Sweating With The Groadies

As a kid I loved camping and I loved biking, so it might come as a surprise to some to learn that when cycling and camping's mashup, bikepacking, soared to popularity several years ago, I did not jump on that bandwagon. As a matter of fact my very first attempt at bikepacking came last weekend, yup not even 7 days ago. You see, born and raised a Montana boy until I was 14 sort of spoiled me to more moderate temperatures. The thought of loading up a bicycle with camping gear and spending the next several hours to days living in a Nebraska slow cooker, was not too appealing. So why now you might ask, well... that's a complicated one but basically it boils down to life being cancelled in 2020. No races, no tours, not so much as an official group ride to be had. This made the idea of loading up a bicycle and enduring the sweat-fest that is bikepacking in Nebraska in late Spring much more appealing. Last weekend things just sort of fell into place as it was announced that the annual My Little Pony Camp Out was a go after all and this seemed like the perfect excuse to give this thing a try.



In addition to the supposed tail end of the COVID pandemic we also had curfews and potentials riots to contend with, so we decided to drive to and start from Malvern Iowa rather than deal with all that mess in Omaha.




Leaving from Malvern meant we would pass through the unique canyons of the Loess Hills, which ended up being the perfect spot to stop and have a ditch beer. If you have never experienced the Loess Hills and you are near Omaha, I highly recommend you go at least once. Formed by glacial silt from the Ice Age and stacked hundreds of feet high in some areas, it is something you can only experience in this area of the country.





Naturally, the one weekend I decide to give bikepacking in Nebraska a try it is a hot and windy weekend with temps in the mid to upper 90° range and winds in the mid to upper 20 mph range. Keg Creek in Pacific Junction Iowa was a welcomed oasis near the end of our journey to Pony Creek Campground. My riding partner talked the ears off of a few locals and if talking turns into doing, it's possible that there might be a bicycle tour and camp out in Pacific Junction next year. Time will tell if it actually materializes or not but it sounded pretty promising.






A few miles post brewery and we successfully made it to the campground. I unloaded the bike, pitched my 17 lbs non bikepacking tent, cleaned up a little bit and then hung out until it was decided that it was time to turn in for the night. As I suspected, I slept fairly poorly in the heat and the breeze that was strong all day virtually disappeared once the sun went down or so it seemed. I think at some point I passed out from shear exhaustion more than I actually drifted off to sleep.





The next day was slated to be another warm and windy day so we all packed up and headed out fairly early in the morning. We retraced our route out and ran into a pretty stiff head wind but otherwise the return trip was pretty uneventful.


Chris did capture this pretty cool picture of me in some rainbow lens flare, so that's kind of bad ass. Would I do it again, absolutely but likely on a weekend that was not quite so warm and not nearly as windy but I get it, you plan a trip months in advance and then you're locked in. It was a great time despite the weather and honestly it could have been storming, that would have been worse. I definitely need to get a new tent though, most bikepacking tents are a quarter of what mine weighs and that would make a huge difference.