Touring - Rail bikes!

All I can think about is the fact that you wouldn't have to deal with cagers.

http://rrbike.freeservers.com/
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/03/more_rail_bikes.html

Legal considerations aside, think about it, there are thousands of miles of railways that aren't used any more and are smack in the middle of some of the most beautiful country imagineable. Also, grades tend to be more gentle on railways.

I remember reading something in Bicycling about a guy touring Central or South American like 10-15 years ago using a similar rig.

Anyone else ever consider this?

No cars except at crossings, but now you've got to deal with trains! ;) Seriously though its a pretty neat idea. It would probably be a good thing if you had a loop of track and you could rent the things out to people. For touring it seems kinda impractical as you'd have to lug the thing to your camp site unless you camped right by the tracks. It doesn't look like it would work for riding anywhere other than on rails. Also, faster riders couldn't pass slower riders and such. Maybe if you hooked a bunch of them together you could make a human powered train that could get going pretty fast. Anyways, cool link.

Btw the first link didn't work for me.

Where did the term cagers come from? I thought it was only a british motocycling term because the only place i saw it is on british motorcycling web sites. I love it though.

Many rail lines that appear to be abandoned are not. They may have one train per week. And with your luck, you might run straight into it in a tunnel. Plus, railroad rights-of-way are private property and they can and will prosecute you. Railroads have been heavies for some time, but with the heightened risk of sabotage, they are especially unhappy these days to see people out on the tracks. Remember, most of the really ghastly and lethal stuff that can't be hauled on highways goes over rails. One track misaligned and it end up on the ground and creates a major environmental mess.

Since steel has scrap value, it is safe to say that if the rails are still in place, it is still a private right-of-way. Rails to Trails is a national organization that works to reuse abandoned rights-of-way after they are legally transferred. And once it is a rail-trail, there's no need for a Rail-Rider contraption anyway. Yeah - it's tempting, but it's also stupid.