Report: Bike Camping 101

[Thanks to event organizer Matt Picio of Cycle Wild for providing this recap via the Shift list.]

Last night, Tomas Quinones and I held Cycle Wild’s 5th Bike Camping 101 class. We held this class at last year’s Pedalpalooza in Colonel Summers Park, and we returned there for an encore presentation. In
2008, we had about 40 attendees. This year, we started with about 20-25 attendees but were up to 40 by 1/2 hour into the presentation, and topped out at 52 people during the last 20 minutes or so before we opened the floor for questions.

The weather was great, people were interested in the material, we got some great questions from the audience, and good feedback at the end. Tomas and I alternated the presentation to cover our respective strengths, and Tomas gave a post-event demonstration of how to set up
his Hennessey hammock, which caught the attention of a dozen or so afterwards.

We covered the basics of camping by bike: Why do it? Where to camp? What gear does one need? I was able to print about 25 handouts for the crowd before heading out to the park – as usual, there were
nowhere near enough. If you were there and did not get a handout (or couldn’t make it, and want to learn what we talked about), here it is (link goes directly to the PDF, which can also be found at our website).

Our next trip is one of our signature trips, and isn’t intended for beginners – Big Bottom (up the Clackamas River), an area with old-growth Douglas Fir and Western Redcedar. It’s a 62-mile trip. If
you’re interested in going and can ride that distance, but haven’t camped – email me and I’ll be happy to give you the information you need to come along and enjoy it – our site for this trip is primitive,
off the road, no car noise, NO people at all except for us. It’s a beautiful ride out, and the car traffic typically isn’t that bad.

We will be having a couple “beginner” trips in July and August, to Barton Park and Milo McIver State Park, and a few “moderate” trips this summer, to Alder Flat and Champoeg State Park, so if you’re not
comfortable with long distances, we’ve got you covered.

Thank you all who came out – it was great having you there and thanks for listening!

-Matt Picio
President (not as impressive or pretentious as it sounds – CW is 3
people, all volunteer)
Cycle Wild