touring

[cyclist]

Hi all, Just a question for any and all who can answer it for me. Are there any cycling seminars for touring a begining cyclist can take before starting out in bike touring. I have a 13 year old that wishes to try touring by bike, and i would like to locate a seminar on touring that he and i can take, together. any ideas.

[JayH]

Do you already do any camping, backcountry camping or at least car camping?  How about bicycle maintenance, I would think that any class in bicycle maintenance would be handy and if you start camping, you'll gain experience in that regards. In effect, bicycle touring is a lot like backpacking, except instead of hiking your gear around in the woods, you're cycling it.  I know all my ultralight backpacking gear (camp, sleeping bags, stove) get used for my bike tours so if you are already a camper, the same experiences for camping you can use for bike touring. I never took a class in bike touring, but I alrady had a large background in both cycling (on and off road) and backpacking, bike touring was just a natural extension of cycling and camping.

One thing that is different is bicycle maintenance, the ability to improvise when things go wrong many miles from home and mental preperation which is best learned by experience.  Then there is stamina and physical limitations, know your child's limitations, etc.

Jay

[kkoerth]

Adventure Cycling has introduction to bicycle touring classes that last about 6 days. (which may be more than you want.)

The following web site has a lot of good information about it. (It's not complete yet but he seems to be still working on it)

http://www.bicycletouring101.com/index.html

[scott.laughlin]

REI does this sort of thing from time to time.  If one is within reach give them a call.

Scott

[judyrans]

REI has on-line information about bicycling and bicycle touring, too:
REI Learn & Share: Cycling
If that doesn't work, start from REI's main page:
http://www.rei.com and from the left side, under "How to choose gear" click on "Expert Advice," then on the next page, choose "Cycling."

If you want great information on riding in traffic, check out John S. Allen's
"Bicycling Street Smarts: Riding Confidently, Legally and Safely"  http://www.bikexprt.com/streetsmarts/index.htm and choose the on-line version.

[dombrosk]

Last summer I took advantage of Adventure Cycling's Introduction to Road Touring class and it was a great experience.  The instruction was great, and the week was a vacation in itself.  Sorry if this seems like a testimonial, but I'd really recommend that anybody looking for a well-organized introduction to touring consider these classes!
By the way, after our class, I did a solo tour from along 300 miles of the Mississippi River, and next summer I'm tackling the first half of the Northern Tier... ;-)