The air has finally cleared enough from the summer fires to where it is "moderate" rather than "hazardous." On top...
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Austin, Nevada
September 19, 2020
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the air has been too unhealthy to scout the last part of the...
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Scouting: Simpson Park Station
September 19, 2020
I haven't been able to ride the last few weeks due to the fires and quality of the air in...
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Scouting: Lover’s Leap to Sand Flat
August 15, 2020
This past week I took a couple of days to car camp and scout the upper (eastern) California portion of...
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Scouting: Sand Flat to Riverton
August 4, 2020
Yesterday (8/3/2020), I drove rode further up into the Sierra Nevada to scout the trail between Sand Flat campground (near...
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Ben Holladay, The Stagecoach King
July 26, 2020
J.V. Frederick, Ben Holladay, The Stagecoach King (1940) This book is something of a biography of Ben Holliday, who developed...
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Scouting: Pacific House to Pollock Pines
July 25, 2020
Yesterday (7/24/2020), I rode another short loop (20 miles) to compare the 2017 Centennial Route with the Pony Express Bikepacking...
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Saddles and Spurs
July 20, 2020
Mary Lund Settle and Raymond W. Settle, Saddles and Spurs (1955) Saddles and Spurs is one of the seminal books...
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Scouting: Pollock Pines to Placerville
July 19, 2020
Last Friday (7/17/20) I drove up to Placerville to scout the route between there and Pollock Pines. As before, I...
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Prairie Schooner Detours
July 18, 2020
Irene D. Paden, Prairie Schooner Detours (1949) This is a follow up book to Paden's The Wake of the Prairie...
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Scouting: Mormon Tavern
July 15, 2020
There are two places of interest on the Pony Express Bikepacking Route between Placerville and Folsom, California. One is the...
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Scouting: Placerville to Shingle Springs
July 13, 2020
Today I went on a relatively long drive (50 miles) for a relatively short ride (26 miles). I wanted...
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Scouting: Shingle Springs to Folsom
July 11, 2020
My plan over the course of this summer is to pre-ride the PX Bikepacking Route from Echo Summit (above South Lake...
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Shakedown: Folsom to Sacramento
July 11, 2020
A couple of weeks ago I loaded up my bikepacking rig to do a shakedown ride. My plan was to...
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The Wagonmasters
July 6, 2020
Henry Pickering Walker, The Wagonmasters (1966) This book is subtitled "High Plains Freighting from the Earliest Days of the Santa Fe...
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What I’m Riding
July 1, 2020
A key component of a 2,100-mile bike ride is, of course, the bike. I thought a lot about building...
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Guarding the Overland Trails: The Eleventh Ohio Cavalry in the Civil War
June 20, 2020
Robert Huhn Jones, Guarding the Overland Trails: The Eleventh Ohio Cavalry in the Civil War (2005) This book details the...
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The Mormon Conflict
June 19, 2020
Norman F. Furniss, The Mormon Conflict: 1850–1859 (1960) I came across this book while reading Jess Unruh's The Plains Across....
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The Great Platte River Road
June 9, 2020
Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road: The Covered Wagon Mainline via Fort Kearny to Fort Laramie (1960) From the...
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The Wake of the Prairie Schooner
May 26, 2020
Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner (1944) For nine summers during the 1930s and early '40s, Paden...
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