Welcome to André Breton Cycling,
From my website, visitors can explore my complete, ten-year racing history (2013-2022) prior to my retirement in August 2022 following my 8th completion of the Leadville Trail 100 and many more details such as a list of friends and bike shops that provided valuable advice and sometimes financial support, through generous discounts, for my racing endeavors; a gallery of images capture highlights from my racing and touring experiences; the latest news from André Breton Cycling is available from my travelogues; a summary of my touring history from childhood to present; and much more including services that I began offering in February 2021: Lifestyle Coach; Adventure Guide; Mentor; and Consultant. Click here for more details.
Climate Zero. 54° North to 54° South by Bicycle.
Following an extensive and difficult prelude, 16 days by bike and 2 by ship across vast stretches of wilderness in Quebec and Labrador, Canada, I arrived to Cartwright, Labrador at close to 54° north latitude, the official starting point for my most ambitious bicycle journey to date: Climate Zero, 54° north to 54° south by bicycle. Two days later, on September 11, 2023, I began cycling south towards the community known as "the end of the world", Ushuaia, Argentina, 54° south latitude. By the end of February 2024, thanks to a partnership with Maderas Rainforest Conservancy, I had planted 5000 trees in Costa Rica and by doing so achieved the first of two primary goals of the tour, to plant enough trees to zero my 52-year (my age when I departed Cartwright) carbon footprint, that's Climate Zero. Months later and 284 days after departing Cartwright, I achieved the second goal of the tour, to ride a bicycle from 54° north to 54° south, a complete transect of the Americas. The journey that transpired before I reached Ushuaia on June 20th, 2024, was epic in scale and exceeded all of my expectations. For more details, visit this page and my social media channels, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, where you'll find 240 short videos published during the tour and much more.
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Social Media Channels
A rich past and an accumulating here-and-now await anyone that hasn't visited me on my Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube social media channels. Here you'll find, e.g., many maps, images, and video journal updates posted during my bicycle adventures.
Public Support: Paypal and Venmo
A secure way to help support my adventures by bicycle and the hours that I invest in social media posts describing those journeys on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube are one-time or recurring donations using these Paypal or Venmo links.
Touring by Boot, Boat, Motorcycle, and Bicycle: a brief history
Depending on the threshold of how a person might define a "tour", by a minimum number of days, etc, one could make the argument that I began touring as a youngster, with or without shoes, and primarily in the forests and wetlands that were in walking or cycling distance from my childhood home in Franklin, Massachusetts. My childhood tours, expressed from as far back as I can recall, roughly age six years old until adolescents, may have been short but they were frequent and rich with the satisfaction a person feels when they've stepped outside of their comfort zone, towards a wanderlust, in my case, that seemed then and now to be my primary mover. Click here for many more details about my touring history.
Travelogues
My journeys by bicycle are often recorded, here on my webpage, in detailed travelogues including images and maps such as this one from 2019, a 4400 mile, 63-day adventure from Duncansby Head, Scotland to Istanbul, Turkey by bicycle. Each of these tours were motivated, assembled, and completed based, in part, on inspiration from my previous touring experiences by boot, boat, and motorcycle. The spirit of those earlier journeys, by alternative means, is in plain view, as a watermark, behind my most recent travel stories and experiences. And since those early days, I've added much more to my sources of inspiration including adventures by bicycle written about by the late Dervla Murphy.
Europa 360: Day 86, thoughts from the conclusion of my 2022 tour.
Day 86. 15 November 2022. Barcelona, Spain. Europa 360 began as a dream that I subsequently nurtured and refined for about five years before arriving by red-eye flight to Barcelona roughly three months ago, on 22 August 2022 to begin the tour. It was for sure an epic goal and my most ambitious itinerary to date, all of that is true. To keep moving each day, when not resting or on a boat, I did the work, overcoming countless physical and mental challenges as they arose.
Doing the work can be difficult and it was on many days and far more parts of days on this 84-day bicycle journey, but those are the pathways to much, much more. When we challenge ourselves we find a deep well. The farther we go, the more we find. Treasures abound here. So much so that I've come to the conclusion that life, as we often say to refer to all that happens from birth to death, begins, in many ways, at the edge of our comfort zone.
There is much more to discover and celebrate, about you, beyond this line than inside it. I encourage you to go there, to the edge and beyond. Take small steps and if you are afraid then don't be concerned. When you feel afraid imagine a door that has opened, close by, offering a path to limitless opportunity. I encourage you to step inside, have a look around, smile and breathe deep, because this is part of your story, it's beautiful, and only you can make it real.
Doing the work can be difficult and it was on many days and far more parts of days on this 84-day bicycle journey, but those are the pathways to much, much more. When we challenge ourselves we find a deep well. The farther we go, the more we find. Treasures abound here. So much so that I've come to the conclusion that life, as we often say to refer to all that happens from birth to death, begins, in many ways, at the edge of our comfort zone.
There is much more to discover and celebrate, about you, beyond this line than inside it. I encourage you to go there, to the edge and beyond. Take small steps and if you are afraid then don't be concerned. When you feel afraid imagine a door that has opened, close by, offering a path to limitless opportunity. I encourage you to step inside, have a look around, smile and breathe deep, because this is part of your story, it's beautiful, and only you can make it real.
Europa 360: YouTube Video Journal Playlist and More
My entire video journal, 212 individual recordings captured in eighteen countries during Europa 360, my 84-day bicycle journey from Barcelona to Barcelona, is available as one playlist on my YouTube channel. A second Europa 360, YouTube playlist provides video footage from my GoPro Hero 9 camera. I collected over 1 TB of 4k GoPro video footage on this tour so there will be much more to come to the GoPro playlist.
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Somewhere between the ether and consciousness, doing the work on an epic journey, Climate Zero, 54° north to 54° south, a complete transect of North, Central, and South America by bicycle to bring awareness to the threat of climate change and demonstrate that all of us can make a difference and even zero-out our lifetime carbon contributions to the atmosphere.