Category: Bike Touring

Bike Overnight website supports short bicycle tours

Not every bicycle tour has to be an epic adventure across blazing deserts or the frozen tundra.

In fact, most of us can probably find somewhere to camp within a short day's bike ride from where we live. And when you slow down and take the back roads to a destination on your bicycle, even the shortest camping trip can be a personal adventure.

The bike touring enthusiasts at Adventure Cycling Association realize this, as they've launched the “Bike Overnight” website to help inspire and enable short bicycle tours. Like they say in the title, “Don't wait to go cross-country. Go overnight …..

Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2011/04/18/bike-overnight-website-supports-short-bicycle-tours/

Bicycles benefit in national parks and WA's national forests

While no entrance fees make it a good week to pay a visit to a national park for a bike ride, mountain bikers in Washington state are getting access to trails in two national forests for a couple of months before all-terrain vehicles.

The National Park Service is waiving entrance fees this week to celebrate National Park Week.

Normally, entrance to Mount Rainier National Park is $15 for private cars and trucks and $5 for anyone entering by foot or bicycle. Those fees won't be charged April 16-24.

While many roads into and through Mount Rainier are closed for the season, the Carbon River Road, above, is open year-round only to bicycles and hikers …

Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2011/04/17/bicycles-benefit-in-national-parks-and-was-national-forests/

Frontier Airline's new baggage policy favors bicyclists

Airport security screeners might notice a lot more biker's tans on passengers passing through Frontier Airlines gates as the carrier announced the removal of flat fees for bicycles on Wednesday.

The change means that bicycles will be charged as standard baggage — in some cases that's free. That's a big change in an airline industry where some carriers have begun charging as much as $175 for a bicycle in recent years.

What the Frontier announcement means in dollars and cents is that customers flying under the Classic or Classic Plus plan can include their bicycles as one of their two complimentary checked bags. Economy passengers would pay $20 if the bike is one of their first two checked bags ….

Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2011/04/14/frontier-airlines-new-baggage-policy-favors-bicyclists/

Bicycling the Civil War battlefields; more than a dozen rides and resources

This week we mark the 150th anniversary of the bombardment of Fort Sumter, regarded as the opening salvo of the Civil War.

Over the next four years, we'll probably be the ones bombarded with memorials and re-enactments of the famous battles in what filmmaker Ken Burns called “the greatest war in American history.”

If this encourages you to visit one of the battlefields, you might want to consider doing so on a bicycle. I found that riding my bicycle in those places gave me a better feel for the human scale of the battle and the horror faced by the soldiers.

Pedaling the roads around the Antietam and Gettysburg battlefields, I was shocked ….

Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2011/04/13/bicycling-the-civil-war-battlefields-more-than-a-dozen-rides-and-resources/

Following the “Silk Road” by bicycle

Cycling Silk 2011 Trailer from Kate Harris on Vimeo.

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Two Canadian women are in the midst of a 8,000-mile bicycle journey from Turkey to India on the fabled Silk Road.

Kate Harris and Melissa Yule are childhood friends whose sense of adventure and curiosity about the world already had put them on the Silk Road through China and Tibet.

Now they've added a sense of advocacy to their travels across 10 countries. They're describing their bicycle trek as a “field research expedition exploring transboundary conservation in the mountains along the Silk Road.”

Along the way, they're talking with scientists and observing the problems of climate change, poverty and loss of wild animals in wild places ….

Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2011/04/11/following-the-silk-road-by-bicycle/

Unidentified road kill in western Washington; Update: It's a long-tailed weasel

Since taking up bicycling, I've become knowledgeable — though by no means expert — in quite a few fields. Among these are bicycle parts and maintenance, physical fitness and conditioning, highway design, fabrics, aerodynamics, weather prediction (quite easy in the Pacific NW) and road kill.

One of the unexpected low points of riding a bicycle along rural roads is witnessing the carnage of the wild kingdom. I've seen many species of mammals, reptiles and amphibians. But this little fella was a first for me. Can anyone identify it?

An estimated 1 million vertebrates are killed on the road by motor vehicles every day. At that rate, it's no surprise that we bicyclists would see a lot of them.

Although I haven't done any statistical analysis, the possum …

Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2011/04/11/unidentified-road-kill-in-western-washington-update-its-a-long-tailed-weasel/

Bicycling couple to ride the rails to roads less traveled

Bicycle travelers Russ Roca and Laura Crawford are going to ride the rails to discover more paths to pedal.

The two are setting off from their temporary home in Portland to discover and document the benefits and hardships of combining train and bicycle travel.

Leaving in May, they're calling their trip “Big Adventure, Small Wheels: A Rambling Journey Across America on Bikes and Trains.” It will be updated at their The Path Less Pedaled website.

Along the way they'll be shooting video for a film they want to show to policy-makers ….

Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2011/04/07/bicycling-couple-to-ride-the-rails-to-roads-less-traveled/

Dominic Gill's “Take a Seat” bicycle tour on cable TV Monday night

Finally. A documentary about a cross-country bicycle tour has made it to prime time TV.

“Take a Seat: Sharing a Ride Across America” is a 10-part series about cyclist Dominic Gill's TransAmerica travels on a tandem bicycle with 10 different companions, all of whom go through life with different physical disabilities.

The show premiers at 8 and 8:30 p.m. (ET/PT) Monday with back-to-back episodes on the Universal Sports cable network. The adventure series is a first for the sports network, which also broadcasts cycling events, including the Tour of the Basque Country on Monday through Friday this week…..

Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2011/04/04/dominic-gills-take-a-seat-bicycle-tour-on-cable-tv-monday-night/

Off the beaten bike path of the Cedar River Trail; March tale of the tape

William Least Heat Moon admonished motorists to get off the interstate highways to explore the nation's back roads in his book “Blue Highways.”

He said that we get so locked into getting to a destination, we miss the surrounding countryside.

The same can be said of bicycling along a rail-to-trail, like the Cedar River Trail that runs between Renton and Maple Valley southeast of Seattle. I've used this trail as a thoroughfare to the rural bicycle routes in the area, but I rarely explore the trail surroundings.

This past month I rolled down there on my Rockhopper and followed some of the dirt paths that veer off the paved 17-mile trail. I stumbled across a wetland natural area that's a winter home for waterfowl and debris left over from an old brick plant …..

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2011/04/03/off-the-beaten-bike-path-of-the-cedar-river-trail-march-tale-of-the-tape/

Bicyclist struck and killed by motorist in Bike Florida event

An Arizona man riding in the Bike Florida event was struck and killed by a motorist on Wednesday, the fifth day of the week-long bicycle tour around central Florida.

Police identified the man as Robert Paul King, 65, of Prescott, Arizona. The collision occurred as some 1,000 bicyclists were finishing the day's ride from High Springs to Newberry.

King was bicycling eastbound on the shoulder of Newberry Road. According to a Florida Highway Patrol ….

Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2011/03/31/bicyclist-struck-and-killed-by-motorist-in-bike-florida-event/