Tag: adventure cycling

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Adventure Bicycle Travel

Day 39 – 41: Gainesville to Crawfordville, FL

Case of the manflu so it’s a rushed post – will put up video and more in-depth writing soon – this is a quick ride update.

Day 39 – Gainesville to Mayo, FL (66 miles)

The bike got a service. Yeah! Meant a late start but worth it to have a fresh bike. Sounds like the bottom bracket may not have too much life in it, but should be good for a while so it’ll be interesting to see if it holds up to San Diego.

Florida, without question, is the best state to cycle in so far. There’s a state law saying that cars have to leave 3ft between them and any cyclists and the road shoulders, on the whole, are huge.

After a great ride through farmland and rural Florida (the sound of donkeys is quite bizarre when you can’t see them) the day finished, after several hours of night riding, in Mayo at 10.00pm. And with no headwinds at all.

Day 40 – Mayo to Crawfordville, FL (80 miles)

What a road. It’s probably one of the best roads so far. The Coastal Highway.

Set off from Mayo at about midday. Simple cycling enjoying the long flat roads that stretch into the distance, yet again with no significant headwinds. Just turn off and pedal. The sunny day turned to an amazingly clear and starry night on the road. Here’s a couple of snaps:

At around 8pm, in the distance there were a couple of flickering lights on the other side of the road, and after a while there was the sound of blasting metal music. ‘Ey up, what’s this about? Turned out to be Simon and Mike, from Gainesville. Gainesville? Maybe they’d been out for a long day ride. Nope. Simon had been on the road for 18 months, after setting off from Gainesville, and had cycled (with a boom box – hence the music!) to Washington state and this was his final couple of days before returning home. Mike had joined the ride in Louisiana for the final part. It was enjoyable and insightful to chat with someone who’d been living the bike life for so long. It sounds fairly bloody epic, bears and all.

More night riding and a late finish in Crawfordville, where the wonderful people at The Inn At Wildwood sorted out a room for a couple of nights.

Day 41 – Crawfordville, FL

Today there’s been thunderstorms and heavy rain across Florida, and tomorrow it clears up again. The offer of indoor accommodation couldn’t have come at a better time. Happy coincidence there. This was earlier:

Click here if video doesn’t show in your email browser.

Thanks again to The Inn At Wildwood – if you’re passing check it out. Great staff and an awesome place to hang out – especially when it’s pouring down! Onwards!

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Adventure Bicycle Travel

Day 36 – 38: St Augustine to Gainesville, FL

After spending day 36 off the bike in St A taking care of online stuff, followed by stealth camping in the least subtle place so far (about 15 metres away from the main road), on day 37 there was a definite renewed motivation to get moving. West we go.

Day 37: St Augustine to near Hawthorne, FL (51 miles)

A shoddy nights kip just off the road in St Augustine, packing up was sloth-like, but eventually everything was in the bags.

The roads out of St Augustine are a dream for a cyclist, on a Sunday at least. Cycle lanes, whoulda’ thought it? And quiet, well maintained roads. So far, Florida is definitely leading in the cycle lane and hassle-free roads league table. It was fairly easy through Palatka, then Interlachen – the GPS showing the longest single road navigation so far – 126 miles.

Because of a liberal start in the morning, it became dark around Palatka so on came the lights. On quiet roads, night riding can be a blast. Depending on where you are, it can be a bit spooky, but not so on this ride. Until Hawthorne that is.

After a good half-hour of hunting for a place to put up the tent, I actually cycled past a campground, by chance. Gated and fenced, I called the buzzer at the main entrance, to be greeted by an aggressive sounding chap, who could say nothing other than “WHO YA KNOW?!” and “WHAT YA WANT?!”. Well to camp, please sir. At the campground that you own. After an unsuccessful attempt I moved on, across the street and found a sandy, wooded area near the local church. The morning after:

Day 38: Hawthorne to Gainesville, FL (26 miles)

Another shoddy sleep. Consecutive rubbish sleeps have caught up. In the morning, drained would be an appropriate word. Groggy, another. I woke and just wasn’t into it – weak, lethargic, and not in any way keen. Jog on, Carpe diem.

On the bike, I usually carry two water bottles on the frame (with 2 more water-carriers available in the pannier bags which are kept empty until the more remote areas). Yesterday I must have left one of the main water bottles somewhere, or perhaps it fell out. Either way I woke up and didn’t have any water left, or food. So still half-asleep I set off and stopped at the first place that sold a source of sustenance. It didn’t come for about 18 miles on the outskirts of Gainesville. It was a frustrating morning, slowly pedalling away on long roads that stretched into the distance, hoping for something over the horizon, to then be greeted by more of the same.

Oh, and headwinds. The arch nemesis of cyclists everywhere. They haven’t been a problem for the first month at all, and today they’ve been consistent all day. Guess that’s what happens with a shift of the direction. It’s slow progress, noticeably. I’m going to see how the next couple of days go and then perhaps send a bunch of stuff on to a maildrop to reduce some of the weight in the bags in preparation for the slogs.

I called it a day fairly early in Gainesville, having never really perked up since the morning. But this is the struggle. I signed up for the struggle, for the groggy days. The struggle is one of the best parts, retrospectively of course. So, embrace and crack on. Looking to do a sustained consecutive period of 50+ mile days for a while just to see a bit of Westward progress so we’ll see how it goes tomorrow. Onwards and into the wind!

 

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Rough Map:

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Adventure Bicycle Travel

Day 31 – 35: Jesup, GA – St Augustine, FL

After setting up a mail drop for St Augustine, I’ve had the unusual task of maintaining a fixed schedule over the last few days. With the post not due to arrive in St A until Friday, it’s been a few days of light spins. Nothing too eventful has happened to be honest, but it does mark the end of stage one of the journey.

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Day 31 – Jesup to Nahunta, GA (28 miles)

Set off late after finishing the previous blog at 5.20pm! Bring on the night riding. It wasn’t a complicated day, just simple cycling on a quiet road with a nice shoulder to ride on. I was passing through Nahunta when Blanche, a local woman who owned the town’s hotel, offered camping space in the hotel grounds. Camping that’s allowed, as always, much more relaxing than being discreet. So it was with surprise at around 3am, getting woken by what sounded like the loudest foghorn ever made. In the morning, the cause became instantaneously obvious:

Day 32 – Nahunta, GA to Callahan, FL (48 miles)

An early start just to get away from that bloody noise. The 301S road totally quiet with huge straight sections that stretched right to the horizon. Plenty of this, and then eventually there was a river. St Mary’s River, which splits the state line. Florida, a new state, and the final state in stage one of the journey.

Pedalled on for a while to finish the day in Callahan, FL. After some very unenthusiastic, and unsuccessful, attempts to scout a spot to camp, I ended up in the most budget (for a reason) motel room. Anyone like bugs? You’da loved it.

Day 33 – Callahan, FL to Jacksonville, FL (22 miles)

Up and out of here, early start. Oh hang on, it’s pouring down. Tropical rain-style. I spent a while repacking the bike bags to make sure all the vitals were in drybags and safe from the rain, and saw a forecast that said there was to be heavy consistent rain all day. Spent the rest of the day getting soaked and attempting to avoid the heaviest of the downpours, with mixed success. Arrived in to Jacksonville in a heavy downpour as the light was disappearing – a very aesthetic nighttime skyline from the riverfront.

Day 34 – Jacksonville to St Augustine, FL (37 miles)

The simplest cycle ride possible. Essentially a straight road from Jacksonville right the way to St Augustine. Not overly visual or stunning roads or anything, but I found it very easy to get in to ‘the zone’ due to this being the last day of the first leg.

I pulled in to St Augustine and was very kindly offered a room at the Quality Inn – don’t worry there’ll be many more stealth camping stories soon enough!

Day 35 – St Augustine

Going to have a peruse of St Augustine today, so other than cycling around town there’s no miles today. So that’s it, the end of the first part of the journey. The first corner. It’s been an incredible experience already, and I’m excited to begin heading west, across the country tomorrow. Ready for a corny photo taken in the wind?

P.s. Just bumped into my first cycle tourers; Marcus and Yulanda from Switzerland who have been on the road for 5 months and head to Argentina on New Years Day for more touring, they’re loving it! More on that in another post. And also, a huge big up to my buddies Isaac and Sarah for sending a parcel rammed full of Campbell’s goodies, happy days – thanks guys!

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Adventure

Couple of days in New York City

Since the flight I’ve been staying in Jamaica, Queens just getting sorted, fixing the bike up and waiting for the snow to melt.

After the mini-epic getting here it was nice for the next day to go well. Thankfully, the first set of ACA maps had arrived, as had the Magellan GPS, so now there’s no excuses for getting lost.

Built and tuned the bike after the flight. Nothing wrong other than a slightly bent fender but easily fixed.

I was supposed to meet a couple of people but due to the storm and work schedules it didn’t happen, but as I’m flying out of NYC there’s another opportunity which is cool. So instead, I’ve had a couple of touristy afternoons & evenings and got some last minute bits in the city.

It’s quite an interesting time to be here, just after Hurricane Sandy and Obama being re-elected. I visited Lower Manhattan yesterday (World Trade Center, Wall St, Brooklyn Bridge etc). It’s really quiet at the moment, with a lot of shops boarded up post-Hurricane damage, and there’s a lot of people working very hard through the night trying to fix things like power and water.

In contrast, Manhattan (Central Park, Times Square etc) is heaving with people. Central Park was surprisingly awesome (so was the hot dog), a breath of fresh air in the hustle and bustle of America’s largest city, surrounded by incredible architecture every which way.

Anyway I don’t want to harp on too much about the touristy stuff, but I’m looking forward to spending a few more days here at the end of the trip.

Tomorrow is the first day of cycling. Pretty keen to get on with it now. So from here on out the blogs will be more trip-orientated!

I’ll leave you for now with an out-of-focus picture of a hot dog from 5th Ave.

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Adventure Bicycle Travel

Departure Day

Today was the day of departure, which involved a flight to Reykjavik (who knew it’s actually called Keflavik?), and then onto New York City JFK.

Leaving family on a trip that’ll last multiple months is always pretty rubbish so this morning I thought the best strategy would be to get the goodbyes done speedily and try not to dwell. And what better way to take your mind off of something than faff about with tired and moody airport staff?

Getting to Manchester airport with loads of time in hand, the bike box, which is absolutely massive, took a long while to sort. After plenty of waiting around, the bike being brushed for dynamite, and some very funny looks, the ample buffer time actually ended up being a mad frantic rush to get on the plane in time.

After the previous couple of days, I was totally shattered so slept like a log for most of the first flight and landed in Iceland around 3.00pm local time for a quick switch onto the America leg.

Looking out of the plane from Iceland to America made the cycling part of the project, for the first time, tangible in my mind.  I think I’d been blocking out the reality of the task before that moment. The expanse just coming over the east coast of Canada and dropping into the US is quite something. I was surprised to feel very anxious about it all. Not about the ride, sure it’s a long trip but it’s simple. More the thought of being away from family and friends for months and coping with that. Theres a lot of ground to cover, a ton of time to think, and it’s most certainly going to be an adventure.

Back to the journey, it was all going so well, until the captain clearly was staying in the air intentionally. He’d earlier said that all was well, they just had to clear snow off the runway for twenty minutes or so. Snow? What snow? They didn’t mention that on the forecast! He swooped down, getting very close to landing, and then suddenly used full throttle to avoid touchdown and begin a rapid ascent. Something was clearly wrong, or he just liked drawing shapes on the trip computer.

There was minimal visibility and poor weather, and landing safely wasn’t going to happen. (EDIT: Turns out the Nor’easter had arrived) Then a tannoy announcement. “Ladies and gentleman, due to deteriorating  weather in New York, we have no alternative but to divert to Washington D.C.”  Shit! This threw a major spanner in the works as the entire trip navigation was waiting at a hostel in NYC. A Magellan GPS and ACA maps. Bugger.

Waiting around at Washington D.C. it was quite unclear whether we’d be going back to JFK, until finally the pilot “wanted another pop at it”. And this time with success, and applauses from the cabin.

After cueing through customs, it was time to collect the bags and bike box. The bags came quickly, and then nothing. It took about an hour after everyone had collected their baggage for a friendly chap to bring the bike box into the collection area. It was quite surprising to see the box in absolute tatters! It made moving it a challenge but thankfully everything is in tact.

Leaving the airport, as they’d said, it was snowing in New York, apparently for the first time this year. Not a whiteout or anything but moderate snow and strong gusts.

After a day of mini-epics, I finally made it to the hostel, bike and bags in tow. In a weird way, I enjoyed the travel issues. It wouldn’t be an adventure if nothing went wrong on day 1 right?

Just one last thing –  a massive shout out to all those who have helped and supported the project in the last few weeks. It’s been amazing, so thank you! It begins!

 
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Bicycle Travel

Bicycle Touring: Gear List

I’m not gonna beat around the bush here, I’m not a gearhead and don’t think it’s as important as people make out. Please don’t let “not having the latest gear” stop you from going out and having an amazing experience. A bin bag makes a great rain coat. But I get that these kind of lists can be useful as a guideline, so this is a post about the gear and equipment I chose to take on a multi-month cycle tour. To see the bike spec, click here.

There’s loads of different ways that people gear up for cycle touring, but if you’re thinking of doing something similar to the Vague Direction project that involves multiple months on the bike, through a variety of seasons, I hope this is a useful resource for you to figure out your own travel solution.

Clearly different times of year and different routes call for different gear lists, but something similar to this should give you enough options to stay warm in temperatures down to around -10ºC and handle fairly extreme weather conditions. (I will only ever recommend gear that I personally enjoy using).

Sleeping System

  • Thermarest
  • Thin Foam Matting (to be used under the tent on hard surfaces)
  • Bergans Compact Light 2-man tent
  • Bergans Senja Ice Sleeping Bag (long version)
  • Bergans Sleeping Bag Cover (for being discreet when putting a tent up wouldn’t be wise)
  • Sea to Summit Silk Liner
Cooking

Clothing System

It comes down to layers, being covered for even the worst weather, and easy temperature control.

  • Glittertind waterproof
  • Isfjorden light insulated jacket
  • Vier fleece jacket
  • Imingem trousers
  • Variety of Merino Wool undergarments and socks
  • Marmot Dri-clime jacket
  • Helly Hansen Balaclava
  • Montane ultra lightweight pertex jacket
  • North Cape thinsulate waist coat
  • Mountain Hardwear lightweight shirt

Specifically for cycling, I’m using:

Baggage

Lighting
Tools / bike maintenance 

Misc

There’s also a variety of filmmaking gear not on the list. All in all, including camera stuff too which isn’t listed, this comes in at around 30 kilograms. Oh yeah, and it all fits in the pannier bags!