spinnaker

I agree with the above two posts. Sounds to me like you are just touring to go out for a ride. There is nothing wrong with that if you want to do a weekend shake out tour but a whole week of that? No thanks.

There are tons of great places to tour that aren't all that far away. I have never been but I understand there is some pretty good touring in Mississippi. Then there is the KATY trail, a bit further away. Then there is the Great Allegheny Passage which starts almost behind my house. It would be a flight or long drive for you but I would be happy to help out once you get here.

Valleygrl's idea of the Pacific Coast is another excellent idea.

All these ideas above would be good for your wife too. They can be a bit challenging but not overly do for a first time tourer. If you pick your first location well, your wife is going to fall in love with touring. The PCH will most certainly have her hooked.

And if you can't afford it this year then save up your money and go for a nice tour next year. You can still do weekend tours.

Machka 

Why not?

Rowan and I drive all over the place to start rides. It's a great way to get out of your immediate local area and see something different for a change.

GamblerGORD53

I would say the best plan is to skip "death ranch valley" and rent a van to Corpus Cristie. From there, I believe you could
do a loop to where you were going and back to CC, 80 or 90 miles those 6 days. Then bring the rental van back home. Everybody will be happy. I did a car/bike ride in the cities holiday thru Texas ( 8 days just in Texas) in May 2004. I spent 9 hours riding around Corpus, was a pretty nice day 86F.

mev

Why not split that Brownsville to Kingsville day in parts? There is a motel in Raymondville.

What temperatures are you expecting in the south of Texas in June?

I cycled from Brownsville to Dallas a few winters ago. I stayed in motel prior to the King Ranch and then in one on the other side. Don't have my notes to look up exactly but Google + motelguide.com gave my my choices.

staehpj1

+1
Valygrl is the voice of reason as usual.

10 Wheels

I live and ride in The Texas Heat. 60 miles this morning with temps to 82*. (This is March)

How will you be able to carry enought water?

Your wife is going to melt after 1 PM with the Hot Sun beating down.

She might make 60 miles a day?

Hitch a ride with every pick up truck that comes by you.

dengidog

+2

I'm planning on touring in August after nearly a year of planning/training and I think your wife is in for one heck of a disappointment (and lifelong aversion to touring) if you take the tour as planned. To be honest, I think she's in love with the idea, not the reality.

South Texas (heck, nearly ALL of Texas) is MISERABLY HOT in June and you're planning on one boring landscape. It's really not a great way to reintroduce her to biking.

I think it's terrific that you want to tour together, but please reconsider your plans. Others have given you some great advice.

Santaria

I can't move the ride, but I'm pretty certain I've convinced her to do a few things for me to make sure she's cool with the idea of a longer ride.

The first is going to be two 50 milers, back to back. Nothing far. Probably to McAllen, enjoy a night there without the kids and then ride back the next morning. At that point, we'll sit down and retalk about where she wants to start out, and how far she's willing to travel.

It's been rather cool lately, but yes, after living in Central Texas and now the RGV since 1996 or so, I get that its hot. Unless the rock I've lived under is just better air conditioned that usual

I'm drinking about 1 liter every 70 miles. If I drink more than that, I'm gonna be sicker than a dog. I have no idea yet what her drinking requirements are going to be. Obviously she's going to drink what she's comfortable with.


If you assume we hold a 15 mph course, and leave at 4:30-5 a.m. (with the wind to our backs to make this even more easy) you're talking 60 miles by 8:30 a.m. She wouldn't be out in the sun at that point, so that might work pretty well actually.


lol, I'll take the ribbing.


Raymondville isn't a bad idea to stop at. But that sorta seems ridiculous to pay to sleep less than 53 miles from home.

That would mean the second day would still end up being a 72 mile ride. Still might be better for her to break that up into two smaller rides.

I was born in Upland, CALIF. so I'm familiar, and have lots of family in Southern California, but that's still around $1k in roundtrip tickets, not to include the cost of shipping both bikes...I'm just not throwing money at this until it feels awesome, I'm still a broke college student with four kids trying to keep a household together. I wish I was apparently as rich as others here on BF, but I'm unfortunately not

10 Wheels

"She will be training up her base mileage starting next month. So we have that as her first step in training for this ride."

She has not been on a bike for 15 years.
You are going start her on two 50 mile back to back rides?

10 Wheels

Good Luck and God Bless you both.

spinnaker

Try 115-135 mile back to back rides.

Santaria

I probably won't even consider a single ride further than 10 miles until June. I figure by December I'll shoot for a weekend of two 50 milers back to back, yes.

This isn't something that I'm doing tomorrow, or even next week. I'm just letting her get accustom to riding again until AT LEAST June.


Ultimately, I'm going to undermine her confidence, erode at her will to do this and hope she gets back into watching Glee, eating Domino's Pizza and listen to her complain that I'm never around cause I'm always out riding. This way she doesn't have to put forth any effort, worry about anything and can just live vicariously through my accomplishments.

It's so much easier and less work that way

leftcoast

I get it. You don't want to me married anymore.

Machka 

OK, now let's assume something realistic ... like holding a 10 mph course.

And here's a question ... you're all enthusiastic about leaving at 4:30 - 5 am, but is she? Is she a painfully early morning person? What time does she normally get up in the morning now?

Also ... you don't need a fortune to pack up a vehicle and drive 200 or 300 km away to start cycling from there. What's the scenery and cycling like 2-300 km away from where you live?

MilitantPotato

My ex-wife broke down after 15 miles.

Good luck, bike rides with a spouse, though testing, can be an amazing bonding experience.

Santaria

I talked her out of it. I told her she wasn't up to snuff and should consider a hobby like knitting. It's safer and less work.

Thanks for the heads up!

Machka 

No need to be sarcastic ... we're not being sarcastic. We're being quite serious.

Randonneuring is more about the challenge of covering a certain distance, a long distance, within a certain period of time.

Touring, on the other hand, is more about relaxing and enjoying the scenery, the ride, and the interesting things along the way ... touring is meant to be pleasant and fun.


I am a long distance cyclist who has been Randonneuring for a decade now with the occasional 24-hour race thrown in for good measure. I enjoy long distance rides ... I enjoy the challenge, and there's something exciting about cycling to some distant point on the map.

Back in 2004, I was in great shape ... I had ridden numerous randonneuring and other long distance rides, including a 1000 km randonnee. I had logged about 9000 km by the end of September that year. And then I started a tour with a friend whose idea of touring was much like yours. You and he would get on well together. About 10 days into the tour, I rented a car. I was exhausted by the pace he had set, and it wasn't as tough as the pace you're thinking of setting!

Your wife is just barely getting into cycling. Relax, take it easy, and just enjoy cycling. When you're with her, let her set the distance she wants to go and the pace she wants to travel. And take time to smell whatever roses you happen to have in the area where you live. Maybe your wife will take to randonneuring and long distance cycling ... or maybe she won't. At this point, it's hard to say what will happen. And June 2012 is a long way away.

Cyclesafe

Santaria,

Most of the people who responded to your post are sincere in their advice. Some even have had personal experience in trying to introduce touring to a spouse who at one time or another indicated a desire to give it a try. But most of us have blown it and we want to give you the benefit of our failures even though what we say isn't what you want to hear.

The best strategy is for you to forget that you cycle. Your wife, will likely never be as capable or as enthusiastic as you. You can hope that she will, but don't expect it. For her, you'll both need to help create something mutual that involves bikes that you can both do easily now.

For example, ride out 10-20 miles and have a picnic. Go in the spring when wildflowers are abundant. Gather seeds to plant around your home. Whatever. Make it something memorable that she will enjoy. Take lots of pictures. At the end of the day she will associate the bike with pleasure, not torture. The next day, you ride your 135 miles alone. It's an entirely different activity.

Let her tell you if / when she wants to take the next step. Let her plan the route, let her decide what she wants to take on the trip. Bear in mind that it is as just as reasonable for her to demand that you stay home and learn knitting as it is for you to demand that she mount a bike and tour. Consider yourself lucky.

spinnaker

And I thought he was being serious.

Either way a very poor response.

Personally I thought everyone was giving very good advice. I wish I had an s/o that was interested in cycling. Some people don't know how good they have it.

Santaria

I was only being half sarcastic.

I talked her out of going on the trip. While she wanted to do it, and I wasn't pushing - after she read the forums to see if people agreed with the what I told her:

100 percent dedication
Accept that riding these distances is hard, very hard (mentally and physically)
Never let people tell you it can't be done
The reward for success is personal, but life changing


She found that what most people told her is that the effort was beyond her. I jokingly told her to take up knitting. Regardless, she still wants to ride a bike, but now she just doesn't want anything to do with riding long distances or this forum.

Sad really, because I told her about how people on BF encourage people to ride 25-40 miles one-way commuting 5 days a week; I told her how the Clyde/Athena forums are really amazing and the people there have my respect (and have helped push me to get back what I lost). I even told her that people like Machka do exist, and that being a woman is the last "excuse" that can be made about what can and can't be done on a road bike.

And then she saw this thread. I've been a semi-regular poster on the forums for almost six years, but I probably will just start keeping my riding and my advice to myself from now on.

Good luck, ride safe and if you see a heavily tattoo'd rider on a Synapse/CAAD9-5 in South Texas - it might just be me.

Rob_E

I'll provide a dissenting opinion as you seem to be in need of one. Indeed, other comments, no matter how thoughtful and well reasoned they are, seem to be met with sarcasm, so here is the other side.

Last summer I was considering biking to the coast and up the Outer Banks. It's a relatively small distance, about 300 miles total, but I haven't done a multi-day tour in years, so I was looking at routes and figuring out times. My biggest problem was the ferry, which stopped running at 5:00 or so, and was 200 miles into the trip. I wanted to get to the ferry on the 2nd day, but the numbers just didn't work out. 100 miles a day might be doable, but 100 miles before 5pm seemed like pushing it. Eventually I scrapped the whole idea because I was not prepared for the trip and didn't have enough vacation days left. But a couple of weeks later, my friend, Mike, hopped on his bike in the wee hours of the morning, headed out, and caught that five o'clock ferry. One day, 200 miles, done by 5:00. He also got off work one Friday evening and biked 160 miles to Richmond, VA overnight. He's a randonneurer(sp?) and does crazy distances all of the time. If you were married to Mike (probably not legal in Texas), I have no doubt he would be fine with your proposed daily mileages.

But, as Machka points out (and as you mentioned a few posts back), this is more of randoneurring question. You're in the touring section, and you're asking about this as touring issue. As you can see, no one considers these mileages reasonable for a tour, let alone a first tour. What you are proposing is more in line with long-distance, endurance cycling. It's not that your goals are unreasonable, but they are not what most of us would consider touring.

I would take your question to the long distance section of the forums. Try and get your gear down to a change of clothes, toiletries, water, and emergency tools/parts. And start working up to serious distances. What you're proposing does not sound fun to me (nor, seemingly, to most people on the touring forum), but if you think your wife will enjoy it, then by all means go for it. But approaching this as a distance/endurance challenge seems like the way to go. I'm sure in the other forum they'll have training advice, but my first thought is that the preparation you're planning on, or planning on for your wife, seems low. A 50 mile out-and-back overnight trip is a good starting point, but I think you need to work up to some back-to-back 100+ mile days. In my experience, one day of extra long miles is doable, but the day after you want to take it easy. None of your days are easy until the last one, so it seems like you need to go into this 200-300 mile weekends being a fairly regular occurrence. But, again, the rando people will be much better informed on training.

valygrl

Well, I'm sorry that the result was a rejection of touring or long distance riding. That is certainly not what anyone here was saying. And we CERTAINLY weren't saying that any of this was because she is female. Not fair to put that on us. I think most of us were saying it was a bad idea because it is too hard for just about anyone, let alone someone who is a beginning cyclist. Nothing to do with gender or any (unknown-to-us) qualities of your wife in particular.

To Santaria's wife: I knit. I'm 45 years old at 5'2" tall. I've been road riding for 10 years, MTBing for 6 years before that. I tour self supported and solo - rode across the US a few years ago. I ride 120 mile days (but not day after day). I ride supported tours like the Bike Tour of Colorado and harder ones. I ride 8000+ miles a year. My self-supported tours are usually about 60 miles a day, and if someone else is carrying the gear about 80-100. And I wouldn't want to do your husband's proposed tour, because it sounds too hard (and ugly) to be fun.

Good luck to both of you, you don't have to leave bikeforums by the way.

Don't take any of the advice above to mean "you can't do it" - take it as it was intended - the original plan had a lot of strikes against it, and there are more fun ways to start touring than that.

vik 

Hahahaha - I nearly shot hot tea out of my nose - be careful with posts like these...

staehpj1

I don't think that is what anyone here said. The comments mostly only pointed out the reality of what your proposed trip were. That it would be lousy scenery, uninteresting places to stop, brutal heat, much longer daily mileage than any of us care to do on a day to day basis. Then there is the year and a half of training for a 5 day ride. Those things were your choices. If you had suggested starting out doing a trip with moderate or even longish mileage with nice scenery and interesting stops posts would have been supportive.

The notion that you can't afford to go anywhere else seem a bit much. You are planning a year and a half in advance and you can't scrape together enough in that time to take a trip somewhere nicer? Even if you were set on the route, you could have at least planned to go when it was cool. If the point of the trip is to suffer in miserable conditions then maybe you hit the nail on the head with your proposed plan.

If that is all it took to discourage her then it is probably for the best. You might consider whether she was discouraged because what you were proposing was just pretty unpleasant and the posts here just gave her a reality check.

vik 

You can train for success or you can train for failure. The "tour" you suggested was the later. Sure it's possible in the same way someone can go from not running to becoming a marathoner in few months, but it's not the smart move. Talking about stuff online is easy. Riding big days without having ever done them before is hard and not particularly enjoyable. People post on this forum all the time about wild ideas that are technically feasible while being pretty unrealistic. Generally you never hear from them again because they either realized their folly or started the trip and blew up after a day or three.

The folks on this forum gave you reasonable advice based on what you posted. If you don't want other peoples' opinions than a bike forum is not the place to post your thoughts. Don't ask for advice and then be unhappy when it doesn't mesh with your ideas - after all that's why we ask other people for input because they can clue you into things you aren't considering.

To put it bluntly the fact your lady doesn't want to ride long distances isn't anyone's fault on this forum - it's yours. Going huge for a first tour/ride is the classic way to get your partner to never want to tour again - that's not a male or female thing - that's equal opportunity stuff!

On the plus side there is no reason that given a bit of time and some better route options you won't end up riding longer distances together. Lot's of people will never enjoy rando/brevet distances regardless of training and even most randos won't enjoy them if the route is "hostile". But, if you start with shorter road rides, building to distances of 100K then maybe try some touring to link back to back 100K days you'll both have a lot more fun and after a few back to back 100K days you'll both know whether 200K-300K a day rides is a reality for you.