Matthew A Brown

I think forums like this help a lot of people wrap their minds around the idea of touring.

I'm sure many of you have experienced this-- mention a long tour and the first question is something along the lines of "How did you survive?!" Breathless and sincere, the reality of it is unfathomable. "You rode a WHAT to WHERE?!" etc.

But really, it's riding a bike. Takes some preparation, research and budgeting, but so does anything else worth doing.


I think THAT is going to be the spark for touring. That moment when someone realizes "****, I could do that." The unfathomable becomes something closer to taking a semester off for school. When people get on here and poke around and realize that some of us are friendly, some windy, some are absolute jerks, some are helpful beyond all rational belief-- that we're just like everybody else. That you don't need a f'n GUN to tour (always seems to come up, maybe its Florida?). That you are far more of an oddity than a target.


I also think once someone connects bicycle touring with weight loss, **** is going to get absolutely exponential. Three months to how many pounds lost? To how much lean muscle? To how big of a very real boost in base metabolism? Are you kidding me?