I greatly enjoyed watching the videos on youtube last Friday (05-11-07) per the posting by John Hudson/Doug Smith. I've viewed them again several times since then. I couldn't help thinking of the Thomas the Tank Engine videos our kids used to watch. I kept expecting to see Sir Topham Hat standing on the platform. I couldn't tell much about the bikes but I thought I recognized the famous TA 6-spoked crankset a time or two. I'm captivated by the line about a cycle tour without a good map being like new potatoes without the smell of mint. How quirky is that?
I've never done any real cycle touring, much to my regret. No section of Eugene Sloan's bicycle book was more intently studied by me than the section on cycle touring. I was always fascinated by the pictures in his and other's books showing the touring cycle with all the requisite gear neatly spread out on the ground. It seemed improbable that all that stuff could actually fit in the various panniers and bags.
This is O/T but has anyone read the book about the guy who road a boneshaker across the US in the 1890's? I never doubted the account when I read it in college days, but now that I think on it, it sounds like fiction.
John Hurley, Austin, Texas, USA