The Yawp Company Bikepacks with Surly

Adventure. It's so entangled with the spirit of riding a bike that it's almost to obvious to talk about, but we're going to talk about it anyway. Because a bike is not just transportation and is enjoyable for its own sake, you can be in the midst of traversing points A to B and find yourself detouring to points L, Ń, Omega, Krypton, Narnia, and etc. You may find yourself at a bar or a concert. You may find yourself drinking a really fine beer while watching the setting sun do that thing it does with the sky. You may find yourself anywhere, and no matter where you are you won't be feeding the meter.

By its nature, adventure is difficult to plan. Plans can give way to bad weather or suffocate under logistics. Sometimes adventures end with a number of the adventuring party getting eaten by others in that party. Thus, it's a little miraculous that our recent planned (albeit loosely) adventure with Surly Bikes turned out to be wholly adventurous with absolutely no cannibalism (that we know of).

Ten riders set out from Waterton Canyon on Friday with various amounts of gear loaded up in various ways. Though a full set of sleek bikepacking bags looks cool and pro and works well, there were plenty of items zip-tied to chainstays, which seems a little closer to the spirit of adventure.

Because Waterton Canyon was closed by bear activity (human activity, actually, as it was bear-selfies that instigated the closure), we rode around to the Colorado Trail through Roxborough State Park. The four miles of additional singletrack we rode was excellent--airing out a fully-loaded touring bike was worth the extra mileage. The ten additional miles of road was not so excellent, but it wasn't awful, either.

William sort of enjoys a decidedly not awful road ride.

Somewhere in this neighborhood lives a Cairn Terrier who chased us for the equivalent of 40 dog miles, and he is still exhausted to this very day.

Trevor is contractually obligated to present his middle finger to any and all cameras. Thus, I delight in catching him off guard.

Because of the detour, it was after 1pm before we started climbing the singletrack on the Colorado Trail. We had hoped to be at the beginning of Segment Two by that time, but an adventure that runs on time has--to some degree--failed. The loaded climbs of Segment One were not as difficult as I expected, but they were far longer. About 90% of the trail was ridable while the other 90% was hike-a-bike. Cascading boulders stacked at what seemed like a 35-degree angle made for sore triceps the following day. At the top of that climb I was hungrier than I've ever been, and in fact ingested a couple of sandwiches by osmosis. This rest stop was exactly the place where someone (probably the event's organizer) would've gotten eaten had circumstances been worse.

Too slow! 

Great restraint is shown in the matter of not eating a compatriot. 

Nate usually seems pretty normal, but he enjoys terrible climbs.

The next four miles sloped gently but cruelly upward and deposited us at a campsite with a view that was just pretentious. We'll be going back to that place someday.

While the entire day was "fun," the descent from that campsite down to the Platte River was real, actual fun. I wrecked at this corner and figured it was as good a place to take pictures. 

4 for 4. Boom!

We gathered water at the Platte River. I don't know why, because all we drank from that point onward was whiskey. A few sweet opportunities to push Seth into the river were clearly missed.

I tried to tip Trevor into the river by tilting the camera, but his grip was steadfast.

Some goobers try to ruin my nature photography. Why?

Some goobers.

We decided it was too late in the day to attempt Segment Two. We instead took the road through the "towns" of Foxton and Buffalo Creek, ending with a truly endless and ghastly climb on 126. It traverses Buffalo Creek's burn area, but the climb is so godawful that I developed my very own personal "burn area." At least the sunset was pretty.

At the top of that hill, some fellow campers awaited us with beer and burritos. Had we not been so weary, our vigorous hugs of thanks might've proven fatal. After some beer and a lot of sleep, we woke up in this ugly place:

Kevin from Huckleberry Roasters greeted us with a lot of very delicious, bottomless coffee, and thus he improved on what I'd thought was a perfect morning.

Double complete belly rub!

We spent Saturday doing whatever we felt like doing. We rode bikes, we drank beer, and for a little while, despite having a set of corn hole boards like, right there, we did a little of this:

If you haven't ridden the Little Scraggy trail, you should go do that right now. 

Choo-choo!

Reeves is obviously singing or sneezing or shrieking or something. Reeves, we like this photo so much that we made a profile picture that you are welcome to use royalty-free:

We took senior pictures.

We wore ourselves out.

And then we rallied.

(Note of thanks: Our Yawp Company has received quite a lot of beer from our neighbors at Joyride Brewing Company this season. As we're all insufferable to be around while sober, we'd like to thank them for making this whole outfit tolerable. For this particular outing, we also enjoyed beer by Prost, Epic, and Trve. I can't tell you just how tolerable everyone was. Thanks!)

And then we found a use for the corn hole boards:

It turns out that there is no such thing as "out of the way" when this fella gets going:

In case you can't tell from that pitch black video what's going on, that's Tyler running into me. If you want to sit in my lap, Tyler, all you have to do is ask.

It turns out that getting run over by a bicycle near a campfire is the bedtime story I want to be told every night, and bikepacking is the adventure I want to have every weekend. Thank you to everyone who participated, cooked, carried, shared, dogsat, high-fived, rode, and cornholed. Let's do it again soon.

Saddledrive, Surly Bikes, Snowbasin, and Singlespeeds

Saddledrive. You may have heard of it, but if you haven't worked in the cycling industry in the last few years it's likely you haven't. According to its website, Saddledrive "brings together America's leading independent bicycle dealers for their first chance to see next year's products from the best vendors in the industry." 

I'm usually hesitant to trust words like "best" and "leading," but whether those words are true or not, we at Yawp! are honored to have been selected to go to the three day event in Ogden, UT.

Standing in the middle of the street in a raging downtown Ogden at like 9:30pm.

So what kind of crazy new bike stuff did we see and what does it mean for you?

The Crazy New Bike Stuff That We Saw

I didn't go look at any of it. I was too busy:

Riding Surly Bikes

Yup. In a fantasy land of carbon frames, 10-pound full suspension road bikes, disc brake saddles, and gloves that wirelessly pick your nose, I went and rode steel bikes. Is this because I'm a curmudgeonly luddite? No. There's a fine line between a valuable advancement in cycling technology and a gimmick.

I'll be the first to admit to having been surprised in the past by what I'd thought was a gimmick but was actually a beneficial invention, so I'm not against trying an endurance bike that injects you with electrolytes or a 9" fatbike full of helium, but I'm not willing to stand in line to ride one.

On the event's first morning, I went to see some pals in the Surly tent and I asked them how I could best take advantage of Saddledrive. They handed me an Instigator with 27.5 wheels and told me to disappear for a few hours. Yeah, obviously they were trying to get rid of me, but their advice was useful nonetheless.

I've spent some time on a 26+ Instigator (which you can read about here), and I was really blown away by how nimble the bike was with the 27.5 wheels. I had remembered the Instigator feeling a little disorienting on climbs, which I had attributed to the slack headtube. However, with 27.5 wheels, the bike was a stellar climber while still eating up chunky descents faster than I can eat chunky ice cream (which is real fast).

I rode and loved that Instigator through some countryside that I could barely believe was Utah.

Deep in the heart of the Utah rainforest. 

Even though it's only rained one other time in Utah since it achieved statehood, it was raining as I set out. I didn't care. The rain and the wet foliage were kind of refreshing. The day-to-day operation of a bicycle shop, as enjoyable as it is, often leaves introverts with insufficient time for insular weirdness, or whatever we use all of that alone time for. This particular ride felt like the first time I'd been alone with neither a schedule to keep or a deadline looming for a long, long time. Thanks to both Surly and their parent company, QBP, for that.

There was a cold breeze at the top of the mountain, but the clouds broke just as I arrived. The picture does justice to neither the view nor the Instigator. 

I continued to ride for another couple of hours. There's a trail at Snowbasin called Sardine that seems to descend forever though a spectacular forest, with some pretty stellar views. I've been to Utah kind of a lot, and I've never seen anything like this.

I rode Icebox Canyon, which really deserved a lot of photos, but the (very steep) trail was so much fun I could not make myself stop (almost literally). I took the picture below at the bottom; you'll just have to imagine following this river through a lush and narrow valley. Not that I doubt your imagination, but it's better than you're imagining. 

I was thoroughly impressed with the Instigator and with Snowbasin, not to mention a little tired, so I returned the bike to the Surly tent and found some lunch. After lunch, there was nothing better to do than repeat the ride on a different bike. 

That Karate Monkey wasn't my size and it was still amazing. I hadn't ridden a single speed in years, and I certainly didn't remember it being any fun. It was, though. In fact, it was so much fun that I chose the Karate Monkey later that evening when I:

Rode Bikes With Surly

The look on Trevor's face makes clear what kind of evening is about to unfold.

There isn't much going on in Ogden at night, so Surly took us on a late-night beer-and-campfire ride. It was the kind of ride that produces about 100 photos that are either completely black or blurry. 

Within two or three minutes of leaving downtown, we were on some rolling, narrow singletrack. Our flickering commuter lights cast insectile flashes through dense, low branches. The trail was bench-cut, so to our right was a 6-foot wall of dirt and to the left a bottomless chasm. The forest closed in around us as we rolled through it half-blind, and from an arena nearby an absurd and unintelligible voice boomed over a loudspeaker, like an etherial being welcoming us in an alien tongue to a preternatural woodland. If someone told me I'd dreamed the whole thing, I'd believe them.

Despite a number of campfire beers, I woke up in good time and caught the shuttle back to Snowbasin in order to take care of some important business:

Riding More Surly Bikes

On Saddledrive's second day, I took out a properly-sized Karate Monkey, and had even more fun. I probably bring this up too often in blog posts, but we sell Surly bikes because we ride them, and we ride them because we love them. 

The Karate Monkey has been turning opinions on their heads for over a decade.

Something else about Surlys that are pretty great: if you have a garage full of old parts, most of them will probably fit on a Surly frame. For example, I already had everything I needed to build this bike except for a Karate Monkey frame, which I bought promptly upon my return from Saddledrive. 

If we're lucky enough to return to Saddledrive in the future, I'm sure you can guess what we'll get up to. In the meantime, here's the:

Video of the Week

The Yawp Company in Crested Butte

This Rec Path is the ugliest trail in Crested Butte.

Earlier in July, the Yawp Company went to Crested Butte for a weekend. We all got blurry immediately. 

Crested Butte makes it so hard to go back to wherever you came from that it's actually easy to hate the place. Nonetheless, we made ourselves ride these sickening trails anyway.

Jon, Rebecca, and I rode a new trail called Gunsight that splits off from the Lupine Trail (UPDATE: this trail is now called Lando Calrissian). It definitely needs some buffing out, but chances are that in a year or so it will be one of the best trails around. It's so good! There is one short section of trail where the forest gets so thick that it blots out the sun (more completely even than Mr. Burns could). There's also a strange section that makes you think you've somehow transcended space and time and turned around and are going back the way you came, though you haven't. 

Photo: Jon Mikkelson

It's easy to link Gunsight up with the Lower Loop or the Budd Trail for a 13-mile ride that starts and leaves from beer. I mean from burritos. I mean from town.

Another obnoxious Crested Butte trail.

YAWP!

A load of Surly: Karate Monkey, Krampus, Ogre, Instigator

We camped at the end of one of Crested Butte's best trails: Doctor Park. Some very nice people shuttled us up to, and then through, the creek, cutting out a 45-minute dirt road ride. There's nothing wrong with that ride; it's not too steep and the scenery is typical for the area. It's like they took the entire state of Colorado and distilled it down into a single valley. However, as the fire road climb up to the top of Doctor Park is almost offensively difficult, we kindly accepted said shuttle. 

The end of suffering: the top of Doctor Park.

If we look this happy at the top of a murderous climb, just imagine how happy we looked at the bottom of one of the best descents around (where our keg of beer awaited us).

A few folks have asked me to describe why Doctor Park is so good, but words fail me. Let's ask my trail partner and life buddy Rebecca why Doctor Park is so good.

"Well first there was these pointy rocks that were powdery like the moon, and I was up in the air forever because of moon gravity, and then I landed and there was this part like fishooooo fishooooo fishooooo where things went by that I didn't know what they were, and then there was this wreck I almost had, and then those strobing trees, and then we were going even faster so fast that we went to plaid, and that unicorn with the golden horn appeared, and then there was that part that was like buddabuddabuddabudda and I ate this bee because I was trying to slow myself down with my mouth like a parachute!"

Nate enjoys his visit to the Doctor.

YAWP!

We rode the 401, too, which is about as scenic a trail as ever there was. 

Simon says touch your gear.

Crested Butte is one of those rare places where you can let your mind get all the way quiet. The cell phone service is poor, the air is clean, and every star is visible. There's a line in a Wilco song, "I would die if I could come back new." Somebody tell Jeff Tweedy all he has to do is ride his bike in Crested Butte for the weekend. 

You can see more pictures and read another account of this trip here. 

Finally, we'll leave you with this.

Jon found a sunglasses mirror in the parking lot and wanted to test it out. Greg though he'd give Jon something to look at. Success! The mirror worked.

Photo: Rebecca and the bee she ate

Video of the Week

Save Money and Get Happy

Something to consider:

1. Time Magazine recently released this article, in which they estimate that the average American spends $2600 every year commuting to work. 

2. This article claims that about 50% of all drivers experience some form of road rage every day. 

3. The more time you spend on the road, the more you spend on gas and the greater the chance you'll encounter some form of road rage.

We assimilated this information into a simple graph:

The more you spend, the the angrier you get.

Let's break this down a little further.

If you drive to work everyday and you spend near the average amount on commuting, you could instead ride your bike to work half of the time and have an extra $1300 or so in your pocket. If you don't own a bike, you could purchase a Linus for as little as $490 or a Surly Cross Check for $1250, and still come in under budget. Then, next year, you might need to spend $100 or $200 on tires, brake pads, and some service, but you'd have more than $1000 extra dollars. 

$1000 extra dollars. If you're like me, there are a lot of things you'd do for $1000 extra dollars. Isn't riding your bike to work every other day one of those things? If you rode your bike to work every day, you'd have an extra $1300 this year, and about $2300 every year thereafter. 

An extra $2300 every year. It's like getting a raise and increasing the quality of your life just by doing something fun (every day!). Here are a few things you could buy with $2300:

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

Why aren't more people doing this? Let's examine a few of the most common reasons.

-I live too far away from my job.

It's true that a long commute can seem daunting, if not impossible. There was a time when my commute was about 20 miles each way, and when I first took the job I was disappointed that I would no longer be commuting by bike. However, that 20-mile drive was at its shortest a 60-minute drive, even when I was able to avoid the peak of rush hour. I decided I would try riding to work a couple of times per week. It wasn't long before I was riding almost every day. I could ride uphill to work in about 75 minutes, and ride home in under 50. It was to my great surprise faster, less frustrating, cheaper, and healthier.

-Bad weather.

There's a saying out there that I didn't trust for a long time because it was first said to me by a salesman. However, after a lot of experience riding in the winter, it turns out to be true. "There is no bad weather, only bad clothing." If you learn to dress correctly, there's not a day you can't ride. Also, don't forget that public transportation is an option on the worst of days.

-My butt/wrists/neck/knees hurt after five miles. I can't possibly ride twenty.

It's important to have a bike that fits correctly if you're going to ride consistently. Sometimes this can be as simple as getting a different saddle. Sometimes, merely adjusting the saddle height or the angle of the brake levers can work wonders. 

-I'm afraid of traffic.

You should be. There are a lot of nose-picking texters out there. Watch yourself, be aware, be prepared for cars to make the worst possible decisions, and follow the rules. This formula works well for many cyclists.

But don't take our word for it. Let your bike do the talking. If you ride your bike to work every day for a week and hate every minute of it, come see us and we'll figure out why and help you find a solution.

Our friend Kate had an old, heavy bike that didn't fit her, and we helped her customize a sweet new Surly Cross Check. She sent us an email after she'd owned the bike for one day that read, "I just wanted you to know I had a BLAST riding my new bike to work today. Thanks so much for putting so much care into it! I am hooked." Thanks, Kate!

Kate's sweet new ride.

That's not to say that you need a new bike to enjoy your ride to work. If you don't enjoy your commute, let's figure out why. We're here to help! We're also here to change the world:

Video of the Week

Zoom!

The Yawp Company Goes to Eagle

Once a month, Yawp unleashes its camping anti-team to wreak havoc on the trails of some small, credulous Colorado village. By 'wreak havoc' I mean we ride at an enjoyable pace and practice good etiquette but we get pretty damn rowdy in the turns and when there's pizza on the table.  On the last weekend in June, havoc was wrecked in the town of Eagle. Joyride Brewing Company gave us one of these to take with us:

We camped southeast of town in the National Forest. It was buggy, but it was the quiet, lush kind of Colorado valley that is the only antidote to living in the city. Places like that are just about the only places where I can feel truly at rest. Plus, somebody left us a chimney log. 

Mountainbikeeagle.com makes finding trails in Eagle really easy (if you can get service). We had word that the Tick Alley/Itch/Scratch/World's Greatest loop was well worth doing, so a few of us snuck out on Friday afternoon to, from the sound of it, ride through tick-infested shrubbery. 

Tick-infested shrubbery.

The four of us ride a lot. We are experienced. We ride steep front range trails. We ride across the country and we ride Hunditos and to the top of Mt. Evans and we like to think we are reasonably fit. We enjoy being challenged. And yet we could find no expletive strong enough for how difficult Tick Alley was.

Gathered under the tick-infested shrub of misery.

It was exposed, hot, steep as steep gets, and an endless string of whoops formed by motorized dirt bikes. We weren't prepared to give the kind of effort required. We didn't have a thermometer, but it was approximately one million degrees out there. 

Shortly after this photo was taken, molten yellow plastic scalded Jim to death.

We were so tired that we skipped Itch and Scratch and went straight for the World's Greatest Downhill. It was fine. Any downhill would've been fine. World's Greatest eventually intersected with Tick Alley, and two thousand whoops weren't much more fun to descend than they'd been to climb. At the bottom of Tick Alley, we had one more maliciously steep climb. Seriously, that climb took so much out of me that my family will be tired for generations to come.

Mere minutes after we climbed into the truck, this happened:

It took a night's sleep, a chimney log, lots of counseling, and a keg of beer to recover. 

We rode Pipeline the next day, and we brought reinforcements. It was much better.

This is the only water that anyone in Eagle has ever seen.

Actually, Jim survived. He is fine.

After some beer and pizza, we parked near the ice rink and rode Haymaker. Haymaker is worth pulling off I-70 to ride any time you pass the town of Eagle with your bike. Really. Even if you're on your way to a wedding, it's worth showing up late in dirty, wrinkled formalwear. Ride this trail and then ride it again. It's five miles and it will make your week. It was so much fun that I didn't stop to take any pictures. There's also a BMX course at the trailhead.

Some havoc is looking to get wreaked here.

Photo: Sarah Bacon

Eagle made Seth blurry. He is like this always now.

Photo: Sarah Bacon

Photo: Sarah Bacon

Here are a few important qualifying stats from our weekend in Eagle.

Pizzas consumed: 3

Tick buddies checked: 10

Ticks found: 0

S'mores made: 22

Hammocks fallen out of: 0

Hammocks fallen into: 2

Beers consumed: Yes.

Fully rigid bikes ridden: 3

Milky Ways identified: 1

Dreams crushed: 0

Children left behind: 0

Amount of havoc wreaked: All the havoc.