Category: Bike Touring

I am using a cool app called IFTTT to help with my blog. I am using it to automatically cross post my blog entries on Facebook. I am also using it to post links to our location by pressing a button on my phone. I told you this was a nerdy post!

We fly from Boston tomorrow morning.  I am definitely a bit anxious, but eager to get started.   The Powerball lottery is up to $700 million and the drawing is tonight.  Cindy and I bought a couple of tickets.  If we win, I probably will ride all the  entire way back to Boston with John.  We will stay in hotels instead of camping out!

Given the lack of services on our route through Nevada and Utah, access to water is a huge concern for us. There are some long stretches with minimal to no access to water. I remember running out of water for a few hours on a bike tour when I was in high school on a hot day and it is not a pleasant memory. I have 3 water bottle cages on my bicycle and I can carry 3 bottle with a total volume of 2.7 liters of water. Water is very essential, but very heavy. One liter of water weighs about 2.2 pounds. So 10 liters of water which is about 2.6 gallons weighs 22 pounds!

After much debate, we decided to bring collapsible water bags from MSR. I am bringing two 2 L DromLite bags.  I plan to carry one in each rear pannier when I need extra water. I wanted to keep the water as low as possible on my bike to improve handling. This means when carrying extra water I probably will need to store some gear on top of my rear rack. I plan to use an extra stuff sack to hold the gear.

John only has room for 2 water bottles due to fenders on his bike so he opted for the 10 L Dromedary bag from MSR. He has a sturdier rear rack on his bike and he plans to carry extra water on top of the rack. The Dromedary bag is more rugged than the Dromlite.  I think the Dromedary bag is a good choice especially since John will be touring for 2 months. I also think the bags will be very useful when camping to supplement the water bottles.

I worked on packing most of my gear yesterday. Here is a photo of pretty much everything I am taking less my helmet and bike shoes –

Luckily it all fits in one duffel bag which I will plan to mail back home once I reach San Francisco.

Cindy helped me make some dinners for the trip yesterday.  We made them out of freeze dried ingredients that I ordered from Amazon.  You can buy pre-made meals from pretty much any outdoor store, but they tend to be quite salty and I liked the idea and flexibility of making my own.  I got the recipes from a site called The Yummy Life.

Here is a photo of the work in progress –

And the final product –

Based on my experiences bike touring and back packing in my younger days, I am very aware of how much work it is to lug a lot of gear around.  Also, when I decided to do this tour I was about 15 pounds over my normal weight.  I quickly decided that to travel as light as possible.  This is one reason I considered “credit card” touring on my section of the tour.

Once we decided that we would do some camping, the next decision was how to carry the gear.  The two main options are bike panniers and a bike trailer.  A trailer seemed like overkill to me and the added logistics of getting it to San Francisco was also unappealing.  I decided to go with bike panniers.  Panniers can be mounted in the front and back depending on how much gear you need to take.  In my prior touring experience I used to be able to carry all my gear in a set of rear panniers.  Given that my trip is only 2 weeks, I decided that I would try to do that again.  Because his tour is a 2 months long and gets into some cooler weather, John decided to go with front and rear panniers.

We both got the Ortlieb Classic Panniers.  They are super sturdy and waterproof.  They weigh a little over 4 pounds.  Speaking of weight, much to the amusement of my family members and friends, one of the 1st things I bought was a scale so that I can track how much gear I am bringing.  I will be carrying about 30 pounds of gear not including water or food.

One thing nice about touring with John is that we can share a tent and cooking gear to keep the weight down.  I started with this list as a guide on what to bring and made adjustments.   We also plan to have just one set of some of the recommended bike parts and tools to save on weight.  We do plan to bring multiple spare tubes and both will have a pump in case of flats!

In addition to weight, I was also very concerned about volume since I only have  40 liters of space in the 2 panniers.  I have been pretty obsessive about weight and have put a lot of thought in what to bring.  My plans on what to bring have evolved with more time on the bike.  For example, I originally thought I would not bring rain pants, but after a few rides in cold pouring rain, I changed my mind!

I was very surprised when reading other folks blogs at the amount of electronics that some some would bring along on a tour.  Most people bring a cell phone obviously, but it was not uncommon to read about people bringing laptops, Ipads, mp3 players, and cameras!  I decided only to bring my Iphone.  I do have front and rear bike lights.  We only plan to ride during daylight hours but the lights improve visibility to cars.  The lights have rechargeable batteries.  Since we will be camping at times and have limited access to electricity I decided to bring a battery pack that can be used to charge my lights and battery.

Here is my final packing list –

This is the route of the tour.  I hope to update progress daily.

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There are 3 main approaches that can be used when bike touring –

• Organized tour
• Credit card touring
• Self supported

There are companies that organize bike tours for a fee.  They make all lodging reservations and carry gear for the riders in a support vehicle.  There is typically a sag wagon that will pick up riders having mechanical problems or those that might not feel like riding.  Organized tours are very convenient, but are pretty expensive.  They also require you to adhere to a fixed schedule.  We never considered an organized tour.

Credit card touring is when the bike rider travels very light with no or minimal camping gear.  The rider stays in hotels and uses their credit card for lodging and meals.  We actually thought about credit card touring on the section of the ride I am doing, but there are minimal services especially in Nevada and Utah.  The route goes through a lot of small towns that are spaced long distances apart.  I thought that carrying camping gear would give us more flexibility.  John plans to carry camping gear for his entire ride.

Our tour will be entirely self supported.  We will carry camping gear.  There will be no sag wagon to pick us up if we have any issues.  We do plan to stay in hotels as well, but we will probably camp at least half the nights of our tour.

I got an email tonight from REI in San Francisco letting me know my bike has arrived.  They will re-assemble  and tune it so that it will be ready when I arrive next week.  Yay!

Probably the next biggest decision for me was what bike to buy. There are bicycles made specifically for touring. A touring bike is typically much beefier and can handle the heavy loads that come with touring.  Touring bikes also have a relaxed frame geometry that allows adequate clearance between the riders heel and the rear panniers (saddlebags).  I am very partial to Trek bikes and I have purchased several of them over the years.  So naturally, I was very interested in the Trek’s primary touring bike the 520 which was first introduced in 1983.   I test rode the 520 at Earls Cyclery & Fitness in early March.  John bought a Trek 520 late last year.  I really liked it and I purchased one as well.  Here is stock photo of the 520 from the Trek website –

This bike is a bit of tank as it weighs in at nearly 29 pounds.  A comparably priced road bike would probably weight less than 20 pounds.