Touring on Velodromedary

Another quick vignette video from cycling across Southern India (on a supported tour, with a group of friendly strangers). We'd...

Sat, 02 May 2026 12:16:27 +0000

Another quick vignette video from cycling across Southern India (on a supported tour, with a group of friendly strangers). We’d gradually ascended the Western Ghats mountain range over the previous few days… then descended the other side on a single beautiful, curvy, 20km-long downhill. I recorded the whole descent, but clipped out about 90 seconds that capture the vibe:

Cycling India: Tea Country. After getting back from six weeks of bike touring, I'm trying something new and making a few quick...

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 19:50:36 +0000

Cycling India: Tea Country. After getting back from six weeks of bike touring, I’m trying something new and making a few quick highlight videos with footage I recorded. This is the first one.

And… here I am, riding my bike in the heat and humidity of Kerala, India. I’ve posted a few updates across fragmented islands of...

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 13:43:17 +0000

And… here I am, riding my bike in the heat and humidity of Kerala, India.

I’ve posted a few updates across fragmented islands of social media like Instagram / Strava, or group texts… but plenty of folks I know don’t use those sites. So I’m looking into posting updates here to link back to (though it’s not quite as easy on my phone while traveling). I’ll at least post a summary here later, after the tour, as usual.

Cycling Eastern Slovenia & Croatia, 2024

Fri, 09 Aug 2024 03:25:00 +0000

A few years back I met a friend who lives in Berlin and we spent a week biking to Copenhagen. It turns out we had compatible cycle touring styles, and said “let’s do this again some time… especially if I’m ever somewhere in Europe within a reasonable take-your-bike-on-the-train distance from Germany". Other vacation plans brought me to Slovenia, so we schemed up a week of self-supported cycling in Slovenia and a bit of Croatia, on a mix of paved and gravel roads.

Riding the length of Japan, 2023 (teaser)

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 17:25:00 +0000

(this is a short recap post with some photos, perhaps some day I’ll come back and write more when I have the space to fully wrap my head around what just happened)

Ever since I first visited Japan, one of my dreams has been to do a long-distance bicycle tour there, with a focus on rural areas (as well as the food, history, craftsmanship, and culture). “Some day, life’s too busy… maybe when I’m 65…”– but after a career change, I made it happen this year. It was one of the most memorable trips of my life.

Cycling South Korea, 2023

Wed, 17 May 2023 01:50:00 +0000

(This is a placeholder writeup with a few photos, perhaps I’ll come back some day and flesh it out…)

I spent a week cycling the length of Korea (~400 miles from Seoul to Busan), as a fully supported** ride with an organized tour group and about 20 strangers (though a few I’d met on a bike tour in Vietnam the previous year). By the end I felt exhilarated, challenged, stimulated, and full of great food.

Biking Eastern Taiwan, 2023

Sat, 22 Apr 2023 07:08:38 +0000

I’d heard over the years that Taiwan’s East Coast is beautiful and a popular place to cycle, and that you can rent bikes at one Giant store and return them at another, making a one way rental bike tour reasonable.

I’d never quite found the excuse + motivation to plan a trip there, so had that filed away in the “some day” mental list. Then a few months ago a friend reached out saying he wanted to bike in Taiwan and would I be interested? I said yes, and before I knew it we were riding twisty roads down gorgeous Taroko gorge after gorging on breakfast dumplings…

Self-Supported Berlin -> Copenhagen

Wed, 22 Mar 2023 22:58:29 +0000

Last summer (2022) I biked from ~Berlin to Copenhagen with a friend. A week of gorgeous riding on pavement and some dirt, carrying all our gear but staying in hotels to avoid the need for camping equipment, through a mix of rural landscapes, quaint towns, and cities.

It started with flying into Berlin, checking my boxed bike and a lightweight duffel bag that just held two panniers of gear. I reassembled the bike in a train station in the city, hooked my panniers onto it, wadded up the duffel bag in the bottom of one of the panniers, and rode away…

Bike Touring Stretches

Sun, 18 Dec 2022 17:59:00 +0000

I’m not as young as I used to be. Stretching before and after a long ride (especially on tours where I’m riding day after day after day) makes an especially big difference now.

Notes to self: Here’s the ideal set of stretches I’ve settled on, with the (*) ones being the ones I prioritize if I’m feeling tight on time:

Child’s pose
* Cat Cow
Down Dog
Pec stretch doorway
* Eagle Arms
Clasp hands behind back
Arm circles
* Hip flexor (heel held to butt, knee pointing down)

Cycling Vietnam + Cambodia, 2022 (teaser)

Fri, 02 Dec 2022 18:58:00 +0000

(a brief recap, perhaps to come back to with more detail some day)

I’ve wanted to push myself farther out of my bike touring comfort zone, in terms of traveling in a culture very different from home, and for long enough and at a slow enough pace that I start to pick up on the rhythms on daily life. I dove in to a four-week tour through Vietnam and Cambodia…

DC -> Pittsburgh on car-free trails, 2022 (C&O/GAP)

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 21:46:52 +0000

For years I’ve daydreamed about biking from DC to Pittsburgh on mostly car-free dirt trails, on a ~330 mile winding route that combines the C&O Canal Trail (a dirt trail formerly used by mules to pull cargo barges along the C&O canal in the 1800s, a transportation method that eventually lost to the railroad, and was nearly converted to roads before being preserved as a park in the 1970s) and the Great Allegheny Passage (a combination of rail trails integrated and completed in 2013).

Bornholm: Island Life + Cycling

Sat, 25 Jun 2022 00:49:00 +0000

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.

Hayduke Option - MTB Touring in Southern Utah

Thu, 14 Oct 2021 01:35:00 +0000

(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…

Montana gravel bike camping + GDMBR (5 days)

Sat, 14 Aug 2021 07:31:00 +0000

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.

Bike touring Iowa + Wisconsin

Mon, 04 Aug 2014 06:30:00 +0000

I’m back from a euphoria-inducing 8-day, 600-mile bike camping tour across Iowa and Wisconsin.

The ride combined RAGBRAI (a 15,000-person group ride across Iowa with pork chops, pie, live music, and beer in tiny towns along the way) and a solo ride across beautiful, rural Southwest Wisconsin.

The mix of mostly good weather, wildlife (fireflies, startled rabbits, and red-winged blackbirds), friendly strangers, no email, the ability to improvise and change plans on the spot (the flexibility of carrying a tent…), and plenty of time to ride alone and drift between states of present observation and introspection are why I always come back to bike touring…

Chicago <-> Wisconsin ride recap

Tue, 15 May 2012 06:55:00 +0000

Thanks to Jason and Erica and Cat, I got to go on an interesting 120-mile bike tour up to Wisconsin and back while I was visiting Chicago, and I didn’t have to do any of the planning.

(rhetorical question: who rides 120 miles to a Super 8 motel at the edge of a cluster of strip malls, just for fun?)

I was less interested in any specific destination than I was in checking out a variety of towns, environments, and regional cycling infrastructure (impressive!), and this ride certainly delivered.

Three weeks of solo bike touring and camping, across 600+ miles of The Netherlands and Belgium. Riding over massive man-made...

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 02:47:00 +0000

Three weeks of solo bike touring and camping, across 600+ miles of The Netherlands and Belgium. Riding over massive man-made dikes, on paved bike paths cutting through dark forests and rural farm fields (where I might not see another person for hours), to Trappist breweries and old towns, along canals, on muddy back roads and unsigned border crossings, and to a bonfire with a band playing under a rusted crane.

I may be becoming addicted to cycling

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 22:43:04 +0000

Yesterday I biked for about 13 hours (with breaks), maybe 200km (120 miles), twice as far as I’d planned. The weather was perfect, I had a tailwind, navigating was easy, and I was in a euphoric cycling state of mind. So when I reached my planned campground around 4, I kept going… and only when it started to get dark after 10 (solstice, moderately high latitude) did I think about stopping. I even found myself idly thinking about biking all night because I was in such a good mood– but fortunately common sense took over before I did something that crazy (I was out of food and water, only had a small light, canal ferries wouldn’t have been running). It’s a sickness, I tell you!

Planning out the next few days of biking (after a week mostly off the bike, hanging out with friends). Gold = past destinations,...

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 04:20:02 +0000

Planning out the next few days of biking (after a week mostly off the bike, hanging out with friends). Gold = past destinations, copper = planned route.

And I'm done. Netherlands and Belgium crossed by bike. Now meeting three friends I've known for 14 years, in Brugge. Bike...

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 21:49:03 +0000

And I’m done. Netherlands and Belgium crossed by bike. Now meeting three friends I’ve known for 14 years, in Brugge. Bike adventures may resume next weekend.

Laying on my back somewhere in The Netherlands, surrounded by vocal evening birds. Not a bad end to a Thursday.

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 15:24:00 +0000

Laying on my back somewhere in The Netherlands, surrounded by vocal evening birds. Not a bad end to a Thursday.

This where-am-I-going? path through the woods led to a €10 hostel (Stayokay Dordrecht) w/ showers, wifi, bar with 7 interesting...

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 05:10:04 +0000

This where-am-I-going? path through the woods led to a €10 hostel (Stayokay Dordrecht) w/ showers, wifi, bar with 7 interesting dutch beers.

I think I need to go left here. Good thing I have wide tires.

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 05:01:05 +0000

I think I need to go left here. Good thing I have wide tires.

Wildflowers along a bike path (I haven't seen anyone in an hour or two)

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 01:31:02 +0000

Wildflowers along a bike path (I haven’t seen anyone in an hour or two)

Well, this route won't work. At least it's only 7pm...

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 18:33:54 +0000

Well, this route won’t work. At least it’s only 7pm…

riding in holland right now! long-distance bike path LF1, dunes, a few hundred feet from the North Sea

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 22:12:06 +0000

riding in holland right now! long-distance bike path LF1, dunes, a few hundred feet from the North Sea

RAGBRAI, condensed

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 06:42:00 +0000

I spent a week biking and camping across Iowa with 10,000+ strangers. It was one of the better vacations I’ve taken. Here’s a map of the route, about 450 miles (50-80 miles/day, only one day with serious hills).

I emailed some updates and photos to this blog from my cell phone while I was on the ride– I’m combining all those updates into this post (link below).

Saturday:

Starting off the trip with a near-disaster: the airline (Fronteir/Midwest) lost my bag (tent, clothes, cycling gear, everything except my bike itself). The bag wasn’t even in their system– they had no idea where it was. Then an agent in Milwaukee called me because he’d found my bag and it had my number on it. He didn’t know I was in Omaha. They said they could get it to be a few days later– not useful since I was about to get on a bike the next morning. They said there were no flights left today to send it on. Then I asked someone else and he found a flight to put it on. 4 hours later, it showed up at the airport!