Advice to yourself? (page 2) - CycleBlaze

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Advice to yourself? (page 2)

John SaxbyTo Scott Anderson

Tempus fugit, eh?  Ergo, carpe diem.  ;)

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4 years ago
Jacquie GaudetTo Graham Smith

If I could go back 40 years, I would tell my younger self that solo bike travel is quite safe for a woman.  Why I could ignore all those people who told me it wasn't safe to spent 10 weeks in Europe alone with a backpack and Eurail pass (my first real trip!) and later 7 months in Asia (trekking in Nepal and travelling in India, Thailand, and Burma by train and bus).  The only place I faced any real danger was in Lyon, France, and that incident could have happened anywhere.

If I had a dollar (actually, I'd prefer Euros over Canadian dollars) for every time I got asked "aren't you scared?" I could put them towards another trip!

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4 years ago
Graham SmithTo Jacquie Gaudet

Jacquie that's an excellent point. I can't remember ever meeting solo female bike tourers in the 80's. Not even the legendary Dervla Murphy.  Perhaps they saw me coming and cleverly avoided me. I looked even more dishevelled in my youth. :)
Or more likely, they were deterred by their friends and family from setting out alone on a bike tour.

But within just the past twelve months I've met two young women solo cycle tourers passing through town here (and stocking up on supplies) in Canberra. By sheer coincidence, one was a Canadian who was using one of my recent journals as guide. The other was a Belgian. Both were solo and were covering a lot of country fast on their loaded tourers.

Perception that cycle touring solo is risky is certainly greater for females, but I think there's an exaggerated, wrong perception that cycle touring for anyoney is dangerous by just about anyone who's not actually tried it. As we know, cycle touring can be an uncomfortable and a physically/ mentally testing activity but overall cycle touring is a very safe way to travel. But there will be no convincing some people that this is the case.

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4 years ago
Karen CookTo Graham Smith

I did tons of riding my whole life but didn't discover bike touring until my 40's.  I just wish I had known sooner :-(


I agree on the "women traveling alone" B.S.  Anything can happen, but then anything can happen 10 miles from home too.

On a tour I met a woman from London, riding across the U.S., who said she feels safer traveling as a woman alone because, "people usually look out for woman traveling alone".  Fast forward to a couple years ago when I arrived alone, at a small, nearly empty, campground in Idaho.  The campground host did the usual, "you are alone!" bit.  I told him the story of the London woman.  He paused, thought about it, and said, "you know you are right.  I had planned to watch out for you, and make sure you are okay, in the campground because you are a woman traveling alone."  After that he seemed to think it was okay.

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4 years ago
Graham SmithTo Andrea Brown

Andrea in my 20s I was a high school teacher and ran "Introduction to Cycle Touring" week-long tours for hundreds of other peoples' kids. Older teens mostly.  I was very remiss with our own kids though, and only took them on shorter, rail trail rides when they were younger. Fortunately despite my omission, they've all grown up to be cycle commuters, but none of them have yet been bitten by the cycle touring bug.  My nephew has. He's just cycle toured from Portugal to Denmark. 
With 20:20 hindsight, it was me not making enough time away from work in those mid-career years.  As Scott said, I should have spent more time looking at the roses.

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4 years ago
Graham SmithTo Karen Cook

Karen your post has me thinking two things: 


One, maybe  the positive aspects of chivalry aren’t artefacts of the past. 

and, 

do you think think that any solo cycle tourer, regardless of gender, is ‘looked out for’ in rural and regional locales?
Rolling into a small town on loaded bicycle immediately attracts  locals’ attention and they are usually both curious and kind to the unusual stranger on a bicycle. 

That’s a wonderful thing about travelling by bicycle. Turning up in a country town on a loaded bicycle is almost a silent declaration of, ‘I’m a bit different,  harmless, spent a lot of energy to get to your town and I’m interested to learn more about your place.’



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4 years ago
Graham SmithTo Karen Cook

Karen your post has me thinking two things: 


One, maybe  the positive aspects of chivalry aren’t artefacts of the past. 

and, 

do you think think that any solo cycle tourer, regardless of gender, is ‘looked out for’ in rural and regional locales?
Rolling into a small town on loaded bicycle immediately attracts  locals’ attention and they are usually both curious and kind to the unusual stranger on a bicycle. 

That’s a wonderful thing about travelling by bicycle. Turning up in a country town on a loaded bicycle is almost a silent declaration of, ‘I’m a bit different,  harmless, spent a lot of energy to get to your town and I’m interested to learn more about your place.’



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4 years ago
Graham SmithTo John Saxby

John you and I have been cycle touring, and communicating about cycle touring, for quite a few years. Via various channels thanks to the wonders of the internet and dedicated tech savvy cycletourers.

I recall you have had a few issues with those Gaul invented derailleurs, but I hadn’t realised you’d cycle toured back in Roman times.:)

That’s my long winded way of saying “Nice  Latin quotes John”.  Great to reconnect friend.

Is there a Latin quote for ‘Keep  Rolling Forward’ ?

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4 years ago
Graham SmithTo John Saxby

John you and I have been cycle touring, and communicating about cycle touring, for quite a few years. Via various channels thanks to the wonders of the internet and dedicated tech savvy cycletourers.

I recall you have had a few issues with those Gaul invented derailleurs, but I hadn’t realised you’d cycle toured back in Roman times.:)

That’s my long winded way of saying “Nice  Latin quotes John”.  Great to reconnect friend.

Is there a Latin quote for ‘Keep  Rolling Forward’ ?

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4 years ago
John SaxbyTo Graham Smith

Thanks, Graham, and yes, how good it is to see your thoughtful questions again, this time on CycleBlaze.

Thanks too for double-posting your kind words--doubly gratifying ;-)

Ah, the Latin.  Always liked the Latin, I did, even tho' I never knew enough of it to do the judgin'... I liked its precision about who was doing what, for/with/agin/etc whom or what; and even more, the fact that word order didn't matter --with those markers on the ends of words, you could arrange sentences according to the rhythm and sounds of the language.

Sadly, there was never anything about bikes in the stuff that I read :(

As for rolling forward:  This entails, er, a volvo -- no capital, pls note.  Reckon that "Semper volvens" would work (="always rolling"). Tho' for ambitious cycle-tourists, "circumvolvens" might be in order.

Keep on rollin', mate!

PS: visiting our family in SE Queensland in March/April.  Any chance you'll be in those parts then?

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4 years ago