It has taken me a while to come to terms with our failed Vancouver to Portland, four day tour that was to take place at the end of August. Really, four 200km days for three guys with a summer of racing in their legs should not have been that hard. Unfortunately, a freak summer storm, which included 100kph headwinds, brought our planned tour to an early end. We were only able to complete the first leg of our four day journey. As this was my first tour, however, there were a few things I definitely would do differently next time.
1. Don't (Exclusively) Depend on Technology
As I don't particularly enjoy navigating, I figured all of my problems would be solved through the use of a Garmin Edge Touring. The device promised to provide turn by turn directions based on the route I uploaded beforehand. After carefully planning and creating four separate files for each day of the tour, I made two key mistakes. First, I didn't really test the device outside of one short ride. I read online that it can be a bit finicky and it became quickly apparent that it wasn't reading my course files properly. I believe I know what went wrong, so I will hold any harsh criticism of the device at this point, but knowing what went wrong does not help you and your riding buddies when you are lost in a freezing, torrential downpour, in Richmond, about 45 minutes into the first day of your epic tour. The second mistake was not having a handwritten or printed summary of our route. A big mistake which cost us over an hour on what was already going to be a long day, as we worked to create a handwritten map.
2. Don't Pack Too Much
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| Yeah... maybe just a little too much stuff |
Just because your rack can take two, large panniers doesn't mean you need to fill them both up. I brought a lot of stuff on our trip. A lot. Admittedly, much of that was due to the fact that the forecast was for poor weather (they did, however, forget to mention the hurricane), but I still probably could have done without much of it. Panniers make your bike heavy and change handling substantially. This, in and of itself is not a tour-ender, but making your bike as light as possible will increase your enjoyment of the ride. May also help you avoid rear flats. Trust me.
3. Don't Get Caught in a Hurricane
Seriously, it will end your tour. For a local tour like this, I would suggest planning and booking hotels as close to the date of the tour as possible so you get a sense of what the weather will be like. This was supposed to be a relatively easy-going, lightly-geared, hotel-based summer tour. Bad weather, even before the wind, made it into a grind. I also suggest booking hotels that you can cancel with refund on short-notice, that somewhat lessened the blow.
In the end, calling the tour off was the right call. The wind was dangerous, to the point of bringing down trees. After avoiding serious injury through a season of hard racing, the last thing we wanted to do was get killed on our easy-going summer tour!
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| Next year, next year |
