Looks like a few things are coming into focus for Pedalshift touring this season… I’ll be tackling two main tours this year, one to finally scratch an itch that needs it and the other a brand new adventure:
May 2015 – DC to Pittsburgh
My spring tour is “take two” on my abbreviated (some would say disastrous) 2014 attempt to through-bike from Pittsburgh to DC on the C+O Towpath and Great Allegheny Passage. This year, I’m going to try reversing my luck by reversing the route. I’ll be starting in DC and ending in Pittsburgh, taking Amtrak back in the wee hours of the morning. I’m adding an extra day into the mix to allow for more time to soak up the trails and document the trip more for Pedalshift. More on that in a second.
July 2015 – Erie Canal
If you’ve been listening to the podcast you might notice my New York tour plans have changed a bit. I’m now going to focus on the Erie Canal towpath, a very important piece of my childhood, having grown up a stone’s throw away from it in Fairport, NY. The timing shift is due to the happenstance of my girlfriend having a conference in Batavia, NY for a week in July, which takes care of easy transport to the region. My route’s a bit up in the air… I may head west to the Niagara Falls/Buffalo area, turn around and go back to Rochester to visit family and then turn back west to end the trip in Batavia, or I might just head east and explore the eastern sections a bit before heading back. Details to come on the route as we get closer to July.[footnote]This section has been edited since I made the decision in May 2015 to change focus from a partial Lake Ontario circumnavigation to the Erie Canal route. I intend to tackle the circumnavigation at a later date![/footnote]
Tour Journals Podcasts
The exciting news I want to share is I plan on podcasting these tours even more extensively than my Pacific Coast (aka Border to Border) tour of 2014. I’ll post a short audio journal entry at least once per day.[footnote]I hope to post more than once each day, mobile signal-willing. Of course there will be Twitter. Always Twitter.[/footnote] Rather than flood The Pedalshift Project feed with unusual shows, these will be on a separate Tour Journals feed. To get access to them, all you need to do is sign up for the free newsletter and you’ll get access to the feed and a special page where you can play the shows directly. I’m doing it this way to ensure newsletter subscribers are getting something extra and to ensure the more casual listeners to The Pedalshift Project don’t suddenly find their podcatchers flooded with the shows.
I also want to experiment with the Tour Journals show… taking questions from the road, maybe trying some live events and more. The idea is to take you along for the ride with me.
Other adventures
In addition to these longer tours, I’m going to be doing some day excursions while doing business in Paris (June) and Tuscany (October), plus some smaller overnights along the C+O throughout the touring season. Although not as bikey, I’m also going to be riding Amtrak from DC to Portland in late September, so I might be using that opportunity to document the Amtrak long-haul experience for those that are mixing that into their own bike tours.
I’m truly excited about my 2015 tour plans… I hope yours are shaping up as well. If any of you are including Washington, DC in your plans and would be interested in sharing your trip with the Pedalshift audience like Nathan did in Episode 018, please feel free to reach out and we can see if schedules can work out. I hope to make campfire interviews a regular part of the show going forward.