Get lost
 

Ever since I was a young rider, 8 years old in Boston, I’ve always loved to go out and just get lost, taking turns, roads, paths I was unfamiliar with. I could always get home by the position of the sun in the sky. At 67 I still love to do it.

I'd add keeping track of what side of a road, highway, stream or river you are on, Also, look up for high voltage power lines - they can be an excellent guide.

It depends on a location. If you're in an urban area or an area not far from a city then taking a wrong turn or getting a little lost isn't a problem. If you're in a remote area far from help then getting lost can have serious consequences.

I've long preferred this sort of tooling around.

So long as the area is relatively safe. So long as I'm unlikely to get myself into a bind off-trail where nobody even knows I'm stuck down there.

But that generally assumes I am aware of the maps and regional area, know my directional compass headings, and won't mind being out of contact for hours at a time. I've long done this on vehicle trips. And on cycling outings.

Particularly in a town or city where the routes are doable via bike, I'm all for taking a spin around town to see what I see.

Getting lost sharpens my directional senses.
Especially, when not riding on grids and using landmarks and the sun, time of day....

:roflmao2:Get lost in certain parts of Philly and you might not make it out alive.

Most of my rides are not planned, more like turn as I go. I am likely to start generally into the wind and go where I go. I cannot get lost any where close to where I live. If riding through some of the new neighbors, I might get confused by the grid, but only for a minute or two.
There is no area in the mid-Atlantic remote, or big enough, to get lost.

I grew up in Chicago where its nearly uniform grid work of streets and strict numbering system means even if you weren't familiar with street names, the house/building numbers at any intersection would tell you exactly where you were in relationship to your origin including the distance.

Now in Colorado Springs, I still like to explore, but use my phone to get me out of the tangled, web-like streets of housing developments, and to get the satellite and street view of roads I discover, and to find bike trails.

Twelve years ago I hiked up Pikes Peak on Barr Trail with a buddy a couple of times who had done it before. There is limited signage and above tree-line there are some bare spots where weather and falling boulders can erase cause new and confusing landmarks. We pulled out our phones and amazingly it showed us where we were and where the trail was.

Exploring blindly is more fun now that we have a GPS safety net.

That's true for certain parts of nearly anywhere.
​​​​​​Many years ago my physics professor, an Olympics bound marathoner, was out on a training run and was beaten to death by some fun loving feral humans.

I live in the suburbs. We don't really have bad neighborhoods or ghettos here but we do have plenty of bad people doing bad things all over the place. Getting lost and ending up in some ghetto is virtually impossible but running into people who are up to no good or ending up in the wrong place at the wrong time and meeting some bad character is always a possibility.

I seldom get lost, since I can always backtrack, but enjoy exploring new roads and routes. I find that to be one of the real advantages of cycling, going into unknown areas but knowing I can always get back to civilization

I don't get lost either. And I don't need a map or course to lead me to interesting places. If you want to know where a road goes, then take that road and find out.


Not that I'm trying to detract from what I think the intention is of the OP. Which is simply explore new [to you] places. And possibly celestial navigation. <grin>

Absolutely! That's one of the joys & benefits of the bicycle. I took my bicycle to Germany in '87 and got lost a LOT. It was great! I happened upon more than one small village festival with music and (obviously) awesome beer.

Yup, getting lost is a feature, not a bug!

That’s how we found our current house. Went exploring up a road on our tandem and saw a For Sale sign and 20 years later we are still here.

Counterpoint: Most of my rides are structured workouts, and I don't want to waste any energy or time figuring out where to turn. Hence I usually ride a known loop.

I will sometimes do some exploring on a Z2 recovery ride or in the base training season...But at my annual mileage, there aren't many roads around here that I haven't already explored.

I don't understand what it is that you're referring to. And murder is funny ?

GPS -> Home

I definitely tailor my route towards whatever workout goal I'm trying to achieve on that particular ride. If it's threshold work, I'll do over/unders on route with cat 1 or HC climbs. If I'm doing zone 5 intervals, I've got a couple of 5 minute climbs in my 'hood that I'll just do hill repeats on. There aren't many miles of paved roads left, in my area, that I haven't ridden. Any of the paved ones I haven't ridden, it's safe to assume that they're not worth the effort.

That being said, the local private timberland and National Forest are criss-crossed with hundreds of miles of fire/logging roads(many not recorded on maps.) I've ridden most of them, but I do like to try and seek out stuff that I haven't ridden on. This often leads to busting through brush and hiking my bike cross country, but occasionally I'm rewarded with some top notch stuff.

Exactly. I like finding roads like that, but not when I'm doing intervals. :)

I justify it as cyclocross practice and then make a mental note to never take that road again.:D

how can you ever be lost if you have a cel phone :rolleyes: ...... same goes for you guys who think you can go somewhere and be alone :innocent:

My experience is like Danial Boone's...


"I have never been lost but I was bewildered once for three days.”

My apologies. I quoted the wrong post.

But you wrote that getting lost in urban areas isn’t a problem.

At your age they may consider it elopement...