A Historic Ride Through the Adventure Cycling Association
What can we say about Adventure Cycling that we haven’t said already? Before we started this trip, we didn’t even know about the small organization located in Missoula, Montana. Hell, we didn’t even know about bicycle touring! Our worries and fears about what to do were eliminated though, once we were showed the Adventure Cycling Association’s website. All we knew about the organization was that they had great maps, and their website was full of helpful information about bike touring. [...]
Race To Fat
We said our goodbyes to the amazing people of the National Speleological Society and hit the road once again, with no agenda other than having an amazing cross-country biking experience. AND THEN IT HAPPENED–we heard about Tour De Fat. Tour De Fat can best be described as “a bombastic bash of beer, bicycling, and, you know, like, bros being bros.” Ok, that last part was just for more B sounds. Gotta love alliteration, right? Repetitive B-sounding words aside, we knew [...]
1,000 and Counting
We can now say we’ll remember where we were when we crossed the 1,000 mile point. Although at the time we didn’t know it. “This is our first ferry ride!” Michelle exclaimed as we took the ferry across the Green River. It goes a total of 30 feet at about 3 miles an hour (it’s still fun going across, despite how short it is), but it was our first one! I was enjoying it. What I didn’t know however, [...]
Building The Jefferson Earthship
There was nothing really out of the ordinary when we contacted the Reents family in Jefferson, Colorado through warmshowers.org. We emailed them, they called back, and we set up the time and date that we could come through and stay at their house. They offered us whatever space they had, and we were grateful for anything they could provide on our stop between Fairplay and Denver. It wasn’t until we got a day from Jefferson that we learned they were [...]
A Mammoth Of A Good Time
Caves are dark. No, I’m serious. They’re dark. Imagine the darkest thing you’ve ever experienced (no, not Dick Cheney’s soul), and multiply that by 1,000. THAT’S how dark it is in an underground cave. We discovered this after we made some calls and headed into Mammoth Cave for the first time to interview Vicky Carson, head of PR for the Park. She was integral in helping us get some footage for our trip and helping us learn about the cave [...]
10 Things They Don’t Tell You About Bicycle Touring
1. Your feelings toward road kill will be drastically different on bicycle than they are in a car. Instead of a sympathetic “awwwww” when you see a dead cat, deer, or groundhog (lots of groundhogs in Virginia), you will nearly gag and not say anything. You won’t say anything, of course, because you are holding your breath for as long as you can while you pass the carcass on the road. It’s even worse when you can’t see the animal, [...]
Coal Country
The last thing I ever pictured myself doing on this bike trip would be operating a welding torch underneath a 23,000 pound coal truck in Belcher, Kentucky. Well it happened, and it was AWESOME. As many of you already know, I am an avid environmentalist. I love the outdoors and will do whatever it takes to protect and preserve it. When doing research before our trip, I had read a lot about the mountaintop removal mining operations taking place throughout [...]
A Piece of Hillbilly Paradise on Route 76
When Ryan and I first came up with the idea to bike across America, we had just returned from an adventurous hiking journey through the Corcovado National Park on the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica. National Geographic calls the Corcovado the most biologically intense place on Earth. It was nothing less than magnificent. We hiked through lush canopy jungle alongside pristine, white sand beaches. We encountered tapirs, white nose coatis, peccaries and a jaguarundi. It was the closest thing to [...]
Our Moment of Zen…
Well, It’s been a couple of weeks since we started our cross-country voyage, and after twelve days of cycling more than we ever have before, we can honestly say that it hurts. It hurts like the Emily Dickens. Maybe even the Charles Dickens. That being said, everything has been incredible so far. The people we’ve met, the places we’ve been, the scenery through which we’ve biked, and the food we’ve eaten have all been positive experiences that have really kept [...]
HOLY TOLEDO!
The Road Starts Here. The Road Starts Here from Ryan McAfee on Vimeo. The first time we had the idea to go across the country on bicycles, we were definitely not REALLY going to do it. We would get excited talking about all the possibilities of things we could shoot, the people we could meet, and the personal growth we could have. We talked about what kind of bikes we would get, what we would eat, whether or not we’d [...]
Countdown to Holy Toledo!
We are two friends always craving a new adventure and on June 8th, 2011 we’ll be attempting our biggest one yet– a journey across America by cycle. The ride will begin along the shores of the Chesapeake Bay in Yorktown, Virginia, and from there, we will pedal the 4,262 mile TransAmerica bicycle trail across 10 states, including Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Oregon, ending our journey, or maybe just the first chapter, on the Pacific [...]