I cycle quite a bit (500-1000km / month), but my recreational routes have all been near areas where I know I’ll have access to public toilets and clean drinking water.
I’d love to venture out onto more rural roads and areas, way outside of areas that might normally have toilet access, but that’s quite literally the only thing holding me back from doing so.
What are your strategies? Piss by the side of the road and hope nobody sees you? Squat out in a heavily forested area and risk ticks?
This is not a topic that ever gets talked about with cycle tourists, endurance riders, and other long-distance cyclists, so I’d love to know how to approach this!
haha. I appreciate the insight.
I don’t expect any emergency bathroom breaks, but I am curious to know how people do it.
Some heatmap areas for cyclists (which helps with route planning) are really out of the way of any civilization, so even a coffee shop would be difficult to find.
I can’t imagine any one going before they leave, cycling for 6+ hours, then going home to use the bathroom.
This… and look out for google map vehicles.
Oh god, to be immortalized squatting by the side of the road would be soul crushing.
so that you can chuck shit at their cameras . . .
IDK, I only need to poop like once/day, and I can usually go two if needed without too much discomfort. I find that if I get some fluids first thing in the morning, I have one visit to the bathroom in the morning and I’m good for the rest of the day.
In fact, I can count the number of times I’ve had to use a public restroom for #2 on one hand for the past year, and those were almost universally stomach aches.
I’m a guy, so peeing outdoors really isn’t an issue. When I did it regularly (I’d spend a lot of time in nature), I would bring hand sanitizer. These days it’s rare enough that I only sanitize when I make it back to civilization.
Where might one find these heatmaps?
For cycling, RideWithGPS, Strava, Bikemap, and Garmin Connect have public heatmaps of popular routes. You can use them to get an idea of which roads cyclists tend to use, and I’ve been able to find some really nice trails, safe roads, and scenic routes by using heatmaps.
I will caution on the reliability of those heatmaps, though, since it may give you the impression that a route is popular, but it might actually be a very busy road with cyclists using the sidewalk. That’s not the type of route I tend to take.
Good advice, thanks. And the heatmap idea in general is pretty clever
Yes. Cities have been using that data to help with planning new infrastructure, but it helps regular folks to route plan :)