Category Archives: Bicycle Touring

Bob and Claire’s tandem bicycle tours in North America, Australia, Iceland and Asia. More than we went here and then we went there and the winds were hard… These are astute travelers who share their close up views of culture, politics and people; their tandem Zippy is a means of journeying, not just a bicycle.

Preparing a Tandem Bicycle for the Andes and the Amazon 5
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In the third world/developing world, your flat might just occur in an exposed location, putting you in potential danger, or at the least surrounded by a vociferous curious crowd throwing questions at you in a language you don’t understand. A little pantomime and wide a wide smile usually takes care of this, but it plays hell with the concentration. You don’t want flats. Read the rest of this article…

Preparing a Tandem Bicycle for the Andes and the Amazon 4
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When we travel on our tandem in difficult places, like Tibet, and SE Asia, keeping the bike clean is the last thing I’m thinking about at the end of a hard day: food, a place to get horizontal and sleep are first priority, maybe changing money, buying food for the next day, trying to understand your host, the market vendors; all this before sunset since it’s often cold then, or sometimes not the best time for a gringo to be wandering the streets. So this is often when the derailleuer looks like after 3 or 4 thousand miles. Read the rest of this article…

Preparing a Tandem for the Andes and the Amazon 3
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You find the darndest things when you remove a bottom bracket from the frame sometimes. This is what we brought home from Tibet and Southeast Asia. No matter how much grease you use, eventually dirt and grit find their way into your frame. We’ve brought home teaspoons of soil from Australia, Asia twice, and I’m sure we’ll bring some back from South America. If we could just stick to nice paved roads we wouldn’t have this problem, and not so much fun either. Read the rest of this article…

Preparing a Tandem Bicycle for the Andes and Amazon – 2
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As you can see this hub had some major abuse on our last adventure, in particular pushing for twenty kilometers while lost for two days on an old branch of the Hoh Chi Minh trail in Laos. At least it didn’t run over a bombie and blow us all up; these part would have been really scattered then. After cleaning, I forgot to take a photo, the parts were clean and smooth again, ready for another go at some more mountains, this time the Andes, and probably a bunch of bad dirt roads. That’s why I paid big bucks ($150 or so a long time ago) for a great hub (not a sponsor, we have no sponsors) The hub body has over 18,000 miles on it, and we are on the second set of paws and springs. Not a bad deal. Read the rest of this article…

Preparing a Tandem Bicycle for the Andes and Amazon
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I am beginning to dismantle Zippy, world touring tandem, in preparation for our next self supported tour, this time South America. Before each tour, I completely dismantle Zippy for three reasons: to find our which parts need replacing so I can order them and fix the worn parts, catch any impending failures of frame, rims or drive-train, and to re-familiarize myself with every part. Since many of the places we tour are hundreds of miles from a proper bike shop, I have to be able to fix pretty much anything. Anyone who owns a tandem will tell you tandems need more attention than single bikes; I might have to rebuild the hub somewhere in the high Andes, or the middle of the Amazon basin, while being munched on by ants and mosquitoes and critters we’ve never seen before. Read the rest of this article…

Sometimes the Best Way to Travel by Bicycle, is by Taking a Train
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Some times a variety of events make trains the best choice for long distance cyclists. We no longer have anything to prove by riding every inch of the way across the U.S., or around and across other countries, continents. Been there, done that. We are now travelers, who happen to believe bicycle is the best way to see the world. However, there are other transportation methods that have a place in our hearts. Some of best experiences have been traveling by train. Read the rest of this article…

Putting the Multi-modal in World Travel by Bicycle
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Long bicycle tours can sometimes lead to what looks like a dead end, like ending up in a Mekong River border crossing between Vietnam and Cambodia. The road forward was a path. In this case it was more practical, and more fun, to travel in a multi-modal manner. The four-hour river boat ride into Cambodia cost us $10 and was filled with images of life on the Mekong we would have missed from the shore. Read the rest of this article…

Battle, Lam Son 719: Tchepone, Laos and the Hoh Chi Minh Trail
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From supposedly reliable intelligence, Abrams was able to follow the progress of troops and supplies south, and judge where and when the North planned to attack over the border into Vietnam. To paraphrase from A Better War, Lewis Sorley: Troops advanced south in waves 500 to 600, moving at 12.2 kilometers per day, mostly by foot, the trucks saved for supplies and ammunition. We were able to move perhaps 60 Kilometers on the unimproved section, partly because our load was not on our feet, but on our bicycle, and partly because we had no backup supplies; we had to get out of that jungle in short order. Read the rest of this article…