While the Bike Hermit is exploring Texas and Louisiana, he is journaling on Crazy Guy on A Bike. Here are a few photos and the link to his Journal
Tag: Lifestyle
The Bike touring lifestyle, living on the road when bike riding.
At NAHBS in Austin we met Russ Roca and Laura Crawford, the couple behind The Path Less Pedaled and The Epicurean Cyclist
They are in the middle of an “open ended journey” and they are doing it on bicycles. When we saw them they had their Brompton folding bikes with them preparing to ride the Adventure Cycling Northern Tier route. I wish them luck and will be following their adventures.
“…now the sky is gettin’ light
everything will be alright
I think I finally got the knack
just floatin’ and lazin’ on my back
I never really liked that town
think I’ll ride the river down
just movin’ slow and floatin’ free
this river swingin’ under me
wavin’ back to folks on shore
I should have thought of this before
I’m goin’ on down to New Orleans
pick up on some swingin’ scenes
I know I’ll know a better day
goin’ down groovin’ all the way…”
Micky Dolenz, “Goin’ Down”
Yep, the bike hermit is goin’ on down to New Orleans. Since we are going to be in Austin for the North American Handmade Bicycle Show in February, I started to think about ways to take advantage of being in the south while Idaho emerges from the cold, wet winter months. That thinking has evolved into a bicycle tour from Austin to New Orleans. I will load Chief and journey out on section 5 of the Adventure Cycling Association‘s Southern Tier Route, from Navasota, TX to St. Francisville, LA., and from there down to the Big Easy. Since I am self-absorbed and delusional enough to think people I don’t even know might be interested, I have decided to document my daily planning and preparation tasks, the ride, the trip home and any epilogues.
A simple Google search will uncover a plethora of web pages with itemized lists of what other people take on a bicycle tour , and I think those lists are boring. So I won’t be doing that. Some people have created spreadsheets to plan their itineraries and to document the daily mileage, weather, lodging, food and probably bowel movements. I’m not going to do that either. I want to speak in more general terms about the process of conceiving, planning and executing this bike touring trip as I figure it out. About things that I find out and discover as I explore how to get from here to there by bicycle. The whole concept to me is about freedom. I’m free to ride my bike all day if I want. Indeed, I’m free to ride all night if I feel like it. I’m free to stop whenever and wherever I want. I can go as fast or as slow as I want. All this freedom within limits of course. I do need to complete the ride and come home on the designated day. But everything in between getting on the bike in Austin and getting off in New Orleans is going to unfold as it will. I am literally just along for the ride. And the beer.
Categories
“Sudden” Insights
I wonder if my experience is that much different from other bicyclers’. Some of the time, or most of the time, after I have been out on my bicycle for a while, and usually when I am by myself, I will have an insight or a solution to a particular problem or situation which I am not even specifically thinking about at the time, but which I have been working on in everyday life. I recently came across a description of how this “eureka” moment comes about.
The Most Powerful Idea In The World is a book written by William Rosen and ostensibly about the Industrial Revolution, and the steam engine, but it’s just as much about invention and creativity and how insights to a problem can suddenly occur when the creator is not even “working” on the problem.
According to Rosen, people who study this sort of thing sometimes use “chaos theory to describe how neurons fire together. When a single neuron chemically fires it’s electrical charge, and causes it’s neighbors to do the same, the random electrical activity that is always present in the human brain can result in a “neuronal avalanche” within the brain”.
Most of this activity takes place in a part of the brain to which the blood flow is inhibited by most “normal” brain activity, i.e. the type of activity associated with everyday tasks such as (at least in modern day life) paying the power bill, going to the grocery store, and holding down a job. In short, survival. Likewise, early Homo Sapiens would not have had the luxury of being able to spend a lot of time daydreaming about new ways to start a fire.
Therefore, the human brain still does it’s best creative thinking when there is a sense of security or safety and relaxation. That might be why the Greek dude who ran down the street naked shouting “eureka” was relaxing in the bathtub when he had his insight. 
I thought this was an interesting description of a phenomenon I have always noticed to some degree when I’m riding my bike. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I will go do just that! (ride my bike that is..not run down the street naked)
Categories
A Beginners Guide To Bike Touring
| The Bike Hermit didn’t write this but he thinks it’s funny. Actually, this was posted on the Touring pages of bikeforums dot net
Easy to get lost for hours on those pages. Don’t forget to come back! A Beginners Guide to Cycle Touring: How to prepare |
| Step 1: Get a spagetti-strainer and several small sponges. Soak the sponges in salt-water and paste them to the inside of the spagetti-strainer. Place the strainer on your head. Find a busy road. Stand by the side of the road and do deep knee-bends for 8 hours. This will acclimatize you to a day’s ride. Step 2: Take some 200-grit sandpaper and rub your rear-end and the insides of your legs for about 20 minutes. Rinse with salt-water. Repeat. Then, sit on a softball for 8 hours. Do this daily for at least 8 days. Step 3: Each day, take two twenty-dollar bills and tear them into small pieces. Place the pieces on a dinner-plate, douse them with lighter fluid and burn them. Inhale the smoke (simulating car-fumes). Rub the ashes on your face. Then go to the local motel and ask them for a room. Step 4: Take a 1-quart plastic bottle. Fill it from the utility sink of a local Step 5: Get some of those Dutch wooden-shoes. Coat the bottoms with 90-W Step 6: Think of a song from the 1980’s that you really hated. Buy the CD and play 20 seconds of that song over and over and over for about 6 hours. Do more deep knee-bends Step 11: Headwinds training: Buy a huge map of the entire country. Spread it in front of you. Have a friend hold a hair-dryer in your face. Stick your feet in |
Useful tips for anyone planning a bicycle tour, trip, journey, expedition, whatever
you label it. Hope you have enjoyed this page.
Those who know me know the bike hermit is a beer drinker with a cycling problem. But I think that is a common thread. It appears that many fellow riders appreciate a barley sandwich or two at the end of a riding day. Or any day. So I thought I would post these videos of me making a batch of homebrew.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJlm7oFQf18
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZwVCM1OCJw
Categories
Bike Touring News
This is it! After a couple of false starts and lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth, the Bike Touring News site is finally officially off the ground! Just like any tour we have no idea exactly where this will lead or how it will end up but the direction is clear:
Providing inspiration, ideas, practical and technical tips, equipment reviews, reader contributions and comments, and whatever else we can think of to make this site a single source to help people sort out the ever increasing and ever more confusing ways to travel by bicycle.
Bike touring means different things to different people. In the context of this site, there will be a loose interpretation. A “micro-tour” (a term coined by Pondero) might be taking an hour and a half to ride to a secluded spot 4 miles from home, brew some tea, and ride home. A trip out to the local state park with a picnic lunch loaded in the front basket qualifies as a tour. The S24O or sub-24-hour ride is an overnight bike camping routine popularized recently by Rivendell Bicycle Works founder Grant Petersen. The supported, organized tours and charity rides can be a lot of fun. Then, of course, there is the multiple day trip on a fully loaded bike…probably the image that comes to mind most often.
So there is a lot of ground to cover. We’ve planned our route, we’ve done our training, and we have our gear stowed. Now we’re grabbing the handlebars, hitting the road and looking forward to whatever happens!