Category: News
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Are Decathlon Touring Bikes Actually Any Good? Verdict After 10,000km (Video)
Shortly after I published this post, Decathlon made the decision to retire most of the Riverside Touring range, seemingly in pursuit of the ultralight/gravel bikepacking bandwagon. This article is preserved as part of the historic record of this legendary line of classic touring bikes. Last week I had the pleasure of hosting a French couple on a mission to cycle round the world – preferably without flying – who had spent eight months riding across Europe, Turkey and Georgia, and had recently arrived in Armenia after almost 10,000km of pedalling. Their company evoked feelings of nostalgia for the time when,… Continue reading →
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Cycle Touring WhatsApp Groups For Global Long-Distance Riders
It’s the time of year when long-haul cycle tourers who earlier set off from Europe are approaching parts of the world where information about logistics – visas, border crossings, money exchange and transfer, taking bicycles on public transport, etc – is scarce and rapidly changing. And where forums such as Lonely Planet’s now-defunct Thorn Tree used to be the digital grapevine where cycle tourers would exchange such intel, it seems today’s version is the private WhatsApp group. Continue reading →
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Game-Changing Headphones For Safe Listening While Cycle Touring Or Bikepacking (Video)
As an inherently DIY-oriented bicycle traveller, I don’t normally post about new commercial products in the context of cycle touring and bikepacking. But I do want to highlight a development in the personal entertainment industry that has changed the way I engage with digital audio on the road for the better, and which I think would benefit a great many more riders. Continue reading →
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Warmshowers Launches New Website For 2024 (Hosts: Update Your Profiles!)
A quick heads-up for anyone who – like me – continues to use the nonprofit hospitality platform Warmshowers to find local hosts when cycle touring and bikepacking, and/or to host fellow riders. As the post title suggests, the all-new Warmshowers website was launched earlier this week, with implications for both tourers and hosts (to use Warmshowers’ own terminology). Continue reading →
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Tickets Now On Sale For The 2024 UK Cycle Touring Festival
Fancy a weekend-long festival of all things cycle touring and bikepacking this spring? Well, the good news is that the UK Cycle Touring Festival returns this May after a five-year COVID-induced hiatus – this time at a new venue near the shores of Coniston Water in Cumbria. Continue reading →
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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 →
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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 →
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‘Janapar: The Game’ Is Now Available. Download It For Free Today!
For the last few weeks I’ve been putting the finishing touches to a project I’ve been working on for many years – and with so many of us in isolation and looking for things to do, the timing could not be better! Yes, that’s right – the story of my award-winning documentary Janapar: Love on a Bike has finally been adapted for video game format! Mixing both role-playing and action genres, Janapar: The Game will take you on a failed journey around the world by bicycle, teaching you tough lessons about life and love in the process. You’ll start Level… Continue reading →
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The Hennessy Deep Jungle Camping Hammock: Long-Term Review & Photos
I love hammock camping on bike trips. It’s convenient, comfortable, and a lot easier to find a pitch than people tend to think. Rather than hammock camping in general, which I’ve written about in the past along with other alternative sleeping systems, in this piece I will be taking a closer look at my own camping hammock of choice: the Hennessy Hammock Deep Jungle Zip. Since mid-2013 I’ve been using this hammock regularly on bike trips and hikes (as well as at basecamps and festivals), so it’s definitely due a thorough writeup. Shall we begin? The Hennessy Hammock Deep Jungle: In Brief The… Continue reading →
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Terra Nova Starlite 2 Bikepacking Tunnel Tent: Long-Term Review & Photos
Full disclosure: Terra Nova sent me this tent on long-term loan for review on my blog. I agreed on the basis that I would return it after the testing period was over. I’ve received no payments or other benefits for this. For 12 months I road-tested a relatively new tent from veteran British tent-maker Terra Nova. The Starlite range is aimed squarely at bikepackers and cycle tourists and comes in 1‑, 2- and 3‑berth options. I used the 2‑berth version – the Starlite 2 – on all my cycling, hiking and road trips between April 2018 and May 2019, and this… Continue reading →