Bornholm: a large Danish island in the middle of the Black Sea, reached by ferry from Sweden, Germany, or Poland. It’s relaxing, lush, pastoral… and some might even say a little boring. I love it– there are smokehouse for fish (optionally served with an egg yolks), a few cute towns, breweries, ice cream, beaches and forests… and most notably for this blog: ~230km of interconnected cycle trails around and through the island. ...
Water and birdsound, stopped trailside on Bornholm (longer writeup of this island cycling trip coming soon):
Every bike tour is a learning experience, in many ways… and part of that is keeping track of what I packed but didn’t use vs. what I’d wished I’d packed. A few friends have asked for a copy of my packing list, and before a trip I’m always looking for my random notebook of “ideas for next time”, so I’m jotting down a few of my lists here: Universal “On The Bike” List Light Packing List (Self-Supported + Hotels) Moderate Packing List (Vehicle-Supported + Hotels) [todo] Moderate Packing List #2 (Self-Supported + Camping) [todo] Heavier Packing List (Vehicle-Supported + Camping)
Morgan Territory Road was one of my favorite Bay Area roads four years ago (see that post for more details), and a few weeks ago a group of us finally made it back. The ascent and descent on windy one-lane roads with minimal traffic were even better than I remembered (riding on a cool day helped): This time, for variety, I charted a new route (44mi, 2800’ climbing) with a more roundabout intro/outro, picking up a range of paved and gravel trails through various parks, to take us off the busy + boring suburban roads. This probably added at least an extra hour (partly due to riding slow on multi-use trails with more pedestrians and dogs) but I felt they were a great addition. A few examples: ...
I’ve done variants on a 30-mile vineyard and trails loop in Livermore a few times over the years. One of those years we biked past Wente and up to the South end of Arroyo Road, and could see gravel trails stretching off along Lake Del Valle– but the gravel was too steep and loose and we turned around. I’ve always wanted to go back with some wider tires and see how practical (and fun) it is to ride gravel along Del Valle, connecting Arroyo road to Mines road… ...
This tumblr’s one of the things I gave up on during Covid, but I’ve gone on some interesting new rides in the past year especially so I’m going to upload some maps + photos in the next month or so… edit: I’ve now posted recaps of my favorite rides from the past two years, mostly back-dated to the month they happened in, you can scroll back through the blog to see them. A few highlights include: ...
(retroactively writing up a quick summary, months later…) I’ve dreamed about doing some sort of week+ off-road bike tour somewhere in the world. While I enjoy solo DIY exploration and have many great memories of going somewhere and figuring it out on the fly, my gravel touring experience is limited and I’ve never even really been mountain biking (at least, farther than a few miles), so perhaps it would be easier and more fun to join an organized tour… ...
I never really got into “mountain biking”, because for years I associated it with going fast on rough terrain and dodging obstacles, while I like to ramble and mosey and stop a lot. I also like rides where I can walk out my door (or hop off a train or plane) and get on the bike without having to drive somewhere. I realize my impressions were a narrow caricature of what mountain biking can be, though, and I’ve always enjoyed the bits of off-roading that sneak into rides– the last mile of dirt getting to a camp site from the road, strange muddy paths I find myself on when trying to bypass roads, or detours through parks to avoid main roads, and even when “road biking” I generally run 32mm+ tires to give myself more comfort and flexibility for unexpected detours. ...
The Whitefish Trail, part of an 8-mile mostly singletrack route I took between the Whitefish Bike Retreat (excellent camping/hostel basecamp for local gravel and bikepacking exploration) and downtown Whitefish. I’m new to mountain biking and singletrack so I took it slow…
Ten years ago I’d go on a 70 or 80 mile ride to Santa Rosa for a beer at Russian River Brewing… but I’m not feeling anywhere near that strong these days. But I’d been musing for a while about some sort of Russian River area ride on some bike paths I’d wanted to scope out, assisted by the newer Marin/Sonoma SMART train. One transit-heavy way to do this could be to take BART to El Cerrito del Norte, change to Golden Gate Transit bus #40 from that station to the San Rafael Transit Center, and hop on the SMART train there… but there are some timing logistics to make work: ...