Listen in on a campfire chat about simple touring by bike on location at Marble Quarry campground on the C+O towpath. Hear the crickets and frogs chirping… the occasional owl hooting… sip on a beverage of your liking (maybe something strong?) from your cup. It’s the closest thing to actually being there.

Hey it’s the direct download link for episode 018 (mp3)

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Who else has some early bike touring overnight stories to share? Send your pics, audio or a quick tweet – all welcome. Email the show pedalshiftproject@gmail.com or call the brand new Pedalshift voicemail line at (202) 930-1109.

The Interview

Special thanks to Nathan Clevenger from @simpletouring (read his blog) for the ride and the chat by the campfire!

Topics

• Phoenix Bikes fundraiser
• About Phoenix Bikes
• C+O Canal NHP
• TEDx talk on dehydration (But this is the one Nathan was referring to)
• Whites Ferry cable ferry across the Potomac River
• Simple touring: What does it mean?
• Technology on tour and in life
• Experiencing life at bike pace vs. motorized vehicle pace
• Hiking the AT and the PCT and bike touring parallels
• Open ended touring vs. detailed planning – finding a balance
• Being ambassadors for bike touring – “there’s no one way”
• Bike tourism as an economic development engine – Oregon study
• The story of Justice Douglas in rescuing the C+O
• Car-free living
• Elly Blue’s Bikenomics (a great read – recommended)
• Electric vehicles + driverless vehicles as a paradigm shift: 17 Ways Driverless Cars Could Change America
• Why bike touring?
• How to handle the separation from your significant other while on tour
• A reminder: give a few bucks if you can to Nathan’s good cause

Images from the Ride

Music

The Pedalshift Project theme is America courtesy of Jason Kent off his self-titled solo album. Check out his band Sunfields‘ new release, Habitat, wherever cool music resides. And hey, new video for Ghost!

It’s April and we’re all itching to get out on tour – on this episode of The Pedalshift Project we talk about a quick overnight tour as fodder for episode 018, brewing the best cup of bike tour coffee outside, to stove or not to stove, and much more.

Hey it’s the direct download link for episode 017 (mp3)

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The Journal

A quick jaunt to Hilton Head, SC… a call for your April overnight stories… trying out some mobile apps for bike touring… and spring bike maintenance recommendations all on this episode of The Pedalshift Project.

Hey it’s the direct download link for episode 016 (mp3)

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Followup

The Journal

Hilton Head, SC as a bike touring destination

• 60 miles of separated bike paths all around and across the island
• Tons of beach access points
• Decent bike parking at many businesses
• Biking is almost certainly faster than driving on the island during peak season’s car traffic.
• Town of Hilton Head Island bike pathways
• Downside: no real tent camping opportunities I could find. Bandit camping might be an option, but could be tricky to pull off.

April overnights

The Lab

• Cyclemeter GPS
• Gear Calculator
• Brakelights
• Google Maps
• C+O Companion
• I’m not an Android user, but I suspect there are analogues for these (except Maps, which is integrated into your Android system)… let everyone know know your favorite mobile bike touring apps in the comments!

Gear Talk

Spring overhaul recommendations

• Bearings: I let these go too long typically, and ensuring your wheel hubs, bottom bracket and top tube bearings are clean and solid is too important to let go too long. Unless you’re really handy, this is a good LBS chore.
• Tires: don’t let me blowout story happen to you. Carefully examine your tires for cracks and weaknesses. If they’ve been exposed to a lot of sun, they might degrade quicker than you imagine. I’m a huge fan of Schwalbe tires (no flats on the entire Pacific Coast tour!) but there are other great brands. Spending more on tires is worth it.
• Cables and pads: if you haven’t changed your cables in a season or more, it might be worth considering. At least make sure you drop a little lubrication in there. Clean those break pads or if you’re on disc brakes, check the alignment.
• Bike maintenance recommendation chart

Music

The Pedalshift Project theme is America courtesy of Jason Kent off his self-titled solo album. Check out his band Sunfields‘ new release, Habitat, wherever cool music resides. And hey, new video for Ghost!

Breaking news in the bike touring world… no really, there was breaking news… learning to protect your food from raccoons and other critters, a brief overview on gearing ratios and how to make your bike more (or less) climby, plus catching up on a backlog of connections with listeners like you!

Hey it’s the direct download link for episode 015 (mp3)

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Followup

Good news for C+O tours for the near future – the NPS will almost assuredly NOT be charging for camping anytime soon FOTS @simpletouring will be happy to hear that! Read more from WABA.

Maybe good news on roll-aboard service on all Amtrak trains? The Lipinski Amendment passed today in the House and would standardize roll-on service for bicycles on rail. Read more from League of American Bicyclists.

The Journal

Updating the Lake Ontario tour
Bell Canada and their 30-day pass for tablets

The Lab

Protecting your food from critters

• Panniers in tent (fail)
• Panniers and smell proof bags
• Use bear boxes at campsites when they’re available!
• How to elevate your bags “PCT style”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgBLDMuPuvE

Gear Talk

Hope you got a chance to read part 1,  part 2, and part 3 of my favorite touring bikes series. If not, check ’em out!

• The higher the gear inches the “higher” the gear (i.e. the biggest chainring on the smallest cassette gear  means you’re at your fastest, harder to pedal into, for speed on flats gear)
• The lower the “lower” the gear (i.e. your smallest chainring on the biggest cassette gear is your climbing or granny gear)

Learn more from this very smart math guy:

Connections

The United Nations delegation checks in: Hugo is at cyclelover.net.

FOTS Johnny K – all over the 3 part series on touring bikes

New listener Tony from MD: read Jesse’s CGOAB journal and did the TransAm back in ’91… looking to do the C+O with his family

New listener Eric Iverson: Binge-listening to @pedalshift eps 1-007 while on @Amtrak staring at my @BromptonBicycle wondering where to take it next.

FOTS Scott Morgan liked the 90s era Bill O’Reilly DOING IT LIVE!

FOTS Tony (from NY) shared an article When President’s Day was Bicycle Day from The Atlantic about the commercialization of Pres Day in the States and how that meant bikes back in the day rather than autos today.

Music

The Pedalshift Project theme is America courtesy of Jason Kent off his self-titled solo album. Check out his band Sunfields‘ new release, Habitat, wherever cool music resides. And hey, new video for Ghost!

On this episode we crack open The Journal to travel along with Brock and Adele on their 2012 bike tour from Oregon to Colorado, test out a couple of field microphones for proper bike touring podcast recording in The Lab, and enjoy the newest Pedalshift bike touring story about a muddy slog called It’s All Downhill From Here…

Hey it’s the direct download link for episode 014 (mp3)

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Hope you got a chance to read part 2 of my favorite touring bikes series on the Surly Long Haul Trucker. If not, check it out!

The Journal

Brock and Adele’s 2012 epic bike tour of the west is the featured journal this show. You met Brock Dittus on Pedalshift Project #002, and for the love of all that’s good and right in the world please listen to Brock’s work on the equally epic The Sprocket Podcast. Now go for a long virtual ride with Brock and his wife Adele up some steep hills in the summer heat… Start with my favorite, Tolstoy gets the axe.

The Lab

It’s a very meta edition of The Lab where we’re testing out two microphones. The first is an iPhone boom mic (no longer available… hmmm) and the second is the venerable veteran of Pedalshift field recording, the stock iPhone earbud mic. Which microphone shall reign supreme? Yeah, wasn’t even close…

Bike Touring Story

It’s All Downhill From Here..

• Read more about the story behind the story from the posts about the spring 2014 GAP/C+O tour chronicled here on Pedalshift.net.
• Music courtesy of the fine artists at Purple Planet and Jason Kent.

Music

The Pedalshift Project theme is America courtesy of Jason Kent off his self-titled solo album. Check out his band Sunfields‘ new release, Habitat, wherever cool music resides. And hey, new video for Ghost!

A baker’s dozen in, we feature our first bit of bike touring history. Set your wayback machine over 100 years to the 1890s as we learn about the amazing Annie “Londonderry” Kopchovsky, a pioneering “New Woman” of bike touring. Next time you’re struggling in granny gear up a big climb think about what it would feel like on a 42 pound fixie… just one of the challenges Annie faced on her amazing adventures.

Hey it’s the direct download link for episode 013 (mp3)

Reach out to the show via email, Facebook, Twitter or even Instagram. Yeah, I’m calling you out again Instagram. Don’t forget to join the newsletter too. February’s edition drops next week.

The Journal

Special thanks to our guest, Gillian Klempner Willman the Producer/Director of the amazing documentary The New Woman: Annie ‘Londonderry’ Kopchovsky.

The New Woman is the directorial debut for Washington, DC filmmaker Gillian K. Willman and has been a seven-year long labor of love. In addition to producing this independent documentary, Gillian is Senior Producer at the Newseum. She also spent a decade working at Cortina Productions, a multimedia production company, where she has wrote, directed, and produced video and interactive content for more than a dozen cultural institutions, including presentations in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum, the National Civil Rights Museum, the Museum of Tolerance, the Capitol Visitor Center, the Sports Museum of America, and the Lincoln Cottage Visitor Education Center.

Gillian has played a key role in the research and production of several long and short form documentary projects, including Peter Jennings Reporting: Guantanamo, Trade Secrets: A Moyers Report, and Discovery Education’s The Science of Plants. She is a graduate of Cornell University and lives in Washington, DC with her husband, Ben, daughter, Leila, and cats, Lucy and Oscar.

Learn more about Gillian at spokeswomanproductions.com.

More Annie

• Around the World on Two Wheels: Annie Londonderry’s Extraordinary Ride by Peter Zheutlin – read more about the book (recommended!) at annielondonderry.com.
• Wiki on Annie
• Cool infographic style version of Annie’s ride
• Hat tip to @FeministPics for the inspiration to learn about this remarkable woman!

Music

The Pedalshift Project theme is America courtesy of Jason Kent off his self-titled solo album. Check out his band Sunfields‘ new release, Habitat, wherever cool music resides. And hey, new video for Ghost!

We complete our first dozen episodes featuring bike surfing tour from a past encounter, a story about biking dogs (sort of) and generating power as you roll.

hey it’s the direct download link for episode 012 (mp3)

Reach out to the show via email, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Yes, particularly you of Instagram.

The Journal

Featured journal – a bike surfing tour

Matt Weiner, surfing the Oregon coast by bike

• Met Matt on my first unsupported Pacific coast tour, rolling with Mysterious James.
• Modified a BOB single wheel trailer with bamboo to haul his shortboard down the Oregon coast.
• Timed his arrivals in different beaches to coincide with the tide coming in for better waves
• His trip always stuck with me… using a bike as a method to your adventure madness. Why just bike the Oregon coast when you can add a board and rock a bike surfing tour?

Big thanks to Matt for getting back in touch… mazel tov on the wedding and hope to see you on the road again sometime!

Special treat for episode 013… featuring the first woman to bike across the US and the first to do an assisted round the world tour. IN 1894. The amazing Annie Londonderry, brought to us with a special interview of Gillian Klempner Willman
Producer, Director of the documentary The New Woman: Annie ‘Londonderry’ Kopchovsky. Cannot wait to share this with Pedalshifters!

The Lab

Revisiting my dynohub setup

• My original post – An Uncommonly Silly Blog
• Refined setup – Pedalshift
• The Sanyo dynohub
• LightCharge converter
• Purchased the hub and wheel built as one unit – took a bit of a gamble on that, but the price was right.
• Support your LBS when you can – it probably has a talented wheel builder who can really match your needs for bike touring.
• Many dynohubs are directly wired to lighting systems… mine goes to a 5V USB converter so I can directly power USB devices or cache the electrons into a battery.
• (note, drool-worthy Tout Terrain makes a more sophisticated integrated version of this that’s 3x the price. )
• Modern batteries are so huge and so small it’s quite possible to do long tours and not have to worry about charging your devices.
• Helps avoid the issue I ran into at a campground this past trip – my battery was stolen while charging in a campground bathroom. I was being a little electron greedy and paid the price. No more of that!
• Alternative (untested but looks GREAT) – essentially a detachable dynohub by SivaCycle.

Bike Touring Story

Louis bike touring experiment #1 of 1

• Special thanks to my talented and beautiful girlfriend Kimberly Wilson for helping to tell this tale. You can read all about her amazing pursuits at kimberlywilson.com.
• Music courtesy of the fine artists at Purple Planet.
• The original video…

Connections

• Richard and Tony – thanks for your questions on dynohub setups
• The ubiquitous FOTS JohnnyK on the Novara Safari

Music

The Pedalshift Project theme is America courtesy of Jason Kent off his self-titled solo album. Check out his band Sunfields‘ new release, Habitat, wherever cool music resides. And hey, new video for Ghost!

We kick off 2015 with updates on upcoming tours, stories of past tours (complete with yetis from Cape Cod) and experimenting with dehydration… no not the bad kind, the good kind!

hey it’s the direct download link for episode 011 (mp3)

The January email newsletter went out – thanks to everyone who’s signed up! Reach out to the show via email, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Yes, even Instagram.

Sorry for the jingles and jangles you might hear in the background… it was a full on zoo within the Pedalshift recording studio since we were rocking temps in the low teens in DC at the time of the recording. For the record, it was Jackson the Cat who disrupted things the most. Louis the Pug will make an appearance in episode 012 in two weeks for the bike touring story, Louis the Pug Bike Touring Experiment #1 of 1.

The Journal

Lake Ontario circumnavigation update

Crazy Guy on a Bike featured journal

• Met Jesse on the Border to Border ride… cool guy, lots of interesting perspectives on touring. He put together one hell of a ride last year.
• Trans America to Pacific Coast… Yorktown, VA to San Diego, CA
• Never saw the Pacific til this tour
• Carpenter by trade
• Saved up for the ride for about a year before leaving a year to the day he came up with it
• Rocked orange Ortlieb panniers (an excellent choice… mine too)
• Pack list is really excellent… check it out. (my favorites: flask and cigar cutter)

The Lab

Major successes

• Apples – super easy. 1/4″ thick (5-6 mm for metric types). Wouldn’t bother treating the apples as some recipes suggest… They barely brown.
• Clementines – amazing. Almost like candy, with the added bn fit of some fiber. 1/4″ thick (5-6 mm for metric types)
• Kale chips – olive oil, Montreal steak seasoning, nutritional yeast. Insanely good.
• Jerky! Much better than my toaster oven variety because it uses ground meat. Because it also includes jerky cure the end product keeps better.
• Future tests
  • Fruit leather
  • Grapes to raisins
  • Avocado?

On this episode we’re watching 2014 shrink away in the rearview mirror as we enjoy an hour-long show chronicling the top moments from this year’s big tour from Canada to Mexico along the US Pacific coast.

hey it’s the direct download link for episode 010 (mp3)

A new look for the podcast

Y’know what this show needs? A new logo! If you ever need someone to use modern flat graphic design principles to create a pannier buckle on a podcast logo, I’m totally your guy. Totally a niche talent.

The first email newsletter went out – thanks to everyone who’s signed up!

Hey, I want to hear from you – like for real. Hit me up at pedalshiftproject@gmail.com, comment here on the site, or reach out on Facebook, Twitter, or heck even Instagram. Send me a visual depiction of your thoughts 😉

And if you dig the show, give it a review on iTunes or Overcast… recommend to your friends… it helps the show get out there and helps angels get their wings. Or something.

Looking ahead to 2015

• The Lab and Pedalpreneur will return…
• More Bike Touring Stories…
• The Pedalshift Project goes bi-weekly…

Connections

• Friend of the show Johnny K on… lots of things
• New listener Jim Giddens on starting off and Surly LHTs
• Brock and Aaron over at The Sprocket Podcast with an update on the Amtrak baggage cars… ( see also, rumor and speculation from my Amtrak update post )
• Friend of the show Scott Morgan – just because he’s a retweeting machine. Thanks for listening and supporting Scott!

Bike Touring Stories

Border to Border

In the summer of 2014, I took 6 weeks to ride the Pacific coast from Victoria, BC to the US-Mexico border. I recorded a 2-5 minute audio entry every day for the Tour Journals podcast to share the more detailed aspects of the ride, but always intended to edit and condense it into a more manageable length to share here. I recorded almost every entry while rolling, usually in the morning. Listeners of The Pedalshift Project will definitely recognize some of the anecdotes, especially mention of the “United Nations delegation” in central and southern CA.

As I edited the story, I found myself transported back to each spot on the tour. I remember fine grain details of pulloffs, tide levels, and how I felt every time I called back home. The sounds of the waves, the seagulls, the ravens, and the traffic of US 101 and CA 1 help transport you to those spots as a listener. Ever want to bike the Pacific coast in under an hour?

I mention two people I virtually took along with me. They were:

• my grandmother who I lost at the beginning of the year… I think I might be taking her with me around Lake Ontario this spring too.
• a buddy of mine who took a big spill on his own adventure and hasn’t been able to tour since…

Music

The Pedalshift Project theme is America courtesy of Jason Kent off his self-titled solo album. Check out his band Sunfields‘ new release, Habitat, wherever cool music resides:

A Thanksgiving weekend edition of the Pedalshift Project on which we cover some of the new additions to the site, an update on the Lake Ontario circumnav tour, connections and much more.

hey, it’s the direct download link for episode 009! (mp3)

Pedalshift has a new look

Pedalshift is also now on Instagram (@pedalshift)  – hoping to use it to show off more of the sights on tours past and present. Would love to share your pictures on tour too!

One more thing… I’m starting an email newsletter – about once per month – filled with the same cool content as the podcast and the site. You can sign up for the Pedalshift newsletter here. Best of all… get a free bike touring pack guide and checklist just for signing up.

Hey, I want to hear from you – like for real: email or The Facebook, or even The Twitter. Stories, tours, ideas, whatever – as we grow, let’s share it all.

The Journal

It’s bike tour planning season now that the weather is less favorable in the Northeast US. I’ve been busily researching the circumnavigation of Lake Ontario for a May 2015 tour. Any interest in meetups in Rochester, Buffalo, Toronto, etc.? Shoot me an email!

The Lab

Holy sh*t, this water bottle fils while you ride!

Bike Touring Stories

Got a ton of great feedback about The Sweater, so we’ll do more of them. I’ll break those out into a new section of the podcast called Bike Touring Stories. If you have a funny, empowering, emotional or otherwise interesting story to share, I’d love to make that happen… email pedalshiftproject@gmail.com. You tell it, I’ll produce it! Episode 010 will include a new story: Louis Bike Touring Experiment #1 of 1. Look for it in a couple of weeks!

Connections

• Mysterious James chat about his possible European tour next year
• Kurt W on Amtrak Express (check out the Amtrak Express review)
• Rick from Rochester on Facebook regarding the Lake Ontario circumnav ride
• Chiang on a tour of the States… with his dog: