"car-free adventure"
self designed & self supported bicycle tour adventures

The “Car free adventure” website discusses and shares our “self-designed” bicycle tour experiences.  My wife and I have planned and executed “self-designed” bicycle tours in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Austria; and, we have bicycled across six States. The freedom and economy we discovered doing our own trip planning is very appealing.

My wife and I began bicycle touring in 2000 and our first adventure in France was a “self-designed” bicycle trip.  On our trip to France we stayed in comfortable quarters at night and ate well, but the trip was accomplished with significant dollar savings.  More importantly to us the cost saving made it possible to fund more than one bicycle trip each year.

A second important advantage of designing our own bicycle adventures is the freedom to control the trip agenda.  Being in charge of planning allows us to select a route, set daily riding mileages and plan the number of trip days required to expose us to the culture, history, landscape and population of an area.  This freedom also allows us to modify the route to experience an overlooked or unknown attraction along the route.    

The tools needed to support planning a bicycle trip exist and are improving everyday.  The method we use to plan our bicycle adventures can be easily replicated. 

There have been some missteps along the way but even a little misfortune can produce very rewarding and memorable experiences.  The most significant obstacle I had to overcome before I initiated my first bicycle adventure was getting started.  Good luck!

 

The “car free adventure” webpage is organized as follows:  The “Bicycle tour planning” page discusses how we plan an adventure, why we have adopted these strategies and what the cost savings are to do our own thing. The “Fitness & practuce” page discusses the physical and mental training  we engage in at home to prepare for a tour.  The physical training is obvious.  We want to be in sufficient shape to enjoy our bicycle adventures.  The mental aspect may not be obvious.  We practice transportation options and other trip related activities at home to familerize ourselves with what to expect on the road.  Both are important.  The “Bicyclie Touring" page provides a “daily log” of our bicycle adventures plus stories of unique events and pictures from the tour.     The “About Us” page is devoted to our personal tour experiences, ideas and prejudices about adaptation to public transit, walking, training, bicycling and other topics and experiences which may strike a cord.