Hi! I’m Tom, originally from England, but the island was too small.
For 20 years I’ve been exploring the world by bike at every chance I get.
Why? Simply put: because it’s the closest thing you’ll find to pure freedom!
Here at TomsBikeTrip.com I share hard-earned lessons about cycle touring and bikepacking, tell original stories, and road-test new ideas.
A love of adventure has powered my 100% AI-free blog since 2006, when I first decided to travel the world by bicycle and write about it.
Welcome!
The blog: over half a million words of hard-earned, hand-written cycle touring & bikepacking advice.
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Then I notice that she is in fact topless, and that my African stereotype has finally been fulfilled
Later I spot another group of figures in the distance: a dozen adults walking towards me along the track. Judging by the hairstyles on display they’re not road-building engineers, and since they’ve had plenty of time to see me coming, I put on my harmless passer-by act, smile nonchalantly at them as I approach, and call: ‘Hello!’ just as I pass, which gives me enough time to clear the group and recede down the track before anyone can decide whether they have anything further to contribute. I immediately curse myself for being a coward and not stopping to try having… Continue reading →
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As I roll onto the faint tyre tracks, I know that I am venturing into another stereotype
I look out across the dusty plain from my vantage point. Beside me is a rickety watchtower in which a soldier is slumped, dozing, wrapped in a blanket. He and the rest of his squad have been posted here to look after yet another crew of road-builders – all native Amharans this time. They’re surveying the area, hoping to lay another streak of asphalt across a landscape which looks like an artist’s rendering of some prehistoric savannah. The sun has not yet risen, and the air is a hazy grey. The headlights of a pick-up truck nose slowly through the… Continue reading →
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Maybe I’ll look back at this and think, ‘What an idiot I was back then’
Leaving Hadishahr with our hosts’ well-wishes ringing in our ears, Tenny and I trundled back towards the main road for Tabriz, where we found several lanes of traffic encased by metal barriers. Mountains rose again in our path, solemn and unflinching. Three or four days of this was hardly a pleasant prospect, and the climbs would be long and monotonous. But there was little for it but to begin. We set off up the hard shoulder in a low gear. It was wide enough to ride double file, so we did, chatting about this and that while the landscapes drifted past;… Continue reading →
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Dragons’ teeth of golden stone rose from the Iranian side of the River Arax
Lake Sevan vanished behind us as we began to climb up into hilly land, the valley sides green but bare, carved with patterns like tree roots where rivulets of water had for centuries delved. The air grew dry, the sun ever more fierce as we gained altitude. We were far from any major route through the country, and people and settlements were few. This road would weave through the highlands, summit a final high pass and then descend into the far valley where we would join the through-route to the Iranian border, two hundred miles distant. We met a shepherd… Continue reading →
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I couldn’t just quit this life on the road for good, because I’d invested too much in it
Tenny had to dig deep in order to continue that day. But continue she did. ‘It was the hardest day of my life,’ she told me later. ‘I was so angry at myself for wanting to quit on the first day of cycling. And at the same time, I was so angry at you! You kept telling me that it was just a little further. It wouldn’t continue like this. And of course you were trying to help, but I only wanted shout and cry and argue, because it meant that I should still continue up that hill, which was the… Continue reading →
Books, eBooks & Guides
I’ve written a range of guidebooks and travelogues to read at your leisure, whether you’re preparing for a bike trip, living life on the road, or home and dreaming of the next big ride.
How To Hit The Road: A Beginner’s Guide To Cycle Touring & Bikepacking
First published in 2017 and updated in 2021, this book is my comprehensive newcomers’ introduction to the art of the bicycle-mounted adventure.
Every aspect of a cycle tour or bikepacking trip is covered in 34 chapters, split over three parts: pre-trip planning, initial execution, and adapting to the long haul.
As well as broad, practical advice, I’ve woven inspiring and reassuring anecdotes throughout the book – because getting away from the starting line isn’t about knowing everything, but having the confidence to begin.
Drawing on my personal experience of almost two decades of adventure cycling, more than 50 veteran riders from diverse backgrounds have also contributed to this guide, making it one of the most well-rounded introductions you’ll find to this radically liberating form of independent travel.
Whatever you’re planning and wherever you’re going, if it involves a bicycle and the spirit of adventure, How To Hit The Road has got you covered.
Janapar: Love, on a Bike
My first travelogue, originally published in 2013 and the subject of a successful crowdfunding campaign, telling the true story of my first 3½ years on the road.
This was far from your typical long-distance bike tour, however. From the cover blurb:
When twenty-three-year-old Tom Allen and his friends set off from their English village to cycle around the world, they were expecting physical hardship, extreme conditions and a serious case of culture shock. But the hours spent poring over maps could never have prepared them for the experience of life on the road: the petty squabbles, the extreme hospitality, the unexpected joys and dangers.
And then Tom meets Tenny, a feisty Iranian-Armenian girl with dreams of her own, and hits a crossroad. Should he give up his grand plan for the girl he loves, or cycle off and risk missing out on the greatest adventure of them all?
Temporarily out of print (except in the USA), Janapar is still available as a Kindle ebook from all Amazon portals worldwide.