deepspacegiant

I'm considering taking off for a west coast trip in April, could use some extra motivation. It would be great to here some similar stories from mine.

mnmkpedals 

I'll bite and be the first to reply, though I am still relatively new to touring (first last summer, two shorter ones planned for this coming summer) and feel a little "unqualified" to weigh in.

For me, I kind of slipped into touring. Never knew what it was (aside from a vague idea) until a year and a half back. I am generally a super competitive person, life of competitive swimming and before two years ago, biking was just for being able to race triathlons, and I LOATHED getting on a bike to "train." Too much of a PITA.

So what happened? Life happened: I lost a job, turned 40, and my older brother who was a life long cyclist (though not competitive) got a BS cancer he never should have gotten, and everything changed… While he was sick, I bought a vintage commuting bike at a garage sale for $40, did some research, fixed it up, did some more research, and generally fell in love with the mechanics of bikes. That led to seeing some vintage touring bikes, more research, and down the rabbit hole I went...

My brother passed away in the middle of this, and I never got to go out riding with him since I had "changed." SO, for me, it doesn't take Freud to see that my slip into touring was a coping/healing thing. Still is, 18 months later. But the cool thing is, its impossible for me to get on a bike without thinking of him (least of all possible on my vintage touring bike I rehabbed) and the cool thing is, my coping mechanism led me to pester two friends (some very unathletic friends at that) to go on a short tour last summer. I loved it, they loved it, and cool thing was I found my uber-competitiveness disappeared. I discovered that I absolutely love biking for transportation and recreation-- just not competition--and I am hooked. That's been the biggest change in me through it. No more do I care if I am the first one up a climb or any of that garbage…I enjoy just doing the climb and being there with friends when they do a climb they never thought they could have (or would have) done.

So yeah, that core group of three of us from last summer are planning a more ambitious tour this year and now there are seven guys wanting to go. So that's my story: what started as a bargain buy at a garage sale, fueled by natural curiosity, led to some pretty cheap "therapy" during some pretty sucky times, and now its a life-changing hobby that's here to stay and a great source of camaraderie and time with friends.

Curious to know your story? (hope I wasn't a buzz kill with the story there…)

Flyboy718

^^^Very nice post. I haven't really done any touring yet unless you count the 50 mile ride I did last weekend which was my first. And it was so awesome! I have the exact same feeling with the bike as I did with flying an airplane. Flying I liked for differing reasons but the one that always fascinated me was how I can take off and then land in a new place I have never been and it is just a cool, satisfyingly different way of getting from one place to another. I have found that the bike is the same. Touring to me is a unique way to get somewhere over a long distance. I am fascinated by it. Period.

Machka 

How Did You Start Touring ... my story is near the bottom of the first page, Post 27 ...
https://www.bikeforums.net/touring/70...t-touring.html


I add to the story here ... Post 10 ...
https://www.bikeforums.net/touring/81...id-you-do.html

[HR][/HR]

Why did I get into touring?
My family has always travelled. My family enjoys cycling. I grew up travelling and cycling and love both.


What was my philospophy?
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” -- Mark Twain

That and ... life would be pretty boring without a whole lot of travel.


How did it change me?
I don't think it changed me ... travel and cycling are part of who I am.

staehpj1

I grew up in a bicycling family so I bicycled all of my life. I started dreaming of riding coast to coast in 1976 inspired by Bikecentenial, but it didn't happen.

Fast forward to 2007... I was planning to ride the Pacific Coast that year as my first tour. My daughter graduated college and wanted to do a "big trip". She asked me if I had any suggestions for her and a friend to do. I asked if she was thinking along the lines of backpacking, bike touring, bumming around Europe, or something else. She said maybe a month or so bike tour. I suggested the Pacific Coast, but mentioned that it might be a good point in her life for a coast to coast tour. After a bit of consideration they decided on a coast to coast trip and invited me along. We wound up doing the Trans America (the same general route as the Bikecentenial one I dreamed of doing) and it was a great experience.

It opened my eyes to how warm, open, kind, and generous people can be. Seeing "fly over land" slowly and up close also gave me a much different impression of what the US is like. It was a great experience that led to more tours in the subsequent years.

Jim from Boston

Why'd you get into touring, what was your philosophy, and how did it change you?

Touring just seemed like a fun extension soon after I discovered cycling as a college student, and had more time and less duties, starting with fifty mile one way week-end loops, to week-long tours, to a cross-country ride.

As far as touring philosphy, I think this post describes those joys best:

Finally,

While I haven’t cycle toured since about 1986, cycling by itself, in an interesting and pleasant Metropolis such as Boston does satisfy my wanderlust (though I do miss the novelty of touring). What makes cycle touring special to me, compared to other modes of travel, especially motorized ones, is that you make a very personal, physical investment in “getting around,” making the returns more valued; like enjoying a downhill run after the physical effort of trudging uphill.

andrewclaus

I always had a bit of wanderlust as a child. My parents and older sibs always had trouble keeping tabs on me. My father told me his dreams of bicycle touring as a teenager, dreams interrupted by WWII. I felt obligated in a way to fulfill those dreams for my father, and made the trip he planned (1000 miles around Lake Michigan from Chicago) as soon as I was old enough (1975), riding my Schwinn Varsity carrying a duffle bag on a book rack. Then a year later I heard about Bikecentennial (didn't do that route until the 80s) and realized there were actually more people doing stuff like that. I met my wife in 1979 and she's a cyclist, dreamer and traveler, too. We started touring together and have enjoyed three and a half decades of wonderful travel.

I like the way Machka put it--it hasn't changed us, it's who we are!

In addition to touring, I've always valued the bicycle as a great mode of transportation. It's a "cash-generating Fountain of Youth," to quote Mr Money Mustache. I believe bicycling has directly led to my own early retirement, financial well-being, and excellent health. I don't know how else you can travel thousand of miles in interesting places meeting interesting people, getting invited into their homes, for months at a time spending so little, and return stronger, healthier and happier than when you left.

Deepspacegiant, please tell us your story, too.

mstateglfr 

I haven't done and don't plan on doing any tours that are self sustained and across the country because of time and family constraints.

I rode my bike everywhere as a kid and though that stopped in college, I picked it back up post college. Rides weren't long though because of young kids, so they were limited to a few miles pulling a Burley.
When my oldest turned 7 and was big enough to ride a 7speed for 20 miles with breaks, we got into our heads some bike camping ideas.
We picked up a weehoo for our youngest to use, which is way better than a Burley for rides over 20min, and our possibilities had opened greatly.

We have done 70mi roundtrip bike camping over 2 days and plan on a 120mi 3 day bike camp trip with relatives this summer.
Add in a few days of RAGBRAI this summer and we I'll do probably 5 trips this year, but all will be 3 days or less.


I love cycling and camping, it's a perfect mix. My girls love doing both too and they get out into nature each time.

I imagine we will go further as the kids get older.

fietsbob

I like seeing the countryside .. And I wanted to meet other people in their country and get out of the US,

and see by immersion, what the Other places are and talk to the people who live there.

And have a shared drink, or 2.

Now I Live in a town which other people have as a touring goal or waypoint.. Oldest settlement west of Denver..

okbikeanywhere

I always wanted to do a cross-country tour, but really never thought it a real possibility. I was in heavy debt and in a real dark time of my life. I figured I should bike across country to prove to myself I'm not worthless. It felt like an impossible goal and I would be worthless forever until week 2 when I realized how easy, fun, fulfilling, eye-opening, thought-provoking, creatively-stimulating it was. From then on, I had the whole trip in front of me. And it turned out that really, it didn't matter if I got all the way across or just traveled around. The best life I could imagine was on a bike: cruising down mountains with beautiful vistas abound, meeting new interesting people every day (something about being a wanderer gets people interested in you and open to talking about themselves), making music with my best friend (we brought a ukulele), falling asleep to a different sunset every day, eating as much as I could handle and only getting healthier. I'm sure if, when I was a child, I told my parents and teachers that my dream was to live on a bike, they'd try to dissuade me and get me to dream up a more financially stable, stay-in-one-place, have-a-house, don't-get-your-hands-dirty dream. Anyway, it made me appreciate all that life has to offer, made me more resistant to the oppressive forces around me, and gave me the notion that "the more I know of this world and everything in it, the better I can choose a life that's right for me."

So I guess I feel like it's a duty to yourself that you must learn more and more of the world so you can make life the best it can be. And there's not a more fun, more rewarding, sustainable, and cheap way of seeing the world and meeting the people and having time to reflect and plan your next move. Driving you miss so much by going too fast, walking you miss so much by going so slow. Biking is perfect.

Hope that helps in some way haha

jamawani 

It propelled me into sainthood.
I will probably be the next Dalai Lama.
Except that I smell bad after a long day on the road.

bikenh

I gave up driving at the end of April 2010. My family lives in the Midwest and I live in New Hampshire. Do to everything I hadn't been back to see them since August 2004. I don't waste money to travel, so I don't fly, take the bus or the train. I knew I had two options, walk or ride the bike. I planned the first trip for mid-August to mid-September 2011 but it got canned thanks to Hurricane Irene. I couldn't go anywhere thanks to the damage left behind from the storm.

In mid August 2012, I knew there was a particular event that the family would be going to that I also wanted to go to that was Michigan. After stopping by while driving a friend on mines car home from a hang gliding competition I told them I would be back to go with them to the event. I ended up riding back and after the event I extended the trip on out to St. Louis. It was kinda funny pulling up in front of the Arch and realizing 'I gotta be crazy. I just rode my bike from New Hampshire to St. Louis'. I knew I was in trouble.

As I came home from the ride on the last full day of the trip I bumped into a guy that was moving from the west coast to Manhattan. He pretty much sold everything off and rode across the country. I had laugh, quietly, when he was talking about the one thing he gained from the trip was coming to understand just how big the country is. Strangely with the 2700 mile route I use, not much from being cross country distance, I come to learn just the exact opposite...just how small the country really is.

Over the past two years I've made the trip back out to the Midwest each year and planning on it again this year. I don't focus on hitting all the touristy spot. Instead I've set up my own challenges to force me to take a different route everytime I got, at least I try my darnedest to. I've gotten in county hunting. Trying to see how many different counties I go through. I've been in half the IL counties, all but two counties north of I-70 in OH, and all but one county(screwed up and missed that one coming home last year...forgot I needed it) north of I-88 in NY...basically only like 4 counties outside of NYC/Long Island. I always take a different and there hasn't been all that many stretches of road/towns that I've seen more than once thus far. Out of the touristy spot I would have to say in true reality I've been to one of them on the bike, Niagara Falls last year as I was trying to hit Niagara County in NY. I don't call the Adirondacks all that touristy...not in my opinion. Certain spots would have been better, Elizabethtown-Lake Placid if I would have been able to ride it a little more...shall we say, peacefully. 40 degree rain and I was planning on stealth camping for the night(mid 30s forecasted for the low) and didn't have much of anything on me other than the clothes I had on, at least not anything to help me stay warm. I didn't know if there was going to be a laundrymat in town or not...I figured their should be but I didn't know for sure so I was riding along, with bike problems, and soaked to the bone. The scenery was quite nice but thanks to the conditions it was not a peaceful ride.

Most everywhere I've been has been okay, but nothing has stood out as a must stop and take photos kind of locations. I'm not travelling for tourism I'm travelling to get from point A to point B and back. I don't repeat the same route.

Besides the county hunting I've also gotten into highway hunting. Once I ride through the different counties I just make sure the next time I different a different route through the county. Sure I'm not making it much of anywhere but I'm still see everything an area has to offer.

I would say the only change to me has been realizing how stupid Americans really are. They have been brainwashed thanks to electronic devices to believe the only way to get around is by giving your money to the Arabs and the US oil companies. Remember a drivers license isn't a license to drive a car...rather its a license to spend money...and keep on spending money. I proudly gave up that right and now it allows me more time to explore the countryside since I don't have to work to support my car addiction. 40% of the money I used to spend went to either gasoline, car insurance, car repairs or car registration. Now I keep that 40% and have more free time to do what I want to do instead of helping to support a stupid car addiction. The riding I've did has shown me that the bike gives true freedom, the car takes it away from you and puts you into slavery.

Yes, the bike trips have shown me how small the country really is and is has also shown me how easy it is to get around with the need for a car. I just rode into the library a little while ago it was 27 degrees and freezing rain...OH WELL! I don't cry about a little spilled milk and that's all any of it really is...spilled milk...wipe it up and get over it.

Enjoy the trip and plan on many more. Give up the car and gain a life.

mev

My how I started touring post is #7 in the thread Machka linked above: https://www.bikeforums.net/touring/70...t-touring.html

The "how it changed me" is probably related to my longer tours, the first of which came a decade after my first tours:

- In 1992, I went through some relationship transitions and used that as a time to do my first ride across the USA. This had been on my list for a while, but now just decided to do it. The ride itself was fairly intense (spent a lot of time in the saddle and averaged 95 miles/day including my rest days) and gave me a good chance to sort things out and rediscover who I was. However, the full impact came in November when my work group was shut down, causing a job transition and a bit more stress. I had wrapped myself a fair amount in my work, but the biggest reflection I had was "you can take my job away, but you can't ever take away memories of the trip I took this past summer". Fortunately, my job search was fairly quick - but it also caused me to vow for myself - that I was simply going to take time to make those opportunities such as long bike trips happen - and prioritize appropriately to make it happen.

- In 1997, almost exactly five years after the first trip across the USA, I took off again. This time three months to ride across Canada. I jumped feet first into that one as well and used the time for some extra reflecting, extra reading and sorting other things out. I also used it as an opportunity to force my own transition at work - asking my boss if I could take a temporary assignment for two years in Silicon Valley. After my trip, my group back in MA was shut down - so I again had a reinforcement of the message "take these opportunities while you can, and build your own career, making your own transitions rather than waiting for them to happen to you..."

- By 2001, that philosophy of taking opportunity for extended travel came up again. This time it was a 12 month trip. The biggest transition that happened for that trip was that I decided to sell my car before the trip [why store it for a year] and delayed getting one after my return. I still haven't bought one and just passed 14 years without a car. That definitely has given me a different outlook on transportation - as well as how many material things I want to keep taking car of...

- Those first three longer trips 1992, 1997, 2001 have set the pattern of working hard for several years and then taking enough time to take an extended trip. I am fortunate and grateful that a number of stars have lined up to enable me to do this. I've also made some explicit choices that better enable me to do this as well. This let me take extended trips in 2007 and 2013 and well into dreaming and scheming for the next trip to come as well.

I still do a lot of shorter trips, everything from weekends to a week or two here or there. I also am on the bike each day as my primary transportation. However, believe the longest trips probably most affected my outlook.

Cyclebum

I borrowed a mtb bike at 62 to 'get in shape' for a family hunting trip to Colorado. Discovered crazyguyonabike, one thing led to another. Numerous short tours and two x-countries. My family thinks I had a light stroke or something, otherwise why would dad be doing something so crazy. Frankly, I don't know why either. I just sort of zone out when touring. I guess interaction with the people I meet, the wild camping, the day in day out pedaling, the endophin high, the feeling of freedom....73 now and still pedaling. It is addictive.

Big Lew

I've copied this response from the earlier thread "How did you start touring?"
Mine is # 50....
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.
My health is still a bit of an issue, but at 69 (young) I haven't hung up my bike saddle yet and still enjoy touring for the same reasons.

LuckySailor

These are some great stories-so I'll add mine. My first tour was in New York State. I trained for the summer before me and a pal drove up to NY. We did a 5 day supported tour staying at B&B's. It was great. I vowed that my next tour would be to Nova Scotia. When I turned 40, I decided that for that birthday, I wanted to go to Churchill, Manitoba to see polar bears in the wild. That was a fabulous trip. So when I got to 45, I started thinking about my 50th. I went with the idea of going to Antarctica to visit the penguins for a couple years. Then one day the idea of spending all that money on me for my birthday was a selfish idea, and better spent on a great vacation with the family. So I started to think about a better birthday present. I am ex U.S. Navy and a sailor at heart. Nova Scotia popped into my mind-fishing, sailing, colourful houses, mountains, rocks, the sea, yeah, romantic. And I remembered my desire to go to such an important place in Canada. Halifax is the Ellis Island of Canada. So, 25 years later, my next tour is a cross Canada trip, that I decided I would do to celebrate my 50th birthday. Leaving June 20th.

Why tour? Hey a couple of the above replies are all about freedom from vehicles. I whole heartedly agree with those guys. I'm not ready to do that yet. I can see the freedom. For me, it's the sights, the sounds-or lack there of. It's the smell of wood burning in a fireplace, or sweet flower blooms in the spring, new mown grass in the summer, and freshly cut hay, or other crops the fall. It's the scenery of mountains of foliage season in New England, or tall pines, and clear lakes, and being able to see for miles and miles. It's the feeling of the heat, the cold, the rain, and conquering headwinds. It's feeling the burn in your legs while your trying to get to the top of another friggin mountain. It's the sensation of speeding down a mountain highway at 50 miles an hour. It's the freedom of not having to deal with work, and being away from a lot of the normal day to day responsibilities.

Big Lew

I agree with a lot of the posters about the sense of freedom and being able to enjoy the results of
your personal efforts. I have driven over a great many of the roads and hwys along the west coast
of North America from one end to the other and enjoyed the scenery etc, but to fully take in what
is out there, riding a bike or walking allows you to see so much more than in a vehicle.
I often drive routes again after I've cycled them and am always amazed at just how far I've gone
each day as well as the actual total distance I've traveled by my own steam. It is a tremendous
feeling of personal pride and satisfaction for me.

Galoot

I rode my bicycle everywhere as a teenager back in the late 70's, did one or two single overnight trips, then nothing until last summer (other than a Backroads 4-day weekend tour 20 years ago).

Then I did a 5-day trip down the Big Sur coast, Gilroy to Santa Barbara. It was absolutely blissful, it took me back to when I was a teenager and rode all over the Gilroy area. I felt like nothing could stop me, that I could just ride all day. Sure, I was tired and sore, but that didn't bother me much.

I've realized there are two things that make me this happy--surfing all day long for week after week at a place like San Onofre, and bicycle touring. Nothing else comes close.

SlowAndSlower

By main hobby was backpacking and every summer I would take a one to two weeks backpacking in the Rockies. Around 35 I needed to prepare for those trips doing something besides weekend hikes. So I bought my first bike, a Schwinn 3 spd, and I would bike 10-15 miles in my hiking boots in the morning before going to work.

I moved to Iowa and got interested in RAGBRAI and did 5 or so of those as well as local rides in SW Wisconsin. PBS ran a the "Fat Man On a Bicycle" and I got hooked on wanting to bicycle tour in Europe.

Finally In 1998 I got to go to Europe for 5 weeks of bicycle touring in The Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg and France. (I had been to Europe a few times for business and vacation and felt comfortable going over solo).

Then came a period of medical issues where I was kept off a bicycle. Finally seven years ago I retired at 70 and and got serious about picking up bicycle touring and building up my endurance again. First a RAGBRAI, then a Big Sur credit card tour, England and France solo and loaded, Big Bend loaded (Harpo & Spoon), Big Bend ACA van, ACA Cycle Utah van and finally in 2013 at 75 rode the Trans-AM Virginia to Colorado solo and loaded.

Not sure how many tours are left or what or where they will be.

3speed

Well now I feel lame. All of these amazing stories... I just love riding my bike. I love travel and meeting new people. It's nice to feel like you're actually living once in a while rather than just going to the same boring job every day for eternity. For me, touring lets me feel like I'm actually doing something. It's also beautiful. You see the most amazing things when you're out in nature on your bike, away from civilization. I moved to a major bike culture town and got into road biking(not racing, but rather just riding on pavement as opposed to BMX dirt jumping or mountain biking that I did when younger) because there are so many bike paths here. I quickly found that I still loved riding a bike(hadn't really in years since I was younger) and decided to get a rear rack and strap my backpack to it and started doing overnighters at the local state park. After that one of my best friends moved to the city I moved to and I got him into biking and the weekend trips. We quickly decided that we needed to go further...

Rowan

There is nothing to be lame about if you go bicycle touring... unless you behave like a doofus while doing it!

My first tour was to get home from Perth, Western Australia, where my life had basically fallen apart, to Hobart, Tasmania. I'd moved to Perth following a romantic interest that didn't work out; my work life sucked; and I had a phantom heart attack that was eventually diagnosed some 20 years later as "broken heart syndrome".

I took up cycling while still employed, and it all went from there.

I rode from Perth to Adelaide, including across the Nullarbor Plain. I then caught a bus from Adelaide to get to Melbourne for a job interview (which didn't work out). But all the way across, I wondered if I could make cycling work for me as an employment option. I started with a microbusiness in Hobart running historic tours of the city by bike, then transitioned into what eventually became a full-time position as a bicycle development officer for five metropolitan councils.

I also took up randonneuring, which took me across the world to participate in various events in Europe and North America, and of course much more bicycle touring.

Oh, and it also landed me a wife... Machka, of course!

So, bicycle touring has had a significant impact on my life. I have a stable of bikes, but my original touring bike, a Fuji Touring, has been kept when others have been sold or disposed of, and it has a relatively new partner in a Thorn Club Tour, and an even newer one in the form of a Bike Friday Pocket Llama. Then there is the tandem; and my fixed gear which has done a month's worth of touring in France, Belgium, Germany and Britain.

I like touring for the places it can take me relatively cheaply. And I like randonneuring for the challenges and the places it also has taken me. And generally, I ride and tinker with bicycles because I like them, and they provide an outlet for my limited mechanical skills.

I should add, also, that cycle touring has led me to employment opportunities apart from the development officer's job and my own business venture. At one stage, I set off to follow what is known as the Harvest Trail here in Australia. I had just returned from a trip to Canada to see Machka, and I was pretty well broke.

But I rode my bike out of Melbourne Airport and rode northward to the Murray River, and got my first job thinning grapes near Mildura. Then I headed to central New South Wales and started a season of cherry picking. After that, I ended up with what was basically a full-time job on an apple and plum and propagation orchard where I stayed for around six years. After a two-year stint working for a local council, I have been back working in orchards for another two years.

Juha

I used to look at passing scenery from inside of a train/bus/taxi/car and wonder, what's the name of that small lake... what's behind that hill... where does that small road lead to... I started bike commuting somewhere in the 1990s and suddenly the local geography opened up to me in a completely new way. To extend that eye-opener further via bike touring was the next logical step. I also took into kayaking and XC skiing. I don't think there's any deep philosophy in my journeys, I'm just curious.

--J

Doug64

This is a little long, but it is an old post from the C&V Forum awhile ago.

This was not the tour I am about to describe. It was the start of a later tour, but the bike and gear are the same.


My first long tour in the mid-seventies was almost an afterthought. A simple conversation with a co-worker turned into a great friendship, and an 11 day “1100” mile ride. While talking with her about a family reunion she was planning to attend at Lake Pend Orielle, Idaho; we somehow got around to the idea of me attending it and then riding my bike home to Oregon. I was racing at the time and in really good shape; which was a good thing because the only bike I had was a Peugeot PX10 with a 52/42 crank and biggest freewheel in my kit was a 14-28.

I was an experienced back packer and climber so the camping was a known. What I didn't know is how my light bike, twenty-one pounds, would handle with a load. About 3 weeks before the start date I ordered a pattern for making panniers, and whipped up a pretty nice set of bags. It is a curse, but I was and still am pretty good on a heavy duty sewing machine. Most competition bikes of that era had eyelets for fenders so I fitted a Blackburn (I think) rack, and purchased a handlebar bag. I had the rest of the camping and cooking gear. My gear weighed about 20 pounds. I was ready--ignorance is bliss, but having an over abundance of self confidence also helps. Some people might even use the term "delusions of grandeur"

I did not have any idea what the distance was or the route I'd take back home. I planned to pick up a road map on the way to Idaho, and figure it out while spending a few days camping with her family. We loaded my gear, her car camping gear, and my bike into her Ford Mustang, and headed north.

After leaving the campground at Lake Pend Orielle, I wanted to start as close to the Canadian border as I could, so I headed north instead of south. It was raining, but I just wanted to get started. I got pretty close to the border and then doubled back on Hwy 95. I pretty much just shot down Highway 95 to Lewiston, Idaho on the border with Washington. It was a great ride down the Lewiston Grade, but one heck of a climb coming out of the Snake River. From there I cut through a small corner of Washington into Oregon.

I was getting quite a bit of rain and the second day in Oregon I peered out of my tent after one heck of a storm to see about 4" of hail on the ground. I packed up and headed toward the road. I was standing there wondering what I was going to do, when a rancher pulled up and said," I don't generally offer bikers rides because they are usually where they want to be, but today I'm making an exception; want a ride?" I threw my bike and gear into the back of his pickup. He dropped me off in front of a cafe about 15 miles later. My wheel bearings were taking a beating due to the wet riding conditions. A helpful gas station owner let me repack my bearings in his garage, and even furnished the rags, grease, and coffee. As is still true today, people are great!

That night I was planning on sleeping in a small laundramat where I was drying my clothes and sleeping bag. However, the owner came in to close up, and I was a little too bashful to ask; so I pitched my tent on public land just outside of town--just before the rain started. This was pre Gore-Tex days, and things tended to get wet.

From John Day I headed west toward Redmond with a short detour to the Fossil Beds. After reaching Highway 97, I made a left turn and headed south toward Diamond Lake Junction. I thought my last day, my longest day and crossing the Cascade Mountains, was 169 miles; but recently rechecking with Google Map it turned out to be only 139 miles. This ride took place before bike computers, so all distances where taken from the road map at the time, and should be suspect. I had been bragging about my long-day for almost 40 years, and technology finally caught up with me. I also suspect that the total ride was a little shorter than I had calculated, at least by 30 miles for sure! I'd be pretty proud of that except for the fact that the first 30 miles was a gentle uphill, followed be a 20 mile climb, and then generally downhill the rest of the way home.

Despite 5 days of rain and inadequate gearing for the terrain, what started as a training ride turned into a life-long passion—bumming around the world on my bike.

nickw

Have ridden and explored on bikes for many years, gravel road, long lost trails, long ago closed highways….far Northern California, from young buck through my 20’s, when other priorities took over. Always rode bikes, bmx, downhill, mountain, etc. Never donned on me to tour, never even registered on my radar. Graduated college, got a job in PDX and was visiting the Oregon coast and saw two dudes cruising through Cannon Beach and things just clicked, don’t know why or what, but it’s what I wanted to do. Did a bunch of research, got myself a bike and proceeded to pack (4) panniers FULL + front basket and ride the Oregon Coast ACA section, was hooked 10 minutes into the ride, even on a 100+ lb beast. Have since whittled down my gear to a modest 'comfortable' streamlined kit that works well, is well used, has a few battle scars but I know I can rely on.

How or why I never thought of doing this when I was a kid, beyond me.

Sense of freedom, reminds me of being a kid. I love the struggles and hard days, I like to push myself. I think it takes me back to the good old days when you had to work for food, work to get things done and connects with the genetic part of humanity that drives migration and roaming as a way of life, even though sometimes it’s only as far as the next starbucks.

+1. I'm always pointing out hills or eventful places on bike when in the car on the same route and with significant other. My memories are so vivid on the bike, it adds a such a depth to the area...the smells, sweat, suffering, bad days, great days.

LeeG

I don't know your story. When you are ready you'll go.