The Accidental Bicycle Tourist
Host Gabriel Aldaz sits down with other bicycle touring and bikepacking enthusiasts to have unexpected, revealing, and often humorous conversations about their most memorable bike touring adventures. You’ll hear individuals, friends, partners, and families from all walks of life share the joys (and sometimes challenges) of bicycle touring. A willingness to explore the unknown, overcoming self-doubt, resilience, and experiencing acts of kindness from complete strangers are recurring themes. Gabriel hopes that the episodes, dropping every other week, will inspire you to get out and see where the road leads you.
For links to podcast platforms, feedback via email, the podcast website, and Instagram:
https://linktr.ee/accidental_bicycle_tourist
Episodes
32 episodes
ABT032. Touring with Type 1: A Journey of 10,000 Miles
Join Erik Douds, as he shares incredible stories from the road, starting with a spur-of-the-moment decision to join friend Annalisa on a TransAmerica bike tour – a journey that even included a detour for the New York City Triathlon! Discover th...
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Season 2
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Episode 32
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1:03:22
ABT031. Into the Unknown
Meet Giacomo Turco, an aerospace engineer from Italy, who on this episode shares his thrilling bikepacking adventures across Iceland, Mongolia, and South America. Discover how a chance encounter on Instagram with a previous guest, Melanie Schau...
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Season 2
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Episode 31
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1:02:32
ABT030. Diving into the Silk Road Mountain Race
Alden Roth shares his thrilling experience in the Silk Road Mountain Race, a grueling, mostly unsupported, two-week cycling event through the mountains of Kyrgyzstan. A self-proclaimed “diving in headfirst” kind of guy, Alden recounts past expl...
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Season 2
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Episode 30
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58:35
ABT029. Bicycle Frame of Mind: Portland. Film Festival. Community.
Ayleen Crotty, founder of the prestigious Filmed by Bike movie festival, joins us for a captivating conversation about the fascinating origins of this unique event, born from Portland's vibrant bike culture in the early 2000s. Ayleen shares her...
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Season 2
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Episode 29
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1:03:30
ABT028. Metal Cowboy
Saddle up for an inspiring conversation with Joe Kurmaskie, the "Metal Cowboy." Joe recounts his incredible family-cycling-adventures-turned-books, including hauling his two sons – and his dad's ashes! – across America (Momentum is Your Fri...
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Season 2
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Episode 28
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56:46
ABT027. Take the Long Way Home
Eric Matthes, author of the bestselling Python Crash Course, embarked on a life-altering, year-long bicycle journey around the United States in the late 1990s. This episode dives into that fascinating period in Eric's life, when he int...
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Season 2
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Episode 27
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1:03:51
ABT026. Tracking Lawrence of Arabia
Journey to the Middle East with Miles Spencer as he unravels the fascinating story of T.E. Lawrence's early life and adventurous spirit. Discover how Lawrence's youthful bicycle tours through France, meticulously documenting medieval castles an...
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Season 2
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Episode 26
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56:45
ABT025. Cranking up the Challenges
Meet Laura and Shaun, a Canadian couple whose cycling adventures began when the 2020 lockdown forced them to cancel their plans to spend a year traveling the world. Hear their hilarious first tour stories, complete with grocery-getter bikes, ba...
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Season 2
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Episode 25
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1:03:41
ABT024. 2024 Holiday Special
Ever wondered about the voice that welcomes you to The Accidental Bicycle Tourist podcast? In this special holiday episode, host Gabriel pulls back the curtain, inviting his wife Sandra as a guest for the very first time! Join them in their coz...
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Season 1
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Episode 24
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1:30:30
ABT023. Salt Flat Tires: A Bikepacking Roller Coaster Ride
Fueled by a quarter-life crisis and the desire to break free from routine, bikepacking newcomer Melanie Schautt embarked on a transformative half-year cycling adventure through South America with her friend Louise, a seasoned cyclist. From batt...
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Season 1
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Episode 23
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1:06:37
ABT022. Top 3 Touring Debates with Gemini AI
This episode takes a highly experimental turn as Gabriel, your host, brings in not one, but *two* AI guests, Scout and Rambler – instances of Google’s Gemini AI. These digital personalities debate hot topics in bicycle touring, offering unique ...
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Season 1
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Episode 22
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58:09
ABT021. Big Hairy Audacious Goal
Alan Gilbert has always been interested in long, challenging bicycle rides. For Alan, the chance to ride across the United States from Pacific to Atlantic in 38 days finally presented itself in 2022, upon retiring from his job as a technology e...
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Season 1
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Episode 21
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1:05:57
ABT020. The Pedaling Polyglot
Roger Levy, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, considers himself a scientist of language and a polyglot, speaking five languages fluently and many more conversationally. In this episode, Ro...
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Season 1
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Episode 20
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52:35
ABT019. Life is Wild (Part 2)
Barbados. Dominica. Guadeloupe. Martinique. These are some of the exotic Caribbean islands visited by André Plumeau with his bicycle, Frieda. In Part 2 of this double episode, André again defies the odds by sailing west from the Republic of Cab...
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Season 1
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Episode 19
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54:36
ABT018. Life is Wild (Part 1)
Imagine that you are walking down the road near your home town in France when a friend calls you and invites you to join him on a bicycle tour. Since you don't own a bike, you buy one over the Internet and call it Frieda. You pack your bags and...
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Season 1
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Episode 18
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49:44
ABT017. Adventures of a High-Tech Nomad
Steve Roberts is probably the world’s first high-tech nomad. For roughly a decade (1983 - 1993), Steve was either designing, building, or riding a custom computerized recumbent bicycle. Beginning with the Winnebiko, continuing with the Winnebik...
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Season 1
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Episode 17
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1:00:01
ABT016. Odisea Panamericana
In 2009, Swiss graphic designer Martina Gees sold most of her possessions, flew to Buenos Aires, and started pedaling. She got as far north as Inuvik, Canada, and eventually as far south as Ushuaia, Argentina. All told, her incredible Odi...
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Season 1
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Episode 16
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1:00:20
ABT015. Los Caminos de Santiago
With seven Caminos de Santiago by bicycle under his belt and an eighth one in preparation, Frank Foulon is uniquely equipped to inform us about this remarkable pilgrimage route that has been ongoing, with wild fluctuations in participatio...
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Season 1
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Episode 15
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1:00:11
ABT014. Plan Your Own Damn Route! (In Approximately Seven Steps)
Mimi Ji, a self-described map nerd and passionate cyclist, has turned her love for detailed route planning into a unique seven-step process. In this episode, Mimi shares numerous planning tips and tricks gathered from her experiences during out...
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Season 1
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Episode 14
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54:39
ABT013. Another Long Blue Line: Cycling Four Rivers
Listener Frédéric Dith alerted me that long blue lines mark long distance cycling routes, not only in Japan but also in Taiwan and South Korea. During a year of backpacking in Asia, following a burnout from the pandemic and working at a Berlin ...
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Season 1
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Episode 13
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57:39
ABT012. Hospitality on the Road
If you enjoy hearing about random acts of kindness towards cyclists, you'll love this episode! Belgian cyclist Kris Vlaeminck shares selected tales of hospitality from his tours in Europe, North America, and Asia. With the help of strangers, Kr...
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Season 1
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Episode 12
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57:20
ABT011. AIDS/LifeCycle: The Best Week of the Year
Imagine bicycling from San Francisco to Los Angeles in one week, not alone, but in a peloton of thousands. For 545 miles, a team of roadies dedicate their time and energy to supporting your southward journey. The daily rest stops are extravagan...
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Season 1
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Episode 11
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55:20
ABT010. Chasing Summer Around the Globe
Suffering a heat stroke in the middle of Vietnam’s mountainous jungles was definitely not in the plans when Hannah Bowley decided to cycle from Hanoi to Singapore. Hannah was in month nine of a one-year touring adventure, and Southeast Asia was...
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Season 1
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Episode 10
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57:54
ABT009. No Preparation, Some Improvisation - 10 Touring Tips for Beginners
Inspired by a man who bicycled across France to attend a wedding, Simon Alfassa decided to organize his own solo bike tour from Berlin (where he resides) to Copenhagen. There’s just one problem: He has no idea what he’s doing. From using his “s...
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Season 1
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Episode 9
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49:18
ABT008. Long Blue Line: Cycling Shimanami
A long blue line runs 70 kilometers, across picturesque islands and over majestic suspension bridges, between Onomichi and Imabari in Japan. This is the famous Shimanami National Cycle Route, a trail that Singapore native Poh Yu Seung and his w...
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Season 1
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Episode 8
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50:02
