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- Headwind All the Way to London
Welcome to the Bike Bulletin. It’s like a freshly paved path for your reading pleasure.
—Sam Westby @samcwestby
This is a weekly newsletter about bike trips, urban cycling, and a love for two-wheeled transit. The more time you spend on a bike, the better. I share new editions every Thursday (or Friday), gearing you up for the ride ahead.
Here’s what we have today.
🌍 RIDE:
❓ RESEARCH:
💡 TIP:
🎥 WATCH:
📖 READ:
🚲 ARCHIVES:
📰 NEWS:
RIDE REPORT
Netherlands to London
My new friend Niels, who invited me in for coffee when he saw me riding past his house.
The highlights from this week are the people I met. Without my dad to hang out with I was forced to talk to strangers.
Reconnecting with old classmates at the Network Science Conference.
A man name Niels stopped me on the side of the road in Belgium and invited me in for coffee
I hung out with two German bikepackers for the whole ferry from France to the UK
Got to meet a few other cycling social media folks in London
The riding? Well I got stronger haha. It was mostly flat and exposed the 3 days across Belgium toward the UK. To make things tough, it was a 15 mph (24 kmh) heading the whole time. Light work for these quads.
I’ve been staying with my close friends Ali and Joseph here in London, and sadly leave them tomorrow morning. It’s been fun hanging out with them. Going to restaurants. Just chatting. And having a home is pretty nice.
Here’s how I’ll wrap up my European adventure:
Train from London to Annecy, France (near Geneva, Switzerland). Bike east across all of the Alps to Vienna, Austria. I have to make my route (chronic procrastinator), but it’ll be close to 8 days.
I’m ready to get back on the grind of multi-hour climbs. There’s nothing better.
ROUTE ON MY RADAR
The Tour Divide
Somewhere in Montana, last year
Today is the official start date for the unofficial Tour Divide race. I rode it last year and there’s a reason why I’m not this year. IT’S HARD.
A list of things that went wrong on my ride:
Day 1 - Both pannier clips broke
Day 2 - So muddy, it was pushing off my chain
Day 2 - got food poisoning
Day 20ish - eating food made me nauseous
Day 27 - my aluminum back rack snapped
Why the heck would anyone do this?
Doing hard things = feeling more accomplished
Extensive community and lore
The MOUNTAINS and NATURE
Would I ever do it again? Probably, but not this year.
Here’s what you’d be getting yourself into.
2700 miles (4340 kilometers)
158,000 feet of climbing (48,150 meters)
90% unpaved
There’s a slightly easier version of the route called the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, from the Adventure Cycling Association. This is designed for tourists and those looking to suffer less and enjoy the ride more. It’s overlaps with about 90% of the Tour Divide route. [GDMBR, bikepacking.com]
You can find all 28 of my 1-minute daily vlogs from last year’s ride in this YouTube Playlist.
WHAT I’M WATCHING
Casually Explain: Cycling
One of my favorites, from a YouTube legend. This is 7-minutes of comedy.
Watch on YouTube.
Washington D.C. This city will soon add cargo bikes to their bikeshare fleet. (Government Technology)
Philadelphia. A lawsuit has started here to prevent the city from installing concrete barriers to protect a local bike lane. (ABC 6)
2x. A new study finds that protected bike lanes see double the ridership compared to painted lanes. (University of New Mexico)
AB 954. A new bill working its way through the California government to build state-wide bike highways. Imagine the bike highways connecting hundreds of cities in the Netherlands. (CalBike)
A Note From Sam
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