DISTANCE
How far are you going on your ride?
I think that’s the first question most people ask when they see my bike packed for a tour. On my most recent tour, I was headed to Jacksonville, Florida, on the East Coast. That’s somewhere between 900 and 1,000 miles from Fayetteville, but I ended up only going 462 miles. I expect most of my future rides will be in the 300- to 500-mile length because my vacation time at work limits the amount of time I can hit the road.
What’s the longest distance you’ve ridden in one day?
I rode 130 miles one day from Chichen Itza to the Cancun Airport, and I think that may be my longest day. Racers in the Tour de France routinely ride for more than a hundred miles per day for several days in a row, but they aren’t hauling camping gear. An average day for me in the early part of a tour is about 50 to 60 miles. As my legs get more accustomed to the pedaling, my mileage increases.
How far have you ridden altogether?
I’ve ridden a little more than 9,000 miles on tours. My longest tour was my first in 1982 when I rode about 3,750 miles. I also ride my bike for transportation around town and for recreation, and I have about 3,000 miles on my current bicycle aside from the touring miles. My older bikes didn’t have an odometer, so I don’t know how far I rode them while not on tour. My goal is to ride my bike farther each year than I drive my car.
ROOM and BOARD
Where do you stay?
I like camping out, so I try to stay at campgrounds in state and national parks, national forests and occasionally private campgrounds like KOAs. I also try to stay at a hotel about once a week to reconnect with civilization. Whenever possible, I prevail upon friends along my route to stay with them. On my most recent tour, I stayed at hotels more often because my route didn’t go past very many campgrounds. I've noticed, though, that I have few memories of the hotels at which I stayed and lots of memories of campgrounds, which makes me think campgrounds are memorable and hotel rooms are not.
Where do you eat?
I mostly buy food at grocery stores along the way. I occasionally stop at a restaurant or cafe. When I started touring, convenience stores were not as abundant as they are today, and they've made it easier to find basics like water and chocolate milk.
What do you eat?
My diet is probably not a model of nutrition. I often eat oatmeal in the morning and a couple of bananas. At lunch, I like cottage cheese with a tomato sliced into it. For dinner, I often eat Ramen noodles with a tin of shrimp mixed in. On this most recent trip, I mixed up salmon, long-grain rice and a little olive oil for a tasty dinner one evening. If I stop at a cafe, I have difficulty passing up apple pie and ice cream.
THE BICYCLE
How much does your bike and gear weigh?
I have no idea. My guess is in the 100-pound range. On one trip I pulled a trailer because one of my partners wanted to take along a guitar. His guitar and my banjo fit, and as long as I was pulling a trailer, I thought, why not take a portable typewriter too? It was heavy as an anchor, and I sent it home by mail the first chance I got.
How many gears does your bike have?
My current bicycle, a Cannondale, has 27 gear combinations. The crank on the front has three rings, and the cluster on the rear has nine different gears. However, I rarely use every gear possibility. My first touring bicycle, a Schwinn Super le Tour II was a 12 speed, and I thought I had died and gone to heaven to have a bicycle with more than 10 gears.
THE RIDING
How fast does your bike go?
My average speed varies a good bit depending on the terrain. Across hilly or mountainous territory, my speed drops to about 10 mph, on average. Across flat land with a little bit of wind at my back, I have averaged 20 mph over several hours. The maximum speed I’ve ever hit was 40 mph on a downhill straight-away.Does your rear end get sore?
Occasionally, but most often not, unless I've got a pair of riding shorts that don't fit well and chafe. More often, my shoulders, hands and feet develop hot spots that can be sore. The hands are not used to be in constant contact with the handlebar. My shoulders aren't used to supporting my torso as though I were holding a push-up for five hours. The balls of my feet aren't used to being a pressure point for several hours. I've learned to work on the soreness before it becomes difficult. I take breaks from the riding, walk around, stretch, lay down in the grass. You can also run into these problems if your seat and handlebars are not at proper height for your body. Little fractions of an inch can make a lot of difference.
Do you feel safe?
I do feel safe most of the time, but both a sense of safety or danger can often be illusion. Car wrecks happen every day, even though we feel safe inside a car, and the same goes for a bicycle. I do my best to stay safe. I have a rear-view mirror on my helmet to see what is coming from behind, and I don’t mind riding off the road if I think a driver behind me hasn’t noticed me. I also try to make eye contact with the drivers of vehicles coming toward me. I wear a helmet while riding, and I try to follow traffic laws. Bright colors in the clothing that clash help. I've had four wrecks in more than 30 years of bicycling, one in which I broke my collarbone, and all four happened at times when I wasn't paying attention or overestimating my abilities.
What’s the biggest difference between your first tour and your current tour?
The biggest difference is probably communications. Cell phones and e-mail didn't exist when I first started touring. If I was lucky, I found a pay phone occasionally and made a long-distance call to check in with family. And getting mail was nearly impossible. I could arrange mail drops at a friend’s house, but my efforts to get mail by general delivery at Post Offices didn’t go very well. Having very little contact with friends and family was psychologically the most difficult part of touring, but that is much easier now. There's also a downside to easier connections. The feeling of isolation was a very rewarding experience for me, especially to learn how much I cared about family and friends and needed them.
MORE INFORMATION
Where can I find out more about bicycle touring?
- The Adventure Cycling Association started life as an organization called Bikecentennial with a mission to create a route across America for the nation’s bicentennial. Since then, it has established numerous other routes to guide bicyclists along the quieter, safer and prettier byways of the nation. They also provide help hooking up with other bicycle tourists.
- By reputation, one of the best commercial touring operations is Backroads. I’ve not used a commercial tour operator for bicycle touring but will probably do so sooner or later. The group aspect of such riding is what attracts me, plus that crazy idea about someone else hauling your gear in a van to the next lodge.
- Rails to Trails Conservancy is a nonprofit organization dedicated to establishing bike paths across the nation, many of them along abandoned railroad beds. Their longest trail is the Katy Trail up in Missouri, stretching more than 200 miles from near St. Louis to Clinton, Mo.
MORE QUESTIONS?
You can send me an e-mail.
