A Day in the Life of a Bicycle Traveler: What 'they' don't tell you in the guidebooks by Bill Poindexter

A Day in the Life of a Bicycle Traveler by Bill Poindexter - from his Bikepacking School substack:

I start riding usually heading into a town if there’s a town around or I’ll stop somewhere to have breakfast number two usually a couple hours after I start riding because you always need a second breakfast as the first breakfast is just to lay a base, the second breakfast is to get you through the day. Those breakfasts are the most fun though and usually the main meal of the day especially if you’re in a town you want a lot of calories for the rest of the day. My favorite is the traditional breakfast of coffee, hash, brown potatoes, and Two or three eggs I prefer them over easy with either sausage or bacon and perhaps a side of Johnny cakes if they’re available basically cornbread type pancakes but they’re hard to fine except on the East Coast -then you have to find somebody who can really make a true johnnycake Which is basically just water cornmeal bacon fat slathered with butter and syrup, real syrup and perhaps I have a glass of milk in an orange juice or just stick to the traditional breakfast.

One of my secrets, I order extra bacon and toast and then make a bacon sandwich with strawberry jam that can always get me over the next mountain.

Kansas-photo by Randy Rasa

I ride until early afternoon perhaps 2 or 3 and have lunch number one- usually that bacon sandwich or something else perhaps usually on the road if I’m in a fast wilderness area are usually stop right in the middle of a road if there’s no cars around or on the side of the road really doesn’t matter nothing fancy pull out my food bag and see what I have and eat what I have. Food on an expedition usually consists of a frozen burrito, thawed, or maybe a tortilla with peanut butter and banana and some honey or perhaps a tortilla with some foraged greens with tuna fish and cheese slathered with mayonnaise, perhaps some chips sprinkles on top and you just want high density food lots of calories and then I’ll take a quick nap usually about 15 minutes laying on my back on the ground directly.

Somewhere on Kansas Gravel-Photo by Randy Rasa

Usually on the road.

The gravel road or the shoulder so as to let the body reset and then get up and ride two or three more hours.

Time and space sometimes transcend as I watch the sun arc across the sky. 

Read Bill's full article here.

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