On October 27th, 2007 I sat down at my computer and wrote what would become the first article in a series of hundreds (and potentially thousands) of articles, videos, and interviews on the topics of bicycle touring, world travel, and lifestyle design.

That night, I started a website called www.BicycleTouringPro.com, which has since turned into my largest and most successful Internet project to date. Now, exactly two years later, there are more than 320 unique articles, videos, and interviews on the site – each of which is read by more than 15,000 people each month from locations around the world.

This past year my travels by bike took me to Europe, where I spent nine months slowly making my way through 16 amazing countries. While in Europe, I was able to continue working and published an astounding 180 additional articles for BicycleTouringPro.com.

As of today, Bicycle Touring Pro has approximately:

• 15,500 Monthly Readers
• 2,073 Email Subscribers
• 1,109 Twitter Followers
• 299 Facebook Fans

While I’m happy with the progress being made at BicycleTouringPro.com, I still have a lot I want to do. I have some big plans for the site in 2010 and I hope that by this time next year my statistics have more than doubled.

It’s official. I’ve completed my 9th and longest bicycle tour to date.

On December 30th, 2008 I flew into Zurich, Switzerland and began what I can only describe as one of the most life-altering events of my entire life. For the next 254 days I traveled about Europe with my bicycle in tow and passed through 16 different countries. I met people along the way, took in the sights, learned a few languages (the basics at least) and had an absolute blast.

I documented much of the trip at BicycleTouringPro.com and uploaded photos from the entire journey to Flickr.com.

Now that the trip is over and I am back home in the United States I am only more confident that there will indeed be a 10th long distance bike tour in my future.

If you’ve been following along as I slowly made my way through Switzerland, Germany, France, Liechtenstein, Austria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Italy, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey, I thank you.

Thank you for being a part of my adventure and supporting me along the way!

Last week I had the great pleasure of being a guest on the weekly radio show at BicycleRadio.com. On the show we discussed my recent 9-month tour of Europe, my decision to travel with a Bike Friday folding bicycle, stealth camping, travel safety, the way other people view bicycle travelers, the steps needed to escape your normal life and travel abroad for extended periods of time, and my favorite things about bicycle travel.

To listen to the interview for yourself, just head over to BicycleTouringPro.com or check out the podcast from September 21, 2009 at BicycleRadio.com.

I’ve just recently launched my latest online venture, a new website called 21Bikes.com.

The idea behind the site is extremely simple. People from around the world can upload a photo of themselves and their bicycle(s). If it’s a good picture, I’ll post it to the site within one of the 21 bike-specific categories. Then, once the picture goes live, it gets voted on and shared by users from around the world.

Those who participate in the site can submit a photo no matter what type of bike they ride, how old they are, where they live in the world, or what they look like. The only requirement is that the photo they submit include both THEM and THEIR BICYCLE. The better the picture, the better their chances of it being posted to the site.

The site is still very new and because it depends on a constant stream of user-submitted photos, I assume it will take some time to really get moving. I’ll keep you posted on the site’s progress as time goes by. But for now, I’m excited to see what happens.

A few years ago I started a company called Silver Mountain Marketing, which has quickly become my largest source of income, despite the fact that I have done little to no promotion of my services. Nevertheless, I have been receiving a lot of work lately for my web design and Internet marketing services.

But because most of my business comes through referrals there hasn’t been much of a need for an official website. However, now that I’ve built up a somewhat impressive resume, I’ve decided to share some of my online work through the business’ official website. The new site, which I just last week completely redesigned, is basically a portfolio of businesses, websites, and projects I have worked on over the past few years.

In addition to the site’s portfolio features, I plan to post to the site every once and a while with tips, techniques and strategies that small business owners and other Internet entrepreneurs can use to increase their profits and drive more sales.

To check out the new website, just head on over to www.SilverMountainMarketing.com and be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed if you are interested in learning more about Internet marketing, social networking, and how to make money online.

For the past 6 months I’ve been putting incredible effort into building a program for schools around the world that wish to use social media as a means of communication, marketing and promotion for their institutions.

Today, I’m happy to announce that The Social Media Schools Master Course is finally live!

It’s only the first day of the launch, but I’ve already received a number of sign-ups and I’m excited to start working with the schools who have registered for the course.

The course starts today, but schools wishing to receive this information in the future can sign up at any time after today’s date. They just sign up for the course and then work through the material at their own speed. And if they need any assistance, I’m here to answer their questions and support them in their quest for social media success.

To learn more about the Social Media Schools Master Course, please click here.

Every month Bike Friday sends out an email to their customer list profiling one of the people riding their bicycles. The August 2009 issue of Bike Friday’s “Travel Story Of The Month” featured me, Darren Alff, and my little red folding bike on our 9-month trip through central and eastern Europe.

The piece consists of a long testimonial I wrote for the company about how my Bike Friday New World Tourist has saved me time and time again when traveling on boats and trains in Europe. Additionally, I talk about how the little red folding bike has been able to handle some incredibly rough/diverse terrain and how, while I had never planned on taking the bike on such an extended trip, it has performed far better than I ever expected it to.

To read my feature Bike Friday article, just click here.

An article I wrote about the subject of stealth camping was just published in the latest issue of XSport Magazine.

The August ’09 issue of XSport features pieces on skateboarding, endurance racing, and now… stealth camping!

Click here to download the August issue of XSport Magazine for free and read my article (page 16) about wild camping.