Great Western Bike Rally

If you live in central/southern California and you like cycling, you owe it to yourself to go to the Great Western Bike Rally. It has been described as church picnic with Bike as the religion. It's 3 days of camping at the Paso Robles fairgrounds (or moteling).

I'm planning to go this year because I had such a blast last year. There's a Huffy toss, a bicycle swap meet and a bicycle show (my Bilenky won 1st last year!). There are "rides" but they're all unorganized. You grab a route sheet and you go. Cycling in the Paso area is just beautiful.

Of course, it wouldn't be enough if my friends and I went JUST for the rally. We're going to turn it into a week long bicycle tour. We're riding up from San Luis Obispo and camping at Moro Bay. We're also going to ride back from the rally, up and over the range into the Carizo Plain, following the San Andreas fault to the 33 into the Sespe Wilderness and down to Ventura. Phew. Can't wait.

Hope to see some readers out there!

Here are some snaps from last year:

Rene Herse

Another short multimedia bit from the San Diego show. Enjoy!


Epicurean Cyclist - Rene Herse from Russ Roca on Vimeo.

The Pedal Museum

Ok..I finished this one a little earlier. I took some audio and snaps at the San Diego Show and have one or two more of these to put together. The person that is speaking is Richard Bryne (atleast I'm pretty sure), the CEO of Speedplay. Super cool! On another note, what video player do you think I should use for future vids? Youtube or Vimeo or ?? Youtube seems to have the most users, but dang if it ain't ugly as sin.


Epicurean Cyclist - The Pedal Museum from Russ Roca on Vimeo.

For more on Speedplay's pedal museum, click here.

Posts in a few days..

Hey all...I've been in the fog of some mystery cold/flu/sickness the last week, so sorry about the lack of posts. I'm working on some more epicurean goodness very soon. Thanks!

Russ

Ian Hibell Video

Sent in by a reader Scott! Great find. Up until now I had only seen the grainy Darrien Gap video. This is awesome!

Your Dream 5

A twist on the "who would you like to have at a dinner party alive/dead/real/made-up" parlour game. Who would be your dream 5 touring partners?

Laura Crawford
I write this, not just because if I don't, I'll be sleeping on the lawn tonight, but because, she's been my greatest touring (and life for that matter) partner. We both got into touring at the same time so our riding styles and rhythms are the same. We can tell when we're each getting tired, we like to ride at the same pace and we both have a love for serendipity, gravelly roads and uncertainty. We've toured with a few people, enough to know that everyone has their own touring style and most likely it won't synch up with yours.

Chris Quint
I've mentioned Chris a bit on the site and even shot a video of him and his Carradice/boat cleat trick. A lot of what I know about touring came from him. In his pre-retirement life he was a teacher. He still is. There's never a dull ride with Chris. He's one of those persons with encyclopedic knowledge that will talk about foliage and fauna you're riding by and about the minutiae of beer brewing in the same 5 minute span.

The Great GP
I've never met The Great GP in person, but from what I've read from the Riv. Reader, he sounds like he would be loads of fun to do a tour with or atleast an S24O. That happens to be on my "bucket list" btw, to do a S24O with Grant. Before I discovered Rivendell, I was a bit lost. Trek, Specialized, Giant and Schwinn and the kind of riding they really promoted didn't speak to me. I knew there had to be something else, but what? That's when I discovered bike touring which eventually led me to Riv.

Barbara Savage
If there's any one thing that really got my blood moving about bike touring it was Barbara Savage's "Miles from Nowhere." For me, she seemed like the most approachable and kind person. She seemed honest about her short comings but still persevered. Here is someone that did something epic in scale but wasn't necessarily epic in stature. She made bike touring feel like something I could really do. It became accessible and not just some unreachable fantasy.

Ian Hibell
I would have loved to just sit around a little wood fire and listen to Ian Hibell talk about his adventures all night. Crossing the Darrien Gap, pushing through the Sahara. Maybe he'd even give me a copy of his book Into Remote Places, which is now ridiculously expensive on the trader's market. I just want to read the darn thing, I'll give it back! From what I've read and the little footage I've seen of him he's a traveler through and through. It would be great to hear what makes him tick and keeps him moving despite the harshest of conditions.

So who and why are on your top 5?

Mini Review: Esbit Stove

I'm becoming a bit of a stove geek, I think. I find something utterly satisfying about small simple mechanisms that you can use to cook food with! Anyway, I picked up this Esbit Stove at an Adventure 16 in Oceanside, CA. The two guys that were there were just opening up and didn't have a problem with me rolling in my fully loaded Bilenky.

I have read about the Esbit and was always curious. It seems to be sold pretty widely (compared to the Trangia) and you can get it from Campmor, Riv and REI.



The stove itself is small and remarkably simple. Two pot supports unfold on rivets. It has two "settings", indents really, that keep the supports at either 45 or 90 degrees. I'm assuming this is to fine tune the supports to match the surface area of the pot you're using.

In use, all you do is put one of the individually wrapped fuel tablets in the center and light it. You can light it with a match or a lighter. I wanted a "matchless" experience on this trip, so what I did was put a little vaseline soaked cotton ball on the top and popped a few sparks on it with a ferro rod. Worked like a charm.




Stated burn times run from 9 to 15 minutes. I found that I got burns somewhere in the middle there. About 12 minutes seemed right. It took about 8-9 minutes to bring about 20oz to boil in my GSI kettle. It worked well for making boiling some water for tea and for my freeze dried dinner.

The Great GP really describes the stove's use well when he says "this is the perfect stove to bring when you're not sure you want to bring one, but aren't sure you want to do without, either." With a stove system this small and easy to use, it almost seems like a no-brainer to take along, if even just for emergencies (the fuel tabs can also double as fire starters). In fact, I'm considering getting another one just to put in our Post-Apocalypse Survival Bag.

Some things to consider.
The Esbit seems to really do its one intended purpose really well, bring some water to a quick boil. If this is all you need a stove to do, then it's a good choice. However, because of the limited burn time of the tablets, it would make it difficult to cook anything that won't be done in about 10 minutes.

For example, Laura and I usually make a version of corned beef hash and potatoes when we go camping. We need constant burn times in the 30-40 minute range to soften and brown the potatoes. We can do this with the Trangia. However, this would be a difficult task for the Esbit.

Conclusion
If you can accept the limitations of the Esbit, then you'll be happy. It's great for making a quick cup of coffee or tea in the morning, or boiling some water for your MRE. It's small, simple to use and really has little to break. I would consider taking one and 4 tablets along every trip just as an emergency stove when you're in between population centers.

Highly Recommend