Squeezebox

I finally spent some time on adventure cycling Assoc. this morning. In a couple of hours I saw a plan for leaving St. Louis, visiting my son in NY. Then my niece in the Florida panhandle. And head home after that. Maybe hiking some Appalachian Trail in the mix.
Sorry for stressing you folks out, with my BS.
What a great site.

mstateglfr 

You just now went to that site?
I can only imagine you crisscrossing the country...
Bless your heart.

saddlesores

oh, you little tease! read the thread title and thought you'd actually gone
and done it............bought a bicycle. me so silly.

BigAura

Cool! Now I hope you enjoy actually touring as much as you like posting

indyfabz

Hard to take a tour without a bike.

Squeezebox

Check in with me about the bicycle next weekend.
Wed. is supposed to be the promised day.

thumpism 

You have to start somewhere. Back in the early '70s I was in a bookshop near the local city college and bought "Bicycle Touring in Europe" by Karen and Gary Hawkins. I sat in the school's cafeteria most of that cold, rainy afternoon reading that book and several months later was in Amsterdam buying a bike for a planned five-month ride on the continent. Inspiration is where you find it and in the pre-internet days information was seldom at your fingertips. Good luck with your trip(s)!

DropBarFan

Nothing wrong with doing a lot of research first, I learn tons of stuff from the forum & other internet sites. Esp considering these days there are so many options in bikes/components/gear.

saddlesores

awesome book! picked that one up freshman year of college. had been considering
getting a eurail pass for a summer in europe. that book convinced me cycle touring
was the best way for me to see the continent.

if i recall, in the photos he was wearing khaki-style cotton shorts, tennis shoes,
over the calf athletic socks and bell helmet......and porn moustache!

bought a second hand 21-spd paramount, included a set of kirtland panniers and
a steel bar supported hbar bag. flew icelandair to luxembour, then cycled via
hamburg to passau, followed the donau to vienna, then along the border to a
small town to attend a summer language course.

worked out well (too much gear....mailed half back a couple weeks in) despite
doing little riding beforehand. just your basic riding a mile or so around town
a few days a week, and one 40-mile training ride....actually 10 miles...the
rack bolts came loose, and....didn't have any tools cause i was riding near home.

thumpism 

Yeah, we were all stylin' in those days. I was a beard guy myself and that was before I wore a helmet. I recall cutoff jeans and Adidas sneaks. I know one photo exists of me in that getup and I'll try to post a copy of it. Posterity deserves a record of that.

I still have the book but have not looked at it in a couple of decades. I'll try to find it.

indyfabz

Heh. I know a guy who was on one of the original Bike Centennial (now Adventure Cycling Association) cross-country trips in '76. About 10 years ago a LBS had a touring day, where people could bring slides from trips. This guy brought in a bunch from his trip. There were a good number of guys sporting that look.

saddlesores

really? he never comes to the meetings!

just checked my photos from the '84 eurotour......sheesh,
i'm in the uniform including the red eyeglass clip-on
rearview mirror. cannondale cycling shoes instead of
tennies, and i had shaved the handlebar 'stash. didn't
wanna be toooo sexy, ya know.

i don't wanna post it, but as i sit here in china listening
to classic rock....what comes on? "momma's got a 920"
ok, it's an omen, a harbinger of threads both future
and past....or something.

alrighty, then. when the 920 is purchased, i shall post.
if actually toured on, i shall think about posting a
photo of the 22-cm wingspan 'stash. what, me worry?

mantelclock

That was me in '76, too. But I don't have any photos of my trips. Definitely cut offs and cotton tees, but I think I wore Converse running shoes. I was riding a '61 Raleigh Blue Streak at the time.

I find it hard to believe that an expert on touring like the OP has just discovered ACA. Incidentally, I just discovered a great internet search engine called Google. It's amazing!

thumpism 

I've known about the organization since the proposal of the original B76 route but did not research it, join or use the website until I began prepping for a TransAm ride that might happen this year. Hey, there's a lot going on and you can't be aware of it all.

saddlesores

true, so true. tis actually quite easy to miss a little-known niche product
like platform pedals.............

indyfabz

You can see some stills from '76 here:

https://www.adventurecycling.org/res...in-short-film/

mantelclock

True, but ACA comes up first on Google for a search on bicycle touring, after the commercial sites, and virtually every discussion group on touring talks about ACA routes and maps. Good luck on your tour this year, whether its the full TransAm or something less ambitious.

BigAura

I agree that doing research is a good thing and the OP's 550+ posts in the passed few months is a testament to his research.


Your point that there are "so many options" is because everyone is an individual and touring is an emersive and highly personal activity.


My apprehension, that you gleened from my post, is because the actual activity of touring differs greatly from reading & posting about touring. Unfortunately one never really can experience touring without doing it. Research is fine but has very little to do with the act itself.

DropBarFan

I checked out that book from the library back around 1980, was pretty interesting. Back then a lot bikers subscribed to Bicycling Magazine which included touring articles & bike reviews. Remember Sloane's The Complete Book of Bicycling? It had the weird recommendation that serious bikers (esp racers) should not swim because it would 'mess up the muscles', heh...that was before triathlons of course. & the books all (IIRC) said to wear wool jerseys.

shipwreck

To be honest, I am very glad that I began touring before I knew that there was all this on the internet. It let me make choices informed by the limited amount of things I knew about, rather than a bunch of stuff that I could quite frankly only dream about. My limited knowledge kept me happier, and free from worry if I was doing it "right".


I have that book on my shelf(collector of vintage bicycle stuff). It is interesting. The only book I ever read before touring was the Cranes "journey to the center of the earth". My grail bike is still a Raleigh just like they rode. No front derailleur to save weight! It was my touring bible, and I still overpacked!!!

Happy Feet

Absolutely!!!

I'm glad I had the experience of getting out because it was fun and adventurous before "looking the part" and "having the right gear" became such serious business. Forums can help with advice here and there but they can't really transmit the joi de vivre of just setting out and doing it. I've always though of bicycling as an everyman sort of endevour, in the sense of being pretty easy to put together and do. Nowadays one would think you need a big fat wallet and a fancy pants bike to go anywhere. Such artificial barriers I tend to ignore.

Doug64

I actually wore wool shorts and wool jerseys. Also, black shorts and white socks were required (early 70s).

saddlesores

seems to me that some individuals substitute doing actual research with simply
asking endless questions on internet forums. rarely doing any searches, either
of the forums or the intertubes in general. asking strangers to tell them what to
do....but then often ignoring the responses. just seems lazy to me.

i started this before the internets. was hard, a challenge. imagine going to a
library building, flipping through paper index cards to find books printed on
paper, only to find the one copy is checked out already. or going to a brick
& mortar bookstore, without cafe, or local drugstore to find this month's copy
of bicycling magazine is sold out.

back then, besides commuting to work barefoot uphill both ways in the snow,
had to order my touring frame by mail. yep, paper letters in paper envelopes,
typed on a (egad!) typewriter with a cloth ribbon and bottle of correction fluid.
sent airmail. wow, only two weeks to overseas!

eventually got my bike:
https://www.oldbike.eu/museum/wp-cont...BY-HORSE-1.jpg

even went on some organized group tours:
irst group tour: https://janeaustensworld.files.wordp...elocipedes.jpg

internet is great! so much information available immediately! wonderful
resource if you know how to use it.

mtnroads

Nice pic of the frauleins, Saddlesores..

thumpism 

Two things that did not exist at that time were crosstraining and alternatives to wool clothing. No Lycra outerwear (you could get a girdle if you needed one), so unless you wore wool it most likely would have been a cotton T-shirt draping your torso and if you elected not to wear wool shorts with real chamois you were likely in gym shorts or cutoff jeans.