The Pedalshift Project 146: Bicycle touring the Gulf Coast

Dec 20, 2018

A great conversation for your holiday travel! Keith Spangler and I chat about his bicycle touring adventures, starting with his state circumnavigation, to his epic Gulf Coast tour this year. We cover lessons learned, the kindness of people you meet along the way, and evaluating the decisions you made as you're looking back.

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We're wrapping up 2018 with two great episodes! Next week, join in for the end of the year holiday spectacular featuring special guests from The Sprocket Podcast as we chat about our favorite things from the year that was.

A quick note on sponsors

You might have noticed The Pedalshift Project is now opening the door to podcast sponsors, so I thought I'd take a moment to mention how that's a new way to support the show's direction.

 

I'm hoping to expand the programming to include some international touring in 2019, and continue to make the show bigger and better for you. I decided that taking on relevant sponsors from people and entities that serve bike touring, or are bike touring adjacent as the ticket to make these bigger things happen. No stamp or mattress ads, no appeals for you to try boxed meal kits. For real. You are a special group, and we're only going to work with cool people and cool companies that get what we're doing here. If you're interested in sponsoring episodes of the Pedalshift Project to get your bike travel thing noticed by a set of discerning and cool set of thousands of global listeners who are patient enough to put up with my nonsense... check out pedalshift.net/sponsor.

 

That said, this always starts slowly so The Pedalshift Society continues to be the primary way I can offset the show costs, so as I always say... if you like what you hear, supporting the show that way is awesome.  If the advertising can pick up the difference, I plan to explore options for Pedalshift Society members to have an ad-free option down the road. No matter what, PSS members can look forward to new rewards beyond episodic shout outs in 2019... so stay tuned for that.

 

The Interview

Keith Spangler is a bicycle traveler and freelance photographer from Mechanicsburg, Pa.  He began solo bicycle touring in 2012.  Since then, he has completed multi-day tours in numerous states along the East Coast and along the Gulf of Mexico.

 

Keith rides a custom-painted Surly Long Haul Trucker (LHT) outfitted with custom mods. He describes the thing that motivates him in his travels by bike is meeting people and seeing the world.

• What got you into bike touring?
• What was the plan for this tour?
• What were you riding?
• What were the general plans for nights (what type of camping, etc.)?
• Were you cooking at all? If so, what was your go-to meal? If not, what types of places were you stopping at? If a mix, let us know both!
• Natural Disasters
  • Hurricane Michael
• Kindness
• Solar charging
  • Voltec solar charger
• Camping
  • Texas: "no" public land, so stealth camping isn't a good option (lots of private land)
  • State and county parks plus RV parks occasionally
• Rethinking decisions (i.e. what would you have done differently with hindsight?)

Pedalshift Society

Quick wrapup here about supporting the show through Pedalshift Society. With listener support, we've expanded the show to weekly, added tour videos, moved the Tour Journals from pay to in-podcast and helped pay for improved equipment and all hosting fees. And its all thanks to the people you hear in the end credits. As we reset to a new year, why not add your name to the list? Five bucks, two bucks or even a buck a month helps keep things going, and you can cancel anytime. There's also annual and one-shot options too if you're not into the small, monthly thing. Added bonus, it's all working again if you've had trouble signing up! Check out pedalshift.net/society. On to the society!

Kimberly Wilson
Caleb Jenkinson
Cameron Lien
Andrew MacGregor
Michael Hart
Keith Nagel
Brock Dittus
Thomas Skadow
Marco Lo
Terrance Manson
Noah Schroer
Harry Telgadas
Chris Barron
Brian Hren
Mark Van Raam
Brad Hipwell
Paul Mulvey
Stuart Buchan
Todd Stutz
Mr. T
Roxy Arning
Nathan Poulton
Harry Hugel
Stephen Dickerson
Vince LoGreco
Ruth DeVorsey
Michelle Miller
Matthew Lewis
Michael Baker
Billy Crafton
Paul Culbertson
Scott Culbertson
Matt Perry
Danielle Jepson
Cody Floerchinger
Tom Benenati
Bobby Ruple
Roy Evritt
Greg Braithwaite
John Maier
William Cairns
Sandy Pizzio
Richard Patch
Mark Messer
Jeff Muster
Seth Pollack
Dave Roll
Joseph Quinn
Susan Brewster
Drue Porter
Byron Paterson (a name I pronounce properly now)
Joachim Raber
Ray Jackson (New, and I forgot to add to the pod! Mea culpa!)
And all anonymous and past contributors for helping make this show happen!

Music

You've been hearing about Jason Kent and his music for many fine episodes. Their latest album may be their best yet. Go get it.

https://soundcloud.com/sunfields