Into the wild

Woke up randomly at Calgary airport. Rain's coming down in buckets, but no weather app shows rain in the current hour not had any detailed radar data. Even in a city of a million, it's surprising what you don't have. Things that you've taken for granted. 

A shower is another thing that I take for granted that is currently (and will likely be( in short supply. 

JFK->???

The sky clouded over and poured rain all of a sudden. It went from looked bad to definitely a showstopper as we walked from the gate onto the plane. Oh well. We have some buffer built into the schedule, but having to coordinate a meetup with Gabe on the road, at Jasper, most likely, would be tricky. 

It's the August weekend holiday in CA, so there's no way we're getting a hotel now. Either we make our reserved campsite in Jasper on 7/31 or we have to aim for a campsite further in. 

If we get dinner at JFK, that'd be 3 consecutive meals here. Novel. 

We rushed over to the terminal where our rebooked flight was. I got nabbed going back through security with my water bottle partly filled. Opted to give it up instead of rescreening. Flight ended up a little delayed, so we showed up in time. No clear answer on our checked-in gear. Now we're in the air to Calgary. Boxes still in limbo. Gabe already took his bike box through Canadian customs and is in his way to Edmonton. 

Algal bloom?:

This jet serves movies through a phone app instead of having screens. Pretty savvy. One of the move categories is Canadiana, which is movies made for the Canadian audience and also those with Canadian actors. So Ryan Reynolds' greatest hits, basically. 

Just finished Adventureland (starring Ryan Reynolds). It felt like a 3hr movie but I only got 20min of entertainment. The flight is only half over at this point. 

Wrapped up Southpaw (starring Canadian actress Rachel McAdams) right before we landed in Calgary, or Cowtown, as our bilingual pilot called it. 

All flight instructions were given in English then French. 

At Calgary (YYC), a very helpful WestJet baggage rep helped us file a claim and officially get our boxes onto a plan to get sent to Edmonton. So we should have email tracking of the progress of moving those along. We also managed to get a morning flight to Edmonton, which we decided would be easier than renting a car and driving over there in 3h. 

Gabe is settled in at the hotel, watching Kangaroo Jack. We're eating a late dinner at the 24 cafeteria in Calgary, and then napping til morning. 

This Canadian accented announcer just last called Regina, but it sounded like Vergina. 

Boston->NYC->Toronto->Edmonton ...???

Surely one of the more hectic days of the trip. There's no cheap fast way to get to Edmonton, so Matt and I will have to fly 3 legs. Gabe is coming up from Charlotte. 

At some point I will have to fill out a Canadian customs form. I don't think I've flown into CA before. 

Jasper is pretty remote -- we can't reach it by plane, at least not a plane than can do checked bags, it seems. 

Not really feeling any nerves. More worried about how Gabe's cats are doing at his folks'. Secondary concern is what people will think of socks in slippers:

I only have these and the cycling shoes. It's worse to have the ninja toe going on, right?

Since the trip to South Africa, I have kept open a nostalgia browser tab on my phone for the Zulu name for the Drakensberg Mountains (uKhahlamba). I guess I can finally dismiss it now. 

I wish I'd maybe gotten further in Infinite Jest instead of finishing GoT, but you do what you want to do. 

Bos->JFK

This AA Airbus 321T is 1/3 first class, 1/3 biz class, and 1/3 coach. Never seen this configuration before. Makes for super fast boarding and deplaning. 

Just realized the Olympics are on while we're on tour. I set reminders for the track 100m/200m. 

Got our flight to Toronto (YYZ) cancelled just as we boarded. Flights might not be available for a while. Will try to fly through a different airport. Gabe is on his way, which makes coordinating harder but helps the schedule overall, since he has to lug his bike box with him to whatever meetup we'll devise.  

The tour begins

I could give you some cliches about journeys of 1000 miles, but I won't.

The kickoff has been pretty well planned out. Fitness is good. Weight is probably a little high, but will be fine.

What will I miss about the real world?

- easy Internet 

- short distances 

- not having to camp

What am I looking forward to?
- not having to set an alarm to wake up
- going to sleep so easily from being tired
- feeling like dots in a landscape painting

Flight is in the morning.

I'll be instagramming through Edmonton. 

So you want to ship your bike to Canada (from the US)

When bike touring internationally, you're often advised to take pains to bring the bike with you on the flight. It's certainly not a sure thing.

Pros:
- the bike for the most part is going on the same path and same schedule
Cons:
- airlines have differing rules for what you can check in, and varying fees for large heavy boxes. 
- air travel policies are always changing, so publishe advice is always going to lag behind

The alternative is really expensive shipping, compounded by potentially tricky customs situations.

In the recounting below, I'll list dates in bold to give you a sense of how things progressed. Obviously, getting your bikes to your start point on time is critical.
Our tour was slated to start from Jasper, Alberta on July 31st.

Mid-May

I contact bike shops in Japser about receiving our bikes and building them up in anticipation of our arrival. There are two shops that I can get ahold of, and one seems more legit. After some back and forth, I get a tentative agreement to receive 3 bikes in the last week of July to be built up by 7/31.

2 bikes are shipping from Boston; 1 is coming from Atlanta.

Mid-June

I check with my local bike shops about packing up the bikes and doing the shipping for us. Both shops adamantly refuse to ship to CA, citing unpredictability with Customs as the main sticking point. So I know that I'll have to take care of getting shipping myself.

We consider the following options:
A. ship directly via standard shipping services (FedEx, USPS, UPS, etc.)
B. ship using BikeFlights as a middleman
C. check in as baggage

For the shipping options, we'd ship to a bike shop and have the bikes built up, waiting for us.
For the checked-in option, we'd build up ourselves once we arrived in Jasper. At this point in my bike maintenance career, there's no fear of assembling the bikes; it's just a few hours' time to factor in.

On our prior tour, it had cost about $100 per bike to ship from Boston to Seattle. In my head, I expect that to be about double to ship to Canada. My gut was that Option C would somehow be more expensive than that. So I pursue A and B.

BikeFlights conveniently has a dropdown for various bike box dimensions. The Touring Bike option is 56"x10"x32". I decide to use that size as a comparison point when shopping.

USPS was right out -- it refuses those box dimensions for shipping to CA.
I'd read in a couple of places that UPS was the roughest on packages. Having no hard data but not wanting to take any risks with our rides, I didn't look further.

So down to FedEx and BikeFlights.
Using 56x10x32 and 60lbs (very generous, even including box weight), I got the same prices from FedEx's shipping calculator and BikeFlights. I took this to mean that BikeFlights was going to use FedEx as the actual courier.

BikeFlights lists the shipping option for its estimate as "7 Day Ground." In subsequent calls with BikeFlights reps, I think I heard "International Ground" used for this option.  In any case, this was all the same thing -- FedEx International Ground.

At this point, I have the full shipping plan specced out:
1. local shop packs bikes
2. bikes picked up by FedEx via BikeFlights
3. Jasper shop receives bikes and builds up
Keep step 3 in mind.

6/30

I go ahead and make a reservation with my local shop to receive both Boston bikes on Tuesday 7/5 to be packed and ready by Friday 7/8. Naturally, I ask for 2 boxes.

7/5

Drop off both bikes.

I follow through with my order on BikeFlights to set up shipping and pickup for Friday. The price hasn't changed since a few weeks ago.

Here (and everywhere else previously), I set the value of each bike to $500. If I recall, one of the estimators placed a special exception on items with declared value over $500. I decide in the case we have to buy new bikes to tour, the gap in value is an acceptable risk.

Later that night, I get an email from BikeFlights asking for more information to finish setting up the shipment.

What is your shipping purpose? Please choose from the following: 

Sales and Purchases: Applies if you bought or sold the item(s) you are shipping.

Gifts: Applies if you are shipping a gift. 

Warranty Returns and Repairs: Applies if you are sending item(s) back and forth for repair, return or warranty service. 

Personal Effects: Applies if you are shipping these personal items because you are travelling or moving.

We noticed you have chosen a Ground shipment between the US and Canada. When you ship a bike or gear for personal use between the U.S. and Canada while on vacation and travel, Express services such as International Economy or Priority must be used for your shipment.  Ground shipments may only be used for Commercial shipments such as sold items, repairs/returns and gifts. 

In red text is where it starts going downhill.
I definitely recall there only be one shipping option available when I set up the order.

I reply to the email, stating that the bikes are personal effects and asking how I should select the other shipping options, given that I couldn't from the website.

7/6

I talk to a local FedEx office about my shipping options through them. They sound less sure about what I need. They hand me their Commercial Invoice form. There's like 50 fields to fill out, and the folks in the store don't profess any expertise in how to fill it out. They make it clear that they don't know what happens once the package arrives in CA and enters Customs. What fees will be charged, etc.

Still not having heard back from BikeFlights, I call them up. Apparently, they didn't get my reply. I send it again, and the rep confirms that she sees it.

I get her help walking through setting up the order the way it needs to be. So she tries to set it to International Express (the cheaper of the two valid options). The reason I never saw other options is because International Express and Priority disallow boxes larger than 52x9x29. 
The BikeFlights website failed me here by not asking about the nature of what I was shipping*.

I ask the rep to quote me 2 52x9x29 boxes (a standard road bike box size). Just under $500. Ok, up from $400, but I can still stomach it. I also get a quote for those two boxes and a smaller box for wheels, if the shop can't keep it to just two. $600. Ok... now it's getting way more than I expected.

I call up the shop and break the news. I tell them to try to get it in 2 52x9x29 boxes, and to put the overflow into the smallest box they can. The shop is confident they can do it in 3 boxes, but doubts it for 2.

* Now that I look at the shipping page again, I see this warning when I try to reproduce what I did:
"Alert U.S. and Canadian Customs only permit sales, repairs and gifts to ship Ground. You must select Int Economy or Int Priority to ship your bike as personal effects when traveling."
I don't recall that warning from before; it might have been there. I think it'd be much more appropriate to provide a dropdown to pick between personal effects or commercial and to flat out reject an attempt to use International Ground for personal effects. That would have spared me a lot of trouble.

7/7

The shop calls and confirms they found the boxes and can get it done with 3 boxes, though given the size of my Soma Cazadero tires, the 3rd box will still be 52x9x29. Yeesh.

I call BikeFlights again.

I ask the rep if, given how much this is going to cost, if everything is going to work. If, because BikeFlights has specific experience with shipping bikes all over the world, that they know how to deal with declaring things properly and filling out forms appropriately. She reassures me that the process BikeFlights uses works and that they will work on the customer's behalf dealing with customs.
Comparing the seeming lack of knowledge from FedEx (though it was just branch employees) and the confidence of BikeFlights, I decide it makes sense to pay more by sticking with BikeFlights to make sure there's no problems at Customs with my shipment.

International Express happens to be 5-day shipping, so I have the rep push back the pickup date to Monday 7/10 to give the shop more time.

The rep oks the new shipment setup and says she'll send me a new order that afternoon instead of modifying the old one. She stresses that I should fill out documents and send in my passport information that evening if possible.

In the evening, I look for an email from BikeFlights confirming the new order and new documents, but I don't see anything. I reply to my old order email thread just in case.

7/8

Having not heard from them, I call BikeFlights and get a different rep. She confirms that there's notes in my existing order to make the new order, but that the rep didn't follow through on that work. I get pretty pissed when I hear that, especially in the context of being told I would be taken care of and guided through the process.
This new rep finishes the reorder work, and I get the new order and the documents in email.

What I need to fill out for BikeFlights is their Personal Goods Form. When I read through it, my face darkens a bit. It's basically field-for-field the FedEx Commercial Invoice form, with some extra fields for things like itinerary and photos of your bikes. Yesterday, I was like, BikeFlights knows what they're doing, they have a special recipe for minimizing trouble with FedEx. Now I'm like, if I'd seen this form earlier, I'd have known they're just copy-pasting into FedEx forms.

I call once more. My sole question is whether I need to declare the fact that I, the shipper, don't own both bikes that I'm shipping, and whether I should provide my friend's passport information. I want to be 100% honest with Customs.
This rep hems on it a bit, initially tells me to put my friend's info on the forms, and then decides it'd be less hassle/fewer flags raised if we go with just my info. My confidence that BikeFlights has all the expertise is at a new low. The only consolation is that they're open Saturday and Sunday, so I can bug them if something else comes up.

I fill out the Personal Goods Form and email it back to BikeFlights. I include:
- just my passport info, not my friend's
- pictures of both bikes. The bike shop offers to let me pack stuff more in there, but I'm so paranoid at this point of getting caught out somehow that I refuse. So the two pictures accurately show everything in the boxes
- day by day schedule for our tour, noting that we are following a prescribed route but that it is an unguided trip

7/9

I get the FedEx shipping label PDF in BikeFlights email in the morning. Looking at the contents removes any doubt that the Personal Goods Form and the FedEx Commercial Invoice are the same thing.

I get 3 shipping labels for each box, and then supplemental information to go behind the master label. The shipper will open up the clear plastic envelope and work with the forms over the course of the shipment, apparently.

I bike over to the shop to hand them the labels. The 3 boxes are ready, and the shop lets me slap on the envelopes and labels myself.

The friend in Atlanta is thoroughly discouraged from shipping, having heard about what's been going on with my shipment.
In talking to him previously, we'd weighed canceling the shipping order and flying with the bike boxes. I'd passed on that because I didn't have enough details to know if that'd be a safe choice.

By now, with the shipment already scheduled, it might still be possible to ship only some of the boxes just to cut down costs, if checking in one box on the flight might defray costs.
But recall step 3 above: Jasper bike shop builds up the bikes. If we took some boxes on the plane, the shop wouldn't be able to build the bikes up. They'd just be stuck holding our boxes until we showed up, maybe charging a token storage fee. My honor wouldn't let me consider that as an option.

7/11

Monday comes. I don't hear anything from the shop, but I'm not nervous.

7/12

I check the FedEx tracking number and see that not only have the bikes been picked up, but they're already in Memphis.

7/13

Email the Jasper shop to give them a heads up that the bikes are coming. Neglect to mention that it's just 2 now.

7/14

In the morning, I get an email from a FedEx CA representative:

Please advise if these bikes were fumigated prior to shipping.  Please advise what event these goods are coming into Canada for.  Please advise if these goods will be shipped back to you after the event.

I spoke to the recipient, and they are not aware of this shipment coming into their location for you.  At this point, we cannot clear these goods through Canada Customs.

This is the very first time I've heard anything about fumigation. Once again, my ire is directed at BikeFlights. They're supposed to help me with this stuff. I hate getting caught off guard.

Further down in the email is part of the back and forth between this FedEx agent and BikeFlights. I can't quite make out what's going on, but it seems that in some cases, the owner needs to clear the goods in person at Customs. In others, it's ok with proper paperwork for the shipper to clear on the owner's behalf. This line sticks out:
"It is against Canada Customs regulations for any broker to clear personal effects shipments."

I reply back to the FedEx rep, being vague about the fumigation thing, and saying that I would check with the bike shop what was going on.

Anyways, I call up the Jasper shop. They say an hourly employee must have answered, because they did see my email that the shipment was coming.

I see this email back from the FedEx rep:

Do you have the name of the bike tour?  Do you have a contact name at Vicious Cycle?  When does the tour start?

I will have to check with Canada Customs in regards to the type of importation, to see if we can clear the shipment on your behalf.  When goods are shipped as personal effects, Canada Customs’ regulations state that the recipient is to self-clear through customs in person, and brokers are not allowed to clear them.  That being said, this is not just personal effects – like luggage that was left behind while on vacation out of country.

I decide to just call the rep. The FedEx phone system warns that it's for employees only, but when I get the rep, she doesn't seem to mind and knows it's me when I bring up the bike issue.
I clarify that our bike tour is not part of any organized commercial trip. Not sure if she cares, but want to be precise. I also tell her that I have an itinerary† that I can give her, which she wants. I email it to her, and she looks it over. I point out that we'll be crossing the border back into the US on bike, just in case that's relevant.
I also mention that she could call the shop and ask for the guy who's been handling my reservation. She asks why the bikes are going there, and I explain that we want the bikes to be built up and ready to ride when we arrive in Jasper.

At this point, she's pretty comfortable concluding that in fact the bikes will be used for the tour in a travel/vacation capacity, and not being sold or something. So she's going to follow up with CA Customs and try to get it cleared.

† At the time of the call, I was pissed that BikeFlights had asked me for that info, but yet it still hadn't made it into the right hands. Looking back at the back and forth between FedEx and BikeFlights, it seems like BikeFlights had atttached all those docs, but the FedEx rep didn't want to see them, because of the aforementioned self-clear in person policy. So if she had opened those docs, perhaps she would have known what the deal was.

After hanging up, I forward the FedEx email to BikeFlights and ask about the fumigation thing. BikeFlights acknowledges and says they will try to get that form, which must come from CA Customs or maybe CFIA (which I saw in the back and forth) - Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

I look at the tracking page, and it's lit up with red all over:

The exceptions are vaguely relevant to the situation, but would be meaningless if I weren't already clued in.

In the afternoon, I get this from the FedEx rep:

Your shop as the receiver did not matter to Canada Customs, so I did not call them.

The good news is that since the shipper provided their account number for billing the duties and taxes, we did not have any further delays about payment, and Canada Customs has released this shipment.  It will go out with tomorrow’s deliveries, but may not get to Jasper until Monday or Tuesday.

Such a relief. I still need to inquire about whether any duties were actually imposed. My understanding is that personal effects stuff might not be levied.

Later that afternoon, I get called by my local shop, saying that FedEx had called them and left a message about my package. I was a tiny bit worried that there was still some loose thread despite the FedEx rep saying it was all good.

At night, the tracking page showed that things were cleared up and back on the move.

7/15

No update on the tracking page.

7/18

After regularly checking the tracking page all weekend, I finally see this in the afternoon:

Guess it had made it there on Friday after all. Just some delays with marking the delivery complete.

General conclusions

While I found BikeFlights staff to be generally pleasant, their responsiveness and knowledge about shipping to Canada (as that's all I have experience with) was pretty unsatisfying. Nothing that I'd hoped to gain from using them really went that smoothly. Armed with a FedEx Commercial Invoice and the completed FedEx shipping labels for this shipment, I'm confident I could reproduce whatever settings BikeFlights deems to be the safest for clearing Customs.

Things I should follow up on:
- fumigation?
- on what basis did CA Customs approve the shipment, if generally they don't allow brokers to clear personal effects shipments? do bikes not count as personal effects?
- duties applied in this scenario

The whole process not only generated a ton of stress, but cost waaay more than I expected. I moved down the shipping path because the initial estimate showed about what I was willing to pay. The final cost was maybe $300 on top of what we were planning.

Having read more on checking bikes in as baggage, this seems like a much more attractive option. Even if it cost about $200 per bike, that's still a damn sight cheaper than shipping like how we did.

Followups

From FedEx CA:

> on what basis did CA Customs approve the shipment, if generally they don't allow brokers to clear personal effects shipments? did they decide the bikes didn't count as personal effects? 

The bikes were declared as personal shipment for temporary importation to be returned to USA by the person importing them.
We can clear personal shipments, but not personal effects for permanent importation into Canada.  There are immigration and status questions which need to be addressed by Canada Customs to the person permanently importing goods.  Since you advised me you were riding the bikes back to USA, and I provided that email as your promise to Canada Customs that this was what you were doing, they approved the temporary importation of this personal shipment.

Cool, so the itinerary was important and ultimately made a difference. The personal shipment for temporary importation status was what I needed; I wish that BikeFlights had helped more with that.

> do you know what duties they decided to apply?  

The shipper declared the bikes as US manufactured, so there were no duties, just GST (Goods and Services Tax) of 5% of the Canadian value conversion, which was taken care of by the shipper’s account.

From BikeFlights:

So there is a CAN personal effects form which we have found does not apply to most of our customers. As far as "fumigation?" Im not sure this is the right word here. We supplement our own personal effects form instead of the given Personal Effects for for Canada. 

> had you heard about this fumigation requirement before? Did you end up getting any forms?

1) Yes we have of course heard about the form but as mentioned it often doesnt very well apply so we supplement our own, with a high degree of success. 

> on what basis did CA Customs approve the shipment, if generally they don't allow brokers to clear personal effects shipments? do bikes not count as personal effects?

2) We set FedEx as the broker for out shipments, again with a great degree of success. We recommend shipping to a residence or business location which does NOT have its own clearance agent as sometimes this can confuse Can. customs; addresses to avoid include hotels or very large businesses. 

> "The good news is that since the shipper provided their account number for billing the duties and taxes." Are those duties charged to me, or to BikeFlights? 

3) We set all international shipments to have any applicable duties or taxes assigned to the recipient. While we are available to assist with clearance ultimately this duty lies with the recipient. 

Dunno what to make of the non-answer about brokers and personal effects. FedEx's answer was more concrete, as it describes exactly what CA Customs actually oked.

Another rep from BikeFlights (the way they set up their Zendesk ticket system and the way they respond means I had several emails going with them):

> had you heard about this fumigation requirement before? Did you end up getting any forms?

1. Fumigation requirement usually comes from foreign countries when they believe soil may be present on items and might carry unwanted bacteria. I have never seen the requirement from the Us to Canada, but Customs Officials may have originally requested it after being confused with paperwork or not receiving all the paperwork.  

> on what basis did CA Customs approve the shipment, if generally they don't allow brokers to clear personal effects shipments? do bikes not count as personal effects? 

2. Bikes do count as personal effects, and usually comes down to the value. It is possible a wrong value or misinformation was taken by Canada Government officials on this package causing strange delays. Often, they view high value personal effects has commercial items. This could be one explanation, however, we did not receive one from Fedex.  

> "The good news is that since the shipper [BikeFlights] provided their account number for billing the duties and taxes." Are those duties charged to me, or to BikeFlights?  

3. Since the Item is personal effects and the proper paperwork was provided, the duties & taxes, if any are charged to BikeFlights Account. For Personal Effect shipments, our policy now, is that we absorb that charge. You will not be billed further for this package. 

This one was much more informative. I followed up about what FedEx said about personal shipment for temporary importation, to see if that's what I (or anyone) should use down the road.

Someone at BikeFlights finally linked me to this about international shipping: https://www.bikeflights.com/international_bicycle_shipping
Pretty good coverage of what the case I needed. Wish I'd read that before. Though still no substitute for making it clearer that non-commercial shipments require International Express.

"they're going all the way"

Going down the Pacific Coast Highway on our last tour, we ran into these two German kids. Pleasant and polite. Gabe asked them one morning what their plans were, and mentioned later --
"they're going all the way!"
At this point, we were maybe 3 days outside of San Francisco, firmly cemented as the destination in my mind. So naturally, I surmised out loud, "oh wow, that's, what, 200mi in one day? Pretty hardcore."

But no, I had misunderstood. The two Germans were on a tour going all the way down to Patagonia. They would be riding for several more months.


Why do a bike tour?

For me, there's two reasons:
- desiging your equipment to do a job, and then seeing it perform its job
- to be out on the open road

It's not all glamorous. 90% of the time, you're seeing the same tree-lined highway or climbing up the same 5% asphalt grade. Often, you're not in a position to converse with your teammates. In those hours, you have to keep yourself mentally occupied as you crawl across the landscape.
But the other 10% of the time, there's some sights that you can't get any other way. There's vistas that will have you saying "holy shit" under your breath. There's weird scenes that you run into, like when we saw the two hobos (one even with a bindle) walking down train tracks with their dog. There's the utter freedom of deciding what you're gonna do and when, like buying a rotisserie chicken for lunch and devouring it in the trees on the side of the road.

In the first week of the last bike tour, I was so obsessed with keeping to a strict schedule and pounding up roads like that was my only job. Gabe and Matt would take breaks to eat blackberries growing off the shoulder of 101. I never joined them.
This time around, I'll be right there with them.

what does T1P mean? who is T1P?

T1P

The first bike tour we did back in 2013 was from scratch. Matt's med school residency program is such that he gets a 4-month break (well, he had to horse-trade with his two co-residents). To fill that time, he out of the blue thought of cycling across the US. Thanks to the real world of aligning schedules, the 3 of us only got 3 weeks, a normal vacation stint. We had to learn how to do bike touring from 0 experience.

We were really afraid of doing it wrong. So when reading advice online, we typically erred on the side of buying the best stuff we could. And since we had nothing to start with, we bought everything -- bikes, panniers, jerseys, camp gear, etc. It was a lot of money.

When we were on the road, we saw folks doing the same tour as us with scraped together but still effective equipment. An old 10-speed road bike won't be as sturdy and won't have nice easy gears for going up hills, but it will get the job done. A trash bag with some bungee cords isn't as easy to use as an Ortlieb pannier, but you'll be fine. I'm not trying to make a statement about the cost of doing a bike tour; I'm just noting that we really noticed how much we had spent to do the tour. In a way, we had just thrown money at the problem, shelling out to get what we wanted.
And that is the origin of the Team 1% name -- that we were spending money to steamroll any issues that came up.

Even though we make fun of ourselves for it, the name is still relevant. Example:
This time around, Matt and I had to buy bikes again. Both of us sold ours in San Francisco at the end of the last tour, not knowing when we'd use them again. We had to rebuy a lot of gear. At least Gabe didn't make that mistake. When it came to sleeping bags, we were on the fence about new ones. The weather might not get cold enough to test our 40/50F bags, but if it did, it would suck.
And so we felt justified in shopping for a light and compact 30F bag.

My old bag was good for 45F, and surprisingly compact, given that I bought it for $60 at a sporting goods store 3 days into the tour [a story for another time]. But I wanted 35F, and I wanted something really light if possible.

I got a Sea to Summit Micro McII. Comparison of the 2 bags, fully compressed:

I know what you're thinking -- it's barely any smaller! The picure does downplay the actual size difference, but you're right. It's not much smaller. It might be all of half a pound lighter. But when you're rolling T1P, it's worth it. Ok, it's not really worth it, but you get the idea.

What did the others do? Matt was really tempted by a <1lb pita pocket style bag, but the ordering time was too long to risk. So he got some ultralight bag at REI. Gabe went for max warmth, eschewing weight and bulk entirely.

Bios

For the T1P South Africa trip, Matt wrote some bios: http://mmian-travel.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-squad.html

While accurate, I think it's always a bit jarring to read someone else's characterization of you.

So here I am to return the favor.

Matt

Matt is the reason this trip and all the other trips happen. He's for sure the most adventurous and the most driven to see the world. For me, the best part of the Odyssey is when Odysseus comes home and sees the familiar comforts of Ithaca. For Matt, it'd be the sailing out and treading onto foreign shores.

As the most ambitious traveler, he defaults to the team leader and organizer. He'll do some delegation, but actually likes to take care of things himself. Can't find someone better to do things right by doing them himself.

Matt's big thing is diving now, I think. I get the appeal -- to be in a different universe with different rules of physics and different species living a strange life. But that risk factor that he embraces makes it way too scary for me. When he signed us up to hike the Drakensberg, he put down our experience level as "climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro or similar." I'll let you guess who's been on Kilimanjaro and who's "similar."

Matt tends to be a little extra, to use modern slang. Always wanting to slot one more thing into the schedule or to skive off to check out this or that. 

Gabe

I would say Gabe and I have more similar backgrounds -- engineering jobs, playing the occasional video game, kind of sarcastic about stuff.

On these trips, I feel like I defer to Gabe for pacing -- are we rushing? Do we need to move on? Etc. My gut is that Gabe has more patience than either Matt or me, and tends to be more stoic. No trip ever goes off perfectly sunny and trouble free, and when there's some raised hackles, Gabe is probably the one to exert a calming, steadying influence on the situation. That's part of why he's the navigator, so the trip proceeds along his pace.

Gabe really enjoys find the humor in random things. In South Africa, it was spotting examples of the country's apparent obsession with puns.

Meng

I'm not a true traveler, in that I am content to see the world come to me through the TV screen. On the flip side, the things I've seen on trips -- those experiences could never be conveyed through pictures or video. You just have to be there. I think that's how I'd boil down the need to travel. If you just have to be there, well, then go there. And then when you're there, eat a ton of food. 

One of my flaws is that I can fall into bad moods. It was pretty bad on the first bike tour, and fairly minor in SA, but that's one of the downsides of traveling, I guess. On a trip to China with my folks, I got a stomach bug for several days, and I was so close to snapping the last few days. Knowing that this is one of my weaknesses, I'm always trying to get a handle on it, trying to make sure nothing boils over.

I'm one of those nerds who obsesses over material things. The bike tour really sets me off, what with having to make a million different choices on equipment. I've spent months tweaking my bike to perfection, so I really hope it shines on the road. I want to reap back all that time invested in setting up my bike in the form of little daily observations that, yes, the bike is handling everything thrown its way.

Hop On and Off All Day

Around Boston, you can see tour buses running around showing tourists historical and significant landmarks. One of the companies boldly advertises with Hop On and Off All Day splashed on the sides of their buses.

And that is what Team 1 Percent will be doing this August -- another bike tour where we travel by bike, hopping on and off all day to see all there is to see.
This time, down the Great Parks North route, starting in Jasper, Alberta and winding over the Canadian Rockies into Missoula, Montana.

Team 1 Percent is the same people who did the Pacific Coast Highway tour of 2013.

Coming up next -- team bios and rationale for touring again.