carkmouch

Just start by doing overnight, out-n-back tours to get a feel for the touring life.

Jim from Boston

Hi Apricissimus,

Though I haven't toured in about 20 years, my wife and I did a cross country ride, and toured in Michigan, Ontario, New England and the Maritimes. All the usual comments about how to go have been well stated, but I would add this comment about the joy of touring, written by bikingshearer

Doesn't that sound like a Great Escape from the usual daily work/commute "rat-race"? In fact, bad touring days made me long for sitting in an office doing my usual job--very restorative.

MichaelW

I've had a few touring days of non-stop heavy rain. Most of my touring seems to be in wet, misty Atlantic coastal zones or wet misty Alpine hights. I only get a couple of wet misty days but the potential is always there. The worst conditions I've toured in are an early September Alpine storm with rain/sleet/snow depending on altitude. Usually the rain starts just as I get going so Im already committed to the ride.
I find that it really not a big problem, esp if you have the usual commuting rain gear. The worst part of riding in the rain is stopping, Id rather carry on then hang around but you have to stop to eat.
Packing a wet tent can be a bit of bother but again, it wont stop the show.

You could try and quell your fear of rain by picking a rainy day to do a 3-4 hr ride.

capejohn

Thinking about it can drive you nuts. Once you get out there you will find it's nothing more than riding a bike.
Look up This Guy on Facebook. He is your age, tours and lives near you. Tell him his coach recommended this.

Once you try touring, there is a good chance you'll get hooked.

arctos

"Much is not dared because it seems hard; Much seems hard because it is not dared." unknown

" For it is not death or hardship that is a fearful thing, but the fear of death and hardship." Epictetus

Rip Van Winkle

What's the worst that can happen? Go out there and be flexible, and have fun. If it rains, pull over and wait it out for a day. Let your friends know where you're going to be. Someone can always come and get you in an emergency. You can always duck into a motel along the way, or change your plans en route. It will still be fun.

I did a tour years ago with my fiance and a good buddy. My wife soon-to-be wife was having a tough time, so we rented a car for the worst leg of the trip, (Big Sur), and threw the bikes in the back. We still had a great time, and it was a memorable tour.

BTW, we just celebrated our 24th anniversary.

Newspaperguy

Sometimes it rains but it's usually not too bad. The worst I encountered on a tour was in July, 2007 in Manning Park, B.C.

I woke up around 5:30 a.m. and decided to break camp. I felt a few raindrops so fearing the worst I packed up as fast as I could. By 6:20 I was on the road, riding in a light rain. The rain let up for a while but by 8:30, when I reached the Allison Pass summit, it was raining hard once again.

I pulled off the road and took shelter in an open parks department equipment shelter. I stayed there until around 10 o'clock, by which time the heaviest rainfall had ended. The rest of my ride into Hope was uneventful and I arrived in town by around 12:30 p.m. I might have tried to ride through the worst of the rain without stopping but visibility was poor so I'm glad I took a break.

The rain that day would let up for a while and then return with a vengeance. I ended up taking a motel room for the night.

The rain continued through the night and the next day it was intermittent in the morning. By noon it had stopped and in the afternoon, I had warm and sunny weather again.

That's the worst I've encountered. It was one full day of rain but the rest of the trip was quite pleasant. At other times, I've had a little bit of rain for a few days, but nothing worse than that.

staehpj1

It is kind of funny, but I tend to worry about stuff like bad weather and other problems on short tours. Long tours not so much. As a result I tend to not do short tours, usually preferring to just do day rides if the trip is a week or less. It isn't so much that I am afraid of the problems on short tours, but more that I just don't find them to be worth the trouble.

When on a real short tour I feel like "why bother with all this gear and why risk getting caught in bad weather overnight". When the tour is months long it is all just a given and taken in stride.

My solution is to skip the short tours and do day rides unless the trip is over a week long or it is with someone I really want to ride with.

rhm

Hey, great post, and great thread!

A few thoughts:

1. Go right back to the commuter forum where you came from () and read some of those posts that go "I'm thinking about riding my bike to work, but it's over a mile and I'm not sure I can handle the stress..." and have yourself a good chuckle. Compare yourself (or not, as you see fit) to these well-meaning people. You commute. You're serious. Touring will come easy.

2. Take a look at www.warmshowers.org. It's a directory of people who will let you camp in their back yards, maybe even invite you into their homes for the night, and all they want to do is talk about bicycle touring! If you register, you can see a map showing where all the members are located, and you may find there are people on it you already know from the forums. Email someone, see if they'll put you up on your first night out! It will restore your faith in humanity. Yes, seriously, I'm not exaggerating.

3. If you ride every day, and have done 50 miles in a day before, then you can do that or more (quite a bit more) without any pain worth mentioning.

4. The first weekend in May, for some reason, almost always has beautiful weather. Set yourself a goal of doing a 2-day tour that weekend. Start planning now. Planning is fun-- though not as much fun as actually doing it.

5. You're gonna love it.

truman

The difference between and ordeal and an adventure is about two weeks of retellings. Go ride your bike.

paul2

If you tour, there's always the chance that you will get wet. If you do, it's not the end of the world. You can always get a hotel room to dry out. When I toured New Zealand I got caught in a cyclone. I was cold and miserable. But afterwards it makes a great story.

jfry541

Here are my two cents:

About a week ago I completed my first tour. It was a week long from Eugene, OR to Arcata CA. I was expecting rain as I was to be biking down the southern Oregon coast in mid march. Rain came, but only for a day. The rest of the trip was amazing. Through all of my worries about what could have happened it only rained one day and three nights out of six, and one flat 10 miles outside of my destination. Was I cold? Hell yes, but only in the mornings when it was wet outside. I got completely soaked when the weather went from misty to drops the size of beans in under five minutes, but just hung out around a small town supermarket till I warmed up. There was headwind, and hills, and traffic, but that did not really take away from the trip. I highly recommend trying it. I met a lot of older men who said that they used to ride but wished that they had done longer distances and overnight stuff. If you have the means to do it, then by all means, do it.

Jonathan

Niles H.

38 degrees and raining could be horrible if you were not dressed for it.

Yesterday I ran across this quote: "There is no bad weather, only inadequate clothing."

It can actually be enjoyable to be out in it, if you have the right clothes.

It might take some research, but you can do it. When you are ready for these conditions, they look and feel completely different.

I'm not sure the trepidation isn't (to some extent at least) justified, if you don't know the ropes, or don't have the gear for it.

***

There are people who commute every day, even in cold rain. I spoke with a guy who found a solution that works for him -- he uses clothes made by Sugoi for just this purpose (riding in cold rain). He says it is the best solution he has found. Sugoi makes some high-quality, durable, proven-in-the-real-world products for cyclists, and many of their designs work well. They make some thick, warm-when-wet clothing that has wind-resistant and rain-resistant panels facing the wind.

Layering makes a lot of sense. You can add or remove layers as needed. If you do some research on backpacking sites on layering systems, you can learn something. Warmlite's information on vapor barriers is also worth reading.

If Sugoi products are too pricey, the same (functionally) sort of thing can be accomplished with a variety of other warm-when-wet fabrics (including Merino wool), coupled with water-and-wind-resistant layering. It would also be easy to add your own panels, to let the backsides breathe while the frontsides block the wind....

Once you know what you are doing, and have the setup, you can enjoy riding in these conditions.

It is an enjoyable step forward.

Randochap

I'm a long-distance rider like Machka. I can do a 600km ride in 35 hours.

But a comfortable touring pace for me is somewhere around 100 km (60 miles) a day on a loaded bike. I take one day a week off. I try to arrange that rest day around a particularly interesting or scenic destination.

As for weather: weather happens. Being prepared for and dealing with inclement weather is part of the wonderful (though sometimes less than comfortable) part of the touring experience. The whole idea of leaving the comforts of home is to stretch oneself and reconnect with our elemental being. Breaking free of the domesticated self is what, for me, is the core reason for outdoor adventure.

thehum

Ah, these are the same exact concerns I had before completing my first short tour a few weeks ago. I biked from my BU dorm to home in New York (3-day 200 mile trip). Here's the route.

I've been biking for just a year and my commute has consisted of a half mile trip to class and then a 2 mile trip to work (in Cambridge) every day. I had never biked any distance more than 20 miles at once, ever, and after testing how 20 miles was with a loaded bike, just days before I left, I was weary I'd be able to make it. However, after committing, there was no turning back. As it turned out, physically, I was more than prepared. I made a conscious effort to take my time and I never once felt burnt out during my three day trip. The hills started about 10 miles outside Boston and didn't stop until I got to Hartford(check out the elevation chart on my route), and I was slow but steady. I ended up biking 7-8 hours a day without a problem. I slept like a baby that night.

On the topic of weather, I've also been commuting in all weather and I've learned how to cope with it quite well. On my tour, the first two days I was lucky to have temps in the 50s during the day (march 6-7 was quite the spring tease) and the third day it was 45degrees and rainy the entire 7 hours I biked.

For the tour I was wearing Pearl Izumi Slice Fleece Cold Weather Tights (which happen to almost cost twice as much as the Sugoi. hmm maybe i'll give the Sugoi's a shot and take advantage of REI's return policy.) Which I was very happy with. They were comfy when it was 55degress and sunny and kept my legs comfortably warm in the rain even when they were wet and it was 40degrees out. Before I bought the PI tights, I wore waterproof hiking pants on top of ski tights when it was cold and raining, which worked reasonable well, but wasn't quite as warm as the PI slice tights. I was wearing a thin wool sweater under my REI windbreaker which kept my upper body quite warm. As for hands and feet, I wore waterproof REI gloves with fleece liners and some Goretex waterproof hiking boots. Water did end up seeping through both but since my socks were wool and my gloves were fleece I was still quite warm. When it was windy I put on my thin smartwool balaclava because a cold wet face equals misery. By the time the third (rainy) day was over I was home so I don't know what it's like to camp when it's cold and wet.

I find it much harder to bring myself to take a weekend to "wander" for 100 miles to see what tour is like. To me one of the best aspects of touring was having a destination or goal to keep me going. Aside from my 20 mile loaded test ride I think I would have gotten bored had I just gone farther, but that's just me. If I were going to vermont I'd definitely choose at least one point of interest to go to (friend's place/warmshowers host/city/etc.)

It sounds like you've had more experience biking than I do, so I have no doubt that you could very easily pull off a short tour. Just make sure you prepare youself properly and get out there. Also, warmshowers.org is your friend. I used it for the first time and it worked out very well for me. Cheers.

cyclezealot

With Vermont as a touring base, I'd be green with envy.. You tell yourself you love it. Just give it a try. Do prepare, research the best roads. If it rains & hate rain riding , just find a Motel 6 and stay dry for the day..

sherbornpeddler

Come to think of it, I agonized before my first big tour. I'd done a couple of overnights as a 13 or 14 year old. As a mid twenty year old I got a call, " ...want to join 2 others and ride across the US?" "Sure".

Never looked back. All the details worked themselves out. A week into the ride we sent 1/2 the stuff back and adjusted to life as a nomad, a little sad when we finished.

Something about another person depending on you that makes it easier to get going.

imi

Totally agree... 100 km/day is a good distance for a lot of people... with rest days, repair days and headwind and steep hilly days I reckon on 1000 km/fortnight... if I go further, great... being in a rush is not a good feeling in my experience