[HN Gopher] An autumn bike adventure down the US portion of the ...
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An autumn bike adventure down the US portion of the Eastern Divide
Trail
Author : kaycebasques
Score : 207 points
Date : 2025-01-06 18:50 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.crazyguyonabike.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.crazyguyonabike.com)
| pjs_ wrote:
| Great website and great use of time on earth
| hackingonempty wrote:
| Bikepacking: like backpacking but on a bike. You ride dirt roads
| and easy trails away from cars, carrying your food, water, warm
| clothes, camping gear, etc... in bags mounted on your frame.
|
| The format is also used for races, you ride as quickly as
| possible and can only rely on commercial services available to
| all for resupply and lodging, no prearranged or private support.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| Doing the Great Divide trail is high up on my bucket list.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| Split it up and start now; there's no reason to wait because
| you think you have to do it all in one go. You can always do
| that, but you can carve it up into meaningful week or less
| pieces and go for it. ex: Banff to the US border is a pretty
| easy 3 days.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Having thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail, I can tell you
| that most thru-hikers are pretty awed by the people who
| have racked up serious miles section hiking a week at a
| time. Regardless of where home is for you, at some point
| the logistics get challenging. Most of Maine, for example,
| is miles and miles from a useful airport, and even bus
| service is pretty sparse. It wouldn't be hard to spend as
| much time getting to and from the trail as it would be to
| actually hike/ride it.
|
| A couple years ago, my wife and I thru-hiked the Long
| Trail. We looked pretty hard at taking a bus to the start,
| but couldn't come up with an itinerary that took less than
| two days. Her parents ended up both driving us to the start
| and spotting our car at the finish. The finish is in the
| middle of goddamn nowhere; the start is near a fairly large
| city in western MA. It sure seemed like it should've been
| easier.
|
| For our honeymoon, we did a couple hundred miles of the
| Northern Forest Canoe Trail. The nearest place to the start
| to return a rented vehicle of any sort was a neighborhood
| U-haul (as in, not a corporate location; think a gas
| station with a couple trucks). And then we still needed a 1
| 1/2 hour shuttle ride to Old Forge. We spotted our car to
| the end of the trip and threw our boat in the back of the
| truck to get to the start.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| For the GDT the start is pretty easy to get to (Banff is
| ~1.5 hr from Calgary Airport, flights from anywhere) but
| the finish in NM is also in the middle of nowhere. The
| only saving grace is that the finishing season is
| typically compact enough that you can organize some sort
| of transportation. Most of the thru riders end the videos
| or logs at the border; it would be helpful if they showed
| how they got home from the middle of the desert.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| >> You ride dirt roads and easy trails away from cars
|
| Usually away from cars, but not typically easy. Sometimes it
| feels like pushing a shopping cart over a mountain.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Yes, the roads are usually where they are for good reasons
| and avoiding all of them means having to deal with higher
| gradients and slower speed.
| seadan83 wrote:
| Apparently bike-touring was called bikepacking by the old
| timers in the 70s. Somewhere along the way it turned into
| touring. Then got misappropriated to mean road vs dirt.
| Bikepacking is any kind of bike riding where you've got your
| "backpack" on the bike. All bikepacking is touring. Backpacking
| is simply carrying everything you need in your backpack, eg:
| "backpacking across Europe". Bikepacking is similar, but for
| with a bike. When you're riding a bike and carrying everything
| you need for a multi-day, it's bikepacking, regardless of
| terrain. #pedantics
|
| This last summer I left my front door in the PNW and road 800
| miles on a mixture of terrains to the tour divide, road 300
| miles of that, then road another 1500 miles of pavement to
| Iowa. I'd call that bikepacking, and by my previous assertion
| it's also touring too. Not all touring is bikepacking, but all
| bikepacking is also touring. That trip is a good counter
| example of why it gets silly to define bikepacking by the
| terrain type.
| WA wrote:
| You are only a modern bikepacker if you ditch your
| traditional bags for what us Germans call "Arschrakete" (butt
| rocket): https://heuer-radsport.de/wp-
| content/uploads/asgarosforum/8/...
|
| /s
| MezzoDelCammin wrote:
| Thanks for the new vocabulary. Now I'm wondering if Ortlieb
| ever comes up with a new product line ;-)
| MezzoDelCammin wrote:
| My personal take on touring vs bikepacking is that the
| bikepacking movement was always more parallel to touring,
| rather than a superset. The bikepackers I've met are usually
| a lot more focused on minimizing the amount of stuff they
| carry.
|
| It can be simplified into a "saddle bag" vs "paniers", but
| IMO this is just a symptom. A form folows function. If You
| need to carry a full tent, sleeping bag and a change of
| clothes, touring paniers and heavy frame are probably the
| only way to go.
|
| If You can cut down on comfort (or are optimizing for speed
| over long distance), suddenly You're left with a whole lot of
| options on how to carry whatever's left and You can use much
| lighter frame to do so.
| Lio wrote:
| I suspect that cycle touring is the much older term than bike
| packing.
|
| In the UK we still have the Cycle Touring Club[1] which was
| founded in 1878, so it goes way back.
|
| I don't even think there was originally much difference in
| the type of bags used. Really old school riders here used to
| use big saddle bags like those made by Carradice before
| panniers came into fashion.
|
| I think I'm good with either term. All these amazing
| adventure stories make me long for summer again.
|
| 1. Recently renamed by some genius to Cycling UK (not to be
| confused with British Cycling which covers racing), still not
| sure why they bothered.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_UK
| UI_at_80x24 wrote:
| CGoaB is a fantastic resource. It contains great stories,
| resources, and life lessons. Highly recommend.
|
| I've gone on small trips myself (weekend length) and have kept my
| trips under 100km. My eventual goal is to ride from the Great
| Lakes region (of N.America) to the Yucatan Peninsula of C.
| America.
|
| I ride a recumbent. I camp in a hammock. Of course I use Linux.
| =)
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Wonder what model do you ride ? Any ressources to learn about
| those bikes ?
| UI_at_80x24 wrote:
| I ride a Longbikes Slipsteam.
|
| A great resource for learning all about 'bents is:
| bentrideronline.com
| jkaptur wrote:
| > I ride a recumbent. I camp in a hammock. Of course I use
| Linux. =)
|
| Beard? :)>
| UI_at_80x24 wrote:
| I sure do.
|
| I am definitely a graybeard too. =)
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| The recumbent gave me pause, because now I can't tell if the
| rear view mirror is mounted on your helmet or bike, but I know
| you've likely got a decent beard!
| shagie wrote:
| Not OP. I've got a recumbent trike (tadpole configuration).
| It's a TerraTrike traveler -
| https://www.terratrike.com/folding/traveler/ and as the url
| implies, it's a folding one that fits in the trunk of my
| rather small car.
|
| The mirrors get mounted on the handlebars.
| https://www.terratrike.com/product/mirror-mirrycle/ (example
| of them mounted on a similar frame -
| https://www.utahtrikes.com/RECENTTRIKE-
| TerraTrike_Rover_Blac... )
| jakeydus wrote:
| but do you have a beard?
| shagie wrote:
| And it's gray. Full beard.
|
| As an aside, my parents (late 70s) have an early model
| tandem pro ( https://www.terratrike.com/tandem/tandem-
| pro/ ) with substantial customizations (electric assist,
| mountain gear switch allowing them to change gears to a
| granny gear when stopped, solid aluminum (no spoke) back
| wheel).
|
| They're hung in the house in the winter as available
| vertical space. https://imgur.com/YBnnwVO In the bottom
| center you can see the back wheel.... digging I found an
| earlier version of it while it was under construction (a
| previous winter) https://imgur.com/T9ME3lp
| jodrellblank wrote:
| Just keying off your comment about recumbents[1] to drop my new
| favourite bike obsession since the Brompton[2], the tiny and
| unusually designed Kwiggle folding bike:
| https://www.kwigglebike.com/en_US/ which has an upright riding
| position.
|
| There's a German man on YouTube who is bikepacking with the
| Kwiggle and a trailer:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HQf71fMuIU
|
| and it's small enough to fold into his canoe:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exL-FCqtEOQ
|
| The manufacturer has climbed the Stelvio Pass (1900 meters
| climb in 12Km) on it:
| https://www.kwigglebike.com/en_US/faltrad-stilfser-joch
|
| and he has done 186 miles in one day around the Dutch
| IJsselmeer on it:
| https://www.kwigglebike.com/en_US/faltrad-300km saying " _After
| the first test drives we noticed two things: the upright riding
| position is a lot of fun and even after long trips we were not
| tired at all_ ".
|
| [1] my favourite recumbent to read about/watch is the ICE
| Sprint with the extra large rear wheel. Worst HN recumbent
| story is jacquesm and his leg-sucked-underneath incident
| leaving a serious broken (shattered) leg injury:
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38172519
| stevage wrote:
| That rider took 77 days. Each year there is a race along
| basically the same route, Canadian border to Mexico border. The
| current race record is around 13 days.
| flowingfocus wrote:
| Ultra-endurance cycling like the race you mentioned is
| fascinating. I once met a few contestants in a European bike
| race and drove alongside one. He said the best in the field
| sleep around 4 hours per night and do 500+ km per day.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Depends on how long you're doing it. For a Divide length
| race, you're going to need more than 4 hours a night. 5 would
| be sustainable. 4 would work for events 3-5 days long I
| think.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Either way, the sustained output is ridiculous. These
| racers go harder than me on my gravel bike, fully self
| supported, often on rough tracks, for 20ish hours a day,
| day after day.
|
| Then at the other end of the spectrum there are lots of
| people who go quite slow, but for months. I'm not sure
| which is more impressive; both show tremendous grit but in
| different ways.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Both those ways of approaching bike travel require a
| particular mindset. I've been at 6 hours of sleep in 72
| hours, been soaked through my layers in torrential summer
| rain, woken up with my feet in 2" of water in my tent,
| and loved it all.
|
| The only thing that truly sucks is when you can't
| continue. Like getting two irreparable flats 20 miles
| away from town in rural New Mexico, or getting an injury
| that ends your journey.
|
| Hard to explain to people that don't experience it like
| that, but even if it doesn't _feel good_ all the time, it
| 's basically always still somehow _fun._
| limaoscarjuliet wrote:
| There is also RAAM, but across the country
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_Across_America
| seadan83 wrote:
| FWIW - Trans-Am is the bike packing equivalent of the RAAM
| (unsupported vs supported):
|
| https://bikepacking.com/event/trans-am-bike-nonstop-2024/
| hackingonempty wrote:
| That would be the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route and Tour
| Divide race through the Rockies. This journal follows the
| Eastern Divide trail through the Appalachians.
|
| https://bikepacking.com/eastern-divide-trail/
| stevage wrote:
| Oh! I misread. The Tour Divide goes through the Continental
| Divide (hence the name). Didn't realise there was an "Eastern
| Divide".
| jpm_sd wrote:
| When I retire I'm just going to do this all the time.
| Fricken wrote:
| For the 2024 tour divide race 21% of the entrants were in the
| 60-69 age bracket. This means I don't need to be in too big a
| hurry to get all my bucket list bike tours done.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| The BC Epic was created for a similar style ride but much
| shorter. 1000km makes it great for racers (2-3 days) to
| casual (week-plus). Simpler logistics, better weather, if
| you're coming up from the US, a very cheap dollar.
|
| https://www.bcepic1000.com/
| Fricken wrote:
| Hey! I rode from Vancouver to Edmonton in August, and from
| Princeton to Kimberly we were pretty much on the BC epic
| route. Our ride was 1000 miles, 10 days, 10 miles of
| elevation gained (I'm Candaian but's nice round numbers
| when I use imperial).
|
| On day 9, beginning on the Icefields parkway we pushed
| ourselves and rode 290 km, which was my biggest day of
| riding in my life. I could have gone further that day, I
| was still feeling pretty good when we got to our hotel
| after 14 hours in the saddle. Certainly it put the idea of
| racing on my mind.
|
| I attempted Edmonton to Vancouver in August 2023. I made it
| to Nelson and scratched due to excessive wildfire smoke.
| That was my first attempt at any kind of a bicycle tour or
| any kind of activity that one might classify as an ultra. I
| went into that ride quite naive but I've learned enough
| since then that I'm ready to get myself into some real
| trouble.
|
| Have you done the BC Epic?
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Edmonton - Vancouver via Nelson sounds like a heck of a
| route, and 290km is 100kms more than I've ever done in
| day! I haven't "officially" done the BC Epic (a bit of an
| oxymoron given it's lack of official-ness, by which I
| mean I have not left with the grand depart or the entire
| route in a single ride) but this might be the year. I
| have family in Kamloops and live in Calgary, so trying to
| put a plan together to start the day before in Kamloops,
| bike to Merritt, watch the backs of the amazing racers
| for an hour before they disappear, meander into Fernie a
| week later, then keep going to CGY. I am definitely not
| (and have no interest in) racing but love the speed
| and... immersion? of bike touring - it's just about
| perfect.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Take the time and do it now as well. Having gotten into it, I
| wish I'd spent every gap in school and employment out in the
| world, on a bike. It's too precious an experience to leave for
| later.
| jpm_sd wrote:
| I ride, but I don't have time for serious bikepacking right
| now. Three kids, two dogs, full time job, etc.
| hondo77 wrote:
| Understandable. I would suggest that when the kids are old
| enough, consider doing smaller tours (a weekend, a week,
| etc.) when you can and not waiting until retirement to do
| any touring. The latter was my plan. Until I got colon
| cancer. I still ride but I can't do more than a couple of
| days in a row before I get digestive problems that put a
| halt to touring. With hindsight, I wish I would have done
| some one- to two-week tours while I was still able to.
| Lio wrote:
| Obligatory plug for the great Heinz Stucke.
|
| He decided at the age of 22 to quit his job and ride his bike
| around the world.
|
| ...and then basically never really stopped (I think he may have
| been forced to retire recently but the chap's 84 now so we can
| cut him some slack).
|
| There's a good documentary about him called "The Man Who Wanted
| to See It All".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_St%C3%BCcke
| avgDev wrote:
| There is no guarantees as to how much time you will get in this
| life. Please do this now. Don't quit your job but take some
| time off or use the weekends and plan adventures.
|
| I've just had a wake up call, my dog was diagnosed with cancer.
| Clock is always ticking.
| FpUser wrote:
| One of my favorite sites. Been reading it for more than 10 years.
|
| It is very unfortunate that the owner and developer of the site
| can not make a living.
| dx-800 wrote:
| I don't consider it unfortunate. It's the marketplace in
| action. The owner of the site is, (as you probably know since
| you allude to his frequent complaints on his website about not
| having any money), an unpleasant person who has attacked many
| people over the years, including a lot of former supporters of
| his site.
|
| A lot of people don't want to give guys like him money,
| especially when most of the website's value was created by the
| thousands of bike tourists who put their journals there, not
| the creator of the website itself.
|
| If he can't make a living from his website, he should get a job
| like the rest of us.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Any maps? I could not find. Of the trip.
| wmitty wrote:
| OP says the US portion of eastern divide trail, which is on
| bikepacking.com :
|
| https://bikepacking.com/eastern-divide-trail/
| shagie wrote:
| It would be interesting for him to do the international
| extensions next year.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Appalachian_Trai.
| ..
|
| > As of July 2020, there are widely geographically dispersed
| IAT-branded walking trails in Greenland, Iceland, Norway,
| Sweden, Denmark, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Isle of
| Man, Wales, England, Spain, Portugal, and Morocco
|
| > ...
|
| > eological evidence shows that the Appalachian Mountains,
| certain mountains of Western Europe, and the Anti-Atlas range
| in North Africa are parts of the ancient Central Pangean
| Mountains, made when minor supercontinents collided to form
| the supercontinent Pangaea more than 250 million years ago.
| With the break-up of Pangaea, sections of the former range
| remained with the continents as they drifted to their present
| locations. Inspired by this evidence, the IAT has been
| extended into Western Europe and North Africa.
| RadiozRadioz wrote:
| How does one afford the time to do something like this?
| BadHumans wrote:
| You could take a sabbatical or they could be retired.
| daemonologist wrote:
| I think most commonly: have minimal responsibilities to begin
| with (no kids, pets, business to run, etc.) If those aren't an
| issue, costs are pretty minimal, and it's mainly a matter of
| the long term career and retirement savings implications of not
| working for several months - those wouldn't _stop_ you if you
| wanted to do it, they 're just a judgement call.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| There are smaller trails you can do over a weekend if you want
| to try it out.
|
| I started out on a two day ride on a rail trail. The following
| fall then went on a 6 day rail trail ride.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| This is far more realistic, and likely more enjoyable. Nobody
| should be jumping from casual weekend rides to something like
| the tour divide or comparable. Do an overnight or weekend,
| than plan a multi-day, then do a longer distance trip to
| figure out if you actually like it, then pick something
| ambitious.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| 77 days is quite a while (and assume a few more for final
| transport home), but I get 5 weeks of leave a year and can
| rollover 6 weeks from year to year, which, with weekends, would
| get me 79 days. This is not even a stellar job. Of course,
| being away from my wife (no kids yet) for 77 days might be a
| hard sell, and when we do have kids that'll be off the table
| for a while.
|
| Then you schedule the event to coincide with holidays. In the
| US, we have (depending on your employer) 3 federal holidays
| from May through July (Memorial, Juneteenth, 4th of July). 4
| for September through November but it doesn't line up well
| enough to get all 4 starting with 11 weeks off (Labor Day,
| Columbus, Veteran's, Thanksgiving). If you're willing to travel
| to get a better climate for an event, you have November-January
| which gives you Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New
| Year's, and MLK.
|
| So 3, 4, or 5 extra days on top of leave are feasible several
| times of the year (late spring/summer, fall, winter). That can
| be used to stretch your leave if you don't have enough to make
| it, or to give you a recovery week (or partial week).
|
| Or, you get enough money and have no responsibilities and just
| quit working for 2-3 months.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > This is not even a stellar job.
|
| I would bet you have more leave than 95%+ of W-2 workers in
| the US.
|
| https://www.bls.gov/ebs/factsheets/paid-vacations.htm
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Probably, but lower pay than most software engineers at
| this point in their career even excluding SV and major
| metros. It's a tradeoff. I could almost double my salary
| going across the street but I'd have to drop to 4 weeks of
| leave a year and lose the rollover.
|
| EDIT:
|
| But if I'm understanding the table you linked, for people
| with between 10 and 20 years of experience, 19% have > 24
| days off and 43% have > 20 days off. So my base leave is
| above average but not extraordinary. The rollover may be,
| though.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Yes, the amount you can 6 rollover is very exceptional.
|
| It would also be exceptional if you were approved to take
| all that leave at once.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| I've had several coworkers take 1.5-2 months off at once,
| usually scheduled very deliberately to coincide with the
| completion of some major work effort (+ some margin),
| when work would normally be slow as the next effort is
| barely ramping up. Of course, part of doing this means
| effectively not taking leave for a year so you have
| enough to roll over or using smaller amounts of leave for
| several years to accrue enough rollover leave.
| japhyr wrote:
| I crossed North America four times in my twenties before I had
| a kid. I was a teacher, and rode west to east for two summers.
| Then I quite my job, and circled North America on a bike. It
| was the best choice I ever could have made.
|
| I'd have a hard time riding across the country now just because
| my kid is still in school. But when he's out on his own, I'd
| like to do one more cross-country ride. I want to see how much
| has changed, but more importantly what has stayed the same.
| eat_veggies wrote:
| In particular, I wonder how people set up their health
| insurance while on these epic bike tours. It makes sense that
| costs are minimal, you can have savings, etc. but insurance is
| usually tied to employment around here..
| daemonologist wrote:
| If your income has gone to/near zero in the US, you're
| immediately (next month) eligible for Medicaid. That gives
| you emergency coverage and if you're healthy enough for a
| long bike tour that might be sufficient. Getting
| prescriptions filled out of state could be a sticking point
| though.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Don't know about the folks on that website, but a lot of folks
| who do these longer rides (i.e., one or more weeks) are retired
| and/or older and in a good financial position to where they can
| take the time off (also no young kids at home).
| randcraw wrote:
| For those whose browsers lack WebGL2 (like Brave), here's a map
| of the trail: https://keepcalmandpedalonblog.com/the-eastern-
| divide-trail-...
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Hey this reminds me of my good friend Chris Smith, who recently
| completed the Tour Divide -- a solo, unsupported 2,700 mile bike
| race from southern Canada to Mexico. He did it in 48 days --
| which would be impressive for anyone -- but the kicker is, he's
| legally blind. https://blindguybiking.org/
|
| EDIT: adding link to his youtube videos:
| https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx86K7wVysS06YQqC6Q5jiRNw...
| tasuki wrote:
| I visited the website with one question: how? How does a blind
| person ride solo? Or is "legally blind" a different thing from
| "blind"?
| frereubu wrote:
| This is one of those personal sites where you fall down a rabbit
| hole. I've been reading this series of posts for quite a while
| now because it's simply but enjoyably written. He has a nice turn
| of phrase:
|
| > The let up in the weather didn't last long, though. Even though
| the forecast for the area had indicated a cloudy but rainless
| afternoon, it just started pelting down rain in buckets. There is
| nothing like a really cold, persistent rain to find the weak
| spots in your rain gear, and before long my face, chest, and feet
| were soaked and freezing. The rain turned what had been a
| mediocre day into a miserable day. It could have been worse, I
| guess, but only if it had rained snakes.
| johnp314 wrote:
| I love this CGonaB site. I used it several times myself including
| for my similarly titled "Go west (not so young) man" diary
| documenting my XCountry ride in 2007. I didn't own a cell phone
| then (did they even exist then?). I used paper maps and had a
| small laptop to make my diary entries. I generally did them
| sitting outside town libraries (they were usually closed in the
| evenings when I arrived in towns) and most internet sites then
| were non-password and publicly accessible. I haven't made any
| documented treks since 2012 but still send the website money. You
| can see my "Go west..." diary here:
| https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?o=3d2&doc_id=2579&v=LL
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Haven't had time to read the article yet, but very cool to find a
| place where there are a bunch of such journals. Good to know the
| good 'ol Internet that I used to know and love is still out
| there. Bookmarking that one. Not really into offroad or gravel
| but have been planning a longish (2 weeks) road cycling trip for
| a while; wife and I looking for the opportunity (can't really
| take the kids along; I mean we could, and people do, but they
| would not be happy). In the meantime long weekend rides, local
| century events, etc.
| smeeger wrote:
| we are tantalizingly close to having a bike trail that runs east-
| west across the US. just missing bits in wyoming and some other
| places
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(page generated 2025-01-07 23:02 UTC)