Coming Soon Bicycles and Bicycle Touring 

Before I started touring on bicycles. I searched the web for clues on how to prepare myself. The idea being that there is knowledge out there that will ease the process or inspire or at least feel that you are not alone.

My sense is that those who tour on bicycles are a varied lot. I am sure that many hardly think about it at all.

My first bicycle trip without parents was in 1968. A school friend Charles and I decided to tour Denmark visiting friends of his (if I remember correctly in Vissing and then meeting up with other friends in Kongs Lyngby near Copenhagen. 

I travelled on a three speed flat barred bicycle with normal clothes some kind of carrier (containing hardback copies of Turgenev) and possibly a cycling cape. Charles and I split up shortly after arrival in Esbjerg - meeting again in Vissing.

I mention this early "tour" because in those days, it did not seem remarkable for a couple of fifteen year olds to be travelling in a foreign country. Furthermore, I am pretty sure that beyond pumping up the tyres and oiling the chain, the adjustments for "touring" were minimal.

I suspect that for some tourers little has changed. They jump on their commuter bike in -say- Amsterdam and head South.

When I re-engaged with bicycle touring after 45 years, I felt that more preparation was required. This time corresponded with my retirement and although I had been making forays into bicycle building over the previous few years, the big R gave me far more time to turn daydreams into reality.

I know that this Blog has no followers - but that may change. If there is a follower out there, the message is - more about the building of bicycles and bicycle touring is to come.