Dirt road ride, Albany, VT.
Category Archives: Bicycling
Skyline Blue
In May friends biked the 650 miles of the Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway, from Front Royal, VA, to Cherokee, NC, and I got to go along. It’s an amazing stretch of road, ranging in elevation from about 560 feet at the northern end of the Skyline Drive in Virginia to 6,053 feet near Richland Balsam, NC. Little traffic before Memorial Day. Virtually no potholes. […]
Also posted in Blue Ridge Parkway, Skyline Drive
Two Things About Montreal
(Aside from the fact that with more 1.5 million people it is considered the second-largest French-speaking city in the world, after Paris): 1. There are about 300 miles of bicycle trails in Montreal, meaning you can go almost anywhere on a bike. Above, riding along the La Chine Canal. Bottom, crossing the Jacques Cartier Bridge. 2. There are surfers in Montreal, surfing the standing waves […]
Natchez Trace Parkway
The Natchez Trace Parkway covers a slice of the South rich in history and beauty, especially in the spring. You get a pretty good look at things if you ride your bike most of the 450-mile distance from Natchez, Mississippi, to Nashville, Tennessee, as we did from late March into the first week of April. You pedal the gamut, from the stark images and prose […]
Also posted in Alabama, Mississippi, South, Tennessee
Biking Croatia’s Dalmatian Islands
Two generations and a Croatian flag in the town of Stari Grad on the island of Hvar in Croatia’s Dalmatian islands. I had the good fortune last week to be traveling there with a Vermont Bicycle Tours group. Tourism in Croatia, on the rise in the 1980s, evaporated with war in the 1990s, but it is booming now. It’s no wonder: the clear, blue water […]
RAGBRAI 2
More from the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, in all its glory: Above, a mountain bike stunt rider at the bike expo, Sioux Center. Below, they got the color scheme just right at Mid-State Milling in Clemons; sustenance on Day One near Sioux Center — all egg sales to benefit the Northwest Iowa Symphony Orchestra; and knocked out in Webster City, despite (or […]
Also posted in agriculture, alternative energy, farming, Food, Iowa, People, RAGBRAI, roads, Travel
RAGBRAI!
Every July for 40 years the Des Moines Register and a legion of volunteers have put together a little event called the Register‘s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, better known as RAGBRAI, a week-long bicycle ride across the roughly 500-mile-wide state. It started with two Register employees and a few hangers-on and has grown into an Iowa tradition and a bicycling legend that this year drew […]
Also posted in Colors, Iowa, mountain biking, RAGBRAI, roads