By Stan Purdum
During the year before my first cross-country tour by bicycle, I read several accounts of similar rides others had done. From these books, I gained a lot of insight about cycle-touring that helped me know what to expect when I hit the road with panniers loaded. I have previously posted an article in Road Bike Rider listing those books — and some I read after that trip. I provided a brief summary of each. I provided a brief summary of each. You can read that article here.
But that reading prep for my own ride got me hooked on cycle-touring books, so I am including here a few more such volumes I’ve read since, and summaries about them. You may find them useful if you are planning a long tour of your own or for some vicarious adventure if you can’t make such a trek yourself. But if you do tour by bike, you may one day add your own narrative to this genre.
A Highly Unlikely Bicycle Tourist, by Stephen Peel (2020)
While employed as a highway worker, Stephen Peel was hit by a large truck, leaving him with permanent spine and nerve damage, PTSD and situational anxiety. Later, in his mid-50s, and weighing 350 pounds, he decided nonetheless to undertake a solo, self-supported bicycle journey, leaving from his home in England and pedaling through Europe, the Balkans, India and Southeast Asia. Embarking with enough equipment and camping gear that his bike was carrying a combined load (rider plus gear) of nearly 500 pounds, he managed to complete his trip, solving bike problems and travel issues along the way.
His book is a narration of his trek, but the remarkable thing is that while his size and disability make him an unlikely candidate to be a cycle-tourist, he persisted and succeeded through sheer grit and a willingness to keep going.
Back On My Bike: How Cycling Transformed My Life after Sixty, by Tom Eastham (Haighton Press, 2021)
This book’s subtitle, “How Cycling Transformed My Life After Sixty,” is an accurate summary of the book’s content, but it doesn’t communicate how entertaining the account is or how much it mirrors the experience of many of us riders who can get so wrapped up in our passion for all things bicycle that it borders on obsessive-compulsive disorder. The book is a first-person narrative about Tom Eastham, who raced bicycles in his young adult years but abandoned that to concentrate on his career as a hotel manager. But now, nearing retirement at age 60, he picks up cycling again and has all sorts of adventures, including a tour, that he describes with self-deprecating humor, making his book a highly enjoyable read. (I covered this book more fully here.)
Biking Across America: My Coast-to-Coast Adventure and the People I Met Along the Way, by Paul Stutzman (Revell, 2013)
Paul Stutzman and his wife Mary had planned that when their children were grown, they would retire and volunteer time to mission work. But those plans were cut short when Mary died from breast cancer. The loss strongly impacted Paul, who “kept moving” to deal with it, first by hiking the Appalachian Trail, and then by pedaling from Neah Bay, Washington, to Key West, Florida, traversing the 5,000-mile distance between the two farthest points in the contiguous United States, and doing so in 69 days. This book is about the latter journey. Paul doesn’t say a lot about his bike and not too much about the land through which he traveled, but he does describe difficulties he had because of bad weather, bad travel decisions and failing equipment. He also discusses people he met enroute and what he said to them in testimony about his evangelical Christian faith.
No Wrong Turns: Cycling the World, Part 1, Paris to Sidney, by Chris Pountney (2017)
Into the Sunrise: Cycling the World, Part 2, Sydney to Mori, by Chris Pountney (2018)
Different Parts of Everywhere: Cycling the World, Part 3, Mori to Paris, by Chris Pountney (2021)
Here are three volumes, but they tell one story: The around-the-world bicycle travels of UK citizen, Chris Pountney, which he launched from Paris in 2013 with an ambition to make the journey using only his bicycle and boats. No use of land-based motor vehicles, not even when a rescue or repair was necessary, and not even when bureaucratic requirements at border crossings tried to force him to make exceptions. He met this goal. Chris is a good storyteller and generally keeps readers engaged — though I admit that I sometimes only skimmed or skipped over some of the daily record of his trip when there were no compelling incidents or observations.
Besides his no-motor vehicles and other stated goals for the trip, Chris, still in his 20a, had a fantasy about meeting “the most beautiful girl in the world” and having the two of them fall in love. In fact, that happened, when he met a Danish woman named Dea while both were touring in Outer Mongolia — Chris on his bike and Dea on a motorcycle. Eventually, Dea joined Chris on a bicycle of her own and Chris ended cycling around the world not once, but twice — the first time alone, the second time with Dea. He cycled somewhere in the region of 93,000 miles in about 90 countries.
In the third book in the series, Chris tells how he nearly ended the relationship with Dea when he started worrying about how being together might hinder his ability to keep living adventurously. But he worked through this and reaffirmed to Dea his desire to be with her.
Their travels were cut short in 2020, when the Covid pandemic hit, and getting home from South America became an adventure in its own right. Chris currently lives in Denmark with Dea.
One Ride at a Time: Life Lessons Learned on a Cross-Country Bicycle Ride, by Rob Leachman, (BookBaby, 2021)
In 2017, in company with seven other riders guided by a professional bike tour company, Rob Leachman and his wife Bev rode across America in 46 days using the route designated as the “Southern Tier” by the Adventure Cycling Association, which runs from San Diego, California, to St. Augustine, Florida. As both were in their 60s, they were the oldest members of the group and generally pedaled at a slower pace than the others, but they quickly learned that their age and pace didn’t create barriers to group’s routine or camaraderie, and thus the trek became an enjoyable adventure. The couple’s insights make this a useful read for people considering riding with a tour company and wondering how the dynamics might work.
Somewhere & Nowhere: A Bicycle Journey Across America, by Emily Buehler (Two Blue Books, 2017)
Emily Buehler was a young woman when she made a ride from New Jersey to Oregon with her friend Mary. This was a big step for Emily, who was depressed and oppressed by low self-esteem and so worried about offending others by simply expressing her preferences that she often ended up unhappily keeping them to herself and regretting her choices later. Her book about that journey is remarkable in that she sometimes voices the killjoy reasoning that ran in her head, which often kept her from embracing the riches that a long-distance ride can supply. When reading it, I frequently felt like I wanted to say to her, “Come on. Put your worries aside and live in the moment.” But that only shows how difficult it is to pedal in someone else’s shoes. And in the end, I admired her courage in being so open about her struggles. (I discussed her book more fully here.)
Taking The Long Way Home: Adventures of a Retired Couple Biking Across America, by G. Frank Miller (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012)
In 2001, retired school teacher Frank Miller and his wife Helen rode across the US from San Diego, California, to their home in Melbourne Beach, Florida, They mostly followed the Adventure Cycling Association’s “Southern Tier” route, though sometimes they selected their own path. Though the trip was a step out of their comfort zone, they had a great experience, and the book is an enjoyable account of their journey.
Though I’ve never met the Millers, I had a hand in helping them select their route. Frank had been considering using ACA’s TransAm route, but I deterred them. Here’s how Frank described it in his book: “The book titled Roll Around Heaven All Day by Stan Purdum was one I had checked out of the local library, and found very informative. Purdum wrote about a bike ride he took alone that closely followed the route I had identified. I suggested that Helen read this book to give her a better feel for the planning we would need to be doing. When she was about half way through the book, I knew I was in trouble when I heard the book slam shut followed by her loudly saying, ‘Find another route or I’m not going.’ She had arrived at where Purdum had described becoming very sick while going over a 12,000-foot pass in Colorado. This was on my route. Helen didn’t want to have to deal with altitude sickness, and I couldn’t blame her. I had to find another route or lose my traveling companion.”
Stan Purdum has ridden several long-distance bike trips, including an across-America ride recounted in his book Roll Around Heaven All Day, and a trek on U.S. 62, from Niagara Falls, New York, to El Paso, Texas, the subject of his book Playing in Traffic. Stan, a freelance writer and editor, lives in Ohio. See more at www.StanPurdum.com.