Ged117 

The water front trail from Toronto > Kingston. Figured I'd take the train to Toronto and stay in Presquile Prov Park on the way back through Prince Edward County. It'll be my first weekender trip with the Voyager. Looking for decent second hand panniers now..

indyfabz

One-way car rental to Vienna, OH on Friday to start an eight-day tour home to Philly on Saturday. I did much of the route back in 2014 but will be changing it up in a couple of places and staying at some different spots than last time. I will be passing directly through an area in Schuykill County that was ravaged by flooding twice this summer. The second day includes about 23 miles of the scenic Allegheny River Trail and a pass through the former town of Centralia. Looking forward to seeing Graffiti Highway, which is a short stretch of PA 61 that had to be abandoned due to the underground coal fire.

schoolboy2 

I retired in early May and had originally planned to fly to Boston in mid-May and pedal home to Santa Rosa, CA by early August. Unfortunately, I changed my handlebars for this trip and, after a long day in the saddle they damaged my Ulnar nerve in my right hand. I hadn't had this problem on previous multi-week long tours using drop bars so I initially felt that things would improve after a couple of days. My hand continued to get worse and I decided to suspend the tour in Dayton, OH and fly home. Following my doctor's advice, I spent most of the summer off the bike. My hand is slowly improving and I can now ride again. This site won't let me post a link (yet) but you can find the blog of my shortened trip by going to crazyguyonabike and search for "Pengra" then choose "Dan's Retirement Tour"

I am planning to spend all summer 2019 with my wife in Europe and tour by bike and train.

The following year (2020) I may try the Boston to California ride again.

indyfabz

Vienna, OH to Philly ended up being an unmitigated disaster which I was rescued from after only three days of riding. I got rained on literally every minute I was on the bike, and it rained nearly all of the time I was not riding. It was a cold rain that was blowing right at me. One day the high was only 55. I forgot to pack my rain pants, and my rain jacket failed, which was my fault. I didn't realize that you need to periodically treat even Showers Pass jackets. My FD began to get sticky from all-day rain and being in warm motel rooms at night. On Day 3 I simply left things in the small chainring. Couldn't bomb descents anyway as there was usually a lot of water and debris. I finally made it to DuBois, PA and got a cheap motel room. Another looming factor was that, at the time, the forecast was still for the SE part of PA to get the remnants of Florence at the end of the week, which would have put them right over where I had planned to be.

After exploring other options for getting home to Philly, an old friend from the 'hood--the guy who actually got me into riding as an adult--drove 4.5 hrs. to pick me up the next day, then 3 hrs. to his country place (it poured at points during the drive) then home the next day. When I got home I lubed the FD with WD-40 and let it soak in. Went to shift it and all but a few strands of the cable snapped.

Pro Tip of the day: When you line your clothing to try to keep warm, don't use the circulars.

DropBarFan

Pro teams should do this, why limit the ads to the clothing? Seriously, every day I'm astonished how unrelentingly bad this season's weather is. If I had known I would have planned a western tour.

indyfabz

I was supposed to go to Idaho for two weeks but got strongarmed into attending a family reunion that conflicted with the trip. Ended up doing a tour from St. Albans, VT home to Philly at the beginning of June, with a two-day stop at my 35th high school reunion in Western Massachusetts. Also spent two nights in Burlington to visit a friend. One of those days was cold and wet. I also had a couple of other bouts of rain, but nothing like last week.

Machka 

Any autumn bicycle tour plans?

Machka 

How did your planned tours go?

Are you doing any touring in the last 6 weeks or so of the year?

Machka 

So ... how did your year of touring go?

mev

Not done yet. Currently underway from Brownsville TX (USA) to Abilene.

In July I cycled from Abilene to the Canadian border at Manitoba. It was a ride that mostly followed US 83 aka The Great Plains Highway aka The Road to Nowhere. That ride was a nice sample of agricultural areas just in the boundary between ample rain and otherwise dry shortgrass prairie. I had started in Abilene with temperatures close to 100F in part because it was consistently hot further south. So now this end of December ride is to finish that last bit of (mostly) US 83 from the southern tip of TX to Abilene.

Chris L

I made it to North Queensland for a couple of weeks this year. To be honest I was grateful to get it after dealing with some job changes and some personal issues. I feel like I'm now back on track and ready to really kick some ass in the next 12 months.