Why and how to go on a bike trip

We’ve stopped early to escape the coming rain in a motel. I have a luxurious afternoon to make the case for self-supported bike trips in hopes that friends will want to come with us some day.

The independence that comes with carrying everything you need is my reason for biking this way.  Without a sag wagon or a tour group, you can stop and start when and where you want. After a few days of this freedom, you find your own rhythm. Complaints don’t cross your mind because the only one responsible is you.

I’ll admit that bikes loaded with gear are heavier and thus less fun to pedal. However, I don’t find biking that much fun in the first place. Your hands go dead, your mind goes dead, the only wildlife you see is dead. Sign me up, you say. My reason to go on a bike trip outweighs those negatives. At biking speed, you viscerally absorb how the landscape changes. Over the past two weeks at biking speed, without paying attention I came to see how Pacific rain forest shifts to dry plateau and then to mountain range and soon to prairie. I came to understand how a watershed of river systems connect. Without trying I learned when to expect Ponderosa Pine and when sagebrush, when Canyon Wren and when Western Meadowlark.  I love geology and geography and natural systems. What better way to see them up close than from a bike.

It’s quite easy to take a self-supported bike trip. There’s not all that much special gear you need beyond a bike that can take a rack, a front handlebar bag, and a set of panniers.  Here’s what we brought for our minimal yet comfortable bike camping trip.

We have a Big Agnes 3-person tent that’s lightweight but roomy enough to shelter gear and spend hours in during a rainy spell. We’ve got a sheet of lightweight plastic for under the tent and another for inside the tent in case it’s really wet out. We have a sleeping bags and lightweight sleeping pads. (Mark has already had to patch up his because he was lolling about on stony ground reading one afternoon.) We have a Pocket Rocket tiny stove burner that folds up into a four inch long triangular wedge like half of a fat Toblerone. The burner screws onto a butane canister, of which we carry two. We have two small, nesting titanium pots for heating water and for use as bowls. We have two utensils that are a fork on one end and a spoon on the other. So much for the camp kitchen. There’s a lot you can do with boiling water.

Here’s what we have for tools and parts:

We have a really nice pump that is small but shows the tire pressure:

For biking clothing, we each brought 2 shirts, 2 biking shorts, 2 pairs of bike socks, 2 pairs of gloves, and one wind jacket.

We wash the day’s riding clothes out every night in a sink or in a pot. Off duty clothes for me are a skirt, a lightweight pair of pants, a blouse, a long sleeve cotton button down shirt for mosquitoes, a pair of wool socks, and, big luxury, my usual blue polka dotted scarf. Two sets of underwear. If it’s cold, our long underwear wool tops and bottoms do the job. We have a wool hat, warm mittens, rain pants, a rain jacket, and a helmet cover for rain. We have a lightweight down jacket for warmth and for a pillow. On warm weather trips I bring just a pair of lightweight sandals, but this time I also brought some lightweight barefoot running sneakers for cold and in case we go hiking. My clothes fit in three small ultrasil waterproof bags for organization: bike clothes, rain and warmth gear, and off duty clothes. I can fit all of these little bags into one of my panniers.
In case you are interested, part 2, here’s our bike trip routine. Much as I like reading my book over a second cup of tea, we’re trying to get going on the early side to avoid the afternoon heat. If we’re camping, breakfast is instant oatmeal and tea. If we’re in a motel, any included breakfast is most welcome, though Froot Loops is a bridge too far. We ride til we’re hungry again, which is in about an hour, I admit. Bananas or nuts are a standard snack.  Mark would ride a lot faster without me because I am a slower pedaler and because I stop a lot to take pictures. However, Mark never complains other than looking a little grumpy if I ask him to pose for a reshoot. We try to ride two thirds of the day’s mileage before lunch because it’s hard to get going again, and it’s psychologically easier to start up if there are fewer miles left to go. When we arrive at our campground or motel, the first step is to wash out the biking clothes in a pot or in a sink. Mark likes finding washing machines, but I’m happy to put on almost-dry, hand washed clothes the next morning.

We check the map in the evening to see where we’ll be able to get what we’ll need in the days ahead. Our wonderful Adventure Cycling maps note where there are all the amenities dear to cyclists such as grocery or convenience stores, campgrounds, motels, bike shops, and post offices. If the next nights are at campgrounds, we’ll note where to buy food to carry.  Sometimes it’s hard to find minimal supplies even though we aren’t picky: ramen with tuna fish is a perfectly good dinner for us. Vegetables just aren’t on offer very often unless we go through a bigger town. One nice thing: traveling with Ben and Sandy taught us that it’s OK to buy potato chips because you can say you need the salt.

So that’s why and how we do it, or at least my explanation.

The bonus is the arresting sights along the way.  Here are some from the last couple of days.

Montana batholith (I had to look that up too.)

Montana’s Christian-themed way of marking highway fatalities:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our first Trump hat. This couple couldn’t get over that they could not buy a hamburger in the Dairy Queen but would have to go next door to the Chinese restaurant.

 

A Montana cutie pie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adventure Cycling headquarters in Missoula, where we got a nice tour, though as the third group of cross country cyclists to visit that day, we were nothing special:

The maybe 30 pickup trucks of the Missoula Children’s Theater, which travels all around the country doing pop up productions with local kids. They came to Augusta when our kids were little, though, sadly, our kids didn’t get a part.

The camp ground that would have been so great:

A swan ridiculously on the Blackfoot River:

Recent fires taking even the fence rails:

Northern Pacific Railroad’s checkerboard of land ownership down Lolo Pass, given to them by the government even though they never built the railroad. Plum Creek eventually bought the land and was going to sell it for kingdom lots. The Nature Conservancy has purchased and protected it:

Visionaries and leaders:

Montana!