Test Flight

Last weekend, Emma and I decided to take our first bikepacking trip.  We have the gear, we got decent weather, and we found a one night, 100 mile route in the Croatan National Forest.  That's about where things stopped going in our favor.

I found this great resource for bikepacking that has trips all over the world, including the Southeast.  We wanted to pick a trip that was close to Raleigh so we could do it in a weekend.  The mountains were too cold, so we headed out East where it looked like it was going to be warmer.  The Neusiok Trail is out that way, which is a 20 mile section of the Mountain to Sea Trail through the National Forest, and the trip on bikepacking.com included the Neusiok in the route.  I was excited to see the trail as I heard it was a good place to hike when the weather is cold.

I called the Ranger lodge to check about the trail bed and turns out the Neusiok is closed.  Womp.  I found a reroute on some gravel roads and we decided to give it a go nonetheless.

Read to roll.

We were starting in New Bern and I was excited to see the 'palace'.  Spoiler alert:  it's just a large brick building.  Not palatial at all.  Fine.  We parked and got the bike loaded up and took off.  The bike handled well though a bit sluggish.  It took a bit to get used to the way the extra weight felt when cornering and coming to a stop but it is definitely manageable.

An easy 5 miles on the road took us to our first forest road.  It was very straight.  And flat.  Until it looked like this:

Cannot jump.

Apparently the trail had washed away during the hurricanes.  It's about 6 feet from the trail bed down to that stream which was about armpit deep.  There wasn't a good option to turn back so we decided to use those wobbly-ass sticks on the side.  It somehow worked.

After that, we pretty much rode some more super straight gravel roads and a bit of on road riding to make up our 60 miles for the day.  At times, the roads were so straight, and the terrain so unvaried, I couldn't tell if we were going anywhere; like we were on a giant bicycle treadmill.

This for hours.

Did I tell you I had to take the kick-stand off the bike?  Yea, Emma's heel was hitting it so I figured we could just do without.  Well, there wasn't much to lean the bike up against in the swamp, so I went to lay it down for the first time and ran into an issue:  all that weight puts a lot of stress on the wheels.  Totally fine when the bike is upright, but when it's at a 45 degree angle on it's way to the ground, the spokes aren't holding the weight up lengthwise, they're being bent.  Well, one popped.  PING!

See it?  Ouch.

When packing for the trip, I did a bad thing:  I didn't grab any spare spokes.  One broken spoke wasn't the end of the world.  That part of the rim wouldn't be the strongest, but I adjusted the other spokes and we took off.  I wasn't too concerned as the terrain wasn't that rough, but then maybe an hour later:  PING!  This time we lost one in the front, which is kind of rare, but I must have damaged others when I laid the bike down.  Adjusted the front and off we went.  +1 trepidation

Tofurky sandwiches with pretzels and nutella for lunch.

I did a different bad thing when we got the bike by assuming the wheels were set up correctly.  I don't know why seeing as how they're one of the most important parts of the bike and everything else wasn't setup well.  Anyway, when I got home and trued them up, they were pretty wonky.  Some spokes were super tight and others were pretty loose.  This probably was a big contributing factor to the breaks, but the loaded bike didn't help either.  The wheels are good now and hopefully they stay that way.  We've got some more time to break them in.  Is that a good phrase to use?

Co-pilot Zoom!

That evening, right as it started to get rainy, we ran into a group of seven dudes doing the same route.  I didn't think we'd really see anyone, but there they were, all pulled off in a wad on the side of the road.  We rolled up together on the state campground where we were going to spend the night.  It was closed and came equipped with a grumpy campground caretaker that ran us off.  Cool.

We documented the only turn of the trip.

The dudes recommended we all go a mile up the Neusiok Trail, which started at the campground, and camp at the shelter.  It was a nice enough pine-needle campsite with a water pump.  Except the water pump didn't work.  And the nearby 'stream' was black and stagnant.  Luckily we had just enough water to cook and stave off dehydration.  Except our stove was leaking gasoline when under pressure due to a valve failure so was unusable.  Luckily one of the dudes let us use their stove.

Easy unloading from the trailer.

The next day, the hits kept coming.  There was a re-route off some 'private hunting land', which is somehow within the National Forest, onto highway 70 which was a dual carriage-way road with no shoulder.  We walked through a construction site down the median for a mile.

Then, the 'short walk along some railroad tracks' we found out to actually be a 'one mile walk on active railroad tracks.'  The way the track was built up, there was no way to walk next to the tracks.  Luckily they weren't very active tracks.

Then another spoke went.  Then we got a flat.

This was a weird flat.  The leak was slow and didn't escape the tire so the pressure stayed high until we hit a big bump and it all squeaked out.  Also, that water bottle unfortunately just has water in it.

Oh, and apparently there was more than one 'private hunting land' as later, the gravel National Forest road we were on suddenly had a gate across it.  We may have continued anyway......

There is no proof we were behind this gate.

And just for good measure, when we got home, I had three ticks on me.  Woooooo.

Good things that happened:

1)  The GPS Amanda and Aaron lent us helped a lot!  It took a lot of the turn anxiety out of the trip, especially when everything looked the same.

Recalculating route.

2)  We found a Subway.  No veggie-patties, but still.

Just like the tuna days.  Except better because no Ken.

3)  We got to go to Mother Earth Brewing.

You can't see them, but the ticks are in this picture.

4)  We got a good feel for what the bike can do and a good reminder of all the little stuff you have to be ready for along the way.  The mechanicals were no fun, but shit breaks, and this was all little things I could fix (Emma helped too).  No big deal.  We made a list of things to add to our spares kit.  Including spokes, duh!

Survived the swamp.

5)  Was it the most exciting trip?  No.  Was it pretty?  For a second: yea, but overall: no.  Were the obstacles fun and safe?  No.  Was it about what I expected?  Yes.  But would we go back!?  No.  We did have fun nevertheless and are looking forward to more 'training' trips!