Topics

1

General Discussion / Logistics of shipping equipment for touring

« on: April 15, 2014, 02:22:21 pm »

My wife and I are planning to do some touring in the midwest (from California), and need to fly there with our bikes and equipment.

Here are a few logistical questions I'm curious about to those who have travelled with bikes.

1) Our bikes have fenders and Tubus racks on them (Tubus Carry on back, and Tubus Nova on the front). It doesn't look like the hard shell cases that I have seen are big enough to carry the bikes and the fenders/racks. What's the best carrying method for bikes with these accessories?

2) Our camping equipment includes a small whitegas stove (MSR Firefly) and a couple of white gas containers (empty of course). Can I just put these in my checked panniers?

Thanks.

2

Great Lakes / Advice for a short wisconsin/michigan bike tour

« on: March 31, 2014, 04:37:42 pm »

My wife and I are thinking about a 400 mile or so self supported bike tour in late August/early September. We're from California, but for some reason I got a bee in my bonnet to tour a bit in the upper midwest, and this area looks appealing to me because it's near water, and there can be boat trips involved! We'll be both camping and staying in motels. We're in our 60s, so we don't move very fast either. We're giving ourselves 2 weeks.

So, we're thinking of starting in Milwaukee and going north by something like the following:
1) Start in Milwaukee.
2) Ride north by some route to Door county. We don't know whether staying close to the lake is best, or going inland a bit.
3) Ride back to Manitowoc and then take the ferry to Ludington MI.
4) Ride by some route south to Muskegon. Again, should we stay nearer the lake or go inland?
5) Ferry back to Milwaukee.

So, for you Wisconsin and Michigan road riders out there, what do you think? Any particular routes we should take to make this as enjoyable as possible? Any specific places we should not miss?

3

Routes / Best direction for portion of Northern Tier between Anacortes and Glacier

« on: March 26, 2012, 10:35:10 pm »

My wife and I are planning on doing an unsupported bike tour starting in mid June, taking a portion of the Northern Tier.  We want to go from Anacortes to Montana, and end up either at Glacier park, Missoula or somewhere along the Amtrak a little farther east (Shelby maybe?).

Looking at the AC maps, we were thinking it might make more sense to take the Amtrak out to Montana and ride east to west, because it would allow us to avoid starting out and going up that 5500 Norther Cascades summit so early in our trip.  Also, east west is going from 4000 ft to sea level, which sounds good to us!

However, we're now thinking about wind direction and wonder if anyone has advice as to whether one direction would be significantly better in that respect.  That would probably trump it if it is clearly better one way or the other.

Thoughts?

4

Gear Talk / Biking Stores for getting touring bike in SF Bay Area

« on: November 01, 2011, 06:57:37 pm »

I am planning a month long self supported bicycle touring trip with my wife for next summer -- our first one!

Right now I am riding a Trek hybrid bike for lots of urban riding, and realize that I probably need to get a new bike for this trip.  I assume a touring bike is what I want.

For me, I think it is best to work with someone at a good bike store to spec out the details of a bike.  Does anyone have recommendations as to which bike stores in the SF Bay Area would be best for doing this?  Maybe even a specific person you could recommend?

I'm probably going to be in the $1500-$2500 range for price.