Tag: Lifestyle

The Bike touring lifestyle, living on the road when bike riding.

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Our Trips Texas

Please Come To Texas

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New cowboy hat, of course

In 2010 The Bike Hermit took his first bike jaunt in Texas.  Titled Texas Buckaroos, his adventure is well chronicled on crazyguyonabike.com.  Since then, I have heard about his trip pretty much Every Single Day; how amazing this part of Texas is, how friendly the people are, how we need to move to Texas, how Boise is actually hotter and colder than Alpine – you name it, I’ve heard it.  Being who I am,  my initial reaction was there is no way I am moving to Texas.  Those who know me know that  I tend to balk when others rave about certain places or things – yes even when The Bike Hermit is the one doing the raving :).  After a few years of his pushing Texas I finally let the brain crack open and began to soften to the idea of at least going for a visit.  It took a few years to line up all the stars but suddenly the idea was becoming a reality.  Originally we planned to go in early 2015 but with everything slipping into place we decided we’d planned enough and we’d just go for it.  Again, to those who know us, this should come a no surprise.
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From the start of our Texas Bike Ride I vowed to have no agenda, no expectations and to allow each and every day unfold of it’s own accord.  A little self congratulations are in order as I think I came pretty darn close to achieving that goal.  (okay there may have been a few moments and there were some very choice words thrown around on a particularly nasty section of Glenn Springs Road in Big Bend National Park)glenspringsugly2 But as always when riding, it got better. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Everyone approaches bike touring in their own way.  We all have our little rituals and habits.  One of mine is to make up songs as I ride.  My theme usually involves what ever I see or experience on the the ride.  During our 3 weeks in Texas I wrote a great little riding ditty.  My singing is totally restricted to riding my bike with Jim either way out in front or somewhere behind me.  I can carry a perfect tune, as long as no one is listening.  Here are the words: (the tune is The Heart of Saturday Night by Tom Waits)

Little Yellow Flowers growing by the road, tucked in with the cactus and a flowering yucca plant too.
Bike riding in Texas, having a marvelous time.

Got the wind at my back, the sun in the sky, riding along with my favorite guy.
That’s why I like Texas, have a wonderful time

So, what do I think of Texas?  I will answer that with, we are busy planning the next trip.  As the standard response from a certain someone. “Just listen to the Bike Hermit and all will be fine.” 20141219_102002_resized West Texas is a country unto itself.  I am a lover of wide open spaces and certainly got my fill of beautiful, quiet, rugged country.20141219_131812_resized

Are we moving to Texas? Well that move, if ever, is certainly a longs ways off.  I  look forward to doing quite a bit more Texas bike pedaling and have many more places to explore.  The isolated beauty, while amazing to visit, may become a bit tarnished if I were to experience it day in and day out.

You can never go back – a mantra of mine for sure.  I believe one will never have the same experience twice so when we do go back, I will once again embrace the adventure with no expectations and just look forward to enjoying the beauty Texas has to offer.  Have a wonderful time.

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Categories
Bike Touring Tips

Bicycle Route From Boise to Mountain Home

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When asked how to get between Boise and Mountain Home on a bicycle without riding on I-84 and without riding the Old Oregon Trail, which is dirt road, I haven’t been able to give a good answer. Until now.
From Bike Touring News to the eastern most exit off of I-84 it is 14 miles. Take Federal Way south past Gowen Road to Memory Lane and turn right to the freeway Exit 59B. Actually, this route does mean about 8 or nine miles on the freeway, but the shoulder is wide and smooth and rumble strips divide it from the traffic. Ride to Exit 71 Mayfield Road. Turn left across the freeway to Desert Wind Road. Turn right and follow Desert Wind as it becomes W. Tilli Road. Turn right on Ditto Creek Road which crosses I-84 to the junction with Old Oregon Trail Highway. Turn left and parallel the freeway into Mountain Home. This is not the most scenic route in the world, but it will get you to Mountain Home and from there Old Highway 30 takes you to points East.

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Categories
Crossroads Music

Blues

This guy, Pat O’Bryan, has a complete understanding of the blues. This is in Terlingua, TX. outside of Big Bend National Park….outstanding music is only one of the reasons Texas is a great place to tour!

Categories
Advocacy/Awareness

Bike Touring and Entitlement

The Path Less Pedaled made this video about how bike travel can help the economies of small town America.

Sounds good in theory but I wonder how it works out practically. There is not a large volume of people traveling by bicycle. I know the whole idea of advocacy is to get more people to do it, but it’s sort of like building a community; there needs to be enough “rooftops” before investments in infrastructure like shopping and services make sense. Or like mass transit; there needs to be a critical mass of users to make it viable. To get communities to invest in bicycle friendly amenities or to get them to promote bicycle travel may be putting the trailer in front of the bicycle, so to speak.

Personally, I would much rather ride a bike around town than drive a car. I can use the bike for almost anything I can do in a car. I have more fun too and I can feel superior to the poor slobs stuck in traffic. I also think traveling by bike and living more or less on my wits is a blast. Would I like to see more people doing it? Obviously it would be good for my business if more people were buying from me and if more people used their bikes around town there would be fewer cars to worry about, but those are pretty self-serving reasons.

At any rate, I think the best kind of advocacy is just to be out there on the bike as much as possible. In this country, using a bike for everyday routines is not exactly a mainstream activity. Utilitarian bikers in this country (except Portland) can be categorized roughly as:
-homeless
-court appointed commuters
-hipsters
-wacky hippies
When I spoke to Jobst Brandt (R.I.P.) a few years ago at Interbike and mentioned the excellent crazyguyonabike website he said he would not want to be associated as being a “crazy guy” just because he was using a bike. I think that is key. Until using bicycles is considered a normal, viable way to conduct daily business it will be a fringe activity.

Jobst Brandt on the Tenda Road, French Alps in 1989. From trentobike.org

There may be some downsides to more people traveling by bikes too.
One thing I worry about is the popularity of so called “stealth camping, a practice I’ve heard described as “hiding in the woods”. Camping is generally legal on Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service land but when tourists start trespassing, and if they leave garbage and/or cause damage to property, then all the advocacy in the world will not repair the good will towards bike riders.

I try to remember that I am an ambassador for cycling every time I swing a leg over the top tube but I know I have probably not always represented the way I would like. In the October/November 2012 issue of Adventure Cyclist magazine there is a letter from a person who lives on the TransAmerica route and who has provided hospitality to cyclists for over a decade. This person is removing her home from the ACA map and from the Warmshowers site because of a trend for traveling cyclists to be rude and demanding and to have a feeling of entitlement. She says, “It used to be commonplace for the cyclists to notice that the property was a project in motion- stuff being built, painted or maintained in some way. Without exception I would be asked, ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’…….But it seems different these days. Out of the 115 who stayed so far this year, only three people offered to help” Ouch. She goes on to say that not only do people not offer to help but they leave trash strewn about and seem to take her hospitality for granted.

Sorry to be such a curmudgeon. I really like seeing people like Laura and Russ and like Velouria at Lovely Bicycle writing about and promoting bicycles and bicycle travel. And I truly would like to see more people using bicycles. I think it would go a long way to reducing the levels of anger, anxiety and stress we feel in our everyday lives.

Categories
Advocacy/Awareness

The Rights and Duties of Cyclists

90 percent of the Bike Hermit’s trips around town are made by bicycle. He doesn’t care if you ride your bike or not. He is not out to change the world or to save the environment. He just enjoys riding his bike and he truly thinks it’s just as quick and infinitely more convenient than driving an automobile. He doesn’t think there should be a “cycling community” any more than there should be a “motoring community”. Sometimes we are cyclists and sometimes we are motorists. The Bike Hermit thinks words can be divisive.

## END RANT ##

Notwithstanding the aforesaid, this post is about how to ride a bike. Not how to improve strength or stamina or speed, but how to safely ride a bike to work, to school, to the pub or to the grocery store. I know that the main barrier to people who might consider using a bicycle for some of their short trips is the fear of riding on the same road with cars and trucks and buses. Here are a couple of educational resources to check out:

The League of American Bicyclists has been in existence for well over one hundred years and their mission is;
To promote bicycling for fun, fitness and transportation and work through advocacy and education for a bicycle-friendly America..
Recently, while touring the forums over at bikeforums.net I rolled across this video which shows how a couple of League certified instructors navigate some of the challenges one can expect when using a bicycle in a designed for autos world.

In fact, according to the Boise Street Smart Cycling website;
–those who ride in a predictable and safe way will dramatically reduce their chances of ever experiencing a significant accident!

And while most people are concerned about a collision with a motor vehicle, that doesn’t happen very often – in fact, only 18% of cyclist falls have anything to do with a motor vehicle.
Boise Street Smart Cycling and the Treasure Valley Cycling Alliance provide education and work to raise awareness about the benefits of riding bicycles. In past years we have invited the TVCA to present their Street Smart Cycling course and the response was good. We are considering sponsoring another course in Boise. It will be in the evening of a to be determined date and will last two to three hours. The L.A.B. certified instructors at TVCA do a great job with these classes and even if you have been riding for decades, I almost guarantee you will learn something you can use. We would like to set this up soon and would like to get an idea of the amount of interest. If you have an interest in attending one of these courses, let us know in the comments.

Categories
Tours and Rides

TransAmerican Trike Adventure

Five Wheels, Four Legs, No Fear

Okay, I must confess that when Kurt stopped in the Cave in January to fill us in on the planned adventure we both thought he was nuts.  Of course some people think we are nuts as well so that is fair.  Kurt and his 9 year old daughter are traveling cross country riding a Recumbent Trike and a recumbent tag-a-long.   Check in with them on their blog.  Send them best wishes and encouragement as the weather gods have been blessing them with quite a bit of rain 🙁

If it looks like they will be passing through your neighborhood, consider offering them a place to stay or good ideas on things to see.

Categories
Bike Touring Tips

No Sweat, have water bottle will shower

A bit of sweat after a great bike ride

Guaranteed on any bike tour, you are going to sweat.  Ending the day with a shower is one of the ultimate rewards on a bike trip (ranks right up there with a cold beer).  On our recent tour on the Olympic Peninsula we spent each night at a campground but still ran into unexpected issues with using the showers.  Many campgrounds have “pay as you play” showers so be sure to tuck quarters into your pannier.  We arrived at one site “afterhours” and discovered they didn’t take quarters but used tokens that needed to be purchased from the camp host…  Well hell, what to do.  From previous trips we have devised a great technique for impromptu showers, we call it the two water bottles and a camp towel trick.  Simply heat water, pour into two water bottles.  At the campsite that had the shower but needed tokens, I took my water bottles, Dr Bonner’s liquid soap, my camp towel and my bike shorts into the shower stall.  I wet my hands, applied a small amount of soap and lathered all the priority body parts that need attention.  Then I used my two water bottles of warm water for rinsing.  While not as deluxe as a 3 minute shower, it takes the sweat layer off and I can sleep comfortably.

Why the bike shorts in the shower?  We travel with two pairs of shorts and every night  apply a small amount of diluted Dr Bonners to the chamois of the shorts worn that day and rinse well.  The shorts hang off the hammock for the night and if still damp in the am are securely draped over my sleeping bag for the days ride.

As noted we travel with hennesey hammocks so no tent for a private spit bath,  No worries, the rain fly makes a nice shower curtain for the two bottle shower.

A rainfly can double as a shower curtain

In addition to the camp towel and Dr Bonner’s, two other must have items I tuck into my pannier – Nutrogena Face Towelettes and baby wipes.  Both have travel packs.  It is nice to grab a face towelette and get the grime off and baby wipes … well let’s just say what did we do without them.

Categories
Advocacy/Awareness Living Vicariously

Small Bike Tour

Chris Johnson already coined the word “micro-tour”.  “Small tour” might describe our Saturday ride. Eleven miles to a little restaurant in a neighboring town, a cup of coffee, some fish tacos and some time to sit in the sun and read. Doesn’t even really qualify as “cycling”. It’s just something we did and we happened to do it with bicycles.

Warm sun, no hurry!

Enjoying the good things about bike touring, like relaxing in a nice spot and not being in a big hurry. And not really having any other urgent commitments at the moment. We took our books and  we took jackets and long pants, because even though the sun felt great the wind had a bite to it. And the Zimbale canvas saddlebags came in handy!

The Not Even A Bike Ride
Categories
Advocacy/Awareness

Bike “Industry”

The bike “industry” has designed mental baggage for us to carry with us on our bike rides. The baggage of  lightweight-extreme-beat-up -your -buddy-ism. The baggage that weighs down that latest, lightest, most expensive gear with the fear that, without said gear, other people might look down on us as if we are beginners.  Can’t really blame the bike industry though, the  big companies need to sell more stuff and tweaking and repackaging last year’s products and giving them rad new names is easier than real innovation, and selling the latest “toys” to the enthusiast is easier than bringing new people into bicycling. Now there is a plethora of smaller companies and frame builders and bloggers focusing more on the practical aspects of cycling and you see the big companies copying them. Which is not necessarily a bad thing except when the copies are cheap imitations that don’t really work that well.

Don't forget to smile!

Their is a tacit, maybe even an unknowing attempt to pigeonhole everybody who is on a bike into some category. There are 4 main ones. Road racer, gnarly mountain biker, fixed gear hipster, and everbody else. The last category includes people going to the bar on cruisers, homeless people on department store bikes, bikes that will live on the rear end of a motor home or in a garage and never be ridden and cyclo tourists.

Ever notice how in every publication or ad for bicycling the road rider is togged out and standing up on the pedals as if sprinting in the Roubaix velodrome and mountain bikers are always out of the saddle on a fast downhill track with the dust flying? In my neck of the woods, everybody seems to have guzzled that Kool-Aid.

Part of the problem (is there a problem, or is it just in my own head?) may be semantics. By calling bicycling a sport and bicycle riders “cyclists” there is some sort of elitism implied. And calling bicycles toys, as many people with very expensive bicycles do, relegates them to  special, occasional uses, at least mentally, and it becomes an event and a production to go on a simple bike ride. I like Ant Bike Mike’s tag line “Not sport…transport.” Sums it up nicely methinks. If we think of bicycles as tools…tools for traveling…tools for running errands and getting to work…and tools for exercising and having fun, maybe we will have a lighter load to carry?

Categories
Nutrition for the Bike Tourist

Paleo Diet, Gary Taubes and Cavepersons

The so-called paleo diet or caveman diet is a low carb high protein diet claimed by some to be a good way to lose weight. It has some proponents in the bicycling world too. One needs to be careful when considering extreme changes in their diet or just extremes in general. Bike touring is very demanding and your body is another piece of equipment you need to depend on. I was reading this thread on Bike Forums this morning. Try to ignore the name calling from the original poster and read the rest of the posts. Interesting stuff.

Gary Taubes is the latest proponent of a high protein low carb diet. From his blog: “My message and the message of Why We Get Fat was not that we should all be eating nothing but animal products–…… but that carbohydrate-rich foods are inherently fattening, some more so than others, and that those of us predisposed to put on fat do so because of the carbs in the diet“. (emphasis added). Mostly he is talking to obese or overweight people or people with that metabolic tendency  and it might be easy to see him as a person feeding on people’s desire for a quick and easy way to lose weight.

I wonder if anyone has personal experience with a high protein low carb diet and bike touring? We’d love to hear about it!

Wilma!!!!