bikenh

Yes, and some people are smart and know how to get the calories they need and save money doing it. A hamburger and fries is a hamburger and fries no matter where you get it. You can pay more, I'll pay less. We still get calories and still get pretty much the same calories no matter how you cut it.

Yes, I simplify things. I don't spend money out the butt and due to that I don't have to spend all my time slaving away to help Obama-people get a free life here in this once great country. Instead, since I know how to spend far less money than you and have a far better lifestyle I can do the things I enjoy doing and do them far more often than you can. You have to slave away to buy your $7 hamburger and fries, while I spend $3-4 for the same meal. When you learn how to spend less money then you'll be able to spend more time on your bike and go more places. I could easily do the full campout option, including cooking at the campsite. The only trouble is I would spend far less than what I spend right now. I could probably easily do a long tour for $6-8/day without trying. Heck, if I instead actually did a tour and not a trip, aka 50-60 miles a day instead of 100-200 miles per day I could cut the $6-8 figure down to probably $3-4 per day. It wouldn't be hard...less calories burnt equals less calories needed to be consumed means less money spend on food and when that is pretty much the only money I spend...you do the math.

See when you don't spend the money, you don't have to make the money...a little secret corporate America doesn't want you to know.

When you don't have to make the money, you have tons of free time. The secret to handling the free time is to learn to look at things differently and then you will be able to find ways to do tons of things for free or essentially for free and still keep your free time...free, not occupied with slaving your life away. Remember their is no more master/slave...instead their is employee/employer. Nothing but the name changed. The employer is still in control of the slave just like the master was in control of the employee. OOPS, I guess I got them switched around didn't I

When you simplify life you have freedom, because you can be in control of your life, not someone else that you are trying to keep up with...like the Joneses. when you give up that right you lose control and give it to the Joneses and they have control of your life because you are always trying to keep up with THEM, notice I didn't say him/her...I said THEM. It is trying to keep up with Jones, I said Joneses.

MassiveD

Or, you could just get paid twice as much. Then you work no more time for the man, and get to buy more expensive burgers. Normally in higher paid jobs, or at least the ones I had, I had a lot of freedom.

Calories are far from the only benefit in eating food, for starters burgers and fries are garbage, for the most part. While there is no guarantee that paying more will yield a better burger, the cheapest burgers are generally crap. There is probably some way to graze and eat natural foods, I think grass is a possibility, that would also be healthy. Burgers and fries are a suicide pact with corporate america.

mdilthey

You know, Rowan, your comment seemed out of place to me. I thought "Why the heck would he pick THAT fight?" So, I am not surprised that I am at fault for misreading your intention. The mistake is mine.

I apologize for calling you out like that. I should have read the context in the thread more carefully. I am also sure that your formative years involved much more "rough" touring than my current experience, and I recognize that each should be free to ride their own tour.

I'll try to read things more carefully before my persecution complex for being a "whippersnapper" takes the wheel...

Machka 

I don't eat a lot of hamburgers and fries of any sort ... not at home and not when I'm travelling ... once a week is about the maximum I can handle. If I've got to eat hamburger and fries two nights in a row for some reason (i.e. nothing else available) I'm making an effort to look for something else on the third night!

Generally, I prefer the food acquired in grocery stores ... or a variety of restaurants.


Plus, I've got to have fruit and veg every day, or just about every day ... and the pickle and little wilted shard of lettuce on a hamburger just doesn't cut it. If I don't eat fruit and veg regularly, my teeth and gums start to ache, and I develop mouth sores.

Doug64

I allow myself one hamburger a year, and I want it to be a really good one

andrewclaus

Cheeseburger in Paradise!

If I were more of a meat eater (haven't had a hamburger in thirty years) this is probably the way I'd do it.

Machka 

When I was touring Australia in 2004, I ate Aussie Burgers fairly frequently. Those were worth every penny of the approx. $5 each they cost at the time.
Aussie Style Hamburger Recipe

It's a whole meal all in one.


I've only had one or two since then ... you've really got to be hungry to eat one. Or riding approx. 100 km/day.

staehpj1

I love a good burger! Not so keen on fast food burgers, but a good home made or diner burger of good beef, preferably grass fed, with lettuce, a big slice of tomato, a slice of onion, a slice of cheese, and fries on the side is an awesome tour meal IMO.

bikenh

I'll fess up to having one slight problem/benefit...I don't have a sense of taste or smell so I can the same thing day in/day out without thinking a thing about. It all tastes the same to me. A hamburger is just as tasty as a banana or a piece of chicken or a waffle or a donut. They all taste the same. A little different texture but otherwise there is no difference to me. Generally the only time I eat meat is when I eat out, either at McDonalds on tour or the, now becoming more and more rare, at home Pizza Hut lunch buffet.

On tour I generally eat six bananas a day to keep the potassium levels up and I generally(not so much this summer...I should have been though) drink pure sea salt water...add 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt to each liter of water I drink. Nothing else for flavor as I wouldn't taste the flavor so why add it. I just go for quantity of the nutrition value not the quality as there is no quality...at least to me there isn't.

To the OP, I used to work in a food packaging plant. I saw how the same exact product was packaged under many different labels. You don't pay for the product, you pay for the label. You can eat grocery store food and pay twice what you need to pay for the same product, it all depends on the brand you buy. When I buy food for home I always buy generic. Actually I do the same thing on the rare occasion on tour when I end up buying food in a grocery store. I don't buy the brand name I buy generic.

It is quite possible to tour on probably less then $7/day, even in Canada, and be able to ride 100+ miles a day. Cut the miles back and you can cut back what you need to buy for food and cut the budge of the trip as well. Like I said before I could probably easily get by on $4-5/day if I was only riding 50-75 miles a day. I would have a lovely time as well. No reason I wouldn't be able to. I remember a couple of forecasted wet days on the trip this year and I cut the miles short and ended up exploring the town for free. Didn't cost me anything to go in and spend a couple of hours at the historical society or take in the other sites around town. You don't have to spend money to have a good time. You need to learn to think differently. Don't join the crowd...unless you want the same results as the crowd. Hence why I don't belong and have no desire to belong to ACA or to have any of their maps. I will design my own route and have the surprises of stumbling into things that I didn't even know were there. Gee, more money I've saved. I guess that's why I don't work...I don't have to.

Machka 

You might like the Aussie Burgers then.

They add a few things you don't list there, but that's the basic idea.

staehpj1

They look like a big meal, but also look really yummy

Machka 

They are!

When I toured Queensland, it was really hot, so our daily schedule changed and we started eating more of those burgers.

We would get up really early, cycle a while, then stop for breakfast (granola and fruit or something like that).
Back on the bicycle for a while, and then about 1 pm or so, we would stop and have one of those burgers, sometimes with chips, sometimes without.
And then we would laze about at the beach or in a shady park until approx. 5 pm when the sun started to go down and the temperature cooled off a little bit ... and then we would cycle an hour or two and find a place for the night. At some point later in the day we might have ice cream, fruit, or something other small thing for dinner.

They were so filling, we didn't need much more. And doing that saved on heating up a BBQ or stove or something on a 44°C day to cook a meal.