I guess my solo trips across my home state both E-W and N-S without GPS were just a fever dream, then. Or all my life since then has been a vision condensed into my last few seconds of existence as I lay lost, exhausted, and dying in the trackless wilderness.

IMO some of the best times bike touring have been when we were "stumbling around!

While a GPS unit is a great tool, I still believe it far from being a necessity. If a GPS is absolutely necessary for a person to travel by bike, maybe they should buy the ACA maps and stick to the routes. Much less chance of "stumbling around in the dark"

I actually believe GPS, Google Maps, ACA maps/routes, smart phones, etc., take a lot of the adventure out of bike touring. I really don't need an elevation profile of my ride during the day or need to know what amenities are in the next town.

P.S. I support ACA, and am a long-time member, but have not ridden any of their routes. Their routes and maps take many of the unknowns out of the bike touring equation.

So he had a globe mounted on his handlebars, or what? Wouldn't a map be easier?

I ran into a guy in Rawlins Wyoming last year, his goal was Canada but he was on the interstate to Salt Lake. I wonder where he ended up.

question is NOT what's easier, but rather necessity.

he were driving. had a plain old 16" (ish) globe sitting on the center console
of his satellite sebring. soooo, methinks we can all agree gps, although a
nice invention, is NOT a necessity.

problem is that too many people rely so much on technology that they lose,
or never learn the skills in the first place, to allow them to continue on their
tour (or survive!) without them. seems every month or so there's a story
'bout how some fool followed their gps directions into the dessert to a dead
end and died, or attempts to drive over a non-existent bridge. i mean, it
sure LOOKS like there's no bridge over thet thar canyon, but mr. gps says
go for it...........

just look at what's happening here in our china (since i've been oconus for
the past 12 years).

i live in a small town with fewer than 12 traffic lights. the few times i've
ridden in a local's car, they have been unable to find the entrance to the
expressway 3 turns and 2km away.....without gps directions.

our department outing to a local lychee orchard was a total cluster, with
many of our office workers unable to find a village 8km from town. none
of them carry paper maps.

i'll grant you paper maps are not a panacea......chinese in general are
unable to read maps, so maybe i'm comparing apples to water buffalo.

but back to technology..........with the prevalence of sms texting and
online chat.....many chinese have lost the ability to write. not surprising
when you consider the language has something like 90,000 non-phonetic
characters! it's not that their writing becomes sloppy or indecipherable;
they forget what strokes, or how many strokes in a character. in english,
you can spell out a funetik uhproksimayshun and people will be able to
understand. in chinese, if one dot or slash is missing/added/misplaced,
then you've either written a completely different sounding werd, or
nuthing at all. there's also a lack of imagination (creativity is stifled, with
many years spent learning thousands of characters) with the inability to
recognize what that character should be. now add in the millions who are
unable to use a chinese dictionary (a veeeeery complicated process!), and
you've got a civilization on the verge of zombie apokalips.

and unfortunately, the times when gps would have been really awesome,
like in parts of cambodia and laos, there is no gps. sure, your satellite
phone might get a signal, but there are no readily available electonic
maps. the dirt roads and tracks and trails are not shown on google
maps, which in portions of the world are filtered by the local gub'mint
anyways. you could download gmap beforehand, but many of the
roads shown do not exist, and the ones that are aren't. paper maps
if you can find them may not be in english, may not be updated, may
not have correct village names, but.....

gps is yesterday's compass. how many folks in ancient times went
for a walk deep in the forest, got lost and died. they weren't worried,
for they carried a compass......but no map.

Uhh...what? If there's a point in there, it's buried far too deep for me to find. But here's some anecdotal evidence: I've traveled 49 of the 50 states and 23 different countries and have never used a GPS. GPS is not a necessity. Case closed. Move on.

Ecclesiastes 2:14 - The wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. I do "move on", and know exactly where I am at all times. Stumble on blind, brother. If it is a matter of expense I understand, they have never been cheap, but again, they have never been cheaper than they are now. You do understand they have an on/off button...... right? Even has a light for the darkness!


Maps made for bike touring are exactly what I try to stay away from... see the same thing every other rider sees, not for me. For someone without a GPS they are perfect! But if on a ride somewhere I suddenly NEED something, perhaps even something lifesaving, I want to be able to go directly to it, without having a ask someone that owns a GPS how to get there, especially if it is dark.

Using bible quotes to justify dependence on gps... I have now seen it all here on the BF, time to log out, check out, and do something productive with my day... Have fun riding bikes everybody

The cable system proposed in the 40s was Way ahead if its time. Like a big super WAN and just like a lot of WANs now would provide its own internal timing, it had to, there was no other source. That's probably how they do it in China or where ever it's necessary for security to have absolute control of the internet by providing the timing source. It wasn't until the 70s that cable TV began its explosive growth, 10 years after the advent of GPS and around the same time that the atomic clock was invented. It wasn't until 1983 that the Reagan Administration allowed GPS use for civilian purposes. Currently, the same atomic clock that provides the GPS timing source provides the source for anything that connects to the internet. With the internet and cable TV being so intertwined I bet even cable tv requires GPS data today. ,


Ah, see John! That's why I have to go to such extraordinary biblical means to support my views in this wolf's den! It's not dependence on GPS, it's having the common sense to use a tool that's at your disposal. Why leave that club in the bag just because you didn't have it when you were a kid? You used the crap out of maps I bet, so did I when I had to. Used then for 20+ years on three continents, yada yada. But when dealing with applications that require accuracy down to the meter, GPSs made actions possible in a fraction of the time setting new standards of accuracy. I didn't have GPS phobia like I see displayed here when I was 1st able to use GPS. It's no more of a crutch than a map is. So here in Bike Forum, I have to deal with the stigma of having an electric motor on my bike, touting the obvious advantages of using a GPS that could save your life. And last but not least for not being ashamed of using the latest greatest modern conveniences to make bike touring more comfortable and fun. I'm pretty sure it's the audience I'm preaching to, maybe the screens are too small for most of these.... individuals. I know for a fact that kids today can tell you and show you exactly where they are at any given moment, and where the closest Starbucks is. All this being said I would no more tour without a map then I would without a GPS. It's only common sense. In my case 3 or 4 GPSs, a Garmin 1000 to collect the ride data that I use to determine battery usage (screen IS too small to use to follow city street maps). A Garmin NUVI for roads and city streets, same as I use in the car. GPS in the cell phone, GPS in the laptop.

BuffaloBuff?

Isn't the answer: "I don't know... that squiggle is Chinese, not Japanese".

I say this because the Japanese do indeed drop Chinese characters almost at whim into their signage, or in fact anything written.

These guys have suggested some of the absolute essentials: Will, Desire and Sense of Adventure.

I will add a sense of humour, a willingness to put up with adversity with the knowledge it won't last forever, and a willingness to experiment.

All of them personal traits. All of them non-reliant on technology. All of them can contribute to a sense of achievement at the end.

The rest of the stuff is just personal preference. There is a good chance that whatever you think you need, you probably won't. And whatever you think you don't need, you probably will.

Having posted what I have above, thinking about it a little more... I know we give some of the rank newbies a bit of a hard time when they front up here with an ambitious plan to ride across a continent with nothing more than a dream and the motivation to experience something new.

The old hands here know about Flic, and then there is Mri G and her partner. They plow blythely on with their plans because they have those absolute essentials listed in my post above.

Yes, Flic did end up with something of a disaster that almost killed her. And Mri G and her partner are experiencing some culture shock. But you know what? They had the courage to get out there and live their dream. It might not be the way I would do it, but certainly, more power to them and others like them.

jinkies, i don't see how the bible could support you in this!

noah didn't use a gps.
there was no e-assist on the donkey to jeruselum.
and job didn't have a laptop to post to facebook while in the whale.

gps is the devil's work, i tells ya!

Whats Facebook?

Do you use a belt a suspenders to hold up your bike shorts?

I believe as some have pointed out that most of us use our experience, training, knowledge, practiced skills, and physical and mental stamina to get us through most situations. I use technology as a tool, but if it fails or we can't finder a charger for a day or two it is not a big deal. I did not hear anyone say they were ashamed of using modern technology, or that they could not afford it; they just said all the modern technology and redundant systems are not absolutely necessary for a safe, comfortable, and enjoyable bike tour.

I think one of the problems that you are encountering with the "audience you are preaching to", is that many have a lot of experience and have a different perception of what bike touring is about than you do. You have every right to tour the way you please, but when your sermons tell folks that they are ignorant for not using an e-bike, carrying 4 sleep systems, 4 GPS capable devices, not know their location within a meter at all times, and not sharing your approach to bike touring ; it comes across as arrogant.

Some of the posts remind me of a quote from John Wooden, UCLA basketball coach:
"It is what you learn after you know it all that counts."

Amen. Thanks Doug

We've got yet another one.

The idiocy knows no bounds. Dude, just turn off your computer and go outside.

Hysterical! I AM OUTSIDE! But you're right, you have no bounds! Ahhh, ya kill me! Thanks for the laughs man!

For me if I want to avoid tiresome detours & backtracking then well, GPS is an absolute necessity. Usually I write a cue sheet while looking at PC maps but sometimes the intersections look different in person. W/O GPS I'd have to budget in extra time for wrong turns. While motor-touring I've occasionally seen some interesting things while "winging" it but on bike rides not so much; can be dispiriting to have to ride 15 km extra on an already-challenging day.

Independent problem solving.

I'm not a great navigator but growing up with maps & riding in local areas taught me the basics, modern kids ride in parents' cars & have heads buried in phones so they have no grasp of local geography.

Pre-smartphone I read a newspaper article about Chinese spelling & how even folks with advanced degrees had difficulty using dictionaries. They also put forth the theory that Chinese language is so difficult it makes them smarter. Now I guess it's easier for even the smarter types to use phones; also many students try to learn English so even less time to perfect Chinese-language skills. Surely there are many "Mandarins" thinking that a simple alphabet like Korean Hangul is something to work towards.

Going a bit off topic here, but I had read that in Japan while the advent of smartphones had reduced young people's ability to write as many kanji as previous generations can/could, they can actually read more than previous generations, as reading on an internet enabled device gives you the ability to quickly look up a symbol you don't know. It's a really interesting issue, and certainly not all doom and gloom.

My oldest son and I had an interesting discussion about this one time. I remarked that I'd been raised in an analog world and used "smart" technology as just another tool while still retaining my old school way of problem solving. He remarked that his was the first generation that had been raised in a purely digital format and found it odd to revert back to analog thinking instead of just running with what technology provided.

I think the challenge for future generations will not be data availability but rather how to independently sift through too much of it and pick out what's relevant.

Phones are a curse for kids IMO, takes up all their spare time, no more casual outdoor play like bike riding. Parents give their kids car rides for even short distances, bikes rust away, forgotten.