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Bicycle Camping - Help a Newb
Peter Principle
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
My friend and I would like to somehow involve bicycles in our next camping trip, but we've never done this before. Here is the tentative archetype we've put together so far:
1) Driving to some parking destination in a car, with bikes and camping gear on board.
2) Parking the car, then using the bikes to get to the actual camping spot. We would pack everything we'd need with us except wood and water (except what's in our canteens, of course.
But, like I said, we're both newbs to bike camping. Is that the best way to do it? Are there others? We both live in Western Washington, I live in Seattle, he lives in Oly. Good places to go?
I've got a mountain bike, he doesn't. He could potentially get one.
How do you people usually pack their gear when they do this? I hear panniers are the way to go, but could a fella just pack up his camping backpack, wear it normally, and then go like that?
What grear would you bring different from what you'd normally bring when doing regular hike in camping? What hike-in gear would a wise bike-in camper leave behind?
Anything special you need to do to your bike before you head out?
Any good books on the subject?
Any other suggestions, tips or warnings appreciated.
1) Driving to some parking destination in a car, with bikes and camping gear on board.
2) Parking the car, then using the bikes to get to the actual camping spot. We would pack everything we'd need with us except wood and water (except what's in our canteens, of course.
But, like I said, we're both newbs to bike camping. Is that the best way to do it? Are there others? We both live in Western Washington, I live in Seattle, he lives in Oly. Good places to go?
I've got a mountain bike, he doesn't. He could potentially get one.
How do you people usually pack their gear when they do this? I hear panniers are the way to go, but could a fella just pack up his camping backpack, wear it normally, and then go like that?
What grear would you bring different from what you'd normally bring when doing regular hike in camping? What hike-in gear would a wise bike-in camper leave behind?
Anything special you need to do to your bike before you head out?
Any good books on the subject?
Any other suggestions, tips or warnings appreciated.
"A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business." - Eric Hoffer, _The True Believer_
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They're also ridiculously heavy on long trips.
There's a famous annual bicycle ride called Ragbrai*. It's a week long ride from the Missouri River to the Mississippi River across the worst hills Iowa has to offer. Very few people make the trip using pannier bags, although some use trailers (most form teams and take turns as caravan driver). You see, panniers add more weight to your bicycle's chassis, which causes your tires to compress, making it harder to pedal because you're constantly opposing the force that's deforming your tires. A trailer takes the weight off your bicycle's frame, and just needs translational force from your bike.
On a short trip, panniers make some sense. But on long trips they'll make you expend more energy pedaling then you need to.
* It's not a competitive race. It is, however, one of the hardest endurance bicycling events there is, due to the distance, hilly terrain, humidity, and heavy binge drinking.
A trailer will vary in cost based on how big you want it to be but you're almost certainly looking at somewhere between $150 to $500, although that's assuming you don't buy one and then cut it down into what you need it to be. Where you don't want to cheap out is on the attachment between your bike and the trailer, although picking what kind of attachment you want to go with is a difficult process because there are tradeoffs between cost, reliability, and the impact that it has on your ability to lean in turns.