mullerb's musings

With covid putting a crimp on international travel for late 2021, we opted for Plan B: spend the winter living on a boat. So we squeezed a year’s worth of boat buying into a couple of months and sailed off from Annapolis, Maryland on November 29 on SV Carina, a 2005 Island Packet 370. ( #sailingsvcarina ) She’s a beast for 37’ with a cutter rig and and a full keel. The motion of the ocean is where she’s happy and safe. We spent December and January heading south on the Intercoastal Waterway with a few coastal passages, getting aligned with Carina and getting her into cruising mode. By mid-February we replaced most of the aging equipment in need, added some solar and got our new foresails. A hop across the Gulf Stream brought us to Bimini and the Bahamas. We’ll keep working at refining this cruising lifestyle while exploring these islands this spring. Then back to Florida to put her on the hard for the summer and hurricane season while we go back to the mountains for some solid earth ad...

Here's a 7-day gravel ride we rode in early August, 2021. Yet another fine escape from the crowds! Stout climbs, smooth gravel, diverse ecosystems, undeveloped camping for all but one night.  We started and ended in Shell, Wyoming, parking on a side street after getting the OK by the cook at the Trapper Creek Lodge to leave our van there. The route took us all the way around the Cloud Peak Wilderness in the Big Horn Mountains. This mountain range is surrounded by fairly dry, high desert sage country. We yo-yoed up and down, into and out of the dry sage to the piney alpine three times over the 250 odd miles. Big, stout climbs and long, steep descents!  75+% of the route is on hard-pack dirt and gravel. There's a short 6 miles or so of more rugged riding past Medicine Lodge Lake on Forest Service Road 344, which is more of a motorcycle/ATV trail. And a mile or so of sandy single track just before dropping into Medicine Lodge Archaeological State Park. Both of these stretches wer...

Back in 2006, when I first started getting a bit more serious about biking, I bought an all carbon Giant TCR2 . That thing was soooo smooth and fast and light relative to anything I ever put under my butt. I enjoyed countless lunch rides and long Saturday loops up to the Peak to Peak. But then I discovered gravel riding back in 2012 and bought a steel Salsa Vaya for a trip to Patagonia. That Vaya changed how I wanted to spend my time building up lactic acid. Instead of fast and smooth pavement, I wanted bumpy and steep gravel paths and dirt roads. The TCR started spending way more time hanging from its front wheel in the back of the garage. For a couple of years, I don't think it even made it out once. It's still a great ride, though. And it did get some updated shifters and a cassette for the 2017 Ride the Rockies. But mostly, it's been neglected and sitting idle.  This past weekend, I did a nice loop up Sunshine Canyon to the Peak to Peak and Brainard Lake then down Left...

Easy climbing machine. Nice and light. Decent downhill bomber. Should be awesome for exploring the trails around Durango. And makes for a decent bike packing platform.

The summer of covid, the summer of people avoidance. Thus we spent July riding the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR) from Boulder to Helena, Montana. Here's the route we took: (view the route details on RideWithGPS) It was super fun to start from home and catch a bus up to Nederland to kick off the ride. From there, a big ride up Rollins Pass and a day of dirt roads heading west from Winter Park brought us to the GMBDR near Ute Pass. A mellow pace, 1,152 miles and 82,373ft of elevation gain got us to Helena over 28 days. We spotted bears, moose, golden and bald eagles, a couple of badgers and a couple dozen fellow GDMBR riders along the way (all heading the opposite direction, north to south). And loads of wildflowers everywhere! We're so very privileged to have so much open space and beautiful landscapes to explore - and the time and health to make it happen. Here's my gear list: Bike Salsa Fargo Apex 1, 2020 edition ( details ) 1x32 with 11-42 in rear for me and 1...

With the world closed off by corona, it's a good year to stick to the Rocky Mountains and ride the Divide. So we bought a pair of matching Salsa Fargo's to handle the dirt riding. Should be a good replacement for the old Vaya for future world travels. Wish I would have had it for Patagonia. More specs at  https://www.salsacycles.com/bikes/2020_fargo_apex_1