Route Reports

Bike Touring The Dempster Highway - Our Report

rfay — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 08:00:00 +0000

Since we did the Dempster from Inuvik to Dawson City this summer (2006) I thought I'd write some notes about the trip for other cyclists. If you have additional notes, please add your comments to this page.

Resources
- The Milepost is essential. Copy or rip out the section about the Dempster and you'll know where every pullout and campground is.
- Alys and Pete's book Alaska Bicycle Touring Guide is getting mighty old, but it's the only place you can find out where water is available. That's something that matters to a cyclist and not to most other travelers.
- Journals from other riders who did the Dempster: Jeff Kruys (2006), Murray Snyder (2006), Mike Vermuelen (1996)
Things you'll need
- Mosquito headnet (or full body suit) and repellent. Mostly we liked the headnet instead of repellent.
- Bear Cache/Cannister (or see our note on using garbage cans as a cache)
- Eye protection - lots of dust and things flying.
- Water capacity enough for the 100km section of no water between Eagle Plains and where the Ogilvie River leaves the highway.
- Water filter or chemicals
- Spare tire and tubes. We had no problems, but plenty of cyclists and motorists have had destroyed tires from the sharp shale sections.
General notes
- Don't forget that you can't get across the Mackenzie or Peel Rivers during freezeup or breakup. You'll need to know when the road is likely to open if you want to travel those stretches.
- You can send half your food ahead to Eagle Plains - mark the box with your name and "please hold for cyclist". You can typically arrange this at the visitor center in either Dawson City or in Inuvik. There are a lot of kind motorists travelling this route.
- Almost everybody travelling this road is actually a friend and a support vehicle. In case of bike trouble, water trouble, etc., you'll probably come out OK by asking for help.
- The road was pretty fair quality dirt road when we went. It's way better than most dirt roads I've travelled, both in terms of grade and quality. However, some sections turn to horrendous mud in the rain, and of course cyclists hate the mud. You may want to leave your fenders at home.
- You can camp at gravel pits, rest stops, etc., in addition to the campgrounds. In a number of places it's hard to camp on the swampy or permafrost areas off the highway except in these places.
- Spend some time hiking at Tombstone if you can.
- Eagle Plains Hotel had fair prices (only $10/night for camping - included the shower! - although there was a place for quarters you didn't have to use it.)
- You can buy some food from the kitchen at Eagle Plains, but they don't have anything in their store. But you can probably get a loaf of bread, for example.
- Engineer Creek Campground has unthinkable water. Get water just downstream at the Ogilvie River bridge instead and haul it to the campground.
- Fort McPherson has most services, but Tsiigehtchic (Arctic Red River) has basically none.
- Tires and bike: I used a mountain bike with Continental "Traffic" tires, and Nancy used a touring bike with Shwalbe Marathon XR tires. These worked great. I do recommend some tread and a wider tire for this route.
- The 100km section between where the road leaves the Ogilvie River (northbound) to Eagle Plains has no good water. Plan to get water there or at Eagle Plains (southbound) for this section. A motorist might cache some water for you at a kilometer marker as well. Kilometers are marked on even kilometers and most of the markers are there.

Touring Cyclists' Report on the Cassiar Highway

rfay — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 00:06:31 +0000

We wanted to write a quick report on the Cassiar Highway for other touring cyclists. We had a good trip (2006, north-to-south), and some things were easier than expected.

The Cassiar is a cyclist's delight, even though we had a fairly rough time with it. The traffic is light, the road is generally good, and the services are more frequent than we expected.
The road is mostly paved (about 90%) and not too difficult. There are plenty of hills, but no huge passes. The 10% that is not paved can be fairly difficult (it was all mud for us, and we hate mud). But it's not really all that bad. They expect to finish all the paving in the next couple of years.
We found groceries at several places we didn't necessarily expect them. The stores at Good Hope Lake, Dease Lake, Iskut, and Stewart all had groceries. All of those except Good Hope Lake had excellent variety. However, there was nothing at Meziadin Junction. The kind woman at Moose Meadows (north of Dease River Crossing, which is north of Dease Lake) also stocks some imperishables just for the cyclists who come through.
Go to Stewart and Hyder. You'll regret passing them by, even though they're off the route. You'll want to see the glaciers and the bears at Fish Creek!
Coming from North to South we went to Watson Lake to resupply, but we probably didn't have to, because we could have figured something out by getting enough food at Teslin and then getting a little at Good Hope Lake to get us into Dease Lake.

Vancouver Island touring cyclist report

rfay — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 03:14:43 +0000

Vancouver Island is about 300 miles long on the highway. We had a pleasant time touring it, but were surprised by the traffic on the narrow road up north (no surprise since we've been on the easy northern roads for so long).

The section from Port Hardy to Port McNeil was quite pleasant, and we really liked Alert Bay, and also went to Sointula. Very nice cycling.

From Port McNeil to Campbell River was quite bad - much of it has no shoulder, and there are lots of big trucks, including logging trucks.

From Campbell River to Nanaimo was rideable, but not terribly pleasant. There was a lot of traffic on a road with adequate shoulder, but certainly too much traffic.

From Nanaimo south, the roads were great, like New England. Small country roads with little traffic and nice views (and nice hills). Very pleasant. Lots of access to the various islands. We used a bicycle-specific map for this area, the "Victoria/Gulf Islands Cycling and Walking Map". It gave lots of information about the various routes and got us off the main highway.

And the Victoria area (especially Sidney) is delightful, with lots of access to everything for cyclists.

Pacific Coast Route Touring Cyclist Report

rfay — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 22:09:39 +0000

The US Pacific Coast is one of the most popular tours in the world. Despite our plans, we ended up doing the whole thing (just under 2000 miles), and I wanted to write a few notes about this incredibly beautiful trip and the wonderful resources that are provided for touring cyclists.

You just can't believe how well-set-up the Pacific Coast is for the touring cyclist. There are books on how to do it, there are wonderful state parks all the way with hiker-biker sites at ridiculously cheap prices and with a shower every night. You never have to buy food ahead of time or plan your food carefully or carry any - there's another town with a nice grocery where you can buy it.

One other unique characteristic: It's so nicely set up for touring cyclists that there are an enormous number of them. And since everybody is in the hiker-biker sites, you get to meet all the touring cyclists. Whereas in the north country we might meet the occasional cyclist, and might end up camping with them, on the coast it's every night you're meeting a bunch of people. It was so intense that there was a night in California that I hid in my tent because I just couldn't seek out the stories of all those people and tell them our story. There were too many.

And it's so beautiful. Riding along the rugged coast, watching the seaside birds playing in the waves, walking along the quite giant redwood ancient forest, pedaling in the foggy morning past the working lighthouse, wandering along the tidal pools, are just a few incredible moments we enjoyed while bicycling down the Pacific Coast Bike Route. We met so many more bicycle tourists and incredible people then we could have every imagined also enjoying the magic of the Western United States Coast. We loved the ride and highly recommend this bicycle adventure.

There are 3 major guides to the coast:

Bicycling the Pacific Coast. This is the book we used. It's useful, sometimes out of date when it shouldn't be. Tells you why you should go a particular way, and discusses the route, and alternative routes. This seems to be the most popular route book used. We found it's heavy and probably too wordy. It ignores resources they don't approve of, like campsites that don't have showers. If they don't have a shower and a hiker-biker site, they probably won't show up. We went to a few campsites which where not recommended in the book because they did not have facilities such as the inexpensive hiker/biker sites or warm showers or where just not mentioned as an option. We found that several campgrounds listed as "no hiker-biker" or "no hot showers" did have these wonderful features because of recent improvements. Also, most commercial campsites are ignored and were mentioned only if there was no other options such as State Parks, National Parks, U.S. Forest parks, County or Regional Parks.
Lonely Planet's Cycling USA West Coast, which covers more than just the Pacific Coast route - has several other loops in it, etc. A friend used this successfully. It's a bit smaller. I think it has less info, but more density. It's older than the latest revision of Bicycling the Pacific Coast, but that didn't really get a full update on the last revision, I don't think.
Adventure Cycling's maps. These get updated continually by comments from members and users, so they're probably the most up-to-date. They also seem to take you off a busy highway at every single opportunity. They don't tell you why, or let you think about whether it's worth it. But knowing that a detour is available is a very nice thing. Bicycling the Pacific Coast seemed to keep us on the highway a few times when it would have been better to take an odd route around.

Finally, there are a couple of simple maps that are outstanding.

Oregon publishes a great map that shows it all - probably everything you need for that state. You can order a hard-copy of the map.
Krebs Cycle Products has a number of maps of northern California that are concise, light, and quite excellent.

Our comments about the coast:

The whole coast is intensely beautiful. You just can't keep riding because there's so much to see and photograph.
We had incredibly good weather. We started down the coast from Port Angeles, Washington on August 25 and finished in San Diego on October 22. If every year is like 2006, you should try to go this time of year. We had mostly sunny days, very few rainy days, and overall delightful weather. Almost always we had a tailwind through Washington and Oregon which is why most folks cycle from the North to the South. A few days we rode into the strong Santa Anna winds in Southern California which usually pick up in the late fall
This is not an easy ride. There are difficult places with the traffic, including tunnels and bridges in Oregon and some pretty tricky traffic spots in Washington, Oregon and California. There are plenty of logging trucks in Washington and parts of Oregon which you can hear grumbling up the hills and coming down your back. That's the bad news. The good news is, you can hear them from a long distance away and can get off the road in plenty of time if situation requires it. If you're not comfortable riding with traffic or are bothered by traffic noise, some of the sections will really irritate you. There are lots of sections that are quiet and safe, but there are a number of exceptions. You will need a mirror that works for you and if you wear obnoxiously bright clothes, to be as visible to drivers in every way.

Peru Route: July 13 to October 9, 2008

rfay — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:17:57 +0000

Explore in Google Earth

Here is our route in Peru.

Each day has elevation profile, map, and GPS information.

Other recommended information sources::

We used the trip notes from 2bike.be,(at the bottom of the page) which are quite detailed and very useful. They include total elevation and what shops and hospedajes are found along the way.
PDFs of daily route notes from Florian and Rebekkah are gems of information. These are rehashes of a set that has been carried by many cyclists.
- Anna Wittert's notes from Leymebamba to Celendin in northern Peru and Cajamarca to Trujillo on the back roads
- Trujillo to Huancayo
- Huancayo to Cuzco
- Cuzco to La Paz
Also, Pius and Stefan of panamerica.ch have done a great job with more consolidated elevation profiles than we show here. Take a look at their Peru map page and study their route profiles in PDF format. They took our same route from Trujillo to Bolivia.
Maps: We used the Rough Guide Map of Peru most of the time, and thought it was pretty decent. ITMB also has a map, and Lima2000 has a pretty decent map that you can get within the country.
GPS: The free routeable GPS maps at perut.org have been recommended highly. Also, Guiacalles.com in Lima has a full GPS map for sale.

Skip to:

Ecuador to Cajamarca
Trujillo to Huancayo
Huancayo to Bolivia

Ecuador border to Cajamarca

The route we took is difficult and opened only in 2000 or so, so most cycle tourists seem to go the Panamerican Highway from Loja, Ecuador to Trujillo, Peru. This is fairly fast, but they all hate it. On the contrary, we really loved the mountainous way we went, even though it's challenging.

From the border there is a gentle but long climb of 1300 meters and then a descent into San Ignacio. It's mostly downhill then to the valley of the Rio Marañon at just 400 meters of elevation. We took a turnoff and went through Bella Vista instead of staying on the main road through Jaen. This saved many kilometers and was a pretty pleasant (dirt) road cutoff. We took a small ferry across the river just beyond Bella Vista.

After returning to the highway and getting to Bagua Grande, we started the beautiful climb up the Rio Utcubamba to Pedro Ruiz. Because of road construction we had to take a combi from the intersection there to Chachapoyas. Then lovely dirt road to El Tingo (Kuelap) and Leymebamba. From Leymebamba to Celendín is a huge climb and drop to the Rio Marañon again; we did it in a potato truck. Then from Celendín to Cajamarca is one pass - there is pavement on the Cajamarca side. We took a bus from Cajamarca to Trujillo.

Ride	date	miles/km	Elev ft/mt
Namballe, Peru to San Ignacio, Peru	2008-07-13	28/45	4300/1327
San Ignacio to Tamborada	2008-07-16	45/73	1650/509
Tamborada to Bagua Grande via Bella Vista	2008-07-17	43/69	2034/628
Bagua Grande to Pedro Ruiz and by combi to Chachapoyas	2008-07-18	42/68	3600/1111
Chachapoyas to El Tingo	2008-07-19	23/37	518/160
El Tingo to Kuélap by car	2008-07-20	1/2	4000/1235
El Tingo to Leymebamba via Revash	2008-07-21	35/56	2332/720
Leymebamba to Celendín by potato truck	2008-07-22	89/144	/0
Celendín to Cruz Conga	2008-07-23	21/34	2539/784
Cruz Conga to Cajamarca, Peru	2008-07-24	47/76	2122/655

Trujillo to Huancayo

The route from Trujillo to Huancayo is pretty standard (and fairly difficult) for bike tourists. You ride a little ways south on the Pan American Highway to 15km south of Chao, then turn into a private road, climb up to the Cañon del Pato, up to Huaraz, then either through the national park or around the paved road and over a 4700 meter pass, then through several ups and downs until Huánuco. From Huanuco it's pavement up and over Cerro de Pasco then to Huancayo. There´s an excellent elevation profile on panamerica.ch showing this stretch.

Ride	date	miles/km	Elev ft/mt
Cajamarca to Trujillo (by bus)	2008-07-26	1/2	/0
Trujillo to Chao, Peru	2008-08-16	42/68	1456/449
Chao to Chuquicara	2008-08-17	46/74	2500/772
Chuquicara to Camp 8km before Yuracmarca	2008-08-18	30/48	2063/637
Camp near Yuracmarca to Huallanca, Peru	2008-08-19	13/21	1794/554
Huallanca to Caraz, Peru	2008-08-20	25/40	2700/833
Caraz to Huaraz, Peru	2008-08-22	43/69	3600/1111
Huaraz to Cátac, Peru	2008-08-24	23/37	1800/556
Catac to Conococha	2008-08-25	29/47	2237/690
Conococha to Pachapaqui	2008-08-26	25/40	1978/610
Pachapaqui to Huallanca, Huánuco, Peru	2008-08-27	30/48	2405/742
Huallanca (Huánuco) to La Unión	2008-08-28	13/21	190/59
La Unión to Tingo Chico	2008-08-30	20/32	1204/372
Tingo Chico to Chavinillo	2008-08-31	23/37	2270/701
Chavinillo to Huánuco, Peru	2008-09-01	45/73	1787/552
Huánuco to Huariaca	2008-09-04	43/69	3667/1132
Huariaca to Huancayo by car and bus	2008-09-05	1/2	/0

Huancayo to Lake Titicaca and the Bolivian Border

From Huancayo we took the dirt road through the canyon (Rio Mantaro) for 5 days to Ayacucho. Many people take the partly paved route over a high pass to Huancavelica instead. From Ayacucho we took a bus to Cusco - the dirt road from Ayacucho to Abancay is very difficult, and we were tired. From Cuzco there's just one pass and it's easy, then mostly things are flat to the Bolivian border. All paved, sometimes smooth and sometimes not.

Take a look at the excellent elevation profiles for this section on panamerica.ch (only to cusco).

Ride	date	miles/km	Elev ft/mt
Huancayo to Mariscal Cáceres	2008-09-13	49/79	2700/833
Mariscal Cáceres to Camp before Anco	2008-09-14	41/66	2083/643
Camp near Anco to Mayocc	2008-09-15	27/44	1456/449
Mayocc to Huanta, Peru	2008-09-16	20/32	2047/632
Huanta to Ayacucho, Peru	2008-09-17	30/48	2381/735
Ayacucho to Andahualas by bus	2008-09-21	1/2	/0
Andahuaylas to Cuzco by bus	2008-09-22	1/2	/0
Cuzco to Quiquijana	2008-09-29	44/71	485/150
Quiquijana to Sicuani	2008-09-30	44/71	1824/563
Sicuani to Santa Rosa	2008-10-01	42/68	2677/826
Santa Rosa to Calapuja	2008-10-02	71/115	593/183
Calapuja to Puno, Peru	2008-10-03	44/71	869/268
Puno to Ilave	2008-10-07	35/56	1410/435
Ilave to Yunguyo	2008-10-08	49/79	2033/627
Yunguyo, Peru to Copacabana, Bolivia	2008-10-09	7/11	528/163