The Americas 2017-2019

How do we plan our route?

We use the app, “MapOut” to plan and record the ride each day (available on Apple devices only). In Ben’s own words, “It is the best £5 that I’ve ever spent!”

As MapOut uses open street map data, it has a worldwide data base of roads, points of interest and it’s useful for cities too, as it shows everything from hostels to banks and supermarkets. The biggest reason why it is so awesome is the fact it’s easy to draw a route for cycling, walking or finding the shortest distance (it even creates routes for you from point A to B), view the elevation profile and share it between devices.

We also use Google Maps to scope out road and trail conditions because it shows a satellite view of the more remote locations. Between the two of these, we can plan a great ride even if it isn’t a recognised bikepacking route.

To decide where we are going to ride we read websites and blogs from cyclists that have ridden that area before, speak to other cyclists we meet on the road (which is the best for up-to-date information) or ask locals about the upcoming conditions (though always take this with a pinch of salt, “flat” always means “it is slightly uphill” and “it’s only half an hour away” translates as “it’s a six hour ride”).

Some of our go-to sites are bikepacking.com for route and gear inspiration, andesbybike.com for routes in the Andes mountains, tour.tk is a wealth of general information and crazyguyonabike.com is a bit of an outdated website but it hosts thousands of cyclists’ blogs, updated daily and is easily searchable by location.

How far do we ride each day?

We ride anywhere between 40km and 120km per day, but it depends on a combination of factors such as: terrain, weather, road conditions, how we’re feeling that day, distance between resupply points or what there is to see on the way.

When we are on the bikes we tend to treat each day as a mountain bike ride so we don’t take many breaks, usually we stop every three hours or so when we get hungry and then when we get tired at the end of the day. We like to make the most of our time on the bikes so unless there is somewhere amazing to camp, a cool place to visit or the weather has closed in, we ride from early morning until about an hour before sunset when we’ll start to look for a place to wildcamp.

Rest days are usually every fifth or sixth day but again this depends on where we are, how far there is between towns, the weather and riding conditions. There have been stretches where we’ve ridden for 3 weeks with only two days off and times when we’ve spent nearly three weeks in one place. The nice thing about how we are travelling is that it doesn’t matter how long we spend in a place or how long we ride for as we have no time limit – only the seasons and the bank balance influence the rate at which we travel.

Want more route specific planning help and tips?

Before we left for South America our planning was mainly focussed on what we were going to take and how the bikes would be set up. We had looked at some other cyclists’ blogs but they were mostly narrative recounts of people’s trip and they didn’t always provide specific details. When you are sat at home reading these they are entertaining and make you feel excited, but on the road you want the fine details such as where to sleep or buy supplies, what the road is like and what you will find on the way.

As such, we have written a number of resource pages which you can find here that have further information, tips and insights that we feel would have been useful before starting out. We will update these as we go and hopefully you will find these helpful too and we can inspire you to venture out of your comfort zone.