neilfein

Monday November 19, 2007, around 9am. It was chilly, probably in the mid to low 30's. On my way from Princeton to New Hope, I had seen a sign directing me to Terhune Orchards and stopped for some cider and a snack. The store is set in front of a large field of apple trees. This had already been shaping up to be a wonderful day's ride - clear, cold air, beautiful scenery, and very light workday traffic.

As I walked outside, I that, against alle expectations, there was snow falling. Large, fluffy flakes touched down on my bike frame before sliding off. I pushed my goggles up my nose and slowly started to pedal away.



The snowflakes weaved lazily through the air, looking as serene as I felt. I think this was the moment that I realized how much I truly loved touring.

There are several monents that are close to this, including another later that day and some moments on the C&O.

Everyone, what are your best touring momnents? Everybody who sticks with touring has a reason. Let's hear some poetic, transcendent moments!

LeeG

not fondest but a couple come to mind...1970 riding from Simi Valley to Oxnard through orange groves in blossom.

flying down Hwy 1 on the switch backs above Jenner

riding with a tailwind from S.F to SantaCruz and maintaining a 20-25mph pace in stretches

descending the switchbacks above Donnerlake in Tahoe after climing up Hwy20 in the heat and getting goosebumps in 80degrees air.

oh wait,,this is the one,,starting the descent into Estes Park from Hwy34 trail ridge rd,,starting to descend from 12,000ft building speed and off the right and down the mtn about 30' is a marmot looking up at the road before I started passing cars. He looked like a lawn ornament. Weirdest thing.

almost as good...riding on west Ukiah Comptche road through coastal forests after a long and fast big loop from 60degree coastal air to 90degree inland air,,there's a short 1/4mile hill that you can dog up or get on the gas and fly. After riding a few miles on the level in warm 75 shade the road opens up onto this sun baked hill where the asphalt is soft, you have to stay out of the sections the logging trucks have curled up in the heat,,and there along the right side of the road and up the hill are the most vibrant, spectacular dandelions, poppies, lupen and other wild flowers,,vibrating with color.

nancy sv

Not sure that "fondest" is quite the word, but finding myself in the middle of a sex orgy in India is quite the memory! https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/p...e_id=44086&v=C

Or maybe it was the drug-laced lassi I ended up with... https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/p...e_id=41305&v=A

I've got a few more posted here: https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?...oc_id=1910&v=v I really do need to write up some more, but I need to find the time.

xilios

Great stories nancy, gave me a good laugh this morning

neilfein

And here I thought I was an experienced tourer!

Neil_B

You are, Neil, you are.

neilfein

Still waiting for that tour when I follow a rock band.

Neil_B

- Coming back from a Christmas tour to Bethlehem, PA. I was dropped off in Green Lane and pedaled 35 miles home to Kimberton on Christmas day. I rode about 15 miles on the Perkiomen Trail, which surprisingly was crowded with people - it was warm enough that people took their kids and their new bikes out.

- Crossing the Eastern Continental Divide on the Great Allegheny Passage in the pouring rain, June 2007.

- Completing a ride from Pittsburgh to DC. The final day in particular stands out. I'd spent the night in a campsite on the C & O without water, and had to ride 10 miles to find a working pump. I blew two spokes before Great Falls, 14 miles from the trail end. I rode to the end on a wobbling wheel and with no rear brake, dodging pedestrians and climbing over a fallen tree at one point.

Neil_B

In college I knew a woman who quit her job so she could follow New Kids On The Block during a tour. Perhaps NKTOB will reunite, Neil.

Roughstuff

Like many here I have done alot of tours, so I suppose many moments matter...but the one I recall was on my world tour crossing from Lahore, Pakistan to Amritsar, in India.

For over two months in eastern Turkey, Iran and Pakistan I had been distracted by personal security concerns...and the sigh of relief ("HEY! I made it alive!") when I crossed over into India was remarkable.

roughstuff

staehpj1

From Wikipedia, "From May 23 through September 2, 2006, the Ditty Bops embarked on a cross-country tour by bicycle to promote the release of their second album, Moon Over the Freeway, while advocating a call-to-action about pollution and energy conservation.. They traveled from Los Angeles to New York City, logging 4,502.75 miles".

Maybe if they do it again they would be easier to follow on a bike than most tours.

nancy sv

Thanks! It's amazing how those things just...happen when on tour!

arctos

In Ecuador near the Columbia border in a torrential rainstorm when a tiny very old woman outside her thatched mud hut crooked her finger and said Venga Aqui/ Come here! I stopped and entered her home populated with three or four generations of family members who shared tea and whatever bread or cookies I had with me. The woman had exhausted her Spanish and reverted to Quechua the Inca language so we all exchanged gestures until the rain stopped and I continued on my way to Quito the capital of Ecuador.

On the Divide Ride cresting 9210 foot Union Pass in the Wind River Range in Wyoming SE of Yellowstone to find a meadow of wild flowers as far as I could see. In the middle of the meadow was a bike tourist flat on his back. I asked how things were going and a Dutch lilted voice said- I go nowhere. I stay right here. I considered doing the same.

Riding the Pacific Coast Route on our tandem in Oregon with sunshine and a strong tailwind going 58MPH fully loaded as we passed another tourist going maybe 25MPH. When I looked back in my mirror the cyclist had unclipped one foot to try touching the ground to see if he had inadvertently stopped without knowing it.

bokerfest

Call me an old fart (even though i am 26) but that does not sound fun to me at all.

However, I have a lot of fun going 30mph between traffic jams in Los Angeles. I guess I just don't feel I have enough control with gravity on the descend.

arctos

I have always looked at fast and safe descents as the reward for climbing up there. A tandem with its long wheelbase is amazingly stable at high speed. In the instance cited the downhill stretch was straight with lots of rollers allowing for the speed buildup.

This actual old F*** does enjoy a speed run on a bicycle when it is safe to do so.

FlowerBlossom

Biting into my first creme-filled chocolate in Brussels. Creme, as in whipped cream.

Heavenly.

tomg

front wheel, pacific!

mev

One of my favorites would be right in the first few days of June 1992, when I truly was reaching a state of "flow" in the Powder River Basin on my first trip across the USA...

To set the stage, I had left Astoria, Oregon about nine days before and was averaging 100+ miles/day. The first few days of most trips, I find my mind still processing all those work things and other stuff from my non-touring life. I'm also coping with new challenges of being on tour itself, and this particular tour had included a few such as losing two tires and having a new replacement shipped, crossing the Rockies and some long tough days. So, by the time I was in Eastern Montana, that was behind me. I was riding through Big Sky country with wide open vistas on the great plains. Things were starting to click. While I'd never been there before, the area felt vaguely familiar with similar crops and fields to where I grew up in Colorado. My mind was focused much more on the day to day aspects of the trip - though also occasionally thinking through some recent big transitions in my life. I felt really out and alive and happy to be touring. I had reached what I'll still refer to as a state of "flow" in my bicycling and was in a regular rhythm and pattern of riding.

The reason that particular collage sticks in my mind as a fond memory, is it and similar thoughts are what I later seem to reflect back to of why I really enjoy touring. In November 1992, after that trip, my work group was shut down and I ended up finding a job 1700 miles away. However, I had a large sense of relief in my mind that despite all the new job turmoil, "at least I got in that big trip and had those memories...". That thought and relief is among the types of things that have motivated me to simply make time for long bike tours, 5 years later for three months, 9 years later for an entire year and 15 years later for another 10 months and 21 years later in 2013 for ?...

I've realized that if I wait for an "ideal time" to make that next mega-tour, then the short term pressures might mean that it might continually be postponed. So instead, I make a mark on the wall (next one is 2013 for 6-24 months) and simply make it a priority goal for my life and plan other things around it accordingly. It is the collage of images in the Power River Basin (and related ones on other trips) that motivate me.

foamy

Truly, I have many, many fondest moments while touring. Almost every day, in fact. However, of all of those moments, this one always moves me. The photo does it no justice—none. But in my mind, every time I see it, I get an echo of that feeling. I was on the road from Bardstown, if I remember correctly. My mood (I had just fallen over—one of those times when you just go to the wrong side when un-clipping) was totally neutral, but when I came to this brief downhill, the light was just so, my mind just right, the scene—perfect. I'm sure a thousand riders have seen it. For me? The most memorable. The loveliest, the essence, the... briefest glimpse of heaven. I'm sure it won't work for anyone else. Timing; it occurs to me, is everything.

paul2

After cycling through the heat, pollution, and traffic of sounthern India, we headed for the cool of the hill stations to chill for a few days. From there the ride was 17 km downhill. Once at the bottom, we rode through Mudumalai National Park. It was a slight downhill, the forest made it cool, and there were no vehicles on the road. There were signs warning you not to get out of your vehicle because of wild animals.

rhm

Hmm. You know, the whole touring experience tends to come up as a fond memory in my mind, and it's hard to pick one moment as the ultimate standout. Compare, for example:

August 1983. Coasting down I-90 into Livingston, Montana, the sun setting behind me, a strong tailwind, and inexplicably no traffic at all. There had been a thunderstorm a little while earlier; there were wet patches on the road, and the air had cleared so visibility was incredible. On one long straightaway I pedaled as fast as I could until I spun out around 47 mph, but mostly I just let the wind push me down the highway. It was so nice I was tempted to ride back up and do it again, but once the sun sets behind a mountain, it gets dark fast... so we headed for a campground in Livingston.

Or...

August 2008. Early morning, on the north shore of the Peconic Bay on Long Island. My daughter's first bike tour, we are riding three-speeds. It's time for our first break after breakfast, so we park our bikes and walk down to the beach... and wade into the water. The water is warmer than the air; there is a mist rising from it, and the sun is just starting to break through it. My daughter is up to her shorts in the water, I'm up to my knees. The sun catches on shells on the floor, making bright flashes of light all around us. Fish swim by. Crabs crawl by. I see a conch, so I pick it up and realize it's still occupied (knobbed whelk), so I hand it to my daugher under the water so she can inspect it. Then she puts it down. A big white egret flies overhead. Something big and dark moves by under the water a little distance away; was it a horseshoe crab? My daughter decides she wants to see the whelk again; we look for it for a while, but don't find it. She would have waded around all day, but there were other things to see on our way, so we dried off and got back on the bikes.

How can I prefer one to the other?

Weetbix

Awesome photo foamy. I too remember that stretch of road on the transam. Its amazing that in 4,200 odd miles of road, there are these stretches that you remember.

I too snapped a few photos of this. It was pretty cool, because if I remember rightly, the previous 10-15 miles were in some heavy forest type terrain, and then all of a sudden it drops down into a large open valley.

here are my pics from that moment:

https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/p...2MK&size=large
https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/p...2M2&size=large
https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/p...2Lw&size=large
https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/p...2Lq&size=large
https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/p...2Lk&size=large


- and here is a link to the day itself maybe it will spark some other memories :)
https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/p...id=81821&v=1NS

surfjimc

June 1984 - I had just left Chowchilla and was heading N on CA 152 into a hot nasty headwind. It was surprising for so early in the day. I shifted to my biggest cog to battle the wind when the derailuer went into the spokes, breaking the derailuer, but leaving the spokes intact. Just ahead was a gas station and a market, sort of out of place, with a big sign that said Red Top. On top was a smaller on saying, "Worlds Largest Collection of Stuffed Fish." I walked over to figure out a solution to the problem, but found myself staring into three large display windows of all types of game fish. Others came and went as I looked, but one older gentleman began to look along with me. After a bit he began telling me the story of catching the sailfish we were admiring, a world record if I remember correctly. We spent half an hour together talking fish before he disappeared, maybe into the back of the store. It turned what could have been an awful day into a wonderful experience.

foamy

Daniel! I mean Weetbix! How are you, friend? Glad you made it back to NZ just fine. How'd your bike arrive? My bike was fine, but I was missing quite a bit of stuff. Looked like they'd had a football game with the bike box—holes I could stick my head in.

Great link to your journal, thanks a bunch. You took the photos that I did not. I hope your trip was as nice as mine. Cheers!

Weetbix

Whossat? Steve from Maryland? Small world eh! Yeah my trip was great. My bike came in 2 boxes, one a month after the other because NZ customs decided to hold my bike frame for god knows what reason, they're so anal about things like that. So I got half my bike, and had to convince customs that the rest was actually my bike, they wanted $200 cos they obviously thought I had bought it from the bike shop it was shipped from lol. I headed down to San Francisco and spent 3 days there looking around, nice place

I've got another journal in the pipeline, might write a bit this time along with pics. I'm going back to the states in July to do a short 2 week tour from Florence down to San Fran, before going to a conference for work in San Francisco, can't wait! (next major tour is going to be a 4 month trip in 2011, but haven't decided on the location yet)