we were up bright and early and went into Millheim for coffee and a light breakfast at the Inglebean Coffee Shop, then it was back to camp to prepare for the day's rides. Rylan and I split up for the day to do different rides and I went on the 100 miler led by Matt Ferrari, winner of the single speed category of the Transylvania Epic Mountain Bike Stage Race and was in some pretty elite company for that ride. It's a little surreal when a guy who had won the Trans Iowa twice gives you a complement on how strong you're riding on a given day. I was stoked just to be able to ride with someone so legendary. Toward the end of the ride we decided to cut the group portion a little short and head towards town. A few of us threw in a little bonus climb on Ingleby road and then we cruised back to town. I passed Rylan and Brett on my way back into town as they were headed out for Brett's overnight trip to Poe Paddy State Park. I let Brett know I would meet them out at the campsite after I ate and grabbed my shelter and sleeping gear.

I went into town and crushed a large pizza (pizza is definitely a powerfood for me) packed my stuff and headed out in the dark to meet them. The bridge to Coburn was out for the entirety of the event but you could cross the creek by bike either by going across the mostly finished bridge, or by way of a technical single I-beam bridge off to the side. Riding into town I had ridden across the I-beam successfully so hubris got the better of me and I thought I'd ride it the other way on my way back to the camp site loaded with more gear. This was not a good decision. My bike and I went swimming. All my gear and my bike got nearly completely submerged. The good news was the Revelate Designs Viscacha seat bag I was storing my sleeping gear, phone, and non-riding clothing in is very water resistant. Everything was pretty dry that was in there, but my riding clothes and everything else got soaked. I was pissed until it started pouring down rain. At that point I realized I would have been very wet by the time I arrived at the campsite anyway so I mellowed out a little. As I was climbing the Siglerville-Milheim Pike for the third time that weekend, I got a little loopy and was singing songs and generally losing it just a little. By the time I was in the correct valley I was starting to really want to be finished riding for the day, I stopped in Poe Valley State Park (the wrong state park) and went through the campsite area and found a camp site with just a ton of bikes lying around. Naturally, I thought this had to be my destination so i rolled up leaned my bike up and went to start unpacking when a head popped out of the closest tent demanding to know what I was doing. Definitely not the right camp site. So I quickly hopped back on the bike and rolled around the rest of the campsites until I realized that I was in the wrong place and cruised down the road to the correct campground. I was finally finished riding! I was so excited that as I rolled down to the site, I stopped paying attention to the ground, hit a stump and almost OTB'd 5 feet from my final destination. It was time to crash for the night so I chatted with Brett and Rylan for a bit and then we all went to sleep.

The next day I rode back with the group and we had a nice ride back into town where showered and changed. We got breakfast while the awesome guys at Freeze Thaw Cycles looked at my bike which was acting up. They got it all patched up for me (for free!). I had breakfast with Brett, some of the people from the bike packing trip, some of the guys from Freeze Thaw, and a few others. Rylan and his wife had met up and were having a nice break fast together. We parted ways there as he had family obligations. It was awesome having him to hang out with for the weekend!

After breakfast I headed back to camp to unload some gear and I met up with my buddy Jesse and his friend Calvin. We ended up going out for a nice relaxing 30 mile group ride led by Brett in the Seven Mountains area. It was beautiful and a welcome break from the hammerfest of the previous day.


After that it was time to pack up and go home. When I got back to the Freeze Thaw Pop Up store, the awesome guys there presented me with a badass NEMO 40 degree backpacking sleeping bag for the unofficial most mileage competition. I really appreciated it, it was the perfect addition to my equipment as I was lacking a good sleeping bag.

I really feel like I sucked every last drop of awesome that I could out of the Great Gravel Gathering and bikepacking to and from the event was just an awesome way to enhance the experience and really get into the spirit of the event. By participating in as many of the group activities as possible I met a ton of people and really got to experience a lot of new riding. When the event was over, I was actually a little sad to pack up and go home. Unfortunately, the day wasn't getting any longer and I was losing daylight so I got all packed and started my ride home. I got over the mountain before dark and was home in a little under 3 hours. I got back and uploaded my GPS files and passed out.



The Great Gravel Gathering was an awesome experience that I would highly recommend to any rider. They had events for everyone and Mike Kuhn of High Speed Cycling did an awesome job. I came home with so much swag, it was kind of ridiculous. Also crazy props to Freeze Thaw Cycles. Not only do they seriously know their way around a bike, they have a passion for cycling that runs deep and strong. I can't wait to see what they can do with this event next year! I'm hoping to be able to help with the event and possibly lead some sort of long ride/bikepacking trip next year. After this past week I'm super stoked on gravel and bikepacking. Can't wait to see you out there on those fire roads!