Podcast – “In the Dirt”: Every Day Carry on your Gravel Bike with our partner, The Gravel Ride

Our partner in podcasting, The Gravel Ride Podcast, recently began a little offshoot series known as “In the Dirt”. We’ll be featuring these podcasts once in a while. With that said, the podcast this week discusses what to carry on your gravel bike rides. We discuss the must-haves and the why nots of carrying a little extra gear for those unexpected emergencies. We close with a discussion on living and riding in the moment.

You can also check out Gravel Cyclist’s take on what to carry on a gravel bike ride at this link.

Click to Play the Podcast

Automatic Transcription by The Gravel Ride (please excuse all errors)

00:00:05 – 00:05:07

Hello and welcome to episode 9 of in the dirt by the gravel ride podcast. I’m your host Craig. And I’ll be back shortly by my co-host Randall Jacobs. This week’s podcast is brought to you by you. Huh? What does that mean? Well, the gravel ride podcast is mostly listener-supported v e r a membership program and one-time donation program at buy me a coffee, the gravel ride if you check out that URL you’ll see I’ve got a number of perks for members as well as one-time purchases that hopefully will add to your enjoyment of the gravel cycling scene. Now, I know it takes a couple of minutes to put down your phone maybe go over to your computer or even look up that URL on your phone, but it means a ton to me as a podcaster to get that kind of support from you the listener just to cover our overhead cost as you can imagine. This isn’t a particularly money-making Venture. It’s really a labor of birth. So thanks so much for the support at buy me a coffee, the gravel ride. We’re onto another amazing episode that you may want to read Listen to I think our last episode about bicycle maintenance were super well-received and it was natural for us to tackle everyday carry. What are the things you bring on a ride with you in this current episode. So with that said, Dive Right into my conversation about everyday carry with my co-host Randall Jacobs Randall good to see you today my glass Craig. How are you on this fine day? I’m apparently getting older according to the calendar. It’s right. It’s right for everyone listening Craig’s just had his fiftieth birthday. So a should we sing Happy Birthday to you right off the pot or will spare the audience I think will spare the audience. I’ve heard music before Randall and it’s probably not going to be good for people’s ears. But yeah, I turned fifty. I went up to a little town called Inverness with my wife and kids. Sun and we stayed in a retro RV so kind of like an Airstream type Airbnb place up in this little town called Inverness. We’re just mainly known for its paddling out there in the bay and just Serenity. So it’s nice to just get away for a couple of days. I really haven’t gone anywhere throughout the pandemic meaningfully. So it’s just nice to disconnect actually, although I brought the bike. I didn’t even bother riding. It was just so peaceful being with the family. There’s there’s definitely time for like just resting and leaving the bike where it is maybe going for a walk or stroll or something like that so feeling quite it’s quite an interesting time of year. I mean given, you know in October in any given year we might have put a lot of mileage a lot of events a lot of Adventures underneath us and while I certainly had Adventures of my own here in Marin on the bike. It’s been quite a different year. So it’s it’s interesting kind of thinking about what’s next and what the off Season quote unquote is going to look like for me being given the conditions in the Bay Area. My understanding is that your back up to a you know, an h u i in the 160s or a 2.5 level for for air quality of in the 160s, which which is to say like it seems like now’s your down season and you’ll be riding in the rain more than you are in the Smoke. Yeah. That’s what I’ve been thinking about and I always you know, I always like to commit to a little bit different program towards the end of the year just to kind of get a more well-rounded physique and health. So maybe this is the year. I actually, you know, go back to some of those recordings. We did with Gabriel talking about yoga or maybe Selene Yeager when she was talking about strength training. It really should just kind of set myself up in the hopes that we’re going to have a fantastic twenty Twenty-One well and you’re right near the trails too, so you can run from your house up the trails and do a nice little trailer on do a little body weight resistance workout and so on and be pretty fit in a wage A very small time commitment, which is what I’ve been doing where I am. Just outside of Boston here for these past few weeks. Yeah. The other big thing for me is I’m actually moving down to Southern California for the next three months. I’m going to be based out of Topanga, which I’m excited about cuz it’s a community very similar to Mill Valley in terms of its proximity to a wealth of Trail opportunity, but I’m excited to get down there and explore I’m down there for some unfortunate family reasons, but I’m excited to interact with cyclist down in that neck of the woods and really get to know an area that I’ve touched on enough. I know I’m plenty happy riding down there. So it’s going to be kind of cool and I’ll do a little specific Outreach to listeners about Trails. I should try to find and Adventures I should try to have while I’m down there cuz you know, nothing beats local Insight on this stuff. Yeah for sure for sure. So we recorded a a real popular episode on bike maintenance 1014 gravel bikes a couple of weeks back and it was really well regarded. We got a lot of input into our Facebook Forum a lot of em kind of notes on social media, which is fun and great to see.

00:05:07 – 00:10:16

Yeah, it’s super gratifying though. I want to give a particular call out to whomever was saying that he wants to see the picture of me carrying the extra frame that I bring on my rides cuz we were talking about all the things we bring along the way we’re going to go through a list of all the things we bring today that is not one that I’ve brought along before but very very much money to that that person in the in the Forum. I agree and I do want to say like I was given a little bit of crap for not having a chain measurement tool and I’m holding in my hand my first choice in measurement tool that I got it’s it’s from our friends over at topeak. And so I’ve got it in hand now I’m going to test my chains and I’m going to stay on top of that little tip. Which birth Or The Listener who didn’t catch the last episode we just recommend staying on top of your chain maintenance because if you can read if you can put a new chain on earlier than when it’s completely destroyed you’re going to save your chainrings and cassettes. Yeah, and in fact having an extra chain on hand at all times so that there’s no excuse for you letting it go cuz chains are cheap. You can get a decent change or fifteen twenty bucks Cog cassettes and and and chain rings are expensive. So you should be able to go through several chains before you have to swap back. Yeah. You guys should think about like adding a check mark mark on check out for your bikes to add an extra change in the Box. I would love to do that but scramble not allow us to sell their chains aftermarket. So you have to buy through their distribution channels. Okay. Well, we won’t dig into that one cuz you potentially sore subject. I’m fine. I’m fine with it. I mean they they serve as well with our other components. I think it was a natural transition to this week’s and and we got a little bit of feedback in the form about this. It’s kind of like what’s your everyday carry? So we talking about bike maintenance we talked about the tools and and lubricants. You might want to have in the garage. But what do you bring with you on a gravel bike ride and probably for most Riders there’s kind of your your daily or weekly ride that’s half an hour to three hours and then there’s those days when you’re setting off for an all-day 8-hour Adventure, so I thought it’d be cool to just kind of talk about everyday carry and what you bring on your bike. Let’s do it. Yeah, so I actually in order to be truly honest with the listener. I just went to my bike an hour ago and I took everything off because I think in my mind there’s certain things that I’m bringing and in reality there’s not so I’m going to go through. I mean, I feel like I’ve got a decent kit, but I’ve got an allen wrench set and by looking at it. It’s clearly from birth. Twenty-five years ago, it’s quite old but it has sort of 2 millimeter through 6 millimeter on it, but it’s almost falling apart. So I’m a little bit ashamed of this little guy in a little iron oxide patina on the ranches. They’re exactly and you couldn’t see it but it’s a little bit. Jingly and loose I feel like it’s about to come apart. I carry a single bulb but beefy tire lever because I’ve found that generally I can get my tires off with this one. I do carry a mini pump. This happened happens to be a design pocket Drive. I carry a CO2 and obviously an inflation Chuck for that CO2 and then I’ve got a a dining plug off and then I’ve got my spare inner tube. Yeah. So the way I’m configuring this right now in this setup. I’ve got the spare inner tube on the back of the bike behind the saddle wage. And then I’m using an or not handlebar bag and I’ve got a plastic bag that I kind of wrap all my kits in. I also kind of disassemble everything and put it into a quarter frame bag when I’m looking also carry jackets and things like that, but that is my basic setup and much to my chagrin as I opened up my spare inner tube. I actually discovered I carry a second CO2 that would have been there. So I thought it was out there with just one but I’m probably better off having the two that I have in the bag. So not too not too bad. I’ll give you a solid be in terms of preparedness. I’ll take that. I’ll take that and after we’re done here, I do have a couple upgrades that getting thinking about this is encouraged me to do so, where where what are my shortcomings? Let’s talk about what you generally down on yourself. Well, so I wanted to kind of start just by talking about like storage methods in kind of preferences and then like go into what goes into them. So like if you’re a robot You can oftentimes get away with your jersey Pockets if you stop them because generally you’re on roads and you’re not, you know, the types of things that can go wrong or not as as numerous as what generally can go off on a gravel ride. It’s just not as demanding oftentimes you’re closer to say cell service or you know, you know the ability to call Lyft you’re an Uber though, maybe not in a pandemic wage, but in otherwise like access to civilization, whereas on a gravel road like I’m getting out and oftentimes don’t have coverage.

00:10:16 – 00:15:06

So, you know Jersey pockets for me are kind of out. I’m like stuffing them. You know, I put my phone in there at the most saddlebags were, you know, they work for a couple small items, but I find them entirely insufficient in terms of volume. And if you guys looking up volume is swinging around and getting in the way of me trying to get off the back, you know, so that’s no good. It’s funny that you mention that it’s funny that you mentioned that rental because I I sort of thought that off. Rear kind of behind the seat was going to carry everything I needed but to your point like for gravel cycling. It is never exclusively served the purpose at best. I’ve got a few items there and I’ve had to store other things elsewhere. Yeah. I mean, I think it’s I think it’s fine for like your basic commuting supplies and maybe four road though. They’re I think they’re more elegant ways to store things on your on your dedicated road bike. Then there’s a bar bags which I’ve seen exploding popularity. I don’t actually care for them very much and I’ll tell you why I find that the generally the way they flop around a lot. It’s not centralizing the mass. It’s kind of high and forward on the steering and often times. They’ll attach in such a way that you’re pushing a a cable or something into the head tube and causing grub, and we’re so those are all things I I want to avoid. So from for me, my go-to is frame bag. I’m riding one from our friend Market at home. Area of mentioned this before and you know, it’s it’s tight IT centralizes the mass everything is accessible while I’m writing and I can fit I can jam quite a bit of stuff in there. So I’m all for that as the the storage method that’s interesting. You know, I use an or not mini bar bag, which I think avoid some of the issues you’re describing obviously like it’s not my favorite place I add Mass but I do like them. I think they’re fun and cool looking and and provide some utility particularly. If you’re using it just for like extra clothing during the winter out there, but I do agree with you in that on the frame bags. I’ve sort of been enamored with this category for a while. I’m using a revelate quarter frame bag, which I think is that and the the post carry bag. I think they just get the bikes a real cool look and provide Ample Ample Storage. I mean you really can have a big adventure when you can you don’t have to think about it as much I love during an extra jacket in and being the guy off. Is warm on The Descent versus you know, the the guy who’s minimalizing things and not bringing extra Gear with them in terms of having minimal impact as well on their Dynamics. Like it stopped right behind the head back. So if anything it might even be slightly improving though, I’m guessing it’s probably pretty neutral and just having it, you know not having any real meaningful effect on mass distribution office. Yeah. I’ve been I’ve been a little bit curious about the kind of frame bags that are going behind the head too, but are not a full quarter. They’re just kind of upfront and provide a little bit more size. I feel like home I could probably use one of those every once in a while. I suspect my defaults generally always going to be back to that quarter frame bag just because it’s so ample but I do I do an M attracted to those kind of smaller bags up front behind the head tube that are possible underneath the top tube. Yeah. I think those are smart and I’ve also seen a design I can’t recall who who makes it that would wage. Essentially fills the space behind the head tube and behind the head tube and above the bottles and so you can keep a bottle cages in place and you don’t have to move those and then you have this extra down there. So I think that’s that’s pretty smart as well. Yeah, I think that’s an interesting category and we’re seeing a lot of smaller bag manufacturers kind of explore that area and it’s interesting. I think a stat explain a lot into this right a lot of cyclists have been steeped in the history of what a bike looks like and a lot of these bags are really, you know, poking that history in the eye and saying like let’s not think about the office toric Road aesthetic of things. Let’s just think about what’s practical and I think that came to light very quickly for me when I first started gravel cycling in that sort of bento box type of solution because a lot of times it was challenging to get a hand back behind me into a jersey pocket versus, you know, zipping something a quarter of the way open and peeling a you know, a gel out or something else. It just felt a little easier when it was right there in front of me something where when you’re on the road bike. You got plenty of opportunity to reach behind your back and grab things. Yeah. Yeah a couple of special mentions specialized has the brake system particularly the the the version that is simply taking the down to bottle cage and creating an opening like a door into the frame underneath and that’s great for storage.

00:15:06 – 00:20:03

You can fit quite a bit into those over down tubes compromise being that you’re giving up some, you know, stiffness to wait cuz inevitably you’re taking that that solid tube and you are, you know, removing a big hole. So you have to add a bunch of material just to get it to pass testing never mind, you know to try to get it back up to that stiffness. But you know for these types of bikes that can work well and then something I was writing for a while. I had a plastic jar empty jar from a bunch of kimchi that I had purchased that was had a bunch of things jammed in there and then I had it in a bottle cage on the bottom of my downtube held in, Georgia. Base with a tow strap and that actually was really really effective in the in the mass is very low and centered on the bike. So that was great until I got this Frame bag and then you know the frame bag, you know, definitely definitely is is better but I mean, it was like five bucks and I got free free kimchi with it. So that was a pretty good deal. You know, actually, I’ve always loved the idea of the toolkit wage, but I’ve bounced them out time and time again out of that lower bottle cage because I haven’t strapped them in and I’ve sort of often looked for wanted a better solution for strapping something down there cuz it is way super convenient and I think the wait is in the right place when it’s down there. Yeah and Tow straps are great and frankly. This is the only thing that a tow strap should be used for on your bike. It certainly shouldn’t be used to sneak up your your foot to a pedal cuz that’s just dangerous. And if anyone in the audience is riding tow straps on any of their bikes don’t do that turn them in the flat pedals or get some clipless. That’s that’s going to be a bad time. Yep. I didn’t have to keep your foot in place. They’re tight enough to not allow your foot to exit public service or not must have talked about how to carry things but we haven’t really dug into like what’s what what is in your kit? What are you bringing with you these days? All right. So the definite SAR tube pump and in my case, I carry a a higher volume pump that doesn’t have the same max PSI, but you know, even my road wheels are off. I’m running at 60 PSI so that I don’t need to be able to go up to a hundred hundred twenty. And actually if you’re getting a gravel bike don’t get a roadie pump. It’ll take forever to use in my case also took like a multi-tool with a with all the different Hex wrenches and Torx wrenches and so on is a must in our case with our bikes. We have a a bolt-on through a divorce. So so you have to make sure that you have in this case. It’s a 6 Mill and if you don’t have that you can have a tube in a pump, you know can be able to to service it until you can get that through axle off. Let’s see dead. Jane tool which is built into my multi-tool. The one I use is actually misstated the other day. It’s the Crank Brothers ff15 which you know, really nicely made tool, you know precisely be machined and so on and has pretty much everything we need for our bikes dynaplug or equivalent. I was given my down and plug kit and I went to online to look at 1 for my brother-in-law’s these these things are expensive. So I haven’t gone Dougie digging around for an equivalent yet, but something like that will you’ll definitely encounter scenarios where in a tubeless set up your sealants will be pouring out and you just can’t get it to go agulate to fill a void of that a whole of that size. So the dining plug will allow that to happen you continue ride potentially continue writing the tire until it dies. Yeah. I feel like one of those things that you don’t you may not have in your kit. If you’re transitioning from another part of the sport probably have it if you’re a mountain biker, but not if you’re a roadie and it’s worth its weight in gold. I mean, I can’t tell you how many times This year probably three times. I’ve plugged holes on the trail and been able to ride home and that’s worth its weight in gold. Yeah. Yeah for sure offer other things so a I bring an extra spoken nipple and it makes more sense in in you know my case because our Wheels all have one spoke length off rear drive non drive and so on so like that one spoke will cover any sort of spoke mishap. I could have unlikely to happen but it’s it’s like five point three grams. I’m not going to worry about that long a spoke wrench. So and this is not just to you know, true a wheel which is very unlikely with carbon much more likely with aluminum wheel down where you might you know, knock it out a true and need to to adjust it to keep it from your tire from rubbing on the, you know, the chainstays of the seats days, but regardless like if you break a Spoke off You can often times if if you know what you’re doing use the spoke wrench to rebalance the wheel sufficient to get out of where you are and then get a new spoke and have your your wheel rebuilt appropriately. So that’s an awful. I fall in the camp of I know enough to be dangerous around wheel tensioning and for always screwed up dramatically.

00:20:03 – 00:25:06

So no spokes in my kit. Yeah, that’s that’s that one’s a little bit more advanced definitely wage by packing though. Just because when you do find somebody who can help you who knows what they’re doing. They’re very well may not have these particular length you need for your for your wheels. Yeah. I think that’s an important sort of point in my setup. I’m talking about my everyday carry. So when I roll out for, you know up to a four hour or five our local ride. Yeah. Oh that’s really carry anything more than that, but I do think about it differently when I’m on an epic adventure like I know and maybe you’ll get to this in your conversation part. But you know last time we talked about the value pack. An extra tiny bottle of lube with you on a day. I don’t necessarily bring it out with me on my weekend rides. But definitely when I’m going on an epic adventure, you know, I’m going to have it in my kit. Well, I haven’t all the time. I mean a sturdy millimeter 30 or so milliliters of a lubricant ways damn near nothing and whatever it’s costing you in like power to weight ratio of you in your bike is John it’s more than making up for in just drivetrain efficiency and just the right experience when your drive train is dry and covered in Schmutz and so on and and so on it it just makes for an unpleasant ride back. I hate that experience of feeling the drivetrain grinding and so on. I just know like this is going to be expensive. I’m putting in a month’s worth aware in one ride. So it’s a Lube is something I always have on me. What else let’s see. I always bring extra sealants. I bring an extra sixty milliliter bottle again. Just because I hate having to pop off the week ago and you know throw a tube in there and then they get home I gonna pull out the tube and I gotta Flats with the thing. I would much rather take another thing valve core removal tool which is Thursday is a gram or two is in there. So I’d much rather put in my dynaplug and if I need to add some sealant and then be back on my way. I get moving more quickly, you know again ways home of little consequence those extra grams quick link. So having a a quick link for your chain is like a master link if you are clever off your chain tool you can actually just, you know, push a pin almost all the way out of the chain then break the chain and then reassemble it and push the pin back. It’s not that hard to do. So I I actually don’t bring a quick link with me cuz I I know that technique but that’s a good thing for someone who doesn’t know that technique to bring and that is true. That’s pretty comprehensive in terms of like tools and and bike maintenance supplies off the top of my head you think of anything else? No, actually this is why I wanted to have this conversation with you because I knew there was going to be a slight difference between what I carry and feel safe about and what you carry to kind of really cover a little bit more of a swath of situations out there on the road for me. I mean I take away I do think I want to kind of grab a quick link and put it in my setup, you know your comments about Lube definitely ring home. There’s virtually no way but the benefit is huge when you actually need it. I’m going to Noodle on the sealant thing. I totally get it. I’m going to Noodle on that a little bit, but it’s going to be a good upgrade to my kit. I also just got home. This topeak to be 18 tool to upgrade that terribly old twenty-five-year-old one. I had and this got 18 Tools in it. It also has this little container that wage some bacon strips in it. So I think the bacon strips a little bit bigger than the the Dyna plug so I’m feeling good about the addition of this little item into my kids get so with this the quick link and Lube. I think I’m feeling good about what I’m carrying. I’ve got I’ve got one more which I think we brought up last week, which is derailleur hanger, which is bring because I ride, you know, particularly as I ride my bike like a mountain bike like I’m riding hard and I you know, there’s nothing worse than like breaking a derailleur hanger or bending it badly and then your gears jumping around the whole ride home. And that’s the sort of thing where again it’s it’s 510 grams. It’s not as much consequence and when you need it it’s there and it’s it’s good to have so I think wage Terms of like the the things that I bring that average people maybe don’t were talking an extra hundred grams of weight. And you know, that’s not going to be what what slows me down. Right? So the reason we we talked about everyday carry is because stuff happens out there on the trail and I thought it’d be interesting just to kind of share a couple of stories about some bad stuff that’s happened out on the train emails and and how you recovered from it. Well, this’ll this’ll lead into a few more supplies that I tend to bring as well based on based on those Lessons Learned Thursday.

00:25:07 – 00:30:13

It’s so let’s see a few years back. I was riding out in Bishop in around New Year’s a Bishop, California. So area down in surrounded by the eastern Sierras to the west and the the wipes to the East and I wrote up I think it was silver Canyon Road this like birth. A dragon Jeep Trail. So we’re get specialized at the time and the bike that I was in my stable was a specialized delay that I threw some 28 no flex on and I went up this Jeep Trail starting at about 5,000 feet and was planning on cresting around 10,000 and then dropping down the back side and hitting a road of unknown quality and then descending on Thursday hopefully back into town son started to go down and I had been I’d gotten up to about seven or eight thousand feet and started, you know Crossing snowpack in my road shoes and I thought oh this this is probably not going to continue very long as you get through that snow pack and keep going up and up and up and needless to say, you know son’s go it starts going down and starts getting cold. I still haven’t found that road that I’m looking for. I’m at like nine thousand plus feet and temperatures are dropping quick. And so I turned around start bombing down. I’m freezing. So extra clothes definitely something to bring like a wage. Your best sleeves leggings and so on. I actually throw a space blanket in when I’m going for properly epic rides sometimes and then I think I’ve flatted twice and I had one spare tube in a patch kit. And and yeah, so having having, you know good repair materials for for that. And then finally, I mean the obvious thing that I screwed up on was was General reconnaissance on that ride and showing up on in a way for arrived that I then repeated the next year on a dual suspension mountain bike and got three Flats. So this was a properly rugged road. So yeah, so that’s that’s a rough learn some lessons. Nice. Yeah. I think I feel like you need to have a couple of those rough rough outings technically with the right tools to remind you that like these things can be worth their weight in gold when you have them in their bag a couple of stories when I was thinking about this came to mind. I mentioned the transrockies gravel race that’s being a game. This next year and that I had done the transrockies mountain bike race up in Canada, you know, probably a decade ago, and I remember at the starting line looking around and people had a lot of stuff with them that people with full-on mountain bike tires duct tape to their frame extra Tire. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and I was like, what am I getting myself into and we started I think it was probably about seven thousand feet in the first day we climbed to about 9 and this is in the summertime in Canada. But we we hit snow and of course, we’re in the middle of this Traverse in snow and my racing partner or cuts his side wall and we’re like, oh man, this is before tubeless tires, but pretty substantial cut and you have to finish every single day to continue in the stage race track. So we we scrambled with frozen hands. I think I’d chowed down a cliff bar to get a really solid rapper to boot his tire and we slowly changed it and got it going and Thursday. Finish that day and I remember thinking to myself. Well, I looked at that guy like he was an idiot for strapping a tire to his bike but it maybe is not a bad idea when you’re going out in the Canadian wilderness all day. Oh, how’s yeah, absolutely. I mean definitely start with like a tire with a more robust casing for those sorts of Adventures, but you see that I actually first saw that a buddy of mine and not doing some like that country stuff around Downieville and he had a tire, you know, kind of wrapped up and taped behind his his head tube was like, oh that’s that’s clever and that’ll definitely count Hindi, you know, something goes. Awry. You don’t want to be caught fifteen Miles out on the back side of a ridge and you know have no ability to get your tire aired up. Yeah exactly. It’s just you know, when I see these guys setting up for events like the tour divide and the types of gear that they bring with them. I mean, it’s understandable right like you’d hate to sort of have allocated a month of your life off. Whatever you have to to do the tour divide and have the fact that you don’t have a spoke with you ruin your entire ride. Yeah, especially considering again how lightweight a lot of these allowed on Thursdays are a tire being being a heavy one. But if I was doing a an extended bikepacking adventure of any sort, that would be going that route as well. I’ve got one more funny story to share with you and it’s got nothing to do with tools. In fact the tool I used to solve the situation and everybody’s carrying with them. So I was riding in Washington DC in the snow and the derailleur froze overnight and my solution which I probably don’t recommend was actually peeing on the derailleur.

00:30:16 – 00:35:02

You said that on the public Channel? I mean believe it if anybody’s actually peed on their derailleur to unfreeze it please shoot me a note so I don’t feel so embarrassed for Chef. We won’t we won’t judge you Craig. It’s not like anyone touch that so we talk about what we’re packing, you know to ride. What do you got next in terms of writing so long weekend. I’m going actually tomorrow going for a ride with my brother-in-law who got one of our bikes a couple of months ago and it was actually his first serious bike. He’s been riding a tongue is super gratifying so going out and showing him some of the the rides that I used to link up when I was out here training for cross-country racing. I’m in a couple of other our other Riders and and friends in the Boston area. So that should be a really good time sweet. Yeah, how about yourself? So, you know, I’ve been doing this dawn patrol ride fairly regularly up Mount Tam when that their quality has been dead. Verbal, and it’s been really neat the guys up there have the tagline always worth it and you know, their their their point has become even more poignant to me lately both with the smoke and we unfortunately learned that a a Bay Area cyclists was killed in a car accident someone that a lot of people in Marin knew a guy named Todd sjoberg died in the northern part of Marin and Mom car accident. So it just sort of reminded me that yeah, it is always worth it and certainly would like these dawn patrol rides where I’ve got a ride an hour and 20 minutes before sunrise in order to get there and see the point where the Sun is going to peek over the East Bay and on to Mount Tam. It’s just magical being up there. And you know, we went up there on a Wednesday and sure enough Wednesday night and Thursday the smoke came in. So again, it was sort of like, you know, you gotta take in the moments that you can and you gotta get out as hard as you age. B to answer the call of the alarm and squeeze a ride in some day with all our of our responsibilities at home and with families, it’s important to get out there. So Sunday air quality is not withstanding. We’re going to go up to on Tam for Sunrise and just on our Todd one of our fallen Brethren. I hate hearing these stories, you know, we all it’s just a fact of life as you get older you sort of know and are acquainted with more people who pass away but you know, I hate to to lose someone in an accident. It’s just it’s awful. Well, it’s sounds like a lovely, lovely tribute to a member of the community. So I hope you guys have a lovely ride on that day. Yeah. I hope it really pans out and again for everybody listening just get out there and cried. You never know. What’s around the next Corner go out there and have some Adventures we’ve now armed you with everything you need to know about what to pack for said Adventure. So go out there and have fun I make gnome. Aims of this being an exhaustive list so you get caught out missing something. We didn’t mention I blame Craig I feel if you if you feel like we omitted something major definitely get us up in that Facebook group or on social media. We we love the back and forth. In fact, snap a picture of how you’re carrying your gear because I’m always looking for inspiration and everybody knows I’m a I’m a geek I love the different configurations that can be strapped to these bikes. So I’d love to see what’s what’s your configuration? Love it. Likewise would love to see that draw. Well right on Randall enjoy the ride this weekend. I will talk to you soon my friend seen a couple of weeks. So that’s it for this episode of in the dirt from the gravel ride podcast. I hope you got a lot out of that and maybe like me you’re sure to checking out what you’re carrying everyday life and filling those gaps to make sure in those outlier emergencies. You’ve got a little bit of support packed on your bag. One thing. We obviously forgot to mention during the pandemic is always carry a mask wage. It probably goes without saying but I ride with a buff most of the time and anytime I’m planning on stopping. I’m also carrying a full proper Mass because I want to respect others and those around me thought gosh. I really want to get over this pandemic so we can get back to the adventures that we all know and love thank you for all those of you who visited buy me a coffee. Com slash the downside and also to those of you who have left us a rating or review on your favorite podcast platform these ratings and reviews are critically important to our discoverability. So if you like what we’re doing an believe it provides benefit to other Riders, that’s a really easy no cost thing for you to do. So, thank you again. Let’s look forward to seeing you in our Facebook forum.

00:35:02 – 00:35:15

And on the social medias over the next week. We’ve got some great interview episodes coming up and we will talk to you soon until then. Here’s to finding some dirt under your wheels off.

Craig
The Gravel Ride Podcast