A story about hitchhiking.

Welcome to the Bike Bulletin. It’s the email that will keep you pumped up for the rest of the day.

Here’s what we have today.

• A story about hitchhiking.

• Minneapolis, MN

• Some stats

WHAT I’M READING

Happy City by Charles Montgomery

Cities transformed by happiness? The mayor of Bogotá, Colombia tested this concept in the 1990s. He funded walkable infrastructure and made one day every year car-free. Beginning with Bogotá's remarkable journey, Montgomery explores urban planning philosophies and their impacts, from Homeowners' Associations to zoning regulations. Although many cities are stuck in car-centric designs, (minimum parking requirements, roads built for car vehicles, etc.), change can happen. This book showcases urban evolution and also invites us to reimagine our own communities.

ROUTE

The Baja Divide

Here’s what you’d be getting yourself into.

• 1673 miles (2692 km)

• Wild camping, safe traveling, excellent food

• Route guide. (bikepacking.com)

• Preparing for the Baja Divide. (bikepacking.com)

• Ryan Van Duzer’s extended cut. (youtube.com)

This route is on my radar. I’ll hopefully do it in the next couple years. In the U.S. there aren’t many places to bike tour during the winter months. You have to go south, to Baja California! The best time to ride the Baja Divide is November to March. This avoids the summer heat and the fall rain. It’s 95% unpaved. Sandy, weather-affected roads will challenge you and your tire choices. I’m gonna need something other than my 32 mm slicks for this one. This route is remote. That means three things - great wild camping, more distance between resupplies, and safety.

RIDER

Benjamin Yao - Philadelphia, PA, USA

This week I’m featuring Ben Yao. My dad and I met him at a campground in Indiana. He had just graduated from UPenn and was biking across the United States from east to west. We messed up our reservation, and Ben let us camp with him.

Fill out this form to be featured as Rider of the Week!

• Trusty steed. Poseidon X Ambition (touring) and a vintage Trek Multi-Track 850 (commuter)

• Preferred terrain. Straight, paved country roads with no cars (Indiana, I'm looking at you!)

• Next adventure. Kayaking the Mississippi River (here’s some route info)

• Two-wheeled tip. Almost every Department of Transportation data on average annual daily traffic (AADT) -- use them to plan routes; learn when to take the lane!

• Join the ride. Read more of Ben’s writing at benjaminyao.com and find him on Instagram.

Ben’s Saddle Story

I was riding my bicycle across the United States a few months ago and was wrapping up an unusually long day of riding -- I had spent the whole day fighting headwinds on backroads to dodge interstate traffic. It was to be my last full day in Wyoming, and I was racing against a setting sun to get to my destination for the night, Ranchester, where a luxurious campsite was waiting for me.

I had only a couple of miles left until I hit town when the sky began to darken. I climbed up a huge hill on a frontage road that seemed to lead to nowhere. My GPS app, Komoot, told me to take a right turn off the paved road I was on at the top of the hill.

But there was no road. I looked at the satellite view on Google Maps and there were wandering, fading, tracks through the mountains that barely resembled a road. Where I was standing, all I saw were woods, an un-bikeable path, and the chance of being an early evening snack for some Wyoming bears.

I turned to Google Maps, instead of Komoot, to tell me where to go. It told me to go back down the hill I had just climbed for a half hour! So I raced all the way down, escaped an angry dog that chased me, and came upon the road that Google Maps picked: a private mining road with a “no trespass sign”.

I was out of options, or at least good ones. Here they were: I could wander on the fading dirt tracks through the Wyoming wilderness, trespass on a private road for several miles, or bike on the interstate as the sun was setting.

All of them sounded like a recipe for death or illegal activities. So, I did what I always do in bad situations: stick out my thumb.

It broke my heart to watch every possible person — couples on a road trip, men in cowboy gear, pickup trucks, cars with gear racks, etc. look me in the eyes and pass me. It was soul-crushing. I pity those who live in a world so untrusting of a sad, skinny kid with a bicycle on the side of the road in rural Wyoming.

That incident made me question what it meant to be American. Those folks were the most American by most definitions — cowboy hats, being on a great American road trip …

Of course, the only man to stop was a Guatemalan immigrant who barely spoke English with a white van that read “Northeast Wyoming Drywall”.

If being an American means having faith in this country, seizing the opportunity to give a hand — to quite literally love thy neighbor — then Elmer, the Guatemalan immigrant, in his broken English, was more American than anyone else I met eyes with that day.

There was a deep irony to that. For some reason, I thought that the local, American, cape-less heroes that would save my butt on this trip would wear leather boots with spurs and have big mustaches and a country drawl. But sometimes -- most of the time -- they carried thick accents from foreign countries and drove unassuming freight trucks or sketchy-looking vans.

After explaining my situation, we threw my bike in the back of his van and talked in Spanglish about the weather and pushed the limits of his English and my awful Spanish. He took me the rest of the way to Ranchester on the freeway, dropped me off at the gas station, and disappeared into the Wyoming sunset.

CITY

Minneapolis, MN, USA

• Infrastructure. The Grand Rounds Scenic Byway is what makes Minneapolis special. It’s a 51-mile loop of off-street bike paths, connecting the city, surrounding communities, and other trail networks. I’ve ridden many miles on these paths. You’re transported into a peaceful world that is away from the danger of cars and is enjoyed by everyone.

• Climate. Summer is beautiful with average temps in the 70’s (22 °C). In the winter you’ll need to be hardy to survive the average lows of 6 °F (-14.5 °C) and the 11+ inches (28cm) of snow. On the bright side, the city plows the bike trails. Many people commute by bike year-round.

• Rating. The League of American Bicyclists gave Minneapolis their second highest, the Gold Award. This is because the percentage of roads with bike lanes is low. They have a great trail network, but you need to stay alert on many streets. (bikeleague.org)

Stats for the Nerds

• 31 hours and 34 minutes. The new Guinness World Record for the longest spinathon. The group raised £30,000 for hospice care. (BBC)

• 3,000. The number of bikes given away by one man in the past five years. (GCN)

• 2.5 days. The time it took an Australian ultra-cyclist to ride the longest continuous bike trail in the world (663 miles, 1067 km). This is the fastest known time. (cyclingweekly)

• December 2nd. The date of a city celebration for new protected bike lanes in Santa Monica, CA. (santamonica.gov)

• $2M. The money recently used for bike lane improvements in Tehachapi, CA. (bakersfield.com)

A Note From Sam

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