Sorry for the lack of posts recently.  I’ve been on the road in BC the last few weeks out of internet service. My last stop was the Shambhala Music Festival near Nelson BC. I’ve been going on and off since Y2K and had lots of great times roaming from stage to stage on the huge event site.  A couple times I thought of bringing a bike, but I was worried about it getting stolen and wasn’t sure how much I’d use it.  My Surly Pugsely was already in my truck from a kiteboarding trip to Lake Nitinat on Vancouver Island.  So I thought what the heck lets take it to Shambhala.

What a great decision!  I used it a ton.  We spent each day at the beach and with racks and panniers it was easy to haul drinks, towels, chairs, snacks, etc.. from our camp on the bike instead of carrying it all ourselves.  It also made getting more supplies from camp a fast and fun job - rather than walking for 30 mins+ each way.

If you attend any large festivals you know that finding washrooms that are clean and without lineups is huge.  The washrooms near our camp and in the main event site were always crowded and not so clean.  Having a bike it was no problem to ride out to the edge of the event site and find porta-potties that had barely been used and no waiting in line.

Bike security wasn’t a problem either.  During the day I either had my Pugsley with me or locked to my truck with an uber beefy chain.  At night I would ride to my favourite stage and since it was pitch black around the edges I’d just lock my bike up to a tree or some scaffolding with a cable lock.  From about 6′ away you couldn’t even see my bike any more.  I generally walked between stages as my friends didn’t have bikes and used the Pugsley when I wanted to head back and forth between our camp on those ever critical beer runs!

The only real downside to talking the Pugsley to this event was people stopping me every 30 seconds to ask me questions about it.  I must have talked to 500+ people!  My friends would laugh when they walked behind me because they passed so many folks going the other way who were talking about a bike with fat tires!