If you missed the opportunity to join Ulrike Rodrigues at the Bike Doctor for her presentation of pictures and stories from her six month stay in Goa, you can still see the images and enjoy some excerpts of current Indian pop songs with this Youtube version of the show.

Labels: bike touring, cycle touring, girl gone goa, goa, india, ulrike rodrigues

 June 24th, 6pm - the Bike Doctor

137 West Broadway, Vancouver (across from MEC)

Join the Bike Doctor for an Indian travel adventure. Based near the state capital of Panjim, Ulrike rode, wrote and photographed her time on two wheels for six months. Learn how to: stay cool cycling in tropical heat, drink Indian tap water, bellow "Let's Go!" in Hindi, use a Goan pig toilet, cycle-camp, Indian style.

Ulrike Bemvinda Rodrigues writes about culture, cycling, travel, and magic for magazines and websites. She's solo-cycled in India, Thailand, Laos, Cuba, Mexico, New Zealand and North America. She's considering writing a  book.

 www.ulrike.ca, www.girlgonegoa.wordpress.com

Labels: bike doctor bike store, bikes, cycle touring, events June bike month, female travelers, goa, india, ulrike rodrigues, Vancouver

Learn how to:

Cook high-altitude goodies easily with an inexpensive pressure cooker

Shoot steadier video from your bicycle

Keep your water bottles colder using a simple scientific principle.

Thursday, May 21 - 6pm to 7pm

Bike Doctor, 137 West Broadway

(across from Mountain Equipment Co-op)

A journey of a lifetime. 19 months.18 countries. A cycling pilgrimage. Southernmost South America, north to Alaska. Long Road North is an inspiration to desk-bound free spirits everywhere. Join the Bike Doctor for excerpts from the film and an in-store appearance by film-maker Gwendal Castellan, featuring some unusual advice from the perspective of a bike touring veteran.

Labels: bike doctor bike store, cycle touring, long road north, MEC

One of my favourite films is the Spencer Tracy classic Bad Day At Black Rock. It's not about someone taking the brown acid at Burning Man. It's set in a tiny town in the Arizona desert. In the opening scene, Tracy disembarks with just a suitcase, at a small train station in the middle of nowhere. Luckily for him, he isn't going to Battle Mountain, Nevada and bringing a bike, a laptop, a couple of cameras, camping gear, clothes for two weeks on the road, extra water bottles, bike tools, etc, etc. Because if he was, he'd have to disembark at Reno. As will I. 168 miles from where I'm going, rather than the 50-ish miles I'd be riding if the nearby town of Winnemucca had a train station.

In planning my trip I sought advice from the Washington Bike Alliance. Mark Canizaro helped me figure out which bus I could take from Everett to downtown Seattle (Thanks Mark!)... but it was his offhand remark about boxing my bike for the Coast Starlight train trip from Seattle to Sacramento that sent me scrambling to the Amtrak website. In reserving my tickets, the agent told me airily I could put my bike on the train as "checked baggage". I imagined the delightfully convenient experience of rolling my bike onto some special freight car, (a service they do offer on some trains) racking it, and marveling at the forward-thinking nature and 21st century-ishness of such an experience. Alas, it is not to be. I'll be pulling off pedals, loosening handlebars, turning down bar-ends, and generally monkey-wrenching to get my machine box-ready for the trip. Which is a drag, but so it goes. The real hassle is the lack of train station at Winnemucca, which means if you want to get off there, all you can take with you is two pieces of carry-on luggage. Cue the extra hundred miles of riding. With what seems like a hundred pounds of bike and gear. Nevada is pretty flat right? How hard can self-propelled, online reporting from obscure places on the high plains of the continental U.S. be anyway? Let's find out.

Labels: amtrak, bikes, burning man, cycle touring, human powered speed challenge, nevada, washington bike alliance, winnemucca