One dad. 3 kids aged 4 to 8. 3/4 mile hike to the campsites at Silver Lake in the GMNF.
Snacks, headlamp exploring, and then sleep. The morning brought breakfast, playing in the woods, and the short hike out.
First Day of Fall
And everything is a luscious green.
Single Speed
Been riding the Krampus in single speed mode most of the summer. Wil took these of me descending Flo at Saxon Hill – which has been my go to place for 45 minutes to 2 hours+ of riding.
Coming and Going
Under the moon, in the dark, playing with the camera.
Moonlight
Taken under the waning moon with a long shutter time. Starting to look like daylight!
Sunday Dirt
Riding the bike with the gear of one on the track of single is starting to pay off. Did a short ride on the go fast bike this weekend – pavement our of Richmond then up Wes White Hill and Pond Rd. looping to Mayo and Dugway before enjoying post ride coffee and fritter at the Parkside Kitchen. ~16 or so miles, but I worked them hard to test the legs on Wes White and the follow on up Mayo.
Its been a long while since I felt this good climbing… Wes White peaks out at 14%, and while the steepest parts are in the first mile, it carries on for another mile before settling down at the pond. Much more work to do, but I’m glad I re-discovered the Krampus as a single speed rig, its starting to pay off with my overall fitness.
Daddy Daughter Camping
Quick overnight with the girls. Dinner in Middlebury, then up the mountain to Silver Lake NF campground. Walk in at dusk, setup camp, snack, sleep.
In the morning we ate some snacks (I needed coffee) and then explored around the campground and the dam, then hiked out. The girls carried their bags in ~3/4 mile. Lina wasn’t interested in carrying out on the second day, so dad carried her bag up the trail. We had proper, second breakfast in Middlebury, before heading home.
Good fun, and we have another trip planned before it gets too cold.
Daddy Daughter Gear Geekery
I’ve been fussing with the cargo bike in anticipation of some family adventures – the stock Yuba Mundo is a great town bike – but we needed more cargo capacity – so I swapped the front fork for a Surly Big Dummy Fork, and mounted their Nice Rack so I could carry my old Ortlieb panniers on the front low rider mounts. The rack is wide – so we had a platform for other gear, and in the future will strap an Ice Mule cooler backpack there. Nothing goes completely according to plan – so I had to fabricate a small aluminum bracket to get the fork and the rack to play nicely – but after some hand fabrication everything went together nicely.
We needed a tent to fit 4 (for when Jen makes a trip with us) – but I didn’t want to get a car camping anchor. After plenty of reviews and research I settled on the Black Diamond Mega Light with the Mega Bug liner. This is a pyramid style tent, with 1 pole, room for 2 adults and 2 kids and gear, or 4 adults – and the outer tent can be used for winter camping or as a kitchen / tarp stand alone. Under 8 pounds for a family tent. And it packs reasonably small for what it is.
After Lina moved out of the pea-pod baby seat we had some concerns that she could fall off the bike (if she falls asleep, or we hit a rough spot on the road) – so I added the Yuba monkey bars. These work great… although they make towing Ava’s bike more difficult, and the bike is really tippy when the girls climb over the bars getting on and off. We made a little step out of some rope and random aluminum pipe we found at the hardware store to ease getting on and off.
In order to carry all our gear I acquired a second Go Getter bag… these bags are huge – go on and off easily, and can expand and contract to adjust to the load. We’ve been using them for around town. I have been using one as messenger bag when we shop or head into lunch or swim lessons.
Loading up I gave each girl 1 Ortlieb rear pannier that carried their clothes, swim suit, sleeping bag, rain coat, and sweater. We strapped their sleeping pad through the Ortlieb straps on top of the bag. We brought Lina’s life jacket that fit in her bag, and Ava’s bag held the common toiletry stuff of the girls – toothbrushes, soap, sunscreen, medicine, etc. And the Uno cards. Both girls brought their headlamps.
I used my Revelate Sweetroll for my sleeping bag, pad and clothes. This mounts to the handlebar. The pouch held things we might have needed on the bike – sunscreen, bug spray, sunglasses, some snacks, etc., as well as my personal items. On the front rack I had my Crazy Creek camp chair strapped, and my Quickshot folding tripod (never used it). On a longer trip we would have brought the IceMule cooler and strapped it here as well. In the Revelate Tangle bag I had my camp knife, pump, and a water bladder with hose strapped to a retractable line on the bars.
The big Yuba GoGetter bags on the back held tent, bug net, beach towels, blanket, food, small cooler, cook kit, bike kit (lock, tools, spares), and Nalgene canteen.
On the MonkeyBars I mounted each girl a Revelate Feed bag for their water bottles and snacks.
All in I think we had 440 pounds or more rolling down the road – dad + girls + bike + gear + food + water…
Monkey on my Back
Hid the piñata in the woods for the kids to find later. Photo from Wil.
Dad and Daughter Bike Camping
I’ve wanted to share my bikepacking / camping experiences with the girls for some time… and we finally made that happen last weekend. We planned a 2 night trip, but Ava was keen on not skipping out of her theater camp a couple of days early – so we did a 1 night trip to a nearby state park. We covered ~20 miles the first day from home to the state park. Most of the trip was on the Island Line trail, which is our local lakefront multi use path. The balance was on quiet dirt roads, with a couple sections of pavement.
We took the Local Motion Bike Ferry to continue on to Grand Isle, and stayed in Grand Isle State Park. Its a typical tent / lean to / camper / RV style park on Lake Champlain – so this was a ‘suburban’ style camping excursion. I picked a lean to / tent site that was isolated from the other sites. We used the lean to for cooking and hanging out, and slept in our tent.
We played in the park a bit before dinner, and while I cooked the girls ran back and forth to the drinking water spigot to top off our water and fill up the Sea to Summit Kitchen Sink (which worked great!!).
We ventured out after dark to take in the blue moon over the lake… and then tucked into bed for the night, where we had a good rain storm (my seam sealing worked!).
I attempted to make pancakes for breakfast while the girls played cards (hard to make pancakes in a tiny Ti pan… next time I’ll bring my older, larger cook kit). We then packed everything up, took a short swim in the lake, and headed home.
The trip home turned into a mini adventure. At our snack spot we heard thunder, and the girls asked me to ‘drop the hammer’ to get us home. I rode as hard as I could muster with 440 pounds of bike, gear, kids and dad rolling down the road… and we outran the storm by the time we got to the ferry….
…only to get stuck waiting for the next boat as the next wave of lightning and thunder rolled over us.
The girls were nervous and a bit scared, but we got away from the docks and few trees on the causeway, sat on our sleeping pads and hugged while snacking. The boat finally made it back and we all got on to sit out the wall of water and the front that blew through. Once the weather settled the ferry disembarked the original passengers, and we loaded up our bike for the final ~6 miles home. We were dry in our rain coats, but got splashed by the wind driven waves and lingering showers for a bit. After about 20 minutes the sun came out and I ditched my coat to cool off.
I’ll add another post with all the gear and bike geek stuff…