With fall underway and winter just around the corner, many cyclists (myself included) are looking forward to sunshine in the not-so-distant coming year.

Last week I asked you for feedback on a section of our Sierra Cascades Bicycle Route encompassing California State Highway 89 (SR 89). Thank you for all your input, it is greatly appreciated and will help inform our decision making process. I then alluded to an exciting new development in that same area shared with us by Bil Paul, researcher for the route.

If you were speeding along in a car on the road from Haines to Haines Junction in Alaska, the above scene might seem normal -- a young kid on a bike pedaling up the driveway, the American and Alaska state flags flying. You might wonder why the family had a phone both out by the road.

We began hearing about cyclists' experiences on the often shoulder-less and heavily truck-trafficked California State Highway 89 (SR 89) in the first year after releasing the Sierra Cascade Bicycle Route maps. We were concerned about it from a safety standpoint and began looking into it. A few months ago the subject resurfaced in my inbox in two pieces, both of which originated from Bil Paul, the researcher for the route.

Elle Steele Bustamante out of Sacramento, California, is the author of this week's fun-filled Bike Overnight. Titled Our First Ever Family Weekend of Wonderfulness, Elle wrote the story as her first step in documenting a year of living almost car-free by the family of four. (If they didn't have a year left on their Prius lease, she says, they would go totally car-free.)

Although the 2012 tour season is not quite over, Adventure Cycling Association has seen an overwhelming response to our 2012 tours, with almost 1300 participants overall.

In collaboration with WorldCycle Videos, Adventure Cycling's first Bicycle Travel Video Contest will accept submissions through February 28, 2013. Now is the time to check out the submission categories and begin production, whether you plan an autumn bike overnight video shoot, tackle your footage from a past adventure, or set up an interview with a bicycle traveler who inspires you to document their passion and story in a portrait piece.

This week's Bike Overnight story comes from Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson, who tells us about an amazing accommodation in western Washington where grown-ups get to act like kids (or squirrels?) and sleep in the trees. "In mid-June," writes Kent, "Christine and I spent our 'virtual weekend' (Wednesday and Thursday) on a few acres of land next to the Raging River at a wonderful place called TreeHouse Point. This place is not far from our home in Issaquah -- just over eight miles as the bikes roll, and almost all of those miles traverse paths designated for non-motorized travel."