With fall underway and winter just around the corner, many cyclists (myself included) are looking forward to sunshine in the not-so-distant coming year. You don?t have to wait until next summer to live out your warm-weather cycling dreams -- Adventure Cycling offers several early-spring spins in the sunny Southwest, including week-long van-supported and fully-supported tours in California, Arizona, and Texas, as well as the now classic Southern Tier van-supported tour. These trips offer an opportunity to escape the wintertime blues and pedal in warmer weather, witness the bloom of spring flowers and cacti, and explore the storied towns of the Wild West.If you?re looking for a cycling vacation this coming spring, saddle up for one of these early Adventure Cycling tours:
ON THE ROAD is written by the tours team -- Mo, Paul, Madeline, and Arlen -- tours specialists and intrepid bicyclists, covering all things related to Adventure Cycling's tours Department. Check out our 2012 Tours!
Bicycle travel is growing in the U.S. While it's still considered a cycling niche, bicycle touring is slowly edging its way into view of the mainstream with growing participation, growing support and infrastructure for the activity, and a growing economic impact.Growing Scene. In the U.S., bicycle travel has always fostered a super fun culture, and not always spandex clad!
In the last few years, we've seen the bicycle-touring scene expand and its subculture evolve and grow. Now, we get hundreds of emails from inspired cyclists planning to cross the country, or undertake a cycling adventure, who plan to produce some kind of a documentary piece capturing the spirit of their journey: Sometimes that means something literary, or a photo-essay, but very often they are documenting their journey with video.Blanche van der Meer has cultivated a growing community of videographers interested in sharing their bicycle-touring video projects. Her Vimeo group, WorldCycle Videos now boasts more than 1,600 videos! She is also the co-coordinator of our first Bicycle Travel Video Contest. Here's her recent bicycle-travel video from her summer tour in Ukraine.
This fall, Michelle Cassel and Ryan MacAfee of America ByCycle are cycling the Pacific Coast Bicycle Route and you can follow their trip by tuning into the website series they are producing from the road. Watch the first two episodes below!
As we've reported the last few years, fundraising rides such as Climate Ride, Bike & Build, and the Jett Ride are growing, with thousands of college students and others crossing the country (or part of it) each summer. Event rides and guided cycling tours have grown too, and more and more regional and state tourism organizations are taking notice and promoting their areas' cycling opportunities, and we're not just talking about printing a bunch of "we're bike friendly" pamphlets!For example, check out this inspiring video about The Old West Scenic Bikeway produced by Russ Roca and Laura Crawford of Path Less Pedaled for Travel Oregon. According to a story on BikePortland, "Kristin Dahl, senior manager of destination development for Travel Oregon, said they plan to do a similar video for each of the nine officially designated scenic bikeway routes and they'll be rolled out next spring." Growing Support. Adventure Cycling Association's mission is to inspire and empower people to travel by bicycle. In the last four years, we've enjoyed amazing support from our members and donors for that mission, seeing phenomenal growth in donations, tour participants, map sales, and visiting cyclists. We've also enjoyed enthusiastic support from cycling businesses that believe in the work we do. They've supported our programs such as the Adventure Cycling Route Network, the emerging U.S. Bicycle Route System, and BikeOvernights.org, which provides resources and inspiration for 1-2 night adventures, and much more.
I met up with several of our business supporters at Interbike this year to thank them and to talk with them a bit about why they offer support. I spoke with many industry supporters including QBP Sales and Marketing Director Jason Gaikowski, Primal Wear President Dave Edwards, Jay Ferm, advocacy director for Planet Bike, and Michael Gilstrap, president of Walz Caps. These companies are very committed to cyclists and to improving conditions for cycling. Here's a quick video playlist from Interbike in which they tell why. It's so inspiring to see the cycling industry's commitment to bicycle travel!
Growing Sales & Economic Impact. Of course, more cyclists mean more sales, and meals, and ice cream consumed! And from product sales to tourism dollars, bicycle travel is impacting the economy, particularly at the local and state level. Ginny Sullivan reported at length last week about the economic impact of bicycle travel in Europe and shared a great infographic displaying the impact in the U.S. from Bicycling Means Business (pdf), the League of American Bicyclists' recent report.
Of course for us, some of the best proof is that each year we're greeting more and more amazing visiting cyclists at our headquarters in Missoula, MT!
Photo from ddsiple on Flickr, taken by Ron McClure. --NEWS, NETWORKING, AND NEW MEDIA is posted by Winona Bateman, Adventure Cycling's media director, and highlights cool media (articles, videos, photos, etc.) and meet-ups related to Adventure Cycling and bicycle travel. Writing a story about bicycle travel or Adventure Cycling Association? You can contact Winona via email: pressATadventurecyclingDOTorg. Visit our media room, view our news releases, or follow us on Twitter.
This guy is awesome. His feats are amazing. But if I start training tomorrow, I think I can challenge his records when I qualify in the year 2050.
French cyclist Robert Marchand, age 100, last week rode his bicycle on a track for 100 kilometers in 4 hours, 17 minutes and 27 seconds. That works out to about 14.3 mph, which is decent. Because there's no 100K record on the books for his age group, the Union Cycliste Internationale said it will recognize Marchand's feat. The over-100 category was created in February ...
In 1992 Chris Boardman announced himself to the world of cycling by winning the 4km Pursuit in Barcelona (the ?rst British Gold medal for 72 years) and simultaneously inspiring the next generation of great British cyclists. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Chris’s success on the track Boardman Bikes has created the Elite Series TK/20 in a Limited Edition [...]
Sarah and Josh Like Bikes. This power couple used to grace Adventure Cycling regularly as they were employees here. But this summer we only got to see them for a few hours when they stopped in the office on their ride down the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route.
Following their blog, we know that they're on the homestretch, the last state: New Mexico. Josh and Sarah's big adventure has been so inspiring to us all at Adventure Cycling. One minute, they were sitting at their desks next to us, participating in a debate about whether burritos or burgers would be better for lunch. The next minute they were off exploring this wild country by the power of their bicycles and their hunger for adventure.Can't wait to hear about their spectacular adventure when they get home!
Now, to step it up a bit, please turn to page 29.
Jay Petervary Likes Bikes. Jay Petervary likes going far and fast on bikes. On page 29 of our Cyclosource, Jay is pictured with his wife, Tracey, on their tandem on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. But on his last bout with the Great Divide, Jay was solo.On September 11, Jay set an amazingly fast record for the Great Divide by finishing 15 days, 16 hours and 4 minutes after starting. Reading his trip report, I was shocked by many things about his feat, but mostly I was taken aback by this sleep schedule.
"I paid close attention to my sleep pattern so that I could concentrate on a best time. I went into it saying I would sleep 4 hours a night. I actually slept anywhere from 2.5 to 4.5 hours a night, usually on the lower end of that spectrum. And in the last few days I would not even set up to bivy, rather I would ride until I would fall asleep and lay down next to my bike in my rain gear until I got cold, woke up and continued on. Sometimes this would be 3 or 4 times throughout the night and for how long I slept each time I have no idea. Could have been 10 minutes, could have been an hour, but I doubt it was that long. Before you knew it, it was morning with the sun coming up."
As a girl who loves her sleep, it's now certain that I'll never attempt the Great Divide speed record. The determination it takes to set a record like that is admirable. Strong work, Jay! Josh and Sarah let us know that they saw Jay on the route, focused as ever. It's nice to know that the Adventure Cycling world (models and all) are making connections out there.Cover photo is by Dennis Coello. The photo of Sarah and Josh was taken by Aaron Teasdale. The photo of Jay and Tracey was taken by Aaron Teasdale. --
Choosing a restaurant fro I in our alphabetical culinary quest was not easy. There were of course plenty of calls for India, a strong shout went out for Israel and with the current Nordic trend in cuisine many thought we...
The 9-Day, 1,245.9-kilometer (774+ mile) 75th edition of the Tour de Suisse is now in the record books. Traveling through some truly beautiful country, great old cities, serious alpine climbs, 3 countries, and numerous tricky switchbacks and tight turns, Team RadioShack?s members had not been setting many headlines. Sure there were some excellent performances, Andreas [...]
Adventure Cycling's 2012 Share the Joy program gave away some fantastic prizes this summer! Keep sharing Adventure Cycling with your friends and family for more chances to win. Here are some of our recent monthly winners. Congratulations everyone!Peter Dague, a 3-year member from Columbus, Ohio, was our June winner. Peter won an Ortlieb Touring Pannier Set. Our July winner, Gillian Yoerg, a 3-year member from Northfield, Minnesota, won a Sherpa Rear Rack from Old Man Mountain. William Mullen, a 12-year member from Lunenburg, Massachusetts, was our August winner and won a White Rock Rear Rack, also from Old Man Mountain.There are only a few months left to get in on the 2012 prizes, so start browsing through your address book and your bike club's membership roster. Get your friends and fellow riders excited about Adventure Cycling and you could win. Our grand prize for 2012 is a Rapid 1 bicycle from Giant, valued at $1250 (the winner will be randomly drawn from all entries). Visit the contest page to learn about all of the ways that you can get entered to win!
All of our prizes are generously donated by these businesses because they believe in the mission of Adventure Cycling and support the work we do. Please consider supporting these great sponsors as you pedal through the 2012 touring season. Many of the brands can be found in the Adventure Cycling Cyclosource store.--MEMBERSHIP HIGHLIGHTS is typically posted every other Friday by Amy Corbin, Membership and Marketing Coordinator. Membership Highlights spotlights the various benefits of membership,our accomplishments thanks to member support, and even interviews with some of our most passionate and dedicated members, both individual and organizational.