Hi Everyone Im Pangaea Unsegregated.......I just want to thank the gods real quick for this cool site, and for mtn bikes and mtns too.......
  I have read alot of your posts and it is pretty sweet to just pop on here grab some inspiration from you guys and then head out on my own adventures. I will probably be posting some stuff once I figure out this technology stuff. Lets see I just moved to from Durango to Telluride, CO and have started work in the easy rider bike shop. Pretty happy about it, even if I have to eat Pb&J's the rest of my life to afford the rent here. .......
   I guess I have always had some fetish for the outdoors and have been mtn biking about 15 yrs. or so....Ive done a couple road tours across the country and I think thats when it hit me........"stop being retarded" said a tiny voice I reckognized as my own, "and learn how to do this on singletrack"...... so well I just listened and since then, Ive done numerous loops of considerable length on dirt. I did the CT this year in June, with plenty of waist deep snow in parts (that was fun), uhm I also just like doing a lot of making my own routes linking together singletrack near home to make it like 2 day journey stuff. ...........I also have a house but I rarely use it. I have lived in my old motorhome and then just tent camp most summers cuz....hmm....I dunno I think Im just part cave man or something. I hate being locked in houses. When I was younger I used to turn my T.v. around in the window and take my couch outside and watch outside in.....
   I also love the reports on the races some of you guys undertake. I think Id like to get in on one sooner or later, just so you all have at least one more guy to beat.......haha well nice to meet you all........Pangaea
 

Lol yeah, I can definately think of some times where I would have enjoyed a can of bear spray, for all those pesky, and sometimes frightening, chasing dogs. Road touring can often drive me mad with dogs to the point of wishing I had a can, especially for one german shepard in general, even if for no other reason than revenge...........ha oh well better to stick to singletrack anyway Ive found. less dogs, more beauty........

I just wanted to say that this all looks like some pretty good info. I just finished a ride of the colorado trail, and camped out in my bivy bag the entire trip. I didnt see any bears with the exception of one night camping out real close to the town of breckenridge. You could actually call it stealth camping as I was actually in town, in a lot of trees. I had been hearing from the locals that they were having alot of black bears (only kind in co) coming down into town. Well as I was fading out into slumberland that night I heard a loud "sniff sniff" right in my face. I carried no tent, and my bivy bag is really thin and light weight; its basically just my sleeping bag with the exception that the drawstring on the sleeping bag cover (bivy bag) cinches down to almost closed- I had about a 3-4 " opening left; enough to breath, and enough to keep the rain out. Anyway some animal that sounded really large got freaked, after it smelled what was in this big blue bag, which probably looked like a big bag of food, and with what sounded like the thrashing and accelerating of a large mobile mass of mammal, it was gone very quickly, although noisily. I think my face was about 4'' from a bears face but cant say for sure. It just seems likely that in the region I was in, deer or elk are the only animals that could or would make that much noise running off, and I just cant imagine either of them making a huge sniff sound in my face like that, or even being curious about a big blue bag. So now I wished I could of gotten a glimpse of it- like a huge bear head right in my face. I dunno it just seems like it would make for a more wild memory, not to mention a better story, but anyway Ive had 4 bear encounters the previous year- 2 were running away at the same time and the other 2 were in my hometown and in each case on my bike they were just minding their business looking for food in dumpsters.........(which I hope they didnt find) ...........and the last thing. I just read a book about bears that said you should not sleep in a sleeping bag alone without a tent for the psychological reasoning that to a bear a tent looks basically bigger and wouldnt want to mess with it, it mentioned bright colors attracting bears and camping above tree line in the open as other things which would attract more than not.  It also said not to pee near your camp as bears are attracted to the smell of your urine (not just the perverted ones it seems) This book also mentioned perfumes, and soaps, and toothpaste and basically just pleasant smelling things in general are all an attractant of bears. (Maybe its good there are not more showers along the CO trail. ..Ha)....With that being said, I usually got up to pee in the middle of the night and just peed closer to my feet instead of closer to which way my head was laying since If they were coming for my urine Id rather have them messing around by my feet........ anyway Peace and Happy trails, Pangaea