Happy Anniversary!

July 13 was our anniversary. I drafted a post on the 14th but never completed it. Better late than never, right?

We usually make a nice dinner at home for our anniversary but this year I wanted to pack a picnic dinner and ride our bikes to a park along the river. So we did just that. It was a week day and we did this after work. Wanting to be home before dark we didn't have much time to spare once we reached our destination and ate.

Dinner consisted of turkey, cheese, baguette.....oh no wait, that's right.... we FORGOT the baguette. Kale salad, potato salad, a nectarine, chips and root beer. Chocolate for dessert. The best anniversary dinner to date.

A Carsick Designs bag serving us well

Guy West Bridge across the American River

The American River

Looking West

The American River

Looking East

The simplicity of camping

Brian and I went camping at our ol' stand by last weekend, Buck's Lake. It's about 20 miles from the town where Brian grew up and it's the place we go when we want to go camping but haven't made plans to go elsewhere. We brought our bikes and went for a ride on Saturday, a long, hilly, strenuous ride that was mostly on a 4-wheel drive road. A ride that rewarded us with the most amazing views and surprised us with a variety of sweet aromatic flora. Camping and bike touring always remind me of how little I really need to live and motivate me to continue lightening the load of all the useless stuff in this house.

Brian lived in this structure 22 years ago when he worked at Lakeshore Resort. No running water, bathroom or kitchen. (the porta potty wasn't there back then) Now it's used for boat rentals.

Yesterday we went to the Bicycle swap meet in Downtown Sacramento.  We hauled a big box of parts, Monica's road bike and some panniers.  We met a lot of people, handed out a bunch of business cards,  talked cargo bikes and sewing all day.  We left with only a couple of parts and my panniers.  

The cargo bike was a hit, lots of people interested in buying it from me,  and lots of requests to build more.

I installed a yakima fork mount to the rear of the xtracycle and Monica used it to haul her road bike.

On a roll

We've ridden our bikes two out of three days this year! Today was just coffee and groceries but it was fun.

Monica is still rocking the new pannier with no problems.

I rode the xtracycle so I could test out the new bag.

Cappuccino at Temple.

Starting the year off right

We went for a short ride today. We left our house and headed to the american river bike trail. We went west along the river, and took a side trip along the levee to some ponds where we saw some beaver last year. No beaver this time, just a couple of hawks and some ducks.

we took a short section of single track, through a marsh area overgrown with blackberries.

Monica had my new pannier on her bike and the contents stayed nice and dry despite the rain. We stopped at rei to look for a touring book that I've wanted for a while, no book but it was a nice break. Monica fell in the mud while hiking up a hill to cross some train tracks to get back to the bike trail. The weather was nice, it rained most of the way. About 12 miles, it felt nice to get back on the bike and be outside.

xtracycle bag part 2

I left work at noon today and decided to finish up the xtracycle bag.

floating liner pinned in place

Attaching liner to outer bag with binding tape and swing away binder

Back of bag, I need to transfer hooks and backing from old bag still

side pocket big enough for a u lock

front of bag

I installed grommets in the rear for mounting the hooks

Floating liner, black binding is on edge of pocket used for backing board and hardware.

Bright yellow will be good for seeing small items that are in bottom of bag.

xtracycle bags

I designed my own bags for my xtracycle a couple years ago when I first bought it. My mom did the sewing on them. About a year ago I modified them so they were removable more like a pannier. Now seems like the right time to sew up a new set of bags. I started on one a couple nights ago. Here are some progress pics. The outer bag is espresso cordura.

Marking the first pieces.

I need a bigger cutting table.

The sides sewn on.

Adding the topstitch to the rear panel.

The outer bag is finished.

The floating liner is going to be spectre yellow. All the pieces are cut and ready to sew.

SEWSTORM

I've been working on a pannier pattern for a couple weeks. I came up with a basic pattern that i used to sew up a couple of practice bags. I've spent most of my waking hours thinking of ways to improve it. I felt like it was time to make a real one so I sold one of my xtracycles to buy some fabric and hardware.

Yesterday afternoon I decided to get started. I changed a few things as I went and still have a few more changes to make. The first one took me about 8 hours total, but I think the next one will only take a couple hours.

The outside is foilage green and espresso 1000 denier cordura. I made a floating liner out of grey/green 420 denier coated nylon. I'm hoping they will be fairly water resistant with the floating liner. I used auto door panel backing board for the inner support.

Monica is going to test it out tomorrow on her ride to work. She will let me know if I need to make changes or if it is acceptable. I've made/ built lots of stuff in my life (cars, motorcycles, mopeds, art, etc.) . This is the first time I can remember that I have been impressed with the final product.