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us56456712

us56456712

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The middle of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan
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Today I tried to ride my gravel bike on the Iron Ore Heritage Trail from Marquette to Ishpeming but faged out in Negaunee. It’s 15 miles one way all up hill away from the Lake Superior basin and my old legs let me down for the first time on this ride. I saw a sign for a bar in Negaunee that I never noticed before. My usual supper cool bar in Negaunee, that let you ride through it, is permanently closed, a victim of COVID. Sad, the old timers would move tables and chairs around to make a trials ride from the back door and out the front. This new to me bar was sketchy and dumpy looking, you couldn’t see in as the windows and door were covered in expired license plates. My bidons were dry so thrist overtook caution and I went in. No tables, a big circular bar, all retired iron miners or miners that lost their jobs when the Empire Pit closed three years ago. I had to avoid the stairs across the circular bar as I didn’t fit in with my bike nerd costume and vintage track racing shoes. F¥€K was used as a verb, adjative, subject and predicate. I wonder how you could diagram those sentences? I orderd a draft beer and almost fell off my bar stool when the cost was only $1.00 for a 12 ounce mug that was so cold that I got an ice cream headache. Hamms and Budweiser draft cost a $1.00 and Bud light and several others were $1.50. I noticed that the mixed drinks pore was like 4 shots with the mix on top, not the way a pro does it so the booze is on top and you taste the booze on first sip. No need to use deception here. I enquired about a license plate above a bar stool and it was the plate of a long term daily patron that suddenly died at that very spot. I’m going back. Great beer. There used to be a place up da road in Calumet, Mi, Evia’s, where draft beer cost 10 cents. Four of us went in there one afternoon and each put a dollar down. Then it dawned on us that that was 40 beers so we took two bucks back.
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$1 Drafts, sounds like an American Legion Hall. Nice to find that ice cold beer "out there".

Not a loaded question, but how much weight in accessories do you have hanging on that bicycle?

FTR, I do not go out unprepared by any means, though I am somewhat of a minimalist and try to keep my total weight down through personal and bicycle/accessory dieting. Apples to Oranges, but the aforementioned concept is also applied whenever venturing out in sub/urban areas in both bicycle and accessory weight.
CRSchwinnLTII.jpg

EDC.jpg

The EDC items above fit in Carhartt shorts pockets. Anything else I may need in the sub/urban environs can be had at 24/7 convenience stores.

Of course when venturing out on a big ride in the mountains, the bicycle and accessory load is much heavier though still minimalist by the standards of most people.
 
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Karate Chicken Industries said:
$1 Drafts, sounds like an American Legion Hall. Nice to find that ice cold beer "out there".

Not a loaded question, but how much weight in accessories do you have hanging on that bicycle?

FTR, I do not go out unprepared by any means, though I am somewhat of a minimalist and try to keep my total weight down through personal and bicycle/accessory dieting. Apples to Oranges, but the aforementioned concept is also applied whenever venturing out in sub/urban areas in both bicycle and accessory weight.
View attachment 165488
View attachment 165489
The EDC items above fit in Carhartt shorts pockets. Anything else I may need in the sub/urban environs can be had at 24/7 convenience stores.

Of course when venturing out on a big ride in the mountains, the bicycle and accessory load is much heavier though still minimalist by the standards of most people.
Click to expand...
It weighs a lot. That’s a good question, it’s probably too much for my hanging digital scale. I’ll have to step on a bathroom scale with all the bottles full. It’s loaded with food, shelter, pistol, tools, kitchen and first aid stuff. The heaviest item is an air mattress. The tent is just mosquito netting with a lightweight tarp stretched over it. Frog tog rain jacket, freezer jacket liner, water sox, alcohol stove, lightweight nylon hiking pants and a shirt to cover my holster when I leave the bike unattended. I won’t carry a pistol on me when riding gravel as a fall would hurt. The pistol is in the triangular bag at the front by the head tube. So to answer the loaded question, ha, ha, I’ll have to let you know. The gravel is pretty good here but the sand will be a push with all this weight and 700 x 40 tires.
 
us56456712 said:
It weighs a lot. That’s a good question, it’s probably too much for my hanging digital scale. I’ll have to step on a bathroom scale with all the bottles full. It’s loaded with food, shelter, pistol, tools, kitchen and first aid stuff. The heaviest item is an air mattress. The tent is just mosquito netting with a lightweight tarp stretched over it. Frog tog rain jacket, freezer jacket liner, water sox, alcohol stove, lightweight nylon hiking pants and a shirt to cover my holster when I leave the bike unattended. I won’t carry a pistol on me when riding gravel as a fall would hurt. The pistol is in the triangular bag at the front by the head tube. So to answer the loaded question, ha, ha, I’ll have to let you know. The gravel is pretty good here but the sand will be a push with all this weight and 700 x 40 tires.
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Somebody rides for real! Not that I ever doubted you, but darn that's hardcore brother. My pack is even more minimal than KCI's. Water, phone so I can say bye to my baby, and ID for them to identify the body. Bought a tool or two and a bag, but the thing has sat in the garage ever since.
 
Karate Chicken Industries said:
$1 Drafts, sounds like an American Legion Hall. Nice to find that ice cold beer "out there".

Not a loaded question, but how much weight in accessories do you have hanging on that bicycle?

FTR, I do not go out unprepared by any means, though I am somewhat of a minimalist and try to keep my total weight down through personal and bicycle/accessory dieting. Apples to Oranges, but the aforementioned concept is also applied whenever venturing out in sub/urban areas in both bicycle and accessory weight.
View attachment 165488
View attachment 165489
The EDC items above fit in Carhartt shorts pockets. Anything else I may need in the sub/urban environs can be had at 24/7 convenience stores.

Of course when venturing out on a big ride in the mountains, the bicycle and accessory load is much heavier though still minimalist by the standards of most people.
Click to expand...
I take the same kit as you for day rides. Last year road biking I had a seat come loose 15 miles from home. I had a hard time finding a discarded beer can. I finally found one and used the wadded tab as a hex key and got it tight enough that I could gingerly sit on it for a few miles before retightening. I finally got to a more civilized area where there was an abandoned farm and I pried a nail from a fence post and used that. This year my buddy pushed his mountain bike 2 1/2 miles because the bugs were so bad he couldn’t stop to fix it. He got bitten everywhere he could. I had a similar experience. I live in the bush but have established a network of guys to ride with that live within a 30 mile radius. We ride quite frequently. Ages 60, 70, 71 and 75. Myself and the 60 year old are nursing cracked ribs from mountain bike crashes. Road biking is ok for me but mountain biking is still too painful. Here is where I crashed, going way too fast, about 2/3 of the way down. It’s an abandoned iron mining town. I’ve done those stairs many times without incident, even on a cruiser with a coaster brake. I’m too old for this, it’s now off my list of rides.

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A friend and I pioneered a route compiled of several singletrack trails on the Grand Mesa and the last four of the 28 miles in the route was in Dark Forest. A pause in there between June and September could net at pint of blood loss. We named it No Rest For The Wicked. Stopping to repair in places like that is largely unwise.

My favorite mosquito/bug repellent is Sagebrush. I usually keep some bagged up in my truck in case the trailhead or way to the trailhead doesn't have any. It's either that, or move faster than who I'm riding with.
 
Karate Chicken Industries said:
A friend and I pioneered a route compiled of several singletrack trails on the Grand Mesa and the last four of the 28 miles in the route was in Dark Forest. A pause in there between June and September could net at pint of blood loss. We named it No Rest For The Wicked. Stopping to repair in places like that is largely unwise.

My favorite mosquito/bug repellent is Sagebrush. I usually keep some bagged up in my truck in case the trailhead or way to the trailhead doesn't have any. It's either that, or move faster than who I'm riding with.
Click to expand...
To answer your earlier question the bike and gear, ready to ride with food and hydration weigh 77.6 pounds. I can’t find my lightweight tarp so I’ll have to pick up some plastic wrap. With me on it, it weighs 249.6 lbs, a real Clydesdale.
 
I can honestly say that I've never hauled that much bike weight.

Even so, this booger (just the radio itself, not the whole kit) that I had to carry on my back occasionally weighed slightly more. We could talk to anywhere in the World as long as the antenna was cut properly and the Ionosphere was cooperating.

https://radionerds.com/index.php/AN~PRC-47
 
This convo is very much of interest to me because I have family in and have spent a goodly amount of time in both Ishpeming MI and Mesa CO.

Also, while I have never owned a PRC-47, I have done quite a bit of man-portable HF with other rigs. Including operating from both of those areas.
 
clamdigger said:
Sawdust on the floor ? The upscale saloons have roasted peanut shells on the floor.
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We used to frequent an establishment in central Wisconsin during deer season that had a dirt floor. Apparently they tore out the rotten wood floors to pour concrete, ran out of money and never finished it so they left it dirt

$0.25 PBR on tap
 

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