Thread: 350 mile tour
View Single Post
Old 02-10-14 | 01:53 PM
  #29  
Coluber42
Senior Member
 
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 335
Likes: 0
From: Medford, MA
It sounds to me like you will be fine. I'd suggest trying your commute with a fully loaded bike a few times though, if only to get a good idea of how much of a difference in your speed the gear will make. And it really does make a difference. My own experience is that for a given amount of effort, loaded panniers can easily reduce my rolling average over a whole day by 2-4 mph. You might also find the need to change things about the bike's setup to make the load more comfortable, too.
But if you've been riding 10mi/day and commuting 46mi once a week, my guess is that you could load up your bike and start tomorrow and you'd be fine.

My one caveat is that if you really are going to try and average ~38 mi per day (and presumably avoid many days that are very much longer than that) it's going to be a lot harder to plan your overnight locations because you will have to find so many of them close together, but evenly spaced. In some areas it's fine, in other areas you might end up needing to do, say, a 70-mi day followed by a 20-mi day or something. But that's not necessarily a bad thing, either. Sometimes it's rewarding to do a longer, harder day and follow it with an easy rest day where you can lounge around, indulge, do something else. One of my favorite experiences from a tour my partner and I did a few years ago was that after about six long, hard days (mostly 90mi+) through the Rockies, we had a rest day where we rode an easy 20 mi in the morning, then spent most of the day soaking in the hot springs, then another easy 20 mi to our campsite with a big meal halfway through it. The day after that had the highest, longest climb of our entire trip and it was really nice to start it fresh. I so wish we had hot springs near where I live!!!
Coluber42 is offline  
Reply