You can read the journals my friend and I wrote on our 1984 cross-country bicycle tour. See the index at TransAmerican Bicycle Tour.

Imagine that you're 70 years old and you have completed an organized bicycle century ride in all 50 states between 2002 and 2009. What's next?

If you're Al Emma of Exton, Pennsylvania, you keep rolling down the road on your bicycle.

Just about the time he was wrapping up his 50 100-milers in July 2009, Emma had started on his next endeavor -- riding a 100-mile century in each of the 10 Canadian provinces.

He started with the Southern Ontario Century Ride in Alliston on May 23, 2009 and completed the cycle with The Fredericton Freewheelers Century Ride in New Brunswick just a couple of weeks ago on Aug. 22 ...   more »

 If you're bicycling anywhere on the eastern half of the TransAmerica Bicycle Route over the next six weeks, keep an eye open for a cyclist wearing a yellow T-shirt that says "Tour de Frank: 1976 - 2010."

Wave, give him a thumbs up, or even stop for a chat. That's Frank van Dijk, a fragment of bicycle touring history.

The 58-year-old Dutchman is finishing his Bikecentennial tour that he started 34 years ago.

Frank was one of thousands who took to the road in 1976 to cross the United States by bicycle to celebrate the nation's 200th anniversary. Frank set out with a group of 179 cyclists called "The Dutch Apples" who left the Pacific Coast to ride east to Yorktown, Virginia.

Unfortunately for Frank, an elderly motorist ran into him with her Buick ....   more »

Update: Aug. 29, 2010 -- "Hundreds bike to honor Ohio woman...", Dayton Daily News. More than 300 cyclists pedaled to Michelle Kazlausky's funeral on Saturday.

Aug. 25, 2010 -- "Prosecutor reviewing death of Pelotonia rider," Columbus Dispatch. Coroner labels death a "homicide," but explains he doesn't have arrest powers and his ruling isn't a legal action.

Donations in memory of Michelle Kazlausky are pouring in to the Pelotonia fund-raising website after the woman was killed while participating in the Ohio-based charity bike ride on Saturday.

She was just one of some 4,200 cyclists who participated this past weekend in the Pelotonia, a two-day bike ride between Columbus and Athens that raises funds for cancer research.

Donors had pledged $7,500 in her memory as of 5:30 a.m. Monday. That amount had more than doubled to $16,500 by late Monday night. Many of the donations of $10 or $25 were given by fellow riders.

The public outpouring prompted her son, Jeff McMahon, to pledge to ride in the 2011 Pelotonia .....   more »

I can ride my bike with no handlebars, but I can't  write and send a Twitter message while I pedal along.

But Janeen McCrae can.

That's because McCrae rides Precious, a bicycle that's been outfitted with sensors and electronics that enable it to send out Tweets with the push of a button. Actually, McCrae and Precious collaborate on the Twitter messages.

McCrae is riding Precious from coast-to-coast on Adventure Cycling's TransAmerica Bicycle Route to raise money for the Livestrong Foundation ....   more »

A cyclist from the U.K. is riding across the U.S. on a bicycle with three goals in mind: To travel. To share. To inspire.

But Dominic Gill isn't making the journey alone. He's riding from the rear seat of a tandem bicycle that's outfitted so the captain sits in back and the stoker rides and pedals out front.

Gill's passengers are all people whose physical impairments would make it impossible for them to make the trip on their own.

Keith Rogers at the Las Vegas Review Journal writes about one of those passengers, Carlos Terrazas, 22, who has been blind since birth.....   more »

My bicycling buddy Kazuki and I are shown celebrating the exhilarating experience of crossing the soaring bridge over the Carbon River gorge on the way to Mount Rainier National Park this week.

This is one of the amazing landmarks on the way from our suburban Bellevue, Washington, neighborhood to our destination deep in the Mount Rainier National Park.

We had loaded up our mountain bikes and trailers and departed Thursday for a ride to the Ipsut Creek Campground. After spending the first night camping at the Kanaskat-Palmer State Park, our night spent in the wilderness campground inside the national park was completely different ....   more »

It's been a while since I've written about my monthly bicycling mileage totals, but July represents a good all-around biking month for me.

My monthly "tale of the tape" was a common topic of this blog back in 2008 when I was shooting for a 4,000-mile year; I finally achieved it by plowing my bike through the snow on the last day of the year.

With no goal in mind for 2009, I bicycled 2,496 miles. So far in 2010, I've covered 2,046 miles on either my road bike or mountain bike.

I don't have a hard and fast goal set for 2010, except for one objective: Stay ahead of Barry ....   more »

A RAGBRAI cyclist died after falling from his bicycle and two others suffered injuries from collisions with motor vehicles in the latter half of the Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa.

A 68-year-old RAGBRAI veteran died Friday from injuries he suffered when he clipped the tire of another bicycle and fell.

The man, Stephen Briggs of Waverly, Iowa, ...   more »

He'd been there with some friends and said it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Just before nodding out, I remember thinking, "If I ever get through this..."

Well, I got through it, but I haven't made it to RAGBRAI. Not yet. I give props to the 10,000 to 15,000 bicyclists who made plans to do the ride and are now on the road across the Hawkeye State for the 38th anniversary of the mass bike ride ....   more »

College students in a charity bicycling group that supports affordable housing on cross-country bicycle tours are mourning the loss of one of their fellow riders.

Paige Hicks of Chesterfield, Missouri, was struck and killed by a truck in South Dakota on Tuesday. She was a student at Brown University.

She was on her second cross-country bicycle ride for Bike & Build. The group organizes college students to raise money for affordable housing projects and help build houses at different locations as they ride their bikes coast-to-coast.

Hicks was riding the Providence, Rhode Island, to Seattle route this summer ....   more »

A British Olympic rowing star is recovering from head injuries suffered when he was struck from behind by a truck while bicycling across Arizona for a Discovery Channel film documentary.

James Cracknell and a crew, including his wife, were filming his cross-country challenge when the collision occurred on Tuesday between Flagstaff and Winslow on Interstate 40.

He was last reported to be concious and making a good recovery in a hospital in Winslow, although his cross-country adventure has been suspended ....   more »

The 10,000 cyclists making the 200-mile ride from Seattle to Portland this weekend will face light clouds changing to sunny weather the whole way. Look for highs in the mid 70s on Saturday, rising to the low 80s in Portland on Sunday.

At the risk of jinxing the ride for everyone, I'll tell you there's no chance for precipitation in the forecast. You can leave that rain gear at home.

This weekend marks the 31st anniversary of the STP Bicycle Classic, the Cascade Bicycle Club's premier presentation of the year. Popularity of the ride is so high that it sold out in April this year, earlier than ever.

Cascade has made a last-minute route change on the approach to Portland this year. Instead of taking the St. John's  Bridge, cyclists will be routed over the Steel Bridge. ...   more »

Some fellow cyclists who check out my ride and see the gear I use consider me a bicycling luddite, a descendant of those 19th century textile workers who fought progress.

For me, it's usually a matter of economics, instead of aesthetics. But for ultra-cycling promoter Chris Kostman, his choice of bicycles is definitely philosophical.

Check out Kostman with his bicycle in the picture here. What's a guy doing at the top of this mountain with a road bike? Then consider his "Mountain Bikes: Who Needs Them" article penned back in 1993 that announced his "Any Bike, Anywhere" manifesto.

Now, after all this time, Kostman is looking for other like-minded individuals to take part in a Rough Riders Rally on July 23 - 25 in Marin County, California. The event uses paved roads and dirt trails that wind through the scenic Marin Headlands overlooking the Pacific Ocean ....   more »

Here's my campsite at Alice Creek on the John Wayne Pioneer Trail, a rail-trail that stretches from near North Bend all the way to the Columbia River.

It seemed like one of the first sunny, dry days in a while, and I was lucky to be able to take advantage of it.

From where I live, this is a little too far for one of those sub-24 hour bike camping trips. It's about 50 miles and quite a bit of climbing for me to get there.

As you can see in the photo below, I don't travel light. That Yakima trailer carries ...   more »

Two weeks of amazing Rocky Mountain highs are done for bicyclists who rode The Denver Post Ride the Rockies and the Bicycle Tour of Colorado.

Together, the bike tours covered 1,002 miles of Colorado blacktop and summited 14 mountain passes, 7 on each bike ride.

Celebrating its 25th year, Ride the Rockies is one of the oldest mass bicycle tours in the nation, probably surpassed only by the Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Around Iowa.

One of this year's highlights was bicycling along the Rim Rock Drive in the Colorado National Monument. See the video for scenes along the route ....   more »

As the Race Across America cyclists charge eastward with their teammates or support crews or both, there's an equally amazing corps of cyclists heading down the spine of the Continental Divide individually and with no support whatsoever.

The Tour Divide got underway from Banff, Alberta, with 48 mountain bike riders on Friday (video at left). They're heading along the spine of the Rocky Mountains to Antelope Wells, New Mexico, on gravel roads and dirt paths for a distance of 2,745 miles.

You could draw comparisons between the two races all day long. For instance:

-- They're both ultra-endurance events whose winners measure success by hours spent not sleeping.

-- Both aim for the lightest rides possible. Weight issues stop with the frame and components for RAAM cyclists; Tour Divide bicyclists must factor in tools, food and cooking equipment, sleeping bags ...   more »

Bicyclists who use Nokia cell phones won't have to find electrical outlets to recharge them much longer. The company says it will start selling chargers that are powered by bicycles before the end of the year.

Aimed at cell phone users in developing countries where electric-power can be scarce, the chargers uses a small electric generator that spins on the bicycle's front tire.

The electricity from the dynamo is carried by wire to the cell phone holder mounted to the handlebars. Touring bicyclists can easily stuff that attachment in their front bag if their handlebar "dashboard" already is crowded with headlamps, bells, altimeters, bike computers and GPS devices.

The faster and longer you ride ...   more »

Bicyclists riding the paths of the Erie Canalway in New York this summer shouldn't be surprised if some communities all but roll out the red carpet when they arrive.

The towns would be following suggestions in a 28-page booklet that explains why it makes economic sense to encourage and embrace two-wheeled visitors in their communities.

Entitled "Bicyclists Bring Business: A Guide for Attracting Bicyclists to New York's Canal Communities," the book is used in roundtable workshops offered by Parks & Trails New York and the New York State Canal Corporation in canal towns.

Although we might like communities to cater to traveling bicyclists for altruistic reasons, it's a matter of dollars and cents to business people. According to the booklet:

"When a particular bicycling destination is so appealing to bicyclists that they come from some distance away to enjoy it, the dollars they bring with them can be significant" ......   more »

Here's an emotional video from a cross-country bike rider whose journey didn't go exactly as planned. Not that many long-distance bicycle trips do. That's part of the adventure.

But this is an experience that Australian Janeen McCrae, aka Noodle, doubtedly could have done without. As she explains in her video:

"I was riding my bicycle across America. I was having such a good time. Then I wasn't riding my bicycle across America. I was in a ditch."

A couple of weeks ago, very early in her coast-to-coast bicycle trip to raise $4,262 for Team Fatty and Livestrong -- $1 per mile -- she suffered a crash. She was on a downhill ....   more »

Today, May 31, is the last day to donate to the "Build it. Bike it. Be a part of it." campaign to help fund the U.S. Bicycle Route System.

The Adventure Cycling Association launched the grassroots effort on May 1 to get small donations -- $10 minimum -- from those interested in bicycle traveling to raise $20,000 by the end of the month.

There's been huge interest in the program all month as they've raised $23,200 as of Friday. Their new goal is $26,000. You can help them raise it by following this US Bicycle Route System link or the box at the top right hand corner of this page .....   more »

A judge sentenced an Illinois man to 9 years in prison for running down a 65-year-old California man on a coast-to-coast bicycle tour last summer.

Jim Gafney, left, of Chula Vista, California, was more than half way along on his "Mad As Hell Bike Ride Across the US" to deliver a petition to Washington DC when he was struck down on an Illinois highway.

Gafney had taken to riding his bicycle at night because of an oppressive hot spell sweeping the midwest. The driver later told police that he saw Gafney when he crested a hill on US 50 but was unable to stop his 1997 Nissan Altima  in time. He was arrested later by police ....    more »

If you've been thinking about donating to the "Build It. Bike It. Be a part of it." fund-raising campaign for the US Bicycle Route System, this would be a good week to dig into your wallet.

TeamEstrogen.com is matching the first $1,000 this week to help us get more mileage out of our donations.

Adventure Cycling Association announced on Tuesday ...   more »

A 5-day bicycle tour of breweries along the San Juan Skyway and a one-day bike ride to the top of Pikes Peak are new two-wheeled opportunities in Colorado this summer.

Colorado already has a full slate of bike rides, but there's always room for more. As their names imply, these rides are geared to bicyclists who aren't timid about tackling the state's greatest bicycling resource -- mountains.

The Assault on the Peak is a one-day bike ride that ascends 14,115-foot summit of Pikes Peak near Colorado Springs. It gives most cyclists their first opportunity to ride their bikes to the lofty summit as the solitary road is usually closed to bicyclists ...   more »

What's the next big thing in the future of bicycle touring?

It could very well be the US Bicycle Route System, a nationwide network of officially numbered bicycle routes to link cities, suburbs and rural areas.

The map at left is an April 2010 update of the overall corridor scheme criss-crossing the US.

Cartographers at Adventure Cycling Association are charting routes within some 50-mile wide corridors marked on the map with the blessing of the American Association of State Highway Transportation officials and the help of volunteers at the state level.

Some 30 states are interested in the system or actively working to implement US Bicycle Routes in their states ....   more »

The most recent issue of Adventure Cyclist magazine published by Adventure Cycling Association features an article about Thomas Stevens' globe-girdling ride in 1884 on a 50-inch penny farthing.

In "The Fearless Traveler: Around the World with Thomas Stevens," author Geof Koss describes the trials of becoming the first person to accomplish the feat.

But before Stevens could become the first person to bicycle around the world, he had to cross the United States.

During his around the world bike ride, Stevens sent dispatches to Harper's Weekly. In 1887, he published a book about his journey, "Around the World on a Bicycle."

Here are some excerpts I collected and published at this blog back in 2007 from his trip across California, leaving from Oakland and heading up to Sacramento, then across the Sierra Nevada. ...

"With the hearty well-wishing of a small group of Oakland and 'Frisco cyclers who have come, out of curiosity, to see the start, I mount and ride away to the east, down San Pablo Avenue, toward the village of the same Spanish name, some sixteen miles distant. The first seven miles are a sort of half-macadamized road, and I bowl briskly along.

"The past winter has been the rainiest since 1857, and the continuous pelting rains had not beaten down upon the last half of this imperfect macadam in vain; for it has left it a surface of wave-like undulations ......   more »

The wait is over for anyone wanting a set of bicycle maps to explore the length of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Range.

The cartographers at Adventure Cycling Association finished dotting the cities and crossing the intersections on the 2,389-mile Sierra Cascade Bicycle Route and the results are back from the printers.

The bike route from Sumas, Washington, to Tecate, California, is available on a set of five maps that went on sale Friday at the Adventure Cycling website.

More than 200 bicycle enthusiasts showed up for a sneak peek at a couple of the maps earlier this month when the route was unveiled in Seattle.

It was joy to see the maps, not only because of their wonderful presentation but also for the potential of adventure they contain. They're printed on durable stock and also contain information about where to find food, lodging and bike shops ...   more »

As I paused at this quiet spot to shoot this red brick road near Redmond the other day, I had a hard time believing that this was a section of the transcontinental Yellowstone Trail highway back in the early 1900s.

At one-time it buzzed with automobiles heading back and forth across the Northern Tier states. People traveled it for business and pleasure.

Today it's a 1-mile-long connector between the busy Redmond-Fall City Road (Route 202) and Union Hill Road on the outskirts of Redmond. A historical marker notes that it's the longest remaining brick road in King County.

Now renamed 196th Avenue NE, the present alignment of Mattson Road ....   more »

The need to be moving must be in the blood of retired long-haul trucker Al Weidtz.

Long after leaving the truck business, 90-year-old Weidtz puts in a lot of hours in the saddle of his hybrid bicycle.

In good weather it's not uncommon for him to ride 100 miles a week on the 13 miles of the Wheeling Heritage Trails network near his home, a fact notable enough to earn coverge in the local newspaper. He also rides in bike tours with family and friends.

Next month, Weidtz will participate in the 4th annual Wheeling Heritage Trail Bike Tour. The May 30 event is a fund-raiser to close the gap between the Wheeling trails and bike trails in Brooke County to the north ....   more »

The park service is making it easier for people to enjoy their national parks on two wheels and away from the cars and RVs.

Bike rentals in the National Parks are becoming more commonplace, and many parks have closed off roads or built trails for bike- or pedestrian-use only.

Here are three parks where I've arrived by bicycle for touring in the past. It's good to see that they're accessible to more people who want to enjoy them by bicycle.

For the first time, a bike rental operation will operate at the Grand Canyon National Park on the South Rim.

The park service issued Bright Angel Bicycle Rentals a one-year permit ..   more »

RAGBRAI. BRAN. RAW. GABRAKY. BAK. GOBA. XOBA.

This isn't a command that Klatuu gives his robot in the movie, "The Day the Earth Stood Still," or the agency listings in an acronym-crazy state government phone book.

Dyed in the wool bicyclists will recognize these as just a few of the shortened names among the dozens of mass participation, across-state bicycle tours that are held every summer in the US.

The recession economy doesn't seem to be hurting the popularity of these outings. In fact, David Harrenstein, head of the National Bicycle Tour Directors Association, says:..   more »

Four years after her diagnosis for brain cancer, Anne Feeley is riding her bicycle across country to raise money and awareness for one of the most deadly forms of cancer.

She and her friend and trainer, Gundula Hennig, set off from San Francisco late last week on their 3,800-mile cross-country fund-raising ride called Brains on Bikes. They are currently in Northern California.

The 55-year-old is the first to admit that she's been lucky. Doctors told her she probably had about a year to live. She suffered the same type of cancer -- glioblastoma multiforme tumor -- that afflicted the late Senator Ted Kennedy.

She underwent radiation therapy and chemotherapy, and she began exercising to make herself stronger. It gave her some control over her situation and made her feel better both spiritually ...   more »

An anti-government uprising in his home country of Nepal convinced Pushkar Shah to ride his bicycle around the world to spread the message of peace.

Now, Shah plans to scale the slopes of Mount Everest to plant the flags of the 150 countries he visited on his 11-year journey.

Shah ended his 135,000-mile world tour ....   more »

For the bicycle touring crowd, this is as close as it gets to something like a release party for Apple's iPad.

More than 200 bicyclists showed up on Tuesday night for the unveiling of the Sierra Cascade Bicycle Route, the newest map set produced by the Adventure Cycling Association.

The 2,400-mile bicycle route connects Canada and Mexico via paved roads roughly along the corridor of the Pacific Crest. The 5-map set will be available at the end of April.

The bicycle route marks Adventure Cycling's achievement of creating more than 40,000 miles of bicycle routes .....   more »

A 45-year-old British bicyclist and bar owner set off from Thailand last week in an attempt to smash the around-the-world bicycling record by shaving more than two months off the current best time.

Alan Bate proposes to accomplish the 18,000-mile journey in 99 days, eclipsing the fastest time of 165 days set by Julian Sayarer, 23, just last year.

The feat requires that Bate ride his bicycle an average 180 miles a day, compared to the 109 miles a day ridden by Sayarer last year.

The past couple of years have seen many attacks on the bicycling record to circumnavigate the globe -- all by British bicyclists.

The standing Guinness World Record holder is still Scotland's Mark Beaumont ...   more »

I have a bad habit of riding the same old routes on my bicycle, so I'm always trying to keep things fresh by looking for new roads. Scenic is good; points of interest or historic landmarks are a bonus.

That's why I was happy to stumble across the recently published Historic and Scenic Corridors Project of King County. Although not a bicycling map book, it contains a treasure trove of new roads to explore by bicycle.

The first ride I set out on did not disappoint. The Issaquah-Fall City Road described in the booklet, also published online, put me on a 5-mile route that has changed little from the early days of settlement when it was used as a wagon road by farmers before the arrival of the railroad to the region.

Originally seen as only a trace on early maps, it was officially established in 1883 ....   more »

The TransAmerica Bicycle Route's unforgettable Cookie Lady has been offering traveling cyclists a place to tank up their water bottles, restore their carbs and even spend the night for more than 30 years.

This summer, June Curry is cutting back on some of those activities. Although the Bike House will remain open during the day for touring bicyclists who want a look around, she'll no longer be offering overnight lodging there.

The Adventure Cycling Association blog says a good friend of June's recently told them:

"...the situation (not having cyclists stay at the bike house) may change in the future, but right now, June would prefer not to have overnight visitors ....   more »

The practice of doctors making house calls is a thing of the past, but these medical students think nothing of embarking on a cross-country bicycle tour.

About two dozen future doctors will leave San Diego this week to raise money and awareness for the Heal Africa and World Bicycle Relief organizations.

This is the fifth year that groups of med students have taken a Ride for World Health bicycle tour across the US. Each year they've  raised between $60,000 and $80,000 for different non-governmental agencies that provide medical care to developing nations.

The entourage plans to leave San Diego on Thursday. Members will ride 75 to 100 miles a day ....   more »

Embarking on a Pan-American bicycle tour is by no means commonplace these days, but adventurers are undertaking it more frequently.

That wasn't the case in 1974, when 18-year-old Keith Jackson, at right, left the comforts of his home in Charlotte, North Carolina, for the rigors of an 18,000-mile bike journey from Alaska to the southernmost tip of Argentina.

Jackson was one of the first and one of the youngest. Recently, that path has become more well-traveled.

Just this past winter, Scotsman Mark Beaumont finished the bike trek, which he blogged about at Cycling the Americas. Shortly before that, three Americans accomplished the feat, reported at their blog Riding the Spine.

There is even a family of four ....   more »

The Adventure Cycling Association is throwing parties in Seattle, Portland and Eugene this week and San Francisco and Santa Cruz next week to celebrate the unveiling of its newest bicycle touring route.

The Sierra Cascades Bicycle Route rolls for 2,391 miles between Sumas, Washington, on the Canadian border and Tecate, California, on the Mexican border.

Printed maps of the route are available in mid-April.

Executive director Jim Sayer and cartographer Jenn Milyko will be on hand at the receptions in those three Northwest cities to unveil the routes and bring us up-to-date on other Adventure Cycling projects...   more »

Yellowstone National Park has opened newly snow-cleared sections of road to bicycles already this spring before reopening the routes to motor vehicles.

Glacier National Park in Montana is clearing snow off roads and expects to open them to cyclists soon.

Meanwhile, snow removal crews, left, from the Washington Department of Transportation on Monday began running snow plows along the North Cascades Highway that cuts through the North Cascades National Park in preparation for opening the road with mile-high passes.

It's one of the rites of spring in the western states where snowfalls bury roads with some of the most spectacular scenery for several months out of the year ..   more »

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.

1. Not enough port-a-potties: There never seems to be enough portable toilets, neither at the destination nor enroute. Actually, there are probably enough, it's just that everyone wants to use them at the same time.

Solutions: When you arrive at your destination, be it a high school, college, or other public facility, scout around for some quiet, secluded, off-the-beaten-path indoor plumbing. When everyone is lined up at the "Johnny on the Spots" or waiting for a berth in the boys or girls restrooms, you'll be comfortably situated on the throne in the faculty lounge ....   more »

Editor's note: Every spring a whole new crop of bicycling fans are champing at the bit to take their first bicycle tour. While most have already read the standard "Top 10 tips" of bicycle touring somewhere, here's my personal suggestions gleaned from hard-learned lessons.

This is a reprint of a post buried in the bowels of my blog from several years ago. Most pointers are still true today:

1. Keep clean, especially your most tender parts. Cycling shorts are a heated petri dish for bacteria. Even if you're camping at a spot without showers, find a water spigot or head into a restroom to give yourself a good cleaning down below. A small pimple or rash can become an infection to rival anything found in the trenches of World War I. We talked to a couple who had to stop their tour the previous year because of such an infection ....   more »

When I first started riding a bicycle as an adult back in the late 1970s in Maryland, one of the first things I did was to buy a guidebook of bicycle rides in the region that encompassed Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware.

Looking back, I think I primarily needed that book because I really didn't know what made a good or bad bicycle route. That sounds funny now, but I didn't have a sixth sense about finding good roads for bicycling.

There's been such a guidebook of bike rides available for western Washington for a few years now. It's written by ardent local bicyclist and author Bill Thorness. He shares his wisdom gleaned from 20 years of bicycling in "Biking Puget Sound: 50 rides from Olympia to the San Juans."

Although I'm long past needing to know what makes a good bike route, I'll have to admit that my ride choices tend to get stale. .....   more »

Willie Weir is a name I've associated with bicycle travel for many years, especially through his writings for Adventure Cyclist magazine.

When I moved to western Washington a few years ago, I was happily surprised to learn that the author, lecturer and winner of gold and bronze Lowell Thomas Awards for travel writing had his roots right here in Seattle.

I had about a thousand questions to ask him when we finally met at the Seattle Bicycle Expo this past weekend, but I boiled it down to two: What's your favorite place for bicycle touring, and where would you ride your bike if you only had a week? .....   more »

The route of my 1984 cross-country bicycle tour is still pretty much imprinted on my brain.

So when Google announced it had created bike directions for Google maps, I was interested to see how its suggested route compared with the route I took 25-some years ago.

The result is at right. It's quite different than our actual route, below.

Google's route from Yorktown, Virginia, to Oceanside, California, is shorter than our meandering route. It bypasses some steep climbs and makes use of rail-to-trails that probably still carried freight trains when we traveled that way on our bikes. .....   more »

Long ago but in not so far away Idaho, Joe Kurmaskie got the nickname Metal Cowboy from a blind rancher.

Since then he's traveled near and far by bicycle, reporting his adventures through a series of humorous books, lectures and magazine articles.

His latest book is "Mud, Sweat and Gears." It tells the story of how he involved his wife and three kids in a trans-Canada bike tour...   more »

Here's a bicycle trailer for the cyclist who has everything and wants to take it on the next bicycle tour.

The Midget Bushtrekka is a four-wheeled pop-up camping trailer for bicycles. Its design enables bike travelers to set up camp anywhere they choose in about five minutes.

Usually, I feel that I carry just plain too much stuff on my bicycle tours. But I would feel like an absolute spartan ultralight bicycle traveler next to one of these.

The Bushtrekka and its smaller cousin, the TrailRat, are made by Midget Campertrailers Australia. At the website, founder Tony O'Bree explains   more »

Travelers driving between Chicago and LA used to get their kicks on Route 66 before it was essentially decommissioned in the 1980s with the emergence of the Interstate Highway system.

Now some surviving portions of the Mother Road in the Midwest have become destinations for bicycle tours while other abandoned stretches are being considered for bicycle trails.

The old highway, which dates back to 1920s, sounds like a great place to travel by bike today -- in places. It wends across the landscape visiting small towns and passing the old-timey car culture claptrap of art-deco-style motels and diners bright with neon.

Elsewhere, of course, it's buried under freeways, becomes part of a frontage road system ....   more »

Former Sun Microsystems general counsel Mike Dillon has embarked on a cross-country bicycle tour after finishing the months of work to hammer together Sun's acquisition by Oracle.

Since Oracle's completion of its acquisition at the end of January, Dillon already has purchased a Bruce Gordon Rock n Road touring bike, flown to Jacksonville, Florida, and is five days into his journey back to Silicon Valley.

A cross-country ride is something he's wanted to do for years, he says at Mike's Blog, and now he's got the opportunity to do it:

"I’ve decided that the immediate “what’s next” for me will be to ride my bicycle across the U.S. It’s something I’ve wanted to do since I was in college .....   more »

Bicycle historian David V. Herlihy has wrapped up another book, "The Lost Cyclist: The Epic Tale of an American Adventurer and his Mysterious Disappearance."

You probably remember Herlihy's previous work, "Bicycle: The History." That heavily researched and interesting book recounted not only the technological advances of the bicycle from the draisine to modern times, but also told us about pioneers in the field and the social impact of two-wheeled travel.

In his latest effort, Herlihy examines the around-the-world bicycle journey of bike racer Frank Lenz of Pittsburgh (that's Lenz at right in India in 1893).

Setting off in 1892 aboard a "safety bicycle" with inflatable tires, Lenz traveled the globe for two years before disappearing forever in Turkey.

In an email, I asked Herlihy why he chose ....   more »

Jerry Nelson is hitting the road again.

Two years ago I wrote how the 50-something Navy and Vietnam veteran was riding his bicycle cross-country to find some peace of mind and talk to veterans groups about services offered by the Veterans Administration.

Now, Nelson plans to set off from his home in Asheville, North Carolina, on March 19 on a new quest -- to raise funds for the homeless and homeless veterans and to raise solutions about the problems of homelessness.

A photographer by trade, Nelson writes at his website:

"Everyone is already aware of the homeless problem in this country. It's on the news, in the paper and, if your city is anywhere near typical, you see homeless every morning on your way to work or maybe each evening on your way home...or both.

"Every state, county and municipal government has a plan to reduce homelessness within its political area of responsibility. Folks just need to be made aware .....   more »

Right on the heels of the record-breaking Chilly Hilly presented Sunday by the Cascade Bicycle Club, I stumbled across news that a couple of charity rides in Central Washington have been canceled in 2010.

The biggest shock came from the Mike Utley Foundation, which was canceling its popular Dam2Dam bike tour in Wenatachee because of economic stresses.

On a somewhat better note, Group Health Wine Country Trek and Group Health Yakima Ridges bicycle tours in the Yakima area have been discontinued after 8 years because the events fulfilled their funding targets for a community skateboard park ....   more »

Just finished the story of Douglas Whitehead's bicycle travels across Europe and Asia in the UK Telegraph.

"The Bicycle Diaries: One man, one bike, 6,000 miles" is a good yarn by a 40-year-old Englishman who cut all ties to a normal life and takes off for 9 months across the unfamiliar territory of 19 countries.

After reading his wild and woolly tale, I'd say that training for such an adventure involves more than just trying to build up a good base of miles on the bike. You also need to practice:

Sleeping under bridges or in abandoned buildings;

Choosing ad hoc riding partners carefully;....   more »

We can become obsessed with mountains and the gravitational challenges they represent, especially when our bicycles are loaded with the necessities for long-distance touring.

Mountains also can provide some of the most memorable and unsullied scenery on our bicycle travels.

So it's no surprise that mountains, hilltops or long downhill runs accounted for the themes of the winner and most of the top runners-up in the 1st annual Adventure Cycling Association photo contest.

The winning photo, above, of a cyclist in red bicycling through the mountains of Tenerife on the Canary Islands was taken by Dutch photographer and cyclist Marco Meijerink .....   more »

Congratulations to Scottish bicycle traveler Mark Beaumont for finishing 13,000 miles of bicycle travel down the length of North and South America.

The 27-year-old left Anchorage in May and finished up at Usuaia in southern Argentina on Thursday. There he is at left celebrating from "the end of the world." The bike tour took 268 days.

He interrupted his bike travels to climb, by foot, the highest peaks on each continent -- Denali in Alaska and Aconcagua in Argentina.

Beaumont's name might already be familiar to you. Two years ago he completed his record-setting around-the-world bicycle trip, covering 18,000 miles in 194 days. His latest bike adventure was accompanied by a BBC blog and a constant stream of Twitters.

It's been interesting tracking Beaumont's progress, especially on his Twitters. Reading thoe posts was a good reminder that not every day of bicycle touring is the best....   more »

You better start practicing your bicycle jousting skills, your two-wheeled balance and your good humor as the New Belgium Brewery's Urban Assault Rides are coming to 13 cities in 2010.

Essentially, a two-person team sets out to visit 11 checkpoints around town to complete a challenge at each location. There's no route. The team to complete all 11 obstacles in the shortest time wins.

Three cities have been added to the Urban Assault Ride tour in 2010. The 13 are:

Tucson -- April 18
Berkeley -- May 2
Seattle -- May 16
Portland -- May 23
.....   more »

That family of five that set off last summer from Kentucky on a five-seater bicycle has hit the Pacific Coast. Now they're heading north to their Alaskan destination.

The Harrison family had pedaled nearly 4,000 miles to San Diego. They still have 3,000 miles to go before reaching Fairbanks.

To recap, Bill Harrison and his wife Amarins are traveling with their three girls, Cheyenne, 6, Jasmine, 4, and Robin, 3. They're riding a five-person yellow tandem and carrying their gear in a trailer. You can follow their adventures at Pedouin.com.

Theirs is quite an inspiring story for anyone preparing for a long bike trip. ...   more »

When bicyclists are shooting the breeze about their bike touring exploits, each and every one will have a pretty good dog story.

Joe Kurmaskie won't stop there, though. He'll probably tell you about the time he was chased by an elephant.

Kurmaskie, aka The Metal Cowboy, is a Portland-based bike travel writer who recently posted a short video about being chased by an elephant while on a charity bike ride in Botswana.

The African elephant charged Kurmaskie and his companions briefly one afternoon....   more »

Anytime I hear about foreign destinations for bicycle tours, I think of France, Italy, even Canada. But that's all a matter of perspective.

Now a Quebec-based non-profit bicycling association is sending its 2010 Grand Tour south into upstate New York for the first time. 

The 2,000 cyclists on the bike tour are expected to pump $1.5 million into the area during the seven-day ride. It's just another reminder that recreatoinal bicycling is a big business that can contribute to the economic health (see "Recreational bicycling has big economic impact in Wisconsin")

Vélo Québec Événements is producing the bike tour    more »