Thursday, July 26, 2012

Bikepacking

Eric of Revelate Designs (and maker of my frame bags) posted a trip report I very much enjoyed reading.  Click this. 




A few years ago he and his girl friend rode in Bolivia at very high altitude around the Illimani mountain area. 

 They rented the bikes and put his tires, pedals and bags on.  

 I am struck by how brave they are to just jump into the challenge without having it all figured out. 

I need to do some of this.  (On my kindergarten scale of course.) 

Back to the United States. 
Below is a portion of the climb up Bear Tooth Pass in Montana.  This is paved. 



 While climbing Bear Tooth on road bike you have a lot of time to look around.  When you look across the valley you see a very interesting dirt version of what you are climbing.  It is Montana forest route 421.  I think John Q. drove up this once.  True?  I unfortunately couldn't find a good pic of it for the blog.  This is my most likely version of Eric's Bolivia type route. 



3 comments:

Heath said...

I still hope to ride this with Chip this summer. It is this route?

Jared said...

The off road route is opposite the pic I have up. It is a bit less high and without as many switchbacks or guard rails. Looks dangerous from Beartooth pass but is likely less so in person. Likely a lot steeper than Beartooth.

SeanH said...

I have driven over that pass. I can't imagine it on a bike. Time to look around? With a climb like that I would be staring at my front tire while hoping that someone would put me out of my misery. Pretty sure that one would get categorized as an "HC" climb.