“My aim was to drink beautiful wine, while Margaret’s was to pedal in lovely scenery. The Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region of France was an easy intersection of these. We packed evening outfits, riding clothes, and our Bike Fridays. In Paris we picked up our tiny rental EV to drive to a B&B near Beaune. In the mornings we would ride from village to village through vineyards over quiet farm tracks and over gentle hills.
We have often traveled in this style, and even did our honeymoon this way. It combines small luxuries with full days of riding. The happy images that stand out include sitting in cafés in medieval hill towns, walking tours of monasteries and chateaux, leisurely countryside breaks with baguettes and cheese. The gold pink sunsets were late and warm, we had a glorious time.
Some routes I mapped turned out to be more rocky and challenging than I had anticipated. When I saw that Margaret was struggling a bit with the 1.75” tires on her New World Tourist, we switched bikes so that she could ride the All-Packa. She sailed ahead easy-peasy, and then “requested” that she get to ride that bike for the rest of the trip.
Of course I knew the All-Packa to be more capable than the NWT (which I love and have ridden on pretty rough terrain), but it was very eye-opening to see Margaret go from having a hard time to just happily pedaling along. She reports that it’s in every way more comfortable and confident.”
“I’m an expedition cyclist, travel writer, speaker, and amateur photographer. My first bikepacking trip was in 1988 and I’ve since pedaled six continents to experience cultures and geographies at a human pace and scale. I’ve created and shared bikepacking routes around the world, including local ones like the Vermont Green Mountain Gravel Growler and the VTXL, as well as far flung ones like the track in Kyrgyzstan that has since been used in the Silk Road Mountain Race. I’m on the editorial staff at Bikepacking.com, a proud ambassador for Seven Cycles, Revelate Designs, and SRAM/Zipp, and a friend of the brands Search and State and Hammerhead.
The other half of my life is as professor and chair of the philosophy department at Williams College. In the past I chaired the Cognitive Science and the Science and Technology Studies Programs. My research and teaching is on mind, knowledge, cognition, and embodiment.
My wife Margaret and I split our time between our native New York City and Southern Vermont. I’m Nuyorican and my father drove a cab for 40 years in Manhattan and Miami.
Drop me a line at jcruz@williams.edu. or follow me on Instagram“
