Category: Bike Touring

The fast-growing Pelotonia charity bike ride in Ohio is rolling out from Columbus to a new destination in 2012 — Kenyon College in the small town of Gambier.

The organizers of the bicycle ride explained the new destination would encourage more people to make the ride, which drew nearly 5,000 bicyclists in 2011.

Now in its fourth year, the Pelotonia previously set out for Athens in hilly southeastern Ohio. …

A lot of dads enjoy the companionship of an occasional father-son bicycle ride.

But here's one that lasted all-day and all-night and resulted in a record.

The father-son team of Chuck and Matt Knott, left, competed in the National 24-Hour Challenge last summer in Middleville, Michigan.

They each completed 420.1 miles, breaking the previous record of 782 miles that had been standing …

Often in pursuit of my goal to ride 4,000 miles during the past year, I took the time to stop and take a few snapshots.

Here are a few from this past year's memorable rides that took me from Lake Washington to Kansas to Snoqualmie Pass.

Let's start on January 1. Although we our share of precipitation in the winter and spring, the first day of the new year was bright and sunny. Here are a couple of chaps riding along Lake Washington in Renton with the Olympic Mountains in the background …

Somewhere in this mass of bicyclists wearing T-shirts and “beer-cooler” helmets you can find my friend Bruce and me.

We're riding our bicycles across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge as part of Cycle Across Maryland — a wonderful event that petered out in the latter part of this decade.

As you can guess from our cycling gear, this photo was taken in the early 1990s. It was 1994, in fact, the first and maybe only time that the 4.3-mile-long eastbound span of the Bay Bridge on US Route 50 was closed to everyone but bicyclists.

The photo was taken by Bob Gilbert, a former colleague at the Annapolis Capital newspaper who loved shooting pictures from anything up high. I just stumbled across this photo ….

Stick it on your car, your home, your roadside mailbox or the entrance to your business.

The blue “Bicycle Friendly” sticker tells passersby that you support bicyclists, and any cyclist in need is welcome to stop in.

The sticker idea originated in Columbia, Kentucky, home to the four-year Lindsey Wilson College, which distributes the stickers online.

The college cycling team's coach, David Grigsby, explains that he was speaking at a local Rotary club meeting when one member asked if there was a way to communicate to the cyclists that it was OK to stop at his house to use the restroom, get water, make a call, or get directions …

The coming year will probably witness more bicyclists embarking on around-the-world journeys than ever before.

In February, endurance cyclists will set off on their own from London on the Global Bicycle Race. Each participant will be seeking to break the current Guinness World Record of 163 days for a 18,000-mile circumnavigation by bike.

Then, in September, a group of bicyclists will leave London together for a fully supported world tour called the World Cycle Challenge. Their mileage — 18,010 — would qualify for a global bicycle journey, but the 9-month journey isn't designed for a world record.

Two global bicycling world record holders are at the heart of each endeavor …

An Alabama high school student is spending the fall semester of his senior year bicycling across the US.

Glyn Glover, 19, suffers from ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. Following an RV driven by his mother, he's promoting awareness about the disease on his cross-country bike trip.

Glover, a top-ranked high school football player, was diagnosed with the condition in 2009. He keeps it in check by staying on a strict diet that eliminates as much sugar, fat and processed foods as possible.

But medications he'd been taking to fight some side-effects of the disease caused a severe seizure …