|
|
The Long Riders’ Guild launches the World’s Toughest Equipment Test
|
 |
The Long Riders' Guild does not accept advertising revenue, or any type of outside funding, from anyone - ever. In other words, you can't buy your way on to this website. We're not for sale!
The opinions expressed in our Equipment Section by the various Long Riders are unvarnished, sometimes harsh, often complimentary, but always spoken from the heart. They have to be.
Unlike ring riders, our lives and those of our horses depend on our gear. If a piece of equipment fails in the middle of the Amazon jungle, while riding over the Himalayas, or fording a Russian river, we can't load up our pony and go home. You don't get ribbons or trophies when you're a Long Rider. If you do it right, you and your horse make it through in one piece.
That is why the Guild has launched the world’s toughest equipment test, to prove the durability of the famous Canadian adjustable pack saddle.
Can one pack saddle survive ten expeditions, made by ten different Long Riders, in ten varied portions of the world, over the course of ten years?
The Long Riders’ Guild and the pack saddle’s maker, Kelly de Strake, are determined to find out.
Long Riders have already used Kelly’s pack saddle to explore every continent except Antarctica. Stan Walchuk took it through the Cordillera mountains of Canada. Saskia Machaczek used it in Argentina (as illustrated by photograph at the top of this page). Horst Hausleitner crossed the African continent with it, to name just a few.
But perhaps the most astonishing single test was conceived when Australian Long Rider Tim Cope used two of the pack saddles on his 6,000 mile solo journey from Mongolia to Hungary. While following in the hoofprints of Genghis Khan, Tim routinely used the adjustable pack saddle on various sized horses. It even fit a Bactrian baggage camel, as seen in this picture taken in Mongolia.
 |
“Have used the Canadian pack saddles on both camels and horses. They have been a fantastic reliable asset- the pieces of equipment which stay fast when everything around me is turning into a storm. Quite frankly I have had a lot less trouble with the pack saddles than with my riding saddle,” Tim wrote to the Guild. |
While these results are encouraging, no one has ever undertaken a systematic planet-wide study of this critical piece of Long Rider equipment. Thus this will be an unprecedented decade-long project, one that will have new information added to it as Long Riders register their experiences and recommendations.
The first Long Rider chosen to begin this historic test will be Janine Wilder. One of the Founding Members of The Guild, Janine and her two Paso Fino geldings, Smoke and Max, have already racked up more than 150,000 miles together. Early in 2010 Janine will be setting out on a journey from Lincoln, Nebraska to her home is Nampa, Idaho.
Other expeditions, in a variety of difficult and dangerous places, are now being considered as potential test sites. Will one pack saddle be able to endure such an unprecedented experiment? Only the mounted Argonauts of the Long Riders’ Guild will be able to tell you – in ten years’ time !
| To learn more about the adjustable pack saddle manufactured by Kelly de Strake (right), visit his website, custompackrigging.com |
|
Home Back to News page Back to Pack-Saddles page Top of page
The Long Riders' Guild -
Home of the world's saddle borne Argonauts!