Bikepacking Route Planning

NGS asked me to really break down (into the nitty gritty, I think she said) the logistics for my trip. Since route planning is one of the things that takes the most time, I will start with that. Route planning is kind of a three step process: (1) prior to leaving, (2) weekly check ins/general routes (3) daily/last minute updates. 

(1) Prior to leaving. Before I left on my trip, I started by figuring out a general idea of how I wanted to do this. You would think it would be very calculated, but really for me, it went something like this. First, I knew that I wanted to do the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, which goes from Banff, Canada to Antelope Wells, NM (the Mexico border). However, instead of going "straight" there, which may have taken me through Nevada and Idaho before getting to Canada, I decided to visit some friends along the way. I also had winter to contend with so knew that I could not really go anywhere where it was still quite high in elevation or high in latitude. For this reason, I decided to stay near the west coast for a while, where it would hopefully be warmer. I also knew that when possible, I wanted to go on dirt instead of highways. 

To find routes, I used a combination of Bikepacking.com, other bikepacking websites and blogs, Komoot and Google Maps. Bikepacking.com has prearranged routes, with descriptions and maps that you can download. I chose to do the Oregon Outback through Oregon and the BC Epic 1000 from Hope, BC to Fernie, BC. To connect the two, I chose to use some of the BC portion of the Great Northern Bikepacking Route and then the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route from there. Then I used Komoot and Google Maps to fill in the gaps. 

For both of the above, they have maps that are usually made with the Ride With GPS site, and can be downloaded and/or exported to your navigation device. I have a Garmin Edge and so I then export the route to the Garmin for use on the road. You can also edit the routes on Ride With GPS, but I normally do my editing in Komoot. 

The Garmin Edge is like any other GPS navigation tool; it will tell you when to turn, how far you have gone, how fast you are going and what your elevation is etc. It also has a hill feature, where it will tell you data on each hill: how far it is from you, how long it is, and when you are on the actual hill, it will show an elevation profile. This is probably my least favorite aspect as it generally means I am struggling, but it is handy. 

Regular mileage/data screen

Turn by turn

Hills! Dark red is my enemy!

Komoot is like Google Maps, but it has options for dirt, gravel or road, and can also be used for hiking for the same reason. With this, you put in your start and end and then choose your method (road biking, mountain biking, gravel, touring) and it will figure out the best route for you. This needs to be taken with a grain of salt, as it often will take you on private or closed roads, or will go off the main route to get a more scenic route, which often results in more hills or more turns. However, it is a good start. Once the route is complete, you can save it offline into your phone, and/or you can export it to a navigation device. Note, this will also tell you your elevation gain and loss, total miles, time it will take, surfaces and way types along with an elevation profile. 

Google Maps was mostly used to look at city routes and to compare with the route that Komoot came up with to see if they or where they differ. However, I cannot export the Google Map to my Garmin, so before leaving, it was used more as a fact checker than anything else. So basically, before I left, I had the maps for my trip all the way to Antelope Wells, NM and I figured I would sort the rest out later. 

(2) Weekly check ins. As you already know, right from the get go, the snow caused me to have to change my route from California, as I had planned on going up and over some 6,500 foot mountains, but ended up having to take the lower, more flat, more road heavy route. This happened later a few times as well. What do I do in this case? I edit my existing Komoot maps, by doing a "save as" and I resave the existing route with a different name and then edit that accordingly. For example, my first iteration was Grass Valley to Klamath Falls via mountain, then the next was GV to KF via road, then the next one was GV to Redding via road! Every time I get into service and have a room, I double check the routes and the weather and update the route accordingly and re-export it to my Garmin.

Sometimes I can find a route someone else has already made on Ride With GPS and then I just use their map. For example, in BC I was going to do the BC Epic 1000 route, which goes over Gray Creek Pass. When I was in Vancouver, I posted on the BC Epic1000 FB group to see if people thought I would be able to get through and/or to get any intel on snow conditions, and I was told that I likely would not get through, so I searched on RWGPS for Gray Creek alternate, and found a map going around on a lower route. I downloaded that, exported it to my Garmin and I was ready to go. 

(3) Daily/Last Minute Updates. This does not happen a lot, but sometimes there is construction, or snow where I did not know there would be snow, or a road is closed and/or private. In this case, if I have service, I can make a new map and it will sync with my Garmin. If I am out of service, I just have to keep looking at the map, which is saved offline on my phone, in order to figure out where I may be able to go. I also always download all of my Google Maps to be offline in case this happens and even though I cannot use the biking directions when I am offline, I can at least see which route a car would take and how many miles/km it is to my destination. 

I also have to check the route every few days depending on what the accommodation options are. If I am in a national forest, this is easy, as I can generally camp wherever I want. If I am in civilization, often my daily mileage is decided by where the next place to stay is. I try to figure this out every few days so I am not doing back to back long days with no services in between. I also like to have a room at least once per week; otherwise I get cranky and hungry and stinky, so I may prepare my route to do a long day today so that I can have a short day of riding and a long day in town tomorrow. 

I know that is a lot, so here is the TLDR (at the end!) 

Bikepacking.com: tried and true pre-made routes (usually multi-day & more off road)
Ride with GPS: GPS routes that anyone can put online (may need verification) / can make own route 

Komoot: GPS routes that anyone can put online (may need verification) / can make own route

Google Maps: best for towns/roads/use offline for general area

Alternative tried and true sites: Great Northern Bikepacking, Bikepacking Roots, Adventure Cycling Association (fee required). 

Alternative mapping tool: Gaia GPS

What route planning tools do you use for your hikes/runs/bike rides/road trips? If you are going for multiple days, do you always plan out every day beforehand or do you have some days that are ad hoc? 

If you haven't already, you can fill out this form with any questions you want answered for my upcoming ask me anything post!!

This post is part of NaBloPoMo. You can find the rest of my posts for this challenge here. You can find the list of participants and their information here. P.S. This is a draft I started in September 2024! I am clearing off the dust here! 

How To: Plan Your Vacation With AI

I recently fiddled around with AI a little to see what it could offer in the way of vacation planning. It is not all encompassing but it can definitely be a good place to start! Here I will walk you through what I did to create an example of an itinerary for a trip to Germany in December. I used ChatGPT, which can be found here. To get information you just type what you want into the chat box; you can also paste information in the box and ask it to summarize, analyze or expand on the information. 

First, I asked it to create a seven day itinerary in Germany in December that could be done without renting a car, all within 150 miles of Frankfurt, and it should be fun for kids aged 10 to 15, with interests such as WWII history, castles, medieval cities and traditional German food. I did this and it spit out a good itinerary, but then after reviewing it, some of the places were a bit out of the way, like one day was 150 miles to the west of Frankfurt and the other was 150 miles to the east, which seemed like too much time spent on transportation and not enough spent in the cities themselves. 

Additionally, some cities on the list had lots of large government buildings, which seemed less important to me than WWII history or castles. I decided I wanted less government buildings and maybe a live sporting event, which would be fun for the kids, so I told it to edit those parts and it did. It even told me that if I want to go to a live hockey game, I may want to get tickets early, as they sell out fast. Here is an example of one day on the itinerary: 

For this example specifically, I asked it to provide some restaurants with vegetarian options in old town and it came up with seven of them. Here is an example: 

I then asked it use the finalized itinerary and do the following: Please use the last itinerary to provide a cost estimate for four people, using the train or bus and staying in low/mid range hotels. It broke it down by category and summarized it here: 

Obviously this may not be exact, and I have not fact checked it yet, and we would probably not eat out every meal or need two hotel rooms, but this is a pretty good start! I then decided that with four people, the transportation by train and bus seemed a little high, so I asked it to recalculate using car rental and parking in the estimate instead. Here is what it came up with: 

It also reminded me of the following: 

Additional Tips for Car Travel

Insurance: Ensure you have adequate car rental insurance coverage. Check if your personal car insurance or credit card offers coverage to potentially save on additional rental insurance costs.

Navigation: Use a reliable GPS or smartphone navigation app to help navigate unfamiliar areas and find parking locations.

Parking Apps: Consider downloading parking apps specific to German cities to find and pay for parking more conveniently.

Autobahn Rules: Familiarize yourself with German driving laws, including Autobahn regulations, speed limits in certain areas, and winter driving conditions.

Isn't this cool? As you can see, you can really drill down if you want to. I don't know if we will use all of the suggestions, but will likely use a couple of them, so it is a lot easier than having to do all of the research myself! Please let me know if you would like more info on what the full suggested itinerary looks like! In addition, let me stress that my favorite way to find good travel suggestions is from real people! So, I will ask all of you: if you have ever been to Germany, do YOU have any suggestions of places to visit within 150 miles of Frankfurt? 

Have you ever used AI to plan a vacation? Have you ever used AI for anything else? If so, what was it and how did it go? 

My FODMAP Journey

I have always been a good eater. A member of the clean plate club. A proponent of eating anything and  everything and lots of it. I have never been a picky eater. However, I have always had an issue with slight bloating. It never was horrible, but if I ate a big bowl of cauliflower for lunch, a bowl of chili for dinner and two apples with peanut butter for dessert, I would probably have a slight stomach bulge, or what we would call a burrito baby, and would definitely have tight pants. Usually it was gone the next morning and I could go about my day. 

However, a couple of years ago, I noticed that it was becoming more frequent and more severe and it seemingly didn't really matter what I ate, if I ate or if I didn't eat, how much I ate etc. I was often so bloated that I looked I was five months pregnant (and felt that way too!) and was having severe pains in my upper stomach at times. I went to see a gastroenterologist and she gave me a blood test which came back all clear and then put me on a low FODMAP diet. What the heck is a FODMAP, you ask? FODMAP stands for Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides and Polyols. So now that we are clear... But wait, what? We are not clear? What is all that gibberish, you ask? 

Disclaimer: I am no doctor, nor chemist, nor biologist. But I took organic chemistry once a long time ago, so I will attempt to break it down. These are short-chain carbohydrates (sugars) that the small intestine absorbs poorly, and eating them can cause digestive issues (often due to them fermenting while in the intestine). All of the fancy names have to do with how many units make up the chain. For the purposes of matching the Monash list, let's refer to them as Oligos (which include fructans, not to be confused with fructose), Lactose (Di), Fructose (Mono) and...Polyols (which includes mannitol and sorbitol). Still a bit lost? 

You will be familiar with many of the main culprits: beans, wheat, cauliflower, lactose and garlic, along with many other fruits and vegetables. Some of the items are red, as in do not eat at all, and that is manageable. However, some are yellow, as in you can have 10 grams of it and be okay. However, you may not be able to have 10 grams of one yellow and 10 grams of another without having issues. Plus, who eats only 43 grams of corn? P.S. That is about 2 tablespoons. You can see the full detailed list here (as of 2022). 

From Ecosh

The first step of the diet is the elimination phase. For me, this was an eight week period where I eliminated all of the red and most of the yellow items on the list. To be honest, I did feel better during this phase, but it is a pain in the butt. You can't have garlic or onions or beans or wheat or lactose. I definitely did not eat out except for maybe once (Japanese was really the only thing I could eat, except soy was also not allowed - sashimi anyone?) and was "that guy" at any dinner with friends ("I'll just have a plain lettuce leaf with a whipped air dressing and a glass of water, thanks"). It did keep me from snacking (I ate A LOT of carrot sticks) because my main go to is fruit, which was probably the hardest part of this phase. I love fruit, especially apples, which are on the red list. 

The second part is the reintroduction phase. Do not think that this is all an all-you-can-eat fun party, because its not. This is another eight to ten week phase where you introduce one food from one category for three days straight, ramp up the quantity each day, see how it affects you and then go back to elimination for four days. Then on week two, you try a different category for three days, take four days off, try a new category for three days... you get the picture. The twist is that even if you think that the item does not bother you, you do not continue eating it. Basically except for the three days where you ate it, for the other seven weeks and four days, you are essentially still eliminating that category. You can read more on the Monash website. 

The reason you do it for so many weeks even though there are only four categories is that you may need to try several things in the same category. For example, garlic, onions, beans, bread and many common vegetables are in the oligosaccharide category. Its best to test out each one separately, as one of them may be the trigger, but you won't necessarily have an issue with all of them. And who wants to give up garlic if they don't have to!?

You also want to make sure you are trying things that are only in one category. For example, apples have both fructose and polyols, so you would not want to see if fructose is your issue by having an apple because if you did have an issue you would not know if it was the fructose or the polyol. You would be better off to have orange juice, a fig, or a mango to see if fructose was the issue (or rum apparently, although I would stick to something you consume often - you do you). For polyols you might want to try a yellow peach, cauliflower or a mushroom. This NHS video is also very helpful in explaining the reintroduction method. 

My nine weeks worth of tests were: 

Oligos (broken into five): black beans, garlic, onions, bread, artichoke

Lactose (Di): yogurt

Fructose (Mono): mango

Polyols (broken into two): avocado (sorbitol) and cauliflower (mannitol)

Of course all of this is done alongside journaling and really trying to be at one with your intestines, which can be fun but tedious at the same time, and trying to live life. Was that stomach rumble hunger, or should I have not eaten more than 27 grams of cauliflower today? Do I have a tummy ache from the bread, or was it the two bowls of oatmeal I ate this morning with butter and maple syrup? 

To wrap this up for now, I know you are wondering what the end result was. I would like to say that one thing really bugged me, I stopped eating it and I am happy and svelte and bloat free. However, that is not the case. I have learned that there are a few things, or high quantities of other things, that do seem to be worse, but there are still times when I do not eat those items and I have issues, so it is still a work in progress. Usually I find out by making a mistake (i.e. do not eat two large bowls of popcorn in one sitting, especially after eating three bean soup) but at least I am on the right path. I am not on full reduction, but something more like a maintenance phase for now. 

Also, like I said, I am not a health professional and I usually am not a proponent of supplements either but I started taking two probiotics that were recommended by a friend of my brothers and they seem to help a little: the first you take right before you eat, and the second you take at the end of the day after you are done eating. They are kind of expensive, and it took about a week before I noticed any effect, but they do seem to help reduce the tight pant syndrome! Sometimes that feeling of tight pants is not just physically demoralizing, but mental too and so in this case, I will try anything! 

Feel free to reach out personally with questions; I am happy to get into (TMI) more detail if needed! 

Have you ever had gastro issues? If so, what did you do to get rid of them? If not, what other issues have you had and how did you overcome them? 

How To: Eat A Burrito

Mr. Lovely is from Back East. When he first came to California, he was a burrito virgin. Okay, sure, he may have had one of those things that are kind of wet and slimy and covered with red sauce and come with a side of rice and beans. Those are good, but in California, that is not the kind of burrito we are referring to when we talk about a burrito. There is a certain kind of burrito; it is bigger than your head.

And there is a certain way to eat this burrito. Don't be like Mr. Lovely and pull all the (2 layers!) of foil off, exposing the naked tortilla! Don't get pollo asada all over your hands!! Keep the re-fried beans from going all over your lap! Don't embarrass yourself!

I am here to keep that from happening to you. Hopefully we caught it in time.

How to eat a San Francisco Burrito like a local: 

(1) Start with the key players laid out. The burrito. The salt. The chips. The salsa. Napkins.

(2) Now, this is important. There are two layers of foil. Remove the outer layer only. Now, tear only the top portion of the inner foil layer off, leaving about half of the foil at the bottom to hold onto as you eat.

(3) As you eat the burrito, tear the foil down little by little, always leaving yourself a hand hold. Not only does this keep your hand from touching the burrito, but it keeps the juices from landing on your lap.

(4) More of the same. I also like to add salt and salsa little by little to each bite and scoop up that and any excess innards with chips as I move down the burrito.

(6) Even when you get to almost the very bottom, you still have clean hands!

(7) At the very bottom, once you have only a few bites left, remove the remaining foil. Quickly take the few bites, so as to not make a mess. OR eat all three bites as one bite, covering your mouth with aforementioned napkins. Or not. Nobody will judge.

And there you have it. Now you are ready for an experience of a lifetime! Now the only question is, what kind of burrito will you try first?

How do you eat YOUR burrito? Do you have a food that is specific to your area? What food eating rituals do you follow?

Waste Not, Want Not

Last year I ended up with a bunch of Christmas cards that I did not want to throw stuff away, so I decided that I was going to attempt to make something out of them. I saw something similar on my friend Tammy’s site, but hers were way cooler since she has the tag punch that makes cool shapes. All I had was a pair of pinking shears and a hole-punch. I am not very crafty, but it was fun anyway and they work, even if they are not beautiful.

In an effort to get rid of stuff and keep my suitcase storage unit life organized, I am trying to use things I already have to aid me in wrapping and boxing and ribboning. It is hard, because you don’t want to save too much stuff, thinking “I will use this later” (just like the similar, “I will fix this later” and “I will make this later” where stuff starts to easily pile up), but I hate to have to go out and buy something that I know I could have easily already had.

Even worse is when you do save something to use and then you can’t find it so you have to buy it again anyway. This happens to me when I am traveling. For example, I went to Missouri in June. It was HOT. As autumn started to arrive, I had to buy a couple of sweaters even though I already had plenty at home. Since I was not going home any time soon, it was the only solution, other than having some sent. However, I solved it by buying them at the thrift store for two dollars each.

Oops, I got sidetracked. What I was trying to say is that this year I not only saved the cards from last year, but I made something out of them AND found them so I could use them again this year (that last part is key). Score, score and triple score. I even talked my Dad into using some of them! He’s weird though. He doesn’t care if they match the wrapping paper or not. Doesn't he know they are supposed to match? (yes, I know, I am the weird one)

What you’ll need:

Pinking Shears

Hole-Punch (or you can buy one of those punches at Michaels that make your card into a certain shape. They are really fun. There are round, flower shaped and many more.)

Colored Pens

Last Year’s Christmas Cards

Cut the cards into different sized squares (or whatever shape you want really.)

Punch holes into them. I couldn’t decide whether to do it in the middle of the top or the corner of the top. I ended up choosing the middle, but after using a few, I may use the corner for some of them next time. 

If you want, you can write “to” and “from” on them now. I did some for now and then wrote on others once I wrapped the gift. It’s up to you. 

Now you have fun Christmas tags! 

Attach the tags to presents using ribbon. Voila! (matchy, matchy)

Do you re-use anything from last year’s Christmas? Do you make anything crafty out of your old Christmas items?  What do you do with your old Christmas cards?