Axiom Champlain DLX opinions/thoughts??

sal_marin · 12 days

I used a pair of Axiom Typhoons on a cross-country trip. It's a good brand and compared to Ortlieb (the gold standard for touring), Axiom's attachment system is more secure at the cost of being slightly harder to put on/take off of racks. After thousands of miles I don't really have a distinct preference between Ortlieb and Axiom, I think they're both great.

It looks like the Champlains are water-resistant as opposed to waterproof so if you're planning on biking in the rain (which you should be) you're going to need rain covers or to line the inside with a trash bag or something. Personally I prefer waterproof bags so I don't have to worry about such things. So if it were me I'd go with the Typhoon/Monsoon Pro Tour or Aero DLX.

mileswallet · 15 days

Shameless self promotion: I made http://www.bikedetour.com based on the code I wrote to track my own cross-country tour - it lets you track your progress on your cell phone by entering your location however often you want and it lets you generate map widgets that you can put on your blog.

Never got around to polishing it up but the basic functionality all works.

onanismaximus · 20 days

I had similar timing on my tour two years ago - leaving mid-August (mine was east to west).

I rode across the Colorado Rockies in late September/early October. It got pretty cold at night at elevation but was no big deal. Apparently I missed a dusting of snow by a day or two but nothing terrible. Bring a jacket and you'll be fine.

natehotchkiss · 23 days

Maybe this isn't the answer you want to hear, but yes I do have experience getting funding. I worked and saved up money then quit my job and went on tour. It helps doubly if you don't use your vacation time while working because you get a big payout when you leave! (Probably worth checking if they actually do that beforehand though.)

InspirationalQuoter · 28 days

If you just want to pick any topic you want for the FAQ and write up a bit then I'll include it!

InspirationalQuoter · 28 days

Why is there no FAQ/wiki?

Working on it! Nobody volunteered to help so I'm doing it all myself, hopefully I'll get to finishing it up in the next couple weeks.

Branch_McDaniel · 1 month

I know what you mean about romanticizing a tour in retrospect, but isn't that how it is for a lot of adventures? They can be rather grueling and miserable some of the time but they also give you rewards and memories unattainable otherwise.

I hope you do manage to get some small tours this year! I've found that even overnight tours can give you a glimpse of that "open road" feeling that makes touring so special.

But anyways, I did write a journal of my cross-country tour, it's up on http://www.imbikingacrossthecountry.com/

Branch_McDaniel · 1 month

I assume you wrote your journal while on tour and just transcribed it to cgoab?

In any case, it was a great read, thanks for submitting it here! I'm sorry to hear about the end of the trip seeming somewhat lackluster. When I biked across the US in 2010 I had the same worries — I was approaching San Diego and didn't know anyone in the town. I was really lucky to run into a few other cross-country cyclists in the last few days with whom to celebrate at the end.

It's coming up on two years later, have your feelings on the tour changed? Gone on any more tours?

besselfunctions · 1 month

I think another big one is what bike to use. And general advice for touring/finding routes.

fitniz · 1 month

In my opinion you just have to want it. A lot. That's really what matters most.

As long as you don't have to stick to a strict schedule with your tour then you can just take things at your own pace and build up stamina.

Break up your day into many smaller rides. I usually stop every hour or two while on tour to have a snack/drink some water, even if it's just on the side of a highway (actually, that's where it is 90% of the time).

But just to give my sole data point, I was able to complete a 70 mile ride with about half-loaded panniers before my cross-country tour.

gergemaine · 1 month

Sorry for the confusion, I've edited the post to hopefully make it more clear. 1k = 1,000 miles toured, etc.

gergemaine · 1 month

That's the general idea — it's mainly to indicate your experience as a bicycle tourist.

RAGEBIKEATHON · 1 month

Yes, I'd like to introduce flair.

I'm not too keen on the # of miles ridden badge, I don't think it's a metric that we really want to promote. But I'm willing to reconsider if that's what people want.

Please post your thoughts here.

arekabsolute · 2 months

I did part of the western express and had worries similar to yours. The route through the Rockies is phenomenal. I went in late September/early October and it did get pretty cold at night (near freezing) in some areas in the Rockies. At the same time, it gets pretty hot in Nevada so you'll be experience weather extremes pretty much no matter what. It happens though, just bring a jacket.

Once you hit Utah services get pretty sparse. I was heading towards San Diego so I cut off of the route and headed south. However the full route looks incredibly scenic so I'm sure that you would be rewarded if you decided to go all the way.

I'm pretty sure you'll need a water filter or iodine for the remote sections of Utah... or the willingness to carry a couple extra gallons of water. I used to carry spare water in gatorade bottles but a large water bladder might be more convenient.

jaekim · 2 months

For a number of years I had to make sure all of my sites were 508 compliant.

Writing good semantic HTML will get you 90% of the way there. This may be more than what you currently consider good semantic HTML to be.

Make sure that any fancy javascript features you develop are keyboard-navigable.

Add a "skip navigation" link at the top. You can make this "invisible" if you want. I'm not sure if that's a generally used term, it's just what I call it. Content that is "display: none" is not read by screen readers so I always use a ".invisible" class to hide content from view that should still be read by screen readers. I think my standard invisible css was "width:1px; height:1px; overflow:hidden; position: absolute; left: -9999px;"

I rarely went as far as using a screen reader to test my sites - only busted it out when I was really unsure how a page/feature would read. It's hard because the people who are using your site with screen readers are a million times better at using screen readers than you are, so unless you want to become a screen reader expert you just have to write good code and sort of cross your fingers.

Check out:

http://www.reddit.com/r/webaccess/

http://webaim.org/resources/

kibbutz · 2 months

One thing I like to do is to check historical weather data. Wikipedia has this for cities:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix,_Arizona#Climate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albuquerque,_New_Mexico#Climate

(click "show" on the climate data bar down a little bit)

http://www.weatherspark.com is also good for this.

It depends on your exact route, but at elevations of ~5000-6000 feet in the winter it looks like it's in the 50s during the day and 15-30 at night. Bring a 0 or 15 degree sleeping bag and a good sleeping pad.

blckorder · 2 months

I think the brightness is fine, I don't have too much experience with other lights though.

On my last extended tour I biked across the US with a 70 lumen battery light (Princeton Tec EOS) and I found it insufficient for riding at night. At speeds greater than 8 mph it couldn't illuminate far enough for me to be able to react to objects as they became visible.

In comparison, the E3 pro is able to light up the road far enough ahead that I feel comfortable rolling down unlit hills at 20+mph. Side-visibility probably isn't the greatest. And if the light is getting washed out under street lamps then you should be able to see the road plenty fine anyways, right?

Edit: when riding behind people, they have often thought there was a car behind them, if that gives you a sense of the brightness.

blckorder · 2 months

I love my Supernova E3 light - it lights up the road really well and the crown mount location is great. A quick google search will bring up some US distributors - I got mine from aebike.com with the symmetrical lens.

I know at least one person here uses the PedalPower+ for USB charging. I don't have one but am planning on purchasing it.

anvaka · 2 months

Yeah, the javascript library I'm using is terrible. Eventually I'd like to make it more google maps-esque where the whole of reddit is show and you can pan around to see the different closely-knit communities and their connections. That issue is why I hadn't shared it yet.

anvaka · 2 months

Hey look I did the same thing a few weeks ago! :)

http://www.mapreddit.com

CrashCourseInCrazy · 2 months

FYI your link isn't showing up — you can't submit both a link and text. Mind giving us the link in the comments?

dontgoatsemebro · 3 months

Cool beans. Would you be interested in beta testing it? I'll start working and should have something within a couple weeks.

dontgoatsemebro · 3 months

I wrote a little web app for my tour where I could log my location and generate maps from that - see http://www.imbikingacrossthecountry.com/?page_id=123 - it's not as fully featured as TrackMyTour but it's platform agnostic.

It works by visiting a webpage on your phone which autopopulates your current coordinates (when given permission), and you can enter a note too. Would there be any interest in turning this into a service that anyone can use which generates widgets you can include on your blog?

friarobaz · 3 months

Arizona: You're right, the road between Cameron and Kayenta is pretty boring. It's relatively flat though and shouldn't take much more than a day.

Utah: Your route in here goes through some very beautiful territory, but be warned that some of it is on steep gravel roads. Specifically, I'm thinking of rt 261 north of Mexican hat, there's a switchback up the side of a mesa that was pretty rough. pic1 pic2. I assume you'll have somewhat fat/knobby tires for the great divide though, so you'll probably be okay.

I've never liked planning out trips in so much detail as you're doing, but to each his own. Your trip looks awesome though and I'm extremely jealous. Have a great time!

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