Epilogue – Monterrey, NL Mexico & Maldon, Essex, UK
Courtesy of www.SladeRide.com
(Gallery & FAQs at bottom of post)
Home time.
I’ve spent a couple of months thinking about it.
And now, I’m back in the UK, with my bike
(Charles).
For now at least I feel like I’ve done enough.
I set out alone from the Arctic Ocean coast of
Alaska at the end of May 2009, 250 miles
inside the Arctic Circle, unsure if I could
make it through the first day, let alone keep
going for …
6 months and 5,150 miles or …
… the equivalent of cycling the length of Africa from Cairo, Egypt to Cape Town, South Africa.
And yes (aside from around 50 miles after a wheel collapse and 3 miles in a pick-up through ‘construction’) I cycled every inch of that!
Before this trip (and I can’t quite believe this myself) the sum total of my cycle touring experience was … 4 days in the South Downs (near London, UK) 18 years ago when I was 16, staying in Youth Hostels. This has been a ‘bit of a step up’ …! Its all a little bonkers really.
I was incredibly nervous back in May but, as I remember, having to focus on the practicalities of cycling and camping wild on the Arctic Tundra somehow meant my mind did not have time to worry (much!).
To this day those 2 weeks from Prudhoe Bay along the Dalton Highway to the town of Fairbanks remain some of the hardest, yet most fulfilling of my life so far, for I carried what I’m now sure was almost 400 lb (me plus bike plus kit plus food) for 400 miles along gravel and dirt roads (and then 100 miles on pave) across a mountain range through snow, blizzards, blinding dust, headwinds so strong I had to pedal downhill and temperatures dipping to -20c, with grizzly bears literally just feet away at times not to mention the ‘oversize’ rigs carrying equipment the size of the space shuttle to the oil fields.
I had a couple of very close calls in the dust where I just missed being mown-down by one of the behemoth trucks, was buried in my tent under snow one night, survived on cold food for the first week after my stove broke, once used a welding torch to boil some water for soup, rode one day for 16 hours to make it across the mountains for a meal at a Truck Stop, spent a nervous night at the Arctic Circle after a hunter had told me of recent bear and wolf attacks at the camp and developed something akin to a Gatorade addiction.
I could write so much more but then of course, there’s the rest of the trip.
Heybridge Basin, Essex, UK - Sr. Loco con familia, mi madre y padre 
It was difficult to get going again from Fairbanks and to keep heading south – I felt like I’d already done an ‘epic’ just making it solo down the Dalton, but, after a great time off the bike with a friend from the UK I did get going again and on picking up the Alaskan Highway (or Alcan) I made it across the rest of Alaska and into the Yukon, Canada.
With Alaska, northern Canada had the most astonishing wildlife of the trip – in the far north I’d see herds of hundreds of Caribou rushing across the road in front of me and I’d regularly pull round a bend in a road through some woods to come face to face with a huge Moose or Elk, and then of course there were the Buffalo herds along the verges and the worrying but also quite weirdly magical encounters with Black Bears walking out in front of my bike, just feet away. Full-on wilderness with vast swathes of land for hundreds of miles in every direction seemingly comprised of nothing but trees, mountains and a stupendous menagerie except there were no cages or fences here.
I also remember this section of the trip for the temperatures (approaching 40c many days) as that part of Canada underwent a heatwave and as a result drinking upwards of 10 litres per day. And of course, I met Ward and Jacky from Iowa who taught me so much about life and the road and with whom I cycled for 2 weeks.
Monterrey, NL, Mexico - Notice the car in the sign ... it has no front wheel! (it hadn't been vandalised it actually looked like it had been made that way!)
Not before seeing the astonishing scenery of the southern Canadian Rockies in Jasper and toward Banff (up there with the best I have seen anywhere, ever) I was welcomed back to the US (Montana) by what seemed like a week of constant rain. Montanans were a kind bunch and I slept quite a few nights, as I had done in much of northern Canada, camping on village greens or in front gardens, indeed, before reaching Montana I realised I had camped for 50 nights in a row (compared to no more than 10 days before this trip). I was going feral I think and, starting to get used to it!
Yellowstone was inspiring but the Teton mountains really ‘got me’ – including of course a visit to the hospital for stitches after digging a still-green snapped branch into my head during a hailstorm at a campsite! The Rockies of central Wyoming were like I’d imagine to moon to be, except maybe Wyoming has the odd shrub and of course the south of that state brought me my highest point (elevation) of the trip at just under 11,000 ft after a 4,000 ft climb over 20 miles, much of it dirt roads and tracks across open fields, followed by one of the most amazing 40+ mph descents.
Nr Heybridge Basin, Essex, UK - Maldon on its head
The snow was starting to arrive in the mountains again by mid September (after I’d said goodbye to it in June in northern Alaska) and following a welcome weekend away in LA with some friends and some great R&R in Denver with some more, I began what to Charles, Derek and I would become known as ‘The Chase’. Climbing back up into the high Rockies from (already ‘mile high’ Denver) staying with some friends from Yellowstone initially, we made it the 500 miles south through Colorado and New Mexico just before enormous storms hit the Rockies, leaving areas that we’d ridden through only weeks before, buried under 3 ft dumps of snow in just one night! Even the fringes of the storm in central New Mexico meant we were almost flooded out of the tent one night spent at a Freeway intersection.
If I’d thought Wyoming was empty then parts of New Mexico gave it some very stiff competition – desert conditions (despite the recent deluges) meant stretches of 50 to 100 miles with no streams and certainly no shops or even houses so carrying 10 litres of water (normally I’d carry about 4) became commonplace. Santa Fe (quirky locals), Roswell (aliens) and Carlsbad (caverns) gave much needed distraction.
Carlsbad in southern New Mexico had been the last place that I’d begun the trip wanting to visit – it was late October by that point and the weather was worsening (getting colder) and it had been below freezing every night for weeks by this point, leading me to often wear my down jacket inside my sleeping bag whilst camping. It was draining to say the least. I decided to change direction and visit another new state, Texas, in the hope that it would be warmer and that I could ’sling-shot’ further south into Mexico by staying longer in the US before crossing the border.
Nr Heybridge Basin, Essex, UK - ... still calm
Texas was hotter, much so, wonderfully so, and also incredibly welcoming as I slept again in backyards and was given a bed for the night once too. It was around this point that I started to feel locals just couldn’t relate to how far it was from Alaska, answering ‘oh thats quite a way’ but not really being able to relate to it (until I told them the distance) since it was just so far that it defied comprehension (or logic / sanity!) in many ways.
And so it was that I ran out of things that I ‘needed to do’ in Del Rio, Texas and with a flight booked from Monterrey, Mexico 300 miles away and my US visa having only a few days left I took a (very) deep breath and crossed the border… It felt almost instantly as if I had travelled hundreds if not thousands of miles into another world, not just a few hundred yards across a bridge - a lot of people actually walked everywhere for a start, there were horses, chickens, cattle and children running around, crazed dogs trying to burst my tyres as I rode by and of course the inevitable shout of ‘hey gringo’. I was expecting the transition to be more gradual, after all Mexico is increasingly well developed (especially in the north) and was surprised and slightly let down by how much it affected me (having spent time in southern Latin America before).
Monterrey, NL, Mexico - L to R: Richard (Ricardo), Sergio & I
I was unnerved I’ll admit. The daytime temperature was increasing (toward 40c) as was the humidity at times – I was sweating buckets in the sun, ending my days riding with my t-shirt rippled with white lines of salt. I spent a couple of days holed-up in a hotel with Montezuma reeking his revenge as it were. Another night I had a knock on the door at 2am – it felt decidedly dodgy, my door fronting as it did onto the otherwise deserted carpark and the knock being unaccompanied by anyone calling out so I trusted my instincts and stayed-put and will never know if it was totally innocent. Yet another night I realised that the (different) motel’s door-lock was, as they say, knackered, and that the ‘locked’ door could be pushed open by a meagre breeze (I pushed the bed up against the door for the night).
Later, as I climbed back up again, the mountains were beautiful. I met lovely, kind people. And also remembered how gorgeous some Latin women are, ahem. But, I was expecting to be excited at coming back to Latin America (I spent 4 months in the south of the continent a few years back). It was early November. I was slowly realising that even as I’d approached Denver back in late September I had been starting to ‘run out of steam’, although not physically.
I’d begun the trip in late May, unsure of how far I’d go, although as previously mentioned even then I harboured a desire to visit as far south as Carlsbad in New Mexico (along with the the more northerly Jasper, Yellowstone, the Tetons, the Colorado Rockies and Roswell). As I worked my way south into the lower US I decided that it was important for me to make it into Mexico such that I could feel that I’d crossed Canada and the US, regardless of what came after that.
Heybridge Basin, Essex, UK - And, back to the UK con Charles
And so it was, with heavy heart and after a couple of months of building-up to the decision, I decided to stop in Monterrey, Mexico. My feelings right now are of both relief but also some disappointment that I didn’t feel like heading further south. But that as they say would be a whole ‘nother kettle of fish …
6 months, solo, camping for 5 months, cycling all 5,150 miles, along the the 3,000 mile lenghth of the Rockies, through Alaska, Yukon, British Columbia, Alberta, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Coahuila and Nuevo Leon, Mexico. I’ve found previously untapped resolve, stubbornness and drive. I’ve seen things that I’ve dreamt about for years and realised that if you really really set your mind to something that you can do it, but also been reminded that, just because ‘you can’ doesn’t mean you ‘have to’.
I feel like I’ve lived about 6 lifetimes and I’m sure it will be many years before I can ‘take it all in’. But, that sounds ok to me! Indeed, that which I’ve written about in this and prior posts only scratches the surface of what I encountered.
Thank you, profoundly so, to all of you who have encouraged me from the start.
I would like to think that I’ll use this website again for future trips so please feel free to ‘Subscribe’ using the button on the top right (scroll to the top).
Again, thank you.
Oh, and I simply love my bike – it is utterly utterly phenomenal. Well done Charles. And thanks Derek.
In closing here are some answers to a few FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:
Q: Have you really cycled all the way from the Arctic Ocean to Monterrey in Mexico?
A: Yes, all 5,150 miles which is the equivalent of cycling the length of Africa from Cairo, Egypt to Cape Town, South Africa – aside from 50 miles on the back of a truck when my wheel collapsed in remote Yukon and 3 miles in a pick-up through construction by ‘heavy earth-movers ‘ in Wyoming.
(the ‘Sidetrips’ involved me cycling to somewhere, leaving my bike there to go on the ’sidetrip’ and then setting off with bike later from same ’somewhere’ location)
Q: How far did you cycle every day?
A: Average 50-80 miles per day with a minimum of 20 miles and a maxium of 115 miles with maybe 5 days of 100+ miles with one or two of those on ‘big mountain’ days and 20 or so around 90+ miles
Q: How many days in a row did you cycle?
A: Average 3-5 days in a row, most in a row 7 days (the first 7 across empty Tundra) before at least 1 day’s rest
Q: Of the 6 months, how much were you actually cycling?
A: Roughly 4 out of the 6 months.
Q: How many tyres did you carry / how many punctures did you have?
A: I carried a spare folding tyre in case I shredded one (which happened once, although I now think I was running the tyre at too low a pressure previously) in a ‘blow-out’ or such like and I’ve gone through 2 tyres, wearing the tread off one and splitting the sidewall on another (see above); I’ve had 4 punctures, 1 in Alaska, 1 in Yukon, 2 in Texas.
(to begin I ran tyres with kevlar-reinforced sidewalls and toward the end ran tyres with the same sidewalls but in addition a layer of latex under the tread to resist punctures married to ‘inner-tubes’ with extra-thick rubber AND a liqueous polymer within to ‘heal’ any puncture that might make it through all of the prior defences!)
Q: Why do this trip?
A: Er…! To begin I think it was because I’d put so much effort into planning it (6 very intensive months where I didn’t think of much else) and because the thought of this trip got me through a tough couple of years. And I think because I wanted to do something ‘great’ rather than just read about others doing it (forgive the pomposity…).
Q: Did you enjoy it?
A: Yes and no. I love getting on the bike in the morning, especially when the mist is still out and the sun is just poking its head above the horizon.
I also feel excited by cycling in bad weather conditions (I know, thats a bit weird!).
I love the fact that I can be so self-sufficient and that its actually possible to move the bike with all of the kit and actually to move it pretty fast and nimbly with practice (on some of the dirt-road descents in northern Alaska I was able to keep pace with some of the motorcyclists on particularly technical sections with poor surfaces – who of course blew me away when the road improved! – and would often keep pace with other vehicles on mountain descents, even when paved). I think that handling the bike on fast downhills, especially on loose gravel or dirt, knowing that I’m doing it carrying a ludicrous amount of gear, has been the best part of the trip – once a mountain biker always a mountain biker! – and this is something I’ll definitely bear in mind for the future…
Of course, meeting people and seeing amazing places is also great.
On the downside, I don’t like, getting ill (who does!) mostly because my body is the engine and have probably pushed myself through a few niggles and grumbling health issues as a result (there is often something to be said for keeping the momentum going at times like this but also, as with everything for understanding ‘balance’).
Sometimes it can be dull – more than you might imagine – and I feel somewhat guilty for feeling this way for I am so incredibly privileged to be able to do this sort of trip; after 2,500 miles of woods, I got a bit bored of trees and was overjoyed on reaching Montana which had huge grassland areas.
Lastly, there comes a point where the body (physically) can recover very quickly but no amount of rest days can restore emotional well-being and something else is needed. Taking some (perhaps chance) inspiration from elsewhere may renew the ’spark’ to continue but sometimes, unless your life really depends on it, you just need to stop.
Q: Did you get ill or get any injuries?
A: For the first 2 days I had a sore back – the practical prep for the trip was so all encompassing that I wasn’t actually that fit before I began and hadn’t done the planned weight training or even – quite absurdly – been on a bike for a couple of months. The pain went after a few days which is something I’ve encountered before as my thigh muscles get stronger and carry more of the burden.
I had occasionally very painful knees for the first couple of weeks (due to the huge weight I believe) so much so that I was taking a cocktail of over-the-counter analgesics and anti-inflammatories, and due to my weight and the level of exertion I did push the dosage pretty high, but only having gone on guidance previously obtained. I tried to focus on my pedalling technique later and after a couple of months the pain had pretty much gone.
I didn’t get a cold or flu for the whole time – I’m wondering if the adrenaline pumping through my body was pretty good at fighting off bugs although that said, I did generally avoid large cities where germs tend to amass. I’ve just (in the UK) had my worst cold for years so I’m certainly not immune!
I’ve had maybe 2 or 3 stomach upsets, mostly I think from – in spite of taking precautions – camping wild and using river and lake water to clean utensils, where one occasion was in northern Alaska on the Dalton so I took the precaution of dosing myself with antibiotics (I carry a supply of various types) since I would run out of food if I stayed still for too long, there being no resupply for 250 miles.
I did get the occasional saddle sores, usually after doing a series of big (70+ mile) days in the heat / humidity but usually these could be treated with Germolene and moisturiser – in future I would consider taking preventative saddle-sore cream which acts as an anaesthetic.
And yes, I dug a snapped-off still-green branch into my head whilst on a campsite in a hailstorm (Wyoming Rockies) requiring a hospital visit and stitches to an inch-long gash.
Amazingly despite my preoccupation with speed on the descents and bends I haven’t crashed whilst on the bike although I’ve had a couple of close calls including one time when a branch blew out of a tree and hit me and bike in a cross-wind, countless cross-wind ‘freak-gusts’ blowing me out into traffic and a few terrifyingly close calls with vehicles passing me by inches and one time when (my fault) I cut inside an 18-wheeler articulated truck stopped in traffic which then pulled away at which point I almost went under its wheels as he couldn’t see me in his mirrors. Scary.
Q: Were you not scared of the trucks?
A: Sometimes yes, when I was tired or when it was very windy, but generally I was ok and tried to maintain a confident stance and position on the bike as I was entitled to do so, but, if it came to it, I conceded, knowing that I wasn’t going to win any rights for cyclists as a martyr.
I wore a bright yellow reflective tabard on my torso and folded another over the back of my bike. If visibility dropped I put a bright flashing red LED at the back of the bike – this could be if it was foggy, snowing or raining.
I did not ride at night although cut it very fine on a few occasions toward the autumn-end of the ride, pulling in to the sleeping place as dusk was well and truly disappearing.
Generally I found truck drivers to be very good drivers – they are after all professionals – although I did find some nutters around the oiling areas of eastern British Columbia and parts of Alberta. Those pulling trailers with a car were often the most ‘challenging’ as they sometimes seemed to forget that the ‘arc’ of their vehicle on a bend was altered and the closest I’ve come to being taken off my bike was in Colorado by a horse box which brushed my rear-left panier as it passed!
Later I bought a mirror for my handlebars (for Mexico) and adopted a sort of ‘hold-your-nerve’ approach and would actually pull out further to the centre of the road if the road was thin and I could see that a truck was both behind me and coming towards me – it always ‘worked’, something I’d realise as I heard the engine retardation behind me and at least I knew I could pull in to the space I’d left to my right if the guy behind really didn’t slow down. I actually found most Mexican drivers excellent, certainly a lot better than many I had met in the US and Canada and I wonder if this is something to do with the fact that there are more cyclists on the roads (locals using it as a form of transport).
Q: How did you cope with the threat of e.g. Bears?
A: For the first few days, cycling south from the the still frozen Arctic Ocean, there was a known Grizzly presence (one was roaming Prudhoe Bay when I was in town & some years previously another had ventured into the Lobby of a motel!) and with a still frozen ocean there was also a Polar Bear threat – eek! Basically I kept all food ziplocked and then put those bags into dry-bags, adding all toiletries, medical supplies, sunlotion, bug spray, my stove, pans & utensils to the bags at night. In the absence of trees (I saw none for the first 200 miles as it was just open Tundra) I would walk the bag(s) for a few hundred feet, spacing them a few hundred feet apart if there was more than one, leave something bright tied to them in order find them again! My thinking here was that by splitting up the bags, I would be less likely to have all of my food ransacked! As far as I know, I didn’t once have any of these bags raided even in areas where bears had recently been sighted.
As I worked my way further south, the trees appeared but were by no means strong enough to hold the bag(s) so I continued the above strategy until I made it into central Canada when I would hoist the bag(s) up a tree, trying to hang the bag in free-space as is recommended. Sometimes there would be bear-bins at those times I didn’t wild camp i.e. at campsites (usually in National Parks) and at other times I would make friends with someone staying at the same place who had a vehicle and ask them if I could leave the bag(s) overnight with them. If it wasn’t a mountainous and wooded area I’d usually check locally to see if there had been any bear visits recently but even then I would never take the bag(s) into my tent, leaving them on the bike a dozen or so feet away, just in case.
I only brushed my teeth or had a shower in the morning before starting a ride or leaving the tent on a rest day, not before bed when toothpaste / soap smells might act as an attractant, generally abandonned deodorant (nice!) and washed my hands and face after the evening meal. Suntan lotion and bug spray were also carefully applied to avoid clothes and washed-off them with water straight away if needed and not applied to skin late in the day such that they could be ’sweated-out’ before bed. I was also very careful not spill any food or anything else particularly strong-smelling onto my clothes (or indeed onto the ground), washing it off with water straight away. Trash or rubbish also required focus and discipline around its disposal and where this was not possible I would add the trash to the aforementioned food bag(s) for the night.
There were quite a few nights where I knew that something large was around the tent – I was, apart from one time, never sure if this was a bear, wolf or cougar (the biggest threats) since I stayed in the tent – and I would at these times make noise with my voice and / or my ‘bear-bell’ (where the jury is still out on the effectiveness of the latter). Squirrels often ran across the tent which could sometimes be a bit unnerving when it came as a surprise!
I remember camping wild in Tasmania and had all sorts of things running around outside and into the side of, the tent but that didn’t feel alarming I think because I knew they were all harmless. Most nights in bear country I’d sleep fine, resigning myself to the fact that I’d done all that I could to reduce the risks and that if it came to it I had bear spray by my side (every night I would pop it into the pocket of the inner tent). But, sometimes, it did get to me a bit, especially if there had been recent bear-activity in the area.
I never had to use my bear spray but on one or two occassions I’ve flipped the safety catch off the bear-spray whilst in my tent when something suspicious was clearly outside. One of these turned out to be a large domestic dog. The other, I do not know!
(take it from me that Bear Spray is potent – its under fire extinguisher pressure and sprays for 30 feet – and you do not want to get any on yourself, especially even a small spot in your mouth as your lips and tongue will swell up for about 20 minutes!)
I was ‘allowed’ to take the bear spray over the border into Canada and then into the lower 48 of the US, I think because the border guards knew I was solo and camping – I’d heard of other cyclists, in groups, having theirs confiscated as its seen as a weapon! A number of people questioned if I should have carried a pistol – this isn’t as crazy as it might sound since the threat is very real. But, in reality, unless I was dozens of miles from roads / tracks and NOT taking the precautions that I did, the risk is diminished. Or at least thats what I told myself! Besides, I probably shoot myself in the foot by mistake!
Q: How much bodyweight did you lose?
A: Almost quite absurdly, I was exactly (to the pound) the same weight when I ended as when I started – admittedly I had lost weight in my mid-riff and upper arms and chest to an extent but put on bulk in my shoulders, neck, gluteus maximus and most of my legs. I attribute this to eating like a large horse and was often eating 6,000 calories a day. I’m 6′5″ and weigh 210 lbs (14.5 stone or 95 kgs). See below.
Q: How did you eat enough and what did you eat?
A: I love food which along with loving (perhaps slightly worryingly) really bad weather and seemingly impossible challenges are perhaps the things which meant I could do what I’ve done.
Food = fuel for the body which in turn is my engine. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten so much red meat, dairy and simple sugars – I tended to listen to my body and go for what it seemed to crave, at the same time being conscious of major food groups.
Most days would start with porridge (oats) with fruit / sugar and on big days I’d often add cake to breakfast, crumbling it into the porridge. I drank a lot of soft drinks (sprite and fanta mostly) and milkshakes and fruit juice and smoothies. Oranges, apples and bananas plus tinned sweetcorn, beans and mixed veg plus vitamin tablets gave me a good vitamin intake. I tried to eat a lot of nuts too. Of course, complex carbs were a major part of my diet and aside from the porridge I’d eat a lot of bread (usually carrying a loaf dangling from the side of the bike!) plus pasta, rice and noodles and the occasional instant mash. Beef (tinned chile con carne or dried meat strips), fish (tuna invariably) and chicken (tinned) were common accompaniments when I was cooking on my stove (which was most nights). I ate a lot of burgers, pizzas and cake. Hardly the food of champions but it seemed to work and I generally felt more healthy that I ever had before.
Q: How much did you camp and cook on your stove?
A: Of the 6 months I probably camped for 5 of those and most of those times I would cook on my stove – this was mostly because the US and Cananda are so expensive and doing this unsponsored I was self-funded with no income, only savings. That said I got a bit of a proverbial ‘kick’ from cycling with Ward and Jacky and learning about, amongst many things, how to survive longer term from your own provisions.
Q: Were you sponsored at all?
A: No – having sponsors often brings expectations and not knowing how far I’d get or indeed if I could do it, probably wouldn’t be very attractive to them! Also, I wanted to do this on my own, call it pride or perhaps stupidity!
Q: Why didn’t you raise money for charity?
A: This is a tough one. I thought long and hard about this. I’ve done shorter endurance events for charity in the past, including a combined cycle-walk-canoe across the English Lake District. On a longer ‘event’ I would say that raising money for charity can act both as a carrot (good) but also a stick (not so). Don’t get me wrong, doing anything for charity is fundamentally good, but on this occasion and for some of the reasons that I didn’t seek external financial support, I wanted to do this for me and will keep giving to charity in other ways in future.
Q: How much does your bike weigh?
A: The bike is about 35 lbs with racks, add on kit and it was generally running at about 150 lbs up to a max of 190 lbs in northern Alaska due to the need to carry so much food with no resupply for almost 2 weeks. I weigh about 210 lbs. Other cyclists that I met, aside from the ‘long-haulers’ like Ward and Jacky ran complete bikes plus kit invariably weighing less than 100 lbs, usually gained from carrying fewer cold weather clothes, less substantial camping equipment, no laptop, camping less and carrying less food and fewer bike spares and tools in addition to having, invariably, aluminium frames versus my steel frame (I chose steel due to ease of repair and its ‘give’ under harsh conditions which affords a slightly softer but still responsive ride).
Q: Did you have any mechanical problems?
A: I began with Mavic 717 cross-country racing rims with 32 spokes – these are insufficient for this kind of trip and the rear cracked somewhere between the start and 1,000 miles. This was replaced with a Sun Rims Rhyno Lite (32 spokes) but for some reason this configuration only lasted for a few hundred miles and began ‘popping spokes’, 6 in a 20 mile section in Yukon (each being replaced as it occured) which led to the very difficult decision to flag down a truck for a lift to the next town, 50 miles away (bearing in mind I had started in Alaska wanting to ‘ride everything’). A phone call to the bikeshop a couple of hundred miles back up the road (Whitehorse, Yukon) resulted in my ordering a new Rhyno Lite rear and front wheel of 36 spokes each (where these have been known to still run on 35 or even 34 spokes where this is not likely on a 32 spoke wheel, especially under heavy touring weight). New wheels arrived on the Greyhound Bus the next night (thanks again Jonah) and Ward and I worked through the night to reconfigure the bike, setting off the next morning. Those rims have been on the bike ever since.
The drivetrain was replaced after about 2,800 miles (chain, cassette and middle chainring) and at this point the XT cassette was downgraded to Deore which is known to be less prone to fracture under especially heavy, muddy, gritty touring (apparently!). In Mexico, the same components, some 2,300 miles later were due another replacement from what I could tell – this frequency of replacement is quite normal under this kind of use and indeed, to get almost 3,000 miles from one chain under this type of use (with no snapping) often amazed many of the lighter-weight tourers that I met (who were invariably running lighter weight, less tough chains).
Brake pads (disc) wore out every 1,000 miles or so.
The bottom bracket and headset were still going strong after 5,150 miles and I’ve heard of long-haul tourers getting 10,000 miles upwards from both in my particular configuration.
The front panier rack came loose once in northern Alaska (which could easily have resulted in a nasty crash if it had gone unnoticed) and in Mexico, having only just crossed the border a bolt snapped leading to the need to change configuration (luckily there was another option, but if that one had snapped there would have been no more without re-drilling and threading which would have needed a workshop). In future I might consider a more substantial front-rack.
I had to repair a panier after it I took a turn too tight and scuffed the bottom along the road, wearing a hole in it (the panier not the road!) and had to perform the same repair to some of the dry-bags in which I carried food on the Dalton stretch in Alaska after I wore holes in them with the back of my shoes each time I pedalled! The webbing which runs along the top of on one panier also needed replacement after I had ratcheted down too tightly – generally the paniers are fantastic but I would suggest this bit should be strengthened.
The bike was serviced at 2,800 miles (Whitefish, Yukon), 3,800 miles (Denver, Colorado) and 4,800 miles (Del Rio Texas) although the latter 2 turned out to not require any real work aside from some deep-cleaning and slight wheel re-alignment at the former. In future, a service every 2,000-2,500 miles might be appropriate.
(I would check the brakes were running free from the discs and clean the chain every day and cassette approximately weekly alongside checking the bottom-bracket, cones, headset and major welds every so often)
Q: What kit did you take, how did you cope with all of the different conditions and is there anything you wouldn’t take again or would next time?
A: See updated Gear section.
Q: How did you train and what previous experience of cycle-touring do you have?
A: Badly! Whilst I ‘run-fit’ from 5 day per week half-marathon training from October through March and corresponding weight training (lower back, abs, chest, shoulders and upper arms) I barely rode a bike from February 2009 until I started the ride at the end of May 2009, this I blame on the fact that the prep just took so long and was so involved, plus, I was renovating 2 apartments at night (which I suppose was pretty physical) and working as an IT Programme Manager during the days and evenings to raise the cash to do the trip.
Having been a cyclist for years (mountain biker mostly) I knew I could get my bike fitness quickly – it seems that of all the sports I’ve tried cycling is the one to which my body is most naturally suited. All that said, I wouldn’t recommend my lack of a training plan since I was pretty shattered for the first few weeks!
I’d never ridden with that much kit on a bike and never actually ridden much more than 50 miles before this trip, let alone done much touring (4 days 18 years previously when I was 16 staying in Youth Hostels south of London in some rolling hills).
I did a couple of training rides with all paniers on the bike – and realised how amazing the bike was as a result – and on one of these occasions mistimed my food-intake and ‘bonked’ (hit ‘the wall’) as a result, forcing me to stop and down carbs before carrying on.
What I didn’t do, despite protests from some friends and family, was do a shorter tour as a sort of taster in order to both train and learn and also to see if I liked it – in all honesty I was worried that I might not like it and would not do the real trip as a result! I’m sure that psychologists could have a field-day with that one!
Q: Did you ever ‘bonk’ / hit ‘the wall’?
A: Yes, once, during one of my (2!) training rides with paniers fitted and somewhat loaded, due to poorly timed food intake (a learning experience) and once again after 85 miles on a hilly day in the Yukon, in the heat, sprinting too often to catch up Ward and Jacky after I stopped to take a leak or some such like.
On the second occasion I ate a second lunch in minutes, downed fluids, waited and then was fine after 5 minutes, a not uncommon occurrence for cyclists so I hear! I also suffered from hypoxia (oxygen starvation) when climbing over 10,000 ft in Wyoming after a 25 mile ascent – I’d suffered from this before in the Andes on trekking and mountaineering trips and was therefore aware of the feeling (dizziness, blurred vision, nausea, muscle weakness) but it was still scary, especially since I was at 15,000 ft on foot when I’d got it previously (being on a bike with all of that weight, up hill for such a long time must have had a much higher oxygen-demand than being on-foot).
I got pretty dehydrated a couple of times, pretty badly one time in Alberta, Canada causing me to have a very restless night in the tent, somewhat delerious – generally though I would learn from these experiences and know how to prepare better next time.
Also, see below.
Q: Did you ever feel like stopping on some days?
A: From Denver onwards, sometimes, and on a couple of days in the 60+ mph gusting side and headwinds up in ‘South Park’ Colorado when it was simply scary I did feel a couple of times like simply throwing my bike in the ditch, but somehow I carried on. Sometimes I’d simply want the days to end (riding-wise) as I just wanted to get to get to camp so I’d push on at speed and thrash my way to the ‘finish’. It was hard to keep going in Mexico on most days as I was running low at that point as I now realise.
Q: How long did it take to plan?
A: In detail, 6 months collectively for US Visa application, kit research and purchase (clothing, bike, camping gear, medical – much of it so specialist that it was bought from scratch where it often needed the right balance of durability and strength and weight), route-planning, shipping-research (to get the bike to the start took 3 flights via Seattle, WA and Fairbanks, AK, USA) and financial-planning. Whilst doing this I was working full-time as an IT Programme Manager and renovating 2 apartments at night and weekends (see ‘How did you train…’).
Q: Did you have the whole route planned?
A: No. I wanted to start on the Arctic Ocean and see Jasper, Yellowstone, Teton, Denver, the Colorado Rockies, Roswell and Carlsbad and to ride the whole way and not jump by taking buses etc, but aside from that, I made the route as I went, taking local advice and researching myself.
For some stretches (Dalton Highway, Alaska) there was only one option and for others, once on the route (much of the Alaskan Highway through Canada) there were no side-roads for many hundreds of miles but further south there were options. I wanted to keep high in the Rockies and strike a balance between following the ‘Continental Divide’ and heading SE toward initially Denver and then, once decided, Monterrey. See below.
Q: Did you have any ‘rules’ before you started?
A: Ride the whole way. Head south from the Arctic Ocean. See some set points (see above). See how far you get.
(another time I might add more to this such as pre-determining good stopping points such that I ‘know they’re coming’ which is a good morale booster)
Q: Are you glad you did it?
A: Wholeheartedly, yes, yes, YES!!!! I’m so incredibly proud. I feel like I’ve done something amazing, really really special.
Jonathan … incredible journey. We are touched to have played a (very small) part in it – you clearly did all the work! And it was great to see you.
Come and stay with us any time. The door is always open.
Ahhhh. It’s about time! I’ve been watching for some sort of summary or announcement of the next phase. Traveling is good for the soul but so is being home.
Rest easy. Remember it’s a small world and you have friends scattered all around it…
TC
(BMW rider from the Dalton)
Hugely impressive achievement, Jon. Enjoy a couple of months rest and then get planning the next trip. Cairo to Cape Town, you say…?
An amazing achievement, Jonathan, so very many miles in such a time space and so many unique experiences and encounters along the way. Few would even contemplate embarking on such an adventure. Be proud – we certainly are of you. It is, though, so very nice to have you back home in England! XXX
You really are an inspiring inspiration aren’t you? I salute you, sir. It was a blast hosting you in LA, the family all enjoyed meeting you, and I loved watching the Hangover! Francesca keeps asking when Mr Jonathan is coming back. It goes without saying that you’re welcome whenever.
All the best mate
David
Simply awesome… hopefully the website can stay in place – for future readers and, of course, as a place to post your future exploits as and when you’re ready for more!