Category archives for Cycling
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Top prize winners at the 2013 5Point Film Festival set the tone for an exciting spring season of adventure. The long journey of solo explorer Kyle Dempster in the movie The Road From Karakol took the Best of the Fest award. The compelling feature showed viewers the importance of vulnerability in the face of adversity,…
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“I forgot to pack my underwear, but I brought a headlamp!” said Winnie. By now we had known each other five days. We were in a remote, Costa Rican jungle and I couldn’t help but laugh at my new Swedish friend and expedition mate. Her parents named her after the loveable children’s character and bear,…
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Jim Harris is currently on a National Geographic Expeditions Council assignment with Gregg Treinish to look for wolverine DNA evidence in Mongolia. Read updates on the expedition here. Windmilling his kayak paddle into the pushy breeze, Luc Mehl, 34, pulls onto the sandbar at the mouth of Mexico’s Rio Antigua and squints at the novelty…
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Donning brightly colored spandex. Slogging up and over mountains. Getting plastered by mud. Not exactly most high schoolers’ idea of fun. However, hundreds of kids in the NorCal High School Cycling League couldn’t imagine a better way to spend their weekends. For Eliel, high school bike racing is a competitive outlet at the highest level.…
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It’s known as the most challenging bike race held on U.S. soil, and it starts next week. Seven days, 683 miles, and 50,468 feet of climbing—including three visits to 12,000 feet. Good lord. Who dreamed that up? It must be someone with a sick penchant for watching the world’s elite crack. Bring it on! Starting…
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My mom used to ring a huge brass bell when it was time for my brother and I to return home from romping all over the neighborhood. On foot or on bike, when inside the invisible, audible bubble of the bell, we were on our own to explore. Adventure started the moment we stepped out…
Many kids in America stop riding bikes in high school. When splashing through puddles and racing around the park is no longer cool, two wheels get traded in for four. But for hundreds kids in northern California, the ride never stops—it gets faster. These are the student-athletes of the NorCal High School Cycling League. They…
Trailblazing Haiti: Scouting the Country’s First Pro Mountain Biking Race – Part 3
Posted by Jayme Moye on June 29, 2012 
This spring, a small team of Americans scouted a course for the first professional mountain biking stage race in Haiti. The terrain was beyond any of their wildest expectations. Award-winning adventure travel writer Jayme Moye reports in this three-part series. Photographs by Steve Zdawczynski Part III I woke to the sound of birds chirping in Haiti’s lush La…
Ultimate Adventure Bucket List: Top Athletes’ Dream Trips
Posted by Mary Anne Potts on May 3, 2012 
Earlier this year, we asked 20 of the world’s best athletes and explorers to advise us on the top adventure trips within their sports for our Ultimate Adventure Bucket List. Each gave us two recommendations—one “dream trip” they hoped to do someday and one “must-do trip,” a true classic, that the rest of us should…
What’s Your Adventure Personality Type? Artisan, Rational, Guardian, or Idealist?
Posted by Steve Graepel on January 24, 2012 
By Steve Graepel; Photographs from top courtesy Steve Graepel, Andrew Skurka, Rebecca Rusch, Michael Tobin The zodiac, your horoscope, tea leaves…people have been trying to make sense of human attributes since the dawn of dirt. Corporations pay big money to navigate these muddied waters and will train employees to better understand personality types to harness…
Adventure Journal: Congress Moves to Push Bikes Off National Park Roads
Posted by Mary Anne Potts on December 2, 2011 By Contributing Editor Steve Casimiro, editor of Adventure Journal If you’ve ever ridden a bike on the pavement at Arches National Park or Yellowstone, you know how liberating it can be. Cars are often jammed on roads that weren’t designed for the freeway-like crush that hits parks every summer, but on a bike you can…
Adventurers of the Year 2012: Rider Danny MacAskill
Posted by Mary Anne Potts on November 21, 2011 Over the next two weeks we will introduce each of the new Adventurers of the Year here on our blog. Be sure to cast your vote every day for the People's Choice Award. See photos of all the Adventurers of the Year!Two years ago Scottish street trials rider Danny MacAskill was just a guy working a nine-to-five job…
Video: Street Trials Pro Bike Rider Danny MacAskill Plays Cape Town
Posted by Mary Anne Potts on June 1, 2011 Last January, NG Adventure writer Tetsuhiko Endo interviewed Scottish biking sensation Danny MacAskill about his phenomenal talent on two wheels, which has become an Internet sensation. Here, get a look at his new video, shot on the streets of Cape Town, South Africa.
Extreme Photo of the Week: Biking Table Mountain, South Africa (Free Wallpaper!)
Posted by Mary Anne Potts on May 23, 2011 
Photograph by Nick Muzik, Caters News Agency Download the desktop wallpaper and see previous Extreme Photos of the Week. “Riding on top of Table Mountain was something I had to do,” says professional mountain biker Kenny Belaey. “The landscape is just perfect for trials—but I had to be really careful.” Belaey pulled out every daredevil…
Paris-Roubaix Cyclo: Thrash Over Cobbles on Your own Tour de France
Posted by Mary Anne Potts on July 15, 2010 Paris Roubaix Cyclo – Text and photos by Gregg Bleakney Stage 3 of this year’s Tour de France from Wanze to Arenberg Porte du Hainaut shook up the GC standings and rattled the nerves of even the most senior pros amongst the bunch. Toss in a few hard crashes, mechanical meltdowns, and (unfortunately) broken bones…
Gear Crush: Near-Perfect Rapha Stowaway Cycling Jacket
Posted by Mary Anne Potts on May 25, 2010 By National Geographic Adventure Contributing Editor Steve Casimiro, editor of The Adventure Life To understand the power of the perfect cycling jacket, you need to know that I am not a morning athlete. Once I’ve had a few espressos and the sun’s climbed closer to its zenith than its morning horizon, I start to think…
Biking in India: What If Cycling Were Your Only Choice?
Posted by Mary Anne Potts on April 29, 2010 "Portraits of India on Two-Wheels – Images by Gregg Bleakney Five years ago I made a choice to go car-free in favor of using a bicycle as my primary source of mobility. Since then, every time I saddle up, I’m 100 percent thrilled to be living this two-wheeled lifestyle. But…what if I didn’t have this…
Best New Trips in the World: Biking, Kayaking and Rafting in the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho and Montana
Posted by Mary Anne Potts on November 26, 2009 For our annual Adventure Travel issue, we scoured the globe to find the 25 Best New Trips in the World for 2010, complete with a Best Trips photo gallery. Today, we present Idaho and Montana. The world's far corners are now well within reach. IDAHO + MONTANA: Bitterroot Bonanza As the co-owner of ROW Adventures, Peter Grubb has…
Best New Trips in the World: Bike and Camp in Colorado’s Hovenweep National Monument
Posted by Mary Anne Potts on November 25, 2009 For our annual Adventure Travel issue, we scoured the globe to find the 25 Best New Trips in the World for 2010, complete with a Best Trips photo gallery. Today, we present Colorado. The world’s far corners are now well within reach. COLORADO: Alone With the Ancients More than six million tourists flocked to the Four Corners region…
Best New Trips in the World: Surf, Hike, and Mountain Bike Pristine Sri Lanka
Posted by Mary Anne Potts on November 19, 2009 For our annual Adventure Travel issue, we scoured the globe to find the 25 Best New Trips in the World for 2010, complete with a Best Trips photo gallery. Today, we present Sri Lanka. The world’s far corners are now well within reach. SRI LANKA: MIA No More After the tsunami of 2004 and the resolution of a…
Best New Trips in the World: Bike and Hike Southern New Zealand
Posted by Mary Anne Potts on November 13, 2009 For our annual Adventure Travel issue, we scoured the globe to find the 25 Best New Trips in the World for 2010, complete with a Best Trips photo gallery. Today, we present New Zealand. The world's far corners are now well within reach. NEW ZEALAND: All-Access Kiwiland The North Island has the Bay of Islands and the best…
Best New Trips in the World: Bike France’s Pyrenees
Posted by Mary Anne Potts on November 2, 2009 For our annual Adventure Travel issue, we scoured the globe to find the 25 Best New Trips in the World for 2010, complete with a Best Trips photo gallery. Today, we present France. The world's far corners are now well within reach. France: Tour des Pyrenees If the gods were cyclists, you can rest assured…
Best New Trips in the World: Biking Through British Columbia’s Myra Canyon
Posted by Mary Anne Potts on October 26, 2009 For our annual Adventure Travel issue, we scoured the globe to find the 25 Best New Trips in the World for 2010, complete with a Best Trips photo gallery. Today, we present British Columbia. The world's far corners are now well within reach. British Columbia: The BC High Line Anxious to protect its silver and…
Urban Adventure: Cycling the Berlin Wall 20 Years After Its Fall
Posted by Mary Anne Potts on October 14, 2009 Aside from the hum of spokes and the rattle of a loose fender, the forested hinterlands are quiet. The cycling trail I follow, dubbed the Berliner Mauerweg (Wall Way), often utilizes the “death strip’s” patrol roads alongside the notorious Wall—the bitter, iconic emblem of the Cold War. A mere two decades in time separate this…
Lance Armstrong and Other Top Cyclists Race Onto the Big Screen
Posted by Mary Anne Potts on October 8, 2009 As cyclists—including Lance Armstrong (pictured)—dealt with the 100-mile trail and 14,000-vertical-feet climbs for the annual Leadville 100 mountain bike race this past August, cameras followed to catch all the drama in the former mining town in Colorado. Now, Race Across the Sky: Leadville Trail 100 is set to debut on October 22 at 8pm EST…
