Welcome to Cycling Cazalea, as I'm trying to psych myself into riding my bike again after having a 20-year layoff. (No miles were ridden today; I'm still sick and it's
still raining).
Although most of my riding has been local commuting, or up and down the Pacific coastline, we have traveled quite a bit on our bikes too.
Cycle Touring is the preferred term, I think. The shot below shows our brown tandem, and the trip was through the San Juan Islands, in Washington State.
Here's my wife holding up our bike on the way through Warner Springs heading towards the Anza Borrego desert. I only know that because we have ridden through this valley dozens of times.
This next batch of photos is from a trip through the Canadian Rockies, in 1986. Remember that you can click on any photo to see it a larger size (then hit return to come back).
I don't remember too much about the trip except we worked HARD. I know there were 3 tandems and a couple of singles. The guy on the right is a mystery to me. The couple in the middle are Bill and Lynn. The hairy guy on the left is George. Laurie is in yellow and I must be taking the photo.
Here's the tandem and my wife on a rare day when she was smiling. Usually she was crying with pain and frustration. I remember that we went up to 7000 feet elevation, down to 5000, then up again to about 8000 feet or so. This was a tough ride - about 1200 miles in 2 weeks. Average 90 a day but at least we had pre-booked hotels so we didn't have to mess around looking for a place to camp.
We had to repair a few punctures by the side of the road, as shown here. Sometimes in the rain and once with bears within shouting distance. The rear wheel on a loaded tandem is the worst place for a tire to be. And the hardest to fix. Everything gets strewn around the landscape.
This shot illustrates cycle-touring weather protection. A rain cape! Booties over our shoes. I recall this as one of the meanest days of the trip. Lots of climbing, and it started to snow. In July!
We did rent a "sag wagon" to carry some of our gear, but we quickly discovered that our economical choice of Chevy Chevette was not exactly capable of carrying all of us or all the bikes!
Here's my car-spotting trophy from the Canadian Tour. I saw this little Citroen 2CV next to a giant lumber truck, and fell in love. I bought it virtually on-the-spot, and although I don't own it at the moment, my friend Gary lets me drive it whenever I want to.
Thanks for checking out the blog. I promise I'll ride tomorrow. Honest Injun.
