Boy Scout High Adventure

[NVTornado]

I'm a leader of a varsity scout troop and every summer we plan and go a week long camp/adventure. This I was thinking it would be awesome to take the boys on a bikepacking adventure. I have been an avid backpacker and mountain biker have just in the last year started putting the two together. I live by Lake Tahoe and am planning on taking my scouts, all are aged 14 or older, up to ride the TRT. I want to ride with them from the Mt Rose Meadows to S. Lake Tahoe for the first half of the trip. I have a fairly athletic group and I think we could amass all the gear we would need, I'm just not sure how far they could go in a day. We have done a number of training rides and have many more planned leading up to the trip.  My question is, what would be a reasonable distance for a my scouts to travel in a day?  I know as I ride with them more I will get a better idea of how far they could go but I'm wondering if anyone has experience riding with teenagers that would could help me out.

Thanks

[Done]

I haven't biked much with teenagers, but I have done a fair bit of backpacking and hiking. In general, they can go surprisingly hard--as long as they eat and drink regularly. I'd recommend stopping every hour or two for quick snack breaks, in addition to a good lunch stop.

[Blammo]

We decided to run about 60 boys through the Bicycle Merit badge program.  I don't remember the exact numbers but the "big ride" can be broken into several smaller ones which is what we decided most of the boys would do.  Only a handful of the kids cycled much but, strangely, most of them had decent bikes.  We planned a ride through the hills with several cutoffs ranging from like 20 miles to 80.  Nearly every boy who was not grossly overweight just went ahead and blew our minds by riding an 80 miler.  The ages were roughly 12 to 17.

[kjmillig]

Kids, especially if they are reasonably fit, are really tough and resilient. They can blow your mind sometimes. If you put in plenty of conditioning and training rides and work on equipment while you're doing it, then you should be able to do 20-50 mile days without much hassle. Just think of this way: Say you were going backpacking at Philmont Scout Ranch. What would you do with the boys to prepare? Apply that same logic to the bike trip.

[NVTornado]

I guess I shouldn't underestimate them, we did a 30 mile ride along a paved bike path near Sacramento that all but one was able to finish. Sounds like my biggest issue might be finding another leader who can keep up with the boys... I'm thinking of dividing the ride up into around 25 mile section since a large portion of the trail can get technical.

[bikewright]

A couple of years ago our Troop did the C&O Canal. Might not be the same in effort as your trip but this is what we did. We were able to break the the C&O into 5 trips. Each trip was broken down to match the cycling merit badge with the last trip being the 50 mile leg. I rode with the boys and had two guys that I MTB with to just be wreches for the Troop.

The other Scout Leaders became the support group and would drive to the next camp and would do all the cooking and moving of the equipment.

All the kids that wanted to make it did and those that did not the parents took them back to ride the 50 miles!

[cackalak]

I'm also a Varsity Scout coach and would like to do something like this as well.  Problem for me is getting bikes for every kid.  I have been scouring craigslist for older bikes that could be fixed up (by the scouts).  Next is getting good packs and light enough gear for bike packing.  Not all the boys come from well-to-do families or the parents just don't care enough to buy a better suited (READ: expensive) sleeping bag when they already have one (that weighs 10 lbs).

Maybe bikewright's method will be better. 

[NVTornado]

Nice to see there are other scout leaders here. All but one of my boys have good bikes which makes it easy on me. Sleeping bags might be an issue for us as well. I'm going to take them on an easy over night test to see if they have the right gear and if they actually enjoy it.  If all goes well we will incorporate it into the high adventure. If not we will just plan our camping spots where a truck can bring us our gear.

[bikewright]

Here are a couple more things that I learned from those 5 trips. I was amazed that all the bikes the boys had made the trip. Most were crap bikes but if you can get some people that know how to work on a bike you can fix/adjust most things. Some kids have bikes that are to small or big for them. You might need to see if they will change bikes with each other. If they know the fit will be better for them they will do it with out a fight. We had flats (each needs to bring a tube that fits their bike), a shifter that stop working and I think we had an issue with a saddle.

Use the SPL as a Ride Leader. Give him a check point (road crossing) 5 miles out. No one rides in front of the Ride Leader. Once he has every one they they can go to the next check point. This lets the guys ride at their pace. If someone breaks down, then you do not have that far to recover them. This worked very well for us.

The last 50 miles. The C&O is not hard it is just flat and you have to pedal all the time. What we did is made a 4x6 card the POI's and mile markers. We then listed the cut off times you needed to have to make the 50 miles in 5 hours, 8 hours, and 10 hours. At the hard cut off there was an adult at that location. They would hold the Scout(s) back to the next time group. So Scouts riding the 5 hour ride got to a point that they would not make it to the end in 5 hours they fell back to the 8 hour group.

If anyone would like I have a copy of the card, I can scan an email  it to you.

[NVTornado]

I would love to get a copy of that.  I have taken my boys out on a few rides and have been really impressed by their fitness level and how they were able to scrounge together decent bikes.  The last boy riding a Walmart bike just got a new Trek 29er hardtail.  We have our first "test" campout in 2 weeks, just a quick overnight outing on a not too hard trail.  I'll finally get a really good look at how all their gear works out.

[bikewright]

Shoot me an email. See my profile and  I will send it to you.