A Week of Biking and Camping

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I did a weeklong, ~330 mile group ride from Wassaic, NY -> Jamaica, VT -> back-ish and it was a lot of fun :)

718 Outdoors is a Brooklyn-based bike camping and touring one-man business. That man is named Joe. After two different one-night “micro tours” I felt ready for a full week tour this year and signed up for the new and untested (this is foreshadowing) Berkshires tour.

First, some disclosures:

All photos are either mine or from Joe’s big group photo dump here, attribution was too hard to trace through that sorry!!!
No links are affiliate links or anything like that, this was just written to share what the trip was like.
AI disclosure: AI did not write, edit, suggest, or update any word in this post. I used an LLM to write a script to batch-pull images from Flickr and the raw text got one pass through a local model to highlight typos, which it was not very good at.

getting ready

prepping (body and mind)

I’m… pretty large and heavy, which made me really nervous about how much I’d need to eat, how fatigue would hit me doing more miles in a week than I’d ever done before, how I’d sleep while camping longer than I’d ever camped before, how the bike would do loaded for that many miles, what happens if I get wet and none of my clothes ever dry out, and a hundred other fears I had to pack for. The tickets for this ride went on sale around New Year’s Day, giving me seven months to get ready.

I spent a few months ramping up both cycling mileage and training volume while doing strength training with a local small-group personal training place. In hindsight, both of those things undoubtedly made this possible - strength training especially. A workout routine I stuck to for four or five months is very much the reason I didn’t get hurt or have aches and pains build up day after day.

As it got closer, the raw mileage seemed doable, but four of the days had more climbing than I’d ever done in a single ride in my entire life. And I’d have to do them with a loaded bike! I was really, really nervous, especially as I started to run out of training time. The single biggest ride I did was a century back from Poughkeepsie in late June. I learned a lot about fueling and it was my first time realizing how essential caffeine is for longer efforts. At the end I was pretty beat up but hopeful.

prepping (gear)

I went a little insane working on my bike (a ~2021 Surly Midnight Special) - I had a custom rear wheel (a 36-spoke Velocity Cliffhanger + DT Swiss 350) built at Bicycle Roots, which I highly recommend. An extensive fit at Revolutions Per helped so, SO much. The bike and fit were both fantastic the entire tour, and in no small part made the trip possible.

I went way, way more insane packing everything - I made a LighterPack list, which helped narrow down some of the decisions and get an on-paper sense of weight. It sure felt silly weighing my toothpaste to save 16 grams when there’s a 135,000-gram bike-riding elephant in the room, but it did help understand where I could cut down and get more in the “luxury items vs weight target” packing mindset. The trip had 20,000+ feet of climbing, so everything did help, even if only mentally.

My bike was around 30lbs and my final target loaded weight was 65lbs empty. If I recall correctly, I got pretty close - right before leaving my apartment my luggage scale said 73lbs fully loaded with water and food. Not an ultralight tour, but almost all of the weight was items considered four or five times over.

The first day got closer and closer - some quick shakedown laps of Prospect Park a few days before with Joe and Bartek, and day 1 was here before I knew it!

Day 1: Brooklyn -> Wassaic -> Taconic State Park

23 miles, 500 feet of climbing

4:15am alarm, final shower and preflight checks, and I met some other riders to head to Grand Central together:

Quick ride to Grand Central with Brian and Bartek

Regrouping after three hours of trains at Wassaic. Metro North conductors were sassy but nice enough considering how many of us were on bikes

Easy rail trails to the campsite

Getting used to the camp setup. Tent took longer than I’d like to admit to pitch. I’ll note that pannier got a real hang from a branch later!

It was my first experience doing Shower Laundry, and little did I know it would be (by a wide margin) the nicest and most luxurious bathroom setup of the entire trip. Great park!

Day 2: Taconic -> Pittsfield, MA

40 miles, 2700 feet climbing

Big ups to Chris for letting me borrow a carabiner to hang a bear bag - the ranger came around to scare everyone, but there were a lot of soft target car campers around us, so we weren’t too worried. First camp breakdown took forever, I distinctly remember rummaging in a full panic at 7:58am before Joe’s daily 8:00am departure time.

Found a watering hole!

Ride was pretty nice! First climb that needed to be walked was encountered, and I felt a lot better about the fact that a lot of other riders were normal people with normal skill levels and not psycho athletes. I wasn’t the only one walking 13% grades, and the general encouragement and energy kept me going.

👍

Voile straps undefeated by pizza from the Pittsfield Big Y.

Pittsfield is a weird place. Kind of a bummer. Campsite was pretty great, though.

I planned to not mention my birthday to the group to not make it a whole thing, but my fiancée had already texted Joe and it turns out any single moment I wasn’t with the group they were all scheming about how to get me a small birthday cake. I should’ve seen it coming when I was told “joe wanted to gather everyone by the campfire” but really, truly didn’t see it coming and thought I had gotten away with it.

Day 3: Pittsfield -> Jamaica, VT

72 miles, 5400 feet climbing

This was the day I had lost sleep over in the weeks before the trip - more climbing that I had ever done by a factor of two AND the weather looked worse and worse as the day got closer.

I had planned to try and take as few breaks as possible to beat the rain, but we got dumped on ten miles or so after leaving camp. Full storms for over an hour, couldn’t have been any wetter. Which, now that I type this dry and with rose-colored glasses, was a blessing in disguise. It let me chill out and not worry about the weather, and also cooled the whole day off.

Speaking only for myself: morale was low in these photos. Good french fries, though.

The weather also made for some dramatic vistas as we did the main 1200ft climb. I ended up doing basically this whole ride with Leo. We were both worried about the length of the day, and splitting off into a pair meant easy communication if someone needed a break without the guilt of feeling like you were holding up a big group. Leo, if you’re reading this, that rocky doubletrack descent with your rally co-driver callouts of the terrain was one of the most cherished memories of the trip.

We both made it down safely, which was no small feat. At this point in time I couldn’t have been more happy or impressed with the 43mm pre-2025 Panaracer Gravelking Slick+ tires. This does not last.

We regrouped at mile 62 where I was so excited to meet up with my buddy Josh :) He drove down after work just to say hi for a bit while we meandered in the parking lot of the West Wardsboro Store, a perfect establishment. It was so great to see you, Heady Topper beer is a 10/10, I hope your dogs actually did eat that sandwich I gave you but understand why if not.

Josh even helped us plan the rest of the route after warning us a bunch of the trails might be closed lol

Rolled into camp after some very tired detours and spooky foggy descents, took the most well-deserved shower of basically my whole life, and collapsed in bed.

Day 4: Jamaica -> Brattleboro, VT

40 miles, 2600 feet climbing

Woke up a little sore (the only time I needed Tylenol the whole week) and we got rolling for what, on paper, looked like an easier day. After some beautiful reservoir-adjacent gravel we got hit with a 200ft climb of trail stairs lol:

Then it started pouring rain again lol

After some busy roads we stopped at the Newfane Store in Newfane, VT where I, covered in tire splatter that several people independently remarked looked like an intentional piece of art, got one of the most delicious breakfast sandwiches I’ve ever had in my entire life. A SEC on a biscuit with maple aioli.

Some tough climbs before taking a long break close to camp in Brattleboro, where Joe had prepared an optional short loop to hit New Hampshire. It ended up only being Joe, Jared, and me out of the whole group who did the extra miles, and while I’m jealous of the brewery relaxation everyone else got, it was an easy climb with a great view. This was one of the moments where you realize just how much you can push your body - in the restaurant taking a break I thought I was going to fall asleep at the table, and resolved to turn around if I couldn’t do the climb. But I made it to the top!

Because that day was a little shorter, we had more time to hang out at camp - some organized a big fire grill feast, which was one of the most fun times we had all week. If you’re reading this please let me venmo you for some of those groceries.

Day 5: Brattleboro -> Goshen, MA

53 miles, 3000 feet of climbing

This was a tough day for me - I was starting to feel a little road-weary, and all of the climbing was at the end. Started off pretty nice, though:

Good lunch stop at The Wagon Wheel, got some ice cream somewhere in Mass.

Sadly this is where the vibe shifted for me, personally, for a bit - right before the huge climb into camp, I got my first flat of the trip. Minh graciously held my bike while Toph and Joe helped me stressfully remove some glass from my tire, change out a tube, and boot the tire. The boot was one my dad gave me when I borrowed a bike from him in peak quarantine, and I’m sure is almost 20 years old. This, reader, is more foreshadowing.

We got to camp, and the Daughters of the American Revolution state forest campground was postcard-beautiful but completely and totally overrun with mosquitos. I’m someone who gets a lot of bites, and even coated with bug spray it felt like I was killing one every four or five minutes setting up camp. I was tired, stressed, and the skeeters put me psychologically over the edge, I had to just sit in my tent for half an hour to calm down. In this photo I am memorably miserable eating a disgusting XXXL DIY-uncrustable PB&J burrito.

Day 6 Goshen -> Barkhamsted, CT

65 miles, 3700 feet of climbing

After a descent back down yesterday’s climb, we took group photos of everyone :) Extreme shout out to the Goshen MA Dunkin, they were so nice and so fast and so professional dealing with a group of ~25 hungry cyclists.

Some picturesque 30 miles of very flat rail trails where one could slowly build up a sense of dread about the climbs to come. Westfield, MA stop for lunch and to load the bikes before the rest of the day’s climbs.

It turns out Day 3 had nothing on this one - a 7-mile 1000ft climb that was really peaky in the heat destroyed all of us. It would be a manageable gradient, suddenly require you to walk your bike for 15m, and then manageable again. One of those climbs where the average gradient is a completely useless way to gauge difficulty. On a frustratingly busy road. This, for me, was more of a test of will and suffering than any other time on the trip. We regrouped for over an hour at the top in someone’s front yard, drinking water and checking for ticks.

Final descents into camp made the climb and the restaurant we stopped at for beers almost worth it

Day 7 Barkhamsted -> Sharon, CT

35 miles, 2900 feet of climbing

Woke up on the last day, packed up camp (very quickly, I was really good at this by now) and as I brought my bike over to the group to roll out I realized my tire was almost completely flat (!!!!!)

In this final big group pic I am actively running my electric pump lol

There were some really nice miles that I could only sort of enjoy because I was pretty much completely spent

The morning wasn’t the end of my tire woes - I got my third flat, and at this point I needed a tube from Alan and a dollar bill from Urs to tire boot my tire boot (thank you both very much)

Joe’s quote was, approximately, “Tire’s haunted. Throw it out the moment you get home.” My long and happy relationship with the 43mm pre-2025 Panaracer Gravelking Slick+ tires was more on the rocks, literally and figuratively, than it had ever been before

Alan got me going again and even hyped me up on the climbs. Alan if you’re reading this I want to get your zine and owe you a tube!!!

Final lunch stop was Mountainside Cafe in Falls Village, CT and humorously, it was the only place that was shitty to us on the entire trip. Joe would try to call ahead to warn restaurants a plague of hungry cyclist locusts were about to descend on restaurants, and this one was the only one that felt poorly run enough to take their frustrations out on us directly. Big thumbs-down to this place, and Joe’s google review captures it better than I ever could.

I split off a few miles before the final trip loop returned to the Wassaic Metro North station, and waited in the sleepy and strange town of Sharon, CT for Olivia to pick me up.

I was barely a person in that photo she took of me, and boy did I need a few days to unwind and relax at my uncle’s vacation property in western Mass. It sure was weird being in a car after going bike-speeds for a full week. At one point walking to breakfast I reflexively said “car up” to her, not as a bit.

In summary: what a trip!

things I learned

The type of people who do these rides are incredible. Kind, encouraging, somehow both independent and mindful of the needs of the group, inclusive, funny, generous, friendly, and nice to be around. I really lucked out with how great everyone was, and the collective suffering and small victories like cheering people up hills are fantastic memories.

The biggest surprise about the actual mechanics of the ride was how little time you actually have to relax, especially on the longer days. Wake up at 5:30am, pack up, roll out by 8:00am, ride until late afternoon or evening, set up camp, hang out by the fire and maybe eat together for like 45 minutes, go straight to bed. I didn’t use my teensy gadget ereader even once and barely got time to call and catch up with my loved ones. Especially because I was worried about letting camp chores like laundry, etc fall apart it was hard to relax once the ride was over.

Getting wet is fine as long as you can dry off the next day

An obvious learning was that I could’ve gotten away with less bag space and taken a little less - the lighterpack link has the full rundown, and there’s more details below

I learned a lot about myself on this ride, too - you get shockingly stronger and you get better at being able to ride all day, but you don’t become a completely different cyclist. After the biggest day my cardiovascular system adapted and my heart rate was fantastically low for the rest of the ride. I wasn’t terribly sore, and only needed pain meds once on the whole trip! In the weeks since I’ve taken it easy, but need to start training for whatever I do next year :)))

bike learnings

Because I had never done anything this intense before, I had a lot of flexible bag space, probably a little more than I actually needed:

Tubus Tara rack + Ortleib Back-Rollers for most of the camping gear and clothing
Swift Zeitgeist on the bars for lighter stuff like food and as a drying rack for whatever was most disgusting
ATM Little Hatch Sack for my camera and a Chrome Doubletrack feedbag for quick stuff like sunscreen and hand sanitizer
Custom gigantic Rogue Panda frame bag for my water bladder, some tools and spares, and chargers
Swift Olliepack for my camp shoes and misc stuff while packing.

Drying stuff on the Zeitgeist

The Swift Zeitgeist was a fantastic jack-of-all-trades-master-of-most handlebar bag. The cinch closure made it easy to put food etc that I might need at a stop in the main bag compartment. Then I could cinch it closed, put wet clothes between that and the top closure flap, buckle the top flap closed, and put whatever I want to dry while riding on the bars held down with the Bungee Booster and/or some binder clips, which I highly recommend. It was made extra stable by a Haute Twisted-T Bar bag support, which helped everything strapped to the bars at a nice, level angle
Front panniers, especially if you’re a heavy rider, are fantastic. Stable, low, and not adding extra lateral frame stress. Big saddlebags or other cool bikepacking setups cause too much frame flex with the extremely long tubing my tall-ass frame has, so the more weight down low by the axle the better. It did make it harder to put the bike down on its side. Backrollers were huge, very easy to pack, and completely waterproof, but also very heavy. If I were to do this again I’d consider lighter Ortleibs.

gear learnings

My 1.5L Apidura frame bag bladder was fantastic. It let me refill bottles and sip while riding. This thing is fantastic as long as you have a largeish bag with a hydration port. I think it’s designed to sit in the bottom of a full frame bag, but it fits well in the front of mine
EVA Birkenstocks - the birkencroks were fantastic camp + shower + wet shoes. They’re all I brought other than my riding shoes: now-apparently-discontinued Velosamba Vegan shoes. A lot of other people swore by wet-weather riding sandals (Chacos, Tevas) and maybe one day I will, also, but I put too much force on the pedals to usefully ride in foam sandals
Aero Tech Long Distance bib shorts were comfortable, breathable, and easy to wash. I brought two, they were perfect
Camp chairs are essential for 718 tours
A small sit pad is nice to have even if you mostly use it as a knee pad for getting in and out of your tent and only use it to sit on a stump exactly once
My Big Agnes Copper Spur HV UL2 Bikepack tent did really well, but I kind of hate the door holders and by the end I did have more pinholes in the floor than I’d have liked.
I had a really luxe sleep setup as a heavy side sleeper: a Sea to Summit Comfort Plus that looks sadly like it is discontinued, two inflatable Aeros pillows that I found were most comfortable stacked but a little underinflated, and a Therm-A-Rest Vesper 32 quilt. The pad had some issues that left one of the two chambers a little low some mornings, but there’s nothing I’d change about this until I lose some weight and feel more comfortable on a smaller/lighter sleeping pad
An empty third bottle cage under the downtube for sodas, Gatorades, or beers came in handy more days than not:

nutrition learnings

I had a few things I ate/drank that helped a lot, in order of how much I remember consuming:

LMNT Watermelon Salt packets - nice and small, needed a lot of salt on the harder days.
Clif Bloks with caffiene - easy to grab a few at a stop, caffiene was extremely helpful
Tailwind “Tropical Caffienated” drinks - I purchased the bulk bag, which I portioned into a quart Ziploc and that was a mistake. The individual packets are so much easier to use if you’re carrying them for multiple days.
Skratch chocolate recovery powder - nice to have at camp sometimes, it almost approximates the taste of a milkshake, as much as a powder can, anyway

what i’d change next time

I brought a real camera, and barely used it. My (original!) X100 was too slow and hard to use while riding, and I didn’t really take it out at camp. I’d skip it next time or maybe just take an action camera for stills or time lapse videos.
My aging 2021 Wahoo Bolt 2 had a lot of problems charging and needs replacing. It’s a bummer that the otherwise totally fine device has no options for replacing the battery without ruining the waterproofing
My cheap Amazon electric pump wouldn’t hold a charge reliably, especially when cold. My several flats were already pretty stressful and made more stressful when I couldn’t depend on my only pump. I needed to borrow other people’s analog or electric pumps when it inevitably gave out. I’ll eventually get a CYCPLUS AS2 Pro Max or an equivalent larger-battery model whenever there’s a sale
I didn’t bring a camp stove. It was nice to not carry the weight + bulk of a Jetboil, but it was also hard to not feel like a mooch asking if you could boil some hot water for coffee on one or two of the chilly mornings. I’d take something for this next time, even just a canister + BRS-3000T or whatever + coffee cup

computer dot computer dash computer dot computer

A Week of Biking and Camping

getting ready

prepping (body and mind)

prepping (gear)

Day 1: Brooklyn -> Wassaic -> Taconic State Park

23 miles, 500 feet of climbing

Day 2: Taconic -> Pittsfield, MA

40 miles, 2700 feet climbing

Day 3: Pittsfield -> Jamaica, VT

72 miles, 5400 feet climbing

Day 4: Jamaica -> Brattleboro, VT

40 miles, 2600 feet climbing

Day 5: Brattleboro -> Goshen, MA

53 miles, 3000 feet of climbing

Day 6 Goshen -> Barkhamsted, CT

65 miles, 3700 feet of climbing

Day 7 Barkhamsted -> Sharon, CT

35 miles, 2900 feet of climbing

things I learned

bike learnings

gear learnings

nutrition learnings

what i’d change next time

that’s it!

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