P.s. learn how to use it and practice. You could check out if a local cycling club has maintenance classes (some bike shops do this too). Watching it on YouTube is a good start, but actually doing it in your back yard is a much better way to learn.

Also: Pedro's yellow tire irons are the best.

1. Carry a pump, tire levers and patches unless you can afford to miss work. A replacement tube is ok too.

Yes. We are a 1 car family, so I ride a lot.

Check out King Cage. I think they're the O.G. cage lowerer (although I think they do whole cages).

The Seawolf pastries are awesome, but the Seawolf bread is unlike anything I have ever gotten in the U.S. Sooooo good.

Take your wheel to a shop and have them go over your wheel thoroughly. 1 broken spoke often means more will happen soon. Replacing a single spoke is cheap, having a tuneup on the wheel will be more expensive but worth it. Get a couple spares or a Fibre Fix kit while you are at it.

That's a great photo of a truly sick bike. Well done.

1973 BMW 2002 - so many colors to pick from.

I am considering putting a drop of blue nail polish or reflective tape on the heads.

I bought a set. They work great in the loam of the PNW, haven't tried them in sand yet.

The biggest issue I have so far is that they can be easy to miss on the ground.

Sold to u/jaygrabiec

U/LeaveNoTradeBot

P.s. hope I'm doing this right!

u/jaygrabiec - please confirm you'd like to buy (as per rules of the automod)

Drop by https://www.keeppedaling.us Set expectations to: Low.

You might like r/gdbmr.

I 'raced' in the Tour Divide in 2016 - scratched after 30 days, and was relegated from racing on... What, hour 8? (Defective tire held me up for 3 days). Still managed to get in 1500 miles.

I would do it again - infact, I'm setting off northbound in 4 weeks.

You can spend a lot of time and a lot of money preparing. Plan to spend plenty on the route (many thousands of calories a day, some food from expensive sources. Plus: sleeping inside is worth a lot after 500 miles in 5 days). I imagine you could scale this back by lowering expectations, but that's a whole different logistics game (go less distance, camp more, and plan to haul more food).

It was a big adventure for sure. And I mean Adventure as in: I Lived. Some parts were really rough, some were incredibly good. Rolling into the multi-colored canyons on the south side of the great basin - I will never forget.

Mostly what I learned was: people are capable of far more than they usually think; many people are very gracious & kind; we live in an amazingly beautiful country.

There are lots of great resources: Sarah Swallow's site is pretty great. If you're interested I'd be happy to shoot you my little site (mostly writing for myself, not much SEO going on).

Let me know if you have more questions

Nothing works quite as good for cutting out blister patches.

Great list. I carry tiny scissors and some ginger candies too - long ride on a grumpy stomach is no fun.

The prefab sheds are adequate if you have lots of space, but not great if you want to optimize. We built a nice bike barn to store hanging bikes - it was spendy but it's nice.

In my experience, the initial discomfort is about learning to sit on a saddle and 'getting used to' the sensations. And you feel sore.

If you end up with skin issues (red, inflamed or hot patches, any skin scraped away, etc) you are dealing with abrasion and absolutely need to stop, heal, then make changes. Chamois/bike shorts/bibs are a good step, but really it's time for a new saddle and a bike fit.

But those things are not initial glutal discomfort - they are serious skin issues.

In the first week or two you may have some glutal discomforting (aka BUTTHURT). This will pass. Don't sweat it too much, you're not doing anything wrong, and you likely don't need to do anything different.

If you're still butthurt in a couple weeks, everybody else has good suggestions. Change the angle of your saddle, get a bike fit, try different saddles, etc. But first: wait it out.

I ride single speed - and I do my own maintenance. I love how simple it is!

Check out your local bike club. In Washington, we have Cascade Bicycle Club - they have some very good classes on safety. It can feel a bit embarrassing to take a class on riding a bike, but do it if you can. There are things (like emergency stopping) that just are not intuitive to do or learn. And you might learn something else too...

Blue