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

A couple of days ago I stumbled across a bicyclist who is preparing to ride from Vancouver, BC, to New York City with less than 35 pounds -- including his bicycle.

This is no credit card tour, however. The cyclist, Igor Kovse, is geared for full-out camping with a tent, sleeping bag and a pad. He's also carrying tools, clothing for wet and cold weather, a camera and photographic supplies.

Whenever I'm bicycle touring, it's obvious that I'm in serious need of a gear diet. That's why I like to see how the ultralight half lives.

Apparently Igor has been traveling like this for quite a few years. He announced his upcoming transcontinental tour at the Ultralight Biking Yahoo group, and referred people to his Crazy Guy on a Bike touring page for a previous ride from Dushanbe to Delhi that lists all of his equipment ...   more »

Although I don't keep to a tightly regimented training schedule for bicycling, I usually know my route when I roll down the driveway and I'll stick to it.

Occasionally, though, I just take my bike and head out with no destination in mind. I'm just going out exploring on my bike, or noodling around. Although it doesn't account for many miles in the saddle, it always results in some interesting finds.

On Sunday, for example, I headed down the pipeline right-of-way on my Rockhopper and followed it to the dead-end above May Creek. That's where I veered into the woods on a light trail. Not far along, I came upon this vintage US Mail truck rusting back into its elements in the woods ...   more »

Those of you who read Adventure Cyclist magazine are probably familiar with the writings of columnist Willie Weir.

Although he calls Seattle his home, Weir spends much of his time traveling the world by bicycle. As he tells it:

"I'm not an avid bicyclist, but a traveler who discovered the bicycle."

Weir has compiled his best Adventure Cyclist writings into a book, "Travels with Willie," that's available in paperback for $15 at the Willie Weir website, or as a download for a donation.

The former actor explains that the digital download book is offered in the spirit of live theater that often has a "pay what you can" performance.

"If it inspires you or someone you know to get on their bicycle and explore the world, then it has served its intended purpose." ...   more »

The Mad as Hell Bike Ride Across the US was an aptly named endeavor.

Jim Gafney was a 65-year-old computer engineer from Chula Vista, California, who took off on a cross-country bike ride in April to collect signatures on a petition to protest the bailouts and encourage the President and Congress to act more responsibly in these tough economic times.

Family and friends say he was upset about the government's actions during the recession and was going to deliver the petition to lawmakers in Washington DC. He hoped to have 1,000 protesting cyclists accompany him into the nation's capital.

Gafney wasn't allowed to finish his bike ride, however. ...   more »

As one string of endurance bicyclists heads east across the United States on skinny tire bicycles, another group is heading south along the Great Divide on fat tire bikes.

The first group are cyclists competing in the Race Across America (RAAM) that I wrote about Wednesday. They're racing 3,100 miles cross-country and will begin arriving in Annapolis late next week after 8 to 10 days in the saddle.

The mountain bicyclists on Tour Divide are going almost as far -- 2,700 miles from Banff, Alberta, to Antelope Wells, New Mexico. They're traveling without support crews on mostly dirt roads, however, and must carry their own shelter, water and food.

Last year's Tour Divide winner, Matthew Lee, finished the route in an amazing 19 days and 12 hours ...   more »

The Scottish bicycle traveller who holds the world record for fastest circumnavigation of the Earth is taking his BBC audience on a bicycle tour of the Americas.

As I write this, Mark Beaumont is returning from his ascent of Mount McKinley (Denali) in Alaska by foot.

Over the next seven or eight months, the 26-year-old bicycle adventurer will pedal the coastal mountain ranges all the way to Argentina where he'll summit Aconcagua in the Andes.

Global cyclist

In February last year, Beaumont finished an 18,000-mile solo bicycle tour that circumnavigated the globe. His 195-day trip shattered the previous record of 276 days ...   more »

Sometimes when the planets align correctly and all other conditions are just right, we have the perfect storm of recreational bicycle tours. It's a good thing.

Such is the case this weekend.

If you live in Washington state and you can't find a ride this weekend, then you aren't trying very hard.

I count eight organized bicycle rides this weekend from Seattle to Winthrop to Walla Walla. Seven compete for our attention on Saturday, while the LiveStrong Challenge has Sunday all to itself when 2,000 hit the roads in the Seattle and the Eastside.

Here's a rundown (also available on the June Bicycle Ride Calendar at BikingBis):

Saturday

-- Painted Cyclists Solstice Parade: Leave the spandex at home for this ride. Participants in the annual Fremont parade ride au naturel beneath about 8 ounces of paint ...   more »

From early reports, it sounds like the new Hood Canal Bridge is a vast improvement for bicyclists.

The mile-long span was a narrow, traffic congested -- yet unavoidable -- link between the Kitsap and North Olympic peninsulas. The few times I used it, I always had the desire to kiss the ground on reaching the opposite bank.

The replacement floating-bridge, whose installation was completed last Wednesday after about five weeks of work, has 8-foot wide emergency lanes all the way across that bicyclists can use ...   more »

There's a new bicycling film -- "The Long Bike Back" -- that tells the story of two brothers who fulfill a life-long dream to ride their bicycles cross-country after one survives a near-fatal hit and run crash.

As you can see from the trailer, at left, Pearson and Peter Constantino launched plans for their bicycle travels after Pearson was left for dead at the side of the road by a SUV driver in June 2006.

A little more than two years later, Pearson and Peter take off from Newport, Oregon, with a small film and support crew trailing in a van to record their experiences along US Route 20 to Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Pearson's wife, filmmaker Julia Wrona, directed the film that tells about the brothers' adventures and Pearson's battle back from life-threatening injuries ...   more »

A 47-year-old home builder who took a couple of years off to bicycle around the world is looking ahead to his final 3,500-4,000 miles in a trans-America tour.

Steve Dale of Yorkshire, England, is presently in Australia and set to fly to New Zealand where he'll bicycle before heading to the United States. He's already traveled across Europe and Asia by bicycle.

In preparation for his bike tour across the US, Steve contacted me at the BikingBis blog. He wants to know about "the best practical, but most direct bicycle route across America."

He wants to start in San Francisco and finish up in New York. Anyone out there with ideas about the best route? ...   more »

Here's my reward on Thursday for a half-hour drive and nearly an hour of butt-busting climbing on my old Rockhopper mountain bike.

That's me checking out the view of Mount Rainier from the east summit of Tiger Mountain. It was such a wonderful day for Seattle -- sunny and 70s -- that I wanted to commemorate it with a new bicycle route.

Earlier in the week I had stopped by Half Price Books and stumbled across Mountain Bike Adventures in Washington's South Cascades and Puget Sound by Tom Kirkendall. What a great find and a great bargain, I thought, until I got home and realized the book was 14 years old.

With warm temperatures and blue skies, I was willing to see if these routes still exist. ..   more »

What did you do for your summer vacations in college? Here's a bicycling adventure so amazingly unique that it will likely appear in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Graduating senior Phil Nagle plans to ride his bicycle to 48 states in 48 days this summer and has mapped out a route that does the deed in about 8,000 miles.

The University of Cincinnati senior isn't doing it for publicity, however. He's trying to raise $48,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to pay for research to fight blood cancer, the disease that took his uncle's life at age 16.

The grand loop begins and ends at his home in Tipp City, Ohio. As you can see from the map below, he'll ride his bicycle clean through some states, while others he just tags in passing ...   more »

I've always enjoyed sharing my favorite bicycle routes with friends; even more so when it's my son.

So when Memorial Day dawned clear and warm, we headed up to the Iron Horse State Park just east of North Bend where I introduced him to the John Wayne Pioneer Trail.

In spite of a sign at the trailhead that warned the Snoqualmie Tunnel was closed 20 miles ahead, we saw dozens of bicyclists out on the rail-trail of the Chicago-Milwaukee-St. Paul-Pacific Railroad -- aka The Milwaukee Road.

Since there's no way through, or around, the 2.3-mile tunnel, the only destination for these bicyclists was an out-and-back trail ride to stretch their legs and enjoy the sunny, blue skies....   more »

Until I read the newly revised Sierra Club "how-to" guide for bicycle touring, I would have argued that bike touring hasn't changed much over the past 30 years.

In fact, it has changed a lot. Just consider the new brands and types of bicycles that we now ride, the new components that are now available, and the different styles of touring that we can choose.

Acclaimed bicycling author Raymond Bridge covers it all in 450-some pages in the second edition of "Bike Touring: The Sierra Club Guide to Travel on Two Wheels."

Some things haven't changed so much.  Padded shorts are still preferred for long distances in the saddle, longer chainstays allow more stable load-carrying, and traveling under your own power is still the best way to experience new places.

Changes

But consider some of the changes since 1979, all covered in detail by Bridge in the guide:

-- Mountain bikes were just a blip on the radar; recumbents, trikes, and folding bikes were unheard of. Now they're all considered viable for different styles of bike touring ...   more »

Bicyclists who achieve the Eastern Continental Divide on the Great Allegheny Passage this year will be rewarded with murals of historical scenes from the trail.

The murals, by artist Wayne Fettro, are installed on the rail-trail underpass of MacKenzie Hollow Road in Pennsylvania.

The picture above is just one of dozens of photos that make up a 3D viewing experience at PhotoSynth.net.

The four panels grace both sides of the east and west entrances of the underpass at the 2,392-foot elelvation summit for the trail in Somerset County ...   more »

Car-free days for bicycling along Lake Washington Boulevard in Seattle return this Sunday, but the event is better than ever this year.

Renamed as Bicycle Sundays, the event is scheduled on 19 Sundays from May through September this year. That's every Sunday except July 5, 26, and August 2.

In previous years, the lake-side road was closed to cars two or three times a month on alternate Saturdays and Sundays. This year the city upped the ante to just about every Sunday ...   more »

While the amazing bicycle stunts video from Danny MacAskill has hit more than 3 million views in less than 2 weeks, here's a YouTube video that reminds us that there's pleasure in keeping two wheels on the bike trail.

This just released 2:35-minute video shows what bicyclists can experience along the 150-mile Great Allegheny Passage rail-to-trail that rolls along between Cumberland, Maryland, and McKeesport, Pennsylvania.

Completed in late 2006, the GAP has brought new life to small communities in western Pennsylvania and created an outlet for bicycle tourists who want to take an extended bike tour along a well-maintained route that's free of traffic ...   more »

What do you do if you want to take a week-long across-state-bicycle tour of your home state but nothing is offered?

You create your own tour. A handful of members of the Arkansas Bicycle Club earlier this month routed their own 350-mile bicycle tour, without sag support, evening meetings, insurance forms or continuous "on-your-left" warnings.

The self-supported bicycle tour left North Little Rock with four bicyclists on April 13, and after picking up and dropping off riders throughout the rainy week, returned to Little Rock with two cyclists on April 19. Six bicyclists rode all or part of the route.

You may not think this is a big deal, but the 10,000-strong RAGBRAI got its start with relatively humble beginnings. ..   more »

The Price family

Hand-me-down bicycles are fairly common among family members.

But Monica Price, 30, and Maria Elena Price, 27, are running an international bicycle tour company passed down from their parents.

The company is Fort Collins, Colorado-based ExperiencePlus!, which has been offering bicycle tours primarily in the Americas, Europe and Australia for some 30 years.

The outfit was founded by Rick Price and Paola Malpezzi Price back in the '70s. As their daughters grew up, they participated in the tours and helped run the business. ...   more »

Unseasonably warm temperatures in the 60s and 70s are hitting the Seattle area, but the high country along the North Cascades Highway still has plenty of snow.

Washington state highway snow-clearing crews working from the east have hit bare pavement on the way to the 5,477-foot Washington Pass on Highway 20.

They're trying to clear by May 1 arguably one of the nation's most spectacular stretches of highway. It's a big draw not only for motorists but for touring bicyclists.

The 50-some miles of Highway 20 between Mazama and Newhalem in the North Cascades National Park is featured in Adventure Cycling Association's Northern Tier and Washington Parks bicycle routes.

It's also a destination for many bicyclists riding alone or in groups who want to test their climbing abilities in rarified air ....   more »

Something I wanted to do when I visited Sacramento last winter was to explore the bicycle trail along the American River.

To rent a bicycle before I left, I had to search for bike shops, check if they were close to the trail, then call to compare prices and determine if they actually would have bicycles in stock.

Now a couple of midwestern cycling enthusiasts are making it easier for bicyclists who want to get a ride in on their business or pleasure trips. They've created an online service -- RentABikeNow.com -- that enables cyclists to rent bicycles in 144 cities in the U.S.

The one-stop online-shop connects cyclists with companies and shops that have bicycles for rent. The cyclist simply choses a destination and date, then compares types, sizes and costs of bikes that are offered by one or more shops. The reservation is made online ...   more »