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  1. Christophe Noel

    Fat bikes

    The Rocky Mountain Suzy Q is a fatbike built specifically to address q-factor. As a longtime road racer, q-factor used to be a big consideration for me, but now that I've logged thousands of miles on wider fatbike cranks, I've come to learn that we humans can often be highly adaptable. It...
  2. Christophe Noel

    Recommended lightweight, highly packable, "warm weather" sleeping bags?

    There are scads of choices. My go-to for uber light trips is the Spark series of bags from Sea to Summit, but they're very, very narrow. The other bag I really dig is an Eddie Bauer Flying Squirrel, which is super weird but it works. Very comfy. If I want to be super comfy, I take a Thermarest...
  3. Christophe Noel

    To spot or not to spot

    Yes. It's a good app. You'll want it to get the best use out of the inReach. It's a hassle to type messages on the device itself, so pairing your phone to it simply makes messaging waaaay easier. It should be noted, the navigational features on the current inReach Explorer are rudimentary at...
  4. Christophe Noel

    To spot or not to spot

    I was a SPOT user and have been using inReach for 3 years now. Hands down the best system. I've sent/received thousands of signals and messages from Nepal, Ecuador, Alaska, Peru, Baja, Iceland, and everywhere in between. Always works great. And it's a great thing that it got acquired by Garmin...
  5. Christophe Noel

    Is Mountain Biking the Biggest Threat to New Wilderness Designations?

    With regard to user impact studies, there are literally dozens of them if not more. If I had a buck for every earth science major who did an impact study.... The short answer to them is - impact is not just as simple as assessing a footprint vs a bike tire. Soil composition, weather impact, and...
  6. Christophe Noel

    Is Mountain Biking the Biggest Threat to New Wilderness Designations?

    I'm a pretty typical mountain bike advocate so I think my experience can be extrapolated to include strategies used by many, particularly with those connected to the International Mountain Bike Association. Before we get approval to built or even reroute a trail, it has to go through NEPA...
  7. Christophe Noel

    Eezi-Awn Stealth hard shell RTT

    Just as an FYI - Expedition Portal / Overland Journal has one of the few, if not only, test sample sent to North American media outlets. We will have a full review completed very soon, but in the meantime, it's safe to say, this is one extremely nice product worthy of the Eezi-awn name.
  8. Christophe Noel

    Is Mountain Biking the Biggest Threat to New Wilderness Designations?

    calicamper, One thing about trail advocacy is it's highly regionalized, even when dealing with the same land management system, in our case the National Forest service. Regardless of the land manager, the process is roughly the same. You have to learn what the protocols are for those managers...
  9. Christophe Noel

    Is Mountain Biking the Biggest Threat to New Wilderness Designations?

    BTW, here's how these anti-mountain biker people work. In 2008 a local equestrian club started a campaign to smear mountain bikers. One of their members staged a phony bike/horse accident which later nearly ended in an arrest of the person falsifying the incident report. That same summer, that...
  10. Christophe Noel

    Is Mountain Biking the Biggest Threat to New Wilderness Designations?

    Man, what a bunch of baseless drivel. Where to begin? - A huge portion of mountain bikers, myself included, are avid riders with over 100,000 miles of riding under our tires, and wholly support keeping mountain bikes OUT of designated wilderness areas. We may support very select easements to...
  11. Christophe Noel

    Beating a dead horse, but.... Hiking boots?

    Love that shoe. I've used my Synthesis Mids to climb as high as 16,000 feet in Peru in the Cordillera Blanca. Love that product. Clawhammer, I've got dozens of friends who own, manage, or work in the bicycle or outdoor industries, most of them are proud Americans and overlanders. The common...
  12. Christophe Noel

    Beating a dead horse, but.... Hiking boots?

    For what it's worth, Oboz boots are made in a Taiwanese owned factory with unbelievable hand-built quality for what they are. I watched a lengthy iPhone video shot by one of the Oboz reps a few years ago and it was unreal the amount of hands on detail that goes into every pair. I've been to some...
  13. Christophe Noel

    Goal Zero Yeti 400 Experiences?

    Their larger Lithium unit, the 1300, will release late in 2017. Gonna be expensive.
  14. Christophe Noel

    anyone have Tupike?

    I've had a Tupike for about 8 months. I dig it. The reality is, most two burner stoves on the market are either super basic and borderline junky, or they're grossly overrated. Ya...that's a shot at Partner stoves and anything Snow Peak. My one grouse with the Tupike is the cost. That sucker is...
  15. Christophe Noel

    Which 4 season tent?

    True enough. When I head to Utah I often toss my Bibler I-Tent in the car in the event the winds start jamming. That's the only 4-season tent I can tolerate being in when it gets warm and sandy which is counter intuitive given how thick the fabric is. My other super sandy favorite is an old...
  16. Christophe Noel

    Which 4 season tent?

    Nobody said anything about death, but there sure is ample room for suffering. :) My best experiences with 4-season tents correlates with where most of them were intended to be used - in the super cold, often drier conditions at higher altitudes. In lower, warmer, wetter conditions most...
  17. Christophe Noel

    Which 4 season tent?

    There is nothing worse than a 4 season tent in a warm rainstorm. Ugh. A 4 season tent is ideally suited for snow loads, high winds, etc. As such, ventilation is often lacking. Just a thought. And yes, I've owned a dozen of the best 4 season mountaineering tents ever made. Most were HORRIBLE...
  18. Christophe Noel

    Fat bikes

    Yes, I've been on the new Carbon XO1 model for a few months now. Super impressed. It has 100mm Whisky carbon rims set up tubeless. Very swift. Identical wheels to what I had on the BG, but those were the 70mm carbon rims. I notice a wee bit of slow-down in performance due to the extra rim and...
  19. Christophe Noel

    Fat bikes

    The new Mukluk is pretty special. For years I would "upgrade" from one $5000 road bike to another $5000 road bike and not feel a damn bit of difference. Same for many hard tails and even full sudsers. Even going from the high performance Beargrease to the new Mukluk, the difference in ride...
  20. Christophe Noel

    Fat bikes

    The one thing I've noticed about the fatbike thing, relative to performance, is that it is painfully obvious that more money directly correlates with noticeable gains in performance. I'd rather walk than ride a cheap steel fatbike with heavy wheels. Literally, I'd rather walk. It wasn't until I...
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