Tara Alan and Tyler Kellen Came Slowly Home


Tyler and Tara cruising San Francisco their first week back in the U.S.

In April 2009, Tara Alan and Tyler Kellen set off from Scotland (via Minnesota) to spend two years pedaling their way around a sizable chunk of the Earth on a bike tour they named Going Slowly. In December 2010, after the duo had ridden through Europe, into north Africa, back up through eastern Europe, and driven across Russia, I interviewed them for The Bicycle Story. Since then, Tara and Tyler finished their tour in Southeast Asia and made their way back to the United States. I spoke to them again now that they’ve started to settle back in to see how the rest of the tour went, what it’s like to transition back into the “normal” world after two years of travel, and what their plans are for life off the road. They responded with both words and an amazing array of photographs that do a wonderful job of complementing the stories they tell.

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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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Path Less Pedaled’s Economics of Bike Touring

Former Bicycle Story interviewee Russ Roca posted an excellent argument on the Path Less Pedaled site about a bike tourist’s economic benefit in a small, rural town, versus that of a car traveler. In short, he says that over the same 200 mile trip, bike tourists will have significantly more impact than car drivers. Whereas a car might have stop once, if at all, over that distance, loaded tourists will stop many times for food, overnight stays, resupplies, etc.

All of this is not to simply say “bikes are better.” Russ was inspired by he and Laura’s stay at Bike Camp in Twin Bridges, Montana, a facility built by the community for bike tourists along Adventure Cycling Association’s Northern Tier route. Russ thinks small towns, especially ones along major bike touring routes, would see a significant boost to their economy if they made similar efforts to accommodate tourists as the folks in Twin Bridges did.

Go read Russ’ post in full and be sure to check out his excellent hand-drawn, economics infographic.

I’d Rather Be Klunking

I came across this historical gem on youtube. Evening Magazine, a 1970s television news magazine on a San Francisco CBS station, produced a segment about the new craze sweeping Marin County, Klunking. The clip has some excellent footage of a race down the Repack course as well as interviews with Charlie Kelly, Gary Fisher, and others. It’s obviously not as comprehensive as Klunkerz, the 2006 documentary on the subject, but it’s nonetheless an amazing peak into the early history of mountain biking.