Posts

Posted on

single speed mountain bike?


My FARTS Adventure Racing teammate is an advocate of bikes with only one gear ratio.

That’s NUTS.

Or is it?

From an Adventure Racer, Mike:

A single speed will not only make you a stronger rider, it will improve your peddle stroke, improve your bike handling skills and teach you how to use momentum. Over all, your riding will improve in many ways. However, the most important thing is that it’s just plain fun.

Riding a single speed is more a frame of mind then a piece of equipment. I ride a Gary Fisher Rig with 29 inch wheels. I never use an odometer or heart rate monitor when I ride it. I call it pure riding – the effort is measured by feel not electronics. The direct power, from peddle to the rear tire is the difference.

Single speeds, especially with disk brakes are the only way to go in the winter. Geared bikes just get destroyed in the mud and wet. The single speed doesn’t have any of those problems and clean up is simple – just hose it down. Repairs also are simple.

When you first start on a single speed, it may take a while to determine the gear ratio that is best for you. This will depend on your fitness, skill level and the terrain. I started with a 32 X 18 but now normally ride a 33X16. When you first start, you may have trouble keeping up with your geared friends. Over time, you will find that they have trouble keeping up with you. The only place I feel at a disadvantage is on a downhill road section. Then I have to really work on drafting and high peddle cadence, another bonus. …

Why you should be riding a single speed

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/baumcycles/2806425502/sizes/l/">larger version</a> - flickr - Baum Cycles

larger version – flickr – Baum Cycles

Posted on

Is hiking dying or not?


I remember all the hiking blogs jumping on the gloom and doom prediction that “hiking was dying“.

From Feb. 2008:

… Since the late 1980s, the percentage of Americans taking part in such activities has declined at slightly more than 1 percent a year. … participation is down 18 percent to 25 percent from peak levels.

NPR – Americans Spending Less Time in Nature

I pooh-poohed it at the time.

Now, a year later, what’s the buzz?

take-a-hike-arizona
Take A Hike Arizona – flickr – larger original

Outdoor camping’s popularity jumped 7.4 percent between 2007 and 2008, according to a report from the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association. Overnight backpacking is up 18.5 percent …
Backcountry.com – The Goat – Camping Stock Rises in Weak Economy

In our current economic crisis, more families are ditching the hotel room and learning how to pitch a tent …
Backpacker – Daily Dirt – NEWBIE CAMPERS ON THE RISE

Backpacker – Daily Dirt – BACKPACKING ON THE CHEAP

Trail Space – Trend Alert: Camping is Chic!

Let’s proclaim this year The Year of the Hiker.
The Trailmaster

Posted on

Trail on Kilimanjaro – part 2

Entertaining!

Its day three of Trail Magazine’s attempt on Mt Kilimanjaro via the Machame route, and things are starting to get tough. The mountain is getting seriously spectacular but the air is getting thin and exhaustion is kicking in. As midnight on the last day approaches, will it be a glorious dawn on Africas Highest mountain or a whopper of a disappointment? Join Trail Magazines Simon Ingram to find out…

Click PLAY or watch Part 2 on YouTube.


official website of TRAIL and Country Walking magazines – Live for the Outdoors

To see a 6min highlights clip of Day 1 and Day 2 of the Machame Route, click through to The Adventure Blog.

best hike – Kilimanjaro information page

Posted on

avoiding trailhead vehicle break-ins

From Rocky Thompson:

Colorado police arrested a four-person burglary crew that would run a smash-and-grab on cars parked at trailheads. The four thieves-who are kind of like supergroup combination of Bonnie and Clyde plus Thelma and Louise-would wait until hikers had left their cars before smashing windows and stealing credit cards to buy video games and electronics. …

car-broken

The Goat Hikers Targeted by Criminal Masterminds

I’ve tried just about everything over the years, including leaving an empty vehicle unlocked.

There’s no perfect solution. Each trailhead needs be considered individually.

In Hawaii last year I left my rent-a-car miles from the (reportedly dangerous) trailhead at a campground. Walked the extra distance to the trail, for security.

At many trailheads in Canada there’s no worry. Remote hikes in the Rockies are almost all safe.

Leave a comment if you’ve a strategy to share.

Posted on

Lost in the Yellowstone

Lost In the Yellowstone: Truman Everts’s Thirty Seven Days of Peril is a surprisingly engaging read. One of the best survival stories ever.

50

One Amazon customer review:

21ea4q50hgl_sl500_aa180_Today, being lost in Yellowstone National Park is as simple as turning on the wrong road after you lost your complimentary map or you can not locate the restroom in the Old Faithful complex. For Truman Everts, being lost in Yellowstone was a struggle between life and death. Everts’s account details his 1870 adventure in Yellowstone after finding himself separated from his travelling companions.

The separation began Everts’s thirty-seven day struggle for survival in a pre-developed Yellowstone in which Everts had to find what little food and shelter he could just to survive.

Readers will find this account to be a real-life struggle for survival reminiscent of Jack London’s fictional work. The editor, Lee Whittlesey, does a superb job of editing Everts’s story by providing the reader with additional information and the historical background of the book.

The work is also illustrated with many early day photographs of Yellowstone which provides an stunning visual account of early-day Yellowstone National Park. This book will be appreciated by anyone looking for an exciting true-life adventure story as well as historians of the American West. People who have been “lost” recently in Yellowstone will also appreciate the book, even if their modern-day adventure pales in comparison to Evert’s

His bad luck was horror show. Everything went wrong. He was treed one a night by a cougar, for example.

Almost his only food for 37-days was the root of a plant commonly known today as Everts thistle or elk thistle.

It’s a shame he could not catch fish. (He did gulp down a couple of mineral tainted minnows.)

yell-early-anglers

Yellowstone photo from 1923 – National Parks Traveler

related – Yellowstone Park – Lost in the Yellowstone Wilderness: The Story of Truman Everts

related – guidebook – Yellowstone Treasures: The Traveler’s Companion to the National Park

Posted on

Travels to the edge with Art Wolfe – Patagonia


GreatOutdoors.com recommended a PBS TV show called Travels to the edge with Art Wolfe.

Art Wolfe, an internationally acclaimed photographer, invites you to experience the world with him as he travels and photographs Patagonia, Peru, Bolivia, Alaska, Ethiopia, Madagascar, India and South Georgia Island. Watch in HD (high definition) as Art captures images of majestic glaciers, expansive deserts, teeming rainforests, remote mountain peaks, and exotic tribal gatherings right on location.

A wonderful sample of the program takes you to the rarely photographed North Face of Mt. Fitz Roy:

Click PLAY or watch a 7min introduction on YouTube.

more videos in higher resolution – Travels to the edge