I-Like-To-Bike

That scenario of course would require planning in advance the exact location of every lock box accessible "clear spot" the cyclist will camp at on his cycling journey and advanced ordering. Doesn't encourage spontaneity while on tour; too bad if weather or something else, good or bad, requires deviation from a rigidly fixed itinerary.

Roody

And of course if individuals could mail supplies to a lockbox in a campground, so could Amazon or REI. And we're right back to @tandempower's original idea!

Use a phone app to order a tent and sleeping bab from Amazon.com while you're pulled oer in Revelstoke. Have it delivered to the lockbox at Ye Olde Primitive Campground in Banff. When you get there, point your phone at the lockbox and retrieve your tent and bag.

The technology already exists for all this. We just need a savvy young entrepreneur like @Machka to get it all going.

Roody

Maybe a little bit, but not as much as you might think, with overnight and two-day delivery so widely available.

cooker

If the Amazon delivery drone service does (figuratively and literally) get off the ground, one issue is security once the package is dropped off. A solution could be delivery to a manned outpost, but alternatively, they could design some type of dock that the drone lands on, and hands over the package to, which locks to the dock. The recipient has a code to free it. If this sort of thing takes off, the docks could be located anywhere.

I-Like-To-Bike

In this imaginative scenario will the recipient call in a drone to return the presumably used tent and camp gear prior to departing for the next camping site and where the camping package will be needed next by the camping-gear-free bicycling tourist. Maybe the drone can just go into a hover pattern until the carefree camper decides which clear spot he/she wants to bed down at next. Or will Amazon deliver a new package to every location on the bicycle camping tour?

This novel scenario might work better and be more efficient using flying pigs as the delivery vehicles.

Roody

That's a good question. Possibly the package could just be returned to the lockbox, and picked up later by a conventional delivery truck driven by a human. Then the equipment could be credited to the buyer, or even re-mailed to the next location along their route.

This isn't as exciting as your ideas,but it might be the simplest solution--pending the development of flying pigs--achieved perhaps by genetically combining pigs with pigeons.

Walter S

The idea of polluting the world by manufacting disposable camping gear from one day to the next is repulsive to me. Am I just weird?

Walter S

Some of us will strongly reject allowing our airspace to be polluted by electronic bugs.

cooker

I don't know. I do expect revolutionary changes in things like delivery and return of goods but I don't know how quickly it will come and how widespread it will be. According to Wired Amazon will face far fewer hurdles getting permission to deliver stuff by drone to sparsely populated locations than to urban locations, so maybe they will even focus early on developing a market in supporting rural and remote adventure activities.

cooker

I think in tandempower's OP he was talking about rental equipment.

cooker

Which is less offensive to you, or less polluting - an unmanned drone dropping off your neighbour's pizza, or a guy in a '91 Corolla zig-zagging through your neighbourhood, racing to beat the 30 minute deadline?

tandempower

I agree, which is why I have been thinking about ideas such as using a washable net/canvas tent on top of some kind of roll-out vinyl floor (that can be mopped) and a fixed roof structure to protect from rain or just a separate tarp system, which wouldn't need to be washed along with the fabric tent walls. I think it's also possible to make folding cots and chairs with removable fabric so it could be washed. The problem with our economy is that re-usable things are priced higher with the idea that they have greater functionality and longevity than disposable items BUT because there are cheaper disposable items, businesses and individuals prefer to save money and invest in the less expensive product.

The lockboxes are good idea and I don't see why you couldn't make a shipping-container sized locker complex with room for tents/cots/chairs/tables as well as lockers for deliveries. Drones might end up being the delivery agents, but Amazon or whatever business could also hire the deliveries out to travelers on the route. It would be nice for many people to combine travel and work in this way, I think.

Maybe while USPS is investing loads in updating its vehicle fleet to get better fuel efficiency, it could invest in some pedal-powered delivery bikes or HPVs. Imagine paying mail-carriers to stay fit while delivering parcels!

cooker

In older urban neighbourhoods, certainly in Canada, residential mail is still delivered to each house on foot. However over the next 4 or 5 years that is likely to be phased out in favour of community mailboxes, as seen in many suburban locations, where the mailboxes for 20 or 30 (or maybe 100) houses are combined in one location. Those will probably be serviced by truck.

cooker

Right now it is quite popular for tourists who aren't experienced in biking or solo touring to go on fully supported tours. They ride a lighly loaded bike with maybe just water and snacks, and all the rest of their gear is transported in a van. However you need a fairly large tour group to make it feasible.

In the future, with the availability of unmanned delivery vehicles, either flying or driving, and with potentially automated self-serve campgrounds, we may see a proliferation of fairly economical supported solo or small group touring, where you ride from node to node without a heavy load on your bike, and send some of your stuff along on an robotic carrier to meet you there.

I-Like-To-Bike

My mailman delivers my good ole U.S. Mail right to my not so urban door everyday but Sunday by walking his route after parking his vehicle which I think is propane or possibly electric powered. Saturday mail delivery may be on the chopping block but that's it so far.

cooker

Glad to hear it. A lot of our newer suburbs have the supermailboxes.

Machka 

I am neither young nor an entrepreneur. I am just aware of the steps needed to take an idea from a random thought to an actual business.

But tandempower obviously has no interest in doing that, so ... <<shrug shoulders>> ...

tandempower

If more bike roads are built away from motor-vehicle accessible roads, it could be feasible for bike couriers and/or HPVs to be used to carry parcels in to lock-box storage along the bike roads. That would be preferable to a delivery truck passing through the bike road and cyclists having to pull off the road to let the delivery truck by when it comes. Of course the lock-boxes themselves would have to be brought in by truck, if those are the size of a standard shipping container, but that would be a one-time delivery.

It would be pretty amazing to have, say, a 50 mile bike road through the woods, far from motor-traffic, with the ability to camp at 10-20 mile intervals and receive parcels by bike courier (or drone, although I like the bike courier idea because it would give people jobs delivering parcels along such bike roads). If 3-5 such roads would connect, crossing through motor-vehicle access roads on the way, it could be feasible to take multiday intercity tours by bike without carrying much gear. This could renew summer vacation as a time when kids travel with their families and get exercise with outdoor recreation.

tandempower

Machka, the biggest step is securing funding. Since this is the hardest step, because it requires convincing people with money to risk it, it is worth talking about the idea as much as possible. Only once people can envision fully how the final product will look and work will they begin to consider investing in building it.

What you do it unhelpful because talking about there being steps and calling things 'random thoughts' in the meantime are just counterproductive negativity. If you want to contribute something positive or constructive, you should think of potential difficulties or problems and how to resolve those. It may well be that too many politicians are biased toward automotive-dependency to consider investing land in camp-able bike roads. However, if the public begins to see the feasibility of it and can envision themselves and their families biking and camping for a few days comfortably, car-free touring could catch on as a more popularly accessible activity, and then politicians and land owners would warm up to planning longer bike roads through forests away from motor-corridors.

My hope for the public was renewed recently when someone publicly vocalized that she had changed her opinion about a recently built bike road after seeing people out using it. I think the same effect could happen if people realize that's it's truly feasible to take a multiday trip on a bike road and avoid the hassle of packing and unpacking a car and dealing with traffic. I think many people imagine the worst until they've actually experienced something in a positive way for themselves.

Machka 

And for that you need to go through the steps ... you need to do the research, you need to put together a business case. But I won't waste my time going into any more detail than that because you're obviously not interested in taking your ideas any further than just talking purely for entertainment.

cooker

You say that like its a bad thing.

I-Like-To-Bike

You are right, everybody loves a good joke, see:
Jokes & Humor

Machka 

Not at all ... entertainment is good. That's why I come here.

tandempower

"Where there's a will, there's a way." Cultivating earnest will is the only true 'step' to accomplishing anything. Any other 'steps' will emerge from an earnest willful pursuit of an objective. If, for example, you were a person with knowledge of a real funding opportunity, and you had an earnest interest in seeing it happen, you would be actively suggesting paths forward.

What you're doing instead is to say, "there are steps," which amounts to little more than shifting the burden of action further to the side of the equation that is lacking the funds, instead of the side that has the funds (or the land) to use toward such a project.

I have gradually realized how this works in terms of job-sollicitation. If an employer really needs someone, they will seek them out and actively recruit them, the same as you would a roofing contractor if your roof was in need of repair and you couldn't do it yourself. Employers don't like to be in the position of actively pursuing employees, however, because it puts them at a power-disadvantage, so they cultivate a culture where employees are supposed to seek and solicit employment. That way, the employer can create conditions or 'steps' as barriers to the applicant, which allows the burden and blame for failure to be shifted to the applicant.

So, as I said, where there is a will there is a way so fleshing out the possibility and desirability of a project or goal is the most important 'step' toward achieving the goal. When funders, land holders, public policy makers, and the public generally develop an interest in seeing the idea come to fruition, it will materialize according to whatever 'steps' need to be taken. In fact, those of us participating constructively in this thread are taking the 'steps' we are taking because we are called to do so by our own interest.

You have to realize there is resistance for a reason, though. People who own/hold land look at the prospect of putting a bike road through it as one possible use among others. Other uses might include keeping the land private. If the intent is to make money or maintain privacy in those areas, they may actively resist converting it into public right-of-way. They are thinking that some wealthier customers will come along and buy the land for private purposes and have no interest in biking there or allowing others to bike there.

This is generally where the automotive culture clashes with the car-free culture. If people want privacy and they have the money to drive onto private land, the public can be kept off that land, car-free or driving. If existing land-holders/owners cater to the ethic of private territories connected by motor-ways, then car-free travelers are stuck sharing the motor-ways and finding a means of camping/lodging within that structure of private properties.

If, on the other hand, large tracts of land can be designated for preservation and bike roads built through them to allow car-free public access, it may be possible to find a way for people to camp without making much of an impact, and that is the possibility I am trying to explore with a thread like this one. You should stop stirring up metadiscussion about it by posting snyde comments about whether the discussion is 'just for entertainment' or not. Where there's a will there's a way, so the thread is meant to explore the potential for public will and possible ways to proceed.

Roody

Geeze, lighten up. It's a damn good idea, and people are running with it. We're playing "what-if" and trying to foresee problems with the original and improvements that can be made. Every innovation starts out this way, as they probably taught in that class you took.

Like I said, it's a damn good idea and somebody somewhere is probably going to try it for real in the near future. It probably won't be any of us, but who knows? Bill Gates and Steve Jobs started somewhere.