Sometime during the winter of 2011, shortly after our decision to embark on this car-less adventure, I began what has become an in-depth and on-going, online research project into human powered adventure and the car-less lifestyle. The internet is a vast place and while I’ve only begun to probe its deeper depths I do feel like I’ve scratched enough of the surface to create a small offering of interesting links and information to share with you.
As the idea of a summer of bike-powered climbing settled into a reality, I sobered up and started to look into the practicalities of our ambitious goals. Would it be possible? How long would we have to bike each day? What would we do for work? These were reasonable questions that had to be answered before either of us could satisfy ourselves that we weren’t signing up for more then we could handle. But as we began to feel good about the possibilities and realities, new questions began to drift into mind. Who else is doing this? What kind of trips are they going on? Although I was aware of some of mountaineering’s earlier dealings with cycling and human power, I was generally unaware of the footsteps we were following. That’s right, I was pretty much naive enough to think that we were pioneers, of a sort.
At first, my attempts into researching bicycle powered climbers and car-less adventurers fell short, revealing little and furthering the illusion that we were breaking into a new genre of eco-adventure. But as we pedaled more and our perspective shifted, my mind began to unlock the subtle relationship between search engines and human powered adventure, and like opening your closet and discovering GNARnia, I discovered the vibrant and storied subculture of car-less climbers and human powered adventurers who’s ranks we were joining.
Needless to say I’ve spent way too long staring at the computer, looking for stories and photos of folks living it up, climbing mountains and riding bikes. Below I’ve assembled a short list of interesting and relevant links related to biking, climbing, adventure, food, humanity, and more. Call it my holiday gift, click on a few and learn something new, check out what some other amazing people are up to, and see that we’re not the only ones with crazy ideas in this amazing world. Get inspired about what’s possible and get motivated to make your own human powered adventure, weather it be to the end of the street or the end of the world.
This list is in no way catogorized, if you don’t have the time to look at all of them now, come check back later.
*for some reason this post is experiencing technical difficulties, bear with me as I try and retrieve some of the missing text.
Human Powered Mountaineers Inc. These guys are amazing, another couple who’s out there throwing down. Chris Bangs and Justine Sweet have gone on some awesome bicycle powered adventures, and are doing it not only in the name of adventure, but to support local organic agriculture in the Bozeman, Montana area. We were honored to be featured on their web-site a little while back when they shared our story about climbing Dragontail’s Serpentine Arete. Liz has a dream to climb in the Bugaboo range which some of our friends have dismissed off-hand as impossible, well these guys have done it! What an inspiration. Check out their blog and Chris’s most recent project to climb and ski the 7 highest mountains from each range surrounding Bozeman, which he’s doing to raise money and awareness for local agriculture. Amazing.
Adventure Cycling Adventure Cycling is no secret stash, it’s the most popular and well known resource for planning long-distance bicycle tours in the U.S. I’m also mentioning them because this is another site we’ve been most honored to be mentioned on, as they’ve added us to their feed of interesting Bicycle Touring Blogs, which you can find here. If you want to find maps, advice, classifieds, or join a guided tour, this is the place to go. Check it out.
Goran Kropp While I knew about some of the older stories of European climbers biking the Alps after WWII, I was mostly unaware of any modern-day human powered mountaineers. Goran’s claim to fame is his year long expedition to climb Mt. Everest under 100% human power. That’s right, he rode his bike 8,000 miles from Sweden to Mt. Everest, where he sucessfully summitted without the use of supplemental oxygen. Damn. He has become, for me, a larger then life inspiration. This link is just to his Wiki page, but if it piques your interest, check out his book, Ultimate High.
The Original Mountain Bikers The Alpinist is everyone’s favorite climbing publication, the mountaineers version of Surfer’s Journal. This is a great story from them that outlines a breif history of cycling-powered climbing. As well as a historical piece, this article mentions Jens Holstein, a modern hardman from the Washington area who’s footsteps, or tire tracks, we were unknowingly following in.
Car-Less Mountaineering Another good article about some modern mountaineering taking place without a car. This one’s from the Northwest Mountaineering Journal, another fine publication.
Bicycle Touring Resources Is a great database for pretty much all of the best bicycle touring blogs out there. Look here to read about some amazing tours around the world.
Critical Mass Is a cycling event usually held on the last Friday of every month in over 300 cities around the world. Strength in numbers! Lots of folks biking through the streets! This is just a link to the Wiki page but go ahead and search to find one in a city near you, better yet, start one now!
Smileys Project As the success of our car-less experiment settled in my mind immediately looked to what’s next. Bigger, harder, crazier goals. At the time I had just finished reading 50 Classic Climbs in North America, by Steve Roper and Allen Steck, and of course I got it in my mind that we could climb each of these climbs in a completely human powered style. While the Smiley’s aren’t adhering to human powered approaches, they are well on their way to climbing all of the routes outlined in the book. They successfully Kickstarted over $25,000 to help fund their adventure and their whole story is generally a great inspiration. Climbing all of the “50 Classic Rock Climbs of North America” is a goal every climber dreams about. Seemingly, lifetimes are needed, but these guys are doing it, another couple, throwing down in the wild. Pure jealousy.
350.org I sure hope you’ve heard of 350, and even if you have, check our their site again. We embarked on this adventure mainly because of the impact all of our driving is having on the environment. 350 cuts through all the bullshit of global warming dickering, climate change babble, and shows us the math. Our burning of fossil fuels is making the atmosphere an unhealthy place to live. Obvious.Bicycle Design A thoroughly modern site that goes nicely with a smartphone, this is the blog about industrial design in the bike industry. Lots of cool stuff, most recently featuring some bike lights that project lanes and turning signals on either side of your bike. Brilliant.
Calfee Bikes While I’m not going to list all of my favorite bikes and would-be sponsors, this you need to see. Calfee was one of the first companies to make carbon bikes for the Tour de France, and has adapted their carbon wrapping design to make bamboo bikes. That’s right, bamboo, and not only are they breathtakingly beautiful, but they actually work, as the two dudes who toured on a pair, fully loaded, over 18,000 miles can attest to.
SLC Bike Collective The bike Collective is a Salt lake based non-profit who’s mission is “To Promote cycling as an effective and sustainable form of transportation and as a cornerstone of a cleaner, healthier, and safer society. The collective provides refurbished bicycles and educational programs to the community, focusing on children and lower income households.” Sounds Legit. The bike collective has 7 fully stocked stations for folks to come in and work on their bikes. They offer classes on maintenance and repair, have bike for sale, and is pretty much my favorite part of SLC.
Salt Cycle Salt Cycle is a great site promoting the progress of urban cycling in Salt Lake City. They report on new infrastructure, events and resources related to cycling in SLC. Their team is also a great way to find some friends and motivation to go for a ride or do some training.
Car-Free That’s right, there are actually organizations out there advocating for a Car-Free society. Crazy. While I still enjoy riding in car’s and borrowing a bro’s whip for an afternoon joyride, I do support the weaning of our society from the automobile. There are many Car-Free sites devoted to certain cities, states, or days of the year, search around, but if you just want to check out the general clearinghouse, check out WorldCarFree.net.
D Acres D Acres is a non-profit Permaculture Farm and Educational Homestead in Dorchester, New Hampshire. Besides from being really close to Rumney Rocks State Park and the White Mountains, D Acres was formative in shaping my understanding of the need for change in our food system. Every day these guys are working for healthier and more sustainable community. Local, organic, Permaculture-inspired, the folks at D-Acres are some of the nicest, most welcoming, and hard working out there.
Wasatch Community Gardens Another Community building non-profit. Wasatch Community Gardens provides space to garden, and the education and help to foster the growth of current and future generations of organic gardeners in Salt Lake City. Supporting Local, Organic food, and growing some ourselves, is the simplest, and most direct way to support a healthy environment, and a healthy body. Helping people in urban areas understand and take advantage of this relationship is a key step top building a more sustainable future.
Skierboyz The Skierboyz started it all for me. Skierboyz is all about getting out there and having some adventure, be it with your friends or flying solo. Check out the Skierboyz site for some anecdotal evidence and humor filled trip reports.
So there you have it, just a few diversions for your day. Each of these links has a wealth of history and is constantly adding more, so if you just checked out a few, or a little bit of each, I encourage you to go back and dig deeper, when you’ve got the time to stare at the screen that is. Winter’s the time to start stewing on some plans for the warmer months, so hopefully these links will help get the creative juices flowing for some human powered adventure come 2013.
Happy Holidays!