Once Around On a Bicycle

Product Details

In January 1985, Michael Clancy bought a touring bicycle from a small bike shop in New Brunswick, New Jersey. For the next sixteen years he spent his vacations riding that bike through North America and Europe. At the end of every one of those vacations he dreamt of a day when he could continue riding, farther and farther, on the ultimate bicycle trip. He dreamt of bicycling around the world. On April 5th, 2001 his dream became reality as he pedaled that bicycle out of Lisbon Airport, beginning a fifteen-month, 14,000-mile ride through nineteen countries on five continents. This is Michael's journal of that extraordinary adventure.

Customer Reviews ::

Honest but Bad Book - blue maverick - Connecticut
Mr. Clancy has done a great disservice to himself and all those who relish great adventure. To give him his due, he did what many have dreamed but few have done. He is also straightforward and has a good, if subtle sense of humor. But Michael, why did you bother? I can't believe that in a trip of over 15 months around the world, you never bothered to have more than a 15 minute conversation with anyone, never ate the local food, rarely stopped to explore, deliberately holed up in dreary hotels, ate only at McDonalds, and subjected us to long discriptions of your often uncooperative technology while never telling us a thing about yourself. I didn't buy the book just to read about how many hills you climbed, I bought the book to find out about you, your dreams, trials and tribulations, emotional experience, etc. What motivated you, how was it different than you expected, what did you learn? What was your life like before you left, during, after? Give us something, Michael. Besides a blow by blow of every fast food joint in the world.