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CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Questions/Support/Help
kit list queries for mountain bike touring
(102 posts)- Started 5 years ago by unhurt
- Latest reply from I were right about that saddle
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Posted 5 years ago #
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Six months ago this seemed exciting. Now I'm just feart.
Fear is fine, keeps you sharp. Sounds like a blast, look forward to hearing about it.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Finally met other bike travellers! Two nice chaps from Quebec just coming to the end of a Trans Canada ride - and for a good cause. If you want to donate to prostate cancer research, see here: https://www.cedars.ca/cedars/en/fundraisers/100_days_across_canada#gsc.tab=0 - they're not quite at their $50k goal yet.
They got in the papers and all:
http://flambeaudelest.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/fr/iphone/homepage.aspx#_article8332551b-f07b-4b14-bc35-224c4ee0dcc6/waarticle8332551b-f07b-4b14-bc35-224c4ee0dcc6/8332551b-f07b-4b14-bc35-224c4ee0dcc6//true/Luis+Nasim
https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2018/05/23/traverser-le-canada-en-veloI feel a bit better about bears now as they met some grizzlies on the highway in BC and didn't get et.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Posted 5 years ago #
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@unhurt
That article says to watch out for the two bears on bicycles disguised as charity riders.
Posted 5 years ago # -
All part of a cunning plan to have me drop my guard?
Posted 5 years ago # -
I heard some while back from a Canadian acquaintance the best tips for avoiding grizzlies if camping are:
- Don't keep food in the tent
- Don't go the toilet near the tentGood luck!
Posted 5 years ago # -
Unbeared but mostly broken. 60km of not steep but relentless rutted gravel uphill from Badger without respite - for a good 25k my average speed was 6.5kph, I WALK faster than that! - then 40km of almost as tiring but slightly faster rutted gravel downhill with a halfway night up a random turn off (the first at place not actually on the trail in a could of hours) fretting about wildlife. The single most tiring bit of riding a bike I've done I think. My poor juddered about wrists!
Amazing views from near the excellently named Gaff Topsail (other hills available are Mizzen Topsail and Main Topsail) - wide, postglacial. Plains covered in a mixture of pines & bog waving with grasses & open water, all studded with glacial erratics.
Massive moose prints all around near where I camped.
Too much sun - I burnt through sunblock, ow.
Perfect swim at Pond Crossing bridge trestle on the way down - deep, cool, peaty water and not a soul about so ahem wetting the swimming costume seemed unnecessary.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Now eating couscous and sardines out the can in Howley's best / worst motel and anticipating the End of Gravel 24km away in Deer Lake. However this will also mark the start of Big Hills and probably 400k of headwinds, so!
Undecided about trying to manage Labrador side trip. Red Bay still appealing but I'm told that a lot of the road is up for resurfacing (ie more blinking gravel) and also I'm KNACKERED and would maybe like to not have to ride till a bit broken every day to ensure I get to St Anthony by 16:00 on the 30th... I know what my best friend will say - this is supposed to be a holiday!
Posted 5 years ago # -
Sounds amazing. Is there a slightly less challenging side trip you can plan to do if you don't fancy the roadworks?
Posted 5 years ago # -
Sounds like a great adventure, even though gravity and friction are being their usual tiresomely intrusive selves. St Anthony is of course the patron saint of lost objects. You are not yet a lost object, let alone a lost cause. My money is on you rolling over the line in time every bit as good as your spirits. That swim must have been satisfying.
PS IWRATS' tip for low-effort mile-munching: get up early and get plodding.
Posted 5 years ago # -
08:00 is early, right? (It is for my chronotype...)
Decisions made: I am now officially a bicycle TOURIST and will be taking it easy and checking out all the sights (Deer Lake Insectarium here I come!) but I still expect to roll into St Anthony on the 30th. (Suspect Labrador will have to happen another day, unless a lucky tailwind intervenes.)
Can't get lost on the Peninsula - only one road!
BTW I must sing the praises of my mtn bike boots / Specialized insoles conbo: first tour ever with no foot/toe numbness. So comfy!
Posted 5 years ago # -
This has been a learning experience so far.
1. Note to self: next time you tour on gravel, bring a higher impact sports bra.
2. When using Google maps to get approx distances disregard any time suggestions when on gravel. The computer does not understand how slowly you will be going and it's a bit soul destroying when it tries to tell you somewhere is 3 hours riding away when it's actually 6 (plus stops to look at the view / take pictures / eat something / filter river water to drink / pee) and your hands hurt and you itch and you just want to eat noodles and have a shower.
3. The weather will always do something you didn't plan for. I'm out of sunblock!
Posted 5 years ago # -
Can't get lost on the Peninsula - only one road!
Your willingness to tempt fate is admirable.
Posted 5 years ago # -
@Frenchy
She's going to visit a room full of insects.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Just an awesome trip @unhurt, whichever way you decide to complete it from here.
Posted 5 years ago # -
and also I'm KNACKERED and would maybe like to not have to ride till a bit broken every day
They do say adventures suck when you're having them.
@unhurt, I have one of those higher impact sports bras. I don't know what they thought of as 'higher', except perhaps sitting on one of those machines they test car suspension with. Maybe I need to ride more gravel tracks.
Posted 5 years ago # -
@unhurt, loving the reveal on Facebook of the reason why the gravel on top of the dismantled rail track had an annoying yet pretty uniform sort of bump every metre or so. Why oh why does this gravel appear to have such persistent corrugation? The answer lies sleeping deep down in your psyche. Though just under the surface of the gravel of the dismantled track.
Posted 5 years ago # -
I like the way the @bear_buffet content is curated for CCE. I know @gembo's children read CCE, perhaps others do to?
Posted 5 years ago # -
My children are a lot older now than when CCE started
Posted 5 years ago # -
So the stuff about lolling about motel rooms in underpants is good to go?
Posted 5 years ago # -
Yeah yeah, mostly Songs about buildings and food?
Posted 5 years ago # -
I dont think children are bothered by pants. Or scarred?
Meanwhile: Lomond campsite in Gros Morne has upset my plans. I was all out for St. Anthony (meeting the mother there at North Hotel) but...
Campsite has osprey, terns, loons and now minke whales. I'm camped on the beach. The site is gloriously quiet. I've got spare food. There are hiking trails to other beaches. It's sunny. I have the option of spending an extra night here and finishing at Port au Choix inqstead... I think i might. Off for a long post breakfast swim to consider and decide.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Mother bumped!! Sounds like a brilliant spot!
Posted 5 years ago # -
I'll still meet her! But, yes, well. Guilt at not meeting self assigned target aside this is pretty near perfect.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Plenty time for guilt once you're moving again, take time out enjoy your holiday.
Posted 5 years ago # -
I am home. I have been home since Sunday afternoon.
Pity my bike is not home. It is... somewhere else. Still. Even more helpfully, having at least located it in the UK and brought it to Edinburgh BA gave it to a courier who texted me 45 mintes before trying to deliver it - while I was, you know, at work, in Glasgow - and who offers no apparent way to reschedule to when I know I'll actually be IN. They will, it seems, just keep trying to deliver it and then sending me passive aggressive "DO NOT REPLY" text notifications.
They have a phone number. It goes to a crackly & infuriating looped message that never offers any means to speak to a human person.
I am not a happy bunny. Jetlag is not helping, nor is the fact that I need the bike & stuff back in time to leave town again at 08:30 on Sunday for five days and at present I don't know if I'll have HAVE the bike back by then, or have had time to rebuild, clean & check for transit damage. GRRRRR!
Posted 5 years ago # -
well i'm relieved that you have arrived safely home
your mother and i have been worried sick
Posted 5 years ago # -
But my mother was on the plane, o bax. Must be a doppelganger.
Posted 5 years ago # -
your mother was on the plane also ?
and you worry us with taunts of further imminent departures
clearly a quantum bifurgency
Posted 5 years ago #
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