Alaska to Argentinia

Cycle-touring, Expeditions, Adventures, Major cycle routes NOT LeJoG (see other special board)
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wanabepunk
Posts: 4
Joined: 5 Feb 2014, 8:49pm

Alaska to Argentinia

Post by wanabepunk »

I read about this trip in a cycling magazine and the thought of it hasn't left my mind since. I do cycle pretty regularly, but don't have the faintest idea about a trip of this sort of length. I thought people in here might have some useful tips and ideas for me. For instance......

1. Essential kit needed. I have an old EG Bates (reynolds 531 tubing) tourer that I'd love to do it on but it's 30 years old and I am not sure the thin tyres would cope with the different road surfaces! But other than the bike what else do you think I need?
2. Amount of money needed.
3. Best time of year to try and do it (At 80 miles a day it would take about 270 days, so probably closer to a year with stops etc)
4. Skills needed - which bits of the bike am I likely to need to learn to fix? It took me roughly 5 years to successfully sort out a puncture, so this one is a biggy.
5. Any tips on routes, or places I can get tips from?
6. Places to definitely try and avoid?

And pretty much anything else you can think of really. I am pretty clueless, but determined when I get my teeth stuck into something. Any help would be greatly appreciated! :)
irc
Posts: 5192
Joined: 3 Dec 2008, 2:22pm
Location: glasgow

Re: Alaska to Argentinia

Post by irc »

Jeff Kruys went from Alaska to South America and home again to Canada over a few years.

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?doc_id=1419
iviehoff
Posts: 2411
Joined: 20 Jan 2009, 4:38pm

Re: Alaska to Argentinia

Post by iviehoff »

I expect you need to buy a copy of Stephen Lord's Adventure Cycle Touring, since that will answer a lot of your questions, which this box does not provide sufficient space to even begin to address.

Whilst people have raced it at 200 miles a day and done it in around 100 days, for an interesting tour with sensible weather on the way, allow a little over 18 months. You set off from Alaska and Canada in their summer, and then travel Patagonia in their summer. This timetable also succeeds in encountering the dry seasons in most of the tropical places too, so it works just perfectly.

Any interesting route will have extended sections of gravel road. For example, you can ride down the coast of Peru and Chile on tarmac, but it's terribly boring, much more interesting to ride in the Andes on a mixture of gravel and tarmac, and see Cusco, Machu Picchu, etc, on the way. So you need to think what kind of bike you can ride on gravel roads with heavy loading, since you will have to camp fairly often (multi-fuel stove). A traditional lightweight tourer probably isn't going to do it.

How much money will you spend. Well if you are Alastair Humphreys, never pay for accommodation, and eat nothing but rice/pasta (with nothing on) and food people give you, are never tempted by chocolate, beer or tourist sights, you can get away with about 50p a day on the road, though you will have to budget additionally for transport to start and back from finish, also from Panama to Colombia (no simple satisfactory answer to this one I'm afraid) because there is no road. If you like to stay in pleasant hotels when they are available, eat in restaurants and drink fine wine, you probably need to allow £100 a day. You are probably somewhere in between, but I cannot tell you exactly where.

Btw, if it took you 5 years to learn how to fix a puncture, I'd start practising with the multifuel stove now and you'll be ready to go about 2020.
MartinP
Posts: 59
Joined: 28 Oct 2008, 9:51am

Re: Alaska to Argentinia

Post by MartinP »

A good source for research is the website crazyguyonabike. Read lots of accounts of the trip which has been done many times, in many ways for many reasons. I too had ideas of a similar trip but decided that for me it was better to 'chunk it up' into 4 separate trips and in that way you can hit the seasons right and plan to see more. It suits me but for others the desire to achieve the north to south of the planet / point to point is the aim. 1 year? I wouldn't because you would miss so much and the seasons would be unkind. You have to answer one important question first; why are you doing it? And take it from there.
daisydaisy
Posts: 26
Joined: 10 Sep 2013, 1:00pm

Re: Alaska to Argentinia

Post by daisydaisy »

http://familyonbikes.org/blog/journal/journal-entries/
this family did alaska to argentina, i am reading their book 'changing gears' at the moment
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Mick F
Spambuster
Posts: 56359
Joined: 7 Jan 2007, 11:24am
Location: Tamar Valley, Cornwall

Re: Alaska to Argentinia

Post by Mick F »

Just be careful.
This is a sad story from only recently.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-27206659
Mick F. Cornwall
garibeet
Posts: 124
Joined: 5 Apr 2010, 11:53am

Re: Alaska to Argentinia

Post by garibeet »

If you want a fairly up to date, current trip report etc, inc lots of great pictures and some route info go take a look at http://www.whileoutriding.com/blog
Cass is happy to answer questions too, a lot of comments to posts are enquiries of one kind or another.
ipswichcycler
Posts: 97
Joined: 10 Sep 2013, 9:19pm

Re: Alaska to Argentinia

Post by ipswichcycler »

Mick F wrote:Just be careful.
This is a sad story from only recently.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-27206659


This is a sad story but I'm sure it also applies to the uk so don't let it out you off.
AntonioCM

Re: Alaska to Argentinia

Post by AntonioCM »

Hi wannabepunk,
I've been touring in the Americas for 1.5 years now. Although I started in San Francisco, not in Alaska. I'm in Costa rica at the moment. Will try to answer some of you questions, but feel free to message me if you need anything. Happy to help :)

1. Essential kit needed. I have an old EG Bates (reynolds 531 tubing) tourer that I'd love to do it on but it's 30 years old and I am not sure the thin tyres would cope with the different road surfaces! But other than the bike what else do you think I need?
In general, I would say your mindset is more important than your gear. Things will break, no matter how good they are. So you need to be prepare to be able to solve problems on the road. I've seen people touring with really cheap and old bikes, and every problem becomes a challenge. What I would absolutely recommend is some sort of waterproof bags to keep the important things dry. Most of the tourers use Ortlieb panniers, but I've also seen plastic buckets attached to the racks that work quite well.

2. Amount of money needed.
Well, that depends on your needs. I travel with my girlfriend on 10 USD per day each. This covers everything. I've met people travelling on even less money and others on more. If you want to read about specific touring budgets per country, here you can have an idea: http://www.cyclingelmundo.com/travel-budgets/

3. Best time of year to try and do it (At 80 miles a day it would take about 270 days, so probably closer to a year with stops etc)
Normally, people starts in Alaska in summer, so they hit the fall in the US, the dry season in Central America, clear skies in the Andes and summer again in Patagonia - Tierra del Fuego. But this would take about 1.5 years to complete. It seems you want to go a lot faster than that. So you will hit some not-so-good weather at some point. But hey, that's part of the adventure!

4. Skills needed - which bits of the bike am I likely to need to learn to fix? It took me roughly 5 years to successfully sort out a puncture, so this one is a biggy.
As I said, mindset is the most important. You can always hitch a ride to the next town to get your bike fixed if you can't. But I would recommend to learn how to do the basic stuff, specially the basic maintenance to keep your bike running smoothly.

5. Any tips on routes, or places I can get tips from?
You can check the route i followed here: http://www.cyclingelmundo.com/route/

6. Places to definitely try and avoid?
I would say the caribbean coast of Honduras wasn't my favourite place for bicycle touring. Nothing ever happened to me, but I could feel things weren't just right. I didn't have any problems at any other place ;)

If you need anything else, just ask ;)
Antonio
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