When planning this trip, Peter and I decided to ride on gravel roads/trails when possible, to stay away from traffic. That would lead us to remote areas where camping might be the only option for sleeping. Plus, Peter really likes bike camping. We choose to have a bike camping trip as opposed to “In to In” (stay in hotels).
I had never done bike camping and had to prepare from scratch. The first is to select camping gears. They are described in Equipment. The second is to train to use camping gears (setting up and packing quickly and perhaps in the dark) and to climb with all gears plus water and food loaded. I particularly trained on climbing because having lived and rode in Miami, FL for 20 years, I was a poor climber on bike. Over a year (spring 2024 – spring 2025) I have logged 44 fully loaded (50 lb) training rides that covered totally 2,291 miles (max daily distance 110 mi) with total 92,026 ft ascent climbed (more than that of the entire the trip) and a max daily climbing of 4,199 ft (more than the daily max during the trip). Because of my training, I found the challenge of climbing during the trip, including climbing over the Rockies in Montana, not very difficult. This is in a sharp contrast to Peter, who did not train much at all (6 fully loaded ride, max daily distance 60 mi) and suffered a lot from the hills during the ride. On camping, I made three overnight trips with one-, two- and three-night camping in state parks of Washington. By the time we started our trip, the only thing I was not sure was riding day after day for two months, which you just can’t train for, as said by a friend Pat Harr. Pat did a coast-to-coast ride and shared with us his experience.
Chidong Zhang's WA2MA Bike Trip 
Leave a comment