The Ups and Downs, the Stories, the Bumps in the Road, and Everything
in Between.
Introduction:
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| the original inspiration (c)2014 |
I set this challenge of solo-cycling the Trace for myself in March
as a final culmination as I got set to depart from in Nashville after two up
and down years in grad school. The idea of cycling long distance was initially
inspired by my friend Emre, a Turkish exchange student and good friend of mine
from undergrad, and his bike trips up and down the country in the summer of 2014. One
of my potnetial life bucket list goals was to one day cycle from coast to coast, and I
figured a 444-mile trek would be a great test to see if the 3000+ plus it takes
to make it cross-country is feasibly in the cards for me in the future.
Quite frankly, I wanted to do something
memorable this summer before I went into the workforce full time. The combination
of my flexible schedule, the countdown of my days in Nashville, and the Trace’s
close proximity to the Trace, I figured there was no better time to do it, so I went
for it.
Pre-Trip Planning and Training:
My bike and my cycling background:
I enjoyed riding my bike around the
neighborhood when I was a kid, and I was fortunate to have spent a few weeks of
the past couple of summers in Atlanta staying at a house in which I had access
to riding a road bike on the Stone Mountain Trail for a few 10-30 mile out and backs. But I was (and still
am) by in no means an avid or even intermediate cyclist. I’m more of your
average guy who doesn’t know much about bicycles. In fact, as recently as a few weeks prior to my trip, I hadn't changed my first tube nor did I understand simple bicycle jargon—such as “derailleur” and
“pannier.”
I had bought a (cheapish) road bike on Craigslist
primarily to commute around campus. My bike, according to the guy at my local
bike shop, risked failure to conquer a challenge
like the Trace, and I would have to take it easy if I wanted to make it. The
guy at the shop had a laundry list of recommendations my bike needed—thicker tires,
a better saddle, a stronger frame, that smoother gears. My frame didn’t even
have the holes in it necessary to install a back rack to haul my stuff.
Right then, I thought about calling it off; maybe the risk was too big. But after some thought, I figured he was simply trying to make a sale, and underestimating my general athleticism, grit, and frugality. Besides, I actually looked forward to the challenges that I foresaw myself encountering. So, I blew off most of his advice.
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| According the the guy at my local bike shop, my bike wasn't built for long distance touring. |
Trip Planning:
Despite my general scoffing of the bike
shop’s advice, I did prepare and plan my trip out rather extensively.
The Trace is 444 miles from Nashville to
Natchez. Based on my training regime, it would take me about 3.5 hours to make
it about 35-40 miles. My pace was about 13-14 mph while riding, closer to 10
mph while including stops and breaks. I figured that doubling that would
provide a reasonable daily distance of 60-80 miles, with some flexibility to do
more or less depending on weather or how I was feeling.
I decided to primarily camp. I built my
itinerary around NPS’s handful of free campgrounds along the Trace, some of which
were bike-only campgrounds. There were also a few other low-cost state and
private campgrounds within a stone’s throw of the Trace that were options.
I chose the May 18th-27th timeframe
mostly due to scheduling. I graduated on May 12. I was officially moving to
Atlanta on June 18th. My lease in Nashville ended on May 31. Since I
already had a frisbee tournament on June 3-4, a bike trip planned on the Silver
Comet planned June 6-8 and a trip to Canada planned from June 9-18. So late May
was the best time to do so.
There was an extra caveat to my trip
planning: Where to start and how to get back. After looking quickly online, I concluded
that the best route was to bike from Nashville to Natchez, primarily because it is downhill in that
direction, and then rent a car from Jackson, MS and drive it back to Nashville.
The decision to rent a car from Jackson
was strategic for a couple of reasons. First, and most blatant, renting a car
one-way from Jackson to Nashville ($58) was way cheaper than from Natchez to
Nashville ($235ish). Second, Jackson was about 340 miles down the parkway – if
I hit major trouble or wanted to enjoy myself, I could aim to just make it to
Jackson and stop instead of going to Natchez and back. Obviously, it put
pressure on me to take on an extra 100 miles to bike the entire 444-mile trace,
but I thought it was worth it. Having a rental car date also put pressure on me
to not give up and to keep moving, which I thought was nice.
Everything I needed, what I bought, and what I brought with me:
I sorted everything I needed into a few
categories.
1) Bike Gear Maintenance Items: These included a helmet (duh!), bike gloves, polarized sunglasses, a
portable bike pump, extra tubes, tube patch kit, multi-use bike tool, box
wrench, bike chain lube, a bike lock, bike lights, and panniers. I also
installed my bike computer,* back rack (via the help of P-clamps), and tire and
rim liners to help prevent flats.
*which tracks the odometer, single trip distance, average speed, max
speed, and time cycling
2) Clothes: I tried to balance packing lightly and having everything I needed,
and actually did ok. In addition to my riding gear--which consisted of a short
sleeve skintight short sleeve compression shirt, bike shorts*, and my (Juice!) Patagonia shorts, a pair of socks, and some old
running shoes—I brought 3 t-shirts (one long sleeved, one short sleeved, one
tank), two pairs of shorts, a very lightweight rain jacket, a pair of long leggings, and 2 pairs of underwear.
*crucial or else your ass would hurt a ton.
3) Camping Equipment: Since I decided to camp and not AirBnB or hotel, I had to haul my
camping gear. My camping gear consisted of a tent, sleeping bad, self-inflating
sleeping pad, microfiber towel, and flashlight. I also bought some
accessories—matches, external phone charger, extra batteries—that I thought
would be helpful. Also had to have a few bungee cords to tie the camping gear
down to the back rack.
4) Food:* As mentioned, I planned to travel light and vary between eating my
own snacks and eating out. I carried light, high energy foods—Clif bars, gummi
bears, sour patch kids, beef jerky, peanut butter, granola bars, Gatorade
powder, and energy chews. I carried my water in my hydration backpack, which a
crucial piece to have so you can easily drink while riding.
*perhaps one of the best parts of a distance biking trip like this
is that I can literally eat whatever I want and completely disregard fats and
sugars and everything else in my diet, since I know I’ll burn it off, and that
I need all of those extra calories. Unlike my diet in real life,
(un)fortunately.
5) Personals: These basically included toiletries, sunscreen and bug spray, first
aid items, my iPod shuffle, a journal and pen, a book, and some maps and
printouts (of places to go such as campgrounds, markets, points of interest,
rest stops, etc.).
I also had/bought a few things that I
helped my trip that I either took care of prior to my trip or simply didn’t
bring, most notably a weight scale, a floor bike pump, and a few other bike
maintenance items.
All in all, in addition to my bike, I
hauled approximately 30-35 pounds of stuff on my back wheel. I spent approximately
$300 in getting everything for my trip, primarily through a free trial of
amazon prime. I had some items from a past road trip like
my tent and sleeping bag, but I had to buy most of my gear, especially the
cycling specific items. But all that said, much of that gear (sleeping pad,
towel, bike shorts, sunglasses, etc.) I will continue to use, so $300 was not a
bad number to work with at all!
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| The Cumberland River Pedestrian Bridge, part of the Music City Bikeway Path |
The goal of my training was to get my body and mind acclimated
to distance bike riding, hauling, camping, etc. It was also an opportunity to
gain experience with real time issues—i.e. tubes popping, gear switching
issues—while en route.
A gear switching and chain falling off issue about a week prior
to my trip had me very worried and frustrated about a week prior to my trip,
but at that point I had already bought all my gear and committed so there was
no turning back, so I youtubed a few things and got over the subtleties I
couldn’t fix.
I read somewhere that for the several weeks prior to my distance
trip, I wanted to be biking about the number of miles per week that I aimed to
bike per day en route. For the first three weeks of April, I biked
approximately 50 miles per week on 2-3 bike trips*. At the end of April I
really didn’t do much due to a hectic finals week of school, but by the first
week of May I cranked it up to about 80 miles per week on 2-3 bike trips. Additionally,
during the last two weeks I slowly increase my hauling weight (about 5 pounds
per trip) to get accustomed to hauling extra weight, maxing out at around 30
pounds.
*Nashville has a very bike friendly 30-40 mile “Music City Bikeway” path
that I could take directly from my house.
I actually took then entire week off from cycling the week
before I left. And I never practiced cycling in the rain however. I also went
camping for one night at Foster Falls in TN a few days before my trip to make
sure I remembered how to set up camp, make a fire etc. Didn’t have any real
issues.
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