Bike Touring Plans

The time has never been better to take a hack at bike touring. The internet is full of helpful advice, experience, ideal routes and awesome gear to make self supported bike touring easier than ever.

As I started hearing more and more about various bike tourers traveling all over the world I started to get more and more excited about trying it myself. That coupled with the plethora of natural parks and route options here in Idaho and before I knew it I had started to make some pretty detailed plans. I have always been drawn to attempting some kind of tour simply because of the adventure. Some people ride for fitness, others for finances and then there are those like me who mostly do it for the fun and adventure of seeing new places (or parts of places you don't normally see). We all have a mix of reasons we ride and some of us lean more towards one reason than another. 

I had always considered a long tour, and day dreamed a time or two about riding across the country, through Europe, or around Austrailia but up until now I never really considered how I could make that possible. As it stands even after 17 years since I started exploring the town on my bike and almost 11 years since I rode my first century I have never (unless I'm forgetting something) gone camping on my bike. I have spent loads of days backpacking and even did one swimming overnight trip (that's a story for another blog post) but never with my bike.

Since I bought the 2008 Specialized Tricross a couple of months ago touring has become all that more possible. It has dedicated eyelets for a rear rack and has no problem tackling any gravel road or even the occasional trail. And unlike a mountain bike the cyclocross bike is fairly fast and efficient on the road so that I can do decently big miles each day. 

This summer I have planned several possible weekend trips as well as several 1 to 2 week trips passing through several national parks including Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and Glacier. My ultimate goal right now is to ride the Northern Tier from North Western Washington all the way to Eastern Maine over approximately 75 days including having Sundays off. The only problem with the last one is finding that much time off and the fact that Celisse and the girls wouldn't be able to come at all. If you are interested in either coming on one or more of these rides or meeting up with me for any section please let me know.