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  Topic Name: My TD experience... on: June 23, 2016, 07:23:58 AM
bakerjw


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« on: June 23, 2016, 07:23:58 AM »

A litany of what to do and what not to do. What worked and what didn't. Kind of long but the people here understand these things.

I ride a lot. Mostly paved and gravel roads. I am not in the "A" group on road rides but I can keep up at a strong moderate pace. Ironically, before heading north to Banff, I had never ridden over 100 miles in a day. The most was Memorial Day when I had my Karate Monkey fully loaded and rode 77 miles with 5800 feet of climbing here in the Appalachians.

I flew into Calgary on June 15th and headed over to Banff early in the afternoon. If you've never been there, be prepared to be astounded by the mountains.

The morning of June 17th, I rode out at 5:00 with another guy. Going in, we had an agreement, if either of us was much stronger than the other, then the stronger rider would be free to ride at their own pace. As it was, I was a bit stronger rider so after a mile or 2, I opted to pick up the pace.
the ride to Elkford was slowed down as I was stopping every 15 to 20 minutes to take pictures. It is an unbelievable beautiful area.
Luck was with me as it was relatively cool and dry; however, the road to Elkford got real dusty. 12 hours and 110 miles later, I pulled into Elkford and was pretty tired. It was my first 100+ mile day ever on a heavily loaded bike so I was in pretty good spirits about the entire day. I had hoped to make Sparwood but the tourist in me caused that to not happen. The next target would be to get to WigWam campground the next day so I grabbed a hotel.
Things done right - Had enough water to Boulton Store. Made it to Elkford.
Things done wrong - Water got short right before Boulton Store. Didn't eat enough while out riding. I just wasn't hungry.

Day 2, I headed out into a crisp morning. I opted to deviate from the 2016 TD route and take the ACA map route. Yeah, the one with the washout. Iohan navigated the washout with his bike in the "See the World Part 2 - TD in Winter" video on youtube so I had an idea of what to expect. It was a great ride even though I had to navigate a herd of cows. The bull was amiable but one cow bluff charged me when I passed her and her calf.
I also had to deal with a big black bear on the trail ahead. One of the trails cut into a hill side where there isn't much of a place to go. Loud singing finally got it's attention and it shuffled off of the trail.
The washout was what I expected. I managed to get off the road and down to the river easily enough but banged my knee a bit. It didn't seem to be much of an issue. Along the river, I stumbled a few times but eventually  managed to get my bike up the other side and rolling along.
Shortly after the washout, a herd of elk started across the road ahead of me. That was really neat to see.
I made one wrong turn, but finally got situated and before long was rolling into Sparwood. 33 miles or so in 3 1/2 hours. I was content.
When I got off of the bike to get a picture of the big green truck, I took a step with my right leg and it hurt. The bruise on my knee was a bit worse than I expected. This put my plans to get to WigWam into question. I knew that there would be hike a bike sections and doing that with a bum knee would be a problem.
After the obligatory pictures were taken, I headed into town to get some breakfast. As I pulled up to a restaurant, I spotted another bikepacking bike. It belonged to the guy who I departed with the day before. We had breakfast and discussed how to continue. He was planning on taking the Fernie alternate and I opted to go that route in order to get to Eureka and lay up for the night to see how the knee felt. There was also a rain system getting ready to move into the area.
On the way to Eureka, the backside started getting sore. Not the contact areas with the saddle, just middle areas in general. We made Eureka in decent time and I took a night to recover and reassess. In the morning, the knee felt good, spirits were high and I continued on to WhiteFish.
A good day. 10 hours saddle time with 107 miles. Two 100 mile days in a row!
Things done right - Plenty of water. Ate plenty of food.
Things done wrong - Fell. Didn't deal with rash issues when I should have.

Day 3 started well. The rain system had moved through, the temps were mild and it was expected to be dry. The knee and rash were under control, so on to Whitefish. The only bad spot was that my USB battery unit somehow had died. This acted as a cushion between my dynamo and USBWerk. It also afforded me a few charges for my cell phone.
Near the top of Whitefish, my knee started getting cranky. Halfway between Whitefish Divide and Red Meadow, the rash started getting annoying again. I dealt with the rash and it was content for a while. I got a message to my wife to book me the cheapest room possible in whitefish so that I had one less thing to worry about when I rolled into town. I finally made Whitefish after 11 hours and only 97 miles. the room was at a Hampton Inn for WAAAYYY too much money.
Things done right - Plenty of water.
Things done wrong - Didn't eat like I should have but I was not hungry.

The morning of day 4, I couldn't sit on a bike seat at all. The knee was fine, but darn it hurt to sit. My wife was at work so I didn't have anyone to talk to for advice and I wasn't sure what to do so I packed up gear, boxed the bike and booked a flight home. I couldn't see myself being able to sit on a bike seat for a few days, so I just bailed. Three days, 33 hours in the seat with 320 miles or so was respectable for a first attempt but nonetheless disheartening.

Looking back and analyzing the situation, I see many things that I did wrong. I see some things that I did right too and I learned a ton for next year.

Wrong things.
The bibs that I was using were new. I've worn new bibs many times and never had an issue although I haven't been in them for 12 hours straight before either. I also should have washed them every night when I had a chance.
PRIORITIZE day end activities. Food might seem like #1 and beer #2, but what are the charge levels in your electronics?
Desitin... Make damn sure than you have some. Chamois creme too. I had hydrocortizone creme and antibiotic creme, but no desitin.

Right things.
Day 1, I felt seat trickle down my back into the natural funnel that we all have. Day 2, I took a washcloth, folded it into a triangle and stuck it in my bibs right at the base of my back. All sweat that trickled down was absorbed and didn't make it to areas prone for rash development.
Although I am not what would be considered a strong rider, not one time did I have muscle or joint pain (knee bruising excluded) from riding. After 97 miles into Eureka, other than the rash, I could have easily put in another 50 miles.

Equipment.
The good...
Steve, my Surly Karate Monkey was a fantastic machine. It might sound weird, but I have a bond with that bike. He was rock solid the entire trip. He does weight more than I would like so next year will be a different machine of choice.
My Rogue Panda Picketpost seat bag was unbelievably stable. Easy to pack and no wobble. Highly recommended.
My DIY frame bag was solid as could be. Stayed tight and was never an issue.
My DIY roll bag hung on the bars tight and never loosened.
Jones H bars afforded a lot of real estate for GPS unit, headlight, camera, etc...
Garmin eTrex 30x. Worked like a champ. Easy to use and had long life on batteries.
DeLorme InReach SE tracker. I never dropped a location point and was able to reliably send and receive text messages.
Garmin Edge 500 cycle computer. Great for tracking mileage, cadence, etc...

The bad...
Shutter Precision PD-8X. Shutter Precision produced a very good dynamo hub. Some units had problems with bearing slop and were not pulled once it was determined that there was a manufacturing defect. If you've seen a loose cup and cone hub, this is like that. I found out that mine was bad a day before flying out. I have to jump through hoops to get it covered under warranty. So far they have shown terrible warranty support.
USBWerk??? I am not sure what to do think about this. If you maintain a good speed, it will charge a device; however, my cell phone battery went from 40% charge to 8% in a matter of minutes when I wasn't maintaining sufficient speed. I know it is a good device but I need to investigate it a bit better.

I didn't use a tent or bag but they were both a bit heavier than I should have had with me.
I took too much clothing, I could lose half of it. It was a dry trip, but I did have rain gear with me.

The higher altitude took it's toll on me. I normally ride 2,000 to 3500 feet in elevation. I expected it to have some effect, but it was worse than I had expected. Especially day 1 to Elkford.

Although my conditioning wasn't terrible, I do need to kick it up a notch or two.

Eating while out on the route is still a mystery. Nothing sounded good and I wasn't hungry. I normally eat very healthy and rarely eat junk food so going into a gas station or small mart and finding something calorie dense proved to be more difficult than expected. Just something to work on for next time.

Next year will be different. I know what I can do physically and how to address issues that I faced. I am still down in the dumps about bailing as quick as I did but that will pass with time.
Se la vie.
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  Topic Name: My TD experience... Reply #1 on: June 26, 2016, 08:50:00 PM
offroute


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« Reply #1 on: June 26, 2016, 08:50:00 PM »

Good effort; thanks for the report.

Dang, you should have holed up at Whitefish Bike Retreat for a couple days then continued on. Compared to all the prep, effort and expense getting to that point, and total time on the route, what's a couple of days?

I use Butt'r preemptively, especially early on. I think it takes a few days just to begin to get in the groove in every regard. I think you were just getting on top of things, although I can imagine it didn't feel like it. No shame in taking it a little easy the first few days, too. Then it's not such trial-by-fire, and you body has a fighting chance to catch up.

Always fun on the trail and a learning experience pushing yourself, so congrats  thumbsup
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  Topic Name: My TD experience... Reply #2 on: June 26, 2016, 09:13:06 PM
Adam Alphabet


Location: Vancouver, BC
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« Reply #2 on: June 26, 2016, 09:13:06 PM »

I love posts like this. There is no better teacher than hard earned experience and it sounds like you learned a tonne out there. You can read every gear review, every blog and forum post but at the end of the day you gotta get out and pedal and camp and figure things out. That's what it's all about.
Awesome effort and awesome post!
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@adamalphabet

  Topic Name: My TD experience... Reply #3 on: June 27, 2016, 07:35:29 AM
bakerjw


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« Reply #3 on: June 27, 2016, 07:35:29 AM »

Yeah, in 20/20 hindsight I would have done things a bit different. I should have...
... Popped into Glacier Cycles and picked up a different saddle. Original saddle was always good for several hours but after that it had issues.
... Went into Walgreens and gotten some Desitin.
... Found a campground, thrown up the tent and laid low for a day or so.

All 20/20 hindsight at this point but I learned a ton for next year and will put it into practice.

As Addy stated. Experience is a great teacher. We can read about bike builds and gear loadouts or watch videos, but sometimes none of it prepares us for the one thing that can derail everything. I never would have expected the problem that I had to occur. After several days recovering at home, I went out Saturday and felt ok, but the saddle was putting too much pressure in the wrong places.

The biggest takeaway was that even though I wasn't at the peak level of fitness, I still managed to pedal a 60#+ bike on 3 century rides 3 days in a row and my legs felt fine. they were not noodles at the end of the day.
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  Topic Name: My TD experience... Reply #4 on: June 27, 2016, 09:00:14 AM
bmike-vt


Location: Horgen, Switzerland
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« Reply #4 on: June 27, 2016, 09:00:14 AM »

Thanks for posting. Regarding the USBWerk - was the phone on? Or in airplane mode / off? I've doing charging a cache battery and then topping off my phone works the best in really rough terrain. I have used it to run the etrex and the go pro directly. And I have used to to keep the phone charged while on and navigating / using endomondo - but those were short rides with good cell signal. The moment the phone is hinting for service and / or has the gps in use is when you see huge drops in battery.
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  Topic Name: My TD experience... Reply #5 on: June 27, 2016, 09:29:32 AM
bakerjw


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« Reply #5 on: June 27, 2016, 09:29:32 AM »

My phone was in airplane mode with Bluetooth turned on so that it would stay connected to my Delorme.

My original configuration was
Dynamo Hub --> USBWerk --> Romoss 10000mah battery (with pass through) --> whatever device I needed to charge.

The Romoss died before I got to Eureka Montana. It would not take a charge from an AS/USB adapter. The adapter was good and charged other devices in a layover. I know that some devices get unhappy with constantly getting connected/disconnected to a charger. I am wondering if that is what happened to the Romoss unit. All notes for next time.

I am still waiting to find out about my Shutter Precision hub. They have agreed that it is a defective unit and have been trying to convince me to go with the 9mm-QR version. All of my forks are 15mm through axle, so that's a no-go. In order to get it covered under warranty, I have to send it back to Taiwan. Now that is some great customer service eh? Once I get it swapped out, I'm ditching it for a SON 18-15.
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  Topic Name: My TD experience... Reply #6 on: June 27, 2016, 10:24:48 AM
bmike-vt


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« Reply #6 on: June 27, 2016, 10:24:48 AM »

Hmmm. iPhone? Android?
Not familiar with the Delorme, assume you kept it connected to text, but assume the unit itself did the heavy lifting of connecting to the sat system and bringing down the GPS signal?

When I meant 'top off' I meant while I have capability to use the Limefuel as an intermediate battery, I found it easier to just charge the batter (or my helmet light) during daylight hours, and top off what I needed to at night (usually my phone). The phone would be used for the occasionally panorama image, photos, and text, otherwise in airplane mode unless I needed to communicate. Bluetooth off as well (Im a SPOT user).

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  Topic Name: My TD experience... Reply #7 on: June 27, 2016, 10:35:17 AM
bakerjw


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« Reply #7 on: June 27, 2016, 10:35:17 AM »

Yes, the DeLorme handled all the tracking and text transmission/reception. Worked like a champ. 2 Very long days and it was still over 50% charge.

I use a Garmin eTrex 30x for navigation. It lasted 2 full days on AA batteries that I had in it for a few rides already. A good set of strong AAs will run it for 3 to 4 days.
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  Topic Name: My TD experience... Reply #8 on: June 27, 2016, 02:01:17 PM
offroute


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« Reply #8 on: June 27, 2016, 02:01:17 PM »

bjw, Whitefish Bike Retreat has camping options. You have to know about this place. It's owned and run by Cricket B., a divide racer herself. Anyone who has issues early on the ride can count on Cricket to help work out any issues, shuttles, etc. Just like Jeff S. in Hachita near the end – committed to helping cyclists get the job done. Those two did a lot to help us.

Cheers...
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  Topic Name: My TD experience... Reply #9 on: June 27, 2016, 02:16:18 PM
bakerjw


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« Reply #9 on: June 27, 2016, 02:16:18 PM »

Wish I'd have known that a week ago...
But then I might not have an excuse to go back next year!
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