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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Film Blog: International Film Festivals — One Way To Tell The Story?
There are a number of possible routes to go down in order to put something like this in front of as many pairs of eyes as possible. The easiest would be to upload the thing to Youtube, hit ‘Publish’, and move on. But to take something to a wider audience? To lift it above the trillions of bytes of throwaway trash that swamps the net? To give the project longevity, purpose and pride? (And, let’s not forget, to somehow recoup the financial investment?) Youtube probably isn’t the best solution. Continue reading →
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Why I Won’t Be ‘Live-Tweeting’ My Next Expedition
This post was borne of a heated debate I recently had with a couple of friends. It arose from a remark along the lines of “I don’t have time to read your blog, but I do have time to read Twitter updates, so you should be ‘live-Tweeting’ your trips because more people like me will know what you’re up to”. Well, I won’t be ‘live-Tweeting’ my future trips; not for my friend, nor anyone else. And here’s why. Tweets, by their nature, are free-floating snippets of information. Each one inhabits a single drop in an ocean of content. In any given… Continue reading →
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New Year, New Gear — Considerations When Comfortably Roughing It
I have a good working relationship with Mountain Safety Research, better known as MSR, who for several decades have been quietly turning out top-quality equipment for use in the world’s wild places. The little green 2‑man Vaude tent which was my home for so long is now well past its best, and with two significant trips planned for 2012, I decided it was time to replace it with one of MSR’s tried-and-tested offerings. Continue reading →
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A Major Digression On Perspective And Motivation
An interview is not just for the benefit of the interviewer, as I was recently reminded when I gave an interview to Orla O Muiri for Beyond Limits magazine. As well as forcing you to reassess your own ideas, motives and achievements, having questions fired at you from someone else’s perspective can say a lot about the assumptions of that interviewer. And that, in turn, can say a lot about the way you have presented yourself; what your ‘public face’ looks like. I spent quite a portion of this interview trying to defuse an underlying assumption that I was some kind… Continue reading →
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New Year Dreaming
It’s difficult not to get swept up by the tide of reviews, resolutions and manifestos at this time each year. It’s part of our tendency to try to bring order to chaos, to fashion meaning from the meaningless. In reality, today is just another day; no different to any other, save for the ideas we attach to it. Having said that, my New Year’s Resolutions are thus: 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.