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How to bike across the country

brooks.team

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Re: How to bike across the country

#51

Post by googlryas »

rd wrote: post #17

I'd love to do this one day! Curious - after reading, the part about wildlife scares me. Did you ever run into genuinely worrying situations with wildlife? Hearing about Black widow spiders alone makes me want to only do this with a van following behind me to sleep in at night!

I bike packed 2000 miles around Europe, and one time in the mountains outside San Sebastian I was chased by a black bear. Weird people were probably the most dangerous wildlife, but like OP, basically every interaction with strangers I had was positive. But, I did move my tent a few times after setting it up upon realizing that the weird person I interacted with earlier knew where I was sleeping.

Re: How to bike across the country

#52

Post by schmookeeg »

jaxtracks wrote: post #2

One theme that pops out to me here is the reliance on other people being a positive experience for the author. In the software field, we tend to live pretty high up the economic value chain, which can abstract us a bit from participation in the more grassroots co-operative aspect of society. This can be alienating and warp worldview. When I'm hitchhiking to support packrafting trips or get back to where I launched my…

Thank you for this. You gelled several ideas I was ruminating on over my morning tea -- my aloofness and my sneaking suspicion that self-sufficiency is isolating from society at large.

I still pull over to help motorists. You've inspired me to look for more opportunities like those. :)

Re: How to bike across the country

#53

Post by googlryas »

carabiner wrote: post #20

Met an Austrian guy who biked from NYC to LA in the early '90s. He had a paper list of people across the country who were bike tourer friendly who could house him, and he'd call them on payphones. He didn't have a tent, so he'd also sleep in post offices.

I never slept in a post office, but rural firefighters were always very good to me on bikepacking trips. Plying me with food and letting me sleep in their gym or somewhere around the station.

Re: How to bike across the country

#55

Post by vivzkestrel »

dude forget eating and sleeping man, my biggest concern is pooping. I need atleast 1 gallon of water everytime I hit the washroom to clean myself as I require portable bidets to clean the area in squat position thanks to some crazy medical history. How do you manage such a condition and travelling with the fact that I also need to drink atleast half a gallon of water, piss 10 times a day at the minimum. I am not exaggerating even once bit. Seriously, how do you manage traveling with this kinda stuff

Re: How to bike across the country

#57

Post by zhivota »

soared wrote: post #3

Props to the author for grinding through this, but I think a very strongly worded and formatted warning is needed at the top. Embarking on this trip with so little knowledge meant putting yourself far away from civilizations while criminally underprepared. I love the energy of Supertramps, but there is a reason they are controversial. It would be very easy to make a mistake and be in big trouble - underestimating wat…

Life is risk. Compared to journeys undertaken by those in the past, this trip had an extremely minimal chance of disaster. I mean, the guy had a satellite phone! Unless he literally crashed his bike and died on the side of the road, the worst outcome here was a big bill from emergency services when they had to come rescue him from somewhere.

I rode my bike around Lake Erie back in 2007 without even a smart phone. I didn't have a map of places to stay, I just scoped out surreptitious camping sites mostly if I didn't happen past a campground at the right time of day.

Re: How to bike across the country

#58

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

soared wrote: post #3

Props to the author for grinding through this, but I think a very strongly worded and formatted warning is needed at the top. Embarking on this trip with so little knowledge meant putting yourself far away from civilizations while criminally underprepared. I love the energy of Supertramps, but there is a reason they are controversial. It would be very easy to make a mistake and be in big trouble - underestimating wat…

2 years ago, I rode solo from Santa Fe to Seattle (about 1600 miles). The ride crossed some of the emptiest terrain in the lower 48 states of the USA. I have done several significant bike tours in the past, have travelled throughout the west in a powered vehicle and generally know how to look after myself in the wilderness.

I fully expected to face several significant sections where risks where high, notably from lack of water but also just general remoteness.

The reality was quite different. Just the distribution of gas stations meant that water supply was rarely a problem (though I did have a fancy australian 4 liter bottle on my bike and water bladder on my trailer). There was one day when I came close to running out and that was a little scary, but tiny sips and another 12 miles got me to a gas station.

But it wasn't just gas stations. There are not many places in the lower 48 where you can go 40 miles without passing some sort of human habitation if you're on a paved road. The Mojave and parts of Nevada might be an exception. I didn't need to get help from any such places, but I was always aware that I was passing by them.

In addition, sure, some of the most back- of the backroads I took got very little traffic, it was still the case that there would be at least a car every 2 hours or so.

My point is this: if you're travelling on paved roads in the lower 48, you are extremely unlikely to die from mistakes arising from unpreparedness. You might suffer a bit, but you will encounter someone who is very likely to be willing to help you.

One thing I would say, however: in years and decades past, I would never have had any hesitation riding or walking down a farm/ranch driveway if I needed water or help. News events over the last few years involving shootings of "strangers" in driveways now make me extremely reluctant to do such a thing. I contemplated this often on that ride, and if that situation had arisen, my plan was to stay on the road and make as much noise as I could before being OK'ed to cross their property line. A sad change for me, and for the country.

Re: How to bike across the country

#59

Post by zhivota »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #41
cynicalpeace wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nope, you really don't need so much prep to do this type of thing. I've done these types of things multiple times and whenever I prepped too much, the experience was actually worse- heavier bags, less spontaneity, etc

Yep, met a guy who was dragging a whole trailer behind his already loaded bike. Another biker, seeing the setup, whispered to me, "You pack your fears."

I did a bike tour way back when, I really liked using a BOB trailer. It kept the weight off the bike, so when you weren't going uphill, you almost didn't notice it was there. My bike was clean though, only water bottles on it basically.

Re: How to bike across the country

#60

Post by kens »

1024core wrote: post #11
soared wrote: post #3

Props to the author for grinding through this, but I think a very strongly worded and formatted warning is needed at the top. Embarking on this trip with so little knowledge meant putting yourself far away from civilizations while criminally underprepared. I love the energy of Supertramps, but there is a reason they are controversial. It would be very easy to make a mistake and be in big trouble - underestimating wat…

Author was in the middle of prepping for the NYC marathon, so they were in decent shape physically. My fat ass would have given up before I even reached the Bay Bridge. That reminds me: the author did not mention how they crossed the Bay Bridge. There is no cycling path from SF to EB AFAICT.

There's a separated bike/pedestrian path on the Dumbarton Bridge, although that's south of SF. (When I was working at Sun Microsystems nearby, I saw the pedestrian path and randomly decided to jog over the bridge. I discovered that the bridge is a lot higher in the middle when you're jogging than when you're driving, so there was a lot of uphill.)
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