Category: Bike Touring

The Squeaky Brake Pad
at flickr.com

If you like seeing what bicycles other touring cyclists are riding, then Fully Loaded Touring Bicycles on Tour is one of the best places to go.

Ron W has posted more than 280 photos of fully loaded touring bikes “at work” that have been submitted by their proud owners. The bikes are identified — everything from the Seven Vacanza to the Surly Long Haul Trucker — and you can see how they're packed.

Now he's added the FLT Gallery Profiles Page that features examples of the photographic work of touring cyclists and links to their websites. It's about more than the bike. It's about where the bike can take you ….

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Five dads are pedaling out of Lansing, Michigan, this August to begin a five-day, 758-mile bicycle tour to Washington DC.

That might not be an epic bike ride, but these guys who will be riding 150 miles a day aren't exactly ultra-athletes. And they'll be tackling some challenging terrain as they pass through Pennsylvania.

The five are undertaking the Equal Parenting Bike Trek to call attention to the need for children to have equal time with both parents, who are willing and fit, after a divorce. They maintain that parents also have the right for equal time with their children …

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If you filed a 2007 tax return, and I hope you did, you'll be receiving an economic stimulus tax rebate one of these days soon. Consider bicycling when you're thinking about ways to spend that money.

The rebates are $600 for an individual, $1,200 for a couple and an additional $300 per child.

The economists are worried that people will use the rebates to offset the higher costs of gasoline, thus benefitting the oil companies. We know that nothing sticks it to Big Oil like riding a bicycle.

If you don't want to put that check into savings, I came up with a few ideas on spending it on your bike:

1. Take a fully loaded bicycle tour. If you have the proper gear, you can roll right down the driveway and be on your way …

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Here's another way Bolivia's Highway of Death gets its name:

On Thursday, a Toyota Land Cruiser packed with 12 passengers plus a driver plowed into a group of bicyclists on a Downhill Madness bike tour who had just set out on their journey down the Unduavi-Yolosa Highway.

Twenty-two-year-old cyclist Tom Austin of the UK was killed in the collision. The SUV then rolled 300 feet down an embankment, killing eight more people inside. Two bicyclists and five people in the SUV were injured ….

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“Outside” magazine sent out a newsletter recently naming 15 century bike rides (listed below) around the US this spring and summer for enthusiasts to train for and ride.

Interestingly, it didn't label them “The Best,” the “Most Difficult,” the “Most Scenic,” or the “Best Provisioned.” It just directed us to choose one of these rides and start training. OK. Will do.

Three of the rides are on the Pacific Coast. If you're interested in bike rides in the Pacific Time Zone, I've listed 97 rides for California, 69 in Washington and 30 in Oregon on the BikingBis monthly bike calendar pages …

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Recommendations for every wallet

Seven Vacanza
Most expensive

In spite of logging thousands of bicycle touring miles in my life, I've never owned a strictly production touring bicycle. I've taken whatever bike I had at the time and modified it for carrying gear over the long haul — sometimes more successfully than others.

That's why the article about choosing a touring bicycle in Adventure Cyclist's April  issue was so interesting for me. Technical editor John Schubert gives an excellent primer on what to look for in a touring bike, then reviews some of the top contenders in several price ranges.

Adventure Cycling Association, the magazine's publisher, has posted the story — “Buying a touring bike in 2008”— online so you can check it out….

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Earth Day is a good time to write about what some people are doing to save the planet.

Consider David Kroodsma. Last fall he finished a three-year, 21,000-mile bicycle tour throughout Latin America and across the US to spread the word about global warming and possible solutions to the crisis.

Now he working with this September's Climate Ride 2008, billed as the first multi-day bike ride to raise money and awareness for climate change and renewable energy legislation.

Participants in the bike tour will ride 320 miles from New York City to Washington DC over five days — Sept. 20-25. Experts will talk with cyclists and community residents along the way about the science, policies and solutions for global warming …

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There are 54 mountain peaks surpassing 14,000 feet elevation in Colorado, and Andy Henrichs plans to bike to each and every one of them this summer then trudge to the summit.

The athletic trainer for Roaring Fork High School in Carbondale is setting out on the quest to raise money for World Bicycle Relief's Project Zambia. He hopes to raise enough money to supply two bikes to the project each peak he climbs.

At Henrichs' website, where he's accepting donations for World Bicycle Relief, Henrichs estimates the journey will involve bicycling some 1,400 miles on his Xtracycle-equipped mountain bike and hiking over 350 miles. He expects the trek to take 52 days; that's like 1 summit a day …

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Coming right on the heels of the sad news about Trail Angel Gillian Hoggard, who lost her home to a fire this week, is a plea for help for Cookie Lady June Curry.

Neil Gunton, host of the Crazy Guy on a Bike website, writes that mounting medical and other bills for June has forced her to sell her house in Afton, Virginia.

He's setting up a special Cookie Lady PayPal donation site on CrazyGuy so the thousands of us who enjoyed her kindness over the years can contribute to her well-being now.

I don't know about you, but reading about the Cookie Lady always brings back a flood of memories from a hot afternoon on Afton hill. The photo above was taken the day we passed through in 1984.

If you didn't receive it, here's the newsletter Neil sent via email:

June Curry (The Cookie Lady of Afton, Virginia) Needs Our Help!

This is an unusual newsletter, but I decided to send it because June is a rather unusual lady. She's been running the Cookie House in Afton, Virginia since the inception of the TransAmerica Trail in 1976, giving touring cyclists a roof over their head, food and water through the decades. Now she has fallen on harder times in her later years, suffering a stroke, and has even had to sell her house to stay afloat. She isn't getting enough help to pay for the assistance she needs. So I decided to try something: …

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A fire that swept across the grasslands near Ordway, Colorado, earlier this week burned down the home of Gillian Hoggard, who received the Trail Angel award in 2006 from the Adventure Cycling Association.

She was honored for opening up the house at the end of the gravel driveway as a refuge for countless touring bicyclists on the TransAmerica Bicycle Route in recent years.

News reports say the fire swept through the area on Tuesday, destroying eight homes on the outskirts of Ordway, which was evacuated because of the smoke. Two volunteer firefighters died when a truck they rode in plunged into a ravine from a collapsed bridge. …

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