B17

 

Back from the shop

Christmas arrived a couple days early this year, when I received word from a repair shop that my Brooks B17 Imperial bicycle saddle could be saved.

I’ve been a huge fan of the Brooks England’s handmade leather saddles for many years, crediting them for letting me ride my bikes comfortably for thousands of miles.

This particular B17 has been with me for so long now that it’s almost a part of me. I’ve ridden on it for more than 6,000 miles, including over major parts of the Great Divide mountain bike route between Canada and Mexico and the northern tier route between Anacortes WA and Bar Harbor ME.

So when the saddle’s leather started drooping and the tightening mechanism stopped working properly a year ago, I was saddened at the thought that I might soon have to say adios to an old friend.

Sick saddle

Critics will wonder what all the fuss is about, because they say the saddles are anything but comfortable for them. It’s true that the B17s, which the UK-based Brooks has been manufacturing for more than 100 years, are not instant-gratification technology. In fact, right out of the box, the saddles can be hard and unyielding—a real pain in the ass.

To make them comfortable, they need to be broken in gradually by riding them hundreds of miles. Once the leather softens and conforms to a rider’s sit bones, the saddle will fit a rider’s backside like a glove.

When I first realized that something was amiss with my B17 Imperial last year, I bought a new one, just in case the old one absolutely had to be replaced.

I have been riding the new B17 for short distances for several months. But with fewer than 500 miles on the saddle, it is still hard as a rock and nowhere near broken-in enough for serious touring.

Fortunately, in early December, I found a Brooks England-approved saddle repairman in Philadelphia, who mended my old saddle for $20. For him, a simple fix.

“It looks like it’s got plenty of life left,” said Simon Firth, of Firth & Wilson Transport Cycles, in the city of brotherly love.

Music to my ears. Now I am looking forward to all the new adventures I’ll be having riding on my old B17,  while continuing to break in the new one, just in case.

Back on the Troll, where it belongs

Stealth cyclists sleep cheap

 

Our stealth site in Wyoming's Great Basin

It’s hard to imagine a less expensive way to travel than by bicycle, particularly if you don’t mind camping.

Bicycle touring is even cheaper if you are OK “stealth camping”—that is, discreetly pitching your tent or hanging your hammock in the woods on the side of the road, and making do without the bathrooms, picnic tables, fire rings and similar luxuries provided at established campgrounds that charge fees.

My friend Jim and I got a taste of stealth camping on a remote, 400-mile section of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route between Pinedale WY and Steamboat Springs CO last summer.

On this part of the GDMBR, which goes through Wyoming’s beautiful but austere Great Basin, you have no choice but to stealth camp, because motels and campgrounds are as rare as potable water on the route.

There is plenty of publicly owned land, however, where you are free to camp pretty much wherever you want, and that’s what we did.

I’m fine with stealth camping on public land. But I don’t believe I would be comfortable camping without permission on private land, particularly where signs discouraging trespassing are posted.

Many touring cyclists stealth camp as much as possible, though, at least partly for economic reasons. 

“I used to call it, eating out of the garbage can and sleeping in the ditch,” says George Recker, 74, who went on his first bike tour in the late 1960s and has been a stealth-camping aficionado ever since.

Recker stealth site in Texas

Key things to look for in potential stealth sites are flat spots for tents, nearby water sources, cover, and perhaps a great view, veteran cyclists say.

Recker’s eight survival rules:

1. Don’t be seen leaving the road.
2. Don’t camp where a car can be driven.
3. Eliminate or cover reflective material.
4. No fires.
5. Be quiet.
6. Set up late and leave early, if necessary.
7. Opt for subdued tent colors rather than bright ones.
8. Avoid sites within sight of buildings.

“I enjoy the process of finding interesting camps,” says Recker.

“It’s not always possible, but most of the time if you don’t panic a decent place appears . . . away from the fray.”

“The closer to dark the less picky I get.”

Recker on gravel near Eugene OR

One of our stealth sites in southern Wyoming. At least we weren't in the middle of the road!

Meals on (2) wheels

Breakfast on the GDMBR, l-r: Doug, Mike

For bikepackers, the lighter their meals on wheels, the better—as long as the food they choose provides the energy they need to continue pedaling.

There are three basic food-packing strategies for bike packers.

Some veteran bikepackers, in the interests of shaving ounces from their loads, do much of their dining at the sometimes widely-dispersed restaurants and convenience stores along the way. During these stops, they stock up on enough sandwiches, snacks and other cold fare to get them to the next resupply point. This approach lets them travel without stoves, fuel and other cooking gear.

Other bikepackers bring stoves but try to limit the weight of their own kits by relying mostly on commercially prepared freeze-dried fare for their meals.

Still other cyclists, like me, also bring stoves and other cooking supplies but put together most of their own meals, either in advance or on the fly.

I feel that my homemade meals provide me with more energy—and are less expensive—than the commercially prepared freeze-dried meals.

A five-day supply of my homemade provisions is the most I have carried. For longer trips, I send general delivery resupply caches to post offices along the route.

To keep the weight of my homemade bikepacking meals down, I rely mostly on dry ingredients: oatmeal, dehydrated vegetables and beans, instant brown rice, pasta or noodles and instant potatoes.

My standard bikepacking breakfast starts with a tablespoon of instant coffee mixed with an envelope of cocoa mix. 

I add two packets of instant oatmeal, three tablespoons of instant milk (I have been using nonfat but am planning to switch to dried whole milk for the extra calories), and an envelope of vanilla-flavored instant breakfast.

If I am in a hurry to get down the road, I just soak this mixture in cold water while I am packing camp and consume it cold, without firing up the stove.

After I finish the oatmeal, I fill my pot with water and a packet of Emergen-C, a vitamin-infused powdered beverage. This helps clean the pot and gets me down the road, without wasting water. (I have learned not to waste water during a bike-packing tour, particularly when, as is often the case, I have to find it, filter it or purify it.)

For lunch, I usually just snack on whatever I have been able to scrounge up in convenience stores along the route. I particularly like tortillas (preferably whole wheat) slathered with peanut butter and honey and/or bananas. Cheese, jerky, chocolate milk and fig bars are also great options.

My go-to bikepacking dinner starts with a packet of tuna as an appetizer.

For the main course, I combine 1/2 cup of instant brown rice with a couple of tablespoons of dehydrated beans and veggies in water, and either a packet of NongShim gourmet Ramen (definitely worth the extra price) or a spoonful of Massel stock powder. I also usually add a couple of tablespoons of instant potatoes to the mixture.

This concoction fills my belly and gives me good energy the next day.

On the advice of other touring cyclists, I am planning to start adding a generous dash of coconut oil to my breakfasts and a similar amount of olive oil to my evening meals.

In addition, I plan to start adding some fresh veggies, including sauteed onions, bell peppers and garlic, to my dinners.

Kitchen at Mosquito Lake, MT, GDMBR

I have also been sold on the concept of downing a shot of decent whiskey after dinner, largely for the additional calories.

Other combinations I intend to add to the dinner menu in the future include red lentils with quinoa and presoaked green lentils with instant brown rice.

Fresh fruits and vegetables, Subway sandwiches, and other restaurant fare, are great additions to the touring bikepacker’s diet, and these are often available in trailside towns.

On the recommendation of Mike Evanoff, a bike touring veteran who accompanied me on a section of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route last summer, I plan to start adding dried berries, raisins and nuts to my oatmeal breakfasts.

Jim Ketcham-Colwill fixing dinner south of Pinedale WY, GDMBR

“I keep the brown sugar separate, and add a packet of coconut oil once it (oatmeal) is cooked,” Evanoff says.

“I just bring the mix to a boil, simmer for a minute and then put the pot into a cozy to sit for a while.

Dried whole milk is another good ingredient to add if you are so inclined.”

You won’t regret eating as well as possible on your own rides. Good meal choices will not only help ensure that you are physically capable of completing your tour but may also enhance the prospects that you will enjoy the journey.

Dave Green enjoying predawn breakfast on the TransVirginia 

Hanging in there

Stronger fingers make for stronger climbers.

And by using hangboards, climbers of all ages, including my fellow seniors, can increase the strength of their fingers and grips at home—without having to break the piggy bank.

Hangboards, generally made out of wood or grit-impregnated plastic, usually include a variety of shapes and sizes of holds to hang on.

They’re great off-season training devices for climbers who don’t have access to indoor climbing gyms or don’t want to climb indoors. They are also good options for climbers who are trying to minimize their potential exposures to Covid-19 and other viral contagions.

I’ve been using hangboards regularly recently to try to get back into reasonable climbing shape in the wake of suffering a shoulder separation during a bikepacking accident more than a year ago.

Here’s some intel based on my personal experience:

First, the holds on some commercially available hangboards are too small and challenging to be of much use to anybody other than a small elite of rockclimbing superstars.

Second, to avoid debilitating injury, warm up thoroughly before every hangboarding session—and don’t push the envelope on smaller holds until you are really up for the challenge.

Third, wood hangboards are a lot easier on the fingertips than grit-impregnated plastic ones.

Fourth, there’s no need to spend a small fortune on a hangboard.

On the latter point: After many years of getting nowhere on a series of expensive plastic boards, I finally salvaged my current go-to favorite from a scrap heap in the garage.

My favorite board is just a board

It’s a 28-inch-long piece of 2”x 4” that I screwed into a beam in the basement. Cost: zero.

It’s so easy on my fingers that I have been using it regularly for more than a month now, and I can tell that my fingers are getting stronger.

As my fingers get even stronger, I will start adding weight to my climbing harness to add to my hanging load.

I’ve been using my homemade board every other day, doing ten sets of two ten-second hangs, with ten seconds between the reps and a four-minute rest between sets.

Afterward, I run through a set of slopers, edges and pinches on one of the plastic boards.

I plan to maintain the drill through the winter.

How well this program works won’t be known for sure until spring, when I hope to resume climbing outdoors on real rock.

In the meantime, I will be hanging out a lot in the basement.

Sticker shock on this one

My favorite plastic hangboard. So iLL Iron Palm. Good slopers, edges and pinches. A new wood version of this looks particularly interesting.

 

Trial by TransVirginia

 

If you are the kind of cyclist who believes there’s gold in them thar hills, the 500-plus—mile TransVirginia Bike Route from Washington, D.C., to Damascus, Va., should definitely be on your bucket list

But based on recent experience, some important considerations should be kept in mind.

At least judging from the 182-mile section of the reportedly easier version of the route that my friend Dave and I completed in November (https://www.transvirginia.org), much of the track goes up and down one hill after another, with level spots a rarity.

And many of those hills are likely to challenge any rider’s skills and stamina. One was so steep we had to push our bikes up it.

Hike-a-bike, yikes!

The route, which winds through Virginia Hunt country and hardscrabble mobile home communities alike, is certainly worth adding to the bucket list solely for its scenic beauty.

But from our experience, I would recommend attempting the route earlier in the year than November due to shorter daylight hours and iffier weather in the late fall.

The cold winds we encountered, particularly the headwinds during the long hill climbs, added considerably to the challenge. Once a gust blew me into a surprise U-turn while I was pedaling slowly up a steep hill. On several occasions, similar gusts on screaming downhills threatened to knock me over.

If you plan to take on this route, particularly if traveling solo, I would heartily also recommend that you carry a reliable navigational backup.

Dave’s phone, which he was relying on primarily for navigation, failed on the final day of our journey.

Thankfully, my phone, which was also packed with redundant navigational programs, worked like a champ to the end, as did my Garmin eTrex 20x backup.  

Icy surprise

The hills, chilly winds and the scarcity of daylight hours available to us impeded our ability to maintain the 60-mile-per-day average mileage necessary to meet our goal of completing the whole route to Damascus in nine days.

When I awoke at 5 a.m. on morning four to an iced-over tent, partially frozen water bottles, a sluggish fuel canister—and a forecast for two more nights of even lower temperatures in the 20’s—I voted to move the goal posts in and declare victory for the year.

Later that day, we rented a pickup truck in nearby Harrisonburg VA to drive home.

I was just not prepared for this kind of cold. I can always finish the route some other time. I figure it’s better to enjoy my journeys than to simply survive them.

Campground's heated bathroom

Dave working on a plan

Dave enjoying celebratory snack

 

C&O Canal trail shakedown ride

If you are eager for company while riding the 184.5-mile C&O Canal trail linking Washington, D.C., to Cumberland, MD, plan your trip for a fair-weather Labor Day weekend and you won’t be disappointed.

Alas, as I discovered during a three-day shakedown tour on the trail during the recent holiday weekend, the throngs of touring cyclists—along with the multitude of wagon-hauling parking-lot-to-campsite-hiker/campers—means breathing room may be scarce in the national park’s 31 free hiker-biker campsites.

I lucked out on the first night of my weekend adventure after 77.5 miles in the saddle when a generous group of families invited me to set up my tent at their paid drive-in Antietam Creek campsite at Mile 69.6—after finding that the Huckleberry Hill hiker-biker site where I had intended to camp at Milepost 62.9—was already jammed.

Antietam Creek

On my second night out, I shared the airier White Rock  Hiker-Biker site at Mile 126.4 west of Hancock MD with five other extremely courteous touring cyclists and never felt that personal space was lacking.

I originally planned to do the return ride home in two days but got ambitious and rode the entire 133.3 miles on my third day out.

Encouraging me was that the park service has dramatically improved the tow path’s trail surface over the past several years. In fact, more than 40 miles of the trail between around White’s Ferry MD to the cut-off to Shepherdstown, WV, is now covered with packed rolled gravel that rides like asphalt.

 

Improved surface

My bike redesign proved itself to be a tremendous success. By swapping out my rear rack and panniers for a seat postpack and handlebar harness, and then packing far more judiciously, I cut 10 pounds from the bike’s overall load. I could certainly feel the difference in weight during the riding and was able to rev up my traditional pace by up to several miles per hour.

For me, it’s the aerobars—the handlebar attachments that allow me to carry much of my weight on my elbows instead of on my hands—that makes the longer rides possible. When you get them tuned just right, you can cruise comfortably on them for many miles.

When I do this route again—possibly adding the 150-mile Great Allegheny Passage connecting trail linking Cumberland to Pittsburgh—I will use a hammock instead of a tent. I have found that my tent collects too much dew and vapor condensation on this trail, which meanders along the Potomac River.

The hammock also makes it far easier to “stealth camp” along the trail if and when the designated campsites are overly congested.

Home 133.3 miles later

Riding the GDMBR

 

Photo: Jim Ketcham-Colwill

A high-quality water filter is an absolute necessity for the Great Divide Mountain Bike route, because potable water is not always readily available along the trail.

In fact, over some parts of the trail, and particularly through the long sections of desert south of Pinedale WY, much of what little surface water my friend Jim and I saw while riding through this area earlier this summer was not only not potable, but polluted with cow manure as well.

So especially in the desert, top off your bottles whenever you can, and always carry enough water to get to the next reliable water source.

Speaking from recent experience, I recommend an early start on GDMBR rides, and particularly those through the Wyoming desert, both to avoid as much afternoon heat as possible and to increase your likelihood of getting to your destination before dark. In addition, I would recommend that you carry a powerful bike light.

Jim and I were benighted three times between Pinedale and Steamboat, mostly due to getting late starts for a variety of reasons, including having to wait for the Rawlins Post Office to open one morning to pick up an errant resupply package. The fact that many of the roads were more challenging than we anticipated also was a factor.

My dim little headlamp proved to be of little use for navigating these rough desert roads in the dark. The going was enough of a challenge in most places on the trail under a blazing desert sun.

I think most people who attempt to ride the GDMBR agree that less is more when it comes to how much gear to carry. I know I felt every extra ounce of unnecessary baggage over the 898.4 miles I ultimately rode between Butte MT and Steamboat in August.

I ditched more than five pounds of extra clothes and gear in Pinedale, and I am hoping to cut an additional 10 pounds from my rig before attempting another trail section next year.

Also important to consider is that between Pinedale and Steamboat, there really aren’t many formal campgrounds near the trail. That means you will need to figure out how to prepare your meals without a picnic table. In addition, you will need to become adept at digging your own cat holes and taking care of your personal business, often without much more than some scraggly sagebrush for cover.

A final word of advice: If you want to ride this trail, start training on hills pronto, and the steeper and longer and rougher those hills the better, because that’s what you are going to get on the GDMBR.

Photo: Jim Ketcham-Colwill

Bearly there

Mosquito Lake at sundown

 Late in the afternoon last month, my friend Dave and I were sitting on the edge of the remote, sun-baked dirt mountain road to Pinedale WY, after the hellacious hike-a-bike up through the Union Pass area of the Great Divide route. We were having a snack when a man wearing a large Stetson approached slowly on an ATV and apologized for his dust. He looked like the Marlboro man. A rancher, we assumed.

He looked us over, then warned us that he had seen six grizzly bears in the area earlier that day. The bears were feeding on dead cows (apparently one of the bears was killing calves) and that it would be in our best interest to ride another 25 miles down the road to get out of their range, he said. This seemed like a reasonable suggestion to me.

But a few miles down the trail, we stopped to camp for the night at Mosquito Lake. We were worn out and didn’t have sufficient sunlight nor the will to travel farther.

To avoid attracting bears to our campsite that night, we carefully hung our food, aromatic toiletries, cooking utensils and trash high in a tree before retiring to our tents. I brought my bear repellent into the tent with me and soon fell into the deep sleep experienced by people who ride bikes up through steep mountain passes all day.

I awoke just before dawn to an eerie chorus of howls from wolves or coyotes but there was no sign of bears and the food bags were still safely hanging.

Mosquito Lake at dawn

It wasn’t until we were packing after breakfast that I discovered that I had forgotten to hang one item for the night: A large open bag of teriyaki-flavored beef jerky. It had spent the night beside me in the tent, in my hydration backpack. Even I could smell it from a couple of feet away.

I may as well have been sleeping on a slab of raw salmon or on a bed of bacon grease, I thought. I’m not sure what the chances are that a grizzly would attack somebody in their tent, even if they were wearing meat clothes like Lady Gaga.

But all authorities warn against storing food in a tent in bear country. Thankfully the bears had better things to do that night than harass a foolish gray-bearded cyclist who knows better than to tease them.

The rubber meets the road

On the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, you are only as good as your rubber.

At least that’s a key lesson my friend Jim and I both learned recently while riding a section of the mostly dirt and gravel trail linking Canada and Mexico, after we each had a Maxxis tire fail.

My Maxxis Ikon tire developed a series of disturbing bubbles in the tread in a remote corner of Idaho. The tread was somehow delaminating. I had spare emergency tubes for my tires, which were set up tubeless, but no spare tire. So I had to backtrack about 20 miles through a mostly unsigned network of rough wilderness snowmobile and forest service trails to purchase a suitable replacement in West Yellowstone MT.

Adding spice to the quest, my only navigation device for the ride to West Yellowstone from the Big Springs campground near Island Park Idaho was my Google Maps app, and it stopped working in the middle of nowhere with nobody around half way to town.

Saw a large bear print, possibly of a grizzly, in this very soft rail trail heading to West Yellowstone

Fortunately, just as I was considering that panic might be my best and only realistic option, I discovered a crudely marked wooden sign pointing toward West Yellowstone. I then guessed the right direction to the tourist town at a couple of subsequent unmarked trail intersections. Finally the Google Maps app started working again.

After I bought the new tire, it took me three days to catch up with Dave and Mike, the crew I was riding with at the time. I caught up with the duo in Grand Tetons National Park, after a white-knuckled shortcut through the almost bumper-to-bumper Yellowstone National Park traffic.

I finally caught up with Dave and Mike

One of Jim’s Maxxis Minion tires developed a similar bubble issue a week later near the historic Wyoming town of South Pass.

With the assistance of the proprietor of Wild Bill’s B&B in nearby Atlantic City, Jim was able to hire a shuttle ride to a Lander WY bike shop, where his tire was replaced.

Jim's shuttle to Lander

The unanticipated delay forced us to do a longer-than-anticipated 82-mile ride through the desert the next day so we could remain on schedule to pick up resupply packages at the Rawlins post office before it closed for Sunday.

The best way to protect yourself from the inconvenience that results from a wilderness tire failure would be to carry a spare. But that’s not likely to be a realistic option for many GDMBR riders,  because they’re striving to keep the load of their weights down, and tire failures, unlike simple flats, are not all that common.

You can’t bring a whole bike shop along with you on a ride. Some problems you just have to deal with as they arise, and then look at those as part of the adventure.