I Can Carry My Drums in/on my Burley Nomad!

So, I have been pining over some trailers online--I've been trying to find a trailer with a load capacity of at least 200 lbs. so I can carry my drumset on it. Since Crystal's car went doo doo on the south pole of death, we are borrowing my sister's car. When she gets back from Seattle, she is gonna want it back, and we aren't going to want to buy another car. So, if the biggest obstacle for us going down to one car is carrying my drums and I can figure out a way, then the problem is solved and then most of the rest of the problems are merely logistical.

I was all like, ah shit man I won't be able to carry that weight with the gearing on my Masi, so I'll have to spend all this money on getting a new cassette and a new rear derallieur or whatever. Then, after realizing that a Surly long bed trailer is over $500, and that is really the only trailer made for bicycles that can do what I want it to do, I had started feeling like it wasn't possible short of building my own trailer. Until I was just like, "f- it--Ima just try to put everything in the Burley Nomad that I inherited from a dude canoeing down the Mississippi, and see what happens" and I did. The Burley trailers have an awesome universal hitch, so I just stole it off the Masi, and whim-awham-a-bing bang:

Using my trek 8500 (which I traded a guy from Craigslist my Raleigh Techmium SS for, which was awesome!) because of it's triple chainring granny-gear options, I loaded up the trailer and gave it a whirl. It was sweet. Nothing shifted or even creaked or cracked during the one mile long test ride. I rode it at first on very smooth streets around my hood, but then once I was convinced it was cool, I took it on some pretty jagged main roads and it performed beautifully. The gearing on the Trek is perfect, the trailer is smooth and it seems to absorb shock pretty well. I am not too worried about the so-called Jack-knifing because I'll be going at such low speeds.

I think the only upgrades I'll try to make to the bike will be fenders and maybe a Brooks saddle if I can convince Crystal of the importance of butt-comfort. But as it turns out, I had all the tools to carry my drums all along! What the hell was I waiting for?

I usually play with four drums: snare, tom, floor tom, kick. I usually play with three cymbals: hi-hats, crash, ride. To facilitate this transition, I will be paring down the old kitster-snare, tom, kick, hi-hat, crash/ride (basically just using my crash as a ride). The floor tom likely won't fit in the trailer and leave enough of the railing along the top of the trailer to set the bass drum on. Who knows, maybe it will lend itself to a new style of playing that I haven't even considered. Deerhoof's drummer only has a couple pieces on his kit.

I think I'll definitely use a couple more straps to secure the bass drum more tightly, but all in all I am riding on high right now because I can move my drums from place to place without any troubles! Of course, there are some serious considerations. What if the trailer has some catastrophic failure? What if my bass drum falls off in traffic? Well my friends, that's what cell phones are for. Plus, since I've been using that website mapmyride.com, I've been able to stay off of main roads almost 95% of the time. Till something else happens worth mentioning, thanks for reading.

****Update: The Next Morning

I was so excited that it all worked so well that I couldn't sleep. All night I dreamed of how kick ass it would be to get fenders, a Brooks saddle and skinnier higher pressure tires for my Trek Mtn bike. Well, mission 1/3 accomplished: used a 20% off coupon from REI, plus my measly $32 yearly dividend, and got a black Brooks B-17 for only $52 shipped! Booyah! Now, I just have to go to my lbs to see what sizes of tires my wheels will accommodate, then find a cheap deal on some 26" Gatorskins. Then, just use my old planet bike fenders to complete the set-up...well maybe a rear rack for Trekkie, that is what I will call this bike from now on: Trekkie!

So excited!

Great St. Louis Ride/Map My Ride

So, I found this great website-mapmyride.com. It totally kicks ass...you basically look at a google map of your target area, and then start clicking up and down streets and blammo-it maps your route and includes information like the exact distance, the elevation details, and allows you to share it with the community and describe it and tweak it and share the map.





So, this is the route Ian and I rode last night. We had in mind the upcoming Katy Trail challenge, and I was so excited the whole time that Ian and I were actually riding together. Then, at the end he said he probably won't go on the Katy Trail ride....wah wah wwwwwaaaaaahhhh. What shit! I was not happy to learn this, but I guess Steven is still planning on going.

About the ride though--for St. Louis, it's a really killer. It basically goes up every large hill in the area and they come with freakish regularity. Four of them over the whole route. I made sure to stay off of busy streets. When it does go onto busier streets, it is on the least heavily trafficked areas of those roads. The far eastern edge of Manchester, the part of Skinker that has a huge shoulder plus the Forest Park Bike Path. It takes you by the two large and in charge parks in STL--forest park and tower grove park. Both are cool, but Forest Park by far wins out in terms of a place to go biking. Best bike trail in STL!

It was a challenging ride, but I was able to do it without walking up any hills (which for me is a success.) I will definitely do this ride again, and maybe in reverse someday for a lighter 26 miler. Next time, I'll post pictures of shit I pass on the road.

My Bicycle Tour Wishlist #1

Natchez Trace Parkway: I rode about 60 miles on this excellent and bike friendly route that goes from Nashville, TN to Natchez, MS. It is full of old growth pine forests and awesome camping and no commercial vehicles allowed. Ben and I rode the final 60 miles of the Trace as it's called down there. I had to ride the entire stretch on a broken spoke, but that didn't prove to be an issue at all. I got the thing fixed in Natchez at some car shop or something. Cheap, and good service too. From the first turn onto the Trace, I knew this would be a place I would tour the length of one day. Total Length: 444 miles See More Here and here. Maybe I can do it this coming autumn, or next spring. Hopefully sooner.

I Should Explain Myself Briefly

I am a man who loves his family, his friends, his music and his bicycle. I love to ride it all day long and I want to all the time. I can't wait for the day when my 3 and a half month old son Ari Dustin Larson is able to follow behind me in a little trailer. I love going on bicycle adventures. Only having been on one so far, I may be jumping the gun a bit with this blog, but I'd like to do it while I want to, and then who knows. It'll be here as long as this site lasts I suppose. That's good enough. I can't remember everything forever.

I rode once from St. Louis to New Orleans with my friend Ben Oney, who started in Minnesota somewhere. Ben started a blog called Careening South, which I sort of took over once I joined the ride. Using my Blackberry phone, I wrote a post every day after riding, or almost every day that is, and would e-mail the posts to my Dad whenever I'd have enough of a signal. It was the shit! I loved every minute of that ride, except the night behind the church. That sucked totally.

The idea for the name of my blog came from a term Ben taught me on the road one day in the Tennessee back country. Big ringin' it is when you're riding in the highest gears you have for an extended period of time because your momentum is going crazy. Because that is my favorite feeling out on the road, I decided to call this Big Ringin' It after those times.

So, I'll write about the rides I go on from now on. It was fun to write, and I just looked back at it and it was reminishitsville! I'll include some pictures I take along the way and of course all kinds of incomplete and terribly written accounts of what happens.

I love you for reading this.

Nate and Ian Decide to ride the Katy Trail in 24 hours

It was after we'd been hanging out for a while. I mentioned Ian's piece of shit bike that he left in my back yard about a year ago, and 20 minutes later we decided we would bike the entire Katy Trail. Ten minutes after that, we decided we could probably ride the entire trail in 24 hours.

For those who don't know, the Katy Trail is a 264.6 mile long bicycle only path that goes from St. Charles to Clinton MO, or back the other way if you like. We'll take the Amtrak to Clinton with our bikes, and ride east till we get to St. Charles, and hopefully get picked up by someone with a big truck to put our bikes in.

A picture taken from the Katy Trail website. Wonder what it looks like at 3.47 am...

A lot of things excite me about the idea of this trip. One, Ian and I never ride together, well to be fair, he never rides at all. I've been trying to get him into the idea of a short tour, but he's consistently against the idea. Somehow I must have said the right combination of words, and I convinced him to do it. So that is cool. I also have always wanted to do some kind of 24 hour bicycle challenge, and this is a good one to start with. Also, the whole trip will take one whole day, so I can do it on a weekend, or a weekday that Crystal is off work. Easy peasy! It would be so awesome to ride that far, and only need a backpack full of food and water. So cool. It sounds like such fun. I'll bet I can convince a couple more friends to try it with us. Definitely Steven at least. Also, it would be so cheap. I mean, I would only need 24 hours worth of food and wouldn't have to pay for any accommodations. Cheapy! I think I'd use a backpack for food and this trek top-of-rack bag my dad gave me to carry the tools and spares and etc. It would be cool to have some kind of clothes that has tons of pockets, maybe I could do it with no backpack at all!!! Maybe not. We'll have to see. I can't freakin wait to go!

We're planning to do it sometime in March. So, time to start training!