Category: Bike Touring

Bobby and Ryan
Photo by Emeric Bisbee

Whenever I'm out for a bike ride, I always shout out to people who've stopped at the side of the road. “Everything OK?” “Got what you need?”

So when my son and I passed two bicyclists stopped alongside a road near our home in Bellevue, I asked “You guys OK?” as we passed.

“Yeah, thanks,” one guy said as we pedaled past. Then, from up the road, I heard the other say, “We're looking for directions.”

We pulled over and they biked up to meet us. I could tell immediately that these guys weren't from around here. Their rear bike racks were loaded with panniers, sleeping bags and bedrolls. One had a straw hat strapped atop all his gear. They both had the tan, lean look of a couple of guys who've spent a lot of time on the road …

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Bicyclists riding in this year's RAGBRAI won't find any route changes because of last month's severe flooding, organizers report.

The roads are high and dry for the bike tour across Iowa that rolls out July 20-26; host cities missed the worst of the flood damage although some pass-through towns are still cleaning up.

The 9,000 bicyclists in the Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa will be riding past some higher than normal creeks and many fields are still under water. Some towns will be spraying for mosquitoes around the campgrounds for this year's ride…

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A life-long stuggle with type one diabetes that encouraged a Quebec man and his children to ride their bicycles across Canada ended tragically in Manitoba on Sunday.

Canadian authorities report that two bicyclists were struck and killed on the Trans-Canada Highway as they participated in the Ride of a Lifetime fund-raiser for the Junior Diabetes Research Foundation of Canada. Two others were injured.

Dead are Daniel Hurtubise, 50, the bike trip's organizer, and a 45-year-old friend. Daniel's son, Alexandre, 19, and daughter, Sophia, 16, (at left and right above) were injured. …

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How about a scenic bicycle tour through the mountains? Better lube your granny gear.

The Adventure Cycling Association is working on a set of maps called the Sierra Cascades Bicycle Route that would route touring bicyclists on paved roads along the Pacific Crest.

Essentially, the 2,500-mile route would run from the Canadian to Mexican border. It will connect the Cascade Range in Washington and Oregon and the Sierra Nevada in northern California and Nevada. Then it will pass through the Tehachapi and San Bernardino mountains in southern California …

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With this month's ultra-endurance Race Across America, followed by the Tour Divide and the Great Divide mountain bike races, I thought there should be an extreme race for touring bicyclists.

There isn't one out there, as far as I know, so I decided to start one: The Tour de TransAmerica.

I've put together a set of rules that emphasize all the important aspects of bicycling touring — such as dodging road kill, fixing flats, cooking one-pot pasta meals. All we need is a sponsor, a website, and a director.

Tour de TransAmerica Rules:

1. Must use Adventure Cycling Association's TransAmerica Trail maps, either direction, connecting Yorktown, Virginia, with Astoria, Oregon.

A. Contestants must leave one section of the 12-map set at home and try to figure out a route using suggestions from people you meet along the way. Highway maps are not allowed.

2. Must carry way too much stuff. You must include a bulky sweater, 2 pair of blue jeans …

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The ride will go on, in spite of flooding in parts of Iowa. That's the word at the official Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Around Iowa (RAGBRAI).

[June 19 update: RAGBRAI director T.J. Juskiewicz tells Des Moines Register that extensive flooding in the state has left a handful of roads in some pass-through towns still underwater, but the overnight towns are “in pretty good shape.” ]

The weeklong, 471-mile bicycle tour across Iowa rolls out July 20-26. RAGBRAI says the planned bike ride is still scheduled to take place on the scheduled route, but they're “closely monitoring” the flood devastation across Iowa.

This map from the Iowa Department of Transportation shows road closures (red circle with white bar) throughout the state as of Tuesday afternoon. As you can see, the route tends to skirt many of the current trouble areas, although the flooding is still developing. The area between Ames and Tipton appears most affected along the route….

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Thousands of bicyclists are rolling along country roads and trails in the US this week in two major week-long bicycle tours.

Some 2,000 cyclists are tackling the second stage of the Denver Post Ride the Rockies on Monday, as about 3,000 bike tourists are zipping along the flatter Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure in northern Ohio.

This is the 20th anniversary for GOBA, and organizers wanted to commemorate the bike tour with an attempt to set a Guinness Book of World Record for largest bicycle parade, set last year in Taiwan with 1,901 bicycles.

The GOBA attempt in Wellington on Saturday fell short of the mark with 1,023 riders …

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The Flying Wheels Summer Century bike ride is a great way to experience the suffering and joy of cycling in a very short time.

The suffering comes on the steep climbs that interrupt the 45-, 70, and 100-mile routes. The joy comes in reaching the top and pedaling along rolling country roads that pass pleasant Northwest Washington rural scenery.

It's been a few years since I've done the Flying Wheels, and I'd forgotten what a great ride it is. The rest stops are every 15- to 20-miles and are well stocked. Most of the roads have good shoulders or have very little traffic. A bonus this year is that the weather stayed dry; we even had a little sun.

Some 3,100 of us rolled past the Marymoor Velodrome in Redmond on Saturday to start the ride. Organized by the Cascade Bicycle Club, they tout it as Washington's largest century ride and a great warm-up for their Seattle-to-Portland bike tour that happens July 12-13 …

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