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How to bike across the country

brooks.team

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Re: How to bike across the country

#81

Post by hodgesrm »

mauvehaus wrote: post #79
blindstitch wrote: post #22

I think that finding free camping outside when you are in some shit nothing town is probably the most important skill to have, which is easy with satellite maps. Once you get the hang of it you realize that every town has at least one site where you can definitely get away with pitching a tent for one night. I think I have camped this way about 80 times and have never even been asked what I'm doing. That said, state…

Counterpoint on RV centered "campgrounds": they have sweet amenities like a grill, a pool, laundry, and often a building with some air conditioning and some books previous guests have left behind. Not an every night kind of thing, and you're unlikely to find much in the way of grass to put a tent on, but I stayed at one with another guy who was bike touring and we get like kings for the night. When you're digging hol…

I have fond memories of the KOA in Klamath Falls from two bike tours that went through Crater Lake. Last time I was there we had just finished a section of the trip that included a 90 mile stretch with no stores or even a lot of water for that matter. There were hot showers, washing machines, a camp store that sells beer. The camping spots were pretty nice, too.

And there was much rejoicing.

Re: How to bike across the country

#82

Post by wyclif »

mturmon wrote: post #27
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…

Hmm, this take seems too all-or-nothing to me. (I made a similar trip with similar prep - bought the bike a month before going.) The first chunk of the trip is very civilized, and you can use that to build skills before you get out in rural Utah. If you have some experience with dry-country hiking, you understand about bringing water. That's the main threat. Most of the other mishaps you can think of are just inconve…

I'm a long distance hiker. As far as water filters go, the Sawyer Squeeze is a great choice. But—and this is important—do NOT get the Sawyer Mini to save weight/space. Get the full-sized one; you won't regret it. I've tried both and the Mini version simply does not have enough through flow to not be annoying over the course of a major trip.

Re: How to bike across the country

#83

Post by 0_____0 »

potato3732842 wrote: post #39
throwway120385 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IME drivers are by far the biggest danger on the road.

The author engaged in a cross country road trip, not a daily bicycle commute in NYC. While I would be very surprised if your assertion wasn't statistically true it likely unwise to take what is typical and blindly apply it into a situation that is a massive outlier without specific reason to do so.

I have done a 3000 mile tour (Great Divide). The scariest parts were a highway section in southern colorado, and after I finished and was just biking around in El Paso, both because of cars.

It wasn't the bears or lightning or anything else, honest to god I experienced all that stuff and the scariest stuff was still people in cars.

Re: How to bike across the country

#84

Post by SoftTalker »

mauvehaus wrote: post #79
blindstitch wrote: post #22

I think that finding free camping outside when you are in some shit nothing town is probably the most important skill to have, which is easy with satellite maps. Once you get the hang of it you realize that every town has at least one site where you can definitely get away with pitching a tent for one night. I think I have camped this way about 80 times and have never even been asked what I'm doing. That said, state…

Counterpoint on RV centered "campgrounds": they have sweet amenities like a grill, a pool, laundry, and often a building with some air conditioning and some books previous guests have left behind. Not an every night kind of thing, and you're unlikely to find much in the way of grass to put a tent on, but I stayed at one with another guy who was bike touring and we get like kings for the night. When you're digging hol…

> Counterpoint on RV centered "campgrounds": they have sweet amenities like a grill, a pool, laundry, and often a building with some air conditioning and some books previous guests have left behind.

... and showers.

Re: How to bike across the country

#85

Post by 0_____0 »

contingencies wrote: post #71
googlryas wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After getting 4 flats in 4 days on a bike trip, I had good luck with anti-puncture kevlar tire liner tape.

Ooh never heard of that. That's awesome! As mentioned in the last point in the document, often if you get repeat punctures it's because the causative element is still embedded in the outer tire. Once this happens you learn the real value of fixing a tire is not in the patching, which is a different challenge, but the analysis: 1. Locate the puncture. 2. Match the inner tube back to the rim using the air valve locatio…

Tubeless can be a pain but it is exceedingly good at dealing with the small annoying punctures. Pretty typical to not notice a puncture at all before it seals. Caveats: for some reason pinch flats in the sidewall seal poorly, and the sealant must be kept somewhat fresh.

The one time I had it fail me entirely, it was in New Mexico where the goathead thorns are relentless. I had about a dozen thorns in each tire, and my half dried up sealant was no longer up to the task. Still hard to imagine going back to tubes, even though I carry lightweight TPU tubes as backups.

Re: How to bike across the country

#86

Post by 0_____0 »

floriannn wrote: post #21

I have 2500 miles so far this year and could do a century any random day without preparation and I’m doubting whether or not I can do GDMBR, meanwhile this guy didn’t even own a bike, didn’t even do more than 30 miles once he did, and just set off across the country. I guess I should just do it.

Yep just do it.

(Gdmbr 2022)

Re: How to bike across the country

#88

Post by shaftway »

zhivota wrote: post #59
JKCalhoun wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I did the same. It took a couple days to get used to it though. It would throw you off balance on turns.

Re: How to bike across the country

#89

Post by dangus »

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…

I feel like this comment and the article itself together in context have kind of a sour taste for me.

Just the fact that it takes such a great effort to experience first-hand how poorer people just help each other out because nobody has money, so they help. But for a tech bro to do that they have to engage in a self-indulgent hobby and cosplay as poor like they're on Undercover Boss.

Ironically this effort to relate to other real live humans with normal incomes is only possible by indulging in the ultimate luxury, which is taking major time off of work rather than being stuck working a shit job.

This is all done with a straight face while jamming a sentence full of words like "paraglider" and "packrafting."

This whole subject is all so stereotypical tech bro in such an unappealing way.

Maybe this sounds unnecessarily bitter, but I think a valid alternate take on this is that privileged people are taking advantage of the kindness of others to get a bunch of help they don't need to help them achieve a goal that is a frivolous luxury. It's great we all get to feel warm fuzzy gratitude but it seems like the NPCs in this main character syndrome story are the people inconvenienced by the OP.

Example: asking the fire department for a place to sleep, they probably feel bad so they let OP sleep in the fire department. But as a tech startup founder and software engineer, OP could have almost certainly afforded a basic motel each night with minimal to zero planning and effort and not resorted to inconveniencing other people.

It feels a little bit like your CEO going to the food bank doesn't it? The median firefighter earns under $60k and dude who has probably outearns that salary in passive investment income is asking for a place to crash. I bet if the firefighter knew that they'd surely still be nice on the outside but they'd probably have a negative story to tell their spouse when they got home.

I completely understand that not booking a motel facilitated human connection and all that loveliness but I sense that the benefit is very one-sided. In Zuckerberg-esque style, the tech bro gets to cosplay as a human with real emotions, while on the "normie NPC" side they get to deal with a tech bro on a bicycle asking for weird shit while they're just trying to get through a shift.

Re: How to bike across the country

#90

Post by stevage »

Wow, that is completely wild. I have done an absolute ton of cycle touring (at least 60 trips, in 5 countries), and the idea of buying a bike 2 weeks before a trip, and embarking on a solo journey like this with no experience blows my mind.

He seems to have made some really savvy decisions though, like getting a proper bike fit, and knew enough about camping and meal prep etc to make it work.

Kudos to him.

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