Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Miles from Nowhere - Bicycle Touring

Miles From Nowhere is one of the best bicycling touring books ever! Joe Kurmaskie's Metal Cowboy: Tales from the Road Less Pedaled and Riding Outside The Lines: International Incidents and Other Misadventures with the Metal Cowboy are great fun, but they don't come close to describing the day – to – day hunting and gathering- all-the-while-dealing-with-new-cultures aspect that Barbara Savage manages to brings out during her and her husband Larry's two year ride around the world.

Today's world is remarkably different than the late 1970's when the Savages took their ride and you can't help wondering how it would play out today. Certainly they wouldn't need to go months without hearing from home, or pedal furiously over dirt roads to be in town for a wire-transfer, scheduled 6 months previous and we know that the wind still blows furiously in South Dakota and Austria, the Himilayans still have very high passes, India is hot and dry, and New Zealand is still populated predominantly by sheep but the bigger questions remain. Do drivers in the Florida Keys still run bicycles off the road? Can bicyclists still camp at Stonehedge? Do Egyptians continue to stare at foreigners, or just foreigners on bikes? Will New Zealanders loan you their car to tour the island? Can you still camp on the beaches in Tahti?

Hmmm, maybe I'll have to take a ride and find out.

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