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Hello, I'm from Canada,Quebec, Rimouski. I ride a Guzzi Stelvio NTX 2013 and a KLR650 1992. I love ADV bikes, it's like the jeep of the bike...

Jafix is right, listen to your body. I'm a certified spinning instructor and did that for 6 years. Their mantra is really "less is more." Most of the benefits of exercise (cardiovascular, immune system, brain chemistry, sleep, mood, healing, etc...) come at the aerobic and not anaerobic level. When you're aerobic, your heart rate is between about 65% and 80% of your max heart rate. Your max heart rate is typically 220 minus your age for men; 225 minus age for women. I'm 48 so that's 172. 80% of that would be 138 bpm as a ceiling for aerobic exercise. Walking is probably the best aerobic exercise there is but your heart doesn't really know the difference between that or an elliptical machine or stationary bike, etc... You build up your anaerobic threshold over time. Most high performance athletes will train at an aerobic level for as long as 6 months until they start training in the anaerobic levels. You also want to keep that aerobic fitness regular; at least once every 48 hours or you'll rapidly lose it. After 20 min of aerobic exercise, 50% of your calories burned will be coming directly from your fat stores. One trick is to do a brief exercise like walking in the morning before you've had your breakfast. Your glycogen stores will have been more depleted during the night and you'll start burning fat quicker. So if your goal is weight loss, the aerobic exercise is really good for that. Of course the anaerobic or strength training will put on muscle mass and that raises your basal metabolic rate (muscle burns more than fat) which also helps with fat loss. But a lot of people go nuts on a spinning bike or they go running (anaerobic) or something like that (thinking harder is better) and that can be counter-productive. You finish your workout feeling like crap and then have huge levels of food craving, stuff your face and end up gaining weight. That's why I'm not that enthusiastic about the Crossfit type workouts. Alan is a huge Crossfit fan and it's obviously done him a lot of good but it's not for me. I think they are too severe for most and result in a lot of injury because people don't get the proper form down immediately. Some also encourage competition and that results in over-use type injuries as well as rhabdomyolysis, where the muscle fibers break down and float into the bloodstream and cause kidney failure/death. I knew a girl at my gym a few years ago getting ready for her wedding. She was already super hot and in great shape but in addition to her regular training sessions, would do a Crossfit class. She got rhabdomyolysis and spent three days in the hospital. If she hadn't been hospitalized as soon as she was she could have died or been on dialysis the rest of her life. Of course most who do Crossfit don't get injured but you get the point. My trainer is not a carb nazi like me but says you should try to get your carbs in before 1:00 pm each day and they should be the good complex carbs like oatmeal, quinoa, sweet potatoes, etc... The whole paleo logic is that for most of our history (99%) we were not carb eaters for the most part save for the rare fruit, honey or root. Agriculture changed that but in a world with scarce carbs our bodies are adapted to immediately converting that into fat for storage for the winter or whatever hardship. So instead of 10% of calories coming from carbs, many get 60% or more from carbs hence why we're so fat. Chemically, you cannot even store fat unless you have a carb available. There are many poor cultures around the world where people are still fat even without fast food available and that's because all they eat are carbs for the most part. Sure, Asians eat a lot of rice and are generally thin but that's also because they're starving; their average caloric intake is much less than an American's. The disease theory of paleo goes that every plant has evolved a toxin to keep it from being eaten. Some will kill you, some will sicken you, some will sicken over time. Also some are more sensitive than others but it's these naturally occurring plant toxins that generate an inflammatory response where the body produces cholesterol as a kind of internal band-aid to address the inflammation. Eating cholesterol doesn't produce cholesterol in the blood; it's an inflammatory response. The inuit natives eat thousands of milligrams of cholesterol every day in marine mammal fat (whale and seal blubber) but they have some of the best blood of any people in the world. The notion that eating bacon or red meat will give you a heart attack is nonsense; you're more likely to get a heart attack from eating bread, pizza, corn chips, soda pop, etc... All fats aren't equal but that's a topic for another time.

I am a Vstrom riding fly fisherman camper. A dual sport bike is a great platform for fly fishing the trout streams of the Appalachian mountains.

Not sure where you'd want it, but how about starting up a fitness thread? ADV related of course. What are people doing to make themselves better riders exercise wise? I'm personally starting to get the move on and hopefully gonna drop 50+ lbs over time. Would love to see a thread with everybody's experiences, what works, what doesn't. And while were at it, maybe a diet/healthy eating one as well? Both for at home, and what people are doing while traveling and on the bike in the bush? Just a thought and something that interests me.

On the not-so-big bikes, we'll be looking for fewer asphalt miles and more double track and fun dirt stuff. I'm gonna have to do some riding and some math to see what my guesstimated range will be on both bikes. Fortunately, we have 4 days of dirt planned for the first weekend in May, so that'll be a great opportunity to test the fuel range.

I think 150 is reasonable but it depends on what routes you want to ride. I will post last year's tracks shortly and it will have all the gas stations listed as waypoints.

Brother and I are registered for this ride, pretty stoked to join since I couldn't make it last year due to scheduling. What's the mileage on most of the tracks you guys do in this area? I'm guessing a bike with 150 mile range is more than enough, but want to be sure before we set any plans.

I've had bulletproof coffee as well, and it's pretty tasty actually. Blending it works really well. Strength training has been incredibly useful to me, I'm not very trim but I can lift heavy things haha. It helps a lot with your stamina when riding offroad for sure. If you're going to start lifting I'd find a trainer/coach to work with that is reputable. Not to derail at all but somewhat on topic... if you're getting back in the gym or starting for the first time. Trainers are great to work with, but make sure you communicate if you're getting any pain. And if you consistently get pain when training, find a doctor to see! I've personally injured myself training a few times, and each time was probably totally avoidable if I'd been smarter and listened to what my body was telling me. On diets, I personally have had a lot of success with paleo diets. I suggest trying Whole30 out and reading about the theories behind that. My most successful times when changing my diet is when I've recorded every single thing I ate, which is easier when you're not eating out.

Official registration here I included it in the initial post up top as well as on the Facebook event page.

I joined a gym last week. Had my first appointment with a personal trainer. She put me through a lot of range of motion exercises, squats, things like that. Now my knee has been bothering me since last week. I'll go back in tomorrow, I've got to get on a regular schedule so I go the same days every week.

Great idea! I put it here. Hope that's okay. I lost 30 lbs after going more paleo. I just cut out a lot of my carbs and increased my fat and protein. Part of it (breakfast) I got from a diet called Bullet Proof where for breakfast you have two cups of coffee mixed with 2 tbsp butter and 2 tbsp coconut oil. Sounds gross but it's actually quite savory; almost chocolatey. I'm not hungry until lunch. Then I found I'd get a "carb coma" after eating fries at lunch so I cut those out too. I will have carbs sometime with dinner but overall I'm limiting my carbs by a lot. I heard somewhere the average American diet is 60% carbs. 10% is more like it. So the weight savings helped a lot but then cardio helps with stamina so you can ride all day and not be wiped out. Last Nov we did this killer loop in Death Valley and the next day a lot of the guys were complaining how tired and sore they were. Not me I was working out with a trainer 5x/week from last June until like two months ago and that helped a lot too.