Gear Learn

[Gaja Starks]

Onceyou have signed up for your first class HERE, your child will automatically be enrolled in the next two classes. Class size is limited in order to provide the best learning experience possible for your child. Class size will vary by store.

Each session will be hosted in each Epic Mountain Gear parking lot every Sunday from 9:30-10:30 AM, depending on which location you sign up at. Please note - Learn to Bike classes are not offered at our Frisco location.

I have many questions: What is the correct way to fall off the bicycle? Should I start the ride without straps? Should I learn bunny hop and if so, when? Do I need to learn track stand and if so, when?

Resisting the forward motion of the drivetrain is great for keeping your balance and controlling your movements at low speeds. When weaving between pedestrians or between lines of cars stuck in traffic, a fixie is terrific. When stopping at a red light, a fixie makes it easier to stay on your pedals (track standing), which means you get a quicker start when the light goes green. But for stopping at high speed, your front brake is your best friend.

As a fixie novice myself I'd suggest getting, and getting familiar with, clipless pedals and the shoes to match. Straps are only really an option if you can stop strapped in and lean on something while you undo them, as at the track. I deliberately ignore track stands at this stage. They are a very useful technique in stop-start conditions, though they confuse car drivers especially if poorly done. A lack of reliable track stands means I wouldn't consider urban fixie riding.

I suspect you don't mean bunny hopping but skip stopping. On road (with a front brake, which you should have) you can slow steadily but quickly without skidding the back wheel. If you're riding at a track you should slow down gradually and smoothly. Actual bunny hopping, as in leaving the ground, is a nice but not essential skill in road riding with a freewheel; riding fixed it's harder and less useful as you have be spinning correctly when you land. I've never seen anyone do it except to show off, and that at near zero speed.

I commute on a fixie sometimes. I'm not interested in fancy specialist skills, and am totally happy having brakes on my bike, so for me fixie skills come down to two things above and beyond "regular" cycling skills:

It took 2 or 3 rides for this become second-nature. You'll probably have a couple of occasions where you try to stop for a rest, or try to stand up with your legs braced in a sort of triangle, and experience hopefully no more than a brief unexpected skid... and then you'll quickly learn you can't do that

When pushing off and then coming to a stop. It's basically the same problem as freeing your foot on a free-wheeled bike, you just have to learn to do it while you're still rotating. Which really means you want a hands-free pedal system - i.e. clipless.

As it happens I think I've become a more confident clipless user on a free-wheel bike now as a result of going through all that. I do happily track stand sometimes now, but it's not something a learned to do specifically, just a by-product of being more comfortable with the pedal-foot relationship.

I'll mention an unofficial 3rd skill which I took a while to get to grips with - breaking wind while you're still rotating your pedals. At first it just feels rather, er, dangerous, and for me it felt like I was just ceding a little too much fine control over things if trying to work, um, the necessary muscles, while still working other nearby muscles by moving my legs up down and around at the same time. But it all worked out fine in the end..

Whoops! My seam ripper did come in handy here, and again, I'm reassured this is part of the learning process. This probably compromised the reliability of my entire repair job, and was a little upsetting. So I backtracked a bit, and I think I did it better the second time. It's all about the journey!

In past years we were allowed to check-out and use the 6-quart SS cook sets for our crews of 12. They are sufficiently large for sanitizing dishes and cooking for 12. Since then we have purchased our own Chinook 6-quart SS sets (from Amazon) for training, and we carry them to Philmont. Its best to train with what you will be using on the trail.

We used one of these $7 Walmart pots. and a Whirley Pop base. The Walmart pot fits inside the Whirley Pop base. We just carried one lid. We wrapped the Whirley Pop base with a homemade coozy. We cut the coozy and lid insulating cover out of a car window shade I picked up at Walmart for $1. The two together weighed in at 2 lbs, 4 oz. We had roughly two 8-quart pots as recommended by Philmont, but the weight was less than the Philmont pots. The people in our crew seemed to like having the second pot for rinse water. Towards the end, we noticed that we had a lot of white gas left over, so we started using warmer rinse water. The crew liked that, even though it was unnecessary. We took two bottles of white gas for the 12-day trek and had gas left over.

I wish I would have taken a chair or a full Z-pad. I did not take a camp chair, but just took a Z-seat. Our ranger had a chair and it was luxurious. If I had taken a full Z-pad, I could have folded over the Z-pad for a thicker seat or laid it out for an afternoon nap. It could have been luxurious to have a double pad too.

We used lots of Micropur tabs because we went to several non-staffed camps and went up to the Valle Vidal where they were out of water at one camp when we went through. We went through maybe 140 tablets. We used a Sawyer Sqeeze filter at Upper Greenwood when we filtered water out of the nasty little pond and at Anastazi when the water was really silty. Back-flushing the filter every once in a while was the key.

We used the deuce of spades a lot. Again, we were in the Valle Vidal. We did not need cold weather gear. I used my fleece a few times. I never used my knit hat or base layer bottoms. I wish I had left them home.

The Philmont tents were heavy but solid. If you are going to send kids into the backcountry and want to nearly guarantee that they will be dry and warm, these are the tents. We often pulled the sides of the rain fly up to the top, giving it a Mohawk look. That let it breath, but kept the rain fly handy in case of rain. We found the Philmont tents to be very warm, really too warm on most nights. We had one wet night up at Copper Creek when I woke up because I was a little cool. I rolled over and went back to sleep. Our crew took a Tarptent Double Rainbow because we had an odd number. It is half the weight of the Philmont tents and a little smaller, so we used it as a single tent. The boys broke a pole section on it and found it colder than the Philmont tents with two people (go figure).

I used trail shoes and did not regret the decision. Everyone else used boots and almost all of them got blisters or had issues with wet feet. If you train with shoes and make sure your ankles are strong, you should go with shoes.

I, and most of our adults, carry a Therm-O-Rest sleep pad and their Trekker Chair Kit (10 oz.) that the sleep pad slips into to make a very comfortable chair with back support.

It sits on the ground, so your feet are level with your but, like putting up your feet. After just a few days on the trail you get tired of sitting on hard logs, rocks or the ground. And it so good to put your feet up so blood can drain out of them.

Everyone should hike at Philmont in the footwear they trained in as well as everything else they trained with. They know how it works and how to use it so there is no learning curve on gear. There will be enough learning curve for just being at Philmont.

We used two, 20-ounce white gas bottles. We did not refill and had fuel left over. We only had 7 in our crew. We used extra fuel to warm the wash and rinse water, so we certainly could have gotten by with less. Keeping the wind screen close to the pot made a big difference. One of our leaders had a Whisperlite International which could have taken canisters, but our backup stove was white gas, so we just stuck to all white gas.

The tents were the largest contributors to the overall gear weight for our crew. If you take your own, you can reduce the total load by a pound or more per person. The patio window film worked great for groundcloths. We bought them at the end of the season from Lowes for $3 each. We should have cut them in half before we went. We cut them at Philmont and the cuts were a bit rough.

I wish we had been more proactive going through the food at each pickup point and dumping food we were not going to eat, rather than returning uneaten food. One way we would not have carried extra and the other way we were guaranteed to carry extra food.

We had a great time. It has been tough adjusting to life back in the real world. It sucks to be in air conditioning, back at work and not walking 5-11 miles a day. I go to bed at night wishing I were in a tent, wishing I could wake up for a hike tomorrow, but I wake up to reality of a commute, a desk and a computer screen.

We come to these sites to learn how to make our trek easier but there is no substitute for experience. Having now been there you will be better prepared for your next trek and to help those that follow you.

We conduct pack shakedowns before every backpacking trip, we do about 4 per year. We have every Scout and adult pair up with their tentmate and empty their packs completely. We call out each essential item checking it for suitability and have them place it in their pack. We make sure everyone has the essentials to live comfortably in the wilderness. Then we scrutinize their gear left on the floor as to whether it is needed or too much or unnecessary gear, clothes or items. By the time our Scouts are old enough (and our ASMs) to go to Philmont they have good gear and pack smart.

At the Welcome Center there is a large scale to weigh packs. While waiting for our bus to take us to our trail head we watch as crews come up and weigh their packs. It is socking how much some of these packs weigh, many 50 pounds or more. Most need help getting their packs on and off or up on the scale. And their crew members cheer at how heavy they are.

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