By Pico Triano
Photos: Pico Triano
I have
a friend who always wanted to go long-distance bicycle touring by
himself. He put in the training. He bought all the equipment he
needed. He did all the tour preparation any rider would need to and
left for his trip. A few days in, he suffers an injury bringing his
bike and trailer to a stop. I don't think he actually fell but the
accident caused the pedal on his bike to ram him in the calf. That
was the end of his tour he couldn't continue. The sad thing is he
never tried again.
There
are reasons to end a tour prematurely. I'm not going to go through
them all because they are as numerous as the riders out there.
Injury, mechanical failure, illness, other commitments, it could be
any number of things or a combination of reasons. I've had to throw
in the towel on a number of occasions and have had successful
virtually problem free tours as well.
For me
every tour is a learning experience, even the ones that failed.
Sometimes I learn more from them than the ones that go without a
hitch. I don't let a failure, even one of my own doing, stop me from
enjoying travelling by bicycle. In case of emergency, I'm always
prepared for things to go completely wrong because life is
unpredictable.
Easiest
bail out is on a day trip. I always recommend doing day trips along
with short overnighters to get ready for a big tour. Allows you to
iron a lot of problems out. Bail out is sometimes available in the
form of a quick phone call to a friend or family member.
On
bigger tours I've relied on the buses to get home. On my biggest tour
I was having mechanical problems and was falling behind schedule. I
didn't have the funds to correct the problem which was only getting
worse. I did have enough touring money to buy a bus ticket home.
Mechanical trouble got me a second time cycling in Quebec and had to
find a bus home. There was a third bus trip when I started suffering
from constant leg cramps. Bad luck can happen to the best of us. With
sufficient cash and no harsh schedule to keep. I would have finished
all those tours. Unfortunately I'm not the only cyclist that has to
face these issues. Just don't walk away from touring because one
thing went wrong while travelling.
All this touring fun for most of us has to be done on some kind of reasonable budget. Jack Hawkins explores the topic from his perspective of planning a cross country tour this summer.
Break Days
Travelling with small children we incorporated planned break days into our schedule. We didn't achieve mileage goals as quickly but in a lot of ways the trip itself was more enjoyable.
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