This is a journal of my bicycle touring adventures.

Bicycle touring? What is that?

Bicycle touring is basically the same as taking a road trip only on a bike rather than in a car. In the same respect, “fully loaded touring” or “self-supported touring” is riding a bike rather than taking the Winnebago or if on an off-road bicycle, one could describe it as backpacking on a bike. With the front and rear racks and bags called panniers, the fully loaded tourist will carry everything that is needed to be self-sufficient such as foodstuff and refreshments, clothing, tent, sleeping bag, mp3 player, nose-hair clippers, ect.

Why would you do this?

Well, I like to travel and, more importantly, I love to ride my bike. I live in New York City and have found that biking is by far the best way to get around. I have also learned that it is a great way to explore the city. One of my favorite things to do is to set out with no destination and ride around for hours in New York City.

Have you done much fully loaded touring?

As of the time that I wrote this and the launch of this site, I have been on zero bicycle tours, fully loaded or otherwise.

Where are you going exactly? and for how long?

I don’t really have any answers for you here. My goal is to go on a world tour starting in the Fall of 2008. I say “world tour” but I haven’t pined down exactly where I will be going. I fancy myself circumventing the globe, but for now I plan to concentrate on specific countries that I have always wanted to visit or in some cases countries that I have visited in the past, only not on a bike. As far as the length of the trip goes, there are two determining factors : budget and over-all traveling endurance. When I run out of money, I come home. It’s that simple. When I grow weary of the vagabond lifestyle and long for the smell and taste of home, I pack it up and jump on a plane. My sister gives me about eight months before I pack it up. I’m thinking more like a year.

You can check out “the route” page to get an idea of where I would like to go and where I have been thus far.

How much do you think you will spend?

The cost per day will vary from country to country but from what I’ve gathered and based on experience I will spend on average $500 a month. Even with the plummeting US$, most of the countries that I’m visiting will have cheap accommodations (a guest house in Southeast Asia runs at about $8 a night). I also plan on camping as much as possible when outside the major cities. That said, I expect there will be some other hidden cost on top of the many visa fees and unforeseen equipment failures, so I have set aside some extra cash to supplement that $500 monthly average.

How much mileage to you plan on covering in one day?

First of all, being that most of the world uses the metric system (the U.S. is one of the three countries out of 195 countries that decided to ignore the metric system) I’m going to go ahead and try to get the hang of it starting… Now!

So to answer the question about distance per day– I will bike… lets see… um 60 x 1.609 = … okay so… about 96 to 129 Km per day (that’s 60 to 80 miles per day). But that will not be the case everyday and I do plan on taking quite a few days off. I may even take a few weeks off at some point, who knows.