Frank, Colin and Bill of Valley Stove and CycleThe Trip Planning Stage
My last blog outlined a series of 5 stages which comprise our trek and I discussed the first stage, the “why” piece / conception stage, in that blog. While I will not necessarily adhere to the exact 5-step sequence in my additional post-trip, final blogs, it seems best to deal with the second stage, trip planning, at this point.
We spent a lot of time and effort in planning. We based our plan on a fairly extensive research phase – interviewing previous trans-Canada travelers, searching the web for postings by other trans-Canada bloggers and seeking web information posted about bike touring. We examined a host of topics, from routes and daily distances, to equipment selection and maintenance.
After reading a range of blogs, a list of equipment was easy to derive and I will leave that out since it is very easy to find comprehensive lists of what to take and how to personalize it to the type of touring you will do (i.e., camping vs. motels; restaurants vs. doing your own meal preparation, etc,). We found MEC to be extremely helpful in directing us to the best suited, lightweight camping, clothing and some bike gear.
Bike selection was a rather complex topic and we spent a lot of time deciding what to do. We read about the need to have a bike that was well suited to touring – rigid, heavy steel frame, capacity to mount lots of carriers for panniers, water bottles, lights, etc. Tug and I both consulted a lot with the guys at our Wolfville bike shop, Valley Stove and Cycle. Bill Harvie, , Colin Banks, Frank McClellan and Geoff Hartley (now in grad school at Brock) were extremely supportive and always ready to drop what they were doing to give us their expert advice and to do more tweaking of our bikes. Our web research, plus their expertise helped us to narrow our choices and ultimately both Tug and I settled on the Rocky Mountain Sherpa 30, a specifically designed touring bike with a great reputation. The guys at the bike store then helped me build and equip the bike, adding personal adaptations (a 26 tooth small gear on the front gear set, seat, shorter handlebar stem, front and rear pannier racks, 4 panniers, a bar bag (for my camera; it made the camera accessible and ensured that I would use it), extra brake grips along the front bar, water bottle holders, a wireless computer, and lights, front and back. They and Gary Bustin also helped us put together an emergency repair kit (tools plus extra foldable touring tires and tubes, a patch kit, extra spokes, chain repair parts, extra brake and shifter cables and brake shoes). Gary also gave us a detailed clinic on bike repair, maintenance and tuning that proved valuable. Ultimately this careful planning produced a well outfitted bike that endured the 6600 kilometers of thumping that a bike must withstand on rough roads while carrying a heavy load of around 20 kg or 40 lbs, plus me. The bike was marvelous and needed only routine lubrication, 5 tube changes and a couple of quick tune-ups at Fernie, BC, and Sault Ste Marie. The result was a bike that fit me well and was comfortable to ride. Most importantly because of the fit, I avoided any nagging overuse injuries and was quite efficient when spinning.
Route planning was another complex issue, with many people expressing conflicting views of what was best. For example, the 3 routes through the mountains each have their advocates.
The northern Yellowhead route through Edmonton seems to be longer and flatter, while the two southern routes – the TransCanada through Calgary and Highway 3 through southern BC and over the Crowsnest Pass are more scenic and shorter. We narrowed our choice to the 2 southern routes and after putting out a request to Cycling BC to ask them for people to consult about the options, I was contacted by numerous people who encouraged us to take the Crowsnest Pass route. They offered good insights based on their personal experiences about the merits of each and how to avoid some big passes on the southern route. They also told us about, a group of cyclists who have formed a network of people (warmshowers.org), who will host touring cyclists (in return, the cyclist must agree to do the same).
We decided that quieter, less travelled routes appealed, so in addition, we chose the Red Coat trail across the southern prairies from Regina to Winnipeg, and the MOM route (Manitoba, Ontario, Minnesota) via highway 11 from Winnipeg to Thunder Bay to avoid the TransCanada which was busy, noisy, rough, and reputedly dangerous between Kenora and Thunder Bay.
While we had a pretty clear idea of our overall routes forming the bigger picture, our general plan was to ride 120 to 150 km per day unless we were visiting family or friends, or resting. This tended to make our day to day route planning very ad hoc. We established day to day routes and end points based on what we knew about the weather, road conditions, availability of food and accommodation, and the potential endpoints of 2 or 3 days afterwards. To do this we gathered information from all sorts of sources and people along the way; this occurred at Info Centres, restaurants, grocery and convenience stores, or by asking other cyclists when we saw them going the other way or by just stopping strangers on the street. It’s worth noting that information gathered from non-cyclists, even at Info Centres, is often very different from what we actually found. It was best to ask people who were living close to the area in question and even then, many drivers do not see hills or notice rough roads, or notice that a motel is closed, or if there are restaurants along a stretch of highway that they drive regularly. After a while we learned to be somewhat confident only when there was good consistency in what we heard. Too many times we heard that there was some food or accommodation facility ahead only to find it closed or conversely, to be assured by someone that there was nothing "there", but then we would ride by a motel, campground, convenience or grocery store. The number of times we stopped at a place because "there was nothing ahead for many kilometers", only to ride the next morning by the very thing we asked about in the next 20 or so kilometers, was considerable.
In the next few days I will be writing more about doing the trip and the feelings I experienced as it unfolded.
Gary
My last blog outlined a series of 5 stages which comprise our trek and I discussed the first stage, the “why” piece / conception stage, in that blog. While I will not necessarily adhere to the exact 5-step sequence in my additional post-trip, final blogs, it seems best to deal with the second stage, trip planning, at this point.
We spent a lot of time and effort in planning. We based our plan on a fairly extensive research phase – interviewing previous trans-Canada travelers, searching the web for postings by other trans-Canada bloggers and seeking web information posted about bike touring. We examined a host of topics, from routes and daily distances, to equipment selection and maintenance.
After reading a range of blogs, a list of equipment was easy to derive and I will leave that out since it is very easy to find comprehensive lists of what to take and how to personalize it to the type of touring you will do (i.e., camping vs. motels; restaurants vs. doing your own meal preparation, etc,). We found MEC to be extremely helpful in directing us to the best suited, lightweight camping, clothing and some bike gear.
Bike selection was a rather complex topic and we spent a lot of time deciding what to do. We read about the need to have a bike that was well suited to touring – rigid, heavy steel frame, capacity to mount lots of carriers for panniers, water bottles, lights, etc. Tug and I both consulted a lot with the guys at our Wolfville bike shop, Valley Stove and Cycle. Bill Harvie, , Colin Banks, Frank McClellan and Geoff Hartley (now in grad school at Brock) were extremely supportive and always ready to drop what they were doing to give us their expert advice and to do more tweaking of our bikes. Our web research, plus their expertise helped us to narrow our choices and ultimately both Tug and I settled on the Rocky Mountain Sherpa 30, a specifically designed touring bike with a great reputation. The guys at the bike store then helped me build and equip the bike, adding personal adaptations (a 26 tooth small gear on the front gear set, seat, shorter handlebar stem, front and rear pannier racks, 4 panniers, a bar bag (for my camera; it made the camera accessible and ensured that I would use it), extra brake grips along the front bar, water bottle holders, a wireless computer, and lights, front and back. They and Gary Bustin also helped us put together an emergency repair kit (tools plus extra foldable touring tires and tubes, a patch kit, extra spokes, chain repair parts, extra brake and shifter cables and brake shoes). Gary also gave us a detailed clinic on bike repair, maintenance and tuning that proved valuable. Ultimately this careful planning produced a well outfitted bike that endured the 6600 kilometers of thumping that a bike must withstand on rough roads while carrying a heavy load of around 20 kg or 40 lbs, plus me. The bike was marvelous and needed only routine lubrication, 5 tube changes and a couple of quick tune-ups at Fernie, BC, and Sault Ste Marie. The result was a bike that fit me well and was comfortable to ride. Most importantly because of the fit, I avoided any nagging overuse injuries and was quite efficient when spinning.
Route planning was another complex issue, with many people expressing conflicting views of what was best. For example, the 3 routes through the mountains each have their advocates.
The northern Yellowhead route through Edmonton seems to be longer and flatter, while the two southern routes – the TransCanada through Calgary and Highway 3 through southern BC and over the Crowsnest Pass are more scenic and shorter. We narrowed our choice to the 2 southern routes and after putting out a request to Cycling BC to ask them for people to consult about the options, I was contacted by numerous people who encouraged us to take the Crowsnest Pass route. They offered good insights based on their personal experiences about the merits of each and how to avoid some big passes on the southern route. They also told us about
We decided that quieter, less travelled routes appealed, so in addition, we chose the Red Coat trail across the southern prairies from Regina to Winnipeg, and the MOM route (Manitoba, Ontario, Minnesota) via highway 11 from Winnipeg to Thunder Bay to avoid the TransCanada which was busy, noisy, rough, and reputedly dangerous between Kenora and Thunder Bay.
While we had a pretty clear idea of our overall routes forming the bigger picture, our general plan was to ride 120 to 150 km per day unless we were visiting family or friends, or resting. This tended to make our day to day route planning very ad hoc. We established day to day routes and end points based on what we knew about the weather, road conditions, availability of food and accommodation, and the potential endpoints of 2 or 3 days afterwards. To do this we gathered information from all sorts of sources and people along the way; this occurred at Info Centres, restaurants, grocery and convenience stores, or by asking other cyclists when we saw them going the other way or by just stopping strangers on the street. It’s worth noting that information gathered from non-cyclists, even at Info Centres, is often very different from what we actually found. It was best to ask people who were living close to the area in question and even then, many drivers do not see hills or notice rough roads, or notice that a motel is closed, or if there are restaurants along a stretch of highway that they drive regularly. After a while we learned to be somewhat confident only when there was good consistency in what we heard. Too many times we heard that there was some food or accommodation facility ahead only to find it closed or conversely, to be assured by someone that there was nothing "there", but then we would ride by a motel, campground, convenience or grocery store. The number of times we stopped at a place because "there was nothing ahead for many kilometers", only to ride the next morning by the very thing we asked about in the next 20 or so kilometers, was considerable.
In the next few days I will be writing more about doing the trip and the feelings I experienced as it unfolded.
Gary
No comments:
Post a Comment