Due to popular demand, we have published our latest book, Portland to Portland in Epub format.

It is available through Barnes and Noble or you might request that your library downloads it.
Check the previous post if you are looking for the Kindle version.

Finally. It took us longer to get this book published than it did to bicycle across the country. 

Thank goodness that bicycling doesn’t involve a Table of Contents!!!!!!!!! 

 

Please check out our new book Portland To Portland  

Reliving the details of our trip has inspired us to plan another cycling adventure. Although we won’t have the time to do an extensive tour, we hope that we might do a few tours of a week’s duration. 

At present, we are considering doing the Erie Canal Trail because it has been improved since we last rode on it. Another possibility is the P’tit Train du Nord in Quebec.  

Do consider a Kindle as an item to carry along on your cycling tour. Just think of how many books you can take on your tour without having to worry about the weight.

Always looking to discover new trails, we recently cycled on the North Coast Inland Trail from Elmore to Fremont, Ohio. The trail has a great surface and the scenery was perfect during our October ride. It’s about 10 miles from Elmore to Fremont, with Lindsey being the halfway point of that stretch.

We stopped at Sandi’s Cafe there and were fortunate to find that she was still serving lunch when we arrived.
The sandwiches we had were huge, the prices were fair, and personable Sandi is a reason in itself to stop and enjoy a meal, ice cream or drinks here.

To continue onto the trail from Fremont to Clyde, it’s necessary to travel on the streets through Fremont to the next trailhead.

This online map has more details about the North Coast Inland Trail.

We hope to explore the Fremont to Clyde section soon.

How guilty should I feel for riding a bus to the top of a mountain and then coasting down? Considering that I wasn’t in shape to cycle up the mountain and didn’t have my own bicycle with me, I didn’t feel too guilty. But I certainly remembered the exhilaration felt after successfully, albeit slowly climbing Lolo Pass and coasting down effortlessly for several miles. Those easy coasts came with a bit of pride and sense of accomplishment for having successfully climbed the mountain in the first place. For this particular adventure, that thrill was totally absent.

Another challenge quickly presented itself; old dogs don’t learn new tricks easily and that was the case with adapting to the bikes that were provided on this downhill adventure. My bike had one handbrake, which controlled the front brake and a foot brake. The handbrake frightened me and went against all that I had learned about never using the front brake alone. I feared flopping over the handlebars, which in this case reminded me of one of those old banana seat bikes with the wide spread handlebars. But, that was the least of my problems.

I couldn’t kick back to raise the left pedal as I always do. How could I start off? My right pedal was up and I had to think about starting off. Nothing to clip into or slide into for my foot. Yikes, it was like riding a bicycle for the first time. I was in the minority in this particular group as most of the others appreciated this cruiser style bike. For me, I experienced a severe case of retroactive inhibition. Even dismounting the bike was a real process for me. How set in my ways I am.

Not having my ancient helmet cam with me because it really does take two people to get it going, I decided to capture video using my still camera with the video function. I simply clipped to to my jacket using two large clamp-on style paper clips, which attached the camera strap to my jacket. I couldn’t really see where the camera was pointing and couldn’t even tell if it were running. Fortunately, I maintained an adequate distance behind the other riders to get good shots of the descent. The rain didn’t help much especially when the drops blurred the riders, but that was much better than the snow that fell on the top of the mountain.

Take a look at the video.

We just had a touring cyclist who stayed with us leave for Montreal and then Nova Scotia this morning.
The excellent Warm Showers list pairs touring cyclists with hosts. Hosting may run the gamut from offering camping space, a bed or riding along with
a fellow touring cyclist.

We took advantage of this excellent program when we did our cross country tour. This summer, we have hosted six cyclists. Five of them were doing
transcontinental tours and one was heading north to Canada.

We haven’t forgotten the generosity of members of the Warm Showers List and want to give back to the bicycle touring community.

If you would like more information, please visit the Warm Showers List.

The one real disadvantage for us with hosting fellow touring cyclists is that we want to start touring with them!!!!

We do hope to bicycle the P’tit Train du Nord in Quebec sometime this year.

Our Portland to Portland adventure seems like a distant memory, but not so distant that we have forgotten about it.
In fact, we are in the process of writing a book about our transcontinental adventure for the Kindle.
We shall keep you posted as to when it is available for download.

We have happily hosted several touring cyclists who belong to the Warm Showers List, an excellent resource for long distance cycling tourists.
Living right on a cross-state bicycle route, we expect to get more tourists later this month and into August.

Well, it looks like the old theme doesn’t support the newer versions of WordPress, so we are using a new theme. Please bear with us as we tweak the new design.

Watch for clips from the Portland to Portland bicycle tour.

Coming soon.

It’s funny how many of the details of the trip I have already forgotten. Re-organizing the journal into an easy to read format has brought back many memories and has me thinking of doing another bicycle tour.
I don’t think that I can do something as long as a transcontinental, but maybe can do the Southern Tier in two week segments. Or perhaps there is a nice two weeks tour to be done. We did enjoy the Seaway Trail and have been considering a tour around Lake Champlain. Then there is that new trail from Pittsburgh to DC.

So as of now, I have the first three weeks of the trips in sequential order. You can find them by going to the side bar and looking under the Find It tab.

Blogs are great if you follow along on a regular basis, but if you stumble upon one and want to read all of the entries, it is a bit of a pain. I promised long ago that I would arrange the trip on a page so that it would be easier to follow and finally I have started on that quest.

Simply go to the Trip week by week tab and choose a week.