bike touring
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I Really Don’t Know Clouds
I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now, from up and down, and still somehow it’s cloud illusions I recall. I really don’t know clouds at all. –Joni Mitchell I first listened to Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” when I was a teenager, and found it terrible. I had never imagined that a person could think about… Continue reading
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Bike Tourist Encounters
Since I started bike touring, I’ve trained myself to keep an eye open for others who might be on an adventure. Bike riders can blend into the landscape, but if you pay attention they will jump out at you. During the two weeks that Felkerino and I pedaled our bicycle around Colorado, we crossed paths… Continue reading
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10 Things I Learned on Our Colorado Bike Tour
Remember me? It’s been a few days, but I’m mostly free of my post bike tour fog and thought I’d rip off a quick top 10 list of what I learned on our tour. Continue reading
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CO Tour Day 11: Rollins Pass on Tandem
Felkerino called our day going over Rollins Pass an immersive experience. It’s definitely one of the most intense things I’ve done on a tandem. Continue reading
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Rollins Pass: You Can’t Always Get What You Want
But if you try sometimes You just might find You get what you need. –The Rolling Stones More to come. Continue reading
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CO Tour Day 10: Another Day, Another Mountain Pass in Colorado
The short story is this– 82 miles from Leadville to Winter Park. Our bike is still in one piece. Thanks to everyone who complimented our pure power and torque after the broken crankarm incident. This also provides solid evidence that Felkerino is indeed pedaling. Continue reading
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CO Tour Rest Day: Backwards Pedal and Crankarm Day
When we last saw our two intrepid bike tourists, they were stranded in Leadville with a broken crankarm… It was Leadville layover day and bike shop stop on our Colorado odyssey. Nervously we awaited the 10 a.m. opening of Cycles of Life to see if Brian could repair our broken crankarm. We watched him… Continue reading
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CO Tour Day 9: Las Cosas Se Arreglan: Cottonwood Pass and a Broken Crankarm
“Las cosas se arreglan. La gente no.” Things can be fixed. People can’t. Someone I used to work with told me that, after I had been in a fender bender. That phrase keeps running through my mind as I reflect on our day from Gunnison to Leadville, 105 miles via the big meandering Cottonwood Pass… Continue reading
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CO Tour Day 8: Creede to Gunnison: 106 Big Bicycling Miles
It still surprises me that Felkerino and I can ride a 200k brevet in 10 hours, but when we bike tour a century will take us 11 or more. Is there no escape from bike tour pace? It was a big day of riding, with the big climbs packed into the first half of our… Continue reading
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CO Tour Day 7: Wolf Creek Pass, I Think I Love You
As we began the steady ascent up Wolf Creek Pass, I wished that I had known about it years earlier. I wished that I had begun bike touring years earlier. If I had, then maybe I would have basked in the magnificence of this pass years ago. If only, if only. Continue reading
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CO Tour Day 6: Hot Hot Rollers to Pagosa Springs
Today’s 65 miles reminded me of riding in the Virginia Highlands, only with evergreens and a higher elevation. And more horses. And a dry heat. And the white hot sunshine with rare shade. Okay so it wasn’t alike in all ways. Continue reading
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CO Tour Day 5: Bike Tour Magic: 83 Miles from Ouray to Durango
Felkerino said that today is when the mountains embraced us. I said it was a day of bike tour magic. Part of the reason for that, of course, was the beautiful climbing on the Million Dollar Highway for the first 38 miles. We ascended from Ouray at 7,800 feet to over 10,000 feet and crossed… Continue reading
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CO Tour Day 4: Everything Weighs Something, Even Ambition: 100 Miles to Ouray
When bike touring, you become keenly aware of how much your stuff weighs. This weighs “x” amount. Do I really need to take it up every hill and mountain? If yes, the item goes on the bike. If no, set it aside. I am pleased with how Felkerino and I packed. The only potential surplus… Continue reading
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CO Tour Day 3: What Goes Up from Carbondale Must Come Down to Paonia
Greetings from Paonia! We wish you were here. Then the mosquitoes wouldn’t just be gnawing on Felkerino and me. Another great day on the bike, tempered with looming saddle sores. Haven’t had one of those in a few years so maybe it was time. I blame Trail Ridge. This day, which was essentially a 30-mile… Continue reading
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CO Tour Day 2: 90 Miles From Kremmling to Carbondale
Riding through the big mountains of the west can be so cathartic. Their presence envelops me and I become– no, I realize– that I am so small. Felkerino’s and my efforts to clamber over the mountains is almost laughable. We take so long to go up and over their every bump that I suspect we… Continue reading
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CO Tour Day 1: Facing My Inner Fraidy Cat: 150 Miles From Boulder to Kremmling
Nothing kicks off a bike tour like a 150-mile day that includes a front-loaded first half climb fest, including the ever-daunting Trail Ridge Road. Last year Felkerino and I climbed Trail Ridge while I howled like a kitten that climbed too high into a tree and needed rescue. I hated that feeling and vowed that… Continue reading
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Get Out The Map: Bike Tour Prep
Get out the map get out the map and lay your finger anywhere down We’ll leave the figuring to those we pass on our way out of town — Indigo Girls, Get Out The Map This Indigo Girls song reminds me of long gone days wedded to the school calendar as it simultaneously urges me to… Continue reading
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Lessons Learned From My First Tandem Bicycle Tour
This week I had the opportunity to reflect on my very first tandem bike tour with Felkerino, an eight-day, 775-mile excursion from Rockville, Maryland, to Niagara Falls. I wrote about our 2005 tour experience on The Bicycle Story (an excellent blog, and not just because I have a guest post on it). You can see… Continue reading
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On Writing & Riding: gypsy by trade
Your bicycle can take you to faraway places, if you let it. It can take you out of the familiar city into terrain you’ve only heard about and maybe only previously considered in an abstract way on some map you saw once That’s what I think about when I read Nicholas’s writing about his and… Continue reading
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2013 in Review: Bike Rides (Mostly) and Photos
I’m back with the second part of my year-end post, a month-by-month set of photos. For nine of the 12 months I feature one photo that best represented the month, but three months warranted more than one. As this is a personal glimpse at how I saw the 12 months of 2013, all photos that follow… Continue reading
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From the Captain’s Perspective: Our Colorado Tandem Tour
This week it’s all happening on The Daily Randonneur. Felkerino breaks down our recent Colorado tour by day and also discusses how our tour took shape. He includes links to our GPS files that show the routes we followed each day. I know some of you had asked about the exact location and routes, and you… Continue reading
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Final Day: Oh My God Road and a Rainstorm
We were loathe for our scenic week in Colorado to be at an end, so when we met a cyclist at the top of Loveland Pass who recommended we route back via Oh My God Road rather than suburban roads we were intrigued and routed our 72-mile return from Georgetown to Boulder accordingly. Continue reading
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Fremont and Loveland Passes: From 58 Miles Per Hour to Carnivorous Flies
Rain falls steadily in Georgetown, Colorado, as I write. It feels lovely to be clean and dry in a hotel room after a sweaty warm day of 71 miles out in the sun. After a tasty coffee in Leadville, Felkerino and I warmed up the legs with a steady climb up Fremont Pass, which tops… Continue reading
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100 Miles: Cottonwood Pass to Leadville
Yesterday’s ride was an excellent reminder that not all centuries are created equal. It was also the first day where I settled into “tour mode,” where I did not worry about the miles or how often we stopped. I was just in the present moment. Continue reading
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Kebler Pass: 10,000 Feet High with Neil Diamond
I loved listening to Neil Diamond when I was little. My parents owned Tap Root Manuscript, which I was pretty certain was a kid’s album. In early elementary school my musical tastes changed and that Neil Diamond album began to collect dust. This morning I had the chance to make up for decades of not… Continue reading
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This Bike Fueled by Eggs and Espresso: McClure Pass
I’m glad I wrote those sentimental notes about how wonderful tandeming with my partner can be, as I had to remind myself of them this morning. I woke up famished with only the thought of scrambled eggs and breakfast in my mind. Felkerino, on the other hand, awakened to an equally powerful urge for espresso.… Continue reading
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When the Ride is the Destination: Following the Colorado River
At its core, today’s ride was a 90-mile tour of several roads flanking the Colorado River in the hills between Kremmling and Glenwood Springs. Continue reading
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Trail Ridge Road on Tandem
There’s nothing that kicks off a bike tour better than riding the highest continuous paved road in the United States. Continue reading
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All the King’s Horses, and All the King’s Men: Co-Motion Reassembly
I’m happy to report our tandem reassembly did not end like the tale of Humpty Dumpty. It took some time, but our tandem arrived safely in Boulder, Colorado, and is now a big bike again. It helped that we are staying with cycling friends who have a spacious back porch to spread out the coupler… Continue reading
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Having a Breakdown (of the S&S Coupler Kind)
Felkerino and I made one airplane trip on a non-coupled tandem bike, and found it to be a big pain in the patootie. Because of that, we made sure our Co-Motion tandem had S&S Coupling (couplers) to facilitate the transport of our bike through airports. The couplers (visible in the photo above) allow our bike… Continue reading
Chasing MailBoxes 