Scathing review of the official Lenexa Midnight Bike Ride. (Found via kcbike.info) Ouch.
It makes me even happier that people came out to make the alternative ride so fun.
Commuterdude loved it.
Warren loved it. And got some photos worth looking at.
I forgot to mention that Mark gave me a nifty home-made coke-can alcohol stove after the ride.
Last week, I built a stand to hold a pot over a can of sterno (using bike spokes, of course!)
Sterno sucks (12 minutes to boil 2 cups of water?!) so I had to put Mark's coke can to the test. While Methylated spirits, HEET
and many other forms of alcohol will burn just fine, I opted to try the good old standby: Everclear (95% Grain Alcohol).
I had a good flame and boiling water in just about 5 minutes. After I did my boiling test, I opened a can of soup and heated it up for lunch. I just need to make a decent windscreen for this rig. As it stands, all of the stove bits (mason jar lid, can stove, and pot stand) fit inside my nesting mess kit.
When you're camping, Everclear has several advantages over other fuels. First off, it's food grade, so it isn't tainted with toxic chemicals like denatured alcohol, so I don't need to worry about contamination. It burns well, as you can see. It's also great for cleaning wounds, as a solvent, and maybe even to mix in with a beverage =)
Now, to find something to store it in that's convincing enough to detract the Park Ranger, since Hillsdale Lake bans hard liquor. Gee... let me think...
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
What they're saying...
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4 comments:
Coffee can for windscreen and stand.
http://tinyurl.com/mtttdf
That review of the LMBR is pretty rough, indeed. Perception is everything, and I have a feeling it was the same for many riders. I've been in that park after dark, and I've been in that park during the day. The intensity of the hills can't be downplayed: it's a quality training circuit for serious cyclists... the thought of putting MY KIDS on coaster-brake bikes down some of those hills during the daylight bothers me. They are sharp kids, but they simply don't have the spacial awareness, depth perception and control to be responsible for their speed and handling down a hill that is worth 40 MPH without touching the brakes at all. Turn the lights off? Forget it. Next year, I predict this will be held in the Costco parking lot, with cones and those generator-powered 5,000 watt highway work lights. Apparently controlling an intersection for cyclists and diverting a high-speed chase proved too much for the cops. Granted, I can't do their job, and wouldn't want to: but THATS one of the reasons for moving the route? If I recall correctly, nobody died last year during the LMBR, right? C'mon.
I recently switched to an alcohol stove. I put my acohol fuel in an emptied out water bottle from the conveniece store down the block from me. You don't need anything fancy.
I knew that I was in trouble when I saw that I was the only person there hauling a kid in a trailer. I'll do it again next year, even if it's at the park, because I'm a sucker for tradition -- but I'll be better prepared.
Family members have volunteered with the LMBR for quite a few years and I know that the organizers of the event were not happy with this year's ride and are trying come up with ways of improving it for next year. If you have constructive ideas on getting the LMBR back to being a safe, fun, unique event, contact the Lenexa Parks and Rec department.
I think the LPD is worried, understandably so, about preventing a bike bowling incident.
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