NOS88

I started touring in 1977, Yeah, I know; some of you weren't born yet. Planned routes using road maps from gas stations. Most of the time it worked well. However, one thing gas station road maps don't tell you is that the route you're thinking of picking is a favorite one for large trucks bringing coal down from the mines. So, I learned to ask a few questions of locals before making plans for the next day's route. Oh, yes, it was one day at a time. I usually had a destination in mind, but seldom planned out the whole route before hand. It just seemed like more of an adventure that way. In terms of gear, I lucked out. I was working part-time in a bike shop the year I started touring. So, I had access to all the gear I would need and could afford - none of it top end. The number of days that I rode wet and with wet gear were more numerous than I'd care to repeat today. But then, learning to keep a lookout for Laundromats and drying out when you could was just something to get used to. The lack of cell phones and instant communication across the world, meant I carried enough gear to do most repairs on the road. Today, I carry considerably less, knowing I can search online and/or call for assistance if I really need it.

onbike 1939

I can only speak for myself but it is exactly this that made touring so special for me.

To begin a tour of hundreds of miles, while knowing that one could only rely upon ones own resources, gave a feeling of adventure that was hard to beat. I think it was that element of risk that I relished and which was missing from my every-day life that made touring, and especially in a foreign country, so addictive.

jamawani 

I had the advantage of living in a university community where the map library had a full collection of 1:250, 1:100, and 7 1/2 minute USGS maps. For my first cross-country tour (out of six) I mapped out a route heading east from Astoria along what later became ACA's Lewis and Clark route, then veered up to Spokane on county roads and over to Missoula on Hwy 200. There were a number of published bicycle touring books from which I chose a route thru Helena and Bozeman to Yellowstone rather than the TransAm. Also, county highway maps and statewide traffic volume maps were available from state DOTs. (And still are)

It took a little more time - you had to get paper maps by mail when they are now available instantly - but you had significant resources. Plus, since you saw that the AAA map said it was 19 miles between Appleville and Beantown, but the Rand McNally map said 23 miles - you realized that the products were not flawless. Today, people are so dependent on Google maps and other apps that they even argue with me when I say that Google maps routes you on nonexistent, private, or long-closed roads.

AAA's cartography department used to be huge - with lots of capable people. Now it's a skeleton - as are the other major producers of paper maps. The problem with the electronic replacements is that they have far fewer people and are dependent upon major providers of data. Hence the old saying from the beginning of computing - "Garbage in, garbage out." I've had responses from apps like MapMyRide where they admit they are completely dependent upon the macro info.

Yeah, maybe Gramps can't download a playlist on his phone, but he was able to scout a route across the Bitterroots with just a compass and a national forest map. I love the tech and use it, but sometimes the systems fail, you are out of range, or the info is just plain wrong. What do you do then??

Rob_E

I am pretty much dependent on the internet. I doubt I would be doing any touring without it. I took two brief "tours" in '90 and '91 and found that the parts I enjoyed didn't seem to balance out the parts I didn't enjoy.

I had grown up riding my bike for transportation, but not touring. I lived in a rural area, and I didn't really know anyone else who relied on a bike to get around, and the nearest bike shop was about 20 miles away, so I didn't get out there often. When I decided to bike from my home to my first year of college, 200 or so miles away, I just made it up as best I could. A trip to the bike shop showed me one or two options for carrying stuff that were out of my budget, and some Wald baskets, which I ended up buying. The department store had a little dome tent that packed up small enough to fit on the bike. In our closet was grandpa's army-issue, wool sleeping bag, the only bag in our arsenal that rolled up small enough to reasonably carry. The bike was a ten-speed road bike, I think, that a friend persuaded my to buy from him. He said it would be better than the ancient, rusty, 3-speed (but it didn't shift, so really only one speed) Schwinn that I had been riding up until then. I'm sure he was right, but 30+ years later and I still haven't warmed to drop bars. I rotated the bars so that the drops were at the highest point, so I could try and approximate the riding position of the Schwinn. Got my Delorme Ohio Atlas and Gazetteer, which didn't pack easily, but was too useful to leave behind, and a little cooler that I tied to the back of my Wald baskets, a few changes of clothes, and I was set. I was also cold at night in the wool sleeping bag. The ground was hard. And the only part of my tent that seemed to not let water through was the floor. It was still an adventure, and I had fun, but I figured I had to refine my method.

I made another attempt the following year. Pretty much the same trip, but I planned on some extra traveling days, and I added some gear, mainly a hammock. It was just a cheap, mesh hammock that I had been using to nap by the river. I thought that would be more comfortable than the ground, and I wouldn't wake up in a pool of water. Unfortunately, I didn't think through all of the issues that modern hammock-campers have so thoroughly ironed out, mainly insulation and rain protection. The wool bag was still cooler than I would like, but now I was getting cold air from above and below. I still had the tent for serious rain, but it had not occurred to me to get a tarp to string over the hammock, so I woke up at least one night to rain in my face and a choice of suffering through it or setting up the tent in the rain in the wee hours. I just suffered through it. Also my bag had no zipper, so I had to kind of shimmy into it while in the hammock with a frequent result of the hammock flipping and dumping me on the ground. Again the biking was fun, but the camping, or at least the sleeping part of the camping, was kind of torture. My planned trip of a couple of weeks was cut short when I learned that I could move into the dorms early. The call of a warm, dry bed was too much to resist.

Over the years I refined/replaced my camping gear with comfort in mind, but it always made my gear bigger, and heavier. I still camped, and I still biked, but I did neither as much as I'd like, and never together. I had bins of camping gear, a large tent, and a queen-size air mattress. I couldn't imagine what it would take to get my gear down to something I could fit on my bike. Then, somewhere in my internet wanderings, possibly in this forum, I saw a mention of a hammock tent. That was the missing piece for me. Dry, warm, off the ground, and small and lite. I got a Hennessy. Then I replaced the hybrid I had been commuting on with a Long Haul Trucker. Both hammock and bike choices were made after a good amount of research on line. Now I try and squeeze in at least one small trip and a couple of over-nighters a year. Instead of suffering through the camping parts to get to the biking parts, I now look forward to climbing into my hammock at the end of a day on the road.

Using tech on the road is nice, too. I have a phone, and often use my iPad for mapping, but those are conveniences I can do without. But getting a set up that worked for me required connecting with people who I likely would not have just run into in real life. So while the electronics are useful, it was the existence of the internet in general that got me into touring again.

egear

Let's see I started touring in 1979 the year I graduated from High school. Rode to NYC from Baltimore and back. That was fun as were all the trips I took across Canada. Lived in the campgrounds at Yellowstone to summer of '81. Back then there was no rush for campsites and they only made you move every 7 days. I suspect it's not that way any longer. I relied on maps, maps and lots of maps. Carried a compass also. Sometimes I think back on those days before waterproof anything, before you could call for help from anywhere and I think maybe it was a better experience. Nahhh touring is touring. Now when I tour I take my cellphone and that's it. You can hardly buy maps anywhere any longer because frankly soooo few know how to use them. I can tell the time of day within an hour or so by the suns position in the sky as well as my general direction. You can never go wrong asking for local advise on roads so for me touring is about the same. The gear is better chains last longer and take far more abuse then I can remember. The bags are really waterproof. Clip less pedals are the bomb. I guess it is a better experience from that aspect of it. Still nothing like crusing down a road with nothing but the sound of the wind and your freehub.

LeeG

I went to a bike shop and said I needed a ten speed. I wasn't a racer and was planning on taking a trip up the coast. I had ridden my 5spd Schwinn on 25-70 mile day trips on 26" x 1 3/8" tires and was ready to step up to aluminum rims. The nice fit young lady bike racer showed me a Nishiki Cresta with 27" x 1 1/8" tires, toe clips and unique 44/48 - 14/36 5 spd freewheel. I removed the cheater levers on her recomendation then rode it all summer with Pletscher rack before loading it up with the cheapest panniers made of waxed cardboard backing and nylon cloth. Small front handle bar bag and rear load I road north, riding and hitchhiking from Los Angeles to Seattle and back.
I wrote letters.
it was good

ps. Lesson 1. The map is not the terrain. The line on the map isn't what happens.

BigAura

+1

B. Carfree

I have experienced this quite a bit in my local (within 200 miles of home) forest service roads. Just three weeks ago I brought along an electronic toy (very rare for me) with a loop through the coast hills loaded in. While cruising along a gravel road, the thing beeped at us, which indicated we had made a wrong turn. So, we backed up and proceeded along on what appeared to be the main route. A few minutes later, same thing. We eventually found that it wanted us to go down one of those dirt roads that is obviously out of use. Just for giggles, we went down it. When it dead-ended, we could see that a few decades ago there had indeed been a road there, but it was long since replanted.

I also sometimes wonder if google maps aren't a big part of the reason touring has become more homogeneous with people all taking the same sanitized routes. When one uses paper maps, one can see the relative build-up of the roads (which generally corresponds to the traffic loads). Google just does a lousy job with very minor roads, the ones we want to be on, so people learn quickly to stay on the beaten ACA track with all its flaws.

BigAura

Forest service roads are not Google Maps forte, yet they are WAY better than any state road maps. Paper or GPS topo maps are needed for accurate back-country.

Machka 

When you look at Google maps, all the roads are white or yellow. White for "minor", yellow for "major". But the white roads could be anything from little gravel tracks to fairly busy paved roads. And the yellow roads could be anything from a major highway to a narrow, twisty little road that just happens to be the only road through an area.

Paper maps often have categories for roads. Dotted lines might mean gravel, the thin red line might mean quiet secondary road, the thicker white line might mean a busier secondary road, the thicker blue line might be a major highway ... whatever the key for the map indicates. There are usually quite a few categories.

Once you've got an idea what the roads are like in your area, and you compare them with the designations on the map, you've got a pretty good idea what the roads will be like further afield.

jwarner

And with topo maps, one can easily calculate grades, identify potential camp sites, identify potentially cool terrain features and views, identify alternative routes that would make no sense for a car to take, but are just fine for a bike, and ....

I've also never had one fail to turn or or break (a paper topo map).

djb

I agree with the comment about people not knowing how to use maps as well as before, or have a sense of "big picture" and sense of direction due to using gps's etc. I've seen this first hand and perhaps these have been people who have no sense of direction anyway, but I firmly believe that using gps and small screens can be a detriment to having a good awareness of ones position, direction, and that sort of thing that one develops when travelling and planning a route only using a paper map.

Having started with bike touring after having done canoe camping and hiking and whatnot growing up, properly using a map and being aware of where you were/are on a map as well as your progress on a map was something learned and just par for the course, as this was the only way to know where you were or were going.

I've travelled a few times with people who regularly had to check a small screen, scrolling along forever to follow the "blue line", and were very much lacking in an overall vision in their head of where we were going. I always found it perplexing how they didnt remember the general layout and had to have regular checks. Again, maybe these were folks who are directional challenged anyway, but I do think years of having a map in front of you as you travel, and especially planning routes using paper maps, gives you an awareness of position different than relying on electronics.

all that said, gps's and cell phones are great tools, and as time savers they can be amazing, I still agree that being able to improvise and deal with different situations still comes from lots of experience, and an internet forum can't do that for you.

Rowan

Public telephones to communicate with family (and to order a new rear wheel).

Ordinary mail to send on stuff I didn't want to carry anymore.

Pen and notebook to write the journals.

Pharmacy courier to get replacement wheel to me overnight from a bike shop in another town.

A cheerful attitude to help talk with other people met along the way (rather than have my head down locked into a device of some sort and ignoring all that was going on around me).

Paper maps, because I can mark them with stuff, and archive them, get them out and pore over them again planning another trip or reminiscing about old ones.

Incandescent lights powered by old-style batteries, not USBs.

Friends who can show their enthusiasm in person about their experiences and why certain routes are worth choosing.

-----------------------------------

The one single area that I like about the new tech is the digital camera.

noglider 

Wonderful story, @LeeG!

I'm a technologist but lament the loss of paper maps. It makes me terribly sad. I use google maps and gps, and they are getting better, but agree with everyone's points about how paper maps are better. Maybe the new stuff will one day be as good as paper. I can't predict. The need for battery power is a big obstacle.
@Machka, around here, google's recommended cycling routes are pretty good. What about there? And where exactly is there? (Why don't people put their locations in their profiles?)

gerryl

My first tour was 12,000 km on a $175 bike back in 1982. I had no idea what I was doing, didn't know there was such a thing as a triple crank, completely ignorant about gear ratios, aluminum rims, padded handle bar tape, etc. I basically went off with the bike I had, no mods. One thing I did know was how to read a map and use a compass. I've never used a GPS for touring, just paper maps, I'm I missing something?

Machka 

My location is in my profile ... I currently live where the thylacine roamed.


I started using Google maps when I lived in Alberta ... and the information was really hit and miss. All the paper maps I had were more up to date than Google. In fact, Google maps entirely missed the fact that a particular river had been dammed, a huge lake had been created by the dam, and a road had been built over the dam. The dam had been built back in the 1980s and all the paper maps included it. Baffling why Google missed it. But I just checked and I see that they've finally discovered it and have included it.

In addition to paper road maps, I had ordnance maps when I lived there and could see exactly where the paved roads were located and where they ended. I could, and did, map out all sorts of routes, including a Super Randonneur series, using road maps and ordnance maps. But I still can't tell what roads are paved and which are not on Google ... and there's no street view on most of those roads to help a person determine what the roads are like.

There are some beautiful quiet roads in Alberta ... really good cycling roads ... but you wouldn't know it using Google maps.


Then I moved to Victoria (the state in Australia), and again, because we were rural, the information was hit and miss. But it was a bit better than the information in Alberta. The street view has more coverage in that area, which can be helpful. Nevertheless, I picked up a whole set of paper maps ... scenic route maps, road maps, and some really good ordnance-style maps to help me figure out what roads are paved and what roads are gravel, and how wide the roads might be ... as well as numerous other interesting features in the area.


And now I live where the thylacine roamed ... Tasmania. And again, the information is hit and miss. I'd have to say it is somewhere in between the Alberta information and the Victoria information. The last time the Google street view van came through to do a fairly thorough survey was 2007, and they pretty much just did main roads. There are occasional roads where they updated their information in 2010, but again, mainly just main roads, and if you want to cycle somewhere you don't necessarily want to use main roads. On many roads, there is street view partway along and then it just stops. Of course, there's no way to tell what kind of surfaces and widths the roads are where the street view doesn't exist.

I have been collecting paper maps here too, but I wish they had maps here like the ones I had in Victoria. Those were good.

Papa Tom

OK, well...I have no shame. Before I had a cell phone, I decided I was going to ride from Manhattan to Bear Mountain. Starting from my home on Long Island, I took the train to NY City, then set off on the rest of the journey by bike. To make a long story short, somewhere along the New Jersey Palisades, I had (let's just say) an "accident" in my shorts. Yeah, THAT kind of accident...and it was a MAJOR mess.

If this had happened today, I'd have just called my wife's cell phone from my cell phone and had her pick me up somewhere. But neither of us had one yet, so I had to rely on finding pay phones that weren't near people (I was covered in doodoo from butt to toe) and leaving messages on our home answering machine (she was out for the day and most of the evening). Ultimately, unwilling to get back on the Long Island Rail Road covered in feces, I ended up riding home from Jersey to Syosset into the evening with no lights on the bike. What a disgusting, demeaning fiasco!

I'm not one for traveling with gadgets and gizmos (I still use printed directions and I don't have an odometer), but a cell phone is a must-have for me since this incident!

duckbill

Good point. I have often wondered this. A good discussion for FOO perhaps.

noglider 

Papa Tom, sorry you had to go through that. Not sure how I would have handled that. And yes, a cell phone is a must have. That's one reason I don't want to use it for navigation when I'm riding. I want the battery to be ready for important phone calls.

Rowan

I think my first bike ever was around $400, and that did a big tour from Perth to Adelaide across the Nullarbor Plain in Australia. I did use a computer to research the tour, reading up on newspaper articles about people who had done the trip (I worked as a sub-editor, so finding the material in the paper's archives was easy).

I assembled cheap camping stuff, and my father posted me a sleeping bag of his (it was a monster!).

That trip lives on vividly in my memory.

The bike was stolen after I got to my final destination (home in Tasmania) several months later, but I have owned many since and even ran a bicycle tour and hire business for a while.

Thulsadoom

Browsing this thread, I get the impression that the general concensus is that no one tours without a cell phone and internet access in this day and age. Not true. There are still a few dinosaurs out there, and they pedal right along the same roads as everyone else.

noglider 

I don't think anyone say no one tours without a phone, but I'd bet the consensus is that a phone is a good idea, even if you don't turn it on. You could even get a phone without activating it with a carrier. It would be good for 911 calls.

judyomega

I did my first tour in 1980 at age 20 on a $95 American Arrow (my very first multi-speed bike: only 10 speeds, but that was 9 more than my old bike!). I had never heard of that brand, but they were selling them off the back of a truck at a local gas station for one weekend, and the price was right. I added toe clips, a clamp-on water bottle holder (I don't think that bike had any braze-ons), and had the local bike shop install a rack. I sewed the panniers from a Frostline kit, since no one carried them locally. That was my only "specialized" equipment. The tent was borrowed from a back-packing friend, and I stuffed my huge Coleman sleeping bag into a garbage bag and bungeed that to the rear rack. My boyfriend and I had no bike-specific shorts, gloves, shoes or helmets and were sore and numb in all kinds of places, but we had a great time!

I learned a trick from my parents for getting free long distance check-ins: I would call home through the long-distance operator, and request a person-to-person collect call to Hugo Dahl (a great uncle of mine who did not live at home with us). That was the signal to my folks that all was well on my end. My mom or dad would say Hugo wasn't there (letting me know that all was well at home), and the operator would end the call at no charge, since it was "person-to-person". It's much easier now with a cellphone, but I do kind of miss our stealthy family "code".

FBinNY 

I think that the free person to person all clear system was used nearly universally by young folks away from home. In my family we kept it simple, all home and ask for yourself, and your parents could honestly say not home. By the time I was seventeen, that had gotten a bit old. It took a bit of work, but I was finally able to convince Mom that as long as the police didn't phone, she could accept that no news was good news. This was better for her, since I wasn't the most reliable about checking in nightly anyway.

Machka 

Well ... I don't think of myself as a dinosaur, but I don't bring a mobile phone on tour ... and I've never owned a mobile phone.

As I mentioned earlier, Rowan has one, but does not get it set up so we can use it in other countries.

We travelled for 8 months around the world just recently with no phone at all. And we never needed one.


We did, however, have notebooks. It was the first time we had travelled for any length of time with notebooks so it was a new experience for us. In some ways it was good ... in some ways not so much.