Plan & Prep
Preparing for Your First Bicycle Campout (Even if you’ve never camped)
Who’s Ready for Bicycle Camping? Are you a cyclist who loves spending time in the great outdoors? Then bicycle camping is something you’d probably truly enjoy. If you’re not yet a cyclist but interested in bicycle camping, why not get out there and get started? Give cycling a few months and you should be ready…
The Journey from Beginner to Advanced Bicycle Camping
Welcome to Bicycle Camping! There are so many inherently good things about bicycle camping – from fostering a healthy lifestyle, to practicing sustainable transportation, to experiencing new landscapes and cultures. I’m inspired to inspire you to consider getting out there for some bicycle camping adventures. I’ve laid out the incremental steps one might take on…
When Quitting is Winning
Bicycling is the opposite of quitting. Biking requires tenacity. Biking rewards tenacity. But there are times when too much tenacity can lead us astray. Bicycling necessitates putting one foot in front of the other ceaselessly. Bicycling teaches that suffering is rewarded. Every descent is earned with a climb. I’ve never quit a ride. Every century and…
Bike Camping with Kids
For many of us, childhood camping trips are some of our fondest memories. Remember the s’mores and campfires, the old tent that leaked, and lazy afternoons reading in a hammock? Kids tend to gravitate toward camping in a way that adults can’t recreate. They understand the power of dirt, and rocks, and sticks–things that can…
Holiday Reflections of a Bicycle Tourist
As the weather turns cold and winter arrives, many cycling tourists will pack away their panniers and hang up the bike, pining for warmer weather and scheming up their next big bicycle getaway. The snow has come early this year for a large swath of the US, including a rare storm that brought a bit…
The Company We Keep
In my last few posts I have written much about the challenges that bicycle touring presents and the ability to overcome those challenges as a defining element of the sport. For me this is central to why I choose to endure the mountains, the wind, the rain, and the flats (so many flats). These challenges…
Simple guide to riding and living more (for complex humans)
It can be difficult sometimes to do the simple things. The ones that could make us happy. Like checking out of everyday existence with a lightly loaded bike for a few days. With a nod to our busy and distracting lives, this month I’ve tried to list some tactics for getting rolling with the good…
5 ways to attract a sexual partner on a bike tour
Bike touring is inherently sexy. It also involves lots of skills and dedication which have been proven by the Lampoon Spoof Scientific Research Group to attract the opposite sex. Minor inconveniences like body odor and food stains on your jersey can be turned to your advantage with a little bit of thought. And the heroism…
Bike Tour Buddy
An old friend from university sent me an email in mid 2014. He’d got wind I was planning a bike trip from Vancouver to Mexico and put out a feeler to see if he could come along. So, without wanting to cut him out, I did what any reasonable type A person would do and…
Taking off on cycle tours
“I’d often dreamed of going West to see the country, always vaguely planning and never taking off ” Jack Kerouac There was a thick red line running north through South America, projected onto my classroom whiteboard. After 2,000 miles the planned bike route doglegged east over the Andes mountains. It then continued across the Argentinian…
Bike Touring Ambition
Hi adventurous types! I’m very pleased to have some space on the BikeShopHub blog to spin some stories about bike touring, and share some words of experience along the way. If you read Josh’s introduction you’d think I’d been travelling the world by bicycle all my life. The truth is, however, my bike touring ambition…