Category: Bikes and biking
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Shit that works week; again
We’re back! In the season of flash sales and emails, where impulse purchases push companies into the black and fill our closets with things that aren’t strictly necessary, it behooves us to step back and take a break. As I wrote three years ago: “A lot of gear upgrading is malarkey, born of boredom or…
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Local fate
The most acute danger of being local to a given area is taking that place for granted, and allowing your perceptions to fall in line with the received wisdom: which trails give the best riding, where to find good powder, what is the choice fishing spot. The ideal balance is to be aware of the…
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The best packs of the last five years
On several occasions and in several places I’ve written that one only needs three packs: a daypack, a 40ish liter light framed pack (for light backpacking and heavy day things), and a big load hauler. At no time in the last five years have there been fewer than 10 packs in our household, even if…
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Cairn Carto maps
Disclaimer: M knows that the 4th or 5th fastest way to my heart is via a free and nifty-looking trucker hat. A while ago the folks at Cairn Cartographics asked me to take a look at their new Glacier/Waterton map before it went to print. In exchange they gave me a few free maps and…
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Somewhere in Montana
I have a conflicted relationship with mountain biking. On the one hand, it is the closest we can get to flying while still being tethered to the dirt, and was my entry into endurance sports and all that pursuit has given me. On the other, use trends and modern preference conspire to reduce many, likely…
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Hydration for multiday backcountry pursuits
15 years ago the hydration system revolution was in full swing. Hoses and bladders were ubiquitous for day hiking, mountain bikers, backpackers, and even runners. Bladder tech has only gotten better since; after holding out for years against more gadgets I must admit that the quick disconnect that came with the latest Osprey is darn…
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The enchanting wind
One thing I only touched upon a few months ago, during our final search for a new and hopefully permanent home, was weather and climate. At the time the human components loomed larger, prioritization whose efficacy has been born out in the ease with which we’ve strollered around Helena’s convoluted streets over the last four…
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Osprey Rev 18; discontinued brilliance
Osprey is an easy company to dislike, largely due to their unapologetically Google-esque ownership of the pack market, but more substantively because of their tendency to emphasize specialization to an absurd degree. However, they are good pack makers and brilliant pack designers, and often enough come out with a pack whose coherence moves the bar…
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How to start packrafting
Many thanks to those who in the last 48 hours have pushed the Car Camping sticker into competition with the Home sticker. The later is still leading, but not by much. Today is the last day where a sticker purchase will come with an entry into the pack raffle, so there’s that. The first…
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Escalante River snap judgment
Il ne faut pas toucher aux idoles: la dorure en reste aux mains. ― Gustave Flaubert The Highway 12 gauge is almost useless. During my trip on the Escalante this past weekend it hovered around 4 cfs, with a brief bump up to 12, a surge that likely passed me as I slept in the…
Bedrock & Paradox 
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