The Pedalshift Project 091: Your Summer Bicycle Tours 2017
As summer begins its slow wind down, let’s take a look back at some of your amazing summer bicycle tours of 2017! From Oregon to Iceland to Scotland to South Korea, Pedalshift listeners have certainly shrunk the world by bike! Plus, a special early preview of what’s in store for Pedalshift 100!
Have some bike touring or overnight stories to share? Send your pics, audio or a quick tweet – all welcome. Email the show at pedalshift@pedalshift.net or call the lightly-used Pedalshift voicemail line at (202) 930-1109.
I’m planning on an October tour from Newport, OR to San Francisco, revisiting a section of the 2014 full coast ride and one I just adore. Looking forward to sharing more details with you in a future pod!
The march to Pedalshift 100
I have something special lined up for episode 100. We’ll have friends of the show Brock and Aaron as special guests and we’ll chat all about the usual nonsense. But but but… there’s more. We’re looking to do a joint meet up slash holiday spectacular live and in person the first weekend in December in Portland, Oregon. Details to come…
The Journal: Your Summer Bicycle Tours 2017
Greg in Santa Cruz on credit card touring the Oregon Coast
Go read Greg’s Crazy Guy journal… it’s not super detailed, but that’s kind of its charm. He took Amtrak up from San Jose to Portland and saw some of the bikey podcast sites… SE Div and 12th… VeloCult… you know, the highlights. He also tackled the Portland to Tillamook ride which even most PDXers eschew in favor of taking the MAX out halfway. Good on ya Greg!
He rode a chunk of the coast I did last summer, so check out Pedalshift Tour Journals Vol 7: Oregon Coast for some audio on that ride to supplement your reading. I noticed Greg gave Pedalshift a shout out for naming “The Book” but I’m not sure I can really take credit for that, other than saying it 73 bajillion times on a pod.
Paul Staten on trail angels in Oregon
A couple months back, work took me to Portland for a science conference. I was itching to rent a bicycle and go for a longer ride up the Columbia River Gorge, but my conference ended in the evening one day, and I flew out the afternoon of the next, so I didn’t have a good, single block of time. But I just so happened to have a sleeping pad and blanket with me, and I’d recently started reading some of Tom Allen’s stuff, and decided to just ride up the canyon in the evening, and try really hard to make it back in time for my flight. (Worst case, I would have to eat a couple hundred bucks. And I decided I’d rather do that than always wonder what the adventure would have been like.)
I rented an old bike from the folks at Everybody’s Bike Rentals and Tours. It was about $50 overnight. The frame wasn’t long enough, the bike lights were cheap, and the saddle was terrible (and I was wearing basketball shorts), but the bike was sound. I didn’t know where I was going to sleep, but I took a train to the 99th street mall, and started biking east along the river from there. You sound like you’re pretty familiar with Portland and its surroundings, so you probably know all I saw on my way up past Multinomah falls. Beautiful, right? But it was already getting on towards dark by the time I got to the mouth of the Gorge (Troutdale, right?), so I was a little nervous; I kept looking for places I could tuck in and hide for the night.
I passed by a pair of cyclists who were shopping and waved hello, wondering if I should have stopped to chat. But, of course, I was nervous about stopping somewhere, and didn’t feel like pestering them about it. Later, while checking out some falls, they passed me. I noticed that they were slower than I was (they were packed for a few days), so I decided to try to catch up, ride close to their brighter lights, and ask where to camp. We chatted for a while, and they showed me up the canyon a good ways further than I would have dared to go in the dark on my own, right to a state park with one of Oregon’s amazing hiker-biker stops. Portland is great for cyclists; I didn’t realize that Oregon as a whole is incredible. I rolled out my mat, kept warm enough to sleep with my blanket, and made my mattress and the grass my bed.
I would expect a couple of women cyclists to be wary of a man catching up and being all friendly on the road, but they were totally cool. I had to leave camp early in the morning to catch my flight, and I didn’t wake them, but I wish I could thank Oregon riders Sally and Delta for being my “trail angels” and helping my out on my first S24O.
Oh and Paul has a question for the hive mind… anyone have a good S24O recommendation for Boulder? I assume there are tons, and CGOAB would be a good resource, but I know I have a bunch of Coloradans and Colorado-adjacent types out there. Shoot a note and we’ll pass it along!
Aizlynn Johnston and Pedalshift Society Member Caleb Jenkinson’s summer bicycle tours of England and Scotland
I thought you might like to know our method of getting out. It is not too dissimilar to your own. We live in North Yorkshire just outside of Leeds so we ride to York (25 miles), catch the train up to Edinburgh, change trains to Aberdeen, get the North Link Ferry to the Shetlands, spend 6 days in the Shetlands, get the ferry to the Orkneys, 3 days on Orkneys, ferry back to the mainland, train from Thurso down to Inverness, then Edinburgh, then York, then ride home. When you book train tickets you have to book spaces for your bikes (roll on service) and even then you have to get there early in case someone is there ahead of you. You can usually get on if you have booked the spot but some runs are first come first serve so it depends how pushy you are.
Rob calls in from South Korea!
Hey, Tim. My name is Rob. I’m calling out of South Korea. Currently. I’m doing the Korea cross country cycling road tore it consist of about 4 different major Rivers ranging from about I don’t know. 400 kilometers is 600 kilometers an h. I just wanted to thank you for putting on such a great show really enjoyed listening to it, and I just wanted to give you a shout out from way over here pretty hot. It’s about 35 degrees Celsius is about 80% humidity and it’s about 9 a.m.. 10 a.m.. So I was going to get hotter hope you have a good summer of rides and keep up the good work on the podcast. Thank you. Bye.
Mark Lendzion calls in about touring ICELAND!
Hey, Tim. This is Mark. Said in my review that I would call the number so I’m calling now. I’m leaving a voicemail about my trip to Iceland so I it’s sorry with three of us still in Iceland and actually service for of it’s all going nicely not stop by to do a month long tour of there, and then one of them dropped out like 2 months before scheduled departure no big deal and then. We the three of us with Iceland and we sent a few days together and the two other people decide that point not to want to cycle as much as well. I guess they were playing and it’s likely this much as I was playing on site where they wanted to do more. Bus transit and stuff like that, so everyone comma went their separate ways I said so anyways I ended up pretty much taurine Iceland my cell for the for the whole month except for the 3 days, but it was amazing. I mean it was a blast. I had a sap like it. So I was able to there’s no roads. Are you know route that was off limits? So it was it was really awesome in that aspect be able to go everywhere and have everything on what I need 18 it was more of a like a fight packing set up which I really I’m happy. I had that rather than the traditional can hear stuff because of the the wind the wind was insane it was the most windows ever been in my life and It that that’s the one thing. I will always remember about Iceland is it’s wendy and the weather is great. Never gets dark camping is expensive food is expensive everything expensive, so unless you’re independently wealthy I would not. Truly recommend it for anybody, but I would at the same time because it forces you really tighten up your blood jason figure out different ways to make it all work do more wild camping and not you so many resources. It’s taken off the deep fat a little bit, but just Iii awesome. Definitely got more to lose on my mind. I don’t know if my wife will let me do all or my job, but hopefully. The let me do at least a couple weeks in the future alone now the group because that diana. I just did not really work out that well this time. Did you would be the feature? It would be you know I got a little homesick when I was out there. So would be nice to do it with a with a group.
And there are still more to share!
So call in… write in… I really would love to share more of your stories from summer bicycle tours on top of the ones I have. More connections are rolling in and I have some super cool ones to share in a future pod! Thanks!
Pedalshift Society
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Ethan Georgi
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And all anonymous and past contributors for helping make this show happen!
Music
You’ve been hearing about Jason Kent and his music for many fine episodes. I got news for ya. New. Sunfields. Album. SEPTEMBER 15th. I’ve heard it. It’s top notch.
Check Jason and Sunfields on tour too:
09/02 Groningen, NL – Vera
09/08 London, UK – Biddle Bros
09/16 Montreal, QC – O Patro Vys (Pop Montreal)
10/20 Sherbrooke, QC – La Petite Boit Noire
Hey it’s the direct download link for The Pedalshift Project 091: Your Summer Bicycle Tours 2017 (mp3)
