Click on the tour name in the table below to see a trip report.
| Alan's Bicycle Tours | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Self-contained tours | Supported tours | ||||||
| Start date | End date | Days | Tour (sponsor) | Camping | Hoteling | Camping | Hoteling |
| 1994-08-22 | 1994-08-27 | 6 | Oregon (SRCC) | 250 | |||
| 1995-07-15 | 1995-07-21 | 7 | Sierra (SRCC) | 410 | |||
| 1995-11-24 | 1995-11-25 | 2 | Two-day shakedown tour | 157 | |||
| 1996-05-18 | 1996-07-16 | 60 | Cross-country | 3954 | |||
| 1996-12-22 | 1996-12-28 | 7 | Hawaii (Backroads) | 279 | |||
| 1997-05-24 | 1997-05-26 | 3 | Tour to Mt. Tamalpais | 137 | |||
| 1997-06-21 | 1997-06-28 | 8 | Central California (SRCC) | 459 | |||
| 1997-12-27 | 1998-01-01 | 6 | Phoenix (T@CO) | 315 | |||
| 1998-07-05 | 1998-07-12 | 8 | Coast tour (T@CO) | 462 | |||
| 1998-09-13 | 1998-09-19 | 7 | Three Parks (SRCC) | 390 | |||
| 1999-01-15 | 1999-01-17 | 3 | Kauai (Note 1) | 162 | |||
| 1999-06-05 | 1999-06-12 | 8 | Gold Country (SRCC) | 497 | |||
| 1999-06-18 | 1999-06-22 | 5 | Cape Cod (Note 1) | 178 | |||
| 1999-08-02 | 1999-08-02 | 1 | Edinburgh (Note 1) | 53 | |||
| 2000-07-23 | 2000-07-29 | 7 | Bigfoot (SRCC) | 452 | |||
| 2000-09-05 | 2000-09-10 | 7 | Panay Island, Philippines | 360 | |||
| 2002-06-30 | 2002-07-06 | 7 | Bend OR area (Gourmet) | 387 | |||
| 2002-12-28 | 2002-12-31 | 4 | Phoenix/Tucson | 231 | |||
| 2003-06-29 | 2003-07-05 | 7 | Oregon coast (Gourmet) | 361 | |||
| 2003-09-01 | 2003-09-06 | 6 | One-week loop | 344 | |||
| 2003-10-29 | 2003-11-05 | 8 | Illinois tour | 621 | |||
| 2004-06-13 | 2004-06-26 | 14 | CT-MI tour | 941 | |||
| 2005-05-28 | 2005-08-26 | 91 | Northern Tier (Adv. Cycling) | 4468 | |||
| 2005-11-17 | 2005-11-27 | 11 | New Zealand | 467 | |||
| 2006-03-08 | 2006-03-26 | 19 | Chile | 910 | |||
| 2006-07-23 | 2006-08-10 | 13 | Oaxaca, Mexico | 521 | |||
| 2007-06-15 | 2007-06-15 | 1 | Gettysburg, PA (Note 1) | 70 | |||
| 2007-06-24 | 2007-06-29 | 6 | Northern California (Gourmet) | 259 | |||
| 2008-06-22 | 2008-06-27 | 6 | Bend OR area (Gourmet) | 279 | |||
| Total days: | 338 | Total Miles per Category: | 10778 | 3573 | 3744 | 279 | |
| Total Miles: | 18374 | ||||||
| Note 1: | The four "tours" with this note were actually just a series of day rides from one location. | ||||||
| Sponsors: | SRCC | Santa Rosa Cycling Club | |||||
| Backroads | Commercial tour company | ||||||
| T@CO | Friends who met on the Touring@Cycling.Org email list | ||||||
| Gourmet | Local group of friends | ||||||
| Adv. Cycling | Adventure Cycling Association | ||||||
| Other useful bicycle touring links |
|---|
| My canonical bicycle touring packing list |
| Jamie Noble's Bicycle Touring 101 website |
| Ken Kifer's touring bike pages |
| Touring info searchable by location and topic |
| 12-language cycling dictionary plus tips and links |
| Bicycle touring article on Wikipedia |
| Post and read online bicycle tour journals |
| Fully-loaded touring bike photo gallery |
| Worldwide trip reports and travel resources |
| Warm Showers (folks offering a free place to stay) |
| List of production touring bikes |
| Tips on Travel with bicycles |
| Airline baggage regulations for bicycles |
| CDC's health guidelines for travelers |
| All kinds of GPS information |
| California bicycle laws excerpted from vehicle code |
| I also taught an engineering class at Sonoma State Univ. |
My email: 
|
A Brief for the Defense
by Jack GIlbert
Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafes and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.
[From Refusing Heaven (Knopf, 2005)]
Last update August 14, 2008