Asked to picture the perfect touring bike, most cyclists would imagine some variation of a sleek, wide-geared machine with lots of braze-ons for fenders, lights and racks, beautiful, immaculate paint, glistening chrome and satin alloy details.

Our friend Sara Dykman, who shared her amazing adventure of following the monarch butterfly migration by bike, has other ideas.

Her custom built bike has proven itself over tens of thousands of miles of every kind of terrain, but her long distance hauler doesn’t look anything like a state of the art touring bike. As it turns out, that’s the point…