For me it is.

I rode my new bike in Crested Butte last weekend.  Slogged up to 12,200', camped, woke, rode some more, then blasted back to town.







Rode it unladen on an Ewok-approved trail the next day.  So sweet.







Brought it home and changed shoes, then headed out for some wash bashing and dry creek exploring tonight.









Currently poring over maps and thinkering up places to take this'n.  Places I'd not have thought about riding until now...

Cheers,

MC

Wow. Amazing. Nice shooting. Been worried about bringing my SLR—and getting shakin apart on the trail. Where did you carry this stuff? Backpack? Or On the Bike? Any recommendations for a nice lightweight case? Or did you just pad it with clothes?

I carried my spare lens/batts/etc... wrapped up in my tarp in the bottom of my backpack.  Main body/lens sat loose atop that for easy access.  Just open the main zipper of the pack and there it was.

I have yet to find any sort of case that I want to have my camera in while strapped to the bike.  Too much abuse.  Keeping it in the pack means my body is insulating it from the jouncing and jarring that the bike can't filter out.

That said, I'm always interested in a better way--share if you come up with something.

Great shots!!!! Do take a DSLR and if so what size lens? I only ask because I noticed the nice shallow depth of field on a few of your pics.

Thanks for sharing
Mike R

On this trip I had a Canon 5d3 w/ 24-70 F4L bolted on ~75% of the time.  The two time lapses were shot with a 14mm F2.8L and a Vello intervalometer.  Used a Joby Gorillapod for stability on those.  Carried 3 batts, used 2.  Had 2 64gb mem cards in the body, filled one and the second was ~2/3 full.

Truly righteous.  Thanks for the inspiration.

Details as to the (secret) location?  Perhaps a riddle?

Steve

What, you couldn't figure it out from the location of the Milky Way?!



Access to this trail is mildly contentious from a certain perspective, thus I'm not willing to share it on the innernetz.  Sorry.

Moving. Or at least motion. on Vimeo

Explanatory words and more pics here if you please:

Big Wheel Building: Moving. Or at least motion.

Cheers,

MC

Details and pics here:

http://bigwheeldeals.blogspot.com/

The S100 package is, in particular, a great turn-key bikepacking setup.

Cheers,

MC

I can help.

Send an email to info at lacemine29 dot com and I'll give details.

Our cars were parked at the Cisco takeout.  We rode to camp, slept, then rode to the put-in.  Stashed bikes there, floated back to Cisco, then collected the bikes on our drive back to GJ.

The river is a bit too technical to carry the bikes.  Added weight wouldn't matter, but the bikes are just an odd shaped load that doesn't want to do what you want it to do.

Fixed the link--thanks.

Full TR, stills, and vid can be found HERE.

Cheers,

MC

When one has a black belt in lightpacking, one can take whatever camera gear one desires.

I'm just saying this based on my observations. MikeC has a black belt. I have a belt of some kind, but I keep tripping on it because it's hanging out of my oversized pack that's overstuffed with gear. Then my belt is muddy and torn. But luckily, I have a spare belt along. In my oversized, overstuffed pack... Er...

--Greg

Scott says I packed heavy on this trip.  And I agree.  I brought a pair of synthetic insulated pants--largely to pad my spare lens while riding.  But also because they were mighty comfy to pull on at night...

But they have a simple drawstring.  No belts...

On this trip I took my new 5D3 body, 28-300L lens, 14 f2.8L lens, 3 batts, and an intervalometer.

Could have done just fine with only the body and tele zoom, but had the light been better on the second day I'd have kicked myself hard for not having the wide angle.  Also prefer to use the wide for night time lapses.

Taking the exact same setup to AK next week, but with a battery grip attached so I can run lithium AA's and not have to worry about charging opps.

Last month I got the long-awaited chance to do an overnighter in Arizona's Gila canyons.

Day one writeup is here:

http://lacemine29.blogspot.com/2013/02/into-gila.html

Day two here.

http://lacemine29.blogspot.com/2013/02/out-of-gila.html

Scott's take on it here.

http://www.topofusion.com/diary/2013/01/15/an-average-week-in-arizona/

Greg's is here.

http://dirtanddogs.blogspot.com/2013/02/on-trail-in-arizona.html

Enjoy,

MC

Silver, new.

You get exactly what's in this pic:



Concrete floor NOT included.

$20 includes shipping.

PayPal personal, please, to mike dot curiak at gmail dot com

Thanks,

MC

Pretty sure I have one of these in stock.  Might be laced, might not, definitely new/never ridden.

But I'm on a roadtrip right now, gone for a ~week.

Ping me on the ~15th if you haven't found one and I'll have a look:

info at lacemine29 dot com

The picture of D with the dough could easily be misconstrued as coming back out of his mouth...

We need to do another trip next summer.  Commence planning mode in 3... 2... 1...

Dan reappeared somewhere in the SE.  Not sure how he hasn't been picked up by the feds yet, but I suspect they'll be more lenient than a posse of former Iditaracers.

Stamstad set that record in 98.  It was a highway that year, with relatively warm (-5 to +25) temps.  We still had the usual pushing from Skwentna to Finger (no one went the Shell Lake route back then) and Puntilla->Rohn.  But the rest of it was hard and fast.

It was a really interesting year out there. Several scratches came because people ran out of food.

Very few cyclists start the race with more than 2 days worth of food.

Credit the last ~5 or 6 years of unrealistic winter conditions for this, along with people planning for best case instead of worst case scenarios.

99, 00, and 01 were very similar to 12 in many ways--mas snow, mas pushing.  But Dan Bull never bothered to send out drop bags back then, so much surviving was done on doritos, snickers, coke from Skwentna.

The problem with adding the Iditerod (at least for me) is there is a strict cap (like so many ORGANIZED ultras now) on racer numbers and check points, time outs, drop bags, etc. It is not in the strict sense SELF supported

I think with a little digging you might find that the ITI is far, far more of a self-supported race than anything else out there.  The drops make it different (and they aren't required--you could always forego them) but the remoteness and lack of services on the course impose a far greater 'strictness' than anything else happening right now.  On the ITI you won't be stepping into a 7-11 for a Gatorade or a Don Juan, flagging down a passing truck for directions or water, or pushing 'help" on your Spot.

I like the general idea.  Even tried to do something similar back in '03 and '04 with back-to-back-to-back KTR/GLR/GDR attempts.

Never got 'em done in the same year--just stacked too close together for recovery, I guess.

But my main reason for chiming in was to point out your omission of the hardest, longest running, baddest of the bad 'bikepacking' race--the Iditarod Trail Invitational.

My $.02 is that no one can be crowned anything without having finished that one (in the same year--per your rules) first.

And on the same bike?  OK...

Cheers,

MC