Tips « Cycling Around The World – the Blog

  • Author: admin
  • Published: Apr 19th, 2010
  • Category: Destinations, News, On the road, Reviews, Tips
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Canals, houseboats and bicycles are all part of the furniture in Amsterdam. Anyone who has visited the city will tell you that, round here, the humble cyclist rules the road.

Cycling lanes are as important as major motorways and official figures from the I am Amsterdam organization estimate about 600,000 bicycles circulate amongst the 750,000 inhabitants. Amsterdam is ideal for bike holidays because it is so flat!

Many Amsterdam hostels and accommodation providers are geared up to be cycle friendly. All the main attractions are close-by and with an estimated 600,000 bikes in circulation, residents know that cycling is the most authentic and convenient way to experience the city thanks to the huge cycle lanes and road signs.

So, to join in with the other pedal pushers, and stay at stay at one of the Amsterdam hostels They’ll kit you out with accommodation and transportation all in one go.

And best of all, you have up to the 30th April to be in with a chance of winning your bike rental for free!

And while you are there, why not expand you bicycle adventure beyond the capital. Like Amsterdam, the rest of the country is best seen from a bicycle saddle.

  • Author: admin
  • Published: Jan 6th, 2010
  • Category: Fun, On the road, Tips
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This DIY gadget is dubbed the “smart charger” and it’s from two Kenyan students who reside in rural areas without electricity. They also use bikes to get around. Jeremiah Murimi and Pascal Katana use a dynamo attached to the bicycle in order to charge cellphone batteries. The whole process costs practically nothing.

cell phone charger

They used parts from old discarded radio and television sets to assemble the small charger. The user is able to plug the dynamo lead right into the device. An hour of pedaling can fully recharge the battery in about the same time it would take if it was plugged into an electrical outlet. The idea is that the user would avoid paying $2 each time for battery recharges by making a one-time smart charger purchase worth about $4.50.

The Kenyan National Council for Science and Technology is backing the project, so the students may see their invention mass produced very soon.

Original post on http://www.slipperybrick.com/2009/07/kenyan-students-charge-cellphones-with-pedal-power/

  • Author: admin
  • Published: Jan 5th, 2010
  • Category: On the road, Reviews, Tips
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In the past twenty years or so I’ve been cycling in dozens of countries around the globe I’ve made ten thousands of kilometers and burned up many tyres.  I’ve has every brand on my wheels but recently switched to Schwalbe.

In preparation of our bike trip through the rough and lonely south west corner of Southe Africa we were looking for wider and stronger tyres. And we found it. the Schwalbe Marathon XR seems to be for extreme journeys.

Marathon tyres in action

This expedition tire is now better protected against thorns – the most frequent destroyers of tires on long journeys: A new, extremely densely woven Aramid protection belt protects the Marathon XR in particular from penetration punctures.

We have used them on the rough gravel roads in the lonely Karoo area of South Africa and again in this year on the desert and mountain tracks of Oman on the Arabian peninsula.

The tyres offer lot’s of grip and so far ( > 3000 km) we had no punctures.Right now the tyres look like we can use them another trip this year.

  • Author: admin
  • Published: Jan 5th, 2010
  • Category: Destinations, Tips
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After having travelled by bike around a more than 30 countries there are a few that stay in your memory as a very menorable biketrip. A place to return and to enjoy again. Here is the list. It may change in the future (more biketrips to come, more countries to explore)  but for now it’s pretty final.

The Netherlands
Ok, I live there 😉 Because Holland is the most cycle friendly country in the world. Cycling is a way of life…  Holland has got the best cycle lane network in the world. You can cycle on more than 19.000 kilometres of bicycles paths and lanes. It makes cycling in Holland enjoyable and safe (Holland is the fourth safest country as far as traffic concerns. Only the U.K., Sweden and Norway have lower numbers of fatalities). And there are a few other reasons as well. Just have a look at this website entirely dedicated to bicycle travel in the Netherlands.

Homepage of holland.cyclingaroundtheworld.nl

The USA
Another great place with a wide variation of scenery, excellent roads (most of the time) and plenty of facilities. I’ve been there a few times (Arizona, Utah, Alaska) and it’s always good cycling. Actually the USA is a good place to start your first overseas biketrip when you’re an unexperienced around the world biker (and not living there).

Just north of Denail NP (Alaska)

South Africa
This is a place that never stops to amaze me. The scenery is just as good as the USA, the road network in prime shape. Plenty of places to camp or stay as well. Few people seem to travel here by bike but racing and mountain biking is very popular (so plenty of bike shops as well). A lot of people consider SA an unsafe option. Yes indeed, there seems to be a lot of violence in the cities but outside on the countryside everything is much more relaxed. There are high mountainpasses to climb, beautiful coastal roads and endless deserts. Check ut my South African travel on http://www.cyclingaroundtheworld.nl/southafrica

Overlooking Sani Pass on the border of South Africa and Lesotho

India
 I must not forget this one! A country you either love or hate, or even love and hate at the same time. I´ve been there three  times now and will return some time in the future,  The largest democracy in the world 1 billlion people never ceases to amaze. OK it can be very busy there, avoid the main roads and stay away from the cities, although I have biked in Delhi as well and survived it! My first trip was a all India tour lasting 5 months from the Nepal border down to the hot and steamy south, ending at Chennai. Indian food is still among my favourites.

Visiting a local shop in Northern India

to be continued….

  • Author: admin
  • Published: Jul 24th, 2009
  • Category: Tips
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First you get a rough idea about the next cycling destination. Maybe you should make a bike trip across Namibia this year, although Northern India also seems interesting to you. In that stage of the preparations I generally start browsing the web and get a travel guide or two from the public library.  And then after some days, weeks, months you know it: it’s going to be Namibia this year.  And that’s the point where I start using maps. OK, Google Maps is great, Google Earth even better but nothing beats the complete overview you get when you unfold a goold old printed  country map and see all details in one view before you.

So, what maps do you need?
 I mostly start with buying a overview map of the country.  You don’t need all the details yet. A scale of 1:1000.000 or more is often good enough.  Read through your travel guide and mark interesting places on your map. Slowly an idea of a route will form inside your head.

With a draft route planned the planning can go on. Depending on your destination you’ll need more or less detailed maps.  Going to a country with a dense and well developed infra structure? With a road network  where you can easily loose your way? Then you’ll need the very detailed stuff with a scale of 1:200.000.  A good example of such a area is my home country the Netherlands. Where it’s best to avoid the main roads (busy) and stick to the thousands of kilometers of bike lanes and small country roads.

But when your trip leads through Namibia ( South West Africa)  where there are few roads a map scaled 1:1000.000 probably will do. It’s not easy to get lost when there are no junctions 😉

Map of the Netherland – you’ll more detail here – the best roads are not yet visible

Map of Namibia – same scale – enough detail to keep you going

In and out cities
Crossing, leaving or entering big cities is another story though. Most cities are a pain in the ass  for cyclists. Although some seem to perform surprisingly well. Here detailed maps can really help.  When you visit a tourist information centers (on airports) you will often receive free tourist maps.  I’ve often found these maps useful for getting in and out a city.

When and where to buy
 Especially when you are planning a trip to a ‘third world’ country get your maps in advance.  I still remember the guy at an Indian tourist office who wanted to buy my map of Northern India because it was better then anything he had seen locally!  Buying in advance also makes preparations a lot easier. 

Best buy them a  a specialized book- and map shop. So you can see and compare the available maps. Even maps with a similar scale and differ enormously in readability.  

Do I really need this?
 Of course not! You can just follow your front wheel and see where you end up. That’s just another approach to (bicycle) travel. And even when you plan every stage of your entire trip you will discover that a too detailed planning is not going to work. There is going that day with terrible head winds, or a mechnical break down that will cost you a day or two to fix.  Whatever you do, with or without detailed maps, don’t plan too much.

  • Author: admin
  • Published: Jul 23rd, 2009
  • Category: Fun, Tips
  • Comments: 1

Tags: camera, photography, trip

You may not have heard about this in the news: gasoline is getting more and more expensive. But this will certainly not put a damper on one of the greatest pastimes ever: bike trips!

We at Cycling Around The World love bike trips because they’re a photographer’s dream: each new mile is a photo waiting to happen. So we’ve compiled our Ultimate Guide to Bike Trip Photography, to inspire you on your next trip! Gather as many friends as you can for your bikepool vacation, and pack the camera gear. It’s time to hit the road!

Hitting the road in Uganda

Ingredients
Let’s start with the necessities. It may be a little obvious, but they’re all items you’d hate to be on the road without.

* Camera * Plenty of memory cards * Extra batteries or a charger (better) * A laptop (a sturdy one if you really want to take this)

*  If your camera is hefty (yeah you, DSLR owner) you might want to pack a point and shoot or disposable camera as well, for those particular adventures where you can’t be weighed down.

What To Shoot Along The Way
 Create a map of your route before you get on the road and don’t miss a single photo opertunity.

Where Did You Stay?
 As you voyage into new territory, you’ll probably be landing in an unfamiliar place at night. Whether you’re crashing at a relative’s, in a hotel or on a stranger’s couch, it’s all part of the journey so don’t forget to document it.

Front Page newspaper
Someday when your kids’ kids are zooming around in solar-powered bikes, you’ll want to pull out your road trip photos and tell ‘em about the good ol’ days, so why not make your trip into a time capsule? Snap a shot of the newspaper’s front page every morning so you can remember what was going on in the world while you were adventuring through it.

Getting Another’s Perspective
 There’s only so much you can see and shoot on your own, so why not give this experiment a try: before you hit the road, pack one or two (or ten)  disposable cameras in self-addressed, pre-posted envelopes. Throughout your travels, leave a camera and envelope with interesting people you meet or maybe even in random places. Leave a note to drop the camera in the mail when it’s full, then cross your fingers and hope that it’ll eventually find its way back to you.

Time Lapse
We think pedalling down the roads at a relaxed 20 km per hour is a great opportunity to hone your time-lapse chops.

Record Your Whole !? Trip
 Tinho Chow’s bike takes pictures of his entire bike ride across America. Attach a camera on your bike and you can do the same.

Don’t Forget About Video!
A vacation on the road just wouldn’t be the same without home videos to torture your friends and family with when you get home. So if you’re traveling with a (point and shoot) camera that has a video option, don’t forget to use it!

Showing Off Your Memories
 You just got home and you’ve got the digital equivalent of that roll of undeveloped film in the junk drawer: a memory card full of bits. Get your pictures out of there and do something spectacular with all those memories. Why not throw them into a digital slideshow?

Lost and Found
If for some crazy unfortunate reason you lose your camera while on you’re out on the road, you might just find it at Found Cameras and Orphan Photos. Hey, you never know.

This post?
 I’ll admit it. This post is a more or less completely rewritten 😉 version of the The ultimate guide to road trip photography on PhotoJoJo.

  • Author: admin
  • Published: Jul 14th, 2009
  • Category: Destinations, Tips
  • Comments: 4

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I´ve been to dozens of countries now and every visit to a new destination is exciting. Years of cycling have given me  a some tips and tricks to get the most out of my bike trip. In this post I’m sharing these with you. You’are invited to add your comment and additional advice below.

1. Go in the right season. Nothing is more frustrating than arriving in the monsoon season (you´ll be washed away) or the too hot season (you’ll be roasted). So plan your trip in time.

2. Get some maps in advance. There is no need to plan every mile but some idea of the countries infra road system will help. I’ve discovered that Google Maps and Google Earth can help a lot.

View of the Swartberg Pass in South Africa (Google Earth)

3. Get your vaccinations. Going to the tropics? Get your malaria stuff etc.  It really not very pleasant to get a tropical disease that can be avoided by some simple vaccinations at home. Check out your destination to see  if a rabies vaccination could be useful. In most countries dogs are not dangerous but there are exceptions.

4.  When in doubt try to contact some one who has been there and has travelled by bicycle. Do not rely on your nephew or colleague who has seen that country five years ago and did  it al by car.  That’s simply not god enough.  A road that looks nice from the comy seat of a car can be  a real torture from the saddle. The might say “Oh the towns are not very far apart..”, meaning 200 – 300 kms (with nothing in between).

5.  Get some sort of (medical) insurance. At least good enough to get you home in case of serious emergencies. Such as accidents or illness. I generally do not find it very useful to insure bicycle and gear.

6. Check your bike and gear before leaving. Do a 100% !! check on your bike (or have it done) and replace anything that may fail in the near future. Het new tyres and tubes and replace the brake pads.  And make a test ride before setting off  into the unknown. Bicycle repair facilities in many third world countries are often very limited.

7.  Bring essential spare parts. As bike shops that sell state of the art equipment are rare in many countries you should bring some of the essentials. Start with some spare tubes, a spare tyes and some spokes.

One speed bike in Himalaya

8.  Don’t over prepare! It’s good to prepare yourself (see above tips 😉 but the reality of a longer bike trip in a strange far away country is something you cannot always prepare for.

On a  trip through the Indian Himalayas my derailleur broke beyond repair. The only shop to replace this essential part was probably hundreds of kilometers away in New Delhi, back down to the plains.  So I simply removed it and shortened my chain to ride to rest of the trip on a one speed bike. Not ideal but the only thing  I could do to continue the trip.

And do not believe everything that is published on the internet.

  • Author: admin
  • Published: Jul 5th, 2009
  • Category: Tips
  • Comments: 2

Tags: camera, gadget, photography, tripod, video

When I started making long trips on my bicycle I carried a analog camera and one or two rolls of film capable of holding 36 epxosures each. Yes I’m that old 😉 Now it’s nothing special to hear from people coming back from trips, showing thousands of digital images.  Nowadays I travel with two digital cameras, a humble point and shoot Powershot A85 and a Canon SLR for more serious photography.

But whatever camera you use I find it difficult to combine cycling and making pictures. Often I’m on a nice downhill section (after battling uphill for hours) and I just don’t want to stop for those nice views. Everytime you have to stop, grab your camera, take one or more pictures and then put everything back again. For me cycling is about moving!

But there are ways to combine cycling and photographing. Something like a tripod on y0ur bike!  There are several nice solutions available, from professional and expensive to completely DIY.

For the professional
 Looking for cool angles or a unique perspective to create killer point-of-view bike images you’ll need some hot stuff.  This post at Chase Jarvis Blog is about making those images. Using professional camera arms and stat  of the art SLR camera’s. All this remote controlled, of course.  There is a cool video and all the details.

Do It Yourself, the Fotojojo Bikecam
Everything you need for this project is pretty cheap. You’ll find it all at your local bike shop and hardware store. Get a small camera (the most expensive part), a reflector mount and rubber shims for reflector mount. Furthermore some small stuff and yoour almost ready to ride with yout new bikecam. The details are here

Another DIY approach is here, the Camera Mounts for Bicycle Handlebar, It´s the author´s fourth generation of his camera mount. All of which were built using a piece of dense foam glued to a plexiglass base.

the airbone zt-531 camera holder

Cheap and easy for the lazy cyclist
 OK, so you dont want to spent hundreds of dollars on professional equipment and you don’t have to time and the creativity to do the FotoJojo trick. In that case you can get a decent camera holder for a reasonable amount of money.

In the past years I’ve used the Airbone ZT-531 camera holder.  It can be installed on any handlebar between 22mm to 32mm  diameter and carries cameras up to 700 gr.  I purchased it for around 35 euros.

I never used it to make pictures but several times to make videos using my Powershot A-85 compact camera. A camera holder is a must on a bike to ensure you get stable images. See  the cycling videos I shot in Bhutan and  South Africa.  One sample made while riding down the historic Swartberg pass in South Africa is at the bottom of this post.

Another buy it yourself holder is this one I found on Ebay. Very simple and really low budget at less than six dollars.

Nothing is new
Have a look at this amazing article from the New York Times published in 1893 telling us about a recent invention appreciated by those wheelmen with the desire to carry a camera with them to obtain souvenirs of theri runs. A camera holder which is said to be  free from vibration and entirely dustproof. Sound like up-to-date modern stuff to me, even more then 100 years later.

  • Author: admin
  • Published: Jun 22nd, 2009
  • Category: Tips
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Tags: video

This is always a major issue for those who want to travel by air to places far away. The last thing you want is to arrive with a broken bicycle at your destination.

So it’s important to make a good start and pack your bike properly. Be aware of the fact that the regulations for bicycle transport can vary per airline. Some want you to pack your bike in cardboard boxes, others will also take bikes in bags only.

These three videos on YouTube give some good tips about the packaging part.

  • Author: admin
  • Published: Jun 19th, 2009
  • Category: News, Tips
  • Comments: 1

Tags: iphone, maps, navigation, News

Just in time for the summer bicycle-riding season, outdoor retailer REI has launched a new iPhone app that helps consumers monitor and share their biking experiences.

The new application is part of the REI “Bike your drive” campaign that encourages consumers to get out of their cars and onto their bikes. The app, called the Bike Your Drive mobile application, is a free, REI-branded interactive tool that enables consumers to track, view and share their biking stories.

Read it all at DMNews

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