degan

I only started getting into cycling at all because of necessity. I was in college and having a car was getting too expensive (Two speeding tickets within about a month didn't help.), so I went to a local thrift store and happened on what is now my most prized possession; a 70's Kobe. I started riding only for transportation, then started going on rides for leisure, and finally started going on overnight, 300+ mile tours. My gear was heavy and I had the "wrong" kind of bike, but I loved it. That was about three years ago.

Machka 

I have been travelling since I was born ... all over western Canada and the US. Summers involved packing up the car and going somewhere for many weeks, plus a number of weekends where we headed to the local campgrounds and camped. And our bicycles often came with us ... I can't remember my first hub-and-spoke tour, it was so long ago. Quite possibly, it was somewhere in the Canadian Rockies.

As an adult, I have continued to travel further afield by a variety of methods of transportation ... so the idea of travelling by bicycle wasn't a huge leap for me.


I've also been cycling since the early 1970s, and grew up around bicycles. Both my parents were avid cyclists. In the mid-1980s I accompanied my father on a 3-day tour of the Icefield Parkways. He cycled the first two days on his own, and my family leap-frogged him in the car, meeting him for lunch etc. along the way. On the third day, I rode with him. It was then I decided to do the entire ride myself one day.

In 1990 I decided to start taking cycling more seriously. I started riding regularly and increasing my distances. What inspired me to start riding regularly and increasing my distances was an approx. 1-2 week cycling tour that was taking place at the end of August/beginning of September that year. The college I was attending was putting on an event to celebrate the founding of the college. Many, many years earlier, the man who founded the college cycled from an existing college to the college I was attending (700 km) ... back in the day when roads weren't paved, and in some cases weren't much more than tracks ... back in the day where bicycles didn't have gears. The same man was cycling the route again, in his 70s, with an entourage of students. I wanted to do the ride, but when it came time to do it ... I wasn't ready, and didn't. A little bit of a regret there.

However, that tour inspired me to get on my bicycle and ride, and I've been riding regularly ever since.


At some point in August 1990, I did my first weekend-tour. My father and I rode 50 miles (I was still logging in miles back in those days ... hadn't upgraded to kilometres yet), and met my mother and now-ex husband at a campground. My parents drove home, and my now-ex husband and I camped overnight. I intended to cycle home the next day, but a storm blew in overnight and the wind was just howling the next day ... so I didn't cycle home after all.

I rode recreationally, building up my distance, until 1994 when I rode my first century, and then in 1995 I finally did same the Icefield Parkway tour my father did!

In 1997, I did a MS150 tour and was exposed to other cyclists, cycling clubs, and so on. Up till then, I had minimal exposure to the cycling world. I read Bicycling Mag back when it was good, I read all the books about bicycles I could find, and of course I rode with my parents, and occasionally a few others who rode a few times a year. But somehow I figured all these clubs etc. mentioned in the books and magazines were few and far between ... and likely only in the US. But that MS150 really opened my eyes!

In 1998 I started training and racing with a club, and I did that for 3 years. In 2001 I decided to move from racing into Randonneuring. And in 2003, I started touring longer and more frequently as a way of training for randonneuring, and because I was travelling with the randonneuring and wanted to see more of the areas I was travelling to.

In early 2003, I joined my local cycletouring club (a good way to get started in touring, and to meet other people who like touring). I did a number of day tours with them, and one overnight hub-and-spoke style tour. I also did a long weekend hub-and-spoke tour with another member of my randonneuring club so she and I could practice hill climbing. And then I went to Europe for the Paris-Brest-Paris, and of course, while I was there, I wanted to see more of the area, so I stayed for a total of 3 weeks, one week of which was a tour in Wales with a friend from England.

In 2004, I quit my job, packed up all my stuff, and headed off to Australia for 3 months of cycle touring.


And it has continued from there ... different styles of tours, of different lengths, to different places.



So ... that's how I got into touring ... gradually and naturally easing into it.

PurpleK

Interesting you should put it that way. I have friends that worked in the news media. Often when someone turned 100 years old or was the last remaining WWI vet or something, my friends would interview the person for the evening news or local paper. My media friends told me that when that person was asked if they had any major regrets in their long life, the answer was almost always not something they did, but something they didn't do.

I guess the message is: Stop waiting for the "right time" to do that big tour. You may not regret it.

Ken in NJ

In the summer before my senior year of college, I stayed in a dorm while I worked full-time on campus. I often went bicycling on the weekends with some of the other students in the dorm, and one of them mentioned that she was planning to tour New England and Ontario after graduating the following spring. I continued to meet her for bike rides in the fall (she was not a girlfriend, just a bicycling buddy), and one day, out of the blue, she said, "When are we going to start planning our tour?". Well, I had nothing else planned before beginning graduate school in the fall...

This was in the Stone Age before the internet existed (1982). We used road maps (from gas stations) and a book listing cheap places to stay. Given that we did not have access to cycling maps that would have kept us off the major roads, our biggest mistake was in not checking all the ferry schedules--we were able to get from eastern Long Island to Connecticut, but we could not continue to Block Island as we had hoped because the summer ferry rides had not yet begun. My other big mistake was near the end of the tour, when I pushed my bike through the mud on a path through the woods rather than pick it up and carry it across; I had to stop to repair flats three times later that day.

JohnyW

It was similar like aenlaasu.

I was 9 years old. 2 friends and I told our parents that we cycle to the public swimming pool. Instead we cycled to a natural lake 50 km far away. This was my first day trip with more than 100 km. Later I made several one week tours with my father.

With 18 I stopped cycling completly. This was the party time. With 20 I started travelling by car incl. sight seeing. At 23 none of my friends had time and I have to spent 3 weeks holidays. I bought a new bike, a flight ticket to Morocco and didn't know what I have to expect (was the first time I left Europe). This was great.

Now 15 years later I cycled on all continents (not antarctica, cause it's not possible)...

Doug64

When I was 12, about 100 years ago, a friend and I rode a home built tandem on its maiden voyage(his dad helped us with the welding) 40 miles out of town. It got dark on us, and his dad came looking for us knowing the general direction we were headed and "rescued" us. We just started riding and really did not think about turning around. I was hooked and have been at it ever since. However, I have not learned much in all that time-- sometimes my wife and I still get into camp after dark.

Early 1970's

Chris L

I suppose for me the progression was a natural one. As a kid I was heavily into "reading" maps and always wanting to travel to various places. Unfortunately, growing up dirt poor (or at least having parents who spent more money on cigarettes and alcohol) put paid to that idea. As it happened, after my parents split up, I ended up doing my family's shopping on my bike on a regular basis, and often riding to the next town to see friends. Then I came to the Gold Coast at age 18, largely to try to find some work. Along the way I discovered some great rides in the Hinterland to places like Springbrook and Beechmont. Unfortunately, I had a bike stolen and it took me 18 months to save up enough money to replace it. During that time, however, I had kept a photo of Purlingbrook Falls I had taken to remind me of what I'd been able to experience, this photo kept me inspired through some of the worst times of my life. The new bike duly arrived, my cycling started up again.

Then I read a magazine article about someone who had toured on Bruny Island just off Tasmania. This inspired me to go to University and get a qualification that would enable me to get a decent job and more money, so I could tour Tasmania myself. Along the way, my bike was paying for my education by saving me a fortune on transport costs between study, work and anywhere else I needed or wanted to go. During that time, I cobbled together some cheap equipment (including a $40 Copperart tent) and set off exploring South East Queensland on my bike, including a couple of memorable tours. A couple of years after this, my Tasmania tour finally became a reality. Since then, I've moved on to grander things, having now toured on three continents, having seen parts of the world (and indeed parts of my own country) that I had never imagined myself visiting previously.

Not a bad effort for the skinny, unco-ordinated kid from the poor family who didn't even learn to ride a bike until the age of 12.

tmac100

I never thought much about touring when I had my 10 speed Peugeot - after all vagabonding thru Asia (yes South Viet Nam and Afghanistan in 1971-5) and Eastern Asia was a cheap and exciting way to travel - if done by local transport. A wife, two young lads and work did not really stop me from thinking....

In the early 1990s I saw a couple on bikes at a campsite near Lake of the Woods (Ontario) and I looked at my wife and said (to myself) hummm.... Then when driving along Hwy 2 in Montana a year or 2 later I saw another fellow bicycling east just after a rainstorm and also thought hummm....

By the early 2000s I was getting itchy and in my hometown in the summer of 2004 I met Machka and a friend of hers doing a 1200 km randoneer in Manitoba. I told my wife and boys about that way of seeing the country and they did not say much. An uncle died and I was left as a beneficiary so decided to use some of the money to tour Australia's tropical north on a bicycle and decided to have Arvon build me a touring bicycle capable of doing expedition stuff. I found never-laced PW 48 hole hubs on ebay and Arvon built an incredibly strong bike with pretty well indestructable wheels. On the Savannah Way I rode mostly on dirt and had an incredible time. I tried to smash the wheels once or twice and they are STRONG - however, Arvon's bike is stronger

I am on my way now (in a couple of weeks) to do a walk up/down a couple of "hills" near Moshi, Tanzania. To get into shape climb up 110 floors of stairs 2 times a week with a 20 lb pack. When I get back, next month, I will start training for a trike (Greenspeed GTO) tour between Perth and Sydney - (4200 km in about 7 weeks) - during the months of June-August. Maybe it will happen

At 63 years of age and being a diabetic for close to 47 years I have to train and prepare reasonably well and have decent equipment. There are still a LOT of trips planned: short ones like circling Iceland and crossing Ireland and Scotland-England (both N-S, not E-W). Long trips include: Perth to Darwin and Vancouver to Los Angeles/San Diego. Medium ones are Hanoi to Saigon and Cairns to the tip of Cape York That should take me to my 70s

I might as well keep going. The way I see it, goals and plans go hand in hand. The execution just takes time and money: it seems that if I keep waking up I will have enough time. The money is not really a big impact as it won't take big bucks to tour - as long as I don't stay in posh hotels dining exclusively on Dom Perignon and Caviar

Oh, did I mention my boys are now adults finding their way in life and my wife and I have parted Maybe that is why there is no time constraint

safariofthemind

It was just an extension of regular riding around town. It helped that I liked camping and travel already. Sort of a process over time, not a single event.

BigBlueToe

I've always camped and loved it. I've always bicycled and loved it.

When I was about 12 my brother and his friend rode their 10-speeds about 70 miles up to Deception Pass Stat Park with sleeping bags strapped on the back. They slept under a picnic table, then rode home the next day. I thought they were supermen. I also thought I'd like to try something like that someday.

When I was about 13 I went on my first backpacking trip with the Boy Scouts. I really loved the feeling that I was going camping under my own power with everything I needed for survival on my back.

I started being more aware of bicycle touring when I was in my 20's and decided to give it a try. Camping, riding my bike, carrying everything I needed to survive - it all sounded great. Plus, I was so poor I could barely afford gas, and the idea of going camping without buying any was attractive. My first trip was from Seattle to Bellingham in three days up Whidbey Island. I loved it. I loved everything I had though I would, and I was very happy to find out that the load on my bike didn't make riding that much harder.

I took several more tours from Bellingham - back down to Seattle, out to the San Juans, up into Canada.

Unfortunately, life interfered and I didn't go again for several years. In 1992 I finally had a good job with summers off. I had stumbled on the book, "Bicycling the Pacific Coast" by Kirkendall and Spring. I decided to give it a try. My first thought was to ride from my new home in San Luis Obispo, CA to my old home of Seattle. Then I discovered that everyone went north to south for good reasons. I changed plans. I found a friend who wanted to visit Seattle. She drove me and my bike up, dumped me off, and I was off.

I had bought all new equipment - bike, racks, saddlebags, tent, stove, sleeping bag, etc. Some of my choices weren't the best (and I sent home 10 pounds of stuff the 3rd day.) I had spoke breaking problems which eventually cut my trip short in Santa Cruz. But it was the greatest experience of my life!

Since then I've taken several tours. I've replaced almost all of my old equipment. Life has still intruded from time to time, but I'm at a point now where I can go on one long tour almost every summer. I still have lots of routes on my to-do list. I think I enjoy touring more now than ever for a variety of reasons.

Doug64

Wishing us all many more miles!

OldFencer

I guess I started touring...well, I will start in two months with a little jaunt from Austin to Del Rio, Texas along the ACA Southern Tier.
At 55 I'm a little late to the game, but I'm way looking forward to my maiden voyage.

Gotte

it gets better. I went to Bavaria last year, with the mountains and the forests, and because it's a rainy area took a rain cape - but not any old rain cape, a black Carradice raincape. I felt like Arragon heading for Mordor. Unfortunately, it didn't rain much, so didn't really have that much opportunity to wear it.
Not often you hear that on a cycling forum.

tourer78

My wife and I have been touring/cycling since about 2003/2004, first as a way of getting fit and losing some kilos. Gradually the distances got longer, we started riding to work, sold the 2nd car and joined a local touring group as around that time we had been on a few backpacking trips and just knew we would enjoy travelling on the bike. On one of my first group rides, I happened to meet a fellow who had toured through Cambodia and many other overseas destinations - and I figured that was what all touring cyclists did, so our first 2 tours in 2005 were a combined trip in Tasmania and Victoria and a 3 week run in Thailand/Laos/Vietnam. Since that time I have found (at least here in Western Australia) that most people do the odd weekend trip at home and the thought of packing all the gear on a plane and going "self guided" and "self sufficient" in another country is not for most riders. Too late for us we are hooked and the list now goes like this.
2006 - West coast Tasmania, apple picking, 6 months living car free in Melbourne
2007 - New Touring Bikes (Vivente World Radonneurs) - 3 weeks Malaysia and Singapore
2008 - Five weeks South East Queensland and North Eastern NSW
2009 - Three weeks Northern and Central Highlands Vietnam
2010 - Five weeks in various parts of Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Belgium (all cyclists should do at least 1 trip in Belgium!!) and Northern France.
We also enjoy weekend rides to various spots here at home and My day job is Bicycle Mail Delivery. Touring (and cycling in general) really gets under your skin and I always find myself wondering where to go next. My advice to anyone considering a tour is to book the flight or head out from home and hit the road, there will be less problems than you might think and it really is the ideal pace to see any part of the world. Happy Riding.

marmot

That sounds so familiar. I grew up in a small city where a kid with a bike could go anywhere and do anything: swim, fish, camp, visit friends at the cottage, or just generally poke around the countryside. And it was a time when you could disappear from dawn to dusk and no one would worry. We called our longer trips bike hikes, but what we were doing was day touring. I still get a kid-like kick out of jumping on a bike and wandering off.

wahoonc

I rode my first bike when I was 5-6 years old, that was the beginning, discovered that the neighborhood was more than the just the 3 or 4 blocks that had comprised my world up to that point. First overnight tour was when I was 12, four of us loaded up our bikes (single speed cruiser types) with the necessities, things like canteens, wool blanket bedrolls, canned pork and beans, spam and a can opener and headed off a whole 15 miles to a buddy's uncle's farm waaaay out in the country. We spent the night under the side canopy of an old tobacco barn, went swimming in the farm pond and had a grand old time. Did that a few times that summer and was hooked on bicycle travel, whether it was short day trips or long multi week trips. I did a transcontinental in 1977 and did several shorter regional tours after that.

Fast forward 40 years and I am still rambling about the countryside on a bicycle. Haven't been able to schedule any long tours, but I can do the occasional S24O.

Aaron

jwbnyc

What a great thread!

I started touring at 13years old (I guess you could call it touring anyway) in 1967 while spending the Summer with my dad in upstate NY. My older brother had a 10speed (back when 10 speeds were just that) Columbia with a rat trap rack on the back and a Brooks B72 for a saddle. I used to ride out of town until I got tired and then turn around and ride back home. Never had anything on the rack until later.

Some of these rides turned out to be quite long, looking back on them, although at the time I wasn't really keeping track of mileage. I'd ride myself raw wearing jeans and cotton underwear. I'd turn red as a lobster from sunburn. Ah youth.

Camping out at a state park in the area seemed like a cool thing to do at some point: So I did it and that set a pattern that hasn't changed much over the years.

A bad accident put me off the bike in 1986. I didn't get back on until the Fall of 2004.

Started off commuting and utility cycling and then weekend camping trips. Pretty much the same pattern repeating from all those years ago, although now I'll put the bike on the car and head out to someplace that catches my interest rather than just up and riding out of town. I don't generally wing it. I'll pick a route with easy riding between camp sites. I'm not looking to burn up the road or cover huge distances.

Some friends did a TransAm in 2008. I wasn't able to get the time off to join them. I'm not sure that was a bad thing. I'm not sure I have an epic tour in me, maybe some day though. You never know.

Anyway, I enjoy reading about other peoples' tours and marvel at some of the massive ones some of you have been on, are on, or are planning to take.

Thanks.

Gotte

Well said.

aprilstarchild

I'd been commuting/riding socially/meeting people in the bike scene in Portland OR, when I heard about bike touring. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do it...I'd done a longer (long to me at the time, about 30 moderately hilly miles) ride and felt fine...but carrying all my stuff?

I did a short trip, 22 miles to Stub Stewart State Park, to stay in a cabin with friends once, and realized I was having a good time. Helps that that ride is particularly pleasant--I now recommend it frequently to people who want to try touring!

But my boyfriend's the one who really got me started. I knew before we started dating that he did tours, I'd read his zines on the subject of touring and the tours he'd done. And when we started dating, I seriously did think, "ooh! I'll get to try touring!!"

Our first couple of trips are funny in retrospect. I was riding a heavy mid-70's mixte. I had rear panniers (borrowed from a friend) and overpacked like crazy. The bike only had ten speeds and the gearing was awful, my lowest gear was just not very low, and between that and my cranks being too long, oy vey did my knees ache. And we were doing days of forty miles or less!!

I swore and cursed up every hill...but riding along the Clackamas River Valley on our second trip (to Bagby Hot Springs), on a gorgeous day, with all that wonderful scenery...I thought to myself, Ah! I can see why people enjoy this.

That fall I bought a mid-80's Miyata two-ten, MUCH better for touring. And this past summer we've biked probably 1500 miles, and there was a period of time from late July to late September where we were on tour (mostly of a few days, but a few longer ones of six and nine days) every other week. I totally fell in love with bicycle touring. There is nothing like having the chance to really enjoy beautiful scenery from the seat of a bicycle, and getting someplace far away and knowing you got there on your own power. Or that moment when you get to the top of a hill and you're getting your breath and you know it's almost all downhill for the rest of the day.

I can't wait to try biking the Pacific Coast, I'd love to go from Astoria to San Fransisco, and I'm thinking of trying to do it solo, which is scary. But I biked a couple days on the coast in September (from Cape Lookout to Newport) and they were some of the best days of riding I've ever had. Helps that I love the Oregon Coast.

Oh god, just talking about this has me itching to go somewhere. The next time my boyfriend has a few days off work and it's nice (or just nice enough, which is all relative) maybe we'll go to Champoeg.

Machka 

I thought I'd bump this to continue the discussion of how we all got into cycletouring.

fietsbob

After Service in the war crimes, A college class thru the outdoor program at the student union,
caught me up on the latest hardware.

My 1st bike was built before Kennedy was Shot to break his pattern of Diplomatic resolutions to conflicts.

bikenh

I gave up driving at the end of April 2010. Registration ran out and it had 300+K miles on it. It was pretty much all original and I didn't have the money to fix it or replace. I didn't bother to renew the registration. Jump forward to spring of 2011 I come to realize that the only way I was going to ever get back to see family(I live in New Hampshire and my mother/brother/sister/aunt/uncle, etc all live in Ohio) was going to be to ride the bike back to Ohio. I was planning on doing it toward the end of the summer of 2011 and then Hurricane Irene hit and closed down all the roads west out of NH. I was stuck at home. My riding kept getting crazier and crazier as time continued forward and by the spring this year I decided if I was going to end up attempting the 4x4 again why not just make the year a full roundtrip ride from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River. By the time I actually left for Ohio I changed my mind about going for Quad Cities on the MS River and instead go for St. Louis. The darnedest thing was arriving at the Gateway Arch and realizing I truly had been stupid enough to ride my bike from NH to St. Louis. I couldn't believe I could have ever been that darn stupid.

I knew due to all the biking I had been doing up here in NH that my biggest problem was going to be going on the trip and surviving it...mentally. I knew I had started calling 50 miles one way a short hop, skip and jump. Heck even 150 one day rides was just a short hop, skip and jump. I knew long before leaving for Ohio that I was DOOMED! I knew once I saw how short the distance was, in true reality, from NH-OH that I was toast. I ended up meeting a guy on the last full day of the trip that had been living on the west coast and was moving to NYC and doing a XC trip to get him there. He was talking the one thing he came to realize on his trip was just how big the USA is. I had to laugh as I had been having the exact opposite experience. I'm already looking and planning on two trips next year. One, depending on scheduling of the competition, maybe, of going out to western TX and possibly heading up to the Black Hills after the competition before heading home. If the competition doesn't quite get scheduled right than I would probably just head for the Black Hills. In the fall/winter next year I'm planning on getting out of New England and spending the winter someplace nice and warm down in the southern states all winter long and ust bike tripping from early/mid November through mid/late April. Did I say I was DOOMED!!

Newspaperguy

I don't know when the interest started for me. Before I was in high school, I knew I wanted to do some touring. I got started when I finished university, with weekend excursions first and later progressing to longer treks.

Today, this is the way I prefer to spend my vacation time. Because of my work schedule, a week or two is all I can take at any time, but I've managed to get a lot out of those trips. I've ridden in the tropics and in the arctic, in rainforests and deserts, over mountain passes and on flat land. And in the future, I am considering some significantly longer tours.

Booger1

I backpacked when I was younger,seemed like the right thing when I was old and feable.....so far so good.First trip,1976.First real trip,1978.

Big Lew

Like most kids during the fifties-sixties living in the country, a bike was my main form of transportation. I went on my first short tour at age 14, traveling 165 miles from the Fraser Valley in British Columbia, to Cache Creek before my buddy's new bike broke down. Got my vehicle license at age 17, so left the bike behind while I used vehicles to access far away places to enjoy backpacking, horse riding, canoeing, etc. After getting married, everyone kept on my case about constantly heading out into the wilderness on my own, so as a compromise, I started bicycle touring again at age 45. Although it couldn't compare with riding a horse or backpacking into the mountains, I found it quite challenging and enjoyable. Since getting back on a bike, I've enjoyed many tours traveling western North America, including through Alaska, The Yukon, North West Territories, British Columbia, and down the Pacific Coast through Washington, Oregon, California, and parts of Arizona. My health has interfered lately, but it's getting better, so I'm hoping to do more touring in the near future.