How to Take the World's Shortest Bike Tour

A step by step guide to taking a two mile bike tour

Let's be real, the entire planning stage was figuring out what we would eat

 1. Once you start thinking about a bike tour, try to plan, pack, and leave on your tour within 48 hours of conceptualization of the idea.  It helps if you choose a road with 12% grades, lots of semi-trucks, mud, and regular snow in August.  Setting overly ambitious goals in the brief planning stage is important too, for example, decide that you can probably bike 60 miles a day on a mountain bike while towing a 100-pound trailer (dogs are heavy!) through mud for twelve days straight even though you’ve never done a bike tour before.  Game on!

2. Sticker your whip.

3. Pack up and get out there!  

4. Travel for one mile

We're doing it!  And here comes a semi

This is so fun!

Bike touring is awesome!

5.  Break your bike.  Make sure to do something you can’t repair in the field, like completely bend your derailleur hanger and your derailleur.  

Omg.  That doesn't look good.

6. Admit defeat.  

Dangit.

So much sadness.

7.  Retreat.  Strap your bike to the top of your Burley trailer and jog back to the van like a suburban mom pushing her curly headed twins in a jogging stroller down the sidewalk.  The only difference is you have to pull over into ankle-deep mud and cower every time a semi passes and showers you with rocks.  

Back to the van!

Womp womp.

8. Now that everything is nice and muddy, pack it all back in the van.  You’ve done it!  All in a day’s work.

 So, needless to say, we kind of epically failed on our bike tour to Prudhoe Bay and back.  But, it was not in vain.  The dogs had a blast running alongside the bikes and we really enjoyed the first mile, although we quickly realized it was a lot harder than we thought it would be.  We are fairly avid road cyclists, but this was the first bike tour for us and our first time towing a bunch of weight.  I towed Titan briefly, then let him out to run, which was nice!  We learned a lot, and solidified our understanding that it will ALWAYS be easier NOT to go, but it is ALWAYS worth it to get out there and try things.  Trying and failing will always be more rewarding than never having put in the effort.  Tomorrow, we get my bike back from the shop, and then we are at it again, this time attempting 270 miles round trip on the Denali Highway.  Adventure on!