Bikepacking

Watching Your Kids Push Their Limits

by Andy Amick

One of the best things in life is watching your child accomplish a task they deem impossible. Of course, it’s even better when that something involves a bike. Earlier this summer, my 12 year old son and I headed out for an overnight bikepacking trip. While we rode the trails toward Chatfield State Park (the same […]

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A Bikepacking System Built From Three Companies

by Andy Amick

No, this is not about the 70’s show “Three’s Company”. It’s about building a bikepacking system – one using gear from only three different companies. Bikepacking allows riders the freedom to explore new areas and go deeper into trail systems. However, it also requires a minimum amount of gear to get started. This post will […]

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Visualizing the Tour Divide

by Andy Amick

In my quest to learn Apache Spark to support my day job as a software developer, I decided to analyze my 2014 Tour Divide GPS data. Working with an interesting data set always helps the learning process. Plus, I had the possibility of finding some interesting statistics and measurements about the ride itself. Daily Distance I […]

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Welcome Back Blog! Were You Lost?

by Andy Amick

Hey there. Remember me? Apologies for being gone so long. No one got lost and there hasn’t been a shortage of ideas for posts. The problem has been that I haven’t been outside much over the last few months, and that’s usually what triggers my desire to keep writing posts. It’s not all bad though. One of […]

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To The 2015 Tour Divide Riders (Especially Rookies)

by Andy Amick

The 2015 Tour Divide is only a week away! I’m sure the racers are going through that phase of being extremely excited, extremely nervous, and starting to second guess some of their preparation and gear selection. For such a huge undertaking, it’s a completely normal response. Those times when you are nervous and excited are […]

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Why Journey?

by Andy Amick

In the last two posts (Initial Thoughts and Embrace Sunrises), I’ve written about the balance between enjoying a journey rather than focusing so much on the gear used for the journey. What I didn’t mention is why go on a journey at all? Why go bikepacking – putting camping gear on a bike making it […]

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Journeys Over Gear – Embrace Sunrises

by Andy Amick

In the initial post on this topic, I wrote about the dilemma of bikepacking. Lots of gear is required to go bikepacking, but the gear itself should not be the focus. Instead, it should be about the journey – the sunrises, sunsets, and people along the way. The idea of gear isn’t bad, nor should […]

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Journeys over Gear – Initial Thoughts

by Andy Amick

Over the last two months, I’ve been writing more about my Tour Divide race experience with the idea of possibly turning it into a book. As I go through the days, the lessons I learned, and the people I met along the way, I’m reminded of just how amazing the journey turned out to be. […]

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Emerging From The Motivation Haze

by Andy Amick

The picture above is a great representation of the Motivation Haze. It was taken on Day 2 of the 2014 Tour Divide as I was riding through the Canadian Flathead Valley. The beauty of the mountains and trees are there, just behind the foggy haze. Ever since the Tour Divide, my motivation to get out on […]

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Anatomy Of A Bikepacking Gear Setup

by Andy Amick

For any bikepacking endeavor, especially for multi-day rides, where to place gear on the bike becomes a task that can consume a lot of time. What items need to be easily accessible? What items should be packed together? Can everything fit on the bike so the backpack can be left behind? These are just a […]

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