Léo I need to resort to those all too common words…it depends.

All my tours start with some sort of mud map. A pencil sketch on a blank page. A line linking a few dots to visualise an overall strategy. However the amount  of fine detail planning depends on where, how long, and most importantly the purpose of the cycle tour.

For example my last big tour (across Australia) was my first ever attempt at a charity fund raiser, so I needed to inform others of my plan. I couldn’t just follow my own whims as others were depending on me.

By contrast, my first big tour in 1979, I had no idea where’d I’d end up;  nor even where I was going day to day other than ‘across Europe’. 

I’m currently planning a short cycle tour in New Zealand in November. I’m planning this one in some detail as a less experienced cycle touring friend is joining me for the ride, and I also need to finish the tour in time to attend a wedding on a set date.

Overall I recommend some planning, but not planning so much to cause procrastination and anxiety.

Of course, cycle touring being cycle touring, plans will go astray. So adaptability is essential. Have a Plan B and a Plan C.   Plan D probably mentions Interpol and air rescue.

I’m a planner, these days. Part of that is I love touring in Europe, so that means flying there and back. And it’s just not realistic to buy air tickets at the last minute anymore, at least not for flights between Canada’s west coast and anywhere in Europe. I suppose you could, for a lot of $$$, but I’d rather spend my money on travelling. 

So I have to plan enough to figure out my flights and then, I just enjoy the planning now that the tools are available.  This is in contrast to our first cycling trip to Europe together, when we landed at CDG, assembled our bikes, bought a Michelin map, and set off. We took a train back at the end in time to spend a couple of days in Paris before our flight home. 1992 was a different world. 

One of the things I've always wondered about the approach of reserving lodging weeks (or even months!) in advance is: What do you do if there's a day with truly terrible weather, you have a major mechanical problem, or you have an injury or an illness and you need to take a day (or more) off? I guess you need to call all the places you've reserved and try to reschedule?

That's what planning and preparation is all about. I study the weather patterns and try to avoid the times of year that have severe storms, extreme heat, extreme wind, etc. My preference is desert and semi-arid climates that don't have long periods of inclement weather. I travel through verdant areas during the dry season. I generally avoid verdant areas that don't have a dry season.

I think good preparation and cautious behavior can reduce the chance of mechanical breakdowns and injury. And a mostly solitary outdoor lifestyle can reduce the chance of illness. Avoiding those kinds of problems often comes down to knowing and respecting the limits of your body and your equipment.

I have never had to reschedule a long list of lodging reservations. But the older I get, the greater the chance that it will happen...

Excellent topic while I’m sitting here sketching out our next cycle trip starting next week. 

Remember one trip from Oregon to Colorado where we landed in Portland and found a state road map that became our guide, new one in Idaho and so forth. Remember a different trip where I purchased Adventure cycling maps that somewhat guided us until the 40-50 mph winds hit and going west was no more. 

We are now at a different stage where we are enjoying riding trails and using a rental to move between them. The TrailLink app, Ride with GPS, Google maps, and other technologies give me a general sense of what could happen over the next few days. This trip gives us a month to cycle our last 2 states, North Dakota and Montana but also wander around Minnesota, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa and perhaps others. So some planning, some seeing what the weather is doing … main rule is to ride every day and drive no ore than 100 miles per day. 

"Plan are worthless, but planning is everything."

I research to death where I might go and put together an itinerary, but I'm prepared for changes to said itinerary.

I wish it was possible to plan for future wildfire smoke. The current situation is not favorable for my Northeast Oregon tour which starts in 2 weeks. Hopefully the westerly wind will return to blow the Canadian smoke somewhere else.

Hope is on the way.  https://twitter.com/NWSSeattle/status/1693724014148293075?s=20

"I recall reading, in one of your journals, of someone you met while you were out touring.  He was headed to whatever town, city, village, or hamlet lay in the direction the road ran, precisely and simply because the road passed in front of his home and that's where the road went."

Yes indeed. He lived in Bordeaux or somewhere in the French south-west and he was riding right across the country to Switzerland.

When I asked why Switzerland, he said that was where the road went. We had all the whizz gear and the maps and the plans, and there he was, riding across our path with everything in a cardboard box. And no maps and certainly no GPS.

We got to our destination. I have no doubt that he did, too, although maybe not with the same cardboard box.

That sounds like a corollary to the idea that Helmut von Moltke arrived at in an essay and analysis of military strategies.  His original statement has been condensed through the years, to the very concise statement

No plan of action survives beyond first contact with the enemy.

I've always taken that to mean that it's likely that a detailed, months- or years-long plan is apt to turn to rubbish the moment one encounters real-world circumstances, so it's best to leave the details of the far future to be pondered and dealt with only when they've moved from beyond the horizon and into the immediate field of view.

On the other hand, spending time considering that over-the-horizon perspective can influence how you start, and may also make you aware of possibilities you might otherwise have missed, so it seems to me that it's worth the investment in time to work out at least a general even if it eventually "comes to naught, or half a page of scribbled rhyme".

Here’s my 2¢…

During the past 15 years, I’ve done about 10 European rides ranging in length from 4 weeks to 2 months. My trips started out about 80% camping. As the years wore on, it became 80% not camping.

Prior to departure, I generally spent hours and hours, usually at one of my many favorite local coffee shops, planning and mapping. Almost every trip had a theme, or at least a loosely concocted theme. Naturally, the Loire Valley was first. Other “themes” included Romanesque churches in Bourgogne, Hundred Years’ War battle sites, WW II sites, the Canal du Midi and the Rhône, the Rhine, the Danube…you get the idea.

Of course, I never stuck rigidly to my original plan. I would often head off in a different direction, rejoining my general route a bit later in the trip. I used to say that my maps and GPS routes were perfect…until my front wheel hit the ground! But at least I had a general theme and direction.

On a couple of occasions, my theme only covered about half the trip. And in those instances, I found myself a bit lost. Not geographically speaking, but mentally. I’ve wandered The Netherlands, Denmark, northern Germany, and parts of France. I found that not having a plan was not to my liking. While it may sound nice to wake up in the morning and head off in any direction, it made me feel a bit discombobulated. Sure, I could head north or south, east or west, but where was I going? As an old mentor once told me, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”

So, while wandering seems to be okay when I’m walking around a city, it’s a bit disconcerting for me when traveling by bike.

One last thing about hotels. My last trip (June 2022) was a 30 day jaunt through eastern (i.e., flat) Brittany and Normandy. Since that trip was 100% hotels, and was only 25 days actually on the road, I made reservations for every night. And in several instances, I stayed for two nights in one place, either enjoying a city (Rennes and Angers for two) or along the coast. 

While I didn’t have to change or cancel any of the hotels, I did try to pick places that didn’t charge for cancellations. I did, however, use a train in a couple of cases to jump from one place to another, primarily due to the extremely hot weather southwestern France was experiencing at that time. If the trip had been longer, I don’t think I would’ve booked more than 3-4 weeks out.

That’s my story….