Introduction Thread

[HOser]

First of all, awesome forum, this is such a helpful and positive community.  I've learned a lot from your posts.

My name's Dave, I live in Longmont, CO.  I've been doing the local endurance races for a while now and am trying to grow the confidence and ability to handle multi-day self supported rides.  The information here is invaluable.  I got a Salsa Fargo last fall, and while it's mainly seeing commuter duty right now I've got some big plans for it.  I'll be sure to post my experiences and any lessons learned to contribute to the excellent knowledge base here.

Happy riding, everyone!

[intheways]

I just realized I haven't posted in this thread yet.  I recently moved from Missoula, MT (tons of LD mtb) to Seattle (more pavement).  I had sold all of my mountain bikes and built up a CX bike (don't worry it still has discs), because of all of the pavement.  I'm in the process of trying to build up a custom or semi-custom fully rigid bike that does well on long stretches of pavement, but can still handle singletrack.

Past bikes owned:  Trek 7000, SC Chameleon, On-one Inbred, .243 Hardtail, SC Bullit, Surly KM, Surly CC, and now Soma Doublecross DC.

Look forward to the forums!

[thebigred67]

New here. Got linked via www.f88me.com during a "What tent for bikepacking" thread over there. I have  way to many bikes to list right now. I also play guitar and bass.

[MattySF]

Hi, I'm Matt. I live a carfree lifestyle in San Francisco, CA.
Most of my experience which could be considered quite novice is bikepacking and backpacking in marin county via the goldengate bridge bike, bus, or Ferry. Some of my regular places are the Marin Headlands, Angel island, China Camp, Camp Taylor and Point Reyes. I usually travel a little heavier as I carry a gear for two. My soon to be 7 year old son Keshiro "Keni" has been accompanying me since he was 4. I'm inspired by so many of the threads with these huge treks on them. I'm looking forward to a solo trip this spring (maybe with a friend Just only carrying gear for one). Not a lot of long single tracks I know of to get from point a-b camping here but, lots of fire roads. I'm leary of barreling through single track with my posion oak allergy anyways. I'm always contorting around it just hiking. So far I've pick up some great gear tips here to lighten things up and transport gear better.
I'm just not about to give up the tent though. Ahh bugs on my face!!

He is a pic of us on a backpacking trip at Point Reyes taking at medow divide. We rode the first 3 miles hiked in the last 2.

http://img196.imageshack.us/i/dsc02688rn.jpg/


Sorry imageshack has been a pain lately.

[Askel]

Another n00b checking in.  I've been a lifelong backpacker.  Decided to give bicycle touring a try when my malamute/backpacking buddy died.  Traditional, loaded touring was fun but wasn't quite what I wanted. Stumbled across bikepacking and decided to give it a try last fall.  Maybe shouldn't have picked my most technical race of the year as the destination, but it was fun anyway:  http://www.bialas.org/blog/2009/09/fat-tire-festival--anything-worth-doing-is-worth-overdoing.html

Snow's melting quick up here and I'm looking to do some more this year.  Lots of long weekends in mind and I'm really hoping to do the Trans Wisconsin if the Chequamegon 100 and Almanzo 100 in May don't kill me. 

[grsarm6]

Hi, I'm Karen and I live in Illinois.  I've been doing some of the local MTB races (WORS & WEMS) .  I am really looking forward to doing some bikepacking this year.  Thanks for getting this site up and going Scott, lots of good information.

[clunkerider]

Hi I am new here. I have cycled my whole life, mostly for transportation. I ride to work and back and don't drive to work and back. I only chicken out in the worse snow storms and take the bus. I really am encouraged by your web site to start bikepacking. I live in Alberta and want to tour up into British Columbia. I am gathering information, training and getting ready for a 4 day 300 km ride I would like to do one day. The difficult thing is I ride an old clunker 1980's Norco Pinnacle Rigid old school mountain bike. It is in great shape but not sure if I should ride such an old bike on such a long tour. Part of me says "why not" and the olther part is unsure. Anyway...are there any other old school old bike riders here?

[bartspedden]

Hey folks,

Like lots of kids I rode a ton of bmx, dirt jumps, bmx tracks, etc... but one day when I was 13 I got to try a road bike.  I immediately starting cutting all the neighbors grass until I could afford my very own Schwinn World Sport.  I quickly learned I could ride almost anywhere on my bike... but in the next few years I ended up getting hit by a car that ran a red light.  Not too banged up, but from then on, I was just too chicken to enjoy riding on the road again.  So most of my biking ended by the time I was 18.  After college I turned my road bike into a commuter and would ride to work if I could use bike paths for most of the commute, but still I wasn't really "riding".  Then at some point the docs told my wife that all the trail running was causing damage to her knees and she would benefit from some biking.  At that point we decided to buy a couple of mountain bikes and start riding the local Boulder trails.  All went well the first year, just playing on the bikes and having fun. And then our neighbors, Coleigh and Amy Patrick, invited us to try some downhilling at Keystone.  I was totally hooked after the first run!  I was instantly back to my bmx days of just riding through the woods and hitting as many jumps as I could. The next year I started racing XC and DH and I had a ton a fun! So last year, instead of racing XC I decided to just race DH and improve my technical skills while riding xc as much as possible. I had some time on my hands, so my wife supported me on a casual, fully vehicle supported, ride of the colorado trail.  This year I plan on racing the CTR, which is how I found out this site.  Thanks for a great site and all the hard work that goes into maintaining it!

[patrickTsai]

This is a great site. New to bikepacking. have mainly toured, and i'm addicted to single track and gravel racing. I've only perused the forum for a few days, but have learned a lot already. It appears I'll be seeing a lot of you on the tour divide this year.

[phil_rad]

Welcome Patrick! See you in Banff.

Phil

[mnmtb]

I guess after 6+ months of reading everything on this site and posting occasionally, it was time to formally introduce myself as I hope to meet many of you personally over the next few years.  When I first heard of the Divide Race 5 years ago I was hooked.  It has been a goal to complete this race, but two small kids, self-employed and a wife were primary in my life.  Last summer I promised to myself I would do the Colorado Trail Race in 2010 and GDR in 2011.  I  got the a-ok from the wife last summer and have been planning for it ever since.

I am very cheap and try to get the biggest bang for the buck and or purchase multi-use equipment rather than specialized stuff.  I decided to ditch the FS 26" bike in favor of a Ti 29'er hardtail.  Lighter and less to break.  It's fun on the single track here in Minnesota and has been comfortable on 8+ hour rides.  After reading with great interest about bags, I made my own frame bag to fit a bladder and tools.  REI bivy at their garage sale for $5, pad and bag wrapped up in a Sil-Nylon Compression sack.  While at my LBS I saw a 400 cu in saddle bag made by a local company.  It was a third of the cost of the others mentioned here.  A couple slight modifications and it suits my purpose perfectly.

I can't say thanks enough to everyone for their help suggestions and comments in my preparation for these and other events.  If there was one comment that hit me as the biggest ah-ha moment was the suggestion to ride out, set up camp and pack up again.  Get so used to your gear that it becomes second nature to you.  I now make sure I get in a 60-80 mile ride at least once a week out to a park, set up camp, have lunch then ride back.

The biggest challenge for me will be altitude adjustment to the CTR.  Historically I acclimate pretty quickly and am at about 90% in 72 hrs when at 6-8000 feet.  My folks used to live about 10 miles from Waterton Canyon so I know that part of the trail, but might be looking for a place to park my car during the race and any suggestions for getting back from Durango afterwards.

Thanks again for everyone's help and suggestions.  Can't wait to meet some many of you on Aug. 2

Jeff

[Arctic]

Hey,

Just realized I never posted here yet.  I'm relatively new to bike packing, I've done a few trips in Wyoming, and few trips in Michigan's U.P.  Mostly overnight out and back stuff.  I'm going to be moving to AZ shortly, and am anxious to try out the MTBing there.

Cya around

Arctic

[JAGI410]

New guy here too.

Jason, 31, I just like riding my bike. Looking to expand my pedal powered adventures by doing some touring/bikepacking. I'm in AZ and post as JAG410 on mtbr.

[bridgewater]

Hello

I'm new to this board and My name is Peter, I found this thread in the google search engine, while searching something and I found this community and sounds  interesting. I'm Romel G. Alfeche and was born on June 16, 1985


Hopefully I can contribute something to the community though.

[ea82abuser]

Joel from Palisade, CO.

My touring bike loaded weighs about the same as my trail bike dry.

An ea82 is a type of Subaru.  I'm singletrack on MTBR.

[pimpbot]

Howdy, Bikepackers!

My name is Erich.. pimpbot on mtbr.com. I'm a 40 year old weekend warrior. I've done some XC racing and some endurance racing in 8 and 24 hour events.

I'm not in as good a shape as I was a few years ago, but I'm looking forward to trying multi-day rides once my kids get older. I typically do 15-35 mile mountain rides, either geared or singlespeed. I'm starting to gather some light camping gear with the idea that I'll someday strap it to my bike and disappear for a weekend.

This is my city bike with my camping stuff strapped to it. Not sure if it's the best rig, but I'm going to try it out.

<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From Bike Camp 1</td></tr></table>

[AsanaCycles]

Howdy everyone:  My name is Devian Gilbert, I'm from Monterey, Ca. my website is www.AsanaCycles.com, I'm car free, been riding a bike daily since at least '93, I ride for Velo Club Monterey, and most recently I completed 1000 miles of the 2010 Tour Divide.  On MTBR.COM I'm SelfPropelledDevo  For bikepacking I primarily use a custom Hunter29er.

[JF-mtnbiker]

Howdy Folks. I'm John Foster. I just finished the 2010 Tour Divide. I have been involved in cycling for many years. Mostly in event organization and working for the governing bodies of professional mountain bike racing. UCI, NORBA, Olympics...  I am an addict when it comes to riding. I prefer long rides where I'm actually going somewhere so bikepacking has been something that has been fun for me. The Tour Divide offered me a way to head south and keep going. No riding around in circles, no out and back or heading back home before dark. I could always see what is around the next turn or over the next hill.
I Have been looking at this site for a while but never really was a blog kinda guy. I'm still not a blog kinda guy but i will try to get involved in some discussions. I'm pleased that there is now a forum for people who love riding their bikes, more than around the block, can discuss what is important to them. Thanks John Foster (JF-mtnbiker)

[John G]

Howdy Folks. I'm John Foster. I just finished the 2010 Tour Divide.

Welcome John.  I enjoyed following your progress on the TD.  I like your name too.
Cheers,
John Foster Gorham

[1speed]

Just found this site, I figure I'll be spending a lot of time here!

My name is Jim and I've been cycling both on and off road for many years. I prefer fixed and single speed bikes but I do have some with gears.
 
I starting an off-road/adventure bike project and will be asking a lot of questions. I like the Salsa Fargo but it has no accommodations to run it fixed as a commuter/dirt road bomber or a light single track singlespeed. I just put down a deposit with Scott Quiring www.quiringcycles.net to build me a steel Fargo'ish frame and fork with Paragon sliders to accommodate single speed/fixed riding when I'm not using it for touring. I'm hoping to do the White Rim trail later this year.