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  • Advice needed: Bike touring
  • fighttheburn
    Free Member

    Hi. I'm planning on doing a bit of a bike tour in a few weeks time and have a few queries that I was hoping some of you could help me out with.

    Basically, planning on doing 14 days touring with a riding mate- I've never done any more than a weekend before. We're aiming to do about 80km of riding a day give or take. Aim to camp out for most of it.

    Any specifically essential kit other than tent, sleeping bag, stove, gas etc?
    Also how much food / Water should we be consuming every day?
    For those of you that have done this kind of thing, what sort of financial budget would you have per day?

    Thanks for any input

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    depends on the country

    we did it on 15 quid a day each for food and camping – in new zealand when you were getting 3 dollars to the pound !

    in the uk i think it would be nearer 30 quid a day for food and camping each …. although i would camp wild in the uk !

    eating lots is my advice – we ate loads.

    check http://www.trail-rat-racing.blogspot.com – have details on our kit and our milages on there

    hungrymonkey
    Free Member

    really depends where you're doing it…

    decent puncture proof tyres, and patches (won't need too many tubes then)
    decent padded shorts/tights
    in the uk i'd reckon £15 per day would be more than enough, you should be able to manage on £10 i reckon, esp if camping wild
    eat when you're hungry, drink plenty, have some breaks.
    a wee stretch at the end of the day might be good too.

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    hungrymonkey
    Free Member

    same as trailrat then 😉

    i did NZ on a similar budget, and i reckon iceland even ended up cheaper…

    food budget in the uk really depends on how you do it i guess – some porridge, sandwiches for lunch and pasta for dinner, plus snacks.

    druidh
    Free Member

    PORAGE!!!

    fighttheburn
    Free Member

    It will be in the UK to see if we can hack the touring life first!!

    Camping wild – any advice on finding a good camping spot?
    What sort of food did you eat? I would imagine eating loads of junk wouldn't be beneficial to cycling but does it matter as you're buring everything anyway?

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    we survived on potatoes with packets of wedge mix for flavour and rice and pasta with pesto – with meat when we could get it for good price other wise tinned tuna was eaten !

    we ate cookies while riding ! – nz did huge bags for 3 dollars ! we were eating a bag of day between 2

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    druidh has the po RAGE 😀

    wild camping – behind walls , out of citys , away from estates !

    couch surfing works well too :d

    fighttheburn
    Free Member

    cheers for the input trail_rat. I might just check out the couch surfing option, i've wanted to try it for a while anyway

    hungrymonkey
    Free Member

    similar food to trail-rat.
    pasta with pesto, tinned tuna, curry sauces etc.
    in fact, tuna korma on pasta was a perennial favourite in iceland…

    hels
    Free Member

    It's not easy to plan eating when you are bike touring, you don't want to carry too much, so you end up buying whatever you can get in whatever shop you can find. Porridge is good as its light in raw form and always tasty !

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    Haha snap tom …tuna korma on pasta is a staple when cooking for 1 at home :p

    hungrymonkey
    Free Member

    porridge with smarties, choc chips, raisins and nuts… nom nom nom touring breakfast food…

    have to say terry, never tried it since, perhaps i should…

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    lowest point of touring …..

    fighting the wind all morning in driving rain from lake tekapo to twizel along the canal. Stopped at the dam and cooked beans with sausages and crisps and cookies – went to get the cheese and bread/butter out and we had left them in the fridge at the hostel

    tantrums were had i tell you – it was at that point i experianced the good ole nz pie ! demon stuff they were

    what do you mean touring breakfast tom ? i eat porridge with nuts raisins , yogurt and maple syrup daily 😀

    hungrymonkey
    Free Member

    tekapo was beautiful when i went there, even got to take control of a plane during a 'scenic flight' i paid for… i was lucky to have only 3 wet days in the 5 weeks i was there…
    unfortunately i only had myself to blame when things went wrong… in iceland a number of arguments ensued… not least when i upturned a big pot of dinner by mistake – we were down on our knees at 11pm, in the pissing rain trying to eat noodles as fast as we could, before they got cold… it was a gritty meal!!

    terry, me and chris and a couple of others have breakfast together most days, in a rota… porridge is a reasonably regular occurance, but with sugar normally…

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