"Aut viam inveniam aut faciam" - I will find a way or I will make one.
Friday, October 02, 2009
Gerber Crucial Multi-tool
In its most simple form, the basic folding pocket knife is an indispensible tool, proving its value to nearly all who carry one on a regular basis. And while handy, the classic folder is missing some rather useful features such as screwdrivers and bottle openers, which is why it isn’t surprising that eventually knife makers were lead to create the venerable and instantly recognizable Swiss Army knife. Over time as the need became apparent for additional features, namely a pair of pliers, the Swiss Army knife eventually evolved into the multi-tool, which has traditionally been a market cornered by Leatherman, though the Victorinox version is superior, neither are very pocket friendly. Finally in very recent years, we have seen yet another split in the evolution of pocket knives, with a new breed of carry friendly mid-size multi-tools, which brings us to the Gerber Crucial.
If a good mid-sized folder managed to convince a multi-tool to have a little ménage à trois with a Swiss Army knife, the Crucial would be their bastard offspring. The Crucial, aptly named for its lack of extraneous tools, pairing down the large scale multi-tool functions to what Gerber designers suspected would be most often used, is an excellent knife with only a few shortcomings. Medium in size, it is about the same length as an average Swiss Army knife and of very similar thickness, though due the pliers it contains, it is a bit wider, being about the same width as a medium sized folder. The blade opens single handedly with ease and locks solidly into place, presenting you with a partially serrated edge on a very thick blade. And while it does seem to be quite robust, you would most likely be ill advised to attempt to pry anything with the blade.
While the majority of most pocket knives are typically called into service for the use of their blades, the added features brought to the table by multi-function pocket knives are just as handy. Not wanting to exclude anything useful, the Crucial also includes a small flat-head as well as Phillips screwdriver, and while partially opening the knife gives you a little better reach with the Phillips, the flat-head is stuck with its diminutive length as its maximum reach. Turning the knife onto its other side we find the carabineer/bottle opener, which functions well as a bottle opener with a nifty bonus being that the carabineer clip holds the bottle cap once popped off, and also seems to hang on reasonably well when clipped to a pack. The final, and solid contender for most useful feature on this knife, are the very nice needle nosed pliers complete with wire cutters which are accessed by fully opening the Crucial to reveal some remarkably comfortable grips.
Personally the lack of a good solid saw is this knife’s one weakness as that is something that gets put to use relatively often on my Swiss Army knives; in spite of this, the Crucial manages to pack some very useful tools into a solid, carry friendly and comfortable pocket knife that has found its way into my routine as my daily carry.
I still need to collect my thoughts and sort through the photos, but overall it was one of the better trips through that trail. I found I pushed my limits a bit more and spent more time on 2 wheels than usual, but all in all a great time was had.
A good friend of mine sent me this quote, I thought it befitting: "Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." - Hellen Keller
We're going out for a little backcountry off roading and kayaking this weekend; sure is nice to be able to knock out a USGS 7.5' map specifically of the area I'll be at. :)
I decided to try a few different color schemes and yarns so I knocked out a couple more beanies this weekend. Since they're so cheap to make and the only real effort is time, there really isn't any reason not to experiment. Anyway, over the last few beanies I've made I've refined the process and my pattern to the point where I think I've got the perfect tight fit beanie down. I could make another pattern up pretty easy for a folded up base, or a bit looser hat which I might try next. I'm also using a fairly tight stitch on purpose, as I'm aiming for maximum warmth with these hats over style. I think an olive drab might work well for a solid color next, maybe put some sort of small decorative patch on the front.
I decided to go backpacking next weekend and it has been pretty cold at night, so while setting up my gear I decided I wanted to bring a beanie. I unfortunately lost the last beanie I had knit a while back, which is too bad because I really liked it so I was stuck choosing from a commercial beanie. I've got a few I've purchased, but like anything that's made en masse, they all just fit o.k. and going through them I decided I didn't want to bring any of them on the trip.
So I decided to crochet one and since I didn't use a pattern I was able to make it a custom fit for my fat head (24") Since it was crochet in the round there are no seams to contend with and since I made it, no stupid and itchy mfg tags either. Made with probably 50 cents worth of yarn and some free time on my Sunday while appropriately watching Man vs. Wild, I knocked out my earthy toned head-warmer. :)
For some time now, I’ve been keeping my eye out for a good all-around watch that met some specific requirements; reasonable cost, solid brand, easy to read and most importantly- tough. I’m a fairly active guy and while I’m not exactly a participant in an Eco Challenge, I would venture to say that in general I actually subject my gear to equally abusive, if not worse, conditions. I personally prefer things with a Swiss Army knife sort of appeal, fairly non-specialized gear that excels in many conditions but is not necessarily the best at any one in particular. I also really enjoy watches; men essentially don’t really wear jewelry save for a wedding band and a watch and since ideally the wedding band doesn’t change with any real frequency, watches are the one place where we have some freedom to play.
Over the years I’ve played around with a variety of sub-thousand dollar watches, with the bulk of them being under $250. From Timex and Casio to a recently failed Luminox, I’ve run many watches through unintentional torture tests in the backcountry over the years, with a small sampling of dress only watches thrown in for good measure, so I definitely have some strong opinions on what works for me and what doesn’t. Generally speaking, while very tough, Casio’s digital G-Shock watches with their LCD fail have failed me in the field due to extreme heat or cold washing out the display, something which really applies to any LCD watch; on top of the fact that, let’s face it, style-wise digital watches usually leave something to be desired. Even some of the high end LCD watches such as the Suunto’s will suffer from these problems and honestly, they are just overly complicated as in my opinion a watch is for telling the time- I’ll use my GPS for elevation, compass and altimeter; which leaves me with analog watches.
While there are higher end analogs that are quite nice: Tag, Rolex, Omega, et al. I could not bring myself to subject a 10k Rolex to some of the beatings that the bulk of my watches must endure. Additionally, as a high power rifleman, the recoil of a large caliber round would wreak havoc on the fine inner works of any automatic watch, regardless of price, which also helps narrow down the search. Finally, while I have a small selection of watches to choose from, I generally find that I fall back to one watch I wear most of the time. It is dressy enough to wear to the office but rugged enough to wear into the backcountry on any of the types of trips I enjoy without the fear that it might fail; which brings us to the Victorinox Swiss Arrmy Summit XLT titanium watch.
I personally prefer watches with a Swiss movement, they are accurate and I can count on them to be reliable. Unfortunately not all makers are the same and after the watch that I thought had fit the bill perfectly as my general from the office to the backwoods watch had failed to hold water out after a few kayaking trips and fogged over, a new search began. With my known requirements in mind I started looking around for a replacement and stumbled across the Swiss Army XLT. Already a huge fan of the knives from the same maker, I felt safe sinking a few bucks into one of these watches and after finding the exceptional deal at Sierra Trading Post, I’m glad I did.
The XLT is a slight departure from the modern trend of gargantuan watch faces, which I personally find ridiculous anyway, with its more traditional face size of 28.6mm. The pins are driven in quite solidly and you will find the band will need to be adjusted by a jeweler, unless you happen to have the right tools at home, it isn’t like sizing most low-mid range watches. Though I’m not a diver, the watch does have a second clasp which allows the band to be opened up enough to be worn comfortably on the outside of a wetsuit which will prove useful when ocean kayaking in a wetsuit. Double clasp aside, the standard clasp holds tightly and securely leaving no fear of the watch coming loose. Overall the XLT has a very nice build quality, everything lines up nice and neatly, the design is solid and it is a fine example of excellent craftsmanship. The watch has a screw-in sealed case back which affords a water resistance rating up to 100m, in spite of the fact that the crown does not screw down.
The multilink titanium band offers a little lateral play by design, making it very comfortable to wear as it adjusts slightly during those times when it slides up the wrist closer to the hand. It has luminous hands and hour markers as well as a luminous mark at the top of the bezel to signify the starting point when used as a one hour timer and they do hold their charge quite well, as checking the time at 4am after the watch has been in total darkness for 7 hours has proven and as a side note, they also recharge quite quickly. The one directional ratcheting bezel is made of a tough plastic of some sort with the numbers being painted on in a slightly recessed groove, something which will certainly help prevent wear and make the eventual repainting simple. The bezel is relatively tight, though not overly so and I suspect it will loosen up a bit with use. Thanks to the titanium casing and band, the watch is also exceptionally light when compared to a stainless steel watch and is a pleasure to wear as you sometimes forget it is even there, especially if you are used to heavy stainless watches.
I personally chose the model with the black face and white numbers which is very easy to read, with the time in both standard 12hr and military 24hr format just to the inside of the larger 12hr format numbers. The 3 has been replaced with the date which is in a nice location for easy reading as I find the watches that put the date to some sort of diagonal to annoy me and the 12 is replaced by an artfully designed Swiss Army logo, giving the watch a similar look to a certain popular Tag Heur watch. The mineral crystal should also prove mostly resilient to scratches due to the inevitable knocking around of the timepiece and if you’ll forgive the pun, only time will tell.
Though it has only been through a few small trials to date, I have yet to find any real fault with the watch. I did need to ever so slightly adjust the main and double clasps so that they would grip a bit tighter, but that took only the slightest bit of effort and I would honestly consider that a part of the sizing process. From a strictly cosmetic point of view, some may find fault with the minute hand, which, while going through the ticking process does not always land exactly on the minute mark in question, though the watch holds accurate time and it does in fact tick 60 times through each minute. I cannot speak as to why this is, but it does not appear to affect the accuracy of its timekeeping in any way.
Overall the watch offers all of the things I was looking for and one thing that made the purchase quite painless is the simple fact that before the model was discontinued, the Summit XLT retailed for $325. In the end, the XLT is tough enough to take outback and classy enough to wear to the office. While I wouldn’t wear it with a tux, for the bulk of my ‘normal’ life at work and at play, this watch will adorn my wrist.
When this photograph was first published in Africa Geographic, BBC Wildlife and later in Paris Match and the Daily Mail (London) it resulted in a flurry of e-mails, phone calls and letters from around the world asking if the image was a fake. Following publication no less than 50 websites were hosting colorful discussions about the authenticity of this photograph. The image became probably the most talked about of shark photograph ever and has become my undisputed best seller.
The photograph is real, no photoshop, no digital manipulation, no nothing, in fact it was shot on slide film Fuji Provia 100 using a Nikon F5 Camera and 17-35 mm lens. For those conspiracy fans who still doubt its authenticity please read how I took the photograph.
To capture this image I tied myself to the tower of the research boat Lamnidae and leaned into the void, precariously hanging over the ocean while waiting patiently for a white shark to come along. I wanted to shot a photograph that would tell the story of our research efforts to track white sharks using kayaks. When the first shark of the day came across our sea kayak it dove to the seabed and inspected it from below. I quickly trained my camera on the dark shadow which slowly transformed from diffuse shape into the sleek outline of a large great white. When the shark’s dorsal fin broke the surface I thought I had the shot, but hesitated a fraction of a second and was rewarded with marine biologist Trey Snow in the kayak turning around to look behind him. I pressed the shutter and the rest was history. Throughout the day I shot many more images, most showing the kayak following the shark, but all lacked the power of that first image of the great white tracking the kayak.
I had been wanting to do an adventure touring ride since before I got my dual sport bike last October and while I’ve put quite a few miles on it since then, including my current 900 mile per week commute, I’ve sadly only had the opportunity to take her off road twice. Being a smaller bike, it gets excellent fuel economy, averaging 80-85 mpg, with a low in the 70-75mpg range if I run her into the red for long periods of time. In that regard, this makes her a great touring bike because I can go such long distances on so little fuel. The downside is that the bike only has a 2.3 gallon tank, though I resolved that with the fuel can rack I made. Of course to achieve that great fuel economy, this means my average speed is 55-60mph which I’ve actually come to enjoy, if you’re not in a hurry to outrun the rest of the world, it works out just fine. Over time I had slowly added on the proper outfitting for a dual sport touring ride, the requisite rear rack, hand-guards and RAM GPS holder, the later of which I will unfortunately not be using as 2 days ago I accidentally ran my Explorist through the washing machine with a load of laundry. DOH!
While I have plenty of miles under my belt on the street, I do have to admit that I am somewhat green off-road, having only taken my XT225 out twice, once to Forest Hill and once to Hollister. Of course, I did want something that would offer a decent challenge and would add significant value as a portion of the overall loop so I chose the Rubicon Trail. In researching what it is like to ride this trail I’ve heard everything from “have a great time, it’s a lot of fun” to things like “have you made out a will yet” and my personal favorite was that I’ll be an “inexperienced rider on a marginally adequate bike for the task.” In all fairness to myself, I’ve run that trail yearly in my Jeep for years so the terrain is familiar and prior to getting into motorcycles I was a semi-pro level downhill mountain biker having spent the majority of my recreational life on two wheels. Maybe I was just trying to convince myself it would work out fine, maybe not, but in either case, the plan was in motion and I was rearing to go with my only real concern being ascending Cadillac Hill with a bunch of weight on the back of the bike.
Being my first real, albeit short, adventure ride, I wanted a decent mix of street, dirt, camping as well as the requisite remote and somewhat strange hotel experience in addition to keeping the mileage reasonable as time and my own constitution are the limiting factors. The plan was to head out Friday, ride to and mostly through the Rubicon trail camping out partway through Friday night, then Sat finish up the trail and head into South Lake Tahoe where I’d stay at a local motel, finally heading home late Sunday morning taking the long scenic route back.
The route headed to the trail was roughly 160mi, the trail and back to the road is around 18-20 and the return route was about 190mi for a total of around 370 miles round trip had everything gone according to plan. Alas, the trail did best me partway through and one of my contingency plans was called into action.
Five days a week my ride is about reaching a destination, this time; it was just about the ride.
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As far as my gear, I was trying to keep it real simple, here's pictures of what was mounted to the bike and what I was actually wearing.
- Sleeping pad - 5 degree bag - Softside cooler - Rucksack - 4hr firelog (not pictured)
Inside the cooler was my food and cooking gear, coffee and some light first aid supplies, including a whistle should things go badly. The cooler had rope on top that was for both the hammock and for winching the bike should the need arise. Rucksack had the hammock, change of clothes, toiletries, book, etc.
In addition to the load the bike was carrying, I was wearing a camel back and a military style "gun belt" that held a canteen full of water. Boots, knee/shin guards and my jacket rounded out the rest.
Inside the camelback aside from water were a few small tools, lighter, pump and of course a BFK.
While a decent focus of the ride I had planned was the Rubicon itself, the trail was actually just a section of an overall ride, that would end up taking me through some of the most beautiful scenery California has to offer with a total trip distance of 424 miles, 15 of which were some of the most difficult I had ever ridden. Reading through tips and advice from forums and people who ride, in addition to my own experience on the trail, I had a good picture of what to expect from the Rubicon and what challenges I would face. While I like to think on the positive side with that old saying of, “you can accomplish anything if you put your mind to it”, I did have a couple of contingency plans should something go awry and in the end, I ended up putting one into action as the trail did best me midway through; this time at least. And while in theory I think I could have pushed on and made it further if not all the way through, I do try to think with safety first and by that point I had gone so far past what any reasonable person would consider safe it was time to take the alternate route.
I’ve put many miles on the Serow on the street and with a 170+ mile daily commute including a good stretch of interstate, I have shamefully logged very few off road miles and this in fact would be not only her first long distance ride at over 400 miles (ok it is to me at least) but only her third time in the dirt with me at the helm. One day I’ll work up to some of those long distance runs I love to read about on ADVrider.com, but I suppose you do have to crawl before you can walk and for me it started out with figuring out how to load that little bike up with all my gear. I had installed a Turbo City rack on the back which is quite stout and is what I used to mount the gas can racks I fabricated to, which I’ll get into more detail on later. Even packing minimally, I still had to contend with a major lack of space; at a minimum I needed my sleeping bag, cooler with food and some sort of tank bag for spare tubes etc.
I was able to cleverly, in my mind at least, rig up a mil-spec rucksack as a tank bag, which in the end worked out extremely well and when I got off to hike around, doubled as its intended function of a backpack. With clever lashing, straps, a net and a couple bungee cords, I was able to mount up the rest of my gear on my little mule and head for the hills. After filling up my gas cans, which saved my bacon in more ways than one and on more than one occasion, I rode around a little bit to get used to the new distribution of weight, which on the street proved to be negligible; the trail however is another story. :)
One of the first things in order, aside from food prep, was to make sure I had at least some sort of first aid kit. Amazing what $5 will get you at Wal-Mart, this little kit had all sorts of things in it and once I bolstered its contents with some upgrades of my own, it makde a perfect bike first aid kit that found a permanent place attached to my camelback. With the addition of the supercompact deet spray, I was ready for the mosquito infested trail.
Of course let's not forget the important stuff and for portable food storage, I've found nothing near as good as my vacuum sealer. You don't actually need to suck the air out, you can just use it to create an airtight sealed bag, which will sit on top of you cooler ice just fine keeping your food fresh and safe from cooler water. I don't know how I got by without one before.
All loaded up, I am ready to hit the road. Amazing how much crap you can cram onto such a little bike. While I could in theory have gone ultralight, ie, hammock and bag, no cooler, no pad, etc. I figured I might as well be comfortable. :)
Taking the long scenic route to get to the trail, I hit a stretch of HWY50 in the Sacramento area that proved to be less than fun. Some 'tard with a shortbed pickup truck full of what seemed to be sawdust merged onto the freeway right in front of me, a thick cloud of dark brown dust billowing out from behind his truck, leaving me in the wake of his dirty exhaust and carpentry waste. After stopping at the side of the freeway to let him get far ahead of me, which was no great feat as I cruise at 55-60mph, I pulled off to stop at a gas station and eat lunch before making my final ascent into the hills.
And up Icehouse Road.
The ride going up Icehouse Road was awesome, I’d made the trip in my Jeep many times but from a bike you just experience more of the world, taking in more of the view than any enclosed car could provide, the feeling of the road and the smell of the trees. Lazily winding up the hill the smooth road twists and turns offering a new vista at every bend as you leave the rest of the world behind you finally reaching the Ranger station where you can check in and get your fire permit.
Incidentally, for anyone considering having a campfire without a permit, don’t. The fine is enormous while the permit is free, there is absolutely no reason not to get one and they are good for the whole year.
I stopped for a moment to look at the memorial plaque for Air Tanker 6 and in spite of the fact I had no one to talk to anyway, offered them a moment of silence in thanks for their service. Though once I got to the part that says “erected by…” I couldn’t help but remember this classic line “Behold, rising before you, the greatest erection on the continent... the greatest erection of the age... the greatest erection on the planet!” A quote which is actually in reference to a bridge and if you can name the movie that came from (without cheating), first round is on me. (click here for the answer)
Heading down Icehouse Road for the trailhead.
And finally after cresting the rise and following the smooth winding road as I descended down towards Loon Lake, I reached water, the signal that I had reached the Rubicon trail.
The dam before reaching the spillway
And the Loon Lake entrance to the Rubicon trail, which upon sight did make me a little nervous. Suddenly self doubts started to rush into my stream of conciousness; I mean, I really have essentially no off road experience on a bike, wtf am I doing here, can I even run this trail and make it out in one piece?
I quickly ushered these doubts to the sidelines as I fired up my trusty steed and began my descent into the inferno.
After riding down the gravel trail that leads to the top of the rock slab from the picture above, I got stuck behind a Jeep for a bit before passing him on the ascent up the rock face where I was greeted with this view before heading down and to the gatekeeper below.
Once I hit the actual trail and started riding the dirt and rocks I quickly realized two things, 1- that as much as I wanted to see how far I could push the bike with the stock 15/45 gearing, I really wanted to put that 13 tooth countershaft sprocket in that I was carrying in my tankbag and 2- manhandling the bike through those rock gardens at 6000ft was one hell of an upper body workout and I was already starting to feel it in my forearms, which made me nervous as I really hadn’t gone anywhere yet. Alas, like the first 15 minutes back in a gym after a long hiatus, the fatigue wore off, at least to some degree and I pressed on, riding up and over the rocks and pushing the bike through sections of trail I was only able to dream about until this moment.
Eventually working my way past the gatekeeper I reached the climb to the slabs, a multiple stage step up section with large rocks and loose dirt. Unfortunately some of the more challenging and very interesting sections of the trail I did not get photos of, largely because I was just too busy enjoying the ride and trying to make it through in one piece. Honestly when I reached the bottom of the climb I looked at it and quickly picked the line I thought was right, but before attempting it thought about it for a minute or two as failure to make it to the top would not end well and I was somewhat concerned. I quickly dismissed my fears and decided I had the right line, leaned far forward on the bike and hit the throttle. With all the finesse of a car accident I led my bouncing, sliding bike up the climb, her front wheel rising the whole way up threatening to buck me from my steed.
And when I crested the top in one piece, wildly throwing my legs out in an attempt to make contact with solid earth, I was congratulated by the trail with this view of the slabs
Riding down to the base of the slabs was fairly simple, though some care was needed when approaching some of the cracks as they are literally large enough to swallow a bike whole should you let your mind wander and partway down the main path is a rather large junction, that on the bike with a little balance and a touch of throttle proved to be handled with ease, while those with four wheels clearly had some trepidation upon approach. From the bottom of the slabs looking up the selection of lines was somewhat abundant, however as I climbed each new step and crack presented a new challenge that needed to be handled.
Alas as I neared the top of the slabs and reached the launchpad I decided that I would not attempt the climb due to the lack of traction on that rock, my weighted bike and the fact that a crash there would end… shall we say, not well.
Like Dr. Jones however I’ve found that if I just sit back a solution will usually present itself and indeed it did as I was eyeballing the landscape I spotted my easier to crest step up that really only a bike should attempt and I was able to circumvent this little section of the trail before being presented with one field of rocks after another. :)
The trail proved to be everything I thought it would be and more, the rocks were a challenge though it was a welcome one and the bike in spite of her overloaded top and rear heavy payload handled the trail amazingly well. A pronounced lack of rider skill however had us on our sides more than once. If you look back to one of the first pictures in this thread you’ll notice that I’m wearing a canteen on my left side. In theory it was a good idea, I mean, a Camelback is great but you really have no idea how much water is left, I look at a canteen as the “reserve” so to speak, much like I treat my cage water bottle on mountain bike rides. At any rate, that thing must have broken my fall at one point because when I went to take a swig from it after exhausting the Camelback, I realized I had crushed it at some point on the trail.
Crashes were semi-frequent and the bike held up amazingly well, a credit to both the bike and the one skill I am proud of being excellent at, crashing. Now I mentioned previously that the gas cans I had saved my bacon more than once and here’s how. The NATO style cans are quite stout, I can say this with authority because I can tell you I put them to the test. They were beaten on, banged on, bounced around and had to support the full weight of the bike on the rocks, not to mention the full weight of the bike impacting the rocks. The held up well and while looking a bit more battered, they did not once leak. In addition to holding up well, both the cans and the gas rack served a dual purpose. They not only held the bike off the ground and consequently the rocks, thereby saving the engine from many, many impacts that would surely have split a case sooner or later, they also helped keep the bike from crushing my legs into the rocks on more than one occasion and of course, their true purpose, they got me back to civilization when I later ran out of gas entirely; between burning fuel on the street, the trail and whatever dumped out when crashing. In spite of their weight, I was glad to have them.
Pressing on I passed through several water crossings and fields of boulders eventually working my way through Ellis Creek and up to Walker Hill. Having run this trail many times over the last 11 years I have to admit that from a four wheeling, let alone dual sport perspective, the trail appeared to have gotten significantly more challenging in some areas, one of which was Walker Hill. As we know pictures have a tendency to do the real thing no justice and flatten things out, but the rocks were large with not a lot of gap between them providing uneven footing and whatever lines could be spotted were quite difficult to maneuver. The penalty for not making some of the climbs on the route was steep and just about every line threatened to launch me backwards.
I crashed a few times heading up the trail, most of which were slow speed loss of balance related, but by this point in the ride the altitude and weariness had started to get to me and it was becoming quite difficult to lift my bike and I had resorted to the method of back to the bike and lifting it with a squat.
I had selected what seemed to be the only reasonable line up the hill, rolled back a bit, got a little rolling momentum and started my assault, weighting the front of the bike as much as I could when she started to climb high throwing me back on the bike and unfortunately hard on the throttle. The bike launched out from under me and straight up into the air, both tires leaving the ground throwing us both backward into the rock pile. As I was falling backwards with the bike I pushed the bike with all my might hard to the left of me as I tried to roll to the right and it seemed to hit the rocks at the same time as I did with a thundering train wreck sound of a crash. I got banged up somewhat by that crash and once I had regained my composure I feebly attempted to roll my bike back upright so I could see what damage had been done. Aside from slightly bent bars, or possibly very lightly twisted tubes in the triple, the bike appeared to be fine not mentioning the rashed plastics and newly cracked hand-guard, without which my levers would not have made it this far.
While this was the most challenging thing I would endure until reaching Cadillac Hill, both my level of fatigue and fear of injury since I was alone started to set in after that crash, as if I had not rolled out in time the bike would surely have crushed my chest with ease and a helicopter ride out would be my only option. Erring on the side of caution, I decided this would be a safe time to run the remainder of my trip in reverse out the way I came in, a decision which I do not regret in the least. The ride out was just as fun as the ride in, including getting lost a few times since I’d never run the trail in reverse everything looked foreign.
All of the step ups and climbs that were brutal coming in were cake going out. With little more than some body English and a bit of light throttle control; they were all bested with minimal effort, while the rock gardens still proved to be a good challenge.
The ride wasn’t just about the Rubicon however and the scenery and fun did not stop one I had made it back off the trail as my adventure continued on my ride into South Lake Tahoe.
Once I was back on the streets again I continued en route to South Lake Tahoe however after reaching the main road it wasn’t far before I was out of gas having tapped both the main and reserve. As luck would have it I had a spare gas can and used it to top off the tank with enough to get me comfortably into Lake Tahoe. Had I been without it, I’d have been waiting on AAA so needless to say, I was glad I roughed it with the extra weight.
Once I rolled into the Tahoe area and reached the main drag, I approached a Howard Johnsons motel on the left side of the street that I gladly rode towards. Pulling into the check in parking area, I could hear the pack of obnoxious, very drunk guys hanging out in the spa. “That sucks” I thought to myself, so much for that much needed soak in the spa. In the end it turned out it was a pack of middle aged guys riding Harleys that for one reason or another decided to get completely wasted and go soak in the spa. Though they were harassing people that walked by, I was outnumbered by a lot, but not outgunned. Not one to look for trouble, I quietly made my way to my room, unloaded my bike and prepped for a nice hot shower where I was greeted with this nice glove tan.
After the shower however I was feeling so much better and ready to get into dinner and throw back those 2 ice cold Fosters that I had been carting around.
In the morning I made myself a nice pot of coffee, got in another nice hot shower and busted out my cream cheesed bagels for b-fast… hard to beat it. But before I could sink my chomps into the morning’s grub I decided to allow myself one of my few and far between vices of a cigarette and while outside a guy from one of the rooms upstairs started to approach me. As he got closer I said “good morning” to which he replied “this place is harder to get out of than it was to get out of prison.” Lol nice… I guess I got my requisite creepy dude for the trip to top off my 1.5 star hotel.
Before heading out I had to swap that 13 tooth countershaft sprocket back out with the 15 tooth standard as my top speed was currently about 45mph. I’ve got to tell you, once I got that baby back in there it felt like I was on a freakin sport bike, at least for a while. :)
Headed out 89 was one of the more scenic routes while 88 had its own level of beauty. If you look in the second picture below, partway out you’ll notice a guy fishing out there. Looks like great country to backpack in and I think I’ll be investigating what is allowed out there soon. :)
Heading up and out of the valley I took the Serow up to a maximum elevation of just over 8500ft and since I never changed the jetting I was concerned I could make it. Although she performed find at around 7000 with the occasional hiccup, at 8500 I was a bit concerned as to whether or not I would even make it. Slowly but surely however, she pulled me up, over and through the range eventually dropping me off back in the Stockton area, with a short 40mi jaunt to home.
But before getting out of that area, I was first treated to these views.
And finally, my favorite of them all: (Which looks much better full size)
In the end I clocked 424mi. I had a great time and I can't wait to go back. :D :D
Well I misplaced my Magellan Explorist 200 GPS a few days ago and I'd been searching high and low for the thing as I'd really have liked to use it on my upcoming Rubicon trip.
Alas, it didn't turn up until I was emptying a load of laundry from my washing machine, where I found it in its dead state under my clothes. I guess I left it in a pocket and just tossed it in there, man... My last GPS lasted about 12 years, this one < 6 months.
So while I'd like a little more umph, I do find my little XT225 to be a veritable mountain goat of a bike that really seems to be screaming "throw everything you've got at me." And though I've only had her off road twice, any shortcomings I ran into were mostly my own. So with a Rubicon trip coming up next weekend, I knew I'd need to do something about the puny 2.3 gallon factory tank. Unfortunately Clarke does not make a larger XT tank, so most XT owners end up with some mickey mouse version of a strapped down milk jug, or one of the Kolpin jugs (which can no longer be shipped to CA, which is ironic as with the emission friendly style ones we are sold locally I typically end up spilling gas all over the place lol)
I had spied some spiffy little NATO 5L gas tanks some time ago that I've been meaning to mount up in some way or another and when I recently saw some mounted on a TW200 I was inspired to get off my ass and fab something up for myself. Not perfect by any means and I'm surely more critical of my own work than someone else might be, but with some basic hand tools (and no vice, long story) I bent up and welded these together with about $12 of u-bolts and $19 worth of metal from Home Depot.
I do need to add some sort of rubber on the inside edges to prevent rattling, but otherwise they are quite stout. I can grab hold of one side and lift the bike off the ground with almost no flex, so I think they'll be safe when I lay it over. :) If you're wondering, 10 liters = 2.64 gallons so I've got more than a full fill-up. If I was only getting 75mpg, my range just shot up to roughly 370 miles before I need a fuel station.
It will really make me feel more comfortable going on longer trips and on far backwoods trips without the fear that I might run out of fuel and I've got to admit, I'm really happy with how well it came out.
I've probably watched too much Star Trek over the years and while I'd like to believe that the majority of people out there instantly get the aural imagery of Patrick Stewart's voice as Captain Picard, as I do, whenever they hear a monologue starting with "captain's log...", I have a feeling I'm relegated to the minority of the general populace on that one, but don't mention that to the Trekkies. But hey, the tie-in isn't just there for the Trek fans, a real quick little bit of association, six degrees of separation or whatever you'd like to call it ties things together neatly just the same. I named my kayak the Pequod after the whaling ship in Moby Dick and Patrick Stewart played Ahab in the 1998 TV movie of Moby Dick, which I unfortunately never did get to see.
The Pequod is an Ocean Kayak Prowler 15; the 15 in the title is also the designation of length as she's a 15 foot vessel. While her actual dimensions are an excellent touring length of 15'5", she's a bit on the "portly" side as far as kayaks are concerned at 28.5" wide, but that provides her with excellent overall stability and the ability to carry a massive 450lb overall load with a good deal of available space in both the large rear tankwell and the spacious front hatch. With the large hatch and tankwell, excellent load carrying capacity and stability, all I had to do was toss in a fishing pole and this sit on top was the perfect kayak for me.
Make no mistake, she's no racing skeg by any means, but she is indeed a pretty fast kayak once you've got her going, plus I'm a huge fan of the SOT (Sit On Top) design. I'd gone on a few rafting and canoing trips over the years and as someone who really enjoys getting out and away from the crazy life in the urban sprawl, I had always carried a secret lust for a kayak or canoe of my own for not only day trips, but weekend overnighters and eventually week-long river camping expeditions. As luck would have it, late last year it turned out that the perfect kayak for me was just on the horizon.
As winter approached last season, I happened to be perusing the REI outlet website looking for hiking/camping gear when I stumbled into the water sports section. When I saw the specs and price on the Prowler 15 "seconds" (which turned out to be nothing more than some black scuff marks which I wiped off the day I brought her home) they had listed, I did some research of user reviews and confirmed that it was indeed the ship I had been waiting for. With the price being less than half of the regular cost it and with the ability to not pay shipping by having it trucked to the local REI made this more than just a great deal and the money I saved on the overall price paid for things like a PFD and paddle.
I remember when I first picked her up, what a fiasco that was. I showed up with my Jeep Cherokee with the plan to just throw her on the factory rack upside down and lash her down well with rope. After a lot of pressure and persuading from the local REI staff I purchased some foam blocks to cradle the yak right side up on the roof (still in the cardboard and plastic wrapping), turning out to be a total mistake, which lead to a somewhat eventful ride home that was both unpleasant and unnerving to say the least. I of course found some amusement when it came time to move the yak again to our new house as loading it on the roof of the Cherokee with a couple pool noodles on the crossbars and simply lashing it down proved to be an extremely stable (and essentially free) method of transportation.
With the Cherokee on the way out and the Rover being the new mode of transportation I had to look into commercial carriers and settled on the Thule system. Strong and stable, it carries the yak well, though the overall height does make it a little bit of a challenge to load and unload however I'm working out a system fashioned out of PVC pipes to resolve that issue, so I'll hopefully have more on that topic later.
Finally a warm weekend was in sight while rain clouds were not so it was time to get her out on the water. With wife in hand, we headed for the local lake to get in some boating and fishing time, but alas as we arrived quite early, the kayak rental shop was not yet open. The bait shop however did have canoes and paddle boats for rent and while my recommendation was to go with the canoe, my wife wanted to try a paddle boat. Big, stable and unfortunately insanely slow, she did still have a great time on the water. I'd never actually ridden one of those myself and I knew they were slow, but I had no idea just how slow. Though she was pedaling away and likely going as fast as the boat could take her, a few gentle paddle strokes had me surging 15, then 20 then 30 yards away. I slowed my pace so we could stay near each other and even tried attaching her to my yak so I could tow her for a bit, but that was just too much work. After unhooking I decided to paddle out a ways and see what was ahead, before coming back I hooked up my rod & line so I could troll as I returned. Staying by her side I eyeballed her paddle boat a bit closer and while not the greatest watercraft out there, it certainly looked like it would also be fun. There was a large platform on the back that the dog could sit on and it was designed for two, I'll have to keep that in mind for future play around trips.
While fishing as the day progressed, the Northwesterly winds started to pick up and I realized just how much I was going to need to make some sort of drift anchor. No problem, just added that to the list of things I'd like to add/design/buy for the yak, that and a sail. It sure would have been nice to take advantage of that wind on the return trip to the docks. Make that 10001 things you can do with PVC pipe, design is in progress. Anyway, all in all it was a great day out and I was glad to get a chance to do a little fishing, even if the only thing I actually got was wet. :)
So you can do stuff like this, nothing crazy, but fun just the same.
Just me dropping off a picnic table at the local bmx park, photo courtesy of my friend Rob. You can use this same technique for loading docks, or whatever. Just hopping a couple 12pack boxes out front of my house.
And a quick little YouTube video of me hopping up some steps at a local park. Thanks for filming Bruno :)
How about me busting out a huge bunnyhop?
And look what happens when you try to bail out at the last minute like my bro Bruno? (He tried it again and made it though)
Well after rearranging my site I never really reposted my MTB tutorials although I did leave them up for a few other sites that link to them. Anyway, here they are, right click the link and choose save target as, OR watch it on YouTube. The downloaded version is obviously much higher resolution. I'm doing all these basic tricks on a full suspension KHS mountain bike with some decent modifications made to it, but you can do all of these things on any mountain bike.
You can follow the sticky thread on the topic at the MTBR Forums I'm Flowmaster of course.
MTB VIDEO Tutorial: Volume 1.5 - Bunnyhop practice session Download it here by RIGHT CLICKING and choosing SAVE TARGET AS. Bunnyhop practice session, about 50MB
Here is is on YouTube.
You can follow the thread on the topic at the MTBR forums.
We went on a docent guided bicycle tour of the SF Zoo on Sunday before the park opened and let me tell you, docents aside, by bike with an empty park is most definitely the best way to get around the zoo! It was an informative trip and I had a great time with my wife and a friend that invited us to go. Here's a few pictures I snapped along the way. The higher res ones I took with my D60, the lower res snaps were off of an all-in-one camcorder/camera kind of device that takes mediocre pictures, but you can't beat the convenience of it.
This grizzly bear was looking for fish
I think this guy is a not too distant relative
These two were good buddies
So how do I get a pet meerkat?
I'm pretty sure I've seen this guy following me around before
There aren't many left of this majestic cat
After all that hard work, it was time to reward myself with a healthy lunch.
And Brooke was lovin' the chocolate shake
After we ate lunch we headed back to the Zoo by way of the beach and saw what a sad mess the bay has become. The whole beach was covered with black sand that absolutely reeked of oil.
Well I went out to the SBR newbie day in the dirt on Saturday and had an awesome time out there; man what a huge learning experience that was! :D I felt like I was doing fairly well and my bike managed to hang in there just fine in spite of a few little issues. Even fairly aired down, the IRC Winner GT tires I had on the bike did not do too well in the mud at all, while on the hardpack and loose dirt they did just fine. Although I'd like to blame the tires for my many mud related crashes, a pronounced lack of rider skill in the mud was really the culprit. :) I suspect my next set of tires will be much more off road oriented, maybe something like the Kenda Trackmaster II 760's. Another area where the bike fell short was with the foot pegs. Once they got the clay-like Hollister hills mud in them, they were more or less smooth which made it impossible to stand up as I would instantly start sliding off the pegs.
The other main issue I had was due to handlebar height, something I never adjusted once I got the bike as they were way too low which made standing hard as my arms were almost straight up and down when I stood. Finally the last area where she fell short was with the gearing, the factory gearing is 15/45 which was just a little too tall for the semi-steep hills I was riding. I found that if I tackled a hill in 2nd, more often than not I would bog down and have to down-shift. I also found that on the tighter trails 1st gear was even a bit tall, so once I got home I ordered up a 13T and 14T gear for up font that I can tinker with. On a few of those climbs I also managed to pull an unintentional wheelie or two, which was actually not that bad and felt pretty smooth. I think once I get that lower gearing installed I'm going to have to play around with getting that front tire airborne. More than once I wanted to wheelie drop something, but just didn't have low enough gears to do it.
That trip definitely inspired me in more ways that one. First off, I rode with some pretty awesome riders who were super cool and had the patience to wait it out as I learned how to tackle many parts of the trails we hit. I also realized the potential that the little 225 that could has, with its light weight and low stand-over, I felt really comfortable pushing it out there, though I did feel out her shortcomings; which also really inspired me to tackle that ground up restoration on my RM125 because that seems like it would be the perfect trail bike to me. It's a 2 stroke so it would have more torque, it has way better and more travel and it just seems like it would handle much better in the rough due to its overall design. Don't get me wrong, I love my XT and like my big Jeep the fact that I can ride to, through and home from the trail on it is a pretty awesome thing, but a trailer queen sure does give you a bit more leeway.
I've worked out the bars since I can adjust them myself and I've got some lower gears coming soon so I'm really excited to see what kind of change those modifications will have in the way the bike handles. I've read about how some people modify the fuel delivery by adjusting their pilot screw and going from a 125 to a 130 main jet and from a 40 to a 42.5 pilot jet, but I'll try the gears out first. I also ordered up a Clymer shop manual for the RM125 so I can get that rebuild moving along.
Here's a group shot from the pre-ride meeting (photo courtesy of Andy SBR)
En route to the mudpit of doom (photo courtesy of Gary SBR)
"Hold on, I think I can make it...." *crash* ... "nope, guess not." lol (photo courtesy of Joe @4theriders.com)
I'm not liking mud right now (photo courtesy of Joe @4theriders.com)
Almost went down again but juuust managed to pull out of it :) (photo courtesy of Joe @4theriders.com)
My plate is quite fitting sometimes (photo courtesy of Joe @4theriders.com)
In case you don't know what it means: AUGER N = "Auger in" which means:
We spent this last weekend with our old neighbors at their cabin up at Shaver Lake. It was really cool of them to invite us and we had a great time playing in the snow and hanging out. And while the girls are great, they do on occasion spontaneously start screaming or fighting, but I guess that's just a part of having kids. My wife tells me I need to keep my mouth shut more often however as I apparently don't hold back with my comments sometimes. But when one kid walks into the room and smashes the other in the face with a handful of legos for no reason and a loud tear-fest ensues, I'm reminded of how quiet my dog is. Oh well, we had a lot of fun anyway. :)
I thought I'd throw my wet weather riding setup out there in case anyone else is looking for a reasonable way to stay dry without shelling out a grand for a custom suit. I know the preferred and really the ideal setup is an Aerostitch, but at about $750 for the one piece suit and about $800 for the two piece, it is a tad excessive for me as when the weather is good I just wear a leather and "riding" jeans so it would see limited duty.
My current setup is a 2-piece arrangement with a total cost of just over $100. To keep my legs dry, I wear a black Carhartt rain bib and because it is pretty heavy .5mil PVC over a polyester fabric, it does a fairly good job of cutting down/out windchill in addition to keeping me dry. The Carhartt rain bib goes for about $40 pretty much anywhere and has pockets in the knees which you can use to insert knee protection and it comes in yellow, orange or black, I happen to have the black ones.
For the top, I have the matching PVC rain coat which has a double storm flap arrangement where it buttons up and does a good job of keeping you dry. If I want to ride with protection, I can wear that over my textile or even leather jacket if I wanted, although it has no reflective tape so I'm not afforded any extra visibility. You can also get it in yellow, orange or black.
When I don't want to double layer the raincoat and or am not concerned about adding crash protection, yeah say what you will, I think we've all done triple digits in a t-shirt a few times... I wear a LaCrosse Industrial Mountain Pass jacket which offers pretty good warmth, neck protection from the wind and rain and extreme visibility. I wear this when I'm concerned with being seen, but not so much about high speed crash protection as I'm generally under 60mph on the DS.
The LaCrosse Industrial Mountain Pass jacket goes for about $75.
LaCrosse Industrial also offers a non-insulated jacket that is more like the Carhartt PVC styled one that has the same ANSI approved bright yellow with super reflective tape if you wanted to put something bright over your textile or leather and they generally go for about $50
The items above can be found almost anywhere and a quick Google search will yield several online vendors. Anyway, I just thought I'd throw out an alternative to the high priced 'stitch in case anyone out there is riding wet because they either don't have one or plan to get one. And while a $10 plastic rainsuit from Wal-Mart will likely keep you dry, I wouldn't expect to get much use out of it.
XT225 in the dirt finally, learnings, pictures and video
Well I finally had a chance to get my XT out in the dirt, to make a long story short I'd been going back and forth with it to the shop for the last month and a half over absolute bs, but with that resolved, I had to take her out.
Light mods: Since this is a bike for commuting and putting around town, I needed some sort of decent rack so I got one of the Turbo City racks, which I highly recommend. Super easy to install and super strong. In addition to the rack, my hands were getting cold and I figured if I was going to ride off road I better add some sort of handguards to protect both my hands and my levers. It's a good thing I did too because I can't even tell you how many times I went down on Sat lol. The weight of the bike was on the rack a few times and it didn't flex one bit, in fact, lifting the bike back up (something I did more times than I care to) was no problem via the factory handles or by grabbing the rack. (my arms/back/legs are sore today)
You'll also notice my GPS attached to my handlebars via a nice solid RAM mount, which was super handy both in getting me to the trail and verifying where I was on the trail with the US Park Service map. I considered printing a topo, but I didn't see much point since I was going to be riding clearly marked trails and I had a trail map which ended up being just fine. Anyway, this was my first time offroad with my XT and my second time off road ever so it was a learning experience all around.
Here's some things that I took from that trip. - Holding freeway speeds is no problem, however when it is 28deg out since there is no fairing it is friggin COLD, drafting big rigs really takes the edge off. - 80/20 tires are not good in mud. - My A* Bionic knee guards totally saved my knees as they were on the ground often with the bike on top - I really do not like riding in mud, riding on snow was ok, kinda squirrelly when headed uphill however. - Mud makes an easy trail hard, it was almost impossible for me to get very far onto trail 5 because of it so I had to bail and stick to the less steep trails. - Green trails are worthless, might as well ride on the sidewalk - Blue trails were fun except for said mud and ice water puddles - My boots are not waterproof - I need better tires - The handguards I installed saved my levers and hands as I ate it countless times in the mud - Almost going over the edge in a totally remote area when completely alone was strangely amusing - Sliding out into a mud puddle at 25mph royally sucks when it is 30deg out - I hate mud. - Did I say I hate mud? Give me rocks any day. The few rocky parts were awesome. I've got to find a rocky singletrack.
Bike all loaded up and ready to roll, it was a COLD morning.
Once I got into the Sac area there were a few odd things. 1- There were a TON of wild hogs everywhere, 2- it was ARCTIC cold, I don't know what they were thinking. I got so cold riding up there (135mi one way) I felt like I was going to hurl, coldest I've ever been in my life. Had to draft truckers just to stay alive thanks to no wind protection.
Quick stop before hitting the trail to make sure all was in order.
And theeeeen... freakin' ice puddles everywhere. I was obviously the first one up there.
This isn't the best picture of it, but the mud was frozen solid and actually kinda slippery. My camera died before I could get pictures of some of the other frozen mud that literally looked like it was the superman ice caves.
The parts of the trails that didn't have snow or mud or huge icewater puddles were pretty fun and scenic.
I really had to work to try to keep dry since I would have to ride back home wearing what I was wearing.
Back at home, I was a bit dirtier than when I left :) Hardly mud bogging, but I've got some cleaning to do.
Last but not least here's a little video I recorded while riding. Sorry, I had the camera attached to my bars so it is bouncy but it works anyways I guess. I know I'm slow... second time out remember? :)
The time had come to finish breaking in my new to me 2003 Discovery SE and what better way than a nice week long camping & overlanding trip. It was just 2 weeks ago that I brought her home as a replacement for my tired old 1992 Jeep Cherokee Limited and as much as I love that truck, it was time to move on. While my big Jeep, a locked, sprung over 1995 YJ on 35"s can take me just about anywhere I want, longer trips require some especially creative packing. Though the Discovery has substantially more space, between me, my wife and our dog, we still had to pack a bit tight, it would have been really nice to have had some sort of outside rack to put some things on. I really did not like the idea of heading out without a gas can.
At any rate, all loaded up and ready to go we drove down our block to the main route when I noticed the SLS "Service Engine Soon" light had come on. Since it was a solid light I knew that didn't mean too much, though I really didn't like the notion of heading for the desert with a car in less than 100% operational capacity. I guess I'm just lucky, because after a few hundred feet it started blinking at me. Now being a glass is half full kind of guy, I looked at it as a good thing. I mean, better to have it fail a block from home than in the middle of Death Valley. The engine did feel like it was stumbling a bit so I got out and put my hand over the exhaust, which most definitely was telling me it had a miss.
We headed back home, unloaded the wife and dog and out came the OBD-II scanner which threw a lovely misfire on Cyl 6 message, no surprise there. No problem I thought, I'll just swap the plugs and wires, so I headed down to the local parts shop, picked up my gear, went back home and popped the hood, only to realize to my horror that there was no distributor cap. "Ahh..." I said to myself, "must be a coil pack somewhere, now where in the world did they put it?" Looking all around I saw nothing, so I follwed the wires which lead back behind the engine block to the firewall. "No way", I thought to myself, "that can't be right, what kind of asshole engineer would put a consumable part in a location like that?" Well, as it turns out the ones at Land Rover did.
After a little online reading and a lot of knuckle busting, the SAI "Secondary Air Intake" lines were out of the way and I was able to swap the plugs and wires for cylinders 6 and 8. How anyone is able to do more than that without removing the air intake plenum I don't know, but they must have hands the size of small gnomes. At any rate, I buttoned her back up, fired up the truck and felt for the miss which was gone and all was well. So with the Rover in good mechanical shape, we were ready to head out the next morning for our week of exploration which in spite of a rough start, was completely trouble free afterwards.
Unfortunately I only brought along a little point and shoot and left the SLR at home, but I grabbed a couple of decent shots anyway I thought. Anyway, here's a few.
GPS hooked up to my laptop with both Streets and Trips and TOPO software, ready to hit the road.
Flora looks back and me with "how long do I have to be back here?" written all over her face.
An ample amount of space for all of our gear, something I have fought with in the big Jeep for years.
Before adventuring off road, we first had a good stretch of superslab. And though Flora is a great travel dog as she pretty much just lays down and plays with her toy, a few stops along the way to stretch her legs and take in some new smells were in order.
Here we are arriving at Death Valley.
There were pretty cool mines in many places, I especially liked this one.
This mine had a great little campsite as well.
But the goal of the trip was also to explore and find places like this too.
We stumbled across this remote weather station out in the middle of absolutely nowhere.
I nabbed this during magic hour. The full size image is now my wallpaper.
My wife taking some pictures of the naturally colored rocks on "Artist's Drive"
There really were some amazing views out there.
It was nice to be able to ride in comfort out there, even though it is winter, it did get pretty warm during the day.
So while working my way through a 12pack of Fat Tire, I decided it was as good a time as any to get started on pulling the RM125 apart so I could do a frame up rebuild on it, God knows it needs one. This bike definitely had a hard life and was abandoned at the side of a house for at least a year.
Like many of my sometimes ill-fated projects, I started out with the comment "how hard could it be" and proceeded to begin diassembly. Inside it looks clean, but without a doubt I'll likely have to replace almost every hose, sand, repaint, new seals, rebuild the motor, the tranny etc. I figured it would be a fun side project to screw around with. Yeah, it will likely cost more in the end than it would to just buy one in good shape, but I figure I'll learn a lot in the process.
The Cherokee gets retired and the Rover takes her place
I picked up a 2003 Land Rover Discovery Series II this weekend. It was a one owner vehicle that was traded in to the dealer to upgrade to a newer car. Carfax results showed that the last owner was getting regular oil changes and maint at the dealer, seemed crazy to me, but I sometimes service is included with the car, either way I'm not arguing. He last had it in 4k miles ago for the 50k service before upgrading to a new car. Went from him, to dealer, to me and it is oh so nice. I was originally looking at getting a new(er) pickup truck, like a 05', or an 06', but after consideration of toting the dog and what I would get more use out of, I opted to replace the Cherokee with a vehicle that had similar features. Granted, there is no comparison in "niceness" between the two, but functionwise the Rover fits the bill.
I've never had a car with so many "luxury" features. It even has this crazy hydraulic anti-sway compensating system that tightens up the suspension on one side or the other if you swerve to prevent body roll and it works freakin awesome. From that to the dual sunroofs, the 300lb of torque at only 2600rpm, the sonar backup sensor that beeps faster and faster as you approach an object while in reverse, the xm/ipod/in dash/& 6 disc changer, airbags, hell even down to the burlwood dash this thing is amazing. It will make a nice comfortable light duty off road and camping machine while the big Jeep is reserved for the more rugged trips.
I love this thing. I even promised my wife I wouldn't lift it for at least a couple months, she thought I was kidding about lifting it. lol
I decided to do the classic 2 cup of water boil time test with that backpacking stove I made out of two coke cans. Using my swiss tool I bent a coat hanger into a little ultralight stand. Of course, if you really wanted to save weight you could just dig a small hole or use sticks or rocks to hold your pot over the stove. I'm pretty happy with the stove as it performed coming to a boil in rougly 4 minutes. :) The can of fuel was about $5 at the local Home Depot, it burns clean and fairly hot. I recorded a small 1 minute video as well after the stove had been on for about 3 minutes. The coat hanger worked fairly well, if I was going to keep it for actual use I'd sand off the paint on it, but I suspect I'll just use rocks or sticks in the field.
This particular design has paper towel folded over inside the walls acting as a wick. I also use larger weep holes in the base and it seems to do well. The amount of fuel required to boil 2 cups of water is exactly 2 tablespoons, not bad. To carry the fuel you can just get one of those little containers from the travel isle at the local drug store.
Part way into the video you'll see me stick my hand in there, showing the time at about 3min after starting the fire. All in all it averaged to almost exactly 4 minutes. I should also note that I'm probably only about 100ft above sea level.
We've just had so much to do lately we haven't really had a chance to get away and have a little break to ourselves. You know how it goes, lots of things going on at work and you start to realize all your weekends have been prebooked with things you may not really have much interest in doing. Not to mention the fact that we're still unpacking from the move, we did get a pretty cool house in a nice neighborhood, but man I hate moving. Anyway, when the opportunity arose for us to duck out to Tahoe, well we just couldn't say no.
From our location in the bay area Tahoe is about a 3hr drive, so it's not terribly far, but it isn't exactly right around the corner either. We went up Friday night around 7pm and the traffic was light, but the conditions going in got increasingly worse. Not much moonlight, lots of rain and fog thick enough to obscure most of the windy road. That was especially interesting in areas that more or less had cliffs on one side or the other with no guardrails and people trying to go well over the speed limit.
You know how everything is connected in ways we sometimes don't realize... I wonder if my driving at a sane speed and creating a slight backup in some of the especially dangerous parts forced someone else to slow down, which prevented that person from flying over the edge. I'd like to believe so, especially when I think about the guy in the minivan that floored it around me while honking and swerving as he careened down a wet, windy road with a sheer cliff on the side.
So, aside from the adventure getting there we had a great time. We got in some hiking, some sightseeing, toured around the lake and of course a few bucks in gambling entertainment. I even had to MacGyver a fix to a leaking fuel line on the big Jeep, turned out we sprayed about a 1/4 tank before I caught on to it. DOH
I guess that explains why I wasn't getting tailgated on my way up that last twisty section of road lol. Anyway, here's a few more pictures we snapped along the way. I love Tahoe. :)
Great views of the lake
We saw lots of this cool looking moss on our hike.
My girls :)
Flora (You might laugh at her jacket, but the low was 20 degrees F!)
My very first GPS was one of the very early civilian models from Garmin, it had an external antenna that you could adjust. I got the "military" style model and unfortunately it was pretty much a piece of junk. The antenna was not very tough and while simply trying to rotate it the thing popped off. When attempting to put it back, some of the connecting points snapped. Thankfully, I was able to return it and purchased a Magellen unit. I liked the Magellans in that they were self contained, waterproof and had a very simple interface.
Of course this was back in the days when a GPS really only gave you data. Direction, speed, latitude, longitude and sea level elevation. On top of that, it was $300. I used that thing in combination with USGS topo maps for many years, it came with me on Jeeping adventures and backpacking trips into the unknown. Unfortunately it finally gave up the ghost a few months ago after providing me with over 10 years of service. Time for a new one and while I was at it, I figured I might as well go full bore and see what kinds of topo software was out there.
After a bit of research I settled on the Magellan eXplorist e210 United States version. Without going into detail on the specs, you can google those, the device comes preloaded with a US map containing major roads, parks, airports and waterways. For more detailed maps you can upload them into the unit via special software.
Now personally I don't really care too much about a detail map on a tiny little GPS screen. The zoomed out major roadways is fine for my purposes, any real detail requires a real map. Not to mention the fact that if your GPS dies for one reason or another, you better have a real map and compass handy or you might not be making it back to camp. Another nice feature is a dual level backlight that allows you to choose a dim or bright setting, very nice. Considering the fact that the backlight on these things can be a real power hog.
Here's the dim setting, note that I'm not tracking any satellites yet as I just turned the GPS on and I'm inside an office building with it pointing away from the windows. However, if you'll notice in the next picture, it started the tracking process anyway and locked a satellite. From everything I'd read and now experienced, this GPS handles satellite aquisition and lock extremely well. I don't yet have a handlebar mount, so to tracklog I just fire it up and toss it in my bag and it works just fine.
Another one of the nice features with this device is being able to set something called a track log, which more or less just records a ton of waypoints automatically as you move along. The nice thing about this is that you can wander off wherever the hell you want, then basically just tell it to do a return trip and it will guide you back the way you came.
The other nice thing about that is that not only can you use it to record locations with a route to get there as well as how to get back to say... camp with virtual breadcrumbs, but you can import this data into good topo software, like the TOPO! maps software from National Geographic. Now that is super cool, with that little feature when you return from a trip you can download the data off your GPS into your PC and see where you went on your map. Of course one of the primary reasons for getting the GPS is that you can also plot charts on your map and upload them to your GPS as a route that you can follow.
Combined with the very awesome National Geographic TOPO! map software, this little guy will be seeing a lot of use.
Now that I can print my own 100k and 7.5' topo maps I can feel free to abuse them and mark all over them and with the routes I create on it uploaded to my GPS, I can feel confident that not only will it lead me where I want to go, it will get me back home as well.
So I'd seen plans for years about little backpacking stoves you can make requiring merely a couple of coke cans a swiss army knife and a few minutes of time, but I'd never really gotten around to making one. I had been using nesbit tablets, which function, but I'm really not a big fan of them. Anyway, someone had posted a video on metacafe showing his own modified and simplified design and I figured I might as well give making one of these a shot.
Now, he simply states that you need to prime it first, then he is shown holding a lighter under it for a few seconds before lighting the jets. Of course, anyone that knows how primed stoves work realize that is total BS because you really need a priming pan, which defeated the whole point of his "modified" stove as it was supposed to be a completely simplified version of the different styles out there.
Anyway, I don't like the priming pan idea, it's just one more thing to carry around and lose. I'd prefer for the entire unit to be self contained. A great website, zenstoves.net goes into detail on the design and theory behind many different styles of these little stoves. Personally, I prefer the open top style, though slightly less efficient it lights instantly and the jets come on when ready.
I am somewhat happy with the performance I'm getting, though I do want to change the design a little and make the top hole smaller, I don't think it needs to be quite so large. Anyway, here's a shot of the flame you get for 5 minutes from a couple tablespoons worth of denatured alcohol.
In its most simple form, the basic folding pocket knife is an indispensible tool, proving its value to nearly all who carry one on a regular basis. And while handy, the classic folder is missing some rather useful features such as screwdrivers and bottle openers, which is why it isn’t surprising that eventually knife makers were lead to create the venerable and instantly recognizable Swiss Army knife. Over time as the need became apparent for additional features, namely a pair of pliers, the Swiss Army knife eventually evolved into the multi-tool, which has traditionally been a market cornered by Leatherman, though the Victorinox version is superior, neither are very pocket friendly. Finally in very recent years, we have seen yet another split in the evolution of pocket knives, with a new breed of carry friendly mid-size multi-tools, which brings us to the Gerber Crucial.
If a good mid-sized folder managed to convince a multi-tool to have a little ménage à trois with a Swiss Army knife, the Crucial would be their bastard offspring. The Crucial, aptly named for its lack of extraneous tools, pairing down the large scale multi-tool functions to what Gerber designers suspected would be most often used, is an excellent knife with only a few shortcomings. Medium in size, it is about the same length as an average Swiss Army knife and of very similar thickness, though due the pliers it contains, it is a bit wider, being about the same width as a medium sized folder. The blade opens single handedly with ease and locks solidly into place, presenting you with a partially serrated edge on a very thick blade. And while it does seem to be quite robust, you would most likely be ill advised to attempt to pry anything with the blade.
While the majority of most pocket knives are typically called into service for the use of their blades, the added features brought to the table by multi-function pocket knives are just as handy. Not wanting to exclude anything useful, the Crucial also includes a small flat-head as well as Phillips screwdriver, and while partially opening the knife gives you a little better reach with the Phillips, the flat-head is stuck with its diminutive length as its maximum reach. Turning the knife onto its other side we find the carabineer/bottle opener, which functions well as a bottle opener with a nifty bonus being that the carabineer clip holds the bottle cap once popped off, and also seems to hang on reasonably well when clipped to a pack. The final, and solid contender for most useful feature on this knife, are the very nice needle nosed pliers complete with wire cutters which are accessed by fully opening the Crucial to reveal some remarkably comfortable grips.
(He tried it again and made it though)
From our location in the bay area Tahoe is about a 3hr drive, so it's not terribly far, but it isn't exactly right around the corner either. We went up Friday night around 7pm and the traffic was light, but the conditions going in got increasingly worse. Not much moonlight, lots of rain and fog thick enough to obscure most of the windy road. That was especially interesting in areas that more or less had cliffs on one side or the other with no guardrails and people trying to go well over the speed limit. 
