Category Archives: other cyclists

Posts which mention other cyclists.

A few more photos (from Oregon)

We are having a great time in Oregon! Here are a few more photos we wanted to share…

Farm roads sometimes have no respect for grade. This one at least gives us warning!

Farm roads sometimes have no respect for grade. This one at least gives us warning!

Riding towards Mt. Hood. I can't believe views of these majestic mountains are an everyday occurrence for people who live around here.

Riding towards Mt. Hood. I still can’t believe views of these majestic mountains are an everyday occurrence for people who live around here.

 

The hiker/biker campsites in the city park in Sisters, OR. A nice town with friendly folks. (Especially when compared to our previous night in Detroit...)

The hiker/biker campsites in the city park in Sisters, OR. A nice town with friendly folks. (Especially when compared to our previous night in Detroit…) I love that they brought in sod for us to camp on.

Jason calls a bike shop in Bend, and Ray is ... what?

Jason calls a bike shop in Bend, and Ray is … what?

Dave, the friendly cyclist who adjusted Ray's bicycle and hooked us up with safety tape coat hanger flags. (Bye, bye safety triangles!) They work great - the cars give us lots of space now.

Dave, the friendly cyclist who adjusted Ray’s bicycle and hooked us up with safety tape coat hanger flags. (Bye, bye safety triangles!) They work great – the cars give us lots of space now.

On a side note, we learned that the passing distance for cars to go around bicycles in Oregon is: “far enough so that if the cyclist falls over the car wouldn’t run over them.” We’re not exactly sure how many feet that is, but it sounds like more than the 4 ft that is currently the law in PA!

A quick trip to Boston

At the top of Bussey hill in the Arnold Arboretum

Jason, Lori, Ryan, and Daisy at the top of Bussey hill in the Arnold Arboretum. I didn’t get the memo that we were supposed to wear red rain jackets.

Last weekend we went to visit our friends Ryan and Lori in Boston.  We really wanted to see them before we left on the trip, because once we are out of Pennsylvania it will become very difficult to visit our friends on the East Coast.  It was a very long drive, but worth it.

Jason and I have 7 bicycles between us, which seems a little over the top, but they really had us beat!  Twelve!  This worked to our advantage, because there were high-quality spares for a ride through Boston.

Ryan got the bikes all ready, but there was one problem – I was too tall so the seat needed to be raised. OK, so that really wasn’t a problem, but the problem was that the seat was stuck and didn’t want to be raised! With great effort Ryan pulled the seat up while I tried to hold it down. After significant effort and some chain lube we got it to a point where my long legs were satisfied.

bikes!

The battle to raise the bike seat

Our ride through Boston was great. We saw a bunch of different neighborhoods, and rode along the Charles River and one of it’s offshoots. We had lunch at “Grass Fed” which was a fun burger joint, and even had some beet fries. As it started to drizzle, we came back to Cambridge via a bike path along one of the train lines.

Delicious seafood feast!

Delicious seafood feast!

On the way back to their apartment, we stopped at a seafood market. Ryan and Lori bought a spread of fish, squid, scallops, and mussels. They prepared a seafood feast that night for dinner! Yum! We had ceviche, squid-ink pasta, pan-seared scallops, steamed mussels, and fried squid. Needless to say, it was delicious.

Daisy made a new friend!

Daisy made a new friend!

Thanks, Lori and Ryan for a great weekend. We look forward to more biking and visits in the future!

Previous trips and other blogs

Darling, this ain’t our first rodeo.

Daisy has logged 10,000+ mi (15,000 km) cycle touring, and has brought Jason along for 3,500 of those miles. Needless to say, we have a good idea of the gear we need, what to expect, how and where we like to camp, what we like to eat, how we like to handle the mountain passes, etc.

If you want to read about some of our previous tours, check out dandjadventures. On that blog we wrote about our trip from Mexico to Canada in May/June of 2012, and about a short Spring Break trip in March of 2013 to Harrison Hot Springs, BC, Canada. Those posts will give you a taste of what we’ll write about as we’re on the road, keep you a little busy while we are still prepping for our Pan-American trip, and hopefully get you a lot more excited about the trip we’ll start in May 2014!

Bicycle touring is gaining in popularity, and I believe since the internet allows cyclists to easily share stories and route ideas, more and more folks keep getting on their bikes. They do this in a variety of ways – from fully loaded touring in remote areas with a tent and food for 4 days at a time, to a light bag packed with lunch and a credit card for motels.

You’d be surprised who is out there doing it, too. Some of our favorite blogs to read are about families. Here are a few blogs that we have followed: The Pedal Powered Family, The Family Verhage, and The Vogel Family.

It is pretty easy to get ideas about where to bike through on our upcoming trip, since there are a bunch of folks blogging about their recent trips! Here are a few we’ve been checking out: Going South, Life is Like a Box of Chocolates, and HOPE.

You can find more by web-searching Cycling the Pan-American Highway or perusing crazyguyonabike.com.

Now that you have plenty of reading material, I can leave you be for now. … Oh, did you think you would get work done today? Have fun!