Category Archives: Bike Touring

This two and a half month-long adventure has come and gone, but it has left a lifelong impression on both of us. We’ve learned a lot from each other, our experiences, and all the people we’ve met along the way. We wanted to share some of these revelations with all of you and hope that you can find some inspiration and lessons in them for yourselves.

6 Lessons from Anna

1. Everything has a way of working itself out.

We had many tight situations on this journey – from the time I got injured, to when all the acommodations were booked for the night in Wamsutter, WY and we had to sleep in the cab of a semi-truck. There were many other interesting challenges, like headwinds, desert weather, and of course multiple bike breakdowns. But, in the end, everything always seemed to work out. Injuries heal, lodging alternatives arise, the winds die down, and you’re able to improvise solutions to mechanical issues. If you’re able to go along with these surprises and face them instead of giving up, the world will work its forces towards your favor. Continue reading →

I’ll never forget that flat tire when we went on our first cycling tour in New Zealand a number of years ago. Prior to that one month-long trip, we were complete newbies to touring – and the art of bike maintenance!

When we got the flat, instead of replacing the inner tube, we patched the outside of the tire, which to no surprise had little useful effect. Eventually, we figured it out – after spending 2 hours on the side of the road that is.

Well, you’ll be happy to know that we’ve come a long way since then. And we’ve had to repair a lot more than flat tires. Much of our expertise comes from touring, because when you’re stuck on the side of the road with nothing else to do but puzzle over why your bike is making strange sounds or not moving at all, you had better well figure it out. Continue reading →

A question that often comes up when we talk to others about the Trans-American tour is where the idea for it came from.

We have to admit – we’ve had quite a bit of inspiration from others. There are so many people who are doing amazing things out there, and learning about their adventures has inspired us and made it easier to plan our own trip.

As we near the end of our tour, we wanted to take the opportunity to share with you the stories of four individuals, each of whom has also accomplished an “epic” trip on an electric bike.

When we were getting ready to start our trip, deep down, we hoped that somebody would get inspired by the Trans-American Electric Bike Tour to do their own “ride-of-a-lifetime” – the same way that these fellows (and others) inspired us! Continue reading →

Traveling on a bicycle makes you susceptible to encounters that are nothing short of serendipitous… and perhaps even a bit unusual. One of these encounters in Salt Lake City really drove this point home for us.

As we were making our way into the big city on I-80, we saw a car pulled over in the shoulder, with smoke coming out from under the hood. We stopped to see if there was anything we could do to help, not that we could offer much. I mean, we were already the sheepish-looking pair riding around with two trailers bungeed together – we were probably better off asking the guy if he had a spare trailer tire in his trunk. Continue reading →

Our Airbnb host, Janet, from Boulder, CO made the most interesting analogy to electric bikes I’ve ever heard. “Electric bikes are kind of like childbirth,” she started the conversation and noted my perplexed, unresponsive expression. “Okay, okay, hear me out,” she said, sensing that I wasn’t about to contribute much useful feedback. “Well, women who give birth to a child want to do it the natural way, but sometimes it gets too hard or painful and they opt for painkillers…you know, to make their lives a little easier. Electric bikes are kind of the same. Sometimes biking gets too hard and tiring, and you want to give yourself a break and make the whole thing easier.”

I would have never made this connection if it wasn’t for Janet, and I suppose to some extent she’s right. Sometimes, even for the most hard-core bikers, biking gets tough – and what better way to make your cycling commitments more manageable than with an electric bicycle? During my intermission from cycling, I got a first-hand peek into Janet’s make-your-life easier analogy. Continue reading →