How to bike across the country
brooks.team242 points by benjbrooks 5 days ago
242 points by benjbrooks 5 days ago
One theme that pops out to me here is the reliance on other people being a positive experience for the author. In the software field, we tend to live pretty high up the economic value chain, which can abstract us a bit from participation in the more grassroots co-operative aspect of society. This can be alienating and warp worldview.
When I'm hitchhiking to support packrafting trips or get back to where I launched my paraglider, I have no say in who I'm going to be chatting with and feeling gratitude towards. Initially that feeling of being reliant on whoever comes my way was difficult to adjust to after the false sense of individualism that a high paying job in a bubble of similar people brings.
The benefit though is enormous. Now I stop to help anyone who's broken down on the side of the road despite the flash judgements their car or bumper stickers might bring. I'm much more aware of the value and interconnectedness of our society, and feel inspired to actively seek to contribute instead of remaining aloof. Most importantly, I realize that there's a whole lot of people out there looking to help people out at any turn, and that gives me a lot of faith.
I made similar experiences - some also through hitch hiking. One major takeaway for me was how often my "flash judgements" are wrong or unfair. I'd also say that asking for help and trusting is more of a strength one has to develop and nurture than a sign of weakness, which is what I used to believe.
That classic meme of guys never asking for driving direction, so women have to... but its not so much meme, just refusal to step out of comfort self-zone
I hitchhiked Mainland China in 2019, and it's true that you are constantly relying on the kindness of other people.
But I would argue that the type of person that does this kind of thing is very independent and thrives in an individualist environment.
After all- it's you that's inserting yourself into an environment of strangers.
When I was in China, people were bewildered as to why anyone would ever hitchhike. Whereas in America, a 5 year old knows what hitchhiking is.
Err yeah, mostly based in China ~2001-2022 here. Basically in China hitchhiking makes you look like a criminal because there's perfectly good long distance transport for not much and the government bans people it doesn't like from using it. Therefore, if you're thumbing you're looking suss. Sounds like a cool trip! Where'd you go to/from? Got a write-up somewhere? Highlights? I really enjoyed cycle touring in the west of China, there's some really beautiful areas.
>Therefore, if you're thumbing you're looking suss
Not if you're a westerner and look like an obvious tourist/trekker, etc
Thank you for this. You gelled several ideas I was ruminating on over my morning tea -- my aloofness and my sneaking suspicion that self-sufficiency is isolating from society at large.
I still pull over to help motorists. You've inspired me to look for more opportunities like those. :)
I feel like this comment and the article itself together in context have kind of a sour taste for me.
Just the fact that it takes such a great effort to experience first-hand how poorer people just help each other out because nobody has money, so they help. But for a tech bro to do that they have to engage in a self-indulgent hobby and cosplay as poor like they're on Undercover Boss.
Ironically this effort to relate to other real live humans with normal incomes is only possible by indulging in the ultimate luxury, which is taking major time off of work rather than being stuck working a shit job.
This is all done with a straight face while jamming a sentence full of words like "paraglider" and "packrafting."
This whole subject is all so stereotypical tech bro in such an unappealing way.
Maybe this sounds unnecessarily bitter, but I think a valid alternate take on this is that privileged people are taking advantage of the kindness of others to get a bunch of help they don't need to help them achieve a goal that is a frivolous luxury. It's great we all get to feel warm fuzzy gratitude but it seems like the NPCs in this main character syndrome story are the people inconvenienced by the OP.
Example: asking the fire department for a place to sleep, they probably feel bad so they let OP sleep in the fire department. But as a tech startup founder and software engineer, OP could have almost certainly afforded a basic motel each night with minimal to zero planning and effort and not resorted to inconveniencing other people.
It feels a little bit like your CEO going to the food bank doesn't it? The median firefighter earns under $60k and dude who has probably outearns that salary in passive investment income is asking for a place to crash. I bet if the firefighter knew that they'd surely still be nice on the outside but they'd probably have a negative story to tell their spouse when they got home.
I completely understand that not booking a motel facilitated human connection and all that loveliness but I sense that the benefit is very one-sided. In Zuckerberg-esque style, the tech bro gets to cosplay as a human with real emotions, while on the "normie NPC" side they get to deal with a tech bro on a bicycle asking for weird shit while they're just trying to get through a shift.
I agree that availing yourself of other people's charity for the sake of gaining a novel experience is gross if they have no way to decline or you're misrepresenting your circumstances. I think you've got a poorly adjusted take on the level of imposition happening in the situations described here though.
When I thumb a ride with a boat over my shoulder, nobody has to stop, and I'm sure nobody feels too bad for the dummy who might have to walk all afternoon because he decided to huck a river without a shuttle plan. When the author crashes at a fire-house, my hunch is the chief isn't worried that if he declines then the guy who's been camping for most of his trip anyway is going to freeze to death. Maybe he's just stoked to do someone a solid and chitchat with a traveler on a slow night. These are not 'CEO at a foodbank' type situations.
If I go on a mission to yoink a boater out of a gnarly river, I never hear anyone on my S&R crew worrying over whether the subject could have afforded a guided trip instead. We're just happy to help, and hope they learn from the experience. I think people legitimately enjoy helping eachother out more than you assume here, and are probably less concerned with economic status of the recipient than you.
> Ironically this effort to relate to other real live humans with normal incomes is only possible by indulging in the ultimate luxury, which is taking major time off of work rather than being stuck working a shit job.
So what do you advocate for here? Growing the increasing cultural isolation between economic classes because those lucky enough to afford time off work should be so concerned with potentially imposing that they shamefully avoid putting themselves in situations where they could benefit from the help of someone less well off?
Wealth inequality is a huge problem, and I'm excusing the level of salt in your comment because I agree with your general theme that exploitation of that dynamic is bad. But it feels like you're attacking a harmless treatment because you're upset the disease exists in the first place.
I don't think those who are helping OP feel imposed upon, but that doesn't mean that they aren't imposed upon.
I totally agree that people are happy to help regardless of circumstance. And I'm not trying to compare OP to Jeff Bezos or anything. But I think it still feels a little too much like cosplaying, metaphorically comparing camping in a tent to being similar to being homeless.
What do I advocate for? I would advocate for people who have the means to think about how they are impacting other people and trying not to artificially introducing situations where they need help from the less fortunate, and the situation where OP asked local first responders for help finding a place to stay was a great example of a problematic interaction.
> I don't think those who are helping OP feel imposed upon, but that doesn't mean that they aren't imposed upon.
So I think what you're saying here that even if the request is not unwelcome, it may still be unfair? That's for the person offering their help to decide for themselves. I would be absolutely bewildered if someone on the internet decided I was being exploited because I stopped to help a rich guy change his tire.
> But I think it still feels a little too much like cosplaying, metaphorically comparing camping in a tent to being similar to being homeless.
I'm a pretty offline dude so I don't grasp the full context behind 'cosplaying' here, but if you're suggesting that anyone sleeping in a tent thinks they are going through the same struggle as a homeless person then that's a huge leap my friend. You can simultaneously appreciate your fortunate placement in the socioeconomic hierarchy, and participate in pursuits that will at least give you a bit of sympathy for how bad it can suck to sleep in the cold.
> What do I advocate for? I would advocate for people who have the means to think about how they are impacting other people and trying not to artificially introducing situations where they need help from the less fortunate, and the situation where OP asked local first responders for help finding a place to stay was a great example of a problematic interaction.
How is this problematic exactly? I've worked with lots of small town fire depts doing S&R and disaster relief and they are typically pretty broadly serving public servants, accustomed to fielding, and declining all sorts of odd requests. I don't think there's any risk at all asking a fire chief about places to stay is exploitation.
I totally understand why, at a shallow level, someone with money benefiting from the aid of someone without grosses you out, but my concern with your view here is that you're asking folks with means to tiptoe around society, being careful not to exploit to the point that interacting with their communities in very normal and fair ways is 'problematic'. The well off can do a lot of good in their communities, but this doesn't tend to happen if they feel isolated outside the circle of giving that other folks enjoy. Crested Butte Colorado is a great example of this, where lots of new moneyed people have moved into town, but are too timid to integrate. Instead of contributing, they add more rarely used bedrooms onto their mcmansions, and vote against affordable housing.
Rich kids flock to burning man in part because they are stoked give and receive in a communal model. I think if they realized real life is more like that then they think, they'd probably be more helpful to those around them.
If you have to go out of your way to have a humble experience and then blog about it, then it's not authentic and you don't really know.
Agreed. This sort of article does convey a lot about the mental world of the tech bro. Apart from the surprise at the hospitality of "normal people" it has the glassy sheen of purely procedural mind. I mean, one is not exactly swept away by the sense of adventure. It's a sort of fitness exercise.
> Now I stop to help anyone who's broken down on the side of the road
I have a certain amount of fear about doing this sort of thing. I am ashamed of that, too.
When I was in college (this was in a small city), I was walking at night by the library and I saw someone trip and fall in front of me. I asked if they were hurt and if I could help. He hobbled up and said yes, one leg was injured, but he just needed some help to get back to his car. I helped walk him four or five blocks, supporting his shoulder. In a darker bit of street, his friend tackled me to the ground and threatened to kill me with his gun. He took my wallet, ordered me not to stir from where he pushed me under a car, and they ran off. To be explicit here, the tripping and falling was fake.
The campus police took me to the student health services; my knee was banged and slightly scraped from the tackle. I related the story to the doctor and he said, "Well, you can't stop helping people." On the other hand, the cop just said, if anything like that ever happens, I didn't have to handle it myself, just call them, they were happy to come and assist anyone who might need help on campus.
I still help others when I can, but I am always cautious about my environment and assessing the circumstances
"we tend to live pretty high up the economic value chain, which can abstract us a bit from participation in the more grassroots co-operative aspect of society."
I really don't see this as being directly true. Most sorts of interactions where we would depend on others/strangers would happen outside of a job, just like all the examples you give. Maybe there's some truth to the stereotype that us IT guys are nerds and participate in fewer IRL group hobbies, which could make your statement indirectly true. However, there's still communities build around stuff like MMORPGs, FOSS, etc where people are from different backgrounds and regions. But then again, maybe I'm the odd one out as a middle class developer with everyone making more than me.
>However, there's still communities build around stuff like MMORPGs, FOSS, etc
Both are luxury communities though. I mean, the example MMORPGs as a community, it has nothing to do with the community experience of poorer people "people helping each other to get by" mentioned
Oh yeah that's a sweeping generalization of course. My point was that the heavy reliance on paid services that usually comes with a white-collar lifestyle reduces participation in community-based mutual aid and deepens cultural divides. I figure this probably gets worse with higher income since the more services you can afford, the less you may feel you need community.
Diverse hobby groups are also a great way of attacking these divides, but may lack the aspect of vulnerability that comes from experiences like the author's.
I think that finding free camping outside when you are in some shit nothing town is probably the most important skill to have, which is easy with satellite maps. Once you get the hang of it you realize that every town has at least one site where you can definitely get away with pitching a tent for one night. I think I have camped this way about 80 times and have never even been asked what I'm doing. That said, state and national park campgrounds are a great deal and you sometimes meet other tourers there, so they're good for a day when you want to take it easy for a morning. I sometimes get a kick out of zooming in on nowhere, USA and looking for spots.
And some advice for anyone doing this for the first time and feels compelled to pay to camp - never stay at a KOA, consider them an absolute last resort. There is no bigger waste of money and RV culture is extremely cursed.
I did it this way back in 2007 when I didn't even have a smartphone, you can develop an eye for it at the ground level as well. I camped 8 nights without paying once and never had an issue. The only time I had to resort to help was in suburban Cleveland area, it got dark and it was too built up to stealth camp anywhere, so I ended up stopping at the fire station and they let me camp in their yard. They are there all night anyway so they are usually fine with it.
The weirdest spot was in another suburban area, I camped behind a row of shrubs next to a cellphone tower installation haha. Wasn't the best setup but places like that usually don't get any traffic until business hours, so as long as you're in late and out early, you're fine.
Were you heading east through Cleveland and did some rando try to give you directions to a spot in Shaker Lakes metro park that involved jumping a guardrail near a bridge? If so, that was me; sorry I didn't offer up a couch at my place; my roommates wouldn't have been cool with it.
Hah, honestly I have no idea, but that does sound like something that could have happened. It's funny how memory fades and we are only left with snippets as we get older.
Counterpoint on RV centered "campgrounds": they have sweet amenities like a grill, a pool, laundry, and often a building with some air conditioning and some books previous guests have left behind.
Not an every night kind of thing, and you're unlikely to find much in the way of grass to put a tent on, but I stayed at one with another guy who was bike touring and we get like kings for the night.
When you're digging holes in the national forest to shit in, it doesn't take much!
I have fond memories of the KOA in Klamath Falls from two bike tours that went through Crater Lake. Last time I was there we had just finished a section of the trip that included a 90 mile stretch with no stores or even a lot of water for that matter. There were hot showers, washing machines, a camp store that sells beer. The camping spots were pretty nice, too.
And there was much rejoicing.
I hate on KOA and other RV places because I think the comparison between that and a state site is pretty stark. Early in my longest tour I was attracted to that type of convenience. But I've never found myself using the pools, grills, or books. (do you really expect to find a good book in an rv campground? come on.) I'm more concerned with doing the same thing I do at every other site like cooking and setting up the tent. Usually the experience costs $70-80 for a not-very-flat site with no discount for tourers. I find the check-in, check-out, and travel around a sprawling campground to be pretty onerous and time consuming the next day as well and I get a 3+ hour late start. Not to say that all those amenities aren't nice, but you can get most of them at a state-run campground, which actually tend to have way more space between campsites, prim sites, sometimes even awnings to sleep under so you don't get a dewy tent. And to be honest, RV park workers are totally bitchy compared to the state park folks, if you even have to talk to them, because a lot of state/national sites just let you drop $10 cash in an envelope.
Overall I found it to be a net negative to stay at an RV park. RVs produce a lot of noise, almost on the level of night in a major city. At home in an RV, people stay up 2-3 hours later than you do on a bike tour, and they run tvs, ACs, generators, and make excess light. The last straw for me was when our "neighbor" for the night was yelling foul, abusive things at his wife. And those bathrooms... sometimes they are a real horror. Keep your boots on.
Those types of experiences are really yours for the taking for little to nothing when you tour. Toilets are so easy to come by. Showers, too, for the price of a $15 day pass at a gym, but you can also just sponge bathe in the handicap stall. I would stop in a town and get some mcdonalds, eat it at the laundromat, hit the post office, talk to bums on the street. When I wanted to swim I'd just find a place to swim. That stuff is the real gold, being resourceful and a massive cheapskate somewhere you don't know anybody.
On top of all that, you can just sneak on to the RV park in the morning if you want to.
> Counterpoint on RV centered "campgrounds": they have sweet amenities like a grill, a pool, laundry, and often a building with some air conditioning and some books previous guests have left behind.
... and showers.
Hot showers too! And 1-800 phone numbers. In my motorcycle touring days, at 3pm or so I'd figure out where I would be at 7-8pm, lookup the nearest KOA in the KOA directory booklet, and call the 1-800 to make a reservation. Often when I arrived, they were turning away unhappy would-be campers as all spots were already taken.
I've been turned away a few times. Real campers (not people on an 800lb hog or hauling a 3 ton tiny home doing 7mpg) are using a tiny fraction of the total area and all that space is wasted. they could be making more per camper per night by splitting camper sites by making small footprint spots where they otherwise couldn't put a car site. This is what a real campground spelled with a C does.
These days the trick when motocamping in the east is to look up the KOA location, and then check the rate at the local campsite across the street or down the road.
Out west of course you usually have free options.
Props to the author for grinding through this, but I think a very strongly worded and formatted warning is needed at the top. Embarking on this trip with so little knowledge meant putting yourself far away from civilizations while criminally underprepared.
I love the energy of Supertramps, but there is a reason they are controversial. It would be very easy to make a mistake and be in big trouble - underestimating water needs in a barren stretch, a hole in your tire (not tube) and not knowing how to fix it, etc. it’s pure luck you didn’t not over exert a small muscle or ligament locking you out of cycling during recovery.
I did 7,000 miles of touring in the US in 2006 without a cell phone, relying mostly on a paper Rand McNally road atlas and partially on Adventure Cycling's paper maps. I did most of the Western Express, and a good chunk of the Trans-Am between where they join and Missouri.
You are greatly overestimating the hazards associated with bike touring.
Folks are decent, and if you're on Adventure Cycling's routes, they are familiar with seeing cyclists. People offer help and stop to ask if you're ok. The route is well travelled by cars; if you passed out from heat exhaustion in the middle of the road, you'd be no more than an hour from being found, and in most places, a good deal less.
Water is pretty readily available, and most of the route passes through populated areas where you're a knock on a door away from a fillup if you're desperate. Mostly, I filled up with water at gas stations or where I camped in the evenings.
If you can ride a bike, fix a flat (you'll likely get a lot. I did), camp in a tent, and cook over a camp stove, you can do what the author of TFA did. Maybe a little/lot slower (75 miles a day is hauling ass fully loaded touring) but it's totally doable.
NB: Trek discontinued the 520 in 2023. Dozens of us are furious. The Surly Disc Trucker is well-recommended for touring, though I haven't been on one personally. Any bike that fits you with relaxed enough geometry, a long enough wheelbase, low enough gears, and the capacity to carry you and your gear will do.
I confess that I am in the camp that is inclined to say, fuck it, throw caution to the wind.
I reflect on the times in my life when I did just that and I have been amply rewarded with a life having been made just a little more worth having lived.
Seeing people holed up because of their fears makes me sad. I suppose the thing that I am most afraid of is finding out too late that I am too old to do these sort of things with the few years that I may have left in the world.
(And that goes as well to spending time with my daughters, wife, family.)
Hmm, this take seems too all-or-nothing to me. (I made a similar trip with similar prep - bought the bike a month before going.)
The first chunk of the trip is very civilized, and you can use that to build skills before you get out in rural Utah.
If you have some experience with dry-country hiking, you understand about bringing water. That's the main threat. Most of the other mishaps you can think of are just inconvenient/unpleasant - "made poor time, got stuck at dusk in the middle of nowhere with only the snacks in my panniers, and had to camp by the roadside".
The author did prep for some other gotcha's, including having safety gear and doing some physical training in advance.
I'm a long distance hiker. As far as water filters go, the Sawyer Squeeze is a great choice. But—and this is important—do NOT get the Sawyer Mini to save weight/space. Get the full-sized one; you won't regret it. I've tried both and the Mini version simply does not have enough through flow to not be annoying over the course of a major trip.
2 years ago, I rode solo from Santa Fe to Seattle (about 1600 miles). The ride crossed some of the emptiest terrain in the lower 48 states of the USA. I have done several significant bike tours in the past, have travelled throughout the west in a powered vehicle and generally know how to look after myself in the wilderness.
I fully expected to face several significant sections where risks where high, notably from lack of water but also just general remoteness.
The reality was quite different. Just the distribution of gas stations meant that water supply was rarely a problem (though I did have a fancy australian 4 liter bottle on my bike and water bladder on my trailer). There was one day when I came close to running out and that was a little scary, but tiny sips and another 12 miles got me to a gas station.
But it wasn't just gas stations. There are not many places in the lower 48 where you can go 40 miles without passing some sort of human habitation if you're on a paved road. The Mojave and parts of Nevada might be an exception. I didn't need to get help from any such places, but I was always aware that I was passing by them.
In addition, sure, some of the most back- of the backroads I took got very little traffic, it was still the case that there would be at least a car every 2 hours or so.
My point is this: if you're travelling on paved roads in the lower 48, you are extremely unlikely to die from mistakes arising from unpreparedness. You might suffer a bit, but you will encounter someone who is very likely to be willing to help you.
One thing I would say, however: in years and decades past, I would never have had any hesitation riding or walking down a farm/ranch driveway if I needed water or help. News events over the last few years involving shootings of "strangers" in driveways now make me extremely reluctant to do such a thing. I contemplated this often on that ride, and if that situation had arisen, my plan was to stay on the road and make as much noise as I could before being OK'ed to cross their property line. A sad change for me, and for the country.
Author was in the middle of prepping for the NYC marathon, so they were in decent shape physically.
My fat ass would have given up before I even reached the Bay Bridge.
That reminds me: the author did not mention how they crossed the Bay Bridge. There is no cycling path from SF to EB AFAICT.
I biked with the author from SF to Sacramento — we went up to Marin over GGB, then over the Richmond–San Rafael bridge to the EB
Ah OK! Thanks!
It's a fun route! If you give it a shot and have a bike that fits you good you'd be amazed at how quickly you can build up fitness for cycling, heavy or not.
> My fat ass would have given up before I even reached the Bay Bridge
Cycling is a fairly low-impact activity for your body, and is a great way to get some exercise if you are out of shape, with a fairly low risk of getting exercise-related injuries. (Compared to, say, running)
The only thing you'll really need to "train" are your "sit-bones". A good, soft-ish, wide saddle will help, as well as padded shorts. In fact, for your comfort, padded shorts are a must-have.
There's a separated bike/pedestrian path on the Dumbarton Bridge, although that's south of SF. (When I was working at Sun Microsystems nearby, I saw the pedestrian path and randomly decided to jog over the bridge. I discovered that the bridge is a lot higher in the middle when you're jogging than when you're driving, so there was a lot of uphill.)
A very close friend de used to end his freshman year in Western Massachusetts by cycling home…
to Portland, Oregon.
In 1989.
So before cell phones, satellite phones, Strava, electrolyte powders, websites full of helpful tips, Google Maps…
He was likely criminally prepared and yet he says he had a great time. He mostly slept in the back yard of strangers and I vaguely recall that people offered him so much free food that for the entirety of the trip he spent about $35 and went through one giant tub of peanut butter (that he hauled with him). He got some sort of puncture-proof tires and never got a flat.
Skipping the dessert southwest helped avoid the risk of water shortage and she clearly got lucky and avoiding a variety of problems and it’s an n of 1, but it’s a data point saying one doesn’t have to plan to the nth degree.
Life is risk. Compared to journeys undertaken by those in the past, this trip had an extremely minimal chance of disaster. I mean, the guy had a satellite phone! Unless he literally crashed his bike and died on the side of the road, the worst outcome here was a big bill from emergency services when they had to come rescue him from somewhere.
I rode my bike around Lake Erie back in 2007 without even a smart phone. I didn't have a map of places to stay, I just scoped out surreptitious camping sites mostly if I didn't happen past a campground at the right time of day.
Just to be fair, Supertramps are not controversial for those very valid reasons; those reasons require thought, empathy and actual understanding of the situation they are in.
Those kinds of lifestyles generally create a knee-jerk reaction to people merely because they are different than the "normalcy". That is clear because, while some people are indeed being lucky/foolish in their endeavours (totally fine by me unless they don't directly hurt others with their choices), some other people have a pretty solid plan/foundation for being able to handle such a lifestyle and people still give them grief.
My lifestyle is far from an extreme one and I still get puzzled questions and the usual "oh, one day, you'll stop and grow up" kind of comments. Imagine if I had decided to drop everything and start cycling around the world.
I've done a lot of motorcycle touring and there's only a few things that concern me at all now:
1. The few remaining 100 mile stretches of no services, when extreme weather is possible.
2. Sundown towns, if you aren't white. Yes, they still exist.
3. Running out of water.
Especially nowadays, when cell phone + satellite coverage is nearly universal and affordable, you can run a phone off a small solar panel, and a credit card can fix any fuckup.
Sundown town: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town
Nevada had to pass a law fairly recently to ban the still-in-use practice of blaring sirens at 6PM to warn native americans to leave town.
There are still places in the west where the level of law enforcement is similar to Tatooine. Mostly in sparsely populated counties and very small towns, where attention from state governments, mainstream media and the internet is general can be avoided.
For what it's worth, he did carry a satellite phone. But I do agree - this felt like a wildly optimistic decision to make :P
He also had experience backpacking, so he had experience managing water and preparing for weather, so I would say it was optimistic, but not dangerous (except for the danger of getting killed by a driver.)
IME drivers are by far the biggest danger on the road.
The author engaged in a cross country road trip, not a daily bicycle commute in NYC. While I would be very surprised if your assertion wasn't statistically true it likely unwise to take what is typical and blindly apply it into a situation that is a massive outlier without specific reason to do so.
It's true everywhere. If you're a cyclist you would have to engage in creatively suicidal behavior to elevate any of the other risks of cycling to the same magnitude as getting randomly taken out by a driver.
I have done a 3000 mile tour (Great Divide). The scariest parts were a highway section in southern colorado, and after I finished and was just biking around in El Paso, both because of cars.
It wasn't the bears or lightning or anything else, honest to god I experienced all that stuff and the scariest stuff was still people in cars.
I was wondering how it went for the author. Didn't see any mention of traffic in the article. Probably a lot of open roads, but at least in the populated areas traffic must have been a factor?
It seems he was following a pre-set route that's been used for ... decades, now? I'm guessing it's optimized to keep cyclists out of high-traffic areas.
And I consider that people have been crossing the US by bike since at least as far back as the 1970's. In over half the time since then — no satellite phone.
nope, you really don't need so much prep to do this type of thing. I've done these types of things multiple times and whenever I prepped too much, the experience was actually worse- heavier bags, less spontaneity, etc
Yep, met a guy who was dragging a whole trailer behind his already loaded bike. Another biker, seeing the setup, whispered to me, "You pack your fears."
I did a bike tour way back when, I really liked using a BOB trailer. It kept the weight off the bike, so when you weren't going uphill, you almost didn't notice it was there. My bike was clean though, only water bottles on it basically.
I did the same. It took a couple days to get used to it though. It would throw you off balance on turns.
keeping that in mind is almost a life philosophy. but also, reducing your fears comes from experience. the more you travel, the longer you live, the more you discover things that you didn't need, if you pay attention to it.
> the more you travel, the longer you live, the more you discover things that you didn't need
Thing is, you don’t know what you need until you’ve done this. I have taken a two-week trip out of a carry-on suitcase. You will need laundry service at some point if you want to be presentable in public, but there are companies selling clothes that are designed to wash and dry quickly even with hand soap and a sink, but you have to know they exist and be able to afford a not-cheap new set of clothing.
But I have done this because I started minimalism with trips to places where I knew I could buy whatever I needed within an hour if I forgot something. Do several of those and notice what you don’t use, pulling it off the list unless it’s a rarely-used-and-important-but-not-replaceable-quickly item. Like my contact lenses, which are always a special order. I keep a few in every item of luggage I own. I carry a spare phone, because if my phone dies outside the US or Canada (as my Nexus 6P did) it’s not trivial to get a replacement with US frequencies, and with eSIMs not trivial to swap into something new while still being on my US number (needed for work). I would have to find WiFi first.
And yes, my backup phone has the apps for my service and my wife’s. As soon as I have WiFi, I can be going in ten minutes. It’s currently running a backup of my phone that I update before every trip, but I back hers up too, and while it might take an hour or two to restore and get working again, it can be done easily.
you don’t know what you need until you’ve done this
well yes of course. that's the other part. you learn what you need that you didn't prepare for too. sometimes through failure.
Bicycle tourists and Bikepackers generate massive amounts of online content, they can't seem to help themselves, so a great deal of knowledge and experience can be had long before any rubber has touched the open road.
I'm from a part of the world where people regularly die by going for a walk unprepared (google 'tourist dies in outback' for a repeated history of such).
Having said that i cycled a fair way across Europe in my youth with nothing but a light bag, water bottle and wallet in my pocket.
So basically it depends. Yes you can get away with it in certain parts of the world but i would never argue for unpreparedness since it's way too common for people to die from lacking the basics of preparation.
For the people who are wondering whether this is a good idea or not, lemme tell you about some x-country cyclists I met on a ride. 3 years ago in the middle of summer I was climbing Iron Springs Rd on the west side of Prescott AZ. 3 youngish cyclists were paused on the side of the road with an apparent mechanical. They had a modest amount of camping gear in their panniers. Turns out they were French, had the barest grasp of English (I have the barest grasp of French), and needed a derailleur adjusted (no gears, no climb). I fixed them up and of course I was damned curious about their situation. Turns out, they on a whim flew into NYC, bought some not serious bikes and camping gear, and... just started biking across the country! In the middle of summer! In the wrong direction! Going to LA! And their pins... NOT CYCLISTS.
The Iron Springs climb tops out at 6000' or so, the weather is awesome in summer. However that is the end of weather happiness for 300 miles or so, because it's a steady drop from there into the desert, all the way down to the Colorado River. Temps in the 100-115F range are normal. Water is scarcer there than on just about any roads in the country. I was pretty alarmed so I got it across that they needed to show me their route. As best I could I showed them the best way on maps to not die. I tried my damnedest to get across they should not bike in the afternoons. "extra chaud!" etc.
And off they went. Never found out if they made it or not, but... you just can't keep humans down. They will always find a way to do the craziest things.
Yeah, I'm always amazed what young people can get away with on the spur of the moment.
Was in Kyrgyzstan recently, and there's a popular hike that everyone does (Ala Kul). But it's HARD. And the people that do it are often not hikers. It's 3 days, but it involves a massive climb at altitude, and you have all these random backpackers attempting it because...well, that's what you do. And by and large they all seem to get through it ok.
I’ve bumped into scores of people doing the same around Africa, from Alaska to Argentina, all over Europe etc.
There are tons of people out there having great adventures!
Congrats! It was super interesting to read about the western express, when I did this a few years ago I did the astoria route: https://blaise.bike/
Did you look into different tires? 8 flats seems like a lot. I got exactly one running schwalbe marathon plus tires.
Overall what was your favorite part of the trip?
i didn't look into different tires. my hypothesis is that most of my flats can be attributed to all the weight being on the back tire.
favorite part was jumping into extended conversations with strangers. from a scenery perspective, coming down into Lake Tahoe from Eldorado was just absolutely stunning. same when I went past Bryce Canyon.
Route wise, did you deviate at all from the suggested route? Never felt the call of a fork in the road? I find value in small roads (less traffic) where feasible. Basically riding with wildlife rather than cars.
Rhythm wise, super surprised you did the whole thing without stopping! I used to do a half day (pre-dawn to late morning) then chillax at a place and explore. This gave time to recover, take in the area, balance cycling with walking, and time to maybe wash some clothes which means carrying less. Rest days can be best days. That's totally nuts you did the whole thing without stopping!
I'd be sketchy on those Utah areas too - no shade! Probably would have camped out at the lookout there, etc. Of course, not feasible if you're running out of water.
I'm getting old now (43) but have to mention one thing I never properly appreciated in my earlier travels and regret missing was the biology. iNaturalist is friggin' awesome. It has never been easier to get in to biology, and it adds a deeply fascinating dimension to travel. Looking at those instant pot meals, foraging would be one application!
Re. Diet, I was veg when I did most of my cycle trips too. Used to acquire bags of raw husked peanuts as easy protein. On later trips (Romania) deeply appreciated eating a steak!
So... any ideas for next trip? Europe? New Zealand? Around Australia? Back across Canada from "Europe"? https://maps.app.goo.gl/URwtvz9wxWHWYEb18
Good luck, don't be afraid to slow down, and keep it up. Once you have kids it becomes difficult to continue.
I was trying my best to finish quickly, initially in hopes of making the NYC Marathon. The "best" way to do the trip is probably to take everything in and have a few zero days, potentially bake in some time for wandering. I think part of me was worried that if I stopped, I wouldn't have the gumption to start up again.
Sounds like you had a great experience riding too! Did you go across the U.S.?
I think I'll pause the bike tour travel for the foreseeable future. I think I like running better :)
Gotcha. I've done bits of Australia, France, Laos, Romania, Taiwan, Thailand and Yunnan. Definitely Yunnan has been the highlight, although all had memorable sections. I think since you crossed the US already, New Zealand or Tasmania could be good future destinations for you to consider. They have manageable distances, spectacular nature, few large vehicles and friendly locals.
Not OP, but I also went across America along the Northern Tier in 2023 with Schwalbe Marathon Plus's. I think I got 9 flats total, 7 of which were in Montana for some reason. I always tried to investigate and eliminate the source of the flat, but sometimes you are just repeatedly unlucky (in my experience).
After getting 4 flats in 4 days on a bike trip, I had good luck with anti-puncture kevlar tire liner tape.
Ooh never heard of that. That's awesome! As mentioned in the last point in the document, often if you get repeat punctures it's because the causative element is still embedded in the outer tire. Once this happens you learn the real value of fixing a tire is not in the patching, which is a different challenge, but the analysis: 1. Locate the puncture. 2. Match the inner tube back to the rim using the air valve location. 3. Translate the puncture location from the inner tube to the tread. 4. Search like hell for the cause.
Tubeless can be a pain but it is exceedingly good at dealing with the small annoying punctures. Pretty typical to not notice a puncture at all before it seals. Caveats: for some reason pinch flats in the sidewall seal poorly, and the sealant must be kept somewhat fresh.
The one time I had it fail me entirely, it was in New Mexico where the goathead thorns are relentless. I had about a dozen thorns in each tire, and my half dried up sealant was no longer up to the task. Still hard to imagine going back to tubes, even though I carry lightweight TPU tubes as backups.
Make sure you carry tubes with stems of sufficient length. That was my last error. Oof.
I have 2500 miles so far this year and could do a century any random day without preparation and I’m doubting whether or not I can do GDMBR, meanwhile this guy didn’t even own a bike, didn’t even do more than 30 miles once he did, and just set off across the country. I guess I should just do it.
I often do ultra races, always trying to be at the pointy end. I have all the training, and all the fancy equipment you could possibly imagine. Doing something of the magnitude of this article though still scares the hell out of me. Every year I watch the Transcontinental Race, and every year I say "yeah, would love to do it, but next time". I still haven't signed up.
The gear, the legs, they help with going faster. Whether or not you can finish (barring catastrophical mechanical or injury) is all in your head!
At your fitness level, you're more than capable of doing a long bikepacking trail.
The hard part isn't really fitness (for any moderately experienced biker unless your trip has a specific time or FKT goal), it's the logistics of food + shelter, the mental grind, and dealing with possible repairs.
Yeah I have done some trips before, max was 8 days with 85-100 miles each day, some decent elevation (max 11k feet in a day, but others around 5-6k) pretty bad weather, mix of paved and gravel. No chance I’m coming anywhere close to Lachlan’s time on GDMBR but I do need to finish in under 40 days.
This guy was using Rockbros bags and rack and I’m wondering if I should swap out my Tailfin for a more durable OMM rack…
If you haven't, check out Mat Ryder's videos on YouTube. He's newly retired guy in decent shape from jogging who buys a bike and does the GDMBR while making a bunch of videos. He shows everything and at the end talks about how much he spent and how much less he could have spent if he tried harder to be frugal. You can see how an average guy without any bikepacking experience do it. You can do it too!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3-zVwEVdJ-UbC1DT4tSG...
My friend and I attempted to cycle over 1300 kilometers during our university summer vacation without any special training. We just started off. This experience was very memorable because we had limited funds; I didn't have a sun-protective suit, and the bicycle was borrowed. Some protective gear was even handmade by my friend's mother, for which I am truly grateful. There was a particularly embarrassing incident where I even used women's sanitary pads because the area had become numb after long hours of cycling, and I needed something to cushion it. My friend bought them for me and insisted I use them. We also met many interesting people along the way. In short, although it was challenging, it was very fun. I believe that in life, some out-of-the-ordinary things are worth doing, but please always pay attention to safety.
It took us ten days.
That’s a good distance per day. Comfortably breaking 100km is one thing, doing it day after day is quite another.
I did the same, the opposite direction. If you are interested, there is a whole community of people that do this called Crazy Guy on a Bike.
My Trip: https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?o=1&doc_id=10372&v=2E
Another way to do it is the way my cousin did: do it over a period of 15 years. She took a week of vacation time during most of those years to do a chunk of the route.
Section hiking on long distance trails is pretty common as well. Most people aren’t in a position to just take off and do the Appalachian Trail or Pacific Crest Trail in one shot.
Re spiders/anything entering your shoes:
Do not leave them out in the open if possible. Unless the shoes are wet, pack them in a plastic bag and then put in the sleeping bag. I will sacrifice some comfort for not being afraid to put them on or spend the time cleaning them up from i.e. spiders or snails.
I have used it few times while sleeping in the wild in Australia between Sydney and Brisbane without the tent or hammock.
I talked a friend into doing just the Katy trail across the state of Missouri a year ago. Like the author, I have a steel Trek 520. I did zero training — but the Katy trail is just one state.
I hated it every day — right up until we finished it. The boredom, the drudgery of every day. Now I can't wait to go again.
There was a weird thing that crept into my brain by about day 4 or so — I kind of didn't want to linger off the saddle for long. Strangely, I was starting to kind of prefer being on the saddle than to being off.
Also, having done a minimal of research, there were often unexpected happy surprises that would pop up from time to time — for example a sudden bar along the banks of the Missouri River (Cooper's Landing — not, you know, a sand bar).
I credit my friend being there for keeping me determined not to "puss out" and bail early. And he told me after he was waiting for me to bail so he could have an excuse to quit as well.
We met all manner of other riders: many, like us, on their first bike tour.
The six or so days on the saddle can be done, physically, by about anyone. I am almost 61 and over weight. I trained on the trail. I think if I had prepared before hand my ass might have been less sore — more "broken in". (It also would have been boring though.)
I made it twice in 1980s. Or maybe trice, at least piecewise.
-- Note about "prepadness". No need for that. I started at 70km per day, but eventually made 500 km in 24h. Because good back wind and too hot for camping by the road.
It takes about two weeks to totally numbify youres backside. Thereafter rockhard professional saddle is the best.
> https://youtu.be/8D-S8nYCwjA?si=TZfnb2qrkiZdiYU6
TIL that Pan Am was flying Airbuses!
> It takes about two weeks to totally numbify your backside.
Beat you sit-bones into submission until your pain-reporting nerves give up.. The week-and-a-half before you get there, though.. Ouch.
> https://youtu.be/8D-S8nYCwjA?si=TZfnb2qrkiZdiYU6
Quite a helmet! Cool, eclectic video. With a bit of a teleport jump between the Pecos river and NY. :-)
Sony Handycam froze. But recovered when I realized there is no hurry and I stayed some days in a warm hotel in New Jersey.
Reading this, I feel slightly embarrassed about our largely unplanned 100 km family cycling tour to France 1.5 years ago. We used our standard day-to-day Peugeot bikes from the 70ies, and a relatively new children's trailer. Because our bikes were so old, I made sure to have all the tools with me to fix anything broken, despite the relatively short distance. The bikes didn't have a single mechanical failure, not even a flat tire. But halfway through our trip, the trailer had a broken spoke. I removed the spoke, hoping that the rest of wheel would hold together, but all the remaining spokes immediately started to become loose after a few kilometers. I ended up truing the wheel using the remaining spokes, and than fixating the spoke nipples to the spokes and the rim with a pack of kid's plasters. To my surprise, this actually worked. We made the remaining 50km without problems, but stopped every kilometer or so to check if any spoke had become loose.
Note that we largely cycled through the French and German countryside on dedicated bike routes on which we were the only cyclists most of the time, so this was relatively uncritical.
Some do this in 8 days
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_Across_America
But 51 days is also fantastic!
Completely different experience though, since RAAM is a supported race, a very different kind of suffering. The Trans Am is a more comparable one (though still a race): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_Am_Bike_Race
Your brother learned to read at the age of 4, but learning it at 7 1/2 is also fantastic!
I've done a much shorter route, but still long with a similar amount of preparation - Port Angeles, WA to San Francisco, CA
I can not recommend it highly enough. It took us 2 weeks which is a much more reasonable amount of time to take off. I wasn't really prepped and not in great physical shape, which made it more difficult, but it was so rewarding. That route is very popular and there are hiker / biker camp sites every 30 miles or so. About half the people you see each night are going the same direction as you, so you probably saw them last night.
I would strongly recommend the paper maps from ACA. They are fantastic, and you can get a holder that goes between your handlebars. It's really hard to use your phone as a GPS when you're out of power.
I also broke a spoke on my wheel and it wasn't a very common wheel type. The person I went with had to go 20 miles back to a bike shop and ended up buying me a whole new wheel. So getting bog-standard equipment is very helpful.
I'd love to do this one day! Curious - after reading, the part about wildlife scares me. Did you ever run into genuinely worrying situations with wildlife? Hearing about Black widow spiders alone makes me want to only do this with a van following behind me to sleep in at night!
Most wildlife is somewhat afraid of humans so long as they are not taught otherwise. They know you are big and don't know if you are going to eat them so they stay away. Mountain lions are the only possible exception. So long as you don't get close and don't give them reason to get close they will generally leave you alone.
The above is why it is critical to keep food either hung in a tree or in bear proof containers. So long as bears don't see humans and think "I've found food near them" they will stay away - but once they realize humans mean food there is trouble. Wild areas rarely have problems - causal campers don't realize how important proper bear protection is and over time bears have figured it out.
The black widow and a few other spiders and insects are exceptions - they will target you. (though mostly spiders leave you alone)
That black widow spider could be inside your house right now. Houses afford us protection but not immunity from these things. Spiders are notoriously resistant to pesticides as they require direct contact since they don’t clean themselves like insects do (thus not ingesting the poison on the floor or wherever they’re creeping along).
I bike packed 2000 miles around Europe, and one time in the mountains outside San Sebastian I was chased by a black bear. Weird people were probably the most dangerous wildlife, but like OP, basically every interaction with strangers I had was positive. But, I did move my tent a few times after setting it up upon realizing that the weird person I interacted with earlier knew where I was sleeping.
Ha ha, I felt like you did when I moved to California and found them everywhere when I started looking for them. Never got bit in the 26 years I lived among them.
And people there were freaked out when they heard I was from Kansas and thought little of having grown up around the perhaps more frightening Brown Recluse.
You'll be fine.
i was a little worried about bears for the night or two i was in bear country but my fear of cars and weather was far more top of mind
Met an Austrian guy who biked from NYC to LA in the early '90s. He had a paper list of people across the country who were bike tourer friendly who could house him, and he'd call them on payphones. He didn't have a tent, so he'd also sleep in post offices.
I never slept in a post office, but rural firefighters were always very good to me on bikepacking trips. Plying me with food and letting me sleep in their gym or somewhere around the station.
Such a great post. I did my first bike trip last year—cycling Taiwan's Route 1 island loop last year over 3 weeks and it was one of the greatest trips of my life. Already want to do it again.
Very nice summary. I did a similar cross-country trip and 100% endorse many of the conclusions at the end. (The Kansas winds and the hills of the Ozarks (central Missouri) were both surprisingly challenging and demoralizing, even after the continental divide.)
The blogger recommends Warmshowers for accommodation. That's good, but costs money.
BeWelcome.org is free accommodation, like Airbnb or CouchSurfing but without money! And open-source, in many countries, and very hospitable to refugees.
Well biking and cycling is considered generally a high-class sport in the US -- but when you are in a bike out in the middle of nowhere you are vulnerable. And it seems like the friendly firefighters or citizens he met on the way made were being generous and made offers to help rather than OP asking for requests.
Wow, that is completely wild. I have done an absolute ton of cycle touring (at least 60 trips, in 5 countries), and the idea of buying a bike 2 weeks before a trip, and embarking on a solo journey like this with no experience blows my mind.
He seems to have made some really savvy decisions though, like getting a proper bike fit, and knew enough about camping and meal prep etc to make it work.
Kudos to him.
tip: include which country in the title, “the country” doesnt tell the reader much.
Congrats to the author. I plan to do Oregon -> Virginia next year but I'll take more like 80 days than the author's 51.
Wow, I grew up in Yorktown and I remember seeing a lot of tour bikers. Never thought twice about it until now, seems like it's largely a result of the TransAmerica trail. Hope you enjoyed Colonial Williamsburg + Yorktown Beach!
There is a Japanese kid riding across the U.S. and documenting it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GcBzfu7u0nw
There is nothing like the quiet sleek freedom of bicycle touring. Going as far each day as your legs will let you. No gas just peddling
Of interest for the HN audience: the founder of grubhub has a memoir that tells the stories of biking across the country and starting grubhub in parallel. I found it an enjoyable read.
Hey man, nice one! Only critique of the write-up is I'm sure you have more pics and would love to see them interspersed or in a gallery at the end!
Unreal. Great achievement!
dude forget eating and sleeping man, my biggest concern is pooping. I need atleast 1 gallon of water everytime I hit the washroom to clean myself as I require portable bidets to clean the area in squat position thanks to some crazy medical history. How do you manage such a condition and travelling with the fact that I also need to drink atleast half a gallon of water, piss 10 times a day at the minimum. I am not exaggerating even once bit. Seriously, how do you manage traveling with this kinda stuff
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