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

My annual goal is to ride my bicycle 4,000 miles. Last year I made it, partly because a bicycling buddy inspired me with this quest for 10,000 miles.

Russell Rogers had a full-time job, fixed up his house in Sequim for resale, and relocated to Pennsylvania last year. In spite of that, he still put 10,000 miles on his bikes in 2011.

How did he do it? He shared some tips in his blog, The Flying Abalone Bicycle Club, and in conversations with me.

"I think I can summarize it like this, physically speaking it isn't that hard. ....   more »

Bicycling enthusiasts on the 27th annual Ride the Rockies bicycle tour will cross five mountain passes on their way from Gunnison to Fort Collins in 2012.

The organizers of the popular event presented by the Denver Post announced this weekend the 442-mile route and seven host cities for the event that draws 2,000 riders in a lottery that leaves others waiting in the wings.

Registration for this year's June 9-15 bicycle tour runs today (Sunday) through Feb. 24. Two thousand bicyclists will be chosen at random in the lottery ...   more »

While others her age are just getting used to life after high school, Erin Nelson is taking on the world on her bicycle.

At 18, she left her home in Turlock, California, in November 2010 and pedaled across the US, Europe and Asia on an around-the-world bicycle trip that now finds her in China. [See her video below.]

Why an around-the-world bike tour? She wrote an early blog about some many people living lives of contentment:

"I don't want to be happy being content. I want to be happy because I'm making the most out of my short life so when I die I don't have regrets ....   more »

When I reached the West Coast after bicycling across country in the 1980s, one of the coolest things I discovered was the fact that many parks had hike or bike camping.

The state parks where I stopped on the Pacific Coast Bicycle Trail, for instance, all had a reduced-rate area set aside for travelers on foot or bike.

As I rode up the coast, I remember several nights sitting around the fire ring sharing route news and swapping lies with fellow cyclists.



Now these parks are seriously threatened. In an attempt to balance its budget, California has plans to close 70 parks in the state; X's mark the parks on the above map ...   more »

If you're curious about the 2012 routes for RAGBRAI XL (Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa) or BAK (Biking Across Kansas), then you've been waiting for this weekend.

Organizers of both popular across-state bicycle tours announced their routes, a combined 946 miles of bicycling for anyone lucky enough to do both.

Between the two, they have 77 years of experience ushering bicyclists across their states in hot summer sun, thunder showers, and occasional windstorms -- all the while ensuring the cyclists can consume copious quantities of pie.

This is the 40th anniversary of RAGBRAI (July 22-28), a mass bicycle tour of 10,000 people. Perhaps to celebrate the occasion, the ride will be among the least challenging...    more »

You can probably guess from the photo at left that the hundreds of miles of flatness across Kansas and eastern Colorado were taking a toll on my sanity on a cross-country bicycle tour some 20 years ago.

Those are the Rockies in the background, however, and this bike tour was about to take on a whole new, vertical complexion.

While many cyclists flock to the Rockies for several multi-day bike tours every year, cyclists who prefer flat terrain may feel left out.

No longer. The Denver Post, host of the Ride the Rockies, announced its new Colorado ride this week called "Pedal the Plains."

Although there aren't a lot of details available ...   more »

The last place you'd probably consider for taking a bicycle ride has been conquered.

The hostess of a children's TV show in England is being touted as the first person to use a bicycle as part of an expedition to the South Pole.

The adventurer, Helen Skelton, 28, also traveled 329 miles by kite ski and 68 miles by cross-country ski to complete the 500-mile journey across Antarctica in 18 days.

The bicycle she pedaled for 103 miles across the frozen continent was a US-built Fortune Hanebrink all-terrain bicycle ...   more »

One never knows when a complete jack ass will step forward with designs on screwing up an otherwise ideal bicycle ride.

That's what happened on Tuesday to Russ Roca and Laura Crawford, the American couple whose bicycle-touring exploits are well known and documented at their Path Less Pedaled website.

They've been praising the virtues of summer cycling in New Zealand for the past few weeks until this short message on Tuesday at their Facebook page:

"Had a road rage incident....Russ got tackled off the bike and punched in the face...eventful day."

Although they didn't go into great detail, there's more information ...   more »

It's time for Cascade Bicycle Club members to line up to register online for the club's most popular bicycle rides on Tuesday and Wednesday.

In order to prevent a repeat of last year's server meltdown of monumental proportions, the club is staggering the dates for registration this year and instituting a lottery system for the RSVP and RSVP2 (Ride from Seattle to Vancouver and Party).

Here's the rundown:

On Tuesday, members-only registration opens for Chilly Hilly, Flying Wheels, STP and Ride Around Washington ...   more »

The fast-growing Pelotonia charity bike ride in Ohio is rolling out from Columbus to a new destination in 2012 -- Kenyon College in the small town of Gambier.

The organizers of the bicycle ride explained the new destination would encourage more people to make the ride, which drew nearly 5,000 bicyclists in 2011.

Now in its fourth year, the Pelotonia previously set out for Athens in hilly southeastern Ohio. ...   more »

A couple from Madison, Wisconsin, finished up a 17,000-mile Pan American bicycling adventure in Argentina a couple of weeks ago.

Meanwhile a couple from Tempe, Arizona, are waiting there to get their tandem out of customs to begin their journey north.

Alan Turnquist and Erin Syth, at left, arrived in Ushaia, the southern-most city in South America, in mid-December after traveling for 550 days from the Arctic Circle.

The Madison couple quit their jobs and drove to Canada's Northwest Territories ...   more »

A lot of dads enjoy the companionship of an occasional father-son bicycle ride.

But here's one that lasted all-day and all-night and resulted in a record.

The father-son team of Chuck and Matt Knott, left, competed in the National 24-Hour Challenge last summer in Middleville, Michigan.

They each completed 420.1 miles, breaking the previous record of 782 miles that had been standing ...   more »

Often in pursuit of my goal to ride 4,000 miles during the past year, I took the time to stop and take a few snapshots.

Here are a few from this past year's memorable rides that took me from Lake Washington to Kansas to Snoqualmie Pass.

Let's start on January 1. Although we our share of precipitation in the winter and spring, the first day of the new year was bright and sunny. Here are a couple of chaps riding along Lake Washington in Renton with the Olympic Mountains in the background ...   more »

Somewhere in this mass of bicyclists wearing T-shirts and "beer-cooler" helmets you can find my friend Bruce and me.

We're riding our bicycles across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge as part of Cycle Across Maryland -- a wonderful event that petered out in the latter part of this decade.

As you can guess from our cycling gear, this photo was taken in the early 1990s. It was 1994, in fact, the first and maybe only time that the 4.3-mile-long eastbound span of the Bay Bridge on US Route 50 was closed to everyone but bicyclists.

The photo was taken by Bob Gilbert, a former colleague at the Annapolis Capital newspaper who loved shooting pictures from anything up high. I just stumbled across this photo ....   more »