Quote: Originally Posted by
Sleepyj .
Hi,
I plan to do a trip like that in the near future, but it's hard to find someone to do the trip with. I've just built up a Surly Long Haul Trucker. Do you do it solo or with others? How many miles do you cover per day? How long are you away for? How much training do you do before leaving? Whats your budget per day? What equipment would you recommend taking, tent, stove, maps, spare components, tools, etc? When do you plan to go away again, do you fancy some company? I've been cycling over 20 years, and I'm already very well travelled already, but never travelled by bike! I have so many more questions if you wouldn't mind answering them for me, I would really appreciate it? It would be great to keep in touch, seems that you have a lot experience that I could learn from.
My email address is:
[email protected]
Cheers
Jason
Its indeed hard to find some bike touring company... I would suggest looking one of these "travelling hospitallity" websites, like hospitality club etc... Mind you there are full of hippies though
The Surly long haul trucker should be just fine for a trip like that. As far as for miles, its not so much an issue of distance but of elevetion profiles too.
On my first tour I went with a 13kg bike loaded with another 3kg of equipment and was covering about 20km a day, 50km on the first day.
I wasnt doing any training before just some frequent riding. But it all went well until the cog got detached from the nexus-7 hub resulting in a car ride home from about 160km away from home after 7 days of sleeping in various camping grounds.
On the second one I did this year, I was planning to do a one piece 130km bit, without any gear really, just a few t-shirts and with an alu road bike of around 9.5kg. It all went well but at the 120km mark I got into a hilly area and was done for and hauled the bike for the last 10km with a car until the hotel. Before that I was doing daily 20km rides with a total climb of about 200m over that distance.
Budget depends on where you will stay, how much you are going to spend for stuff etc... As far as for equipment, have a look at the hiking stuff but on the "climbing" category as these are the lightest ones. A very light 2-3 person tent can weigh about 1-2kg (and cost around 200euros too though
)
One main thing though I would not suggest to "free camp" all alone somewhere. If its a special place you can just visit it on a day trip from the organized camping ground. Where there will be a supermarket, a pub etc... Free camping is actually illegal where I live too...
