Originally Posted by
rodar y rodar
Yes, I usually take at least a good portion of the food I expect to use from home and yes, most of my tours are very short- normally only weekends.
My original point was that I`m bad about lugging too much food. My subsequent point was that carrying only one meal around here would range from silly to outright dangerous. There are short tour routes that would allow that kind of packing, but not many. More often than not, somewhere along the course of a weekend trip is a span of longer than one meal`s worth of time without services. Occasionally, there will be no services for more than 24 hours. The most extreme case I`ve had from my own touring experience involved carrying water for about a hundred miles of dirt road (knocking on a door was not an option, nor was filtering or treating water). Keep in mind also that just because there`s a store at a certain location on one trip doesn`t mean it won`t be boarded up the next time you pass through.
Anyway, this weekend`s trip had a reasonable food and water available and I resisted the urge to overpack. I`ve often overpacked in the past despite having reliable services on route.
EDIT: This is admittedly not my average trip, but it does provide a good example of why I don`t have the have the same view about buying along the way.
http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/gerlachride
Thanks for the clarification. We all do things differently, so I wondered.
I have always flown to the start for a tour, so I always am at least starting in a developed area with stores. Then once underway, the majority of the time, I will pass some kind of store once a day or more. There are exceptions where it may be two or maybe three days between stores and yes stores can and do go out of business. I always carry enough to be safe, but possibly inconvenienced a bit if there is no store where I expect to find one. It is a balancing act and we each need to figure out what works for us balancing safety with the desire to carry less weight. The answers will be different depending on where and how you tour and other factors.
For weekend tours I can see where folks might carry more of their food from the start. I tend to not want to bother gearing up for less than 10 days or so, preferring to do day rides or maybe even forgo the bike and just trail run or hike if it is only a weekend or several days. That is just a personal preference though and I certainly am not implying that there is anything wrong with shorter tours, other than that they don't appeal to me.