For the first time in a long time, we had a couple of days without fresh snow which means the potential for firm trails was good. Sunday morning I headed for Horseshoe Canyone to ride the FatBike fully loaded and was greated by an empty trailhead and FRESH CORD! Yeehaaaaw!
Fresh cord and no tracks
Mother Nature flipped the switch about an hour into the ride.
The animals were out and about prior to the storm
My 2+ hour ride confirmed that I will definitely keep the sleeping system on the front. I feel that getting as much weight off of the back tire is the best strategy although I may pay a penalty for it if I have to push for long periods in deep snow. My big seatbag only contains puffy items; wind pants, big mittens, and a down jacket.
I have to thank Eric who makes Epic Designs bags. I had it in my head that I wanted a double-roll-top handlebar bag and he built one for me exactly the way I specified and even added a few cool things I hadn't thought of. Now that I have played with it, I realize the shortcomings of the double-roll-top design. Although my design idea didn't turn out as I had hoped, the quality of the bag is excellent and the communication with Eric has been great.
Now it is just a matter of making sure that I know exactly which pieces will comprise my mandatory 15 lbs. of gear to meet the race requirements.
Lastly, I can't seem to shake this cold. It is one of those nagging ones where I don't feel all that bad but I am not getting any better either. Argh!
In between storms indeed!! What a winter you guys are having.
ReplyDeleteI had that cold over Christmas. Worst of the symptoms lasted 4-5 days and then it slowly healed away over the course of another week or so. The cough came later and luckily only lasted a few days. Hang in there and don't push it until you feel better.
Ed
Hope you feel better soon.
ReplyDeleteWhat are the shortcomings in practice if you don't mind me asking? I was thinking of a similar design myself at one point.
Chris,
ReplyDeleteMy hope was that I could leave the sleeping bag in the bivy and then just roll the whole thing up and stuff it into the bag and use the combination of the compression straps and the roll-top ends to compress it. What happens in practice is that the ends want to explode outward as you compress the diameter with the straps. I am learning that the width of the sleeping pad is about as wide as I want to go overall.