Tag Archives: touring

Where to Start Planning A World Tour

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Lube a dubed and ready to ride into Victoria! #victoriafringefestival #victoria #bike #bicycle

A photo posted by Ira Cooper (@eachmile) on

 

And so the research starts….

 

 

So. What am I suppose to be researching? A good start so far. Maybe I will just Google Search “how to start planning a world tour”. Ah! There are lots of lovely resources on the Intermenets that will help you decide what should be your initial point of entry into figuring out what you need for a three-year tour, across a multitude of varying landscapes and diverse weather forecasts. Websites with a lot of varying opinions, conjectures, anecdotes, and pretty pictures of people researching the same stuff I am researching. That’s the great thing about not being the first person to ever attempt something of this magnitude: others have succeeded and failed before you. I can learn from their triumphs and mistakes.

 

I am realizing how the online community will not just impact my itinerary for this trip, but it will also be a large factor in how I approach this trip and what angle and theme it entails. A theme, you say? This isn’t an English literature assignment; this is a big trip, my good man. Well, I love English literature, so why not have a theme, maybe even a genre for this exploratory expedition. There will definitely be a narrative. I hope it’s something out of the fiction section, leaning towards the fantastical, suspenseful and sci-fi subgenres. The online community isn’t just delving into the blogs and websites that start becoming historical artifacts once they are published. It also doesn’t help build any sort of presence if I simply read and respond to five year old articles. I have to stay hip, in the know, up-to-date, radical reformer. This is something I realized all too late, when I tried to reach an audience through my own forum for itinerary suggestions. Forums are a thing of the past, old Ira. Social media is where it is at.

 

And so I emerse myself in Facebook, Instagram and Reddit. The results are immediate. People are telling me WHERE to start and as long as I am constantly posting, responding, liking, up-karmaing and retweeting, people are giving me megabyte sized portions of food for thought, especially via Sub-reddits around the subject of cycle touring. Asking people, “where should I start?” and “what knowledge should I have?” are great catalysts from dialogue with some veterans of world touring. A lovely supportive community I have discovered and am becoming familiar with.

 

Back to school. #ubc #Vancouver

A photo posted by Ira Cooper (@eachmile) on

In regards to my bicycle choice, I think I am going to build one from scratch. I believe that it is the only way I will REALLY know my bicycle and be able to attend to it’s needs as efficiently and as knowledgably as I can. It also forces me out of my comfort zone of purchasing something new, something unfinished, something that will depend on me putting it together and spending time with it. So far, the Facebook cycling touring group has offered several suggestions about which frame I should purchase and I am looking into each option. I am usually a steel frame guy, which someone suggested, but I am open to alternatives, as long as I can find good reason in why I would choose them for a frame that will inevitably take www (world wide whipping).

What do you think about these options thus far?

 

Salsa Vaya Frameset: http://salsacycles.com/bikes/vaya

 

ECR Frameset: http://surlybikes.com/bikes/ecr

 

920 Disc: http://www.trekbikes.com/ca/en/bikes/road/touring/920/920/

 

 

 

PS, Here is the bicycle touring forum that is AWESOME on Facebook. Where else should I look to post my questions about places to go and bike inquiries?

 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/542913795789287/

Finding A Voice – Out with the Forums, In With the Reddits (can you pluralize it like that, kids?)

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Where are you, Mr. Cooper? Why haven’t you posted anything new? Well…because…I haven’t….The real reason is because I am still trying to figure out how to spread the holy gospel that this site exists and find a balance in my own life to keep posting, keep expanding and keep alive. What is alive? Alive involves a pinch of art, a pinch of socializing and pinch of school and WHOLE lot of cycling too and fro.

 

The world tour is still on and the new way I am accessing people to participate in building it’s itinerary is by ditching the forum and trying out the established thoroughfares of forum-like resources, such as Reddit. My issue though with this approach is how do I get people then to follow the site’s progress? How do a build a community? How do I get people to see the final journey of their suggestions?

 

Again, I need to keep abreast of technological trends and how social media is ideally utilized in my specific scenario. Why am I posting this? Because, I want this site and this trip, from start to finish, to be a dialogue, an interaction, a series of communications and cause and effects. I want you to see the large struggles and the minor hiccups and at the same time I want you to see the mountains and the river crossings.

 

For me, the travel part is easy. It’s the lead up that is my primary cause for concern. The online world is unfamiliar to me in this regard and I fear I shall leave on this trip with my own itinerary, on a trip that has little to do with a wider cause. And that’s not what I want to do. I do not just want to disappear for three years. I want to be your guinea pig. So let me.

 

Any suggestions are mucho appreciated, whatever they may be.

 

 

Thank you so so so so much already for everything.

Utrecht to Arnhem – Pancakes! Parks! Attempts?

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Inside of Princenhoff, Pancake House and restaurant.

Inside of Princenhof, Pancake House and restaurant.

 

The second day of our cycle tour of the Netherlands, Rachel and I awoke early, but not early enough to see our host from Couchsurfing, scoot off to work. We were awoken by his furry friend, a forward feline named chip. We too scooted off, out of Utrecht, stopping at Princenhof for some Pannenkoekens and beer before heading out along the bikepath towards Arnhem. The trip had kicked Rachel’s ass yesterday. As previously mentioned, she had never cycled before and so the 60km, supposed piece of cake trek from Amsterdam to Utrecht, was more like a piece of metal shrapnel lodged into her legs, than delicious cake lodged in her mouth.

Princehof's famous chef

Princehof’s famous chef

The day’s ride took us through beautiful forest and countryside. Passed ba’ing sheep and woofing dogs and naying horses. Many people were out and about on their bikes, from very old to toddlers perched in makeshift baskets. Quite heartwarming to see a society promote the bicycle, as Netherlands tends to do. Needless to say, after another long day, Rachel’s legs were aching and so we decided to stop in Ede, a town I had been to before, on a previous bike trip through this region. Not much to this town, so we interneted it up at a Mcdonalds and found a good deal at a nice hotel, the Reehorst, to refuel for the next day, where we would cycle to Arnhem and on our way check on the Netherlands elusive desert.

For some reason, from this day, all I have is photos of Princenhof.

For some reason, from this day, all I have is photos of Princenhof.

Details of Princehof.

Details of Princehof.

More details of Princenhof.

More details of Princenhof.

Check out the accompanying video:

More info on this leg of the trip:

Pannenkoekenhuis Princenhof

Address: Hoofdstraat 1, 3971 KA Driebergen-Rijsenburg, Netherlands
Hotel Reehorst
Address: Bennekomseweg 24, 6717 Ede, Netherlands

Wikipedia:

Rhijnauwen is a castle, former heerlijkheid (fiefdom), and former municipality in the Dutch province of Utrecht. It was located northwest of the village of Bunnik.

The municipality of Rhijnauwen consisted of Nieuw- and Oud-Amelisweerd (red and orange), and the original heerlijkheid Rhijnauwen (yellow). Shown here on a map of the municipality Bunnik in 1868.[1]

The municipality existed from 1818 to 1857, when it was merged with Bunnik.[2] It consisted of the former heerlijkheden Amelisweerd and Rhijnauwen.[3] Around 1850, it had 50 inhabitants.

The name is still used to denote the small forest that separates Bunnik and Utrecht.
The name is probably derived from Rhijnauwen Auen, an old word for the wet meadows along the Rhine. The estate is probably from the 13th century. The first mention of the manor Rhijnauwen dates back to 1212. The House was in the first half of the 14th century it belonged to the genus of Lichtenberg. This family was one of the most powerful families of Utrecht and had also Lichtenberg House, which was located in a place now part of the town hall in Utrecht. Rhijnauwen was officially recognized in 1536 as a manor. After the marriage of John IV of Lichtenberg Aleid Renesse came from the farmhouse in the hands of the family Van Zeeland Renesse. In 1449, the brothers Frederick and John Renesse Rudolf after the victory of Deep Holt Zweder banned from Culemborg, and in 1450 the house was on fire Rhijnauwen commissioned by the city of Utrecht. After the house has exchanged owners several times. The last private owner of the house was the family Rhijnauwen Strick van Linschoten Rhijnauwen bought in 1773. In 1919 the estate was bought by the city of Utrecht. The then owner, the Dowager Strick van Linschoten should stay there until the end of her life. On April 1, 1933 was leased to the hostel Rhijnauwen Foundation, which gave the building its current destination.