2026, Gearing up for Summer Fun
Well, we’ve made our way into 2026 and with that Andrew and I have schemed up another bikepacking adventure. This year we’re heading back east into the Wild West to conquer the Oregon Outback, a mostly gravel route created by bikepacking.com that traverses the state of Oregon from south to north. The route choice is partially due to the proximity to home, and partially as a chance to “redo” the part of it we did in 2023 where we maybe almost died of dehydration-but not really, probably. It just felt that way at the time.
More Miles
While at around a week this will be a much shorter trip than some of our other “big” adventures, this will likely be our hardest trip yet. We will be averaging 65 mile days – that’s 20 more miles per day than our Pacific Coast Tour back in 2021! To prepare for the harder adventure, both Andrew and I have been trying to step up our training game so that the ride itself will be more enjoyable.
I was recently doing some computer cleaning and in doing so I was reading through old blog posts and wow we ride a lot more than we used to. One post mentioned training by going for a long 2-2.5 hour ride on a weekend. Another was proud of a long “17 mile” ride. Since moving to Portland, a much more bike friendly city and obtaining a crew of bike friends, and even leading bike tours for work, nowadays I might string together a 2 hour ride with a commute, errands, and a social activity on a random weekday without putting any thought into it! It’s not until I hit the 30-40 mile mark that I would classify something as a long ride which is closer to 3-4 hours for me.
Me being who I am, I like to have training goals. I don’t have a perfected training schedule down, but what I typically do (and what I am doing for the Outback trip specifically) is give myself weekly mileage goals that increase by about 10% each week. I like that weekly goals give me flexibility if some fun event pops up one night or if the weather one day is just absolutely terrible.
Scout, a Ride with GPS beta game, that utilizes real time locations to earn points (sort of like Pokemon Go) has been a fun and interesting way for me to get about and add mileage to my daily commute. Combined with Wandrer (a web based challenge to ride every street) I have not been lacking in figuring out locations to ride to. I even surpassed riding 50% of Portland this spring!
While I am focused more on my weekly milage count, I am still trying to get 40-60 mile rides in once a week when schedule allows. Conveniently so far this year Andrew and I have only had to force ourselves on a couple of these longer rides on our own. Some friends have been leading a “century by summer” series of group rides ramping up mileage each month, and we’ve also been able to join friends on overnight trips at nearby campgrounds and longer unique gravel routes in the area. I am eager to get out on the outback so we can start just riding for fun instead of constantly feeling like we have to get more miles in.
We're Going Up, Up, Up
In addition to getting miles, I’ve also been trying to focus on doing more climbing on my training rides. Normally I avoid hills like the plague, but the Outback will have some long climbs, so this training season I’ve found myself randomly climbing Mt Tabor (~600ft), something I would not normally do unprovoked. I also rode up to Pittock Mansion (~900ft) for the first time this year, and I’ve already returned two more times. I’m not sure I’ll seek out these climbs post Outback trip, but it has been interesting forcing myself to do more climbs this year. Maybe I’m getting better? I’m certainly better than I was when I first moved here, but I’d still classify myself as “bad at climbing”.
Andrew doesn’t seem to have the same struggle with climbs as me. He recently went on a random ride without me the other day climbing BOTH Mt Tabor (~600ft) and Rocky Butte (~600ft) twice each!
Beyond the Bike
I will say, in training for my first bike tour 7 years ago it seems like I had done a lot more cross training. Today I’m happy to get one non bike riding workout in a week, although I do sprinkle in 15 min Physical Therapy exercises here and there. I like to act like my hiking tours I lead through work are my cross training, although those are still only like 2 miles.
Gotta Get the Gear
After riding with some of my more racey friends I’ve had a desire to more stream line by bike setup. Their bikes just look so slick. My first step towards mimicking them was getting a frame bag. We got me a used slightly too big frame bag that Andrew was able to modify to fit my bike better. My intention was to then drop my paniers and replace them with smaller dry bags strapped to my rack. Well, in packing for an overnight trip I quickly realized the cheap bike dry bags Andrew had picked up for me are just a little too small. They are 3L bags and I probably need 5-8L of space in each bag for what I want to bring. Because their are some comforts I don’t want to drop. Rather than get another set of new bags or borrow some, I think for this trip I’m going to try my small paniers (16L each) on the back of the bike, and just have a bunch of extra space. Hopefully I don’t fall into the trap of packing too much.
It’s amazing the size of our bag collection these days, and somehow I still don’t have the right bags for what I want. I’m beginning to think there’s no such thing as a perfect bike setup, it’ll just always change and evolve as I want to try new things
A Chamois Free Journey
One thing I do want to touch base on is chamois (padded bike shorts; pronounced “shammy”). I first started wearing them because everyone I rode with wore them. I learned to ride a bike for a triathlon, and and all the riders in the club I had joined wore them and so that’s what I thought you were supposed to do as a rider. While I know you don’t HAVE to have the right gear we all know the right gear makes things easier if you CAN have it. And that first bike I had had the worst saddle you could possibly imagine, so yes I did actually have to have a chamois when I first started riding!
Fast forward to today (has it really been 10 years?!). I have a well fitting comfortable Brooks saddle and most of my commuting is by bike. Since I’m not about to wear a chamois all day, or worry about changing every time I get on the bike my outings were generally split between “ride” and “commute”. Working as a bike tour guide, and having a social life revolve around riding, I noticed my chamois free “commute” rides were getting longer and longer, rivaling my “ride” rides. I also realized I didn’t notice a difference on the bike whether I wore one or not. However, OFF the bike chamois suck, AND they always smell horrendous after sweating just a little in them.
So this year I’ve decided to start a chamois free journey – everything is more fun if it’s classified as a “journey”. I put my chamois in a drawer and haven’t looked back. My longest ride so far this year was just shy of 65 miles and I had no more soreness then what I would have if I had been wearing one. I’d call that a successful experiment.
For me personally, my biggest gripe from riding is from the seam of the chamois itself- where the padding ends. The only butt pain I ever get is occasional chafing or “saddle sores” right at the seam where the chamois ends. And as it turns out bigger padding makes for a bigger seam bump. So while my typical underwear line hits at the same spot the seam bump is smaller and so in general for me much more comfortable.
I have been experimenting with different merino underwear to find the perfect fit in an odor resistant material. While not cheap, at least they are cheaper than chamois and even if I don’t like them for a long bike ride, unlike with chamois, they’re still useful off the bike. I’m sure geometry varies a lot but for me I have found Icebreaker and Ridge Merino to be my favorites. (While boy shorts or boxers would solve the problem with the seam location problem, they just don’t work with my thighs causing more issues than they solve).
Why have I wasted the last 10 years trying to find the “perfect chamois”?! My biggest pet peeve from the hunt is that they never include the pad dimensions. They’ll brag about padded thickness, even different thicknesses in different parts of the padding, but never once have I seen a pair of padded shorts that provided the width and length of the pad. Meanwhile, The width is how saddles are measured so why wouldn’t you do the same with shorts?!
Obviously we’re all different and have different needs, but sometimes its nice to be reminded that what we think is the normal or a must, isn’t what’s best for us. I know I have several Portland friends who are also chamois free and maybe never jumped on that bandwagon to begin with, but I am happy to be part of the chamois free club now! And bonus: packing for my next bike tour just got a lot more efficient!
