Event: SDMBA Trail Fest 2024
Date: October 18-20, 2024
Important Links: sdmba.com • solento.com • highcampflasks.com • campcoffeecompany.com • gaeastar.com
GUESS THE BEANS WINNER
Congrats to Christi whose guess of 4444 was the closest of anyone to the actual answer of 4252 coffee beans in the Maker’s Mark bottle. She won a High Camp Flask customized for the 2024 SDMBA Trail Fest.
I was a bike guy before I became a coffee guy. For most of my thirties, I was a full-time bike commuter and briefly (very briefly) considered becoming a mountain bike guy. Time, money, and going over-the-bars (OTB) at Frick Park in Pittsburgh made me reconsider. Now, in my forties, I'm still a bike guy, just not every day.
That doesn't mean I don't appreciate the sport, and where I live in San Diego County, the efforts of the San Diego Mountain Bike Association. SDMBA (pronounced Stim-bah, for short) is one of the most well-run non-profits with which I've had the privilege of collaborating. Executive Director Susie Murphy is a whirlwind who seems to blow through red tape like an Amtrak train. SDMBA's efforts on behalf of trail users, outdoor recreation, and general cycling are inspiring.
I can't remember how my collaboration with SDMBA began, but over the years, I've had the privilege of filming a short fundraising trail movie, attending their annual photography events, and for the past three years, being the coffee provider at their Trail Fest fundraiser at Mount Laguna—only 45 minutes east of San Diego proper.
At 6000 ft. of elevation with miles of meadow and downhill dirt trails, Mount Laguna must visit for local mountain bikers of all skill levels. Trail Fest is SDMBA's annual fall campout held at the El Prado group campsite. For a long weekend, MTB manufacturers offer demo bicycles, kids ride the obstacle course and hang with Smokey the Bear, group rides leave at all hours, including a moonlight ride, a live band entertains by the campfire on Friday, and communal meals are provided from various local businesses. And, of course, the cold mornings bring the lines to the coffee tent.
For the past few years, I've been collaborating with Chris O'Brien of Coffee Cycle Roasting to offer drip coffee and hot chocolates to the riders. It's a mini coffee shop set up on location. This year, Chris couldn't make it. He said something about being busy opening a second location. I wasn't really listening.* Not wanting to abandon ship, I offered to continue the coffee tent alone. The only problems: I don't own a cafe and it has been years since I've been on the front lines as a barista or bartender. Challenge accepted.
Beforehand, it was exciting to think about how to set up the temporary cafe the way I wanted instead of merely representing someone else's vision. I wrote up lists of equipment needed and product offerings and did the math on what I needed to sell to break even or pull ahead and be able to donate to the fundraiser. I built on my memories of previous years' efforts. We had sold a lot of cold brew. People asked for tea and decaf. Hot chocolate was in high demand. Drip coffee was great, but some people wanted more options. We always sold out of what pastries we offered. I stepped right into the trap all operators face at some point. I saw the path and wanted to go bigger.
I also knew my limitations. My wife would be along to help and provide some much-needed support, but I'd be doing all the brewing alone. To save some effort, I invested in 100 cans of cold brew from Crossings Coffee. Cold brew had been a hot commodity the previous year when daytime temps crossed 80 degrees. With the cans, I could throw them in a cooler and sell them without any effort.
For coffee, I decided to offer regular and decaf as batch-brewed drip and French press. French press is my favorite way to make coffee for myself when camping. It felt right, and I figured it would go for a premium. Chris pre-ground the 10lbs of coffee I ordered from Coffee Cycle wholesale, enabling me to save my shoulder and elbow the effort of hand-grinding. Did I mention our campground cafe hasn't had much access to electricity in the past?
Friday afternoon, I set up the cafe. A table just this way. The propane stove over here. A little retail merch station there. Roast! West Coast was hosting the Friday afternoon welcome happy hour with decaf courtesy of Camp Coffee Company and hot chocolate. Some adult refreshments from Solento Tequila were available to add at the camper's discretion. Our neighbor vendor—the bike famous (or infamous) Mike “Hollywood” Miranda of RAD fame—brought over a fire pit. What started with just me turned into a crew telling stories late into the night. A night in which the temperature cratered.
I woke up early on Saturday. I wanted coffee to be ready by 7:00 AM, and the dog needed a walk first. I was behind the coffee bar by 6:30, ready to start heating water. It was still dark and a brisk 45 degrees…maybe 45, possibly 35, hard to say for certain. It was cold. This is when I was reminded that nothing goes as planned in hospitality.
There was a problem with the propane tank connector. The gas wasn't flowing properly, and the flame under the kettles kept dying out. I'd relight and try again to no avail. 6:30 became 6:45, and I still hadn't brewed even a single batch of coffee. I started to panic. By five minutes to 7:00 AM, there was a line of people up early looking for coffee. I wasn't ready.
A last-second addition to my camp cafe gear was the electric Simply Good Brewer I use at home, an electric kettle, and an extension chord. I had my solar battery charger along and thought I might use it to brew up decaf coffees. With a full battery charge, I could run about five batches through the brewer or kettle before needing to recharge it or get it hooked up to a solar panel in the sun. I didn't have any sun, and five batches wouldn't last long enough to satiate the customers looking for some heat on the frigid mountainside. I needed power.
There was one outlet in a bathroom nearby. It was currently being used to keep a refrigerated cooler for the weekend's ice needs running. Adding more demands to the outlet was a risk, but I needed coffee for the people and I needed it now. I plugged my extension chord into the power strip and got to work.
At first, I alternated between running coffee through the brewer and heating up hot water to brew up the French press. The coffee was ground too fine. I abandoned the presses right away. For an hour, I ran the Simply Good Brewer into the ground* until I was caught up long enough to spend a few moments fiddling with the propane connectors. Success! I fixed it. I don't know how, exactly, but it was working.
I turned to oversized batches of pourover. 125g of med-fine ground coffee to 2000g of water. It didn't take long to get caught up. The sun was up. MTB wheels were whirring past. The chaos of the morning launch was behind me—with the exception of a tabletop so messy with spilled water and discarded grounds that I was a little embarrassed.
The karma of service is that it can sniff out arrogance. I went into the weekend visualizing nothing but success and award-worthy service. It only took a problem the size of a pebble to throw me off track. The opposite side of that karma was the grace offered by the campers waiting patiently for coffee and willingness to roll with it (pun intended). The rest of the day went by smoothly, and Sunday was a dream.
We closed up the camp cafe around noon by announcing the winners of the coffee bean guessing game. The winning guesser came within 200 beans of the right answer and was rewarded for their prowess with a custom Trail Fest High Camp Flask. High Camp Flasks donated the prize, did the engraving, and generally, was awesome to work with. They sent the flasks merely because we asked and said it would support SDMBA.**
In the end, the R!WC camp cafe did a little better than break even. We were able to donate a few hundred bucks to SDMBA and had a weekend in the mountains for the trouble. I even took a quick loop around the meadow on my bike. The only real downfall was the cold completely destroying the demand for cold brew. If you know anyone looking for a can, 85 of ‘em came home with me. I'm taking it as a lesson in margin-busting.
*Just kidding. I ALWAYS listen to my personal coffee sensei.
**I got to chat with Nick from High Camp Flasks, and it turns out that he's a mountain bike guy. Check out the High Camp Flasks. They're pretty awesome—high-quality materials, well-designed, and enough variations to meet any outdoor person's needs.
SUSTAINABLE CAMP CAFE THANKS TO GAEASTAR
It is hard to run a sustainable coffee shop. Waste is inherent in the production of coffee and in retail generally. Despite encouraging campers to Bring Your Own mugs, our previous camp cafe efforts have created a lot of waste in the form of disposable cups and lids. This year, I wanted to eliminate all of that waste. The only way I could see to do so was to not even offer the option for a throwaway cup.
Despite our efforts to over-promote the BYO message, I knew some campers wouldn’t see it or would forget to pack their camp mugs. I wanted to offer an alternative and not lose that business. I procured a case of 3D-printed clay cups from GaeaStar (with a little help from Verve Coffee in DTLA).
We interviewed GaeaStar founder Sanjeev Mankotia earlier this year, and I’ve been taken with the concept ever since. The cups are made primarily from clay, water, and salt. After serving their purpose, they could be smashed and returned to the ground without the impact of trash. They are quite durable, while still being thin and stackable. I’ve been using the same one since the event more than a month ago.
For anyone needing a cup at Trail Fest, we offered the GaeaStar clay cup for an extra $1 to cover our costs. We discounted the dollar if they brought it back for a second or third cup of coffee. It also allowed us to talk to everyone about the impact of disposable cups. Many people know they are primarily paper but don’t realize that the heat-lining prevents it from being recycled because it is made from a plastic film.
I assumed a crowd of MTB’ers whose weekends are spent outdoors exploring trails would be receptive to the concept, but the response was much more overwhelming than expected. Parents were especially interested and used the cups to teach their kids about the value of preventing waste in the outdoor spaces they love.
We left Mount Laguna without using a single disposable coffee cup for service. We even had a few clay cups left because some customers brought them back to ask if we would wash and reuse them! Others bought extras to take them home to share the concept with their friends and family. Learn more about how GaeaStar is working to make the future of coffee more sustainable on www.gaeastar.com, and be sure to check out that interview with Sanjeev Mankotia to learn more about his inspiration to try and create a plastic cup-free coffee industry.
R!WC VIDEO UPDATE
You may have heard that Roast! West Coast podcast are going to going full video. Follow our Youtube channel before they drop in 2025 so you don’t miss out on all the coffee shenanigans.
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