Sharing stories about coffee, stories, and stoke
Let’s be honest … bike shops smell great. Those new tires, clothes, and gear give off an intoxicating smell. There’s probably something in those smells that triggers our brains to make irrational bike decisions. “No, I want 170mm of travel, not 130mm.” “Of course, upgrading to a carbon crankset makes sense.” However, another smell might be even more soul-stirring … coffee.
There are a lot of ways to brew coffee. Some are better than others, but there’s a never-ending array of devices or gadgets to brew coffee. Throughout the years, I’ve bought countless items at Goodwill and other thrift stores. Every time I walk in, I’m excited with eager anticipation about what I may discover.
Mountain biking is about community. It’s also a special community. It’s not exclusive to mountain biking but is also found in BMX, gravel, cyclocross, etc. When we gather together to ride, laugh, and be together, we believe something special happens.
The Pipamoka by Wacaco falls squarely into the immersion category. By immersion, I’m talking about adding water to the grounds and letting them sit (or immerse) for a specific period of time before filtering the coffee grinds and pouring out the brewed coffee. Coffee in a French press stays immersed for 4 minutes, whereas the coffee in an Aeropress is less than 2 minutes. So what is the Pipamoka, and how does it work?
From the get-go at Loam Coffee, one of our taglines has been … Coffee, Stories, Stoke. Stories have played a considerable role in what we do. That mostly has been about writing articles for the website about all-things coffee and mountain biking. We’ve decided to turn our love for writing and stories into our very own “zine” (mini-magazine).
Access to trails is not evenly distributed from community to community. In some places, your town is your trailhead. All you need to do is simply hop on your bike at home and pedal over to one of a myriad of trails nearby. One typically has to drive 45-60 minutes to get to a trail system in places like Portland. While that’s slowly changing with a few new little trail systems within the metro area, we’re definitely not a place where our city is the trailhead.
