Bigger Isn't Always Better, Little Folding Bike Road Trip

Some photos from our seven day, three thousand miles road trip with the 98 Dahon Mariner.  I had considered selling that bike but glad I kept it when we observed how the trunk bike carrier from Saris caused the trunk lid of our little Nissan Versa to flex to much.  Plan B was fold the Dahon and shove it in the trunk.    We had a lot of fun with opportunity to visit The Bicycle Nomad Cafe and visit with owner Erick Cedeno (scroll down for photo) who rode the the little old Dahon and afterwards said "it rides better than it looks".  Another quote from his site is perfectly suited for this blog post title.  "It makes you feel big when you are small and small when you are big".
Visit the Bike Tourings' Blog regarding this Bike at "A Folding Bike that Fits"

After landing at Madrid, New Mexico I was looking forward to figuring out how I would pack my kit onto the Dahon Mariner.  Turned out to be easier than I thought with use of a medium size hydration pack for mountain biking. 

Juxtaposed  : )

Cruising on pavement was pure fun, trails were a bit challenging and limited some of the riding options but was still fun, yep I was smiling. 

Bicycle Nomad Cafe owner Erick Cedeno after riding the old Dahon Mariner five speed, "it rides better than it looks".  

I try to make it a tradition to get at least one good pic on my way home through Texas Hill Country

I did figure out a good method of packing my tent, poles, air mattress, sleeping bag and pillow, camera, tripod, spare batteries, power pack, basic flat repair kit and enough food and water for an overnighter.  

Madrid, New Mexico is so beautiful at night.  This was at four am after the clouds had cleared out.  

Bike Touring Fund Raiser Ideas

Our store's community co-op garden established five years ago

I get a bit concerned when I realize that I haven't added any new content to this blog or the Bike Tourings site since October of last year.  Sakes, that is almost six months!  I require a bit of an explanation from myself : )

Hmm, it all began last August when the owner of the Juice Bar we had partnered with at a new commercial retail location for our store decided to abruptly and without notice permanently close her business.  Duh, that's it, no explanation required.  It has been months of hard work and effort to continue with our store's ability to conduct business as usual while contending with a stressful bout of "how the heck are we going to get that half of the lease paid?"  Especially now that we have had to buy out the juice bar business in order to move forward and clear the space for use. 

Touring bike test ride with new kit to the Store's organic garden

Fortunately it has for the most part worked out but now that it's spring we are lacking some of the much needed financial support necessary to get the food co-op garden cranking again.  So, we sat down and had a business chat about some of our possible options to recuperate the unplanned large expenditure of purchasing the juice bar and decided it was time for a bike tour for fund raising ride.

Going for a nice long bike tour, enjoying the sights, meeting new people and feeling that I'm on a healthy vacation is one thing.  Conducting a fund raising tour is another matter when I consider how much work will be involved tending to providing updated content to social media and a blog.  It's the road of a digital nomad and from what I have heard from other bike touring folks who efforted to maintain a blog, let alone a fund raising ride it proved to be quite difficult for them.  

This post is simply meant to be a test run of emailing a post to this blog so that I can keep up with what I'm certain will be some very interesting content.  That's all for now and actually feeling glad that there aren't a whole lot of folks reading this blog, for now that is.

Sent from BlueMail