Category Archives: Bike Touring

Book Review: Ellee Thalheimer’s Cycling Sojourner

Bicycle touring’s popularity is on the rise in America. There are no firm statistics available (though Adventure Cycling Association is actively collecting data to help change that), but it’s clear from the number of dedicated websites, blog posts, forums and the fact that nearly all major manufactures have an off-the-shelf touring bike available (certainly not true 10 years ago), more and more people are hitting the road for everything from overnight bike camping to multi-year tours. Unsurprisingly, Oregon seems to be at the forefront of states recognizing the economic potential of the bike touring industry. Oregon tourism website Travel Oregon promotes bike touring. Portland’s Cycle Wild leads guided bike camping trips.  Path Less Pedaled is creating a video series about traveling Oregon by bike. And last month, Ellee Thalheimer made her contribution to the state’s burgeoning bike touring industry with the publication of her book Cycling Sojourner, Oregon’s first guide to self-supported, multi-day bike touring.

Cycling Sojourner offers its readers an in-depth guide to eight different tours around the state ranging from an easy several day cruise through Oregon wine country to a challenging week-long adventure out east that’s chock full of mountainous gravel climbs.

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Gregg Bleakney: From Software Sales to Cycling Adventures


Gregg crossing from Argentina to Chile. Self portrait by Gregg.

In the early 2000s, Gregg Bleakney was on a strong path to (one type of) success. He was earning a six-figure salary as a software salesman, owned a house in Seattle, and was generally enjoying his career. Then Gregg and his best friend from college set out on a two-year bike tour from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, Argentina to raise money for the American Diabetes Association. Towards the end of the ride, Gregg realized he couldn’t go back to his old life. He quit his job, sold his house and started making inroads to a new career as a self-described visual storyteller focused on adventure travel. Now he’s traveling around the world telling stories as a photographer and writer, often with a focus on bikes. I spoke to Gregg on a short break he was taking in the United States after covering the Tour de Langkawi in Malaysia. We talked about his Alaska to Argentina ride and its sea-change effect on him, his new career and world travels, and more.

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Publishing From The Road: Bicycle Traveler Magazine

Dutch writer and bicycle tourist Grace Johnson launched a new online magazine this month called Bicycle Traveler. The free (and advertisement-free) digital publication is, as you’d imagine, focused on stories and photography about bicycle touring.

The content in Issue #1 is a bit of a mixed bag. Several of the articles appear to be excerpts from bicycle touring blogs and they read that way. But, the feature article more than makes up for it. It’s about Eric and Jack Attwell, two South African brothers who rode the length of Africa then all the way to London in the 1930s. It is well written and provides a fascinating snapshot of both 1930s bike touring and Africa itself.

I’m looking forward to future issues of the magazine. It’s a respectable and ambitious project, made all that more ambitious by the fact that Johnson and her husband Paul Jeurissen are in the midst of their own world-wide bike tour. The two of them sold their house in the Netherlands in 2010 and set off on the road.

Go check out the Bicycle Traveler site, download the first issue, and explore the magazine for yourself.

Fat Biking at its Best


Image by Mike Curiak. From lacemine29.blogspot.com

Fat bikes are taking off in a big way. Once predominately the domain of Alaskan adventure racers tackling Iditasport, fat bikes are now being used for everything from mountain biking to bike packing to urban exploration. But at their heart, fat bikes still seem best suited as wilderness adventure machines, ready to tackle terrain long after the roads and trails have ended.

Mike Curiak, Eric Parsons, Dylan Kentch, Doom Fishfinder, and Roman Dial did just that this summer. The crew biked and packrafted along Alaska’s Lost Coast from Yakutat to Glacier Bay.

Curiak put together a beautiful video from the trip that does a great job of capturing the Alaska’s rugged, wilderness coastline. Watch it and enjoy ten minutes of vicarious adventure.

Lowell Smoger: the Mechanical Engineer’s 5,000-Mile Job Hunt


Lowell and his Troll. Picture stolen from Facebook.

Fall 2010, Lowell Smoger finished his masters program in engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology and found himself–like many young Americans–high on smarts, degrees, and skills, but low on that all important, job-landing element, experience. Unlike many young Americans, however, Lowell didn’t move back in with his parents and start scouring Craigslist for job openings. He started planning a bike tour that would introduce him to America and maybe introduce him to a few bike industry folks along the way, as well.

I met Lowell this Labor Day weekend while he was stopped in Seattle. A college friend of mine, Hannah, had ridden with him for the first few weeks of the tour and had sent me a message telling me to meet up with her tour partner when he got to Seattle. Lowell, my girlfriend, and I spent an afternoon exploring nearby Bainbridge Island by bike. On the ferry ride over to the island, Lowell and I talked about his reasons for touring, his life on the road, his take on the kindness of strangers, and more.

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