10 tips for bicycle touring from lessons learned the hard way
by (syndicated)
17 Mar 10
Editor’s note: Every spring a whole new crop of bicycling fans are champing at the bit to take their first bicycle tour. While most have already read the standard “Top 10 tips” of bicycle touring somewhere, here’s my personal suggestions gleaned from hard-learned lessons.
This is a reprint of a post buried in the bowels of my blog from several years ago. Most pointers are still true today:
1. Keep clean, especially your most tender parts. Cycling shorts are a heated petri dish for bacteria. Even if you’re camping at a spot without showers, find a water spigot or head into a restroom to give yourself a good cleaning down below. A small pimple or rash can become an infection to rival anything found in the trenches of World War I. We talked to a couple who had to stop their tour the previous year because of such an infection ….
