Last Spring, Jon Watts rode his bike from Virginia to Boston and then continued on to Buffalo, NY. In two months, Jon played 18 shows and covered 1,000 miles carrying 120 pounds of gear on the back of his bicycle in what ended up being a successful attempt at finding an alternative way to do a musical tour.

Click on the audio player below to hear an interview with Jon by Elise Gidding of BikeTouringBliss.com about his epic “2010 Two Wheel Tour”.

Jon Watts Interview with BikeTouringBliss.com – Jon biked 1,000 miles with 120 lbs of gear on his bike.

BikeTouringBliss.com is a series of free participatory interviews that you can log into and stream live.

Find out more:

• BikeTouringBliss.com
• Cycle9.com
• Jon’s tour Vlog (Weekly Videos from his Trip)

For the past three months I have been touring on an Xtracycle Radish. From Richmond to Boston and then on to Buffalo, NY, I ended up riding about 1,000 miles with all of my gear, which turned out to be about 120 Lbs. (!)

Click here to find out how I fit all of

that equipment onto my bike.

Two Wheel Tour Vlog

For ten weeks, I recorded and uploaded a vlog every week, which included footage from my performances and from the ride… and revealed some of the secrets of how I made my trip happen!

Now, for the first time, all of that footage is combined into one window. You can watch all the way through or find the most interesting episodes, all from this page!

Vlog #10 in my Two Wheel Tour Series. After a good time in Boston and playing for the Chenery Middle School Extension Program, I made it to The Meeting School. Decision time! After much discernment, I have decided to stay on my Xtracycle Radish for the next three week tour in the Farmington-Scipio region of upstate New York.

How (Not) To Bike Into Manhattan:
http://bit.ly/8ZQ7mH

Farmington-Scipio Tour Schedule:
http://bit.ly/9HLf5G

More Info on The Meeting School:
http://bit.ly/cHK2KN

When I first had the idea of doing my East Coast tour on bicycle, I looked into bike trailers. I couldn’t imagine any way to fit my guitar and amplifier onto the back of a bike without towing something behind. (not to mention my box of CDs, t-shirts, posters, tent, food, clothing, sleeping bag, stove, etc!)

But towing a trailer would have felt bulky… two wheels of extra friction on the road? And where would I leave the trailer when I wanted to ride around without all of my stuff?

The answer that I settled on: Xtracycle.

Carrying a Guitar on a Bike

Me with all my gear loaded on my Xtracycle.

So my plan was to ride my bike from Richmond, VA to Boston, MA and play shows in every city on the way. This would be easy if I were simply a wandering minstrel, but I am a professional musician. I booked this tour months and months in advance. I was selling CDs and T-shirts, had banners and posters, kept up with my facebook and twitter followers and released a regular vlog of my travels.

I needed not just my guitar, but an amplifier, a looping pedal, a big box of CDs, t-shirts, postcards and posters, a banner, a digital video camera, my laptop… not to mention all of the stuff I needed to survive on the road.

Check out the video below to see how I managed to fit all of that stuff onto a bicycle for my ride to Boston.

How I Fit My Amplifier, CDs, T-shirts, and Guitar On A Bicycle

Successful Music Tour on a Bike

In the end, I made it to Boston. I didn’t miss a single show (and I even booked a few more along the way!). And I had surprisingly little trouble carrying my guitar and all my gear on the bike.

And – perhaps best of all – I had a lot of fun. I got into shape. I saw and interacted with a whole lot of people and places that I wouldn’t have if I was driving or taking the train. And I loved every minute of it. Here’s more about why I decided to bike this one:
http://www.jonwatts.com/2010/why-im-going-to-boston-on-an-xtracycle-radish/

• See my celebration upon arriving in Boston here
• Check out this video from my show in Brooklyn
• My review of the bike I rode to Boston
• Get more info about this bike and other great practical biking solutions from Cycle 9

Vlog #5 – Finally!! All the prep work is done, the kickoff shows are all played. I get on my Xtracycle Radish and begin my journey to Boston. First leg of the journey: Ashland to DC on Bike Highway One for a show at The William Penn House. Difficulties in biking through the Quantico military base. Question of the day: How do you coax your inner child to quit whining? (responses in the comment section below)

Join me for a part of my ride:
http://bit.ly/cgaJzv

How to get through Quantico on your Bike:
http://bit.ly/cSS7lg

I am pleased to announce to you my Spring tour, which will encompass all of the major cities from Chapel Hill to Boston.

One reason that I am extra-excited about this trip is that I’m going to be doing things a little differently. Instead of driving a car from city to city, making my way up the coast powered by fossil fuels and reliance on our vast (and vastly expensive) interstate system, engulfed in our hurried, irreverent culture, I am going to attempt to inhabit a new mindset: slow movement. Meditative travel.

I am going to ride my bike to Boston.

This is a totally new kind of adventure for me. I have never been on an extended bicycle trip and have no way of fully grasping what’s in store.

But I’ve known for a long time that the centeredness required to be faithful to the music I’ve written is contradicted by the superficiality and hurriedness in the typical career of a professional musician.

If I am going to come to your city and be fully present with you in the moment, I need to be in my body, breathing, and having been present with the land as it passed below and around me.

Thus, I present to you: The Two Wheel Tour.

• Check out my tour schedule. I hope to see you at one of the shows!
• Read all about the bike that I’m riding to Boston: Why I’m Going to Boston on a Radish and My review of the Xtracycle Radish
• Photos of me on my new bike
• Help support the Two Wheel Tour by donating anything from a water bottle to the bike itself!
• Stay in touch on Facebook and Twitter! I’ll be tweeting and blogging from the road.
• Join me for a leg of the Two Wheel Tour

The first thing I said to myself once the decision was made (after are you crazy?) was: how?

I am not simply a traveling minstrel. I am a professional musician, with equipment and merchandise. I can’t just pick up and go, or play a spontaneous show. I have amps, cords, pedals, boxes, t-shirts, cds and posters… not to mention all of the personal gear needed to sustain me for a month. How was I going to fit all of that stuff onto a bicycle?

After a month of research about panniers, trailers, touring bikes, etc., I came across a small company in California that makes extra-sized bicycles for exactly this predicament: Xtracycle. I have found photos of cyclists carrying surfboards, tires, and even other bikes on Xtracycle’s cargo cycles. So I got myself a Radish.

The Xtracycle Radish

The Radish is one of the few out-of-the-box cargo bikes that Xtracycle sells (mostly people buy the kit, which extend the back of any given bike). I was lucky enough to test ride a diverse selection of cargo bikes at a sweet little bike shop in Carrboro, North Carolina called Cycle9, which is one of the few bike shops on the East Coast that stocks these kinds of cargo bikes. The good folks at Cycle9 put a helmet on me and let me ride one of their Radishes all over town, which I promptly fell in love with (check out my review of the Radish).

So with all of the cargo space in my Xtracycle Radish – and after investing in a smaller guitar and amp – the question was answered. I can fit everything I need on a bike.

But the question still stands: why go to all of this work? Why not just drive a car like any other rational American would?

It would be easy for me to spout off a guilt-based justification about how quickly our society is killing the Earth, and how each of us is individually contributing a great deal to that destruction by owning and over-using personal vehicles. And it would be true. I do feel guilty and hypocritical about simultaneously mourning the destruction of the natural world and contributing to it.

But the deeper reason why I am riding my bike the 600 miles to Boston: I find driving, for all of it’s convenience, to be spiritually deadening.

So let’s turn the question on it’s head… why, when I could be actively using my body, engaging with the land and the environment around me, viscerally feeling the miles go by underneath me, and genuinely living would I isolate myself in a sound-proof, wind-proof, experience-proof chamber?

Why in the world would anyone do that?

Thus it is out of my love for this world, my love for my body, my love for experiential living that has led me to make the decision to bike.

Not out of hatred for what we’re doing to our planet, but out of love for the feeling of wind on my skin, the feeling of having my instincts engage when I’m lost or in danger, the feeling of being alive.

So, my smart answer for why I’m biking to Boston?

Because it’s faster than walking.

• To come to one of the shows or to join me for a leg of the journey, check out my itinerary!
• To provide support for my trip, take a gander at the expenses and donation page.
• Read my review of the Xtracycle Radish.
• For more photos of me and my Radish, click here
• Visit the Xtracycle website and Cycle9 website

www.natashalynnsmith.com

The concept of a cargo bike appealed to me because I have a large load of stuff that I carry with me on tour – amps, guitar, accordian, merchandise, etc – but the idea of toting a trailer behind me just didn’t appeal. It seemed like it would slow me down with its one or two extra wheels, cause me to feel bulkier and just be a hassle in general.

The first thing that struck me about Xtracycle’s Radish is the amount of stuff that it can hold. With two giant panniers beside the extended rear wheel, the Radish can hold more than four times what I would carry on the back of a normal bike. I say more than four times because all of the straps are adjustable, and the bags are essentially open flaps instead of restrictive bags, so I can have as wide a load as I want.

The Radish can hold 200 lbs of cargo in the back, which is perfect… it means that I can fit all of the stuff I need, but that the bike isn’t so heavy duty that I can’t lift and maneuver it when it’s empty.

It would be a real pain if I couldn’t lift it up the stairs to bring it into my house every night while I’m living in the city. That said, it is not light, even when it’s empty. I take a deep breath every time I’m going to pick it up.

…but it’s light enough to be playful. One major concern that I had about getting a longer bike than normal is that I like to jump curbs, skid to my stops, weave in and out of cones, and all of the other fun stuff that I did on a bike as a kid. Why ride a bike if you’re not going to enjoy it? To my relief, the Radish isn’t too heavy to do these kinds of playful stunts. Even though I do feel the extra length and weight, the Radish isn’t so bulky or heavy that I refrain from being a little adventurous.

While my initial concern was that 8 gears wouldn’t be enough for me (I don’t often need to pedal when going downhill, and 1st gear is amazingly easy, even with a load), it’s getting the gears to line up with the shifter that I have been having trouble with. From my first ride on the bike I noticed that the shifter would occasionally skip a gear and after spending hours with the bike upside down adjusting the shifter and even more hours riding the bike around and fiddling with the awkwardly-placed adjuster on the handlebars, I can say that I am slightly baffled. I love the bike enough that it doesn’t destroy my experience of it when I try to shift into fifth and it surprises me by shifting 2 minutes later, when I’m about to go up a hill. But it sure would be nice if I could get that fixed… and it is somewhat ridiculous that it came with that major of a problem out of the box.

I love my Radish so I wipe it down every evening after a day of riding, but those who are not quite so attentive might get frustrated with the way that dirt stands out on the milky white frame or with the way that the chain hangs down to leave grease on a white crossbar underneath it.

The disc brakes on the back wheel of the Radish are great… they help me to feel totally comfortable in most situations, knowing that I could stop on a dime even with wet brakes. The brakes rubbed badly for the first few weeks of riding, and when I looked online it seems like that is perfectly normal. It has corrected itself, more or less.

I should also say that I’m not a serious biker. I test-rode a few touring bikes and they simply felt uncomfortable and certainly couldn’t hold the amount of stuff that I am needing to take on the road. Some may call me crazy for taking a bike as casual as the Radish on a trip this serious, but the trip is more meditative than it is goal-focused. I have plenty of time in between cities and will not be rushing or racing.

When I was researching for this trip I looked all over for stores that carried Xtracycle gear so that I could test it out. I mostly got cockeyed looks when I walked into bike stores in Richmond, VA and asked for an Xtracycle… but I lucked out to find Cycle9.

Cycle9 is a little bike shop in Carrboro, NC which specializes in cargo and electric bikes. They were super friendly and helpful when I peppered them with ignorant questions about the basics of cargo biking and touring… and best of all, they didn’t treat me with the insider snobbishness that I often encounter in bike shops! Cycle9 is the bike shop for the everyday user who may not know much about bikes but wants to live more responsibly and freely in a world where it is increasingly possible to opt-out of the destruction and everyday frustration caused by our culture of individual car ownership.

• Learn more about my Spring tour on the Radish
• Visit Cycle9′s website
• Learn more about the Radish directly from Xtracycle