Category: Bike travel

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/

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/

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/

Family on bikes completes record-setting Pan-American adventure

“USHUAIA!!!! THE END OF THE WORLD!!! WE”RE HERE!!!! WE DID IT!!! WE REALLY DID IT!!!”

With that, Nancy Sathre-Vogel announced at her Twitter site on Monday that her “family on bikes” had successfully completed a self-supported bicycle tour the entire length of North and South America — a distance of some 17,290 miles.

For parents John and Nancy Vogel of Boise, Idaho, it's the dream of a lifetime. For 13-year-old twins Davy and Daryl, it means they'll be recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the youngest to ride their bicycles the entire length of the two continents.

It also means that for the past 2-1/2 years, instead of attending school or watching TV, the boys were road-schooled by their parents and by the cultures and histories of the landscapes that they pedaled through ….

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2011/03/22/family-on-bikes-completes-record-setting-pan-american-adventure/

How to prepare for 10 bad things on good bike tours

[Editor's note: Family obligations today and throughout the week. Here's a blast from the past that you might find helpful for an upcoming mass-participation bike tour. Good comments too.]

You have to take the bad with the good, and that certainly goes for large group, week-long, cross-state bicycle tours.

Whether there are 200 or 2,000 cyclists on these organized bicycling events, don't be surprised if a few things don't go to your liking. It takes years for the organizers to work out the kinks, and even then things crop up that nobody could expect. Plus, there are plenty of annoyances over which they have no control.

I'm warning you so you can prepare yourself. Don't let these adversities ruin your idyllic bike ride; remember, this is an adventure. Roll with it ….

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2011/02/21/how-to-prepare-for-10-bad-things-on-good-bike-tours/

World bicycle traveler named “Top Scot”

Bike traveler Mark Beaumont, who at one time held the Guinness World Record for circumnavigating the globe by bicycle in the shortest time, has been honored as the country's Top Scot.

After that record-breaking self-supported bike tour in 2008, the 27-year-old become widely known throughout the British Isles this year on BBC for the “Cycling the Americas” website and documentary that chronicled his bike trip from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.

The public voted on the “Top Scot” through The Scotsman newspaper; Glenfiddich Single Malt Whiskey sponsored the competition.

The contest honors the Scot who has had the greatest impact in furthering Scotland's reputation ….

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2010/12/06/world-bicycle-traveler-named-top-scot/

New website and videos from bike traveler Heinz Stucke

If there's a living legend of bicycle touring, it's Heinz Stucke, the world's ultimate bike traveler.

Born in 1940, the cyclist has been pedaling down the road for 48 years after leaving his hometown of Hovelhoff, Germany, on a 3-speed bicycle.

Nearly 370,000 miles later, Stucke has visited more than 200 nations and territories and he's still going strong. Most recently, he completed a 6,000-mile tour Brazil and Alaska on his Brompton folding bike.

Now, in conjuncton with Bike-Tech, which sells Brompton folding bicycles, Stucke has launched a new website and a series of videos ….

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2010/11/29/new-website-and-videos-from-bike-traveler-heinz-stucke/

“Peace pedaler” finishes tandem journey around the world

Jamie Bianchini has spent the past 8-1/2 years picking up hitch-hikers.

There's no such thing as a free ride with Bianchini, however. His passengers on six continents have taken the stoker position on his tandem bicycle and helped pedal as he passed through many different cultures.

The Pacific Beach, California man ended his travels this weekend when he returned home after passing through 81 countries on the 25,000-mile around-the-world bike tour dubbed Peace Pedalers.

Along the way, Bianchini launched more than a dozen projects …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2010/11/25/peace-pedaler-finishes-tandem-journey-around-the-world/

Traveling by bicycle, one mile at a time

“I got on a bicycle and rode it a mile. I did that 45 times each day, for 89 days.”

That's how David Jones of Vancouver, Wash., described his cross-country bicycle tour to a reporter at The Columbian newspaper recently.

Breaking up a 4,022-mile bicycle journey into bit-sized pieces was the easiest way for the 55-year-old to tackle the challenge. Before this bike tour, his longest bike ride had been about 15 miles. At times in the Rockies ….

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2010/11/07/traveling-by-bicycle-one-mile-at-a-time/