[pct-l] The bicycle-PCT conundrum
Douglas Tow
douglastow at gmail.com
Sun Oct 28 15:03:21 CDT 2012
Good morning!
Please bear with me as I go through a somewhat tortuous thread of reasoning:
1. Barring injury, a hiker can only hike.
2. A horse and rider might be forced by circumstances to proceed at hiker
speed, which is not orders of magnitude slower than an a rider.
3. Mountain bikers have the capacity, and expectation, to achieve long
daily trail distances on a trail like the PCT, which would reduce the time
between resupply, or even eliminate overnights (camping, cooking) along
most of the trail.
4. If that is a mountain biker's expectation, only emergency food,
clothing, and shelter might be deemed necessary.
However, referencing (1) and (2) above, a cyclist with a breakdown becomes
a hiker, and the mind boggles about those places along the trail which are
days (walking) from a road or resupply. What is a broken-down cyclist
going to do without food or shelter 60 miles away from anywhere? It is
rare for a PCT hiker to need emergency rescue for other than illness or
injury - few if any need rescue because they are out of food, a way to
carry lots of water, or lack a way to stay warm overnight. If a cyclist
thinks that he can get from Yosemite to Sonora Pass, or even Markleeville,
in a day, would he really carry a bear canister?
I am sure that there are cyclists who have gone days away from roads (CDT,
perhaps), and who carry sufficient emergency food and gear in case they are
stranded, and I respect them for that. I am just as sure that unprepared
broken-down cyclists on the PCT would be a non-trivial problem.
Doug
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