Well I have been trying to get this thing written up for the last week and I dont seem to be getting too far. So I thought I would at least post what I have to get ya's started. I think this is gonna be a long one.
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Michigan Mccct Trail Safari 2006
Man were do I start. This ride has been a long time in the making.
The ride itself took place the week of June 26th 2006, but has been in the planning for nearly a year. I have been slowly collecting parts for this ride for a long time. So I guess I will start with the planning that went in on this.
I have never camped off a motorcycle before but the idea had always sounded fun to me. Before the Safari idea had entered my head I had thought about getting some stuff for just some overnight trips somewhere close by.
The parts gathering started with getting a Promoto Billet Rack for my 04 Honda CRF250X in spring of 2005. I figured that the rack will be great for the safari, if and when I ever got to ride the safari as there were no plans to ride it at that point. That rack is also really useful for doing trail maintenance with the addition of a chainsaw mount that I also bought. Only downside with this rack is it doesn’t work at all with my FMF Q silencer. So I have to run the stock silencer when I use the rack. But really I don’t notice much difference between the 2 exhaust systems so it works out ok.
Next thing I got last summer was a used Garmin GPSV off of E-bay. With the addition of a Ram mount, a power cable, and some Topo maps I now know were I am at, still don’t know were I am going though. I was never a big GPS guy, actually didn’t now anything about them, but man now that I have it I love it. The CCC offers the Trail Safari trails on CD that you can download to your GPS. This is definitely the way to go, But more on that latter.
Around the fall of 2005 there started to be some talk amongst some folks on TT about doing the trail safari. Eventually it was agreed to do it over one week vs. several weekends. So the real planning began. The more that we talked about it, the more people that would pop in and voice interest in joining us. But as the weeks and months drug on I began to realize that what was looking at being a large group was dwindling down to a handful (we ended up with 5 of us). After several proposed weekends we finally settled on the week of June 26th 2006. That week seemed to work with everyone. We also decided that we were going to do it the original way. Camp right off the bikes with no vehicle support. We would start at white cloud and go around to Gladwin, then backtrack to St Helens and take the cross state connector across to Manton.
So I started looking in earnest for super compact lightweight camping gear. I searched all over the internet on sites about ultra lightweight backpacking, and adventure motorcycle touring and eventually I started to get a feel for what I wanted to get. My favorite place is a store called www.campmor.com they have everything that you need and a few things that I didn’t know I needed. Luckily right around the time I needed to actually start buying some of this stuff my birthday and X-mas came along so naturally I forwarded my shopping list to me relatives. And lucky me I got quite a few things that I wanted.
Well my main camping gear turned out to be a >Eureka Solitare Tent<, a
>Kelty Light Year Sleeping Bag<, a
>Therm-a-rest sleeping pad<, and a >Sealine 30 Dry Bag<. Everything fits nicely into the dry bag and seals up into a 12x12 package that straps nicely onto the rear rack. I had to take the tent poles out of the tent bag and put them into my backpack to make the tent pack small enough to fit nicely into my sealine bag. I also picked up a pair of those lightweight water shoes that you would wear for jet skiing or tubing down the river. They weigh next to nothing and pack nice and flat. Those also went into the sealine bag.
Here is the bag >packed up< and unpacked showing >what is in it<
I then picked up a day and a half internal frame backpack from campmor. It was cheep like $30. Well as they say you get what you pay for. It looks nice but I ended up killing it. Try as I might I couldn’t get the loaded backpack weight down below 15lbs. And I was getting pretty serious about weight reduction. I was even weighing my t-shirts to see which ones were the lightest. But even at 15lbs it carried very well. A pack with waist strap and sternum strap is key. They so help carry the weight. My shoulders never got tired at all.
I have a Moose tool wrap that fits into a fender bag. It weighed 3lbs loaded and fit on the front fender great. Then a Cycoactive number plate bag was used for a 1st aid kit, AA mag light, goggles and other small stuff.
>Here is the bike fully loaded up<
So now that I had pretty much everything there was nothing left to do but sit around and wait. Sit around and pack and re-pack and re-re-pack all my gear and double and triple check everything to make sure that it is all absolutely perfect. I am an engineer and a tad picky about some things (so says my wife that is) so yea I tend to over analyze things when it comes to trips like this. But it turns out that it worked out pretty good as I had no problems at all during this trip with any of my gear. I did manage to get a local ride in with my bike loaded to see how it would handle miles and miles of woops. And what better place to test at than Cedar Creek. The trail system that grows woops and ships them out to the rest of the state. My gear came thru with flying colors.
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Edit:
One more thing I forgot to mention. Make sure to pack so as to keep everything dry. You will want your tent and sleeping bag dry. Butt paper needs to be kept dry as well as spare clothes. Your gonna get wet at some point. Plan for the worst and hope for the best. Ziplock bags work great for smaller things. Bring a few extra along as well. They weigh next to nothing and do come in handy. We used one to syphon gas off Ricks bike to help start a campfire one night.
Also rain gear. We planned on doing this in relativly warm weather. I have a heavy waterproof enduro jacket but didn't want to be packing this all week. So because of the warmer temps I just brought along a cheep $30 nylon rain jacket and pants I got at Sams Club. Then I put them in a small $3 stuff sack I got at Dicks Sports and lashed that to the front of the rack. Worked great. It wasn't as accessable as I would of liked but worked ok. If it had gotten cold I had 2 t-shirts as well as a spare jersey I could of layered on along with the jacked. So I think I could of managed the cold ok. Having easier access to my jacket would of been nice. Something straped to the top of my tent bag maybe. But the nice thing of were I had it is I could rest the backpack on it on the road sections and get the weight off by back. Heck I could lean back and relax like I was riding a chopper.
----------------------------------------------------------
One other thing that I did to prepare for this trip is to prepare my body. I am an engineer. I sit at a computer all day. Not exactly a great way to stay in shape. And looking in the mirror this last winter it was obvious that I had let things get way out of hand. Well we put in a new fitness center were I work. So with 3 months to go before the big ride I was in there with a vengeance, running, biking, lifting and tons of cardio. I am happy to say that I feel it made a huge difference. I feel so much better these days. And the Safari was a lot easier on my body as a result.
To be continued..................
-----------------------------------------------------------
Michigan Mccct Trail Safari 2006
Man were do I start. This ride has been a long time in the making.
The ride itself took place the week of June 26th 2006, but has been in the planning for nearly a year. I have been slowly collecting parts for this ride for a long time. So I guess I will start with the planning that went in on this.
I have never camped off a motorcycle before but the idea had always sounded fun to me. Before the Safari idea had entered my head I had thought about getting some stuff for just some overnight trips somewhere close by.
The parts gathering started with getting a Promoto Billet Rack for my 04 Honda CRF250X in spring of 2005. I figured that the rack will be great for the safari, if and when I ever got to ride the safari as there were no plans to ride it at that point. That rack is also really useful for doing trail maintenance with the addition of a chainsaw mount that I also bought. Only downside with this rack is it doesn’t work at all with my FMF Q silencer. So I have to run the stock silencer when I use the rack. But really I don’t notice much difference between the 2 exhaust systems so it works out ok.
Next thing I got last summer was a used Garmin GPSV off of E-bay. With the addition of a Ram mount, a power cable, and some Topo maps I now know were I am at, still don’t know were I am going though. I was never a big GPS guy, actually didn’t now anything about them, but man now that I have it I love it. The CCC offers the Trail Safari trails on CD that you can download to your GPS. This is definitely the way to go, But more on that latter.
Around the fall of 2005 there started to be some talk amongst some folks on TT about doing the trail safari. Eventually it was agreed to do it over one week vs. several weekends. So the real planning began. The more that we talked about it, the more people that would pop in and voice interest in joining us. But as the weeks and months drug on I began to realize that what was looking at being a large group was dwindling down to a handful (we ended up with 5 of us). After several proposed weekends we finally settled on the week of June 26th 2006. That week seemed to work with everyone. We also decided that we were going to do it the original way. Camp right off the bikes with no vehicle support. We would start at white cloud and go around to Gladwin, then backtrack to St Helens and take the cross state connector across to Manton.
So I started looking in earnest for super compact lightweight camping gear. I searched all over the internet on sites about ultra lightweight backpacking, and adventure motorcycle touring and eventually I started to get a feel for what I wanted to get. My favorite place is a store called www.campmor.com they have everything that you need and a few things that I didn’t know I needed. Luckily right around the time I needed to actually start buying some of this stuff my birthday and X-mas came along so naturally I forwarded my shopping list to me relatives. And lucky me I got quite a few things that I wanted.
Well my main camping gear turned out to be a >Eureka Solitare Tent<, a
>Kelty Light Year Sleeping Bag<, a
>Therm-a-rest sleeping pad<, and a >Sealine 30 Dry Bag<. Everything fits nicely into the dry bag and seals up into a 12x12 package that straps nicely onto the rear rack. I had to take the tent poles out of the tent bag and put them into my backpack to make the tent pack small enough to fit nicely into my sealine bag. I also picked up a pair of those lightweight water shoes that you would wear for jet skiing or tubing down the river. They weigh next to nothing and pack nice and flat. Those also went into the sealine bag.
Here is the bag >packed up< and unpacked showing >what is in it<
I then picked up a day and a half internal frame backpack from campmor. It was cheep like $30. Well as they say you get what you pay for. It looks nice but I ended up killing it. Try as I might I couldn’t get the loaded backpack weight down below 15lbs. And I was getting pretty serious about weight reduction. I was even weighing my t-shirts to see which ones were the lightest. But even at 15lbs it carried very well. A pack with waist strap and sternum strap is key. They so help carry the weight. My shoulders never got tired at all.
I have a Moose tool wrap that fits into a fender bag. It weighed 3lbs loaded and fit on the front fender great. Then a Cycoactive number plate bag was used for a 1st aid kit, AA mag light, goggles and other small stuff.
>Here is the bike fully loaded up<
So now that I had pretty much everything there was nothing left to do but sit around and wait. Sit around and pack and re-pack and re-re-pack all my gear and double and triple check everything to make sure that it is all absolutely perfect. I am an engineer and a tad picky about some things (so says my wife that is) so yea I tend to over analyze things when it comes to trips like this. But it turns out that it worked out pretty good as I had no problems at all during this trip with any of my gear. I did manage to get a local ride in with my bike loaded to see how it would handle miles and miles of woops. And what better place to test at than Cedar Creek. The trail system that grows woops and ships them out to the rest of the state. My gear came thru with flying colors.
---------------------------------------------------------
Edit:
One more thing I forgot to mention. Make sure to pack so as to keep everything dry. You will want your tent and sleeping bag dry. Butt paper needs to be kept dry as well as spare clothes. Your gonna get wet at some point. Plan for the worst and hope for the best. Ziplock bags work great for smaller things. Bring a few extra along as well. They weigh next to nothing and do come in handy. We used one to syphon gas off Ricks bike to help start a campfire one night.
Also rain gear. We planned on doing this in relativly warm weather. I have a heavy waterproof enduro jacket but didn't want to be packing this all week. So because of the warmer temps I just brought along a cheep $30 nylon rain jacket and pants I got at Sams Club. Then I put them in a small $3 stuff sack I got at Dicks Sports and lashed that to the front of the rack. Worked great. It wasn't as accessable as I would of liked but worked ok. If it had gotten cold I had 2 t-shirts as well as a spare jersey I could of layered on along with the jacked. So I think I could of managed the cold ok. Having easier access to my jacket would of been nice. Something straped to the top of my tent bag maybe. But the nice thing of were I had it is I could rest the backpack on it on the road sections and get the weight off by back. Heck I could lean back and relax like I was riding a chopper.
----------------------------------------------------------
One other thing that I did to prepare for this trip is to prepare my body. I am an engineer. I sit at a computer all day. Not exactly a great way to stay in shape. And looking in the mirror this last winter it was obvious that I had let things get way out of hand. Well we put in a new fitness center were I work. So with 3 months to go before the big ride I was in there with a vengeance, running, biking, lifting and tons of cardio. I am happy to say that I feel it made a huge difference. I feel so much better these days. And the Safari was a lot easier on my body as a result.
To be continued..................
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