2024 Bike trip Logistics and Background

We are going to take a quick break from the story and cover some back ground and basics. My stint in bike touring starting in 2021 when I heard news that the Erie canal bike path was recently complete. My brother and his friend pushed for a New York to Montreal but then they flaked.. Leaving Steven and I with time off and no trip. There was no planning hotels were booked day of and the only forward thinking we did was buy train tickets back home. It worked out fine as it was the height of covid and most hotels were empty and desperate for business anyways. The next year Roland and Judy were interested in an Erie canal trip and being a bigger group planning was a must. It was a much better trip as bed and breakfast in Victorian houses were booked in leiu of last minute cheap motels of last years trip. Local bed and breakfast were much better way of traveling. 2023 NYC to Philadelphia bike trip I missed because I got married and the 2024 trip was planned and executed by Steven, and I

The Planning

The planning consist of Three steps a Proposal, Planning and Purchase. Propose dates and the routes and Plan the hotels then start the purchasing of all the rooms tickets and etc. bike trips are a bit of a pain in the sense that if you want to be in a hotel, checkpoints have to be planned ahead of time to ensure there is a hotel after a day of riding. If you happen to want to do the trip and want to camp then, skip this step and start your trip. What makes both the Erie canal trail and the gap is that they are both accessible by the greatest mode of transportation created by man, Trains.

For the GAP and the C&O we took the train to start point in Pittsburgh and the train home from Washington DC. For the Erie canal we took the train to Buffalo For the low price of $20 you can add a bicycle to the ticket. Trains are superior than all forms of transportation in this case.. actually in all cases.

1: Dropped us off directly in the center of the city. Not out in the outskirts like Airlines would.

2: The logistics of “what do we do with this car” disappears.

Lodging

We did hotels/Credit card camped for this trip as Stephen have official business to attend to and needed wifi and I ..wasn’t gonna go without Stephen. The selection for hotels is really minimal as a lot of these towns are not visited often despite the history they offer most people bike camp but we were a tad more posh. The lodging on trips like this is a total mix bag as we cannot deviate too far from the trail. In the small towns there is sometimes just a motel or my favorite a bed and breakfast other towns there is nothing and we have to ride an extra long day to skip over the town. Most other bike tourers simply camp most places.

The Bikes & Equipment

The Bike itself is a 2018 MASI Giramondo a budget friendly touring bike that I bought new in Cohoes from the bike barn. Most of the miles I put on it while bike commuting to my job at GE Healthcare. The bike outlasted the job. It is fully outfitted with four orthleib matching panniers and the orthleib basket. The basket being the most convenient. The bike is a steel heavy weight and it is mostly stock the only upgrade being the tires as the ones that came with the bike averaged a puncture every rainstorm. The thing must weigh 50 lbs it is terribly heavy and steers like a landship when loaded. Despite this the low gears make quick work of the hills and even with the air resistance and the weight it was the faster of the two bikes. There is one aspect of the bike that separates it from all the rest is just how photogenic this bike is:

What makes the bike particularly special is the Pletscher Double Leg Kickstand that allows it to stand up straight for these amazing photos. Not only does it allow for great photos of the bike but the it prevents the heavy packs from tipping over the bike. This and the matching panniers came at great cost as buying all the gizmos had to be done on the credit card that the wife doesn’t know about. The bike had way more storage than I needed for the trip in fact I probably could have gotten away with half the storage but goddamn, I bought 5 bags I am gonna use all five bags. Therefore, I was carrying a lot of air but it was nice being able to having five separate bags to organize what I did have.

Since we were using credit cards as our shelter the extra capacity was just not needed. I’ll do a tour where I camp at some point where the space for tents, sleeping bags, and food is needed.

While I bought new with all the Bells and whistles Steven bought from craigslist and searched for value. In doing so he got similar orlieb panniers but, they don’t match the bike and did the tour on a non-tourbike oriented bike. This was just fine, in reality as long as the bike is somewhat oriented for distance and comfort doing the Gap, C&O or Erie is very approachable as it is very flat smooth and a complete joy to ride. After all they were built for boats and trains so its flat by design. Most bikes sold from a bike shop is capable of doing the trek.

The Load out

Despite the 5 phone chargers we both packed fairly light. Luckily it did not rain but it was sunny and incredibly hot. The most valuable piece of Kit I had was a product called Da-Brim it attaches to the helmet and it kept the sun off the head and shoulders and kept me slightly cooler in the 100 degree weather. I am certain you seen it in all the pictures its that large hat looking thing around my helmet.

Most useless was a bathing suit and towel. We went swimming once and when we did it was timely and a bit of a pain changing, drying off, avoiding crazy amounts of poison ivy and whatnot that grows along the river. Then all other times the Potomac is quite dirty and shallow. As for packing it isn’t much more than you would bring for a trip only difference is the bike oriented clothes, padded underwear, exercise oriented shirts my favorite being sleeveless tanktop. As for water I carried about a gallon in some ” Essential” branded water bottles because they fit perfectly on the bike. We had no significant mechanical breakdown but we did bring a pump, missing link, patch kit, bike oriented multitools just in case. A bonus is that on bike trips more stuff can be carried vs backpacking or hiking since the bike carries it all weight. So a laptop and an extra change of “city cloths” was thrown in.

Typical day:

I’ll go through it In more detail in story mode as I write it up. In general Each day we woke up to a large mess. Most of our things would be spread around the hotel room in different states of chaos. Some things might be wet, drying or degassing as most of our laundry was done in the sink or not done at all. Our bikes were typically stored in the hotel room we slept in if the bikes can’t make it to the hotel room then the panniers were detached from the bikes and our stuff is carried in. In the morning we consolidated all of our stuff back into the packs. The clothes that pass the sniff test goes in the right pannier and the ones that don’t go in to the dirty pannier which is also, the right pannier. We dress up. Now for some for some critical maintenance on the moving parts, we decide if we want to use wet or dry lube* then apply liberally to our genitals. Oh and oil the bike chain. Sunscreen is a must on these hot days. Then fill our water bottles and off we go…to breakfast. Now we hit the trail. Opps, forgot to start strava.

*Chamois Butt’r a Anti-chafe cream is wet lube and Baby powder is dry