Riding the Storm Out | Group Bike-Camping!

oh my God H yeah anyways another year another Joy machines Bike Shop Memorial Day Weekend bike camping trip me and Aaron set off from the studio on Sunday morning we were heading to Dirty River Bicycle Works to meet up with the rest of our crew you'll notice that Aaron's Bike is not loaded down she had tweaked her back a little bit ago and we felt like probably when be a good idea to sleep on the ground inside a tent so she was joining us just for a little bit of the way and so were a couple of our other friends so yeah the AC crew meeting up at the bike shop which I had forgotten is now open on Sundays 10 to 3 I believe but look it up don't quote me completely on that but it was good because I did want to get some uh boots for my tires I have some gashes in these tires from when I was out east I do have a new set of tires at the shop that I want to put on there I just haven't had the chance to do it yet so that was my solution in case of an emergency well hopeful solution anyway so a good group of us set out um as I said there are numbers who were going all the way and camping and then a number that were just riding out to Kent we were meeting the joy machines crew out there in Kent for lunch we were going to Bell Tower Brewing they well a number of them hadn't been there yet and wanted to check it out and it's a highly recommended place so that was the plan this year was a little different cuz we usually go so much farther and just meet their crew at the campsite since it's usually a long ride for us and it wouldn't make sense to go into Cleveland first this year was kind of cool Alex from Joy machine's planned route where we got a meet up for us getting into Kent is you know from the studio about 12 mies I think from the bike shop about 10 mies so yeah got out there we're all able to have um lunch and some drinks together and then head out on the road as a big group and we were going to West Branch State Park I've been to West Branch to go swimming I have a video about that and I've also ridden the mountain bike trails out there but I've actually never been to the campground area it's a big lake with different spots and you kind of have to jump in and out of the park roads to get to all the different locations out there so Alex had ran at the group campsite out there so that was the plan a few people weren't camping also last minute because of the forecast when we woke up there were gigantic storms over Iowa and they were definitely heading towards Ohio you could see here that it had rained earlier overnight uh we all a bunch of us still decided to you know try our luck we're actually getting into Kent here checked my messages and Alex had said that they were already at Bell Tower and we were only this a matter of less than a half a mile away so timing worked out perfect I think they sat down just a couple minutes before us and there they are so it was a good group there was a number of people I knew and a number of people I didn't so we got to meet some people and uh you know a couple guys from Columbus who said they came because they heard about about it on the channel so that was really rad so fun to meet everyone so after the drinks and lunch Aaron was taking off and heading back with Ryan and ping um Ames wasn't camping either but she was going to ride all the way out to the park with us take a little bit of gamble on the weather but it seemed like we'd be able to get out there before the front hit and with the direction it was coming from she would be heading away from it on our way home so we went over to a gas station to get some supplies there were no plans to make another stop on this day so if you want any extra snacks if you wanted any extra drinks that was the time to do it we took the Portage County hike and bike out to where it ends at PE Road and then it was off onto some country roads the way out was a route that Alex had planned and it worked out to be great for us it's only about I think it was well I think it was less than 30 mil um to get out there uh the join machines guys had gone considerably farther I know I saw some of their stas but I think they were in the 60s to get out there I had decided to ride my Gunner my rock tour adventure I was just in the mood to be in the sweep upright bars and the comfortable wide tires I put the rack on it's a tubis rack that's been a little modified so I could put the Swift Industries Junior paneers on it I have a whole video about that I'll make it the one that pops up on the end screen if you want to see how I kind of rigged all that together on the rear I had my Swift industry Zeitgeist so I put all my like sleeping camping stuff camp chair in the rear and then the front is you know the food and clothing bik tools and all that kind of stuff a setup that I used going all across Michigan when we did actual bike packing you could see this was more of a bike tour but I just still felt like I was in the mood for that even though sometimes I take my rally with it you know no rack setup when we do more of just like a road tour anymore but whatever I wanted to give that kind of a Shakedown and I get that set up for the year anyways when we got into Camp everyone went like straight to the work of getting everything set up just with the unpredictable weather you would not want to be messing around with everything in the rain so in case it hit a little earlier we just everybody went got all their tents set up and everything and then we went over to the camp store they had slushies and drinks and kind of hung out over there for a little bit we were all making lots of jokes about how the storm was just going to break up or the storm was just going to blow over but uh I think everybody in the back of their mind was like No it's it's going to storm well it looked like it was about to hit in an hour after everyone was set up and hanging out so a group of us went over to there's a little swimming beach on the campground the actual big swimming beach here was I think Ben said he mapped it out it would have taken 7 miles to get there so that was not a possibility but there was still a little Sandy Beach and we went out had a swim water was surprisingly warm you know I guess it's shallow right here maybe but I just thought late May that it was going to be much chillier it was actually pretty nice so yeah West branch has a lot to offer I have a whole video about riding the mountain bike trails out here they're definitely old school mountain bike trails not the fast flowy machine built stuff that I tend to prefer but I think they're still worth going out and riding really pretty views of the lake and all that stuff when we got back everyone was kind of just again sitting around hanging out having chatting either eating or whatever and talking didn't bother getting the fire going with the way the radar looked and the rain did hit but it wasn't really that bad I mean it was a steady and you know driving rain shotgunning some beers or tempting to as you could see but um Boris had his tarp for his hammock set up and so we just a group of us sat under that and stayed mostly dry for a while Aaron tested out the hammock and then you know another group was over at the other spot and then it cleared off in I think about 45 minutes and we were able to have a fire pretty much all night so super lucky was the theme of this I mean right before it started raining the Thunder cracked and it lightning and all that but we just never got any crazy sideways rain or anything so yeah good night of hanging out I had not eaten any dinner and just started having some beer so when I got into my tent I was slaming some beef jerky and whatever snacks I had around so it rained all night long after the fire so sometime after midnight it started raining and then it rained up until about 7:30 perfect timing again just like luck with the rain was the theme of this trip we got out you know of the tents no one had to get out into the pouring rain it was perfect timing of course you have to pack up your tent a little damp and wet but I don't know I usually intend to set up my stuff and dry it out with the fan and you know go through it when I get home anyways that's just kind of part of camping for the route home we took a route that Ben had made it was a little bit longer I think a couple miles longer but it was a great route mostly roads that I had not been on before I think I had 10 miles I had never gotten we did get a little bit of drizzle on the way home but it didn't last long I I would say no more than 10 or 15 minutes and not even enough to soak anyone through we were heading back through Kent and by the time we got to Kent I wasn't damp in any way well except for maybe sweating a little bit from the humidity back to the bike setup my bike setup and all the other bike setups you see here a number of people have requested me doing some more like bike checks you know like Dustin Klein tell me about your bikes type stuff I do intend to do that um sometimes I just don't feel like talking I feel like riding my bike and I just pull on my GoPro and film as mentioned I am not a full-time YouTuber it's not my job so I just sometimes am enjoying the trip I'm on and just capturing some footage and that's why I like to do these voiceovers like this but I do intend this summer to dive into um some bike packing and bike touring setups that people have going on another comment I often get is people will like make these definitive statements about bike setups for bike touring or bike camping you need to be real careful when you do that cuz every bike handles differently I feel like the Nerds you know people like me who are really into this stuff um should know that I mean obviously mountain bikes handle different than road bikes and the whole Spectrum in between but like you know I'll get these statements about like you know you have too much weight in the front or you have too much weight in the back don't make those kind of statements because it really depends on the bike um you know I've learned the hard way about some bikes the way they they handle with certain weight the Gunner handles really well with a lot of weight in the front so combination probably between the geometry and the sweep bars but yeah with the two paneers up front um it could be heavily weighted towards the front and still ride really well and as I me I wrode it Offroad across Michigan with this setup and it handled really well so yeah I would steer away from making those statements I know in general people say you know the weight the lower the weight is on the bike the better a bike will handle and with this bike I do mostly have that situation in the front but even when I ride my Ry like I did in my last overnighter video from a few weeks ago that is all just a handlebar bag and a saddle bag but that bike is super stable and again handles fine with the weight up high and I've off-roaded that through you know nutmeg and Connecticut and all that kind of stuff so yeah just to say if you don't know your bike can handle completely different if you're uncomfortable on it then maybe it's time to think about some options to switch up the way you have it set up but yeah don't make definitive statements about what works best because different things work better for different bikes and different things work better for different people and some people just have preferences so yeah I know YouTube comments let them get to me once in a while but a lot of my goal with these videos too is if you don't know to help people out explain some you know of the things that from just doing this now for a number of years and pretty much the only way I travel that I have found work out really well for me here we are heading into the Kent State um Stadium area that's where their football team plays it's a considerable way away from campus but there's a great bike path that runs between campus and out here at the stadium I'm not sure how old it is but I don't think it was there when I was going when I did my one year at Kent State but yeah it's a really cool path that connects the two of them I'm not even sure of the name but my straa will be linked below if you're in the area and you've never ridden this path between there and Ken State's campus is pretty cool to ride through too as you'll see in a minute and of course school's out so there's not you know you're not bombing through a bunch of students and being a jerk it's no one's around right now heading back into the City of Kent our destination was Tree City Coffee not a place I've been in very often maybe only once actually but they were open on Memorial Day they had coffee had pastries they had Bagel sandwiches avocado toast everything so it was awesome that they were open on Memorial Day as most you know not many things are a cool thing that randomly worked out about this group is everyone was pretty evenly matched you know even though this would have been a no drop ride within reason we were able to move at a pretty decent pace for a lot of it because everyone was kind of on the same page I'm sure some people were working a little harder than maybe usual and some were going a little lighter than usual but in general it was kind of cool that we we're you know moving at a like I said reasonable Pace without like crushing it and without really dropping everybody anybody like camping trips are also such a cool way to make new friends and meet new people because you know you already have two things that are important are like you really dig in common you both like bikes and you both like camping if you're out there doing it so even if you're not the most uh extroverted person these are always like great trips to show up for you don't really have to worry um you know obviously there's people who already know each other I'm riding with some of my friends written with the joy machines guys before but I don't know this is kind of a these kind of groups of people are pretty open to new people and accepting and want to chat and you know always willing to help out with anything so whenever I make videos like this I'll have you know some comments about people saying I wish I would have known about this I in this day and age I got to say it's a little bit on you if you don't know about what's going on around if you're a social media person you know follow your local bike shops on Instagram or Facebook or whatever it may be uh if you're not go to their website see if have an event section see if they've listed anything that is an open invite type event but also if you buy your bikes from a local bike shop if you go in there for your repairs you're going to get to know people and that's what community is and that's how these kind of events come together so yeah this was no secret at all that was Tree City coffee's pastry case I could have eaten everything in there I did everything bagel with egg and cheese and then I had one of their black raspberry fry pies both were delicious so yeah this was our stop and and then this is where we kind of parted ways the people going into Cleveland we heading out to the hik and bike trail and we were heading home down the freedom trail with the akan crew I was glad to get some bike touring miles in my legs it always feels different when your bike is loading down loaded down like I knew this setup but it just still it changes where you use your muscles and stuff like that this is always my biggest piece of advice to people who want to go on a bike tour or a bike packing trip is do a reasonably length like reasonably short length shake down overnighter to know how your bike's going to handle to know how your packing is going to go to know how your Camp setup's going to go and all that stuff I think it's one of the most important things if you want to try and take trips like this so I have one more overnighter planned that one's inway only as we are going to private property and I'm not the organizer of it that'll kind of be the final Shakedown ride before we go on our main summer bike touring trip which I'm a little excited for we're going to be hitting the Finger Lakes Region this year kind of winging it with uh mostly our entirely own plan and routes so let me know what you would like me to ask everybody else about their setups whether it be the bags they're using on their bikes or their actual Sleep System I am a big advocate for spending the money on the tents and the sleeping stuff uh I think my stuff adds up probably to more than the bikes I put it on but lightweight and small is something I really like but there's also budget ways to do everything so here's where the last two and two broke off a couple other acon people have also broken off earlier as we all kind of headed to our different parts of town now was just me and Brad heading back to kyoga Falls since it was Memorial day my family was actually getting together a little bit later and so I got home unloaded my bike rested for a minute hung out with Edmond and then I jumped on my other bike and headed over to my parents for dinner it's always amazing you feel like you're absolutely flying when all of a sudden you get off a loaded bike and then start riding something different especially going from sweet bars to an un and drop our bike so yeah just the next thing to do is for you to give this video a like it'll make you feel good it'll make me feel good hit that subscribe button um why do you why do you make me ask I don't like asking but you guys just not doing it enough no I don't care just give this video a like that's more important anyways peace [Music]

Channel: Tim Fitzwater

Views: 10,440

Keywords: cycling, fitzwater cycles, industrial gravel, bikes, gravel bikes, adventure cycling

Id: cfd1vPczJoc

Length: 16min 0sec (960 seconds)

Published: Wed May 29 2024