Bygone Bicyclist

A while ago I went for a trip. It all started out with playing with my existing panniers, as I often find myself doing. I’ve rigged a single on the spine before and gone for day-trips, but never much more via Pene. After consulting some brilliant engineers (see: Father & Grandfather), I had my Tubus Cargo rack mounted to the penny and felt the need to go for a ride. My envisionment was something along the lines of 30-40 miles per day, casually sleeping in, taking notes of the Alaskan bible and having a grand ol’ time. I carelessly packed my panniers with more than necessary. ‘On whim’ ideas and trips rarely work out the way they are planned (or rather, work out just like that). I carried (or towed) far too much, and it made riding the workout of the month. While I had a great time, none of what I had “planned” actually occurred.

Gorgeous night, although ~2 second exposures are hard to hand-hold

I got lost, a few times. Funny how that works. Navigating in the dark is much more difficult than when the sun is out. You have a massive something shining in your face, telling you the direction. While sure, you can do the same at night, it takes a great deal of focus compared to its daytime counterpart. Many loops around Sun City, North Phoenix and Peoria left me desperate for a place to sleep. The plan hours before was north and west, but closer to Lake Pleasant. Fumbling through googlemaps via my cellular phone, I found a road that apparently had some smaller roads that would continue to take me out West. I assumed these gravel/dirt roads, but that was perfectly fine. A few hours of cycling in the dark also made finding a decent camp spot quite a task. I bedded down for the night, although sleeping was difficult to the traffic noise.

The campspot

The next morning I departed, assuming my west-bound highway would take me to a jutting dirt road to venture into the wild. My friend, the highway, had differing plans though. Now heading southbound, I was in search of water, a camp spot or something to take me further west. Sooner or later I was going to end up very south, and my options at that point would be less romantic.

Spoke broken inside the nipple. Not a lot of fun to pull it out and replace with nothing but a paring knife and needle nose.

Cattle ranches from left to right painted my day. Never did I find a proper hide-out to take notes, read and enjoy myself, but at least the weather was fantastic. The rides were great, although I can now truly grasp why a rack on a penny is less than desirable. Mounting and dismounting is much less fun. It also rides like towing a 50 pound trailer, however, much worse as the center of gravity is much closer than it should be. I had great plans to make my own spine-mounted bags already, but this only further ingrained that desire. Since, I’ve created some new spine-mounted bags and ideas. The few days I’ve spent with a single pannier on the spine were definitely more enjoyable than the couple via rear-rack.

I didn’t even get to ride yesterday. Some days I don’t get to ride as much as other days, but I fool myself into being okay with the shorter distance by doing harsher sprints and workouts. Mental power is such a strange phenomenon, which brings me to the next A.C.T. 2010 keypoint: Preparations – Training, Mental and Research.

Self-supported bicycle touring is not like a lot of other tasks, hobbies or jobs. In general, they take a great deal of will power and mental strength just to overcome common day normalities. The endless hours alone, carrying your whole ‘life’, self propelling your ‘life’, the unknown (where you will sleep, where you will get your next food/water, etc) and logistics are just a few things that can make a head-case out of any of us. An expedition-esque trip like the ACT2010 is the next level of that. I will be forced to go slower, and walk many hills that I wouldn’t if I was on a conventional bike. I will have to extremely micro-manage my journey and good. As I’ve said before, rare is it that someone does a round trip of the Dalton Highway. That alone calls for the high attention to fine detail in planning calories and weight/space management. Preparations are what help build the mental strength necessary to tackle such a task though. Training under harsh conditions and pushing yourself to your extremes are the best way to find what you can do under pressure (or what you need to work on). Endless research fills my days – something I feel more than invaluable – and is the easiest way to feel mentally fit. Knowing what you’re up against, and being able to plan around the troubles of that makes you feel positive of your goal.

When first gazing to this dream, it was so far past understandable or even graspable in my mind. Even though I have a fairly good history or survival and the outdoors, I was not comfortable with myself. The age of billion book libraries and countless internet sites help shine a light on things that otherwise would have been a large question-mark in the past. The Milepost is bar none the most incredible piece of research material for anything this monumental. I still find the Fairbanks to Deadhorse round-trip overly daunting, but that mostly comes down to figuring out food (and food I want to eat). I’ve come to some new, great conclusions and ideas for food on the route, but it will take some more research and brainstorming to put to life. I should have a much better idea in the coming weeks (and definitely coming months), but it’s so very complicated. The unknown is undoubtedly a living, driving factor of my life. Conquering something completely foreign to my life is a fantastic feeling.

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Maybe part of me is just distressed by the weather. It’s mid-November and it’s still well over 30C/90F every day; matching records (and breaking them in some cases). My family grew up in cold places, while I quite the opposite. I see the very vast opinion due to this. My dad even mixes up winter and summer in his speech (winter being the ‘bad’ weather and summer being the ‘good). The heat is depressing to me. Many people who live in gloomy and/or cold regions feel the same about their weather. The climate in Phoenix can be nice, but this is pure ridiculousness. Forecast calls for snow at the Grand Canyon tonight. That’s 350km away, yet it’s nearly half the boiling point of water down here.

Yuck

Things have been hectically busy for the last few days. Final touches to a work project that is seemingly taking forever has been leeching the most of my time. The extra hours I find in my days have been spent reading The Milepost, getting an online photo gallery up and running (purchasable prints!), plotting out my adventure & future and crafting more granola than I know what to do with. At this point I’ve made between 8 and 10 batches (which is around 2 liters per batch). I’m quite content in stating I finally feel positive in my perfection of creating this however. Each recipe is different, and the experiment of ingredients is always a fun test. Even a failed attempt isn’t a full fail, as I reuse it as a binding / filler / protein agent in future recipes as well; food processors are amazing things.

Managing food on a trip like this is one of the most difficult parts. Personally, the only thing more difficult is the mental barrier to overcome. Mental strength is one of the hardest tasks when touring (especially if you are doing it solo). You are out in the wild for so long that your mind has nothing to do but think. With that much time to brew on thoughts, you can get overly complex with very simple things. Power Bars, Clif bars, gels, powders and the like are fantastic technologies for what they are, but they have their place – long distance touring / expeditions may not be that place. How often I read of a cyclist living off them; my stomach churns. I try to stay away from highly processed foods as much as possible for obvious reasons. Certain regions of this trip will require me to pack in all the food I need for over two weeks however. With that said, fine lines are walked when preparing. Like stated earlier: one miscalculation in the wrong direction leaves me without food for a meal (or more) – not a good thing when you are far from real civilization. Excessive work can lead to a necessary 8,000+ calorie intake in a single day, and packing that solo for 14 days means space is quite the issue. My only choice are things that are small in bulk (and hopefully light).

Mountain House Pro-Pak meals pack between 250-500 calories, 20-60g carbohydrates and 10-40g protein per serving. At roughly 100 grams (weight) per serving, a journey like Coldfoot to Deadhorse to Fairbanks can easily mean 4kg of meal food alone (~8 pounds); that’s prior to ’snack’ food! I’ve come to figure approximately $10 per day will fund these freeze dried meals that cost a bit more than grocery store food would. The problem is: this far north, very few groceries exist. Fairbanks is the farthest north town with a grocery along the AK2 / Dalton highways. I’m hopeful I’ll get around a week out of the supplies purchased in Fairbanks, but it could very well be less. I will be carrying many grains, granolas, pastas and rice. The Dalton starts just north of Fairbanks about 120km (80mi), and has only 3 ‘towns’ on it or near it. These towns consist of 10-30 permanent residents, 0 grocery stores and very little to offer. Deadhorse has a hardware store, but no food to offer besides a cafe, candy bars and bags of chips. Wiseman, I’m told one of the most amazing parts of the journey, also has nothing but a bed & breakfast. Coldfoot also has a cafe, and little else, but apparently allows general post delivery (i.e. You can ship yourself things to the post office and pick them up). This allows for a faux resupply in Coldfoot if planned correctly, and exactly why the journey is dictated by Coldfoot to Deadhorse and back to Fairbanks. Resupplying a second time in Coldfoot *is* an option, but I may forgo that – time will tell.

Coldfoot -> Deadhorse: 390km (240mi)
Deadhorse -> Fairbanks: 800km (500mi)

Over 10,000km (750 miles or so) at somewhere around 100km (or 65mi) per day is a safe low-ball number when traveling so “odd”. That however, still leaves you around two weeks of solid travel in the wild, with maybe a day or two of breaks. If you get stuck anywhere for more than a day, your rations may be calculated incorrectly, and leave you scrambling for something dire. Fairbanks to Deadhorse, round trip, is around 16,000km (or 1,000 miles). That’s also the same distance between grocery stores and a real food ‘resupply’.

Fairbanks in the winter

A common question when confronted about traveling long distances with Pene is about carrying gear. Most of my rides around here are between 30 and 50 miles, which leave very little use to carry much more than small supplies and water (or nothing – leaving me parched!). Another frequent question (or accusation) is about being the first person to want to do this kind of long distance trip via a penny, which is far from the truth. In fact, a few different people have done it, dating all the way back to 1884. Thomas Stevens, the first person to bicycle across the United States, as well as around the world accomplished this in the late 1800s. Most recently, Joff Summerfield cycled around the globe, visiting 23+ countries, completing over 22,000 miles and visiting such majesties as the Taj Mahal, Everest Base Camp and The Great Wall. Both are great inspirations and show nothing but proof of great feats, amazing travel and endless possibilities. While Stevens left San Francisco with little more than socks, a spare shirt, a raincoat that doubled as tent and bedroll, and a 38 Smith & Wesson, Mr. Summerfield knew he would need a little more than that when visiting places like Everest, Tibet, etc. Below are the three styles of carrying baggage possible with a penny.

You are given very few choices when traveling by bicycle to carry your gear. Traditionally, racks can be attached to the rear and front which allow attachment of bags. With a penny farthing, you have to try a bit harder. Some people prefer trailers, which are also a possibility with a penny. The thing about a penny rather than a conventional bike is the reduced space for niceties. Your load must be very compact and efficient. With a conventional bicycle, you have a lot more room for gear and bags. Remote places like the Yukon Territory and Alaska beg for perfection in rationing, gearing and preparation. Miscalculating the amount of food I need to pack along with me means going hungry for a meal (or more). With limited space, this is even more crucial. I’m actually stumped at the moment of trailer versus spine-mounted versus rack-engineering. Short time will tell, as I wish to do some shorter test tours, including one to see my friends from the northern route of the 42 Ride, Jo and Bryan, who continued their US cross-country trip and are now in Mexico. They are a huge inspiration to me as well.

(All pictures are of Joff Summerfield’s penny, with different bag styles he used throughout his travels)

In light of the upcoming expedition, I’m going to start with direct information based on said trip. I’m still searching for set-in-stone companionship for said adventure, as it is so extensive and remote I prefer (for friend’s and family’s sake) to not tackle this one alone. This is an epic journey to say the least, and I will follow through and conquer it. To kick off this much researched adventure, I will start with some key-points. Each key-point will break down into its own subject over the next week or two, with much more specific information and contemplation of the subject.

When you thought Tyrannosaurus Rexes on P-farthings couldn’t get any more bizarre

Being as vast as the route is, the research and important notes are also vast. Bikeforums, bikepacking, wikipedia, wikitravel, crazyguyonabike as well as numerous government sites and random blogs from travelers have been my staple (and will continue to be). Given the approximate six month preparation time, I should have no problems accomplishing said prepared state.

• Packing – How to travel via a Penny
• Managing rations – Food: where to get it
• Rate, distance, season and time for completion
• Weather
• Staying warm, dry…and wet
• Managing “home” – Living on the road
• Regional Research
• Must-see Stops
• Preparations – training, mental and research

Certainly there will be more points as time goes by, but this is a main outline for now.