Adventurelaus

With the Omaha to Ames Bike Tour the desire to finish the cross state ride over Iowa with another tour. My wife and I did ride across Iowa together during the 2001 RAGBRAI so it's not a first, but touring across the state by yourself is a totally different adventure. Many other adventures and life events have come and gone between then and now. But now it's the time to attempt this goal to ride the rest by myself. I'm stoked! The route I planned will take me a bit north to Waterloo, IA to catch the Cedar Valley Nature Trail and Hoover Trail for about 80 miles. Primary goal is to ride a fun and enjoyable route and including nice trails should make that more likely. Plotting the route I saw that out of the Quad Cities on the Illinois border the Hennepin Canal trail toward the east. The I&M Canal would then take me all the way to Chicago, Illinois where a patchwork of shorter trails get me across Indiana to Columbus, Ohio.  With the GAP and C&O trails the rou...

It's been a while since I posted something here. Life did throw me a curve ball last year and my adventure of 2017 ended up being an exploration of the health care system. Now that I'm sewn together again (literally) I need to get back to doing stuff again. There is still the Crazy Local Ride Ideas . I successfully completed visiting all towns on a bicycle ride in Story County but the same for Boon County still needs to be done. So what better way to go start things out, going from 3 to 113? Yes, I haven't been doing much riding lately. Only commutes to work which are about 3 miles one way. This makes it more of a challenge to visit all 11 towns.  What better way to have fun? Watch my twitter feed to see when I start and cheer me on. Towns of Boone County Route ( interactive route map )

So this year will have no major trip in store but lots of smaller adventures.  For the fall I'll have two more lined up.  I'll be tagging along with one of my wife's work trip to Bostimore (not Boston but Baltimore, sorry insider joke).  Using her hotel I'll do bike rides with my folder around Baltimore and at least a day in DC.  It'll be the first time for me in Baltimore and the Capitol City. My second adventure will be far less urban, the plan is to bike from San Diego via Tecate and Mexicali to Calexico.  Then back to San Diego with the Greyhound bus.  Yes, that's Mexico, another first for me.  The route will have several exciting and challenging features.  For one there is the 4000 feet mountain range I'll be gradually climbing up and quickly descending.  Sweetened with a desert crossing.  But the different culture and the language, which I don't speak, will certainly be the most "adventurous" part of this trip.  Of course I'...

It's done!  I'll be riding the California coast from Monterey to LA with my Brompton folding bicycle in 32 days.  Flights are booked and vacation has been scheduled.  Now I just have to complete the details.  Creating a packing list, which will be minimal since I won't be able to carry much asides the tent, mat and sleeping bag.  Food will be my main concern as I can't carry much and the route will be more isolated than the ride I did in Oregon last year.  The exact route needs to be determined and uploading it to the Garmin Oregon 450 GPS. My heart rate is already up.  I'm excited with a touch of anxiety since I haven't ridden for quite a while and not been doing anything asides downhill skiing at a tiny local hill.  The route should be beautiful and have much less traffic than what I encountered in Oregon. More to come soon.  Watch this space.

Winter time is the time for pondering about crazy ideas. Last year when I was riding with my bike to  Webster City, Iowa for lunch I started to get the idea to bike through all towns of my home county on one ride/day.  I picked to ride through all incorporated "cities" of the county, as these towns have their own elected major and some accreditation by the county. Yes, cities is in quotes since most towns have fewer than thousand residents and most of us wouldn't call that a city, but it's the official terminology used.  The smallest "city" is Kelly with a population of 309 and the largest one is Ames of 58,965.  Ames is home to Iowa State University while Sheldahl with 319 people splits them between three counties.  Gilbert with a huge population of 1,082 and 1,364 K-12 students.  Maybe during the ride I'll learn about more courtesies of this county. Story County Incorporated City Tour The ride is a little more than 100 miles which would make it ...

The packing list is still a work in progress.  I'll update this page as changes are done.  Last I weight the pack it was 25lbs most of the stuff but no water.  Water adds another 9 to 13 lbs depending on how much I need to take along. I'm still pondering if I can just take the pack as a carry on on the flights. Pack Backpack ( SwissGear Elite Series XL from Sam's Club ) Shelter and Sleep System Tent ( Tarptent Moment ), with 4 sakes and window shrink wrap as ground sheet Mattress (Therm-a-Rest Guidelite) Sleeping Bag (The North Face Cat's Meow 20°F) in compression bag (Sea To Summit eVent 15 liter) Cooking and Water Two 2 liter water bags and filter ( Sawyer 2 Liter Complete Water Filter System ) with Camelbak bite and shut-off valve. 2 liter Platypus (extra water bag if first camp's water source is dry) Cook pot with lid and fabric bag ( Evernew Titanium 1.3 liter ) Regular and small Big lighters. Stove ( MRS PocketRocket ) Fuel canis...

Because I'm crazy I'm going to fly to Tucson just for a hike in early October.  I'll be arriving at noon, stop by an outdoor store to get the necessities (mainly the camping fuel that I can't take on the plane) and be heading for the trail head for a two night hike.  After my hike I'll be spending the night at a hotel to wash up and fly back the next day. I picket the Saguaro National Park / Rincon Mountains since I already hiked in the Tucson Mountains and the lower parts of Coronado National Forrest / Pusch Ridge Wilderness.  The biggest challenge will be water supply.  The campsites should have water available for treating but I have to verify that before heading out.  I certainly will need a water filtration system.  I'm eying some gravity flow solution. I drafted a route but things could change depending on water availability, flash flooding (which are common there after strong rains and the trail head is on a gravel road that would get washed out)...

I'll be going to Seattle next week for work and as usual I'm trying to connect my work trip with some fun stuff.  This time I'll take the opportunity to test ride a Bike Friday folding bike on a 120+ miles tour around the Seattle bay area. I'll be a wimp and won't be camping out but seek for more comfortable shelters this time.  So no camping and I'll carry only snacks.  The ride should be very neat.  Having three ferry rides how could it be otherwise? I'm excited about it.

Our family is doing an easy and enjoyable ride along the Katy Trail in Missouri. Due to the recent flooding and several trail closures it was questionable if we could make the ride. After checking with the DNR and online river gauges it looks like we might be riding just between flooding periods. Apparently the reservoirs upriver are releasing excess waters and causing flooding but it looks like we will ride just ahead of the flooding. So it might be just like our 2002 bike ride along the Danube in Austria. A few weeks later they had major flooding. The only difference was that we weren't aware and worried about the flooding. Our plan is to ride from Rocheport to Weldon Spring. We'll stay overnight in our little 4 person tent in Hartsburg, Portland and Marthaville. Oskar will ride with Melissa on the trail-a-bike and Heidi will be in the bicycle trailer. Last night we started packing. It's the first time we are doing a totally self supported tour with the k...

I'm planning to ride part of the Katy trail in Missouri with my family this summer. How much of the trail we'll ride will depend on a lot of things. A significant portion is dependent if Oskar (7 years) will ride his own bike or the Adams trail-a-bike. The ride will be several days (5-7?), self supported and we'll be staying at least some nights in a tent. In week, I and a co-worker will be hiking around Lake Georgetown near Austin, TX. The total will be about 28 miles but we will camp two nights at undeveloped campsites since we won't start until late afternoon and will finish in the morning to catch our flight home. Yeah, we'll have to pack all our gear for flying. This means cooking fuel needs to be purchased locally. Lake Georgetown Map  The above map is available as a PDF at the Georgetown website.

San Diego For work I'll be going to San Diego and I added a couple of personal days to it.  My thought is to sight see, visit aircraft carrier and possibly rent a bike and do a bike ride.  An option is to ride around the San Diego bay which is about 25 miles.  It looks like the east side goes through a lot of industrial areas though.  With Torrey Pines State Park and other interesting places being up north I though of doing the Pacific coastal tour from Oceanside back to San Diego.  It's about 45 miles one way and I could take the Coaster train (weekdays only) or Amtrak up to Oceanside with the bike.  Of course everything is contingent on what kind of bike I can rent. Accross Iowa Having completed the bike ride from Omaha to Ames the next natural step is to extend the ride across Iowa.  I have the following route in mind with overnight stops around Marshalltown (or a bit further west) and northern Iowa City. Family Tours Another thing I woul...

The star constellations look right for the Omaha to Ames bike ride. I redid my route a little and got rid of some hills. However there is no way to avoid the huge ascent (and decent) right at the get-go. For overnights I have picked some camp ground, however this isn't set in stone.  So the days will be about the bike ride I did yesterday minus the trailer and plus four panniers.  So I'm not sure if it will be any easier to ride.  I'm nearly done packing and the packing list right now is: Front Left Pannier: toiletries: sunscreen bug spray toilet paper bike lock toothpaste toothbrush hand sanitizer lib balm comb miscellaneous: extra tent string zip ties pliers lighter band-aids chewing gum outside pocket: photo camera phone (backup) Front Right Pannier: snacks: beef jerky trail mix (two bags) granola bars (22 pieces) butter kekse dyed fruit outside pocket: led front light led rear light (two) led head light batteries (8 AA ...

OK, so I have this idea to do a bike ride from Omaha to Ames. The ride would start at my in-laws and end at home. The convenience would be that I could hitch a ride to there from my wife and kids while they visit the grandparents. It would be 180 miles of Iowa county highways in 3 days. I have already a route in mind but still need to plot it. Of course it will be a self supported tour with the occasional stops at gas station for water and ice cream. This will be a two fold adventure, as I haven't done an overnight solo cycling tour and I haven't been riding my bike much this. Spring and summer was occupied by lots of stuff including building a small shed (12 x 20 foot) in the back yard. The shed is somewhat of a priority since I really want to get a better bike than the GT Outpost mountain bike I have. Before I get the new bike I want to have more room to store all of our crap so that it's easily accessible and I won't break stuff while shuffling things around...