With the deep freeze settling over the country, conditions are not suited for bike riding. Even here in Central Texas, we’ve been waking up to temps down around 19 degrees (-7C), and for awhile it was very windy. Biking was the farthest thing from my mind, as I shrugged on an extra layer of clothing, just to stay warm indoors.
So to pass the time, I sat with my iPad and surfed around some cycling sites. One of my favorites to while away the hours is Crazy Guy on a Bike. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s a site for touring cyclists to post accounts of their rides. The site has been online since about 2000, and has amassed an amazing amount of touring cyclist journals, as well as articles, reviews, forums and comments.
Some of the journals recount trips I have trouble even imagining — like going around the world by bike, or just biking through exotic locales on the other side of the globe. Others are more mundane — S24O trips to nearby woods (S24O stands for sub-24-hour overnight. Bike somewhere a few hours away, camp for the night, go home the next day). Of course, I wanted to see what people were doing in Texas, and there are plenty of stories of Southern Tier trips across the U.S. that pass through the Lone Star state, as well as others who go from south to north, or who just spend a few days touring a section of the state.
The same is true of all states. I grew up in Illinois, lived for a long time in Minnesota, and worked for awhile in Wisconsin. All kinds of adventures take place in those areas. I especially enjoyed reading the journal of a fellow who rode around Lake Superior, then back through Wisconsin to Minnesota — a pedaling duplicate of a car trip I took with my son when he was 11 years old. The cyclist took pretty much the same route, and stayed in several of the same places we did. Now, my appetite is whetted to hit the road myself.
One thing is holding me back. I don’t have a touring bike. It’s true, you can go cross-country on most anything, but a bike built for the purpose will give the best results. The usual suspects are well-represented in these stories: Surly Long Haul Truckers, Trek 520s, Windsor Tourists — but you’ll also find a lot of hybrid bikes and recumbents. Many of them pull small trailers.
I won’t be buying a touring bike any time soon. And frankly, I’ve done my share of camping, and I’m not a fan. But there’s a nice alternative that I might take up without a special bike and a heavy load. It’s called “credit card touring.”
Just hop on your bike, ride to a destination, and instead of camping, stay in a motel. Eat at restaurants, instead of cooking freeze-dried glop over a balky camp stove. The price mounts up fast, but that’s why we create budgets, right?
I don’t know if it will happen. We’re doing a big vacation this summer to celebrate a major anniversary, so all of our discretionary income is spoken for. But toward fall, when things are back to normal, I just might hit the back roads around here, and see sights off the beaten track for a few days.