Off Road Navigation Question

No fires for me either. Commando camping is about not being noticed; kinda like being homeless.

 

I’ve done the ms150 (Duluth to the twin cities) 3 times and each time I road to the starting line. On those trips I had much heavier gear including heavy duty paneers. My aluminum road bike (Specialized Allez) was nearing unstable. It would shake back and forth if I got off the saddle.

On those trips I made a reservation at banning state park. I was surprised to find they had electrical outlets and running hot water. I did indulge myself, but at the same time I was thinking, “how is this called camping?” lol

The cool thing about my 2007 Specialized Allez is that it has mounting points for a rear rack. The new ones don’t have that feature. I’ll probably never put a rack on it again though.

 

The ms150 is one I have always wanted to do. The group I occasionally road bike with does Duluth in a day from Minneapolis, then does the 2 days back with the MS group.
My longest day ride was 175miles, I was trying to get a 300k ride in but just couldn't pull it off.

Before covid I would get months off from work because we did big commercial projects so I always had time to go on big rides. But since covid we moved to residential work with less total hours of work but no months of time off so I have been leaning more towards mountain biking over endurance biking.
I usually do Cuyuna and Bentonville every year, and I try to do 1 hard race per year. I've done the Lutsen 99er twice, the Big Sugar 50mile and the Little Sugar 60mile in Bentonville, and a few 100 mile gravel races. I haven't decided what race I want to do this year.

 

Did you ride with Randle?

 

It's been a few years but yeah I used to ride with Randall's Midtown crew. I would usually do the Sunday rides because those guys are too fast on Saturday lol. It seems every year I have something going on during the weekend of the MS150 so I never get to go with them.

 

What a small world. I was a regular on the Sat/Sun rides for 2-3 years many years ago now. My brother road with us a few times too. I wonder if we road together. I never did the MS150 with Randall either, but I heard him talk about it.

 

I purchased the 67I primarily for use on the motorcycle where I am regularly well out of cell service, sometimes for a day or two at a time. Peace of mind for me and my family as they can see where I am at. I like it because of the long battery life, it’s waterproof, has satellite messaging and I can use it easily in any vehicle or even just carry it while hiking.

 

I bought a cross bike (Trek X1) many years ago with the intention of doing gravel races, but never pulled the trigger. The cross bike turned into my winter commuter and fitness bike. I road it with Randall, et. al. on a few winter rides.

175 miles in one day is a hike. Was it in a group? My longest ride was 125 mi when I road to mille lacs. I had gear on the bike and took my time to see the sights along the way. It was sunrise to sunset.

 

I'm thinking I will go with my tablet using either Gaia or Onx and get a new handheld.
Now I have to figure out do I want the 67i with long battery or the Montana with the big screen.

Do you just pay for the inReach service all year or cancel it for the months you don't use it?
So far I have never had a need for it, but with my trip next year it might be worth it just to have the subscription just for the month of my trip. Because if my wife enjoys that trip I would like to start taking more trips out to Arizona and Utah. Hopefully once a year or every other year.

 

Going out west would be fun. We have very few wheeling opportunities here in Minnesota.

 

I mostly just want to go exploring to see new scenery and taking the truck I can cover more ground than biking or hiking plus my wife gets to come along, she doesn't like off road biking much.
I would really love to get into adventure motorcycle riding but no way I could get my wife to do that, maybe a sxs but they are so expensive.

 

I’ve spent a lot of time exploring dirt roads in my truck. The forest maintenance roads in foothills state forest (houses spider lake ohv) are some of the best I think.

I never got into road motorcycles, but I was an avid dirt biker in my youth. I dirt biked up a Gilbert (iron range ohv) and out in Appleton, mn in more recent years. Gilbert is treacherous due to the loose rocks.

I haven’t mountain biked in a long time my mountain bike is all busted up. I would need to buy another one to have fun.

 

I pay for the service every month, but I take it with me any time I go up to the woods to shoot or camp. I use it regularly enough to justify the charge. I also opted for Garmins SOS insurance that covers up to $100k of search and rescue charges should I end up needing the use the SOS function. Again, I base most of these choices of use on my motorcycle as I usually take a few very long and remote camping trips where I spend a large amount of time off-road out of cell service.

 

And the SW is fun, especially on the bike. Last trip this summer was down there.

 

I mountain biked outside phoenix once. It was my only trip ever to the desert. It reminded me of something between a gigantic gravel pit and a mars scape. There were no trees, no birds, and only vague signs of water in the past.

I made the mistake of stepping on a cactus and getting some pointy things that sewed my shoe to my foot.

I’m sure AZ has as much appeal as sand hollow and Moab for desert wheeling tough.

 

I use the gaia app through Carplay on the Kenwood's screen, I also have a Garmin montana that's turned on and tracking when I'm off-road, my planned track is displayed on both devices. I'm not a big fan of the detail you loose when using gaia through carplay and I sometimes have to grab the phone and zoom in. The montana has various Topos, street maps and MVUMs and it's not unusual to pull up different maps when there's a problem with the planned route, just more info to make better decisions. Under the seat is a delorne recreational atlas for the state I'm traveling around. It's a good trip planning resource and can be very handy when there's some tech problems on the trail. The montana GPS is rock solid, lives on the handlebars of the motorcycle most of the time. Gaia on the phone is pretty good but not as solid as the montana nor is the display all that great through carplay on a 7" screen. Gaia running natively on a larger tablet would be nice. I always have multiple navigation aids along.

One of the trip planning tools I use is Google Earth with the photos turned on, I zoom into the area of the trip and if there's something cool or interesting there's often some photos posted, sometimes their position isn't accurate but I get to see what it is and a little investigation typically nails down the exact location. I've discovered some really interesting places that way.

Here's a couple I found poking around on GE.




I use Garmin Basecamp to lay out and hold the trip plan, I use tracks, I already have an extensive library of them in Basecamp and it's easy to pull in other tracks during planning. I only use routing when I need to find something on the fly like fuel or food or the fastest way somewhere but that's unusual. I avoid them for everything else.

 

One of the reasons I want to use a Garmin is because I like the tracks feature so if I do go off route I can at least trace my way back. I used to carry a paper road atlas with me but when I sold my previous car I forgot it under the seat and have never gotten around to getting a new one.
Unfortunately up north using google earth all you see is trees or snow lol. Usually I end up either asking questions on here, reddit, or on a local facebook page of what to see when exploring.

 

I was referring to the pictures people attach to specific locations that show up on google earth with "photos enabled" checked. You will still see them despite whatever is covering the ground in the sat pics.

 

I upgraded from the Taco Garage DSM to an Expedition Essentials 3tpam dash mount with a Hondo Garage Big Squeeze to hold my Galaxy A9+ tablet, and I reused my Quad Lock Mag charger for my phone mount.

This June I will get to test it out when I head up to the North Shore.