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 »

Floyd Landis is saying he'll quit the sport of bicycling if a review of his doping case by US authorities leads to a long suspension.

Doesn't it seem a little early to be making those kinds of threats? Landis has been working up a defense to the doping charges and trying to raise doubts about the veracity of the lab tests. His case will be heard before the US Anti-Doping Agency early next year. He hasn't lost yet.

If the charges are upheld, the authorities might be all too willing to test his threat ...   more »

If you're looking to take your interest in bicycling to a professional level, here are some advocacy jobs I've stumbled across recently. The positions in Burlington, Vermont, Napa County, California, and Washington DC all require an interest in cycling, as well as experience in other administrative duties....   more »

Here's another weapon for your arsenal in posting a fast result in a time trial or finishing that last hill on your century bicycle ride.

The jelly bean.

The Jelly Belly Co. is in the endurance sports business now with its Sport Beans product. Basically, we're talking your standard jelly beans here packed with carbohydrates ...   more »

I was looking for something to read me off to sleep the other night and pulled "Travels with Charley" by John Steinbeck off the shelf.

Within a minute of cracking the cover, I was pulled back 25 years to the first time I read the book and found a voice that explained my desire to make a cross-country bicycle trip.

"When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age ....   more »

This might be old news to many, but it was a surprise to me because I'm so behind in my movie watching. I picked up "You, Me and Dupree" the other day and who makes a cameo appearance but Lance Armstrong.

The movie came out earlier this year, but I don't remember hearing about it. It's for rent on the two-day shelf, so it must be a recent DVD release.

Essentially, the movie is about Dupree (Owen Wilson) who moves in with his just married friend, Matt Dillon, and his wife, Kate Hudson ...   more »

A bicycle is just about the best gift any kid can get at Christmas. Groups across the country are busy sponsoring bicycle drives and giveaways this season. Here's a representative sample of some programs:

California

The Butte County Sheriff's office is giving away about 50 new and used bicycles to children who were identified by the local Salvation Army. This is the seventh year ...   more »

"It is incomprehensible that (Gail) Alef's life ... should be worth only 15 to 20 months in the eyes of our state."

That's not me talking. That's the outraged judge quoted in the Seattle Times after sentencing a man to the maximum in a vehicular homicide case.

The 59-year-old man admitted he had consumed alcohol, taken anti-depressants, and smoked marijuana the night before he swerved across a Redmond, Washington, road in 2005 and hit bicyclist Gail Alef (above), who later died.

The man, Steven Edward Reidel, took off running. When police arrested him ...   more »

Bicycling blogger and former bicycle framebuilder Dave Moulton writes about his collision with an SUV last week in Charleston, South Carolina.

Moulton says he was flying along when an SUV made a left turn in front of him. He suffered a hairline skull fracture and writes that the helmet he was wearing probably saved his life.

While he writes many thought-provoking pieces at his blog, his two posts immediately before the accident carry eerie headlines:   more »

Florida cyclist A.J. Smith had his moment in the sun last year when he won the Discovery Channel pro cycling team's so-called Race2Replace contest in August.

Now the 25-year-old cyclist who won the promotional honor to replace Lance Armstrong on the Discovery team at the USPRO Time Trial Championships in Greenville, S.C., last September is getting back into the sport after quitting six years ago.

He's riding for the Herbal Life/Bike America Racing Team ...   more »

It may seem like we're in the throes of winter, but spring comes early to parts of the West Coast where the Amgen Tour of California bike race is only 10 weeks from now.

The organizers of the February 18-25 event have been pumping out press releases for months, and the best news I've seen so far is that VERSUS  (the network formerly known as OLN) will broadcast nightly recaps of the day's cycling action.

The network has pledged to provide 14 hours of coverage ...   more »

Congratulations to the Allegheny Trail Alliance for earning the inaugural Pacesetter of the Year Award from the Adventure Cycling Association.

The Allegheny Trail Alliance is a coalition of seven volunteer groups in southern Pennsylvania and western Maryland that have created the 150-mile bike and hike Great Allegheny Passage.

Because of their efforts, touring bicyclists can hop onto the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Towpath in Washington DC and bicycle all the way to Pittsburgh on a trail free of vehicle traffic, except for a couple of missing links ...   more »

Women who bicycle frequently can suffer decreased genital sensation, according to a study by the Yale University School of Medicine.

But unlike men, who can suffer erectile dysfunction from an improperly fitted bike saddle, the women in the study suffered "no negative effects on sexual function and quality of life," said lead researcher Dr. Marsha Guess.

Maybe I'm getting way out of my expertise here, but wouldn't decreased genital sensation impact the quality of life?

Researchers studied 48 women ...   more »

Think pink this May when the 2007 Giro d'Italia bicycle race begins its three-week contest for the winner's pink jersey.

Ivan Basso, now a cyclist on the Discovery Channel pro cycling team, is looking to repeat his championship from last year when he was a member of Team CSC. Once again, the bike race is touted as one that favors the climbing specialists.

As last year's Giro d'Italia started in Belgium to commemorate Italians killed in a mine disaster in that country, the first three days of the 2007 Giro will be raced on the island of Sardenia ...   more »

This case sends shivers up my spine.

Roger Kramer's Favorite Cycling Tours passes along the news article about a 19-year-old Illinois woman who pleaded guilty last week to the "petty offense" of hitting a bicyclist with her car while she was distracted by downloading ringtones to her cell phone.

The driver had veered so far off the road that she struck 25-year-old Matthew Wilhelm from behind the driver's side of the car, reported the Champaign (Illinois) News-Gazette. Wilhelm died a few days later. The charge against the driver, Jennifer Stark: improper lane usage. ...   more »

The story I wrote for Saturday about the new Bicycling in Virginia map sent me searching through my box of old biking info in search of an old Bikecentennial map.

It had been awhile since I'd scrambled through this stuff, and I was shocked and awed by the sheer amount of stuff that I'd picked up during a cross-country bicycle tour in 1984. I gathered up the armload of maps, brochures and books I collected on the trip, put it on the bathroom scale, and discovered it weighed in at 8 pounds!

Not something to be proud of, especially in these days of striving for ultralight cycling.

What was in there? The heaviest item was my journal (shown at top with the Olympics Summer Games sticker). And of course I had a set of maps and guidebooks ...   more »

Virginia has printed up a bicycle touring map for the state that includes major cross-state bike routes totalling some 800 miles, as well as a half dozen or more rail-to-trail bike paths and off-road mountain biking areas.

Bicycling in Virginia is also available online in two .pdf downloads at "full map" and the reverse "trail side."

One of the main features of the map are the two US bicycle routes that criss-cross the state. Route 1 runs north-south about from the DC suburbs, through Richmond and into southern Virginia. The east-west Route 76 essentially follows the old Bikecentennial (Trans-America) trail ...   more »