See also: 5 bad things that can happen on good bike tours
There's a lot of bad mojo in bicycle touring, even if you're riding in the best of the supported cross-state week-long bike rides.
Yesterday I wrote about some avoidable, and unavoidable, bad things that can mar an otherwise idyllic bicycle ride. Here are some more problems that might arise, and how to prevent or deal with them.
1. Help! My luggage is lost! You've looked everywhere. You can't find your black duffel bag. Of course, there are about 1,600 other black duffel bags sitting out in the sun, and you've just ridden 65 miles in the heat. The salt from your perspiration is stinging your eyes and all you want to do is sit in the shade.
Solutions: Grab a roll of duct tape and personalize that sucker. The Army-Navy store sells two basic colors of duffel — green or black. So half the bags trucked on the bike tour are black, the other half green, except for a few pieces of Samsonite luggage. I prefer silver duct tape on black; yellow on green is a nice choice too. I once put my son's cell phone in the duffel, and tried calling it with my cell phone when we reached the campsite. No signal; no dice.
2. Everything gets wet: It's gonna rain. Count on it. It's bad enough getting wet on the road; trying to sleep in a wet sleeping bag is worse.
Solutions: Pack everything in your duffel in large freezer ziplock bags. You can put all your T-shirts in one, shorts in another, jerseys in another; or Monday's clothes, Tuesday's clothes, etc. Put your sleeping bag in a water repellant stuff sack. Use a huge garbage bag or two as liners and stuff everything in there before putting them in your duffel. This keeps everything organized, which is good, and it keeps everything dry. If it has been raining, your duffel will get thrown off the truck into a puddle.
Always camp on the high ground. This might be difficult at a high school where they put all the tent campers on the football field. In that case, camp between the hash marks. Or camp where you're not supposed to; unless you set your tent up in the school botany exhibit, no one will have the heart to make you move.
One more thing, when you're done setting up your tent, fold the corners of your ground tarp under the tent so the water running off the tent fly doesn't drip onto the tarp and flow into the tent. You'll see this happen.
Week-long and across-state bicycle tours listed
3. You said there'd be food at the rest stops: All big bike rides advertise provisions at the rest stops; they don't say how long they'll last. Assume that everyone who took off ahead of you this morning is a gluton and will snap up everything before you arrive.
Solutions: Grab an extra banana, a single-serving box of cereal, or an extra muffin at breakfast and stuff it in your jersey. Pack some snacks from home. Pick up stuff at stores. You don't want to go hungry. You don't want to depend on the tour organizers to keep you fed.
Consider this: About 10 years ago at a bicycle tour that will remain nameless, but the acronym stood for Cycle Across Maryland, the organizers got a good deal on bananas and bought a week's worth for energy food at the rest stops. The weather was hot and humid all week, and the bananas were black and flacid by Wednesday.
4. The road is too crowded with cyclists: Better bicycles than cars, eh? It can get annoying to run into bike traffic and car traffic and announce “on your left” every time you pass someone slower. Many tours are patroled by state cops who require single-file cycling except when passing.
Solutions: Just leave earlier in the morning. Most of the slow pokes leave later; the amped up speedsters are usually the first on the road. If you don't like congested bicycle traffic, leave early yourself.
5. Headwinds, rain, heat, cold: It's too wet, too cold, too hot, too windy.
Solutions: It's a bike tour. Get over it. The only thing to do is learn how to deal with bad weather. I've never seen a bicycle tour brochure yet that showed people bicycling through the rain, even though it's bound to rain on your trip. Bring a poncho, remember to drink lots of water, wear polypro if it's chilly, learn to pedal the small gears in the wind.
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