• Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

Tips sought for riding solo

Been a while side this thread has been active. I have been using a Spot3 for several months. I guess the family had enough of me taking off and riding 80 miles by myself.

I just have the basic subscription at $150/yr. But that allows me to have a custom check in message, a second custom message which I use to let my loved ones know I'm back safe to the truck etc. There's also a message to let folks know you're broken down, but OK and need non emergency help. Then of course there's the SOS. Each message comes with coordinate data imbedded.

Good solid unit that's been in a little bit of everything so far. I don't have the fancy full race spec pouch, but considering it. The app for your phone works pretty good for checking your tracks (standard ping is every 10 min).

So far, so good
 
I have the DeLorme Inreach SE I bought in 2013. Battery holds a charge for a long time. I may not switch it on in weeks but never below 90% charge. Monthly fee of $10 or so for 10 text messages and basic SOS. Send texts/group messages to anyone with an email address or text add. People you send a message to can reply. Post to FB or the Mapshare web page. Each message and email has link to a map with positioning. I also pay GEOS for SAR $17.95 a year. Good to have when you are out of cell range on mtb or moto or hiking. DeLorme is a Garmin product now and appears to cost a little more. I might still carry a separate handheld GPS and DeLorme if just to save batteries in the SM in case you need them. The DeLorme also uses Iridium network.
 
I think it's the ACR ResQlink PLB for me. I'm riding solo lately, no racing or road trips so far this year and no local bud to ride with. I'm surrounded by Nat Forest with surprisingly good cell service, so I can easily send I'm going/I'm back messages. Also pretty good GPS on the phone, so could give coordinates if necessary. In the worst case though I want a button to push to let the pros know I need help.

I'm 2 weeks into recovering from a big crash on the 165. I was 11 miles from home, 4 miles back in the forest. I usually txt my neighbor when I leave and return, but didn't this time. Was on my fav loop which I consider a safe ride. I've got a line cut and keep it clear, but this time there was a big branch hidden in some deep weeds. I didn't see it at all, 4th gear, pretty fast down a slight grade. I high sided, tangled and tumbled with the bike for about 25'! I wanted to tuck and roll or something, but felt like a helpless rag doll.
First tumble took the handlebar/handguard to the jaw and upper chest, then body slam landing was on my right shoulder blade, bike on top with my right leg jammed between the bars and tank, left leg under the bike, headed down the grade.
Nothing broken but a rib, so got untangled, helmet off and laid there for a few minutes to catch my breath. Started feeling worse instead of better, so went for it while I still had some adreline flowing. Managed to get the bike up and propped against a tree, but had to lie down again for a few minutes to recover.
Then had to kick the bike with my left leg and it started on first kick :love: :applause:
Injury inventory: bruised ankle bone; badly bruised femur; broken upper rib; badly bruised clavicle and scapula, all on the right side.
I was wearing body armor, but with the chest and back removed :rolleyes: Probably would have skipped the broken rib and bruised back with full armor on, but at least avoided shoulder damage. Also had knee braces which probably saved my already beaten knees.
Lesson for me is always wear all the gear, let someone know that you're going and carry a PLB just in case.

Oh, and always keep a bottle of good whiskey stashed in the pantry :cheers:
 
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