I'm also planning my first tour (partly solo, probably), and I never get tired of reading the posts here for information and advice. I'm going to be the most well-prepared newbie tourer out there . . . .

Wait! I have to worry about spiders?? :rolleyes:

Yep. I'm pretty sure it was a spider bite, or some sort of tiny insect, unnoticed at the time, that caused a skin abscess on my abdomen while touring in Colorado. Required a visit to the ER.

Might add a tube of antibiotic ointment to your first aid kit.

Great post Russ!

Nope. Don't worry about them. Just accept them for what they are.

I'm no more worried about the potential of spiders on tour than I am about the reality of spiders at home. I live in Australia, our house is full of spiders. Fortunately, I've only seen a few redbacks and whitetails.

Actually, if you want a really worrying bug ... you want to avoid the Rove Beetle. I'm pretty sure I swallowed one on an evening ride several weeks back. NOT the sort of bug you want to swallow, or touch in any way. I'm still recovering, although things are better now than they were a few weeks ago.

Nancy, you've done it again.

You've lifted several of the comments from this thread to compose a post for your blog.

Did you get permission from everyone? Or did you just take without asking, like you did with my comments about risks? I told you this was unethical. Or maybe just lame.

Are you joking? You haven't read any Bahktin, have you? We all "lift" ideas. Its called culture. I know I've lifted a LOT of ideas from Sheldon Brown (bless his heart....) Nancy contributes a great deal to this forum; shouldn't she be able to take something as well?

Not without asking, no.

Or at least, not without giving notice that she is doing so. It's just awfully unethical and/or lazy. Especially since her web site is a for-profit enterprise.

If you don't care, fine. But I do, and I suspect others may be surprised to know that this has been going on.

That is all.

It seems like this bothers only you. I suppose you should copyright all your comments before you post them. The rest of us will just keep reading and posting as usual, and if our words are able to inspire someone else, that's even better.

Take care.

HA! That is the best joke I've heard yet! (I really wish we were making a profit from it - care to give me some tips on how to do that?)

I really like this. Is it original?

I read somewhere quite a long time ago, that the average person swallows more than 10 spiders in their lifetime.
There was no qualification on size, but I suspect that cyclists generally and cyclotourists probably up the ante a bit on that one.

--------------

There is risk getting out of bed in the morning. There is risk even in lying in bed (snoring and swallowing spiders!!!).

But it's how we manage risk that is important.

As already discussed, getting out there and experiencing a variety of situations can give us the skills to reduce or minimise risk -- or ignore it.

More so, that experience can help find solutions to get out of a predicament when our risk management goes awry.

None of that stuff is all that much of a threat or danger. I see camping, animals, and strangers as some of the pluses of being on tour and insects and spiders are just an annoyance and very minor danger. If there is an increased risk I think it comes from traffic due to the increased number of hours on the road.

Larry is actually correct in this. While nancy can use excerpts for critique, academic, or technical use, she must fully attribute the source, in this case, a blanket cite of http://www.bikeforums.net and the thread used for the data or information.

So in this case, I used a few snippets from this thread, and a few ideas from other blogs, and a few from personal experience, and a few that I'm sure I've read over the years but would have absolutely no idea whatsoever where I read them. Is one required to go look up each and every place they got an idea from?

I would say operate from this point forward with a habit of citing any source. Realistically, as you have time and can remember where you found them, go back and insert where possible, but you probably won't be able to get them all. Intellectual Property law is both clear and muddy, if you follow me. It's very clear that it can cost you money, but the limits are subjective, and relative tp the potential damage to the marketability of the content, and other factors.

Now, if you use data from US Government public access servers, that is always in public domain with the request that you cite them. My recent Mother's day Greeting in the announcements used an image from the Department of Defense servers, for example, and I cited "Image courtesy of the Department of Defense".

Some of your worries are the basic annoyances of camping. Bugs and mud and whatnot. Fun for a day or two, tolerable for one or two more. Beyond that, most of us like to get back to having a roof over our heads.

Then you have the basic annoyances of cycling. Many are easy to deal with. But accidents will happen. Bikes will break down. The longer the tour, the more likely it is. That's just common sense.

Ah, but that's the concern that gets written off here. "You won't be at home". At home, you know where the doctor is. Where to find water and food. Where the bike shop is. The ATM. Etc. But on vacation and/or tour, everything is an unknown. So things that are minor inconveniences close to home, often become big hassles. And bigger problems can become real emergencies.

My "spirit of adventure" usually exhausts itself after a few days. Fairly quickly, touring stops being "fun". That's why I can't seem to appreciate the mindset of the fans of long-term touring. Life on the road doesn't appear to wear them down. They place no value on the conveniences of "home". Or they actively protest against it, pooh-pooh-ing it as "living inside the box".

repetitive strain injuries

Seagulls? That's where my cookies went? And to think I blamed my son.

And what in the heck is a jagular? Do they go for the jugular?

After my first S24O last night, a lot of this advice seems much more relevant now. I made another post for that, but this is a ton of excellent information. I'm sure the other noobs appreciate it, too. I'm gonna have to go back to Chantry Flats...when it's not just about dusk, to do it again. The only way to get over my fear is to do it,again and again, right?

"I find the most fearless guys that can camp anywhere and are not bothered by things that go bump in the night are the guys that do it often. If there were, in fact, really creepy things out there staring at you while you set up camp, the guys that are veterans would be the ones saying not to. Quite the opposite as we all know.

There is a fine line between being excited and nervous. "

haha, jagular!

yes!...I can see how minor problems, inconveniences, hassles can become a real headache where things are unknown, I think. Thanks for the opposing point of view, even if long term touring isn't your thing. Are you more of a credit card tourer?

haha, no...I want to say I heard it some stupid 90s sitcom like the Fresh Prince. It makes sense, though, right?

I'm also totally fine with this. It takes the work out of hours of trolling the forums, although I don't think it takes much to credit bikeforums. Being on the younger side, I've always wondered how did people research niche information like this without forums and blogs. Books?! Anyways. Nancy's blogging ethics don't cause me to lose sleep at night. Spiders do!

thanks, Russ. I enjoy your blog.

Loose Bowel Movement.


Watch what you put in your pie hole.