What got me touring was quitting a job I had started to dislike. And the decision to either kayak the east coast of the US or bicycle acrossed it was my two options I figured for a cheap way to travel for several months. The only problem was that I had never kayaked before and was sure I would end up, washed up somewhere, dead. So, already being able to ride a bike seemed like a natural progression of sorts. The only problem was that I really never liked riding, at least not around my neighborhood. Go figure. And not I can not stop thinking about it or doing it.

Journey On,
crock48

I had been mountain biking for a few years in Southern California in the late 90's when my wife bought an old road bike at a swap meet for $5 and I proceeded to rebuild it.

Where we lived was part of a big Canyon in the boonies ( Pipe's Canyon by Yucca Valley ) and I rode that bike down the canyon 6 miles to the highway and then got brave & climbed up out of the canyon with it. When I got up there to the top, I realized "holy crap, I could go wherever I want to! "

Haven't stopped much since.

Losligato,
I really want you to explain how do you live from $1 a day for 3 years.
I can understand CouchSurfing, but you have to tell your host that you don't have the budget to go out on a restaurant. So he can invite you out or just make dinner at home.
What can you buy for $1? Here its 2 tomatoes or 2 apples or half kilo of rice.
One thing to remember is that in such a trip you need to eat good food. You can't eat just onion and bread, you will suffer from malnutrition.
What happens when something on the bike breaks ? Fixing the bike cost money even if you do it alone.
Does this guy have a website ? If not, you are our only hope of knowing the dark side of traveling $1 a day.
Thanks

Cyclemates
 

They did at least three trips, always with 7-9th graders, often with groups of 15 or so. The lady who took them was named Fran Call. I recently came across her name on the internet when she retired. I emailed her and told her she was one of my heroes. She graciously wrote back and thanked me. Now I'm a 6th grade teacher and I'm trying to organize a tour with former students - 7-9th graders. I'm not going to go all the way across the U. S. though - I'm hoping for 2 weeks.

Another hero is John Seigal Boettner (author of "Hey Mom, Can I Ride My Bike Across America?"). He has taken two groups of kids across the country.

I like to think I would have gone as a junior high student if there had been an adult leader around at the time.

Well, this is an interesting one.
How do you protect kids from doing stupid things on the road?
Do you take full responsibility on the kids?
Accommodation and food?
Most of the bikes that kids have may not survive the tour. How do you intend to solve the problem?
I wish I had a teacher, who will take me to a big trip bike bike. I did have very good bike back then - a 10speeds something which made me learn that, when you hauling down a hill, you should NOT pedal in the middle of it. I just pedaled and it was on the granny, and I did some triple cross salto to the front.
I took the wreckage to my home, all my body ache with blood all over. My mother had to say shouting: "Why do you make me all that trouble?". Today I lough about it. You need a lot of patience for kids with testosterone heads :D

For me it was a natural extension of road biking - taking the feeling of freedom, self sufficiency and natural beauty to the next level. I've only done one tour so far but I'm hooked.

For me it was the C&O Canal. 184 miles of remote trail with campgrounds ~ every 5 miles and no reservations needed. So no route planning, no planning for stops, just pack up and ride.

First time I "toured" was on my MTB in the mid 90's. I was 15 years old, living in one of the best places to be a mountain biker-Colorado Springs. We had a nearly endless system of trails quite literally out my back door and I realized I wasn't satisfied with the day forays into the hills and that I wanted more. So, I strapped some overnight essentials to my body and my bike and went bike camping. I don't know how many miles I did, but I rode UPhill all freakin' day. The next day was the best, and was twice as fast, as it was all downhill. My arms were jello. I subsisted off of Clif-Bars and Iodine tablet water, and it was invigorating.

My dad was very adventurous, though, and we did lots of backpacking as a family, tons of BC skiing, and eventually I went the way of career mountain guide. So, it was a natural extension for me to find ways of quiet sports travel like cyclo-touring. I'm kind of eco-conscious anyways, and I just like to get out and ride...it feels amazing to be so self sufficient and in tune with what's going on around me.

That's a good question, one that I asked the people we met who told us about him. To my chagrin, we never actually met him in person.

A customs inspector at the Argentinean border told us he had just crossed moments before us. She had a table full of backyard vegetables he was carrying with him that she had confiscated. She found it funny that he had complained he would have no food until the next town which was a good distance away. We watched the road like hawks (we were driving) but never saw him.

We met two Irish girls in Ecuador who told us they had bought him dinner and drinks a few nights before. They said he wild camped every night, carried a bag of rice, another of beans and washed in streams. They struck me as people who were not easily impressed yet they were wide-eyed with his tales.

Others we met along the way told us third hand stories.... how he crewed on a sailboat to get around the Darien Gap and how his fellow crew members took such a liking to him that they refused to charge him for his passage and sent him on his way with panniers full of food. How his budget was busted at a border (can't remember which) when the guard refused to waive the after-hours "fee".

On a non-bike related note... There was a guy who walked away from his house and spent the better part of a year hitch-hiking across the U.S. with no money whatsoever. He wrote a book about the journey and called it "The Kindness of Strangers".

About 11 or so years ago my son and I were driving down the Pacific Coast. We saw all these signs about there being a Pacific Coast bike route. It sounded pretty fun.

4 years went by and he was turning 16, I decided we better not put it off any longer. So knowing very little about touring he, his friend and I set off down the Oregon Coast. We had the time of our lifes, and have since done two more tours. The last being in 2006 and did the Canada to Calif ride. Once again it was pure magic.

I lived on Cape Breton Island in my 20s....(east coast of Canada for those not familiar)

My girlfriend at the time had land and a house there,and her entire life growing up on the Island she had seen cyclist riding through to the Cabot Trail and making their ways across the country...

Knowing I rode a lot,one winter she asked "Do you want to ride across the country next summer?"

So my first experience with touring was being 22yrs old,getting us equipment(bikes,tent..etc.)

Heading to Vancouver B.C on the West coast of Canada and riding across the country..back to what was home at the time

What got me interested was taking up cycling after watching the Tour De France, loving it so much that I delved into the internet world to find out more and stumbled across self-supported touring. Once I found this I was hooked, what better way to use six months of paid leave owing.

I've just taken possession of a Surly Long Haul Trucker complete. Have the Tubus racks and buying
Ortlieb panniers next week. Deciding between MSR Hubba Hubba and Clip Flashlight tent - any suggestions?

I can't wait to hit the raod.

Graduate school.

About the same time as I began commuting on a thirdhand hybrid, a few friends and I were talking about what we did to stay sane during the years and years of the PhD. Everyone had really extreme hobbies, like running marathons, working as a gourmet chef, serving as a minister, and so on.

I did a lot of little things, but nothing in a big way. But I was getting into cycling and mechanical work, and so I saved up for a while, hung around the LBS and learned what I could, and finally got it together and decided that TransAmerica was my goal.

I'm not there yet, but I'm on target for doing it the same year as I finish my degree and get a job. The three feed off each other and keep me going when each one might become a grind alone.

I can't really tell what got me started...I just started when I was around 15/16. I lived in the suburbs and had to bike everywhere to get to my friends houses. It just took off from there. I have only done regional touring and always loved it. Here is an old picture I found from around 1985. Some hand me down bike that I painted and panners from Performance.
http://professor.smugmug.com/photos/206859109-M.jpg


Now what is getting me back into biking/touring is that I just sold my old tourer I have had for about 15 years or more and hadn't used in 5 years. Sold it and two days later realized I I should get back into it for a few reasons; it's relaxing, enjoyable and about the only time you aren't bothered by computers or phones or people if your riding off the beaten path. I have just realized that some of the most poeaceful and relaxing times I had in life was always on a bike, except when the chain derailed or tire went flat :o)

So I look forward to getting a few bikes and trailer and spedning time alone and with the family.

For me, it was my parents' idea. It was 1978, I was 16 with no special plans for the summer, so they signed me up for an American Youth Hostels (AYH) ride from NYC up to Montreal. It was a "phantom trip," meaning we were completely self-supported and had to figure out our route and overnights as we went. 10 kids aged 14-16 plus one "experienced" rider, who was a college guy aged 21. I look back now and think how mature he seemed at 21, and how incredibly young that seems now, to be leading a trek like that! Anyway, we had an absolute blast. It was 90-100 degrees in July/August all the way there, but only one rainy day. It was the first time I left the US and it was a thrill to make it to Montreal and walk/bike around it for 2 days. I still look at the photos and the group diary once a year.

I didn't tour again until 2003, when I rode a 4-day AIDS charity ride from Raleigh to Washington DC. That was supported but I averaged 85 miles a day on my hybrid, and realized I wanted to travel by bike again. So now I have the right bike, the right gear -- and almost no time, because I remarried and now have a 4 yr old and newborn in the house! So I'm biding my time and waiting for the kids to be old enough to go along with me, of course. I took the 15 yr old on a minitour this spring on the Outer Banks to give him a taste of touring. We'll see if that worked or not.

While I'm riding, I'm 10 years old without a care in the world. That's still true, even when I'm just riding around the neighborhood.

Ken

peer pressure

There are some ideas and inspirations in Heinz Stucke's story. He describes how he began touring here,

http://www.bikechina.com/ct-heinzstucke1z.html

****
..."Why does he do this?" "Why by bicycle?" "Why for so long?" The answer lies quite a few years back.
In school I was always interested in geography. I read a lot of books about other countries and about people who had travelled and had adventures. Soon I wanted to do the same. During the time I was apprenticed to a tool and die-maker I made short trips through Europe by bicycle. After finishing my apprenticeship I cycled around the Mediterranean, covering about 10,000 kms. At that time I was 18. These tours gave me some experience about how to travel and the will to see more.
By that time I did not particularly like my job and I did not see why I should spend the rest of my life doing something I did not care for very much .... just to make a living. "Is this all there is to life?", I asked, "I might as well go around the world’. Perhaps, too, I had opened my mouth a little too wide about all the things I was going to do and my friends teased me about it. So eventually I had to do something about it — if only to save face!
I came to use a bicycle on my earlier trips, partly because I felt more independent, it was the cheapest form of transportation and also because I found it to be the ideal way to see the world. It was slow enough to permit me to study each country and its people and it was fast enough to cover large distances relatively quickly. I admit that later on, most of my income came from the fact that I had used a bicycle for the tour....

He continued touring for quite a while. (Last I heard he is still.)

One impetus for me was seeing a couple ride off into the desert.

During a flight from India to Frankfurt, the plane made an unexpected stop in the Middle East. (They never told us why.) While waiting for the plane to depart again, I was walking around the airport and outside it. A couple unloaded and assembled their bikes and rode off into the desert.

There was something beautifully self-sufficient and independent about it.

No taxis, no noise, no hotels, etc. -- just the beauty and silence of the desert.

****
And the couple seemed happy in some deeper way than usual. (Maybe 'aware' is a better word than 'happy' here -- there was something quiet about them, and very together.) There was something about the space they were in that appealed to me.