Continents (all)

This website accompanies the book ``Why Don't You Fly?'' (ISBN 1-905203-25-X published by Pen Press).

How does it feel to trade comfort and security for life as a nomad and to pare one's life down to the bare necessities? What is it like to push at the frontiers of one's physical and mental endurance?

``Why Don't You Fly?'' is the account of an epic adventure in search of an elusive sense of identity in which triumph, disappointment, discomfort, exhaustion and exhilaration all trade positions against a backdrop of prodigious physical endeavour. During a gruelling 16,500-mile examination of physical and mental stamina the author ate and drank in roadside cafés in the company of inquisitive lorry drivers and shared dormitories in remote Chinese villages with fascinated farm hands and gleeful mosquitoes. Sceptical western existentialism met religious fatalism in the restaurants and teahouses of the Middle East and India in the course of a physical and spiritual journey that constantly raised questions about the attitudes and values that prevail in the West.

The Website includes a chapter-by-chapter synopsis of the book, a sample chapter and 93 photographs.

This tour includes scenic detours around Greek islands, the Peloponnese, and proceeds through Italy, Austria, and Germany. This site also has tours in the USA: Colorado, Wyoming, Montana; and in Portugal and Spain.

This webpage is intended to provide information for cycle tourists who may be considering tours in the countries I've visited. For more information, journals and pictures leave a message in my guestbook or send me an email.

`` Yes, it's hot. But we've seen worse haven't we my friend. There was that day east of Warnambol when the chip seal melted and the chips stuck to the tires. A few revolutions later we had flats front and rear. So we pushed for a mile seeking shade to repair the punctures. And the flies Ah! And there was that time in Zamorah. Ah! But not now.''

Diari di viaggio in bicicletta e con altri mezzi in Patagonia, Brasile, Stati Uniti ed Europa. Consigli utili sui viaggi in bicicletta, migliaia di immagini ed un forum per gli appassionati cicloviaggiatori.

In 2001 vanuit Nederland vertrokken en nu okt 2005 meer dan 65.000 km en al meer dan 40 landen doorgefietst.

From April 19th to May 22nd I rode 2523 km in Turkey. I stayed in Marmaris the first week as the ticket I had bought in Copenhagen included hotel there for one week. I rode 268 km there to acclimatize, get tanned, and work out where to ride next in Turkey. After this week I first rode 745 km eastwards along the Mediterranean from Marmaris in the SW-corner of Turkey along the coast to Tarsus, then 919 km across the country to Havsa at the Black Sea, and then 593 km westwards along that coast. It was mostly quite easy being tourist in Turkey - no problem finding accommodation, mostly food is inexpensive, no shit-bureacracy or taxes at the borders, i.e. the basics work well. Turkey is also a very beautiful country, and extraordinary things happen, as I experienced on May 11th. What is then bad in Turkey? Millions of honking truck drivers, and lack of adequate maps. Some basic info is included at the end.

Trip 2 started August 2nd and ended September 5th. I started riding in Igdir in E-Turkey, from there I rode straight westwards. The itinerary (or places I slept) was as follows: Igdir (Ararat) - Kagizman - Horasan - Erzurum - Erzincan - Imranli - Sivas - Akdagmadeni - Yozgat - Kirikkale - Ankara - Sivrihisar - Bozhuyuk - Eskisehir - Bursa - Bandirma - Gelibolu - Uzunkopru - Edirne. That was 2078 km and took 20 days in the saddle - 104 km a day on average. There was less climbing than on trip 1, only few days involved more than 1000 m climbing.

Ja, hebben jullie het al gezien, we zijn meer dan 4 jaar onderweg. Wat een tijd en toch.... we genieten er nog elke dag van. Nu zijn we in Jujuy, noord Argentinië. Via Chili gaan we binnenkort naar Bolivia, waar we een tijdlang niet zullen kunnen internetten. We zullen op grote hoogte gaan fietsen, hoogtes waar we nog niet eerder waren. Of dat prettig is.. jullie zullen het later lezen.

This is the story of a one-week-long trip in Anatolia [...], much of it having been done by trekking bike. The protagonists are two university lecturers in science, both with a solid interest in history, archaeology, and simple life in nature. Virtually all the ancient 2,000 to 4,000-year-old sites we visited are unknown to the general public, because of their remoteness from the tourist trail or because of their inaccessibility to tour buses. Nevertheless, most are absolutely fabulous sites. [...] I mainly wrote up this trip report so as to show that the ``real Anatolia'' still exists. So just sit back and enjoy the story for the sake of the story. I dedicate this report to the Anatolian people, those of yesterday and those of today, hoping that they will stay true to themselves tomorrow.

In the fall of 1998 I set off on a long journey by bike. It covered more than 15000 kilometers and 14 countries. During this trip I was hit by rocks and cars, I was baked, soaked, and deep frozen by the weather gods. Mostly, however, I had a superb opportunity to see some of the most beautiful scenery in the world, meet wonderful people and enjoy the culture of widely differing lands. This site is about my bike trip from Sweden to South-East Asia via Eastern Europe, The Middle East, Pakistan, China, and Tibet. It also contains general information and links on bicycle touring and travelling in general.

Le violente eruzioni dei vulcani Erciyes (3916 m) e Hasan (3268 m) avvenute tre milioni di anni fa, avevano ricoperto l'altopiano intorno a Nevsehir con tufo, una polvere composta da lava, cenere e fango. I venti e le piogge, erodendo queste rocce friabili, hanno creato dei paesaggi surrealistici spettacolari a forma di cono, di pinnacoli, di burroni scoscesi, dipinti con dei toni che variano dal rosso all'oro e dal verde al grigio.

From the moment we started, we knew this was going to be a holiday with a difference. Maybe it was the envious looks we got from British cyclists on the way to Heathrow, or maybe it was the stares from shocked Spaniards as we did a sudden strip-tease beside the baggage reclaim in Madrid, revealing if not our true colours, then at least our lycra-clad limbs. Full of gorgeous pictures well worth waiting for...

Tussen juli 1995 en december 1996 hebben wij een fietsreis gemaakt van Rotterdam naar Kaapstad. Op deze reis hebben we door twintig landen gefietst in Europa, het Midden Oosten en Afrika. In anderhalf jaar tijd hebben we een afstand van ruim 20.000 kilometer afgelegd. Op deze internet-site kun je enkele verhalen over deze reis lezen en de mooiste van onze honderden foto's bekijken.

For Kurban BayramI (``Sacrifice Feast'' in English, ``eid-al-adha'' in Arabic, in honor of Abraham's pledge to sacrifice his son (though God then bade him to sacrifice but a sheep), i.e. the Islamic holiday in the middle of ``Hac'' (``Hadj'' in Arabic), the Islamic pilgrimage month to Mecca), I drove with my Turkish friend TuGrul to the Mediterranean Sea for a mountain-bike tour in the Taurus Mountains. Here's an account of how we braved physical adversity and faced the impeccable logic of rural Turks.

A trip from the Netherlands to the USA - over Asia and Australia. The European part goes through Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Turkey.

Leaving home for a trip like this is not something one does from one day to the other. Along the way I joked often, saying: ``Yeah, one night I went out, got pissed and I am still trying to find my way home.'' In truth I had no foreign experience; well, none on my own. I had never been to an embassy before, I knew nothing about what's out there. Still I wanted to go, and with some hard work I managed to get my trip sponsored too! Getting ready to leave is always something special. Packing for a holiday, going out for a long weekend... Packing for a trip is even more emotional. Because I wasn't only packing my bags, I was packing all my belongings. Most of them went to storage, some of them into my bags. And with what I packed in my bags that 31st of may 1998, I lived for almost 3 years. What an adventure I was heading forward to... What a story you are about to read!

A site filled with tours all over Europe, Africa, Asia, and America.

Reports and pictures from various mountains of Europe, America, and Australia. Partly in Dutch.

Trailsource has started a collection, among others, of European Mountain Bike Trail Descriptions. Mountain Biking TrailSource is your online adventure guide to the best mountain bike trails around the globe! You'll find over 4,000 singletracks in 100 countries.

An enormous collection of bicycle tours all over the world.
Eine enorme Sammlung von Fahrradtouren in der ganzen Welt.

Un viaggio in solitaria attraverso l‚europa occidentale ed il bacino mediterraneo un percorso che vuole esprimere un messaggio di pace ed integrazione. Fine ultimo del viaggio una missione: raccogliere fondi da devolvere ad un ente benefico che sviluppi piani di cooperazione mirati a soddisfare i requisiti minimi di sussistenza in popolazioni sottosviluppate.

Pazzodaviaggiare sostiene la piccola [dice lui] ICIO ONLUS.

Sono lieto di invitavi a visitare il sito dell‚opera di Maurizio, li troverete tutte le delucidazioni tecniche, il calore dell‚Africa, e l‚energia emanata dal sig. de Romedis, Maurizio detto ICIO.

Per raggiungere lo scopo un metodo da sviluppare con la vostra partecipazione ed un mezzo a impatto ambientale 0: LA BICI! Partenza primavera 2011

Man on a bicycle can go three or four times faster than the pedestrian, but uses five times less energy in the process. He carries one gram of his weight over a kilometer of flat road at an expense of only 0.15 calories. The bicycle is the perfect transducer to match man's metabolic energy to the impedance of locomotion. Equipped with this tool, man outstrips the efficiency of not only all machines but all other animals as well. [...]

Bicycles are not only thermodynamically efficient, they are also cheap. With his much lower salary, the Chinese acquires his durable bicycle in a fraction of the working hours an American devotes to the purchase of his obsolescent car. The cost of public utilities needed to facilitate bicycle traffic versus the price of an infrastructure tailored to high speeds is proportionately even less than the price differential of the vehicles used in the two systems. In the bicycle system, engineered roads are necessary only at certain points of dense traffic, and people who live far from the surfaced path are not thereby automatically isolated as they would be if they depended on cars or trains. The bicycle has extended man's radius without shunting him onto roads he cannot walk. Where he cannot ride his bike, he can usually push it.

The bicycle also uses little space. Eighteen bikes can be parked in the place of one car, thirty of them can move along in the space devoured by a single automobile. It takes three lanes of a given size to move 40,000 people across a bridge in one hour by using automated trains, four to move them on buses, twelve to move them in their cars, and only two lanes for them to pedal across on bicycles. Of all these vehicles, only the bicycle really allows people to go from door to door without walking. The cyclist can reach new destinations of his choice without his tool creating new locations from which he is barred. [...]

Wielerlinks NL is a portalsite for road cycling in the Netherlands and Belgium. The site contains news, background information and lots of links.

Wielerlinks is een portaalsite voor wielrennen in Nederland en België. De site bevat nieuws, achtergrondinformatie en vele links over wielrennen.

[The author travels around the world and reviews hostels, and has built up a large hostel directory.]

What are hostels?

The quickest answer I can give to you is that hostels are budget accommodations where you share a room with other travelers. To be more specific though and to give you a better idea of what to expect I will say that a hostel room is like a hotel room but instead of being just one bed there are a couple (or a few) bunk beds. There are also (gasp!) other people. People you do not know! These other people are travelers who are most likely very much like you in the sense that they are exploring and traveling and doing it as absolutely cheaply as possible. Hostels have been around a long long time. There are over 20,000 of them around the world. Hostels are very much a part of the culture of Europe, and are starting to be known in the USA as well. Hostels are a cheaper way of staying in a city where you do not live.

This search engine helps to find information provided directly from about 490 bike manufacturers.

A high quality photo gallery of over 350 loaded touring bicycles from around the world. A tribute to the loaded touring bike and the places the bikes take us. Expedition links and tourer profiles. Tailwinds!

Ernst Poulsen is a photo journalist, and has photos from bicycle trips to China and Israel.

A list of web addresses of (bicycle) map publishers. At the last count, it listed 610 publishers in 98 countries.

For all those going abroad - or searching for advocacy-advice from other countries - here is a list of the 48 most important bicycle groups around the world. These groups specialize not only in bicycle advocacy but also in tourism, consumer issues, hpv-matters, etc. The list includes e-mail and homepage addresses where I have been able to find them - and a word of introduction (explanation) about the nature of these groups.

Hey guys,

Imagine a site that not only offers you the chance to join other local cyclists on bike trips but also the opportunity to bike the trails with other cyclers while you're out of town or even out of the country - all for free!

Expose yourself to new trails and enjoy a new cycling experience with friends around the world. So next time you pack your bags for a trip away from home, or even near by, don't forget to grab your bike and check out this world wide cycling community site.

Come and join for free.