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 Air
      
Location: Canada
 |  | Re: UE bike roadtrip
<Reply # 60 on 2/17/2010 2:32 PM >
|  | | | If it hasn't already been said, get a tune up before. Whenever I buy a new bike (lol, old stuff on craigs) I change the brake and gear cables, brake pads and the inner tubes. I always use Mr. tuffy tire liners because they do work and will save you aggravation when your out riding on the trails or the road. Its actually cheaper to do that then getting a tune up if you go in with all the parts. Definitely worth it, and will make your old bike feel like a new ride.
Also don't ever buy Kmart bikes kids...
"The extraordinary beauty of things that fail." - Heinrich von Kleist |
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mortimer
Location: teronno
| |  | Re: UE bike roadtrip
<Reply # 61 on 2/17/2010 3:07 PM >
| | | | Posted by bfinan0
Your advice itself seems contradictory here. If I didn't get the rack, the tent and sleeping bag are not essential? Or they still are essential, but so is the rack so I would be so directly set up for failure that it doesn't even matter anymore?
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I'm not sure what you're talking about with the set up for failure thing, but I'll try to clarify what I wrote: Get a rack, whether you get panniers to attach to them or not. If you use a backpack for your clothes/camera/whatever, bungee a tent and sleeping bag to the rack. If you get panniers, attach them to the rack and bungee a tent and sleeping bag to the rack. Don't leave essential survival gear (warmth and shelter) at home to save weight.
yep. |
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junkyard
Location: LaCrosse, WI
Gender: Male
Strategic Beer Command where the metal hits the meat.
| | | Re: UE bike roadtrip
<Reply # 62 on 2/17/2010 3:53 PM >
| | | | A small pump and 2 tires filled with Slime before you go, would do wonders. The reason I don't usually get flats on the ATV's is the slime, and the easiest way of fixing them in the Jeep or trucks is Slime, plugs, and on board air. I don't Slime the big tires unless I have to, but it'll plug a 1/4 hole and having it inside keeps you from even noticing.....
I drink gasoline for breakfeast and beer for dinner!
Any problem can be licked with a case of beer and a few sticks of dynamite.
Strategic Beer Command ruling the desert since 1995 http://www.strategic-beer-command.com |
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bfinan0
Location: Rochester, NY
Gender: Male
| | | Re: UE bike roadtrip
<Reply # 63 on 2/17/2010 5:06 PM >
| | | | Posted by splumer [57]
I also recommend a helmet. I've had enough wipeouts that I'm a helmet devotee.
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One close call was enough to convince me of it; I got run off an icy road into a snowbank by the 8A bus back in December, if it wasn't snowy that would have hurt A LOT worse than it did.
Posted by Air 33 [58]
I change the brake and gear cables
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Planning on doing this as soon as I can get the parts anyway.
posted by mortimer [59]
Get a rack, whether you get panniers to attach to them or not. If you use a backpack for your clothes/camera/whatever, bungee a tent and sleeping bag to the rack. If you get panniers, attach them to the rack and bungee a tent and sleeping bag to the rack.
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This makes more sense now; I was trying to figure out how you concluded that if I carry more weight, I should carry even more weight...
Posted by junkyard[/i] [60]
it'll plug a ¼ [inch] hole and having it inside keeps you from even noticing.....
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That should cover for almost any cause of a flat tire, short of being shot at or having my tires sliced (neither of which should happen in rural upstate NY), right?
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kowalski
| | Re: UE bike roadtrip
<Reply # 64 on 2/17/2010 5:50 PM >
| | | | | don't sleep in the day and ride at night. Riding at night in rural areas is a good way to get dead, particularly near the weekends, or whatever night passes for pub night in the area. |
That is true; (but with any luck, I'd be in the pub) |
You can get killed any night of the week, it doesn't have to be pub night. Moreover, you're talking about doing this ride when? April? You'll make yourself sick riding at night in the spring chill like that, and any stores/gas stations/motels you come upon will more than likely be closed. You won't get enough sleep during the day, and you won't make enough miles at night.
Randonneurs (look it up) ride through the night, but they train for it and they're kind of insane. I know you've got the second part of that locked up, but we both know your level of training commitment isn't going to be there. It's going to be hard enough for you to make five straight days of the distances you're planning on. In organized events, randonneurs can also typically count on someone else coming up behind them if they run into any serious problems.
When was the last time you spent five or six hours outside in April? In April at night? In April at night in the rain/sleet? In April at night in the rain/sleet, covered in sweat and so exhausted you can't keep yourself warm by continuing to ride? Honestly, I'm not trying to be unduly alarmist, but you need to recognize that it is possible to give yourself hypothermia in those kinds of conditions, especially if you're trying to push on night-after-night like this.
| Well, as far as I can tell it would cost me at least $80 to get the bike home, if not more. |
Contrary to the advice up thread, taking a bicycle with you by Greyhound should not cost $80. It used to be if you called 5 days in advance, they would have a box waiting for your bicycle at the departure station for you to crate it in. Barring that, you can arrange with a bike shop at your end point to have a box ready, and even pay them (less than $80) to crate the bike.
The point is, you'd be throwing away a perfectly good bike that's probably worth more than $80 to hold onto. And what, you don't want to have that bike to putter around town with afterwards (or, should you be successful, to mount more trips with in the future)? Especially when you and it had suffered together through the state?
You need to drop the maths and start looking at tour logs from people who've actually ridden this route, and then handicap their progress with the fact that you've never toured or ridden significant distances before, and thus don't know shit about anything. Unless the south shore has the most beautiful, warm and dry spring ever known, trying to do this without experience or backup in April is stupid. This trip would kick your ass by the third day. It'll kick your ass before you make it to the end of the lake. It would kick your ass even if your plan was to ride in the daytime like everyone else would. You might be able to pull it off in the summer time, when you can usually rely on long stretches of dry weather and consistent temperatures to give you a pass on your foolishness. The rest of the year, this is pretty nuts.
Plan some shorter rides for the week you wanted to do this, even an overnight out somewhere, have some fun and see if you can handle it. If you like it, build up to this kind of ride sometime down the road.
And if you really want to make it over to the northern frontier this spring, buy a bus ticket.
[last edit 2/17/2010 5:53 PM by kowalski - edited 1 times]
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bfinan0
Location: Rochester, NY
Gender: Male
| | | Re: UE bike roadtrip
<Reply # 65 on 2/17/2010 7:29 PM >
| | | | Posted by kowalski
You can get killed any night of the week, it doesn't have to be pub night. Moreover, you're talking about doing this ride when? April? You'll make yourself sick riding at night in the spring chill like that, and any stores/gas stations/motels you come upon will more than likely be closed. You won't get enough sleep during the day, and you won't make enough miles at night.
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I admit it, maybe I was wrong with that one, but it seemed logical. If there are any roads in the state that are completely deserted at night, NY-3 is one of them; 140 miles of it is also part of state and national bike routes and has designated bike lanes (Palermo to Hounsfield and Carthage to just W of Plattsburgh)
When was the last time you spent five or six hours outside in April? In April at night? In April at night in the rain/sleet? In April at night in the rain/sleet, covered in sweat and so exhausted you can't keep yourself warm by continuing to ride? Honestly, I'm not trying to be unduly alarmist, but you need to recognize that it is possible to give yourself hypothermia in those kinds of conditions, especially if you're trying to push on night-after-night like this.
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May 5th-10th, 2009. I know that is one week later in the year than I am planning this time, but that was also at much higher elevation (3300-5110') in the High Peaks of the Adirondacks. In those five days, my best friend and I did a 100 mile backpacking trip; on the night of the 7th as we were climbing Mt Colden, temperatures dropped to +14°F with a windchill of -24 and a driving snow. And the next day, it got up to +80 with a heat index...I know what Nature can do that time of year, because I've been there.
Contrary to the advice up thread, taking a bicycle with you by Greyhound should not cost $80. It used to be if you called 5 days in advance, they would have a box waiting for your bicycle at the departure station for you to crate it in. Barring that, you can arrange with a bike shop at your end point to have a box ready, and even pay them (less than $80) to crate the bike.
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Bikes certainly appeared to be covered in the oversize package rules they have now. Things may have changed, but that was the information I got.
The point is, you'd be throwing away a perfectly good bike that's probably worth more than $80 to hold onto. And what, you don't want to have that bike to putter around town with afterwards (or, should you be successful, to mount more trips with in the future)? Especially when you and it had suffered together through the state?
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I was planning on abandoning the bike anyway, seeing as I won't be able to use it during the summer. I figured if I was going to get rid of it, I might as well take it a few hundred miles on a road trip first.
You need to drop the maths and start looking at tour logs from people who've actually ridden this route, and then handicap their progress with the fact that you've never toured or ridden significant distances before, and thus don't know shit about anything.
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http://pedal4medals.org/09cuesheets.htm ; these distances look like about twice what i was planning, on a generally similar route (279 miles in 4 days)
http://www.myra-si...newyork/index.html Oh, this is my exact plan (ferry to Burlington leaves from the east end of the 3 in Plattsburg; Goler House, where she started from, was about a mile from where I live now. She covered the entire distance on 8/18-22/1985, and interestingly made some of the same mistakes I was planning on making. And, she did it in 4 days, not 7 1/2.
This trip would kick your ass by the third day. It'll kick your ass before you make it to the end of the lake. It would kick your ass even if your plan was to ride in the daytime like everyone else would. You might be able to pull it off in the summer time, when you can usually rely on long stretches of dry weather and consistent temperatures to give you a pass on your foolishness.
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You're probably right; maybe I'd fall a few hundred miles short and have to end it in Fulton, Palermo or Watertown, before I even got to where I was trying to go. I still wouldn't be any worse off, since I'd be abandoning the bike anyway and getting a bus home from wherever I ran out of time.
Plan some shorter rides for the week you wanted to do this, even an overnight out somewhere, have some fun and see if you can handle it. If you like it, build up to this kind of ride sometime down the road. And if you really want to make it over to the northern frontier this spring, buy a bus ticket.
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If I were to do either of these, I would lose the exploring aspect of it. In only one or two days, I wouldn't really be able to get anywhere I can't go anyway.
[last edit 2/17/2010 7:56 PM by bfinan0 - edited 1 times]
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AnAppleSnail
Location: Charlotte, NC
Gender: Male
ALL the flashlights!
| |  | | Re: UE bike roadtrip
<Reply # 66 on 2/17/2010 7:42 PM >
| | | | Give it a shot, especially if you have someone you can call for a ride back if needed. It sounds like you're aware of many of the risks, and if you manage to do an overnight trip or two before then you'll have an idea of what's coming. Do be cautious, but if you can get driven home as a last resort then you'll survive most of the risks this trip carries. Good luck!
Achievement Unlocked
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bfinan0
Location: Rochester, NY
Gender: Male
| | | Re: UE bike roadtrip
<Reply # 67 on 2/17/2010 9:12 PM >
| | | | Posted by AnAppleSnail
Give it a shot, especially if you have someone you can call for a ride back if needed. It sounds like you're aware of many of the risks, and if you manage to do an overnight trip or two before then you'll have an idea of what's coming. Do be cautious, but if you can get driven home as a last resort then you'll survive most of the risks this trip carries. Good luck!
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I know there's a degree of risk involved, as there is in any adventure; however, if I can prepare at least to some extent, and have an emergency plan for when/if it all goes to shit, you're right I should at least survive it. How I see it is, even if I fail and only get 1/3 of the way, it's still an adventure, and there isn't much to be gained from going a much shorter (1-2 day) distance except as practice, at least from an exploring point of view, since places within that range (36 miles at most) I've either already been to, or can go to on Rochester meets or etc.
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kowalski
| | Re: UE bike roadtrip
<Reply # 68 on 2/17/2010 9:25 PM >
| | | | Posted by bfinan0
How I see it is, even if I fail and only get 1/3 of the way, it's still an adventure, and there isn't much to be gained from going a much shorter (1-2 day) distance except as practice
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Fitness, maturity and competence?
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bfinan0
Location: Rochester, NY
Gender: Male
| | | Re: UE bike roadtrip
<Reply # 69 on 2/17/2010 9:33 PM >
| | | | Posted by bfinan0
...except for practice
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Posted by kowalski
Fitness, maturity and competence?
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We agree here; however, it should have been clear from the subject line and the first post, that the goal was to explore, not just to work out; your suggestion would omit the former, even if still accomplishing the latter.
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kowalski
| | Re: UE bike roadtrip
<Reply # 70 on 2/17/2010 9:38 PM >
| | | | Posted by bfinan0
We agree here; however, it should have been clear from the subject line and the first post, that the goal was to explore, not just to work out; your suggestion would omit the former, even if still accomplishing the latter.
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You don't think riding thirty or fifty km gives you the opportunity to explore? You don't think it'll give you the opportunity to see and enjoy all sorts of things you never otherwise would have noticed or appreciated?
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bfinan0
Location: Rochester, NY
Gender: Male
| | | Re: UE bike roadtrip
<Reply # 71 on 2/17/2010 9:41 PM >
| | | | Posted by kowalski
You don't think riding thirty or fifty km gives you the opportunity to explore? You don't think it'll give you the opportunity to see and enjoy all sorts of things you never otherwise would have noticed or appreciated?
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It's rather hard to find somewhere I've never been, and is worth seeing, within 25km (50km out and back). I think you could understand the allure of going further than that?
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kowalski
| | Re: UE bike roadtrip
<Reply # 72 on 2/17/2010 9:44 PM >
| | | | Posted by bfinan0
It's rather hard to find somewhere I've never been, and is worth seeing, within 25km (50km out and back). I think you could understand the allure of going further than that?
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Ah yes, the whole "nothing more to see" canard. There's nothing more to see on this forum either, and Mexico will look about the same as Rochester if you make it that far.
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bfinan0
Location: Rochester, NY
Gender: Male
| | | Re: UE bike roadtrip
<Reply # 73 on 2/17/2010 9:49 PM >
| | | | Posted by kowalski
Ah yes, the whole "nothing more to see" canard. There's nothing more to see on this forum either, and Mexico will look about the same as Rochester if you make it that far.
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I don't care if you're referring to México, or to the town of Mexico 24 miles into the first day of my planned bike trip, but either way, this is profoundly false. You are looking at the logistics of this, while ignoring its basic motivation, to go farther than I ordinarily would be able to, to try to seize an opportunity (8 days of freedom to go somewhere and explore with), to find my limit (and in all likelihood exceed it and have to bail: you can know that I am planning to fail as much as to succeed).
See the trees for the forest: while at first glance all may be green and leafy, upon closer examination different species grow further into the forest, different creatures inhabit them. If my goal was simply to see a tree, you're right, riding around in 50km loops around Rochester would suffice...my goal is to see where the trees are greener (less green, literally, as they will still be coming into leaf, but you get the idea), to expand the possibility of where I can go beyond the city line.
[last edit 2/17/2010 9:52 PM by bfinan0 - edited 1 times]
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kowalski
| | Re: UE bike roadtrip
<Reply # 74 on 2/17/2010 9:57 PM >
| | | | Posted by bfinan0
I don't care if you're referring to México, or to the town of Mexico 24 miles into the first day of my planned bike trip, but either way, this is profoundly false. You are looking at the logistics of this, while ignoring its basic motivation, to go farther than I ordinarily would be able to, to try to seize an opportunity (8 days of freedom to go somewhere and explore with), to find my limit (and in all likelihood exceed it and have to bail: you can know that I am planning to fail as much as to succeed).
See the trees for the forest: while at first glance all may be green and leafy, upon closer examination different species grow further into the forest, different creatures inhabit them. If my goal was simply to see a tree, you're right, riding around in 50km loops around Rochester would suffice...my goal is to see where the trees are greener (less green, literally, as they will still be coming into leaf, but you get the idea), to expand the possibility of where I can go beyond the city line.
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This would all be fine, if you ordinarily did 50 km loops or ordinarily went places and explored them. But since you think you need someone's car to show up in order to be able to go explore places within your own city, all this "push my limits with a couple hundred mile, obnoxiously planned bike trip" is cut from the same cloth of spectacular overcompensation we've seen from you before.
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bfinan0
Location: Rochester, NY
Gender: Male
| | | Re: UE bike roadtrip
<Reply # 75 on 2/17/2010 10:02 PM >
| | | | Posted by kowalski
But since you think you need someone's car to show up in order to be able to go explore places within your own city,
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I don't; I think I already explored everything I can get into within the city, and cannot get sufficiently far from it on my own. But that's an entirely different argument.
all this "push my limits with a couple hundred mile, obnoxiously planned bike trip" is cut from the same cloth of spectacular overcompensation we've seen from you before.
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Huh? You're just arguing with this because it's my idea. I don't even understand what "spectacular overcompensation" means in this context, but it can't be good, and I don't think it's accurate. Just because I have a week and want to go on a longer exploration, doesn't mean I'm trying to make up for anything. (Obviously, it's a result of not being able to do as normal people would and take a car on such a trip, but it's ambition, not compensation, to ignore that fact and try to go anyway)
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bfinan0
Location: Rochester, NY
Gender: Male
| | | Re: UE bike roadtrip
<Reply # 76 on 2/17/2010 10:35 PM >
| | | | I'm not trying to be thick or argumentative here beyond necessity, especially since we've really gotten off topic. Whether there are closer things to explore or not, the relevant discussion is how I can go, or at least attempt to go, on a 245-mile bike trip. I will count it as almost a definite that I will fail in this endeavor, and have to bail out from somewhere nearer than Plattsburg; even if that were the case, it would still be an adventure, and will still accomplish what I would like to do.
So arguing whether I have any chance in hell of succeeding isn't what I'm looking for; I'm looking for strategy of how to do it and survive, were it possible.
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WarBird69
Location: Eastern TN
Gender: Male
Atomic Bird of War
| | Re: UE bike roadtrip
<Reply # 77 on 2/17/2010 10:38 PM >
| | | | 
When twilight draws near, when you are pushed to the very limits of your soul, when it seems that all you have left are the dead remnants of the fabric of your life:
-- BELIEVE |
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bfinan0
Location: Rochester, NY
Gender: Male
| | | Re: UE bike roadtrip
<Reply # 78 on 2/17/2010 10:52 PM >
| | | | Posted by WarBird69
YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.
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No; well, maybe; I'm doing what I can, it may not work but it's worth a try.
Probably no one else on this thread would try this, since it's absolutely unnecessary: anyone in their right mind who could, would drive rather than waste a week on biking a distance like this, if their purpose was exploring rather than riding 375km for the sake of riding it.
This discussion isn't about WHY to do it, some of you probably won't understand that if you try; it's about HOW to do it, if I were to (and I most likely will at least try)
[last edit 2/17/2010 11:37 PM by bfinan0 - edited 1 times]
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metawaffle
 
King of Puns
Location: Brisbane!
Gender: Male
Purveyor of Fine Lampshades
| | | Re: UE bike roadtrip
<Reply # 79 on 2/17/2010 11:29 PM >
| | | | Posted by bfinan0
Probably no one else on this site would try this, since it's absolutely unnecessary
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On the contrary, there are plenty of UE bikers and hikers around here. Perhaps something about this thread is turning them off commenting?
http://www.longexposure.net |
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