First Bikepacking Trip/Western Suburb Beer Tour

Someone recently asked me about our anticipated bike adventure, which led to me trying to explain the concept of ultralight bike touring.  The following exchange ensued:

Q.  So, you like, carry all your stuff on your bike and go camping?
A.  Yeah, that's generally the idea.
Q.  You ever done this before?
A.  No, not at all.
Q.  But you basically refinanced your house in order to buy two titanium mountain bikes?
A.  Yes, correct.
Q.  So you bought these bikes, plus a bunch of equipment, but you've never toured, nor do you know if you'll even enjoy it.
A.  Yeah... (awkward silence)

Needless to say, we decided that we needed to figure out, stat, whether we were up for the task.  

Enter Carver Park Reserve, situated out on the western edge of the Twin Cities near Victoria, MN.  A quick google search revealed that the park was conveniently accessible via bike trail almost the entire way from our house in South Minneapolis, and an assist from the City Pages gave us the idea in the first place.  After a very nice chat with a woman in the reservation department, we had a site set for Saturday night at the Lake Auburn campground.

We certainly don't have all the carrying devices and packs for our bikes, but we were able to cobble together enough storage space using our regular commuting panniers, our frame bags, and some creative use of extra straps to affix our sleeping bags to our handlebars.  I was also able to strap our tent to the top of my rear rack.  All in all, this setup worked quite well for this jaunt, although I need to action a better situation for affixing items to the handlebars.  The tension/buckle straps kept pulling loose with all the bumps/vibration.

Anyway, who cares about that.  We went up and caught the Midtown Greenway west to Hopkins, where we moved onto the Lake Minnetonka LRT Regional Trail, which shuttled us forth direct to Carver Park, skirting Lake Minnetonka on the way.  Her are some shots from the trail.

Blue skies, open trail.

Thanks again for selling me the Garmin, Erik - working great!

K2, on the road.

Go west young man.

 As you can see, the LRT trail was crushed gravel for the duration of its 15 miles, and the Salsa Fargo Tis that bore us westward essentially transmogrified the gravel into asphalt.  When riding on pavement, the big knobby 29er tires on the Fargo make an awkward and unseemly "whum, whum, whum" noise, the noise of a machine desperately trying to find its element.  While, gravel is certainly the Fargo's element.  Kate and I both commented how the bikes not only gripped the gravel more comfortably than they do pavement, but they seemed to handle better under the weight of our camping gear than they do with no weight at all.

Anyway, as we pondered this and other mysteries, I realized that the LRT trail went right through downtown Excelsior.  I also knew that in downtown Excelsior, there was a brewing establishment known as Excelsior Brewing Company.  And furthermore, said establishment contained a taproom of some repute.  So I politely suggested that we stop for a mid-ride libation.  And after nearly getting flattened by the hordes of Lake Minnetonka goers in their Mercedes-Benz SUV's, we rolled up to the aforementioned Excelsior Brewing Company.

beer beer beer beer beer

See what time it is?

Let me tell you a couple things about Excelsior Brewing Company:

• It features some fantastic brews in an unpretentious taproom/garage, and everyone seems to enjoy themselves
• If you buy an Excelsior Brewing bike jersey, and ride your bike to the brewery wearing that jersey, your first pint is on the house, for, as far as I could tell, eternity.  Seriously.  Needless to say, we were calculating how many trips it would take for us to recoup the cost of an $80 jersey...
• Unsurprisingly, there were a lot of folks enjoying free beer in their Excelsior Brewing bike jersey
• Apparently, Excelsior Brewing is the epicenter of friendly, bike-riding, beer-drinking folk in the Lake Minnetonka area

To that last point, we had no less than two people in cycling gear just come up to us out of the blue, point to our bikes leaning up against the fire escape of a nearby building, and strike up a conversation.  One older gentleman talked to us at length about how he just recently purchased a Salsa titanium road bike and took it out to Colorado.  So we chit-chatted about bikes with him, told him about our GDBMR plans, and by that point, had duly drained our first pints.  Initially we thought we'd just stop for one beer and head for the park, which was still 8 or so miles further, but decided that the atmosphere simply required us to enjoy another drink.  So, we did.

Cheers!

And as we were about to leave, another woman in a cycling jersey approached us as we mounted up our bikes, and asked us about where we were going, where we were from, yada, yada, yada.  Her and her company had apparently gone from Excelsior into Minneapolis, and done a little tour of the many delicious bars and restaurants the City of Lakes offers.  She herself had done some bikepacking, and as we joked that our camping trip had become really a brewery tour of the western suburbs, she commented, "well, you still have one more - the brewery in Victoria!"  Newly intrigued, we listened carefully as she described that, at the terminus of the LRT trail in Victoria, sat a just opened brewery/taproom.  Plans changed yet again, we set forth with a solid buzz only to arrive at ENKI Brewing.  

Yes.

Birrr.

Beer thirty again?  Well, of course!

Anyway, ENKI Brewing is a nice little gem of a place, positively in the middle of nowhere, as far as I'm concerned.  I was reading a story the other day about a project Patagonia has sponsored, which is called "Slow is Fast."  Basically, the concept is a guy decides to bike down the California coast, to see his home state in a way he has never seen it, and he discovers just how much more richly he experiences people and his surroundings when he is freed from the constraints of his automobile.  I can't imagine a scenario where I would have driven out to Victoria just to sample a new brewery.  But as part of a bike adventure, as part of a slow travel experience, you never know what you might find.

Having had our camping trip duly converted into a brewery tour, we decided it was about time to retrace our steps and enter Carver Park Reserve.  So we did.  And for those of you who have not visited, I suggest you go.  I'm always amazed at how beautiful it can get just a few miles outside of the city.

Riding the paved trails at Carver Park Reserve

 The people at the check in looked at us as if we were insane as we pulled in on our bikes, a reaction that would only continue as we rolled to our campsite, surrounded by all sides by families in bus sized RV's, giant 8 person tents, pop-up campers, and/or SUV's.  By comparison, our modest camp consisting of two bikes and a two person backpacking tent looked positively out of place.

Car pass?

Our rides

Setting up the tent

Heineken?!  Fuck that shit!  Pabst Blue Ribbon!

 It's not an adventure until something goes wrong.  We realized as we started to prepare dinner that we forgot forks, spoons, sporks, or any utensils of any kind, for that matter, save for a single spatula.  That forced us to get creative in our cooking and eating procedures.

The batter stir-er

I nearly burnt my hand off with this stove - but it worked great!  Thanks Erik and Kim!

 Just for funsies, we packed one of those dehydrated backpacking meals, just to see what it's like.  It turns out freeze dried cheese enchiladas rancheros are not too bad.  Kate's sister and brother-in-law also hooked us up with some bread you can make in a pan, which we enjoyed for dinner and breakfast, although frying said bread was challenging given that the stove was either (1) off, or; (2) as hot as the surface of the sun.

Although I am out of photos, the day was capped by (what else) a campfire, as well as the typical sleeping bag tossing and turning one does when they neglected to pack a sleeping pad.  The next day, we got an early start in order to shuttle Kate back to the MPLS for a pre-arranged brunch with friends.  And thankfully, our legs bore us eastward with even greater speed than the day before, and we made it with plenty of time to spare.

Needless to say, it was a very enjoyable little out and back trip, and so easy to do from the Twin Cities proper.  I would bike back to Excelsior Brewing in a heartbeat.  It felt good to come home and see our frame bags and bikes covered with a thin film of gravel dust - a dusting that illustrates to all who enquire that "WE ARE SERIOUS - DO NOT MESS WITH US!"  We conquered our first bike camping trip in good spirits, saw what things worked and those things that didn't work so well.  Best of all, I think we can confidently start to answer to all who ask whether we know what we are doing:

"Not everything, but yes, we know some things.  And we're getting better."