Pablo Garcia found more than he bargained for on his worldwide bicycle tour.

The bicycle tour started as a solo venture by the Argentinian cyclist, who embarked from South Africa in 2001. He bicycled up the African continent and reached Egypt in 2004. He then rode around Northern Europe before taking on the Mediterranean countries.

That's when he met, and married, Clara Vicari, an Italian grad student ....   more »

2006 marked the 30th anniversary for the Bikecentennial summer, when some 4,100 bicycle tourists hit the highway and rode the TransAmerica bicycle route to celebrate the nation's 200th birthday.

The Bikecentennial group is still around under a different name, Adventure Cycling Association. The group is still based in Missoula, Montana, and boasts 42,500 members, up from 7,500 in the early years. It's the largest nonprofit cycling organization in the country.

The hometown newspaper, the Missoulian, interviewed Adventure Cycling's executive director about the group's plans...   more »

Bicyclists can celebrate the opening of the final link of the Great Allegheny Passage with a fully supported bike tour that spins from DC to Pittsburgh this summer.

Dubbed the Greenway Sojourn 2007 by organizers Rails to Trails Conservancy, the bike ride takes advantage of 335 miles of unbroken bicycle path comprising the C&O Canal towpath (DC's Georgetown to Cumberland, Maryland) and the Great Allegheny Passage (Cumberland to Pittsburgh).

The bike tour, limited to 500 cyclists, runs from June 23-30, 2007. The northbound tour provides camping ...   more »

One of the hottest match-ups for the coming year -- Lance Armstrong vs. Floyd Landis at the Leadville 100 -- has apparently fizzled out.

Armstrong announced at The Paceline website that he will not be racing in the Leadville Trail 100 Mountain Bike Race on Aug. 11, 2007, as previously indicated due to a "scheduling conflict."

I'm marking that date on my calendar just to see ...   more »

You may have already scored your 2007 bicycle racing calendar published by cycling photographer Graham Watson, but there are some other cool bicycle calendars available for 2007.

One that quickly captured my attention is the CyclePassion calendar, featuring cyclists interacting with their bikes. Take for instance this picture for March (the calendar appears to be next to her right knee cap) of a cyclist washing down her Bianchi.

The CyclePassion calendar project was shot by photographer Daniel Geiger, himself a cyclist. Some of the pictures were shot on location ...   more »

Are you wondering how you're going to be spend your vacation this summer? I've updated more listings for Across-State Bicycle Tours, which might give you some ideas.

These are fully supported, mostly week-long bike tours operated by nonprofit groups to show off the wonders of the various states. I have updates for LABBRAU, GRABAAWR, SAGBRAW, BRAT, OBR, XOBA, among others. That means I've been working in reverse alpha order to update bike tours in Wisconsin, Washington, Tennessee, South Dakota, Oregon and Ohio.

For more updates ....   more »

Ever get tired of waiting for government to act? David Brickley did.

That's why he took it on himself to purchase the rights to a 16-mile railroad right-of-way through King George County and launch plans for the Dahlgren Railroad Heritage Trail as a bicycling and hiking path near Fredericksburg, Virginia.

The Rails to Trails newsletter reports on Brickley, who saw the railbed in 1999 when he worked as director of a state agency. Try as he might, however, he couldn't interest the county's board of commissioners to develop a bike-hike trail.

Fearing the tract might be chopped up ...   more »

Who is my top bicycling hero? Lance Armstrong -- warm. Greg LeMond -- warmer. Freddie Hoffman -- bingo!

Why Hoffman? For starters, he's ridden his bicycle to the moon and back, twice.

Hoffman, 48, was born with an oxygen deficiency. It led to developmental problems that caused him to be ostracized by his classmates and peers. He turned to his bicycle for companionship.

Inspired by watching astronauts travel to the moon, Hoffman got it in his head to turn his bicycle into a virtual spacecraft and pedal the distance to the moon -- some 240,000 miles -- here on Earth. Bicycling nearly every day, Hoffman has covered 1.3 million miles.

How did he do it? ...   more »

While their son talks to reporters from newspapers and magazines in Europe and the US, Floyd Landis's parents talked to the local Rotary Club this week.

Landis's strict Mennonite upbringing by his parents became an interesting sidelight to his career in 2006 as he racked up more and more bicycle race wins. But his parents were thrust into the news with the accusations that their son doped to win a stage of the 2006 Tour de France. Paul and Arlene had slightly different takes on their experiences since the doping allegations ...   more »

“I got a whole lot of good stuff from the White House. I can’t describe how it felt. I know it felt good."

Moses Mathis, aka The Bicycle Man, describing his reaction to receiving the President's Call to Action Award and a letter from President Bush. Mathis earned the honor by performing a minimum 4,000 hours of volunteer service ...   more »

Howard at the HRlaughed blog tagged me to tell five things you probably don't know about me. I fear the consequences of ignoring such a request, but I'm having a little trouble picking which obscure facts to tell. Everything seems obscure.

Here are the first five that come to mind (chronologically):

1. I grew up in a suburb of Cincinnati in a house where my dad smoked constantly ...   more »

This is like one of those fantasy matches: "What if Satchel Paige pitched against Ichiro," or "What if Johnny Unitas' Baltimore Colts took on Peyton Manning's Indianapolis Colts?"

The Floyd Landis camp issued a press release Tuesday that their guy is going to get on his mountain bike and race in the Leadville Trail 100 Mountain Bike Race, scheduled Aug. 11, 2007, in Leadville, Colorado.

Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong had already agreed to ride in Leadville. This sets up a challenge between two Tour de France winners in a slightly different contest.

Who's missing? Three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond, of course. Wouldn't that be a wild contest? ...   more »

This blog hasn't been updated for a few days because Mother Nature opened up a big can of whoop-ass on western Washington last week. She kicked my butt; and I'm one of the lucky ones.

A major windstorm struck Thursday night. Among the thousands of trees that fell was one trunk of a beautiful big leaf maple that was a home for birds and squirrels and provided welcome shade for my family in the summertime.

That's the view from my office window. The tree toppled across three back yards and crushed two fences. It missed two houses by 10 feet or less. When it gets sawed up and removed, its two standing brothers are going with it. They may be rotten too, and I can't risk endangering our neighbors.

I haven't had much time to deal with that tree, though. Until 5 p.m. Monday, my wife and I have been trying to keep the kids warm and occupied. ...   more »

Pennsylvanian Don Moul will celebrate his 90th birthday along the rail-to-trail bicycle path where he rides four or five times a week.

How are you going to stay fit when you're 90?

Moul has been an avid bicyclist since he retired in the 1980s. Currently he likes to ride his bicycle on a 15-mile route from York to Glen Rock along the Heritage Rail Trail County Park ...   more »

If you like to witness cyclists struggling on mountain stages, you'll need to check in early with the 2007 Vuelta a Espana.

Instead of opening with a week for the sprinters, the three-week-long Tour of Spain -- September 1-23 -- boasts a mountaintop finish on the difficult Lagos de Covadonga on the fourth day.

In all, the Vuelta route announced today boasts seven mountain stages, four mountaintop finishes, and two time trials as it spins for 2,009 miles clockwise ...   more »