Happy New Year!

Happy new year from all of us at WomanTours. Thank you for a wonderful 2011!
Watch the video below to help get your 2012 started off right!


The Holstee Manifesto from Lucaci Eduard on Vimeo.

New Video about our Moab Utah Tour

A flight carrying 5 of our guests was delayed leaving the Denver airport for Moab last October, causing a chance encounter with filmmaker Larry McLaughlin. He was on his way to Moab to create a video for REI, the outdoor clothing and gear store.

The women told him they were headed to Moab to take part in a WomanTours week-long bike tour.  He thought we'd make a better story than the group he was supposed to shoot so he tagged along on our tour for a couple days and created this beautifully inspirational video.

Let us know what you think!

Who's Guiding What in 2012

If you want to know which trips your favorite leaders are guiding next year, look no further. Remember that the first 6 women to sign up for any tour receive 5% discounts, so it pays to sign up early!

Carol Wilder
Meandering Mississippi
Tour de Tetons
Around Lake Ontario #2
Vermont Champlain Valley

Denise Purdue
Bhutan #2
Moab Arches and Canyonlands
New Mexico Land of Enchantment
Blue Ridge Rambler
Maryland Eastern Shore-Northern (October)
Death Valley National Park (November)

Kimberly Masters
Bhutan #1
Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard (spring)
NY Finger Lakes
Tour de Tetons
Alaska & the Yukon Golden Circle
Blue Ridge Rambler

Laurie Collins
Hawaii: Circling the Big Island
Hawaii: Big Island for Beginners
Maryland Eastern Shore-Northern
Maryland Eastern Shore-Southern
Washington DC Bikeways
Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard
NY Finger Lakes
Jersey Shore: Cape May
Glacier National Park
Idaho Greenways
Outer Banks of North Carolina

Linda Baldwin
Hawaii: Circling the Big Island
Death Valley National Park
Louisiana Biking the Bayou
Mississippi Natchez Trace
Pacific Coast

Linda Gryzan

Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks
Teton Valley
Glacier National Park
Idaho Greenways

Lynne Brach
Meandering Mississippi
Michigan Grand Traverse
Outer Banks of North Carolina
Amalfi Coast of Italy

Michelle Slusher
Arizona Spring Training
Santa Barbara & Santa Ynez Valley
Louisiana Biking the Bayou
Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks
Teton Valley
Around Lake Ontario #1
Colorado: Our Ride the Rockies
Pacific Coast

Patty Jackson
Death Valley National Park 
Moab Arches and Canyonlands
Around Lake Ontario #1
Colorado: Our Ride the Rockies
New Mexico Land of Enchantment

Sid Moffat
Hawaii: Big Island for Beginners
Mississippi Natchez Trace
Maryland Eastern Shore-Northern
Maryland Eastern Shore-Southern
Washington DC Bikeways
Alaska Inside Passage
Alaska & the Yukon Golden Circle
Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard (fall)
Jersey Shore: Cape May

New 2012 Catalog

Our new tour catalog with our 2012 schedule is at the printer. It should be mailed Friday, so it should arrive in your mailbox in another week or so. Look for it!

If you can name the mountain our two cyclists are biking toward, you'll get a free pair of cycling socks. Just email us at info at womantours.com with your answer. 

And if you can't wait two weeks, you can also download a digital version by Requesting a Catalog Here.

Follow the blogs of our Second Northern Tier Tour

Our second Northern Tier tour began this week. You can follow their journey through their blogs here:
Judie Davidson
Carolyn Froeberg
Kit Fruscione
Peggy Kehew 
Ellen Martyn 
Clark Taylor
Elisabeth Tully
Susan Rosenthal

Cross-Country Northern Tier Blogs

Our Northern Tier cross-country tour got off to a stormy start as thunderstorms and rain raged around them. Nothing seemed to dampen their spirits as they left Fargo heading to Bar Harbor, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean. You can follow their trip by reading the blogs below.

Wish them the best of luck with us!

Sue Hersman
Sara Hopper
Donna Quartaro & Bev Junginger
Rhonda Rose
Rita Rowe

Blogs about our Southern Tier cross-country bike tour

Our Southern Tier cross-country bike tour starts next week. Eighteen women will dip their tires in the Pacific Ocean by San Diego next Friday and start their 3000 mile trek across the southern United States by bicycle.

Several of the women will keep blogs of their journey. Follow them here:
Ruth Dudgeon
Marge Galloway
Katherine Jeter
Eva Laevastu
Fiona McTavish
Lisa Meerts-Brandsma
Liz Siaba
Linda Tilley

New Beginner Tour added to 2011 Schedule

Sandra rides on our Washington DC Bikeways tour last spring.

We recently revised our Washington DC tour to make it on all bike paths.  It's our newest beginner tour. If you like flat bicycling on traffic-free rail trails, then this is the tour for you. Join us:

May 23 - 28, 2011

September 18 - 23, 2011

Tour the national monuments and bike through rural Virginia with us. If you're still undecided, then watch our video about last year's tour, and you'll surely come!

Women's Cycling Survey Report Now Ready

Last year, the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycling Professionals conducted a survey for female cyclists. We helped promote it here on our blog and a whopping 13,000 women responded!

The report is now ready for your reading pleasure. Click here and scroll down to the bottom of the page for a link to the full report. If you're time-crunched like me, you'll skip to the last section and read,

The operation of motorized vehicles, (especially distracted driving) dominate women’s safety concerns about cycling. Furthermore, infrastructure change, particularly the addition of more bike lanes, appears to be a primary factor for increasing women’s cycling.

In other words, if we construct more ways to separate cars from bikes, more women will ride their bicycles more often. My guess is this may be just as true for men and children. At the risk of plagiarizing Kevin Costner,  "If we build it, they will come."

So find out what your local area is doing to create more bike lanes and bicycle paths, and offer your help. To find the groups working in your area, go to the Alliance for Biking & Walking. The more people who get out of their cars and onto their bicycles, the safer it will be for all of us!

Staying in Shape through the Winter

I’d vowed to bicycle once a week through this winter to help stay in shape and to fight off those winter blues. With the record snowfall and the intermittent cold spells this season, it’s been a tough resolution to keep. Fortunately, I also thought a monthly trip might help get me through to spring and true cycling season.

When I led our Yellowstone National Park bike tour for the first time last June, I knew I wanted to return this winter. I wanted to see the park without all the people and to see the hot springs and geysers amidst all the snow. So I planned a cross-country ski trip to Yellowstone to help keep my legs in shape and the winter blues at bay this January.

Bison use the roads for easier walking.

What I hadn’t realized is the haven that is Yellowstone for wildlife in the winter. The thermal areas keep the rivers from freezing and make food easier to find. I saw trumpeter swans, snow geese and bald eagles everywhere. In addition, the snow makes for easy tracking. It made me realize that foxes, elk, snowshoe hares and bison were all around us even when we didn’t see them.

But we saw plenty. We watched two coyotes test the ice with their front paws, trying to close in on four swans in a small patch of moving water on the Yellowstone River. After much squawking and wing flapping, the swans called their bluff and the coyotes sauntered away. 

We also watched a pack of wolves circle a herd of bison. We counted 13 wolves as they maneuvered to separate a weak animal. They eventually gave up and disappeared into the forested hillside. Then we listened as they howled and as another pack miles away answered their call. It was one of those moments most of us only watch in nature shows on TV.

Petrified lodgepole pines.

The wildlife was a bonus I hadn’t planned on. And so was the weight I lost during the trip, despite three huge meals a day. We XC skied through fresh powder down Dunraven Pass, across regenerated forests from the great wildfires of 1988, and to mud pots and fumaroles and geysers. We broke trails for miles through the backcountry, using compass readings to find hot springs not noted on most maps. I skied until I couldn’t move anymore.

If you’re looking to fight off your winter blues, get in shape for bicycling, or see wildlife as you never have before, consider visiting Yellowstone this winter. There’s no place like it. And if you do go, stay in the yurts with Yellowstone Expeditions. I had a blast, and I’m not being paid to say this.

 

I think I love Nordic skiing as much as bicycling. I may just have to keep up my cycling to stay in shape for next ski season….