Two Things

The latest Guitar Ted Podcast episode is out now and it is quite the rambling affair. Some definite nonsense was expressed, but we covered a lot of ground. We even were interrupted by N.Y. Roll's neighbor who detained him for several minutes so she could tell him the latest neighborhood gossip. 

Meanwhile I driveled on and on concerning the new 32"er from Twin Six which is not available yet. However; when it is N.Y. Roll says he's getting it. 

We shall see!

But along those lines, I submitted that we'd see a 32"er get raced at Unbound this coming weekend. Well, low and behold, Scott Bicycles put out there that they are putting a 32' wheeled version of their Addict gravel bike underneath Cameron Jones. 

Gotta say - I called it. Ha!

One of the other things we briefly touched upon is Jim Cummins finally getting his due as he is being inducted into the Gravel Cycling Hall of Fame today. Congratulations, Jim! 

As many of you long time readers know, I have said that the omission of Jim from the GCHoF all these years was a travesty of major proportions, when it comes to the mission of the GCHoF, that is. But now that things are being put to rights in regard to Jim Cummins and this hall of fame, I am at peace with the situation. 

It should be interesting to hear Jim's speech, which I hope will be on social media or the GCHoF site. I do wish I could have been there this evening, but I already have this big Nebraska trip coming up soon and it is eating up a lot of resources here. Speaking of which....

Going Camping 

My tent, sleeping pad, travel pillow, electrolyte, some computer accessories, and the laptop this is being published with were all extra expenses I incurred to be able to go on this trip. That all wasn't cheap, or of little significance, by the way. 

Heading to Emporia on top of all of that? Not in my deck of cards.  

I  did get everything set up and I actually took a nap in the tent using all the stuff I will be taking on the trip. It has been  quite a long time since I've been tent camping, but I should get into the groove of being an amateur homeless  person fairly easily. 

I want to say the last time I was camping was with my son, Jacob when we went to see the races at Iowa Speedway and ended up at Rock Creek State Park in a raging thunderstorm, 

Good times! Let's hope I don't have to ride out anything similar in Nebraska.  I know weather isn't a very solid bet this far out, but things are not looking too bad at the moment. I'd prefer it not be like "Gravel Worlds" weather though. That heat and humidity combo is not my cuppa tea. 

At any rate, things are coming together for this trip and soon it will be time to go. Waivers need signing and details need attending to, but right now I am on track and ready for anything.  

Fire Testing

Back in late July I had made plans for an overnight gravel grind with my Black Mountain Cycles MCD and this rack I am testing for RidingGravel.com. I had everything ready to go. I had one week that would work for this trip. I had two opportunities that week to make a go of it, and wouldn't you know? Both times got taken out by unexpected responsibilities that took precedence over going on some gravel journey. 

That's life sometimes. Since then, my schedule has been so broken up into small bits of free time that I haven't been able to piece together a slot where an overnight trip would work out. And now it's October and time is running out for 2022.

So, I figured that since things didn't look to be changing with regard to my schedule anytime soon, nor did my responsibilities seem to be clearing up, I have to regroup and see what is actually possible. That would be an out-and-back "coffee in the woods" type of ride where I use this rack to haul out a picnic and stuff to make coffee. 

Okay, but that meant that I needed to test my penny stove out. So, I got my camp kit out, some alternative fuels, and decided to have a go at this in the back yard. The results were 'spectacular'.

Mt stove and camp cooking kit fits in this Ti cup.

The contents. That orange bag contains a Ti windshield and the stand is obscured by the bag there.

I cannot remember when or where I got this all titanium cook kit from, but it is branded "Toaks" and it seems to be pretty sweet for a minimalist kit. I only had to add my handmade from a beer can "penny stove", fuel, and fire source. 

The cup has fold-out handles and the spork is a folder too. It's all super-light in weight and obviously pretty durable. Now the system is supposed to work with thiose fire-brick doodads that you can get to use with some stoves, but I decided to use the more commonly sourced white gas fuel based stove idea which can run on various fuel sources. You may have heard about the "penny stove" idea, it is a cheap way to go and works a trick. Plus, the beer can stove I made weighs next to nothing. Actually, it might be a Coca Cola can.....whatever. It works. 

So, here's a look at the stove set up in action, and admittedly, its a bit of a kludge with that Titanium stand meant for a brick of fuel. The stand folds up nicely though, and since I have it, I'm trying to make it work. More on the whole stove/stand thing in a minute. 

First I wanted to share what I had going on for fuel here. This may sound a bit nuts, but I thought, "Why not try it?", and I went for it anyway. Here's my thought process: The pandemic made it so that hand sanitizer is everywhere, and now that we really don't use the stuff again, I've noted several places that have it sitting around their entry ways, on counters, or even for free in small sample sized containers. The stuff obviously is loaded with alcohol, so...... Hmmmm... 

I poured a bunch I had into the stove and lit it. The flame was weak and what's even more alarming, the flame was invisible. Duh! Alcohol burns that way, right? The hand sanitizer was off-gassing alcohol and that was all that was burning. Hmm.... No good!

Note: Ti windshield goes on first- THEN light the fire!

It was at about this point that I was becoming somewhat concerned for safety!

Well, I didn't have any white gas, but I did have a ton of charcoal starting fluid, so.... I put some in the penny stove, lit that sucker up, and boom! We had fire alright. Too much fire! I threw the windshield around the stove as best I could, and that concentrated the heat better. But that sanitizer stuff mixed with lighter fluid? 

Rocket fuel! 

I had a blaze going in a rage for at least five minutes. It was a bit surprising and I was concerned that things were getting out of hand for a bit there, but eventually it calmed down. 

I did get the water boiling alright!

So, success, but a measured success. I have to make a couple mods which I think might be conducive to a better, safer experience. One- That windshield needs to go on before I light the fire. I can get that thing on there so it will leave barely any space between the base and the cup on the stand. 

Secondly, I can shorten up my penny stove a bit, which would bring the cup down into the windshield more. Also- I've tried using the stand upside down, but my penny stove is jussssst too big to fit between the legs of the stand. But that would be a good set up if it worked. 

And, of course, I'll get some proper white gas for the next time! Otherwise even with this bodged set up I could have made coffee, if I didn't burn down the forest first! The water did actually boil, so there ya go! 

Anyway, there is my pyrotechnical side on display! I'll hopefully have used this set up soon and I will report again on how it all went. Stay tuned....

Fire Testing

Back in late July I had made plans for an overnight gravel grind with my Black Mountain Cycles MCD and this rack I am testing for RidingGravel.com. I had everything ready to go. I had one week that would work for this trip. I had two opportunities that week to make a go of it, and wouldn't you know? Both times got taken out by unexpected responsibilities that took precedence over going on some gravel journey. 

That's life sometimes. Since then, my schedule has been so broken up into small bits of free time that I haven't been able to piece together a slot where an overnight trip would work out. And now it's October and time is running out for 2022.

So, I figured that since things didn't look to be changing with regard to my schedule anytime soon, nor did my responsibilities seem to be clearing up, I have to regroup and see what is actually possible. That would be an out-and-back "coffee in the woods" type of ride where I use this rack to haul out a picnic and stuff to make coffee. 

Okay, but that meant that I needed to test my penny stove out. So, I got my camp kit out, some alternative fuels, and decided to have a go at this in the back yard. The results were 'spectacular'.

Mt stove and camp cooking kit fits in this Ti cup.

The contents. That orange bag contains a Ti windshield and the stand is obscured by the bag there.

I cannot remember when or where I got this all titanium cook kit from, but it is branded "Toaks" and it seems to be pretty sweet for a minimalist kit. I only had to add my handmade from a beer can "penny stove", fuel, and fire source. 

The cup has fold-out handles and the spork is a folder too. It's all super-light in weight and obviously pretty durable. Now the system is supposed to work with thiose fire-brick doodads that you can get to use with some stoves, but I decided to use the more commonly sourced white gas fuel based stove idea which can run on various fuel sources. You may have heard about the "penny stove" idea, it is a cheap way to go and works a trick. Plus, the beer can stove I made weighs next to nothing. Actually, it might be a Coca Cola can.....whatever. It works. 

So, here's a look at the stove set up in action, and admittedly, its a bit of a kludge with that Titanium stand meant for a brick of fuel. The stand folds up nicely though, and since I have it, I'm trying to make it work. More on the whole stove/stand thing in a minute. 

First I wanted to share what I had going on for fuel here. This may sound a bit nuts, but I thought, "Why not try it?", and I went for it anyway. Here's my thought process: The pandemic made it so that hand sanitizer is everywhere, and now that we really don't use the stuff again, I've noted several places that have it sitting around their entry ways, on counters, or even for free in small sample sized containers. The stuff obviously is loaded with alcohol, so...... Hmmmm... 

I poured a bunch I had into the stove and lit it. The flame was weak and what's even more alarming, the flame was invisible. Duh! Alcohol burns that way, right? The hand sanitizer was off-gassing alcohol and that was all that was burning. Hmm.... No good!

Note: Ti windshield goes on first- THEN light the fire!

It was at about this point that I was becoming somewhat concerned for safety!

Well, I didn't have any white gas, but I did have a ton of charcoal starting fluid, so.... I put some in the penny stove, lit that sucker up, and boom! We had fire alright. Too much fire! I threw the windshield around the stove as best I could, and that concentrated the heat better. But that sanitizer stuff mixed with lighter fluid? 

Rocket fuel! 

I had a blaze going in a rage for at least five minutes. It was a bit surprising and I was concerned that things were getting out of hand for a bit there, but eventually it calmed down. 

I did get the water boiling alright!

So, success, but a measured success. I have to make a couple mods which I think might be conducive to a better, safer experience. One- That windshield needs to go on before I light the fire. I can get that thing on there so it will leave barely any space between the base and the cup on the stand. 

Secondly, I can shorten up my penny stove a bit, which would bring the cup down into the windshield more. Also- I've tried using the stand upside down, but my penny stove is jussssst too big to fit between the legs of the stand. But that would be a good set up if it worked. 

And, of course, I'll get some proper white gas for the next time! Otherwise even with this bodged set up I could have made coffee, if I didn't burn down the forest first! The water did actually boil, so there ya go! 

Anyway, there is my pyrotechnical side on display! I'll hopefully have used this set up soon and I will report again on how it all went. Stay tuned....

New Rack, New Weather

I reviewed the Scoutset Bag Brace recently on Riding Gravel.

 Not long ago I was sent this titanium front rack-brace thingie from Velo Garage & Taphouse from Kansas City, Missouri. They call the thing the Scoutset Bag Brace. So, upfront here, the Standard Disclaimer applies. That's because the kind folks at the Velo Garage & Taphouse let me keep the rack/brace after the review was completed. 

So, I thought about which bike I wanted this thing to 'live' on. I had several choices, but in terms of using the SBB (short for "Scoutset Bag Brace), and using it as intended, I thought of a different bike than my gravel bikes. 

That's because if I ever get to bike camping, as I have threatened to do for years, I would use my Ti Muk 2 fat bike. So, I grabbed the SBB off the Tamland, which I used to review it on, and swapped it over to my Ti Muk 2 fat bike, which I think should be a great choice here. Basically, there was one big reason for going with this bike, but overall I still think it is the right choice. 

A little closer look at the SBB on the Ti Muk 2

As I used the SBB on the Tamland Two, I had a bit of a conundrum in getting a light to live on that bike in conjunction with the big Cycle Pro handle bar bag I intended on using. Even the dry bag would interfere with a handle bar mounted light. So, I had to use the old star nut in a steer tube trick to side mount a light off a fork mounted rack boss. 

While that works, I do prefer my light source on a bicycle to be somewhere closer to handlebar height. That wasn't going to work on the Tamland Two. But the Ti Muk 2 is a better choice from a few different angles anyway, so I wasn't going to keep that SBB on the Tamland anyway. 

The Ti Muk 2 has a Schmidt generator hub and front light which I have the handlebar mount for. There was plenty of exposed steer tube on the Ti Muk to allow me to deck the SBB on top of the head set and get that as low as possible hanging off the front of the bicycle. This will allow for a dry bag to be carried on the SBB and maybe a lower profile bag could work if I wanted to go that way. My hope is that my tent might fit there, but something will work out, and it won't be dangling off the handle bar either. The light head will clear most anything I want to carry for camping, at least, so no worries there.

The Ti Muk also made sense from the standpoint of touring/bike packing since I have a Salsa Alternator Rack on the back, which could haul anything that might obstruct my light up front on the rack instead. So, the bike makes more sense from a bag carrying aspect for camping or touring than anything else I have at the moment. Plus it has the Rohloff, so I can take this down about any road without fear of ripping off a derailleur. 

The full look.

Now, for an opportunity and some better weather! Fortunately it seems as though Winter's last gasp has been played out. Boy! What a doozy it was! Saturday morning it was wicked cold and windy, with temperatures in the teens and then by Sunday afternoon it was calm and mid-50's. It looks like from here on out we are out of the grips of Winter, but as has been noted in the comments, I thought that a while back too! 

I'm not sure when I'll get this out for the trial run, but at some point I do want to do a fat bike century, and there is a route I have in mind which features a ton of dirt roads and hardly anything for resupply until Mile 70. That would suit this bike well since I could carry a lot of stuff on it. We will see.... There has been another idea suggested to me that concerns a rail trail and camping too, so I have ideas to work with here. 

Anyway. I hope to be out on the gravel roads this week. Stay tuned...

New Rack, New Weather

I reviewed the Scoutset Bag Brace recently on Riding Gravel.

 Not long ago I was sent this titanium front rack-brace thingie from Velo Garage & Taphouse from Kansas City, Missouri. They call the thing the Scoutset Bag Brace. So, upfront here, the Standard Disclaimer applies. That's because the kind folks at the Velo Garage & Taphouse let me keep the rack/brace after the review was completed. 

So, I thought about which bike I wanted this thing to 'live' on. I had several choices, but in terms of using the SBB (short for "Scoutset Bag Brace), and using it as intended, I thought of a different bike than my gravel bikes. 

That's because if I ever get to bike camping, as I have threatened to do for years, I would use my Ti Muk 2 fat bike. So, I grabbed the SBB off the Tamland, which I used to review it on, and swapped it over to my Ti Muk 2 fat bike, which I think should be a great choice here. Basically, there was one big reason for going with this bike, but overall I still think it is the right choice. 

A little closer look at the SBB on the Ti Muk 2

As I used the SBB on the Tamland Two, I had a bit of a conundrum in getting a light to live on that bike in conjunction with the big Cycle Pro handle bar bag I intended on using. Even the dry bag would interfere with a handle bar mounted light. So, I had to use the old star nut in a steer tube trick to side mount a light off a fork mounted rack boss. 

While that works, I do prefer my light source on a bicycle to be somewhere closer to handlebar height. That wasn't going to work on the Tamland Two. But the Ti Muk 2 is a better choice from a few different angles anyway, so I wasn't going to keep that SBB on the Tamland anyway. 

The Ti Muk 2 has a Schmidt generator hub and front light which I have the handlebar mount for. There was plenty of exposed steer tube on the Ti Muk to allow me to deck the SBB on top of the head set and get that as low as possible hanging off the front of the bicycle. This will allow for a dry bag to be carried on the SBB and maybe a lower profile bag could work if I wanted to go that way. My hope is that my tent might fit there, but something will work out, and it won't be dangling off the handle bar either. The light head will clear most anything I want to carry for camping, at least, so no worries there.

The Ti Muk also made sense from the standpoint of touring/bike packing since I have a Salsa Alternator Rack on the back, which could haul anything that might obstruct my light up front on the rack instead. So, the bike makes more sense from a bag carrying aspect for camping or touring than anything else I have at the moment. Plus it has the Rohloff, so I can take this down about any road without fear of ripping off a derailleur. 

The full look.

Now, for an opportunity and some better weather! Fortunately it seems as though Winter's last gasp has been played out. Boy! What a doozy it was! Saturday morning it was wicked cold and windy, with temperatures in the teens and then by Sunday afternoon it was calm and mid-50's. It looks like from here on out we are out of the grips of Winter, but as has been noted in the comments, I thought that a while back too! 

I'm not sure when I'll get this out for the trial run, but at some point I do want to do a fat bike century, and there is a route I have in mind which features a ton of dirt roads and hardly anything for resupply until Mile 70. That would suit this bike well since I could carry a lot of stuff on it. We will see.... There has been another idea suggested to me that concerns a rail trail and camping too, so I have ideas to work with here. 

Anyway. I hope to be out on the gravel roads this week. Stay tuned...

Wild & Wet Weekend

Investigating Rock Creek State Park

I had a weekend away from blogging here to spend time with my son, Jacob, who is going to be 11 years old here pretty quick. I was gifted some season tickets to Iowa Speedway by my Mom, so we bought another season's worth of tickets to go along with that for Jacob. He was stoked to go see the Indianapolis style racing cars on Saturday night, but first, there was a Camping World Truck series race on Friday evening that we went to. My plan was to go set up the new tent on Friday afternoon at Rock Creek State Park, go see the event on Friday night, sleep over, goof off Saturday for awhile, then go to the evening event at Iowa Speedway to see the Indy cars race. After that, we'd come home. A "budget" weekend, to be sure, but a good one to get away with my son.

Friday afternoon the first order of business was to secure a spot to camp and get the Sierra Designs Lightning 2 tent set up for its first test in the field. The set up went super smooth and then it was off to watch the race. That went well, and then it was back to the park to sleep off the day's excitement. Then things took a dramatic turn toward being "unsmooth".

This happens in Iowa quite a bit in high Summer. It gets dead still, the air temperature remains high, and the humidity levels are ridiculous. Friday night was just such an evening to start out with. I have managed to be able to sleep in such conditions before, but it never is easy to fall asleep for me. Having "neighbors" at the campground that would rather stay up, chat loudly, and have an occasional outburst, matched up with another group with a barking dog, made for a sleepless beginning for me. My son? Of course, he fell asleep immediately!

We were at the track early on Saturday.

 Then came the severe weather. I had an inkling that it would visit us as we settled in for the evening when I checked the radar on the iPhone. Sure enough, at 2:00am it started to rain, and immediately the sky was filled with a consistent lightning display with the accompanying thunder, of course. Rain slashed down so hard that I thought for certain I would find myself in the same situation I had found myself in when I was a child and water was rushing around my air mattress as if I were in a mini raging river. I kept thinking I felt a drip, or imagined the tent floor was soaked, but it wasn't. This was all good.

My son, however; doesn't care for storms and was wide awake, shivering and clutching me as the raging tempest continued for probably close to an hour before relenting. I thought we were in the clear when another, less severe rain came up with less lightning but more wind than before. This agitated my son for awhile longer, but eventually he fell back asleep. I was constantly checking radar, since I wasn't too keen on riding out a tornado or high winds in a two man tent. Things looked to clear up about 5:00am when I finally went to sleep for a bit. Well, that lasted until about 6:30am when my son insisted I awake to "get ready to go", since he was so excited to get on with things. Uggghhh!

Then I made a mistake. I reached into the vestibule area of the rain fly to grab a bag we had and as I jerked it inside I brought in about a quart of water with it that dumped all over the inside of the tent, creating a big mess. Double uggghh! Well, I kept my composure, since I was too groggy to be anything but zombie-like, and anyway, what could I do but get on with the clean up. That I did and we continued on with our plan.

Following are some selected images from the Indy race which was won by the Indy 500 champ, Ryan Hunter-Reay .....

Weather threatened the start of the event, but despite a short rain delay after the race started, it was okay. 

An early wreck sent debris flying in the air, much to my son's delight.

The impact of Juan Pablo Montoya's crash in Turn 4 was so loud it was scary. He walked away unharmed.

The day Saturday was fun, but it was a tough slog for both of us, and when I drove home after the race, Jacob slept the entire way home and pretty much cannot even remember going up to his own bed that night. I remember times like that when I was a kid too. Hopefully it was a good memory for him and I'm just happy we survived the night Friday!

And that was a nice break from the regular stuff. Now one week to go at work before RAGBRAI starts and two till GTDRI. It's gonna get busy!

Wild & Wet Weekend

Investigating Rock Creek State Park

I had a weekend away from blogging here to spend time with my son, Jacob, who is going to be 11 years old here pretty quick. I was gifted some season tickets to Iowa Speedway by my Mom, so we bought another season's worth of tickets to go along with that for Jacob. He was stoked to go see the Indianapolis style racing cars on Saturday night, but first, there was a Camping World Truck series race on Friday evening that we went to. My plan was to go set up the new tent on Friday afternoon at Rock Creek State Park, go see the event on Friday night, sleep over, goof off Saturday for awhile, then go to the evening event at Iowa Speedway to see the Indy cars race. After that, we'd come home. A "budget" weekend, to be sure, but a good one to get away with my son.

Friday afternoon the first order of business was to secure a spot to camp and get the Sierra Designs Lightning 2 tent set up for its first test in the field. The set up went super smooth and then it was off to watch the race. That went well, and then it was back to the park to sleep off the day's excitement. Then things took a dramatic turn toward being "unsmooth".

This happens in Iowa quite a bit in high Summer. It gets dead still, the air temperature remains high, and the humidity levels are ridiculous. Friday night was just such an evening to start out with. I have managed to be able to sleep in such conditions before, but it never is easy to fall asleep for me. Having "neighbors" at the campground that would rather stay up, chat loudly, and have an occasional outburst, matched up with another group with a barking dog, made for a sleepless beginning for me. My son? Of course, he fell asleep immediately!

We were at the track early on Saturday.

 Then came the severe weather. I had an inkling that it would visit us as we settled in for the evening when I checked the radar on the iPhone. Sure enough, at 2:00am it started to rain, and immediately the sky was filled with a consistent lightning display with the accompanying thunder, of course. Rain slashed down so hard that I thought for certain I would find myself in the same situation I had found myself in when I was a child and water was rushing around my air mattress as if I were in a mini raging river. I kept thinking I felt a drip, or imagined the tent floor was soaked, but it wasn't. This was all good.

My son, however; doesn't care for storms and was wide awake, shivering and clutching me as the raging tempest continued for probably close to an hour before relenting. I thought we were in the clear when another, less severe rain came up with less lightning but more wind than before. This agitated my son for awhile longer, but eventually he fell back asleep. I was constantly checking radar, since I wasn't too keen on riding out a tornado or high winds in a two man tent. Things looked to clear up about 5:00am when I finally went to sleep for a bit. Well, that lasted until about 6:30am when my son insisted I awake to "get ready to go", since he was so excited to get on with things. Uggghhh!

Then I made a mistake. I reached into the vestibule area of the rain fly to grab a bag we had and as I jerked it inside I brought in about a quart of water with it that dumped all over the inside of the tent, creating a big mess. Double uggghh! Well, I kept my composure, since I was too groggy to be anything but zombie-like, and anyway, what could I do but get on with the clean up. That I did and we continued on with our plan.

Following are some selected images from the Indy race which was won by the Indy 500 champ, Ryan Hunter-Reay .....

Weather threatened the start of the event, but despite a short rain delay after the race started, it was okay. 

An early wreck sent debris flying in the air, much to my son's delight.

The impact of Juan Pablo Montoya's crash in Turn 4 was so loud it was scary. He walked away unharmed.

The day Saturday was fun, but it was a tough slog for both of us, and when I drove home after the race, Jacob slept the entire way home and pretty much cannot even remember going up to his own bed that night. I remember times like that when I was a kid too. Hopefully it was a good memory for him and I'm just happy we survived the night Friday!

And that was a nice break from the regular stuff. Now one week to go at work before RAGBRAI starts and two till GTDRI. It's gonna get busy!