First time Bike Packing-beginnings of an epic ride

Bike Packing? What on earth is that? I stumbled upon the concept of bike packing during some random Facebook sponsored content--pathlesspedaled. I love biking and I wanted to learn more about camping-why not do both?

The opportunity however never presented it self until this summer when my friend Jeff and I wanted to do some long training rides in preparation for his Shenandoah Mountain 100 race. Brainstorming around some long rides, we somehow threw out a Pittsburg to DC ride. I had heard people riding it, but I didn't know how far or what was involved in riding that journey. When I realized it was 335 miles, it was going to be an adventure for later.  Not yet . . .

Later that summer we saw a few friends do a ride around the Chesapeake bay.  It was a Double Century! Never heard that term used, but I knew I had to do one. Jeff and I launched it 3 weeks later on one of the hottest days of the year. Epic exhaustion from the heat, but epic time riding! I'll have to write about that experience later . . .

While Jeff and I really loved mountain biking, there is something about moving from point A to B and experiencing the journey. The Pittsburg to DC ride was brewing in my head. All trail, all riding, easy grade-why not? So I started entertaining the idea to other fools I knew. A number of them said they were interested. Until they heard my goals.

1. Needs to be cheap. Okay, so this is a principal that runs throughout my entire core of living. This ruled out B&B's and other such fun stuff.
2. Bike Camping. I wanted to test out what bike camping was like and if I could assemble the stuff to do it.
3. Needs to be fast. While fast is relative, I did not want this to take 4-5 days. One guy mentioned he did it in 30 hours non stop. That sounded brutal and conflicted with objective #2. Day days sounded "reasonable".
4. Having fun. Why else would I be doing this.

So let's see what happens . . .