Originally Posted by
pastorbobnlnh
Jon, thanks for the more detailed description of your trip. It's interesting that you don't mention getting bored or bogged down in the monotony of a day in day out ride for nearly two months, even without having the opportunity to pursue your reading when you were off the bike.
I'm guessing you were on the road for approximately 6-8 hours per day. What filled the other waking hours after camp was set, meals and shopping taken care of, and bike maintenance completed?
One more question; how might the trip been different if you had been a solo rider? ...or a larger group of say, 4-10?
I've been kicking around the idea of a trip from New Hampshire, north into Quebec, ferry across the St. Lawrence, then east into and across Labrador, south through Newfoundland, ferry again across the St. Lawrence to PEI and Nova Scotia, and either ferry to Portland ME or ride through New Brunswick and back home again. Of course this is a retirement dream so still a few years off.
It would involve a great deal of "gravel grinding" because the roads north of the St. Lawrence are generally not paved. The other aspect of the trip is the significant wilderness crossing involved. Would you think doing such a ride solo?
On a ride that long, a lot of it comes down to just plain grinding out miles. It was often hard work, but I never got bored with it. You never knew when you were going to see some wonderful sight.
I've thought about solo touring, because--I have probably mentioned this before--my father went on a long tour every year from his mid-50s into his mid-60s or so. My mom rode with him on a couple of them, but mostly he went by himself. For example, he once rode from the west of Ireland to the Russian border (this was in about 1988 or so).
He was a very sociable guy but he said he never got lonely. I think that when you're by yourself you tend to make more of an effort to connect with other people, and they may make more of an effort to connect with you, seeing that you're alone. However it was, he said he got all the human contact he needed.
I'm not sure if I would be able to travel happily that way, though. I have always meant to take a week-long tour and see, but haven't had a chance to yet. This was actually the first loaded tour I'd ever done.
The time question has me stumped. We usually tried to be riding at or soon after sunrise--sometimes well before sunrise--and stop for the day two or three hours before sunset. Assuming that there were roughly 12 hours of light and 12 of darkness, that meant that we were typically in riding mode for about 9 hours a day. As you suggest, we probably rode for only about six of those hours, with the other three spent sitting and admiring the view, looking at our maps, eating bad convenience store pizza, or whatever.
We slept a lot. We were often in our sleeping bags well before it was really dark. That meant we were often awake before daylight. Say 10 hours in the sleeping bag every day.
It usually took us over an hour to set up camp (moving at a relaxed pace--we never had to race approaching darkness) and about the same to eat and get packed up in the morning. So there's another three hours.
So that's 9 hours on or near the bike, 10 hours lying down, and maybe 2 or 3 hours doing camp stuff. That's 21 or 22 hours. What happened to the other two or three? I guess we just frittered them away somehow.
We actually were part of a group of four for about a week across West Texas, since we teamed up with two solo riders, both of whom happened to be named Mike. It was sort of like forming a wagon train, I guess. It was 50 or 60 miles between water sources in some cases, and I think we all felt more comfortable being part of a larger group in that area. But overall, I enjoyed the simplicity of traveling with just one other person.
I have often thought about doing a trip very similar to the one you have in mind. I know of a guy named Stewart Coffin (he's well-known in wilderness canoeing circles) who did something very similar in the mid-80s--on a Raleigh three-speed, no less. I have a short account of it from a book of his that I would be happy to photocopy and send you. He supposedly wrote a longer account including photos that no magazine of the time had any interest in publishing. I think he's quite elderly now, but I keep thinking I should get in touch with him and see if he'd share that longer version (assuming he still has it).