Protected by remorseless origami hills in static heat, the remote border crossing into Peru is simple and friendly. At this midday hour — far from the scheduled bus arrivals, themselves infrequent — as quiet as […]
Cycling adventurist, bikepacker, travel writer, photographer, speaker, professor of philosophy. Route designer of the VTXL, the Green Mountain Gravel Growler beer tour, the Silk Road Mountain Race course 1st edition, and many more.
Category: Touring on a Pugsley
Kit list for South America (every last thing)
Always the tension between thinking you need and needing, between the grudging acceptance of discomforts and the abstract knowledge that carrying less makes a difference, between not caring that you seem like a disgusting lunatic […]
Bikepacking the Inca Trail Ecuador
Reactions ranged from “no, not possible” to “that’s ridiculous” to the charitable assumption that I was joking and an ensuing change of subject. The rising chorus of denials sounded an awful lot like an imperative, naturally.
Ecuador Journal
Riding along the fringe of a jungle, forty hours ago as trembling cold as I’ve been, now sweating motionless, listening to whirs, hoots and clicks of outlandishly plummed birds. And a plume of a different sort, the volcano Sangay above the treetops, puffing from its apex, I can’t stop looking at it. Gravity and desire to be near the Amazon dropped me from the soaring Andean ridge, and I can’t stop looking back up. Small village roads parallel to the new highway, I receive waves and good wishes, sometimes teens ride alongside on their bicycles, we’re all of us defined, defied by the need to achieve only the most efficient motions in thick clouding heat, though these may be in the spirit of sociality, of effortful connection. Eighty five miles, finally headlamp against the gnats and ink.
Ecuador Postcard
End of the day, descending into the town square next to the basilica, I am on a one-way street going in the correct direction, motorcycle red blue red lights coming towards me. Pull over, there […]
Ecuador Postcard
Wonted fuckedtacular inaugural pedaling day, I just get exuberant and silly. Exiting Quito embarrassingly easy, what with detailed MotionX iPhone maps and GPS, should have suspected karmic treachery. Aimed for the volcano via the little […]
Gear Carry on South America Tour (Revised)
Surly Pugsley with Revelate frame bag + Viscacha seat bag + Harness/Pocket + Gas Tank. Sea to Summit eVent dry bag. BikeBuddy bottle carrier with Minoura attachment. Osprey Talon 22 pack. The difficulty and danger […]
Touring on a Surly Pugsley
For the six weeks and some 2,000 miles I cycle toured Alaska, I pedaled a Surly Pugsley.
Dalton Highway Conversations
“Are you packing heat?” I look up from fiddling with my pannier, perhaps with a look of, huh,didyousayheat? “Are you packing HEAT?” now with his forefinger pulling an imaginary trigger, pantomime pistol brandished to the sky. […]
Alaska postcard
Just about every stretch of highway here has a dirt track parallel to it worn by ATV’s or snowmobiles. When I’m not in a hurry, that’s where I elect to ride. Over a month in […]
Alaska postcard
Roads, chatter gritcrunch, washboard record of where drivers aimed, hills that in perception are steeper as you descend the pitch toward them and then in reality are steeper again near the top, lazy steering to […]