thinking of bike camping

This may be a totally half baked idea, but I started looking at the light camping gear I have collected, and my bike with all the pannier racks on it. Hmmmm……

Seems to me that it would not be that hard to strip my camping gear down to the bare essentials, strap it to my bike and ride off to Lake Chabot or something for an overnight. See how it goes. If I work my system out well enough, I can try taking BART (the local commuter train) to San Francisco, ride across the Golden Gate bridge to Marin, and ride out to West Marin and camp out there. I figure it would be around 40 miles of actual riding, and would probably take me a good 6 hours of riding time. Camp, and come back the next day.

So here is my gear list so far:

Bike – my Giant Yukon with a rigid fork. Currently has slicks, but would need bigger mountain tires. V-brakes will be scary with a heavy load down a steep descent, but I’m not going for speed.

Water bottles

Saddle bag

Helmet

Gloves

Gear straps

Bike tools

Duct tape

Multitool

Tire repair stuff

Pocket knife

Sleeping bag

Sleep pad

Tent

Tent stakes

Stake hammer

Camping saw

Cookware

Stove

Fuel

Spark/lighter

Pots, pans, bowls

Utensils

Camp soap, brush

Water filter

Toiletries

TP

Tooth brush

Tooth paste

Deodorant?

First aid kit

Clothes

Shorts

Jersey

Socks

Long sleeve shirt

Warm pants

Jacket

Knit cap

Again, this is pretty half baked. I already started to strap stuff to the racks to see if it will fit, get an idea of my load balance, like that. So far, I got my tiny sleeping bag and a foam pad strapped to my front racks, the pannier bags in back, my tent on top of the rear rack, one pannier half full with the cookware and jacket. I still have one and a half rear pannier bags to fill, plus I’ll probably take either my Camelbak for some more space, or a bigger backpack, and put a Camelbak bladder in there. I might take it out for a few local light rides, say at China Camp or Lake Chabot to see how it handles, see if stuff shakes off the racks, shifts, check for foot, heel, leg and hand clearance. that sort of thing.

Just out of curiosity, I checked with the rangers at China Camp today about camping fees. They charge $25 a night if you drive in, but $3 a night if you walk or bike in. Sweet!

While thinking about this, I was getting all ready to make a penny stove. This guy came up with a way to cut up a couple of Heineken beer cans (the ones that look like little kegs) to make a small compact lightweight stove that can boil a few cups of water in 5 minutes. It can run on Everclear grain alcohol, which can also serve as a disinfectant if I cut myself badly… and of course, get a bit drunk on it (that is, if I can tolerate drinking what tastes like camping stove fuel).

Alternatively, the penny stove can run on 99% isopropyl rubbing alcohol, but that makes an invisible flame, which is kind of dangerous.

It’s a very elegant design. Cheap, weighs nothing, takes 20 minutes to make one… plus you have to drink beer to get the empty cans. Downside is Heineken is kinda watery beer… the Budweiser of Europe.

Then, I remembered that my mom gave me all of her camping gear. I went through that and found a sweet compact white gas stove that includes pots and pans, all in a tiny kit. Sweet! Also in there was a pump water filter and other goodies.

This may never actually happen, but it would be great if I could pull it off.

back from denmark

Okay, I’m lazy. We’ve actually been back for weeks, and I really don’t know what to write about it. 

We were sick the entire frickin’ trip. On top of that, Denmark is one really expen$ive country to visit. We ended up cheaping out so much of our time there, I think it ate into the amount of fun we had… worrying about every Krone. 

So I just thought I would share some interesting observations of our time there. 

Yeah, the Krone… about that… Denmark is too cool for even the Euro. I guess they don’t wanna slum it with those cheap ass ghetto countries like Germany and France. 

There are taxes on everything, even the taxes, it seems. Our hosts told me a VW Golf would cost nearly $80,000 dollars when you include the taxes. The same car (the US version, called the Rabbit) sells for around $20,000 with taxes. 

They have some unreal bridge tolls. The Zealand (the island home to Copenhagen) to Sweden bridge toll is $50… each way. The Zealand to Fyn ‘Big Belt’ bridge was $40 each way. For a country that is pretty heavily socialist, they don’t fuck around. 

We got a Whopper combo at Burger King the fourth day we were there. $11

Denmark TV has an equivelant show to the ‘Cops‘. The first story was about a guy who left his wallet on the roof of his car when he drove off, and the cops were trying to help him find it. No shit. Really.

Our hosts told us that there is hardly any crime in Denmark, but many crimes go unsolved. They said if your house got robbed, there would be about a 6% chance the perps would be caught. But it rarely happens, so that is not a big deal. 

I spent $125 on 3/4 of a tank of gas for the rental car, twice. 

Most of the beer there was of the 3% alcohol by volume type. I felt like I was in Utah where beer by law has to be less than 3.2%. Making love in a canoe, as MPFC says. I made some off the cuff comments to our hosts (which was very rude of me, and I feel badly about it. I apologize again) and they made it a point to get some harder 6-8% ale kinda stuff. I’m a bad, bad guest. 

In our last visit to Germany, we found the biggest downside of a nationalized health care system: You have to see a doctor before you can get meds that are commonly sold over the counter here. This time around, we brought the ‘mighty bag of drugs’ with us… mostly chocked full of stuff like antihistimenes, decongestants, Afrin, Tums, Zantac stuff like that. The MBoD proved no match to the even mightier bubonic chronic west nile freakish mold that festered in the walls of our rental beach house. I think I heard the mold chuckling at us in the middle of the night. 

I never got to ride a bike in Denmark, which I think might qualify as the most bike friendly country on the planet. There are dedicated off-street bike lanes everywhere. It also may be the flattest country. The high point is like 400 feet above sea level. My regular workout ride at China Camp peaks up around 1200 feet, and CC is considered the bunny slopes in the mountain biking community.

Our hosts told me that if there is a bike/car accident, the car driver is always considered to be at fault. I guess that way, the car drivers are extra credit sure to give the cyclists every right of way, and a wide berth. 

People actually leave their bikes unlocked in their driveways… and they are actually still there the next day. I even saw a bike with a Burley trailer left unlocked outside somebody’s house in plain view in Sweden. Most of the city bikes there have a cheesy lock that basically just simple clamps around the rear wheel…. and that’s all that is keeping the bike from eloping. There were hundreds of bikes left just like this outside the subway terminal in Copenhagen. If you left a halfway decent bike locked up outside a BART station, it would be stripped to the frame before your work day was done, if it was even still there.  

Denmark is a very beautiful country. Green everywhere. Oceans of wheat, mustard flowers and oats as far as the eye can see. The weather was stellar the whole time we were there. 

One of our hosts was Icelandic. He told us that the Icelandic government requires that all children born in Iceland have an Icelandic Patronymic style name. That is, you take your father’s first name in your last name. For instance, Lars’ son will be named Firstname Larsen or daughter will be named Firstname Larsdóttir. Keep in mind, this is the frickin’ law. 

Also, we were talking of Icelandic history, and how they gained independence from Denmark. At the time, Denmark was occupied by Nazi Germany. Iceland broke off and got away with it because Denmark obviously had bigger worries at that time. I should probably read more about the details on that, but like I said earlier, I’m lazy. 

They LOVE Hans Christen Andersen there. Judging by how deeply they are steeped in him, you would think Denmark contributed nothing more to world culture except HCA. 

The sun starts setting around 8 PM this time of year, and doesn’t finish going down until about 10 PM. Then, it comes back up around 3 AM and rises at 5. 

There are really big windmills dotting the horizon everywhere, just doing their little thai-chi like dance. It really is hard to realize how big and majestic they are unless you stand right next to them. They are pretty close to dead quiet unless you are standing right underneath one. 

There were no naked people on the public beaches we visited.

The tyke blew out his diaper four times on the plane ride back, but slept most of the way. 

Air France doesn’t edit their movies for cuss words, content, or nudity. Haught! Downside is they show a lot of crap. ‘Jumper’ has to be the worst movie I have seen in years. You thought Hayden Christiansen sucked in the Star Wars movies, you ain’t seen nothin’. I couldn’t tell if my ears were popping from the ascent, or the deep, relentless suckage of the movie. 

We got turned back around from our jet lag really quickly… both ways!

I had a good time on this trip. Of course, it could have been better if we weren’t sick. But feel fortunate to be able to see such a beautiful country.