Category: Bike Touring
Eight years ago this morning we watched a terrible event unfold that would bring profound changes to our nation and its foreign policies.
There are several bicycle rides that remember 9/11 and memorialize those who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. Here are three in New York, North Carolina and Kentucky.
The Tour de Force 9/11 Memorial Bike Ride that began in 2002 when about a dozen bicyclists, mostly NYPD officers, rode their bikes from the Pentagon in the Washington DC to Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan.
This year's ride comprises about 170 bike riders who will leave on Friday from Boston …..
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2009/09/11/bicycle-rides-that-commemorate-91101/
Cross-country bike travelers who are tired enough to sleep in a hollow log at night probably won't mind the fact that the new bike hostel in Farmington, Missouri, is a refurbished county jail.
The Transamerican Trail Cyclers Inn opened its doors Tuesday night, just in time for the start of Stage 3 of the Tour of Missouri on Wednesday.
The hostel is also known as “Al's Place,” named in recognition of local bicycling enthusiast Al Dziewa who died of cancer. The hostel sports 14 bunk beds in three bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen and laundry room. ….
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2009/09/10/old-jail-reopened-as-bike-hostel-in-farmington-missouri/
Rebecca O'Donnell completed her second cross-country bike trip this past weekend, logging 4,400 miles from San Francisco to Southwest Harbor, Maine, with her parents and brother.
She did her first Trans-America bike tour as a 3-year-old sitting in a trailer pulled by her mom or dad.
This time she did it as a 16-year-old with Type I diabetes, a serious condition that requires constant monitoring and regular injections through a catheter attached to an insulin pump.
I'm frequently amazed by the apparent difficulties that some people can overcome to enjoy bicycle travel. In this case, Rebecca had the support of her parents, Deb and Mike, and younger brother, James. At age 12, the cross-country bike tour was no small feat for her brother, either.
The bike tour, dubbed “Rebecca's Ride,” raised nearly $9,000 for diabetes research …..
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2009/09/08/teen-finishes-second-cross-country-bike-tour-raises-money-for-diabetes-research/
A visit to the offices of Adventure Cycling Association is a highlight for bike travelers on the traditional TransAmerica route as they pass through Missoula, Montana.
Since 1982, Greg Siple, the co-founder of Bikecentennial which later became Adventure Cycling, has been taking portraits of them.
Here's the first one, at left. She's Laura Orton, a hospital dietician from Michigan who stopped by the office while on a bike vacation from Seattle.
Now, the Adventure Cycling has posted 76 of those portraits online in the National Bicycle Touring Portrait Collection. It's fun to browse through them and see what people have been riding and carrying over the years. One thing in common, they all have the self-satisfied expression of being on the ride of their lives …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2009/08/28/more-than-25-years-of-bike-traveler-portraits-posted-online/
Fall is in the air up here in the Pacific Northwest. The days already are getting noticeably shorter and many school districts are opening their doors next week.
There are still plenty of good bicycling days left this year, however. I've just updated more than 60 charity and recreational bike rides on the West Coast states through the end of the year.
The bulk of the bike rides — 40 — are in California, where the break in the hot summer weather means more comfortable bicycling weather. More than 20 rides are scheduled in Washington state, mostly in September, before the winter rains set in. (This doesn't include the randonneur rides, which have a crowded fall schedule.)
One of the newest entries on Washington's September bike calendar is the 2nd annual “Pedaling the Muse” on Sept. 12. The amusing poster shows Vincent Van Gogh …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2009/08/27/dozens-of-west-coast-bike-rides-this-fall/
Karl Krueger will be the first person to go into the bicycling record books for riding his bike to hell and back.
While most of us have probably felt that way after a particularly ugly bike ride, 62-year-old Krueger is the first to ever finish the bike event called the “Hell & Back.”
All he had to do was ride his recumbent bicycle clear across South Dakota, turn around, and ride back. He finished the 824-mile endurance ride in just under 93 hours — 3 hours ahead of the cut off.
The Hell & Back is part of the Gut Check 212 endurance bike race across South Dakota, a fund raiser for Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America (CCFA).
The Gut Check 212 solo ride follows Highway 212 …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2009/08/25/man-rides-his-bike-hell-says-it-was-fun/
Much like the philospher Diogenes used a lamp to search for an honest man in ancient Greece, Shawn Anderson is using a bike to find people who go the extra mile.
Anderson, 46, is calling this the Extra Mile America Tour.
The motivational speaker and author set off by bike from San Francisco on July 21 and plans to reach Boston by Oct. 8. Along the way, he's searching for those who are going the extra mile in their lives, and he's encouraging others to give a little more effort.
He's repeating his message to gatherings in 21 cities ….
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2009/08/23/bike-tour-searches-for-people-who-go-the-extra-mile/
The weatherman said there was a 90 percent chance of rain, but I wanted to take this overnight bike trip up John Wayne Pioneer Trail this week anyway.
When I first heard the forecast, I was ready to bail out. I had planned this trip two weeks ago when the weather was hot and sunny. I visualized riding up there in my shirtsleeves and enjoying a cool mountain night laying out on a picnic table, looking at stars.
A bike trip under gloomy skies with a high probability of rain wasn't what I had in mind. I soon realized this might be my last chance to take a long ride up into the Cascades this summer. Anyway, how often do things go the way we visualize them? ….
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2009/08/13/overnight-bike-trip-when-rain-is-certain/
Of the scores of tourists and commuters leaving the ferry terminal on the Seattle waterfront after crossing the Puget Sound, it was the couple with loaded bicycles who caught my attention.
I was riding my bike along bustling Alaskan Way to buy tickets at Safeco Field for an upcoming baseball game when I spotted them. They were waiting to cross the street when I pulled up and could tell they've been on the road for awhile — deeply tanned, slightly disheveled and very fit. I issued my standard greeting when I see bicycle travelers:
“Hi! Howya doin'? Need some help?”
Gos and Lea were a couple of retirees from Belgium who had just completed a bicycle tour across the United States. …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2009/08/07/reliving-memories-by-helping-bike-travelers-bicycle-travel-awards/
Cyclists pause to look for whales
from San Juan IslandI'm as much of a sucker for checking out Top 10 lists as anyone else, I guess, especially when the subject is bicycling.
So I scrolled through the Huffington Post blog a few weeks ago when it published the Top 8 Bike Trips in the US, then followed that up this week with the Top 10 US Cities for Bicycling.
There might be a western states bias at work on these lists. Seven of the eight top bicycle trips were west of the Mississippi River and seven of the 10 best bicycling cities are in the west ….
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2009/08/06/more-lists-for-best-bicycle-trips-and-best-bicycling-cities/
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