Braver Than I'll Ever Be
This story caught my attention because it's about a bicycle tourist from my sort-of hometown*, Montgomery, IL:

In 18 months on the road, Isai Madriz has pedaled nearly 12,000 miles from his family's home in Montgomery through Central America and along the western coast of South America.

That alone makes him pretty brave. You couldn't pay me to ride through the notoriously dicey political environment of Latin America. But the kicker is Madriz's story about Patagonia:

The only food available here on the vast pampas of Patagonia is califate, a small fruit that has a center full of seeds. Llamas, emus and hares are the animals in this region, but they proved to be very difficult to trap. The moment came when I didn't have anything at hand to eat and, without any calafates or some succulent insect in sight, I turned to looking for those unfortunate critters who had died crossing the road. Hares adorned the highway, but the majority were flattened or bloated and, without question, I wasn't about to spend another day like that night south of Iquique, in Chile, when I was poisoned by algae. Fortunately I found a semi-fresh hare.

I cannot imagine how starved I would have to be to turn to roadkill for sustenance. And that's what makes Madriz braver than I'll ever be!


* I didn't really live in Montgomery, but I had a Montgomery postal address.

Labels: bicycle touring, food

- posted by David Johnsen @ 11:08 PM 0 comments

 
Go David!!!
In the Chicago Tribune's "Ask Amy" advice column today, there is a letter from "David in Northern Illinois:"

I'm a 19-year-old male college student. I'm planning a bicycle trip from Illinois to Oregon with a male friend this summer. My parents are worried about my safety, and they are considering not letting me go.

I rode across the country alone at age 31. Some people told my wife that she should forbid me from going (even strangers I met along the way asked me why my wife let me go). As I told her, "If you were the kind of wife who would try to stop me, I wouldn't have married you!" My only concession to the worriers in my life was to carry a cell phone, which at least was handy for making motel reservations.

Bicycle touring only scares people who haven't done it. People are so paranoid about the dangers of the world. Someone who has done ample planning and is in reasonable physical condition should be fine. Sure, bad things can happen on a bike trip (David, don't let your parents see this book), but bad things can happen anywhere, anytime. I am sure a lot of great things will happen on David's trip, and those memories will stay with him forever.

Amy gave David the right advice, basically saying, "You're 19 years old and your parents need to 'let go' and let you go." Have a great trip, David!

Labels: bicycle touring

- posted by David Johnsen @ 2:44 PM 1 comments

 
Illinois Bike Maps = Rare Collectibles?
I made a disturbing discovery on a recent visit to the Illinois Department of Transportation's bicycling pages:

The Map Sales Office is closed and no further information is available at this time. We apologize for the inconvenience

Uh-oh. I contacted the League of Illinois Bicyclists, who in turn contacted their point man at IDOT. He confirmed that IDOT's district bike maps cannot be ordered at this time and said he did not know when they would be available again. In the meantime, he suggested two ways to access the maps online.

The first method, interactive maps by IDOT district, is unwieldy at best. I think it's a lousy interface, and a few instructions would help immensely. The map area on the screen is way too small (not sized to the browser window like Google Maps are), and you pretty much have to know what you're looking for in order to find it. This may be workable for locals but not for touring cyclists.

The second way is to download a PDF for each county. Again, this is easier for locals than for tourists. Someone crossing Illinois north-south may have to print up to 20 county maps. What I don't like about county maps is matching them up with other counties. The way IDOT presents the maps, this is an utter nightmare because each county scales differently for printing. Forget about lining up the roads from one county to the next. Plus, you need a color printer to make the maps readable (maybe I'm the only person still using a black & white HP LaserJet from the last millennium?).

Some visitor centers and bike shops still have IDOT's paper bike maps if you're willing and able to hunt for them. Unfortunately, in my experience, their maps are often one or two editions out of date. I'd hate to plan a long ride through Illinois without paper maps, and I'm very glad I didn't have to settle for the online or PDF maps while writing my book. I never would have found many of the great road rides, especially downstate. This is a huge step backward for Illinois bicycling, so I hope the paper maps will be available again soon.

Other Illinois bicycle maps: For Chicago area cycling, the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation map is much better than IDOT's map of northeastern Illinois and well worth $6.95. The City of Chicago publishes a free map, but bike routes end abruptly at the city limits. DuPage County and Kane County also offer maps, and the new Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission's map wisely overlaps with about six miles of Illinois. The LIB has been working to develop bike maps for smaller cities such as Springfield, Aurora, Rockford, and the Quad Cities area (including Iowa). They also have guidebooks (with maps and cue sheets) for three popular touring routes: the Grand Illinois Trail, the Mississippi River Trail, and the Route 66 Trail (note that these are "trails" in name but include many miles of roads). All of the LIB's maps and guides can be downloaded as PDFs.

Labels: bicycle touring, bicycling, maps

- posted by David Johnsen @ 5:09 PM 1 comments

 
2008 Tour de Georgia to Honor DJWriter's Legendary Ride
Why else would the race be starting on Tybee Island if not to commemorate the sixth anniversary of my coast to coast bicycle tour? Of course, the pros are unlikely to begin with a wheel dip in the Atlantic, but by golly, they should! I guess the mechanics wouldn't be too thrilled with the sand -- I sure wasn't.

The racers also won't have to contend with traffic on the series of virtually shoulderless bridges from Tybee to Savannah, although they won't be able to avoid the wind. Alas, by heading up to Statesboro to start Stage 2, they'll never learn that "Everything's Better in Metter!"

As returning champion, will Janez Brajkovic and his Astana team get dibs on Cecil B. Day's first Days Inn?

Labels: bicycle touring, Georgia, pro cycling

- posted by David Johnsen @ 6:51 AM 1 comments

 
Lyrics of the Day
Bicycle tourists are treated differently from the rest of the traveling public in the United States. Jennifer's tale of a lousy weekend in Carbondale brought back some not-so-fond memories from my cross-country bike tour. While some people were intrigued and asked lots of questions, others simply shunned me. Many assumed I was poor because I wasn't driving, treating me with the same disdain afforded to bums and homeless people. For every person curious about my journey, another acted like I didn't exist. Even off the bike, my lycra cycling shorts and brightly colored jersey marked me as an outsider.

A touring rock musician, at least one who isn't famous yet, has similar experiences. Rather than one of the obscure genres I usually draw from, today's lyrics are from classic rock -- Bob Seger's "Turn The Page:"

Well you walk into a restaurant,
strung out from the road
And you feel the eyes upon you
as you're shakin' off the cold
You pretend it doesn't bother you
but you just want to explode.

Most times you can't hear 'em talk,
other times you can
oh, the same old cliches,
"Is that a woman or a man?"
And you always seem outnumbered,
you don't dare make a stand

Oddly enough, I only felt lonely in the presence of others. I never felt that way while I was riding my bike all day, and at night in my motel room, I was happily occupied with route planning, writing my journal, or watching TV. But in a restaurant, a store, a museum, or a train, I never felt like I belonged. Even people whose job was to be friendly were not always so. Convenience store clerks would eye me suspiciously. Motel clerks would get upset when I didn't write down a license plate number on the registration form (though I had already told them I was on a bicycle). Waitresses could hardly be bothered to come over to my table (and they knew I was there because everyone had stared at me as I walked in).

Sometimes I could go to my motel room and forget about it, but other times it really bothered me. I was used to traveling alone, but I was not accustomed to being a pariah. When it's just a weekend, as in Jennifer's case, it is frustrating and annoying. But dealing with 11 weeks of alienation and passive hostility became almost as challenging as pedaling the bike 3,000 miles.

Labels: bicycle touring, lyrics

- posted by David Johnsen @ 3:38 PM 0 comments

 
First We Take Manhattan...
...then we take Berlin, as the Leonard Cohen song goes. I stumbled across two items related to Berlin and biking today.

• When I logged into Blogger, this topped the list of Blogs of Note: Berlin to Copenhagen on Push Bikes. "Push bikes" is a term rarely heard in the United States meaning bikes that are human-powered as opposed to motorbikes. Anyway, this 12-day tour includes Germans, Aussies, a New Zealander, a black dog, and a tandem Bike Friday (same color as mine).
• The bi-weekly Adventure Cycling Association e-newsletter "Bike Bits" mentions a Reuters story titled "Bike trail follows Berlin Wall route 46 years on." The article tells how quickly a right-of-way can be lost; since the wall was torn down in 1989, all sorts of obstacles have grown up in what used to be the "death strip" -- the place where defectors were gunned down or arrested. The 160-km (100-mile) route has about 30 signs describing historic landmarks. Less than 2 km of the wall remains along with only five of the 303 guard towers, and now some people are wishing they hadn't been so quick to destroy the thing.

Labels: bicycle touring, bicycling

- posted by David Johnsen @ 11:58 PM 0 comments

 
Bike Tours
Since I haven't spent much time in the saddle this summer, I'd like to share a few other cyclists' tours that I've been following:

• My friend Jene-Paul set out from Vancouver, Washington to ride through every state on the perimeter of the lower 48 (his original plan was to visit all 48 contiguous states, but he scaled back a bit). Unfortunately, things went terribly wrong in the first week of his tour. In his text-only journal, Jene-Paul gives vivid, verbose descriptions of the good, the bad, and the ugly entitled "A Toil Of Pleasure."
• An American Singlespeed in Paris documents a series of dayrides, showing that not all tours actually have to go somewhere. This is one long page with brief text and lots of large photos.
• GIT/GITAP blogger Jennifer recently visited Yerkes Observatory, a forgotten and endangered treasure, in Williams Bay, Wisconsin via Metra and bicycle. Check out the rest of her blog for other Chicagoland daytrips, including a few in the Lake Calumet area.
• If you have lots of time, check out Mark Boyd's 38-day tour across the United States.

Maybe someday I'll have another bike tour of my own for your reading pleasure. For now, I'm finishing up the pages for our 2007 Pacific Northwest Auto Tour.

Labels: bicycle touring

- posted by David Johnsen @ 11:59 PM 0 comments

 
GIT for Spina Bifida
A recent Chicago Tribune article mentioned this Grand Illinois Trail tour benefiting the Spina Bifida Association of Illinois. The two riders started yesterday and plan to finish on August 26. They are asking for pledges, and donors can win raffle prizes.

When I was riding across the country, people often asked me what cause I was riding for. I was almost embarrassed to say, "Um, just because I want to." It seemed so selfish. On the other hand, I'm just not the fundraising type. I really hated being forced to do that stuff when I was younger. At least when I was a kid, people would give me money just for being cute. Nowadays, they'd tell me to buzz off.

Labels: bicycle touring, GIT

- posted by David Johnsen @ 2:48 PM 0 comments

 
Free Bicycle Touring Magazine!
The Adventure Cycling Association (ACA) recently asked members to spread the word about the free sample copies of Adventure Cyclist magazine available from their Web site. Adventure Cyclist is the only magazine dedicated to bicycle touring, and it caters to every definition -- whether you enjoy group tours with a SAG wagon, solo cross-country journeys, or weekend trips with friends -- on every continent (well, I haven't read about Antarctica... yet). Each issue has several stories about tours and a few columns offering advice on everything from bikes to gear to riding skills. What I really like about Adventure Cyclist is what it doesn't have -- no "attitude" (unlike Mountain Bike) and no obsession with going fast and/or losing weight (unlike Bicycling). You won't find reviews of overpriced, lightweight components in Adventure Cyclist.

To get a free copy of Adventure Cyclist, go to the ACA homepage and look for the "Grab it" button in the right column next to the miniature magazine cover. You can also order their catalogs, which sell touring gear and detailed maps of biking routes all over the country. So go "grab it" -- and let me know how you like it.

Labels: bicycle touring

- posted by David Johnsen @ 10:30 PM 1 comments

 
Bicycle Touring On Oregon's Coast
It was a pleasant surprise to see a bicycle touring article on the front page of the Chicago Tribune’s Sunday Travel section. Correspondent Tim Jones pedaled the 370-mile Oregon coast with his son, Andy. He writes about the beauty of the shore, its history, and what Oregon has done to accommodate cyclists, adding a lesson for all bicycle tourists:

As it was our first visit to Oregon, Andy and I asked lots of folks what we could expect from the terrain. Unfortunately we talked only to people who had driven the coast, not biked it. They told us it was a pleasant downhill ride, a pedaling piece of cake…

That is one of the cardinal rules of route planning for cyclists—don’t trust advice about hills from non-cyclists! Motorists go up hills every day without giving it a thought, unconsciously pressing a little harder on the gas pedal. Sometimes even cyclists are unreliable regarding roads they have only driven. But once you’ve ridden those highways on a bike, you won’t forget struggling to maintain 8 mph on a climb.

Jones also supports my style of touring:

Campgrounds are a plentiful and less expensive option, but why lug all that extra stuff around? No doubt there is a special place in heaven reserved for those who sleep under the stars, and it's probably a campground with pit toilets and people in the next site singing John Denver songs. But there is no shame in pulling into a motel, where prices start around $45 a night.

I sometimes feel a twinge of embarrassment when people ask, in the regard to my cross-country bike ride, “So, you probably camped along the way?” Camping is such a part of the touring ethos for many that I cannot answer that I stayed in motels without giving justification for doing what the vast majority of auto tourists do without a second thought. I like being dry, taking hot showers, being warm or cool depending on the season, having Internet access, watching The Weather Channel, ordering pizza for delivery, etc. I don’t like setting up a tent, cooking over a fire, taking down a tent, drying out everything (rain or dew), and carrying all that gear around, not to mention the time it takes when I could be writing, resting, or otherwise preparing for the next day.

Slowly I have come to feel more comfortable with my choice of accommodations, even if it disappoints the purists. The legendary Ken Kifer loved to camp, so that was an important part of touring for him. I, on the other hand, got more than my fill in Boy Scouts. Bottom line: there are many ways to tour, and any way is fine as long as you are having fun.

Labels: bicycle touring

- posted by David Johnsen @ 11:57 PM 0 comments

 
Congratulations, Charlie!!!
Charlie Hamilton rode his bike to Boston's Fenway Park yesterday to see a Red Sox game. Big deal? You bet. Fenway is the thirtieth Major League ballpark Charlie has visited this season. He started at a pre-season game in Atlanta on April 2nd and pedaled his bicycle 11,741 miles to every Major League city. This took some detailed planning since he not only had to determine a route, but he had to coordinate it with the schedules of the teams to make sure they were in town when he was. Along the way, he has been raising money for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. You can read all about his six-month adventure at HitfortheCycle.org. For an Associated Press article about his trip, click here.

Labels: bicycle touring

- posted by David Johnsen @ 1:55 PM 0 comments

 
The Next Generation Of Bicycle Tourists
The latest e-newsletter from the Adventure Cycling Association directed me to an archived article by Willie Weir titled "Endangered Species." I have read a number of articles by Weir, particularly about his travels in Turkey, and he is much more adventurous than I'll ever be. Anyway, in this story he ponders the future of bicycle touring. He notes that when he was young, lots of kids rode their bikes to school, but nowadays relatively few do.

Most are driven to school in SUVs until they reach the age where they can buy their own cars... For the generation growing up today, the bicycle is something you put on top of your Ford Explorer until you reach a recreational trail. It is a toy, not a viable means of transportation.

Then he tells a great story about a class of third graders who were fascinated by his bike trip through India. Weir says that we are responsible for inspiring the next generation of bicycle tourists by sharing our stories. He's right. I have been pleasantly surprised by how my cycling web site has motivated others to start riding again. Interacting with these people has been almost as rewarding to me as touring itself. So after you read his article (a heartwarming tale that even non-cyclists should enjoy), check out my cross-country bike trip.

Labels: bicycle touring

- posted by David Johnsen @ 2:21 PM 0 comments

 
Cold Beer And Crocodiles
I'm still working my way through the Nixon years in The Sixteen-Trillion Dollar Mistake, but I wanted to mention a great book that I finished just before I started this blog, Cold Beer And Crocodiles by Roff Smith. As an American journalist living in Australia, Smith decided to ride a bicycle around the perimeter of the continent. He met a lot of great people, encountered some brutal weather conditions (140-degree heat!), and discovered much more about the country than he had known from his years of living in Sydney.

The hospitality and friendliness of Aussies is a recurrent theme. For example, once while he was riding, a pick-up pulled up alongside him and someone offered him a beer. This is a suspicious situation for a cyclist, since a lot of beer cans get thrown at cyclists from pick-ups. These guys were sincere, though. After a little conversation and a couple of beers, they invited the author to join them for a week of camping and fishing. He was far braver than I because he took them up on it and had a great time. That's just one of many entertaining episodes.

Perhaps the best endorsement for this book is that my wife, who has little interest in bicycle touring, enjoyed reading it, too (she only made it as far as Louisiana in my cross-country journal). Smith has also written a couple of Australia guidebooks, but I have not seen them. Special thanks to Trucker Buddy Tom for lending me this great book.

Labels: bicycle touring, books

- posted by David Johnsen @ 6:10 PM 0 comments