Doug64

This is a quote from our blog, and refers to a young lady's comment at the Velo Museum in Nijmegen, Netherlands. My wife who was just around the corner, out of the woman's sight, just about died laughing.

Happy Feet

I value that feeling of being salt encrusted and sore, a little bit chafed, sunburnt and stretching out on a hard blue foamy in a tent that leaks a little and seems to be pitched over a couple of pointy rocks.

DropBarFan

If you tour, your bike usually can carry a fair bit of stuff so you also get a decent grocery-getter.

DropBarFan

DC used to have the awesome President's Cup Regatta for power boats including the unlimited hydroplanes. I used to like car touring but who needs the bozo drivers & speed traps, that's not fun.

Ty0604

Peace and quietness. I live/work in the city and it's my chance to get away. That and you see so much more cycling than you do when you're in a car.

B. Carfree

Your wife did better than mine. Years ago, when I did have nice legs, I was track-standing for a red light. Unknown to me, two teeny-boppers were ogling me from their car (beside me). My wife was behind them and actually fell over laughing. Fortunately, the old couple in the RV behind her saw the whole thing and waited for her to remount rather than running her over.

B. Carfree

I love both the enchanting, meditative turning of the cranks for hours on end and the wonderful feeling of stretching on my mat after a warm shower at the end of the day. That, and ice cream. I always keep my ice cream spoon at the ready.

Rowan

Bike touring, to me, is an activity of exploring the unknown. Sometimes that means going back.

A little example that happened this week. Last Saturday night, we rode through a far-northern suburb of Brisbane, in Queensland, Australia, on the final stages of a 300km randonnee. This was a waterfront area, with hardly any traffic at close to midnight, and we clipped along at a pretty decent rate.

On Thursday, we cast around for places to ride, and decided to go out to this beach suburb. We discovered a couple of things along the way we didn't see on the night. The first was the wreck of a ship that was the first in Australia to receive and transmit a telegraph message. That was pretty cool in its own right for someone who has a bit of interest in things marine.

But further up the road, we stopped so Machka could take a picture of a very unusual, wind-driven street sculpture. I looked across the road and saw three bronze statues of three kids. I also like bronze street sculptures. I looked a bit more closely and saw Bee Gee Way on a sign at the entrance of the alleyway. I signalled to Machka to cross the road with me and we discovered an amazing tribute to the Bee Gees.

This was no odd, out-of-place tribute. When the Gibb parents immigrated from England, they settled in Redcliffe, and the kids, Maurice, Robin, Andy and Barry, plus their sister, grew up in the place, and evidently had wonderful memories of the time. It's also the Redcliffe Speedway where they made their big break as performers, and the name, Bee Gees, was first coined.

Of course, we had no idea what we had passed the previous Saturday night.

There's a sort of "spidey-sense" that you develop that encourages you to go some places that then reveal something special. Sometimes it is that immersion that was so eloquently expressed by FBinNY; sometimes it is being in the right place at the right time; and sometimes it is just the act of stopping and looking back to see something that can only be seen from that angle.

Jim from Boston

What Do You Value Most About Touring?

+1, indeed a comprehensive description, and dittoes to the other preceding comments on this thread. I have previously quoted this post about the touring experience, especially about a long tour such as a cross country ride my wife and I did.