Category: Bike Touring

At the lunch stop on the first day of the Face of America 2007 ride, a few yards away from one of Frederick County, Maryland's historic covered bridges, Mike Gibson was explaining how his single bike was set up with all the controls on the right side.

Mike, who lost his left arm in a boating accident when he was a teenager, operates both front and rear brakes and derailleurs with his right hand. Asked if that was difficult to master, he replied quickly, “You adapt. That's what all these guys do,” he said, speaking of the more than 100 cyclists participating in the ride who have been severely wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. “After a while, you figure it out.”

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Seamus Garrahy, a former Marine and Gettysburg resident known for his care and support of soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, hosted dinner Friday night for the Face of America 2007 riders.

Under a tent in his backyard large enough for the 250 riders and their friends and families, Garrahy welcomed the group that included many former and current members of the military, and reminded them “that you are sitting on hallowed ground.”

It was near the end of his lawn, he said, that Gen. George Pickett buried his dead after the third day of the battle that would decide the Civil War. That was as somber as things got as the riders, which include about 100 soldiers wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq, came together in high spirits to kick off this remarkable two-day, 110-mile ride from Gettysburg to Bethesda.

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Yesterday it was supposed to rain in Maryland, but instead it was one of those glorious, sunny spring days where the temperature was in the middle 60s and out on the bike trail you could actually feel the warmth and the coolness in the air all at the same time.

You only get a handful of such days each season in which to ride, so despite whatever else is going on in your life, you owe it to yourself to get out on the bike. I filled up the water bottles and got out the door. This would be my last training ride for the Face of America 2007 ride, which is now only two days away.

Of course I waited until the last minute to start training, but yesterday I just went out for fun ….

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Last week I wrote about the dumpster-diving bicyclist who has turned inexpensive bicycle touring into a science.

Conversely, there's the super-expensive bicycle tour in which corporate executives pay up to $30,000 and more for bike trips staffed with people to cater to their every whim.

One of those outfits is Destination Cycling. Founder Joe Tonon writes about the technological side of his bike tour business in Fortune magazine's Small Business section this month. …

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Check out Bob Lee's “A Ride for 3 Reasons” blog if you want to follow a cross-country bicycle tour by a thoroughly engaging writer. That's not just me saying that; his blog was named “Cool Site of the Day” by digital goddess Kim Komando.

Lee is a 65-year-old cyclist who is presently working his way up the East Coast on the first leg of a 6,500-mile bike ride to raise funds for three charities — The American Cancer Society, The National Hospice Foundation, and The Les Turner ALS Foundation.

The colon cancer survivor from Barrington, Illinois, is filing almost daily posts with lots of images. He's got a keen eye for the land that he's passing through and doesn't seem reluctant to get off the bike and explore roadside attractions or talk with folks along the route. …

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Some 50,000 bicycle riders took to the streets of Budapest, Hungary, for a mass procession to celebrate Earth Day.

The Sunday bike ride is the world's largest, organizers claim. The 9-mile ride ended with a traditional “lifting of the bikes” at the City Park at the end of the event.

So many cyclists participated, according to the Caboodle.hu website, that the first cyclists arrived at the final destination as others were still embarking on the ride. …

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Yesterday was the first warm, sunny day in Annapolis, Md., in many weeks, and that meant it was time to start training for the 2007 Face of America Ride. The two-day, 110-mile ride is less than a week away, so it was time to get some miles in.

I had been riding my trainer indoors all winter, along with running and doing my regular exercise regimen of stretching and chin-ups, etc., but there is no substitute for time on the road, and that was far too apparent after 34 miles on flat terrain felt like a century in the Rockies.

But no worries, because just being a part of this ride is more important than how I get it done. ….

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Not Nick

I thought I was a bit of a Luddite about fancy, new bicycle equipment, but Nick Lubecki has me beat by many, many miles.

Lubecki writes about his style of bicycling touring in the April issue of Dirt Rag magazine. He tours on old bicycles, he makes his own panniers or simply straps a milk carton to a rear rack, and he feeds the machine on high-fat food that he often finds in dumpsters.

Don't spend thousands of dollars on a new bike and gear. Adjustments can probably be made to that bicycle you ride every day, and a lot of the gear you already have around the house, he writes. …

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Twenty-three cyclists are hopping on their bicycles next month with the goal of cycling into eight states in eight days, just by pedaling the circumference of Kentucky.

The first-ever Tour de Kentucky is the idea of Bill Turner to raise money for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. He and his 22 teammates hope to raise $111,500 through the adventure.

Turner put together the unique tour route last fall, when he drove his van 3,200 miles around the perimeter of the state looking for good roads and border crossings. The actual route of the bike tour is 716 miles. …

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An hour-long documentary of Jane Tomlinson's cross-country bicycle tour last year is available for viewing online at the website of documentary filmmaker Martyn Hollingworth.

Tomlinson, a terminal cancer patient since 2000, undertook the 4,000-mile journey from San Francisco to New York last year to raise money for cancer research and support groups in her native UK. She also sought to prove that people with terminal cancer can go on living.

Accompanied by a small entourage that included her husband, friends, supporters and the filmmaker who variously rode with her or in a support van, Tomlinson suffered from the heat, the climb over the Rocky Mountains, the headwinds in Kansas and the barking hounds in Kentucky. …

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