No other form of travel can quite beat the joys of cycling.
Diane Daniel | Sept/Oct 2009 issue
In western Montana in August, crickets leap from heat-radiating roadways, bounding up from the pavement and brushing your legs. In Indonesia, boys will race you through their villages. Along the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina in July, the scent of skunk hovers in the air. If you’re blasting downhill, the potent perfume lasts but a second. But pedaling uphill at, say, four miles an hour, the smell lingers in your nostrils.
I’ve traveled by foot, car, plane, train, boat and on horseback, but nothing comes close to connecting me to places and people the way bicycling does. Whether I’m alone, with friends, on organized vacation tours, with charity events or with bicycle club outings, biking is usually how I want to spend my free time. I’ve cycled most of the eastern U.S., some western states, several European countries, Indonesia and Argentina. That still leaves a lot of territory. I’ve ridden on paved bike trails, gravel roads, city thoroughfares, cobblestone streets (not advised) and even an interstate highway (yes, it was legal). Every outing is an adventure, whether it’s a three-hour ride near my home or a two-week cycling and camping tour.
If you don’t ride much, or at all, you might mistake me for hard core. But it’s all relative. Plenty of men and woman have logged many more miles and back-to-back days than I have. I didn’t learn to ride a bike until I was 10. I was afraid to cycle on roads with cars until I was in my 30s, when I finally learned how to switch gears on my 21-gear hybrid. Yes, I can fix a flat tire, but only by reading the directions, and it takes me forever.
One of the wondrous things about cycling is that it’s a great equalizer. You can be on a junkyard beater, a three-wheeler with a granny seat or a high-performance racing bike and you’re still cycling. You’re still going places, seeing the smallest of sights, smelling the faintest of smells, hearing the most distant of sounds. I’m not knocking road trips by car; I love those, too. But from my car, I’m often thinking, I wish I were on two wheels, outside.
As recently as the 1980s, cycling in the U.S. was viewed as mostly for kids living on cul-de-sacs. The advent of group rides, especially charity rides, changed that in the 1990s. Almost every year, I set aside time to take large and small rides, starting with vacation tour outfitters that do everything for you. One friend, Alice, opened my eyes to the world of bike touring, wherein you carry your overnight gear on the bike. In her case, it means camping and even cooking, though some more luxury-inclined cyclists stay in hotels and eat out. I’ve since done it Alice’s way several times, sometimes with children along. On one of Alice’s “family tours” with friends, we had a show-stopping “quad,” or bicycle for four, in our group. While Alice and many of her bike buddies have completed a “Trans-Am”—a ride across the country—my longest tour was 12 days. That’s enough for me, for now.
Touring does take some training. But the reward, and it’s major, is a fully self-contained outing, which lets you soak up everything the universe offers and think only about routes, weather, food, water and shelter. That’s about as “sustainable” as travel can get. I met my lifetime cycling partner in 2003: my husband. As soon as I learned he was Dutch, we were talking bicycling. Every Dutch person has, and rides, a bicycle at some point, often for life. Our most spectacular bike trip so far was last’s year tour around Lofoten, above the Arctic Circle in Norway.
In 2005, I blissfully joined the world’s oldest and largest organized bicycle tour: the week-long Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI, pronounced “RAG-bry”), started by two columnists at the Des Moines Register in 1973 who’ve proved Iowa isn’t all flat. While organizers offer 8,500 official slots, anywhere from 3,000 to 7,000 more cyclists jump onto the tour unofficially. Sixty percent of people on RAGBRAI come from beyond Iowa, representing all 50 U.S. states and close to 20 countries. The event is a bit of a zoo, but the fellowship and revelry among folks on two wheels (or one, or three) and the local townspeople who host them is magical and moving. And there’s never a lack of bathroom facilities. A pit stop is but a cornfield away.
Diane Daniel is a globe-trotting writer who aims to preserve community and the environment. bydianedaniel.com
Fancy a spin?
Check out these cycling groups.
Commercial bicycle tour operators are plentiful. I’ve used several, and was pleased with them all. But compared with self-supported or no-frills trips, they’re pricey and less environmentally friendly. They typically include more food than an average human can eat, non-green lodging and the use of support vehicles, which often traverse the route several times. My favorite bicycling groups:
Adventure Cycling Association
Founded in 1974 as Bikecentennial, a ride across the country in honor of the nation’s 200th birthday, Adventure Cycling is America’s leading touring association. It publishes a series of route maps and organizes many trips a year, including some with luggage support and lodging.
The Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa
Everything you want to know about RAGBRAI, the oldest and largest touring bicycle ride in the world (in Iowa) is here. RAGBRAI also has inspired dozens of states to start their own bike tours.
International Bicycle Fund
Based in Seattle, Washington, the International Bicycle Fund covers many topics, including rural mobility, urban planning, safety education, energy conservation and responsible tourism. For travelers, it offers affordable and fascinating “cultural immersion” bike tours in the Americas, Asia and Africa.
European Cyclists’ Federation
Founded in 1983, the ECF represents 60 member organizations in 37 countries to promote and encourage cycling and cycling tourism in Europe and beyond. Its website contains links to bike routes throughout the Continent.
Sustrans
Sustrans, formed in 1977, is the U.K.’s leading sustainable transport non-profit, working to promote transportation that benefits people’s health and the environment. It started the National Cycle Network, an ever-growing network of bicycle routes throughout the U.K.
Dutch National Cycling Platform
The good news is that the Stichting Landelijk Fietsplatform manages a signposted network of cycling routes (many on dedicated paths) throughout the Netherlands, arguably the world’s most bike-friendly country. The bad news for most of us is that the dozens of touring maps it publishes are in Dutch.
