I’ve found a new way of geocaching and I like it — with my bike. I know others have done this and all and it’s not some new way to cache, but for me, it’s a new way to do it and I really like it.
And being my bike has been tuned up recently and with gas so expensive… this seemed perfect.
Last week, Brent and I headed to Poughkeepsie to do some geocaching. The idea was to hit two rails-to-trails, which were nice and paved and would be beautiful for a bike ride. The total biked would be more than eight miles. Pending time, we were also going to try and get one cache at the Walkway over the Hudson, then bike the distance of that for some photo opportunities.
Unfortunately, we got a late start as Brent had some things he needed to take care of. We then got to the first spot, put my new bike computer on my handlebars and were soon off looking for our first cache. This trail, which would be about four miles round trip, had eight caches on it.
We didn’t get all the caches, but had to stop at the halfway point because they are doing some work on a bridge, so we couldn’t go any further. Instead, it was back to the car and to another parking area so we could finish the trail. We decided to pedal out to the cache that was the longest distance and work our way back. Unfortunately, we had to go with two DNFs (did not find) before finally getting back to finding a few. We finished that trail and with the time and possibility of rain coming, we opted to skip some others and head off to the other rail trail.
That one was excellent.
About four miles round trip with 12 caches, including two really good multi-caches.
It was highly enjoyable and a good ride. The final stretch, I pushed a good pace to get back to the car. That felt good. Brent had some issues with his bike, so he came in a little slower. Dang handlebars of his were coming loose. Kind of nuts to watch it happen. But we still found the caches, which was cool.
We added a few more finds, but didn’t get over the Walkway, which stinks. But that’s OK — it’s all the more reason to go back to the area. I’m searching for more bike trails like this as it’s a nice way to get out and geocache — on the bike. Or even some bike-friendly areas/towns to be able to cover some ground and do some caching.
To make things a little better, I ordered a bike mount for my Garmin 60CSX today in the hopes that I can pay attention to my riding a little better when out using the bike to cache!
As for the rest of the day, we did a few more caches (including getting three letterbox hybrids on one of the trails; and three virtuals — one at a covered bridge!) and Brent got his 1,000th find. Now I have some planning to do in regard to a golden ammo can for him. In this area (and others I know) we hide a golden ammo can for the person when they reach 1,000 finds.
MAINTENANCE RUN
Part of owning geocaches is taking care of them after placing them.
I went out for a short ride tonight (1.85 miles) to check in on a couple of my nanos and try and think of a few places where I could place a few more. The idea would be for people who come to the town, they could park and ride their bikes to pick up several caches. Or at least those of us around here who bike could do that to check in on things here and there.
Our town doesn’t get hit too often by geocachers, so it would be nice to make it so people could come and get several without having to worry about the rising gas costs.
I’m looking forward to doing some of these bike runs, too, in some towns nearby. Hopefully over the next couple of weeks, I’ll get out and do all the maintenance on the rest of my caches. Some will be getting archived (I have those picked out) including likely at least one puzzle cache and one multi-cache. But it will open some areas, which will be fun to hopefully have some new caches.
Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com.
I do most all my maintenance by bike and the rest on foot. I use my bike to scout out new caches and once placed pass the caches frequently to check for muggle traffic before uploading them. I made a promise to myself not to place a cache I could not easily maintain and for me the bike is the easiest way.