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A 280 mile, self-supported ride with my friend Dave through Washington, Idaho and British Columbia. This incredibly scenic route is famous for views of snow-capped moutains, quaint Nelson, BC, gorgeous rivers and lakes and unbelievale moutainous terrain. The loop has moderate elevation changes most days, providing a manageable riding profile yet rugged and beautiful scenery on all sides. One of our top, all-time tours, this is not one to be missed.
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2010 Alleghany Mountains Tour
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Winding through the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia, this ACA Route includes 78 miles of rail trail path along the Greenbrier River, an excellent crushed gravel pathway with abundant opportunities for scenery, hiking, good restaurants and great places to string up a hammock. The rest of this 396 mile route makes use of gravel roads and low-traffic paved roads with fantastic landscapes and lush mountains. This tour is so nice, I've done it twice. This time with my friend Dave, also with my brother Eric back in 2008.
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2008 Alleghany Mountains Tour
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The first time I did this ride, with my brother Eric, we learned what it means to "relax". We completed, oh, half the route and spent more time in our hammocks reading books and sleeping than riding our bikes. I will admit that my attitude toward towrds touring turned from "more miles" to "relax" after this tour. See the description above, from the 2010 ride of this route, for an overview.
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Called"the crown jewel of rails to trails", the Mickelson Trail stretches 114 miles through the Black Hills of South Dakota with just short of 100 converted railroad bridges and tunnels, an immaculate packed gravel surface and has water stations dotting the full length. Nearby attractions include Mount Rushmore and Deadwood, where Wild Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane were buried.
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Pretty much everyone has heard of the wqonders of riding the Oregon coast, down the 101. We startd off with an all-day pouring rain, a flat tire and soaked clothing. But from the second day on it was smnooth sailing with great hiker/biker camping, awesome coastal scenery and no cares in the world as we rode south, with the wind.
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Our third tour, this had a perfect combination of the scenery of the Olympic Peninsula, no rain (yes, we had essentially no rain), almost no traffic, and great camping and hiking. This was such an awesome tour that we have talked many times about doing it again. As always, the pictures are great but will never do justice to the natural beauty we enjoyed.
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Our second tour started at the north rim of the Grand Canyon and proceeded through the Arizona strip and into Utah. We finished the riding portion much quicker than expected which allowed for time to drive up to Zion, Bryce Canyon, Glen Canyon Dam, Wupatki, Sunset Crater, Walnut Canyon, Montezuma's Castle, Montezuma's Well, Sedona and more. We had the amazing luck of arriving at Bryce Canyon NP during the annual Astronomy Festival, getting the only open camping spot left and enjoying a night under the stars with amazing telescopes and technical talks by astronomy enthusiasts. Special thanks to our wives for their support in driving us all the way to the north rim of the Grand Canyon from Tucson. You two rock!
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My first real bike tour ever, an idea that came from my brother Eric, this ride from near Seattle to the Columbia River showcases the Washington Cascade Mountain Range via a rail trail conversion. The trail started out quite nice, but we eventually had to drag our bikes through deep sand for hours, came upon a bridge that was out, leading to our dragging our bikes down and then back up rough terrain, then another bridge that was out, and finally a long dry spell where we ran out of water. This first tour had a lot of lessons learned but was immensely fun and started this whole crazy type of "vacation" that I have since craved.
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