By Scott
A sign of spring's arrival is the sudden sprouting of mushrooms in a lot of places. We've brought back the Opinel Mushroom knife for this special time of year. It has a curved blade to allow for careful removal of the fungus from its forest home and the boar brush on the end allows for careful cleaning of the mushroom without doing damage to its outer skin. Known as a couteau a champigon in France, we only keep these in stock for mushroom season, so once they are sold out, more won't arrive for a while.
We also have expanded our range of Opinel knives to include a kitchen knife. It is a great all purpose knife with a Japanese style (Santoku) stainless steel blade. The design of the blade is such that there is less rocking required to slice something. This makes slicing veggies much easier IMHO. It uses the same wooden handle as the essential kit of knives makes it easy to grip and keep clean. It also has a continuous cutting edge that makes it easy to sharpen, and keeping a knife sharp is a real key to how well it performs.
The Swift Camp Out is scheduled for this year again. June 24th is the date that we're all going to try and get out for the night via a bike. Whether you ride 10 miles from home to camp or 100, it's a great goal to work towards. Now's the time to start putting your touring kit together and doing some practice runs to make sure it all fits and doesn't sound like a tuk tuk going through Jakarta at rush hour.
In addition to the Camp Out, what's everyone planning for their spring and summer bicycle tours?
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The Opinel Museum in St Jean de Maurienne is well work a visit. There is a recreation of the original factory with vintage manufacturing equipment prior to the move to Chambery. Lots of vintage knives and other cutting tools on display as well as a very gift shop with all varieties of cutting implements available.
My Spring tour started at the end of February from Maine to Arizona. After dropping down the of CT, I decided to return north via the Upper Delaware (awesome road out of tourist season). We trekked across NY west along the state line into Ohio. It was some eventful weather. Currently in middle TN. TN state parks are celebrating 75 years. I've visited 3 so far. FYI, TN state parks are free entry always. Eventually I'll get us to Arizona. My summer hop is split depending on if I acquire a bicycle built before the 40s or capture a modern bike with multiple attaching points (cough cough cough). The first would be a trip with only a briefcase while wearing a suit the whole way back from AZ to ME. The other linking a gnarly no pavement route at the diagonal back to ME using current trails. These aren't really tours, I just love to living rad everyday.
The plan for this year is to avoid using automobiles:
Pedal to the bike train in Baltimore, Maryland,
Train to Portland Maine,
Ferry from Portland to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia,
Cyclotour NS, Cape Breton Island and Prince Edward Island, returning to Yarmouth,
Reverse
:-)
We are doing a tour of the Somerset Levels in England - should be flat!
We would struggle to find many mushrooms this time of year in Europe - Autumn is the season
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