I love doing local commuting. I usually do it from spring until fall but I just started new meds that effect my appetite. So I have been a little cautious because sometime I will run out of energy and not realize it. So my first goal is just getting back on my usual schedule. Something about getting to a location just through your energy is so fun! I don’t love biking to bike but I love using it as transportation.
I did my first little cycle tour last summer, and I'm dying to get going again.
I'm thinking of touring the province of Prince Edward Island, I love riding on the coast (which islands tend to have a fair amount of) and apparently PEI has a very good network of cycling trails (at least for North American standards). If there's anyone from there or who've biked there, let me know if you have any suggestions!
I wanted to get another 1000 miles in, but between being physically exhausted from work and mentally exhausted from other things, I'll probably not get to that this summer.
Planning to explore the different Routes Vertes out of Montreal to the nearby parks. Gonna do a bike camping trip to Oka once mosquito season dies down, then later on do Ptit train du nord to Mont Tremblant. If time allows gonna try and bike out to some of the parks in the Eastern Townships.
No real goal, done a couple metric centuries already but have yet to done an imperial one. In general I've been trying to maintain a consistent volume of at least 10 hours per week.
Honestly, if you can do 100k, you can most likely do 100 miles as long as you make sure to stay on top of calories and hydration. Kilometers 100 to 150 aren't bad, it's just those last 10 km that make you question every decision that has led you to that point.
Try to get more kms in than what I'm getting now, which has been pretty much close to 0 as the weather has been almost non stop rain for the past month and half, and what little sun we see just brings all that rain back as exhausting humidity.
Then on top of that add work and it just leaves me with so little time to ride that even thinking about it makes me sad.
My usual routes are 30-50 kms long, tarmac, gravel, maybe even a bit of off roading / basic mtbing.
There's no real bike infrastructure here so I try to get out of everyone's path and ride where there's not much or no traffic at all, for everyone's sake.
Tangent to cycling, one of my summer goals is to revamp some badly neglected trails in my area. There is a segment I get a lot of enjoyment out of that hasn't been maintained in years, so I'm busting out the shovel and clearing drains, reshaping features, and cutting weeds. Last time it rained, I was out there like a madman in the torrential downpour looking for pooling water and shoveling out low spots.
Even though I've got thousands of KM of riding under my belt this past year, I realize that I haven't really explored much of the surrounding areas.
So, my plan for this summer is to explore more!
The fact that I'll be entering my second year of cycling so much stronger and more capable of riding longer than when I first started, time will be my only limiting factor! Exciting times!
In early July, I'm planning to bike from Vancouver, Canada to San Francisco, California. Mostly camping, with a few motel stays to freshen up. I'm hoping to do it in an ambitious timeframe of 9 days, but if it ends up taking 13 days, I'd be fine with that.
I've been cycling to work every day for a summer internship in Austin. I really enjoy it, does wonders for mental and physical health. Apparently COTA has a bike night but on a weekday so I'm not sure if I'll try that out since it's pretty far.
Last year I started cycling and had a goal of riding down every street in my city. I made it to 25% last summer so I figured my goal this year would be another 25% to get me to 50% but I might go for 60% instead. I am a stay at home dad with two young kids so my only real opportunity to go is the evening when they go to bed so it makes a little bit of a challenge. I have to ride further and further to get to new roads as I have all the ones near my house but it's definitely worth it! I am sitting at 42% and am 4th for my city.
Oh I love that, what a great way to discover some new cool stuff in your city! What do you use to keep track of your progress? Is it Strava? Because if so that's going to be the thing to finally make me cave and download Strava.
It's fun going to areas I never would have gone before. I use Strava then use a website called Wandrer.earth which pulls the Strava info in. Be warned thought, it gets addicting!
I'm on tour currently, about a good week in and i have time till the end of august. Heading towards south eastern europe from home in germany and then i'll have to make further plans, i am a bit worried about the heat, not sure if i can take it.
That was my first idea too, but since the spring / early summer was so cold and rainy where i live, i didn't feel like going north and get even more cold and rain. Pretty much the day i started riding it got sunny all day and kinda hot.
Good to hear you got good weather up there! Did you start your tour in norway? I am in switzerland now.
Buying a bike. I had one before but it was stolen and couldn't afford to buy a new one. I got a new job though that pays much more than my old job so hoping to finally get back to cycling.
Ah that blows, sorry that happened to you. I saw a super sad statistic the other day, a large number (maybe even the majority, I can't recall) of cyclists who've had their bike stolen just stop cycling completely. I know I stopped for quite a while when my last bike got stolen before I could afford a new one.
It's a great feeling to hop back on a back afterwards, I hope you get one soon and get to enjoy some summer rides! :)
Touring out west to BC would be nice, but I definitely need some better camping gear. I also have an e-road bike and could use an $800 solar charger, I could probably get 150 to 200km with low power pedal assistance and there's always just manually pedalling til my knees hurt lol
It's hot here in Austin TX, so if you see someone speeding by on a Brompton with long flowing red hair, a tank top, and short shorts, there's a likely chance it could be me.
For mountain biking, Spider Mountain is a little more than an hour away and offers some great experiences. They even got a chairlift 🤯
There are lots of really nice paved and road-bike friendly trails around as well. I recommend South Walnut Creek Trail (also check out North Walnut Creek!) as well as the Lady Bird Lake Hike & Bike Trail.
We also have plenty of biking communities around as well that do group rides. For example, here's a page where you can check out upcoming rides hosted by Bike Austin. Speaking of events, if you ever get the chance to check out one that the Austin Bike Zoo is attending, I would highly recommend it. They got some crazy art bikes that you won't find anywhere else.
Fair warning, cycling in central Amsterdam is a total shitshow. There's tourists everywhere who have no idea how bike paths work, so you have to be paying close attention the whole time not to hit anyone. That said, I've been living in the Netherlands for the past few months and it has really been fantastic cycling everywhere, once you get out of the touristy old-town areas the infrastructure is just amazing. Enjoy your trip!
I’ll be near Watergaang which is a ways out of downtown but I’ll heed your advice since I’ll be one of those tourists 😎 I’d like to think I know how bike paths work though.
No big plan, other than just increasing the longest bike trip taken in a day. Currently my best is 25km. I think more importantly I've been consistent as its been a part of my daily commute to and from work since October
Get on a bike. :/ About a month and a half ago I fucked up my back while helping my sister move and finished it a week later, when I thought it will be fine. Latest news are small spine disk hernia L3L4 and very large disk hernia L4L5. Still going around hospitals to see what to do next. Starting physiotherapy tomorrow. At least I can use the time at home to fix all my bikes and help my friends to fix theirs, so I don't stay too far from the group. ;] And luckily before the injury I managed to ride with my group for a week in Finale Ligure, so at least something this season.
I've always wondered how difficult it is to wild camp in Europe. It's pretty easy here in Canada, but most of our country is relatively empty and sparsely populated.
As far as I know it is Not allowed here in germany, but in my early twenties I had good luck just asking a local farmer if I may put my tent up on theire property, 90% seid yes.
Also if you are not bothering anyone and clean up after yourself most of the time people dont bother you
My city has a 120 km track that goes all the way around. I did it last year, but it took 2 days with a stay at a friend's house after 90 km. This year we are gonna do it all in one day.
I’ll be training for the whistler granfondo. I did it last year in just under 6 hours, did The Valley granfondo (half the elevation) in 4:41 a couple days ago, hopefully be the end of the summer I’ll be able to do 4:30 on the whistler one.
I am cycling London to Amsterdam next week. I would like to get a few more camping trips done too, maybe get a train to Wales and cycle some of the countryside there..
I've been steadily increasing my mileage, with a goal to ride 100 km by the end of the summer. My longest ride ever is 84 km; my longest ride this year is 57 km. Slow and steady wins the race.
I'm looking to break into biking, I've got a great bike setup available through my dad. I tried it previously but I wasn't open to it because of the other sports I was already involved in. What's a good way to break into biking / find trails to go on?
It really depends on what kind of cycling you want do to! Is it for transportation, for leisure, for exercise? Do you want to be on roads or more out in nature?
Personally, I got into cycling by using it at first as a means of transportation. Going to work, getting groceries, meeting up with friends. Eventually I realized how much I enjoyed it and just started going for aimless rides around town, just exploring unfamiliar neighbourhoods and discovering new places at a leisurely pace. Then I started wanting to explore outside my town, so I started doing longer distances, including overnighters, and then got into the idea of touring...
At the end of the day, the best way to break into biking is to make sure you enjoy the kind of biking you do!
I'd like to increase the number of times I drop off the kid by bike + bike trailer per week. It's about 14km round trip. And honestly it doesn't take that much longer than driving.
I rode Kopenhagen -> Berlin in May (started as bikepacking, but it was colder than I expected, and I didn't really have the right gear, so I switched to staying in BnBs for the last 2 days).
I don't have any concrete plans for other longer tours right now. I'll probably do the Altmühl Cycle Route over a long weekend, though. It's pretty close to where I live, so I can just take regional trains to the starting point and back home at the destination.
The flexibility with bike touring is what I love most about it. Being able to switch between camping or accommodations, or just dragging your bike onto another form of transportation to get somewhere faster. Getting to choose what kind of distance you want to cover in a day, where to stop, what kind of routes you want to take...
That sounds like it was a dope trip despite the gear issues! I'd honestly say the only way to truly learn how to pack properly is to fuck it up a couple of times.
I started doing this two years ago, mostly because I couldn't justify the emissions from flying just to go on holiday and looked for a more local alternative, but I've grown to really love the freedom and flexibility bikepacking gives.
My previous trips have always been in summer or early fall and my gear was oriented around that. I wasn't really expecting the cold nights and strong winds of the Danish coast (especially since May last year was way hotter than this year) and just froze my balls off at night. I did it for two nights because I still appreciated the greater flexibility of just pitching a tent whenever I wanted, but on the third night I just gave in and booked an AirBnB.
One bigger ride (300km ish) from Prince George down past West Lake on gravel and around to Quesnel. Then back up to PG. At some point we'll detour back into the mountains on the East side of the highway but a bit more scouting needs to be done to see if the route goes as the roads are old and may not be maintained.
at this point, just get back onto a bike. Had major reconstructive surgery, and it's killing me to have all this nice weather and not even a single-century ride to show for it.
Bike glamping Vancouver to Metchosin this summer with my 🐕. Going to do a little kayaking but mostly escaping the incessant noise and pollution of the city for a week. I'm out of shape and worried about the risks (traffic, blocked bike routes, missing the Massey Tunnel Shuttle or ferry, etc.).
I ended up reluctantly getting an AirBNB at the end point and a splurgy actual B&B closer to Schwartz Bay for the second half of the trip. So am doing the full distance on the first day. I found all the accoms prices shocking (compared to a couple of years ago).
No specific plans as we're not really outdoorsy. We did joke about buying an e-trike for my wife. We won't ride on most roads here in Ottawa though, as they're far too dangerous.
I was originally planning on going from the Netherlands to Switzerland and back during August, but a move and the start of my studies will probably get in the way of that.
I’m gonna bike 219mi Bay Circuit Trail around Boston with my dad, who hasn’t done any serious trail riding before. Most of it is old fire trails, but there’s some tech that’ll be a good challenge.
Did the Tour of Cambridgeshire a couple of weekends ago which was my first century. I did it with my wife and we weren't really fit enough so it was a slog. We have London to Brighton this weekend which I'm looking forward to. After that we don't really have any plans.
I did a 106 mile charity ride about two weeks ago (Chicago to Michigan). That was super fun and had great SAG stops. I don't have any other long rides planned for a while but later this summer or early this fall I'd like to ride along the I&M canal trails and possibly camp overnight before returning (~70 miles one way, some gravel some paved trails).