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Final ride of the summer: Pawnee Pioneer Gravel Ri

Final ride of the summer: Pawnee Pioneer Gravel Ride through the northeastern plains of Colorado 🌻

For Labor Day weekend, we signed up for this first-annual ride. We pedaled miles and miles of sunflower-lined gravel roads over two days, along with 37 other riders.

Lesson of the ride: support your local ride organizers, especially if they're developing new rides in under-visited areas. We'll be back next year!

#gravelbiking #pawneenationalgrassland #colorado #easternplains #explorebybicycle

Attempt to ford the river. It worked! In fact, ev

Attempt to ford the river.

It worked! In fact, everything worked out on this first bikepacking trip of the year. I was with three bikepacking first-timers who all aced their first self-supported overnighter. We didn't get rained on, we found a beautiful campsite, we spotted a mythical "tentaur" (half-man, half-tent) and we survived the stream-crossing.

We climbed 5800 feet over 64 miles in two days 💪

How grand to be back in the bikepacking saddle 🤠

#overnighter #bikepacking #bikecamping #graveltravel #hikeabike #waunitaranch #waunitapass #blacksagepass #pitkin #colorado #mythicaltentaur #babysfirstrodeo #noobs

Day 5: Arrive in Budapest, Hungary 🏁 (53 mi/85

Day 5: Arrive in Budapest, Hungary 🏁 (53 mi/85 km)

One last push got us to our final destination. The ride was part obstacle course (we had to take two different river ferry crossings and dodge heavy pedestrian traffic in town), part scavenger hunt (a bump knocked my phone out of the holder and we had to backtrack 5 miles to find it), and part victory lap as we made it across the "finish line" to our hotel. Champagne cheers right there in the lobby 🥂

This is where the bike trip itinerary ends. So much else happened next. But I'll wrap up by reviewing the tour we booked as a self-guided package:

Rental bikes: ⭐⭐⭐
Route: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Overall tour: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I 💯 recommend the Vienna to Budapest tour, especially as an inter-generational adventure. Squeezing it all into the four-day sporty/active itinerary was challenging on rental bikes, so I'd advise either slowing it down or bringing your own bike. I'll be back someday for ALL of the Eurovelo 6 across Europe!

#theend #viennatobudapest #biketour #euroadventure #eurovelo6 #illbeback

Day 4: Györ – Komárom – Esztergom (37 mi/59

Day 4: Györ – Komárom – Esztergom (37 mi/59 km)

Headwind. Looming clouds. Rough gravel. High mileage. Today contained more bike trip reality than our first sunny vacation days on the route. My dad opted out of biking and went on his own lost-in-translation train adventure to the day's endpoint of Esztergom.

Fueled by grit and Hungarian pastries, Nathan and I pedaled to the train station at our halfway point, Komárom, where we found a rickety one-car train to get us the rest of the way. Known as "Hungarian Rome" with a basilica on the top of a hill, Esztergom's high points for me were the postcard views from the top and the thermal swimming pool at the hotel.

One day left: Esztergom to Budapest

#biketour #eurovelo6 #bikeeurope #hungary #gyor #komarom #esztergom #almosttobudapest #latergram #triprecap #may2022

Day 3: Bratislava, Slovakia – Györ, Hungary (50

Day 3: Bratislava, Slovakia – Györ, Hungary (50 mi/80 km)

This was such a joyful day. The weather was perfect and we had no trouble following the Eurovelo 6 signs along car-free bikeways as we crossed into Hungary. We hit the lovely, unpronounceable town of Mosonmagyaróvár just in time for a patio lunch break, then made one more stop at the Hédervár castle before arriving to Györ.

Györ! Beautiful little city to stroll around and enjoy a nice dinner in the main square. There was some serious business to discuss, however: the next day. Forecast showed a high chance of rain, and my dad was ready for a break from the bike. So we booked him a train ticket to the next town. Nathan and I planned to brave the first half of the 68(!) miles, with the train as a bailout option for the second half. Would it all work out?

#biketourfriends #eurovelo6 #hungary #bikeway #biketour #supportedride #cycleeurope

Day 2: Vienna – Bratislava (44 mi/70 km) Today

Day 2: Vienna – Bratislava (44 mi/70 km)

Today we met our rental bikes -- firetruck-red heavyweight tanks on wheels. They came equipped with snazzy yellow handlebar bags and a side pannier. We were impossible to miss (or mistake for locals).

The bikes weren't performance machines (mine was basically a city cruiser) but the route infrastructure made up for it. We were pedaling well-marked bikeways all day. Highlights on this section were fortress ruins with a view and a WWII-era bunker on the border of Slovakia. We crossed the Danube into Bratislava, ready for yet another patio meal and drinks in the quaint historic city center.

#biketourfriends #eurovelo6 #bratislava #slovakia #bikeway #biketour #danubecruising

Day 1: Arrival and sightseeing in Vienna, Austria

Day 1: Arrival and sightseeing in Vienna, Austria

Hello, bike tour package. The Austrian outfitter Radreise Freunde ("Bike Trip Friend" in German) booked our hotels and transferred our luggage for us each day. They equipped us with rental bikes and these nifty paper maps for our self-guiding convenience. And .gpx map files, which were all we really needed.

We did the "sporty" version, which fits this 200+ mile distance into five days (the first of which is just arrival and sightseeing). So, per the itinerary, that's how we spent Day 1.

I chose this itinerary as a good fit for my 72-year-old dad, who loves biking but isn't interested in loading camping gear onto a bike or sleeping on the ground. Touring three Central European countries also sounded grand. Overall, it was! I'll give it a star rating after this day-by-day recap.

#viennatobudapest #biketripfriends #eurovelo6 #supportedride #cycleholiday #danubecyclepath

Next bike tour booked! Vienna to Budapest along t

Next bike tour booked!
Vienna to Budapest along the Danube, May 2022 📅

After a long winter/spring of not doing much with bicycles at all, I'm getting back in the saddle with a 5-day bike tour, Euro-style.

More "active vacation" than "epic journey" in flavor, this will be a supported ride where the tour operator takes our bags from hotel to hotel for us. I'll be self-guiding in a group with @qzikl Nathan and my dad.

Itinerary in brief:
Day 1 - Arrive in Vienna
Day 2 - Vienna to Bratislava (44 miles)
Day 3 - Bratislava to Gyor (50 miles)
Day 4 - Gyor to Esztergom (68 miles)
Day 5 - Esztergom to Budapest (53 miles)

That makes 215 miles total on rented hybrid bikes along one of Europe's great bikeways. Has anyone cycled this portion of the Danube Cycle Path before? Thoughts and recs please!

#biketravel #bikevacation #eurotrip #danubecyclepath #springbikeride #supportedride #selfguided #hotelsupported #eurostyle #crossgenerational #oldworld #oldmanord

Happy New Year from Colorado! Here's to fresh adv

Happy New Year from Colorado!

Here's to fresh adventures, good company, and the revitalizing magic of getting outside in 2022✨

#happynewyear #birthdaycrew #huttrip #coloradohighcountry #boreaspass #breckenridgetroll #10thmountainhuts #backcountry #getoutside

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In the summer of 2019, I traveled coast-to-coast across the United States by bicycle.

4400 miles
75 days
10 states
11 miles per hour
Solo and self-supported

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