Category Archives: GDMBR

Trip Companions

Welp, the rumors are true: my parents are officially joining us for a segment of the trip in Montana! Their broken bones from ski and hockey season have healed sufficiently. Chris and I shipped our hardtail mountain bikes out to Bozeman, MT for them to get used to riding, and, although they have both already crashed on them (unfortunately, this is not at all surprising; for some reason, Hogues tend to be reckless AND uncoordinated– best combination ever!), they are both still gung-ho about going. Thanks to my brother, Wesley, and his wife, Meagan, for taking them for a practice ride, although I doubt the GDMBR will be anywhere near as treacherous:

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Bonus Bottle Cage with Salsa Anything Cage HD

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Above: The finished product, with a Klean Canteen 64oz in the Salsa Anything Cage, and a Clean Bottle in the extra water bottle cage I added to the back of the Anything Cage.

Extra water storage is always helpful for bikepacking.  Below I detailed a hack I came up with for mounting an extra bottle cage behind the Salsa Anything Cages on my fork.  I’m very happy with it, so I figured I’d share for anyone out there who is working on dialing in their own bikepacking rig.  Happy trails!

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Rachel gets a new bike for the GDMBR

This is the tale of a girl who loved to match a boy, and a boy who hated to match a girl. She would get giddy and do arm pumps when they both pulled the same t-shirt out of their suitcases on a trip, while his face would crumple as he let out a, “Are you kidding me?! This is the only shirt I brought! Do you have another one?” to which she would slyly shake her head no.

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Chris gets a new bike for the GDMBR

An interview with Chris about his new bike.

R: Why did you need a new bike for this trip? 
C: I wanted fat tires and maybe a front shock.

R: The bike you bought doesn’t have a front shock. 
C: Correct, but it’s designed so that it can take a cross country mountain bike style fork. It might not need it because of the fat tires, but I’m considering a Lauf Trail Racer fork.

R: So your other five bikes weren’t good enough? 
C: I was originally planning on using my Specialized AWOL, which is designed for gravel or light road touring or mild off-roading. However, my new bike is a drop bar mountain bike, so it’s better at handling tougher terrain, and I plan to use it for bikepacking (off-road) AND bike touring. It’s more versatile.

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