"Winter" Motorcycle Camping Trip: Testing My New Moto Camping Tent and Sleeping Pad in February

We are camping in February. We are winter camping. Let's hope it works because it's all I have to sleep in. That's a game changer, man. I went with safety orange. Whoa. Give yourself salmonella or E. coli or whatever the hell. Find the courage to take that first step and see where the path leads you. My feet are steaming. River. What have I done to myself? I hate people. Okay. I'm lost. Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Dorkside. I'm the Dork of the Road, and we are here at Riverbend Campground. It is February, mid-February, and we're going winter moto camping. That's right, friends. I'm the Dork of the Road, and I want to be your internet riding buddy, so please consider subscribing. It is wintertime, but we have a week of, like, really decent weather going on right now, and so I decided to pack up my bike and come up and moto camp at this campground that I know was open all year. You can see the weather looks really nice right now. Here we are. Home sweet home. It is February. It is about 1 p.m., and we're camping. We are camping in February. We are winter camping. I've never winter moto camped before. Pretty excited to finally be doing it. I have a new tent to test out and whole new stuff, so it's been a couple months since I've motorcycle camped. Very excited to be here doing it right now. Let me show you the bag setup on the bike because I've done something that you might have seen in other videos, but some of you are curious about KLR bag setups, and it's worked really well. So there's the KLR. These are the Giant Loop Siskiyou Panniers, and, of course, the Tillamook bag that I run all the time. But the thing about the Siskiyous is... See right here? I'm still running. This is my stock racks that my stock side cases go with, my adventure cases. And the Siskiyous just go over the top, and this bar is enough to hold this bag out. So I've got 35 liter soft bags on this, and I did not have to change out the pannier racks or add anything. So that gives me a ton of versatility with this bike because I can run these soft bags when I need a little bit more, like for a camping trip, and then for day trips or whatever, I'll just run my side cases. They're 20 liters each. No big deal. And these made it all the way out here. No problems. Looking good. All good under there. And then, of course, my Tillamook bag on the top because I'm extra and my chair and table and stuff are in here. I've got to figure out where to get firewood. I think they sell it here, but the camp host wasn't over there, so I've got to just kind of keep an eye out for him. It's right down this road. I didn't bring food for dinner or anything. My plan is to go into town and get some beers and some hot dogs or something and cook them over the fire, which means I've got to unpack and set up everything so that I can put all my gear in and have the bags free to go do that. Other than that, this is a low-key hangout, and so long as I can find firewood, that's the thing. It's going to be cold tonight. It's going to be about 40, which isn't bad, and I can totally get through with my bag, but if I want to sit out at all after dark, I need a fire. It's going to be cold. Firewood is pretty paramount, so hopefully I can buy it here, and if not, then I'll just drive into town and strap it to the bike and drive it back up here, but I can't do any of that until I get gear off the bike, so let's get a tent set up. Let's try out the new tent. I'm also testing out my new Tigerwall tent that some of you saw in my unboxing video the first time I've used it, so let's hope it works because it's all I have to sleep in. First order of business is figuring out how to set up my new tent. This is it. This is my Tigerwall UL2 bikepacking tent. This material is so different feeling than my other tent. It's very light and thin. It feels insubstantial. Supposedly, it's just as good and sturdy, just super lightweight, but that is an interesting feeling tent. Like that. I should have definitely read some direction or something. Thumbs up if you know that reference. Automatic. Just a little walk around of the tent. You don't have to ignore my squeaking boots. Another new piece of kit besides the tent that I'm excited to show you. This Big Agnes Q-Core Deluxe. I have the Big Agnes Insulated Q-Core, the orange one. This is the blue one. It's a little bit more deluxe, a little bit more plush. It's supposed to be a little bit quieter. Motocamp Nerd wanted me to test this so that I could do a comparison for you all. He sent me this and I said, send me the biggest one because I'm a fat ass. I didn't know he was going to send me the 30-inch wide one. This thing is huge. 30x78. I think I have the 25x70 orange one. So this is going to be interesting making it fit in here. It is plush and big and let's give it a shot because, hell, it's probably going to be super comfy. But it doesn't pack down as small as the other one because it's the huge one. I think otherwise, if you get the same size, they're pretty comparable. It's got like actual insulation inside of it. You can feel it. Primlock insulation. I made one more purchase that some of you might think makes me a poser and I don't care. A little electric rechargeable pump. Rechargeable battery. Doesn't take up any space. I'm not at all ashamed of that. You're going to have to do the last couple breaths by hand. Or by mouth. Manually. That is, actually, that's pretty good. That's a game changer, man. Game changer. A little aggressive. And it's on there. Ta-da! Oh, and my Nemo pillow. I'll link all my camping gear in the description. You guys know how we do. Very highly recommend everything I'm using right now. Really pared this kit down this year. The other new addition to my kit, and something that'll be helpful if it gets as cold tonight as I think it's going to, is this. This is the Get Out Gear Puffy Blanket. Sorry if you guys don't love all the gear things. People are just always asking me about gear, so when I get new stuff, I like to show you. But they sent me this to try out. Thanks, Get Out Gear. Comes in a bunch of colors. I went with Safety Orange because if I ever need to signal or get someone's attention, it'll be nice to have a blanket that does it. But it packs down this small. It's about the size of a 1 liter bottle. This is a down blanket. It's very warm. I used it on my snowy cabin trip a couple weekends ago. But also, it's a poncho. It's got snaps. So when you're sitting around the fire in the morning or night, whatever, this thing will keep you quite warm. I was going to throw this in the tent so I have an extra blanket. Uses it as a poncho if I get cold. Now the next order of business is figuring out firewood if I need to go buy some or if the camp host is going to bring me some. I just went and found the camp host. Firewood is for sale here. I've got two bundles coming. He's going to bring them in so I don't have to put them on the bike. Which means all we have to do now is go into town, get some beer and dinner figured out, and we are good to go. Things are working out. Everything's coming up millhouse. Thank you. Just tonight, I just wanted to get out and try out my new tent. Okay, well that's disappointing. I was not expecting that, but this wood is very damp. Super wet. I may need to buy a bundle in town if this will even burn. I'm going to have to split it up quite a bit. Hope the inside's dry. It's about my only shot. Probably check before I go. Speaking of new gear, this is my new Hultafors axe. Swedish. Good axe. I think this stuff will burn if I split it enough. Yeah, I may need a bundle of wood. I'm heading to town to find some food, beer, maybe another bundle of firewood. Here we are in Sweet Home. Fun fact, my hometown. Double fun fact. I worked at the Safeway in high school. I have a good one. Alright, mischief managed. Back to camp. I have returned. Let's look in my bag of treasures. Whoa. So, six pack of beer, 220 on sodas, I got a package of sausages, and underneath here, this is the drypod that comes with your panniers. It doesn't just keep water out, it also keeps water in. So I put a bag of ice in it on the bottom here, and now this is a little cooler. And it'll keep the bag from getting soaked so I can put my stuff in it tomorrow. It's only going to be light for like two more hours. Not even. It's already getting darker, so I'm going to get this fire going if I can. But camp is set up, so, step two time. So the wood they brought me sucks, and it's going to be an interesting night trying to get it all dried off and going. So I got a bundle of dry. I'm going to try to get this fire going with the dry wood. Got some dork on a repossibles pouch that my wife made. Thanks babe. Got my Bigfoot Bushcraft fire starters as always. Ta-da! Fire's kind of going. Trying to use the dry wood sparingly. And you can see I put all the wet wood around it. Try to dry pieces off, let the fire dry them, and as they get dry I'll put them in the fire and hopefully we can keep this going. And I saved a few pieces to get a fire going in the morning. I have a nice green stick here. Just got to sharpen her up. Light a broad on there. Nice and green so it won't burn up on me. There she is. Not quite dinner time but we got to wait for coals anyway. But I'm ready when it is. I got to say I'm pretty happy with the state of this campground. So there's a spot there, a spot there, and there is nobody within shouting distance. Step two, number two. Fire's kind of going. Interesting line I got to walk here because I need some coal. So I got to let it burn down a little bit. Hopefully it stays hot enough to get some of this wet wood to burn. I'm optimistic that it's drying some of the stuff around the outside pretty rapidly. Nothing dries wood faster than fire, right? This campground is hard to get any privacy. It's definitely one of those where your neighbors are right there. You can actually see their spot right there. So it would suck if we had neighbors but since I don't have any it's awesome. This campground's too expensive. $26 for a tent site, $32 for a site with hookups. So I just paid for the extra $6 because I wanted this spot because it's on the river and was secluded. I had a better chance of being able to film and talk to myself without worrying about people listening in. It's a very nice park. It's just $32 is too much money for a site. Pretty excited to be up here. It's like 57 today. Can you believe it? And it's only supposed to be like 40 overnight like I said so. You guys getting out and doing any camping this winter or are you stuck? I know a lot of you are like snowed in which sucks but I'm here trying to do it so you can live vicariously. The title's going to say this is a winter motorcycle camp and it technically is but it's probably not what you expect. This is honestly the weather today is nicer than that early spring motor camp that Doug Fanner and I did last year, our first one in March. I decide on the campground? I don't know. I thought honestly it would be nice to just be able to buy firewood and have all that stuff nearby and then I ended up having to split it gather a bunch out of the woods anyway to get this fire going and then go buy more. So it probably would have been easier to just go disperse camping down the road but whatever. Let's make food. So tonight we are enjoying Johnsonville Chili Cheese Brats. Nice thing about these is they're already cooked so you just have to heat them up so you can't undercook them or give yourself salmonella or E. coli or whatever the hell. So all you gotta do is stick them on your stick heat them up in the fire until you're satisfied and then I'll eat this right off the stick. I brought a plate but I'm not even going to bother with it so dinner of champions. Warm meal is better than eating any fricking bag meal, mountain house, whatever so pretty excited to have these. Let's cook them. Yeah! Nothing beats cooking over the fire. It ain't camping if you don't do it. Nice thing about these chili cheese ones is you don't need ketchup or anything because all the flavors are inside. So not the healthiest food but camping is not about healthy food. Chili cheese. Can't believe how much these taste like chili cheese. It's like eating a meat chili cheese frito. Chili cheese. Oh I was hungry. I didn't realize it until I started eating. I'm definitely hungry. It's hot bro. It's almost like it was just in a fire. Who knew? Best silverware ever. One down, four to go. Hot. It's hot. It's hot in there. I just put your hands in fire. I'm just learning this just now. Dinner's cooked and eaten. Fire's going. Beers are flowing. That can only mean that it's time for one thing. Mr. Puff Puff. Even a few haters on the Mr. Puff Puff so just FYI. Not condoning or encouraging anyone to engage in this disgusting habit. I just like to do it while I'm camping. And if you don't like it, totally get it. What makes you not want to watch my videos? I understand. I don't think the children should smoke the cigars. Please don't smoke the cigars if you're a children. This is a Brick House Brick House Fumas. I don't know if I talked about this on camera but Cigarbit is this website it's like eBay for cigars where you can bid on lots and you know I usually go on and I'll win 20 or so here and there. One night I went on and started bidding and I bid on like 4 different things. You don't usually win right? You bid on a few, you're counting on winning one or two. And I won 3 lots no I won 4 lots. So the next thing I knew 75 cigars were coming to my house. My humidor is very full right now. I think I'm set for the summer. I don't smoke them very often. Mostly when I'm camping. More often in the summer because I'm camping more. So infrequently that my doctor asked me about smoking. I say I smoke cigars. She says how often? I'm like eh not even one a week on average. She's like you're not a cigar smoker. So I feel pretty good about that. I also don't drink that much unless I'm camping or hanging out with people. I know you guys see me drinking and smoking a lot but it's really just when I'm camping or hanging out with somebody. You know sometimes I go hard. Sometimes I accidentally drink 12 beers and don't realize it. That'll happen. That'll happen. The best part of camping has commenced. The sitting around the fire enjoying some libations just relaxing. Nothing left to do but go to bed tonight. Not bad. Not bad. Sometimes I try to have words of wisdom for you at this time. The only words of wisdom for you are if you're thinking about going out and going camping and you've never done it or you haven't done it in a while just do it man. And don't worry about like people want to put rules and stipulations like it's not real camping if you go to a campground. Yes it is. I'm in a campground right now and I've camped all over the place. I've done all kinds of stuff and there's nothing wrong with going to a campground. Especially if you're still just trying to figure out how to do it. Go to a place where you can buy ice and wood on site and there's a flushing toilet over there. Do you want to be figuring out how your tent works? How to make a fire? How to cook on the fire? And how to dig a toilet hole all on the same trip? No. Start small. Use your way in. You can do it. Anyone can go out and have adventures in your own way. We all have our different physical limitations and whatever. There are ways to make it happen. I would encourage you to find a way to get out there and make it happen. Because I was a person who sat on my ass terrified to do anything outside of my comfort zone or anything that might be uncomfortable. For years. For years. And I still struggle. I almost talked myself out of coming today. I'm always happy that I didn't talk myself out of it. I'm always happy when I do go. So whatever your adventure is. If it's camping, go camping. If it's just going out and riding a dual sport in the woods, go out and ride a dual sport in the woods. If it's, I don't know, asking for a promotion at work. Adventure has all kinds of forms. Do it. What do you got to lose? Here's my philosophy. I don't always adhere to it, but it's helpful to me. There's something you're not sure if you can get by asking. Right? Well, if you don't ask, you already don't have it. Right? And if you do ask and they say no, well then you don't have it. But if you ask, the possibility exists that they might say yes. Right? How did I get my giant loop job? I asked. If I hadn't asked, I wouldn't have it. So, you know, they could have said no and I'd have been right where I was. You lose nothing, but you can gain a lot. So, find the courage. Take some encouragement. Get out there. Make it happen. Crush it. Live the adventures you dream about. Start small. Work your way up to it. I'm still doing that. People are like, when are you going to do the tat? Dude, I just went on my first multi-night motorcycle camping trip last summer. Like, I haven't even done a BDR yet. Not quite ready to go cross country. We all start in our own way. I am so much more comfortable than I was a year ago. In a year, you could be as comfortable and as good, if that's a word, as I am at camping. Or riding or whatever. Things are so different than they were a year ago. All you have to do is start. First step is the hardest. Find the courage to take that first step and see where the path leads you. That's my words of wisdom for this trip. Update. It's dark. I have a fire. And it's awesome. That's pretty much it. It's cooling off a little, like, quickly. I'm pretty happy to have this fire. Not freezing, freezing cold, but you'll definitely notice when you step away from the fire. I like when you're camping and it's cold enough that you need the fire to stay warm. It's not just like a fun luxury. I'm just hanging out, enjoying a few beverages, trying to keep this fire going. Drying out wood and working it into the fire, you know, because I got all this wet wood. Having fun. I'm happy to be out here. Thank you all for watching. Sincerely. Great to have you all along. Living my dream right now. There's a Wednesday night in February and I'm camping. Thank you for making that possible. I owe it all to you. And also Giant Loop for paying me to make videos so that I could quit my other job. You're all great. Thank you. Anyway, camping. I'm gonna get back to it. Okay, I had to get this on video. I just took my boots off to go to bed. My feet are steaming. So that's how cold it is slash that's how warm my feet were by the fire. Also, I'm just now noticing I have two different wool socks on. Look at them steam! That's crazy and funny at the same time. It is cold. Look. When I get away from the fire it is chilly. So I'm gonna tuck into this bag and try to stay warm overnight. And I think I'll catch up with you all in the morning. Thank you for watching. If you're enjoying this video or if you like moto camping videos, maybe think about hitting the like button or even subscribing if you want to see more. There's always more to come. But for now, I'm gonna go to sleep and I'll catch up with you in the morning. Good night. Good morning! It is a beautiful day. Sunrise behind me. It looks amazing through those trees. I'm enjoying some high side coffee with, looks like ashes in it because I set it here by the fire. A little extra flavor. The joys of camping. It is warming up quickly. It was quite cold when I got out. I'm already shedding layers. It's gonna be a warm day. It's supposed to be like 67. The smoke, look, I lean back and it keeps coming. If I move over there, it'll just move over there. This is my life. I'm telling you. I'm the only one here, so the smoke had to pick someone, so it's me. Awesome. Slept fine, you know. Get pressure points on the mattress, but that happens with any air mattress and you have to roll over. Plenty warm in my bag. My face got a little cold, so I put that get out gear blanket up over my head just to kind of keep some warmth in. Worked great. Pretty happy with the tent set up and everything right now. It's very comfortable for sleeping. Way better than most of the setups I've ever used in my life. Actually any, I think, in a tent, for sure. I'm pretty happy getting my stuff dialed in. You know, as you take more trips and you figure out what you like and what works for you, you get your kit more and more dialed in. It's never dialed in right away, right? But I'm not in a hurry to get out of here. Normally I'm like in a big rush to get home or get packed up and I just I think I'm going to chill out here for a bit. Enjoy a couple cups of coffee. I don't have to be out of here until noon. And just enjoy the morning. Enjoy being in this mostly empty campground, which just doesn't happen. Enjoy hanging out with all of you. Thanks for being here. I got, you know, a few pieces of firewood left to get rid of. Might as well do that since I went to all that trouble drying it all out last night. I've been using the quote and attributing it to the wrong person. I keep talking about how mornings are for coffee and contemplation. And that is true. But I said that that was Ron Swanson that said that and I was wrong. It's Chief Jim Hopper that said that. So, my apologies Chief Hopper and thank you to the astute viewer who corrected me. But either way, it's time for some coffee and contemplation. And smoke dodging. Unsurprisingly, considering the temperature, we did get some you see that condensation on the inside of the rainfly. So, I probably should have pulled that off a while ago. But I'm just hanging it up right here. Let it dry off a little, hopefully, before I pack it up. Lots of water here. So, let all that dry out too. Like I said, I'm not in a hurry. This tent has that gear hanger pocket, like a shelf really, and I just put that orange blanket in there this morning to get it out of the way. Works really well. Should we walk down to the river? I mean, we're camping at River Bend. Should we take a look at the river? Seems like something we should do. Let's just check out the river since we're here. Picnic table. It's not exactly easy to get to because it's so low, but there's the river. I mean, it's pretty. The sound was nice to go to sleep to. There you go. I found a reasonable path around. River. And there's this nice little trail that runs along behind all the campsites and by the river. These fun, interactive signs. Not interactive. Informative signs. Unfortunately, there is no one in any of the sites between my site and this entrance here, so I'm just going to scramble up this hill the first time I see one of those little trails, and if it's my site grade and if it isn't, I'll be close by. It's getting worse. What have I done to myself? I'm out here hiking in freaking motorcycle boots. This is the right direction. Oh, now it's not again. I do not know where my site is. This is a miscalculation. There's a trail right there. Pick it up. Dude, even in a campground? That's the worst. I hate people. Okay. I'm lost. My campsite's gotta be over there. I went all the way around my campsite. That's it down there. Whew, I almost went the wrong direction. Anyway, that's more exercise than I was planning on getting today. Now I've avoided it as long as possible, but I think it's time to do my least favorite part of camping. Start packing up. Let's get started packing everything up. Good times. Enjoy it in time lapse, unlike the real-time suffering that I'll have to do. My guess is, some of you have been wondering, like I have, whether this tent was too good to be true. Would it really go back into this tiny bag? Well, I just stuff-sacked the whole thing in here. Tent, rainfly, and I got the footprint in there. And look. It's small. This thing is awesome. Very cool. That saves me a ton of space. Shout out to Motocamp Nerd for helping me pick this one out. I'll put a link in the description for you. I am all packed up. Getting ready to get out of here, I think. I just shot a motocamping gear video on how I pack my gear video, so subscribe if you haven't to check that out when it comes out. Should be next or near this video. I think I'm going to put my riding gear on and get out of here. I just want to say a quick shout out and thank you to my patrons and channel members, without whom content like this would not be possible. Channel members and patrons get early access to videos literally the second I finish them. I upload them and share them with patrons and channel members. They get merchandise discounts and other perks. And there's a join button right below the video or a link to Patreon in the description. Also, if you want to support the channel without contributing monthly, without being locked into that monthly fee, you know, you're a savvy investor and I appreciate that, you can use my affiliate links to Rocky Mountain, to Amazon, to Motocamp Nerd, or to RevZilla. 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