We met Gordon and Lois and the girls for a two-day trip from the Lake Sylvia area out to Forked Mountain to spend the night. It was a great ride – about 35 miles almost entirely on gravel, with some swimming and camping in the middle. It was peaceful and quiet and traffic just didn’t exist. Some of the hills were steep, but I figure that’s what I have feet for. The bombing downhills were scary fun, but so hard that I twisted the headset on the Voyageur once as I fishtailed through loose gravel. We got sunburns and dirt in our eyes. Three of our group bailed halfway through, but the rest of us had a fine time.
There’s more gravel-road touring in our future; I’m sure of it.
PS – The photo of Bryan’s bike up top doesn’t actually have anything to do with this trip. But we didn’t have any decent photos from this weekend, so we’re pretending that it belongs here.
Mandy and I met up with our friend Kathy this weekend for a quick bike trip to Leola. Forty-five miles or so one-way, camping next to a lake, a trip to a catfish restaurant for dinner… should be a good weekend.
Our route was nice, mostly rural highways with a usable shoulder. The roads weren’t flat but the hills were mostly doable. Of course, even though the three of us rode up nearly every hill we came to, I have to post the one photo I have of Mandy and Kathy walking up a hill. Continue reading “Bike Tour to Leola”
Our friend Isabel just turned five, but she’s been outside a lot. Her parents are both active, outdoor people – they both cave, and Amy runs and backpacks, and Spike hunts a lot – so Isi’s quite accustomed to sleeping in a tent, to eating noodles while sitting on rocks, to peeing in the woods. No problem. Isabel is comfortable in the big wide world.
Bryan returned from the Flashbus workshop in Dallas late Thursday night, and got up on Friday to go to MacArthur Park to help set up for the Southeast Regional Bike Polo tournament and play a few games of pickup. Mandy’s out of town, so I joined the group right after work to help out. To kick off the weekend’s activities, Vinnie organized a nighttime alleycat race. Participants left from MacArthur, and had to pick up packages and bike parts at various places in Little Rock. Bryan and I volunteered to staff the station atop the Big Dam Bridge. Before signing off on their ‘manifests’ we made the racers hula-hoop for us. Continue reading “SCBPC Bike Polo Tournament”
Our good friend Kathy is a good campground-camper, but had never backpacked. She likes being outside, but she’d never actually carried all her stuff on her back and spent the night in the woods far away from everything. So we all decided that we should fix that. We picked her up after work on a Friday and drove to Shady Lake campground to spend the night and be ready for an early start on Saturday. Continue reading “Kathy’s First Backpacking Trip – Caney Creek”
Last winter, we hatched a plan to backpack the whole Ozark Highlands Trail with our friends Britt and Debbie. While we’ve all hiked a ton, none of us has spent much time on the OHT. One weekend trip each spring and one each fall should be enough to finish the 225-mile trail by the time Mandy graduates from high school.
Our nearby bike shop, Outskirts, had a holiday party / ride / bike-decorating contest this year. We all decorated our bikes. I was proud of mine – I zip-tied a mini-tree to the back rack, and wired the ornaments securely to the branches. It even had a tree skirt and a wrapped gift underneath, and I tied a ‘happy holidays’ tag to the saddle. At the last minute, I wrapped some tinsel icicle sheets around the bar-ends and secured them with gaffer tape. They look like the plastic streamers on the yellow banana-seat bike I had as a kid – but they’re prettier.
Mandy bought blue LEDs and Bryan helped her rig up a battery pack to run them. We attached a plain white box to her rack, to hold the electrical stuff, and tied it shut with pretty blue ribbon.
Bryan wrapped his bike with three dollars’ worth of silver garland. As a nod to Christmas in New Orleans, Mister Bingle rode on the front.
The party was everything parties should be – it had cookies, and it was very short. After a half hour or so, we went to a nearby neighborhood to ride around and look at the holiday lights. It was a fun ride – nearly thirty people, most of the bikes decorated in some way with garland and lights and bows, riding though a dark neighborhood together. A handful of people sang. At one house, we interrupted what appeared to be a holiday party – when our group rode back by, about a dozen people were standing on the porch to wave at us. We rang our bells and yelled ‘Merry Christmas!” back at them.
And guess what? I won the ‘Best Decorated Bike’ contest! I have a great new super-bright headlamp for my bike!
Several polo players have been saying they’d like to go backpacking, and somehow our schedule shifted and gave us a free weekend, and we thought that sounded like a good plan. Bryan brought maps, I brought food, and Mandy brought plastic pirate gear.
Our original plan was to hike section seven of the Ouachita Trail. It’s a pretty 20(ish) miles, and climbs up and over Blue Ouachita Mountain. But it hasn’t rained in awhile and nearly all of this section of the OT is high up, crossing the tops of some drainage areas. The trail shelter is near a spring that doesn’t run all year. So almost at the last minute we realized that since we didn’t want to carry two days’ water, section seven wasn’t a good plan, and we switched to section six instead. Section seven isn’t as high up, and it would allow us to spend the night at a shelter near a substantial stream.
Adam has some knee problems, but he’s a good sport and wanted to try the hike. He brought two or three different knee braces and a lot of pain medicine.
We hiked about six miles on Saturday before arriving at the trail shelter, a simple wooden structure with almost four sides. The shelters on the OT are handy for people who may not have lightweight backpacking tents, or who may just want a break from carrying them. If the weather’s bad, it’s nice to have a tin roof and a wooden floor, instead of a drippy nylon tent. And no matter what the weather, picnic tables are handy.
Ruth and I both brought our ENO hammocks. Mandy was called into service (dressed in her lovely military longjohns) to help hang the higher hammock.
Ruth taught us how to flip from one hammock into another, and a great deal of the in-camp entertainment involved watching Mandy and Ruth attempt to do this at the same time.
Our decision to change plans, to the lower section of trail, was a smart one. Not only did we have a creek to play in after a long day of hiking, but there was water to pump for supper and for breakfast the next morning, and there was water at lunchtime on day two as well.
It’s been a busy autumn for all of us, and I think we all enjoyed getting out of town and into the woods for a couple of days.
We’d had a late morning start on Sunday, and at almost suppertime Adam’s knee was starting to give out with nearly five miles to go. Ruth, Vinnie, and Mandy still had a lot of energy, so we decided to split up at a road crossing. Bryan and I stayed with Adam and all six packs. We loaded up the others’ pockets with snacks and a small first aid kit. We made sure they all had jackets and water and headlamps and a map. When they left, we set up our hammocks and waited.
They finished the trail in just under two hours, running a fair portion of it. They got to the car, picked up the truck, had a snack stop at a gas station and a bathroom stop at a church. As we waited, we set up two red blinkers in the woods near our hammocks, so that they could find us easily. And sure enough, just as it got too dark to see easily, the Subaru and the pickup pulled up to take us to a good Mexican supper in Jessieville.
Every year, the Arkansas Bicycle Club hosts a 100-mile ride (with options for shorter routes, of course) called the Arky. We’d thought about riding in it this year, but way back months and months ago, Tom Ezell asked us to help out with the rest stops. We like to feel useful, so we agreed.
Sheridan, Arkansas lets the group use a picnic shelter (photo by Charles) near their community center for the beginning and end of the ride. Riders can use the restrooms and showers in the center. And they allow camping for whoever needs to spend the night before, so we drove down on Saturday night and set up tents and spent the night. The next morning we were up bright and early to help out with registration, and after the riders left, Bryan hopped in what would be the ‘sag wagon’ to shuttle supplies and hurt or tired riders back and forth across the routes.
Mandy and I helped Tom and Susan at rest stop 5. It’s a busy stop, since all the routes (from the 25-mile through the 100-mile) pass through the intersection nearby. The day went very smoothly, and most people were glad to see that we offered more than the standard gatorade and bananas. We even had boiled potatoes, which went over really well for those on the longer routes: after 75 miles or so, they were ready for something solid, not sugary. We had no mishaps or illness apart from a handful of people who reached us too tired to go on. A couple of riders felt bad enough to ask for a ride to the end, but for the most part, a rest in the shade and a snack was all they needed to feel a lot better and get back on the road.
I’ve been having terrible headaches, and my doctor told me to cut out alcohol and caffeine. But did that stop me from carrying a whole box of wine for other people on our weekend bike tour around Lake Degray? No. No, it did not.
The Arkansas Bicycle Club does a twice-a-year multi-day “Bike Ride Around Arkansas” which they call the “BRAA.” So of course, the shorter, easier, weekend versions of this are called “Training BRAAs.” Jenny Rainwater did a great job of planning this autumn’s three-day tour with fairly low mileages and only a few completely horrible hills. A group of about fifteen of us left from the lodge at DeGray State Park on Saturday morning. The weather was beautiful. Continue reading “The Training BRAA”
