I'm guessing you haven't spent much time in the very rural West.
Yes, Breckenridge may have a wide choice of coffee bars and Asian cuisine -
But in some places the bar is cafe, store, and post office all rolled into one.
Anyone who has ridden the Western Express in Nevada -
Or the Northern Tier across eastern Montana can tell you -
It's either the bar - or nothing.

Dude, did you notice my location? I'm not a transplant. I'm not even the first generation of my family born in rural Colorado. My mother was born in eastern Colorado on the plains in a rough farm house. I grew up in Colorado...in eastern Colorado. I'll compare time spent in the 'very rural West' anytime you like.

The bar in my home town was a place that only a few people frequented...and they weren't the kind that my mother would approve of. Nor would most of the other townsfolk. The bar in town, as well as every bar in the Arkansas River Valley from Leadville to the Colorado line, were seedy and dark and only the worst elements of town went there.

As for coffee and Asian cuisine, I find more of those kinds of places in the small towns I've been in around 'the very rural West' than I do bars. And you'll likely find more people in those places than in the bars.

As for the subtle dig that I'm some kind of city slicker tenderfoot, yes, I live in a metropolitan area. I much prefer the 'wide choice of coffee bars and Asian cuisine' in areas like Denver and Breckenridge to the narrow minded people of small towns. I've lived long enough in 'the very rural West' to have a pretty strong hatred of small town life out there. You couldn't pay me enough to live in a town of 1200 people again. Hell, I wouldn't live in a town smaller than 50,000. Too many people with their noses stuck in your business because they haven't got anything else to do.

That is amply evident.
<<<>>>
Of course, it depends on what you are lookin' for when you go on a tour.

I am surprised to read that last bit. I have seldom found that to be the case. I have not ridden the WE or NT, but have ridden a fair amount in the rural west and the places that were bar, cafe, store, and post office all rolled into one were not all that common. Most of them the bar was a different room so avoiding it was entirely possible. I have been in only a few bars when on tour and in every case I can recall except one there was a store and/or cafe that was in another room. The one case that didn't was only a bar and I went in to escape the heat for a while.

I need a drink after reading this thread.

I, too, have seldom been anywhere where the bar, cafe, store and post office are all rolled into one. I'm pretty sure that in Colorado there are restrictions against that sort of thing. Bars are usually segregated from the restaurant and I'm not sure that the US Post Office would allow a federal installation to be sited in a bar. There are pretty strict rules against consumption of alcohol in federal offices.

I've ridden across the western part of Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon as well as traveling extensively in Colorado, Utah and New Mexico and I can't recall running across any establishment like that that jamawani describes. Of course I was searching for lattes and sushi and you usually don't find those in Real He Man bars:rolleyes:

I go for the bits between the small towns...and to see if I can find some lattes I can sip.

barnone, that line did made me chuckle.

In the past, long ago, I could order highway maps and topographic maps by mail; or maybe get really luck and an outdoors store would have a few on hand, or I could look at the library's set.

Now, I can print any topo map out I want, on sectioned 8.5"x11" paper, protect them how I will. I can print any road map, at any scale I want. I can even make images of aerial photographs of interesting sites; though printing greyscale b/w still sucks. I can carry digital copies on a netbook, or access them on my phone through commercial services. I can have routes provided for me from several different providers, or pick my own. I can record them accurately as traveled, make notes, pictures... anyone remember how much it would cost to take 300 pictures on 36 exposure 35mm film rolls? Now you take a few hundred, upload them, take more, upload them, take more, upload them...

emedia has exploded the straightjackets that existed.

The only people that got hosed were those that thought a single 7.5' topo map should cost $10 in their store. Good friggin riddance.

In Australia, it does happen. Our local store for a while in a tiny town was the postal agency, pizza place and licensed cafe all rolled into one. It is a very pleasant place run by lovely people, and is in just the right location for a stop between bigger towns when touring.

Everyone needs to be careful of broad generalisations on an international forum.

Well we were talking about the western US. Because of Prohibition we have a bunch of odd laws about alcohol. Bars and package stores are generally kept separate. As I said bars are usually segregated from the restaurant and, quite frankly, I've never seen a bar in a store that sells groceries. And, as a US Government contractor, I can tell you that you cannot consume alcohol in a Federal installation. I doubt, highly, that you could consume alcohol in US Post offices.

So, no bar, no beer?

I'm always bemused at the alcohol laws in Pennsylvania. Here in the UK just about every corner shop sells alcohol even if the selection is limited, and the staff decide for themselves whether the customer is old enough, asking for ID if they aren't sure.

Then in PA I find most stores don't have it at all, some general stores that carry alcohol have a restriction as to how much can be bought in a single transaction (I found 144oz a curious limit, especially when there's nothing to stop you going out to the car with it and coming back for another 144oz) and despite my thinning hair and greying beard being something of a clue that I'm over 21 they still wanted ID. For good measure when I offered them my English driving license they looked it up in a book of international forms of ID to verify it. Then I go to the local liquor store and find they can't sell me anything less than a case at a time but if I've got the money and the means to take it away I can have as much as I want, and they figure I'm over 21 without seeing ID (presumably based on the same thinning hair and greying beard that doesn't count as proof elsewhere)

Off topic, but what the heck...

And they're less restrictive than they were 20 years ago.

I was once in a store in Arizona that sold liquor and guns.

I think it can do either; the choice is our's. I personally find a smart phone very useful, but so far at least have refused to carry more than that. My use of it is limited to turning it on once in a while for looking up things like the location of the nearest bike shop or campground, touching base with home, or doing a quick journal update. It is turned off the vast majority of the time.

I have really enjoyed having a work supplied Blackberry, but I am a cheapskate and have not bought myself a smart phone. The price of a data plan is the sticking point for me. I don't mind springing for the device, but the monthly fees just seem excessive.

My employer has been making noise about getting rid of our Blackberries to save a few bucks and I am not sure what I will do if/when that happens. I may just go back to not being as connected. I do have a little phone sized WiFi tablet that I could possibly use, but I may just go back to having only voice and text.

And replaced them with new straightjackets.
Isn't this precisely what the poster wants to avoid.

Having toured for more than 25 years - I can assure that people back then
didn't spend all that much time fixating upon their electronic info.
Instead, they stopped into a bar and had a couple of beers with the locals.
(Ooops! Some folkses don't want me to mention bars.)

From a recent tour diary -

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HSkCUHLESZ...0x533%2529.jpg

The technology - for all its benefits - changes the way we interrelate with others.

BTW -
Here are two U.S. locations well-known for being "everything" in town.

Middlegate, Nevada on the Western Express - -
http://www.allaroundnevada.com/middlegate-station/
Oasis in the desert with all you really need.


And Hingham, Montana on the Northern Tier - -
http://www.hiwaybar.com/
Food, bevs, camping, groceries, and with the post office closing - - mail.

I am sorry that some here are unwilling even to consider the possibility that part of touring is, precisely, to encounter people who have different experiences and outlooks - - I think that is what touring is all about.

We're using a combination of both computer and personal interaction. Basically we have found on our travels this time around that people involved in the tourism industry (or just representing their location) will go out of their way to assist.

We got off the train this afternoon, and asked a guy who looked like a railways person how we could get to the information centre. The directions were precise, took account of our bikes, and were given in a friendly manner. We've already asked the hostel staff about a local supermarket and electronics place for a broadband dongle.

And there are some things using IT just won't let you do. Last night I could find information on departure times and costs for travel on our train from London to Edinburgh, and even the policy on taking bikes. But I couldn't book a ticket at the super-saver price that included the bikes... I had to do that at Kings Cross station. The face-to-face booking process here was everything I as a customer wanted -- responsive, helpful about getting our bikes on board, and cheerful -- all with the train due to depart in less than 10 minutes! The tickets costs slightly more than if I had booked on-line, but I was happy with the outcome.

And despite what Google might think about itself, it is not the end-all and be-all of searching for results that are meaningful. I find it keeps coming up short with adequate listings of things such as hostels and campgrounds in defined locations.

As to mapping, I've pulled out the computer once, on Hokkaido, to confirm a bicycle path took the direction we wanted. Otherwise, we have followed our usual practice of picking up maps from info centres on our arrival... and followed our noses.

While here, we'll look up the North Sea route on the computers again, and a few other places we want to visit. But once we get out there, and get a feel for the roads, we will likely wander in a direction that will take us to a location where we can bed down for the night -- and that might not even be on our radars when we leave that morning.

Is there such a thing as a decent reliable guidebook for the area you want to travel?

I lived by my guidebook in New Zealand, where a name on a map doesn't necessarily mean a town. It was nice to know things like "in 40 km, there is a general store", or "no services for 80 km". Sometimes things weren't open, but it was good to know what was available and plan ahead accordingly - it's easy to carry a few emergency meals, but it's worrisome if you don't know when your next chance might be.

The book also provided profiles and road descriptions, so you can make choices based on traffic, hilliness, distance between towns, etc. I suppose some people might enjoy not knowing what to expect, but it provided a lot of peace of mind for my first tour.

Wish I'd known you guys were in London before you left. Shout if you're passing through again any time soon...

Our plan is to do a bit of touring in Scotland and then head south again. We were talking about returning to London for a day or two when we get back down there. We did one of the bus tours of London yesterday, and would like to return to a few specific spots to get a closer look.

There are guide books on all sorts of places, some cycling-specific and some not.

However, one of the things about guide books is the position the author might take on developing it. By that I mean the author may have interests or abilities beyond or well short of mine. As an illustration, I knew the guy who developed the first Lonely Planet guide for Tasmania (we met briefly in Hobart on his way through). Two things emerged:

1. He was on a schedule to do this job and get to New Zealand and research that ASAP.

2. He was a mighty lean and fit rider who could ride all day and think nothing of it.

Inevitably, his Tasmanian guide came out, a friend and I perused it carefully, and came to the conclusion that it really was impractical for all but the fittest cyclists to even contemplate the sorts of days he proposed. For a while after it was published, we would meet cyclists on the road who were looking somewhat tired... and they were referenciing the guide.

There are other guides I have used that have been more for the leisure cyclist -- the ones who do 10 miles in a day, don't have a particularly high level of fitness and who can tolerate riding congested paths.

I'm not saying those guides aren't useful for many other people. They just aren't for me. And I used them as examples to show that this is a somewhat more complex issue than first appears.

Probably the most useful has been a combination of paper maps and signposting on the North Sea and other fiets routes in northern Europe that I have followed several times. They've taken me places I've wanted to see in good time and on good networks.

The worst was a route through Adelaide that was based on signs and a booklet that meandered pointlessly through alleys, laneways, broken paths and crowded MUPs.

We've picked up a smalll-scale map of Scotland, and there is in the hostel room here one of the best guide books about things to do and places to go that I have ever seen (and I've worked extensively in the tourism industry, so I have an idea of what is good and bad). We'll have a look around Edinburgh in the next couple of days, and plan out some riding in the meantime.

Thanks contango. It's just one of those things -- we had a particularly long flight sequence from Japan, and we basically spent a day recovering by sitting on buses and ferries seeing the sights. The trouble is... we might have trouble now tearing ourselves away from Scotland!!!