Neil Fein's Blog

Despite all the planning in the world, there's nothing like experience. Here's what I learned on my first bike tour:

• Mud puddles, dead ends, and heavy gravel are great fun - on a mountain bike with the right tires, not so much fun with 30 pounds of stuff hanging from the rack. this was clear in Cheesequake State Park, of which we had no trail maps. Possibly because you really can't call them proper trails when they're overgrown and blocked by bogs. In the future, I'll avoid planning routes through large parks without knowimg more details. touring is a blut seeing stuff and exploring, but stuff like this slows you down too much.
  
• I could have left the extra cycling outfit, book, and iPod at home, but I wish I had taken a rain jacket.
  
• Even in warm weather, it gets cold in the early morning. Arm and leg warmers are invaluable, even if they do make you look like a jazzercise refugee.
  
• Rain can be a good thing. We had one burst of rain for 20 minutes or so, and I found it very refreshing.
  
• Utility roads are evil. Water Works Road in Old Bridge, NJ, looks like a perfectly respectable road on maps and satellite photos. Water Works Road is a dirt and gravel road blocked by scrub and a downed telephone pole.
  
• Compasses and non-intertubes Hagstrom maps rule. Where bikely cue sheets failed us, "real" maps saved the day, and where Hagstrom county maps were (infrequently) misleading, the compass saved our lycra-clad sore asses. Bike-mounted compasses suck if you have a steel frame; I took along a small hiking compass I picked up for $10.

So... what's next? Neil and I have been kicking around a few ideas. I'd like to do a week-long tour of 200+ miles, but the next time I'll have a week off will probably be December. You can tour in the snow, but I'm still new at this. I really don't want to be changing a flat or fixing a brake cable on a county highway in a snowstorm.

Labels: bike, touring