Forest resources-making wild garlic and chicken of the woods salt

The other day I went foraging for wild garlic and chicken of the woods, so I figured I should preserve them with salt. Actually having stuff like that in the larder often is the difference between having a halfway decent meal and nothing at all, so it is not just a little cottagecore hobby for me, but a necessity.  

I just covered the wild garlic with salt and mixed until oozy, and dried it at 50°C for two hours (until you could easily crush it)..

Also got myself some chicken of the woods.  Look here for a Video: 

I finely cut up the mushroom and diced it as finely as would go.  

I covered with turmeric, allspice, paprica, coriander, cayenne, cumin, salt and pepper.

Dried it at 50°Celsius for two hours. 

Covered with salt. I actually vacuumized the glasses, too, just to be sure. If you use it, take good care to boil it into the stew, curry or soup.  It is actually delicious and has a rich Umami flavour and literally tastes like chicken.  Enjoy!😉

 

Another mythological knife-from junk

This is a knife I forged quite some time ago at a really lovely friend's place. It is exclusively made from material I found in the woods.  The blade is made from a three-layer laminate from a really old file and 150 year old leaf spring. The leaf spring had a carbon content of about 0.7 %. 

That file, though...

With the first blows from the hammer, it crumbled like old cake, so I had it checked. It has a carbon content of about 1,5% and a weird dendritic structure.  So, grinding away all the rust marks and structure, and gently tapping at a relatively low temperature with a really small temperature window it was. Used a wooden mallet for that. It took me two days to get it to move at all, and a break of three month to recover from the inflammation in my elbow to weld it in between the leaf spring sandwich construction. And at first it didn't want to weld. Drove me fecking mad.  But it eventually worked out, after I messed up the first piece. Forged some kind of animal head to the handle. 

The handle is wrapped with some rawhide of a rotting fox cadaver I took with permission and which was salted and smoked and wet-wrapped after soaking in a concoction of soda and denatured alcohol, then heat-treated with resin, beeswax, mastix, mistle berries, dragon's blood resin in denatured alcohol. 

  

The grind is a high convex bevel to almost zero. Almost flat, to be precise, and polished in the edge. The blade is really resilient, and selectively triple-tempered. The edge is really hard, I estimate it at some 62HRC, the middle is soft, the spine is also tempered to an estimated 52HRC. It throws sparks off a flint and a ferrocerium rod.  It is rather thin at 2.8 mm, but can be bent to almost 50 degrees. 

Length is some 102mm, the CoB is on the index finger. 

The fascinating thing is that I learned a lot in the process (and as I said, I failed first), and that it is a bit of a playing with undereutectoid and eutectoid steels. It does look like any old ren fair knife, but it is not.  

There actually was a huge learning curve involved. Also, the knife is a part of my own story. I intimately knew that fox relative, I found the steel in nocturnal woods under a sickle moon, and I bled and suffered for the knife. I made my sacrifices for it.  

It is the sharpest knife I ever made, and you guys know that I am my own worst critic normally.  I am almost a bit scared of it, even though one can always do better.  That is not my point.  It is not perfect, it is not better than my Casström.  Well, maybe it is far more slicey. 

But it is a myth in itself. A piece of magic, maybe.  

As a kid, I wanted to find the magic sword, as a lot of kids do. And as an adult, I asked the forest.  I have shown you some of its answers on the blog over the years. It has been a weird, but interesting journey, and about some of its answers I would not talk.  No offence meant, but most people simply could not understand.  

Thing is, the magic sword will no longer smite the dragon.  The symbol of the time is not a symbol of chivalry or heroism.  The symbols of our time are the tank, the whip, the Credit Card- and the extermination robot.  All introduced by the dragons of our world, cursing mankind every single day. 

The forests are dwindling. Wildfires rage. 

But deep below, from the mycelium, magic sprouts.  It lingers eternal. It is patient and alien. It sometimes looks really profane.  Like a harsh, hard truth, sometimes. 

But never forget: It is invincible, because it is infathomeable, because it is indomiteable.  

I will die sooner or later. I will rot.  But I am a part of the magic.  

I am indomiteable.  

Become magic.  

Another simple carving project: Carving a comfort bird

Recently I stumbled across a really great tutorial on YouTube, by The Maker Experience (Awesome guy, go check him out!) 

And of course I tried it out! It worked a cinch, although I did some of the steps in a different order.  

I made some in hazel and some in cherry, hoping to add a bit of my own flavour to the idea. 

Projects like this are really awesome.  You can accomplish them with a simple Swiss Army knife. 

Have a cuppa, sit in the woods, listen to the birds and whittle away.  

It doesn't need a lot of your time, just a half of an hour is enough for some nice results. 

 You can always do better, as you can see in the picture, and you will make some good progress relatively fast.  

And there is a punchline, of course.  Because, while not on a primary level, making pretty and good things is political. 

Why that, you ask? 

Woodcarving and greenwood work is scientifically proven to be beneficial for your mental health (https://www.churchilltrust.com.au/project/to-investigate-the-mental-health-benefits-of-green-woodworking-in-therapeutic-settings-for-veterans et al). It offers a sense of calm, of self-empowerment, and of achievement.  In a world that floods the zone with horror and bullshit in order to keep you in a state of learned helplessness in order to steal your sovereignity, your dignity and human rights from you, everything that enables your resilience is resistance.  Add to that the soothing effect of being in nature, and it can really help you heal. Try it, you won't regret it. It certainly helps me keep what little sanity I still have, and it never fails to soothe my soul.  

Maybe it can help you, too.  

Take good care, and thanks for dropping by, as always! 😊

Crafted a possibles pouch from woolen rags

On a recent bimble I came across some woolen rags hanging in the creek. Now the water had felted the wool already to a good degree, and after rinsing them a bit, I decided I wanted to make something from it. Taking care not to put them anywhere near any food, I took them home, put them into detergent overnight, washed them, boiled them with Chaga, Mugwort, decon tablets, Iron(III)chloride, more detergent, rinsed with Sagrotan and washed with Lanoline soap, thoroughly rinsed, and was left with some material for a pouch.  

Sewed it together with some twine. 

Then I quickly carved a button from boxwood someone disposed of, sewed it on, and, hey presto, possibles pouch.  

I really enjoy projects like that. It really feels empowering to be able to create something from utter crap, with next to no provisions. Actually I find, that this is a political thing.  There is a wealth for the poor, if we own our poverty. We should not, but this is a way to reclaim sovereignity. To reclaim life.  

There is hope, after all. 

Thanks for dropping in, and take good care. 

 

Restomod of a badly beaten Victorinox Camper- changing the scales

On a flea market some time ago I got myself a cool, but really badly battered Victorinox Camper... but for 3€ or summat.  

Now Victorinox has really changed my outlook on bushcraft knives in general.  Maybe it is because I am getting old, but a Victorinox Ranger really is my most used knife these days.  Rather light, always on board and rather unproblematic with the authorities, it really shines in a lot of applications, if you know how to use it. 

I think that will be a topic for another post.

 Anyway, the knife I got had a bad dent on the small whittling blade. On the detour from the flea market, I did a little bimble through the woods, and picked out a random sandstone and ground it flat against a broken tile also lying around not doing anything, and used it on the small blade.  

This worked out pretty well. I will show you how to use a sandstone as a grindstone in a future post.  The beauty of a SAK, however, is that, while the tempering of the blade is really resilient, while having a more than adequate edge retention, it can be maintained with next to no provisions.  

The other day, I had ordered some new scales. I did not need to upgrade to the Plus scales, but I ordered new goodies in red, too.  I am a fashion victim, too, sometimes, you know? 😉

But, of course, there was a reason for it,  since the scales were a bit damaged, too.  

Those had arrived, and I watched the awesome tutorial by the master of SAKs himself. Look here: 

That said, I changed one thing, and that was adding some detergent to the boiling water.  Removed the tweezers and toothpick, and put the knife into the hot, no longer boiling, water. I took some tongs at the ready to take it out of the water after some five minutes. The scales get a bit softer afterwards. 

Using the small blade on another SAK, i popped off the scales as Felix suggested, getting between liners and scales between the two hindmost rivets.  Worked a cinch. You have to be a bit careful and have a little patience, but the scales come off with a rather satisfying "pop" 😉. 

Taking care to thoroughly clean the liners and working the blades underwater for some time (you can also use Q-tips or a piece of handkerchief or paper towel wrapped around the tweezers), 

Thoroughly dry the liners afterwards. 

Starting with the corkscrew side, handpress the scales onto the rivets. 

Use a towel, some tape, or felt inlays to protect the scales from scratches, you can use a vise to press-fit the new scales in place. 

And just like that, you have a knife that is almost like new.  

This is the real beauty of a SAK.  That knife is over 45 years old, and it is now ready for a good time in the woods again.  

A little foraging hack- how to harvest resin

 When you are just carrying a pocket knife into the woods, and you come across that perfect blob of resin, that can be sort of a challenge. Because you don't want to get your SAK all gooey and sticky, of course.  

The solution is dead simple of course.  

I also improvise a way of transporting your harvest back home.  

Spruce, pine and fir and mountain pinion resin has a million of uses. Resin has a lot of medicinal properties. The tree using it to cure wounds in the bark, already hints of its antibacterial, antibiotic and anti-inflammatory properties. Traditional uses of pitch salve and resin ointments date back to ancient Egypt:

"oldest accounts of the therapeutic effects of coniferous resin stem from ancient Egypt, where salve prepared from resin was used to treat burns.18,19 In the Nordic countries, especially in Finnish Lapland, ointment prepared from the Norway spruce (P. abies; Fig. 1) resin has been used for centuries to treat acutely and chronically infected wounds, sores, pressure ulcers, punctured abscesses, suppurating burns, onychomycosis, and paronychia.20 Although treatment with resin is an old folkloristic therapy and empirical experience over time has shown the effectiveness of resin treatment, only at the beginning of the twenty-first st century have researchers conducted systematic studies of its effectiveness and mechanisms of action." 

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4827294/

But also in the global North, pitch, pitch salve, refined resin ointments and raw resin have been successfully used in the treatment of wounds, skin irritations and ulcers.  (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6485920_Resin_salve_from_the_Norwegian_spruce_tree_a_'novel'_method_for_the_treatment_of_chronic_wounds)

The medicinal properties are due to a very high content of Terpenoids (which is pretty commonplace, because resin has always been used to make Turpentine and Colophonium, which is a by-product of making Turpentine),  mostly Diterpene acid (DRA). There are several clinical studies confirming the success of said traditional applications. 

The said Diterpenes also make for the awesome properties as a fire-starting agent, because they are highly flammeable.  

Another application of spruce, pine, mountain pinion, and fir resin (or any resinous coniferous plant, actually), is to easily make a glue. When melted with a bit of fat, especially animal fat, and dried manure, it makes for a surprisingly strong bond for e.g. hafting tools. The big advantage over birch pitch is that you could also use the resin unprocessed, as opposed to a rather complex process of destillation of birch bark.  

Resin is something every woodsman should know as nature's multifunctional resource.  

It is important, though, to harvest sustainbly. Don't hurt the bark. There is no problem if you take what is on the surface, and if you use a wooden spatula, you can not hurt the tree. 

That said,  I hope to provide you with a recipe for my ointment soon.  

All the best, thanks for watching, and take good care! 

A natural band aid from birch polypore

One of the most important skills in the woods is first aid. You know that I am not too fond of the term "survival". It is not what I claim to do. What I do is enjoying the woods and crafting stuff in the silence and peace of the green. If you have to say "survival" in a realistic scenario, like the upcoming World War III (or IV, I lost count), chance is, you are fooked big time and will NOT succeed in coming out in one piece.  There are things that can help you, of course, but chances to survive the nuclear war are rather dim. In fact, it is maybe waged in order to exterminate most of the populace of the world, because it is no longer needed.  I do not know, and I could not change it.  Old fellas like me almost certainly will not survive it. But I do not know, either.  And I actually don't want to ruin what little time is left with gloomy thoughts of doom. We all will die, what a circus. Of dying and pain I am afraid, of course, but not of death.  

That said, I love the woods. I love carving, and I love having good food in the forest. All of this involves tools that are generally quite sharp, and fire, which is generally quite hot. And sometimes you get eager or nervous or lost in the process, and your knife slips, and you bleed. I always carry an IFAK and some band aids, but I once forgot, and bled all over the place. Good thing there was some spruce resin in my pocket and a birch polypore growing nearby! I cut a band-aid from the porous underside and used spruce resin and a piece of cloth to fix it. 

You can leave the mushroom intact, by the way. In the picture, you can see what I mean. 

Actually you only need the porous part, and it is possible to cut the band-aid quite thin. The pictures were obviously taken for demonstration purposes. The injury was already healed and well at that point.  

Now please keep in mind that this is an emergency remedy. If you have a first aid kit, please, at least use proper disinfectant before treating any wound at all.  I am not to be made liable for any healing impairment or deterioration of the healing process to to the application of natural remedies. I share this as a merely cultural evaluation and for entertainment purposes exclusively.  

That said, the use of birch polypore in indigenous cultural heritage as a natural remedy goes back to the paleolithic age. A later, and rather famous find from the late neolithic/ copper age, showed the multifunctional use of birch polypore. Otzi, the "iceman" carried, amongst other things, a piece of birch polypore as tinder, but probably also as medicinal. Studies have found traces of the mushroom in his digestive tract:

 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1879981718300883, 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378874114003183

and presumeably he had taken this remedy for its anti-inflammatory and immune system modulating properties:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5380686/

The mushroom has many uses and preparation methods.  The dried powder was also used as a painkiller (see: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5380686/). 

Relevant for the use as a band-aid are of course said anti-inflammatory properties. Responsible for these properties are mainly the Tri-Terpenes and Tri-Terpenoids. On the other hand, the wound-healing process might also be furthered by the poly-saccharids in its composition. Hydrogels with Saccharides and Glukose are a therapeutic remedy for necrosis even today. At least, those polysaccharides in the mushroom are said to offer a moisturizing environment for the wound to heal.  For the same reasons, the fresh tissue from Fomitopsis Betulina can be used for skin care and hygiene. The dried mushroom must be rehydrated first.  The dried powder might be best for the purpose.  

So, while obviously cutting a band-aid from some old shroom in the woods can, in that situation, only be an emergency remedy, with a bit more attention to care, hygiene and attention, it could be far more than just that. The mushroom shows a lot of promising characteristics in a lot of fields of use.  

Please harvest the mushroom sustainably.  Take only what you need, and if at all possible, keep the mycelium intact.  As a rule of thumb, take just 20% of the mushroom in order for it to regrow.  Leave the Trama intact, too.  Of course there is nothing wrong with harvesting a whole fruiting body where the mushroom is abundant, too. Just use common sense is all. 

All the best, and take good care! 

 

A new and very different bike and some thoughts on the ""bugout bike concept"

It has been in the making for a long time.  Ages ago, as it seems, when the World was a very different place, I was looking for a new bike.  There was a Surly Troll sitting in the window of my then favourite bikeshop. I was all for riding Enduro trails, though, and, well, that frame came with a rigid fork. Actually I was being aware even back then, that the party was nearing the end. I do love riding a lot. I have been riding with passion for a good 40 years almost, I have been riding races and down places and trails with 35mm of rubber eraser suspension up front that are not open to the public, including hikers, because they are too dangerous nowadays. I thought I would live to ride back then and even designed T-shirts with that slogan. I now know that it was more that I rode to live. 

I have been a people-pleaser all my life.  And a huge part of my riding with others was because I never got respect for anything I did and most of the time, for no other reason than the fact that I am different, I was actively denied it.  Mountainbike riding gave me acknowledgement, even though it came at a price.  The fact that few people talk about is that a lot (not all of it, obviously) of the progression of a lot of riders is driven either by the need for acknowledgement or a rather narcisstic impulse.  I did ride with a lot of narcisstic assholes, and, well, that seems to be, amongst a lot of awesome people, be a rather integral part of Mountainbike culture. 

This leads to a rather unforgiving culture on a ride. You got an old bike? Of course there are always great and awesome groups who will always wait for you and encourage you. I have even been gifted old freeride bikes in order to have more fun, and, Totopete, if you read this, you should know that I never forgot that act of kindness.  Others, however, see this as an opportunity to ride you to mincemeat to enlarge their tiny egos, and, unfortunately, the Club I helped found, while of course not exclusively so, developed into that category.  So, when I was shopping for a frame, while I knew perfectly well that the Surly Troll, that rigid steel frame, might be the more sustainable option, I instead opted for a Dartmoor Primal Enduro frame with a big fork up front. And do not get me wrong, I did have a lot of fun with it, and it was more than adequate riding with the morons.  

But my riding style changed. I do still love me some gnar.  But I started to go on epic rides more and more. And people want to ride the same sanitized trails and lines in the City limits over and over again in order to scrub off some seconds on STRAVA. For prestige or success, or whatever it is.  I go out riding in order to see places, wild animals, look into remote valleys and ride natural trails. Maybe have a cuppa trailcoffee or riding out to some trailside Café. Of course this is neither better nor inferior, it is just different. Often I would rise early and come back well into the night. 

Well, maybe my riding style didn't change that much.  I adapted to the group, but I have always ridden that way when I have had a choice. I find it way more wholesome than what we are taking for "progression". Progressing happens naturally when you are just doing what you like. 

That steel frame sat in the back of the shop all the while. Every fecking day the world turned into a huge pile of shit a little more.  Every day, it became a little harder to afford riding for sport alone. A sprocket suddenly cost 30ü€. That is 300€ for a wear item that maybe lasts a year. Don't get me wrong, you still get Chinese spare parts for a halfway decent price, but they are obviously not compatible. It is more cost-effective to replace the cranks and (because you then need to), the bottom bracket, than just buy a new chainring, because this is what needs to be replaced.  An overhaul of your suspension costs as much as a good, used fork. 29" is essentially just 700C or 28" with beefier rims and bigger tyres, but can cost up to 150€ more.  Nothing wrong with the idea, actually.  I am just not quite enthused if someone wants to sell me moonbeams. 

So, the Enduro hardtail getting a bit tired, so to say, and with a bit of money that I unfortunately inherited, I just said "screw it" and bought that Surly Troll.  Because it has a steel frame that you could weld back again in a smithy, because it comes with a lot of bosses for carrier racks, because it comes with a fork that doesn't cost an arm and a leg and, well, also because a pre-2012 Surly Troll had reportedly legendary ride properties, and because you do not read a lot about it. 

Why that, you ask? Well, I no longer trust the media a lot.  I was fortunate enough to learn a bit, early on, concerning bike engineering. Essentially, we built our own components in ' em days.  To do that, you have to delve a bit into mechanics, ergonomics, and plain old physics. Also, having ridden for 40 years means you know what works on paper and what works, when the rubber hits the dirt.  At least for me. And while the media don't report utter nonsense, they are also dependant on advertising for financing. If you follow the flow of money you always arrive at the very few corporations still left on the open market. And, believe it or not, some corporations are actually part of the military industrial complex.  I shit you not.  On the other hand, well, I just want to ride.  To be honest, I try not to be a part of the shitshow, but here I am, using a Google product.  And since I simply don't matter at all, I simply allow myself the luxury of just getting away from it all when I go riding.  I know pretty much that while I obviously still push myself, I most certainly will not master some triple backflip can-can busdriver-to-hospital, and I no longer care. I know if I break a crucial part of my body it will hurt double and I will take triple the time to heal.  And I like doing things that are good for my soul, given that it hurts a bit after a life that was not exactly easy, and five un-treated burnouts in a row lead to a mindset that I do not need unnecessary stress in my life anymore. Don't misunderstand that, though. I still do push myself, but it is a part of what I am. I do not want to push myself anymore if anyone tells me I have to.  My attitude leads to performance. I like to work hard and give it my best, because it feels good.  I just refuse to adapt to toxicity anymore.  The bike industry, however, is partly rather toxic, as you will see.  

Building up the bike presented a lot of challenges.  I had to go around in my county a lot in order to find spare parts. Corporate policies of the bike industry can only be called diabolic these days. 

The aftermarket chainrings, I got, were designed not to fit the old cranks by a fraction of a millimetre, just so you get frustrated and throw the old ones away. Not with uncle Fimbulmyrk, tho', who knows which end of a file to hold.  

 Next issue was the rear derailleur.  The cogs on it where ground down by years of hard use. It was cheaper to get a new one than to fecking replace the goddamn cogs. Frustrated, I just hauled that sorry wreck to the shop. I got the impression that they were not too enthused.  Their mechanic proudly showed me his new electronic shifting system. You get an app to adjust it, and the app can also measure your torque and cadence and offer you training advice. Maybe even give you nutritional "suggestions" via AI.  Also, it is connected to Google or Komoot or STRAVA, imagine that, what a brave new world we live in! Isn't that marvellous?!

Yes, it is NOT.  Starting with the very simple fact that it needs energy, and originally, a bicycle has an efficiency ratio of 98%. A bicycle is maybe the last beautiful machine that mankind has invented.  That would be or should be completely sufficient in times of climate change crisis to completely dismantle it as unnecessary. 

But unfortunately, it is more to it. It is about customer control, and, ultimately, the ultimate citizen control.  I spare you the elaboration.  Uwe was just intrigued by the technology, and I can perfectly relate to that. Don't get me wrong on this.  It is a fascinating technology, and would be just awesome.  But I know politicians intimately, and there are, while a lot of them are pretty decent people, some, and in rather powerful positions, that are not.  Not every politician is a crackpot technocratic would-be dictator. But the very few that are should make you very careful around anything that says "digital", " AI", "Networks" , "surveillance" and "control" in one description.  And do not get me wrong again, either. I honestly cannot say, because I cannot know.  I really just want to rather be safe than sorry. 

And actually, my main reason is that I want to keep it simple and reliable and serviceable.  I want to ride. I am the one who rides, and my capabilities are propelling the bike. I haven't trained for ages and I am getting old and out of shape. I do not want to cheat myself into believing I were 20. I am not. I do not want to constantly worry whether or not I charged my motor or shifter battery or whatever. I want to be able to leave my Smartphone at home and just take along some brick phone. Not that I would, I do love the camera. But I do not want to worry about it telling Mommy in the US about my torque and cadence and heart rate and speed and calory intake or where I have been. I do want to emphasize that I cannot know.  But I go to some pretty remote places with wildlife and serene little forest trails, and I would rather not have some STRAVA- nutters spoil that for good.  I do not want to think how long my fork will hold up without service. I do not want to bother to monitor my heart rate and calory intake. I don't have a talent for racing. I do not want to indebt myself in order to belong.  I have learned the hard way that everything I could do would not make me fit in. I tried, and I tried hard, and broke myself in the process five fucking times in order to belong to fucking Karens, male or female.  Debt is a method of control. And I decided to rather be more feral.  This is the hard way.  A rigid fork means pain. But I fail to see the point of taking the sport too serious, because I do not take myself too serious. I know that I am not the centre of the world.  I want to ride.  I want to ride free. I might not be the best rider there is, but I am also not the worst, but all that doesn't matter. 

The  bike, which I brought to the shop in the state you can see on the photo, wheels and everything pre-installed and with little technology on it, took said shop three months to complete.  

Do not get me wrong again, all good, and I did not get mad at them. But I simply propose they were, while on the one hand, somewhat relieved about the bike that was, quote unquote "like to those in the good ol' times", also a bit pissed off by it.  Because, well, it doesn't generate a lot of money.  A big bikestore in Marburg, where I was looking for an alternative, told me they would rather not have the customer do anything on the bike her- or himself, and even offer rescue repairs in the woods..."if you get the App" in order to prevent you from even repairing a flat. When I objected that I also have worked as a race mechanic when applying for a job as a product manager with a corporation most of their wheels come from, that guy didn't even reply but elaborated endlessly about their leasing programs and how I could get bonus points when I "got the App". The magic troll and I would sit there still, had we not interrupted his mumbo jumbo by simply rising and walking out of the door.  And that is a reality. The bike industry is about making money and generating data and NFTs, not about bikes or even sustainability.  

Well, you might know how much that pissed  me off. It makes me angry what they try to create from a sport that is utterly democratic and inclusive.  Fact is, a certain percentage of riders are and have always been the rich kids. This percentage is apparently rising.  You don't meet a lot of riders on ratty bikes on the trails, and next to noone at all on the backwoods trails. Well, very well, fairnuff for me. I do not want or need company.  It is the lack of company I strive for, or rather, less, but quality company, and this mindset enables me not to give a runny shit about my bike being compatible with an average group speed. I mean, I don't think I would be too slow at all for a group ride. It is just a luxury to no longer care.  

Now you guys know that I am very much into forest and nature, and this means I also have my contact with bushcraft and survival.  And in the survival and prepping community there is that "bugout" concept. Means, when SHTF, you got a spare car or motorbike or quad or other ATV to get away from the crisis.  One famed YouTube prepper featured a bugout bike (I think it was by Jeep or something). It was a fat bike concept with an E-bike configuration. Some racks, rather martial looks, weighs in at some 25kg and obviously needs a battery.  And it sits in your garage most of the time. Because most of the prepping guys are rather overweight gun-nutters. And of course you need to spare it so that it will work in that special scenario.  It is a piece of gear you buy, and, unfortunately not necessarily often linked to mindset or attitude. 

Well, I actually am not entitled to criticize that.  I learned everything about bugging out from my father. Personally I do think that there is not a lot more to know.  During WW2, my father had been a Hitler youth, until he barely escaped concentration camp for insubordination and was no longer active.  When the allies (fortunately) arrived in the Ruhr region, the Wehrmacht recruited every Hitler youth for the "Volkssturm". Turned out that my father had different ideas.  My granduncle and grandaunt lived in a very rural area in the Sauerland region.  My father deserted and bugged out, not just out of political reasons, but because he was a kid and afraid of being killed and because it was stoopid in the first.  He had some good bike with one speed and a robust frame and balloon tyres he was really familiar with. At one time he rode some 300km to the North Sea in one go on it, so riding it 50km through the woods wasn't a real challenge. He just grabbed a rucksack with a bit of tea and bread and rode away, and it was just a regular ride for him. The bike had a frame pump, he had a repair kit, and a wrench, he went and put on plain clothing and was off.  Nearly got the bike confiscated but lied about a special messenger duty, so that he got to keep the bike and was left alone.  He laid low for a week in a shed on his aunt's and uncle 's property in the woods, the Nazi regime was defeated and he survived.  

Thing is, I want to ride.  I find it rather silly buying a rather high-maintenance bike that requires really complex spare parts to maintain.  When my father broke the cranks on his bike while launching it off a ramp, my grandfather welded them back together in an open coal forge.  Try this with some kind of pedelec drivetrain module.  The bikes of the 1920s were, for the most part, rather simple and sustainable to service.  Why is that important? 

Well, a bicycle is fun and a very beautiful machine for its efficiency.  

There are some goodies I do not want to miss, like decent disc brakes, modern geometry and shifting mechs. 

A bicycle can take you places. If said shit hits the proverbial fan, you need to be able to ride fast and for maybe a longer time through maybe rougher terrain.  

You need a certain amount of training to do that. Relying on a motor is a more complex situation. You want to minimize the chance of things going wrong and a bicycle is not just a single use item.  It is a very useful tool for foraging and going places. And it is also good for the morale, because, if you associate fun with any riding, it offers you a lot of resilience.  So you might consider getting a bicycle also for fun and resilience, not just for some prepping scenario.  

The situation with the bike industry, however, makes it already rather difficult to get a simple, sustainable bike.  The Troll frame and a lot of other Surly frames offer you the option of using rim brakes and a single speed setup.  Making rim brakes is not rocket science, and you can find rim brakes even on junkyards. And fortunately, there are a lot of little corporations like Jones bikes or Binary bikes and other manufacturers catering to those requirements again. Maybe the tides are turning a bit.  

Finally, I could fetch the Troll. Of course, I had to tighten every screw, adjust the mechs and have the brakes serviced (again), but finally got to show it some trails.  

And what can I say? I had heard about the "legendary ride qualities". And, while I have gone to rather exhausting lengths with this post to state that I do not buy into the hype of anyone, well, I cannot but agree with that. 

The bike has a standard, but well-balanced geometry. The fork length is still adjusted to fit a suspension fork, the top tube is 575 mm long. Look here for a spec sheet for the newer model of Troll (but that is no longer available, either): 

https://www.bikeauthority.com/product/surly-troll-frameset-351217-1.htm

Apart from the longer top tube and fork, it is what I have got.  The tubing is Surly 's own triple-butted True Temper 4130 ChroMoly tubing, which can be heat treated.  

The bike, as I said, is quite the opposite of my Enduro hardtail.  But riding it was a rather strange thing.  On the Dartmoor, I got a rather narrow saddle and a dropper post. And get my meaning right: A dropper post is a great thing to have on any bike.  On the Enduro, it is almost as much in use as my shifters.  

On the Surly, I mounted a vintage Brooks Colt saddle, which is not exactly narrow.  

I realized quickly, that, while I intended the Troll to be a commuter and gravel and lighter duty forest trails bike, it asks for more.  If you bang it through some rock gardens, you obviously notice the absence of any squish at all, and of course you go a bit slower, but you don't miss the suspension too much. And when you forget you got a rigid bike and sail off a drop, well, of course it goes #klunk. But there is a rather weird sensation, which few other people might be able to relate to: It whips through as if you were parrying a blow with a really well-made sword. The frame is actually heat treated, and by someone who really knows their shit. This sensation is quite addictive.  Sooner than I had expected, I was flying down trails I also ride my Enduro on. And thing is, I only noticed when I was through the gnar that I completely forgot to lower my saddle at all.  You know, that  Grampa couch of a saddle.  Do not get me wrong: No suspension means you cannot make any mistake at all.  One root not taken on an ideal line will send you arse over teacup into the bushes.  I am most certainly slower than on the Enduro (didn't check yet, because I honestly don't care), but boy, is that fun.  It has its shortcomings on high speed tech, but excels on slow tech and singletrack, up and down, no matter what, you just keep riding.  

It simply does everything. It inspires you to ride, no matter what. 

Epic trails, toodling around in the Skatepark, commuting, getting groceries, bikepacking, foraging, you name it.  I will work on the concept more and maybe build it with some other parts with time (and I also want to get myself some decent racks), but this most certainly is the best thing I ever bought, at least it is the best thing I bought in years.  

If you can still get one, you most certainly will not regret it. And do not fall for the bullshit, in the bike industry as well as in the survival and prepping community.  Have fun.  Get on the bike, if you have one. If you have not, you might want to consider keeping it a tad more simple. It is and always will be about the mindset and attitude. Good gear is fun, but just like some prybar of a knife sucks at real life tasks, so do bikes marketed as "bugout bikes". Don't see it as a primary tool for bugging out in an emergency, too.  Don't forget to play, because it is good for one's mental health and resilience in an emergency.  

Take care, and have fun!