Last week, eight great friends embarked on a four day White Rim Bike trip. The trip involves riding bikes on the 100 mile White Rim jeep trail in Canyonlands national park, Utah--and camping three nights. A truck is used as a sag-wagon to carry water, camping gear and delicious food and drink.
Option one: Using an outfitter: $ 925/person not including transportation to Moab, Utah or alcohol.
Total cost: $7400 plus tip!
Advantages:
--Maybe meet new people
--Someone caters your dinner and cleans-up
--No worries about logistics
--You ride all of it, they drive.
Option two: self-supported, our choice
Cost:
--$30 permit
--$10 park fee for vehicle
--$20 for homemade pasta meal for 8 people.
--$15 Stir fry meal
--$15 fajitas dinner
--$20 appetizers
--$12 stove fuel
--$50 breakfasts total.
--$50 lunches total
--$50 Gasoline/wear and tear on truck.
Total: ~$272 or $34 / person.
To be fair, we had to have someone with a 4wd truck to realize this level of savings but even if not, we could have rented one for $500 for the trip putting total cost at $772--Still cheap for 8 people.
Advantages:
--Ridiculous cost savings.
--Adventure of handling logistics.
--The social aspect of each couple cooking a meal for the group on a night.
It was a blast!
(PS: one thing to add that might appear hypocritical from the mustachism point of view for some is that it might look like a fortune of expensive bikes here. There are several high quality bikes but not super over the top. There is only one beater bike but the others are moderate quality that were either purchased as old models cheaply or built from highly discounted parts found from pro-deals, close-outs. And to add, the folks on this ride are not weekend warriors. We all ride thousands of mountain bike miles a year and even commute to work on these bikes.)
