Gert is no stranger to ferries. We've been on several adventures which required them (Catalina Island, southeast Alaska, Orcas Island, Seattle to Whistler, San Francisco Bay). This trip has significantly increased the number of ferries taken but it's always the same. Roll onto the car deck, stash the bike somewhere relatively secure, find someplace to watch as you pass through an incredible landscape. Eventually you dock and you walk back to…
There are no thieves in Norway, yet, the kind campground manager informed me as he gave me the key to a cabin and told me it would be fine to leave my bike on the covered porch outside. So far he's been right. Even the gulls aren't thieves here. I leave my food out and walk away for a few minutes and they don't even eye it. One of the reasons…
What the hell am I doing? I'm sitting on the floor of the Bergen airport at 1am trying to reattach my rear derailleur. I've done this dozens of times before but my sleep and food deprived brain can't make sense of the problem. I google "how to install a rear derailleur" and "what should a rear derailleur look like" and watch several videos before my free wifi disconnects. Eventually I get…
This is the story of a man who rides his bike across the country and you won't remember the riding. I think that's generally how bike touring is: you remember what happens between pedal strokes. The Memory of Running is the story of Smithson (Smithy) Ide of East Providence, RI. He has spent the last two decades drunk, fat, and alone. His mentally ill sister disappeared decades earlier and his parents…
I've become a bit of an expert at reading travels blogs over the last few years and I find that there are a few levels of detail and most blogs focus on one of these levels. Some are practically turn by turn directions of a location, some are more thematic, and others are in the weeds of their tools. As someone looking for inspiration I am drawn towards the thematic posts,…
When I mention to people that I'm going to ride my bike around Scandinavia this summer the first question they usually ask is if I'm going alone. When I say yes the reactions tend to be split. The first group reacts somewhere along the lines of, "that's awesome and I wish I was that brave" while the second is closer to "aren't you scared that something bad will happen to you."…
Las Vegas may not seem like the perfect spot for a test run for my summer trip to Northern Europe. I had a few things I needed to test out: handling a loaded packraft with my bike, my new bike bag, and my new stove. I ended up there during a winter storm, so the conditions were much closer to what I expect to face in Europe that I could have…
Gert and me with a redwood trunk I bought Gertrude in November 2013. I had a tentative job offer in DC (they were waiting for their contracts to come through) and I was actively looking for a job in San Francisco. I came to California with about two months of savings and figured I'd spend some time job hunting and ride the CA coast and hope I didn't run out of…
This post may contain affiliate links. Scandinavia is one of the most expensive regions of the world but seeing it by bike is one of the most economical ways to see the region and, from what I've been reading, one of the best ways to experience the region as Scandinavians do. Camping most nights and foraging when possible will reduce the cost of this trip significantly. It doesn't hurt that I…
tl;dr I'm heading to the North Atlantic for the summer! I bought my first adult bike when I was 22 because although I loved walking I just didn’t have the time to walk everywhere. It was February in DC and in order to get to my yoga teacher training class I either needed to walk an hour and a half in the cold slush, take public transit for roughly half an…