Made In Italy - Feature Story for AC Magazine

This month, Adventure Cyclist Magazine is running my semi long-form feature on the Price family bicycle touring company, ExPlus.  Most of my work for Adventure Cyclist to-date has been focused on my personal travels. Since 2010 my photographic projects have grown to include feature writing and I've found that first person format limiting (and overdone quite frankly--I bore myself sometimes).  Initially this piece was slated to run as a fairly standard travel narrative about cycling across Sardinia but I change my mind after meeting the company founder, Rick Price.  I found Rick's story of ditching a small town on the Oregon coast to pursue true love and a life of travel in Italy fascinating and decided to trash my first proposal to focus on his journey instead of my own.  Fortunately, the editors of AC were cool with this (at least as far as I know).  When I first dropped this "change of subject" think on Rick he responded, "that sounds like a bad idea...I'm not very interesting."

I disagree:)

Cover Shot and 45-Page Feature Story - What I Did Last Summer

Last May, my 11-day assignment to Sardinia accidentally turned into a dreamy four months of scouting Europe for the best routes, trip operators, hotels, and people in-the-know for VeloNews' 2011 Ultimate Ride Guide.  The issue hit the newsstands this week.

For my part, I produced articles on Italy, Switzerland, France, and Spain--45 magazine pages of reviews, short stories, and interviews in total.  I also created a photographic package and podcast for the feature(s).  I'm entirely grateful to the editors of VeloNews, who gave me tons of creative freedom and the authority to stay away from the top-10 list format (usually researched by a cubicle googler who's never done any of the stuff they are recommending) that has become so common in today's toddler attention span, search engine results driven publishing world.  In short, they let me keep it real.

Life's a boomerang.  My former career in software started at the University of Oregon where I founded a digital publishing company called WhereNext.com with a group of college buddies.  We focused on, of all things--travel guides to Europe.  I remember starting that company with dreams of stomping the streets of Europe ala Rick Steves--tracking down fresh new destinations and activities for young, independent travelers.  However, WhereNext quickly scaled to include a full staff of talented writers and as the President,  I assumed the role of working the upper floors of towering office buildings in Seattle, Angel investor meetings in Portland, and unassuming cafes in Silicon Valley to raise multiple rounds of VC funding to finance our growth.  So it was odd, though entirely fulfilling, to find myself doing what I originally set out to do after college--but with a 13 year detour.

A few pages from the article: