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.
-
Is The Touring Bike Slowly Dying Out?
While recently updating the all-time most-read post on this blog, “What’s The Best Touring Bike?”, I realised something. Every year, the list of touring bikes seems to get shorter. First we lost bikes that were relatively obscure. A good example is the Revolution Country Traveller, built by the Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative. This was a fantastic value entry-level tourer, retailing for under £500 and earning great praise. But it was limited in its distribution to EBC’s handful of locations in northern Britain, and I’m guessing it can’t have made much of a profit for just how cheap it was. But then, a… Continue reading →
-
Dates Now Live for the 2022 UK Cycle Touring Festival
Good news for those of us looking forward to another year of adventures in the saddle: the dates for the 2022 edition of the UK Cycle Touring Festival have just been announced! In fact, it’s already less than a month until the event kicks off on February 12th 2022. As with previous years, the schedule includes workshops on all aspects of cycle touring, storytelling sessions to get you inspired, and much more spread over the course of an 8‑day programme. This will be the third year running in which the festival will take place online, though the organisers Laura &… Continue reading →
-
What’s The Best Camping Cookware For Cycle Touring & Bikepacking?
This is a detailed introduction to choosing cooksets for cycle touring and bikepacking trips. From individual pots, pans, and mugs to full kits, I’ll cover the options for all budgets and requirements. But first, some good news: when it comes to cycle touring cookware, ‘best’ does not necessarily mean ‘most expensive’. Yes, a high quality camping stove is a sensible investment for a long cycle tour or bikepacking trip when reliability is paramount. But that doesn’t mean you have to spend a fortune on cookware – the collection of pots, pans, mugs, and other cooking equipment you use with that… Continue reading →
-
What’s The Best Camping Mattress Or Sleeping Pad For Cycle Touring & Bikepacking?
Welcome! It’s time to deep-dive into another thorny topic (no pun intended): how to choose a camping mattress – or, as my North American friends call it, a sleeping pad – to fit the specific needs of cycle tourers and bikepackers. We’ll be looking at the various types of camping mattresses and sleeping pads, which types are best for cycle touring and bikepacking trips, and ‘best’ might differ depending on physiology, personal preferences, the details of your ride, and of course your budget. I’ll combine buying advice from my quite-a-few-years of bike touring experience with up-to-date product selections of the camping… Continue reading →
-
12 Crucial Qualities Of A Bicycle Traveller’s Perfect Tent
Interested in why bicycle travellers tend to prefer certain types of tent? Let’s explore in detail a few of the key criteria – I’ve identified twelve, to be precise – that might cause a cycle tourer or bikepacker to choose one tent over another in this overly crowded market. The perfect tent, of course, does not exist, because there is no such thing as perfection! But if it did, it would probably… 1. Weigh as little as possible The less weight you’re carrying, the nimbler and more enjoyable to ride your bike will be while you’re on it, and 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.