With out a doubt, one of the best experiences of my life was going on a long bike tour.  The every day of it, the riding and the scenery, the people you meet, the food you eat and of course, the beer are experiences that are hard to even put into words.  There is something so peaceful about the pack up, ride, eat, rest, ride, eat rest ride, make camp, drink beer and go to sleep schedule that is a bike tour. There are so many ways that people out there tour these days.  On road, off road, minimalist, maximalist…

We were a pain in your ass.  We whined and we moaned.  We contradicted. We did exactly what you told us not to do because we were kids that thought we knew everything.  And you watched and laughed and helped us through again and again. “Damn, the old man was right.”  That’s what we would say.  Say under our breath.  Say after it didn’t work out as well as we thought it would.  And over the years we’ve realized just how wrong we were about so many things.  Sometimes these things were obvious right away, but others took time. Nowadays…

  I’ve kicked around the idea of doing this blog post for quite some time now because it’s very personal and it still has a profound effect on me. On May 6th 2011, I lost a great friend in a bicycle accident. His name was Eric Shanley but everyone who knew him just called him Squid. Squid was riding his bike from one friend’s house to another to watch a movie in Lake Orion Mi (just north of Detroit). As he was crossing a major roadway that was under construction he was struck and killed by a police officer that…

As we all sat around the campfire during the latest Surly ride/retreat Skip kept us entertained playing guitar throughout the night. Mr. Bloggins, every now and then, would throw down on the harmonica between beers. This is what it looked like into the wee hours that night.         As you can see, we got totally carried away.     Cheers,   Off          

Recently we all loaded up our bikes and rode together to a nature reserve west of Minneapolis.  You've likely already heard about it in one of the other blogs posted here as well as on our facebook page, so I'll present you my take on it via the following pictures I snapped along the way.  These photos are not intended to tell the whole story, partially because that would take too long and also because I didn't take pictures for the entire duration of the trip.    Anyhoo, here we are loaded down and rolling on the LRT trail west…