Bicycle Touring

I was first exposed to bicycle touring when my Dad told me about his trips by bike from Germany to Ukraine, Germany to Russia, and other such trips. I was in high school and college then and thought it was neat and cool. I didn’t really expect I’d have the opportunity to try such trips myself. However, when I was living in Germany for a year and studying at the university, I had a period of 5 weeks off in the late summer between language courses. I called up my Dad and was trying to come up with ideas as to what I should do. I wanted to get a student job to help with learning German, but this was so early on in my time in Germany, that my language skills weren’t great. My Dad said “go buy a bike and go for a bike ride” – so I literally did just that. I went to the local bike shop and bought a 200 euro bike, some Ortlieb panniers, a sleeping bag, a helmet, some spare tubes and a pump and became a member of Dachgebers (literal translation: roof givers) – which is an organization for cyclists who are traveling to call up a day or two in advance and ask for accommodations whether it be sleeping in the backyard or camping on the floor in the living room. It was fantastic. I mapped out a quick 15-day tour using some mapping software (this was pre Google Maps), and then bought some large-scale maps on sale for 3 euros. Off I went on my bike tour with almost no real plan ahead other than I had my first night or two lined up with Dachgebers. The trip was a success and I loved it – it was great biking out in the open, exploring the towns and cities, and it really helped me become more comfortable with German in the early weeks living in Germany. I covered 1220 kilometers in 15 days and saw a lot of northern Germany.

Next was my largest trip in the summer of 2009. After my northern Germany bike trip, I got this bug in my head that I wanted to bike across the U.S. I hadn’t really seen much of the U.S., but had seen a good bit of Europe while living there for a year. I found a nice time to take off from work for a summer and pack up my bags and set off for 3.5 months. I left Yorktown, Virginia and headed west with the original intent on ending in San Francisco, California after going across Utah and Nevada in the hottest time of the summer. Needless to say, that wasn’t quite what happened, but I did still finish in San Francisco 86 days after starting and 4,263 miles later. It was a great journey and I’d love to try the Northern or Southern Tier routes someday too.

Lastly, I did a spontaneous trip to Maine in the last summer of 2010 and did a quick 5 day bicycle tour from Portland, Maine to Rockland, Maine – it was a much shorter trip, but I explored the area, saw the famous lighthouse from the movie ‘Forrest Gump’ and explored Monhegan Island for a couple hours, kayaked at sunset in the bay at Rockland Harbor, and then went rowing the following morning at the crack of dawn.