Bicycle Travel

A memoir of homecoming—Heidi Across America is a gritty story of how opening our hearts to others enables us to open our hearts to ourselves and love what we find there.

In 1935, Fred A. Birchmore left the small American town of Athens, Georgia, to continue his college studies in Europe. In his spare time, Birchmore toured the continent on a one-speed bike he called Bucephalus (after the name of Alexander the Great's horse). A born wanderer, Birchmore broadened his travels to include the British Isles and even the Mediterranean. After a lengthy, unplanned detour in Egypt, Birchmore put his studies on hold, pointed Bucephalus eastward, and just kept going. 

At age 22, Charlie Walker left home in search of adventure. Fleeing the boredom that comes with comfort, he set off on a secondhand bicycle. The aim was simple: to pedal to the furthest point in each of Europe, Asia, and Africa. He didn’t train or plan. He just started. The journey was an escape from an unremarkable existence, a pursuit of hardship, and a chance to shed the complacency of middle England. From the brutality of winter on the Tibetan plateau, to the claustrophobia of the Southeast Asian jungle, the quest provided Charlie with ample opportunity to test his mettle.

This is the story of Barbara and Larry Savage's sometimes dangerous, often zany, but ultimately rewarding 23,000-mile global bicycle odyssey, which took them through 25 countries in two years. Miles from Nowhere is an adventure not to be missed! Along the way, these near-neophyte cyclists encountered warmhearted strangers eager to share food and shelter, bicycle-hating drivers who shoved them off the road, various wild animals, rock-throwing Egyptians, overprotective Thai policeman, motherly New Zealanders, meteorological disasters, bodily indignities, and great personal joys.

A bicycling and travel audiobook like no other. It offers an entertaining and inspirational listen for all audiences. It tells the story of a 66-year-old grandfather who has never ridden a bicycle for more than a few miles at a time and sets out to ride a bicycle from one coast of the United States to the other. He does this ride by himself with no one along for company and no one following along when things go wrong.

Brian has a million vague life plans but zero sense of direction. So when he meets Rachel, a self-possessed woman who daydreams of bicycling across the States, he decides to follow her wherever she’ll take him. Brian and Rachel soon embark on a ride from northern Wisconsin to Somewhere West, infatuated with the promise of adventure and each other. But as the pair progress from the Northwoods into the bleak western plains, they begin to discover the messy realities of life on the road.

This is the riveting true story of a young man’s solo bicycle odyssey: freezing in the Anatolian mountains of Turkey, confounded by butterflies in the empty Iranian desert, passing through the rubble of a coup in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and surviving dire illness in Pakistan's Indus valley. His journey ends in the heart of the subcontinent, having glimpsed true freedom. This is an account of humankind’s essential goodness, of trusting unseen hands that can steer us from disaster, and of learning that the way out is through.

As he travels through the North, Wilson gets beneath the political surface to portray both the tragedy and comedy of everyday life in the Protestant and Catholic communities. Aware of the polarized image that each side has of the other, he emphasizes the importance of finding common ground and of asserting the middle against the extremes. Just as traditional Irish music is characterized by ornamentations and elaborations on a melodic theme, Ireland, a Bicycle, and a Tin Whistle is full of variations and wanderings on the theme of the trip itself.

Many dream of dropping everything and just traveling around the world. It's a common dream, but few imagine embarking on that journey by bicycle. Exposed to the elements, legs burning, all your possessions strapped to you and your bicycle - it doesn't paint a relaxing picture, but this is just what Pierre-Yves Tremblay did.

From the preface: I brought all this information together, in a very simple way, so you, the person who wants to travel by bike, can! So go for a long or short ride and experience the Earth and its inhabitants. In 2000, I was a very different person, I was very focused on material possessions, money, work, and although I was passionate about the Earth and nature I had let my false need for respect from others to creep its way into my life; I gained weight and became dangerously unhealthy. I came across an Adventure Cyclists Magazine in a bookstore, which made me pine for travel and to be ...

Full Tilt is the inspiring true story of Dervla Murphy's 1963 journey from Ireland to India on an Armstrong Cadet bicycle, and the trials, landscapes, and cultures she encountered along the way. The route takes her through the valleys and snowy mountain passes of Europe and India to the scorching deserts of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the metal of her bicycle, Rozinante (named after Don Quixote's steed), becomes too hot to touch.

The two-and-a-half-year journey spanned the mountains and deserts of former Soviet Republics, Afghanistan on the fearful brink of foreign withdrawal, and remote corners of the Congolese jungle. From hiking through sandstorms in the Gobi desert to barreling down rapids in a dugout canoe, this perilous adventure, and Charlie’s many encounters along the way, gives insight into the past, present, and future of often-overlooked places during periods of great change.

When licensed clinical therapist and self-proclaimed “reluctant adventurer” Leah Day felt herself drifting from her son, Oakley, she decided to make a drastic play to reconnect. In this memoir chronicling the journey of a lifetime, Leah and Oakley find that if they can push themselves to accomplish physically exhausting and emotionally taxing milestones on a bike, they are capable of anything!

Into the North Wind chronicles Jill Homer’s record-breaking bicycle ride across Alaska on the Iditarod Trail. Jill is one of those “accidental athletes” who stumbled into endurance racing shortly after she moved to Alaska in 2005. Ever since, she dreamed about the chiming of ice crystals at 30 below zero, black spruce shadows in the moonlight, the ethereal dance of the Northern Lights, and a journey that could take her deeper into this transcendental world - the 1,000-mile race to Nome.

Many an incredible story may have been told about young courageous men and women cycling the globe in search of adventure, covering vast distances at speed each day with not a care in the world. Well, this story is a little different. It is a story about a 350-pound middle-aged, disabled, working-class husband and father. I was never a regular cyclist, and I knew nothing about bicycle maintenance and repair. Solo, self-financed, with no support network and without any fixed route plan other than, “I’m going that way.” What could go wrong? I wondered.

On the eve of turning 30, terrified of being funneled into a life he didn’t choose, Jedidiah Jenkins quit his dream job and spent 16 months cycling from Oregon to Patagonia. He chronicled the trip on Instagram, where his photos and reflections drew hundreds of thousands of followers, all gathered around the question: What makes a life worth living? In this unflinchingly honest memoir, Jed narrates his adventure - the people and places he encountered on his way to the bottom of the world - as well as the internal journey that started it all.

France has many treasures - food, wine, fashion, history, and art. But for me, one of its greatest treasures is the people. After cycling the French country back roads for the last zillion and a half years, I've had awesome adventures with incredible people of all nationalities. And I'm going to share them with you now in this book.

Biking from Oregon to Maine is no small feat, especially for two newly retired women who carry everything they need for three months, powered only by the strength of their legs and a desire for adventure. Alice Honeywell and Bobbi Montgomery invite listeners to follow their ride by bicycle across the United States, as they face scorching sun, driving rain, buffeting winds, equipment failures, killer hills, wild fires, and even a plague of grasshoppers.

This book is wildly funny. I lost track of how many times I laughed out loud. -- Kathleen, Amazon ReviewerAuthor Al Macy is a character and a tightwad with a unique sense of humor. He and his wife squirreled away enough money to retire early, do interesting things, and take unusual trips. As he puts it: “Every day I wake up with nothing to do, and by the end of the day, I've only gotten half of it done.” During his working life, Macy was a neuroscientist, computer game programmer, jazz trombonist, chef, CEO, piano player, clam digger, and technical writer. The book is a journal of a car...

Recently recovered from his epic bicycle journey that took him from the Delaware shore to the Oregon coast, distinguished climate scientist David Goodrich sets out on his bike again to traverse the Western Interior Seaway - an ancient ocean that once spread across half of North America. When the waters cleared a geologic age ago, what was left behind was vast flat prairie, otherworldly rock formations, and oil shale deposits.