Official Bicyclist Abroad Year in Review: 2014 Edition

So, Bicyclist Abroad is now one year old. That’s right-- I started this blog as a New Year’s resolution twelve months ago in Portland, Oregon and have spanned three continents since. And being that I had exactly 3 readers for the large majority of that time, there might have been some things you’ve missed, so sit back, relax, and enjoy a complimentary recap of 2014.

~All Bikepaths Lead to Voodoo Doughnut (Portland, OR)~

Shortly before the first of the year, I had acquired for myself a Univega Safari 10 to be my PDX bicycle, and in the States that heavy, cottered crank, 10-speed hunk of steel remains to this day. My first adventures on it were investigating the Springwater trail, from its Eastern terminus in Boring, OR (the joke never gets old) to where it dissolves somewhere into the East Portland wasteland next to a highway. In the middle of the trail was the oasis of tasty food, Cartlandia, which featured its own Voodoo Doughnut food cart, something I had made a previous joke about and was, in actuality, a real thing.

~A Couple Weeks of Ramen (Misawa, Japan)~

Finally, I was able to capitalize on the blog’s namesake as I was back in Japan, but only for a few weeks. Also problematic was the enormous amount of snow, so I didn’t get much riding done. Time flew by and soon I was back on a plane headed back to the States.

~ My First Folder (Biloxi, MS)~

After a brief stint in PDX waiting for my orders, I was on my way to Biloxi, Mississippi where I would spend the next two months. Having just left the icy cold of northern Japan and the drizzly wetness of the Pacific Northwest, I was expecting to enjoy the warmer temperatures of the Gulf Coast, but instead was greeted by an unprecedented  freeze and the shutting down of all major businesses and highways. It would soon blow over and I would find a Dahon Speed 7 for sale, my first folding bike and a welcome source of sanity in Mississippi. Here I discovered that, while there have been some valiant attempts to develop cycling infrastructure, it was still a pretty dangerous place to ride a bike.

~One Last Time in the PNW (Portland/Seattle)~

Coming through the PNW on my way back to Japan, but this time I had the Dahon with me. Mass transit was a breeze, even when all the bike racks were taken. I grew to appreciate a folding bike even more.

~Land of the Rising Sun (Misawa, Japan)~

Settled in at our Japanese residence, but only for a few more months. I did my first metric century for a legendary doughnut, photographed the Tour de Ogawara, and rode to the coast with the Mrs., trying to take in as much as we could before we had to say goodbye to Japan.

~Deutschland Bound (NRW, Germany)~

Here we finally were, arriving in Europe for our grand adventure. While waiting on our own bikes to arrive (as well as everything else we owned) we rode on heavy aluminum city bikes to the commissary and anywhere else we needed to go. After a few weeks in temporary housing, we found a place to call home and have since been basing our excursions from therein. The summer was rainy, the fall was much of the same, and the winter is turning out to be fairly wet as well. I came upon a new bicycle, the Indian-made Avon of mysterious origin, and the Mrs. left for the States for two months while I discovered my interest in riding a mountain bike and participated in some ‘coffeeneuring’ to bide the time.

And that leaves us here, about to turn the page on a new chapter. What will 2015 hold for Bicyclist Abroad? Well, there will certainly be lots to see, and while I’ve got plenty of new ideas, I’d love to hear some of yours, too. So as we count down the days until the new year arrives, let me say that I’ve had a great time riding, writing, photographing, and interacting with the cycling community, and cannot wait to do more of the same in the year to come. Thank you for reading!

Best regards,

-Bicyclist Abroad

Book Review: Bike Snob Abroad by Eben Weiss (a.k.a. BikeSnobNYC)

It’s no secret that bike blogging is a self-referential, overlapping, slightly egotistical biosphere of its own, and for every blog worthy of any merit at all, there is another that predates it and probably inspired it in the first place. Literally hundreds of bike blogs make a run of three or four years, then quietly putter out and are abandoned on the side of the information autobahn known as the internet. Only a handful of bloggers ever really “make it”, and one of them is BikeSnobNYC, the New York-based, hyper-critical champion of bicycle riders everywhere. Although I’m not a flag-waving, card-carrying member of his fan base, I do enjoy in moderation his brand of humor and the personality he portrays on his blog (web etiquette dictates I link to it, although it’s probably not necessary). Moreover, I appreciate the dialed-back sincerity and possibly more true-to-form nature of his books, the last of which I just finished reading.

Bike Snob Abroad: Strange Customs, Incredible Fiets and the Quest for Cycling Paradise was on my radar for a while now, but impending travel overseas kept me putting it off until I actually got here to see for myself what the state of bicycling is in this magical place known as Europe. Now, having been on European soil for a couple weeks, I can safely say that bicycles here are all at once everywhere and unremarkable. Not in the sense that they aren’t the two-wheeled bringers of joy that they are elsewhere, its just that here, everyone knows that. Much like in Japan, lots of people ride recreationally, to commute to work, to the store, it’s just not that big a deal. In fact, I’m starting to think that “bike culture” in the U.S. could really just be the novelty of rediscovering alternate modes of transportation after being dominated by the automobile for many years. Once that new car smell is gone, what you have is what they’ve had here for a long time: a two-wheeled, human-powered vehicle. Convenient, faster than a horse, less expensive than a car.

This train of thought is touched upon in Bike Snob Abroad as Eben takes his family on a trip to the Netherlands, more specifically Amsterdam, widely renowned as the bike capital of the world. His whole shtick (his words, I think)  as a bike-culture critic are rendered null in a country such as this where there’s no “Man” to stick it to in regards to cycling oppression. Bikes and cars co-exist without much fuss. Infrastructure is robust and abundant. I can kind of say the same for myself in regards to the superfluous nature of writing about bikes where they’re as common as toilets, with maybe the exception being I don’t really have a message, I’m just trying to chronicle the mildly interesting stuff I do on a bicycle. Regardless, this is only brought up once in the book, the rest of the time is just a good narration of what it’s like being an American wowed by another, arguably more sophisticated, culture.

So there you have it. Its not a very long book, but then again BikeSnob doesn’t have much to say outside of what I mentioned above, and simultaneous derision and admiration for New York City. But you don’t have to take my word for it…

-Bicyclist Abroad