Messages

1

General Discussion / Re: Costs per day?

« on: June 11, 2025, 04:12:09 pm »

Another thing I've noticed is that some public campgrounds and some RV parks often have a "camp store".  These are often overpriced and vary enormously in quality but they also might be the only store of any kind for many miles.  So I tend to note them when I am planning routes.

I'll carry camp food all day (or eat dinner out) if I have to rather than rely on a "camp store."  One of the worst, if not the worst, meals we hand during my group tour of the Northern Tier was when we had to rely on camp store food at a place in MT.  It was pasta with jarred sauce and a variety of watery canned vegetables like green beans and corn.  Even the store at the Lake McDonald Lodge in Glacier N.P. is mostly junk snack food and canned goods.  I stop in W. Glacier before entering the park.

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Routes / Re: Missoula Bound in June

« on: June 11, 2025, 04:03:58 pm »

Way to bounce back from your health challenges.   Have a fantastic trip!

Thanks.  We'll see how much I have bounced back. 

Good news is that the bike arrived at Hellgate Cyclery this morning, two days ahead of Bikefight's stated schedule.  And I found a place in town that will fill my fuel bottle so I won't have to ride out to REI hoping to find a quart.  (The REI near my home town stopped selling the quarts, and the product is no longer listed on REI's website.  But you can get plenty of Yeti products.  *rolls eyes*)

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General Discussion / Re: Missoula bike shop

« on: June 10, 2025, 01:57:16 pm »

Looking to fly out of Missoula airport with bike on Allegiant mid August. Does anyone have recommendation for LBS there that could cardboard box my tour bike for air travel?  Think I’ll try to buy cheap bag for all the gear as checked luggage. Walmart?

My bike is currently on its way to Hellgate Cyclery in downtown Missoula.  They are going to assemble it and hold my box for my two-week tour then re-pack it.  Have never used them before, but they seems like competent folks.

Note that you cannot simply flag down a cab to take you to MSO, which is at the far west end of town.  Not sure how prevalent Uber, etc., is out there.

Have you looked into Bikeflights for shipping?  If you were to go that route, you could take the bus out to the airport if departing on a weekday during bus operating hours.

I have started/ended several tours in Missoula.  In those instances, I used the local REI store, which is about 3 miles from the airport.  Give them a call and see if they still offer the service.

Whatever you choose, make sure you schedule an appointment well in advance.  I would make it at least two weeks ahead just to be safe.

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General Discussion / Re: Contrasting the ACA route and any way you want to go.

« on: June 09, 2025, 06:48:06 am »

I spent long periods of time on Google maps planning, fine-tuning and perfecting for my best routes, and did not follow the directions on the road. What looks good from satellite pics may be a bust in the real world. It is like they say--The map is not the terrain. It is not the woods. It is not the road.

Try using the Street View function when available.

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Routes / Re: Vermont 2025

« on: June 04, 2025, 08:53:37 pm »

Anyone have some good self-guided routes for Vermont?  Solo senior looking for suggestions.

What do you mean by self-guided.  It typically refers to a trip arranged through a tour company that makes accommodations and transports your luggage.

If you mean self-contained/supported, I did this a few years ago:

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/39894553


I parked at the long-term facility (convenient and inexpensive) in Brattleboro and rode north to St. Albans.  Got a motel at the end and in the morning took Amtrak's Vermonter back to my car in Brattleboro.  I can tell you where I camped.  They were all state parks except for the last night on the road, which was spent at a nice municipal campground on the lake in Newport.  Vermont state parks are nice in that many of them have lean-tos for not much more than the cost of a regular site.  Very handy in the event of wet weather.  I only used my rain fly in Newport because I hard lean-tos eleswhere.

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General Discussion / Re: Contrasting the ACA route and any way you want to go.

« on: June 04, 2025, 08:41:35 pm »

If I didn't plan my own routes, I'd need to find a winter hobby.

This forum need a like button.

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General Discussion / Re: Costs per day?

« on: June 04, 2025, 08:40:19 pm »

“For a similar reason I am always kind of skeptical of coin-op laundry at motels.  I doubt it is much of a profit center and it ends up being a hassle finding quarters for the machine.  Sometimes so much of a hassle that you can't do laundry...

I will find the quarters. To me a laundry facility in a motel/hotel is the completion of the trifecta: hot shower/bed to sleep in/ clean clothes for the next morning!
[/quote]
+1.  There is a really bike-friendly motel (national chain) at the conjunction of the GAP and C&O trails.  You can literally ride your bike to the front door.  The laundry room was quite busy after it had rained the day before.

Back in 2022 I stayed at a campground in PA that had a washer and dryer.  No coins needed as payment was on the honor system.

8

General Discussion / Re: Florida criminalizes sleeping on public land.

« on: May 23, 2025, 12:25:04 pm »

A cyclist fatality in a tangle with a car is not always the fault of motorists.

Yeah, but an accident that might cost a motorist a few thousand dollars, mostly paid by their insurance, would likely seriously injure or kill a cyclist.  The penalty for making a mistake should not be death or dismemberment.

I think we as a society often get trapped into thinking that "things are just the way they are and we can't do anything about it."

My point (directed at another poster) was that statistics about fatalities can be misleading.  If you are not riding around drunk or otherwise cycling really stupidly, you have a much better chance of not being inured.  Ergo, to say "I am never riding in X because it has the highest rate of fatalities, without knowing more about contributing factors, seems odd.

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General Discussion / Re: Florida criminalizes sleeping on public land.

« on: May 21, 2025, 03:19:22 pm »

Fatalities include drunks riding bikes because they lost their licenses for driving drunk.  A cyclist fatality in a tangle with a car is not always the fault of motorists.  I lost an old friend when she got hit by a truck riding home from work.  I assumed it was the motorist's fault, but the executor of her estate told me it was her fault.  "She wasn't being careful enough." is what he wrote.

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General Discussion / Re: Costs per day?

« on: May 16, 2025, 06:46:15 am »

...
Buying fresh food in food stores and preparing it is definitely the healthiest and most nutritious way to go. It is significantly less expensive than eating even two meals a day in restaurants.

There are still some challenges, though.

A lot of areas are "food deserts" and healthy and nutritious food can be hard to come by in any form.  A sure warning sign of this is if the only major stores in a town are various dollar stores.

I've also found that the quality, cost, and general availability of fresh fruits and vegetables can vary in bewildering ways from town to town even if you are using decent supermarkets for resupply.

On the other side of that problem, sometimes even very tiny markets in small communities can have amazing stuff available.

You just don't know and this is something that is hard to plan for and you need to learn how to just roll with it.  Sometimes that means I need to buy a restaurant meal or two just to get a halfway decent salad.

+1.

And the bolded above reminds me of shopping at the small merchantile in Wise River, MT.  Both times I stopped in the place had amazing Roma tomatoes.  Not exactly tomato growing country.  So odd yet so welcomed.  I am planning to pas through there again in June.  Can't wait to see if the place has them.

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General Discussion / Re: Costs per day?

« on: May 09, 2025, 05:37:19 pm »

I don't know if this has been mentioned, but consider the money you are not spending while touring.  I am confident that my food expenditures decreases when on the road because I don't eat out of the freezer and microwave at home.  (You don't find me grilling a $15 whole fish in camp like you would at home.)  My utility costs drop.  No need for bus fare or gas.  My "entertainment" expenses are less.  On the flip side, I often pay a cat sitter when a good friend can't do it for free.  Fortunately, I have another friend who lives close, works cheap, and sends me great photos and videos of my boy.

Food on-tour is less expensive than where you live. Is the on-the-road food of equal vital nourishment as what you eat where you reside? Costs can be more than dollars and cents.

I happen to be an excellent camp cook.  I cook extensively at home (Last night was soft-shell crab pasta and arugula salad with shaved Parmesan.) , and I enjoy cooking on the road.  I don't see it as a chore.  And I do a very good job of accommodating my need to consume and steady amount of Vitamin K-rich vegetables to balance the blood thinners I have to take.

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Routes / Re: PPP Section 2: Headed through Spearfish around 7/31/2025

« on: May 03, 2025, 10:35:11 am »

I was gping to say that camping rates will be insane.  When I was planning my 2015 trip that included the Black Hills, I looked at some websites and they all noted that rates are higher during the rally and that there were minimum stays of more than one night.

In any event, if you go through Spearfish, the municipal campground in town is probably the nices such facility I ever stayed in, and it's right next to a fish hatchery museum, which was interesting.  One way to get to Hill City from there is no ride up Spearfish Canyon to Savoy, head to over the Cheyenne Crossing, take the CanAm Highway, and make right onto Brownsville Rd.  That will take you to the Englewood trailhead of the Mickelson Trail.  Note that the trail between there and Hill City is NOT easy like tou thin a rail-trail might be.  You will immediately start a 5 mile climb that averages around 3% anf reaches an altitude of over 6,000'.  There is another climb after Mystic before you descend into Hill City.  (That was a tough piece of railroad.)  I did this day and it was the toughest day of the trip.

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Routes / Re: ACA TransAmerican Summer 2025

« on: April 24, 2025, 10:55:33 pm »

Thanks, John.  This is super helpful!

I agree with John.  And for what it's worth, someone on another forum once posted an overlay for prevailing surface winds in the Midwest on top of ACA's Trans Am Map for July and it revealed mostly  headwinds going east to west. When you get further east later in the summer (July and August), flows out of the southeast, bringing in humid air masses and headwinds if you are heading east, are common.

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Routes / Re: How many people ride the Northern Tier each year?

« on: April 12, 2025, 02:00:02 pm »

This happened to me in Adelanto, CA. An Asian woman wanted to give me money at a gas station. I had just finished the Mojave desert, it had been something like 115 degrees and I had completed something like 120 mi that day. I probably looked like a homeless :-)

Heh.  Nearly 25 years ago I did startle a motel clerk in Missoula a little.  I hand't showered or shaved in 5 days, and the last two of those days were pretty warm and humid.  Walked in and rang the bell at the desk.  Woman came out from the back and was visibly startled by my appearance.  After I showered and shaved, I left my room to walk around town.  The young woman who was tidying up the parking area said "You look like and entirely different person."   

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Routes / Re: How many people ride the Northern Tier each year?

« on: April 11, 2025, 03:19:27 pm »

I avoid the issue altogether, by not looking like a homeless or poor person.  I usually shave daily and wear clothing that looks like athletic wear.  This way people don’t hassle me, or worse yet, try to give me money - I have heard of this happening.

Maybe it's just you and me, but I rarely get the "He's homeless." attitude.  When people see me in my cycling-specific gear and with my loaded bike, I think they understand what is going on, even when I am riding in "Pennsyltucky". In fact,m I am more likely to get questions about that my trip than scorn.

But about being offered stuff...One day I was sitting in a park in my city eating lunch and doing the NYT crossword puzzle after shopping for dinner groceries on my custom Bike Friday.  I was dressed in "street clothes".  A guy from a charitable organization approached me and asked me if I would like a sandwich.  I politely told him I was fine.  He said "Are you sure?  There's no shame."  I pulled my wallet out of pocket and showed him my credit cards.