Some thoughts about touring

The tips section of the website has become stale and every time I’m at the shop, we always have a new thing to talk about concerning bikes. Certainly we can add more info! The other night I was thinking about my own and my friends recent bike touring and thought I would share some ideas.

Just a month ago, Angie and I rode our bikes out to Toronto, Ontario. This was my second tour and Angie’s first. I had done a tour with my friend Nate previously on a tandem, but this was my first tour on my own bike. We learned a few things:

1) Tighten all the bolts on your rack often. 10 miles into our 250 mile journey, my rack fell backwards off my bike on Mack. Luckily it was a quick fix, but I would have rather not gone through that.

2) Do a few test rides fully loaded! Angie and I rode together once before our tour. It was hard to find time in our busy schedules, but we ended up putting a bunch of books and other weights in our panniers and did a 20 mile ride together. Loading up for tour proved to be much heavier and Angie’s rear wheel couldn’t sustain the weight. Her spokes started snapping on day one of the ride, on the drive side of her wheel. Of course we didn’t pack chain-whips to get her cassette off but we did pack extra spokes!

3) I had learned this some from my last tour, but plans will always change and communication is key! When riding with someone else you have to adjust to their riding style, possible break downs or injuries. Angie didn’t plan on my rack breaking and I didn’t plan on her spokes snapping. We eventually had to take a train from London to Toronto which wasn’t in the plan at all. However, Angie and I planned before the trip to periodically check in with each other. We made plans together so no one was left behind.
We planned to get to Toronto through a different route, but I didn’t let expectations ruin my time. I was enjoying riding with Angie and that was important, not keeping a certain time table or reaching a certain goal everyday. Communication is key.

4) You don’t need a nice bike to tour. Often people will buy a touring specific bike and that is great. I totally encourage it, especially if you are going across country or just leaving town and don’t know when you’ll be back (like my friends Vanessa and Matt will be doing soon!) But for a short trip, all you need is a working bike that you know how to do basic repairs on.
My friend Curtis has been waiting to tour for years and never thought he had the “right” bike. Then a few weeks ago he got on his single speed Ross road bike and road to Sturgis Michigan and slept in cornfields along the way. How did he do that? Simple, he got on his bike and went. That is what touring is all about.

5) Speaking of those basic repairs things will go wrong. For Curtis, it was that he was going into the wind the whole way. For me, it was that I ended up riding back from Toronto alone since Angie’s bike broke down. When I reached London Ontario on my way back my chain snapped! Luckily I had a good multi-tool with a chain tool as part of it as well as an extra length of chain.
It is a good idea to pack extra tubes, a patch kit, a pump, a multi-tool, extra chain and extra spokes. If you are lugging around crank pullers and cone wrenches, then perhaps you should just make a map of bike shops along your route instead of carrying all that extra weight. As Angie and I learned on our trip, sometimes you just need to accept help from strangers and take that ride in their truck to the closest town’s bike shop.

So this was a quick note to all of you potential bike tourists out there that it can be done! Though the idea of setting out on your bike into the unknown might sound scary, that is just excitement in disguise. Check over your bike, load up the necessary tools, do a test ride and then pick a day to leave!

see ya on the road,
Jason X