Personalize Your Bike with DIY Panniers!

I teamed up with a friend to bring you some DIY pannier inspiration. Abigail dreamed up these panniers to suit her everyday needs and personalized them to fit her bike's color scheme. In this video, she shows you the basics of bringing your pannier designs to life.

Summer Biking

From bike camping to commuting, we've enjoyed rolling through the summer days.

Creating a Bionic Bike Bag with Ben Heck

I produce a weekly web-series hosted by the electronics enthusiast Ben Heck. Every week we create new episodes to inspire the engineer and hobbyist community. Usually I stay behind the scenes, but in this episode of The Ben Heck Show, Ben and I work together to create a DIY bike turn signal system.



This is meant as a proof of concept and the basic idea of the turn signals can be modified to look however you like. It doesn't even have to be on a backpack - you could create a system for on the bike and place the switches on the handlebars. Heat up those soldering irons and see what you come up with!

Bike Path Foraging: Black Raspberries

On a recent trip to Mt. Horeb, Peter and I stopped for a fresh snack on the Military Ridge Trail. There were enough ripe black raspberries to munch on, but not quite enough to fill a container to bring home. The bramble had been cut back quite a bit from last year, plus many of the berries were still pink.

Anytime around late July, keep an eye out for a treasure patch of wild black raspberries!

Will Bike for Lefse

Peter and I rode to Mt. Horeb for the Sons Of Norway's 42nd Annual Kaffe Stue where we enjoyed such treats as norsk kaffe kake, søtsuppe (fruit soup), and sweet potato lefse.

Mt. Horeb is on The Military Ridge Trail and makes for a fun day trip. When there isn't a Sons of Norway breakfast, Schubert's Diner is our favorite brunch spot. For a trip later in the day, The Grumpy Troll is a popular stop for food and beer.

The round-trip is about 46 miles from the Capitol Square to downtown Mt. Horeb. You can take a break at the depot in Verona where there are bathrooms and water fountains. It's a gradual climb from the Sugar River bottoms to Mt. Horeb, but you'll enjoy a faster, downhill return trip.

Bike Path Foraging: Mulberries

Foraging wild foods is a fun and rewarding activity. A variety of edibles can be found along Madison's bike paths. If you are new to foraging, mulberries are easy to identify, tasty, and in season right now.

I received a tip on some low-hanging mulberries along the SW Commuter Trail, so I went on a ride to forage some to bake into muffins. Of course I snacked as I gathered - the bike ride had given me an appetite!

A note on the muffins: I'm a bit of a recipe hacker, substituting/adding this and that. To create these muffins I used a basic banana muffin recipe as a template. You can use mulberries in a recipe just like you would any other berry. 

Blue Mound Bike Trip in Photos

Bike camping at Blue Mound State Park is hard to beat. The length of the ride on the Military Ridge Trail is great for people new to bike touring and the park has a bike-in campground.

Want to know more about bike camping at Blue Mound State Park? Check out this post for information on the route and campground.

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Devil's Lake Bike Camping

You Biked 20 Miles in That Dress?

Here's how to bike 20+ miles to a party and show up looking like you didn't bike: