Embracing The Worst of Touring
 

Go ahead. Laugh at my pain.

I've compiled a list of the 10 worst (predictable) things that happen to tourists. Feel free to mock!

Ten Bad Things Are Gonna Happen, And Then You'll Get There

What's the worst thing that happened to you on a tour?

Max, I really like it. You write well, and of the 10 things you list -- I can relate to all of them. Anyone who has done cycle-touring for a while likely will.

I came across an article the other day that discussed the concept of "being average and succeeding". It struck a chord simply because when I started bicycle touring, there was no perfection in what I had. I just went and did it with what I had plus a few cheap additions.

I can't say that what I have now is perfect, but I don't get all tied up in knots about it and I am comfortable using it.

Maybe that good old Australian saying "She'll be right, mate" has more merit that even I give it credit for.

Everyone on their first tour thinks their steel horse is invincible and their daily mileage is a constant. Everyone figures out sooner or later that you have to roll with the punches.

Glad you enjoyed it!

I liked it. I haven't done any touring by bicycle yet, but I've done a lot of it on motorcycles and some things are the same. Like the attitude of being able to fix the unbreakable parts in the campground after getting lost....

It'll take some time to remember but the reward after the "worst" is over is priceless.

I'm simple "is there air in the tires?"

No bicycle touring disasters to speak of, but just finding those odd, out-of-the-way places makes a vacation even more memoriable. Example: While vacationing and south of San Francisco on an extemely windy day, I noticed on a map there was a place not too far away called Fremont Peak State Park. Drove up to it, took the short hike up to the summit, and realized why its such a famous peak in California history - a great view of the surrounding landscape made it a very strategic point. The strong winds that day probably kept a lot of people from coming up there, so I had the great view all to myself. :thumb:

Yeah, but have you ever been loaded up, riding through Ireland when you come upon a bull that's gotten loose and the farmer's running alongside you both saying "Keep riding! Keep riding!" as you unwittingly become some kind of collie corralling the one ton beast into a gate down the road...?

'Cause that's #11 . Surely. Well, maybe that and close calls with guinness trucks...

The only bad thing that ever happened to me touring was an almost inedible meal at a pension in the Czech Republic that was run by a woman whose family must have been Nazis back in the day. That was an awful place. I ate it and didn't get sick, but it tasted like pig dung. Weird German religious memorabilia on the walls. Creepy.

Everything else was just another adventure. Just take it all as part of the adventure. A tour without some stories to tell wasn't much of a tour.

I fess, I haven't read your post...YET. I'll read it later tonight when I'm in a much quieter environment than McDonalds.

I guess it depends on are you saying bad thing or scary thing.

Scary thing...

Last year I stopped by the I-81/US20 McDonalds. I wanted to get online and see how much more of the main climbs I had left before I finally got out of the darn hills that seemed much bigger than what they looked like online. After I finished up I put my computer back in the backpack and grabbed the water bottles and went back inside to go to the bathroom and fill up the water bottles before leaving. I walked into the bathroom and went over to the toilet. This wasn't the normal setup, no divider between toilets. Their was another guy at the urinal beside me. To say the least I could miss what was going on. He was flat out staring at me. The next thing he is licking his chops. I'm beyond worried. Next thing he starts pumping himself. I couldn't even go. I was flat out shocked. I walked over to the sink to fill up the water bottles and I knew I wasn't even going to think about leaving until he was totally off the property. He finished up while I still filling up the bottles. He continues licking his chops while waiting for me to finish up at the sink. I walk out the bathroom door and walk over to the main entrance and walk out the inner door and stand between the two doors. He walks out and walks right beside me and says "Boy, I've love to suck that!". I'm standing there totally appalled. I didn't know what to think. I walked back in and set back down. He walked out and unlike any other McDonalds I've been around he walked over to the picnic table, across the parking lot from the building, and set down. I figured his car was right between the tables and the building. After 15 minutes or so he gets up and comes back in and walks into the bathroom. He walks back out and opens the trunk and pulls out a bottle of water and goes back and sits down at the picnic table. He sets there for another 10-15 minutes before he comes back in and fills the bottle up. I sneak out drivethru side to see what he is going to do when he doesn't see me there anymore. I knew he knew I was the one on the bike since I had biker shorts on and not street shorts on. He walks back out and sits down at the picnic table again. I knew what I had to do and I knew to do it I had to get lucky. The next time I he came in I made my move and managed to make him think I had left while he was in the bathroom. I watched him as he came out and he drove very slowly all the way through the parking lot, both the main lot and the big bus lot in the back. As he started to leave I ran to the front door to see which way he was going to go. I was hoping it was in a different direction than me. He took off and head southbound on I-81 and disappeared. I left fairly quickly after he hopped onto the onramp.

Yeah, definitely a bit of scary situation. It was my word against his so I knew saying anything to the manager was out of the question. I knew I had to get rid of him myself.

"Embrace the suck".

:D

Holy crap, thats creepy!

I am in Madison WI, upper midwest part of the country. Whenever I see someone riding with panniers front and rear, I ask where they are from and where they are going. In the process I often learn a lot more about them.

A couple years ago I met a woman that I would guess was in her late 50s or early 60s that had started in the UK, went through continental Europe, then Asia, flew across the Pacific to the west coast, and at this point had made it to Wisconsin and was on her way to the east coast. She had a bike brand that I had never heard of, it looked like maybe a $400 to $600 USD level bike. I asked her where she got the bike, she said that her Roberts that she started with in the UK was stolen in eastern Europe, the one she was riding was the only one that met her budget in eastern Europe.

I do not know if only her bike was stolen or if her entire kit was stolen, but a major theft in my opinion would be a pretty serious "worst thing" that could happen on an around the world tour. And in her case it happened during the first 20 percent of her trip so most of her trip was being done on a bike that I would not have had much trust in for that kind of trip.

Before I got married I did most of my bike touring solo, and #10 hit me like a bee in the forehead. I would never, ever, say the things to my wife that I've said to myself...so why would I say them to ME?! From now on I'll speak much nicer to myself.....

Weather turned bad. I realized that I could continue on and it would be like the Bataan Death March OR change location of the tour. I changed locations.

Then I broke the bicycle in a way that required parts. Decided I had accomplished enough and spent the rest of the vacation doing something else.



Adapt and overcome.
When the vacation feels like work, it is time to try something else.

All the bad things I can think of that have happened to me on tour could have happened at home, too, but it's just harder to manage them when your in the middle of nowhere by yourself.

I recommend a RoadID or something similar that make is easy for emergency responders to locate your medical-decision-makers.

Also, re: money- I totally disagree with your point mdilthey, I see absolutely no reason not to solve a problem with money, as long as you have it, it's a very useful tool, perhaps the most useful tool you can bring with you.

I think this is what climbers call "second order fun."

The catchphrase on the Continental Divide Trail is "Embrace the Brutality."

I heard someone say, "Open up a can of man and get on with it."

Good attitude in the OP--I like it.

Heh. In September I walked into a c-store in Breezewood PA (major interstate highway junction) to pee and grab lunch. Some guy started checking me out. Up and down and all over. It was obvious. I went around back to get out of the sun and eat and I see him drive around back in his RV, staring at me from the window. While I am talking to the GF on the phone he comes up behind me from out of the blue and tries to start a conversation with me. I gave him a stern look and said quite firmly "Excuse me, but I am on the phone." He got the message and left, but I was worried that when I peered around the corner his RV would still be there.

In any event, during that tour I had 3 consecutive nights with little uninterrupted sleep. The second two were the result of me ending up camping near the PA Turnpike. The first was in Rockwood, PA on the GAP. Take a look and give a listen, turning up the volume on your speakers to get the full effect:

Worst camping-sort of thing that happened was trying to camp in East Glacier. I bent two tent stakes in an unsuccessful attempt to stake my tent, and then when I tried to use it unstaked, wind came up that actually blew the tent over (with me in it). So about midnight I packed up the tent and just tried sleeping under the stars. You would think that high winds would keep the mosquitos down, but not in Montana. I ended up getting a total of about 2 hours of sleep, and just started the next day really early. Fortunately, I found a gas station not too far away, and its amazing what a large cup of strong coffee can do to your outlook on the day.

Worst weather-related thing was a dirt-road tour in Oklahoma. It was an overnight tour from Tulsa to Lake Eufaula and back. On the way there, my buddy and I took paved highways, and on the way back, we tried to avoid retracing our steps by taking backroads, not all of which were paved. It would have been a fine ride...if there hadn't been two inches of rain in two hours. The first dirt road, going over Tiger Mountain, wasn’t too bad, although the clay soil turned rather slippery when it was wet. But then going north over the Deep Fork River was just terrible. The area around the road is swampy at the best of times, and all of the rain resulted in deep mud puddles that extended all the way across the road. The clay mud also kept clogging up the fenders, which had to be cleaned out every half mile or so until we just decided to remove them. The bridge across the river did turn out to be standing (not all the maps I’d consulted agreed on that), and moreover, being concrete, was the only non-muddy spot within probably ten miles. But north of the river, the road had been carved out by truck tires and 4-wheelers so that it was 3 feet lower than the surrounding ground and full of water. We managed to push the bikes on an ATV track through the woods for a while, but after a mile or two, that returned to the flooded road. At that point, our choices were to either turn back (and probably not make it back to Tulsa until the following day) or carry the bikes and panniers through the swamp. Fortunately, we only needed to carry for about half a mile before the water became shallow enough not to submerge the bottom brackets. In all, it took us over two hours to go a bit more than 5 miles, and by the time we got to the town of Hoffman (where we got back on some proper roads), we were so covered in mud that we looked barely human. And we were still 50 miles from Tulsa.

Looking back on the trip, the slog through the mud even looks a little bit fun, but it was pretty miserable at the time.

It didn't turn out bad, just exciting. However, the potential was there for a really nasty situation.

My wife and I were cycling through Yellowstone NP on our way east when we came upon a traffic jam. The cause of the jam was a buffalo grazing between the road and a sheer rock cliff on our side of the road. Everyone had to stop and take a picture. There was only about 10' between the edge of the road and the cliff. We decided to go around the cars and trucks on the outside rather than between the vehicles and the animal. We were riding about 8-10 feet apart, and I was in the back. We had a large pickup truck between us and the animal as we approached the buffalo. We thought this was a good idea. However, just when my wife was at the bed of the pickup the driver gunned the engine and screeched out. This panicked the animal, and it bolted across the road right between my wife and me. Luckily, we were going slow enough that it squeezed through with no contact. They may look slow, but I can attest to their speed and agility. However, I believe they look much larger up close than they really are.

This is one of the few times on a bike tour that I didn't get a picture.:)

IMO-The "ten worst" things listed by the OP just come with the turf, and he does a good job of pointing this out. If you bike tour you just deal with them. In climbing we call the things that you can't control "objective" hazards, and accept them as part of the activity. The "subjective" hazards are things within our control and can be dealt with by skill and experience. The point is: we control the things we can, and learn to deal with the rest.

Frame welding repair In Killarney Ireland , done by a non bike repair shop.

and the Flooded campsite . overnight while asleep .. Near Hebertsfelden, SE Bavaria .

were interesting situations to Resolve..

Chamois Hunters in the same Belgian Ardennes forest as My camp site, worked out .

One guy showed the high velocity rounds they were shooting .. to me,while I was in My Tent .

The worst thing? I don't know about worst, but one unpleasant afternoon and early evening was riding in a real frog-strangling downpour of rain for hours to get to the next French town along the Loire, and upon arrival finding no available rooms, and getting a bit of a cold shoulder from the hotels in town, and being told that the nearest rooms available were "that way, and 20 kilometers" - a favorite expression when they want you to go away because you don't speak their language. Of course, later that evening, I rolled into the next town and was practically adopted by a French innkeeper and family with lots of space, a meal with the whole family, and lots of great conversation and even an after dinner digestive drink.

I can't say I have ever been accosted by any weiner-staring, drooling, RV'ers......yet. Maybe my shorts aren't tight enough.

I know I've seen that journal on CGOAB...I'll see if I can find it tonight...

EDIT:

Found it: Through Europe and Beyond

Bike Stolen:http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/p...id=126941&v=CO

Conversation with you?: http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/p...id=159997&v=4m

Yeah...

Last year on the trip, as I was coming back from Ohio I took the long way around. Forecast maps were showing around 10 days of dry weather and I figured I would probably end up getting home the evening before the rain hit. Other than one evening I had had dry weather for the entire trip...couldn't have ask for better no matter how hard I tried.

I had just gotten into town after being delayed thanks to a fatal car accident and resulting traffic jam on US11 around Hagarstown, MD. I got in Shippensburg and grabbed supper and was looking on Google Earth for a place to spend the night. I found a nice ball park on the east side of town that didn't have many houses sitting close by. I knew it would be a good spot...I just need to wait until after dark to head on out to the campsite. I was busy checking up on email and finishing typing an email to some friends of mine when I noticed something. I missed the hot flash but the cold sweat was impossible to miss. I knew I was in trouble. It was 10:15PM, I'm in the middle of basically nowhere...UGH!!! I didn't like the scenario at all. The more the stomach started churning on me the less I liked it. I finally walked out of the McDonalds where I surfing the web and I knew there was a couple of spots real close by that I had looked at earlier. The one in potential, two doors down from the McDonalds was a Sheetz gas station that was open 24/7. I knew given the situation I wanted to play it safe and stick around someplace open around the clock. The McDonalds drive thru was 24/7 but the indoors wasn't. I walked over to the gas station and looked more closely at the spot right beside the building. From a view point it was pretty remote but if one of the workers came out the side door I knew I was going to be busted in a split second and the cops would show up. I didn't care. I didn't ask either. I just set up the tent and headed off to bed with the stomach grumbling big time. About midnight...Thursday night/Friday morning a commotion arose outside the tent. Yes, Shippensburg is a college town. I didn't understand what Thursday night and college town meant...now I understand:) Heck, the guys who were smoking something, even shook the tent before the walked away. Around 2AM I heard voices clear out on the highway in front of the gas station. Same thing...this is Thursday night...OOP:) About 4AM, long after I finally puked my guts out around 2:15AM or so, I heard the door open. I knew the cops were coming...I didn't care. About 15 minutes later I saw headlights. I knew it was the cops...I didn't care. They ended up having me move all of about 20 feet to the other spot I had actually looked at but decided not to go with.

In the morning I was in a quandary...what do I do? Do I stick with my original plans and ride 100+ miles for the day or just ride up to Carlisle and grab a hotel room for the night and hopefully have this darn thing finally leave my body alone. Breakfast didn't stay down for more than maybe 2 hours. I finally decided to ride the 20-25 miles up to Carlisle and grab the hotel room for the night. After keeping supper down the next morning I got up and rode the rest of the way across PA to East Stroudsburg...over 140 miles. Yeah, I'm a glutten for punishment. I hope I don't ever find myself doing something that crazy ever again.