Hey all! Not really sure where to start but I’m hoping this awesome community can give me some advice on whether something I’m thinking of doing is feasible or just flat insane.
I’ve got a [Felt FR40 road bike](https://99spokes.com/bikes/felt/2017/fr40) (purchased in September 2017) that I use for commuting and triathlons and has served me really well since I bought it (best guess is its only got about 2-2.5k miles on it as it basically saw no action while I worked from home for most of 2020-2022.) I have some extended time off from work coming up and have been trying to think of fun things to do with it, and one idea that has really sunk deep into my brain is some sort of longer weekend bike trip. I live in Chicago and there is a cabin in the woods airbnb my girlfriend and I have gone to a number of times in Manitowoc Wisconsin that feels like the perfect destination.
Originally I was thinking I might take the Amtrak up to Milwaukee and the do the 90 or so mile bike from there, but some snooping has turned up that Amtrak has [cut the roll-on bike service](https://www.reddit.com/r/chibike/comments/15exbkd/amtrak_no_longer_offers_trainside_bike_service/) and they are “[many months away](https://chi.streetsblog.org/2023/08/05/annoyingly-amtrak-has-cut-bicycle-capacity-on-hiawatha-service-but-bike-friendly-venture-cars-are-coming)” from the car refurbishment necessary to reinstate it. Luckily there is Metra service from Chicago to Kenosha, Wisconsin, so my new plan would be to take that, do a \~40mi bike to Milwaukee, spend the night, then do the rest of the trip the next day. I was thinking I’d do this early in the week, spend some time alone, then my partner could join me for a long weekend, and we’d drive back with the bike in the trunk/in a borrowed rack, so the trip would just be the two days, \~130 mi total. I also think I can afford to pack fairly light as I’d be staying in a hotel/airbnb in Milwaukee, not camping, so I’d mostly just need some bike maintenance stuff (tubes, levers, minipump, etc), change of clothes, snacks/water to hold me over for a day or two until my partner joins me.
My concern is: is this bike up the the task? I initially thought I might just use a backpack which is what I typically do on commutes and have used on extended workout rides as well, but a friend who is absolutely more knowledgeable about such things was pretty skeptical of that. I can’t mount a traditional rack on my bike (no braze-ons) and some searching around suggests a seatpost mounted rack is a very bad idea and likely to cause damage to my seatpost. I’m not sure if something that attaches to both the seatpost as well as the seat stay is a better idea or not.
I don’t see this being a thing I continue doing a ton of (though I’ve been wrong about such things before) as my partner is not really much of a biker (she’s got a massive Paul Frank branded cruiser she used to go to farmer’s markets but that’s about it.) Plus I don’t really have the space to store another bike so simply buying a more touring oriented bike is not really on the table.
So, with all of that context out of the way, is this doable? I’m not concerned about the fitness involved, but is my bike up to the stress of a ride like this? Is a road bike like this just a terrible idea from the perspective of comfort on a trip this long? Is a bikepack fine or is there a way to get a rack mounted on this thing? Or am I being paranoid about the dangers of seatpost mounting on such a short trip? What things have I not even thought of? Basically any advice folks could offer to a complete amateur here would be supremely helpful and appreciated!
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by avengingrage