Finally, A Small Ride

I know it's been a long time, blog and anyone who ever reads this shit. I guess I just wanted to say I'm sorry, I know I haven't documented the successes of the drum trailer sufficiently, and I haven't talked about the fact that I lost my f-ink bike cleats. Just get over it, okay? No big deal.

I am going to talk briefly about this ride I'm doing tomorrow. It was a sort of eureka moment when I conducted an art workshop for a Muscular Dystrophy Association summer camp. The camp is held at Babler State Park which is merely 27 miles from my doorstep. 27 miles. 27 friggin miles to camping and hiking. Babler isn't a large park by any stretch, but it has some really nice woods and a couple nice trails......and it is only 27 miles away. After realizing this, I promptly planned a one night percy excursion. I am sitting here writing this after packing up all my shit.

I wanted to use a handlebar bag. I thought it would be nice to put my change of clothes and a couple other various things in there. So, instead of buying one I made one. It turned out like shit. No, it wasn't that bad. But it was poorly designed for the task of handlebar bag. Durable as hell though, and as soon as I make one that works--and I will!--I'll post all the best stories from that endeavor. So, without the handlebar bag I didn't know what to do for the food/clothes sitch. I was perusing a local large store and found this cooler from Coleman. It was another eureka moment. I was like, "oh damn...I'll use this to carry shit in on the way there and back, but WHILE I'm there, I'll get some beers/sodas from the nearby gas station and some ice...Ima live it up!" I could even get some type of shitty sausage if I wanted to eat that for breakfast.

Speaking of breakfast, I realized that I have a perfectly sized percy non-stick aluminum pan in the cabinet. I got it out, and behold!--a small screw attaching the superlight handle to the superlight frying pan. PERFIE!! So, since I'll have a Phillips screwdriver on my multi-tool anyway, I can just attach and un-attach it as needies. Easy peasy!

So, yeah. Here's the setup. I am taking the following philosophy on this trip: The park is only 26 miles away on bike. That is barely a 2.5 hour ride, even lightly loaded...so Ima bring as much shit as I think I need to be comfortable for one night.
(I don't care if you think my iphone camera filter is lame...don't look at the picture then!) You can see the cooler on the very back of the rack. Three bags total: tent, sleeping bag/pad, and cooler with all the food and clothes and fire and cutting stuff I need. Oh yeah, it's hard to see in this picture, but there is a totally bad ass survival knife I bought recently strapped on the rack. I plan to use it to aid in the preparation of woody for fire. Or stab my way out of a bad encounter in the woods.

I want to share the route with y'all as well. Here is the first in what I hope will become a large catalog of routes to spots in Missouri. I used mapmyride.com for it.




Hopefully some of you schmucks will come with me next time, as I hone and perfect the route. Next time, I'm doing the Mini Missouri St. Louis Area State Parks Tour. Way I figure it, this is a great way to not only escape the bustle of daily life, but also a super way to get some exercise and see some parts of Chesterfield we may not see on such a regular basis. Detailed report to come, Careening South style--while I am resting in my tent getting ready to sleep after a very short day in the saddle and very long day baking in the sun.