I haven’t seen much of southern Minnesota from the saddle, so I decided to ride down to the Dirt Burger hootenanny in Decorah, IA…about 290km southeast of home. The LHT, shod with 700 x 40mm Michelin City tires, was my trusty mule for the trip to and from Decorah. I had my 1x1 shuttled to the event, so I’d have a more suitable mount for the hilly single-track, baseball diamond bucketball, rogue night rides, and derby circle antics.

I left Minneapolis around 3:00pm on Wednesday and rode toward Big Woods State Park, 85km down the road. My route took me on pavement and gravel, over hills and expansive prairies, through strip-mall littered-suburbia and, finally, into farm country. I arrived at the park around 8:30, filled up with water, and hustled to get my campsite organized before the sun completely set. After getting my gear squared away and making myself comfortable under my reflective-tarp lean-to, I cooked dinner, stoked the fire in the woodstove, and watched the incredible lightning show that kept the otherwise-pitch-black surroundings eerily and erratically lit until the wee hours.





My stove weighs less than 1.3kg, including the chimney, so I don’t mind toting it along on my outings. I’m always making modifications, and I look forward to field-testing the unit after each revision. The latest changes include relocation of the chimney to the front of the stove, the addition of a removable 75mm-tall pan at the bottom, and front draft holes. The efficiency of a stove, vs. an open fire, allows me to gather an evening’s wood supply in 5-10 minutes. The 1.5m chimney keeps smoke out of my eyes and lungs. And I can save Esbit fuel tabs by cooking evening meals and boiling questionable water on the woodstove.

I packed up Thursday afternoon and left Big Woods after a 2-hour hike over the park’s hilly terrain. Relentless headwinds kept my average speed low, and I was nowhere near the day’s planned 125k goal, Lake Louis State Park, as the evening light waned. I scrambled for a place to set up camp for the night. But after searching side roads for an hour and failing to find a suitable spot, I decided to keep on pedaling toward the park. It turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the trip.

Traffic was almost nonexistent on old highway 56, the wind had almost stopped, stars filled the cloudless sky overhead, and another incredible lightning storm lit up the heavens southeast of me. The storm kept moving away from me, so I never caught the rain. As I rode down the center of the highway with my lights off, fireflies lit the ditches on both sides of me. Beautiful, quiet, surreal….fantastic. At 1am, I reached the park and made camp in the pea soup fog that hung in the still, moisture-saturated air. Not motivated to set up the woodstove, I made a small fire in the stove’s pan and heated water, in my stainless water bottle, to rehydrate a late dinner. Amp’d from the ride, I couldn’t sleep. So I stoked the fire and drank decaf tea until 4:30am. At 5 bells, sleep found me, and I crashed out until 10am.



After a long hike through the hardwood forest and over the prairies of the state park, I started on the final 77k push toward Decorah. I pedaled for a few hours and stopped for lunch at a small bar and grill in Lime Springs. The friendly locals sent me off on a route that promised to be relatively traffic-free and end on a winding, hilly, scenic section of nice blacktop. South winds hampered my progress a bit, but I managed to roll into Decorah around 6pm. It didn’t take long to find Dirt Burger home base…a troll camp, filled with familiar trolls, under a bridge, next to the river. Perfect.

Thursday’s rain had softened the off-road trails, so Friday’s promised night ride happened on pavement instead of dirt. I didn’t mind, because I knew we’d be riding dirt on Saturday. After ripping down local streets, checking out the ice cave, and visiting Dunning’s Spring Park, we returned to troll camp for a late night of fire, beer, and Maker’s Mark in the company of old and new friends.

I woke up early Saturday morning, because 1) I was really dehydrated and 2) my Golite Hex 3, like most of the tents, was set up in a field with no shade, and it quickly turned into a sauna as the sun rose. I moved my groundcloth and pad outside and into the shadow of the single-pole nylon tipi to get a couple more hours of sleep in the cooler outside air.

After I made breakfast and moved my shelter into the shade of the bridge, the crew got motivated to ride some dirt single-track…which conveniently started right across the river from where we were camped. The local guys guided us and schooled us on their home turf. The Decorah trails are well-built and well-routed. Tree roots, log piles, steep climbs and descents, and tight switchbacks keep it challenging and fun. The final decent was a sweet rollercoaster ride back to pavement that put a lasting smile on my face.

I filled the rest of Saturday with a much-needed dunk in the river, eating, drinking, a challenging bout of bucketball, a Jedi ride up the bluff to watch dirt-track car racing, a huge campfire, and late-night entertainment by The Skip Bernet and Tuff Russell Musical Love Explosion. I was asleep by 2am, but the party went on for another 2-3 hours.

Waking up refreshed from a well-deserved slumber, I immediately started packing up my stuff in preparation for a ride to meet up with Lynn, Noah, and my in-laws at the home of Lynn’s grandparents, 78km up the road. I needed to be in Ostrander, MN by 4pm, so we could have an early dinner together and complete the 2-hour drive back to Minneapolis by 10pm. It was apparent that the planned 10am group ride to Bluffton, a town which is conveniently located on my return route, wasn’t going to leave on time. So I filled my water bottles, said my goodbyes, and headed out toward Bluffton, solo, under threatening skies.



The light on-and-off showers were refreshing, and I finally got a push from an eastern tailwind. I kept a good pace up and down the hills on Bluffton Rd. At one point, I had to duck into a machine shed for 20 minutes to escape heavy rain, but it seemed like the worst weather stayed south of me. Calories, from a greasy burger in Harmony, and the prevailing tailwind pushed me into Ostrander at 3:45. In a way, it felt good to be done with the ride. It was Father’s Day, and I was happy to see Noah. The shower and clean clothes felt great. And my ass was sore from my time in the saddle. But part of me wanted to keep going for a couple more days.

Bike touring/camping is addicting, and I’m craving more of that multi-day 2-wheel smack. Fortunately, there’s an endless supply in any direction. And it can be obtained year ‘round, if one has the right gear and mindset to seek it.