Tokwan

I have done Ultra Light Back Packing , Kayak Touring, Motorcycle Touring and now I am venturing into Bike Touring.
I have a cheap made in Malaysia Hybrid Touring Bike with 8 speed Shimano System, with 700c wheels . However, I might get a better bike with 26" wheels as my plan is touring from Penang to Bangkok and I doubt there will be any bike shops able to supply 700c tubes and tires along the way.

What I would like to share is the way I am preparing my old body. The bike is something I will take into consideration later when I am really ready to tour.

Presently, I am doing 50pls km in the morning, taking about 3.5 hours. I have managed to do this for the past 1 month, cycling 3 to 4 times a week. This coming week, I plan to do 50 to 60km in the morning, and 40 to 50 km in the afternoon, stopping my ride before 5pm. I train on my MTB and ride a mix of hard park and road.

I gather that once I am able to cycle 3 or 4 days a week for achieving those distances, I should be able to plan and start my 1,200km tour by September this year.

My touring schedule would be ride for 2 days, and take 1 day as a recovery day and then repeat this again until I reach my destination. I would rather not have a destination, its only a plan, as I usually exceed the destination.

Any advises?

boomhauer

Sounds to me like you are well prepared. Good plan.
I only ride about 10 miles per day around town. When I tour the first three days are a little difficult. By the fourth day I'm feeling pretty strong.

Brian25

Your plan sounds good. When you talk about doing your rides, you do not mention if you do the rides loaded up ( I would highly recommend riding the bike with a load) When you say old body, I don't know how old, I hope not too old.

Tokwan

Zero load I think, minus my handle bar bag and my top tube bag and my tools. However, the plan is on road cycling on a hybrid. My training is all on a MTB, riding hardpack and dirt. The only road riding is to get to the trail head. I was led to believe that every mile on dirt is equivalent to 2 moles or 2.5 miles on road due to the smother surface and good rolling.

Is this true or kinda?

BTW, I am 58. The nickname Tokwan means Grandpa in Malay

KD5NRH

You're basically talking about two different kinds of riding. Really, it's better to get as much of your training as possible on the same type of bike you're planning to tour on, with as much or more load than you plan to carry, and carried in the same way. Load, and how it's carried makes a big difference in how the bike handles.

For myself, I have a couple of 18-20 mile loops near home, with some serious hills. One of them is basically the long-way round trip to my mom's house, so if the load proves to be too much I can toss it in her car at the halfway point and have her drop it off when she comes to town again. The other, well, I've been riding it with about a 3/4 load because it would be a problem to change my mind halfway. Ideally, I want to be at the point where I can ride a loop, rest a bit, ride the other, rest a bit, and still be ready to go for a third or even a fourth 20 mile ride in a day. There are a lot of long stretches in Texas where it would be inconvenient to "run out of gas" for the day with 15-20 (or in some parts of west Texas, 40+) miles left to go to a decent campsite or cheap motel. Three 20 mile loops at 10mph with an hour break between would be 8 hours total, and since I usually average around 12mph, that puts me at about 1:40 per 20 miles, or allows a 20 minute break at the halfway point while still hitting the 20 miles in 2 hours pace.

Tokwan

Thanks. FYI, My planned route or where I am going has small towns in between, about 30 to 40 km apart. I do not need to bring along a tent. I plan on packing a tarp, some food and clothes. A very light stove, packed in a pot and gas cartidges. Only 1 or 2 packs of food. This is in case the shops are closed. My panniers shud weight no more than 4 kgs (9lbs?)
Other than that is my spare tubes, 2 pairs of tires and tools.

djb

it sounds like the amount you are regularly riding now means that any touring you will do will not be that different than what you do now, and that it will be fine. Taking days off every so often is important, and if you can ride your bike now as it is without any problems with hand pain or whatever, then it seems that you are well prepared.

listen to your body and it appears that you are well enough prepared to have a good time--this is the whole idea, to have an enjoyable time.

andrewclaus

I believe your experience in ultra-light backpacking will be as valuable as your physical training. Lightening the load carried on the bike pays huge dividends.

I came back to bike touring after ten years in UL hiking, during which I hiked the AT, PCT, CDT, and other long trails. I reduced my bike load from 20+ kg pre-hike to 6 kg post-hike. The post-hike cycling bore no resemblance to the pre-hike cycling. It became fun! (Traveling by bike is always enjoyable, but sometimes the actual cycling is a chore on a heavy bike. As mountaineer John Ohrenschall said, "Climbing would be a great, truly wonderful thing if it weren't for all that damn climbing.")

I've found that training to 30% of your touring plan is sufficient. Think in terms of km/week or month you'd like to ride, and if you can ride about 30% of that in preparation, you'll be fine. Conversely, don't try to exceed the level you ride in training when you begin your tour.

Touring, like hiking, has a long-term endurance need. Don't stress your body with one long day, requiring days off to recover.

Tokwan

I tried to upload photos of my bikes using (Go Advanced and the clip button) but failed.
Anyway, the MTB I am using to train on is a 2009/2010 Haro Shift R3 with 27.5X 2.10 tires. And I practice by cycling mainly on dirt and hardpack, so as to give me the extra wokout (Hehe, felt like Rocky training in the snow in Siberia)...

When I tour, I will be riding a Made in Malaysia Hybrid Bike. Its made by Exitway. The model is a Island Hybrid year 2011. Its a 6 years old bike. With 3 cranks upfront and 8 speed cassette, groupset from Shimano. The wheels are 700X38c. The bike is equipped with touring racks.

Or I have an alternative. I can use my year 2000 Giant Yukon SE MTB 26ers. Reason is, not many shops carry 700c tires and tubes. I have the rackings for this bike and I go bike camping with it. All I need to do is slap a pair of road tires and change the handle bar from straight to Butterfly. This bike does not have adisc brake set, instead a pair of Avid Archrivals Caliper Brakes. It has a 9 speed Deore Groupset.

elcruxio

The most important training in my opinion is to ride with the actual bike you're going to be using for touring. You'd need to be riding the same distances as you plan on doing whilst on tour.
This is not for actual physical conditioning but rather to iron out the kinks in the fit of the bike. Ie. will the saddle work? Is the reach good? How much weight on hands after a long day on the saddle and tired at the core? Saddle setback and height ok?
Touring has surprisingly little to do with actual physical endurance and a lot more to do with correct bike fit since you'll be spending a lot of hours on the bike. If the fit is wrong and you're over stressing some part of your body too much you're going to run into problems.
Even if two similiar bikes have the same fit they still may not feel the same over a long distance and may need adjustments in accordance to other geometry variables.

Tokwan

I believe bike set up goes along with physical endurance and mental strength to do a really long distance ride. Enjoying a ride is a different thing. Yep my hybrid bike is set up almost to my mtbs. Both my mtbs are set up similar. I do ride my hybrid and to me, the set up is spot on as I have done inter city rides.

At this moment, I am trying to improve my physical endurance. The legs are not strong as they were before. I am 58 years old. I know my mental strength are good as I hike/ bag pack / Bike Camp alone in Malaysia's Equatorial. Rainforest

Trevtassie

I just start off on the the tour and train as I go along, building up distance as I get stronger and my weight gets less.... the multi tool comes out to tweak things as I go along.

Tokwan

That's good. I wanted to build my endurance so that I can cycle 80km to 100km a day. That way, I can get out of trouble if I need to and would be able to reach the next town should I accidentally take a wrong route.My aim is to cycle less and enjoy the view, people and their hospitality.

djb

Crux-wanted to say to you how much I agree with you and that this is a well written and concise point that I wish more people would be aware of.
My personal experience certainly reflects this view, and bad experiences of several friends of mine certainly show that often people just ignore fit issues (or more accurately, do not have the ability to recognize them) and this results in unfortunate physical issues that crop up.
The unfortunate typical example of this are people who have poorly fitting bikes, have discomfort, don't know what the problem is and so see biking as painful, so end up just not biking.
The stereotypical example that I have seen with numerous woman friends are being sold bikes simply too big.

Anyway, great point and pretty much sums up the main important issue.

Tokwan

yepppppp!!!!!!

bradtx

Tokwan, I have trained with my mountain bike before taking up bicycle touring. It is a good idea, but I don't think it's at a 2:1 ratio. For touring preperation I would also suggest using the bike you plan to tour with on as many back-to-back long distance days as possible. What is comfortable for one or two days maybe not so comfortable after a week requiring a (usually minor) fit adjustment. At some point begin to load up to your touring weight on the training rides. Bags of beans is the best idea I've heard of to simulate a load.

If you have new tires and tubes at the start of your tour you probably won't need to replace anything within the 1200 km you have planned. Bring a spare tube, maybe one of the old tires, and enjoy yourself.

Brad

Tourist in MSN

I think you are over thinking this.

I usually assume that I can go three times as much distance as I typically cover during an exercise ride. This of course assumes comparable elevation and weight on the bike when climbing. I do not "train" with a loaded bike, but my typical exercise route has several hills that are pretty steep. And I have one loop that has a pretty good sized steep hill that has a shallow downhill on the otherside, I do that loop several times on days when I do my hill training

The biggest thing you need to do is:
1. mentally get ready for hard days when you are pushing into a gale force headwind, and
2. have a plan to stay fueled and hydrated.

I generally try to consume 200 to 250 calories per hour while riding by stopping for a few minutes every hour to hour and a half and eating some food. And those stops I like to get out of the saddle but I like to be rolling again in less than five minutes so I do not get stiff.

It is not a race, you need to stop on occasion, take a few photos or admire the scenery, maybe buy some local cuisine.

Coldhands

The first week of the tour is the training

Tokwan

This is exactly what I am doing. The only difference is that, I am "training" on a MTB and offroad because:
1. It gives me more resistance while cycling, helping to make my legs stronger and give me better endurance.
2. The roads where I live are narrow, making it dangerous to cycle on road.

I found with better cycling endurance, it helps to build my mental strength better.

Motorcycle touring, kayak touring and bike touring share some things in common. You pace yourself at a leisure speed, making occasional stops to admire beautiful sights, things you have never seen before, things that amazed you. You can stop to drink and eat whenever you want (although its better to schedule intake). I train to be able to cycle 80km to 100km per day..but that is the most maximum, to get me out of trouble, just in case...but my distance will depend on what I have to see, weather conditions and availability of a safe place to lodge.

boomhauer

You're still over thinking....
You're in good shape for touring. Maybe not your butt and hands.
Train on the bike you will be spending hours riding.

djb

I can see the mtb aspect, I did the same thing this last winter before a trip and appreciated the harder resistance required riding in snow on my mtb bike with knobby tires.
I do agree that as much as you can, riding on the bike you'll travel on is better to make sure all the fit issues are good with long rides and multiple days.

No matter what opinions we write, it sounds like you are doing good preparation and have a realistic view of doing a leisurely pace, taking breaks and photo stops and eating when needed.
It will work out fine from the sounds of it.

Tourist in MSN

Agree with the others that said train on the same bike. I would go one step further, use the same bike with the same components. For example, I did a trip last February with a friend that had done a good amount of touring on his bike. But, just before the trip he bought a new saddle with carbon rails to that was a bit lighter. Big mistake, by day two he was wishing he brought his heavier Brooks Pro that he had taken off the bike.

Tokwan

Noted on that...its just that at this moment, I am trying to make sure I am physically ready. As for the bike I will ride, Its a hybrid that I 've had many years. Been riding them as a commuter. The fit is so far good and I have had no trouble with it. Anyway, my plan is to start riding the hybrid in the next two weeks...sort as a way to also test my endurance. My plan is to ride to destinations 100km away. spend the night there and make it back. I plan to do this for a few weeks, so as to test my body and also the bike.
Once I am ready, the bike will be fitted with new hubs, BB, and whatever it takes to make sure my ride is smooth and without any hiccups.
However, DJB is correct, my ride is gonna be a leisure paced ride. I'm gonna stop at any places that seems interesting, any eateries that seems nice and will be spending minimal on my lodge...as long as they allow me to bring the bike to the room.It could be one day 50km, it could be one day 30km and the max is about 80 km.
Why I am training to ride beyond that? In case, I couldn't find any lodging and need to go further.

Tourist in MSN

Major work like that is best done several hundred km before you start your trip to make sure that the new components and the installation of them is good. A good way to invite disaster is to start a trip with some new major parts.

If the hubs are good quality hubs, new bearings is likely more than adequate, as new hubs means probably new spokes and then it starts to make sense to get new rims too, and pretty soon you have a lot more new stuff than you really planned on.

Doug64

It sounds like you are doing a good job of getting into shape for your ride, and I believe your approach is a good way to prepare for a tour.

I do not subscribe to the approach of riding into shape on a tour. I can not see any reason why a person would not want to start a tour without being in the best physical shape possible. My wife and I did a tour where we averaged a little over 80 km/ day for 74 consecutive days, including the 1 rest day we took during that time. We were in good physical shape prior to the tour. It made the ride much more enjoyable knowing there was some physical reserve available when needed, and being able to take the harder days in stride without digging into our physical reserves or the need to take a lot of rest days. We had a goal we wanted to accomplish and needed to be back at work on the date we had agreed to with our employers.

Keep up the good work, and IMO you are on the right track.