Originally Posted by
emaurice24
Much thanks. This is advice I will try to take now, rather than learn the hard way this summer. We'll start off nice and easy and have more rest days the first few weeks. To me, it seems hardly anyone is ever 100% physically prepared for their tour and starting out easy is good advice. In all the excitement of starting a cross country tour, we'll be ready to go out and mash on those pedals the first few days, but we'll try hard to contain ourselves.
I started out easy on that trip but started hammering on day three so that by day five I crashed. Got up after a full nights rest made breakfast and packed my bike by 8:30 then felt drowsy so I layed down on my camp pad and fell asleep, waking up at 10:30am. The proverbial lightbulb went off " guess I better rest today". Altitude and high miles did me in so I stayed at the campsite an extra day. This had happened on other tours. The recovery period was three days on the bike where a 75% effort feels like a 90% effort. I enjoyed it but I would have burned out in three weeks if I kept that cycle up.