I'm gonna try it.
I hope you are half the hero in real life as I have built you up in my mind.  Thanks!

J-No, I've been using powerstraps on my bikes for a long time and it seems like I'm always putting them on and taking them off.  I've always thought that they were really cumbersome to use but for some reason whenever I'm doing a ride and I don't want to run clipless I'll sometimes toss them on.  I suppose it's sort of stating the obvious to say that they are somewhere between just riding platform pedals and clipless pedals but for some reason I can't help but feel like, while that's pretty obvious, there is still a great deal of nuance in there.  For me, it's just a question of whether or not I want to mess around with them.  I've always felt they were great for winter use because I've never owned fancy clipless boots, and they let me get that extra grip and security of contact with the pedals while still using giant pac-boots. When you get down to that part of the business, they're hard to beat, but when it's nice outside I usually tend to either just go full clipless or just ride the platforms depending on what sort of riding I'll be doing/what else I'll be doing in the middle of my ride (i.e. setting up a tent and camping, making up a brew, trail maint., whatever).  My 2 cents....

I managed to toss this thing together out of parts left at my parents house while home for the Holidays.  It's a bit of a cobbled together jalopy, but the parts in and of themselves are functioning and some are even nice.  I live in California now and wanted to have a bike to ride on the seemingly endless miles of snow machine trails up in Northern MI for a couple weeks while I'm in town.  It's just a Surly 1x1 with no offset Large Marge rims and some ridiculous downhill tires.  I'll probably take some static for only having a front brake, but I had to cut the brake posts off to get the rims into the frame and the frame is pre-disc tab vintage....  I mean really, the thing seems to stop quite safely at the speeds I'm traveling at through the snow.  The One F*cking Speed sticker may seem out of place on a now geared bike, but while it may have a nine speed cassette I assure you all, with those tires it still has only one speed... slow.

I'm planning a trip on a multi-use trail this spring and some of the route is going to run into trail sections that are closed to mountain biking.  It's always a conundrum deciding whether or not to ride on closed trails, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.  The planned route is going to be about 250 miles total, 25 or so miles of which is closed to mountain biking.
On the route I'm planning there will be some options for dirt roads or short paved sections to avoid the closed sections.  I'm just curious to hear everybody's opinion on whether or not to poach the trails.  None of them are on private property, but are restricted to hiking only, and one section (which I'm pretty intent on poaching) is open only to hiking and horse travel, which seems a bit silly to me, but that's just me.  What does everyone think?

I haven't been able to find this since I was like 20 years old (ten years ago) but I did an all night xc ski outing with two friends on the winter solstice once and we were doing laps of an 11 mile trail and every lap we'd stop and rest a bit and one of my friends (whose parents were from Poland) had this stuff called Mokate Raspberry tea in a thermos.  It was this instant tea stuff that he brought and I used to be able to find it in the grocery store where I lived in Michigan but I can't find it anymore.  If anyone ever runs across that stuff I highly recommend you try it.  It's the best thing I've ever had on cold outings.

Hey all.  My name is Ben.  Just found this site early this summer and have been totally taken with it.  I've been riding a bike off-road since the early 90's and have been doing on and off-road tours for the last several years.  It was always rack and pannier type stuff and seeing everyone's different setups and the potential for adventure out there has been really inspiring and I thought I'd join the forums and toss in my two cents from time to time.  Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far.