Happy Friday! It’s the start of a long Labor Day weekend and it’s still blazing hot here in the Denver area. It won’t be long until Fall is here, but for now we can enjoy a few more hot days. By the time you read this, I’m hoping to be out on the trail for another Colorado Trail bikepacking overnighter. I managed to get one of my best friends to go with me and give bikepacking a try.
Now, on to the sites and articles for this week that may be of interest to you. This week’s edition has bikepacking gear and a couple of articles about outdoor kids. Somehow when I was writing the NoLogo frame bag review, I discovered more cool bikepacking gear. There is not shortage of options out there to make bikepacking easier and lighter.
Wildcat Gear – The Tigers are Coming – Wildcat Gear is another gear maker out of the UK. They have the standard bikepacking bags for the frame and handlebars, but what caught my eye was their approach for a seat bag. Instead of a full bag, the Tiger is a harness. This allows the harness to adapt to any type of dry bag or stuff sack. Simple and very effective.
Bedrock Bags – Entrada Handlebar Bag – Another small sized gear maker, this time based out of Durango Colorado. The Entrada is an all in one handlebar compression bag. The front of the bag contains a ladder system of webbing that gives you lots of options for attaching lights or other items to the bag. With this bag, you don’t need to have a harness and a stuff sack – it’s one bag to do it all. Maybe it sounds like I’m contradicting myself between these two gear companies, but I like both ideas and some people may prefer the harness approach of the Wildcat Gear while others will prefer the all in one approach of Bedrock.
Borah Gear – Standard Bivy – The last gear maker for this post, but certainly not the last gear maker out there. Borah is located in Idaho as far as I can tell. The bivy sacks they offer look very comfy, nicely made, and there are lots of options for customizing. I have recently been trying out a bivy from Lite Mountain Gear and it has opened up a whole new way of camping for me. It does take a bit of time to get used to the bivy “lifestyle”. If you’re looking for US made gear from a small manufacturer, Borah would be one to consider.
Hikes With Tykes – Day hiking with kids my require adult attitude adjustment – Rob has some good tips for hiking with your kids – mainly relax and have fun. Remember they are not laser focused on the trail and hiking like us adults. Kids like to wander and stop when they find something interesting. Your hiking pace is much slower, but it’s worth it because you are outdoors with your kids.
Velo Mom – Learning to Fail – Jen starts out with this quote from a NY Times article – “If you can’t stand to see your child unhappy, you are in the wrong business.” Letting our kids fail and learn lessons on their own is very tough because we all want our kids to succeed. Jen goes through a couple of examples with her kids of how they are allowed to fail and figure things out on their own.
