Coffeeneuring 2020 Week #3: Moccasin Bend

Reid enjoying a taste of Florida in Tennessee

 Coffeeneuring: riding bikes, drinking coffee, seven times, seven places, seven weeks; there's some rules.

Moccasin Bend has been a place of human activity for over 12,000 years. Paleo-Indians hunted and gathered on the peninsula as early as 10500 BCE. In 1838, Mocassin Bend was a part of the Trail of Tears and by the 1960's capitalist industrialism had permanently altered the bend's landscape. The construction of Interstate 24 widened the Tennessee River by dredging off part of the shoreline and pumping water inland, expanding the swampy marshes. Further development added a mental health hospital, a water treatment center, and a golf course sandwiched between the two. The unholy triad of late capitalism continues to operate on this archeologically and culturally significant site and the little nature that is left is preserved by local and national efforts in the Moccasin Bend National Archeological District. 

Reid and Phil talking about life and art

 

About the ride: Reid and I met our good friend Phil at the Whole Foods parking lot and spun our way to the Blue Blazes Trail in the woods adjacent the aforementioned golf course. I'm not sure if bikes are allowed on the trail but we walked our bikes passed the one hiker we saw and made coffee on a little "beach" by the Tennessee River.  

So many places in the Southeast and across the United States are like Moccasin Bend. Landscapes both banal and beautiful, all sacred and significant cleared, developed, exploited, extracted, forgotten, and haunted by American exceptionalism and capitalism. Only a soul of shallow depth could help but have their imagination captured by the glimpse of what once was.

Despite the somewhat forlorn reflection, it was a nice lil ride with good friends, conversation, and coffee. I am grateful for these rides of slow, purposeful intent.

just look at it.

About the coffee: Our house has been hitting the cheapo coffee pretty hard lately but Becca's sister gifted us some real good fruit forward type stuff from Perc Coffee in Savannah, Georgia. I used the inverted method with a 13:1 ratio and a longer bloom and stir time. It was good but now I know adding a dash of water at the end really opens up the cup and lets the the orange, berry, and graham cracker(!) notes come out. Thanks Laura!

 

Date: 10.25.2020

Location: 35°02'32.0"N 85°20'44.8"W

Bike: Shanina

Coffee: Perc Coffee Guatemala Asprocdegua, Inverted Aeropress, 13:1

Miles: 15.3 (my strava and Reid's strava because mine doinked out for a few miles)

This strava segment is titled, "poop loop."

Coffeeneuring 2020 Week #2: East Chattanooga Triple Crown Death March

Max dropping in the slab at Bauxite Ridge

 

 

Coffeeneuring: riding bikes, drinking coffee, seven times, seven places, seven weeks; there's some rules. 

 

This week's entry mashes two potatoes with one fork: coffeeneuring week #2 and Max's Birthday Challenge ride. Max chose to celebrate his 29th birthday by riding 29 mountain bike trails at 3 different trail systems connected by roads in eastern Chattanooga. Reid and I tagged along (and made some coffee) for a very mega day. I have named this route the East Chattanooga Triple Crown Death March. 

 

About the ride: My favorite rides are adventurous and topographically diverse routes that require your bike to do everything from road to gravel to singletrack. This ride met those requirements and added the unnecessary and "unbibbed" challenge of pushing yourself to your physical limits. We started at Enterprise South, headed over to White Oak Mountain, and finally Bauxite Ridge. Max did all or most of the trails at each and Reid and I did all that our rigid MTBs and grundles would allow. Max finished with a hard-earned 50 miles, Reid with 20, and I with 36. Max and I both crashed within the last quarter mile of the ride, which I think illustrates the level of bonk we had reached. It was a very good day.

making "cowboy coffee 2.0" while Max rides a black diamond trail

About the coffee: This week I used the MSR Mugmate as my brewing method. From a utilitarian perspective the Mugmate is hard to beat. This recipe is a kind of "cowboy coffee 2.0" where the grounds (I used a 13:1 ratio) steep in boiled water for 2-4 minutes and are then filtered through the Mugmate into your cup. Cowboy coffee gives a smooth cup that's less bitter and the Mugmate keeps the grounds from getting your mug and teeth. A good bean, well-roasted, and coarsely ground would give you a truly decadent cup of coffee by any coffee-snobbery standard. This week I just used the Aldi brand equivalent of Folgers and it was still tasty.

 

Date: 10.18.2020

Location: 35.0777° N, 85.1256° W

Bike: Shanina

Coffee: Beaumont Coffee Classic Roast (Aldi Brand), MSR Mugmate, 13:1

Miles: 35.98 (strava)

Reid on the quiet, pine needle covered singletrack of the Black Forest Trail at ESNP

Coffeeneuring 2020 Week #1: Rosemary Hill

Coffeeneuring Week 1: Rosemary Hill

Coffeeneuring: riding bikes, drinking coffee, seven times, seven places, seven weeks; there's some rules. 

Before I got off of instagram, one of the last posts I saw was something from @pondero about "coffeeneuring." Chris Johnson is one of my bikespirations so I looked into it. Riding bikes? Coffee outside? Weird, obscure, challenge for the every-man adventurer? I'm your huckleberry. 

Reid and I rode to "Rosemary Hill," an unofficial name for a bump on the river walk with lovely yellow wild plants (Bearded Beggars Tick?) and a vantage point of Lookout Mountain. Reid made coffee at home, probably something nice and undoubtedly made in a Chemex. I made coffee at the hill: cheap dark roast my mother-in-law gifted me brewed in an Aeropress. The Aeropress makes everything taste nice. After a good chat, Reid and I pedaled hard around the Strava segment "HoboShredzzz" and then parted ways.

I was interested in linking up two gravel roads via a steep, downhill, hiking only trail and so continued up the mountain via the Guild and Upper Truck trail systems. At trail's end, I hike-a-bike'd down the John Smartt Trail which was miserable. "This was a very bad idea," I wondered out loud, "But it'll be worth it... I think." And it was a good idea. The Lower Truck Trail had several large trees down which called for portages or detours but is still a nice ride through the woods along Chattanooga Creek and the gravel through Reflection Riding / Garden Road was the creme de la creme. A very good ride and a promising start of the Coffeeneuring2020 season. 

Date: 10.12.20

Location: 35°02'02.7"N 85°19'25.0"W

Bike: Shanina

Coffee: dark roast, Aeropress, inverted, 13:1   

Miles: 28.6 (strava)

 

Blasting down Rosemary Hill (photo by Reid)

 

 

Shanina the Schwinn Sierra Adventure Bike

Roza Shanina was a lovely and lethal Soviet sniper who served in the Red Army during World War II. She was both conventionally beautiful and remarkably deadly with a kill count of at least 59 German Nazis. And while she described her younger self as boundless and reckless, her friends commented that she valued both courage and the absence of egotism. 

Classic elegance capable of pure carnage.

This is the essence of my 1987 Schwinn Sierra. Thoroughly Red, to be sure, and a beautiful piece of vintage MTB simplicity, slightly modified for all day adventures, throwing itself with reckless abandon at crumbling city streets, dusty Appalachian single track, and never ending forested gravel paths. 

This is a DIY budget build of @goodolenam's Specialized Stumpjumper. I cannibalized a WTB saddle and Wald basket off other bikes and then put some inverted SunLite North Road handlebars and grippies on it. Just needs a front rack to get rid of its bent and rattly basket limbs. I thought about a 1x conversion but the mammoth stock biopace chainring is an actual speed demon from the gaping maw of hell. This machine snipes obscure Strava Top 10s like her namesake sniped fascists. It kills them.