First Run at Caesar's Creek

Late in 2015 I gave the shout out to bike the Maah-Daah-Hey trail in western North Dakota in 2016.  It's a 100 mile trail connecting the north and south units of the Teddy Roosevelt National Park.  Luke and myself have signed up for this ~4-day self supported bikepacking trip slated for mid-August, 2016. We have interest from other parties and I hope y'all come!

Since deciding to do this ND trip, and the weather turning for the better, I've been in the mode of training and practice rides, gearing up, and trying out my setup on trails around Ohio.  Some weekenders are in order and I have a couple under my belt so far this spring.  The following are my follow up thoughts after my very first bikepacking adventure on May 7 and 8, 2016:

I am my own mule.

Set out solo on basically a 24 hour trip around Caesar’s Creek State Park mountain bike trails last weekend.  I parked at my co-worker’s house in Waynesville and rode pavement for 3-4 miles to get to the trails in order to avoid parking in the park and getting my license plates ran by a tree cop.  They say this entire trail system is 13.3 miles, and I roughly did half on the way out and half on the return trip.  Rain was forecast, so I brought full on tent and raingear and had most stuff in dry bags or ziplocks.  I was in touch with Dr. Thornton the whole time, and was planning to meet him and Megan Bee out there on Sunday, so I had backup in case I got into trouble.

And here are some lessons learnt:

It’s hard work! Get in shape! That extra gear on board makes it noticeably more difficult.  The trailhead sign said it’s 2 ½ hours to ride everything – double that.

Take it easy while you get a feel for your rig.  I bit it sideways right outta the chute.  There was an off camber root going up a hill.  Got my front wheel over it fine, but my rear spun out and I biffed into a tree starting me out with a barked elbow and an extra tweak to my already tweaked foot.

The rise that was my demise.

What you could do on a mtn bike when you were 20, you can no longer do.  What you could do on an unladen mtn bike, you can no longer do.  I dumped it pretty hard off the trail and into a thigh-deep creek.  There was a steep but short rise, maybe 3’ elevation gain, right on the edge of the creek bank, of course sloping into the creek.  Overconfident, I gunned for it, slipped out or stalled out, and tipped toward the creek.  Putting a foot down was no help because the first thing my foot hit was the water 6’ below.  Bike toppled in the water and I banged the shit outta my shins and knees.  I pulled me and the bike out to hopefully stop any water from infiltrating the hubs and such.  Got to dry land, assessed the damage, took a couple pics of my site of demise, and hiked the bike up past that rise.  I used a crusty old rag to mop up the blood from my legs, pulled out my first aid kit (3 bandaids and a roll of athletic tape) and taped up the one wound that wouldn’t clot.  I took a few moments, drank some water, munched on some trail mix, calmed down, and kept going.  Oh, and the bike was totally fine and the contents of all my bags remained dry!

Light is beautiful!  This goes without saying, but I was reminded of the concept a couple different times.  I had overloaded my handlebar bag which definitely adversely affected the handling.  That at least partially contributed to my early on tree-biff.  Repacking on Sunday (late) morning, I decided to lessen the load up front, which increased the load on the rear pack.  Well, I hit a rut quite sharply early in my Sunday ride and, just from the shock, straight up broke a buckle on my Revelate Terrapin saddle bag.  I was able to field repair with some good tape I had on board.

I did have enough clean water to make
 a huge bowl of hot cereal...with M&Ms!

I’m still pretty much a novice backpacker and still learning water management.  Took 4.5 liters of water and some chlorine treatment tablets with me. I thought the 4.5L would do me, but it would have been rough – I would’ve had to skip the coffee in the morning, and no one wants that.  And, it sure was nice to have plenty to drink after wrecking my bike hard on Sunday.  So, I gathered 2L from the creek and treated it overnight.  Learned it’s quite difficult to fill a bladder from a pool of water – the bladder just collapses.  I should bring a 1L bottle for treating and/or measuring water to be treated.  Or bring a good filter.  …I did like the fact that I was drinking creek water.

Go tubeless?  Got a flat in my front early in my ride on Sunday.  I patched it.  Found another hole, patched it, then a third!  I know, I should have just replaced it with my spare tube.  Anyway, it’s holding.  There were three separate thorns right through the tire!  At the end of Sunday, got back to my truck and heard the hiss.  I found that somehow a small sharp rock had gone through my rear tire.  Fortunately, I was able to make it back, after the epic trail riding and 4 miles of trafficky road in the rain, without having to field repair another tire.  I’m seriously considering going tubeless because everyone says punctures and flats are waaay reduced.  I might try the ghetto tubless:http://www.singletracks.com/blog/mtb-repair/tech-how-to-ghetto-tubeless-for-mountain-bikes/

Things I could have used but didn’t have, or didn’t have enough of:

·         Bandanna

·         All-purpose rag

·         Clear lens glasses

·         More snacks - actually, I had enough food, but another type of snack woulda been nice.

·         Zip ties

·         More p-cord – I tie up my food at night and I had barely enough line to do it

• Paper map

Things I think I need:

·         Lighter dang shelter! – I had way more tent than I needed

·         Spare chain links and a chain tool

·         Fork pump - my front shock gots the air in them.  No issues, but I think I’ll need a pump eventually.

·         A small 5/16” nut driver – some of my stuff is held on with hose clamps and I want to be able to adjust those if needed.

·         Water filter

Things that performed well:

·         The bike bomb-diggity Ghost Kato 5 handled what I gave it.  Though, I really don’t think this type of riding is what the engineers had in mind.  I expect to have more bikepacking related mechanical issues.

·         My Cleaveland Mountaineering frame bag – he doesn’t claim waterproofness, but it came outta the creek bone dry inside.

·         My Travy Engineered milk crate handlebar rack

·         Me!

What a blast the whole trip was!  I mean, a lot of it was arduous and painful, and those trails are really pretty shitty (there’s one ~5 mile section that’s really good, but other than that they were rooty, rutty, mucky and/or overgrown), but I had a lot of fun.  I appreciated the challenge and the learning opportunities.  Seeing the lake out of my periphery while flowing up and down and around singletrack is an amazing sensory experience.  Being able to hop logs (even though I said you can’t do that anymore) was quite satisfying, and being self-contained, if just for 24 hours, gave me a unique taste of independence I hadn’t had in a while.

I want to do it more, and with friends!