I love D.V. A longer tour up the Lippincott Road to the Racetrack and around is something I'd like to do one of these days. Pretty rocky and steep in there though. My wife's achilles have healed up well, thanks. We're planning a trip mid-March from Salinas to San Louis Obispo along the CA coast. Hope the weather cooperates.
The photos from your short trip are great. I forget how green and treed and wet it is on the East side of the Sierra. Can't say I miss the wet but it is picturesque.

When you can do it, although its boring, I think that big shoulder is about the safest riding there is. And all the cars and trucks passing at 70mph makes for a guaranteed tailwind!!!

I'm in the process of planning a short 3 day tour on Cape Cod, MA, near the end of summer.
So far, the plan is to park near one of the Cape Cod canal bridges, pedal to Woods Hole, take the ferry to Martha's Vineyard, than the ferry to Nantucket, then ferry to Hyannis, than back to the cars. Or, the reverse, I 'm not sure yet.
We will be able to stay in a house of a friend on Nantucket, so rather than carry camping gear for one night, I'm looking into lodging on MV (and I better get moving on that!)
If all the ferry fees are too much for some, we might just change plans and later in the fall, head down the length of the cape & back.

My employers give me a generous amount of vacation time, but I can take no more than two weeks at a time. One week at a time is much easier.

This year, I'm looking at a loop on Vancouver Island, likely in spring. I'm also looking at doing a ride from the Okanagan Valley to Seattle. This will likely be a one-way ride, taking the bus for all or part of the journey back.

I'm planning on doing a bigger tour (maybe 10 days) around Vermont this summer, but before that my friend and I will probably do a couple one-night bike camping trips in the state

i am planning self-contained short tour from s nj to myrtle beach ("short tour").
i may, if things unfold ok, continue to Key West (longer short-tour). start date pending in 2012...7/12 preferred, 10/12 reality based!

Hubby and I are waiting for my foot to heal up from minor surgery. We live in the Netherlands and try to to out to the islands and the sea often. This summer I hope to go down by Lieden and hit all the museums. If all goes well, we'll take the train towards Denmark and then do Legoland area and maybe some Copenhagen. I haven't seen the Viking museum yet.

I have an early 1980's Bridgestone mixte (pre Grant Peterson). Hubby has a Koga Myata Adventurer.

My girlfriend and I recently did a combination public transit/bicycle tour from Pueblo Colorado to Boulder, CO and back. We chose to do it this way to maximize our distance away from home. It was great!
More details of the trip.
https://www.alternativecommutepueblo....-and-back.html

Love the thread idea!

Due to health issues I haven't done any touring in 2011. I hope to change that in 2012. Although I can only hope for some 2-3 day weekend rides and perhaps another 2-week ride around Adirondacks (NYS). Maybe I'll do it with the ACA this time. I want to move this year, so that will decide what I can do in terms of touring.

I'd love to do that from NY but without having to box my bike I don't have the time for a long cross country ride, I don't want to drive or fly, but I'd love to take a train West, do a ride and return by train.

I'll keep an eye out for you. I live a few miles from the canal entrance in Buzzards Bay and it's one of my usual ride destinations. If you need anything on the mainland side of the canal get in touch with me.
capejohn@gmail.com

Thanks John! We were just talking about the tour last night - I'll keep you in mind.

For our first tour this season we will take 12 days (end of April begining of May) to ride from our home in Maastricht, NL to Paris for our 25th anniversary.
Four days there, four days to hang out in Paris and four days back
For those that are counting distance, altogether it's about 900kms give or take.

I love how the multi mode thing worked out for you here! Sure wish there were similar easy transport available in my area. I read your blog entry right after you posted, and wanted to comment, but it slipped my mind at the time.

I am riding the Cape and Island this summer with #3 son and possibly one or two friends who want to try touring. We may do the hostel tour while on the islands. The fast ferry is expensive, but being on a bike tour the "slow boat to Nantucket" should not be a problem. And cheap.

Last weekend, Rowan and I did a sort of hub-and-spoke tour with a combination of cycling, driving, motel and camping. It turned out a little differently than we intended, but that happens sometimes ...


Friday - Machka's birthday!

In this particular part of Australia, birthdays and other events, are celebrated with hot chips, and occasionally cream cakes or something similar. I've done the hot chips thing, but wasn't really in the mood for them this time. To my surprise, a coworker suggested popcorn ... a traditionally Canadian (or at least in many of the places I've worked) celebration food. And I supplied the Tim Tams to add an Australian flavour to the party.

And then Rowan and I drove out to a little town, Lancefield, where I had booked a room for 2 nights. When we got to the place, it was all in darkness and no one answered the phone. It took us about 45 minutes traipzing around the area (to a local petrol station, to another related accommodation facility) to finally track down the manager, and get the room we had booked. Very strange situation. Nevertheless their rooms are lovely ... we stayed there 2 years ago.


Saturday - You Would Have to be Crazy 200K

The "You Would Have to be Crazy" Randonneuring event is a collection of randonneuring events of different lengths. Riders can choose from the 200K, 300K, 400K, or 600K starting on the Saturday, and then do a 100K or 200K on Sunday if they want.

We debated about a longer event, but opted to go for the 200K. We rode the 200K two years ago on singles, but this time we decided to do it on our tandem. If I could make it on our singles when I was still recovering from DVT, I figured we could handle it on our tandem now!

I had 3 goals with this ride: 1) Ride my age to celebrate my birthday. 2) Ride a century for March in the Century-a-Month challenge (to make a century in each month for the past 18 months). 3) Ride the 200K to get our 3rd randonneuring event this year.

This 200K event is sneaky. The first 100K are quite easy because the general lay of the land is downhill to a city 100 km away. Then we turn around and climb back up. To add to the challenge, we also had a tailwind on the way out, and headwind on the way back.

We covered the first 100K in 4.5 hours ... we were cruising! But we finished the event in 10:50 ... we were not cruising on the way back!! It was definitely a bit of a slog on the way back.

There was a decent group of cyclists doing the events so we had cyclists within sight for some of the event, and encountered them again at the turn-around point and at the end. This event is also lightly supported, and we were provided with a large bowl of pasta at the end as well as several other food choices. That pasta hit the spot!

At the turn-around point something rather unexpected happened ... an old Rolls Royce vehicle pulled up! It had been a bus in its early years and had been converted to an Egg Merchant delivery vehicle in 1952. (Yes, we have photos)

The area is quite scenic ... rolling hills, forests, pasture lands. And the weather was beautiful. When we did this event 2 years ago, it poured rain until just before we started, it was so socked in with fog that we couldn't see any of the scenery at all, and then we were followed back by a storm which nailed us with a bit of rain and some of the other riders with hail. This year we had blue skies and sunshine. The temperature started cool, and warmed up to about 21C in the middle of the day.

Right toward the end of the ride the temperature dropped (the low that night was 8C) and the combination of the headwind and drop in temperature left us feeling a little chilled. Good thing we had that lovely room with a heater and hot shower!!


Sunday - Cycling Tour

Our original plan was to leave the van somewhere in Lancefield and cycle to Castlemaine (about 80 km away) on Sunday and back again on Monday. But we didn't feel comfortable leaving the van with the tandem and suitcases inside overnight, and we were still a bit tired from the 200K.

So we drove to Castlemaine, and headed for the largest campground. When we got to the campground, no one was around ... a replay of a couple days before, and on a long weekend!! Fortunately they were just gone for lunch, and were back a short time later. We walked around the adjacent botanical garden while waiting, and the walk helped loosen things up.

After we set up camp, we explored Castlemaine and the Castlemaine area on our single bicycles, including a few more walks of various lengths. Along the way, we came across an outdoor cycling velodrome, and decided to give it a go. It was 500 metres around, and we racked up 4 km there in no time. I had never ridden in a velodrome before and discovered it is a lot easier than it looks (riding a geared bicycle in a non-race situation). All up we cycled just over 20 km.

And then we attempted to find a place for dinner. Keeping in mind again that this is a long weekend, and Castlemaine is a touristy town, we were surprised to discover how many places were closed or had limited selection. We ended up driving into Bendigo for dinner.

That night we tested our camping mattresses, sleeping bags, and pillows. We're trying out various things to see what might work for a longer cycling tour.


Monday - Touring

We didn't cycle on Monday (today) ... instead we did some touring type stuff. We did a steam train trip to a neighbouring historical town, and walked around the town. It was a gorgously warm, lovely autumn day.

Are you doing the Sunshine Coast-Vancouver Island loop, or just a loop of Vancouver Island?

With the weather still fairly cold and rainy I have yet to take the first short tour of 2012, and I am starting to go a little stir crazy. For a short weekend tour it is hard to convince myself to head out when it is in the 40s and raining. Hopefully some nice weekends are just around the corner.

On Thursday I'll be ordering a new LHT on layaway and paying it off by June 1st. I've got a Canadian Tire box bike holding me over until then as a commuter/weekend-long-tripper/something to keep the thirst going.

I first began my fascination with cycle touring two years ago when my bandmate finished his ride across the country. I'd have to quit my job to get much more than 2 weeks off so for 2012/2013 I'll be doing a series of smaller tours.

I live on Prince Edward Island, Canada, and we have an old rail road track that was converted to a bike/foot trail a number of years ago when they retired the trains. It's about 280 km from tip to tip on the island. I'll be tackling that one solo towards the end of June.

Near the end of July I'll be heading over to Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, to cycle the Cabot Trail. Essentially it's the perimeter of the island. Again, about 300 km but with some very steep hills. The plan right now is to go semi-supported (truck with bike mechanic and shop inside, tour guides showing us places to camp, option to send cargo in the truck) with a group.

Lastly, towards the end of August I'll be making a trip to les iles de la madeleine (aka "The Maggies" if you live on PEI) which is a set of islands off the coast of PEI which are actually part of the province of Quebec. You have to take a 5 hour ferry ride from where I live to get there. Can't really do a perimeter per se as the islands are more long than round but with only 120 km to ride I'll be spending most of my time doing excursions.

I think this is the first time I've realized that all my short tour plans this Summer are on islands, haha. Next year I'd love to bike in the desert areas of the USA, cycle La Route Verte in Quebec (a bicycle highway), and maybe plan for a spin around one of the lakes in Ontario.

A lot of inspiration in this thread!

A nice set of trips planned there, I'm sure they will be fun to do, and the rail trail in PEI will be a good start.I've read about, and in the past anyway they even have some volunteer bike patrolers that go along it.
Have fun starting with bike touring.

Two short tours planned this year. First is with the family on tandems in late June down Le P'tit Train du Nord. Will be a good intro to bike touring for my 5 year old twins over 4 days. Lots of stops for swimming, wildflower picking, playgrounds, etc.

Second will be Fairfield County, CT (home) to Washington, DC via Cape May ferry over 4 days. Will be about 100 miles per day (except the last one) so traveling light and long each day. More of a challenge to myself than a true tour.

Due to the unusually warm weather here in the Midwest, I was able to do a short tour in Illinois with my son just a couple of weeks ago during his spring break. Essentially we took Amtrak from Chicago to Carlinville, IL, then rode north (with the help of a tailwind) until we hit Princeton, IL, and we took the train back to Chicago from there.

5 days of travel, 4 full days of biking, around 250 miles (most of which was on low traffic township and county roads), all in all a great time.

I have wanted to do a long tailwind ride with the help of Amtrak for some time now, and it worked out really well.

Here's a fuller journal of the trip for anyone interested: https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?..._id=10337&v=6P

We had record temperatures a couple weeks ago, right during my time off so I did a 4-day trip to Ottawa and back to Montreal that I usually do in May. Here's a bunch of clips put together. Don't mind the squeeky brakes: https://youtu.be/waiSCMoI4pc

Very nice Érick! Very good pacing in the editing and the mixup of different types of shots. The night shots were quite beautiful and worked really well after the stove burner shots.
I am curious to your route and the initial closed road- was that part of the Oka park?
I assume you took the Quebec side going (river on your left) did you return the same way?

Yes, the closed road is in the Oka park. I went on the Quebec side and came back in Ontario so the river is always on the left. It's a nice ride on either side and highway 148 is becoming more quiet as highway 50 is being built.

I have been told the 50 is extending, so it makes sense that less traffic is on the 148. I've mostly driven on the 148 when I used to participate in the Canadian Ski Marathon, so used to drive out to Papineauville, but its been maybe 7 or 8 years since I've done it.
I may ask you details one day of your route, I have family in Ottawa so may one day head out by bike.
Salut