Bike touring is the best! While we would love to drop everything and head out on our bikes for weeks at a time, life gets in the way and so, welcome to Sub-24 Hour bike camping.
Each summer, in spring and fall, we host these overnight camping trips to spots in Pinckney, Brighton and beyond. The goal is to get out there and back in under 24 hours and sprinkle in a little adventure into our local lives. So pack your bikes, leave room for some firewood and join us for our next trip.
What unfolds on these trips is a mini celebration of all the things we love about bikes. Good friends & new friends. A casual pace with stops for snacks and pictures. Racks overburdened by firewood. And a night spent around the campfire catching up and dreaming about the season ahead.
Space is usually limited on these trips due to campground restrictions and available tent sites, so please register and block of your calendar.
Saturday May 25, 2024 to Blind Lake Campground, Pinckney, MI
Leaving our showroom, we will follow a mix of paved and dirt roads to one of our favorite campgrounds in the area, Blind Lake. The 27 mile route typically takes 3 hours to complete and includes a stop at a country store near the end. While most of the route has light car traffic, there are several more congested roads and we may split up into smaller groups for safety.
Questions? We have assembled a ride guide and sample gear list you can check out below, but reach out if you have more questions.
Some thoughts on bike camping from Grant Peterson:
I work about 55 hours a week and take about two weeks off every year. I don’t have time to tour, but in the past five years I’ve spent more than 50 nights out on my bike, and I’ve done it without being gone a single weekend day or using up any vacation time.
That’s because I don’t go bike touring per se, I go bike camping. Specifically, I go on something I call “sub–24-hour overnights,” or S24O, for short. It’s pronounced “Ess-Two-Four-Oh,” and by definition it has to last less than a full day, doorstep to doorstep. The shortness is key, and the concept is simple: You leave in the afternoon or evening in time to get to your camp while there’s still enough light to set up the tent. Then you cook, eat, talk, go to bed, and ride home the next morning. The ones my friends and I go on last about 15 hours.
The S24O is the closest you can come to touring when you can’t actually tour, and rather than thinking of it as a poor substitute, think of it as a mini-tour that’s about a hundred times easier to plan for, commit to, and just do. Look at the S24O this way:
It requires almost no planning. You can pack in 15 minutes. If you forget something or something goes wrong, it’s no big deal because you’re home the next morning.
• Compared to a longer tour, it’s easier to find companions because “I can’t get off work” doesn’t work this time.
• It’s good practice, and you can refine your style like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. Because it’s only one night, you can bring the two-pound sleeping pad or the six-pound bag. You can bring the 4-D cell flashlight and a hardcover book. You can carry 50 pounds (and find out whether you can tolerate 50 pounds), or you can try out a minimalist style and shoot for eight pounds. I bring what I want, and it changes.
Camping vs. Touring:
Bike camping and bike touring are alike enough to require the same kind of gear, but bike touring emphasizes the journey, and you stop only so you can refresh yourself and do it again the next day. Bike camping emphasizes the destination and what you do once you get there, and you just happen to get there on a bike.
If you have to work for a living and don't have summers off, bike camping is easier to fit in, and the easiest way of all is with Sub-24 Hour Overnight (S24O) trips. You leave on your bike in the late afternoon or evening, ride to your campsite in a few hours, camp, sleep, and ride home the next morning. It's that simple, and that's the beauty of it. You can fit it in. It requires almost no planning or time commitment. In the past 9 years I've done more than eighty of them, and I'm no planner.
The S24O is like the movie Groundhog Day, because you get to refine your style over and over again, without major suffering or consequences. You can take notes in the evening about what you should've brought and what you didn't need to bring. After a few of these, you'll have a kit-of-gear that works for you, and how to modify it for conditions.
