Preparation — Getting Out There

Planning my next small tour

Sun, 11 Oct 2020 18:00:51 +1100

With the completion of my bachelor’s degree only a few weeks away (exciting!) I want to celebrate the past five years’ hard work with a multi-day bike tour. There is a lot going on in the meantime, however, both in my own life and in the broader world:

With all that in mind, and given my deep love for the Murray River, I’m planning on a trip between Swan Hill and Echuca — towns on the Murray River, which forms the border between Victoria and New South Wales. As such I will have to keep to the “Victorian” side of the river¹ to not run afoul of COVID-19 regulations². I will catch a train from Melbourne to Swan Hill, ride along the Victorian side of the Murray to Echuca, then another train back to Melbourne.

Mapping out the route

Online mapping services

There are lots of mapping applications and services available these days, and there are an equal amount of listicles detailing all their respective merits, so I’m not going to do that. I used the RideWithGPS Web Route Planner as it suited my way of doing it for this ride. Sometimes I use Google Maps. Other times I use OpenCycleMaps. I tend to jump around from service to service on a ride-by-ride basis.

The most difficult aspect of online mapping services in my experience is the routing along roads. Despite some good efforts on the part of services like RideWithGPS, Komoot, and others, there are still serious limitations to the AI behind routing along cycle paths and anything “non-car”. Especially along routes such as this one — riding along the Murray River, bush tracks and gravel roads and farm fencing to dodge — the limitations of the routing engines start to really show. I’d love to see a “let me explore” option on some of these services: something that lets you say, “your navigation isn’t suiting me/is inaccurate/road’s blocked/etc, I want to venture off the planned track, but let me know if I get x kilometres too far from the plotted route”…

Offline paper maps

Due to the nature of the Australian landscape, limitations of battery-powered devices, and some bad experiences in the past with ‘broken’ directions from online maps, I always carry a paper map. Sometimes, like with my trip to Adelaide last year, this involves carrying many maps to cover a long route. Not only does this present storage problems, but paper maps are increasingly disappearing from print/being discontinued in favour of electronic GPS. This time I got lucky and am using Hayman’s Cohuna–Echuca–Gunbower Forest Activities Map [Cohuna–Echuca–Gunbower Forest Activities Map (Hayman's Maps, 2014): Cohuna – Echuca – Gunbower Forest Activities MapHayman's Maps This map follows the Murray River from Barmah in the south to Murrabit in the north, has a separate map of Werai State Forest and has an overview map of the region.], a 1∶50,000 scaled camping and touring map that covers the route from Murrabit to Echuca, and shows all the riverside tracks and dirt paths in the various state forests along the way.

Gear and equipment

Accommodation

With a key focus on weight, I’ve travelled before with my very lightweight and compact DD Jungle Hammock. Unfortunately river red gums — although incredibly beautiful and perhaps my favourite tree — are notorious for dropping branches, especially in the humidity of springtime and summer. Therefore hanging a hammock under a red gum is probably not the best idea.

Dilemma: I have plenty of tents/swags but they are not light or compact, so it seems I’m in the market for yet another tent to add to my sizeable range. This has caused a little consternation from the better half, and I find myself stuck between wanting a budget option to keep Danielle happy that we didn’t spend a bundle; or rather opting for a solid, dependable and durable quality tent so I only have to weather the argument once. ?

In the end, I chose to pay once and get something good, and I’ve read good reviews of the Big Agnes Copper Spur HV UL2 Bikepack (Big Agnes, 2020) [Big Agnes, 2020: Copper Spur HV UL2 Bikepacking Tent - Big AgnesBig Agnes Ultralight Bikepacking Tent, built for two-wheeled travel: the Copper Spur UL2 and UL3 Bikepack are fully freestanding with a shortened Shortstik pole set that packs onto handlebars, frames, or …] tent, which seems to be the same as their Copper Spur HV UL 2 but with a shorter pole-set and a handlebar-suitable carry sack. The guys at Backpacking Light in Lt. Bourke Street Melbourne sorted me out over the phone, and reassured me that if I wasn’t happy with the tent — I’m a bit nervous buying a tent sight unseen — I could return for a refund no worries. Now I’m just waiting on the mailman…

Scheduling

Tour length

I can only fit in 5–6 days, mid-week, so as not to neglect family obligations. The planned route is about 200 kilometres, so I figure on riding an average of 50km a day for 4 days’ riding, plus travelling there and back (a few hours each way on the train). I have two camping preferences before I go: near Torrumbarry in a place I always camp at with some mates each year, and near Bailleau Lagoon (at the end of Young’s Road near Echuca) where I often camp with Danielle. Of course, the best part of the Murray is the abundance of camping everywhere, so I’m happy to be a bit flexible as well. 50 kilometres per day is nice easy riding, so I can stop often, enjoy the ride and have plenty of down time at camp.

Tour timing

As said above, at the end of my exam period (about mid-November) to mid-December (when the kids start school holidays) is my ideal window for getting in some river-time. Other considerations are bushfire alerts, which are becoming increasingly concerning every year, but to be honest I’m not too worried about given the proximity to towns and services, and the weather. Given the family obligations it looks increasingly likely that I will need to just head out regardless of rain, hail or shine.

Bike preparation

My bike is brand new and in tip-top shape, so it’s really just tyres, some basic spares and working out how I’m going to “rig” the bike. I’ll have racks and panniers front and rear with my tent on the handlebars, and I’m hoping to squeeze on a few fun things such as a fishing rod, and strapping my solar panel to the rear rack.

I’ll then do a 30–40km dry run around Ballarat with gear attached just to make sure everything’s sweet before heading off.

Getting there and back

The plan at this stage is to catch a train from Melbourne to Swan Hill, and then from Echuca back to Melbourne, but of course I’m not sure what the COVID rules are and the info on V‑Line websites and such is not very clear. It’s easy to find out what you can and can’t do if travelling to or from Melbourne, but not via Melbourne. If I can’t manage a train journey there and back, I might have to retrace my journey back to Swan Hill and drive.

In fact, both banks of the Murray River are in New South Wales. The Victorian/New South Wales border is the top of the Victorian side of the bank. As soon as the bank dips to the water you’re in New South Wales. You don’t need to get wet. 😉 A fun little fact that gets a lot of Victorian fishermen in trouble each year when they buy Vic fishing licenses but are unwittingly fishing in New South Wales. ↩︎
Victoria has a raft of rules at the moment that differ depending on where in Victoria you are. Melbourne and its surrounds are differently restricted to regional areas. ↩︎

Getting everything packed and ready to go!

Tue, 17 Sep 2019 18:02:34 +1000

With just a few days left to go until I depart, I’m putting together all my kit, just like Santa Claus I’m making my list and checking it twice.

The photo above is my kit without clothing, i.e. everything EXCEPT my clothing duffel bag and my kitchen items (which, of course, are in the kitchen and I’ll put these together on Sunday night).

Update (5 October 2019)

I didn’t end up needing the larger 700c tubes, as my Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires went the distance without a single puncture! I ended up using one 16″ tube for the trailer wheel at Tailem Bend.

I didn’t end up needing the firelighting materials on this particular trip, but would pack them again, because you never know… The cheap hatchet was very useful as a hammer also._

Setting up the bike for cargo

Thu, 23 May 2019 12:15:57 +1000

When sitting down to plan out the Ride in September, one of the first requirements to come to mind was carriage space on the bike — how would I allow enough storage for food, water, shelter, changes of clothes, etc?

Being a newcomer to the world of bike touring, I quickly found a number of different options and styles of travel, that when compared to the gear I already had, left me with three main choices to make:

I have already decided on my sleeping arrangements, and the other considerations I needed to make were:

To be honest this was a pretty close call, but in the end I decided not to just overload the bike with frame bags and panniers. I must admit it was tempting: being a leatherworker, I could do it fairly cheap; there are heaps of options available; it is the popularly recommended mode of bike touring for solo riders; and I already have a pretty good Topeak MTX rack and pannier setup.

However, being +100kgs, I wanted to reduce the load on the bike, and as said above I’ll be wearing a rather tight-fitting dress, and therefore I don’t want to be packing out the bike with too many items that I could get caught on, and rub my mostly-bare legs against.

Verdict: Close call, and normally the way I’d go, but this time is not the best option for me.

When I first set out to ride to Adelaide, my lovely partner Danielle contemplated coming along with me for support and company. The issue for us came down to the length of time I expected to do the trip, not wanting to slam the kilometres but actually enjoy the ride, and the resultant uncertainty around the schedule. As Danielle is a criminal barrister, 9–10 days off work amounts to a rather large financial burden, and we eventually made the decision that if we were going to sacrifice many thousands in wages, we’d be better off just donating that much and staying at home.

Another factor in the decision is my mental health, and the resultant anxiety from having to rely too heavily on a support vehicle, and be too regimented in daily schedules and achieving riding checkpoints that may not be ideal when I’m out on the bike. Of course, if a support crew eventuates — or even just other riders to accompany me — that would be awesome, but being able to plan for the least outcome ensures the ride will go ahead without too many issues.

Verdict: Again possible, but would involve a lot more organisation and planning to pull off.

A cargo trailer, attached to the rear axle or seat post, allows the bulk of the load to be towed behind the bike. Considering also that I weigh +100kgs myself, this puts a lot less stress on the rear axle of my bike.

As detailed above, I will be carrying a lot of water, and although I will try to buy most of my food each day at each town/stop, I will need a small amount of rations for emergencies. A trailer enables me to carry a lot more gear.

The other benefit for my particular use case was in having sides to the trailer that I could easily make up signage for, better advertising my cause/explaining to passersby why the f— that bloke’s wearing a dress, and maybe even picking up some donations along the way.

Verdict: I went with the trailer option, as providing the greatest versatility and enabling me to more easily plan the ride itself.

With the decision made, I settled on a Burley Coho XC trailer, which I will review in more detail after its first 200 kilometres of use, and am so far pretty happy with.