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Sam's Summer Europe Tour
Plus, gear testing, the dark side of bike touring, and a perilous ride
Sam Westby
January 16, 2025
Welcome to the Bike Bulletin. It’s the KOM of newsletters.
As always, reply directly to this email. I love reading all the thoughtful replies.
—Sam Westby @samcwestby
This is a weekly newsletter about bike trips, urban cycling, and a love for two-wheeled transit. The more time you spend on a bike, the better. I share new editions every Thursday, gearing you up for the ride ahead.
Here’s what we have today.
🌍 RIDE: Where should I ride in Europe?
❓ QUESTION: Build it and they will come?
💡 TIP: Test Your Gear
🎥 WATCH: The Dark Side of Bike Touring
📖 READ: Eight Takeaways from Trump's DOT Choice Sean Duffy
🚲 ARCHIVES: A Perilous Ride (1884)
📰 NEWS: Stats for the Nerds
ROUTE ON MY RADAR
Where should I ride in Europe?
The Dolomites. Source: Wikimedia Commons
This summer I’ll be on a bike tour in Europe. Here’s what I have so far:
See a friend in London
Attend a conference in Maastricht, Netherlands
Meet some friends in the Dolomites
Those 3 destinations will only be 10ish days of riding. I want to ride for 30 to 40 days.
On Instagram, I asked for suggestions and got hundreds of ideas.
The most suggested places:
Spain. People suggested nearly every city in Spain. I knew about El Camino de Santiago, but I learned that there are many other Caminos — e.g. Camino del Norte and Camino del Este. Also, the Pyrenees Mountains bordering France look amazing.
Scotland. Fun fact, wild camping/stealth camping is legal on most land in Scotland. Pair that with epic elevation and coastlines, and I might be sold on visiting Shrek’s homeland.
The Balkans. There’s a new 3400 mile (5500 km) route through the 8 eastern European countries called the Trans Dinarica. It was highly suggested, and I wrote about it in the December 12, 2024 edition of the Bike Bulletin. Of all the Balkan countries, Slovenia was suggested the most, with Croatia coming in a close second.
You can expect daily vlogs about this trip from mid-May to mid-June.
Click here to view my spreadsheet with all the suggestions and data. It covers the whole continent.
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Build it and they will come?
To get funding for bike infrastructure, you need to show that people ride their bikes. But people won’t if there’s no infrastructure. It’s a chicken and egg problem.
Researchers at Clark University showed just how much more people cycle with good bike infrastructure. They used GPS data for millions of trips in Copenhagen to understand a cyclist’s preferences.
They found that Copenhagen’s bicycle network boosts the number of bicycle trips by 60%.
This is called induced demand. When you make the streets better for cycling, more people want to cycle.
That’s just the impact of infrastructure alone. Additional policy, driver behavior, and social reinforcement have additional effects.
Read the full article at PNAS.org.
BIKE TRIP TIP
Test Your Gear
Day 1 of the Tour Divide. I wasn’t doing well. My panniers broke.
Before the Tour Divide last summer, I didn’t have a bike until 2 weeks before my flight. Once I got it, I tested my bag setup that week and things were BAD. My seat bag rubbed on my tire. My fork bags fell off.
I decided to experiment and go with a back rack and pannier setup. There was no time to test it before my flight, so I had to test it on the fly. After a mini 4-day trip in Montana with my girlfriend and her dog, the experimental setup held together. Nothing broke. I was feeling pretty good. But we didn’t ride any rough singletrack.
Fast forward 3 days to Day 1 of the Tour Divide. The clips on one of my panniers snapped on a singletrack section. 10 minutes later, the clips on the other pannier snapped.
Straps and zip ties saved me until Day 8. My parents came to see me and picked up a new set on their way out.
The moral of the story — do a test trip and include the roughest terrain that you expect to ride.
WHAT I’M WATCHING
The Dark Side of Bike Touring
The YouTube algorithm gave me a good one this week. Paul Suchecki shares his 4 banes of bike touring: Wind, Hills, Dogs, and Traffic.
Watch all 22 minutes on YouTube
WHAT I’M READING
The TL;DR
He gave some support for transit, cycling, and pedestrian safety.
He hinted at reducing infrastructure project regulation.
He was skeptical of passenger rail — Amtrak and high-speed rail.
He wants to prioritize highway expansion over environmental regulation.
With anything political, we should judge by actions, not words. I’ll keep an eye on Duffy and the future of U.S. transportation.
FROM THE ARCHIVES
A Perilous Ride (1884)
A man rides down the steps of the U.S. Capital on a penny farthing while another man waits at the top for his turn.
This is hardcore.
See more at the Library of Congress
$360M. The amount of new grants from the U.S. Department of Transportation this week for walking and biking infrastructure projects. (Rails to Trails)
$1,500. The amount of e-bike credit for low-income residents in a new Washington D.C. program. (WUSA9)
5 people. The size of Old Man Mountain’s new experimental bikepacking team. An exciting step for the ultra-endurance community. (MB Action)
11 years. The time it took the U.S. National Association of City Transportation Officials to release a new Bikeway Design Guide. A lot has changed, and they made many needed updates. (nacto.org)
Matt Meyer. Delaware’s Governor-elect, who took a bike tour around Newark, DE this week. That’s a good sign for DE cycling. (Delaware Online)
A Note From Sam
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