On a journey begun twenty years earlier, Daryl Farmer, a twenty-year-old two-time college dropout, did what lost men have so often done in this country: he headed west. Twenty years later and seventy pounds heavier, with the yellowing journals from that transformative five-thousand-mile bicycle trek in his pack, Farmer set out to retrace his path. This is his story of pursuing that distant summer and that distant dream of home, where home is endless space, a roof of big sky, and a bed of dry earth. Just as the years altered the man, so, too, have they altered the West, and Farmer s second journey affords a unique perspective on these changes as well as on what lasts. Whether caught in a Colorado snowstorm or braving a Yellowstone herd of bison, kayaking with orcas in Puget Sound, trading Ninja moves with a homeless man in San Francisco, or getting the lowdown on aliens on Nevada s Extraterrestrial Highway, Farmer charts a moving landscape of people and places. This is the West where the natural world and personal character are inextricably linked, and where one man s ride into the past and present takes us to the heart of that ever-evolving connection.

On a journey begun twenty years earlier, Daryl Farmer, a twenty-year-old two-time college dropout, did what lost men have so often done in this country: he headed west. Twenty years later and seventy pounds heavier, with the yellowing journals from that transformative five-thousand-mile bicycle trek in his pack, Farmer set out to retrace his path. This is his story of pursuing that distant summer and that distant dream of home, where home is endless space, a roof of big sky, and a bed of dry earth. ø Just as the years altered the man, so, too, have they altered the West, and Farmer?s second journey affords a unique perspective on these changes?as well as on what lasts. Whether caught in a Colorado snowstorm or braving a Yellowstone herd of bison, kayaking with orcas in Puget Sound, trading Ninja moves with a homeless man in San Francisco, or getting the lowdown on aliens on Nevada?s Extraterrestrial Highway, Farmer charts a moving landscape of people and places. This is the West where the natural world and personal character are inextricably linked, and where one man?s ride into the past and present takes us to the heart of that ever-evolving connection.

Jill Homer has an outlandish ambition: Racing a mountain bike 2,740 miles from Canada to Mexico along the Continental Divide. But her dream starts to unravel the minute she sets it in motion. An accident on the Iditarod Trail results in serious frostbite. She struggles with painful recovery and growing uncertainties. Then, just two days before their departure, her boyfriend ends their eight-year relationship, dismantling everything Jill thought she knew about life, love and her identity. This is the story of an adventure driven relentlessly forward as foundations crumble. During her record-breaking ride in the 2009 Tour Divide, Jill battles a torrent of anger, self-doubt, fatigue, loneliness, pain, grief, bicycle failures, crashes and violent storms. Each night, she collapses under the crushing effort of this savage new way of life. And every morning, she picks up the pieces and strikes out to find what lies on the other side of the Divide: Astonishing beauty, unconditional kindness, and boundless strength.

Routledge Companion to Cycling presents a comprehensive overview of an artefact that throughout the modern era has been a bellwether indicator of the major social, economic and environmental trends that have permeated society The volume synthesizes a rapidly growing body of research on the bicycle, its past and present uses, its technological evolution, its use in diverse geographical settings, its aesthetics and its deployment in art and literature. From its origins in early modern carriage technology in Germany, it has generated what is now a vast, multi-disciplinary literature encompassing a wide range of issues in countries throughout the world.

Successfully navigate the rich world of travel narratives and identify fiction and nonfiction read-alikes with this detailed and expertly constructed guide. Just as savvy travelers make use of guidebooks to help navigate the hundreds of countries around the globe, smart librarians need a guidebook that makes sense of the world of travel narratives. Going Places: A Reader's Guide to Travel Narratives meets that demand, helping librarians assist patrons in finding the nonfiction books that most interest them. It will also serve to help users better understand the genre and their own reading interests. The book examines the subgenres of the travel narrative genre in its seven chapters, categorizing and describing approximately 600 titles according to genres and broad reading interests, and identifying hundreds of other fiction and nonfiction titles as read-alikes and related reads by shared key topics. The author has also identified award-winning titles and spotlighted further resources on travel lit, making this work an ideal guide for readers' advisors as well a book general readers will enjoy browsing.

Before the last quarter of the nineteenth century, people who wanted to travel independently either walked or rode horses. Then a newly invented machine changed forever the nature of personal transportation. The cycle—self-propelled bicycles, tricycles, and tandems—allowed almost anyone to travel around town, around their region, and around the world. While dramatic developments in equipment, clothing, road surfaces, and amenities make the physicality of cycling much different from the earlier era, the experience of cycling has seen little change. The Self-Propelled Voyager: How the Cycle Revolutionized Travel recounts how a transportation innovation opened the world for not only those who made the journey but also for the armchair travelers who read with interest the cyclists’ accounts of faraway places. Following a brief history of the development of the cycle, this book describes the exploits of long-distance riders who wrote of their experiences, their triumphs, and their tragedies. Duncan R. Jamieson chronicles their journeys, their personal stories, and the times in which they lived, revealing that, despite the continuing rise and fall of cycling interest, people continue to enjoy traveling in the slow lane. Drawing on books and articles by the women and men who rode and wrote of their travels, The Self-Propelled Voyager also features photographs from the 1880s up to the modern day, illustrating the development of the cycle through history. Accessibly written yet comprehensive in its coverage, this book will interest not only the cycling enthusiast but historians focusing on sport and sport tourism as well.

"A study of the U.S. bicycle transportation movement against a backdrop of racism and history in Los Angeles and Washington, DC"--