Half-Day Bicycle Tours in Buenos Aires

So you're on your way to Antarctica, Patagonia, or just to visit Argentina. You have a layover day or four in Buenos Aires and can get away for an afternoon. We have the perfect half-day bicycle tour for you. Actually, this is perfect for most of a day because the neighborhood of San Telmo, where this bike tour company is based, is one of the most interesting quarters of Buenos Aires. So go early for your tour, explore the Plaza Dorrego, take your bike ride with La Bicicleta Naranja Tours and Rentals then come back late afternoon for drinks in Plaza Dorrego again as it fills up with both tourists and locals at that time.
For more photos of bicycling in Argentina visit our Flickr pages.

How 'Bout a Bike Tour in Boston?

Of course, you can just rent a bike and do your own exploring but the reason to take a half-day bicycle tour is . . . local knowledge. Nothing can buy you local information like taking a ride with the folks who ride there all the time.

The folks at Urban AdvenTours, in Boston, will rent you a bicycle but they will also show you the sights, and where to find the best food in Boston, like Redbones, Boston's best BBQ and the Washington Square Tavern.

So if you are short on time and short on knowledge about where to find a bike and where to ride, finding a local bike tour operator for a short half-day or full-day ride is the solution. When in Boston call Urban AdvenTours.

Bicycle Touring in Japan

Considering a bicycle tour in Japan? Take a look at the Japan Cycling Navigator for general information. For bicycle rentals in Japan try Outdoor Japan for information on renting a touring bicycle.

Giant Bicycles to Offer Bicycle Rentals in Taipei City

Giant Manufacturing Co, the world's largest manufacturer of bicycles will set up eleven rental points with a total of 500 rental bikes in the heart of Taipei City. This follows on the announcement of the introduction of 4,500 bicycles in Kaohsiung City along that city's Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) routes by May for use by citizens in a massive bike sharing program. Read more about it here.

So if you are traveling to Taiwan there is not need to forgo your daily bike ride!

For the news announcement about Giant in Taipei City click here.

Bike Sharing Blog Gathers Info on Bike Sharing Around the World

The Bike-sharing Blog provides information on the emerging public transportation mode of bike-sharing. The Blog is provided by MetroBike, LLC , based in Washington, D.C., USA. Visit the blog here by clicking here.

At right is a photo of the Bike Library in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Cafes in Tel Aviv, Israel Offer Free Bicycles

Visiting Tel Aviv on a bus tour? Take an afternoon to enjoy the bike share program in these cafes!

How to Pack for your Self-Supported Bicycle Tour

A picture is worth a thousand words. So have a look at some of the photos here of the annual Winter Ralleye Bike Tour out of Fort Collins, Colorado into the Rocky Mountains. Normally (what's normal any more?) the weather is pretty cold with snow on the ground. But this year the 30 or so thirty-somethings had fifty plus degree weather for the winter overnight bike tour to Ansel Watrous campground on the scenic Cache La Poudre River twenty-five miles out of Fort Collins.

We publish this note here so those of you who are dreaming of a self-supported, loaded bicycle tour can see several examples of B.O.B. trailers, panniers, and combinations thereof. Have fun looking at these photographs!

Bikes on Trains in Europe with the Example of Italy

There are normally two occasions when you might need to take your bike on the train:
1) You've just arrived at the airport and need to get to your first hotel or other lodging;
2) You're out on the road with your bike and you need to cover some ground quickly. (Alternatively, you’ve finished your tour, arrived in Sicily and need to jump on the train to return to Rome, for example).

Regulations vary from country to country and train to train but we'll talk about bikes on Italian trains in this post. Later we'll send you to resources in other countries.

Italian trains are pretty bike friendly after years of lobbying by the Federazione Italiana Amici della Bicicletta.

Getting your Bike from the Airport by Train

Let’s say you are headed from the Rome airport to your rental villa in Umbria or Tuscany. If your bike is in a box or bag you can take it on most trains as accompanied baggage. It’s just a question as to whether or not there is baggage
in your train car. (Most Italian trains do NOT have separate luggage cars). Fast trains, tagged ES*, ES* Fast, AV e AV Fast, in the train scheudule normally do not allow large packages such as a bike in a box (ES means EuroStar, the long-distance fast trains).

Getting your bike on the train is the least of your problems. Think, instead, about the logistics in moving your bike in a bike case or box, your luggage, and your family or traveling companions. In Rome you first have to get from luggage claim to the metro train to get into Rome, then change metros to get to the train station, then to your train. Once you arrive at destination you need to get from the local train station to your villa or rental apartment. A better option might be to rent a van or even hire a van to shuttle you to your destination.

Taking your Bike on the Train without a Box or Case

So you’re out on the road, pedaling furiously but need to jump ahead a couple hundred kilometers. Or, you want to pedal from Venice to Florence but the only bike rental supplier is near Bologna (LINK). So pick up your rental bike near Bologna, take the train to Venice, do your bike tour from Venice to Florence, then catch the train back from Florence to Bologna with your bike and drop it off at the rental supplier.

MOST local and regional Italian trains will allow you to just wheel your bike aboard. You need a ticket and your bike needs a 3.50 euro ticket. (Be sure to validate that ticket before you board).

This is actually a great way to travel throughout Europe as long as there aren't too many travelers. Up to four bikes with panniers can usually fit on a train pretty easily. A larger group is much more difficult.

For more information on bikes on trains in Italy and Europe here are a few resources:

TrenItalia, the old Ferrovie dello Stato web site has a pretty good English explanation here.

The Italian train schedule online is actually very good and indicates which trains take bikes with a small bicycle icon and note: "Bicycle transportation service."

Other good resources in Italy are the Federazione Italiana Amici della Bicicletta (FIAB)
Their English web site is a little outdated but may be useful.

For information about bikes on trains in other European countries start with the European Cycling Federation.

Resources for Designing Your European Bicycle Tour Route #3 - Books

Our first post introduced the Eurovelo long distance bicycle touring network in Europe and our second post introduced you to critical maps to help you design your tour route. This post deals with resource books - both the good, the bad and the mediocre.

There are 3 Kinds of Bicycle Touring Books

1) Bicycle touring narratives;
2) "How to" books: how to pack, how to camp, how to cook, and more.
3) Bicycle tour route books: there are a small number of really great books in this category. There are lots of terrible books that fit here.

Bicycle Touring Narratives

There are a few classic bicycle touring narratives out there. You should read them, not because they'll help you prepare for your trip, but because they are great travel literature and they'll help get you psyched for your trip. The definitive bibliography of this literature is an ongoing project of Dr. Duncan Jamieson, a history professor at Ashland University in Ashland, Ohio. You can see his bibliography here.

But here are a few classic volumes that you might want to peruse:

Barbara Savage, Miles from Nowhere: A Round the World Bicycle Adventure (Paperback), first published by the Mountaineers in 1985. A great narrative of a two-year round-the-world bicycle tour by Savage and her husband. Tragically, the author was killed in a bike/car crash in California right before the book was published.

Andrew X. Pham, Catfish & Mandala, A vietnamese Odyssey (Flamingo/HarperCollins, 2000 and 2001); a memoir by a Vietnamese American who returns to Vietnam by bicycle to find himself. A real adventure in all senses of the word.

Dervla Murphy, Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle (first published in 1965). If you don't know Dervla Murphy, this is a great way to start.

Mark Jenkins, Off the Map, Bicycling Across Siberia, (William Morrow and Company, 1992) a great adventure of pedaling across Siberia right after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

"How to" bicycle touring books

We're not fans of "how to books." We just don't think that there is nearly as much to be gained from reading something called The Essential Touring Cyclist: A Complete Guide for the Bicycle Traveler as there is in reading some of the more entertaining travel literature cited above. Take a look on Amazon, though, and surf the web. You may find something that strikes your fancy. The following category has more to offer for your planning.

Bicycle Touring Route Books

Watch out! Some of these are great, most are just reruns of "how I spent my summer bicycling across Italy."

Seriously, most bicycle touring books that purport to tell you about bicycling in Italy, France, or wherever, are just a narrative of a ride somebody took. The problem with this kind of book is that they took one ride across Italy, Tuscany, or wherever and wrote it up. That makes them an expert? If I were you I'd want to know the BEST route across Italy or France, not the one John Doe took.

Good route books:
A couple of series of books are quite good, but be careful. The Lonely Planet Cycling Guide Series is pretty good but only if you get the second or later editon! First editions are often no better than Joe Blow bicycling someplace once and writing it up. So scout Amazon.com, for example for anything but the first edition of Cycling Britain, Cycling Italy, and so on.

One great series, and we can hope other series will come out, are the German BikeLine
route guides. These guides combine detailed maps for an entire route along with a step-by-step guide. The focus on some of the classic routes in Europe: Down the Danube, the Moselle, the Rhine, and other river rides.

Some of the Bikeline guides are available in English (the Danube for sure) if you can find them. Otherwise, its worth ordering the German version and using it just for the maps.

You can find the publisher's web site by clicking here. If they cover your region or the area you are headed to, this is your book series.

Resources for Designing Your European Bicycle Tour Route #2 - Maps

Our first post introduced the Eurovelo long distance bicycle touring network in Europe. Click on "route design" in the margin and you'll get all the posts relative to designing your route.

This post talks a little about basic maps for your trip: which maps to use and which to avoid, where to find the right maps, specialty maps, and so on. Later I'll talk about your basic bicycle touring books and why they aren't all that good. Then we'll begin to steer you toward two really valuable resources: 1) interactive online resources for bike route design; and, 2) newer edition publications that combine route notes and maps (available only in very popular bike touring areas).

We often see cyclists pedaling down a busy highway in Italy with a 1:1,000,000 Michelin map of Italy. No wonder that cyclist is on the wrong road. Michelin is French and their Italian maps aren't very good. Plus, the scale of one to a million is way too small (small scale, small detail; large scale, large detail).

For Europe, generally speaking, you want a map at about a 1:200,000 scale. You can get larger scale maps (1:100,000 or even 1:25,000) but to go anywhere on a bike you'd need a pannier full of these maps.

With that scale map you can cover most of a region and with two or three you can get across France, most of Italy, and so on.

Key Maps in A Few Countries of Europe

France: Michelin; regional maps at a scale of 1:200,000
Germany: The German Bicycle Touring Club (ADFC : Allgemeiner Deutsche Fahrrad Club) produces an excellent series of bicycle maps at 1:150,000
Italy: Italian Touring Club (Touring Club Italiano, TCI); regional at 1:200,000 (shown on this post)
(Michelin makes maps of Italy at 1:400,000 but they aren't detailed enough)
Ireland: Ordinance Survey Maps (Irish Government); 1:250,000 (you can cover the whole Republic in three maps; add Northern Ireland with a fourth
Spain: Instituto Geografico Nacional (Spanish Government mapping office) makes a great series by Province (Mapa Provincial) at 1:200,000 (find them in local bookstores or tobacconist shops)
Greece: Greece is tough but DON'T rely on foreign maps; I like Road Editions, 1:250,000 covering the entire country in 6 maps.
England, Scotland, Wales: Ordinance Survey 1:250,000 maps cover the entire United Kingdom (these are the maps generally recommended by the premier British bicycle touring organization, the Cyclists Tour Club - the CTC)

In the USA, of course, you'll be looking at the materials produced by the Adventure Cycling Association.

Later we'll talk about even more valuable resources and other maps. But don't forget the fun part of getting a paper map and poring over it to design your route!

Designing Your European Bicycle Tour Route #1 - Eurovelo

So, you're headed off to do a bike tour of Europe and you'd like to begin designing your route. Indeed, that's half the fun! This post will give you a few ideas and resources on how to start.

The Eurovelo Bike Route System as a Place to Begin

The adjacent map shows you a sketch of the Eurovelo bike route system. This long distance route network is briefly described in Wikipedia. But take a look at their web site for a comprehensive perspective.

At completion the Eurovelo network will identify and mark 12 long distance routes throughout Europe. Route number 6, for example follows the Loire River through France, then heads through a corner of Switzerland and into Germany where it picks up the Danube River which you follow all the way to the Black Sea. The great thing about these routes is that you can select a portion and follow it only in France, for example.

Route 6 is currently marked on the ground from Nantes, France as far as Budapest. About a six-week ride. But if you are just interested in a France, German or Austrian portion, it would do fine. The Eurovelo Route 6 website is here.

The web site description isn't comprehensive, though, so you'll need maps to complete your planning. Stay tuned for the next post on the best maps to use for your planning. We'll use the Loire River in France as an example.

Loaded or Self-Supported Bicycle Tour #2

Before you head off on a loaded bike tour with you and your family or with you and your new bride, neighbors, kids, or friends take a look at Darren Alff's blog. If you can imagine yourself in Darren's shoes and out on the open road "winging" it on your own, then go for it!

The Best Thing About Self-Supported Touring

The best thing about self-supported touring is that you're on your own, free to go where the road takes you, sleep where you want, when you want, and to ride as long or short as you want every day. There is nothing better than that feeling of freedom when you hit the road on a new tour in a new place. But. . .

The Problem with Self-Supported Touring

You're on your own. And if you like being on your own, enjoy the freedom! But the minute you take the family with you or the minute you decide to "organize" the trip for friends and relatives, you're in charge! Or at least someone's in charge.

I'll never forget when my 14 year-old asked, after four straight 80 mile days, "What happened to those 50 mile days we were going to do on this trip?" That was in north central Norway over fifteen years ago. We had the family there and we were developing a new tour. Well, to cover the territory we really needed to knock off a few longer days that I had expected. My credibility went down the tube.

When you are organizing a ride and you have one or ten other people, you need answers to questions like:
1) How long is today's ride?
2) How high is that mountain pass (or, from the engineer, "what's the total vertical today?"
3) Where are we sleeping tonight?
4) Where's the best lunch stop today?
. . . and on and on and on.

Resources for Planning a Self-Supported Bicycle Tour

(These are really better thought of as primers on whether I want to do this myself or not but have a look, that's part of the planning!)
Darren Alf's Blog: Bicycle Touring Pro
Adventure Cycling Association has a Bike Touring 101 also
REI has a Bike Touring Basics page (though it is pretty minimal)