Looking for some meal ideas while you’re bike touring? The Adventure Cycling Association has just released an electronic version of a cookbook that they originally published back in 1979.
The Bicycle Tourist’s Cookbook is freely available as a downloadable PDF, and it’s interesting as well as practical, if a bit dated (apparently they used a lot of hamburger and jello in the 70s!).
There are hints on proportions (note that the book was aimed at groups of cyclists, so all recipes serve 10 people!), nutrition and how to carry tricky things, like sticky jars of honey.
We particularly enjoyed the advice given on one of the opening pages of the cookbook; a quote from one of the first bicycle tourists, the Frenchman Paul de Vivie, better known as Velocio:
Eat before you are hungry
Drink before you are thirsty
Rest before you are tired
Cover up before you are cold
Peel off before you are hot
Don’t drink or smoke on tour
Never ride just to prove yourself
-Paul de Vivie
This post on the Adventure Cycling Association blog, tells a little more about why they’ve released the cookbook, and also links to another manual on leading a bike tour from 1975.