Rowan

Yes, I will be another to put my hand up about spending more time planning a short tour than a long one. I often would get out maps of my home state and study the condition of roads, where they went, what possibly might be there. It was still a great adventure going away for two or three days with a loop set out. Getting back home and to work often was the pressing need to ensure the tour worked out as planned.

However, one of my all-time favourite local efforts was what I called my "Aimless Wander Tour". I left home, decided as the turns came which way to go for the next three days. Having a clue about possible free camping sites or at least towns with paid ones helped.

My first big adventure overseas was to Europe in 2003, and apart from the section involving the Paris-Brest-Paris randonne, the remaining three weeks were spent knocking about northern France, Belgium and the Netherlands with a Michelin map booklet that essentially showed roads down to the B-level. All I really wanted was a map that showed significant towns, which the booklet did, and so long as I was headed on those general directions, I was fine.

I discovered the battle theatres of World War One, the joys of riding along the canals on various bike routes, and places like Maastricht and the Ardenne Mountains.

cyccommute 

Obsessively sticking to a route is far easier to do with paper maps than with Google, especially if you carry all that information at your finger tips. I know because I've done it. With readily information available, the 800 flavors of Coke/Pepsi becomes options that you can taste at your leisure.

As for carrying a phone on tour, you can be as connected...or disconnected...as you choose. The interesting thing about cell phones is that they have an off button and every single one of them comes equipped with voice mail. Personally, I don't jump for my phone every time it rings. If I'm doing something...like having a conversation or riding my bike or fishing or any of a thousand other things... and I don't want to talk with someone I don't answer the phone. Just because a phone is ringing why do we, as a society, treat it like a crying baby?

As for getting information from people in bars, I don't frequent them. They have nothing that appeals to me.

Rob_E

I like to have a plan. I like to have a route. That's not Google-dependence, that's me. Before the Internet, if anyone still remembers that far back, my Dad taught me to find where I was on the map, find where I wanted to end up, draw a line, and look for roads that kept you close to that line. I modified that method to favor certain colors and/or widths of roads and to avoid others, because if there's a big, fat line that leads right to your destination, probably every other vehicle is on the same road, which can be crowded riding, and if the line barely shows up, likely no one bothered to pave it, and that could be rough riding. It was the pre-Google version of the bike route function.

Now I let Google do that part. Sure, you can just pick a direction and go. I'm always trying to get somewhere. I can handle detours and circuitous routes, but I need a destination, or I'm just not motivated to move forward. That's me. But that doesn't mean there's no "winging it". Google, or a line on a map, or a point on the compass, is just a starting point. Last year I spent a few days biking to the coast. I used Google to plan my route, printed out cue sheets, and used them extensively. I'm glad I did. But Google sent me down a road that wasn't a road. Private property, and, even if I were inclined to trespass, no indication that I could do it unnoticed or that it went where Google thought it did. Then we're back to winging it, or at least planning on the fly. I still had somewhere to be, I just needed a new way to get there. Winging it took longer than Plan A, so I camped sooner. The next day it happened again. Miles added on, plans changed. That's traveling. In that case, I had a time-line. Too many diversions or too much backtracking left me playing catch up. But ideally even a planned trip has a lot of wiggle room.

Last month's trip took me through my childhood home town. Even the mighty Google doesn't know those roads like I do. Neither Google nor I knew about the bridge being out though. Stopped at the last house before the bridge where someone was doing their landscaping. "Is that bridge 'out' or 'closed'?" 90% of detours are for cars, and a bike can skirt around the edges, but a bridge that isn't there generally falls into that 10%. "That bridge is gone." I'm told. "I guess it's the long way around then." "Well... there is a path, along my fields, along my neighbor's fields, and on to the road you want. You might have to walk. You probably won't get shot." Neither I nor Google would have come up with that route, either. I didn't get shot. I did get some prickers in my legs, but none in my tubes, and that's what matters.

I like to know where I'm going to sleep. I like to have an idea of how to get there. But even then winging it is part of the game. The only wrong way that I know is to not enjoy the ride.

Booger1

On long trips I like to plan a couple of days to get into the swing of things,after that it's follow my nose.

Like if I'm going to cross the U.S. from west to east,I know the sun rises in the east,so If I keep going that way,at some point I will see the Atlantic ocean.

fietsbob

I ride to the nearest town's book shop, after landing in other countries,
and often find the map I need there.

repeat approaching running off the edge of the last Map.

jamawani 

I'm guessing you haven't spent much time in the very rural West.
Yes, Breckenridge may have a wide choice of coffee bars and Asian cuisine -
But in some places the bar is cafe, store, and post office all rolled into one.
Anyone who has ridden the Western Express in Nevada -
Or the Northern Tier across eastern Montana can tell you -
It's either the bar - or nothing.

cyccommute 

Dude, did you notice my location? I'm not a transplant. I'm not even the first generation of my family born in rural Colorado. My mother was born in eastern Colorado on the plains in a rough farm house. I grew up in Colorado...in eastern Colorado. I'll compare time spent in the 'very rural West' anytime you like.

The bar in my home town was a place that only a few people frequented...and they weren't the kind that my mother would approve of. Nor would most of the other townsfolk. The bar in town, as well as every bar in the Arkansas River Valley from Leadville to the Colorado line, were seedy and dark and only the worst elements of town went there.

As for coffee and Asian cuisine, I find more of those kinds of places in the small towns I've been in around 'the very rural West' than I do bars. And you'll likely find more people in those places than in the bars.

As for the subtle dig that I'm some kind of city slicker tenderfoot, yes, I live in a metropolitan area. I much prefer the 'wide choice of coffee bars and Asian cuisine' in areas like Denver and Breckenridge to the narrow minded people of small towns. I've lived long enough in 'the very rural West' to have a pretty strong hatred of small town life out there. You couldn't pay me enough to live in a town of 1200 people again. Hell, I wouldn't live in a town smaller than 50,000. Too many people with their noses stuck in your business because they haven't got anything else to do.

jamawani 

That is amply evident.
<<<>>>
Of course, it depends on what you are lookin' for when you go on a tour.

staehpj1

I am surprised to read that last bit. I have seldom found that to be the case. I have not ridden the WE or NT, but have ridden a fair amount in the rural west and the places that were bar, cafe, store, and post office all rolled into one were not all that common. Most of them the bar was a different room so avoiding it was entirely possible. I have been in only a few bars when on tour and in every case I can recall except one there was a store and/or cafe that was in another room. The one case that didn't was only a bar and I went in to escape the heat for a while.

indyfabz

I need a drink after reading this thread.

cyccommute 

I, too, have seldom been anywhere where the bar, cafe, store and post office are all rolled into one. I'm pretty sure that in Colorado there are restrictions against that sort of thing. Bars are usually segregated from the restaurant and I'm not sure that the US Post Office would allow a federal installation to be sited in a bar. There are pretty strict rules against consumption of alcohol in federal offices.

I've ridden across the western part of Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon as well as traveling extensively in Colorado, Utah and New Mexico and I can't recall running across any establishment like that that jamawani describes. Of course I was searching for lattes and sushi and you usually don't find those in Real He Man bars

I go for the bits between the small towns...and to see if I can find some lattes I can sip.

djb

barnone, that line did made me chuckle.

rwwff

In the past, long ago, I could order highway maps and topographic maps by mail; or maybe get really luck and an outdoors store would have a few on hand, or I could look at the library's set.

Now, I can print any topo map out I want, on sectioned 8.5"x11" paper, protect them how I will. I can print any road map, at any scale I want. I can even make images of aerial photographs of interesting sites; though printing greyscale b/w still sucks. I can carry digital copies on a netbook, or access them on my phone through commercial services. I can have routes provided for me from several different providers, or pick my own. I can record them accurately as traveled, make notes, pictures... anyone remember how much it would cost to take 300 pictures on 36 exposure 35mm film rolls? Now you take a few hundred, upload them, take more, upload them, take more, upload them...

emedia has exploded the straightjackets that existed.

The only people that got hosed were those that thought a single 7.5' topo map should cost $10 in their store. Good friggin riddance.

Rowan

In Australia, it does happen. Our local store for a while in a tiny town was the postal agency, pizza place and licensed cafe all rolled into one. It is a very pleasant place run by lovely people, and is in just the right location for a stop between bigger towns when touring.

Everyone needs to be careful of broad generalisations on an international forum.

cyccommute 

Well we were talking about the western US. Because of Prohibition we have a bunch of odd laws about alcohol. Bars and package stores are generally kept separate. As I said bars are usually segregated from the restaurant and, quite frankly, I've never seen a bar in a store that sells groceries. And, as a US Government contractor, I can tell you that you cannot consume alcohol in a Federal installation. I doubt, highly, that you could consume alcohol in US Post offices.

teachme

So, no bar, no beer?

contango 

I'm always bemused at the alcohol laws in Pennsylvania. Here in the UK just about every corner shop sells alcohol even if the selection is limited, and the staff decide for themselves whether the customer is old enough, asking for ID if they aren't sure.

Then in PA I find most stores don't have it at all, some general stores that carry alcohol have a restriction as to how much can be bought in a single transaction (I found 144oz a curious limit, especially when there's nothing to stop you going out to the car with it and coming back for another 144oz) and despite my thinning hair and greying beard being something of a clue that I'm over 21 they still wanted ID. For good measure when I offered them my English driving license they looked it up in a book of international forms of ID to verify it. Then I go to the local liquor store and find they can't sell me anything less than a case at a time but if I've got the money and the means to take it away I can have as much as I want, and they figure I'm over 21 without seeing ID (presumably based on the same thinning hair and greying beard that doesn't count as proof elsewhere)

Off topic, but what the heck...

chandltp

And they're less restrictive than they were 20 years ago.

ironwood

I was once in a store in Arizona that sold liquor and guns.

staehpj1

I think it can do either; the choice is our's. I personally find a smart phone very useful, but so far at least have refused to carry more than that. My use of it is limited to turning it on once in a while for looking up things like the location of the nearest bike shop or campground, touching base with home, or doing a quick journal update. It is turned off the vast majority of the time.

I have really enjoyed having a work supplied Blackberry, but I am a cheapskate and have not bought myself a smart phone. The price of a data plan is the sticking point for me. I don't mind springing for the device, but the monthly fees just seem excessive.

My employer has been making noise about getting rid of our Blackberries to save a few bucks and I am not sure what I will do if/when that happens. I may just go back to not being as connected. I do have a little phone sized WiFi tablet that I could possibly use, but I may just go back to having only voice and text.

jamawani 

And replaced them with new straightjackets.
Isn't this precisely what the poster wants to avoid.

Having toured for more than 25 years - I can assure that people back then
didn't spend all that much time fixating upon their electronic info.
Instead, they stopped into a bar and had a couple of beers with the locals.
(Ooops! Some folkses don't want me to mention bars.)

From a recent tour diary -

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HSkCUHLESZ...0x533%2529.jpg

The technology - for all its benefits - changes the way we interrelate with others.

BTW -
Here are two U.S. locations well-known for being "everything" in town.

Middlegate, Nevada on the Western Express - -
https://www.allaroundnevada.com/middlegate-station/
Oasis in the desert with all you really need.


And Hingham, Montana on the Northern Tier - -
https://www.hiwaybar.com/
Food, bevs, camping, groceries, and with the post office closing - - mail.

I am sorry that some here are unwilling even to consider the possibility that part of touring is, precisely, to encounter people who have different experiences and outlooks - - I think that is what touring is all about.

Rowan

We're using a combination of both computer and personal interaction. Basically we have found on our travels this time around that people involved in the tourism industry (or just representing their location) will go out of their way to assist.

We got off the train this afternoon, and asked a guy who looked like a railways person how we could get to the information centre. The directions were precise, took account of our bikes, and were given in a friendly manner. We've already asked the hostel staff about a local supermarket and electronics place for a broadband dongle.

And there are some things using IT just won't let you do. Last night I could find information on departure times and costs for travel on our train from London to Edinburgh, and even the policy on taking bikes. But I couldn't book a ticket at the super-saver price that included the bikes... I had to do that at Kings Cross station. The face-to-face booking process here was everything I as a customer wanted -- responsive, helpful about getting our bikes on board, and cheerful -- all with the train due to depart in less than 10 minutes! The tickets costs slightly more than if I had booked on-line, but I was happy with the outcome.

And despite what Google might think about itself, it is not the end-all and be-all of searching for results that are meaningful. I find it keeps coming up short with adequate listings of things such as hostels and campgrounds in defined locations.

As to mapping, I've pulled out the computer once, on Hokkaido, to confirm a bicycle path took the direction we wanted. Otherwise, we have followed our usual practice of picking up maps from info centres on our arrival... and followed our noses.

While here, we'll look up the North Sea route on the computers again, and a few other places we want to visit. But once we get out there, and get a feel for the roads, we will likely wander in a direction that will take us to a location where we can bed down for the night -- and that might not even be on our radars when we leave that morning.

charbucks

Is there such a thing as a decent reliable guidebook for the area you want to travel?

I lived by my guidebook in New Zealand, where a name on a map doesn't necessarily mean a town. It was nice to know things like "in 40 km, there is a general store", or "no services for 80 km". Sometimes things weren't open, but it was good to know what was available and plan ahead accordingly - it's easy to carry a few emergency meals, but it's worrisome if you don't know when your next chance might be.

The book also provided profiles and road descriptions, so you can make choices based on traffic, hilliness, distance between towns, etc. I suppose some people might enjoy not knowing what to expect, but it provided a lot of peace of mind for my first tour.

contango 

Wish I'd known you guys were in London before you left. Shout if you're passing through again any time soon...

Machka 

Our plan is to do a bit of touring in Scotland and then head south again. We were talking about returning to London for a day or two when we get back down there. We did one of the bus tours of London yesterday, and would like to return to a few specific spots to get a closer look.