T-53: Test...Run?



Simple and fast pack with the BOB

Last Saturday was the first truly beautiful spring day of the year.  We decided to use the opportunity to load the bikes with the full kit…and the new B.O.B. trailer and go for a longish ride.  The Bob necessitated a different pack than the panniers. So I went throughout the house, snatching laundry bags of b sizes.  I create bags for personal items, dubbed bathroom bags, then underwear bags, then clothing bags.  The idea here is that we will need to dig through the yellow hole of the Bob to find specific items.



Now, I have generated an elaborate system of bags, and often bags within bags, that serve various purposes and needs.  There is, of course,

1.       The bag with the tent, ground cloth, and rain fly. 



Bag after bag

2.       The bag with comforter, ground sheet and my pillow

3.       The bag with kitchen supplies

4.       The bag with emergency and first aid supplies

5.       Two bags of personal items

6.       Two bags of underwear

7.       Two bags of clothing

8.       Two rolls of sleeping pads

9.       Small bag of tools and flat repair kit

10.   A small bag of Adventure Cycling maps

11.   And more…I think I have counted 21 bags altogether!

We loaded the bikes, bags, BOB, panniers, and ourselves into the car and went to Willow Metro Park.  After a quick and easy pack, we head off for the Trial Run.  Wes was on his good ol’ Schwinn LeTour, carrying his gear in panniers.  I attached the BOB to my pretty good ol’ Trek 7600.    It is a breeze to pull or carry this load.  We are very happy.

It was an absolutely beautiful day, such a relief after the long cold and wet spring we have been experiencing.  We remarked at the very high Huron River, well over its banks in many places.   We zoomed off…more accurately, I zoomed off.   Not only have my months with a trainer improved my fitness and stamina, the BOB really lightens the load.  I felt almost no drag and had little to no trouble adjusting to the changes in turning radius.  I did have trouble parking and have the feeling this will be an on-going challenge.

Wes was much slower.  His transition to the trip is going to be much more difficult.  He just has not had the capacity to do much training at this point.  He likes to blame the difference in our fitness level on the slight difference in our age…he is, after all, 3 years older than me.  When Wes tells me this, I practice what he calls the “the bobble head” which is a vaguely affirmative head nod.  Graciously I don’t point out that my brother Scott and his wife Deb, who are exactly our ages, could outhike, outwalk and generally outperform us in every way…that perhaps it’s not really an issue of age[SN1] , but of fitness habits.  But I’m too kind for that

We had a great ride, enjoyed a nice visit to the Huron Metropark Nature center (love the box turtles and friendly head-circling snakes), then decided to a full camp test at a picnic ground.  At Acorn Knoll, past the sloughs of standing water, we set up the tent.  It was easy and great.  We are very impressed with REI tent, but note that we need at least four tent stakes to withstand a big awful rainstorm, which we will surely encounter on our ride.

I lay out the sleeping gear.  It is easy and comfy.  Wes crawls in, stretches out, and almost immediately falls asleep.  Within minutes, he is snoring and drooling.  This looks like success to me.

The next test is the all-important coffee making test.  In years past, we have actually carried a coffee pot.   I want to try a silicon pour spout attached to our cook-kit.  With our dandy little Brunton cooker, pot, pour spout and Melitta strainer, we may a damn good cup of coffee.  Another success…and a critical one for my coffee addict husband.

So I am thrilled with the BOB.  I am happy with the pack.  I am really happy with the new seat, which will end the excruciating abrasion in my “lady-parts”.   The choices we are making are working and we are getting more and more excited.  Just a few more days now….oh boy!

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 [SN1]

T-73: Getting Ready -- Bearing the Load

Last Saturday, I drove Wes crazy with insisting we gather everything we think we might want to take and seeing if we could even begin to bear the load.  Wes wondered, with reason, why I was so hell-fired up to test all this, when we were still more than two months from leaving?

My future kitchen

This is true, of course, but we have been buying clothes and equipment, and I was assembling the kitchen and bathroom from our camping equipment.

The kitchen had the requisite cooker and gas.  The cooker itself is  a miracle of tiny-ness, weighing less than 8 ounces and yet capable of boiling water in a few minutes.  A cooking pot, a frying pan, a grabber, and two small metal plates make up our cook kit.  Add a Swiss Army knife, lexan knives, forks, and spoons, along with little spatula, a pourer, a couple of tiny bottles for olive oil, plastic salt and pepper shakers, a silicon pouring spout, and you have a pretty functional camp kitchen for less than 7 pounds. 

I debate whether to take the water purifier, knowing that we will be in some very remote areas in what will likely be a drought year.  It’s heavy and bulky, however, at more than 1.5 pounds.  For now, it is out, though with trepidation.  I remember only too well getting giardia while backpacking without water purification during a drought year.  The only water available was highly suspect, and sure enough it wasn’t long before I was feverish, with streaming bowels, projectile vomit and stomach cramps that doubled me over.  This was more than a little nightmarish when we were more than 3 days from any possible help.  (Of course, Wes of the cast iron stomach did not get sick, and the night of the fever, more than 40 elk walked through our camp).  Maybe we will carry it on the western half of our trip and mail it back when we get to more reliable water country.  

I gathered the bathroom with pack towels and travel versions of our personal care items.  We debate: swim shoes or flip flops.  It is absolutely necessary to have shower shoes at campgrounds, but we also want to be able to swim in lakes and streams when we can. Wes opts for swim shoes, even though they take forever to dry.  I choose flip-flops.  Along with an emergency kit, necessary candles and lanterns, we now have another 7 pound pannier filled.

We pick out our clothes for hot, cold, and wet weather, for biking, and for town.  This fills two big panniers.  I placed technology, maps, and personal items in the rigged up bags for the handlebars.  Of course, there was the bedroom.  The pile looked gigantic. Would we really be able to carry all that?  Was this whole pile going to fit on two bikes? 

Even more to the point, even if it fit on the bike, could we carry it? 

I rounded up all the bungees and rigging I could.  I was able to put the big panniers on Wes’ big old Schwinn (which he is not taking), along with the bed and his pads.  I put the small panniers, the tent and my pads on my Trek, which I am (probably) taking.  Two handlebar bags and we were set for a trial ride.

We gingerly mounted our bikes and took off.  Hey! This was not bad at all.  We have carried far worse on previous rides.  Granted, we were riding around flat Detroit and we only went about a mile, but this was definitely a success!  We found we could carry everything we needed to survive –without a trailer and with the equipment we had.

I was buoyant.  I still am.  Our total load was 70 pounds, less than the absolute maximum of 80 pounds.  We could add food, a few luxuries like my penny whistle, a book or two, and still make it.  We can make it.  This trip is for real.  And we are truly getting ready.