Beer Fridge Updates

Reminders and Breaking News for 2022

To get this rolling, here’s a reminder or two:

At this little Substack newsletter, there is no money involved, unless you want to subscribe to get what’s behind the paywall. My agenda is simple: mountain biking and beer. Stories about riding human-powered mountain bikes and drinking independent craft beer are what MTBeer is about, along with the merging of the two into a culture/lifestyle of sort.

MTBeer is and never will be influenced by sponsors or media moguls. I do receive those emails but choose to not play those games. You won’t see that kind of content in this neck of the woods.

That being said, in 2022, more is staying, and new material is going to be released, behind the pay wall. I’ll never understand why readers of newspapers and magazines expect, especially in this day and age, free content. I was a newspaper boy in Pennsylvania in the 1980s, riding my bike around town tossing papers on porches and collecting weekly subscriptions/bills from neighbors. It was the norm then, that you paid for written word. Why have we lost that?

I’m offering 66% off an annual subscription, bringing it to $10.20. Use this link to get … (what’s the “value” of your purchase?).

You’ll get my No Dabs and Fully Rigid monthly columns. I’ve been a columnist since the late 1990s, when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Honduras. Over the years, my writings having appeared in print in various media outlets. I’m actually an award-winning columnist. Gold, even.

Ten dollars and twenty cents gets you 2 columns each month that you can only get here on MTBeer.

There’s more …

In 2022, you’ll also get a quarterly Question & Answer series with me and Mountain Bike Hall of Fame Member Jim Hasenauer. He’s a Professor Emeritus. I’m a younger full-time university professor/lecturer. We’re going to discuss policy and land, wilderness and access, but not only from an organizational/institutional perspective. We’ll go a little deeper into literary words, from Tommy Orange to Terry Tempest Williams and Wendell Berry to Mary Austin. Vine Deloria, Jr. anyone? John Francis and Planetwalker? I’m not sure what we’ll call that series. Any suggestions? To get it started, Jim has given the go-ahead to post one of his academic papers here for us to read before the series kicks off in 2022. The paper is titled: Stranger to Stakeholder to Partner. Yep, he’s talking about us and trail access.

Reverse. Back up. The discounts are coming back for the holiday season. If you don’t already have an annual subscription, and if you don’t want to spend $10.20 for a new annual subscription, you could spend $5.00 in December and still get the discounts, as they only go to paid subscribers. Do the math, though. $5.20 “extra” could mean that in June 2022, as an example, you’ll get access to more discounts.

If you only want to spend 5 bucks, though, go here:

Be sure to cancel after you get the discounts so you don’t get charged $5 in January, unless you want some new discounts then (see below/keep reading). If you want the January ones, you’d be up to $10.00, so why not go for the discounted annual rate?

To spend $10.20 for an annual subscription, go here:

You’ll get your $5 or your $10.20 back if you buy something from the list of brewery and MTB business discounts coming out next month. At the least, buy some Purple Lizard maps and/or apparel. You’ll look good on the trail, no doubt, and you won’t get lost. Rent one of Kenny’s yurts. Gooseberry and its environs will settle into your marrow, I assure you. Friends recently said while there for the first time: I don’t know … this place might be better than Moab.

Wait. There’s still more. All of my Bicyclist ride guides will be featured on MTBeer in 2022. Bicyclist is gone. I still have the original files that I submitted to Bicyclist. You’ll get trail and beer beta in those posts.

Speaking of magazines, in the coming week(s), my second article to be published in The Surfer’s Journal will hit mailboxes and newsstands. Like when I had the first one published, I am beyond humbled by this. TSJ is elite in outdoor/adventure/literary writing. It’s an honor to see my words in their journal, as many writers/journalists dream of seeing their words in TSJ. Why mention this here? Well, the article is a little profile on Sean Starky and Yucca Fins. I bodysurf. Starky is a master at it. He’s a Wedge legend. He makes swim fins. Yucca is his company. He’s also an avid mountain biker. MTBeer paid subscribers will get a one-time discount on Yucca Fins. Details to come. It’s likely going to be a January discount. We have to work out the details.

You can’t get that Yucca discount anywhere else in the world of MTB journalism. Many of you reading this right now are people who body/boogie board, knee board, bodysurf, open ocean swim, train in pools, mess around in ponds/lakes in the summer, sit on the beach and look good with surf gear next to you, would look cool with swim fins in your gear stash over in the corner of the garage (!?!can we have a little fun!?!). If you do use them in the water, you won’t be disappointed in the supple and sustainably-sourced rubber. Kick and slide. Lifeguards up and down the southern CA coast use Yuccas. Arguably, they’re the best swim fins your money can buy.

Back to mountain biking magazines …

There will be a Print Isn’t Dead editors series (or some name like that) here on MTBeer. I’ll ask questions and editors will answer them. So far on board are Seb Rogers of Cranked Magazine in the UK, Mike Cushionbury of Mountain Flyer and Steve Casimiro of Adventure Journal. They are long-standing and highly-respected/renown mountain biking/adventure magazine editors. Guess what? They’re working on a discount for you, paid MTBeer subscribers. You’ll save some dollars or euros or pounds on super high quality adventure/mountain biking magazines/writing/photography. Like Yucca, these are looking like January discounts, as it takes time to get the logistics set up on their end.

Bike shop series … I’m working on this one, not quite certain the angle/perspective I’ll want to examine/explore. I have some bike shops in mind, but we’ll see if anyone will be willing to participate. Stay tuned.

Beer: to get it started, we’ll have a feature on Mcilhenney Brewing in Alpine, CA. If you know anything about one of the first families of San Diego brewing, and arguably one of the first families of IPAs anywhere on planet Earth, you know they are true to their craft. Did you know they’re back? Yep, they are, and we’ll have them here on MTBeer in December.

Okay, if you made it this far, thank you. Year 2 is going to be much bigger for MTBeer than year 1. Year 1 was a little off, as I was in the middle of buying/fixing up a house, the pandemic rolled on, and I was offered more classes to teach late in the summer for this fall semester, reaching maxed-out full-time status, meaning I can’t teach more classes in an academic year than I do now. Basically, my plate was too full.

As a recap, here’s what a subscription will get you in 2022, among whatever else may appear along the way:

1. No Dabs and Fully Rigid, my 2 monthly columns

2. My Bicyclist Ride Guides, with trail/food/beer beta

3. Q&A Series with Mountain Bike Hall of Famer Jim Hasenauer

4. Q&A with mountain biking/adventure magazine editors (Cush, Seb and Steve already on board)

5. Discounts are back, including new ones with Yucca Fins, Mountain Flyer, and Cranked (details to be determined)

6. Confirmed December 2021 discounts for Burning Beard Brewing, Julian Beer Co., Gooseberry Yurts, Purple Lizard Maps (and apparel) and waiting to hear from others. Republic of Georgia and Costa Rica guides/tours are still on the list, as well.

7. More trail and beer musings from me, more new trip reports/ride guides, and since 2022 is looking like travel will really open up, I’m putting informal/unsanctioned MTBeer gatherings back on the front burner.

That’s a rap. HUGE thank you to all of you. I appreciate this space and our attempt to have some form of community in it. There’s a big beautiful world out there, with trails to wander on while in the bike saddle and local beers to have sitting in a cooler in the car trunk at the trailhead or at camp for kicking back after the ride.

Wishing you a safe and enjoyable holiday season. Make it a fun one!

Cheers,

James/Jim/Jimmy

Now, another round of the links:

To get MTBeer for $10.20/year:

Go back and click it again and gift one to a friend. It is the holiday season, ain’t it?!

If you want to spend only $5.00 for December’s discounts, go here:

Share this post on your social media/email listserv so other people can consider subscribing to MTBeer:

If you think MTBeer is worth more than $10.20/year, you can always pay/donate more. Do that here:

Note: there is a “free” option, which will get you some MTBeer content.

As always, I welcome all feedback: