Dear BIKES,

Spring is making it’s presence heard, and if that’s not enough to get you outside on your bike then maybe these articles will help give you the motivation you need:

·         Selecting a Club Ride

·         New Washington Parks Route

·         Become an Ambassador

·         Ride Around the World the Old-Fashioned Way

Ride On!

Joshua Tack

Club and Membership Specialist

A STIFF UPPER LIP AND LEGS (AND BUNS) OF STEEL

High-wheeling Brit rides ‘round the world the old-fashioned way

By Michael McCoy, Adventure Cycling Field Editor

It probably won’t surprise you to be told that we at Adventure Cycling hear and read about a lot of bicycle adventures—not to mention witnessing many of them in progress, as hundreds of traveling cyclists stop by our Montana offices every year. In my mind, one escapade stands out above all the others I’ve learned about in recent years.

To be fair, Joff Summerfield sends me, and a couple of hundred other fans, periodic updates from the road. These always include a link to his Crazy Guy on a Bike site, with photos and commentary from his most recent travels. This is no doubt one reason Joff’s journey remains foremost in my mind.

So far, in just over two years on the road, Joff has ridden his fixed-gear ordinary, or Penny Farthing, some 17,000 miles through dozens of countries. A few of these include the Czech Republic, Turkey, Australia, China, Nepal, India, Thailand, and Cambodia. His most recent posting came from Colorado, in the good old USA, where he finally landed in March.

How Joff has made it up some of those hills and over those rough and muddy roads is anyone’s guess—well, not always a guess, because he does admit to getting off and pushing “the wheel” now and then. Consider this snippet from a web entry he posted while in Tasmania: “The island an eleven-hour ferry ride off the south of Australia sets itself before me as the wheel rolls onto its rugged soil … The old coach road leaves the centre on tarmac for the first 20km, then turns into 30kms of gravel and bumping corrugations which make my teeth chatter as the wheel passes over their rough peaks. A two-day detour is made out to Maria Island with Chloe, a splendid cyclist from Canada. We ride the mountain bike path the length of the island and I’m happy with only falling from the wheel five times. Onwards round Tassie the machine rolls, and soon the grade starts to get steeper as mountains appear in the west. It’s back to the feet I go with a good two hours of pushing the wheel to the top of the first peak.” 

If you visit the following URL you’ll find Joff’s main page, where you can click away on the countries of your choice to see some truly stunning photography. His site is a wonderful travelogue, made even better by the fact that he’s traveling aboard a late-nineteenth-century style of bicycle: http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/joff1

Go Joff!