The bike...
Posted on 02/14/2020 1:12:53 PM PST by rktman
My wife gets bad allergies in August and just wants to be left alone near her HEPA filters until the pollen clears... and so it’s been a tradition that I take a few days/weeks off by myself. What I’ve done for years now is strip the bike down, put it in a box and fly one way somewhere west... and then bike home. The reason for going west is simple... winds blow predominantly toward the east and I like biking as fast as can. This routine has taken me to lots of places but here is one of the very nicest (and for this one, you obviously had to fly east). https://www.explore-mag.com/biking-the-gaspe
The trail around the Gaspe Peninsula is only 500 miles or so in length.... further if you start from Quebec City but it’s spectacular and for people who like to bike, it should be on your bucket list. There are some hills that are up to 15% (well, quite a few) so take a bike with low gears. And take the clockwise route as opposed to a counter clockwise… the wind can be spectacular along the south shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and you definitely want to be biking with it. Here’s a nice blog about it that has some nice pictures... http://gaspecycling.blogspot.com/
“ABC’s Wild World of Sports used to cover an annual cross-country bicycle race.”
True. And the race continues. About five years ago a woman won the race (Seattle to Norfolk VA) won in seven days. She said Kansas just goes on forever and ever.
The bike...
Biking Cross Country is on my bucket list. I love to bike rail trails and see old ruins. Pinellas Rail Trail is nice, especially seeing old railroad structures. Rail to Trails people do not want rails back on trails, which is a shame.
I with you. None of this public funds for a common good. If that many folks want it they can pay for it themselves. Social justice has to come first.
Bicycle Thread PING!
Nostalgic value only. No body is interested in the retro stuff now. I was in the business from ‘75 to around’96 and it’s a whole different world now.
I’m too old for the iron butt challenge. I enjoy just riding until I feel like taking a break.
I’m looking at adding some saddlebags so I can easily do a several day trip out of state. Because of my business, much longer than that probably won’t happen. Mores the pity. I should have invested better so I didn’t need a working income. In my next life I will be wiser.
I've fallen asleep on long bike rides, but no cliffs nearby. Ditches at the side of the roads nearly got me a few times.
Good to know. The magazines didn't have much value to me anymore. It was time to move on. I still have a couple of racing bicycles from the time period. The frames were handmade and have excellent workmanship... they still have some value beyond sentimental from the tens of thousands of miles that I rode on them, and many of the parts on them were prizes that I won in races. Things like my Campagnolo Super Record rear derailleur are little trophies that only I know about.
There is a bit of a retro cult out there. And good steel bikes still being made.
Check out Columbine cycles for some truly beautiful work.
I’ve known a few who did it including a handicapped rider with cerebral palsy and a lady who used to hold the world female tandem record. Nine days or something.
My favorite all time favorite steel racing bike from the 1970s is called a Strawberry. It was made by a craftsman who lived in Portland Oregon. When I looked Strawberry bicycles just now, I found that the name has an interesting origin. The stories I heard about the guy in the 1970s turned out to be inaccurate.
” In 1970 after graduating from engineering school, I lived in the Cotswolds near Bulls Cross, Stroud, a few miles from Gloucester. Once a week I rode in a massed start road race in the Bristol area and during one of the train trips down to Bristol I learned of a road race across the English/Scottish border held the week before the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh. This sounded like an adventure, so I headed north on the train with my new Bob Jackson bicycle. The road race included national team members and it was no sooner apparent that I was out of my depth than I was desperately off the back of the pack touring the highlands of Scotland. A week later the weather was still abysmal but the scenery cycling down Loch Ness was beautiful. Returning south, I spent a few days in London and ordered a Hetchins cycle frame for a girlfriend. My interest in cycle frame construction was piqued by the Hetchins shop visit. Fast forward, I returned to Portland and thought to attempt to fabricate cycle frames, but under what moniker? My father, Lawrence Fraser Newlands, Scottish on both sides, suggested the Fraser crest. Research into the Fraser name in Scotland shows Norman roots from the mid - 12th. century and that it is derived from the French word fraise, meaning Strawberry. However, the origin of the name Fraser is disputed, and indeed, the name may be a pun on the strawberry flowers on the Fraser heraldic crest. All in good humor, the name “Strawberry Bicycle” was trademarked in 1971.”
“Id bet before you got out of Virginia that your @ss would hurt like the mayor of South Bend’s after his honeymoon.”
I rode that first portion along the C&O Canal tow path when I was a teenager. From DC to Harper’s Ferry WV. A little over 60 miles each way. Not sore, but this was summer and it sure was hot and humid.
flr
“Remember, Lewis and Clark pushed wagons and carts over these mountains in far more difficult circumstances”
Lewis and Clark didn’t use carts or wagons. They traveled in a flatboat up the Missouri then used canoes, walked or rode horses for the rest of the trip to the Pacific and back.
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