Early on in my deep dive into bicycle touring and adventure travel I came across The Bicycle Touring Pro, Darren Alff. At that time about 2010, I was working in a bike shop with a strong online sales department. As a category, Touring Bicycles was our number one search. What spoke to me about the Bicycle Touring Pro was this quote,
”While bicycle touring is typically an overnight endeavor, a bicycle tour can be a long single-day bike ride; a multi-day event where your gear, food and clothing is carried for you in a vehicle that meets you at various checkpoints along your route; or a solo or group adventure where all necessary clothing, equipment, food and tools are carried on your bicycle.”
While the semantics of bicycle touring can quickly get out of control, it can be nice to have a set of definitions so people know what you are talking about. What I appreciate about Alff’s definition is the bicycle tour can be as short as a day tour, defined as an adventure. I took this to heart when I started Bikepacking Northern Nevada. I started closed to home with the question, “where does this road lead?”
Much more recently I have been following professional adventurer Alastair Humphreys and came across his explanation of the microadventure at about the same time as I co-founded the local Coffee Outside chapter in Reno. Coffee outside wasn’t particularly new but it seemed to gain some organizational teeth through its website and Instagram following. But not to get too far from microadventure a la Alastair Humphreys, Al was responding to his audience's request for more adventure in their lives, but money and time was keeping them from mega-adventures.
Money - Start an adventure savings account. Can you set aside $20 a week? Not to state the obvious but in a year you will have $1000. What can a dirtbag do on a $1000 budget? Probably more than you think. Adjust that weekly number to what fits your finances and use that year’s time to plan the logistics of the trip. There are plenty of tips and tricks to budgeting your savings while traveling but one thing I remember from my first tour in Holland was that after several days of coming under budget I was able to treat myself to a great Indonesian dinner. Don’t forget to reward yourself.
Time - This is where the microadventure comes into play. We all have constraints, typically work and social obligations. So how do we carve out time for adventure? Al challenges us to be defined by what we do from 5 to 9, rather than 9 to 5. Obviously our twenty-four hour day is ours to make the most of. I understand the argument that it is not practical to cram a microadventure into the time you get off work and the time you go back to work, but the challenge is do it once a month. Maybe it is not as hard as you thought. In the bike touring world the idea of the Sub-24 hour Overnight, S24O, was coined by Grant Petersen. Check out Grant’s Blahg for more! Have the simplest kit ready to go to bike to a spot and sleep under the stars. Humphreys suggests start by sleeping on a hill, climbing a tree, or swimming in a river - don’t be afraid to show up at work with twigs in your hair or your underwear a bit damp.
Humphreys is inspired by Oliver Burkman’s, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals and now it is on my reading list too.
A good friend of mine KC Fraser (@ridingloaded) shares his rides on Instagram, often with a cup of joe, maybe with a little breakfast, and definitely with a camp chair, book and a view. When I asked why he does this, his answer was, well I could just sit on my couch. What is your alternative to sitting on your couch?
Alastair puts forth that one map is enough. Local is based on a 20 km x 20 km custom Ordnance Survey Map with Al’s home at the center. He then chose a 1 km X 1 km square to explore, at random, each week for a year. To cover the entire map would have taken about 8 years so to finish the challenge he visited every square by bicycle in a final push. Bikepacking Northern Nevada definitely started close to home in Reno in 2014. My personal mountain bike adventures started very close to home when I parked my truck for a year (definitely learned this is not good for a vehicle) and did all my rides from my front door. My rides were inspired by R. W. Miskimins’ local guidebooks and the local trail information from Randy Collins of College Cyclery and other local riders. More recently we crowd sourced trail information for a single mountain range in the Pine Nut Pedaler Project.
Is one map enough? I tried to get the BLM 1:100,000 Scale Topographic Map for my new home in Carson City, it was out of stock. So I selected the adjacent map to the north, Reno, my old home. The map covers from about mid-Reno in the south to the Pyramid of Pyramid Lake in the north, and from the California-Nevada border in the west to Hot Springs Flat and the Forty Mile Desert in the east. This map covers a much greater area than Humphrey’s single map. Even though I feel like an expert on this area I was able to find destinations I have overlooked with just a glance. Covering an area of about 30X50 miles they are great planning maps for day to week long trips. For a $4.00 investment a lot of adventures can be had from a single map.
Thank you for supporting my storytelling. If there is anything I can do to help get you out there please ask.
Sources of inspiration:
Alastair Humphreys - alastairhumphreys.com, Al shares everything for free. I have listened to all his podcasts on Spotify. I have read his books on Amazon Kindle and listened to them on Audible. I wish I had paper copies of them all. Which just means I will be buying them in due time. He is generous with his knowledge and experience with the focus of getting more people outside. I recommend his newsletters, Shouting From My Shed, The Doorstep Mile, Ask an Adventurer, Adventure + Purpose.
I listened to a handful of podcasts interviewing him about his books, Local and Microadventures. Here are a few. Not only did I gain insight to Al’s process I found some good podcasts to revisit.
The Joy of the Very Short Adventure - Outside Podcast
Alastair Humphreys: Author and adventurer getting more Local - The Outdoors Fix
Finding Adventure Close to Home featuring Alastair Humphreys - Adventure Journal Podcast (YouTube)
Alastair Humphreys and Adventures Big to Micro - Almost There Adventure Podcast
The Adventure Mindset – the Highs and Lows of Leading an Adventurous Life - Seek Travel Ride Podcast
Microadventuring with Alastair Humphreys - Wild Ideas Worth Living
A quick search wherever you listen to podcasts will give you hours of interviews.
Beau Miles - another adventurer with a similar message beaumiles.com
March in Review
What a month March was! I turned 54 on March 6. It was a good year. As a cup ½ full kind of guy, my years mostly are very good. Over March 8-9 I led an overnight snowpacking trip in Dog Valley to Crystal Mine. We were treated to great conditions. Then I was packing for my return to Taiwan, which eclipsed the month, leaving Reno on the 13th and returning April 1. The trip started with a 10 day/ 500 mile bike tour of the island. Tomo and I loosely planned our way around the island returning to Taipei for the Taipei Cycle Show, the annual trade show focused on the global bicycle industry’s manufacturing. Bikepacking Northern Nevada will have a full post soon.
What’s coming up
I apologize this newsletter is coming out two thirds of the way into April. I am working on May’s newsletter on finding Awe, so hopefully it will come out in the first week of May. Mid-May I will join Wildwood Open Lands Foundation on their Friends of the Wolf trip through the northwest corner of the state with a citizen science objective in conjunction with the Nevada Department of Wildlife. At the end of May I will be back in Hawaii sampling Mai Tais and enjoying family beach time. June has two bikepacking trips on the calendar. June 6-8 is Rides with Friends, through High Rock Canyon to Steven’s Camp to join Friends of Nevada Wilderness in their stewardship project celebrating National Trails Day. Then June 20-22 I will be joining the Wildwood Open Lands Foundation for their annual rally, the Howling, this year to Lobdell Lake, the headwaters of Desert Creek. This will also include a stewardship project.
