team velodirt

Got a new toy in the mail recently – all the way from Canada!   After a lot of hemming and hawing, I decided to give the Salsa Anything Cage a chance, combining it with Porcelain Rocket’s new Anything Bags.  It’s a cool combination, and I am hoping to use this setup to increase my carrying capacity for longer multi-day trips when there are long distances between services (e.g. OBCDR).

I’ll do a complete review once I get some miles on them, but here are my initial impressions:

• I wouldn’t buy two again.  If you’re rolling with a frame bag and two of these, you’d only have room for one water bottle on the downtube.  I never ride with a camelback setup, so this leaves me with almost no water carrying capacity.  I’ll definitely roll with one, but I doubt I’ll ever use both of them at the same time.

• I wish the opening of the bag was flared.  I had a hard time packing them because the opening is the same size as the bag, which is on the small/narrow size.  I have small-ish hands – big hands will make this hard to stuff properly.

• Quality looks really good – we’ll see how they hold up.   I’ve never used any PR stuff before, and I suspect they’ll take a beating in that location.

• On the spendy side – $75 for two bags plus $15 shipping = $45/bag.  The cages are another $20/each.  It’s a lot to pay ($130 total) for just a bit more carrying capacity.  I also noticed the bags are now listed at $100 on the PR website.

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Proving the prognosticators wrong, it appears we’ll all be around to celebrate another running of the Rapture route in 2012.  Personally, I wish the real rapture had happened – I would have liked to see all the zealous jeesus-types disappear giving us free reign to fuck shit up for a few months before we all went to hell.  Since that didn’t happen, we might as well run another version of the Rapture through the coast range.  Expect more-o-the-same as last year.

PLEASE NOTE – this ride is NOT for the faint of heart.  And not because it’s a long, hard route.  This route travels through remote areas of the coast range and any mechanical or injury will be serious.  And if you get lost – you’re fucked.  No two ways about that – this ain’t no Dalles Mountain ride.

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Searching the internet for a clever title for this post related to the number three – this being the third running of the Dalles Mountain 60 – I ran across a Wiccan reference to the “Rule of Three”.  According to Wiccan lore, whatever energy a person puts out into the world, be it positive or negative, will be returned to that person three fold.   Like karma, but on a grander scale.  Given the day I had yesterday, I think the reference is apropos.  Thanks everyone for an amazing day of bikes, beer and bullshitting.

We had a great turnout yesterday (~120 riders??) for what turned out to be near perfect springtime weather.  Although a few of us got shut down trying to access the Maryhill Loops, it sounds like everyone had a great day.  It was also really cool to see a lot of new faces and the chance to meet quite a few of you.  We’ve come a long way in two short years, and we’d really like to thank everyone for the support you’ve shown us – thanks for coming out!

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Ahem… check out the cover of issue #15 of XXCMag… you might recognize something familiar…

Serious kudos go out to Ryan King, one of our favorite PDX riders,  for writing this fantastic piece on the Oregon Stampede.   Ryan, along with his awesome wife India, bring it to every VeloDirt event.  They represent everything we love about putting on events and why we continue to pour our blood, sweat and tears (literally) into VeloDirt.  We’re honored that Ryan would take the time and effort to put something like this together.

You can click the photo above or click here for more information on how to get your own copy of issue #15 of XXCMag.  It’s available in hard copy format or downloadable for a very, very reasonable price.  Help support great publications like XXCMag and get your copy today!

Velodirt

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Nick, Alan & I spent a cold-ass weekend on the eastside getting after it with the fatbikes.  We’d originally set the weekend aside for something bigger – an overnighter on the coast or something south – but the weather and time constraints left us with few options.  We made the best of things by heading east to familiar territory.  We camped at the Deschutes Rec Area – the best winter/spring camping spot around (note: no running water available in winter) – and day tripped into the White River Wildlife Area and Dalles Mountain.

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I know you’ve all been waiting with bated breath for me to put this video together… Well, wait no longer…

All I’ll say about this video is that I hate making videos. The amount of work required to make even a poor quality video like this is overwhelming. And if you really want to do it right, it’d take way more work in the field filming it properly than I’m willing to put in. So I’m officially hanging up my director’s hat and going back to still photography.

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Visit your friendly neighborhood 21st Ave. to get one…

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Pros

• Inexpensive @$20
• Versatile – tarp, bivy sack, ground cover, emergency blanket, rain jacket
• Love the hood
• Built-in grommets
• Local company (PDX)

Cons

• No attachment points if using as a bivy and too short for full bivy sack use
• Kinda heavy.  Poler tells me it’s 12oz.

Poler’s Magic Tarpit, or as I’ve been affectionately calling it – the “poor man’s bivy sack” – is a versatile little piece of gear.  On my first trip I used it alternatively as a rain jacket, ground cover for my floorless tent, and a place to organize my gear up off the cold, wet sand.  Had the situation presented itself, it would have also served as a tarp for sitting in the rain.  I love gear that serves multiple purposes and that’s why I love this thing.

For those that haven’t seen one of these before, it’s basically a space blanket with a hood sewn into it.  The addition of the hood is genius as it makes it much more practical than a typical space blanket.  But it also serves typical space-blanket duty  – it’s waterproof, thermo-reflective, and durable.

I think the place where the Tarpit would really shine is as a primitive bivy sack.  A sleeping bag fits perfectly into it, and if there was a way to keep it wrapped around you (buttons?  velcro?), it would work just fine at a fraction of the cost of a traditional bivy sack.  And because it’s thermo-reflective, you could carry a lighter sleeping bag than you would otherwise.  Obviously it wouldn’t protect from getting wet in the steady downpour, but all bivy sacks suck in the rain.  The only other problem for using it like this is that it is a foot too short to fully cover your bag (notice my feet sticking out of it on the above photo).  That’s ok though, because it allows you to walk around in it when using it as a jacket without dragging it on the ground.

And here is poor photo of it being used as a ground cover for my floorless tent:

Velodirt

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I wanted to make a few announcements and talk a bit about the future of Velodirt.  Because this post contains a bunch of words and no pictures, I won’t expect it to keep your attention for long.  However, if you’re curious about the 2012 event calendar, our new team member, and future comings from Velodirt, read on.

2012 Event Calendar

Things will change a bit for next year, although nothing terribly significant.  We will continue to run the very informal Dalles Mountain 60 in early March.  I may change the route ever-so-slightly to include a couple more miles of gravel, but if you’ve done it before you should expect more of the same. It’s a great early season ride and a good introduction to riding gravel for you newbies.

The biggest change this year will be moving the Oregon Stampede from September to May.  I likely won’t set a formal date until after the first of the year when the new OBRA calendar comes out; however, I plan on scheduling it for right around the same time as the Rapture was last year ~the end of May.  This should (hopefully) eliminate the risk of extreme heat like we had this year, avoid cross season training conflicts, and also stay away from Euro and Interbike.  I think the change will be for the better and I’m excited to ride it myself this year.

I don’t anticipate doing the Rapture route this coming year.  I originally wanted to keep that as an annual event, but moving the Stampede into its’ time slot won’t give us enough time to get the ride in before summer/logging season starts.  We may do an informal running of the route if folks are interested.

I’ve got a couple ideas for a fall-ish route near Mt. Hood that will probably interfere with cross season – hence the name “The Anti-Crosst”.  It all depends on if we have enough time to finalize the route next summer.  Doing three events a year is about perfect, so I’m hopeful that we can pull it off.  Alternatively, we may move the Rapture into the fall after logging season ends.  We’ll see.

If you want to stay updated on these events, sign up for the mailing list – we send out 2 to 3 email updates a year.

New Velodirt Crew

I’m proud to announce that Alan Gunn is joining the Velodirt crew.  Alan epitomizes what we’re all about here at Velodirt and we’re excited to see what he brings to the table.  Also, with his anticipated packraft purchase, expect several major trips this coming year tying together fatbikes, packrafts and lots of bushwacking.  Alan will also be reviewing some of his favorite gear on the site, so stay tuned.

21st Avenue Bikes

It’s been a real pleasure teaming up with 21st Ave.  This is especially so now that they are adding a focus towards bikepacking and the Salsa theme “Adventure by Bike” at the shop.  Expect them to start carrying a selection of bikepacking gear and bikes.  They are even talking about doing a few guided intro-to-bikepacking trips this spring.  If they do, we will likely be involved on some level.  I think it’d be really cool to help introduce to more people the sport so I’m particularly excited about this part.  While it can seem intimidating, bikepacking is really pretty easy to get into and the most enjoyable riding I do.   More details coming soon!

Musings on the Future

I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of Velodirt lately.  I feel like the website is almost to the point I originally envisioned.  However, I’m not sure where we take it from here, if anywhere different.  Obviously we will continue to put on our low-key gravel events and post about interesting trips.  But at the same time I’d like to move the focus more towards a general resource for bikepacking, fatbiking, etc. in the Pacific Northwest.  The big challenge will be keeping the website simple and easy to use while adding significantly more content to the mix.

Six to Twelve

As a few of you know, I recently went under the knife for some off-season hip surgery.  Fortunately I have an amazing surgeon and equally amazing physical therapist, so recovery is already going great.  The unfortunate side of things is the recommendation to take 6-12 weeks off the bike.  I’ve been given the green light to get the sea kayak, packraft and skis out, so I don’t anticipate much down time, but it’s going to be a rough couple months without riding.

Thanks,

Velodirt

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