For the Love of Bikes

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Riding the Katy Trail

May 2, 2010 /
Sunrise on the Katy Trail

This coming week Mark and I begin our excellent bike adventure; our first ride on the Katy Trail.

The Katy Trail extends 225 miles across Missouri covering most of the state.  We’ll ride the length of the trail from west to east, beginning in Clinton, MO and finishing in St. Charles.

We’ll break the ride up into 6 days of biking which should make for a very doable pace with plenty of time to stop and enjoy the surroundings and visit the many wineries and towns along the way.

Much of the trail follows Lewis and Clark’s path along the Missouri River.  The Katy Trail is part of the Rails to Trails Conservancy which is an organization devoted to building a nationwide network of trails utilizing former rail lines.

One of the best parts about riding the Katy and the rails to trails system in general, is that it allows us to ride our bikes on an off the road trail and not have to compete with cars for our little piece of turf.

When on the road rule #1 for cyclists is: Cars always win.  It will be a welcome relief to not have to contend with that.

The downside is I just read tonight that the biggest threats to cyclists are: severe weather, poison ivy and snakes.  Any one that knows me knows what I think of threat #3. Yikes!  As far as the other two go, it will be just like being at home.

Another plus, no camping and no carrying our own gear.  Because this is our first tour together we splurged and used a company that will transport our luggage (although we will carry a few things on the bikes) and arranged lodging (for the most part in B & B’s) in the various towns we will be staying.  So not exactly roughing it.

We are very excited to be just days away from starting our bike tour.

Happy Trails!

Share the Road

March 18, 2010 /

Even, if you do everything right – follow all the laws of the road and ride perfectly – you still run the risk of being seriously injured or killed riding a bike. 

Riding a bike is exhilarating.
Riding a bike is challenging.
Riding a bike can also be dangerous.

Don’t get me wrong, there are things you can do as a cyclist that help to ensure your safety. Riding with traffic, riding in accordance with laws and most importantly, always riding defensively.

Regardless of how careful you are when taking to the street on a bike, you still are at risk.  Tony Kornheiser on his March 11 ESPN radio show recently said the solution to getting cyclists off the road was to run them down! Other people probably share this sentiment but are just more quiet about it.

This isn’t a surprise to cyclists. If you ride a bike and you’ve ridden for very long, you’ve encountered angry and frustrated drivers. Drivers that pass you too closely, drivers that threaten you, drivers that verbally harass you and potentially drivers that actually target you.

Google “cyclist injured” or “cyclist killed” in Google News to see just how dangerous. Every time I have (which isn’t often because it scares the hell out of me and makes me afraid to ride) there have been a minimum of 3 or 4 pages of links.

These accidents rarely list the cyclist at fault. More often then not it is an inattentive driver, a distracted driver or a driver fed up with having to share the road with bikes. To make matters worse, the drivers are rarely fined, ticketed or held accountable in any way.

Currently more than half the states require motorists to give cyclists at least 3 feet of space when passing. Many also allow cyclists to take the lane when needed to ensure their safety.

If you are thinking cyclists should ride on the sidewalk (Tony Kornheiser) – think again. Not only is it impractical, in most states it is also illegal.

Give us a break and share the road!

For more info:

Share the Road: Give Cyclists Three Feet of Space | Everyday Citizen

Anne Mustoe: Explorer by Bike

March 7, 2010 /

The Internet is full of stories about people who do things that are said to be extraordinary. 

Whether through Facebook, Twitter,  email or Google, we all come across stories such as these.   Some we read – and most of those we forget.

I learned about a woman tonight that I had never heard of, Anne Mustoe.

Her story is both extraordinary and inspirational. At the age of 54, somewhat overweight and not exactly fit, she decided to bicycle around the world. Keep in mind she hadn’t ridden a bike in 30 years!  She was motivated to do this incredible feat – incredible for anyone at any age -  after seeing a man riding a bike while she was on vacation in India in 1983.

It took her 4 years from seeing the cyclist in India, to quit her job and take off on her bike, a Condor, given to her by her students as a going away gift. This Condor, must have been one hell of a bike because she was still riding it 22 years and about 100,000 miles later!

In 1987 on her first bike trip around the world, she took off from London, riding from west to east. She completed her trip around the world, 12,000 miles, in 15 months. As if that wasn’t enough she also rode these miles via historical routes:

"Roman roads across Europe; Alexander the Great’s route from Greece to the Indus Valley; Pakistan and India with the Moghuls and the Raj; and so on. Across the United States she followed the great pioneer trails."

And, keep in mind she did this by herself, at age 54 – with no prior training in terms of cycling.  Extraordinary.

Mustoe completed a second bike tour around the world, but to make it more interesting she did it in reverse direction. There were other trips too, Egypt, across the Alps, from the Baltic to Mediterranean, Buenos Aires and others.

Mustoe left by bike in May of 2009 at age 76 on what was to be her third trip around the world by bicycle. Sadly she fell ill and died in Syria, November 10, 2009.

I was able to find 7 books written by her about her bike journeys: A Bike Ride; Lone Traveller: One Woman, Two Wheels and the World; Two Wheels in the Dust; Cleopatra’s Needle; Escaping the Winter; Amber, Furs and Cockleshells Bike Rides with Pilgrims and Merchants; Che Guevara and the Mountain of Silver .

Yes, I’m a cyclist, but it is not her cycling that I find most inspiring. The way she lived her life inspires me. Hell, it amazes me! Can you imagine doing what she did? I can’t. What courage she had!

I will forever be inspired by her courage and sense of adventure.

Mustoe’s life story reminds me there are heroes among us. It’s a great loss that we rarely know of them. As a society we generally focus our attention on the bad actors and celebrities, and the hero’s live under our radar. That’s a shame, because our world is badly in need of true heroes.

Rest in peace Anne Mustoe.

Traveling by Bike

February 4, 2010 /

Along with making plans and setting goals for the new year, we have been busy putting together several trips including a couple of bicyling tours set for later this year. The first will be in May for a week riding across a large part of Missouri on the Katy Trail, about 230 miles. We will not be roughing it, unless you consider riding an average of 40 miles a day roughing it, which we don’t – we consider that fun! We signed up with a company that will transport our luggage each day to the inn or B & B in the next town we will be staying in, all we have to do is get ourselves there riding our bikes. There will be no support van on this trip. All in all it will be 6 days of riding. the daily mileage will be low enough that we can take our time and stop along the way to smell the roses. Not having to hassle with carrying our stuff with us will make the trip easier to plan and do. Almost all of the riding will be off road on hard packed crushed limestone trail. There are a couple of towns that seem neat and worth checking out and a good number of wineries that we will definitely visit.

The other tour is epic – at least in our minds. We will ride from Burlington, VT to Quebec City, QE in late August/early September. A seven day fully supported tour, they furnish us with a bike, helmet, bike bag, support van tagging along with refreshments and a ride if we get too tired that day to pedal, most meals and all lodging accomodations. The tour company is Sojourn Tours a small company that gets excellent reviews. After we ride to Quebec City we are going to spend a few more days there to see the sights and visit the surrounding area – by car!
There will be a total of 18 people on the tour plus three staff from Sojourn. The tour will take us through what looks to be amazing scenery on lightly travelled backroads. You can ride as much or as little as you want each day, but in total if you ride the entire distance, will be 380 miles. It probably goes without saying that we plan/hope to ride it all. This is the type of trip we’ve wanted to do for some time and will be riding and training for it in the months leading up.
We are presently looking for touring bikes to ride on the Katy because our “road bikes” we have now aren’t practical for the limestone trail. Touring bikes look similar to a regular road bike with drop handlebars but have more of a relaxed geometry (for those long hours in the saddle) and also wider tires. They also are heavier bikes because of the steel frames, but as they say, “steel is real” and provides durability and comfort both of which are more important for touring than the lightness of carbon fiber.
The difficulty in finding a touring bike is that to a large extent they are a thing of the past. Bike shops don’t typically have them in stock because they don’t sell that many. Same is true for steel frame bikes in general, except they are making somewhat of a comeback due to the fixie/singlespeed craze. It looks like it is going to come down to us researching the various bikes online (which we have been doing for weeks), selecting one and then crossing our fingers and ordering it from a LBS (local bike shop). At least if we order them locally they can help insure we get the right size by their extensive fit process and if we still end up with something that doesn’t fit us perfectly we can exchange it for something that does.
You can’t imagine how many different bikes and companies there are now. It’s mind-boggling. Biking is much more popular in the U.S. thanks predominately to Lance Armstrong and as a consequence there are a lot of companies offering a multitude of bikes at a wide range of prices – from a few hundred dollars to over $14,000. There are many very good bikes for under $1,000 and many good bikes for $300-$500.
We have our bike picks narrowed down to two, but unfortunately none of the LBS in the state have either in stock so we will be making our selection without having ridden them (imagine buying a car without driving it first). Not something we want to do but hopefully by doing all the research and getting a good fitting done prior to we will end up with a perfect “fit”.
We are looking forward to getting the bikes and taking our first cycling vacations. Happy Trails!
P. S. ~I came across this website for America By Bicycle – now we are planning tours for 2011!

Back in the Saddle Again…

December 7, 2009 /

This is the time of year when it’s hard to make myself get on the bike and ride in the cold and wind. So, today I rode an hour with my bike on the trainer, allowing me to ride in the comfort of my home.

The only downside – it’s boring as hell! To combat the boredom I usually listen to tunes on the Zen, but today that didn’t seem good enough. Instead, I watched a movie about cycling, “Hell on Wheels” about the 2003 Tour de France. It is excellent and made riding the trainer much more tolerable. It gives you much more of a behind-the-scenes view than you can get on Versus for example. Good coverage of the riding, plus of the riders when they are off the bike and trying to recover. It shows how grueling the sport is and what a toll it takes day after day. Made riding on the trainer seem pretty damn easy, plus I was able to watch it on my laptop from Netflix, how cool is that?

I’m also back on the yoga mat. I have done yoga very inconsistently for several months and I miss it, my body really misses it. I’m working on getting back into yoga consistently and this past week or so I’ve practiced 3 times. I’m practicing at home with Yoga Today and the Moving Toward Balance book by Rodney Yee. Soon, I want to go back to Spirit House Yoga for classes.

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