6 things I learned from my first bike tour
One Christmas, my partner and I suddenly decided we would embark on a new adventure: a bike tour across the breadth of Estonia. We knew almost nothing about bike touring. We didn’t even own bikes. So we educated our minds by reading blogs and listening to podcasts while we prepared our bodies with training rides and gym time. Eight months later, we were on the road for a 10-day 700-kilometer biking and camping adventure across Estonia, a journey that was memorable and fulfilling beyond our expectations. We learned a lot about ourselves, about nature, about our country, and about our abilities.
We even learned a little bit about bike touring.
In this article, I will share a few insights we gained after our first bike tour. These are not the basics of bike touring. For those, there are numerous detailed resources online. We know. We studied them meticulously. But yet we were still surprised (sometimes positively, sometimes negatively) by what we learned on tour.
But first, it’s important to note that a bike touring experience depends on many factors such as location, laws, road conditions, availability of resources, and goals of the riders. These all influence how one prepares for and executes a bike tour. The experience we had and the conclusions we drew were based on our factors. There is no single right way to tour.
For context, our tour was a 2-person unsupported ride through Estonia’s flat and sparsely-populated countryside, about 50% gravel/dirt road. We camped in Estonia’s remarkable network of free public campsites, which supply firewood, fire pits, bench seats, dry outhouses, and tent space. However, our sites were relatively remote, usually requiring us to transport food and water for several kilometers from the last passed village.
An unexpected piece of essential gear
There was one piece of equipment we took solely as indulgent ornament that ended up becoming one of our most useful and versatile implements. We used it every single day of our tour to multiple purposes. The accidental miracle instrument? A sign.
When you’re counting the ounces of your packlist, the idea of traveling with a sign seems extravagant. We indulged, though, because we felt a sign would be a symbol of our esprit de corps and a way to quickly communicate the essence of our trip to the people we passed (or, more likely, who passed us). We strapped it to the back of my bike and hoped we wouldn’t regret the encumbrance.
Then, time after time, this slab of stiff plastic proved its worth in ways we never imagined:
- Fire fanning tool — saving our lungs every time we started a fire
- Cutting board — a firm surface to cut against
- Camp trivet — a flat heat proof surface to place or transport pots
- Game board — perfect for dice and cards
- Work mat — preventing loss of small items like screws, washers, valves
- Attention getter — we received lots of friendly waves and honks
It is a truly versatile tool, and one that we have taken to every campsite since. It packs easily against the back of a pannier and can be quite light.
Of course, a sign per se isn’t necessary. Any stiff flat durable material will work. But if you can find a local print office to create a customized version for you, then at the end of your journey you’ll have a unique memento of your journey.
NB: If you wish to use this or any instrument with or near your food, ensure the material is safe for such purposes.
An unexpected piece of non-essential gear
Where bringing our sign was pure serendipity, there were two pieces of heavier bulkier gear we brought and never used: camp chairs.
Estonia is blessed with fantastic camp sites, usually with benches or tables, so seating at our destination was generally provided. Notwithstanding, I anticipated we would take occasional breaks on the road or in the shade of a village market and would treasure the comfort of sitting in a real chair for our lunch or snack breaks.
I was completely wrong.
While it was true our breaks were usually in situ along our route, we realized they were taken in a casual rush, and the idea of even unpacking camp chairs was a time consuming luxury. It was easier to eat standing or to sit on the grass. It wasn’t that we felt hurried, but rather that we felt a desire to move quickly in order to maximize our time elsewhere. Lunches were pit-stop for fuel; fuel to allow us to see more sights or spend more time in camp.
So the chairs were dead weight; and we’ve never taken them on a bike tour since.
Choose your own adventure
More technology, more gadgets, and more conveniences don’t necessarily equal more fun. A bike tour is a voluntary submission to a more primitive and self-reliant experience. You have the ability to tailor that level of primitiveness by deciding what you pack, where you go, how you camp. There are no right and wrong answers and each bike tourist will have their own sweet spot.
But I’m hereby giving you permission to leave behind that ultra-lightweight ten-in-one USB-powered gadget that will wash your dishes and fold your socks while you pedal. You might have to work harder or sacrifice in the short term, but you might find that your trip was more fulfilling without.
For example, on our second tour we decided that we would not use matches or lighters. All our fires were started with homemade firestarter material and a fire steel. This was an arbitrary requirement with no practical justification. We simply manufactured shared experience and emotion: the challenge and satisfaction of seeing our fires started with nothing but our effort and preparedness.
Build your experience. You don’t need to apologize for or justify taking or not taking any particular item. Instead, think about how that item contributes to creating the experience you are seeking.
Being a morning person — or not
Before we left, largely based on experiences car camping, we assumed our mornings would be an efficient brisk precursor to our day; a pause to admire the morning with coffee in hand, a quick breakfast, break camp, and we’d be on our bikes in an hour or less. This was pure fantasy.
Once on tour, we redefined a “quick” morning as eyes-open to wheels on dirt in under two hours. My subsequent conversations with other bike tourists confirm it’s not just us: without regimental focus, mornings can easily protract.
In our everyday lives, we’ve grown used to a quick shower, a cup of coffee and toast, and out the door to the office. On a bike tour, there may be two hours of constant labor before you are “out the door.” It can be a difficult adjustment. Every morning became a “Where did the time go?” situation, and, even after experience of additional tours, it still isn’t always easy to answer that question. I suspect it’s a combination of factors:
- a desire to take time to enjoy the morning and your surroundings
- building a fire, cooking a hot meal, and cleaning dishes is simply time- consuming
- reorganizing gear into panniers can become a logic puzzle
- there are often complications: wet mornings, broken gear, bike issues, etc
Different bike tourists deal with this in different ways. My solution was a simple mantra: “Always be doing something.” When awakening in a campsite, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the number of tasks needing attention. Simply deciding where to start can be a challenge itself. I learned that as long as I was always active and engaged in something useful, no matter how small, then eventually all the jobs would be done. Some days I might start with repairing a rubbing brake pad, another day may begin with packing sleeping bags. But, with the exception of a non-optional 5 minutes devoted purely to the act of enjoying coffee, I’m never standing around.
This technique has, by the way, subsequently turned into a core philosophy of mine. I don’t always know what to do, and, in fact, I usually don’t. But I’ve learned the key is to do something and do it well. Good things will generally come of it.
Mind, body, wheel
Somewhere around the 4th day, we had a particularly challenging day on potholed gravel roads stretching late into the summer evening. But we were in good spirits in the warm sunshine and our legs were pistons. However, I began to feel light headed and even noticed my thoughts becoming muddled. “I must be tired,” I thought. “But my legs feel strong and I’m not hungry.” Essentially, I became confounded by signs of fatigue mixed with undiminished pedaling power. Some time later, I called for a stop and ate a granola bar and within minutes felt magnitudes better; and I learned a lesson.
After days of pedaling for hours, the brain comes to terms with its new role as a pedaling machine. When I was training in the gym, I always felt that my legs were the first things to give up, causing me to stop for that day. But now I know that it was my mind that called it quits.
Elite athletes train their nervous systems to push themselves past normal triggers of exhaustion and fatigue. It’s common to see marathons ending with runners collapsing at finish lines, having pushed themselves past normal levels of exhaustion. And while I’m no elite athlete, just a few days of pedaling was sufficient to rewire my brain sufficiently to distort my normal markers of fatigue and hunger.
Our bodies are capable of amazing things, and often it is our brains that are the limiting factor. It’s satisfying to feel our bodies responding to new challenges, but don’t forget to eat a granola bar every now and then.
On priorities, such as weather
For as much as we humans talk about the weather, most of us are no longer significantly affected by it on a daily basis. Should you wear a sweater today? Will you need to carry an umbrella to work? A wrong decision means only that you will be damp and slightly grumpy when you arrive at the office.
Talking about the weather is a cliche for banality, and yet on our trip it became the single most important concern, the salient point of each day. We actually had fantastic weather on our tour but still encountered our share of rain, wind, and clouds. It affected how we prepared in the morning, how we packed for the day, by what routes we could travel, where we would arrive, what we would eat.
And likewise other basic concerns elevate to prime importance. “What will we eat?” “Where will we find water?” “How shall we arrange our shelter?” After only two or three days, thoughts of meetings, deadlines, and expenses are replaced by preoccupation with practicalities. The complex fixations of modern life are consumed by the simple expedients of survival we have been allowed to overlook in our everyday life.
And this is ultimately why I love bike touring. It becomes easy to truly appreciate the simple pleasure of dry clothing, a warm fire, and a beautiful summer day. And it is easy to sleep soundly and contentedly at the end of a day filled with only such thoughts.
A final note: I believe Estonia must be one of the greatest places on Earth to bike tour. If you have any questions about bike touring and camping in Estonia or about my experiences, please contact me.
