Three Outers Club members brave the elements near Laurel Creek on one of
the few blustery nights in February. The other somewhat less brave souls
are guzzling hot cider nearby. Photo by Søren.
Welcome to our end-of-term (already??) winter camping issue. Hey, wait a minute, was there a winter at all? Some people want to make us believe that. S¿ren tells us about his trip to Algonquin in February, and he included some photos as proof that there actually was some snow (you don't see the surroundings where they scraped all the snow away from, though ...). Unfortunately all the other people who camped out below -20 were too busy to share their experiences with us - perfectly understandable, we were kind of busy ourselves.
This leaves us with a somewhat shorter newsletter this time, something our finance min ister won't be too sad about. Once again the newsletter is available on the Web from the Outers Club home page (sorry about the delay...). Anyway, the next winter is coming up sooner than you think, so you might want to start on your pair of winter proofed bicycle tires now, so you have them ready when (if) you need them. Check out the article by Rick on how it is done and stuff it into your closet along with all that winter clothing, so you'll find it in November. Talking about bicycles, if you haven't used yours in a while, it is time to get it out again, to get in shape for the trips coming up in spring and in summer.
With a bit of luck there should be another caving trip in the Spring. Let us know if you may be interested so we can contact you when the time comes. Kayaking in the PAC pool is continuing. There is one session left this term and there should be more next term. Check our WWW pages for the exact dates and times. Keep your eyes on that upcoming trips board outside the equipment room or in ES-1 or on the WWW pages. Speaking of the equipment room, Fabrice and Karsten would be thrilled if they could get a few volunteers next term. If the idea of volunteering time to our club alone is not as thrilling to you as it is to Fabrice and Karsten, check out the perks section in our WWW pages or ask them directly. Best yet, offer a trip yourself.
See you, Lutz and Kyle
We are fast approaching the end of another term. Unfortunately, the weather was not as ideal as it has been in the past. The lack of snow meant that many trips had to be cancelled. Nonetheless, I know of at least four groups of people (I was in one) that made it out to Algonquin for winter camping. Three of those groups found enough snow there to build quincees, although the ground had to be scraped pretty hard in some cases. And in the Waterloo region, there was enough snow for cross-country skiing over some of the weekends this winter. We have spent a considerable amount of effort this term trying to find more storage space for our rental equipment, especially our canoes. Unfortunately, there isn't any available at the moment. Since we cannot purchase additional canoes without more stor age space, this means we will have to make do with our existing canoes for the summer. We are continuing to look for space, so hopefully we will have room for more canoes in the not-too-distant future. I would like to thank the other executives for the time and effort they put into the club this term. And I hope to see everyone come out participate the next term they are on campus. Stu.
Anyone interested?
OK, spring is finally here, at least not that far away by the time you read this, so it's about time to plan this year's first bicycle tour. I am thinking about organizing a three- to four-day trip around May 1st, that is between this term and the summer term. The idea is to start here in Waterloo, bring all we need and take the backroads to Grand Bend on Lake Huron. We want to take our time, so there won't be any brutal 100+ km day trips. I have explored some of the routes to the northwest of Waterloo la st fall, and while they are not ideal, they should still make a nice trip. If anyone is interested in coming on that trip or has experience with cycling in that area, please contact me at Lnucker@watserv1 or 746-6415. The club has packs for your bike, so you will only have to get your bike (and yourself) in shape for the season. You don't need a travelling bike, but it should be adjusted to suit your body proportions so you can spend several hours on it reasonably comfortable. Let me know early if you are interested. I am still quite flexible as far as time and route are concerned.
Have you ever wondered what a wonderful invention a heater is? After a winter camping trip you definitely do. We civilized people are so accustomed to vents, ducts and heat control, that we don't know what it means to be exposed to the Canadian winter. Gudrun, Stu and I wanted to know. Despite every advice we started off our winter camping trip on the coldest weekend of the winter, the first of February. As the dirty small snow patches in Waterloo let us presume that there would likewise not be enough s now at our destination Algonquin Park, we decided to bring a tent rather than rely on snow for building a quincee. I was very glad about the fact that the ground was covered all over by snow when we arrived at the campsite in the early Friday evening. And we were not the only ones. A few other "fools" had already piled up a heap of snow and hollowed it out. The result is a so called quincee, a cosy small ice hut with a constant inside temperature of -4 C¡. One of the campers offered us his white home, because they had decided to leave early due to hypothermia of one of their party. We refused his offer, however, as we were too keen on building one of our own. And so it happened.
After several hours of piling and hollowing we had our very own frozen castle. It was so spacious that the more-than-6-feet-guys could sleep by the side of the walls without any problems. Mr. President's feet, however, needed a small cavity in the wall to fit into the rounded edge. As we were afraid of hypothermia we brought tons of foamies, and two sleeping bags each. For my taste it was too much insulation already. "Holy Cow!", although I never used my hood I was almost melted during the night. This was in absolute contrast with the morning ceremony. The second morning we had minus 30 C¡ temperatures and heavy winds. My job was to crawl out of the quincee first and try starting the stoves. My strategy was, first, to deprive my hands of their glo ves, second, try to start the stove, third, fail, fourth, wear the gloves again, fifth, run ten times around our snow home to warm up my hands and, sixth, start the procedure again. Stu's only comment from still inside his cosy warm sleeping bag, was: "He is trying to make us dizzy". We had been all but not dizzy on Saturday, the day before. With the fact that this might be our first and last day with snow in mind, we had gone cross-country skiing the entire day. Though the tracks had long ceased to be (I hate skaters) we had had a wo nderful time on the trails with perfect weather. In the warm-up hut we could relax and eat our oversupply of lunch. Nevertheless, one needs much to eat, since the permanent movement of the body and the cold environment burns thousands of calories.
By the way, the storage of frozen food during winter camping is very easy: just use the trunk of your car. The only problem is how to thaw it. Either use your stove or carry it with you under your jacket. Otherwise you have to eat sandwich ice cream for l unch - in this case integrate a stick between the bread slices for better handling. In order to come back to the cold Sunday morning: I didn't succeed with the stoves, so we decided to leave for the warm up hut a few miles away. We packed our gear quickly and prayed that the engine of Stu's car would start. A couple of other campers had tried to run their cars already, but all they had gotten from their vehicles were sounds like "Uarghh!" followed by silence. Even dirty tricks like plugging the carburetor with pencils (I'm not kidding, I saw it with my own eyes) did not work on either Am erican, German and Japanese makes of cars. It was my opinion that Stu trusted too much in his iron friend ("My car never has troubles with cold weather"), but he was right. After a few turns of the starter the engine ran without any problems. We left the campsite while the other campers started up their stoves to heat up the motor blocks. After a delicious breakfast in the warm-up hut beside the log-fired stove, we headed back to Waterloo, without forgetting an old tradition. We stopped in Thornton at the ice cream shop in order to eat the stuff we had looked at all day and even all night long.
Altogether it was an exciting experience I did not want to miss, although I will not do it again this season. Next year: maybe! I definitely learnt what it means to turn the heat control a few degrees up.
Søren Peik
The following is my recipe for, and experiences with, studding bike tires. Some background: I have ridden on IRC Blizzards (the only commercially available studded mountain bike tires, as far as I know) for the past 5 winters, so my impressions and experiences are mostly based around them. First of all, what can you expect out of any studded mountain bike tires? The Blizzards work exactly as advertised on smooth ice. You can't do anything too extreme, but you will not get stopped due to lack of traction. You will not fall over if you don't try to corner too hard. I know of one fellow who claims to have ridden up 14% grades that were totally covered with ice (past stalled cars). I know of another who claims that he has better traction on trails with his studded tires in the winter than with regular knobbies in the summer. Descending steep grades is a wee bit hairy ...if your speed gets away from you, you will have a problem. I've never tried pushing it. (Of course there are downhill winter mountain bike races...This only serves to prove that there are some lunatics who will do anything.) Deep snow is always difficult. The Blizzards are good in loose snow up to about 8 cm. depth, but after that no tire will really do much for you. Thus, I have found myself reversing my thinking on winter road hazards. The patches of ice I once struggled to avoid became a relief, whereas deep snow is to be avoided at all costs. Now, considering that, why stud your own tires at home (other than it's a way to use that new drill that you just bought)? Two big reasons: 1) Home studded tires can be better than commercially available ones 2) They're much, much cheaper I'll address these issues one at a time. I studded a tire a few weekends ago, and have ridden it several times in the recent cold, snowy and icy conditions (February was a good month to test out studded tires). I used my home-brew tire on the front of my bike, and an IRC Blizzard on the back. The difference in traction was immediately noticeable (as noticeable as the change from standard knobbies to Blizzards, with respect to winter handling). The home brew on the front felt sure and stable. The IRC slipp ed around some. This is simply due to the fact that the knobbies that I made were MUCH more aggressive than IRC's--the studs stick out much farther. You wouldn't want to use these tires on smooth, dry roads for very long.
A home-brew studded tire costs me about $20 to make, as compared with about $50 for an IRC Blizzard. I used a cheap, no-name knobby mountain bike tire, plus a few bits of hardware (more on that in a moment). I felt that I could get away with a cheap tire because I don't expect that tires which are as aggressive as these would get too many miles use in a given year. The rubber on the tires will probably dry out before it wears out.
Now to the method for building them. First of all, I recommend the following tools and materials:
I recommend using no fewer than 36 studs in a tire, 18 on each side (this is what I've used, although many people prefer a larger number such as 36 on each side). The exact number that you use depends on the pattern of knobbies on your tire, and how aggr essive a tire you're trying to build. Typically, however, you want two rows of studs, in a zig-zag pattern.
The construction process is very simple: