A Bike Nerd’s Detailed Guide to Bike Touring

The Bike Nerd in the title refers to both of us.

My credentials in this department are already somewhat well established.

But you? Maybe you are a teeny bit bicy-curious.

This, then, is the post to read for the How To, the What Nots, and the Why That, as well as for some tedious admirably detailed riding stats and data, shared with a few insights into some of the mysteries of going on a bike tour.

This is the post to read to have an “I bet I could do that!” moment.

Because perhaps you can! Maybe you, too, will decide to set forth across a major land mass on a bicycle.

But first, it is time to nerd out on the stats from my recent ride!

More information can be obtained by following this link to the RideWithGPS site: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/46522672?privacy_code=eR3Zj3uUEq7fClYdQVsau2XE8BUDCmpC

That is the ride! Carlo, Giulia, and I began a bit north-east of Rome as that day threatened thunderstorms, which we wanted to beat to our first overnight stop. I will ride the rest of the way to the eastern coast of Italy by myself, and then north along the Adriatic Sea, after I leave the writers’ retreat.

Here are some fascinating numbers!

I rode up! I rode down!

And I rode on different surfaces:

In short, I rode about 112 miles, with just under 10,000 feet of climbing, over 5 days. I have to thank Carlo here, for organizing this data about my version of the ride.

It’s not my longest ride ever — In 2001 I rode 101.5 miles in 8 hours, for a century (100-mile) charity ride in the Las Vegas desert — but this was the most elevation for me by far, and at 5 days, the most consecutive days of substantial rides I have ever done.

But none of this gets at the HOW of biking, so I want to add some pieces of information which shed light on how one manages to spend hours a day on a bicycle.

You need good gear.

A bugbear or keen dislike of mine is seeing a couple starting out on a longish ride, and one has top-notch padded shorts, proper supportive shoes, a well-ventilated helmet, padded gloves, and eye protection. The other in the pair is wearing jeans and sneakers. That ride may not turn out well.

Buy yourself good gear for your sport. I have no idea what men require (Men, tell us what you require! In the comments), but women riders need some decently padded shorts (more on this to come!), a comfy but hard-working sports bra, and hard-soled shoes, because supporting the entire pedaling foot disperses pressure, and prevents soreness and possible plantar fasciitis (a painful tendon inflammation of the bottom of the foot).

Shorts – You want some really good padded shorts (or capris or tights), and you should buy ones with a substantial chamois, or piece of padding, sewn into the crotch.

I am loyal to the Aero Tech brand, handmade in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and their shorts can come with pockets. Aero Tech makes exercise-wear for many sports, in both loud and quiet designs, and they feature a huge range of sizes for all shapes of sporty people: Cycling Apparel, Bike Shorts, Bike Jerseys by Aero Tech Designs

Pockets!

Pockets are surprisingly controversial. My Aero Tech shorts have capacious mesh pockets on each side, which can carry several bananas each! This is sacrilege to some in our Biking World who prefer the pockets to be on the back of the jersey. But one could opt for pockets in both places. More bananas that way.

Sometimes when a pair of shorts gets worn — the fabric approaches transparency, the padding thins — I will transfer the padding to another pair of shorts, doubling them by hand-sewing one atop the other. This results in the economical and extra-happy outcome of extra-padded shorts.

For this trip I transferred padding from a worn pair of bike tights and rode on extra-padded shorts.

Shirts – My fashion priority was visibility, so I ended up in the most unflattering Electric Peach biking jersey in the history of hideous garments.

Yuck.

But was I ever visible!

I combined my jersey with Layers. Layers are key because temperatures vary so much. Even riding down a short hill can be a shockingly breezy experience. Thin but hard-working layers are ideal.

I spent almost all of this ride in my appalling Electric Peach bike jersey (sometimes with a thin but warm, long-sleeved shirt in a much more palatable Dark Teal), topped off by my Bright Mauve rain jacket, which has detachable sleeves you can stuff into a back zippered pocket, and then wear as a sleeveless vest for warmth and/or visibility.

I found I mostly needed to wear the jersey and the vest. But Electric Peach and Bright Mauve is just the most awful color combination. It’s the palette of a 1970s outfit by Pucci.

One of these was me:

Somehow, I ignored / survived this extremely challenging sartorial situation, and powered on.

Bike Snacks – It is an excellent idea to bring along something to eat, to maintain energy throughout the ride. A hungry rider is a grumpy rider, and no one likes a grumpy rider. You might opt for some proprietary sports goop in a shiny package, or some carrots and raisins in a plastic bag.

Trying out new snack items before the ride is HIGHLY recommended.

True to form, I did not heed this recommendation at all. I just went gung-ho buying all the Italian bike snacks I’d never seen before, and thus while out on the road I repeatedly encountered some truly revolting substances. My empirical data follows here:

The most bizarre thing about sports gels is that consuming them contravenes one of the most fundamental lessons of childhood: Do Not Swallow The Toothpaste!

When eating sports gels, you absolutely have to swallow the toothpaste.

Anti-Chafe Cream is your new best friend. This stuff gets painted anywhere you might be rubbing against your bike, on your skin and directly on the pad in your shorts, and it really works to prevent any chafe or blisters.

In Italian, it’s Anti Sfregamento Crema Sport, to prevent the dreaded sfregamenti during your ride.

It gets applied to what the great American comedian Mel Brooks would refer to as “Yah gentles.” Paint this stuff all over yah gentles, and you can ride comfortably for hours, day after day.

Shoes can be tricky. I don’t clip into my pedals, meaning I don’t use a shoe specially designed with a pedal-aligned cut-out in the sole, where you attach the shoe directly to the bike pedal for the ride.

These shoes require a speedy and efficient maneuver to unclip each time one stops, or else one tips unceremoniously over onto the ground, with one’s feet still attached to the bike.

When you clip-in, the shoes and the pedal become ONE.

If the rider can manage to clip in, this adds considerable aerodynamic efficiency and power each time the rider completes a full spin of the pedals. Pro riders always clip in.

But I don’t give a whiff about efficient anything. Aerodynamic, shmaerodynamic! I just don’t want to tip over, still glued to the bike.

So I use a toe cage at the front of my pedals, and I slip my shoes into and out of the cage from the side, or the back. I can slide my foot out fast, but I have some measure of connection at all times to the pedal, so I am both pushing the pedals down and pulling them up. And I don’t need a special shoe.

Pedal with Toe Cage; Pedal with Toe Cage with Shoe.

Those nifty shoes, by the way, are hiking/ beach shoes from the children’s department at the Decathlon sporting goods store in Rome. Highly visible, with a very rigid sole, yet lightweight. The only bonus of having ridiculously small feet is that children’s shoes can be a real bargain.

Other Things to remember are: use and reapply sunblock even on cloudy days; maybe try some compression calf sleeves for a reliably pleasant riding experience for your calves; and work on moving around and changing position in the saddle during the ride to prevent getting sore or numb.

I once read that shifting out of the saddle for 20 seconds will restore blood flow to any compressed body part, so practice doing this to keep the blood flowing to all the highly important things you are spending the day sitting on.

And now I’d like to tell you a little about MY BIKE!

Although I know you were about to ask.

My bike:

It’s a second-hand Orbea mountain bike, a model called Onna, made in Spain, found in a suburb of Rome, with Carlo’s aid: aluminum frame, disc brakes, swapped out the suspension fork for a full carbon one, changed the pedals to add the toe cages, changed the saddle to a women-specific saddle, 16 speeds, 27.5″ wheels, added a quick-release to the seat post, added an ultralight Tubus rear rack, swapped the knobby fat tires for 1.5″ semi-slicks. The frame color is called Terracotta.

I did some of the work myself (and Carlo changed the tires), and some with much assistance at one of the free community bike centers in Rome, called a ciclofficina. There’s a network of ciclofficine throughout Italy, and they describe themselves as spaces that are social and of solidarity, a militant expression of love for bicycles and bicyclists.

I went to Centro Sociale Macchia Rossa Magliana, Via Pieve Fosciana 82, Roma, for several of their Thursday night sessions, where volunteer mechanics will help with the work, and they have tools and sometimes spare parts you can use. I got a lot of help. They don’t charge money or sell anything, but one can always make a donation for their efforts.

I usually showed up with some bottles of beer or wine to share when the work was done for the evening. Each Thursday was an excellent opportunity to learn many new bicycle-related vocabulary words in Italian. Then I got to use them in sentences.

Gasket is la guarnizione.

Il manubrio is the handlebar.

Your water bottle is not your bottiglia d’acqua, but rather your borraccia.

The tubes for your tires are not the tubi, but instead your camere d’aria, or rooms of air.

Parafanghi, of course, are your mudflaps.

I will now share a recent, personal, bicycle-related thought.

The bike I rode for that 101.5-mile ride in Las Vegas, the 2001 Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Las Vegas Ride of the Century, was a Gary Fisher Mountain Bike, a model called the Wahoo. The color was Mango.

It looked like this:

I rode thousands of miles on that bike, because I was training for a hundred-mile ride and then I rode it a whole lot afterwards. I really liked that bike. But eventually I blew out the bottom bracket, which meant that the gears no longer engaged, and the replacement and repair cost was more than I’d paid for the entire bike. So I donated the bike to a community bike project, where young people learn how to ride safely and fix bikes, eventually earning a bike to keep. And I got another bike.

But lately I’d really missed that bicycle. It was a great bike, and I had done some incredible rides on it. They don’t make that bike anymore. I kept wondering if I could somehow find one like it.

I’d have to be really lucky for that to happen.