ePlaya

Hi!

My boyfriend and I are coming from backpacking for 9 months. We're tight on cash but have done an absurd amount of walking every day.

Is it mad to attempt the Playa on foot (and borrowing the occasional bike from our co-campers)?

Thanks!

Not at all. Plenty of people do without bikes.
An advantage is more interaction with the people / camps you walk past.

Don't forget Yellow Bikes.....

Entirely possible, and potentially more worthwhile because you never have to search a bike pile at night when you could be dancing.

No. Burning man without bikes is a terrible idea. You've spent all this money and effort getting there - go the extra few inches and make sure you have a bike and lights and a lock.

Seriously. Don't go to Burning Man without a bike. Get on craigslist and find two cheapo mountain bikes, look at garage sales, anything you can do. Yes, you CAN go to Burning Man without bikes, but you will regret it.

And if you arrive in Gerlach on either Saturday or Sunday, there will be tons of bikes for rent or to even buy. Normally I will tell Chowski to pound sand, but in this case he's absolutely right.

Normally I will tell Chowski to pound sand

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL This made me laugh so loud my Pupper jumped.
I too do not agree with Chowski most of the time, but he has some gems now and again. Call it a love-hate thing.

Have only been to 3 Burns and last one I had no bike . Was not good , tired and didnt see as much , as with my bike the 2 previous years .

2014 with no bike. Has its advantages - see things at a slower pace and tend to stop in and visit more. And boy those cool water/vinegar foot soaks felt good at day's end. But no...get a junker off craigslist. You'll see a lot more and your big toenail won't fall off.

Welcome to ePlaya, the most experienced source of BM experience discussion. To the original question, yes.


If you are a person that checks the What Where When (or the DJ schedule - that topic is good for eons of discussion on ePlaya ) and makes a schedule then a bike is useful. Especially if you have to get from DJ big man at the Northern Eurasia mafia camp to the Daft Punk trash fence set in 15 minutes.

"I traveled all this way and I need to social media blast / cross every last thing off my bucket list."

If you are the kind of person who enjoys meeting new people in face to face conversations, writing/noting their contact information and then following up with a long term connection, a bike is unnecessary.

"I traveled all this way and I want to make long term deep connections with some best people in the world."

You experience the world differently on foot, bike, car, train, plane. Which of those is more fulfilling?

If you do bring bikes, get a good lock and put your name, phone and camp address on it.

Pay no heed to the Chowski-haters. I am universally beloved. And wise!

Yes, you can waste your time getting to know your neighbors at Burning Man, and walking in very small circles around the street where you are stuck without a bicycle, but why would you do that to yourself when for the minor inconvenience of bringing a bicycle the entire Playa opens to you.

Bicycles are THE mode of transportation on the playa. You will (I do) ride them from the moment you awaken to the minute you crash at dawn. From the porto-potties to center camp for coffee, on a daytime deep playa art tour to the outer rings of the city.

Black Rock City is enormous. You will not see all of it. You CANNOT see all of it. But having a bike means you spend significantly less time walking vast distances. In the city, that's not a problem because there all always cool things to do and to see. But if you ride an art car out to the trash fence, or end up at the temple, or wander off into deep deep playa and have to walk all the way back to camp, that's an hour or more of time spent. Do that two or three times a day, and it will get old. Fast.

Plus, there is absolutely no finer experience (and none so specific to the Black Rock Desert) than closing your eyes and biking through deep playa as fast as you can, knowing that you will crash into nothing. In conclusion, you CAN do it without a bike, but having a bike is so integral to the experience, you just HAVE to have one.

To the OP. BRC is not large. It's about 2 miles in diameter. You can map that to your walking experience. https://burningman.org/culture/history/ ... city-plan/

LindsieCatherine wrote:Hi!

My boyfriend and I are coming from backpacking for 9 months. We're tight on cash but have done an absurd amount of walking every day.

Is it mad to attempt the Playa on foot (and borrowing the occasional bike from our co-campers)?

Thanks!

It's not insane to go without a bike (I have attended without a bike, several times) but for me, it's a lot happier WITH a bike. So . . . don't let it stop you from attending if you can't find one, but do your best to rent or buy a cheap beach cruiser. It really does equal freedom out there, and doubles the amount of stuff you'll see and participate in.

On the other hand, it's a lot easier to get a ride on a mutant vehicle suddenly if you don't have the baggage of a bike. Some mutant vehicles can carry a bike, plenty can't.


. . . You'll notice that we, as a group, are incapable of giving one unified answer on many things, including this. Some seeing eye doesn't consider BRC large, but I do.

You'll probably be stuck on the outer reaches of the city, so even making it to Esplanade will be a chore without a bike. Hell, it sucks just having to walk to the bathrooms in the heat.

Ya, I think there is a lot of sunshine about exploring it on your feet. However, when I meet people without bikes out there they are often looking for bikes. The yellow bikes are in short supply. It is fun to distantly weave a bike through the sound exhaust of a lit up and rolling art car.

I'd like to add my voice to the HIGHLY recommended camp.

Burning Man has soooo much going on... and you'll get a booklet as you enter that has hundreds upon hundreds of events that you can enjoy (mixers, workshops, music, etc.). You may find an event that you're dying to attend, but it's on the opposite side of the city and you can't get there in time because you're coming from another amazing event... or you might make a group of friends who are heading out to something last minute, and you can't join them.

If you're going to spend all that money to get to BRC, find yourself a cheap, used bike on Craig's List (don't get something nice because the playa destroys things). If it breaks down on the playa, there are a punch of bike repair shops throughout BRC, so you'll find someone who will fix it in exchange for a hug.

Now that I've said all that, I do know some people who go without a bike, and they have fun. But the bike will give you options you wouldn't otherwise have.

For what it's worth, bikes add a fair amount of logistical concerns and cost considerations to attending.

If you want things really simple you can just experience the event without bikes. I have met plenty of folks who are out and about doing that.

If you do find a pair of bikes and are taking Burner Express, I believe you can bring them in pretty easily and cheaply. If you are driving in, your best bet is definitely to bring them in and out on a bike rack.

Another thing to consider is that you may be way too tired/sore/crampy to walk very far, or get bad blisters, or hurt your ankle, or be stupid hungover to the point that the LAST thing you want to do is walk anywhere, but getting on a bike might be easier and way more bearable.

Last year on the first Sunday I cut the bottom of my foot badly stepping on rebar. I had no problem biking everywhere once I was properly bandaged (and in fact did a lap around the trash fence every morning ) but I would have had a hard time walking very far at all at least for the first 4 days or so. Odds are you'll be fine and nothing will happen to you, but again, something to think about as you may not always find yourself in the fine walking shape that you're in currently. My 0.02 (which is about 0.0014 USD )

You only have a week out there.

Unless you're a camp bum (an honorable and perfectly valid option, though usually reserved for 10+ year veterans), you'll probably want to travel between 50 and 80 miles under your own power during that week.

On foot at a brisk walk, that's between 16 and 26 hours of walking. On a bike averaging 10mph, that's only 5 to 8 hours of riding.

Let's say you are there for 7 full days, and sleep 6 hours per day. You have 126 hours to spend at Burning Man. Spend 4 hours each on camp setup/teardown = 118 hours. Making and eating meals, a low guess would be 1 hour per day = 111 hours. Getting dressed and using porta potty trips ideally no more than an hour total per day = 104 hours.

Walking might take up to 25% of your remaining time; biking may take up to 7.9% of your remaining time.

Much of the playa is empty and uninteresting after a couple hours spent there. On a bike, you'll spend less time in the blank zones, if you want.

I'm jumping on the "bring a bike" bandwagon. I had a year where I was really into walking long distances, and went without one, and while honestly, I didn't mind exploring the city at that pace by any means, there were times I would meet people traveling with bikes or have friends with them and not being able to join or participate definitely left me missing out on things.

There have also been years my bike has been nothing but a source of irritation and stress. Even injury. I think it's great to have one, and if you're not reliant on it, wonderful, but its likely you'll put it to good use at some point during your stay. Cheap bikes are everywhere in Reno and en route to Burning Man around that time.

Savannah wrote:It's not insane to go without a bike (I have attended without a bike, several times) but for me, it's a lot happier WITH a bike.

This. I've been without a bike out there, and it sucks. The spoke streets are long, but the A-F streets are even more ridiculously long due to the curve. The only time I'll walk willingly out there is at night, and even then you still need to carry water on you, plus anything you might be drinking, plus snacks, etc etc.

A big thing to take into consideration when walking is water. You have to have it - the desert is trying to kill you (it's not just the heat, the dust is an actual desiccant). If you're used to backpacking, you'll be fine with a full camelback, but your range from camp is going to depend on how long you can be away without refills. Some camps will help you out with a drink of water, but very few are able to fill anyone else's water bottles/ camelbacks.