Bicycle Touring 101: Getting out there and giving it a try!

Soon I will be back on the open road for another medium distance tour. As the sign directs, my head will soon be up in the clouds soaking in the freedom and enjoyment of another touring experience.
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If you live in the Northern hemisphere then now is the best time of the year to get out there on a bicycle touring adventure. The sun is generally shining, the weather has warmed up and a large number of support facilities like camping supply stores, freshly stocked bicycle shops, motels, campgrounds etc are readily available to help you out.

A quick glance at popular journal web sites like Crazyguyonabike also reflect this with a rapidly growing list of new touring adventures underway.

Within a few weeks I will be setting out on the next segment of my Great Lakes Circle Tour. This time the lake will be Lake Michigan. I've already circled Lakes Erie and Huron during previous years and I've discovered that although both lakes contain water they both have their unique personalities and people around them.

Lake Michigan features large urban areas in the southern portions of the lake as well as relatively remote, peaceful, hilly and quiet areas in the northern sections. I have strong hopes that this lake will give me another great bicycle touring adventure to enjoy!

It will be very interesting for me to see how much my fixed-gear bike has helped me to prepare for my next tour.

If you are considering your first bicycle touring adventure try to make sure that you keep the fun factor firmly in mind. There are a number of articles on this site especially in the "What's touring" and "Getting Started" Sections that should really assist you.

For the past little while there has been more of a focus on interviews with cyclists who are already out there touring. Recent examples include Neil Anderson, Erling Ringen Elvsrud and family adventurers like the Feldmanns. I encourage you to read their stories and hopefully come to appreciate that their adventures could very likely also become your adventures too. Several more interviews are almost complete and should be available in the near future.

On that note there are still many, many bicycle touring related topics to discuss and share. I will readily admit that I have more free time in the winter for web site updates than I am currently seeing today. Hopefully as the site becomes more automated this will change. What hasn't changed is my desire for BT101 to be a useful touring resource for both new and veteran cyclists.

New content is something that I continue to collect in the hopes of making this an even more useful resource. Currently the site is receiving an average of 359 visitors each day. These visitors come from all over the world and combined they look at 3,367 pages during their daily visit.

Bicycles aren't just a way to tour but also a way to carry objects that most people in North America only think can be carried by a car.
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Schwalbe has been a site sponsor since the early days of this site. In this case rather than the benefit going to me, it goes to the contributors to the site. Many contributors have taken advantage of their offer to pick up tires at a very good price in exchange for helping with the growth of BT101. It pleases me to announce that the Schwalbe offer has been extended to cover both North and South America so if you are a bicycle tourist who is willing to contribute some content to this site please drop me a message.

Circle City Cycles is the other site sponsor. Their offer to the contributors is also greatly appreciated!

There is room for more sponsors so if you would also like to become a site sponsor then please contact me so that we can determine what we can do together for Bicycle Touring 101 contributors.

Another new poll will be published in the next few days and you can also look forward to some more book reviews etc.

For my part I am seriously looking forward to my next bicycle touring adventure as well as reading about your adventures out there on the open road!