Why cycling aroun the world.  Just because it make sense and because it is fun. Arthur Canon Doyle, Albert Einstein and a few other agree on this.

1.” When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking.”
Arthur Conan Doyle

2. ” I thought of that (the theory of relativity) while riding my bike.”
Albert Einstein

3. ” When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race.”
H.G. Wells

4. ” For instance, the bicycle is the most efficient machine ever created: Converting calories into gas, a bicycle gets the equivalent of three thousand miles per gallon.”
Bill Strickland

5. ” Get a bicycle. You will not regret it if you live.”
Mark Twain

6.”  It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.”
Ernest Hemingway

7. “Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride.”
John F. Kennedy

8. “I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle; I want to ride my bicycle; I want to ride my bike; I want to ride my bicycle; I want to ride it where I like…; I don’t believe in Peter Pan, Frankenstein or Superman; All I wanna do is bicycle, bicycle, bicycle…”
Freddie Mercury, Queen

9. “A bicycle does get you there and more And there is always the thin edge of danger to keep you alert and comfortably apprehensive. Dogs become dogs again and snap at your raincoat; potholes become personal. And getting there is all the fun.”
Bill Emerson

10. ” Marriage is a wonderful invention; but then again, so is a bicycle repair kit.”
Billy Connolly

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.

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.

With the arrival of the digital camera (check out this page to see  our photo equipment) the number of images per trip has increased a lot. In the pre-digital area I took colour slides and converted a selection of each trip to the now archaic PCD format.

Now thousands of photographs dit on my harddisk waiting to be viewed. Many end up on the trip report pages on Cycling Around The World.  And a few of them I keep using every time again. These favouties, images that tell a story, are now collected on this page. Some of these pictures go back as long as twenty years, when I made my first really long   bike trips.

Anja in Sani Flats, with bad weather approaching in the distance

Sani Flats is a flat area ;-) just beyond the famous Sani Pass that is one of the few entry points from South Africa into Lesotho. The dark clouds behind Anja approached very fast and within half an hour the road and mountains were covered with a  thin layer of fresh snow.

Australian Outback road - between Alice Springs en Ayers Rock

The long and lonely road that is a perfect sample of what a cyclist awaits on a  cross-Australia biketrip. Not much to see here but I enjoyed every minute from it. The wide open spaces. The silence only shattered by a speeding bus racing to Ayers Rock with a load of tourists on a day trip from Alice Springs (a 900 km round trip).

Dont get lost - reading Japanese without understanding it

My first trip outside Europe. The map I’m holding on this picture shows every town in Japanese characters. Of cource I was not able to understand them but I could compare the characters on my map with those on the signs.

Lunch stop near school in Uganda

Ever felt lonely and didn’t like that?  OK, here’s the solution. Go to Uganda and stop at or very near a school. Company guaranteed. These kids couldn’t get enough of us. Other countries have these facilities as well.

Unexpected luxury accommodation in Kenya

While on our way to a basic campsite in central Kenya my saddle suddenly collapsed. I could not continue. The good news was that we were standing right in front of one of Kenyas luxury lodges. We decided to grab our credit card and spent a fortune on a bed and a meal. Unfortunately the place was full. Then the manager offered us a free bed in the conference room. Thank you, great hospitality!

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.

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.

While pedalling around the globe you’ll almost never ever will have your own bike lane. In most countries you must share the road with speeding cars, crazy bus drivers, slow moving cows, thousands of other cylists and overloaded trucks.

Well, unless you’re in a country like the Netherlands (where I live) where every major road has it’s own bike lane.   Some cities are performing excellent from this point of view but in the countryside you will travel bike lane-less.

Just don’t ride in the dark
On my longer “around the world” trips I don’t mind about the bike lanes but I try to avoid riding in the dark. It’s just to dangerous.  So this is where LightLane idea shows up.  The LightLane projects a virtual bike lane of light on both sides of the bicyclist, making a distinct, visible lane that drivers can clearly see. It attaches to the bikes seatpost with 3 red LEDs to increase visibility. It offers a three-hour :-( run time on one battery.

It is not without reason that I posted this in the category Fun.  OK, it’s interesting but has a high gadget feeling. In cities a good light on your bike is really going to make you much more visible than this lane of light.  And it certainly is not going to stop a speeding busdriver in some African country from running you over ;-)  Avoiding the darkness is better.

So, keep an eye on the LightLane website because it certainly is an interesting product. What about the cool idea to project your website’s address  in the pavement instead of a dull lane?

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