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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Microadventure: Naivety, Uphill Battles & Small Victories in Adventure Travel (Part 3)
This is Part Three of an account of touring the Netherlands and the UK by recumbent bike. Start at the beginning. In pitch darkness I pedalled away from the port, waving goodbye to the three Londoners I’d met on the ferry. Decked out in woefully inappropriate attire — tweed, a trilby, a tie-dyed T‑shirt — they had been cycling around the Netherlands on clapped-out old bikes piled high with cheap supermarket-bought camping equipment. Not a Brooks or Ortlieb logo could be seen among them as they wobbled off, and I felt suddenly jealous of them for reasons that I could not identify… Continue reading →
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Everything Will Be Fine. Here’s Proof.
Today’s guest post is from former English teacher Jamie Bowlby-Whiting, whose success adventuring on an absurdly low budget has made even my best attempts feel decadent. He’s developed two core principles for his adventures: 1. impossible is nothing, and 2. everything will be fine (until it isn’t). This story reminds me so very strongly of that first carefree summer I spent crossing Europe in 2007 (particularly the ever-popular Eastern European arrest), and so it’s not without a little pang of nostalgia that I publish this post. Take it away, Jamie… A few months ago, I found myself working as an English teacher at a… Continue reading →
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Microadventure: Touring the Netherlands on a Recumbent Bike (Part 2)
This is Part Two of an account of touring the Netherlands and the UK by recumbent bike. Click here for Part One. I gingerly lowered myself onto Challenge Bikes’ ‘Hurricane’ recumbent touring bike, lay back against the full-size padded seat, and swung the pivoting handlebar assembly towards me from its resting position. For a vehicle that looked like a deck-chair on wheels, it absolutely felt like sitting on a deck-chair on wheels. (I don’t know about you, but I’d choose a deck chair over a bicycle saddle any day. Yep, even over a Brooks.) Continue reading →
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Kona Sutra 2014 Preview
UPDATE: My full review of the 2014 Sutra is now online and supersedes this preview. Check it out here. In 2012 I took a cross-section of the best and most popular mid-range road touring bikes and singled out the Kona Sutra as the one I wanted to take on a long-term test for my ride down the U.S. West Coast. I had a good working relationship with the Kona crew and suggested a few tweaks that would optimize a future incarnation, some of which were suggested by blog readers. Behold the 2013 Sutra, which incorporated all of these changes and made… Continue reading →
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Microadventure: A Very Laid-Back Bike Trip (Part 1)
The last time I saw Holland was a day in late June 2007. I saw Holland disappearing in my rear-view mirror, the Belgian border drifting beneath my bicycle wheels as I crossed a river somewhere south of Maastricht. (I didn’t actually spot the border crossing itself, E.U. Freedom of Movement being the luxury that it is.) That was the last time I saw Holland – until last week. 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.