The Welcoming Song

Last night I began the intimidating task of shifting through hours of footage to create a short video about our Cycle Oregon experience. One moment that stood out crystal clear for us was the first night in Bly, OR when a local council member welcomed us to Klamath country.

The behind the scenes of the actual filming is less than glamorous. I was just settling into a beer in the back of the stage when the evening announcements begin. I quickly bolt up and run with my tripod and camera (with a bulk of the audio gear in the tent) and start recording. Fortunately, I was able to capture a moment that I think sums up Cycle Oregon for us. Cycle Oregon is ultimately about connections. It connects friends, volunteers and most importantly it connects rural and urban Oregon in a unique shared experience.

The finished product of this video is still months down the road, but I couldn’t help but share this one moment since it is the essence of the Cycle Oregon experience. Sit back and enjoy!

(Keep our adventures going and the site growing! If you’ve enjoyed our stories, videos and photos over the years, consider buying our ebook Panniers and Peanut Butter, or our new Brompton Touring Book, or some of the fun bike-themed t-shirts we’re designing, or buying your gear through our Amazon store.)

Interbike 2012 Roundup

Interbike 2012 has come and gone and we’ve braved Las Vegas once again to take a look at new trends in racks and bags in the bike industry. While this year seems less revolutionary than last, with most products only getting a new color scheme or incorporating some of last years innovations, there were a few things that caught our eye. For those that want to see things in action, watch our video roundup below.

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A Southern Sojourn Part 1

Months ago and a hemisphere away, we got an email from someone that went by the nickname of “Zeke” to see if we’d be interested in returning to the mountains of Western North Carolina to give some presentations on bicycle travel at the Blue Ridge Breakaway. Sure, we said. It was an abstraction. Months away. Of course, time always moves faster when you’re not paying attention.

Once we were finalizing our travel dates, BikeShopGirl told us through Twitter that if we came “just” a week earlier we could also check out Southern Spokes, a fun family-oriented bike and camping weekend that she was organizing. Looking at our calendar and maps it looked like the perfect excuse for a little Southern touring. Sure, we told her. Before we knew it, we were rushing to get our bikes shipped and figuring out how to dress exactly for a humid Southern summer.

Bike Fun in the CLT

We took the red-eye to Charlotte, NC and probably got less than an hour of sleep. We met Arleigh (aka BikeShopGirl) bright and early at around 6am. In a sleep deprived but caffeine driven cloud of activity, we got to know each other and drove into Charlotte proper. After a short stop at Smelly Cat Cafe in the NoDa arts district of Charlotte, we headed over to a woman named Pamela’s house for a breakfast of oatmeal and grits. I had almost forgotten the fun but somewhat erratic trajectory of travel. You move like a pinball ricocheting from person to place ever trending in a vague but deliberate direction.

After breakfast, Arleigh got our bikes ready for riding. We had shipped them ahead of time and mine was apparently a little worse for wear. She hoisted it up on a small tree and dialed in the shifting. We then got a whirlwind bike tour of Charlotte, meeting up with some readers at Common Market. Charlotte, we were told is actually not so bad for riding. The center is busy with activity during the day, but becomes a virtual ghost town after work hours and during the weekend as people flee to the suburbs. We stopped at the headquarters of Charlotte’s new bikeshare program which was barely a week old and spoke to their operations manager. We also dropped by the Spoke Easy, a bike shop started by a local architecture firm, that specialized in building custom bicycles for people. They helped you pick out a frame, components and even worked with a local powdercoater.

When we got to our digs for the night we were exhausted from the lack of sleep, but also the buzz of being on the road again. The next morning, we rode to the small bike friendly community of Davidson, NC where we spent the afternoon checking out the small shops and enjoying the sun. We met up with four other cyclists (DC, KT, Jon, Dick Winters) who were also on their way to SouthernSpokes. After another round of coffee, we mounted up and pounded out the remaining 23 miles to the campground. It must have been a strange sight to see 6 loaded bikes pacelining on a Friday afternoon.

We set up camp at Lake Norman and made use of our firestarting skills to get the wet twigs and branches burning into suitable “cowboy TV” as DC liked to call it. As the night went on, others started to find the fire and it was good to be in the company of people that were just out for a fine weekend of bikes and camping.

The next two days were filled with relaxing bike fun. Salsa was out in force with demo bikes for the event. Laura went on women’s mountain bike ride on one of the many loops at Lake Norman. I took out the Salsa Warbird, their new gravel racing bike. We both rode the El Mariachi which got us dreaming of future off road adventures. As much fun as the bike riding was, the best part of Southern Spokes was the people. We got to hang out with Arleigh and talk about some of the challenges of bicycle advocacy in the South. We also talked a lot about the power of storytelling in blogs and social media and how bicycle shops and the greater cycling movement could take advantage of it. We got to know Eric from Salsa and learned a little more about the company and the grueling work it takes to launch new bikes.

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From Lake Norman, our next destination was Asheville, NC. We had a vague idea of how to get there and mapped out a very circuitous route trying to avoid the main highway. Although the distance wasn’t very long, according to our GPS, we did about 9,000 feet of climbing in the 100 or so miles to Asheville!

One of the highlights was stumbling upon a small private campground just outside of Marion, NC. Porsche, the owner of the campground, is a 28-year-old general contractor who got into real estate early. She purchased about a mile of riverfront property on the Catawba River for her dream house, that she is now building herself. In the interim, she is opening up some of her land to campers. It was a delightful stay where we were literally feet from the water. We were her first bike tourists, so we stayed up late drinking white wine beneath her outdoor dining area (a popup tent) and swapped stories. While the camp had very few facilities, it was relaxing and scenic (and I managed to get some blue gill on the fly rod : ). If you’re traveling through the area on bike, we highly recommend it!

From the campground, it was more or less a short-ish but hilly ride into Asheville. While only about 40 miles, there was a good bit of climbing to be done. Most of it, thankfully, was on old HWY 70 that is now a converted greenway! It is short, only about 3 miles, but it is beautiful and one of best stretches of roads we’ve been on. Imagine climbing a windy and twisty mountain road beneath a canopy of trees without a car in sight. There were even picnic benches along the way, overlooking some of the amazing views to be had.

In Asheville, we stayed at the Sweet Peas Hostel located centrally in downtown. It doesn’t look very inviting from the outside, but the interior was done in a very clean and contemporary way. Most hostels in the US that we’ve stayed in have seen better days, but Sweet Peas looked well-maintained and is a great gem in the middle of Asheville. As an added plus, the hostel was also pretty bike friendly and didn’t have a problem with us rolling the bikes indoors. They also had information about Adventure Cycling on display. While we would have liked to linger longer, we had a presentation to give at The Blue Ridge Breakaway in two days and needed to get back on the bikes!

Part 2 Coming Soon!

(Keep our adventures going and the site growing! If you’ve enjoyed our stories, videos and photos over the years, consider buying our ebook Panniers and Peanut Butter, or our new Brompton Touring Book, or some of the fun bike-themed t-shirts we’re designing, or buying your gear through our Amazon store.)

Video: Interview with Bill White

We interviewed Bill White, the founder of Bike Camp in Twin Bridges, MT in the summer of 2011. We learned recently that he passed away. The little time we spent together was so influential that I just had to dig up what little footage I had and share his story. Bill White is the true definition of a trail angel and I hope his legacy of Bike Camp will continue on after his passing. His story and the thinking of Bike Camp is also a great example of how we have seen bicycle travel and tourism help small communities. Thank you Bill.

(Keep our adventures going and the site growing! If you’ve enjoyed our stories, videos and photos over the years, consider buying our ebook Panniers and Peanut Butter, or our new Brompton Touring Book, or some of the fun bike-themed t-shirts we’re designing, or buying your gear through our Amazon store.)

Video Review: Small Arkel Handlebar Bag

In this video review, we take a look at the “small” handlebar bag by Arkel. I use the air quotes because for a small bag it is fairly big! The current trend is to get all rando with a small front rack and boxy style bag that sits on the platform. I’m a big fan of rando bags. I am NOT a fan of having to buy and install a small front rack for every bike I want to use the bag on. Thus began the search for just a Plane Jane handlebar bag.

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Behind the Scenes: Riding The Old West Scenic Bikeway

We’ve been quiet on the site, but have been busy behind the scenes. True to our mission to promote bicycle travel to a larger audience, one of the projects we’ve been quietly working on has been with Travel Oregon to help photograph, film and promote their new Scenic Bikeway Program. Everyone knows Portland is the hot Mecca of cycling in US right now, but few people know that some of the best riding in Oregon (in our opinion) is across the mountains on the Eastern part of the state. We were sent out in early summer to write, film and photograph our experience there and we’re finally glad to say it’s all live and public! Check out our article for TravelOregon and watch the video we’ve been fine tuning for months below. The Old West Scenic Bikeway completely took us by surprise. In the five days of travel the landscape varied so much you were always wondering what the next corner would bring.

The Making of the Video
For those that are curious about some of the behind the scenes details, I carried 3 cameras in total (2 video, 1 still), a tripod, video slider, a bevy of lenses, laptop and other filming and still photography equipment in addition to our regular touring load. Somehow, it all managed to fit in two rear panniers, a Carradice saddle bag and a handlebar bag. We were originally just going out to write and photograph the bikeway but the idea to film it came at the 11th hour, so that meant some liberal use of Amazon Prime and expedited shipping. Some of the gear, didn’t arrive until the first day of riding and shooting. I had to overnight some gear to Laura’s brother in Bend (the other rider in the video) who then met up with us in John Day. While he unloaded his gear and bike, I ripped open packages and figured out how to use everything in about forty minutes before it was showtime : ). Perhaps the biggest bane but also greatest asset was the video slider. It didn’t come with a bag so I literally trucked it around for 5 days in its original packaging to protect it. This made for slow setup and deployment so I had to be really judicious about using it, since we were riding some tough miles and didn’t want to get us over tired. By the end of the trip, the box that the slider in was more or less destroyed. Duct tape was holding one end closed. About 5 miles from the end of the ride I hit a bump and heard a big kerchunk as the slider managed to fly out of one end of the box and on to the road.

Something else I was experimenting with was neutral density filters to give me narrow depth of field for portraits and details in bright light. Downside is a decent ND filter costs about $40 to $50 and my lenses are all varying diameters. The solution was to buy them in the largest lens size and get a handful of step down filters. This made for a lot of unscrewing and rescrewing step up and step down filters. Not the most elegant solution, but the most cost-effective solution.

And of course, there is all the post processing. I was already fairly adept at FCPX having used it on our previous Kiwi Chronicles series, but relatively new to motion graphics. So this meant hours of watching tutorials and hours of fiddling with After Effects for about 15 seconds of video. The biggest challenge was how to convey the concept of Oregon being bike friendly, and the scenic bikeways spatially while having it all flow together in visually coherent way. It made sense to use the bike silhouette inside the state of Oregon since it also neatly mimicked the actual scenic bikeway signage. What I’m learning is that video production is all problem solving. How to communicate a clear message in a compelling way. With still photography it is relatively easier because you are working solely in a one dimension and your major tools are composition and color. With video, it is infinitely more complex. There is composition and color but also time and audio! It is like the difference between 2D Tetris and 3D Tetris : )

All this to say that although the video was only 2 minutes, there was a lot of time, effort, false starts, re-recording that went behind it all to make it appear seamless and effortless.

Read our itinerary of the trip, watch the video and enjoy. We hope it gets you fired up to explore the Old West Scenic Bikeway (and the other 8 Bikeways Oregon has announced)!

(Keep our adventures going and the site growing! If you’ve enjoyed our stories, videos and photos over the years, consider buying our ebook Panniers and Peanut Butter, or our new Brompton Touring Book, or some of the fun bike-themed t-shirts we’re designing, or buying your gear through our Amazon store.)

Bike Camping with Kidical Mass PDX!

This weekend we shook up our bike touring adventures with something new, bike camping with KidicalMassPDX! Andy, one of the organizers for the bike camping trip invited us along to join in the fun. Though Laura and I don’t have any kids of our own, we are very supportive of family biking and especially bike camping! We met at Woodstock Park in SE Portland which appropriately had a playground at the start. In total there was about a dozen families, 22 bikes and 16 kids in attendance! The bikes ran the gamut from regular bikes with trailers, to a Surly Big Dummy, a Kona Ute, a custom Bilenky longtail, a Bilenky coupled tandem and even a pair of Bromptons specially outfitted with a child’s seat. It was quite the sight to behold! Sometimes its easy to take all this bikey fun for granted living in Portland, but we definitely recognized how special this event was.

Our end destination was Dodge Park (GPS route), formerly a day use only site along the confluence of the Sandy and Bull Run river that has been recently re-opened to camping. The distance from the meeting point to the campground was about 22 miles, far longer than the usual KidicalMass rides. About half the ride was on off-road paths a significant portion would be on small country roads. This sort of riding is usually beyond the ken of Kidical Mass, but the route was well chosen and generally managed to avoid busy roads and steep hills. Another great feature about the route was that it was essentially a door-to-door route without the need to take any transit. This has been a big deterrence for many would-be family bike campers with cargo bikes who can’t easily take light rail past the suburbs of Portland. As enlightened as Portland can be with some things transit oriented, the MAX rail system isn’t really all that great with bikes. If you have a regular bike you have to lift it up and put it on a hook and there is a general ban on trailers, tandems and cargo bikes. This route, however, cut all that needless worry and hassle of negotiating with grumpy passengers and Trimet operators.

A large part of the first 10 miles was on the Springwater Trail which made for relaxed riding and getting to meet some of the families. Filtering back and forth and taking photos, I learned that for quite a few of the families it was their first ever bike camping trip with kids. What made it appealing to newbie families was being part of a great supportive group of other families and of course, new playmates. The ride pace was family friendly with plenty of restroom breaks and even a berry picking break along the Springwater.

Once we left the Springwater, there were some small roads with light to moderate traffic to negotiate but it was largely just a pleasant ride through the Oregon countryside. After a gradual climb you descend down to river level beneath a canopy of trees and essentially coast to the campground. The campground itself was nice with lots of trees providing shade. There was a new-ish looking covered pavilion building with bathrooms, showers and a small outdoor amphitheater. A short walk from where we pitched our tents were the Sandy and Bull Run rivers with quite a few beach areas for swimming.

At this point, Laura and I snuck away momentarily from the group so I could get a little fishing in. On the first cast I hooked an aggressive small trout that eventually got off. I managed to hook and land another small one about twenty minutes later. No record breakers, but it was good fun to feel the tug of a fish on the line.

By the time we got back to camp, a fire was built and dinner was in full tilt. We enjoyed chatting and meeting some new people and slowly the kids pealed away and went to bed. Some “grownups” stayed up a wee bit later and talked until it got dark. The next morning, we all prepared breakfast and lingered a bit. There was a scheduled break for the kids to head down to the river before pedaling off. After everyone was packed up and on their bikes I took a group photo and we pushed off to tackle “the hill.” The nice long descent at the end of the day yesterday was to be the first climb this morning. It was a little slow going, but with some patience and sweat everyone made it up to the regrouping spot at the top of the hill.

It was there that we peeled off and said our goodbyes to the rest of the group. It was a fun weekend and it was great to share the experience with some families new to bike camping. After the success of this trip, I have a feeling it won’t be the last trip KidicalMassPDX will organize!

(Keep our adventures going and the site growing! If you’ve enjoyed our stories, videos and photos over the years, consider buying our ebook Panniers and Peanut Butter, or some of the fun bike-themed t-shirts we’re designing, or buying your gear through our Amazon store.)

Review: Road Holland Jersey

Let’s just get it out there – most bike kit and jerseys are plain awful. They either scream LOOK I’M A RACER or fall on the same hackneyed design cliches (i.e. flames and skulls on men’s jerseys and flowers on women’s). Thankfully, within the last few years there have been many options for more subdued biking clothing. We have always been intrigued with Road Holland‘s classy and austere jerseys but never were able to see them in person. They offered us an opportunity to try out some of their gear and hopped on it! Road Holland sent us two jerseys to write about. I got the midnight blue version of the Utrecht a quarter zip short sleeve jersey and Laura received the Breukelen, a full zip long sleeve jersey.

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Our Cycle Oregon Weekend

For our first Bike Trekker episode, we’ve decided to film our experience at the Cycle Oregon Weekend ride. Cycle Oregon is an epic week long ride that showcases the great rural communities around Oregon. Aside from creating a well organized and wonderful riding experience, they do a lot of philanthropy for the small communities they go through. The Weekend Ride, just like it sounds, is a mini-version of the week long ride. This year, it took place in Corvallis, Laura’s home town and within a long day’s bike ride from Portland. We thought, “what better way to start a biking event than to bike there!”

It was a LONG ride, coming in over 80 miles. We took the MAX out to Hillsboro and began our ride there. For the most part we meandered all day through small country roads right in the heart of Willamette Valley wine country. Our favorite part of the trip was stumbling upon some quiet gravel roads with nary a car in sight.

We arrived in Corvallis tired and famished from the ride. Thankfully, we had a rest day before the madness of the Cycle Oregon Weekend began. On Friday, we rode to the OSU campus, registered and then set up our tent on campus. We got there fairly early so we were able to find a spot by some trees. In a few hours, people trickled in and the field became a tent city!

That night, we walked around the grounds and chatted with some fellow cyclists. We ran into quite a few readers which is always a treat. The folks camped next to us followed our trip to New Zealand and were planning their own NZ tour in January. We gave them a few tips of where to go and what to avoid. Later in the evening we had a few drinks at the beer garden and listened to some music on the main stage. This was our first ever “event” style ride and after years of fully supported touring this felt pretty luxurious even though we were still in a tent. We crashed out fairly early, still tired from our ride from Portland and rested for the next day.

The next morning we got up bright and early (with about 2200 other cyclists!) had a quick breakfast with bleh coffee (sorry, Portland coffee has spoiled us) and hit the road. We opted to do the medium length rides on both days since we knew were going to be stopping a lot to take photos and video.

The first day was the hillier of the two, but didn’t have any major climbs and only a few rollers. It was beautiful riding through several scenic back roads around Corvallis that we had not been on before. Some were so devoid of traffic we didn’t see any cars on them. Another first for us was pulling up to rest stops with food and drinks! We are so use to carrying all our own stuff that through force of habit we still had a pannier filled with almond butter, fruit and tortillas. Riding without carrying all your gear is a strange new world

One thing we did enjoy immensely was pedaling along and seeing we were traveling at a decent clip of around 15-18 mph! Much faster than our turtle like touring pace. It was good to know that beneath the piles of all our panniers, we can be pretty zippy bicyclists. On the evening of the first day, we had some wine in the beer garden and spotted a copy of the new maps of the Oregon Scenic Bikeways, which featured some of our photos form our recent trip out there.

The second day, some clouds rolled in and there was a forecast for strong winds. We got up fairly early and banged out the miles quickly but still stopped at all the rest stops (what a luxury!). We even got a tour of an old water-powered mill.

At the end of the second day, Cycle Oregon rolled out the red carpet for the cyclists at the finish. There was a balloon arch and a small squadron of cheerleaders, as well as a freezer truck full of ice-cream. Cycle Oregon Weekend was our first ever event ride and it was definitely different from what we were use to. Although the camping wasn’t quite as scenic, it felt pretty pampered to have rest stops with local volunteers serving sandwiches and fresh local fruit (if only that would happen on all our tours!). We had a great time and it was nice to have a few days where all you had to do was pedal your bike and everything else would be taken care of. With such a positive experience with the weekend ride, we hope to one day get a chance to do the full week ride and really get the full Cycle Oregon experience.

See you at the Blue Ride Breakaway, August 17th and 18th!

We are headed back to North Carolina! We’ve been invited by the wonderful people at the Waynesville Rotary Club to speak and ride at the Blue Ridge Breakaway! We will be giving two presentations on Friday, August 17th. One will be a Lunch and Learn for the local business community focusing on bicycle tourism and the benefits of being a bicycle friendly community. Then, later that evening we’ll be doing a kick-off presentation about some of the ups and downs of traveling on bike with lots of photos and stories from the road! And on Saturday, we’ll get to ride those beautiful roads without any gear (yay!)! So come join us for the presentation and the ride!

Nuts and Bolts
Blue Ridge Breakaway – BlueRidgeBreakaway.com

Friday, August 17th
1pm – Lunch and Learn
7pm – Friday Evening Kick-Off (Lake Junaluska Conference and Retreat Center)

Saturday, August 18th
Let’s Ride!

We are really excited about attending the event and hope to see some readers there!